The last episodes!!
Will Hwal and SangUn have a happy ending or not? Too bad they’re down one member of the squad.
Let’s enjoy the show.
18 Comments On “Bulgasal: Eps 15 & 16 Open Thread”
Comments are closed.
The last episodes!!
Will Hwal and SangUn have a happy ending or not? Too bad they’re down one member of the squad.
Let’s enjoy the show.
Comments are closed.
I still couldn’t get myself to watch, knowing that there’ll be more stabbings here and there. Thanks for the thread anyway @pkml3.
Kalimera,
I just finished Episode 15.
So, in the last minutes of the show we get to see:
The Shaman’s Oracle coming true and watching how the four major players got involved together in the first place.
Should I write it down or should I wait?
The Man in Blue got stabbed not only literally from those villagers, but also from the woman he loved.
We only have one fragment of the scene, so we don’t know where all started but we will find out in the Ending episode tonight. Until then!
This was such a good story, but I think the drama did a very poor job of telling it. There was way too much use of voiceover flashbacks, and characters sitting around talking to each other, to tell the story – lazy, lazy, lazy. Anyway, the drama was for the most part beautiful to look at, and the OST was strong. The actors did their part, although I don’t think Lee Jin Wook got much past the stoic male archetype and could have done so much more emotionally. It reminds me of “Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo”, where IU just didn’t contribute as much as her role demanded. In both of those dramas, I think the script writer(s) share the bulk of the blame, as the actors can only portray the story as they have written it. Such a shame, in my opinion. On the positive side, after his portrayal of Ok Eul Tae, I will definitely be looking for more performances from Lee Joon, who truly was the bright spot in this drama. It was nearly impossible to take your eyes off him in any scene he was in. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts along this journey. I enjoyed the show so much more because of you.
I managed to binge watch the last 4 episodes to see if there was closure. At least the finale brought together all the bits and pieces of broken memories so that we get to see what transpired 1,000 years previously. It was a right old mess because of OET’s lie. One thing led to another and it escalated to include a curse 1,000 years into the future.
It all began because the female bulgasal wanted to hang out with the humans, the male bulgasal got jealous and a self-seeking, opportunistic human lied. Somehow I’d wanted some reason that was more epic than this (this sounded lame?) but maybe many of our myths and legends do centre around supernatural beings entangled with humans and being jealous.
Did Show ever enable us to see why OET had such a fixation or attachment to Hwal, that Hwal’s choosing Sang Un over him, was like a lover spurning him? All he wanted was to become bulgasal, so why bother about Hwal after that?
My question is if bulgasal have no soul and cannot reincarnate, then how is it Hwal and Sang Un could? (Hwal mentioned that he couldn’t). Or the times they had a soul and became human enabled them to do so? If they can, then our dear OET who was born human should be able to as well.
Review in a sentence. Rather convoluted tale that could have been executed much better.
Perhaps it’s unfair to compare with Goblin, but we just watched the emotional episode of Goblin where the feels were real, the tears were real and the payoff after this will be great. Bulgasal doesn’t come close.
Kalimera!
I know that I was the only one who was cheering for the story and I will continue to do so for its ending as well.
We finally found out what happened 1000 years ago.
Man in Blue and Lady in Red were indeed a Bulgasal couple. Those two babies stole the heart of Lady in Red who couldn’t procreate herself. She left the Man in Blue, in order to be with them until they grow up. Something the Man in Blue didn’t know and felt betrayed and angry.
Dark Hole was a killer and a liar. He killed his younger brother and then tried to kill the witnesses. He wounded Do Yun in that reincarnation and he would also kill Si Ho, if the Lady in Red didn’t interfere.
Dark Hole then came up with a solution. To find the Monster who killed his brother! (sic)
As I have written previously, they have captured the Lady in Red and the Man in Blue came to defend her. More over to that, they wounded her heart and since we know that Bulgasals have a symbiotic relationship, the Man in Blue would come for her because he was also in danger.
The story we saw, was the restored memories Hwal recovered after drinking his father’s blood. He remembered what happened back then and the curses he gave to those who tried to kill him.
As I have said from the very beginning the Narrator was Unreliable and became reliable only in the very end.
Hwal memories were not correct per se, nor Sang Un’s. Dark Hole was manipulating them all for his own reasons.
When Hwal regained fully his conscioussness, he was the one who gave the solution to their endless karma cycle.
Why?
Because this time around Sang Un and Hwal forgave each other and broke the cycle
of resentment they were feeding all this time. In the beginning it was a revenge story but in the second part it became a redemption arc.
The ending was fitting to the story and it gave our main OTP the chance to start over with a tabula rasa.
