timeripple (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeripple) wrote2011-11-30 12:43 pm
timeripple) wrote2011-11-30 12:43 pm
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Here I am: Subversion and the Secondary OTP in Secret Garden
I’m just gonna stick this post up here and edit it later, maybe with some pictures, because I have to run to work. Geez, work, why you gotta get in the way of the important things? ;P
This is a post about secondary characters! Okay, it’s about secondary characters in Secret Garden, because I have been faithfully re-watching it and not fast-forwarding to all the bits with the leads this time. *hangs head* What? The leads are a pair of bickering lovers played by Ha Ji-won and Hyun Bin. CAN YOU BLAME ME?
But this is not a post aboutHyun Bin’s face Ha Ji-won’s awesomeness the leads. This is a post about the bestest secondary couple of all recent kdrama: Choi “Oska” Woo-young and Yoon Seul. (Yes, they’re even better than Dogboy and Art Girl in Coffee Prince. I even know their names!) I kind of wish they WERE the main couple--or rather, A main couple, because their journey is pretty darn interesting. In fact I would argue that it’s them, rather than Gil Ra-im and Kim Joo-won, who get an actualized emotional journey, both as individuals and as a couple.
For those of you keeping score at home, Oska is an aging Hallyu star trying to make a comeback with a new album. He’s selfish, ridiculously enamored of his own fame, and an outrageous womanizer and flirt. He’s a ridiculous self-absorbed pop star... who nonetheless has enough sense to be the advice-giving hyung to his neurotic cousin Joo-won. YOU GUYS, I LOVE OSKA. He’s loud, brash, and his own biggest fan, but not-too-deep-down he’s a decent person who undergoes a whole lot of emotional grown throughout the drama.
Yoon Seul, I have to say, does not start out as somebody you want to root for. This is because she occupies the classic secondary role of Spoiled Rich Girl who pursues Our Hero, despite his obvious lack of interest in her, with increasingly delusional tenacity. She’s snotty, rude, mean to Our Heroine, and attempts to show off her superior education by speaking extremely bad English. She’s also Oska’s ex. For the first few episodes, we’re tempted to shout, “Good riddance, Oska!” Especially when she decides it would be fun to bribe her way into directing Oska’s comeback music video (she’s a director).
The thing about Seul is? She’s totally playing a role. She’s the most meta thing in this drama. Seul is pursuing Joo-won not because she’s smitten with his face or money, but because she thinks it’s the most effective way to torment Oska. (She’s right.) Seul doesn’t care if Joo-won is in love with someone else; she doesn’t want him to be in love with her either. In whatever kdrama logic goes on in her brain, marrying Oska’s cousin is totally the best way to get revenge on Oska for breaking her heart. (Never mind that she already broke his. And is blatantly, obviously still in love with his stupid Hallyu star face.)
Thankfully, Seul drops that scheme like a hot potato once she finds out Oska really is trying to figure out how he screwed up--that he genuinely wants to start over, but better this time, and is willing to work to make it, well, work.
Somehow this change of heart also turns her into the biggest Ra-im/Joo-won shipper in the whole world. The best scene in the entire drama is when another Rich Girl tries to butt in on a key moment for Ra-im and Joo-won at a fancy party. Seul swoops in, drags her outside, and delivers the “I’m the only crazy bitch in this drama, got it?!” speech. No, really, she’s like, “Don’t interfere when two people are about to have an important moment! Don’t you watch dramas? There’s only one crazy bitch character who gets to mess with the main couple AND THAT’S ME. Now run along.” It’s made doubly hilarious by the fact that by now, Seul’s not trying to be the interloper any more--highlighting just how much of an act that role has been for her all along. She gets to play it one more time here.
