Gooooooong!
May. 22nd, 2007 12:31 amI have started my rewatch of Goong (my first kdrama and one of my faves).
Halfway into episode one, and yes, it's just as awesome as ever.
More so, actually. And I am still swooning over the colors, and grinning at the humor and adoring Chae-Gyung.
And oh Shin, you bastard. How I love you.
There are no words, you introverted, icy, supercilious woobie.
ETA: This of course comes much later, but I keep thinking why (even though I feel sorry for him) Yul so rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's because I like characters who love to put the happiness of the other person above theirs. And it's clear that CG wants Shin to love her, and in any event, any divorce/brouhaha would damage her the most. I don't expect him to play matchmaker, but I do wish he would not meddle. He keeps pushing her and pushing her and pushing her (like that disastrous divorce request) even though it's clearly not what she'd want or what is good for her. And unlike Shin, Yul has no excuse of being emotionally frozen, not knowing how to show caring or to interact. And of course, his feelings aren't reciprocated, which automatically makes any of his posessive actions a bit odder than if they were.
Halfway into episode one, and yes, it's just as awesome as ever.
More so, actually. And I am still swooning over the colors, and grinning at the humor and adoring Chae-Gyung.
And oh Shin, you bastard. How I love you.
There are no words, you introverted, icy, supercilious woobie.
ETA: This of course comes much later, but I keep thinking why (even though I feel sorry for him) Yul so rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's because I like characters who love to put the happiness of the other person above theirs. And it's clear that CG wants Shin to love her, and in any event, any divorce/brouhaha would damage her the most. I don't expect him to play matchmaker, but I do wish he would not meddle. He keeps pushing her and pushing her and pushing her (like that disastrous divorce request) even though it's clearly not what she'd want or what is good for her. And unlike Shin, Yul has no excuse of being emotionally frozen, not knowing how to show caring or to interact. And of course, his feelings aren't reciprocated, which automatically makes any of his posessive actions a bit odder than if they were.
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Date: 2007-05-22 04:51 am (UTC)cheatercheatercheatercheatercheatercheatercheatercheater
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Moving on...
Actually, I'd say his upbringing gave Yul a pretty good "emotionally frozen" excuse. Sure, he SEEMS more normal(and on the surface, his upbring was more normal) but really, since he was-what, 6?-his psycho mother started brainwashing him into thinking that Shin literally stole everything from him. My liking for Yul stopped when he seemed to stop seeing CG as a person and start seeing her as just another thing Shin took from him, that he wanted back.
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Date: 2007-05-22 04:58 am (UTC)Not really. I did just cut a whole bunch of things off my watching list and have only 3 eps of GR left.
Re: Yul. I was thinking about it some more, and I realize that there are two things that bug me even more than his relationship to CG:
1. I do not like behind-scenes schemers. He is very backstabbery and sneaky that way. Untrustworthy. It's just an instinctive dislike.
2. More particularly, it's his treatment of Shin. Shin has never done anything wrong towards him. I would see why he'd be annoyed at the dead king, or even at Shin's Dad who was of age of consent to take the throne, but Shin? Who was all of five?
But even that I would have overlooked except for one thing. It's not just that he wants his 'rightful' place back from Shin. That I could understand. And I could understand him hurting Shin in the process of trying to get it back from a guy who wanted to hold on to it.
But Shin makes it extremely clear he doesn't want it, and Yul explicitly says that he doesn't want Shin to give it to him or to relinquish it voluntarily. he wants to hurt Shin, to drive him out. So for him, the goal of hurting Shin (who has done him no harm and who is not standing in his way) is more important than the goal of regaining 'his position' which just makes him a bastard in my eyes. Not sure if I am explaining it well.
I could overlook him trampling on people on the way to his goal. But not if trampling on said people is his goal.
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Date: 2007-05-22 05:16 am (UTC)Scheming: I love schemers. As long as they're presented and treated as schemers. Try to tell me they're not and I lose all tolerance for them, and they tried to present Yul as NOT being a schemer, just unloved/misunderstood/however you want to interpret it.
Shin: See, I can understand that a bit as his mother basically brainwashed him into thinking that way since he was five. But he never got over it or tried to see past that once he knew Shin, so that's where my patience and understanding ends(which, I think, is a large part of why everyone seems to love him the first half, but not the second. Because we can see where he's coming from at first, but to keep our sympathy, we need to either see it get justified, or have him outgrow it) If it had seemed to be loving CG that motivated him, it'd be one thing but instead she was just another thing(and, imo, he did reduce her to "thing" that Shin "took" and he wanted to take back.
