The thread is now open to spoilers and philosophical musings.
Gifs from earthmixs’ tumblr
I think this smiling face of hers, and that waving hand of hers, would make a good last image for him to remember her by when she dies.
And I think he knew it.
Let’s enjoy the show!
@packmule3 I think this week is Ep9&10. Thank you. 🍪
👍 Thanks!
Kalimera!
Lets us see what this week will bring us!
Thanks for the thread @pkml3! I’m looking forward to see how much mothering/insistent nagging Aunt will get up to and compare her with GD who’s the other ‘mother’ figure. The one other mother figure seems to be Cha Joo Ik, LOL.
Hi Again @pkml3, please check your email for @Cleopatra’s email. She has been posting but her comments are not being loaded. Thanks!
@GB,
Thank you for informing @packmule3 on my behalf!
As it seems my comments got a delay period of two hours to be posted!?
You’re most welcome @Cleo. Good to read you here!
I found that the OST of the Ep 6 kiss has been posted. I’ll leave a link to it on the OST thread soon. 😉
@GB,
I haven’t received any notification when you commented! I just came to see if anything else was posted!
What I have noticed is that my “pic” / avatar has changed. It is still green, but not the same I used to have.
I was waiting for that song!
Episode 9 (I watched it raw) was interesting. There’s movement with the NJN triangle and of course the OTP. It looks like my guess about GD might be right, and the preview into Ep 10? has MM asking a very important question of DK.
I liked the dream where DK got to see the pleasure her gifts would bring. It was poignant, if she thought she’d never see this in her remaining time. And it’s D-50 and counting.
It took 49 days for Myul Mang / Sa Ram to realize something very important!
In how many days DK will realize what it’s important for her?
Tomorrow more…
I just got a bit scared by Lee Hyun-kyu.
@Fern,
Childish caveman with big ego is being threatened…
Well, I’m not sure about caveman, but he certainly got a bit bossy there. I wouldn’t have liked it if I were in Ji-an’s place. Both of those men have big egos but he is the more childish, as you say. I’ve seen that actor do scary, and I don’t want a repeat.
Hello! I’m a silent reader here and I just want you to know guys that I’m loving all your DAYS thread! Your inputs and interpretations are fascinating ang enriching.. you guys are so brilliant! I hope you don’t mind me sticking around. Thank you so much 🙏
Hi @Lei Thanks for commenting!! I’m glad you made a ‘Peep!’ It’s very gratifying to know who’s here and hopefully enjoying our ‘nonsense’. I’d love to hear or see just a ‘Like’ or a ‘Hi’ from anyone who stops a while.
Of course you can stick around and although you don’t have to, you can contribute ideas you have too.
Woohoo, MM going all in! Let’s see if DK steps up.
@GB – I thought your earlier comment was because you liked to do countdowns so I laughed so hard when I saw the big D-50 on the screen at the end of ep9. LOL! Emphasis much.
Lee Hyun Kyu is such a big man child. “I met you first so you’re mine, date me”. Geez… such a turn off.
More reactions to come after I watch ep10.
Cheers!!!
@Janey @Fern @Cleo
Hah! Lee Hyun Kyu … such a bit turnaround from a silently blithering idiot into an aggressive idiotic he-man LOL. Don’t they have a saying in Korean that making a sudden change in personality like that, can kill a person? That’s such an opposite shift for him. In all the 9 years that he never did a thing to make contact with NJN, she could have had a myriad boyfriends. Now just because Cha is in the picture, he tries to go all alpha male on her.
Perhaps he took the advice of immature Sun Kyung too much to heart and forgot to pace himself when it came to a confession of ‘love’. Poor Ji Nah, got caught utterly by surprise in a laundromat of all places!!!
His turnaround may have more to do with it being Cha as his rival, than anything else. Despite his saying that he wants to cling to Cha forever, like bosom hyung and doensaeng, there must have been an undercurrent of resentment and competition going on between them. How to explain the burst of action from an otherwise passive turtle?
@Janey, yes I do like to do countdowns LOL. I’m also happy that show has decided to tell us half way through the series, that we are really at the halfway point of the 100 days.
World View – To Live so that we can Leave the World Well – The writer adds to her world view about the necessity of doom (or death and suffering). We hear that darkness is foil to light, and being able to die gives meaning to life.
She continues this through MM’s perspective as he sadly continues his endless, lonely life, watching other things end, with no place and no one to belong to. Once again we observe that life in this mortal coil is still better than endless life without connection. I’ve been thinking on and off, that this show was chosen or tailored with our current medico-social climate in mind, where most of the world is depressed over the pandemic. Perhaps it’s a hopeful show or a healing show?
In Ep 9 we hear the conversation about GD
If the only way to have peace and no suffering is to freeze the world and time, then we realise that we must accept life as it is.
This writer’s concept is of course one in which there is no afterlife. She says that all we have is this life and we need to live it as fully as we can, embracing the bad and the good. While I agree with the idea that we need to be fully alive, we know that other world views hold concepts full of hope, even rebirth and everlasting life without pain.
Because of writer’s worldview we hear that Auntie’s prayer to her dead sister was to let them have DK for a longer time in this life. And DK’s voice over says:
(I felt a better example would have been ‘things’ rather than dreams.)
What came to mind in Ep 8 when DK said it would be good if her loved ones forgot all about her when she died. “I hope that I’ll disappear like that, as if I evaporated.” It’s a reminder of the ToD scene where @pkml3 pointed out that DK looked like The Little Mermaid, sitting amid mid splash of water with bubbles in the air. Evaporating from the world is like The Little Mermaid who disappeared as bubbles, to leave no trace. When MM walked towards her in that scene, he burst the bubbles in his path. However MM refused to let DK make that wish. This is the writer saying, that it’s the wrong way to think.
I feel that I can get behind part of writer’s world view. While it’s true that life has merit in itself, and all the ups and downs of life are to be accepted. We do need to spend our time on things that matter, which may include good dreams and memories, and not waste our time on regrets and materialistic things. I do agree that we should live our lives in a such a way that we can leave our lives well and leave our world well. Rather than being forgotten, we should have left a mark, no matter how small. The world should have been a better place because we lived.
Ad Hoc Thoughts
The Avoided Word – Isn’t it strange that DK can say without embarrassment that MM and she sleep together every night, with all the connotations that phrase carries, but she is shy to say the word ‘kiss’. She can even say to him that she will love him or she wants him to love her, but not that they kissed. Her interpretations of ‘sleep together’ and ‘love’ seem to verge on the utilitarian. They were actions to serve a purpose. But a kiss, they way MM kissed her, presupposed an intimate connection and deeper feelings that DK could not admit to having.
Hope from the Hopeless – Irony is so much fun. I noted before: in the choice between MM who is doom and GD who is the initiator of life, it’s ironic that in order to live comfortably, DK literally takes the hand of Doom, while she considers GD a little runt.
Similarly, MM who pretends to be DK’s doctor gives Auntie a word of hope. She asked him : “So you are saying that there’s hope right?” And he said ‘Yes’.
Also it is MM who watches over the ending of a school, who is the one to offer the lone student a graduation ceremony, which is the start of a new phase of life in the hope for better things.
When we recall that the episode began with MM’s memory of his hopelessness over being abandoned by everything and everyone, it makes it doubly poignant that MM still brings hope. Most poignant of all is that he repeatedly says that he is going to save DK or is in the process of saving her… again an act of great hope.
Possibilities – MM engineers a dream so that DK can enjoy a meal with her family and friend and imagine how they will enjoy the gifts she got them. MM has followed DK’s advice. He has really observed DK and thought, and figured out what would make her happy.
The possibilities with him are great because he is willing to learn, to listen and put into practice. We note that he is like this with DK, but that he rebelled against GD. (More on this
When DK still grumbles that MM would never take her to a nice place to eat in real life, but he speaks of what is possible:
MM does what he does not need to do for DK, and he makes the impossible, possible for her as well. What a great boyfriend!!! I believe he’ll bring her to a real, nice restaurant in real life too!
And although the dream meal with gifts in use might have been impossible, we see in real life, that it’s more than possible to gather the family and Ji Nah just to have breakfast together with DK.
MM, the plant of possibilities is growing well so far, but the acid test comes when things go south.
(More later …)
Thank you for your theories and comments, @Growing Beautifully. I agree that the writer seems to have a no-afterlife/reincarnation view because of what MM said to the pamphlet lady and the pattern of living without wasting time, but I wondered at the time if he knows for sure.
I am looking forward to tonight’s episode. I want to see both Ji-an’s and DK’s responses.
Kalimera everyone from my part of the world!
I really enjoyed Episode 9! It gave us important information on how Myul Mang / Doom / Kim Sa Ram thinks and how he chose to mere exist, than live. How he chose to function solely and not feel at all.
So, here are the most important scenes, in my opinion, that revealed more about MM’s psyche and his long anticipating realization that hit him hard!
It only took him 45 days, but we is quick thinking that he exists some millenia!
From the opening: Myul Mang’s Thoughts / Voiceover
(We understand that this scene happened in the past, MM is walking outside an alley and comes across a soup rice restaurant full with people eating.)
MM: There was a time when I wanted to belong to their crowd.
Eat like them, fall asleep like them,
(MM is drinking a coffee (?) and becomes witness of a scene where parents are taking their children from the school bus.)
MM: have feelings like them, and love like them. That was I wanted to do.
Still can I belong to their crowd? They always leave.
They always have places to go. Unlike me.
(He always ends up alone. Later on, he walks at the same alley only to find out that the soup rice restaurant, he ate once, is closed for a very long time and it is given-on lease.)
MM: That is when I realized
I, without places to go to, I, without end to this life, can never be like them.
My job is to observe them to the end.
Back to the current timeline with DK and her Auntie.
MM: So choose. The world or you.
MM’s Voiceover: Just observing them…
***
Hospital Scene
The deity girl is behind a curtain. Her excuse to Doom is that she is changing her clothes, but in the end, it is revealed to us that she is bleeding a lot from her nose or mouth (?) and crying. (My Note: Is she going to die soon?)
TDG: I’m changing. Talk like this.
MM: I’m sorry for not listening to you.
I won’t do that anymore. This isn’t a compromise, but it’s me giving in.
TDG: Why? So you can be a nice guy? (Pinocchio reference much?)
MM: I’ ll try. So that you won’t have to worry.
TDG: What am I worried about?
MM: She will never abandon the world.
I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen because that’s what I want.
MM turns to leave, he stops.
MM: And I’ve been meaning to tell you. I’ve always took pity on you.
I’ve pitied you longer than I felt resentment towards you.
Thank you for letting me be born.
Lately, that’s what I’ve been feeling.
***
From DK and MM’s encounter:
DK is on her knees, deep in thought. MM appears for the recharge.
This scene reminds us exactly the first time DK took MM’s hand back in the Truck of Doom scene in Episode 2.
(My Note: It is a mirror scene.)
MM: It’s uncomfortable in many ways, since we’re not living together.
DK: That’s right.
MM: Since it’s done, I’m leaving.
(DK doesn’t let MM’s hand. He turns to leave, but looks back at her.)
MM: Why? Do you not want to let go?
DK: What if… What If…
If say I want to live long, can you grant me that?
MM: No. I can’t do that. Since I’m Doom.
DK: Okay. I knew you would say that.
DK lets MM’s hand.
DK: I just asked you once.
(MM looks at his empty hand and closes his palm. It seems that he doesn’t like that his hand is not being held by DK.)
DK: You heard, right?
What everybody is thinking in the inside.
While looking at me, people are all smiling like that, but
In the inside, they are all in pain, right?
As much as me. Even more than me.
MM nods. DK is looking at the asphalt.
MM: yeah.
DK: How about you?
DK raises her head in order to look at MM.
DK: What do you think about when you look at me?
Do you think I don’t know? You keep…you keep telling me to live,
Calling me out to live. Your eyes look as if you’re already dead.
How do you think I feel, while looking at you like that?
MM: Like what you thought earlier, you just have to do that. It’s simple.
(MM looks like he doesn’t understand what DK is saying to him.)
DK sighs, turns her head down again and stands up.
DK: Leave.
She walks away from him. He looks at her, their distance is growing.
***
At the Park
MM is going to the park and he looks an old and bare tree. Next to him comes a stranger (but we know him, right? He was Prime Minister Koo’s advisor from TK:EM!