I enjoyed this for several reasons, mostly because the usage of the Unreliable Narrator is something I haven’t seen before in K-Drama. I know that some of my fellow posters didn’t and it’s okay. 🙂
Thanks for your summary @Cleo. I preferred to read your narration to watching the show! 😉
Thank you @GB Unnie!
I am holding dear something my Teacher in Creative Writing told me once:
That we should always look for something positive in a work of fiction.
Some people may be bad writers, but have mastered something that others who are better ones don’t.
So, I am doing exactly that. I am trying to find the silver lining in every cloud… and enjoying what I am watching or reading. 🙂
It was a happy ending of sort.
I think that this was a grander back story (as in the 1000 and 600 year timelines) than Goblin’s but the difference was in the telling of it! Again perhaps unfair to compare the two but couldn’t help it, especially when I Hwal and Kim Shin dissipated in much the same fashion but the feels of the latter when compared to the former!
I did not feel the romance, and was disappointed when the writers did not allow Hwal and Sang un the screen space to show the full spectrum of emotions when they finally figured out their 1000 year connection.
But the best villain, truly a fantastic actor.
Again his relationship with Hwal (crush as was hinted in the finale) needed more development.
Brownie points to the writers for keeping us guessing till the last episode!
O do hope Siho is reborn as Hwal and Sang un’s baby in their next life and they live in that house.
Here are my thoughts, if anyone’s interested:
I like that the original two innocents, the brother and sister “adopted” by the Red Lady and raised by the Shaman, survived the whole mess at the conclusion in a sibling-like relationship and with their own extended families (such bittersweet justice that everyone else did pay the price for their part in the original of it all). It was sweet seeing the fast forward of how their lives played out. I felt it was a little sad that it hints they died of old age after discovering Sang Un and Hwal had been been reincarnated, but without actually getting to reunite with them again.
Didn’t it drop the plotline a bit that the Shaman died, since she had originally been an innocent too? Yes I agree that many (but not all) of her predictions turned out to be incorrect. After all, everyone didn’t die bleeding out of every orafice once the forgotten past was fully remembered. However other of her predictions were right.
It was fascinating how after the Red Lady and Blue bulgasals’ deaths (and his curse), all of their lives intertwined every reincarnation in different relationships, but still somehow closely connected.
How incredible that the Blue Man who despised the Red Lady for loving and grieving the two human children as her family, ended up repeatedly experiencing that same love and grief for human family and children in his reincarnations! The humans he originally hated he came to love as his adopted father, his wife, his son, and even the Shaman “like a daughter”. I think all those reincarnations were the means by which he was forced to grow as a being, to understand and to feel that.
About the Half-bulgasal, it sure seems he was absolutely in love with Hwal, he wanted to be the new Yin to his Yang. Murderous obsession, wow!
Since Bulgasals can’t reincarnate, how did the Red Lady? The Blue Man did because he took the murdering son’s soul, but how did she? Maybe because they died together? When she stabbed her heart and died with him originally, maybe that connected her with the soul he’d stolen, since (I agree) they are a complimentary Yin Yang couple.
OR…
I love that Hwal reincarnated after all! It reminds me a bit of After The Gods 1 & 2. By his selfless sacrifice he earned the gift of human reincarnation with a soul —as did Sang Un by her original sacrifice long before, apparently! That’s my theory.
I’ve been seeing a common theme of plotholes with this drama. I think many of them can be explained away with these thoughts:
1. Set patterns change due to fate & new situations. For instance, Hwal was able to reincarnate bc Sang-Un asked him to beg the god of the underworld to let him. It may have been a cry of desperation, but it also could legitimately create a loophole in the whole reincarnation cycle. He was convinced enough that he told Si-Ho and Do Young that he would be reincarnated, a point Si-Ho reminds Do Young at the end. I suspect if he could convince said god, he also could convince them to reincarnate Sang Un as well, since they were a matched set and destined by fate. Also, when Sang Un died, Eul Ta was already dead, so perhaps that factored into her reincarnation ability. (He technically killed her but wasn’t alive to receive the benefit?) Other situations which changed the course of destiny includes Sang Un being born as a twin with uncertain historical recollections and soul set-up, and of course that whole musical souls plot.
2. Characters’ understanding of said pattern is faulty & unreliable. Many of the characters can’t remember their own history, give questionable prophesies, or are deliberately lying. Because of it, they are all operating on shaky beliefs and understandable emotional upheaval. Perhaps because of that, one can assume that whatever information we gather as viewers could be called into question as well.
3. The scattered scene fragments make it difficult to grasp entire world-building setup. While I loved the brief scene clips that fueled my theory-loving mind, I think the format allowed for some subtleties to go by the wayside.
Eul Ta had a literal hole in his heart, which symbolizes the various holes in himself:
1) Physically, he was missing wellness. He was a sickly child who had blood draining from his mouth. As a result, it affected his succession in leadership. He would do anything to not be human and feel this way, and thus the idea of being Bulgasal appealed to him.