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Date: 2007-05-22 01:26 pm (UTC)Because we can see where he's coming from at first, but to keep our sympathy, we need to either see it get justified, or have him outgrow it
exacly. You put it in words better than I could have. A character that is not willing to interact and learn is not appealing, you just want to shake them and make them be rational. I think he learns it a bit at the end though.
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Date: 2007-05-22 04:25 pm (UTC)The first is that they turn bad, which means that either we no longer care about them except as someone to be beaten, or they end up being fairly cool Big Bads, in which case, we're kinda "yeah, you're interesting, but someone just beat him already"
The second is that their scheming eventually starts to be towards someone's benefit, whether they admit it or not...if they're a secondary, then it's to the leads benefit, or to the benefit of someone that links them to the leads(perfect example of this is Yukimura in SDK...man is ALWAYS scheming something or other, big or small, but it's always to the benefit of Kyo and co., even when it seems it isn't, and he's utterly loyal even when trying to convince us he isn't, so we tend to forget that he's a schemer). If they're a lead, then it's to the benefit of their OTP. In either case as you pointed out, the scheming turns to benevolence and in the end we know that they only scheme because it's the most effective way available.
In the first half of Goong, we can tell that there's something up with Yul and that he's probably not as nice as he seems and is up to something, but he seems to really like CG as a friend and maybe more, and seems to really want to reconnect with Shin despite his mother's plots. Because of that, we start putting him into the second category, except the show ends up putting him in the first, but trying to convince us that he's closer to the second...they seem to want us to keep seeing him as a sympathetic woobie, even long after he's moved past ourt being able to view him that way.
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Date: 2007-05-22 06:01 am (UTC)i love this series as well and this was my first kdrama too and is in my top five for how awesome it is...
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Date: 2007-05-22 01:24 pm (UTC)So awesome.
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Date: 2007-05-22 06:20 am (UTC)On Yul: in the first part, he seems to be the one with the better EQ. He treats Chae Gyung better, helps her adjust to palace life, a good friend in school.
But one scene that I really couldn't get over was that of Shin's flashback and Yul was telling him that he couldn't be referred to as just "Yul" anymore but "Your Royal Highness." It was such a complete turn of what I knew Yul to be.
Sigh. I envy your re-watch. :)
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Date: 2007-05-22 10:26 am (UTC)Word. That was such blatant character assassination. The scriptwriters were dragging it out as K-drama writers are wont to do. Yul's behavior kept getting worse and *odder*, as dangermousie said, but it drove me over the edge when they reached back to the past to show us: "see, he was an asshole to begin with!" Blah.
When Yul first showed up, he was nice to everyone and particularly sensitive to Chae-gyung's feelings. The writers could have gone the route of "it was all an act" and I might have bought it. Instead, they had Yul falling for Chae-gyung so hard (I still fail to see why) that he decided to take back "his" throne, even though he had never liked his mother's schemes. As bad!Yul he showed throne ambition for all of three seconds; mostly he just pursued Chae-gyung to the detriment of his royal status and psycho!mom's evil plot. It's like a textbook example of how *not* to develop a character.
I dislike the practice of shooting and airing dramas with scripts only half done so they can drag out a popular series. It was especially egregious in Goong's case, because both Shin and Yul (or rather, the two actors) got super popular and TPTB weren't sure (or pretended they weren't) whether to go with Shin/CG or Yul/CG. They pulled all sorts of tricks to invite Shin vs Yul fancrap. When it became clear Shin/CG was the more popular OTP, Yul became another person. Whatev.
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Date: 2007-05-22 01:23 pm (UTC)I actually thought the drama was well written. It got a bit draggy but muchless so than most (Loveholic, I am looking at you) and it was fun even then.
I am probably biased because it was my first/second kdrama and because I am one of five people who doesn't love the manhwa. I read the first ten volumes and my feeling is still of 'meh' Gorgeous artwork but I hate Shin in it.
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Date: 2007-05-22 05:17 pm (UTC)I've never read the manhwa. Shin put me off and Yul appealed to me from the very start with their respective demeanors. The difference was striking - not only in their interactions with CG, but aslo how they treated others. Shin & Co reminded me of F4 in Hana Yori Dango, whom I wholeheartedly despised. To be fair, Shin was never 1/100 as bad as Doumyouji - I wanted that bully in
jailjuvenile correction facility - Shin was more Paris Hilton and his friends Brandon Davis. I may not hate them, but I'm physically unable to root for that kind of persons.By the time Shin told Yul about the hardship of his life that Yul Just. Didn't. Get., any trace of my good will toward the two had vaporized. As if having an emotionally distant father could compare to having none, as if living in a palace could be harder than being exiled to a foreign country at the tender age of 5, right after his father's death. Instead of reminding Shin of the obvious facts, Yul kept at the CG=mine nonsense as if she was a piece of property they were contesting legal title to. And CG kept running to Yul about her problems with Shin while rejecting Yul's many advances. Did none of them know common sense?
