Okwe

Cool

I hate Gyurim's pity party thing .... but I understand why it's necessary. People neglect to remember that this girl has carried every burden on her own for 20 years and she's been treated like a burden by everyone for almost as long. That kind of thing doesn't just go away coz a guy says he likes you. Her fears are valid and she can't just trust MuJin to be dependable just coz he says he will be (yes he showed it before but that was 8 years ago and she's built more fears since then and even then she had to fix that too... she did it wrong but it still fixed it, from her perspective his life is better off now than back then).

GyuRim is a good example of hyperindependance. It is not all strong and capable, it's sometimes self destructive. She will deny herself things she wants because she's afraid they'll not want her enough to share the load with her. She'll fear losing the things/people she loves because she's lost so much over and over.

People are missing the whole relationship arch she' having with Mu Jin. The entire four episodes of Gyeol finding out about his birth and running from home is part of the arch. By having Gyeol run to Mu Jin, GyuRim sees an instance where he can be a father (hence the scene where she notices that he cut Gyeol's nails well). Her coming to get Gyeol from him and ending up at that vacation house, that's her being shown he will provide for her therefore she doesn't have to provide anyone like she's done for 20 years. Then the biggest one, him letting her sleep in and not allowing her to touch anything and instead doing everything for her shows her that she doesn't have to slave away domestically, she can rest.

Then he goes around fixing her problems. I didn't see it as "saving her", it felt more like helping. I didn't see the need for GyuRim to partner with him and solve them coz we as the audience already know she's capable. This girl slaved for 20 years, lost her home, raised three kids, was her sister's errand girl, got them another home after her father gambled away the first, worked multiple jobs to keep food on the table, took care of everyone's daily needs (food, laundry, chores) to the point that a grown Gyu Oh can't even make his own scarmbled eggs. She dropped out of school so her sister wouldn't, spent every penny on the needs of everyone... and still the audience wants her to be "proactive" and solve more problems? The girl is tired. Let her rest.
I understand that the ML saving FL trope is ancient but sometimes it is necessary, we like a girl boss but a girl boss is not the only kind of female that exists. GyuRim is tired, what she needs is someone who will identify problems and fix them, not all the time, but enough that she knows she doesn't have to handle him like how she's had to handle everyone around her. It's okay to be taken care of.

It was also to show us that MuJin will not be another burden to her. He's a capable man who loves her regardless and will do almost anything to ensure she's safe, happy, and well rested (remember that whole shoelace conversation at the vacation house). I don't see a problem with that. Is it a little unrealistic, yes, but it's not impossible. Punching Gyu Oh was another testament to that because "Yes you got scammed but also... if your sister found out she'd be heartbroken so I'll hurt you for hurting her" is such a vibe (I don't endorse violence by the way).

Just let the poor girl rest; she didn't fix one problem, yeah, but she's been fixing every single one from the begining, let her be stressfree for one obstacle and she'll come back and fix some more. Right now, please let that man show her how much he loves her... it's the only way those walls around her will drop. Dear heavens.

All that said however, we must remember that different societies have different rules, just coz our sieties work one way doesn'tmean other societies do too; it also doesn't put us in a moral high ground to dictate how they should behave. I also think it's ridiculous that that's how they work but I am not Korean so I can't make those rules for them. Another thing is Hyun Bin might not have a problem with her being nude on screen but he's not the one casting her, the production people are, and they have to consider the korean public's reception to their work, so we can't put that on him unless we have explicit proof of his disdain for her being publicly nude, or she, herself, might not want to be naked on screen; that's also a choice she's allowed to make. I think we often translate that "choice to mean "if she has the option to be nude, she wouldn't choose to not be" and neglect that some people have a few conservative rules for themselves and unless they are hurting someone, then it's okay to have them.

