I don't remember the last time I hated a character this frelling much!

[dangermousie]

I am enjoying ep 3 of Lawyers of Korea but something Min Gook said (i.e. 'how can a married man only be satisfied with his wife') made me really need to know something - did he cheat on Ae Ri during their marriage? I really need to know because if he did, I am out. It's one thing I won't forgive in a fictional character.

ETA:



I have never changed my opinion on a character so fast.

I finished ep 3 and I sort of want Min Gook to die. Very badly. I hope Ae Ri gets every freaking cent off him - we see her memories and fine, he demonstrates no interest in her career and is snappish about housework, that's usual domestic squabbles stuff. BUT also she sees him with floozies repeatedly (once he is drunk and another it's even in his office!). This, however, all pales compared to this: she has a miscarriage and he comes into her hospital room and asks her what is wrong with her that she can't keep a baby?

RED RAGE BURNING FLAMES.

Seriously, I was cursing at my screen.

I think I might be dropping this drama because the thought of a man actually saying this to a woman's face, and this man supposedly this drama's hero? I get so mad I start seeing spots.

I WANT HIM TO DIE.

I also kept thinking Lawyer Byun looked familiar and I finally realized - he is the lead of Seoul 1945, a historical drama about 1940s Korea I own and have been dying to watch (it got the Baeksang award for best drama, apparently). The crazy thing? The actress who plays Ae Ri is his OTP in that one! Yup - he is an intellectual from poor background who becomes a Communist and eventually is disillusioned and she is a poor peasant woman. Mmmm. Now I know why LoK thread had Ae Ri/Byun shippers before the drama even got going.

Seriously, here they are in Seoul 1945:




This is kinda insane - seeing that I only know them as slick lawyer and fancy movie star of LoK. I am now imagining Lawyer Byun getting almost beaten to death in a prison camp as he tries to reach to Movie Star AeRi and *boggle boggle boggle*

Also, I have a whole new appreciation for Lawyer Byun after seeing this from S1945:



Now, that's a good lawyer - he will clearly defend his client to the death.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Myeh.

And you just know he's the angsty woobie.

Betcha he'd own the fandom and there'd be endless justifications if it had a big English language fandom.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I am a lot more forgiving of the "asshole with a hidden heart" trope than you are but this is ridiculously too much!

Unless we find out that he had an evil double who took out the floozies in his stead and that the reason she got a miscarriage was because she was drinking heavily through the pregnancy and he found out or similar and lashed out - I simply cannot continue with the story where the lead makes me want to smash his face in with a brick. I don't think either scenario is likely and his comment (that's why I decided I should give her a divorce, didn't want to cause her any more heartache) does not make me like him one iota more - he is a sick sick jerk, even if a self-aware one. Hooray. NOT.

He hasn't portrayed as angsty or woobieish but we are clearly supposed to think of him as a sweet nice eccentric. In some other Universe perhaps.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I' fine with "asshole with a hidden heart" as long as he's suitably acknowledged and treated like and asshole! They just usually try to find ways to justify it...

But yeah, low tolerance level for a lot of things. (I love romance in fiction, but most in pretty uch all genre's end up incorporating tropes I don't like.)

[sodahands.livejournal.com]

Well this is off my list now.

Btw loving your artwork xD

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Seriously - I liked the drama pretty well only to be smacked with this. UGH HATE.

[thelana.livejournal.com]

Well for his sake I hope it's one of those twisty turny kind of shows were something new that turns everything around is revealed each episode. It definitely sounds strange.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I hope so too but it doesn't seem like that from ambergold's response below!

I can even accept the rage-making miscarriage thing as a badly written attempt to show how awkward he is but serial cheating? I had yet to see something like that from a hero in a drama, but now I have!

[walkwithheroes.livejournal.com]

I watched, I think, the first seven episodes of Lawyers, before stopping. Simply because I didn't want Min Gook with Ya Kyung. I wanted her back with Byun. Sure, he left her and went to another country, but. . . there are some scenes later that made me want them back together.


Watch S1945. It is an awesome and complex drama with a lot of wonderful characters. I liked that no one was 100% good - everyone had shades and everyone did certain things for their own needs or/and survival.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I confess I kinda liked Byun and her as a possibility in the earlier part in ep 3 - they were rather cute. And after I found out about Min Gook? Oh boy, Byun became the best male chocie ever - he might have dumped her and left, but compared to serial cheater bastard?

I qould have watched S1954 earlier but it's so very long! I plan to start on it soon though.