In this scene, he is Wisdom personalized!)
Stranger: In the past, the flowers were a sight to see. Now, the flowers don’t bloom anymore.
MM: It’s dying.
The stranger turns and looks at MM.
Str. We’re all like that. Living creatures.
He laughs. He is talking about the perishability of the living (human) existence.
Str. Aigoo. I though I could always see them, but now that I can’t, I’m disappointed. The flowers were so pretty.
Hence my take that the stranger is Wisdom itself. He gave him another perspective. He used the word: “flowers” where we know that for the Deity Girl the world is a garden and humanity her flowers. So, it was not just a light chit chat with a stranger.
This advice gave MM the Epiphany he so wanted.
We get to see flashbacks of MM along with DK when it was spring and she was happy.
So, the flower aka DK, in front of him was happy.
DK’s Voiceover: What do you think about when you look at me?
MM’s Voiceover: I thought that I could always look over those who disappear.
Myul Mang or Kim Sa Ram’s Epiphany hit him hard. He turns around and starts running towards DK.
MM: Eat like them, sleep like them, feel sympathy for them, and love them.
Is this what it means to be headed somewhere, like them?
I’m not afraid of disappearing, I am afraid that I can no longer see you.
He is at the street of DK’s home. DK is on the roof, she looked at her red bracelet of Fate. They look each other. MM is going towards her.
MM: Like a fool, I just realized. To me, not much time is left.
DK: Why are you like this? Did something happen?
MM closed the distance once again between them, – from his part.
MM: Saranghe / I love you. I…am loving you.
DK is looking at him surprised!
The D-50 mark give us intel how many days have passed, 45 exactly!
My take: What really happened?
Myul Mang aka Doom transformed completely into a human being. Kim Sa Ram. Why? Because he was able to love / sara DK unconditionally.
As @packmule3 wrote on the other thread, he chose to love her.
It was his choice, using his free will.
As DK informed us in this episode, she shouldn’t give MM this name.
Sara and Sa Ram are similar. Love and Human. But the name she has given MM was appropriate and suited him completely.
The more MM became human, the more he could realize some things.
He did that first with the deity girl.
He went to her to tell that he will be an obedient boy.
Then, he told her that he loved her. He didn’t use those exact words, but he shared his feelings with his mother for the first time as it seems.
He was grateful that she let him born. Hence, she was crying.
Not only because she is deteriorating fast, because for the first time MM expressed that he understood and sympathized with her, as well.
So, MM became Human, but DK is yet far from being free.
She still thinks how others are suffering, more than herself.
She pities herself more than loves herself.
They are not at the same page yet.
So, I am waiting for a misunderstanding between those two.
DK will try to distance herself, because is not ready yet.
So, be prepared and have tissues…
Ep9 title is quite simply “SooJa finds out”.
Hey everyone!
I tried not to read your comments, until I posted mine!
@GB, I will return with comments on yours!
I wanted to add that in this Episode, the word: “Kamanish” or Hold / Stay Still was said twice.
Once, when MM said to the DK when they were in that old school’s yard.
The other, when DK wanted to take the mobilephone from MM’s pocket to send him their pictures.
Also, in this episode, we got the theme of distance that was growing and narrowing according to their actions and feelings.
I commented above, about the scene with DK and MM that was a mirror scene with that one in the truck of doom scene.
Basically, this episode, gave us a lot to revisit, but with different outcomes.
As for the second triangle.
Unfortunately, Lee (and not the actor, if we get upset with him, that means he is doing his work properly) is a big man child indeed, @Janey!
I think that he is jealous that his friend, hyung, comrade Cha didn’t tell him who the girl was.
He only realized when he held Cha’s dad. It was another mirror scene that one.
As for Na Ji Na, she has to distance herself from both of them, if she wants to realize what both Lee and Cha want from her.
@nrllee,
Soo Ja finds out, but MM / Kim Sa Ram finds out too!
Hey my lovely @GB,
Now I am reading your thoughts, I think I understand why she is always using the word: “Kamani” / “Kamanish”–> Stay / Hold / Be Still.
The Writer-nim tell the viewers, there are times that we just have to stay still for a while and try not to think, do anything.
Just be.
In those times, where everything is at peace, maybe you get the answer to why human beings live.
We live hectic lives, sometimes we forget why this life is worth living.
So, we get reminders. Like the one MM / Sa Ram got in the end of the episode.
It is like you are asleep, then you come alive for the first time. That’s how I am interpreting.
We should not linger to stagnant things / people / feelings / enviroments / incidents that make us have regrets and not following our dreams.
We should follow our dreams no matter what, even if we are afraid.
Hey everyone,
I found ep 9 a light and fun episode to watch. Not too many riddles to solve. Just enjoy the sweet moments. I thought it was fun to watch Aunt and DK running around MM. It is nice to go through the cell phone purchase and shopping trips. (Nice handbag!)
Re the love triangle – At the moment I don’t know if Hyun Kyu’s move is right. I feel his jealousy fuels him to be possessive and aggressive. He hasn’t really addressed NJN’s past hurt and what caused them to break up in the first place. I feel they haven’t moved on, but I am not sure getting back together is the right way to grow. They are adults now, should their love be built on just warm and fuzzy feelings? Contrasting to team leader Cha’s approach to NJN, at least he is trying to help NJN to grow to be a better writer. I feel he is willing to give. He probably knows what he wants in life.
If NJN and Hyun Kyu broke up because of immaturity and didn’t know what they want in life when they were young, I don’t feel Hyun Kyu has grown up to know what he wants in life now. NJN doesn’t want to remember the past, but can Hyun Kyu offer her something new in the future?
The questions in ep 9 for me are:
1 Why GD cough blood? Is she dying of MM? Or human sins in general?
2 MM knows plant = him? Does that mean reborn as human or Doom?
3 Old guy, another role in the system?
4 When people die, do they go to the garden?
5 Why DK said she saw death in MM’s eyes? Is he dying in her place?
6 Do people see what they want to see MM to be? In Aunt’s eyes, no guy would be good enough for DK, and she wants to believe the doctor is good so MM is better looking than boyfriend mode.
I feel that when MM the doctor said he is in the process of saving DK, he probably is.
Bed time for me. Read more of your comments later 😊
Another quick thought. Is that dead tree = MM? If so, it’s very Hotel Del Luna.
@Cleo yes he does. Title only had SooJa though, so I am going with that.
@GB when DK’s voice over said things that don’t last forever…for example dreams (and it cuts to SK making lattes – I thought that was SK’s dream? He wanted to run/own a cafe? I forget…did he mention that in passing?).
Thoughts
– I am wondering if it’s necessary for BOTH MM and DK to reach that altruistic state to satisfy GD. As it stands, MM is already learning to live beyond himself. He loves DK and is doing everything for it to keep her happy. DK on the flip side is living for others. All her gifts were for others. The giving of gifts and seeing them happy gives her happiness. So potentially MM could exist to love DK. And DK could exist to love the world? Would that work?
– I am not sure why GD suffers the sins of the world and dies. That’s what my subs had. I thought she died when the world doesn’t need her anymore? That makes more sense. MM says that’s what deities are for? To suffer for the sins of mankind and die in their place? Huh? That’s GD’s lot in life. To suffer for the sins of mankind and then get rebirthed again to start it over. Hmm…if the deity is going to pay for my sins anyway and there is no afterlife for me to consider, then why should anyone try to be good? There’s no consequences really if I cheat on my taxes or cruise through life lying so I get away with things?
– when DK asked if MM could let her live. So I gather he can only withhold death when the person is trying to commit suicide? But not when it’s “natural causes” like disease?
– what happened to the break up scene from the preview at Ep8? Did I miss it?
– like everyone I didn’t like that Lee came flouncing back into JiNa’s life when he realized he risked losing her. 🙄
@nrllee, I was surprised and a bit befuddled by those subtitles about GD suffering the sins of the world and dying. It was like a Christian metaphor and didn’t seem to match with what she said in the early episodes. Also it doesn’t match with her personality that we’ve seen so far. If anyone, it could be DK who saves humanity, or MM for having her choose that response to his contract. Perhaps sins was a poor translation. I would have said foibles or fickleness of humanity.
@Fern. I know. That bit didn’t make sense. My thoughts exactly about the Christian reference. And it wasn’t GD that said it. It was MM who told DK that was what her (GD) purpose in life was. And it resulted in DK commiserating and she thought GD had it even worse than she did. I will take a look at other translations to see if they are any better. What I want to know is if there are no consequences whatsoever, why bother trying to be good? No reincarnation? Or is that something they will include? Or is it just assumed? 🤔
Hello again!
I will transcribe how Viki Subbers translated in English the scene you are referring to: @Fern @nrllee,
DK: That kid. The one in the garden.
I’ve seen her in the hospital. She was wearing a patient gown at that time.
MM: She’s sick.
DK: Sick?
MM: She’s always sick. She’s sick from birth and for the rest of her life, then she dies.
Then, she’s reborn, is sick for all her life, then she dies again.
That’s how she keeps the world the way it is. She suffers and dies for the sake of all the world’s sins. That’s the work of God.
I’ve seen her like that for a long time.
DK: I thought I was the most pitiful. But I was nothing after all.
If nothing existed from the beginning, would the world be peaceful?
If nothing happened.
MM: Stay where you are.
…
I think the Writer-nim uses the sacrificial lamp to describe her goddess.
We have already discuessed before that this drama universe is something entirely new.
She just uses tidbits here and there to make the deity girl someone we can identify with, because of that Christian reference.
No one knows in DK’s world, that the goddess is sacrificing herself for the world in order to exist.
We do, because Myul Mang / Doom told to DK.
So, we assume that everyone follows the religions that exist around the world,
the moral issues that make us be parts of a society and so on.
@Viva I thought about HDL too with that dead tree. 😂. I guess @packmule3 was right that this writer isn’t very original. That old man was cryptic too. Not sure if he was just a passerby who was philosophical or someone else in the supernatural realm. And I wondered about the garden reference too? When MM was talking about the teacher who didn’t show up at the boy’s graduation? He seemed to imply that the teacher was on his way to the garden? Huh? Is that where GD was when she took DK? I thought MM said there was no afterlife? Unless they are talking about ashes to ashes, dust to dust and everyone returns to the “garden” in that sense? 😂.
@Viva @Fern @Cleo @nrllee
I should try to watch Ep 10 before I put my foot into my mouth, but Ep 9 and so many of our comments are making me think that this writer is culling from here and there to make up the laws of the supernatural realm. At the moment we only have MM’s word for it that what GD is doing is what he says she’s doing. It would help us tremendously if we could meet more supernatural beings and see what ‘system’ he says he’s a part of. I’d like to know who receives the prayers of petition from humans and how the roles get distributed among the deities or whatever beings there may be. For all we know, there really is reincarnation, but MM knows nothing of it, and was giving that doomsday lady false news!! LOL.
Actually, I thought one of our earlier guesses as to GD’s life being a reflection of the ups and downs of human life, our culture of life or death,… stuff like that, was probably more what GD’s health was about. After several years, bearing with how irresponsibly we live our lives, (for eg. people committing suicide, self-harm, genocide, etc.) GD is near spent. It’s taken its toll on her and she weakens and dies.
The concept of her being a sacrificial object to save human lives is quite out of the blue and has no link to anyone/anything being saved. At least with MM, we see him at work observing death. With GD we only see her looking weak, and not saving any lives. In fact in Ep 1, MM taunted her for being a deity who did “whatever she wants with the world” but she replies:
But we don’t even see her doing any watering. Her own pot was filled with very dry looking soil.
A more likely concept, if it could be worked into the logic of what’s happening (not that I can fit it in logically yet!), is that she is the force that helps keep the balance between life and death. She experiences/suffers both. She is something like ‘Mother Nature’ who allows individuals to be born and to die, but she objects to tilting the balance where Doom is wished upon all and everything dies.
This screenshot is from a preview of something we have not yet watched. It shows us GD in between DK and MM, with the balance swung more in MM’s favour, since GD is closer to him and DK looks forlorn and alone quite a ways from them. We might interpret DK as life and MM as death with GD in between.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19aaUtV46JnLSYZOoZH-3tDEoN3pjtOpo/view?usp=sharing
It was something that the producer chose to have in one of the preview’s sequence of shots, so I thought it might be significant. It might represent balance or lack of it. It also is similar to how in Ep 8 we begin with Auntie on one end and MM on the other with DK in the middle. Then the centre of the balance shifts when after the big chase, MM is in the middle being the buffer between Auntie and DK.
