Kimsamsoom

As a parent though, hearing that from your child makes you feel guilty. And as a child, this is unfair to the parents, as no matter how gently you put it, blaming your parents for how you ended up is playing the blame game.

This reminds me of an uncle of mine, who had his daughter blame him for her depression. She didn't blame him per se, but he mentioned my uncle's strict rule for the reason she has no friends, and has low self esteem and etc... which is essentially blaming and guilt tripping.

The love of NDS family is only seen in the last few episodes, and even then, it doesn't feel real or genuine.

Even if we were to educate them, it would fall on deaf ears. The people who have it, rarely take advice from people without it. It's been like that since the start of time. But it brings us back to the fact that people who have it all, do not elicit sympathy. Which makes you wonder why HJP elicited so much support, since he had money and a good career. Because of one line from Grandma "you are in your 30's and unmarried you are not happy". This one line, pretty much set viewer expectation for HJP's arc. That one line reminded all of us that money isn't everything.

Yes, some people need more help than others, but that is the thing, because NDS character was written SO SO inconsistently, the answer to getting him the help he needed was inconsistent as well. After all SDM has done for NDS, and after making her his dream, it ended up that HJP's blessing was the one thing he needed, even though for almost 15 episodes, this was the one thing NDS did not desire.

I've seen people on here defend NDS by saying, when your in love with someone we all do bad things, or immoral things. And it's pegged as romantic.

And I don't agree with this at all.

These days, these labels, Insane, Libertine, Psychopaths, Addict, and etc..

Are all being used to excuse bad behavior. It's success rate in fact, has led quite a few people to use these labels as fraudulent excuses of their misbehavior. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not. But I am more worried for how often it does work.

Just now, we are seeing people defend NDS for his "Insecurity/self-esteem" issues. This is just a similar label to being a libertine. Especially when it's a label is empirical.

When we do bad things, and we use a label to defend our bad intentions, and people accept our excuse, rather than trying to change who we are, we instead continue doing this bad thing, until we get caught. If we don't get caught, then nothing will stop us from doing that bad thing. Best example of that is cheating on your spouse. In fact NDS coins this line perfectly in his conversation with HJP, where NDS actually says "I will keep up the lie to it's maximum life". I think this is Ep. 2 or 3.

Now, should we not pity these people? It's always a case by case situation. We cannot paint all libertines with the same brush, nor can we paint all addicts with the same brush. The danger of labels is that is normalizes painting these individuals with the same brush, and in those homogenous brush does propensity to be fraudulent occur.

Here are some force fed plot that manifested into actual dialogue in Start Up. The way the writer inserted these dialogue really shows how much she was forcing the narrative, rather than letting audience see for themselves. Some of these are paraphrased since I don't want to bother going back for the exact dialogue.

"Mr. Han is only helping us because of SDM"

"Dosan, you have really grown"

"I am not the Dosan from the letters"

"I like you, just because"

"Dosan, all of this is only possible because of you"

I'm sure, I'm missing a bunch more, but these are the ones of the top of my head, and are mostly from the last few episodes.

as long as you don't use your insecurity to do immoral things, then blame your insecurities for it, then your on the right path.

If you allow your insecurities to win out, and start doing bad things, not a lot of people will sympathize with the insecurity excuse.

An example, if a man was insecure in his marriage because the wife is too nice, and decides to have an affair, should we pity him because he was insecure with his wife?

Almost every human being has some type of insecurity, but what matters is how we allow these insecurity to affect us. Do we allow it to take over our lives, or do we find ways to break out of it.

WIJ started to doubt herself and her confidence started to waver.

The competitive game that SDM started with WIJ, has always been one sided, but somewhere in the middle, WIJ started to lose confidence as SDM started becoming more successful.

She regained back her confidence in the latter half. And once again the rivalry became one sided, until the point after the time skip.

1. Here are the things NDS does. These actions are not actions of Asian kids who love their parents. There is an obvious rift between parent and child in this show. A rift that is either covered up by the show or normalize/romanticized.

