I have time today to read this after more than a week of stress.

I recall that Episode 13 left me hanging. I couldn’t make sense of the flash forward. Kang Chul must have stolen something needed to solve a problem, but it will have severe consequences, so much so that Hyo-joo had to shoot him. I also was lost on the scenery of a nuclear warhead heading towards Seoul.

I do hope these two episodes uploaded so far will answer my questions.

This will also be my first time reading with the new format. Let’s go!

Episode 14 Commentary

#1

Who is this 8-year-old character? Is this a younger Renbo and we are being shown a flashback?

#2 answered it as Omo, but who is she?

#3 opens a new narrative thread…

At #5, I’m getting some hints that Yoon-hee will be the person to enter “Queen of Darkness”

#7

This is probably a random conversation if you happen to view this scene randomly, but Han Hyo-joo would probably be trying to make herself calm while her mind races. Her body language would be tense due to what happened in the previous episode.

#8

This seems to be different to the young girl in #1. She’s 6 years old, not 8, so we don’t know yet the role Omo will play.

Also, it provides context that children really love Ren-bo. It’s somewhat similar to a pillow shot, but it’s purposeful. As already mentioned, it provides context, but it also gives as a short break from the information being relayed by the publisher.  

#9 goes back to the thread in #7.

It’s slowly building some suspene. Yeongjoo is helpless in being unable to help Soo-bong.

#10 goes back to our earlier Yoon-hee scenes. The earlier Yoon-hee scenes were just a prelude; something I think is about to happen here.

So now we know that Soo-bong and Mi-ra were ex-lovers. I’m sorry if I did not catch the hint.

So much angst in the break up. This is crucial information in that this break up is what’s driving Mi-ra’s behaviour. But since this is just thrown as backstory and we’re not invested in the relationship between Soo-bong and Mi-ra, I reckon that we would be indifferent to her plight. We just know intellectually that she’s in pain, but there’s nothing so far that would make us sympathise with her.

And this begs the question on why did they break up.

Yoon-hee’s thought that ‘At least Soo-Bong had managed to break up for good...’ at the very least gives us the hint that she was too toxic for him.

#15

I’m a little disoriented here on why Mira suddenly loses consciousness and crashes into the tablet.

#16 Yoon-hee was thinking that it’s suicide, but I’m not convinced. There must be something more.

#20

Now we see that Mira is in deep shit, and I feel sorry for Yoon-hee if she has to shoulder Mira’s medical expenses and all the paperwork.

Now, thinking back to #18, I really thought the new format is all text. I’m glad there’s still some pictures even if it’s very limited.

#25 seems to be exploring Yoon-hee’s backstory. And #26 goes back to Mira

At this point, #25 appears to be unnecessary, but I an anticipating that this would be relevant later once, perhaps, she goes inside Queen of Darkness.

C#7 answers my question as to how Yoonhee will foot Mira’s medical bills.

#33

I don’t like these scenes, but it’s probably an emotional scene with some background music mixed by. It’s an honest attempt to get us to sympathise to Mira, but part of me feels I cannot. After all, it has been established, somewhat clumsily, that she’s toxic.

#35 unbelievable! She reminds me of this Filipina singer who did exactly like that!

But she is making some social critique of Korea’s entertainment here, the so-called lack of creativity.

As far as I’m concerned, Korea’s pop culture is pretty creative, but it certainly feels that it can feel tropey and more of the same if you watch too much of it.

And thanks for mentioning the French painters!

On her positive comment to Yoon-hee. I’m not sure if I should take her seriously given that she’s toxic, but it makes you think about some stuff regarding so-called body positivity.

This is a good attempt at making her sympathetic, but I really have this nagging feeling that it’s so out of character.

#39 flashback to Mira’s childhood. Another attempt at trying to make us sympathise.

It explains why she is the way she is. Perhaps, 30%–50% who hated her initially might start to feel empathy with here.

I’ll continue with Episode 15 later, but now I understand why you said I might not like Episodes 14 and 15.

