START-UP rants, discussions, facts, ANYTHING

Thanks @KimSamsoom for giving your 2 centssss I really appreciate how youre such an objective HJP fan. you have helped me to see the appeal in HJP too haha

 Kimsamsoom:

I actually enjoyed start up initially. But the presence of too many plot holes, the diminishing screen time of the other main characters, and the force feeding of Dodal romance, kind of soured the experience.

And trust, me most HJP fans know Dodal is endgame, but they still hold hope, because why not :)

HJP fans are losers then.  No need to act butthurt when they know Dodal is endgame.  Dalmi has shown zero romantic interest in dude.  

The denial and projection to keep HJP relevant is comical (not directing this at you).   He’s had no storyline since Dalmi found out the truth about the letters.  Dude didn’t do anything in those three years Dosan was in the USA either, lol!!  

Episodes 2-4 concentrated on the business of start ups, the reason a lot of people started watching this drama, so a lot of people both NDS and HJP fans enjoyed these episodes.

Yes, HJP is guilty of noble idiocy as well. But currently in the current arc of episodes, NDS is doing hardcore noble idiocy. There is this invisible wall that he is placing between him and SDM. In fact Ep. 14 was just one big master class on what noble idiocy looks like.

I'm curious, in what way is NDS not your typical main lead? Other than Suzy saying it. If it's the fact that he is:

-Wealthy/famous

-Cold and Distant

- Cringedly romantic

- Flawed.

Then I would argue NDS has all of those qualities, the wealth and fame, he gets later.

Unless you have a strong argument why he is not.

@Kimsamsoom can u explain what noble idiocy means? Like what exactly did HJP and NDS do that showed noble idiocy?

in the meanwhile, I’ll try to show you how NDS is not your typical kdrama lead xd

1. NDS is not cold and distant though (except for the last episode I guess) , he was quite expressive and open to Haelmoni, his parents, HJP, SST and especially SDM
2. NDS is also really humble. I guess this is more open to interpretation but your typical kdrama lead has that narcissism and arrogance/charisma right (think of ALL of LMH roles HAHA). NDS was in fact quite humble and thinks quite lowly about himself. I’ve also never seen a kdrama lead who is as un-confident as him, who struggles with social skills and all that. That was really refreshing to me!,
3. NDS has a good family relationship.  Most kdrama leads have traumatic childhood experiences or broken family or extremely sad backstory which results to ML feeling lonely and insecure and only finds love and hope in the FML (Cheese in the Trap, What’s wrong w secretary Kim, Itaewon Class, CLOY... dude it’s endless lol) whereas StartUp shows NDS as this ordinary guy with ordinary family frictions and has good relations with them - despite having somewhat of a dysfunctional family. I think this was what stood out to me the most, because I could really relate to his family problems and his upbringing. Usually MLs has such tragic backstories that it seems abit far fetch.
4. and I think this is what most people bring up about what makes NDS’ character so unique- which is that he does not have toxic masculinity and is very honest about his own feelings. (although this was kinda sadly butchered towards the end as they didn’t really flesh out how exactly is he gonna deal with those feelings) It’s true that he has some huge character flaws that should raise red flags to young female viewers had it occurred in real life (like how he was so fixated about SDM so fast, it’s honestly scary, I never liked that part of NDS either). But his character as a whole, esp w the points from above^, actually portrays quite a healthy vulnerability that is very rare among Asian men.  Like how he knits when he’s angry. Or like when he was very quick to follow his inclination of wanting to help haelmoni to develop NoonGil  instead of worrying about profit. And the entirety of ep9 which I think was the last episode of NDS character being done well. That episode clearly shows how he has had always a conflict of interest between being the person that people projects him to be and being himself (which would turn everyone away from him because he underwhelms people’s expectations of him so much). I was so fascinated by how that’s being talked about in a kdrama. It’s really a struggle that most 21st century youths can relate to.

Ok bye, I swear I’m not a NDS apologist. I just hope this gives you insight to some NDS fans who has actually thought through it, and not just because we like the pretty face ?? .

@Kimsamsoom can u explain what noble idiocy means? Like what exactly did HJP and NDS do that showed noble idiocy? 

1.  Open and expressive? No, not really, he has always had a somber look about him. Half the time he has his head down, and his responses were short and curt. This I understand has to do with his social awkwardness, but then there are times when he's brash and loud. So there is inconsistencies with the characterization of the writer here. Also after the 3 year time skip, he goes full-on Typical Kdrama Lead coldness. In fact a lot of the things NDS fans argue are not typical Kdrama lead characteristic was slapped onto NDS after the time skip.

2. He was only humble and meek to certain people. He only had one enemy in the show, HJP, and he and the rest of SST were quite arrogant with him. And it's weird, they love Alex before the betrayal, because he's cute and nice, but because HJP was curt and in Yong San's own word, gave them honest criticisms, they treated HJP like dirt. What is interesting is that HJP initially also didn't treat SST well, but he came around and started respecting SST, long before SST did the same. Before the three year time skip, HJP had already grown to respect SST. Can't say the same for SST who still had a grudge on HJP until after the 3 year time skip.

3. Now he does, after the time skip. But prior to that, his relationship with his family was not the best. The writer did rectify this later down the road, but it didn't start as a healthy family relationship. I wouldn't call what NDS had with his parents as typical family dysfunction. He basically made his parents believe a HUGE lie for 15 years, that negatively affected everyone in his family. But as I said, the writer fixed this issue, although very unrealistically, she did. Yeah, parents being strict I can relate, how he dealt with the strictness of his parents, I CANNOT relate, as I would never even think of doing something that cruel to my parents.

4. The thing about toxic masculinity is that it implies that society has certain expectations of what a man should be like. A popular one is crying, and for this I give NDS points, as he is able to cry on cue. But his over aggressiveness, over protectiveness, and violent tendencies are all key points of toxic masculinity. The thing is, he didn't need to do any of these things, he could have been fine as the NDS from episode 2, but the writer wanted NDS to shine as the main lead, and so we ended up with the NDS we see. 

I mean, we can only use the NDS is immature before time skip excuse for so long before it runs out of gas.

Noble idiocy means that people do or act unnecessarily because they feel by doing so, they are preventing the other person from being hurt, but by acting that way, they actually hurl the other person more.

In terms of noble idiocy, I'm sure there are a lot of examples, but the most recent ones for HJP is him not telling his feelings to SDM clearer. He's being selfless for no reason.

And for NDS, it's his pushing away of SDM even though there is no reason to do so, there is no barrier to them being together. In fact SDM is also at fault here, she is also a noble idiot. 

The only non-idiot here is WIJ.

@Kimsamsoom

You keep saying that NDS displays toxic masculinity. May I ask, when? 

He's the gentlest character in this drama. I just can't recall a time when he was being what you called him. 

Whether it's team DoDal or team MiJi, we all agree that Han Ji Pyeong deserves to be happy in the end. If he's not then this whole drama should just be tagged as a Tragedy. 

And neither does NDS deserves a sad ending.