Clearly I have unresolved issues with Goong. Hee.
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Date: 2007-05-23 12:50 am (UTC)Yeah, we definitely see it differently. I always have a preference for Shin-types in fiction (btw, have you watched It Started with a Kiss? What do you think of Zhi Shu? I adore him, and he is way more off the scale than Shin and he has no excuses the way Shin does). He strikes me as so standing on ‘ceremony’ because that is all he has, that is all that has been drubbed into him, that is the only time he is valued by his family: when he is ‘Prince.’ Add to it the fact that he is by nature a major introvert and therefore standoffish, and you get this. (I did a whole Shin essay at one point so should probably not reapeat it :D)
From what we can see of Yul, he would be even more standing on ceremony than Shin (not just the flashback to childhood, because hey, kids, but he is also the one who wants a strong monarchy). In fact, his family disapproves of Shin when he tries to act human, not when he is starched up, so I am surprised he is as OK as he is, especially when you throw the nightmare that is a teenage boy into the mix. Shin is majorly socially awkward and unequipped unless it’s the proper ceremonial thing he is familiar with, has been taught to deal with (in a way, protocol is his crutch, the way CG is later). It’s a thing I find utterly endearing in fiction but I can see how if it’s not something you like, it might annoy.
As to whether it’s better to have an emotionally abusive father (because I really do think of it as emotional abuse) or none? Well, considering Shin’s Dad is my least favorite parental figure in a drama (and it’s a tough competition), if his Yul’s Mom wasn’t psycho-bitch, I’d say it’s better to have none.
Honestly speaking, if Yul’s Mom (I keep forgetting her name) was normal, I’d unequivocally say that Yul has had a very nice life: all the $$$ without responsibilities and being controlled. (is immigrating to a foreign country worse than having to move to the palace and have weird rigid rules that you didn't have before, but now must follow, even though you are a child, and can't call your Mom, Mom any more?)
Things being the way they are, I think the ultimate familial comparison is Shin’s family versus Yul’s. They are both highly icky (I had a typo and typed ‘licky’ LOL) and they damage them in different ways (Shin into being almost an automaton, Yul overemotional as he is with a woman who is always a few fries short of a happy meal).
Which (barring the fact that I find Shin’s damage more appealing as a personal preference. Yul just never interested me, even from the start) would make my sympathy go fairly equally towards both, if it isn’t for Yul’s actions: I discussed it with meganbmoore above so I don’t want to repeat them again but the short of it is, I dislike Yul not for wanting his position back, or even wanting Shin out of the way in order to have it, but his desire to ‘hurt’ Shin as a separate wish, not as a means to an end, but an end itself.
Of course, here is where our differing opinion of the writing comes in: I think it was shown fairly gradually and organically as part of Yul’s character and you do not. But hey, that’s what makes discussion fun.
Btw, you mentiond Domyouji. It’s completely OT, but do you dislike him by the end also? Because I am a huge Domyouji fangirl. My huge huge thing in fiction is someone who has no idea how to interact/be a human being learn to love (to be fair it goes both ways: I love Snow Queen where it’s the girl in that position).
Of course, it also helps that in real life Mr. Mousie and I are basically a much more normal version of Shin/CG, with the very reserved ‘things should be proper’ boy and the very hyper ‘wildchild’ girl, and the height difference, and everything (sadly, no, he is not a Prince, and luckily, no, his family isn’t a bunch of bastards) so I am totally biased in an irrational fashion :D In RL I’ve never been attracted to emotional-exhibitionist guys (and Yul is v.v. emotional IMO) so that probably carries over in fiction.
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Date: 2007-05-23 01:56 am (UTC)"The first time I watched HYD, all the solid acting and highend production couldn't change the fact that three of F4 are vicious scumbags, one of whom deserves incarceration for violence and instigating attempted rape. When Nishikado and Mimakasa told Doumyouji that rape maybe crossed the line (maybe? who raised these people?), and Doumyouji just denied responsibility to continue his diatribe against the victim, I lost sympathy. As in: I don't care what made Doumyouji this way; I want him in jail."
