This is verrry helpful, @Welmaris! Thank you. -pm3
🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸
The Hong sisters acknowledge, within the script, the confusion about the changing appearance of the female lead, by having other characters voice their confusion.
It helps me to rehash who knows what.
Who would have best known Jin Bu Yeon as a child?
– Matriarch Jin, her mother
– Jin U-Tak, her father
– Jin Cho Yeon, her younger sister
– Jin Mu, her uncle
@Welmaris, Mage Heo also recognized her ear. But what good is that anyway? –pm3
Why didn’t they recognize Jin Bu Yeon ten years later, in adulthood? Most obviously, she wasn’t blind as she’d been as a child. Also, she had lived ten years in relative poverty, so dressed and looked like a poor commoner. She was fostered, and given a new name, by the halmoni who found her after she’d almost drowned. The near-drowning, or perhaps Jin Mu’s taking the ice stone from her by force, diminished her priestess powers. When her adoptive halmoni died, MuDeok/Jin Bu Yeon was sold to a brothel, from which Jang Uk bought her to be his servant. Jin Cho Yeon may not have recognized her biological sister in adulthood because they were separated when she was quite young. Matriarch Jin’s prejudice against the powerless, poor, servile, alleged thief MuDeok blinded her. Jin U-Tak didn’t recognize his own daughter after searching for her for a decade, perhaps because his objective switched from finding his true daughter to finding someone who could be used to fool his wife. Jin Mu probably didn’t want Jin Bu Yeon to have survived, because she could then testify against him, so was content to believe that the real Jin Bu Yeon had drowned.
Who knew Cho Yeong as a young child?
-Her family, all slaughtered by a rampaging soul in her father’s body
-Jang Gang, who went into hiding after killing her soul-shifted father
-Jin Mu, who kidnapped her, kept her isolated, and turned her into an assassin. To maintain plausible deniability, he never revealed his identity to Cho Yeong/Naksu. He’s the only person who knows what Cho Yeong looks like in adulthood, because (from a distance) he saw her develop into Naksu.
Who knew the original MuDeok? Her halmoni. After her granddaughter died, the halmoni found Jin Bu Yeon by the water, almost drowned, and took her in to replace her deceased granddaughter. She even gave Jin Bu Yeon her granddaughter’s name.
Who knew MuDeok/Jin Bu Yeon in adulthood before the soul switch with Naksu? So-I, the thief. They’d been together in an orphanage, before MuDeok was sold to pay off her foster grandmother’s debts.
Moving on to the mish-mashed identity of Jin Bu Yeon/MuDeok/Cho Yeong/Naksu.
–Naksu remembers the tragic night she lost all her family, but little else about her childhood as Cho Young. She does know her father was a mage who worked in Cheonbugwan. Because Jin Mu hid his identiy from her, Naksu did not know he directed her upbringing and gave her orders as an assassin. After her soul shift into MuDeok’s body, she wasn’t aware she shared it with another soul. She was unsure about her other-worldly encounters with a blind girl whose identity she didn’t know.
–Master Lee sensed a great soul shared the body of MuDeok with Naksu, but didn’t know the identity of that great soul. When he revives the petrified body of MuDeok/Jin Bu Yeon, he is able to do so because Naksu’s spirit has survived. He gives Matriarch Jin the impression that Jin Bu Yeon’s soul is not strong enough to revive the body, and must be sacrificed or the body and both souls that inhabited it will irreversibly die.
–Most people of DaeHo weren’t familiar with Jin Bu Yeon’s appearance as a child. Because of their unfamiliarity, ten years later they didn’t recognize her in the guise of MuDeok and were fooled by the imposter, So-I. When Naksu was revealed as a soul-shifter residing in MuDeok’s body, people (except a select few) had no reason to associate the rampaging MuDeok/Naksu with Jin Bu Yeon.
–Matriarch Jin didn’t recognize MuDeok as her lost daughter, grown into adulthood. When Matriarch Jin admitted to herself that the servant MuDeok really was her eldest daughter, it was too late. When reviving her daughter’s petrified body, she decided to keep Naksu’s spirit and discard her own child’s soul, because only the body is useful to her in maintaining the Jin matriarchal bloodline.
–Jin Mu recognizes the face of Naksu on the person Matriarch Jin says is her eldest daughter, Jin Bu Yeon. He doesn’t know that Naksu’s face emerged from the body he’d known as MuDeok (who he came to suspect was Jin Bu Yeon).
–After having had the imposter So-I foisted on her as her older sister, Jin Cho Yeon has doubts that this second version of Jin Bu Yeon is authentic.
–Seo Yul thinks he recognizes Jin Bu Yeon, but can’t place where he’s seen her face before. He never recognized MuDeok as being the original Jin Bu Yeon.
–So-I knows that MuDeok was the real eldest Jin daughter, and knows that the woman being introduced as Jin Bu Yeon doesn’t look like MuDeok.
–Jang Uk never recognized MuDeok as the grown-up Jin Bu Yeon. Jang Uk fell in love with Naksu, whose soul shifted into the body of MuDeok and controlled it (except for rare instances). Jang Uk does not know what Naksu looked like before her soul shift. He does not know the young child Cho Yeong grew up to be Naksu.
