Bulgasal Theories (Spoilers)

After the bombshell of ep 12, a lot of mysteries in the show became clearer. So I wanted to list some theories and Interesting details I noticed. 

When BulgaHwal ripped out ET's soul in ep 12/11, the show had already shown “souls” to us two other times. BulgaLady in ep 1/2 and DY’s kidnapper in Ep 2 600 yrs ago.

In Ep 2  DH uses his dagger to destroy it. Based on this I thought that monster would not reincarnate but he later appears in the present. This is the only time Hwal does this to a monster, so this leads me to a couple of questions/ inferences. 

1. This was probably what ET did to SU 7 times, I guess for permanent destruction, it needs to be done 8 times.

2. Was this an instinctive action for Hwal? Is that how he knew what to do for Human ET? Ie: ripping out the heart and soul. IDK but it’s really interesting to think about.

BulgaHwal 1000  is being currently presented as kinda sus, but hopefully, that will be cleared up. However, I love villains so I wouldn’t be too mad if he was revealed to be a villain all along (I doubt it will go that way though).

Interesting Point 1: 

I’d like to point out their dreams. 

• Both DH and SU dream about the same cave. However, their dreams are a little different. In Ep 3 after being attacked/attacking by the monster bus driver outside her job, SU sees the cave but she is walking behind someone who is growling. Based on ep 12 this is confirmed to be BulgaHwal 1000.  

• In ep 1 DH also dreams about the cave but he sees a figure with silver eyes, like BulgaLady’s. The monster that attacked the camp is shown with red glowing eyes. After it was confirmed to be ET, we later saw in ep 9 while he was about to kill the apple sellers his eyes glowed silver.

 This might have something to do with him being half Bulgsal. After it is confirmed that DH riping out his soul gave him the Dark hole, why is he after SU?

Interesting Point 2: 

Both DY’s kidnapper and Monster Bus driver find the smell of SU’s blood to be disgusting. 

• In Ep 3 DY’s kidnapper is held in SU’s old apartment that is covered in both SY and SU’s blood. He groans “it smells awful in here, It makes me sick”. 

• SU is cut after fighting Bus driver and he yells something along the lines of “who are you, the smell of your soul is disgusting”. Clearly, the monsters track her via smell, so in theory, shouldn’t her blood smell amazing?

I think it has something to do with the painting depicting them as divinity. Maybe she and DH have an Echidna and Typhon situation going on. (mother and father to the monsters in Greek mythology) that may be why her blood smells bad, as a deterrent for their children. It’s a wild guess but it’s interesting nonetheless. Also from what I can gather, the monsters (except for the monster secretary’s husband) have used noninvasive methods to kill: choking, hanging, drowning. So they might not have experienced her blood.

Interesting Point 3:

The show has displayed that wounds can be a gateway to remembering past lives, 

• Ep 1: DH dreams about how he got the scar on his hand after taking an arrow for BulgaLady 

• Ep 3: SU touches a cut on DH’s face that he got from fighting the bus driver, it shows him remembering her fondly and he asks “who are you”. He had the same scar on his face in ep 1 600 yrs ago.

• Ep 6: detective’s arm almost got ripped off by the SH’s kidnapper, he gets a flashback and  DH says “you’re just remembering a past life”. 

• Ep 12: SU gets wound in the same place the SY had, touches it, has a memory, and attacks Hwal. 

Maybe this is how we will get the full story.

Interesting Point 4: 

When DH first meets ET in Ep 4 he asks him, 

• “who are you why did you suddenly appear out of nowhere”? But what’s important is what ET first says upon seeing DH “Is this our first time meeting, you know me right ?”

well, we all know that ET is a little deranged, but this can be because they either parted on good terms and ET expects DH to remember him. Or he’s just being cheeky.

I lean more towards the former because in ep 11 ET says “you’re the one who asked me to turn you into a Bulgasal”.

