Question: What turns the lantern off and of?

Because the lantern’s backstory is unknown, I remain in the dark about its function.

Jang Uk says that it was a gift from Jinyowon for “complicated reasons.” It’s a lantern that never turns off and its light cannot be blown out. But since Cho Yeong is supposedly the great priestess Jin BuYeon, Uk says she can use her divine powers to turn it off.

He says divine powers. I’m going out on a limb here to posit that Cho Yeong’s emotional distress triggers the lantern as much as her divine powers, if not more so.

1. The first time the light turned off

This is what happened.

Scene 1: In her prison cell, Cho Yeong is getting stitches and she endures the pain.

Scene 2: In his study, Jang Uk contemplates the bracelet Yeong left behind.

Because of the sequence of the scenes, an illusion is created that these two actions – Yeong being stitched up and Uk staring at the bracelet — are happening either simultaneously or closely after each other.

Uk notices the unlit lantern. He wonders, “How did that turn off?” He remembers Yeong telling him that she lost her divine powers with her memory.

Then, in a flashback, Cho Yeong is seeing walking down the hallway with the bracelet in hand. She’s in tears because Uk sent her away but she doesn’t want to leave him, and return to her prison.

As she walks away, the light is snuffed out.

This flashback shows the viewers how the candle happened to extinguish. To me, it’s the first sign that her emotional distress turns off the light. Remember: she still has amnesia at this point. And by her logic, her memory hasn’t returned so her divine powers haven’t returned either.

Given that she turns off the light, without memories and divine powers, I say she extinguishes the candle with her misery.

Afterward, Uk remembers Cho Yeong’s admission. She told him that she might have deceived him but not everything was a lie.

Scene 3: Meanwhile, at the Unanimous Assembly, the mages discuss Jin BuYeon’s divine powers. Waiting in the wings, Lady Jin and Jin BuYeon are anxious to begin serving the assembly the “meju made of red beans” they prepared. Will their bluff be success or not?

They do not expect Uk to steal the show.

2. The second time the light turned off

Before making his dramatic entrance, Uk blows out all the candles in the assembly hall, leaving only the light in his lantern on. He approaches Yeong.

BTW, in case you don’t know, “Yeong” in Korean means “zero.” When you consider that Cho Yeong’s identity has been practically erased by the mages, she’s truly a “zero.”

Uk: You left without taking your medicine.
Cho Yeong: Everybody was looking for me. Why are you here?
Uk: To check something. (shows her the lantern) This was turned off. Did you do it? I turned it on again. Try turning it off again.
Cho Yeong: (stares at the lantern) I…do not know how.
Uk: (approaching her) If you turn it off, I’ll take you with me.
Cho Yeong: (tries hard to turn it off but fails)
Uk: (turns to leave)
Cho Yeong: (grabs Uk’s hand) Wait!

Fearing that Uk is leaving her behind, she clutches his hand and the light turns off.

Again, take note that at this juncture, she still has no memory, so her divine powers aren’t activated yet. Hence I say that her distress at being abandoned triggers the light to go off.

But I think Uk had a hand – literally – in it too. I’ll explain in a bit….

Cho Yeong: (mystified) It turned off. Did…did I do that?

Uk hands her the lantern and turns on all the stage lights.

3. Third time the light turned ON

She’s back in Uk’s study and she runs her hand on the lamp.

Cho Yeong: You are a relic of Jinyowon, right? Thanks to you, I was able to get married.

She remembers the moment when she grabbed Uk’s hand and the lantern turned off. She begins to wonder.

Cho Yeong: Did I really turn you off? Or did Uk turn you off so he could take me away?

She then shakes her head and dismiss her thought as wishful thinking.

In my opinion, however, her instinct is partly correct. He did turn it off so he could spirit her away.

Cho Yeong: Of course not. (pausing) If I could turn it off, then could I turn it back on again?

She tries but nothing happens. When she stands up to leave, she’s drawn to the sword of Naksu and touches it. To her shock, she sees a vision of violence. This is her previous life as an assassin.

She stumbles back and hangs on to the lantern. As she touches it, it turns ON.

This is the first time that her memory is activated, and so her divine powers are finally activated.