"Let us not be each other's pride anymore"

"Whatever I did was never good enough for you, no matter how hard I try"

Doesn't call his parents for three years.

2."Whatever I did was never good enough for you, no matter how hard I try"

This quote is a blaming quote, you can see it otherwise, but it's damning enough that more than a few people saw it as NDS blaming his father's high expectation for the way he ended up.

In general, poor people will always judge rich people for wasting money, it is just how human beings work. Your telling me, the kids in China who buy gold plated Iphones for their dogs don't make you cry waste? Or rich people in the US who pay $200 for a bottle of specialized mineral water?

Poor/middle class people ALWAYS blame the rich, no matter which country you live in, communist, capitalist, dictatorship, monarchial and etc... It's human nature, and in Asia, there is a culture of hating wastage even more. Why do you think take out culture is so big in Asia? Thrift shops, second hand shops, and etc.. all thrive in Asia.

3. And there lays the problem, he needed things to be 100% perfect to suddenly realize he doesn't have a bad life. He needed everyone to baby him, to keep saying "NDS you are amazing", for his parents to baby him, for SDM to baby him, for HJP to baby him. And all these coddling for him to feel better about himself is going to get a lot of hate from people.

The reason is, in real life, most people don't get even 25% of the support NDS was getting since day 1, and yet they are forced to overcome their insecurity and self-esteem issues, and it's frustrating to see a character, even a fictional one, go through life with a mountain of support, and still cry foul, of how his life is so hard. It's facetious and doesn't resonate with the common man, who has to climb bigger mountains, with far less tools than NDS.

4. It's my first viewing of NJH, and he faces the same problem of this new wave of actors, lack of Micro Expressions. Lee Min Ho is another actor that has this same problem. But in the current Kdrama landscape, it seems writers and producers don't care about the weaker acting skills, opting to pursue these leads due to their popularity.

But what can you do, the current Kdrama landscape favors popular actors versus capable ones.

For now though, KSH has both acting skills and popularity, let's see how far he can go.

WIJ and HJP pairing not working out, is the same reason SDM and NDS pairing would not work.

WIJ, HJP, NDS, and SDM have flaws. And often times flaws start out small enough, until an event occurs which make the flaws manifest itself in a big way.

NDS and SDM, since they both have their heads in the clouds, never get punished for doing so. And putting in place a safety net in HJP, Sandbox as an investor and etc... puts their relationship in an artificial Nirvana. What I mean by this is that everything looks good, until their safety valves all malfunction, and they are left to the devices of their flaws. And this may be enough to break them, since the flaws have been normalized for so long.

In HJP and WIJ, it would be the same thing. IMO, both of them need a dreamer like NDS or SDM to soften their harshness and add some softness to their stances. With HJP and WIJ being a couple, they may not see their harshness as an issue since they both can be quite harsh, and just like SDM and NDS, the flaws will manifest in a big way later down the road.

we recently found out that KSH has been ad-libbing certain scenes. And I think overall KSH, added softness to his harsh character that ended up eliciting more sympathy than that of NDS.

NJH on the other hand, lacked the necessary micro expressions needed to show these following emotions:

1. Remorse
2. Confusion
3. Insecurity

Watching Start Up, when NJH has to provide, or attempt to prove the emotions I mentioned, he either bit his lip, or cried. Instead of showing a character that the audience can feel sorry for, the audience is instead reminded of your typical HS ML who is full of teenage angst.

So overall, not enough sympathy for NDS and too much sympathy for HJP's character is where the show went wrong.

But regardless, take out the love triangle, and the show still had enough problems to make the journey less than enjoyable. Chief among them being it's poor portrayal of women in power, unhealthy dynamics between family, poor moral message regarding romantic relationships, and inaccurate portrayal of the difficulties of being in a Start Up. Add to that Mary Sues, and Gary Stu's and Start UP becomes another forgettable drama in 2020.