To me, having Tsukushi fall for Doumyouji sends exactly the wrong message to young girls. Some actions are unforgivable. Doumyouji at the end of HYD1 may no longer be a Vicious Scumbag, but he hasn't repaired the damage he caused as a VS either. What about the kids he bullied out of school? Their emotional scars? One hopes that none of his victims had a family background like Tsukushi. How devastating would it be, if your family sacrificed all to get you into a great school, only to see you tossed out by the ruling scumbag?
Oy, now I feel I was too hard on Shin in my previous comments. Can't rag on him now. ;) A few points:
I loved It Started With A Kiss. Zhi Shu was an ass; he had no excuse because he needed none. Unlike Shin, he earned his standing through his accomplishments. The people Zhi Shu acted the most standoffish toward tended to have it coming, particularly Xiang Qin the stalker - her actions were actually quite creepy. Even then, I didn't like Zhi Shu at all. I adored everyone around the couple.
We'll have to agree to disagree about who had the harder life. The father issue aside, as an immigrant, I'll say unequivocally that my experience was much, much harder than what Goong showed Shin's palace life to be. It's not even close. And my experence was probably easier than Yul's, because my family and I prepared for *years* before sending me off. I was 14, had relatives in California, and there were far more Chinese there than Koreans in England in the early 90's. If anything in Shin's life could compare to being surrounded by a bunch of kids laughing and pointing and chanting things I didn't understand (it took me years to figure out "chinks" were insults), fearing they meant to beat me up... well, I liked that better than being unable to walk home on the frozen roads because I had never seen snow before and didn't know it required special footwear.
Have to log off now... will get back to Yul later. It's a fabulous discussion, so thank you. =D
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Date: 2007-05-23 02:13 am (UTC)Re: Domyouji. I love him because I buy his gradual transformation in manga/anime/Meteor Garden (I agree that Hanadan was too short. It worked for me because I had those three as a background, no idea how it would work in isolation). I loved that he had to work very hard to overcome her initial imression of him, and suffer and sacrifice a lot. He more than paid tenfold over any wrong he's ever done to her. I started the story loathing him (if you find my old anime tags for hanadan anime, my first exposure to the story, I was appalled he was going to be the hero) but ended up rooting for him. In MG at least (I am blanking on anime/manga) it's also made explicitly clear he didn't want attempted rape ordered on her and gets quite mad when he finds out about his flunkies taking initiative.
Another thing that I wished hanadan live action left intact the way the other versions did is the whole junpei storyline, where Domyouji's actions do come back to hurt him. Because he almost loses Tsukushi (and she does break his heart) and then he gets beaten within an inch of his life as a direct result of his being a bastard earlier and one of the friends of the guy wanting revenge. (part of his growth is shown through when he finds out why this happened, he doesn't hunt the guy down to beat him up, calls off the rest of F4 etc).
He was a bastard when younger, true (he had no upbringing at all) but to me I like him because he can grow, be redeemed. Heck, when I was a kid I ended up bullying someone with a gang of fellow kids. Now I am an adult, I really wish I hadn't. But I certainly hope I am not perpetually forced to be stuck in that mode.
I did a Domyouji essay at some point. Want to hunt it down, now.
Re: immigration experience. We actually immigrated too, and it was hard too, but as long as there is family to cushion it, it wasn't bad. And we were (no exaggeration) dirt poor. I think Yul has had a much better time of it, with the privileged lifestyle. I don't think he ever had to experience a lot of culture shock/prejudice/issues a lot of immigrants do. But I agree, YMMV and all that and it's a purely subjective take on mine.
I think ultimately it amounts to me liking a fictional type that you (and a lot of others, including some of my friends) do not like. Vive le difference and all that :)
Now, if you want horrendous, have you tried the Haou Airen manga? With the hero who rapes the heroine into submission? Read a couple of volumes and I swear you'll think Domyouji is fit for saintood. Yikes.
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Date: 2007-05-23 06:50 am (UTC)Reread my last comment and felt I came off too self-righteous about my immigration experience. You're right that everyone has a different take and it can only be subjective. Some of my friends back home had longed to study/live in the West but their families couldn't afford it. I've been too fortunate already and shouldn't whine. Neither should Shin and Yul... if only CG would relate some of her family's struggles to them as a hint to STFU. Heh.
There are some horribly sexist/misogynist elements in certain mangas. I try to stay clear of those. In HYD's case, I agree that Meteor Garden handled the attempted rape better than the Japanese dorama version. It was clear in every version that Domyouji hadn't ordered the rape, but his order had led to it. What really mattered (to me) was his reaction upon learning what had happened. The Taiwanese production showed more consideration in this regard; the Japanese didn't seem to find it that serious.