We can think of it as DK placed between life (as desired by Auntie) and doom, with her natural bent towards neglecting herself and accepting death. So she’s closer to MM. However Auntie wrestles her from behind MM/doom and pulls her into a stranglehold hug. LOL, forcing her away from simply dying, without trying to save herself.
We’ll have to wait to see more and get more info on GD’s role, preferably minus the Delphic overtones, in order to more accurately interpret the screenshot!!
@Viva, since that dead/dying tree only just appeared this one time, I tend to think it’s just a tree that it was MM’s job to observe as it died. However of course it can be a metaphor for anyone that was once full of life and beauty. If however this tree makes more appearances, then it could actually represent the state of DK or of GD.
@nrllee, IKR… I too thought the reference to dreams with SK making the latte had significance, but I don’t think he vocalised wanting to be a barista or having a cafe of his own. At least, I don’t think I transcribed him saying that.
Choosing the World
In Ep 10 when MM told DK to choose herself and the world, we recall that she has in her possession the blue and clear marble that was chosen for her by GD. Although GD held out both the pot and the marble, DK was not asked to choose between them.
DK’s real wish should/would have been to have never made the doom wish at all. Her real goal was never to call doom upon the world. Her desire is to reverse this wish. Therefore it is appropriate although, I feel, unnecessary for GD to pass her the marble and remind her that the fate of all those within depends on her love. By this, I’m guessing, that GD foresaw what MM is going through now. Because of DK’s love (still to happen properly), MM softens towards the world and changes his desire to destroy it. GD also asked MM if could not change DK’s fate. If he could, might he not also be able to change the wish?
In Ep 9 we hear MM tell GD:
This, I felt, was an interesting change in attitude of our MM. When he has love in his life and is no longer lonely, he no longer wants the world to come to ruin. It’s not so much DK’s love that saved the world, but MM’s love for DK that did it.
However again what MM says makes no sense, because DK does not want to abandon the world. It was something that MM wanted and tricked/insisted her into wishing. To keep this new promise to GD, MM should simply end the contract with DK by mutual agreement.
When he replied to DK who said she only sees death in his eyes …
– If he means ending the contract, so that only DK dies, then I’m all for it. The whole convoluted mess was because MM forced the issue of getting a wish and did it when DK was under duress.
If we can go back to before MM interfered, we would have regained balance in the world. Of course we’d be sad to lose DK, and MM may go off to be depressed again. Worse, if GD dies at the same time, MM will be really alone. Whether his having fallen in love will give him greater resilience, or wisdom to come up with a better solution for ending the doom wish and keeping DK alive, remains to be seen.
Sorry, I’m looking again at that screenshot that I linked above, and it does not look like MM is in that shot at all!!! Is that DK reflected 4 times?
@GB,
That’s why I said on my thoughts on Episode 9 that the Stranger is Wisdom personalised.
Since we don’t know how many are there in the world and that stranger gave vital information on MM, it was too significant for me.
Hence my interpretation that MM after his Epiphany became Human.
Thanks for your thoughts @Cleo. I tend to be rather linear in my thinking and so I wait for a bit more evidence.
I did want to believe that the old man stranger was a supernatural being, but until show tells us so or shows it to us clearly, I remain uncertain. I fully expected him to disappear after going behind the tree, but he didn’t. *sigh*
Similarly, that MM now knows he is in love, and whether that counts as him being human or not is not clear. He is less a puppet now than before, because he can choose to love and to do many things for DK, that are out of the ordinary way.
When he tells GD that he’ll listen to her, she asks if he wants to be a good kid/boy/human. He says that he wants to try. So he feels there’s a ways to go before he’s good or a human.
It’s time to catch the raw episode. Only after tonight (or only in a few weeks’ time) will we know if we’ve been on the right track!
@GB,
Because I was on my phone, I want to clarify the following.
When I wrote above that MM became Human, I mean he became who his given name depicts. Sa Ra(m) aka a person who can love.
He chose to love DK in his free will.
Although he is Myul Mang, he has become more humane than before.
We could say in Pinocchio references, from a puppet he was before, he is transforming into a boy.
Let us see what Episode 10 will bring us.
I am pretty sure that from now on, we should embrace ourselves for a Goblin-like rollercoaster!
Hi ladies, i have been following your threads on this show since the very beginning, but quietly in hiding. You make this show so enjoyable, that it lifted what i thought would be a routine after-work viewing to an engaging philosophical discourse. You have no idea how grateful I am for this!
I accumulated a whole bunch of notes before I risked posting, so really sorry if it’s too long…
At first I thought it’s a story primarily about MM learning to love, and especially learning to love DK unconditionally.
But the more I watch, the more I think his story is about learning to love himself, learning to find real meaning in what he is.
The story starts with him loathing himself, and thinking that he is so bad, that even destruction of the whole world would be better, because he’ll be gone too.
He is in a classic suicidal dead-end and sees no value in anything. He hates everything about himself because he is a ‘doom button’. Anything he does leads to destruction. He exists in a black and white cloud where everything around is dead and meaningless. But since he can’t just escape that existence on his own, he convinced himself that even the world would be better to not exist, as long as he is gone. He is tired, jaded and sees no purpose in anything. His hatered is at himself, and not really the world, which is why he accepts DK’s loophole pretty quickly – if her ‘love’ works, he’s ok to die that way, even if the world goes on. He just wants to disappear.
But as the story progresses, he is learning the value of his existence. First with DK telling him that ‘rain is necessary’ and that if he is cause of her misfortunes, he’s the cause of her happiness too. And I think episode 9 was pivotal for his self-worth growth.
What made him finally come ‘alive’ and run to confess to DK? The realization that things will come to an end for him. What gives people their direction, their joy and feel of being ‘alive’? The transiency of it. He did get “hit by his own stone”, but just like DK said, it didn’t only bring him misery, but also allowed him to feel alive and human for the first time. That which he always wanted and felt disconnected from.
I think the show is a philosophical discourse on value of ending things. All the characters are stuck in some ways, until they ‘shed old skin’, which is also doom. We see examples of bad things happening where things don’t end: Ji Na suffering because she can’t let go of the old relationship, the brother(in earlier episodes) stuck in childhood because he wouldn’t end childish habits to become a responsible adult. The editors are taking bad treatment from writers and CEO just because “that’s the way it is”, and they are afraid to stand up for themselves and put an end to it.
But we are now seeing more characters are reaching out for ‘ends’. Team leader stops CEO from talking down to everyone, because he’s had enough.
I found it funny how the CEO’s reaction was ‘but I’m a CEO’. Implying that that’s the way it always been, and so it’s supposed to be so. A classic example of a bad tradition that needs to end.
Ji Na confronts her old boyfriend on his selfishness, and tries to move on. The new story she is writing is ‘Second Love’, but she won’t be able to truly write it until she cuts ties with her first love. He shows up and claims a place in her life just because he was there first, just because he ‘still loves’ her. But that’s not good enough. He made her miserable for 9 years. Just because “it’s not over”, doesn’t mean it should continue. This relationship needs its closure, so Ji Na can start fresh.
So for all these people to be happier, they need Doom. They need his existence so they can end bad relationships, bad habits, bad traditions. Like flowers in the garden, they need him so they can grow.
MM finally experiencing ‘being’ human allows him to also experience how important his existence is first hand. I think he is beginning to actually accept his place in the world for the first time. It is the first time that he thanks GD for giving him life, which is a huge turning point in his journey. He no longer ‘just exists’ as he did in 2nd episode, he actually feels alive…
Hi @vasilisa, welcome to commenting on the BOD! I’m so glad you’ve decided to share your notes with us, because I agree heartily with you. You’ve done a great job! Thanks very much!! You’ve taken all the disparate points and brought them together nicely so that we get the ‘picture as a whole’ rather than getting bogged down in the little details.
The details are also important, of course, but we sometimes miss the forest for the trees.
Minor SPOILERS for Ep 10.
Show is indeed a discourse on the value of endings, and also on how they make beginnings possible. We see that there is a time for Cherry Blossoms and that they fade and disappear when the season is past. But the season will come around again. Traditional-style weddings cease but modern marriages continue (we see a wedding invitation in Ep 10). The writers may end their relationship with DK as editor, but they can then treat her as friend and Noona, etc.
Taking your point further, DK needs to also see the value of her life, and to value it, and to love herself as much as she loves others. Doom’s service to her, is to bring her to that realisation. I believe it happens or begins in Ep 10, which I watched raw.
Even in the relationship between DK and MM, since it began on a less than good note, it too needs a reboot. In effect, it’s like they themselves pull out the plant and plant something new.
I believe we will get the parallel with Ji Nah and Hyun Kyu, and she may not end up with him.
This is a great show to get all philosophical over, since it delves into literal life and death issues. It’s actually so much fun to try and penetrate the mind of the writer. I say again, that perhaps she is being cryptic on purpose, because it’s actually a pretty simple tale. LOL.
Thank you @GB for the warm welcome! I’m waiting for the subtitles and will watch episode 10 after work tonight.
Love your point about seasonality, and how things that end can be reborn into something new in another cycle.
And I agree that lot’s of the fun in this watch is penetrating the mind of the writer and putting the pieces together. It’s like GD said in the garden, if you get things easily they don’t mean anything. LOL. We are getting a lot more out of this show by stretching and thinking, than if it was presented as a bland tale with all the answers on the surface 🙂
Hello @vasilisa,
Welcome on board! I agree with your points! You get a very nice summary.
I just watched Episode 10 and I would like to add, that I was saying from the early threads, the story is for both of them.
Primarily is for Doom since he is a Special Being, but his human equivalent is DK. Even the deity girl told her that she made MM for her, for humanity.
I am waiting more of your thoughts tomorrow!
The moment we all have been waiting for finally came!
More tomorrow 🙂
Thank you @Vasilisa for your helpful and insightful summary! I just finished watching ep 10 and it made me feel quite emotional. I am relieved DK finally cried, what a moving scene – and on the beach of all places, the place she’s been visiting since she was 10, unable to cry.
I noticed Le Petit Prince references in both episodes 9 and 10
(1) The tree in episode 9 reminded me of the Boabab trees that grow on LPP’s home planet;
(2) There is a shot of a MM and DK behind what looks like a rose garden;
(3) There is a scene where MM and DK walk past what looks like a garden statue of LPP.
(4) I also think TD’s focus on material items (buying expensive gifts, her focus on items in MM’s apartment) and its monetary value are interesting – she made similar comments in episode 2 or 3 – I wonder if this is a reference to the fox’ famous wisdom about what’s most essential is invisible to the eye – only love is all-important, but DK up to the end of episode 10 had not been able to admit this out of fear of becoming emotionally vulnerable.
I am going to let both episodes sink in a bit more and share more thoughts / respond to all of yours later on.
Hello everyone. Just like @lei, i am also a silent reader and also appreciate all the writings/pondering here 🙂 which makes this blog awesome. I am enjoying this show so much. excited for the next episode.
I am a PBY fan. and SIG fan since Love rain. but just started watching his older shows now. and started following him on IG haha.
i love the character development of Doom and the epiphany that led him to his love confession. i wonder if Doom will be a candidate for BOD best boyfriend by end of this show? hmmm ??? 🙂
is it naughty and too much to ask that i want them to be in the same bed “sleeping together” like their first night together and not in their own couches??
too bad that other people perceive Doom as a blonde guy (funny haha). although i’m glad that DK sees him as he is. like he lets DK see his true self. i think that goes in real life, too. our spouses sees our true colors – the good and the ugly and others only sees what we show them. kudos to DK actually for having the guts to date Mr Doom. DK is brave and adventurous indeed. bravo to DK. actually, Bravo to DK and Doom together and i am happy to support them in this path they have chosen to embark on. to the end!
Ep10 is titled “An unexpected answer”.
Kalimera everyone from my part of the world!
I really enjoyed Episode 10 for many reasons, not only plot wise, but technically wise. It was an episode that it was building up the climax we got in the end of the episode.
So, the Writer-nim and the PD did a marvelous job, along with SIG and PBY. Especially PBY as DK was amazing in the last scene.