All these actresses weren't married at the time of their sex scenes. Kim Go Eun amd Kim Tae Ri are the exception to the rule, they are anomalies, mostly because their films were internationally accoladed. Lim Ji Yeon almost didn't break out of the 'nude actress' pipeline. It took a while for her to be offered roles that didn't require her to be naked on screen after Obsessed. Jeon Jon Seo is not married and her explicit scenes were a year ago so it's too early to judge if they'll affect her longterm. They might not though coz netflix's rise within korean media production has slightly shifted what is normalized.

Thank god I'm done. The amount of frustration this gave me while watching was so bad I ended up venting to chatgpt which was no help coz it's chatgpt. But wow... Started out great then just derailed. Production didn't want story to build itself. BoatOat's relationship was good but it eventually ran out of a story to tell and instead of giving us more of the other lovers, they tried to stretch it which just made it boring. Then there was the character inconsistencies. Don't get me started on every character somehow slowly becoming a plot device for Phatsa, I got tired of that more than anything else.

Okay what I'm about to say does not negate that S.Korea has sexist double standards but Hyun Bin hasn't had scripts with explicit intimacy(at least none that I've witnessed). And there's not a lot of men who have have explicit scenes after they've been married so from where I'm standing... it seems like that standard is the norm for eveyone who's married. Again, this doesn't extend to all issues and doesn't even cover the whole block of this one coz even though they all generally don't participate in explicit intimacy after they've been married, the ladies might carry that burden more than the guys considering that a lot of ladies all but disappear from tv screens after they've been sexual on them.

From all its adaptations and even the book itself, SYJ's character is promiscuous... her promiscuity is why her man leaves her/her husband takes a concubine... the entire reason the bet even begins is because she doesn't want to acknowledge that her wanton ways are the cause of most of her marital problems so when her husband takes a lover/leaves her, she's livid. She hates being rejected and responds horribly to it, so she asks her cousin to seduce her husband's new lover as revenge. The entire story revolves around her being overtly sexual... so SYJ being married in real life (considering Korean societal views on propriety) she can't really do debauchery on television which then limits her character especially because even the source material relies heavily on her tendency to solve almost all her problems with sex. Hers and ChoWon's relationship is largely lustful and the reason he rejects her towards the (in the original materials, not this adaptation) is because he's in love and for the first time he sees clearly that they were bonded by their lust for one another. And because of her lack of sensuality, the writers probably had to cut back on her crazy antics as well... one of which is accidentally getting CW killed. This adaptation was ruined largely because they probably had to accomodate her marital status and much if her characterization was buffed up... so her being married has a lot to do with it.

I love the coparenting thing they have going on this week. Father-son ship is so cute.
Also, Gyu Rim needs to learn that words are only ever helpful is you speak them. She internalizes too much and it hurts her.

Oh please. Please. A remake would be so good. And writers who are not afraid of their own script.

We need a support group for the hell this show is putting us through coz what the hell is happening?

Honestly, of all the characters here who are dislikable ... Gyu Yeong, their father, birth mother, and chairwoman are the worst.
Gyu Yeong is selfish and unempathetic. She's always doing what she wants but complains that she never does what she wants.
Father is a spineless idiot. Never parents but wants praise for existing, only knows to pout and financially ruin his kids. Can't he just die?
Birth mother abandoned her children. Leaving coz of a divorce is one thing, completely cutting contact is another but raising a stepchild whilst simultaneously neglecting your own children is... an interesting choice.
Chairwoman is entitled, you already disowned your son.. why are you planning his wedding. What does she think this is

I get so mad thinking about how at the end of it all; they'll all be forgiven and redeemed because... well it's a weekend drama.

Will I stop watching though? Nope. I love Gyu rim and her son and her ex lover/ potentially future husband, Mu Jin.

Mandala (曼陀罗) is the native title but I think you'll find it easier with the english title "Gilded Cage" on Flickreels. Another user had uploaded some of the episodes on tiktok but I' not sute if it was taken down or not.