• Notice in ep 1, while DH and Bulgalady are stabbing each the scene goes purple, like they are being watched by something. Could this have been what ET was referring to when he said “you asked  to kill them (DH family)” 

This theory also kind of falls apart because in Ep 4 ET answers DH by saying “you're the one who showed up randomly 600 years ago”. This could mean that:

• He did not expect DH to turn into a Bulgasal and was in fact there to destroy his soul in episode 1

• Some believe that he’s obsessed with SU but I (and my shipper heart) think he’s actually obsessed with DH, as shown in ep 11 when he asks (how do I become like you and all the other times he looked hurt after DH choose SU over him every single time.

General analysis of Hwal and Sang Un’s themes in the show. 

• They are both thematically tied to fire and water. The conflict between the two seems to take physical form in the world as catastrophes and fire: the slaughter of episodes 1 and 12. In their divinity painting, they have their backs turned to one another (conflict) and the surrounding world is engulfed by flames and monsters.

•  Affection is tied to water: BulgaLady saving child Hwal and SU saving drowning Hwal. they first begin truly collaborating by the lake in episode 6.

• They both wear purple in episode 12. The pair that will live and die at the same time are finally together.  Here they are openly affectionate with each other and in sync. This alludes to the hope of a permanent reconciliation between the two. 

Final thoughts:

Ultimately Hwal needs to let go of the past.  His father tells him that in episode one. 

Whatever happened between DH SU is starting to repeat (SU’s scar). Unless he lets go: whether it be forgiving one another or them permanently separating, they will enter another cycle of Karma.

 Bonus theory: 

• This will directly affect the fate of SH’s baby. If the conflict is resolved, the baby will live. If not it will be another stillbirth.   

A new what-if from me:

Shaman lady said that if the one who doesn't remember, will get back her memories then everyone in that room is going to die.  

Why would everyone die? I was thinking about it for a while and I came to this theory: what if they did something 1000 years ago which has caused this whole situation? Det. Kwon went to the forest to kill them because his second son has died. But we still don't know much about Si-ho and Shamanlady... I hope in the next episode we get more answers because I still have too much... 

So I was trying to help a friend out post ep 14 and it went something like this. 

 Once upon a time 1k years ago, there lived a happy pair of bulgasal. They loved each other so much that nothing else mattered in the world.  Until the female Bulgasal began wanting children and not being able to have her own, she started taking in human children.  The male bulgasal was like WTH I'm not paying all this child support for cattle that aint even real bulgasal kids.  So being a miserly jerk he figured he'd beat down on the female Bulgasal (to put her in her place) then kill all the humans she raised and befriended.  The female Bulgasal realized she could never have a happy family with the male Bulgasal so she decided she'd end it all.  But to do this she knew she'd have to kill the male bulgasal along with herself to truly end it all.  Unfortunately, the male bulgasal had an insane human groupie called OkET.  This guy feeling betrayed by his family (cause he was crazy) decided that he wanted to be a bulgasal mate to the male instead of the female.  So he waited for the female bulgasal to stab the male and then herself.  While they are dying OkET drags the male bulgasal away and begs him to make him a bulgasal.  The male bulgasal sees this as his chance to stop the joint dying by stealing OkET's soul and leaving a painful hole in him to make him keep his promise.  That promise is to find the human version of the male bulgasal then take back his mortality which would supposedly remove the black hole.  Problem is the girl bulgasal also survived because of OkET mortal soul getting in the mix.  She can't let this happen else she will never get to die.  So she interrupts things now both male bulgasals have a grudge.  Thus we back to the present boyz!

Also, I hate that I can't figure out how to post pictures on here without a URL because did anyone else notice that the picture of the Detective, Si-ho and Do-Yoon all huddled together when Ms. Lee when she was dying. Is the same as back 1,000 yrs ago in her flashback of three people huddled over someone dying.  Man, I wish I could figure out how to post the pictures from my phone :(

Side Note: Has anyone heard anything about the rest of the OSTs when they all will be released?