It will forever be known as the breakout role that gained KSH immense fame.

Thanks, i'll try watching a few episode and see if it grips me.

I don't know if someone else talks about micro-expressions. But I talked about it in my review, hahaha!

The fact that Suzy looks at HJP the same exact way she looks at NDS confused the heck out of me. Those looks that Suzy gives HJP, shows someone who is in love, then to later show she didn't care anything about his feelings was confusing to say the least.

I'm going to pass on any NJH dramas for now, until I can get the image of NDS out of my mind. I would just get annoyed if I see him right now.

They belong to an agency that has amazing actors/actress like Gong Hyo Jin, Jeon Do Yeon, Gong Yoo, and Jung Yumi. So they have people to learn from if they wanted.

yes I did!

There are people rating it all 10's as well. I would just ignore them all.

Personally, I think this drama should go one notch lower at 7.8/10 as it's real score. Its rated the same range as ROY, DOdodosol, and TKEM. Speaking of TKEM, i'm surprised it isn't rated lower.

And ROY actually had increasing viewership ratings, peaking at it's final episode. Start Up's last episode was one of the lower ones.

Before I invest time here.

How are the acting skills of the Main leads? I don't know any of them, but the FL seems to get a lot of flak from what i'm seeing. Consensus is she's a bad actress?

I just came from Start Up, so i'm looking for some more believable acting, and less annoying characters.

I would watch this :) IU for KSH please, I think they would make a cute couple.

First things first, will you not be addressing all the other points I mentioned?

"Han Ji Pyeong never really supported Samsang tech for their talent,he was there for Dalmi always but he constantly downgrade them in the first few episodes."

This statement is exactly why SST got tricked by Alex and got Acqhired. In reality, HJP has been on their side ever since they got into Sandbox. I forget which episode, but one of the early ones, you can see it in his conversation with Chairman Yoon. But because SST has majorly disrespected HJP since Ep. 3 or 4, up until pre-time skip, they fell for their own arrogance. You see signs of this arrogance even after the time skip FYI.

And the idea that he is only doing the good things for SDM is a fallacy. Yong San, Cheul San and NDS were too immature to see it pre-time skip. Majority of audiences saw HJP helping SST, because they are SST, not necessarily for SDM.

I'm guess you must really think that WIJ was jealous of SDM, and was doing everything in her power to make sure SDM doesn't succeed? Because is the same type of mentality you would need to have, to actually think HJP is out to make sure SST fails, and only SDM presence stops it from happening.

If you really believe this, then you didn't understand HJP's character at all.

I put myself in Dosan's position, and I still felt grateful for HJP's help. People who don't feel grateful for help, because they feel it's due to charity, for ulterior motives, or for a girl, have some deep seated competitive problems with the said donor, which is the case with NDS. He let his dislike/hate for HJP cloud his judgement on the betterment of his company, and that is just the plain truth.

Do you know how much of a hater you will sound like if you say. "Pssh, person A is only helping me because he likes Person B, so i'm not going to count his help as real help. I'm going to ignore it, and in fact, i'll find a way so he can't help us anymore." It's ridiculous, and reeks of jealousy, over competitiveness, and insecurities.

In ep. 16, HJP didn't really want to invest, he was forced to by his boss. You have to understand, he has just let go of his first love, A love that spanned 15 years, he needs time to grieve. But NDS and the show didn't give it to him. He was forced to suddenly be best friends with NDS, and to be close to NDS and SDM's love story. Which is just pure torture. How many Kdrama do you know with a love triangle, where the SL is forced to work in close proximity with the FL and the ML? Not a lot because in reality, it's a painful experience, and yet that is what happened with HJP.

There is a disconnect between his feelings and actions. His words and his body language.

The story is meant to illicit sympathy for NDS. Here are the factors where we are suppose to sympathize with him.