Domyouji did mature a lot throughout the series, and good thing too. Certainly in real life I would hope all bullies get to grow out of it. In fiction though theirs are never the stories that engross me. I'll always come down on the side of Buffy, not Faith. The badboys/girls I dig are invariably those who go their own way and get badass only when crossed. Back to personal preference...
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Date: 2007-05-23 01:26 pm (UTC)Of all the drama heroes, the only ones I'd want to date in real life are the adorable, normal ones (not icy or screwed up or anything) like Gong-Chan from My Girl or Mong-Ryong from DGCH or (why am I blanking on the name) hero of Smiling Pasta. Maybe also Kame's character in Tattakoi, if he was less poor :)
I guess I work out all my woobie/badboy tendencies in fiction :)
Re: VM and Logan. I liked the violence because if someone videoed me (or I thought they did it), I'd want to beat the hell out of them. Being a rather petite female, I would probably not be able to. Having someone capable do it, would certainly feel good, a beat-down by proxy. I could certainly get behind some revenge :D
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Date: 2007-05-23 12:51 am (UTC)When I said "I couldn't get over...," it's more that I could've liked him a little bit more. But with that one scene, I really couldn't.
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Date: 2007-05-22 01:19 pm (UTC)I never cared for Yul, not from the start. I mean I liked him well enough and he seemed a nice enough guy, but he never grabbed my interest, the way Shin did right away. And there was always something fragilyunbalanced, if it makes sense. A lot of it is my personal kinks talking of course: give me a tall, gorgeous, and emotionally repressed character with issues, and I will not look at anyone else.
Every time I see your icon, I die a little of squee.
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Date: 2007-05-22 07:08 am (UTC)I keep thinking of Jung-woo in MG as he was honest to both Gong-chan and Yoo-rin about the way he felt about her, and he was there for her but at first he also just tried to make sure Gong-chan could make her happy because that's what she wanted (like when she gets drunk and Jung-woo makes the restaurant lady call Gong-chan to pick her up).
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Date: 2007-05-22 01:15 pm (UTC)Whoa.
I am so rewatching MG after Goong.
I don't mind hate-worthy thirds in a story, but then I can't root for them.
Ultimately I am left feeling sorry for Yul, who's had a sucky time of it and came through in the end, but you are right. So much of my annoyance stems with the fact that the large portion of the reason he wanted to CG was because she was another thing Shin 'stole' from him, and Shin fell for her as a person (because she was fun and warm and such a contrast from his nasty family).
Well, that an ultimately my favorite trope is icy guys transformed by love :)
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Date: 2007-05-22 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 01:12 pm (UTC)To be a hero I could totally find hot+feel sorry for, the guy has to have a sucky time of it (woobie component) but he shouldn't think so himself (or think too much of it, at any rate. Sort of shrug and move on), which is the woobie in denial component.
Otherwise, you get a lot of self-pity, which is unatttractive to say the least. No one wants a weakling or a wuss (can you imagine how different Mars would be if Ling spent all his time complaining and whining to Qi Luo?)
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Date: 2007-05-22 02:21 pm (UTC)You know, I actually don't think Ling qualifies as a woobie... that is, my personal definition of woobie, which is of course perfectly subjective. I just put the boys who just can't win -- usually because the cards are stacked against him -- in the "woobie" character: Logan, Shin, Domyouji, etc and so forth. Ling... it's when he stops fighting that he gets what he wants, which is one of the things I think makes him a breakout character. But then, I think Mars itself is a groundbreaking story, so maybe it's just my bias. ;)
What's your definition of a woobie?
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Date: 2007-05-23 12:49 am (UTC)I agree that Ling might not qualify under the more restrictive definition, though I do think he's had the deck stacked: psycho brother who manipulated him, mother who killed herself after trying to harm him, distant father figure etc etc. He does win over all of it, but then so do Shin and Domyouji, eventually.
Though you are right, he is different as all his trauma is in the past and now he is working through it (even Tong Dao is, in a way, working through it) which is different from Shin and Domyouji for whom the suck-inducing situation is currently happening (D's Mom is currently a bitch, Shin's Dad is currently horrendoes). Both Ling and Qi Luo are working through their past trauma (with some backsliding), on the path of functioning.
What is it with dramas and evil parents?
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Date: 2007-05-22 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 12:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 01:01 am (UTC)Wait a minute, I did think Yul was nice in the beginning.
But that little Cinderella moment totally turned the world around for me. :)
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Date: 2007-05-31 03:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-31 04:55 am (UTC)