@Janey said that one of the things that she learned from this blog is to scrutinize the opening credits of the series. Good for her!
Opening credits aren’t created haphazardly. Directors use the images to preview what we’re about to watch or to set the tone of the drama. I’ve seen too many great hints about the characters (also known as “easter eggs”) buried in opening credits to ignore their importance.
The opening credit in “Castaway Diva” begins with Mokha jumping off a fishbowl (which refers to Ep 1 “Inside the Fish Tank vs Outside the Fish Tank”) and landing on a cellphone.
She hesitates to take the first step, so she hops in place. This is true to form. It was KiHo who gave her the push to go after her dream after she was beaten by her dad?
The next image is Mokha singing on top of a potato. We know this refers to the music video KiHo filmed. KiHo made fun of her for wearing potato flowers on her hair for the music video.
Then, she’s floating in the sea on a flashdrive. This flashdrive contained her music video which KiHo entered in RanJoo’s fan video contest without her knowing. This image reminds us that the reason she went on the boat was to escape her abusive dad and seek help from RanJoo.
The flashdrive hits an island and she steps on the beach. This image presents a prettier version of what actually happened to her: she was stranded on an island.
The next image shows her balancing on what appears to be a gangplank while dodging a horse chestnut on a pendulum.
This image relates to her survival on the island. In Episode 4, she recounted to RanJoo how she ate horse chestnut and almost died from its poison.
The camera zooms out to reveal that she’s inside a cooler, crossing over to a giant ramen.
This is obviously a reference to the title of Ep 3, “Cooler Box or Drone.” The cooler became the symbol of her will power, patience, hope, and faith.
MokHa: It was my first ramyeon in six years. That taste is something I’ll never forget. That’s when I suddenly thought, “That was seriously so close. Had I decided to die five minutes earlier, then I would’ve died without tasting this.” That’s why I decided to live and wait for another cooler box.
RanJoo: So. Did you get another one?
MokHa: No. But I still found myself waiting “Five more minutes.” “Five more minutes.” And after some time, that drone or whatever you call it came. Then, those two men came. Then, I got to meet you.
Then the last image is of the drone flying over the island. She’s been discovered.
Now, this is my theory: the appearance of the ice cooler isn’t a coincidence.
Here are my two reasons:
1. Just like how the Go Ara phone, potatoes, and flashdrive are all connected to KiHo although he isn’t visible anywhere in the opening credits, I think he had a hand, an invisible hand, in the ice cooler.
I could see him buying a dozen of this icebox, putting ramen and bottled water in them, and floating them at sea, in the hopes that one of them would get to her. He was desperate enough to attempt a long shot.
Coincidentally (or is this foreshadowing?) in Episode 1, KiHo is shown shoveling ice into a wheelbarrow.
2. In terms of the script, I think the discovery of the cooler makes a great bookend to the revelation of KiHo’s facilitating MokHa’s first encounter with Ranjoo.
In the beginning of Episode 3, MokHa spotted the ice cooler just when she was about to give up on life.
Then, at the end of same episode, MokHa learned that KiHo had never given up on her reappearing to find RanJoo.
He had a hand, an invisible hand, in getting RanJoo to welcome her warmly.
KiHo: (handing MokHa’s photograph) Here. If this girl ever visits you one day, please call out her name. Seo Mokha. Please remember that name. Please hear her out. Please help her. Please give her a chance. And…please give her a hug.
Thus, it’s dramatic irony when RanJoo asked her if she had found another ice box after the first one, and she answered no.
Unknown to her, she had already been thrown a metaphorical ice cooler. KiHo’s request to RanJoo to support and mentor her is similar to the floating cooler box. Both came out of nowhere, and both were life-saving.
Cooler with ramen = KiHo’s unexpected request
Like the cooler’s timely appearance saved her life, KiHo’s timely intercession allowed MokHa to get a chance to fulfill her dream of becoming a singer.
This is my second theory: between the cooler box and the drone, MokHa will choose the cooler box.
It’s a foregone conclusion that “drone” is WooHak since the drone is his. In Episode 5, there’s confirmation when MokHa saved WooHak as “Drone” on her smartphone.