 AngelRu:

So it ends. Thanks to Bulgasal Team, it was one of the greatest journey to a kdrama for me. Past few months,  I was literally drawn into Bulgasal. Now It's time to wake up from the fantasy. But Alas!  I just couldn’t get out of Bulgasl. Feels like an empty heart. 

Yes well said, the bulgasal team is really amazing to creat such a heartbreaking and beautiful drama… i want to punch and hug them at the same time for that tear jerker ending...TT-TT <33

Thank you to all of you guys here on this discussion.. im gonna miss all of our theories and arguments HAHAHA <33 i love you all! Especially thanks to @daneno and @izyda whom i met through this drama… really, thank you for everything guys…

I really hope we could meet and discuss again in another drama someday…^-^ 

 Impi:

Bulgasal has come to an end. The end was so sad and beautiful. I thought they both will become Bulgasal like before and live and this ending also gave satisfaction. I can't say anymore about the ending because my heart has been busy repairing itself since last night. Don't know how many days will it take to repair. So sad the director left some point without explaining. 

First one, what is the meaning of the twins? I mean we could conclude it was sang un who was the reincarnation of the bulgasal but what about sang yeon who remembered the past and also the scar?

Second one, what is the reason behind min sang un turning Hwal into Bulgasal. I means did she tried to kill him like ok eul tae said or just turned him mistakenly thinking he had already turned into an bulgasal and feeding on a child and dying with him?

@Impi hi!

I’d like to think that sang yeon was “the memories” and is still actually still sang woon. That sang yeon’s death meant  = Sang Woon’s severe memory loss as a traumatic response after her mother died at the hands of ok euk tae. 

For this 2nd question, I think 600 years ago was  already the plan of BulgaLady from the start since she knowns BulgaHwal cursed Si ho, do yoon, and detectove kwon 1000 years ago. I think when BulgaLady saw the dead bodies of Do yoon and Si Ho 600 years ago, it probably triggered her hatred for BulgaHwal so she immediately stabbed him. When she said “its all your fault” that day, i think it meant she killed him because she really wanted to end it all. She wanted to kill Hwal to end his curse towards them. And that really happened on EP16, Hwal’s death=End of his curse. 

But in the end, they still all got a happy ending. A new life free of worries of their past. They can finally have the chance to start a new joyful journey together free from pain.

My heart just got triggered again.. i need to stop thinking about everything now or else ill cry again…

 AngelRu:

 

Wanna give explanation about 2nd confusion..

1000 years ago, OTE made all the people  misunderstood about the bulgasal  Lady, but then BulgaHwal appeared & tried to save BulgaLady by killing villagers. OTE was unaware of BulgaHwal's existence then. So he was shocked when he saw the massacre himself. It also  caused misunderstanding between two Bulgasals. 

This gives inspiration to OTE to did the same thing again 600 years back. Again BulgaLady thought that Maybe this time also DanHwal did all the village massacre, so She killed him. But she was unaware of Dan Hwal's soul, which she was taken mistakenly while stabbing Hwal. That's why She was so shocked when she saw his ripped soul on her hand. She understood that, she will reincarnate with Hwal's soul again in future, so she gave that prophecy. 

@Impi                                                                                                    Thanks for explaining how Hwal was reborn again as a human as I had no idea how it happened. Your post answered many of my doubts on this matter. Thanks again, now everything that happened between Hwal and Sang Un gained more sense :)                                                              @AngelRu                                                                                                      Thank you for liking my theories; sometimes they were a bit ridiculous and twisted, I guess I have wild imagination, but combined with all the theories here, we even did a good job! I love to guess what might happen in the next episode of the series :) I also hope to meet you at the next discussion :)                                                                                  Greetings to everyone who took part in our guesswork and I hope to see your comments somewhere on the forum :)