Let us delve into to the essence of what happened yesterday.
As I have written before, Myul Mang / Kim Sa Ram was one of the most favorite persons for DK.
When Sa Ram realized his own feelings and accepted them, he went first to the deity girl / his mother to say what he was feeling for her and then to DK.
MM dived deep into the sea of his emotions and got out rebirthed.
From that moment on, he realized that DK was not fully herself.
So, he tried to provoke her. He did so three times.
The first two times, DK left him and the third one she finally opened up with him and cried for the first time in her life in front of the person who meant a lot for her. She didn’t do so, with her brother, her Unnie or her Aunt.
She only did that in the presence of Kim Sa Ram. So, this development shows how deep is her love for him. He was the one who took her walls down, one by one all those 49 (– 60) days.
Here is the first time. After her ramyeon suggestion that turned into pork belly barbecue with her folks. Here is the first bomb!
MM: Tell me.
(Mareba was used at least three times in this episode)
DK: What? Say thank you? I just told you.
MM: Not that. Your feelings.
I won’t know if you don’t tell.
Your feelings can’t be heard or seen.
DK: That’s how feelings are.
MM: That’s why you should tell me.
DK: What is it that you want to hear?
MM: I love you.
DK is surprised and looks back at him.
MM: Is that hard? Then let’s start with something easier.
How unwell you are. How sad you are. How much you want to live.
How much you’re scared.
DK: You should go by yourself from here.
DK left him alone and turned around to go home.
MM did exactly what DK advised him after the Hospital incident back in Episode 5. He was paying attention to DK and her needs. He knows what she was feeling, although she didn’t express it.
He knew that she had seen her aunt cry. Not only he could hear her aunt’s cries and thoughts. MM knew because he could read DK’s face.
That’s why he followed her around in her meetings, he knew beforehand that she was saying goodbye to everyone she knew. She was going away and leaving everyone behind.
I want to note that Young Prince was wrong in the answer he gave DK.
The protagonist should love herself more and not spend a life of not loving anyone. MM showed DK that this idea was not working in the end.
When they paid respects at her parents’ burial place.
DK: That’s enough. Let’s go.
MM: Just like that? / Geunyang?
DK: Then what?
MM: You should say something.
DK: I’ve said everything with this.
DK shows her heart. Yeogi
MM: That can’t be heard.
DK: It can’t be heard even if I said it out loud. Those things, you say it to your heart, anyway.
MM: Hello. I’m her boyfriend. I proposed today but got rejected.
DK: What are you doing?
MM: Please give me your daughter. I will make her happy for the rest of her life.
DK laughs.
DK: You must’ve seen that from somewhere.
MM: Should I kneel?
DK: You still haven’t? …
When she asked him to break up.
MM: Are you going somewhere?
DK: You, why are you here… (word: Yeogi)
MM: I asked you if you were going somewhere.
DK: Did you know?
MM: If I look at you and think, I know.
What you are thinking. What you are feeling.
We get to see flashbacks from the previous day(s).
MM: Every moment, your face was that of one parting.
Even now. The way you look at me.
(This is a mirror scene, DK told MM the same thing back in Episode 9 and now MM returns the sentiment.)
They look each other. DK smiles but in a sad way.
DK: That’s right. Let’s break up.
Let’s break up and never meet again.
People (sa ram) are like that. When you date and then break up,
You don’t see each other again. Let’s get married later.
After we survive.
At that time, let’s hold hands again and kiss,
And date, and let’s get married. (Uri / we)
MM: You were going to do this from the beginning, weren’t you? When you said let’s date.
DK: This is the only way I can save you.
MM: If we break up? If you leave like that?
Do you think you can forget me?
DK: I’m going to try.
MM: How about Tak Seon Kyeong?
How about your aunt? How about Na Ji Na?
Can you forget them all? The people you love.
DK: That…I will try, too.
MM: What if you can’t?
DK: During the time I have left, I will try my hardest.
I also started to love you, too.
DK laughs but it is bitter.
DK: I started to love you. I’m sorry. For loving you.
MM: Tak Dong Kyeong…
He is trying to hold her hand, but she is giving him the other one, and leaves behind her red bracelet of Fate.
The climax of all these is that DK goes to Jeju Island to be alone and she realizes that this was not the right choice she took. She didn’t listen the deity girl’s advice too, when she went to see her and apologize from her part, about the resentment DK felt towards God.
TDG: I really hear many things I’ve been wanting to hear lately.
…
You are always the only one who can help herself.
Love him. Love all that you want and live. He was born for you anyway.
I made him for humans.
So, we get to the last scene, when finally, DK sobs and let’s down her walls. I loved that MM went there for her. Not backing down from his quest to make her tell him.
DK’s Voiceover: But in order to live, If I have to run away from everything I love, what is the meaning of that life?
She tried to believe that she can do it, when MM appeared, surprising her.
MM: Do you think it’ll be less dangerous if you’re all out in the open?
Do you think you can run away from me?
DK: You…
MM: Chasing after you until the brink of death, that’s my specialty.
DK: Why are you seriously like this?
I told you we should never see each other again.
MM asks for her hand; she doesn’t want it.
MM: It’s 12 o’clock.
DK: I told you. If we break up, we will not see each other again.
MM: No. you didn’t say it. You…didn’t say anything you were thinking from the inside. You never said it, not even once.
From the moment you sat there when you were ten years old, when you found out you were dying, and when you met me for the first time.
When you began to hate me and love me. You didn’t speak at any of those times.
DK cracks up slowly. The emotion that was building up all this time, wants to break free. The explosion is similars to a volcano and she begins to cry uncontrollably.
MM: Tell me. Everything (Mareba)
Say it, Dong Kyeong-a (Mare)
DK: I wan’t to live… I really…really, really want to live…
I…With you, Seon Kyeong, Aunt, and Unni, with people I love,
Really…I really, really…really want to live.
She goes to him and hugs him, while she continues to cry.
MM: I do too. Me too, Tak Dong Kyeong.
I want to stay alive. And with you…I want to die together.
I simply love how he talked to her, how he waited for her, how he comforted her, how he treated her in general.
He is a great boyfriend material indeed, our Myul Mang / Doom / Kim Sa Ram.
Our couple are finally at the same place, as a whole! Yin and yan indeed!
Brand New Felicity Queen!
How I love: Draw your Swords by Angus and Julia Stone.
Thanks @nrllee for the Title of this Episode “An Unexpected Answer”.
The following are my takes on the possible but inexhaustive list of unexpected answers, split into 2 parts.
1) When DK responded to MM’s love declaration with “Let’s date”. MM himself is taken aback. No preamble, and she did not even respond in kind to say whether she loved him in return. Her concept of falling in love and dating is somehow naïve.
Because DK had never been fully emotionally invested in any of her ‘love’ relationships, it never occurred to her that she was doing everything backwards. She was the one who pushed them to live together, and to sleep together even before the kiss. She starts dating MM before even declaring that she reciprocates his feelings. They were holding hands before they knew each other. They shared the same bed as part of a dare, while MM was warning DK that he was dangerous because he was awake while she slept.
2) I love the 2nd unexpected answer and Na Ji Na’s incredulity.
NJN : “What? Then you guys lived together when you weren’t dating?”
DK : “Is that what happened? Back then, I didn’t know this would happen when I asked him to move in with me.” (NJN’s expression is LOLOL. Totally dumbfounded.)
DK : “We’re officially dating now, but we can’t live together anymore because of my aunt.”
NJN : “Who are you? You surprise me quite often now.”
DK : “Don’t tell my aunt.”
NJN : “Which part? That you guys lived together or that you’re dating now?”
DK : “Errr…”
NJN : “Why are you thinking? Of course, it’s the former.” LOL.
3) The next unexpected answer is how DK becomes skittish when she visits MM as a girlfriend. She becomes shy and wary of him, as if they hadn’t already been rather close. She backs herself into a wall with the huge vase in her hands to keep him from approaching her LOL. She prefers to be with him in the open space, as if he cannot catch her if she runs away.
This is the pre-cursor to her really running away later on.
4) The 4th unexpected answer was when Cha insulted Jijo King’s writing.
Cha : “The stuff you write is … how should I put it? Very ugly.”
Jijo : “Who’s side are you on?”
Cha : “The winning side.”
LOL.
5) The 5th and 6th unexpected answers were when MM and DK were walking home. DK surprised MM by saying she pitied him and she avoided the important part of the conversation that verged on feelings by changing the topic.
DK : “My heart started aching for you, and I began pitying you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
MM : “You? Pitying me? (He’s asking who should be pitying whom.)
DK : “Don’t look at me like that either.”
MM : “How exactly am I looking at you?”
DK : “Your eyes look sad.” (Then she let’s go of his hand and changes the subject) Hey, the moon is pretty. How about we celebrate with a kiss?”
MM : “What?”
6) The next time is when MM asks DK to say that she loves him, and she cannot.
MM : “Say it. What you feel. I won’t know if you don’t say it, since I can’t see or hear what you feel.” (This is a good comment on communication in all relationships, especially between men and women.)
DK : “That’s how feelings are.”
MM : “So tell me how you feel.”
DK : “What do you want me to say?”
MM : ” ‘I love you’ ”
(She has used the word, ‘love’ many times as an attack, a challenge, a task that she has to carry out. But she has always skirted the issue about what being in love means.)
She stares at him, and looks bothered.
MM : “Is that too hard? Then let’s start with something easy. Just how not okay you are. How sad you are. How much do you want to live. How scared you are.”
DK has refused to be vulnerable for so long, that the feelings she has denied, she finds too hard to acknowledge. She refuses to address them.
DK : “You can go on your own from here.”
Instead of a tender moment ending with a kiss, we get a separation.
(Continued below)
7) The first meeting on DK’s bucket list was with GD. GD accepts the present of the atomizer and is pleased that DK appreciates that she carries the burden of the world. Then she surprises DK by saying:
“The only person that can help you is yourself. Love him. Be madly in love and live your life. He was born for you anyway. I created him for humanity. … Thanks for the present, Unnie.”
8) A chance meeting with Dr Jung really takes the cake in the unexpected.
Doctor Jung invites her to his wedding on the 17 April 2021
The invitation card says ‘It’s the most important day of my life and I want to share my first step of joy with you.’
Dr Jung: “It’s 3 months’ away. Please come to my wedding. That’s what I wanted to ask you. I don’t have any friends.” He laughs. “I bet you didn’t see this coming. Right? See? I said you would never guess it.”
9) I skip over to the meeting with Young Prince, Park Young. DK unwisely gets the opinion of the rude, kid, of all persons:
DK : “I need a writer’s opinion. If you choose the person you love, the world will perish. If you choose to protect the world, the person you love will die. If that was the theme of the story, how would it have a happy ending?”
YP : “Everything will be fine as long as the protagonist doesn’t love anyone, right? I’m sure it will be sad, but that’s what he or she has to bear with as the chosen one.”
(DK is struck by this.)
DK : “Would you call it a happy ending even if the protagonist is sad?”
YP : “Instead, everyone else will get to be happy in a world that the protagonist tried so hard to protect. That’s the fate of protagonists.”
(It’s flawed, [because the others will NOT be happy], but unfortunately, this resonates well with DK’s way of thinking. She has believed since childhood that others should be happy and comfortable, regardless of what happens to her.
We hear of the fate of the protagonist again, and DK is fatalistic. Her reaction from the time she heard her prognosis has been fatalistic. She was ever ready to embrace the darkest possibility instead of seeking to live.)
(This is an unexpected answer, because YP is wrong. YP, is voicing the opposite of the writer’s comment. I’d have expected him to promulgate the point that the writer wants to make, but she chooses to make her point at the end of the episode.
The idea is that one should be fully alive regardless of how short one’s life is. Instead of loving no one (a negative reaction), the answer should have been to love oneself and all the world as much as possible. One can choose to live so that life is a blessing and death brings no regrets. Unfortunately DK has not been fully living her life for the last 9 years, and it’s hard to break out of her comfort zone when YP is reinforcing her mistaken attitude of self-negation.)
10) The next unexpected answer is DK’s rejection to MM’s question: “Do you want to get married?” It was not because she said no, but because he was aware that she was denying what was going on within her. But then after rejecting him, she celebrates his birthday. That is a really unexpected thing!