@Welmaris brava!
This helps a lot. I would like to add something in what you wrote:
Who knew Cho Yeong as a young child?
-Her family, all slaughtered by a rampaging soul in her father’s body.
Jin Mu made her father Mage Cho a soul shifter to punish Jang Gang.
Mage Cho’s returned to his body and as I was writing back then up (until S1E4 aired), he was under temporary madness, or as we have discovered in Episode 20, Cho Yeong’s father was under the influence of the (cow)bells.
Kim Do Joo revealed that information to Park Jin and Mage Heo and then…in a span of minutes the same fate was bestowed to Cho Yeong / Naksu, she was hypnotized and caused all the chaos in Episode 20.
P.S.
Thank you @Packmule3 for opening this thread! @Welmaris did a terrific job!
I wrote this on the other thread first, but maybe It should be best to be here?
Can you erase my comment on “Episode 1: My Highlights” thread? Thanks in advance!
Lol. You beat me to it, @Cleopatra. Yes, I’ll remove your post and @Welmaris’ from the original thread.
Thanks.
Thank you @Packmule3!
You were quicker though! <3
On the last point, if Jang Uk remembers the conversation he overheard between Master Lee and Park Jin (S1E12) and connected what Gilju said (S1E8), he may know that Cho Yeong grew up to be Naksu.
@Welmaris thank you! I just finished Episode 2 and your notes helped me make sense of it.
I rewatched the S1E1 fight scene between Naksu and the Songrim mages. It starts with the combatants standing at a long distance from each other. One of the mages says, “So you are Naksu, the Shadow Assassin who has been going around killing the mages in the city.” The implication is that this is the first time they’ve seen the killer in person. They’re cautious about coming near her, so I doubt they can distinguish her facial features. After Park Jin, the leader of Songrim, wounds Naksu with an ice arrow, he engages in close combat with her. Other mages that got within a sword’s reach of her didn’t survive, but Park Jin did. He may be another person who could recognize Naksu’s face on the revived body of Jin Bu Yeon. Although battle is life and death, requiring intense focus, they did lock swords and stare at each other face to face. That moment may be burned into Park Jin’s memory.
After she switched her soul into MuDeok, Naksu’s dead body was found and stored on ice in a secret room in Jeongjingak. Men were sent to cause a diversion and steal Naksu’s body. When Jang Uk and MuDeok stand in the secret room next to the empty ice table, Jang Uk surmises that since there’s no rotting smell, the body was fresh and hadn’t been there long. Being in a room with limited access for a short time means very few people saw Naksu’s body.
Seo Yul, because of his memories of the girl he met in youth after breaking his leg in Danhyanggok, the bird-shaped whistle they’d shared and played, recognizing the same whistle among the deceased Naksu’s possessions, then figuring out Naksu had soul shifted into MuDeok when he heard her play that same flute, Yul may be the key to unlocking the mixed identity of Cho Yeong > Naksu > MuDeok > Jin Bu Yeon.
The second most burning question (with the first being: what’s the deal with Bu Yeon-Naksu energy-body-face rule of alchemy?)
Q: Why didn’t Seo Yul recognize Naksu? Why didn’t anyone else, for that matter (besides Jin Mu)
Plausible Theories:
(a) Master Lee said as her energy returns, her face will follow her soul and assumes the features of Naksu more and more. (I am assuming she has a semblance to Naksu, BUT not yet the full embodiment of Naksu).
(b) Reason why this theory works for me: I personally have difficulty visually connecting the kickass shadow assassin Naksu of S1E1 to this tabula rasa blank slate of a cheerfully insouciant 3-year-old Naksu in S2E1. (I am now beginning to think it is a deliberate choice by director through art direction, makeup, acting etc)
(c) That would also explain why Seo Yul did feel that vague familiar pull (“Have I met you before?”) without being able to put a finger on it.
(d) Jin Mu on the other hand, had the benefit of rearing her from childhood upwards to adulthood and have probably seen her through the years. Thus making it plausible that he is the first to recognize her (she probably looks like a teenage version of herself now).
(e) I was quite anticipating the “first to see/first to recognize” motif/trope in S1 being played here with variations or a different outcome for the characters.
In S1, JU was the first to recognize Naksu (thus sealing their fate as soulmates/lovers); Yul was the first to see her yet he did not recognize her.
(f) I love how the Series corral and corner everyone to a head: with the intercutting of Jin Mu recognizing BY as Naksu, and So-Yi recognizing Mu-deok as the real BY from the poster. We now already have 2 witnesses who can call bluff from different angles. Let the shit hit the ceiling fan, Show.
I dropped part 1 about midway but I’ve continued to read your discussion. I’ve decided to dive back in and watch part 2. This is so VERY helpful. Thank you all for doing such a good job breaking it all down and finding things I can learn and enjoy despite annoyances with some of the writing.
I remember there was a breakdown of the age difference of Naksu/Cho Yeong and Jang Uk. Maybe she was 7 years older?? I’m not sure if it has been discussed (probably. Sorry!) but do we know the ages of the Jin sisters?? It was likely discussed around the time when Jang Gang did the soul shifting while Jin mother was pregnant.