Then she heads back to the party, where Oska plays her favorite song and is like “this song is your favorite! I totally remembered!!1!” and it’s adorable. *dissolves into a puddle*
Oska’s other attempts to show his sincerity and win Seul back are pretty funny. Earlier at the same party, he offers her cheesecake. Wasn’t that her favorite, but something she didn’t want to eat because it would make her fat? “Nope, must be some other girl. Is she skinny?” It’s extra sweet, then, when he gets the song right.
More hilarious subversion: When Seul attempts to show off her English, it’s in front of the hot stunt director who spent some time in Hollywood. What Seul doesn’t know (but soon finds out) is that he’s played by Philip Lee, who grew up in the States. Their exchange goes something like this:
SEUL (talking in terrible English about the stunts she wants to use for Oska’s music video): I. AM. VERY. DISAPPOINTED! I. like. everything. [to be] FEBBULOUS!
DIRECTOR (also in English): Then I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong person. My style is more polished than flashy.
SEUL: Ahahahahashit.
I love her. How awesome is it that she’s not just a rich heiress; she actually has a career too? LOVE HER.
What secondary characters do you love, either OTPs or individuals? (Does anybody want to talk about Xiao Ma and Forsenics Lady from Black & White?)
This is a post about secondary characters! Okay, it’s about secondary characters in Secret Garden, because I have been faithfully re-watching it and not fast-forwarding to all the bits with the leads this time. *hangs head* What? The leads are a pair of bickering lovers played by Ha Ji-won and Hyun Bin. CAN YOU BLAME ME?
But this is not a post about
For those of you keeping score at home, Oska is an aging Hallyu star trying to make a comeback with a new album. He’s selfish, ridiculously enamored of his own fame, and an outrageous womanizer and flirt. He’s a ridiculous self-absorbed pop star... who nonetheless has enough sense to be the advice-giving hyung to his neurotic cousin Joo-won. YOU GUYS, I LOVE OSKA. He’s loud, brash, and his own biggest fan, but not-too-deep-down he’s a decent person who undergoes a whole lot of emotional grown throughout the drama.
Yoon Seul, I have to say, does not start out as somebody you want to root for. This is because she occupies the classic secondary role of Spoiled Rich Girl who pursues Our Hero, despite his obvious lack of interest in her, with increasingly delusional tenacity. She’s snotty, rude, mean to Our Heroine, and attempts to show off her superior education by speaking extremely bad English. She’s also Oska’s ex. For the first few episodes, we’re tempted to shout, “Good riddance, Oska!” Especially when she decides it would be fun to bribe her way into directing Oska’s comeback music video (she’s a director).
The thing about Seul is? She’s totally playing a role. She’s the most meta thing in this drama. Seul is pursuing Joo-won not because she’s smitten with his face or money, but because she thinks it’s the most effective way to torment Oska. (She’s right.) Seul doesn’t care if Joo-won is in love with someone else; she doesn’t want him to be in love with her either. In whatever kdrama logic goes on in her brain, marrying Oska’s cousin is totally the best way to get revenge on Oska for breaking her heart. (Never mind that she already broke his. And is blatantly, obviously still in love with his stupid Hallyu star face.)
Thankfully, Seul drops that scheme like a hot potato once she finds out Oska really is trying to figure out how he screwed up--that he genuinely wants to start over, but better this time, and is willing to work to make it, well, work.
Somehow this change of heart also turns her into the biggest Ra-im/Joo-won shipper in the whole world. The best scene in the entire drama is when another Rich Girl tries to butt in on a key moment for Ra-im and Joo-won at a fancy party. Seul swoops in, drags her outside, and delivers the “I’m the only crazy bitch in this drama, got it?!” speech. No, really, she’s like, “Don’t interfere when two people are about to have an important moment! Don’t you watch dramas? There’s only one crazy bitch character who gets to mess with the main couple AND THAT’S ME. Now run along.” It’s made doubly hilarious by the fact that by now, Seul’s not trying to be the interloper any more--highlighting just how much of an act that role has been for her all along. She gets to play it one more time here.