2) Authority-wise, he was lacking power. Because of his sickly nature, he was passed over for leadership by his father. He also couldn’t do anything about his physical condition.
2) Emotionally, he was missing strong male affection. His father dismissed him in favor of his 2nd son from his 2nd wife. He clung to Do Young (and lied to him about his brother to keep him on the chain, I feel both emotionally as well manipulatively for his evil purposes). I think all the males in his life let him down (his father clearly, even Do Young refusing to call him “hyung.”
I think Hwal represented an answer to all three of these issues. Eul Ta knew bulgasals would be in pairs, so he would have the male attention he so desperately craved. He could join up in power to do as he wished with no interference of death or illness.
I struggled with understanding his feelings toward Hwal. It’s hard to say love bc he was so manipulative with him. It’s easy to construe sexual undertones given the aura around Eul Tal and how Lee Joon chose to portray him. I do feel that he gravitated towards Hwal because these holes in his life were so gaping that he seemed desperate to fill them. He seemed especially needy for Hwal to acknowledge Eul Ta’s contribution to his life, something other men in this story failed to do. In the end, I think his own extreme neediness was the deciding factor in his actions rather than any real feelings towards Hwal.
Hi @Skayt, thanks for bringing up the possible reasons for the plotholes. I kind of feel that the unreliable narrator thing in this show, is a device that is meant to cover a vast multitude of sins LOL. It’s a great device generally, of course.
I was not happy because the logic could change depending on the next thing someone remembered, that differed from something that was supposedly established before. Shaman made so many prophecies, but we never knew which ones would stick. What was worse was that there was not just 1 narrator but there were some 4 or more individuals, either with fragments of memory or deliberately lying.
I’m a stuck in the mud sort of person… I want consistency in my world building or it looks like the writer has gotten himself/herself into a mess and the changes start to appear as if they are trying to dig themselves out of it.
But I’ll give the writer that in the end, the different versions of the events of 1,000 years previously, made sense from the different perspectives of each individual. What didn’t make sense to me was OET’s fascination for and attachment to Hwal. 😉
@Skayt, I see that you’ve inadvertently replied to my questioning OET’s attachment to Hwal. It’s as good an answer as any, and probably better than most.
That it had to be mainly conjecture, is where we see the plothole. 🙂
GB, I so agree that the setup does cover a multiple of sins, as they say! haha It certainly gave them a lot of flexibility with plot choices that could be justified. I’m really not a fan when people have characters do things that aren’t true to the character’s nature or plot without a solid reason.
You also pointed out one of my big writing pet peeves, and that’s when writers write themselves into a corner and pull something out of their hats (we have another saying here haha) that came out of nowhere, like there was not a single clue earlier that could lead any reasonable person to expect such an outcome. Seriously, I can’t tell you how this sets my teeth on edge. So, I was worried they might do that here. I do remember a number of twists where they showed all the scenes that hinted at said outcome, enough that I was shocked that I should have figured out the twist earlier. haha I think it would be fun to watch it a second time and look for all the Easter eggs.
Oh my that Eul Ta and Hwal relationship had me thinking, that’s for sure! What I had to do to work through my mental clutter was think of what was Eul Ta’s biggest desire, and that was not to become human again. Aligning himself with Hwal, by whatever means, was the way. So, we’ve come back to the original conundrum: what exactly were his feelings? There were three times I remember where Eul Ta felt anguish to Hwal’s rejection: when he cried that Hwal chose Sang Un over him, he chided Hwal for his one-sided love, and the end episode where he cries out that “Hwal could have been mine.” Was his crushing anguish because he truly sought out Hwal’s love, or was it his frustration that he was losing his manipulative grasp on Hwal to secure his own immortality? Again, back to that question! haha In the end, I am assuming it was manipulative or self-serving, given his nature. That is the lower-case truth I cling to. haha
I’m looking forward to reading more theories. The few I’ve read really helped me flesh out some thoughts I was having a hard time settling on. In that respect, thank you for responding to my post and giving me some more to think on! 🙂
I view OET as absolutely lonely. He probably spent a lot of time to himself when he was mortal and ill. He felt abandoned by his mortal father, family, and most likely his village community. His longing for Hwal to accept him stems from his desperate desire for a connection with someone, who would be his equal, understands him, and goes through eternity with him. Similar to vampire relationships, Hwal sired him 1000 years ago, therefore, OET sees Hwal as his eternal father figure, with more power and strength than his mortal father.
Kalimera!
I am really happy because Bulgasal’s OST is finally out! Below is the whole album on You Tube!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-zqMF3LF_k
Enjoy!
Thanks very much @Cleo!