My mistake, I wasn't aware he had his own version. Thank you so much

I think you mean the one with Dong Yi (I've confused them a few times; they look alike). Check it on tiktok, it's called Everlasting Marriage (Not the Wang Hao Zhen and Ma Qiu Yuan version. Same story, same title but different actors. Still amazing)

Link to 1st ep coz i somehow can't share the entire playlist, you'll do the rest:

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSmW3s5er/

As of now, she still hasn't made a pact with him, so she's still not conceding to anything. She loves her brother but loving her brother doesn't give her leeway to be horrible to someone who has nothin to do with his death. My initial post was simply that she is valid in her grief but she's misplacing her anger, that statement still stands. You brought up concessions. I'm not saying she should just accept his feelings because he loves her, for his crimes, she can torture him for that and he deserves it. Yes it's a natural reaction but it being a natural reaction doesn't mean we, the audience, can't analyse it as a harsh one- natural as it may be. We can go in circles all day.
As I said before, I like where her character is going. I love the development. Cruel as her tactics are, she's growing beautifully. We agree to disagree otherwise we'll be here all day.

Yes but the mistakes of her brother weren't hers to forgive. Her brother did nothing to her so why does it excuse how she's acting? XXX was relentless and she did resist. I give her that but then she married him, not only that; she made it a point to keep her brother away from the wedding so it would not be stopped. She fought a second bride in the backrooms just to make sure she married him. He asked for her hand fairly and she accepted. She made that choice because marrying him benefits her search for her cure. That's not a concession; it's a deal. A concession would have been her marrying him because she's changed her mind about their relationship and now thinks they would be a great couple; she didn't marry him for that so... not a concession.

She actually can blame her brother; and she should; he did those things, dying doesn't mean it didn't happen. She can love him, grieve him, and blame him. He did all that. She never made concessions for XXX, she made them for herself. She didn't want to lose one relationship over the other so she tried for reconciliation. She wanted XXX to let it all go and hoped her brother would turn himself in. Where is the concession? Marrying him was mutually beneficial. What was the concession. Goin on those glass fragment missions is to cure her. Where is the concession? Not forgiving him is fine but torturing him with the one thing he cannot handle is cruel. In this moment, she is no better than her father and brother. Everything they do is for their benefit alone, she's taking the same route.
As for feelings, yes she's never fallen in love before, I give her grace for that but she's always been an empath. Nongyu knows exactly what hurts people; that's why she begged her brother to forgive her father, why she begged her husband to forgive her brother, why she consoled her sister-in-law after her brother said the REN are monsters and shouldn't be loved. She knows, and that's why she so explicitly explained to him in the dream sequence why XXX keeps failing to wake her up. She laid that out in detail; she knows falling in love at first sight is their thing because she knows XXX craves her love like it's the air he breathes and that's why she made that jump at the end coz she wants him to keep losing the one thing he wants and loves. She looked him in the eye and SAID IT ... while he was breaking down begging. She knows how deep the cut is, she knows she's making it; SHE WANTS TO nothing here is a mistake. And she will keep making it until he either gives up or she feels like he's worthy of her again. She especially likes torturing him with his emotions because it's the one thing he has no defense for. I like what they're doing with the character, it shows development but I can't excuse the actions of the character just because I like how she's written.

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out. I really like that they made her go through this though, she would have never matured with her brother around. Not saying being loved extremely is wrong, she just needed some development. As unreasonable as she is being right now, she's still forgivable.

WNY's grief is valid but it's misplaced. She read that letter, it explained everything. Nothing could have saved her brother. And XXX sending that video before the death of her brother was coincidental, it's not his fault. Should he have just let it go? And now she's using his emotions against him, knowing fully well that he doesn't know how to handle any of them because he's never had to before. She brings these feelings out of him. When it comes to emotions, he's basically a teenager. He doesn't understand why he's suddeny in so much pain and even if he does, he hasn't fully grasped why it affects him as much as it does and how to deal with them. This is a psychiatric condition. And she's using it against him. It's like teaching somebody how to start a fire and then burning them. It's cruel.

I love it. I would love it more if they didn't act like KDW being logical about how he approaches cases is a bad thing and if PGP took the self-righteousness down a smidge.
And I would not survive against WMH... i would probably strangle him in court coz wow he's unfeeling. He makes me so angry.