MM at home ponders what he had observed that day. He recalls what DK said…”You were nice to me as if you were going to disappear. People who are nice to me always disappear. It was always like that with me.” He realises that DK had been nice to everyone, ie she’d been making her farewells that day.
11) We consider the ‘confession’ of Cha Joo Ik. It was very unexpected. He had interfered a great deal more in Lees’ and Ji Na’s relationship than I ever expected or feel he had a right to. Why he should feel entitled to interfere and not be sorry that he did, is beyond me. It’s highly possible that it was with his interference, that there was no closure for NJN for 9 years. He had no business ‘playing god’ by uprooting the plant of their relationship, as if he were a deity himself. So we get confirmation that he is the parallel to GD in the 2nd leads’ story.
12) I actually find it hard to accept that DK can be so naïve as to think that by running away, she can stop loving her family and friends, and keep them safe. In any case the distance made her heart grow fonder because she got sentimental thinking about her significant moments with them. That backfired nicely.
It was an unexpected relief to hear her think : “But to stay alive if I must run away from everyone I love, what is the point of living such a life?” Did it take her a whole day or 3 days to figure that out? LOL.
The Expected Answer
DK finally answers the questions that MM has asked her repeatedly: ‘How does she feel?’
DK in tears : “I want to live. I really, really want to live. I want to live with you, with Sun Kyung, with my Aunt, with Unnie, and everyone else that I love. I really do. I really want to live so badly.”
MM embraces her with tears in his eyes.
MM : “Me too. Me too Dong Kyung. I want to be alive so I can die with you.”
It should not be surprising that Doom should go back to wanting to die. He had expressed fear not in dissipating, but in not being able to see DK every again. He had only gained his desire to live, because there was DK in his life. He expresses the wish to be a real boy, a mortal with an end date, so that life will have meaning.
In real life we know that we all have to carry on even when our loved ones leave us. Without them, life still has meaning, because by having been part of our lives, they have made us who we are and we and our descendants continue.
Minor spoiler: From the preview, I’m anticipating that we may have an Ex Deus Machina (literally!!! well almost…) since the deity is present to intervene.
Hey my lovely @GB, Hi-5!
We are in tune again as it seems!
Also, for Cha I was saying the same thing to my greek Doomers that we were livewatching the episode.
Cha was the deity girl equivalent for the second triangle. He shouldn’t inferere in their relationship. Yes, it was a childish one, but still people learn from their mistakes and grow up.
You don’t know how much I loved our MM / Kim Sa Ram last night!
Also, DK finally is free from what held her down!
Let us see what else will be brought to us. In the preview things are happening, but are they out of context?
Still, I believe we get to see one death. How is this going to be undone / redone is a mystery?!
Even if the deity wants their fates to be different, I still believe that their path will be crossed again.
Didn’t she say it bluntly to DK in the garden ?
They have to overcome hardships in order to find happiness..
@Cleo
We had the same thought on how MM has obediently, consistently been watching and thinking to interpret what he’s seeing, where DK is concerned. I feel that when he found that she was hiding her feelings, and that he could not get a good gauge on them, he started asking her about her feelings.
Yes I noticed that he was watching her after she saw her aunt cry. He wanted to see her reaction and noticing none, he asked her again and he became sure that she had been hiding more feelings from before.
When she had been a child, he must have been able to hear her thoughts. Already at that time, he realised the pain that the child DK felt, did not gel with the smile on her face. He was probably cued in on the fact that DK had been suppressing her feelings for 9 years, but it was only because he came to love her, that he thought to give her an outlet for those feelings.
===
I feel that he did not know beforehand that she was saying goodbye. It was a realisation when he sat at home with his cake, and thought of all that had transpired, and how nice DK had been with each person in turn. She had been behaving very deliberately, moving from one person to the next to fulfill her bucket list. He put 2-and-2 together when he recalled she had said nice people abandoned her.
===
We agree that Young Prince is a twerp in giving life advice LOL. Of course, since he’s only a kid, and he thought it was for fiction. DK as the adult should have known better!!! I’m amazed by her naivety, but whatever.
===
Ah the mirror scene with the ‘goodbye’ look? I forgot about that. Must check my voluminous notes…. Heh! Nothing much sticks in my head!
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About GD’s advice. It was good advice but I guess our naïve DK didn’t know how to apply it. What does it mean after all if we are told it’s up to us, we have to help ourselves and we need to love ‘him’? As usual, GD was too Delphic and mysterious.
DK needed a point list to follow like her bucket list. For eg. in order to help yourself and be happy:
1) love yourself first by taking good care of your health, this way you are also caring for your loved ones who worry about you.
2) do all the good things that you want and enjoy your remaining days, this will bring joy to you and your loved ones.
3) spend more time with people who care about you and give them a chance to have closure with you.
4) by all means get married and have a great but short married life. It will create wonderful memories and add to your sense of fulfillment.
Etc, etc…. She needs that kind of specific advice.
===
To tell the truth, Auntie’s expressions when she spoke to her dead sister, touched me more and got me crying, while DK’s sobs did little to move me. I am also more moved by MM’s tears and the expressions that flit across his face.
Perhaps the script is at fault but when I transcribed “I must love none of them in order to save all of them.” I roll my eyes. Can it be that she has no inkling of what it is to love and that it cannot be ‘stopped’ or started as and when one pleases? Show lost me a bit here.
===
Regardless of the contrivance in the script, I’m still sold on the salvation of MM and DK. I believe the next decisive actions fall upon GD actually.
As Cha (deity) admitted his interference and bowed out, I’m hoping that GD who has been full of non-intervention will do the opposite and take a hand in smoothing out the situation that she engineered. To begin with of course, we may get the horrid trope of amnesia and non-recognition as GD does her reboot/uproot or whatever. But we have 6 episodes to get through the angst and sail home free.
೭੧(❛▿❛✿)੭೨
Ad Hoc Thoughts after Episode 10
In my mind, I call MM and DK the “Gloom n Doom Couple with the Longest Long Looks”, LOL. They really make a point of long, unblinking stares in practically every episode. Never noticed so much of this in other shows before. I need to pay more attention. I’m glad the actors are able to pull them off. I imagine there was much laughter in the BTS, and I know PBY says it’s mainly SIG who starts laughing.
I meant to mention this earlier, I think it was since Episode 8, that it’s nice to see MM able to smile more and more often. SIG looked fantastic in I Remember You (with Jang Nara), but he’s often in roles where he smiles little, except in Shopping King Louis, I think, but there he was a man-child kid and I couldn’t bear to watch LOL.
This is my fave of his looks. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JPyUAI5v9pV8lgCLWOntUnAUiij4tLhn/view?usp=sharing
In the last scene, I am amused that when MM offers to take DK’s hand, she snatches it away: a reversal of when MM pulled his bloody hand away from her, in front of the hospital. In both instances it was a sign of rejection.
So what shall be a sign of acceptance? No more running away outdoors, but both MM and DK in indoor spaces together, hand-in-hand. And better, in their own garden of flowers hand-in-hand.
@GB DK wants to live. She is finally valuing her life. Question is, does she love herself more than MM? If she does and she breaks the curse, she calls doom on the person she loves most. And it would be herself? That’s what I thought when she broke down in tears in his arms. MM loves her more than himself. Does she love MM more than herself? Just a random thought.
@Cleo @GB did you think Cha was the deity girl? I thought he was MM. Everything he’s been doing is exactly what MM did. The kiss in the rain. The meeting from the past. The contract. Helping her address her past trauma. Even his words are the same. Both men said, “I will tell you everything” and were then interrupted. When Cha came clean to JiNa, he was taking the blame for the whole situation. He did it all for JiNa. Sacrificing himself like MM is for DK. That was how I interpreted the scene.
Hey @nrllee,
Regarding what he did 9 years ago, in Lee and Na’s break up it was an intervention by his side.
Noone asked him to do something that drastic, except writing that message.
He should let them deal it themselves, but he interefered instead.
Making it worse? We cannot say because with what Ifs we cannot be certain.
So, imho, for what he did 9 years ago and only for the way he manipulated both, he seems to be the human equivalent to the deity girl.
@nrllee
It will be a sudden but great turn for the good if DK can love herself the most. Whether that means she lives or dies, though is uncertain. We are only certain that the world, then, will be saved.
===
Oh yeah, I recall the parallels you drew between MM and Cha. I was also thinking about how @pkml3 suggested that in the threesomes, it would be Cha who’d be like the deity. Where Lee HK is concerned, he does so little that I’m not surprised if Cha’s character embodies both the GD and the MM characters and trajectories!
However a case can be made for Lee as a pale reflection of GD. He is like the deity in that he is mostly passive. Like GD he suddenly overtly inserts/re-inserts himself into NJN’s life to ‘threaten’ Cha, the way GD kidnapped DK to threaten MM.
However the same thing or the inverse of GD can be said of Cha. GD initiated the situation for DK and MM and stood back, Cha took the situation that had ensued and meddled.
For 9 years, neither GD nor Cha who both knew what had been going on with the couples, interfered.
Now GD is in failing health and is pushing for her plant to sprout and grow well. Cha who started by uprooting the plant is now hanging back to let it grow on it’s own.
GD takes a hand in DK’s and MM’s life, while Cha takes a hand in ‘raising’ Lee and grooming NJN to be a good writer.
GD hands DK a marble, a world whose fate she is to protect by her love, while Cha gives NJN an umbrella to at least protect herself.
There may be more…
（ｖ＾＿＾）ｖ
@Cleo @nrllee what if Cha is the human equivalent of both MM and the Deity Girl? He appears to parallel both characters’ actions. Similarly I think MM and GD both represent the Blue Fairy.
Given how Cha lied to NJN on those footsteps I suspect GD is lying to MM and DK about something too out of self-interest.
@Rh,
He can be. @nrllee has posted before about it and @GB just posted some things too.
That’s why I said only for his interference he took that role.
Let me think about it some more okay?
I don’t personally think that Cha needs to be either the deity or MM precisely.
I was waiting for him to say ‘Sorry.’ to Lee, even if he wasn’t sincere. He said he overstepped, but pointedly didn’t say sorry. However, I didn’t realise how much he overstepped until he spoke to Ji-na. I’m glad that he bowed out of the relationship because Ji-na needs time to figure things out and let her relationship with Lee take it’s natural course. Both men procrastinated for 9 years about a relationship with her.
About Young Prince – I rather like him. He’s sort of rude, but I think his heart’s in the right place, given his 3 hearts on his autograph to the author and his wishful signature on DK’s hand. I think he was really fond of DK.
About Young Prince, I wanted to say that I believe he simply interpreted DK’s question as a riddle or an algebra problem: If dying X loves Y then the world ends. If dying X loves the world, Y ends. Solution – X should love no one.
Certainly it’s not a realistic solution and yes, I agree that DK is naive about ‘willing’ herself or others to love or deleting love received from others or from herself. That aspect of her has never made sense to me.
Hi @Fern, Yes that little twerp had a couple of good qualities. When he wasn’t putting himself on a pedestal, he was able to manifest concern for the sick Dalgona and loyalty towards DK. I think Nam Da Reum looks great as an almost adult!
IKR? DK’s naivete or utter ‘ignorance of things romantic’ begs credulity. I guess the writer had to contrive that for the plot to work out.
I agree that Cha disappointed me in the extent of his interference, when he did not apologise to both NJN and LHK and when he did not feel bad seeing how NJN had not let go. His avowed reason that he did it so that she could be her own person seems like utter rot to me. I was saying that if he kissed her (of all things, … why not just drag her off or insult her?) he must have liked her himself. But he, too, did nothing. I find it hard to take all his words at face value now.
It’s going to take more backstory about what convicted him so much that he had to ‘save’ NJN from having LHK in her life. Was Cha doing it for her, for LHK or for himself, is the question.
@Growing Beautifully. Yes, quite. More backstory, please. Is there a really, really good, life or death reason that Cha did that 9 years ago? Otherwise, it was simply meddling.
So many great comments! Thank you @Cleo and @GB for such detailed breakdowns, you don’t miss anything!
I’m going to unpack some more after work 🙂
I wanted to share some comments regarding @Fern and @GB concern about DK’s attitude to love and feelings, specifically wether she is naive or not.