[ambergold.livejournal.com]

Er, really? I honestly didn't take all that stuff very seriously at all. I mean, the flashback lasts for like 5 minutes, the drama itself obviously doesn't mean for us to take it seriously, and it just felt like a totally different Han Min Gook. I briefly considered hating him passionately over the miscarriage thing, but decided not to and just despised him for a little while, because, well, again, I just distanced myself and the current HMG from that. I think also at that point I wasn't taking the drama too seriously - it's pretty much all comedy until later in the drama. I'm begging you - at least finish through episode 4.

it's odd that we should have such polar opposite reactions because normally I am the one up in flames - I stopped watching Fated to Love You for that exact reason, how it handled hero regarding the miscarriage, and have hated it passionately ever since, but Lawyers just feels like such a totally different drama, and HMG like such a totally different man. But then again I was never as interested as you in the ins-and-outs of the marriage and why they got divorced - because the focus is so clearly on the future-a future with Yi Kyung, not with Ae Ri.

Another reason I didn't read into it too much is because, as you will see, Ae Ri doesn't exactly hate him, at all, in fact she's for the most part still in love with him - a reaction not at all consistent with a man who'd do all that. I choose to think that the drama just made one small misstep in this flashback in an otherwise completely consistent portrayal of who HMG really is - at heart a good man.

but ah well. I suppose not everyone can have the same reactions...

and - what?? that's so weird...I'll have to add that drama to my list.

[ambergold.livejournal.com]

I think I also overlooked that portrayal because I'm seen drama heroes/characters (portrayed positively, no less) who have done far, far, far worse, and in the drama itself, not in a flashback - I mean, have you SEEN Fated to Love You?? there are so many drama leads whom I hate passionately because of the incredibly cruel and self-centered things they do on a consistent basis throughout most of the drama, until finally three-fourths of the way through the heroine finally "reforms" him and he turns out to be a sweet-hearted guy after all. Um. Not.

re boys who have done bad things whom I still love -*points to icon*

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I am staying far far away from FtL and haven't seen even one moment of it :)

This is sad - I kept hoping the cheating was a misunderstanding and the miscarriage thing was going to be explained. But I guess not.

The reason I am so interested in why Ae Ri and MG divorced and the reason I completely stopped cold after the flashback is because that says a lot about what kind of person Min Gook is - the flashback shows him as despicable.

Look at it this way - he is an emotionally brutal serial cheater as per flashback. Realistically, unless they show some sort of major character change a la Hwan in Brilliant Legacy (and I take it the drama is not about a severely bad guy being reformed by love - we clearly are supposed to find him OK enough), a person like that is no dating or OTP material for anybody. (And with someone shown THIS bad, it would have to be change shown to me!) Min Gook was obviously sweet enough to Ae Ri at the start, before they got married - after all, she did fall for him and it took 6 yrs for the marriage to fall apart.

It's just a fundamental character flaw I can't get past, but it also invalidates the OTP - basically, no matter how sweet he will be to Ya Kyung during the show won't matter - because it's just the pattern yet again and we can clearly expect Min Gook to start cheating (not to mention ignore the woman) once the novelty of Ya Kyung wears off.

Btw, the fact that Ae Ri still loves him doesn't mean much - there are plenty of women in love with bad men, men who even physically abuse them, let alone just cheat and humiliate them a la Min Gook.

Honestly? Have you EVER seen a drama with a hero who repeatedly cheated on a woman he was with? I cannot think of a single one ever.

[astrothsknot.livejournal.com]

I like how you're making it a tradition that there's a hot guy atop my flist everytime I log in.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

LOL - glad to please.

[timescout.livejournal.com]

And I have no recollection of that part, at all. Clearly not one of my trigger points. Besides as much as I may love/hate a character I hardly ever get all that invested in them so I overlook a lot of stuff.

I've no idea why he was portrayed that way or if it get explaned in a satisfying way. I'd need to rewatch to see. Such a pity they ruined a perfectly good character for you.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It's just - logically it makes the drama stop working for me. I have no objection the having the lead hero be a bastard - see Que Sera Sera (but even there. he dumped the heroine to get rich, he didn't cheat on her after marrying her) but before I can buy him as a decent human being whom I can wish well in any capacity he has to reform and, even more importantly, the drama has to acknowledge he is a bastard. Not an eccentric woobie.

And also, shipping preferences aside, I cannot watch a drama about a female character I like slowly falling for and ending up with a serial cheater who gets bored with women easily - because guess what? If he was sweet enough to make Ae Ri fall for him and then got bored and cheated around, he is going to do the same thing to Ya Kyung and any other woman. So whatever nice or shippy thing he does in the drama means absolutely nothing.