However, as much as I would like to credit her divine powers for lighting the candle, I must point out that she’s also under extreme emotional distress and that this can trigger the lantern like in the other two occasions. She’s agitated by the vision of murder and the bloody sword when she lays her hand on the lantern.

To me, her emotional distress is the one thing consistent in all three incidents. And that’s why I say she lights or extinguishes them involuntarily when she’s under emotional duress.

Now, let me explain why I say that Uk — not Cho Yeong — turned the lantern off at the Assembly.

Look here. By hook or by crook, he was leaving that gathering with Yeong by his side. The lantern was his excuse for gatecrashing, and quitting the place. Even before he entered the hall, he already devised a plan to confront her mother. That plan entailed activating the lantern. Based on his experience from their past encounters, he expected her to grab his sleeve when he turned her back on her. As soon as she touched her, he would turn off the lantern.

That’s MY theory, and this is their dialogue to back me up.

If you rewatch the scene, you can detect Uk’s surprise that she lit the candle on her own. And his surprise is quite revealing. Wouldn’t it be logical to expect Yeong to turn it on with ease if she already displayed her divine powers to turn it off? After all, it’s just the reverse. lol.

To me, his shock proves that he doesn’t expect her to perform the feat without his aide because he was the one who turned the lantern off earlier. It was his divine powers, as well as his sleight of hand (literally), on display at the Unanimous Assembly, not hers.

Let’s me go over the dialogue now.

Uk: That lantern. Did you turn it on?

He hurries to her side and asks her again. His reaction is disbelief.

Uk: Was it you?

His reaction is the first reason why I suspected him of turning the lantern off at the assembly. If he already witnessed her divine power in action earlier, then why is he so  incredulous and so skeptical that her divine power worked again to turn off the light again?

Cho Yeong: (hesitantly) I was the only one here so… probably?
Uk: (impatiently) Why are you not sure?

His visible irritation is the second reason I assumed that he used his own power at the assembly. At the assembly, he showed neither exasperation nor impatience with her self-doubt.

He simply frowned at her.

He didn’t have to be exasperated by her uncertainty because he already knew who triggered the light. He did. But at home, he’s anxious to know whether her divine power has materialized yet or not.

Cho Yeong: Something just flashed before my eyes. I think it was a memory. It must be true that regaining my memories will bring back my powers.

Uk: (flustered) Do it again.

He intently watches the lantern. Cho Yeong makes the light flicker but it doesn’t turn off.

His intense gaze and fascination are the third reason I guessed that he lied at the assembly. He wanted to evidence that she could do it on her own because he was the one who performed the amazing feat earlier.

Cho Yeong: (excitedly) See that?
Uk: (proudly) Well done.

lol. To be honest, I thought the light scarcely diminished.

Cho Yeong: (excitedly still) I could not recover my memories until now since I was locked up. Look! Now that there are external stimuli, it is all coming back to me.
Uk: This way, you can continue regaining your memories and divine powers. I’m glad I brought you home.

Isn’t this weird? The light barely flickered but here he is, so genuinely proud of her accomplishment that he even gloats about his role in it. This is the fourth reason I suspected him of putting on an act at the assembly. His effusive praises and rejoicing are simply not commensurate to the little divine power she just showed.

Cho Yeong: Thank goodness. I was worried because you seemed mad.
Uk: That was because you made up a fake witness.
Cho Yeong: Was it not because of my mother? (protecting her belly) Was it because of the baby? We got out of there safely thanks to our baby.
Uk: I already expected your mother to react that way. As for the baby…

He looks down at her belly. Cho Yeong pats it.

That is such a sweet gesture. She looks like she’s comforting her (imaginary) baby because Uk is about to say something hurtful within the baby’s hearing.

Uk: You are making it seem like you are actually pregnant!
Cho Yeong: What do we do now? That physician Mage Heo wants to check up on me after the twenty-first day. I cannot tell him the truth.
Uk: Then what? Do you want us to make a baby by then?

By magic!! He means they can make a baby using magic.

But Cho Yeong interprets his offer differently. She lights up — like a lantern — at his  words. She’s positively incandescent with the proposal of making a baby together.

She approaches him; he backs up.