I don’t think it’s that she is naive. I think she is in wilful denial of the power of feelings, when it comes to herself. It’s about control for her. Grasping for control is a common side-effect of trauma, and for DK it is about feelings.
I think her main character arc /character flaw (that was finally confronted head on in episode 10) is that her self defence mechanism is to suppress her feelings. After loosing her parents she didn’t cry and forced herself to hide her tears even from herself. As she admitted to MM in earlier episodes as to why she wouldn’t cry on her own, is because ‘she would know’. She hides her feelings so deep, that she hides them from herself.
She has convinced herself that she can control feelings, in order to survive her loss. She ‘detached’ from them. As @GB pointed out she uses words like ‘love’ as attack and challenge, but she doesn’t let them get under her skin. She’s sort of like GD in this way, in that she thinks if wrong feelings grow, she’ll rip them out. If new ones are needed, she’ll plant them.
She is in willful denial and therefore walks around numb, just going through the motions when it comes to anything affecting her, with an ‘i have to do this’ or ‘i’ll just stay still’ kind of attitude.
Ironically, by repressing her own feelings, she became hyper sensitive to the feelings of others. The energy that should’ve been used to understand herself was shifted into observing and prioritizing others around her. Thats why when she met MM, she read him very quickly and saw clearly under his facade. Focusing on her pain was too hard, but focusing on his was manageable.
It’s no coincidence that they were ‘thinking same thing at the same time’. They really were in the same mental/emotional space. Part of DK’s attraction to MM is that redirecting focus to him, allowed her to pre-process her own emotional blocks while ostensibly staying detached. She confronted him, attacked him and basically forced him to acknowledge, grow and heal. She forced him through a journey she was too scared to take herself.
But then the student caught up with the master. He learned her tricks, connected all the dots and reflected everything she was hiding from back at her. She can’t deflect and she can’t hide because he now sees through her too.
Her final attempt was to run away. And in a lesser show the main lead would’ve let her. But I love that MM doesn’t. Just like she didn’t let him run away. He truly learned well.
That’s why her wall finally broke. The one person who knew exactly what’s behind it gave her her own medicine and didn’t let her run away.
She finally was able to acknowledge and ‘live’ her own emotions, and relinquish illusion of ‘control’, safely, in the arms of the one person who could feel them with her.
Awesome @vasilisa. Once again you’ve taken all the points in stride and come up with a package that makes sense. What a gift you have!
I’m happy to agree that it sounds right. I should go look up how people may deal with trauma. I feel that I’ve underestimated DK’s trauma. While I admit that losing both parents suddenly was terrible, at least her Aunt kept the family together and became a new parent, and so I find it hard to relate to her grief that she’s held onto for 9 years.
I did notice that she could not speak to her dead parents in the way that we see so many others are able to. She claimed that she did it in her heart. With what you say, I’m beginning to wonder if she also held on to feelings of anger and resentment that she had been abandoned by her parents. Something like that might have made her feel guilty so that she buried all her feelings and lived in great denial that ‘bad’ feelings had any control over her.
She compensated by spending herself for others, accepting that nice people would always abandon her and that she ‘deserved’ the bad things like a brain tumour. It took over 50 days before she ever expressed a wish to be healed or to live.
At least now I can get more invested in DK’s plight and accept that her bland reactions to bad news may have deep origins.
Thanks for welcoming the new posters, @Growing_Beautifully. 🙂
I can see both GD and MM in Cha then. 🙂
@vasilisa thanks for your take on DK. We did explore the whole dammed up feelings with DK in earlier posts and was waiting for her release but it was good to hear it from you. JiNa needs her release from her past as well. She too has had arrested development on the love front because of her past trauma.
@rh mentioned The Little Prince? Would that be Young Prince? Their names are too similar to be coincidental. He did offer perspective when DK presented him with her dilemma and true to TLP, he offered a very simplistic (yet profound) answer.
@nrllee, do you have the episodes 9 and 10 titles? Thanks!!
@packmule3 I mentioned them in earlier comments but here they are. 🙂
Ep9 Soo Ja finds out
Ep10 An unexpected answer
Thanks!! I haven’t read the other comments, just yours. 🌸🌸
@packmule3 Soo Ja is DK’s aunt (twin of DK’s mother). I am wondering if she will step between our OTP. A bit like how the first love guy (I have a problem with names too 🤣) was between the second lead pair. The death of DK’s parents was the reason for her disengagement and arrests development. Just like the first love was the reason for the arrested development for JiNa.
DK – mom/aunt – MM
JiNa – First love – Cha
I finally worked out why she (JiNa) looks so familiar. She’s Dr Bae from HP1. 🤣 The ER resident who JWon smiled at for her empathetic response to a mom who brought her son in for a stomachache. And she was also the one who responded correctly during the abusive dad case. It’s like my KDrama worlds are colliding.
Huh? You didn’t know that she was Dr Bae??!! 😂😂
For me, knowing she was Dr Bae is the reason I couldn’t accept that DK is younger than her, that she’s DK’s Unnie. I thought Park BoYoung looked older than the JiNa Actress.
Thanks. I was wondering who Soo Ja.
So the two women have “complexes” or traumas? One was her mom dying and her aunt (mom’s twin??) taking over as her mom.
And JiNa was her first love’s impotence? 😂
So many wonderful and profound posts here that I’m catching up on reading and digesting. Again elevating the kdrama experience only BoDs do best. Thank you!!!
@Nrllee – I was also trying to figure out also why Jina looks familiar and It clicked last HP1 rewatch. However, I keep forgetting to comment it here because of the deep discussions. And the immature guy Lee is the second ML in Run On which I did not finish.
Tuesday and Wednesday’s are hectic so I try sneak some comments here and there.
I wonder if different people see MM differently (his physical being). When DK met with her co-editors, they seem to have different opinions on his age, height, looks. This is the mischievous side of MM. LOL!
@packmule3 yes…I have our old friend prosopagnosia. 😂. I had to Google her to join the dots. As for the complexes that’s my interpretation of the scenarios. Because in other forums there seems to be confusion as to what purpose the second leads serve in the whole scheme of things. So I went looking to find out why the writer put them in there. And that was my take on why she did. Because there were too many similar scenes and scripted lines repeated by MM and Cha. So I deduced that she put the second couple in there as a mirror.
@nrllee re the love triangle is a mirror of MM and DY. I feel in this story a relationship without “Doom” presence can be directionless and dull.
In this episode, MM listens to DY, even her unspoken words. There is a difference between forcing thoughts on another person vs the ability to pick up hidden emotions. MM is successful in doing the later. MM has always tried to work out what DK really feels like. He, as a deity or lover finally helps her to break out. (Makes me think of GD said to DK Doom is created for her). MM and DK help each other to grow and bring out the best and the weakness they are not aware of themselves.
Contrast to HK and NJN, HK acts out spontaneously without a clear direction. NJN just loves his smile and always have unresolved lingering feelings. There may be no impending limit in their life abut the relationship seems shallow by comparison. They don’t help each other grow, they don’t listen to each other, just fuel by somewhat self-centred feelings and past hurts and pity.
Like you all have touched on, the story is about going through the good and the bad to truly understand “living” and “enduring love”. I can see one relationship seems more meaningful, when the other, seems to go no where.
Team Leader Cha act may out of love, but the method is questioning like GD. I think kissing someone on the stairs and use that as a method to stop the HK and NJN meet, can only exist in K drama. OK, may be for the romantic effect too. 😊
Sorry DK not DY.
@Viva. Yes I know the love triangle is mirroring MMxDK. I guess I was of the opinion that Cha was like MM. Because of all the similarities – pity kiss. Meeting from the past. Contracts made. So it was a matter of whether Cha was also GD in part because of the part he played in trying to maneuver HK and JiNa like GD did with MM and DK. And it seems so? I think Cha is also slowly discovering JiNa (like MM was DK), so when JiNa breaks free from her past (like DK did in the last ep where she cried all the tears that she had bottled up all those years), JiNa would realize that Cha is the one who wanted what was best for her from the start.
One word for ep 10:FRUSTRATION
Young Prince makes an offhanded comment about the scenario, and DK decides to run with it?! Really DK? The best option you can come up with is to leave all your loved ones and find a place to go die by yourself? Just 2,3 episodes ago DK put her life on the line to bring MM back, and now the U-turn?! Is this how the show is structured? One person runs away, the other pursues relentlessly, then the roles are reversed. Repeat.
My heart sunk at the ending beach scene when MM reached for DK’s hand, and DK forcefully flicked her hand away. Inside i’m screaming “NOOOO DON’T DO THIS!!!!” Thankfully MM was persistent, and we finally got the breakthrough, and DK is finally able to cry. But I wasn’t as touched as I could have been, because she was rejecting him just a few moments ago.
I finally subscribed to Viu to watch this. I don’t know how they are going to finish the next 6 episodes, but I am definitely feeling angst towards the writer. The actors are brilliant. But the way the story is going is not very fulfilling.
@GB, I agree, can’t they just mutually decided to end the contract? Afterall, who’s going to force them to go through with it? Doom is the only one who can bring doom to world, if he doesn’t, who’s going to make him? It’s not like Diety Girl wants to end the world.
About the Triangle:
Team Leader Cha: Selfish and Manipulative
Lee Hyun Kyu: Selfish and Immature
Both don’t seem to be great choices, but Hyun Kyu has the upperhand bc Jina still isn’t over him.
But I can’t see her being happy with either of them at this point.
@TY 😂😂. I feel you. I am trying very hard to make sense of this drama. I didn’t watch the other one that the writer penned (Beauty Inside?) so I don’t know if she will end it well. From the opening credits it does look like potentially it will be a happy ending. I don’t get why the GD would take on the sins of the world and die repeatedly. To what end? If a deity takes on all my sins and there’s no repercussions for me (because there’s no afterlife like MM said), then why should I bother to be good? Just because? Especially if I don’t believe in a deity in the first place? I wouldn’t care?
Yes @nrllee it is your comment about the mirroring inspires me to compare the depth of the two sets of relationships. I think I am with team leader Cha on this one, despite his meddling. I think his meddling is a (potentially failed) attempt of “hearing the unspoken words”. Contrast to MM’s successful read DK’s unspoken emotions that I cheer him for, Cha’s read probably gives me a questioning feeling.
However I feel his intention is to help NJN to reach to her full potential in life (better writing, not in a goal-less relationship). I think Cha shares the similar boyfriend approach like MM.
Of course, NJN is free to not choose anyone too. May be she too should learn more about herself like DK before entering into a relationship? We haven’t seen much of her growth or realisation of her position yet.
@Cleo @GB Agree Young Prince gave the wrong answer and I don’t know why he is the top 10 haha! I think most K dramas teach us even life is short or with hardship, the leads always choose love. Fortunately, DK nobility is short lived! Now, I am wondering what more stories can they tell us in the next 6 hours or so.
Kalimera my lovely @GB,
Since we have visited the yin – yan concept or the two sides of one coin or the mirroring, MM did exactly what she told him to do.
So, he was able to read her very soon.
Obviously he could hear her thoughts when she was a kid, but she wasn’t significant back then.
Since, he was doing the same, when he was being cornered, I realized that he figured it out. Subconsciously he knew from the beginning, he connected the dots while he was looking at that birthday cake.
As for the deity girl and what she told DK, I deciphered it as follows:
“You are the one who can help yourself”
—> You have the answers to all the questions. Don’t listen to any of us. Decide what you want to do.
“Love him. He was made for you anyway.”
—> I believe that the deity girl made the flower DK specifically for Myul Mang.
They are /were meant to be.
If we add what we know from TK:EM, “their fate is long and they haven’t reached their destiny yet. “3
So, If we revisit all those cryptic messages the deity girl have said to both of them, an image might be shaped.
I have seen the crying scene 5 times. The first times I was reserved. The last times I was waiting for her outburst and it moved me.
🙂
Hey @vasilisa,
I am glad you liked my take. Thank you for summarizing so far what it is being said.
Yes, we have discussed, as @nrllee have said above, about the emotional blockage for both MM and DK.
I am going to repeat myself, but the example to understand yourself is to see the mirroring image of someone else, if that one is your partner that is even more significant. Since they are the yin – yan to one another.
MM who is an eternal being and his specialty is to watch from afar humanity, would understand more if he paid attention. So he did. He did of course with DK that fascinated him from the very beginning. For him, she was a questionmark.
