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[Dramaland Catnip] Sibling love and fauxcest


That Winter, the Wind Blows

 
By @Beanfan

One plot development (call it my “unhealthy” dramaland catnip, if you will) that often draws me to a drama—or, to only part of a drama, as I usually don’t need to watch it unfold till the ugly end—is when a couple realizes their relationship isn’t allowed because they somehow are (or believe themselves to be) related, and the OTP consequently falls into all sorts of despairing, yearning, resisting, succumbing, self-sacrificing behaviour.

Like another Guest Beanie’s catnip of choice, mine is related to my love of a truly tragic romance. Though I enjoy straightforward love stories that are lighthearted and uncomplicated, I also thoroughly relish when my heart ends up hurting in a tangible way for an OTP’s loss. And as far as plot devices go, short of death or lasting amnesia, I find that nothing works as quickly as (faux or real) incest does in lending a sense of impossible stakes, and of putting a couple to the ultimate test of temptation.

Legitimacy and ickiness aside, I should stress that I watch for all the ensuing anguish and heartache… maybe because life is too good to me, and I’m in it for much-needed catharsis. Or, maybe it’s because I’m an only child, and cannot really imagine how gross it would be to fall in love with a brother. Or, maybe I’m just a little twisted inside, and enjoy it when a couple’s pain convinces my own heart to reciprocate. At any rate, I tune in because when the relationship is so pointedly forbidden and taboo, it almost always makes a couple’s pull toward each other feel positively magnetic and more irresistible, their internal denial (and everyone else’s external resistance to the relationship) more upheaving, and their behaving against their better judgement more daring and final.

Naturally, there are shows that tease the viewer only very lightly, where the OTP are neither related by birth nor by marriage, such as That Winter, the Wind Blows, where the hero is a con man only pretending to be the blind heroine’s long-lost brother, but who eventually falls in love with her. The danger of being discovered was more related to the risk of the hero’s blowing his cover, so the resolution to the brother-sister tension was fairly simple once the truth of the deception was revealed. Simple and therefore not as catnippy.


Nine: Nine Time Travels

Up one level of heaviness would be a drama like Nine: Nine Time Travels, which for a brief moment became extra-catnippy for me when one of the incense sticks brought about a change in time from an earlier iteration, where the hero’s former lover becomes his niece in the present. All sorts of delicious angst came from the fact that the heroine had no memory of their previous romance, and was completely oblivious to the love her “uncle” harboured for her. The hero had to bear the knowledge of their past history all on his own, even at one point giving his “niece” relationship advice. This development felt less unsavory perhaps because the heroine had effectively caught amnesia, rendering the incestuous feelings one-sided. Nonetheless, the loneliness and unrequited love of the hero, and the very finality of the couple’s being true blood-relations, made it all hurt so good—however momentarily it lasted.

Dramaland wouldn’t be dramaland, however, if mutual, complicit “incest”—again, fake or imagined—wasn’t milked for maximum pain. When a relationship needs to be kept under wraps and a couple’s basic access to each other is restricted, every moment together counts, every glance becomes loaded with unspoken meaning, and every absence weighs more heavily. Having to keep things secret also wears away at the couple and necessitates greater emotional investment, with the overall effect of making it seem like the clandestine couple are experiencing deeper, more compelling emotions than, say, an out-in-the-open couple who cruises along breezily and faces little obstacle.

Even if the pair are related in name only—which appears to be as far as Korean dramas dare to go (unless I just haven’t come across the riskier ones)—and even if they could, technically, insist on pursuing their affair, there seems no way of avoiding the suffering caused by having to hide, deny themselves, defy their family and friends, face condemnation, et cetera…


Autumn Fairy Tale

One of my very first Korean dramas was Autumn Fairy Tale, where the hero and his not-real-sister kept their love affair hidden to avoid betraying and hurting those around them. My then teenage and impressionable self was very taken by the intensity of the love portrayed, fraught with audible sighs and pining glances, which grew stronger precisely because of all the resistance it met with.

I totally bought into the fateful sense that the couple was so “meant to be,” that no amount of covering up could keep their relationship from being realized—sort of like trying to smother the radiance of a star with a blanket… No matter how you try, rays of light will escape! The groundwork had been laid since their childhood, where they had shared an unbeatable rapport, mutual respect, and innocent love (of the purest kind!). The catnippiest part was therefore watching them try as adults to deny their increasingly amorous feelings, and witnessing their futile attempts to return to the mode of simple caring they had exchanged as kids.

In classic melodramatic fashion, this pair eloped to escape the scrutiny and disapproval of their families, and then of course had to retrace their footsteps due to the heroine contracting a terminal disease. Needless to say, the investment I made to have my heart earnestly squeezed paid off hugely by the end of the show.


Piano

Piano was a similarly pseudo-incestuous, heart-wrenching drama that aired a few years after, and took yearning and forbearance to new levels in its depiction of a brother and his stepsister’s suppressed-since-childhood love. While Autumn Fairy Tale’s couple went into hiding together, Piano’s OTP withheld their feelings not only from the world at large, but even from each other, stifling them under layers and layers of disguise.