I don’t know what name she gave BoGeol, but to me, he’s indubitably the “Cooler Box.” She’ll choose him over his hyung.
N.B.: While you don’t have to subscribe to my theories, you don’t have to contest and debate them either. Allow me to state my opinions in peace. After all, this is my blog; it’s my place to decompress after hearing arguments and settling disputes at work. 🙂
Hi @pkml3, I think about the opening credits too, each time show comes on. I didn’t relate it to Ki Ho-BG but the link between the cooler box and smoothening MH’s path to Ran Joo makes sense. Yes, dare I say, of course MH will choose BG. Not only because the laws of kdrama tropes requires that she ends up with her childhood sweetheart/saviour-cum-sorta first love, but because her interactions with WH are solidly platonic, while her interactions with BG are indeterminate and confuse her.
SPOILERs
SPOILERs
It becomes obvious in Ep6 that how BG treats her, matters to her very much.
Then there are those little romance tropes… the shoes… the hand- holding run… the dressing her in the raincoat. The guy who does all that is the ONE. Drama is pointing a fat arrow at BG. 😆👈👆👉👇
@GB,
I’m taking a preemptive move against this screenwriter’s antis. She got bad rap because of Kim SeonHo’s fangirls during “Start Up” and I don’t want my inbox flooded again by accusations of being “biased” –> insert my hair-flipping emoji, lol.
I like that BG’s alternate name would be Cooler box.
@packmule3 and @GB, when Woo Hak was weeping and laid his head on MH’s shoulder, she didn’t look anything except surprised and her comforting was quite firmly the platonic back-patting type. Having said that, I wouldn’t be bothered if she ended up with him because he clearly has a crush on her. Whilst BG is very supportive to the extent that he wants MH to realise her dream, I’m not clear how he feels about her as a woman in the current time. It’s possible that he doesn’t have those feelings for her yet. I think this will become more obvious to me in the next episodes.
@PM3 – yes! I’m a bonafide card-carrying BOD member. 😁 I always love a good opening credit, especially one as meaningful.
Gosh you notice everything – I missed a few items like the pendulum was horse chestnut!
And that icebox theory that KH has been sending off to the sea to somehow reach her (it’s definitely more practical than message in a bottle!) is plausible! My heart will burst if that turns to be true. The use of metaphors on this show is very heavy.
That invisible hand is KH from the very start to the end, even the drone was because of him organizing the island clean up and WH joining in (and bringing the drone). Someone already theorized that BG does this regularly as a way to search for her in the many uninhabited islands of Korea.
@GB – agree on the tropes pointing to BG. And WH in ep6 arriving too late at the station is going to be his narrative. Sorry, the OTP train already left with hand-holding run!
So happy to be back in stride and watching this kdrama with all of you!
@Janey,
You know how I like my t’s crossed and i’s dotted. There’s one detail that bugged in Episode 4 after WooHak realized that the flower deliverer was somebody familiar and that MokHa was in danger. He ran out of the building and started driving to Seoul Station.
How did he know that MokHa was going to Seoul Station? Did Mokha tell him? I miss that conversation.
I get however that:
a. BoGeol knew right away that Mokha was heading towards Seoul Station since that was their designated meeting place with RanJoo 15 years ago.
b. He lied to Mokha about WooHak telling him where to find her.
On the taxi ride home —
Mokha: You still haven’t answered me yet.
BoGeol: What do you mean?
Mokha: How did you know that I’d be there?
BoGeol: Woohak told me.
He lied. I think Mokha sounded a bit disappointed here. If he knew to go to the station without WooHak telling him, then it was a sign that he was KiHo.
Mokha: You don’t have any interest in me, right?
BoGeol: No. (closing his eyes)
Mokha: (pressing him) Then, why did you help me?
BoGeol: (not answering and pretending to sleep)
Since drone comes from Woo Hak (association), it makes sense to associate the cooler-box with Bo Geol. Let’s see his personality as something cold, chilling, but with a warm heart inside, the ramen packet.
I find it curious that the episode title uses “VS”: it’s “versus”, so a confrontation? A competition? The one to know who get the girl?