Uk: Why? What is it?
Cho Yeong: I was hoping for this. I hope you were the one who turned off the lantern and I hoped that you would come for me…despite being of no use to you.

Uk: (avoids her eyes) Even if I did turn it off, it would not be due to the reasons you were hoping for. You know that.

Notice that he can’t meet her eyes? This is classic sign of lying.

His evasiveness is the fifth reason I say that he lit the lantern himself.

And there’s my sixth and final reason. He’s talking in hypotheticals. lol.

Talking in hypotheticals is the closest he will get to admitting that he lit the lantern himself. He isn’t going to confirm and reveal the truth so he uses ambiguous language.

Uk: You know that.

He firmly reminds her he helped her out because he was abiding by their original agreement to mutually help each other. He doesn’t want her to delude herself.

Cho Yeong: (looks downhearted)
Uk: (steps back) So what are you going to do? If you want, I can help you create that witness you must bring to Sejukwon by the twenty-first day. That is, if you give up on that futile hope of yours.

Then, she kisses him.

Very bold move.

I like that she wipes her lips after kissing him. Her move shocks him.

Clearly, she’s mimicking his gesture after he broke the thread of her bracelet. It tells me that she can play his game, too. Remember this?

Cho Yeong: Let us say this was how we created our witness. We are married, after all. I cannot say I did it alone. You said you would help. Do not resent me for this.

That should have been a great exit line for her but then Uk detains her by grabbing her arm.

Uk: Will you keep lying about a witness?
Cho Yeong: (winces in pain)
Uk: What is it now?

Note: I checked the lantern, and it didn’t go out while Cho Yeong was writhing in pain from the cursed thread. My explanation for this is that Cho Yeong isn’t emotionally or mentally distressed. Sure, she’s being tortured by her own mother, but her mind is made up to endure it all without complaints.

When Maidservant Kim offers to tell Uk to escort her back to Jinyowon, Yeong stops her.

Cho Yeong: Do not do that. I said I would endure the pain. Please do not send me away.
Maidservant Kim: How could you possibly endure such pain?
Cho Yeong: It is brazen to desire something without being willing to endure the pain. A pain that does not kill me will eventually set me free.

This reminded me of the time Naksu poisoned Uk to force the mages to open his gate of energy. She willingly endured torture and risked her life for him. After they survived the ordeal, Uk told Naksu, “I was surrounded by people who just ignored my desperation. You are the first person who has risked her life for me.”

I think that’s the reason Uk relents and goes to Jinyowon. Knowing that she’s so desperate to escape that she  endures the pain in silence, he must have been reminded of his own desperation before Naksu came into his life. He can empathize with Cho Yeong because he was once in her situation.

Anyway…

That’s MY explanation why I say that Uk turned off the light at the assembly. Do you get it?

If not, stop here and shoo…

because I’m going to add one more layer or more context to all this.

Remember the time when Naksu was trapped in the Mirror of Longing? That was in Season 1, Episode 7.

Naksu claimed that she escaped from the mirror on her own strength, and that she broke it with her own power. She forgot however that when she banged on the glass, it didn’t crack.

It can be argued that BuYeon’s energy that destroyed the mirror. She was the only one strong enough to do it.

However, I wrote that it was a combination of the two hands, Naksu’s and Uk’s hands, on the mirror that really broke the glass. The mirror only began shaking when they had placed both their hands on the mirror from opposite ends.

Well…I say that the lantern scene is a parallel of the mirror scene in Season 1. 🙂

Like Naksu, Cho Yeong thinks she extinguished the lantern all by herself. In truth, she couldn’t have. Her divine powers (if they were even present) weren’t strong enough to turn it off. She could barely make the light flicker, as I pointed.

Of the two of them, Uk has the energy to turn the lantern off. Just like BuYeon’s energy from the Ice Stone destroyed the mirror, Uk knew that he could use the Ice Stone’s energy to extinguish the light. That was his precisely his scheme when he arrived at the gathering to rescue Cho Yeong.

But to me, what actually happened was both Uk and Yeong turned the lantern off. Their joint hands on the lantern triggered it just like they triggered the mirror in Season 1.

That’s my theory.

I’m not going to put a password on this, but do not plagiarize.