My heart truly ached for the years the hero and heroine spent bottling up their feelings, sometimes in denial, sometimes desperately wanting to give in to desire. Small caring gestures would be halted in mid-action, or conversely pursued with near-religious devotion—such as the hero’s nightly watch under the heroine’s window, as well as the heroine’s silent acquiescence of having him wait there nightly, yet never openly acknowledging his presence. Call me crazy, but I couldn’t turn away from the show despite becoming increasingly frustrated over the endless will-they-or-won’t-they premise, and wishing desperately for someone to grow some balls! Thus, for irrepressible love that’s undeclared and denied, over and over again, Piano is a self-torturing drama viewer’s must-watch.

Alas, for all the dramas above, I ended up rooting for the consummation of each couple’s unwholesome relationship… which, hopefully, I can chalk up to unhealthy dramaland catnip, rather than to shady morals.

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Sorry, but this is my drama catNOPE.

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As a teen I LOVED Angel Sanctuary, now I find it super icky. It is a strange trope to like and when it comes my way I usually role my eyes and move on. Its not because I'm super grossed out, it just annoys me as a viewer because there is always somebody who knows the truth and just won't tell it for the sake of drama. I'm just to impatient for that and can't enjoy the heart wrenching pain, because it usually can be solved so quite easily.

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Saw a similar story in the series NCIS..And was icky

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NCIS? with whom??

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U spoke out my mind LOL!

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Does The Best Hit count? Cuz this is the first time I'm seeing a love triangle that involves father and son with the same girl. And clearly I'm on the wrong ship. Yoon Shi Yoon!! <3

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Yoon Shi Yoon is love. If TBH is somehow a far-out version of this trope, it's the one version I can get behind ;)

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Check out Mr. Back :) The 70-year-old father and his son are in love with the same girl

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Best Hit definitely doesn't fall under this trope unless the show takes a twist and has Hyun Jae fall in love with his son or fall into some sort of polyamorous relationship with Woo Seung and Ji Hoon lol.

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Pinocchio had shades of this.

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I was gonna say why pinocchio was not included. Dalpo was legally adopted as Inna's samchon

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I don't think that counts, because it wasn't really an obstacle to overcome. Everybody knew they weren't related and were fine with that. Even her father and grandfather didn't see it as a problem. The only reason the grandfather didn't want to accept it, was because he didn't want to loose Dalpo as a son.

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They ended up taking the adoption back in Pinocchio, so who knows how it would be otherwise. And in Sassy Go Go the lead couple's parents wanted to marry, so the guy decided to ask his mother to take him from his father's registry and put him into hers, because if her mother married his father, they would be legally siblings.

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There is only one drama (which I won't name to avoid spoilers) that actually made me feel the pain of the leads being siblings and the only reason I actually watched it all is because I learned about the sibling love in the last episode.
That aside, I am all for tragic, painful, impossible, sad-ending love stories but sibling love and fauxcest will make me run away faster than it takes to say drama.
Not sure if it is because I have a sibling myself or what but I can never sympathize with sibling love or fauxcest. This idea that a family member can be considered a romantic suitor just screams unhealthy to me. Not even the pain of the impossible relationship is good enough to make me stay.
While the main couple usually end up not being blood related or whatsoever I still cannot watch them fall in love knowing they are/could be family.

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Which one was that?

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Hmm... Sounds like this Japanese Dorama I watched years ago.

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It is indeed a Japanese drama. They actually announced its Korean remake a couple of weeks ago.

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Ok now you're just fanning the flames of my curiosity! Tell meee pliss! :D

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And it was one of Kimura Takuya's best performances!

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Generally this isn't a catnip for me, with one very notable exception. The only time this trope worked for me was Love Rain, which I have a weird affection for nonetheless. The reason it worked for me there was because the leads (in the contemporary timeline) didn't realize the fauxcest that was about to happen until after they'd started a relationship and it was too late. Then the story focused on push between the female lead's love for her mother versus her love for the male lead, which is what provided a compelling story for me. I also like that the issue of potential fauxcest highlighted the selfishness of the male lead's father and how the father chose to sacrifice his own happiness for his son in the end.

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I have an inexplicable fondness for Love Rain too! Something about the way the leads kept pushing each other away despite all the love they had for each other - it was somehow really compelling and heart wrenching. I also liked That Winter specially when things really happened and everyone were facing consequences for their feelings.

I never realized I like these kind of dramas tbh. I actually am so grossed out by the idea. But when I watch the actual dramas, somehow, it does make me feel strong emotions. Maybe I just love melodramas in general.

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Haven't seen That Winter, but yes to the leads here. Both generations were stuck in hard positions, but I really had so much love for the relationships between the parents and the children. It was one of the few times noble idiocy hasn't totally made me tear my hair out. I'm not usually a melo person, but this show is a particular catnip for me. Plus all the side characters are pretty cute too.