So, yes they both did what was necessary to break their blockages in order to become emotionally active.
DK left as you said, but she “mirrored” MM. She copied the same reaction he had after the “reset”.
I don’t think that DK is naive, if I remember correctly @Rh commented that in order to cope she compartmentalized things happening to her and things that needed to be done, hence she was functioning like she was pressing a button.
In character development our main OTP made a big self-discovery journey in a very short time and that is something we should all pay attention to… 🙂
@nrllee I watched Beauty Inside, mainly because I like Lee Minki. It had some laughs, it wasn’t a brilliant show, but at least it was decent and didn’t make me angry like I am now watching Doom.
Doom has so much potential, exploring life and death, relationships. I am still going to finish it because I like the leads, and keep on hoping for the best.
@TY It certainly started off with the right questions didn’t it? I am waiting to see if the writer will give us satisfactory answers. The pair of them are visually stunning. And acting wise they haven’t faltered either. The world building is there. I just wish the conversations weren’t so cryptic – I just get the feeling we’re losing a lot in translation because the subbers are finding it too hard to translate it to English. So if the Korean audience is finding the drama hard to follow (the ratings have been dropping), I think it would be even harder for the English audience. 6 more eps to wrap up. Doomsday is nigh. 😂
Hi Everyone,
You’re welcome @pkml3
I’ve had a busy day and am about to go out again soon, so this will be shortish. We had a scare this morning, when my mum-in-law suddenly changed from her usual independent self to being unable to stand and dress herself to go out. After hours at the clinic when nothing could be found to be wrong, she’s home and resting, but still not entirely her usual self, although more able than earlier.
@TY @nrllee
I vaguely recall that The Beauty Inside had the normal happy ending. I’m not sure about the opening credits showing us a happy ending on earth, because I’m uncertain which garden our OTP end up in. If going to Deity’s Garden means death, then it might be a happy ending where they are both in some afterlife together. Or they may be in the ‘garden’ that MM took DK too in the dream, where his world no longer had dead flowers because she was present.
I agree with @nrllee that having a deity to bear the burden of the world’s sins when there is no afterlife does not make sense. Perhaps the subs are just confusing us. I’m also not entirely sold on the idea that there really is no afterlife. MM might have been mistaken!!
@Viva I too did suggest that for a change, NJN could just choose herself and toss away the 2 guys. If the story is going the way of DK coming to love herself the most, then a parallel would be NJN also loving herself and being free of the emotional ties that sap her spirit. However from the preview, we know that before NJN can get there, she’ll have to try one more time with LHK. It may need to be a total bust before she can let go and free herself properly. Like DK, she too has to be the one to help herself.
@Cleo Thanks for your take on what GD’s advice to DK meant.
“The only person that can help you is yourself.” – Yes, she has the answers already, if only she would stop denying them. This statement can also mean that she need not look outside herself for answers, that only she can change herself. Also, that she should not look for outside assistance because she does not need it, and external forces may even confuse matters more.
“Love him. Be madly in love and live your life.” – Live fully, love completely without holding back. DK has been holding back and hiding a lot without even being aware of it.
“He was born for you anyway. I created him for humanity.” – Both MM and DK are to complement each other and help each other. I’d have interpreted it like you (@Cleo) did ie the flower DK was made of MM – I felt that DK should have been born for MM instead of the other way around, because he’s been alive longer, and because DK was made specially able to see DK’s real face. However we can interpret it to mean that as MM was made to serve humanity, while MM serves DK, she too will return the service in kind.
@TY @nrllee
I like the questions that DAYS brings up. They give much to ponder over. In one of the interviews, PBY said something like she hoped the show made people consider what was important in their lives as if they had only 100 days to live.
@GB One on the things I really liked about the last episodes was that DK finally quit her job! She has so little time left, really doesn’t make sense to use it for chasing down authors. If people only had 100 days to live, probably sooner to quit the job the better! In the beginning I imagined the progression would be for DK to track down people she loves, say good bye, wrap things up, do what she finds meaningful, finally live a fulfilling life, and ofcourse live it out with MM. I didn’t expect the bucket list to appear so late in the show.
@nrlee I’m REALLY hoping we will get satisfactory answers, and it’s sad that the ratings are dropping. But to be honest, it takes courage to keep on watching, because we can already foresee tears and heart wrenching moments. I really hope this journey will be worth it.
@TY I am not sure the majority of audiences currently want to really think really hard when they watch their dramas? I think when real life is overwhelming (and it is with the pandemic), the last thing you want is for your drama universe to be just as cryptic and bewildering? Or about death (when there’s so much of it around)? They just want an hour of escapism where they can chill and relax and laugh a bit? I get that way sometimes. And I just want trope filled KDrama with no surprises and OTP get their happy ever after, THE END. 😂. So perhaps this drama is just a victim of the times and had it screened at a different time, the audience may have been in a better mood to receive it.
Kalimera from my part of the world!
Hello my lovely @GB,
I really like your take about the service part.
I read both @TY and @nrllee’s comments and I would like to say that
for me #DAYS gives me a lot to think about.
I really love the series, its complexity and such. From me that is escapism from a very difficult period. I don’t mind for some series to be challenging, while I need others to make me smile.
So, I am waiting for what the Writer-nim has to say to us, mostly because it is her second script and it is good to be patient and rewarding to people who are trying their best. It is good to empower women! 🙂
Good for you @Cleo. 🙂. Sometimes I think the BTS footage is cuter than the actual story. 😂. I like how in the most recent one, SIG comforted PBY and held her for that much longer (even after PD yelled cut) because she was really crying her heart out in that last scene. That gave me the warm fuzzies 🥰
Thank you @nrllee,
I have to check that BTS. I haven’t watched that one!
Oh…Warm fuzzies are good ! 😀
@Cleo Here it is 🙂. Enjoy.
https://youtu.be/DEgV33L_aWk
@Cleo
PS Don’t let us naysayers ruin your viewing experience. Skip our rants if you find it dampens your mood. If enjoy a drama then more power to you. Enjoy it for all its worth and write your thoughts and interpretations down. @GB will keep you company. 😍
Dear @nrllee,
Thank you for the video!
No, you don’t ruin anything for me! It is totally understandable that you might not like something, like I do. So, no worries okay? 🙂
@nrllee, I’ve decided that for “no-brainer” dramas, Chinese dramas are the best. (Mind you, NOT Taiwanese dramas) That’s why I’m looking forward to the two Yang Yang dramas.
This one, however, I think the writer is just trying TOO hard. I googled her, and she apparently used to be the assistant of that Goblin/ Descendant of the Sun/ TKEM writer, Kim Eun Sook. 😂
To me, she isn’t ready yet to make a drama involving a deity. KES, too, flubbed her Goblin went it came to big issues about death, the meaning of God’s omniscience and omnipotence, human will, and sacrifice. And like KES, this writer’s philosophy isn’t up to snuff yet, and to me, it shows whenever her characters say one thing (i.e., “I’m just a hands-off gardener!”) but don’t follow true with the logical extension of their statement (i.e., “…but handprint is all over because the garden’s my handiwork”).
The creation of this sort of fictional universe — a god-centric universe — is actually hardER work than your typical Goblin/Gumiho/Zombie fantasy dramas. The writer can’t merely pastiche concepts from different dramas and expect people to make sense of her ambiguity. She has to show me that she knows where she’s going with her themes. And I’m already past the halfway mark.
Really, if anybody and everybody can create an imaginary religion, with a realistic and functioning theology, from scratch then there would have been no need for Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism. But creating our own gods is difficult because we’re limited by our own human (and thus un-godlike) understanding and experience of divinity. IMO she hasn’t attained nirvana yet to be able to write about it extensively and convincingly.
“ This one, however, I think the writer is just trying TOO hard. I googled her, and she apparently used to be the assistant of that Goblin/ Descendant of the Sun/ TKEM writer, Kim Eun Sook. ”
O you feel that way too? 😂 I am trying real hard to give her the benefit of the doubt but it’s just not coming together cohesively for me. If MM is the person who brings about all the bad luck, doom and gloom for the world, how is he so free to follow DK around? 😂. Can he pick and choose who he privately visits before they die? Or does everyone see him because he’s everywhere? Why does he drive a car? 😂. For her benefit? But he can just magically teleport her wherever? It would save so much time? And everyone seems to see him differently (his physical form)? Or is he just specifically the special MM that’s made just for DK? There’s just a lot of unknowns in this DramaVerse that seems to require the audience to fill in. Maybe I just overthink it and I need to take a chill pill 😂.
As for CDramas, I will join you in swooning over YangYang but I am trying to figure out where I can watch it (have to ask @agdr03). Hey for once I will be able to just take in the scenes and not try to madly read subtitles. Go me! 😂
😂🤣 Yes. The plot holes aren’t so much to be found in the story structure or the sequence of events, but in the character development itself.
I swear if it wasn’t for Seo InGuk, I would have ditched this. But even futile love is love and all that jazz. 🤷♀️
I’m being shallow here, but my first watch of Seo In Guk and of Lee Soo Hyuk has been interesting and the reason I’ve stayed. -Although I admire Kang Tae Oh’s eyeshadow, too, when he meets with Jin-ah at the beginning of episode 9.
Lee Soo Hyuk reminds me a bit of young Ralph Fiennes who can do both horrid and vulnerable.
hahaha. I’m watching for Seo In Guk and Lee Soo Hyuk.
Weird. I never thought two “bad boys” could co-exist in kdrama but it actually worked because the two occupied different zones.
Has Doom gone to a karaoke bar yet? There should be a scene where he sings to DK. Seo In Guk has a lovely voice. I’ve about 5 or 6 songs of his on my old iphone.
I saw that SIG sang well when I looked him up. (Research and all that.) It was his original career choice, right? And I believe he sings in the OST of Doom, but it hasn’t been released yet.
Yes. If Mr Fox can sing at a karaoke posing like one of the Rat Pack, so may MM. Good idea!
@Fern @pkml3
I’ve noticed SIG from several other shows. He’s an impressive young man. His roles in Reply 1994, High School King of Savvy, Hello Monster, Squad 38 and especially in The Smile has Left Your Eyes, hit the heart hard. Once again I feel much for his character. More than I feel for DK, actually.
Lee Soo Hyuk looks like and made a great vampire. He’s just so pale, he looks bloodless LOL. He’s also a riveting actor to watch.
SIG and LSH actually did work on High School King of Savvy together too and had more interaction there than they do in DAYS. Yeah, 2 bad boys together who make the shows rock!
@GB, you make me wish I had started watching kdramas sooner.
I heard about LSH’s vampire. He has a very good speaking voice, too. I think it’s another reason why he reminds me of Ralph Fiennes.
The two are also in a heist/action film called Pipeline. Very recently released, I believe.
Thanks for the movie tip @Fern. I must make a point to put a movie into my watch list. I tend to ignore them as the dramas are already ‘so demanding’ LOL.
Okie Doke, I’ve put Pipeline into my Plan to Watch list already. Can’t get too much SIG!!
I like SIG, too.
I like that he won that singing competition. It showed that he was driven and competitive. He wasn’t much to look at, so he won it for his talent.
I wish though he wouldn’t be so insecure about his facial looks and physical appearance. He does have a unique face. lol. And unlike other actors he wasn’t originally skinny. He was stocky. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be pressured to fit in with the “beauty standards” and he’d be happy in his own skin.
@Fern why did you go mention Ralph Fiennes? Who was mighty fine…in The English Patient…before he was horribly burnt…which also probably resulted in him being cast as Voldemort. 😂 Or at least I thought so, EP was so lengthy a movie I really only made it to the end because of Ralph. His stare was everything 🥰
Where do you get all the time, @Growing_Beautifully? I woke up raring to start on my Ep 12 review for Bossam but here I am — a few hours later, I’m still haven’t opened a file on it.
But I pruned one rosebush and my foxgloves survived the transplant so I’m happy.
Seo In Guk still mentions he finds it hard to maintain his weight, so I think he still feels pressured by ‘beauty standards. Such a pity.
His voice is so good – warm and tuneful. I saw that he plays piano and guitar as well. I agree that he won the competition for his talent – it seems his family was very poor, so he must have worked very hard. I am looking forward to his song here.