Then she heads back to the party, where Oska plays her favorite song and is like “this song is your favorite! I totally remembered!!1!” and it’s adorable. *dissolves into a puddle*
Oska’s other attempts to show his sincerity and win Seul back are pretty funny. Earlier at the same party, he offers her cheesecake. Wasn’t that her favorite, but something she didn’t want to eat because it would make her fat? “Nope, must be some other girl. Is she skinny?” It’s extra sweet, then, when he gets the song right.
More hilarious subversion: When Seul attempts to show off her English, it’s in front of the hot stunt director who spent some time in Hollywood. What Seul doesn’t know (but soon finds out) is that he’s played by Philip Lee, who grew up in the States. Their exchange goes something like this:
SEUL (talking in terrible English about the stunts she wants to use for Oska’s music video): I. AM. VERY. DISAPPOINTED! I. like. everything. [to be] FEBBULOUS!
DIRECTOR (also in English): Then I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong person. My style is more polished than flashy.
SEUL: Ahahahahashit.
I love her. How awesome is it that she’s not just a rich heiress; she actually has a career too? LOVE HER.
What secondary characters do you love, either OTPs or individuals? (Does anybody want to talk about Xiao Ma and Forsenics Lady from Black & White?)
no subject
Because, to be frank, I'm not into Hyun Bin, though he has talent, and Yoon Sang-Hyun is so adorable at playing losers... At first I was "eh, typical cool bitch secondary girl, over it" about his plotline, but then...she was actually, you know. Awesome. Quirky. Cold in a highly maintained way.
:now goes to actually read your analysis, that intro of My Feelings out of the way:
WAIT WE FEEL ALL THE SAME THINGS
I am somehow unsurprised by this.
I see your point about the emotional journey they undergo being much more maturing. I'm so glad they had 20 episodes so these two COULD have a journey of their own. Ra-Im and Joo-Won are having a first-love experience of being drawn to people they shouldn't be despite themselves, where their primary obstacles are their own unwillingness and the unawesomely played MOM BEAST. I mean, the actress was fine for the role, but she didn't bring the more to it needed to sustain that much screen-time.
Unlike Goo Joon-Pyo's mom. She was horrifying, but amazing.
Oska and Seul instead have to work out a relationship that failed. Oska hasn't grown emotionally because he really only wants her BUT he likes girls too much to just languish alone. (He's actually the fabulously realist second-guy for Seul's drama. Maybe she was the only one for him, but it's been years and years and years. And he's a guy. With girls throwing themselves at him. He's also very accepting of himself as well as others...)
And for Seul, I really didn't get where she was coming from for the first half of the show before it reveals how much she still feels for him, in hatred. When she was being cold I was like, "Bwu---why is she so tenacious about Joo-Won, dude's not into you." But the fact that it's been long enough, she has this calculated revenge she's trying to railroad into action and she's not giving up though the pieces aren't coming together...
It also was hints from the DramaBeans recaps. Since I don't speak Korean I was missing the notes of drama-parody until they were pointed out. I rewatched the episode where she takes the other calculating chaebol-girl outside to start off my campaign to watch the rest of the episodes, and she's totally digging being in character.
No wonder Oska couldn't figure out what was going on inside her head, to put the pieces together originally! She's good at acting.
...that's also why they're a good match. They're both a dash of crazy, and kind of into themselves.
SO CUTE.
no subject
I wasn't crazy about Hyun Bin in My Name Is Kim Sam-soon, but he sort of hit me over the head with a brick, as it were, in Secret Garden. Uh, an intense, weird, neurotic, committed-to-the-crazy-of-the-character brick. XD
Agreed about the evil mothers, definitely. Although I found the evil mom sisters competition they had going on pretty hilarious.
Oska and Seul instead have to work out a relationship that failed.
Exactly. This made them such a great contrast to Ra-im and Joo-won, who are trying to figure out how to even approach a relationship that they're both convinced would be doomed to fail.