About Ki Ho working at scooping ice: at this point, the scriptwriter needed to introduce Ki Ho’s main problem (his father), why he wants to make money, and then by cause-and-effect trigger the beating scene. So you need a scene where Ki Ho is trying to make money, but eventually people find out. There are lots of possibilities, it’s just a matter of choosing one that resonates with the story.
The screenwriter seems determined to keep the ice idea (she wants the ice!!), despite it being wobbly: A small island, rumors travel fast, the harbor is the center of attraction, Ki Ho’s father is a policeman and knows everyone. Plus, his job probably takes him to the port regularly. Does it make sense that Ki Ho would choose this job? No. He could easily be found out. But the audience didn’t notice the inconsistency, and anyway, there are also arguments that he had no choice.
These are fortunate correlations that give symbolic coherence to the whole: the fishmongers use the ice to place dead fish. Ki Ho using a shovel is reminiscent of a gravedigger burying someone with ice instead of earth. And Mok Ha’s father (a fishmonger) dies later, in a situation related to Ki Ho. Add to this the metaphor already used: the father seen as a fish suffocating in an aquarium.
@PM3, I had the same thought about the cooler! I imagined that Ki Ho dropped many coolers in the ocean, all packed with ramen (long shelf life!) and water, hoping that some may reach Mok Ha.
Ki Ho is Mok Ha’s Blue Window of Hope (or Blue Cooler)
@Snowflower,
The thing with this screenwriter is that she likes to turn little coincidental things into fateful events.
For instance, the shoes.
Also, the kimbap. On the day they were leaving the island, Mokha refused the kimbap that KiHo bought for her because she wasn’t hungry. But KiHo forced her because he didn’t know when they were going to eat next.
That became her last kimbap.
On the day she was finally rescued, she was given kimbap to eat on the boat. She could cry at the wonderful taste of kimbap. BoGeol was watching her.
So, yes, KiHo dropping coolers isn’t such a far-fetched idea. But even if he didn’t, he was still cooler box to WooHak’s drone. 🙂
@Pm3, I think the kimbap saved her life.
How many hours do someone stay in cold water, pushed by the stream 50 miles away?
Body need energy to resist cold, so food, rice (glucides).
And this morning, Mok Ha’s father leave without having time to take breakfeast.
Coincidental things becoming fateful events.
I’d need to use more various precise words, because I call that correlations.
I like that and uses it too.
Here an example:
There are two girls in my story. They don’t know each other, but at one point will meet, once adult. They both have a pink stuffed rabbit, and loose it in different way. So here, it’s absurd, and a coincidence. The rabbit is used for what they have in common about their suffering and how they evolve differently.
One may ask why use that, when I like logic and avoid plot-hole. I think it’s something that speaks directly to the soul of audience because it’s irrational. It gives deepness about the emotion and psychological meaning behind the rational events.
All of these comments made me consider some things. @packmule3, I think Mok-Ha must have told Woo Hak about the station, else she wouldn’t have believed Bo Geol’s lie and Woo Hak wouldn’t have gone to the station. BG must have guessed that or it’s a plot hole. In Mok-Ha’s mind, both men had the information but only BG showed up and nearly at 8pm, the right time, and rushed her away from the man she recognised as Ki-Ho’s father. From her POV, if he didn’t know the man, he might have just confronted him rather than running away.
What if Mok Ha is now enlightened, but she has just realised how much he doesn’t want to tell her that he is Ki-Ho? Maybe that’s why she asked if he is interested in her. He says no, so she doesn’t insist for now. Later Woo Hak gives her the memory stick and the news that Ki-Ho is married and she understands that it’s a lie but it reinforces the idea that he doesn’t want to be revealed. It would also be why she confronts him with the brave Ki-Ho who lives in her memories vs. the man standing in front of her. Bearing in mind that she doesn’t know the full story since they parted when she ran away, nor with Jung to the present, she could understandably think him weak rather than strong.
They say ignorance is bliss, but it’s also dangerous. I think the time for the family secrets is over. I wonder how this will be revealed to Mok-Ha.