1. He is shy
2. He is awkward with girls
3. His parents are strict
4. He belong to a working class family, and was not rich.
5. He is insecure
6. He has low self-esteem

So what went wrong? How come it seems not a lot of people sympathize with him? Here are a couple of reasons.

1. NDS has two parents who love him unconditionally. And some kdrama may portray both parents as strict, but in this one, not only was the mom not very strict, but she was VERY supporting of NDS, and even defends her son against the dad a few times.

In comparison HJP has no parents, SDM has one, and Yong San lost a brother. In terms of the family aspect when being compared to the other characters and their family status, NDS has a near perfect family situation, and he chooses to squander it, and not appreciate it. This makes people view NDS as ungrateful, not close to his family, and a little bit spoiled.

2. He has a genius intellect. And in general, people find it hard to sympathize with people who are born with God given talent, and yet choose not to live to their potential or squander it. Not only doe she not utilize his intellect properly, he blames his parents who wanted to nurture his talent.

This is like a person who has a lot of money, but because of low self esteem, chooses not to use his money, just leaving in the bank, fully knowing there are many people in the world who don't have money, and would kill to have even 1/10th of that person's wealth. Once again, people can't sympathize with someone like this.

3. As you said, he is confident with SDM, she brings out the best in him. This shows us that the barriers to NDS success has always been mental, meaning he can do something about it. You bring us his shyness and low self esteem as issues, but the truth is, they are merely excuses. He has it in him to get out of his funk, which means the issue is more psychological than mental.

There are people who suffer from extreme shyness, it's a medical diagnoses and their brains are wired differently. For people with extreme shyness, they become social outcast in society, unable to form proper bonds with people, and end up quite depressed.

With NDS, there is no proof of this, in fact he is shown to be able to properly create strong friendships with Yong San and Cheul San. For someone with TRUE insecurities and self-esteem issues, the way NDS is being portrayed is a big fat joke, it's not accurate, and it's an insult to people who actually suffer from this debilitating condition. So once again, you see little sympathy from audiences.

4. The inferiority complex you mention, NDS is inconsistent with it. Sometimes he feels inferior to HJP, sometimes he feels superior. This is more of bad writing than anything. When the writer wrote NDS, she seemed to not be able to decide what kind of character he was going to be, so his self-esteem and insecurities waned and waxed like cycles of the moon. So it became hard to relate with him with how inconsistent his character was.

In one scene, he is showing extreme confidence, to the point where he is acting like he's a God. Then the next scene he is feeling inferior to HJP. Then another scene he is feeling superior again.

This is also on NJH shoulder, he lacks the acting prowess to portray a character like NDS. NDS done right with a capable actor, could have shown the inner turmoil of NDS better, shown his remorse, shown his frustrations. Instead NJH just channels all of this by either crying, or biting his lip. His lack of acting range in Start Up, didn't help his character NDS get fans.

At times, you can tell NJH wants to portray NDS as pensive, but it doesn't come off that way, instead of pensive, all the audience sees is either a scheming look, an arrogant look, or an ungrateful look.

I mean just focus on his last scene with HJP in ep. 16, and you'll see what i'm talking about.

On paper, a shy, introverted NDS, that gets the girl SDM, by being himself is romantic. But a shy, introverted NDS, who in a span of a few episodes, becomes a completely different character who loses all his naïve, and geeky charms, will not capture many fans respect. And this is on the writer more than anything, as she is in charge of the characterization of NDS. Partly the casting director as well, as they casted an actor that didn't have the acting talent to play a potentially complex character. In the hands of a better actor, NDS could have been a complex one. But in NJH hands, it honestly just looks like an angry teenager half the time.

I was upset that last episode, they had to give halmoni and NDS skin ship.

Now even for halmoni attention HJP have to share lol.

I'm still so mad lol!

awww gurl :(((((

I hope you find someone to love you just for the way you are. Love is unlike business, sometimes you need to just take a leap of faith. But do keep an eye for red flags.

sorry to hear about your SLS.