I really didn't get where she was coming from for the first half of the show before it reveals how much she still feels for him, in hatred.
I do think this could have been signposted better (or at all)--often drama ladies suddenly get less awesome for no apparent reason (*cough*Ra-im, even you*cough*). If only character inconsistency was in the MORE AWESOME direction more often! That said, there was a hell of a lot going on in the first half, so it's not surprising that Seul kind of got stuck in her role and only her role for so long.
I was thinking of other ways Secret Garden is subversive, despite its flaws. It's probably the only drama where the amnesia plotline is actually possibly maybe the best thing ever...
no subject
I LOVED the layered way that worked. Not only was Joo-Won supercute as a *young* cocky guy (I actually preferred him in Kim Sam Soon, not for his acting, which was definitely more shallow, but for seeming like an actual human) but it had an internal logic. If his lack of memory is a big deal in his life, he can't just have it back with no complications.
He fought to have it back, and that may have actually been the most exciting part of the story with him. I got a huge rush when he runs to tell Ra-Im about that more than any of the other times he runs over to bother her, or be nice, either.
Ra-Im was really hot in the beginning, and I wished that she continued moreso, but I can see the balance being hard in that kind of a story--how do you get across that she's also vulnerable? Well, introduce a guy that's always catching her off her stride. She spends most of the story off her stride then, and her awesomeness all happens with Oska and their bantering. (OMG, THEIR BANTERING. Collaborating to provoke Joo-Won is the BEST thing those two have ever done. Even separately.)
But it would have been nice to explore more of her motivation and drive. I thought all her scenes training the kohais(hoobaes) were intriguing, and wanted to know more about *that* Ra-Im. But Joo-Won always railroads her into other things...
In Protect the Boss, the scheming ajummas are what these ones could have been, and the earlier parts with that I watched a long time ago. I may be a bit biased...they were pretty cool, but that whole family side-line went by the wayside. Though I DID like how Uncle With Voice gets brought back to be the manager, after some good laying-down-of-the-law.
Hmm. Subversiveness, huh. Neither of them did get a make-over in the kind of people they were (none of them did, actually). They just made it kind of work. (Grandma included.) So that's an interesting choice.
no subject
Our hero already has amnesia, and when the recall kicks in, he's actually adorable. I could kiss this drama just for that subversion right there. Though I would have love love loved more badass Ra-im. (THE BANTERING THOUGH!!! OMG THE OSKA BANTERING. OSKA SOCKS.)
One day I will get around to Protect the Boss. Really!
no subject
Oh, but what were the parts of Personal Taste that made you stop watching it? I'm kind of working on a good parts version...but I'm a bit blinded by the fact that I've already seen some plotlines become interesting that at first drove me crazy XD
no subject
Hmmm, Personal Taste. It's been a while...I disliked pretty much any time the heroine bumbled or had daddy issues; the whole bit with her awful friend and fiance (except when it lead to DRAMA AT THE OPERA, because that was great); basically anything that didn't involve the heroine and hero being cute together, or dignified gay older man. I liked him, and them!
no subject
yeah, I'm thinking of coming up with a "Choose Your Own Adventure" guide XD
Because ultimately I found the ex an interesting character.
There was never any good understanding of what made her ex-bestie tick, but she was well-ACTED, and I adore, adore that actress in Protect the Boss. (Think on the level of Oska's Seul, as a reinterpretation of the chaebol-girl, though of a different stripe entirely.)
The story really hung together well with all the strands of it, except certain overly dramatic bits.
But now I shall see what we can do!
And no need to hunt, if you haven't already: http://hakusa-tegami.livejournal.com/218164.html#cutid1
MAGIC PORTAL TO THE CUT about Protect the Boss.
no subject
no subject
Ahahahaha, no, I love that book with an irrational childhood love that prevents me from snarking on it. ♥