Episode 14 did not answer my questions regarding what happened to Soo-bong and Ren-bo. And it’s laying the groundwork for the episodes that will focus on Queen of Darkness.

Since I wanted to know what really happened, I will have to put up with this. Who knows? It will have some payoff later.

• • Enchanteur

    Saturday 14th January 2023 at 09:19
    

     

    Hello,

     

    I'm working to put episode 16 online today. Maximum tomorrow. Everything is finished but I have to reread for "trim the fat", and also rework on a key scene about some character reactions.

     

    Indeed, the flashforward is probably frustrating. It won't be resolved quickly. I borrowed the idea from the drama "Memories of the Alhambra", episode 2. There is a flashforward resolved in episode 10! When I first saw it... I was confused, and yet there was a voice-over to help. But I liked this crazy idea, with a "woo" effect!

     

    #1. As revealed later, this is a random little girl (well not quite because she has bruises). To show the sadness that manhwa causes to some children who identify with Ren-Bo.

    "OMO" is a Korean expression that means "Oh My God" or something like that.

    Scene #7, Publisher Park says "Just now, one of our young readers almost jumped into the void."... It was that little girl. Yeon-Joo is like an author who tells stories that make kids commit suicide now, lol!!!

     

    #7. Tragic-comic situation. Everything is done to make Yeon-Joo cry. Publisher Park can't know the devastating effect his words are causing, nor can his assistant.

     

    #10. We get clues that Mi-Ra and Soo-Bong had a relationship. Episode 1, Episode 3 (he burns photos), Episode 7 (flashback, Mi-Ra in prison). Only it's hard to believe because Soo-Bong is an unattractive guy and Mi-Ra is a kind of divine beauty.

     

    #15. You have a good instinct here. There's like an extra something. Initially, I had put in an additional voice-over of Yoon-Hee telling us what. But I took it out because there was too much voice-over, and also... I weighed the pros and cons. The symbolism of the scene alone was better. For a simple suicide, she could have thrown herself out the window. 

     

    #18. Just a few images I made a long time ago. There are few, sometimes none in some episodes.

     

    #25. This says how Yoon-Hee understands Mi-Ra about her deep distress. These are voice-overs, but there has to be a situation and a visual. Originally, the episode was poorly written: there was only a voice-over telling how Yoon-Hee experienced this. "tell" and not "show". So a short visual sequence is used to illustrate this. It gives a very short moment of background on Yoon-Hee. Namely, the drama contains none (in fact, only one other piece of information given later), just as W contained no background for most of the characters, except Kang Chul and Yeon-Joo. 

     

    #33. As you note, Mi-Ra is an ambiguous character. We don't know if we can sympathize with her or not. Like Oh Sung-Moo in season 1. 

     

    #35. If you reread the scene, you see that Mi-Ra doesn't care about "body positivity". What matters to her is only the drawing, the art, and the fact that the curves are aesthetic to draw. And strangely, she insults Yoon-Hee right after, telling her that she is a fat ugly. There was a voice-over from Yoon-Hee that I took out on that. "what she gives, she is quick to take back later". It's a good line, but I was hunting for the overly intrusive voice-over. So I removed that to let only what happens in the scene speak for itself: she gives something positive to Yoon-Hee, then makes it negative later.

     

    #39. It doesn't matter if you sympathize with the characters or not... basically what matters is that they have some relief. We can say that if it's successful in the case of the villains: we love to hate the bad characters. 

     

    Conclusion: Yes, you have the answer now. The situation is stuck for "Butterfly Girl." This is a quiet episode in that regard. A new starting point. So with exposition.

    There are payoffs all over the place, but some of them come sooner or later, some of them come very late. 

    As far as the overall structure of the story, I had to focus the story on the "butterfly girl" part without having a divergence on "queen of darkness". It would have been difficult to have both stories at the same time at that point. Thanks to the interruption of "butterfly girl", I have a free moment to focus the story on the other part. The fact that one comes after the other will also serve other purposes.