@pkml3, I heartily agree about SIG. He is striking although not handsome in the traditional way, but he actually can look pretty hot!!! I did attach a photo of him but I can’t recall in which thread. Yes, I hope he’s gotten over having to meet the crazy standards of slimness and good looks, but like @Fern says, he’s still concerned about his weight. In one of the VIU fun videos he said that if he had the powers of MM he’d like to teleport, and also to make his fat cells disappear.
I hope he gets to believe that he is amazing as he is!
LOL @pkml3, to what do you refer when you ask where I get the time? I actually only wrote one long post for Ep 6 and it wasn’t the difficult analyis type of post. I’m actually busier this week, and this weekend, but not to worry, I made time for our rewatch.
Off topic:
@nrllee, I liked Ralph Fiennes in Sense and Sensibility as well. The English Patient was devastating, right? Voldemort wouldn’t have been nearly so impressive without Fienne’s voice. I would looooove to see him on stage.
The Skittishness of DK – Speaking of Try Hard Scripts, how’s this for a Try Hard analysis of 1 scene
MM is at home, watching his phone. DK turns up at MM’s door unannounced. I expected him to be pleased, as in, ‘how nice that the girl he likes can’t keep away and comes all the way to see him’ …but instead he says that she should have called before coming. I admit I was a bit thrown by this at first, but I think I figured it out.
DK : “I just thought coming here would be better.” (I’ll re-write that as “I thought that just coming here to see you would be better – As in better to avoid dating him in full view of her aunt.)
MM : “You could have called before coming over.” (LOL my guess about why he makes a fuss about her calling him first is because she said she’d call him the previous night and because he’d been staring at the phone all day, waiting for that call!)
DK (guesses that he was waiting for her call): “I guess you are very committed when you’re in a relationship (she said ‘yonae’ so I’ll translate that as “when you’re dating.”
MM pricks his ears at this : “In a relationship/When I’m dating?” (He looks interested and she looks aghast that she brought it up first again, and then all the connotations that come with dating, and being alone in the house with a boyfriend, come to bear.)
DK suddenly gets embarrassed : “What? What did I just say? By the way, you’re like one of us now. (You’re almost human). You can be patient now. (You don’t need to rush into all that dating behaviour.)”
MM : “That’s my specialty. Being patient and observing. (He thinks a moment.) But I won’t do that anymore.”
DK gets a little alarmed : “Why not?”
MM : “It’s a waste of time.”
DK looks to the side, thinking she may be in trouble and looking to escape. She was the one who suggested dating, but she hadn’t thought through what that might mean to MM.
When MM sits down next to her she scoots away.
MM : “Why did you move down?”
She can’t look him in the eye and lies that it was in case he needed more space.
MM : “We slept on a small bed together. You asked me to do that.”
DK : “No. I wasn’t small. Your bed was very spacious.”
MM watches her, and knows what’s on her mind so he teases her by sitting closer and she runs away. He watches her amused.
She picks up a big urn and makes a fuss about it and its price, trying to deflect attention from the awkwardness. It is just a ploy to keep him at a distance, but it works against her.
MM : “Put it down. Let’s talk then.”
He approaches her but she continues to tease him with the vase and it’s price.
He points out that if she insists on holding the vase, she has no free hands and there’s a wall behind her so that she would be cornered, and unable to defend herself. LOL.
She threatens to drop the vase if he comes close, and he warns again that the vase is expensive.
What was this scene about? Perhaps it shows us DK’s misconceptions and how she gets everything backwards in a real love relationship.
Each time it was DK, not MM who suggested the change in their relationship.
– She asked him to live with her when they were not even dating.
– She insisted on sleeping in the same space as him, and shared his bed when they had not even said that they loved each other.
– They’d already kissed and held hands long before DK decided that they should date.
– Then now when holding hands, kissing, etc should be the natural thing a couple would do when dating, DK paradoxically draws the line and runs away.
It is forewarning of a sort, that she’d do the same with all her loved ones. Confronted with her impending death, she was going to keep a distance from them all and run away. (Yes, here’s that phrase again @Cleo!) The expensive vase could have broken, if DK had let go, but MM saved it by taking it away and returning it to its place.
In the same way in the final scene on the beach, DK makes the mistake of grabbing the vase of her denials (denials that she has emotions she should not repress) and holds on to it, refusing to admit her loss, as she starts realising that it is meaningless to live without her loved ones.
MM has to come and force her to let go and break down. This time he didn’t try to save the vase of her denials, but let it shatter on the beach. It was of course, much more priceless than the real piece of pottery, and it happened at the most appropriate spot, where she belonged, since the Jeju Beach was the place she had gone to when most upset, and where she had forced herself not to cry.
@GB That’s an awesome analysis! I love it because that scene did make me confused, why is she suddenly acting like they are strangers? DK really does do things in reverse. LOL. It’s like she went through all the dating motions (hang out with him, live with him, sleep! with him etc) but without actually calling it ‘dating’ she could ignore the implications. But now that there is a spoken ‘label’ for what they are doing, she’s much more affected.
Your point got me thinking: if her attitude changes so strongly just by ‘labeling’ a behaviour, i.e. saying out loud what it is, perhaps thats another reason she avoids saying how she actually feels? i.e., until she says it out loud, it’s not real, and she can pretend nothing is happening.
Therefore in that light this scene really sets up the impact of calling things (feelings) by their real name and it ties with the rest of the episode, where MM confronts her to say how she feels, so the truth is ‘out there’ and can’t be ignored.
@vasilisa @GB, do you think what the writer tried to achieve here is as we are closer to acknowledge the truth we denied, it’s harder to say it out? It’s like it’s very easy to say sorry when you don’t mean it, but a lot harder when one realises how wrong they were and they are not what they think they are.
@Fern 😭 English patient.
@vasilisa @Viva
Wow, that was just my armchair attempt to figure out why DK behaved so strangely after declaring that they should date, but when you put it that way, it sounds more than plausible. Yes, denial makes it more than likely a person won’t say what the reality is out loud, because by acknowledging it, they have to deal with it.
(Is there significance here then, when she names MM, Kim Sa Ram? She subconsciously wants him to be a real boy?)
As long as she didn’t name it, it was OK to go through all the motions of dating. She was able to deny that she was attracted to MM, that she wanted to spend time with him, etc. She gave other reasons for their frequent, intimate interactions … words like pity and feeling bad for him, come to mind.
With MM, she suddenly became shy to use the words ‘kiss’ and ‘boyfriend’. It was so bizarre until we consider that maybe that’s how she’s been able to survive for those years after her parents died: by not saying it out loud. We recall that at the columbarium, she could not even speak to her dead parents out loud. On their death anniversary she only smiled at their photo and ate cake like it was a celebration!!! She didn’t carry out the rites to honour the dead.
I wanted to look up whether if when a person is in denial, whether labeling it would be significant. I happened upon this site which is also informative and very current. Here is the section on Signs of Denial, and I highlighted in bold the parts that DK demonstrates.
“Signs of Denial
There are a few signs that you or someone you know might be using denial as a defense mechanism. Some common signs:
• You refuse to talk about the problem. (We see this over and over with DK.)
• You find ways to justify your behavior. (DK told NJN that she was not avoiding going to hospital but wanted to do other stuff first. She wouldn’t reply when NJN insisted on knowing if after she’d done those things, she’d go to hospital.)
• You blame other people or outside forces for causing the problem.
• You persist in a behavior despite negative consequences. (Is it stretching it to say that removing her red thread twice is being persistent here? Avoiding Doc Jung and keeping away from hospital is, I believe.)
• You promise to address the problem in the future. (She sort of intimates this with her family and friends and doctor.)
• You avoid thinking about the problem. (Her way of thinking about it was more to do with deciding on what wish to ask for, avoiding doom falling upon the world and family, etc but not on what a devastation it was to herself personally. It took the beach scene to get her to really think about it and say what she felt.)
In addition to these signs, you might find yourself feeling hopeless or helpless. On some level, you know there is a problem that needs to be addressed, but you feel that nothing you do or say will make a difference. (I felt that DK was fatalistic. She didn’t try to fight against her fate, she just wanted to feel no pain until she died.)
When other people try to offer advice or help, you might brush off their concern either by pretending to agree or telling them to mind their own business.” (DK did this with Aunt by pretending she was getting a trial treatment.)
https://www.verywellmind.com/denial-as-a-defense-mechanism-5114461#:~:text=Denial%20is%20a%20type%20of,the%20consequences%20of%20that%20reality.
What do you think? I’d like to believe that we are penetrating the cypher that is DK. Am I in denial? LOL.
@GB, DK is definitely the Queen of Denial, Miss Roundabout, and Lady Runaway. For me, the scene that best describes her is when she saw he aunt arrive, after eyeing each other and recovering from the shock of seeing her, she ran away from her! I laughed at that scene because it was totally unexpected for her to run like that but that’s how exactly she is. And she ended up on the same spot, too since she ran in circle. MM was there at the start and end of it.
BTW, I hope your mother in law is feeling better and back to normal. I read it in previous threads (forgot where?) but wasn’t able to reply. Take care!!!
My dear @Janey thank you for asking. The doc said he could not find anything wrong with my mum-in-law on Thursday but now it’s Saturday and she’s not improved. We are trying to get her admitted into hospital for more tests and treatment. I wish we knew what is wrong.
I was saying that I’ll be around for the rewatch,… we’ll see. Real life takes precedence! Please pray for her. Thank you!
@GB, oh no that is worrisome. I will Include your mum in law in my prayers. 🙏🙏🙏
Oh dear @GB. Hope you can find out what’s bothering your MIL. Prayed that all will go smoothly.
@GB praying that your mum in law gets well soon!!
Hey my lovely @GB,
First of all I will say that I am sending prayers to your mum in law.
Secondly, I really like that interpretation you did on DK based on that scene. Since, @Vasilisa, @Viva, @nrllee and @Janey commended already.
I will just write down something that shows from the very beginning how DK works. It gave us some tidbits about her denial.
Episode 1 around the 57:15.
DK is talking on the phone with Na Ji Na about someone crazy who is after her and goes to the intersection and DK sees MM on the other side of the pavement.
(Green light for the pedestrians. DK sighs and walks towards MM.)
DK’s Voiceover :
Even after getting a death sentence, nothing changed.
I do not fear what I don’t see.
Even death, even doom, the minute I see them, fear becomes real.
Her head is buzzing and she cannot move on due to pain, she sits down on the pavement. Truck of doom, etc.
This little thought showed us that she is indeed in denial.
She was not acknowledging things, so she couldn’t fear the intangible.
She did the same with Myul Mang, until he confessed and she told him to date. Then the realization what she did with him, have shaken her hard.
All became real.
Not only what she did with MM, but that she was dying indeed.
That’s why she bought them presents, said her goodbyes and wanted to leave them behind. She wanted to avoid facing them, facing herself through that process. But as we have commented above, our MM is very good student and pushed her buttons exactly to tell him how she felt.
Thank you so much @Cleo. I appreciate all your prayers. The good news is that my MIL looked more alert and more herself by the end of the day than she did in the morning. Which is already a great relief. Please keep praying for her.
@Cleo
Thanks also for liking my interpretation of that scene. I went back to check the scene from Ep 1 that you’ve mentioned and here’s the other version of the subs which says about the same thing.
@Cleo good point about what you say:
Yes, she did not want to acknowledge or say it out loud or label the situation as it really was. MM just stood there waiting for her to meet her doom LOL. And then the pain hit her… and the TOD threatens to hit her as well. All these factors conspired to force her to acknowledge that she was facing her doom. She could see them, so the fear became real.
However, I feel that MM inadvertently gave her the way out by offering his hand.
If he had not used the situation to pressure DK into making the contract with him, she’d have been forced to confront her pain, fear and death much sooner. By giving her an escape route to ‘run away’ from her fear and pain, MM allowed her to remain in denial longer.
Also <blockquote That’s why she bought them presents, said her goodbyes and wanted to leave them behind. She wanted to avoid facing them, facing herself through that process. This too could be true. It was her way to ‘run away’ from saying the words, “Goodbye”.
Kalimera my lovely @GB,
You are right when you are writing that :
The fact that DK was not feeling pain, made her postpone accepting what was happening to her.
While, it was bad for her at the same time, DK helped MM to come in terms with himself and as a result, MM did the same for her.
So, they both healed each other. Which was the one we were all hoping for.