[ambergold.livejournal.com]

And I have no recollection of that part, at all. Clearly not one of my trigger points. Besides as much as I may love/hate a character I hardly ever get all that invested in them so I overlook a lot of stuff. yeah - me too- it's weird because I'd totally forgotten the miscarriage part until dangermousie mentioned it.

I think it's almost unfortunate, DM :) that you don't have my brother's tendency to fastforward through all the scenes that don't seem highly significant to the otp - he is currently watching it and had no recollection of that when I asked him about it and is LOVING it.

But I totally understand you finding that unforgivable.

[aliaspiral.livejournal.com]

gah. I dont think I'd be willing to deal with that, either. Although, knowing kdramas, he probably did it FOR HER OWN GOOD! or something equally stupid.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I bet she made him do it.

*stab*

[kitkat-cat.livejournal.com]

I watched this a while back and so, i dont really remember that much of it. I have a serious problem with cheating lying b*tards in real and reel life. but i have a vague memory of MG being a real turd of a man, and just couldnt reconcile how he was meant to be the other half of the OTP with Yi Kyung and how i was supposed to believe that he was a changed man who cared and loved this woman but just not his wife... obviously, my brain decided that all that just does not compute and promptly erased all memory of it!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yip - MG is no catch by any definition, except a monetary one.

I am going to start City Hall soon btw :)

[pho50.livejournal.com]

To me the whole drama was about gradually explaining where all these characters are coming from - showing the good and the bad - more and more details until we as an audience understand them. I remember thinking what a horrible thing to say/do about most of the characters but I couldn't write any of them off til I knew more. I have a problem too believing the cheating lead can change his stripes for the girl but I don't think I ever believed the "serial cheating" thing because I was pretty much reserving judgment about all the characters til more was revealed. And actually in order to enjoy most dramas I have to suspend my disbelief of anyone completely changing for their love. When Hwanee? of Brilliant Legacy pushed the lead girl up against the wall in the club after tripping her I thought here we go, I'm supposed to believe this jerk will change? Yeah, after he's been with the lead for awhile he'll start banging her around again. Hmmmm I'm only up to ep 15 so I haven't seen any big changes yet but I find LOK more interesting because it shows the characters' bad AND good sides to begin with AND how they change. Sorry for the long reply - hope it made sense as I'm writing from work with lotsa interruptions haha.
Now I have to see what you wrote about ep 4 ;)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Re: Brilliant Legacy. I really must catch up with it as I am way behind (still in a "Hwan is a pig who must die" stage). But from what I understand, in dramas like Legacy or Hana Yori Dango/Meteor Garden or Que Sera Sera, it is one of the major threads of the story - a societally unacceptable man reformed by love. The hero's redemption is an explicit and major character arc. When done right, it can be delightful.

But the set-up here is wrong for this - it's a fluffy fun romcom which doesn't seem to ever address the huge issue that being with someone of Min Gook's personality unless he majorly reforms would present.

If this drama had a major plot point about Min Gook growing understanding about his verbal cruelty and having a huge character overhaul as he realizes that cheating is wrong and slowly transforming into a monogamist, that might be a good drama and certainly an acceptable storyline. I adored Que Sera Sera whose hero is a amateur gigolo using rich women for money, almost raping the heroine after her engagement to another (and that is after he dumped her), and who leaves the heroine AGAIN in part because he is not used to poverty. This is arguably much worse than what Min Gook ever did but that's the thing - we are not supposed to see Eric's character in QSS as a lovable oddball but a hollow wreck of a person who has never loved anybody and is trying to cope with this and change and grow up - the story does not sweep these issues under the carpet - it gives the main couple a tentatively hopeful ending but it is fully aware of everything that can go wrong again - it just says that having both grown up, they have a chance now.

I am willing to buy almost any transformation - from an honor-bound man to monster (Ho Gae in Legend) or from bastard to saint (hero of any revenge drama who falls for enemy's daughter). But it has to be shown. I have to have a basis to believe that the hero has learned something that will stick.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I liked "Lawyers" but I was rooting more for the secondary couple (the wife and the lawyer sort of get together later). The main guy was not hot enough and there were things in him that pressed my "wrong" buttons too. And the main girl overdid a bit on pouting. But I like the wife/ the lawyer enough to follow this (with some f-winding)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oooh, yay, they do? I am preemptively shipping them from Seoul 1945 vids (yes, it's illogical). I can't believe the same actress was the bitchy other girl in Full House.

ff button was made for this.