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As do I! I still rewatch scenes from this. We should all form a club. ? It was the second kdrama I watched and I didn't think it was a big deal because they weren't blood related, which, in my medical mind, would have been a set up for all kinds of horrible congenital diseases. So, from a public health standpoint, I had no problems with it. ?? Apparently, Koreans do have a problem with it. And the leads were so adorable I couldn't help myself rooting for them. Otherwise, I can't say this is catnip for me either.

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We should totally start a club! This is definitely my go-to drama when I want some hard-core melo without committing to watching a whole new series.

I agree, the fact that they weren't blood related helps, as does the fact that they got together before they realized that they were going to become siblings. Those two separations made the whole thing even more tragic to me.

Also, Jang Geun Suk was my first ever bias, and this was one of my first dramas, and I was only starting to get familiar with tropes etc., so all the issues seemed really strange to me, and some nuances went over my head the first time I watched it. But after years of drama watching the tragedy is so much more poignant to me now, and I can't help myself and rewatch bits every few months as well.

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The Nine hero and heroine were never "blood related" even after the reset. His brother was her stepfather.

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Ahh... I must've remembered wrong!

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Welll. This is controversial. Uhm. If *I* as the audience am AWARE the they are NOT RELATED in ANY sibling-y way then I guess I could watch it.

I wonder how The Best Hit is gonna pull off the father/son thing tho. ?

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As long as Hyun Jae and Ji Hoon don't fall in love with each other, then it's all good right? There's just a weird time travel 20+ year age gap thing involving Hyun Jae and anyone who's technically younger than him even though he's stayed the same age

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I don't think it's necessary to include Best Hit
because for all we know Hyun jae may not even fall for woo seung !! which means the son would get the girl and Hyun jae would return to the past.....although am shipping the wrong ship (WS and HJ)

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Good post, but I've finally found a catnope. However, the fact that this is catnip for some helps explain to me why dramas keep doing it. Even in dramas like Hwarang, where it doesn't last all that horribly long, I still find myself watching the clock and waiting for it to end so the "real" (to me) story can begin. One of the best moments of relief for me in any drama ever was the extremely early reveal in Reply 1994 that Oppa was not a biological brother.

Yay for the fact that there are so many dramas out there that we can all enjoy what we like and avoid what we don't enjoy.

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I normally hate fauxcest but Mi-young/Joong-hee in Father Is Strange is everything to me nowadays.

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I totally agree with you! They are so cute!
The father, though, REALLY needs to tell the truth and straighten it out so I can watch (and ship) in peace.

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This trope is definitely not my catnip but am rooting for Mi-young and Jong-Hee to get together in FIS. I think the show made it more than clear to the audience that they are not related (so I don't really feel the ickiness) but it is still difficult to watch Jong-Hee going through all that angst. Thankfully, it should be ending soon.

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Oh please. Don't make me remember Boku wa Imōto ni Koi o Suru. I didn't know what's the story about and I watched it back when I'm just 13yrs old if I remember it right and guess what? I got a little traumatized because of how the story goes. :(

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Omg that one, thinking back now I'm surprised the series even published, like how can you make young kids read this and pass it off as just shoujo?

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I find this drama trope really annoying and disturbing. I watched both That Winter(...) and Autumn Tale. The first one I didn't care too much because they were not sibblings nor had any kind of relation in the past and even though he knew it he felt wrong about it, she felt wrong about how their interaction were and she questioned every time if it was ok for a brother and sister to do this o that thing... BUT in Autumn tale, that was different, and I didn't find this drama as cute and romantic as many of other people does, why? Well, Because they ARE sibblings. They grew up and lived together for 13 years or so. You just can't and won't look at somebody different and as a romantic interest when you spend your entire life thinking and loving and treating that person as a sibbling.

To me, in my eyes, Autumn tale was incest. Ok they're not blood related but they were raised as brother and sister, and they way they treat each other is wrong and that's on negligent parents. Sorry I got carried away. But it's not a love story, I was shipping for second lead to get the girl.

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Years after watching it, I am still rooting for second lead, bad boy vibes and all.

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This remind me of Secrets in the attic..

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Autumn Tale was the drama that stopped me from starting kdramas for a few years. This was the first karma my friend tried to get me to watch and when she told me it was about a "brother and sister who fall in love but it's ok because later they find out they aren't blood related," I was grossed out to say the least. It made me question kdramas in general and it took me years until I finally gave in and watched Goong and well the rest is history

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wow, it was a bad one if she wanted to hook you in the kdrama world. At least now we have amazing dramas to recommend to our friends. I hooked one of my friends with City Hunter, and I created a monster LOL

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Honestly my friend was really bad at describing dramas too. The next drama she tried to get me watch was Wonderful Life with Eugene. She was like it's about "a one night stand between a guy and a girl but she gets pregnant but he likes another girl so he treats her badly." Yea no thanks but I finally saw it years after I actually enjoyed it lol

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The only time this drew me in was in That Winter the Wind Blows. I loved the con man taking on the oppa role because it added an extra layer to their every interaction and created this delicious tension between the leads especially since I was so sure the sister suspected he was not her real oppa all along. This was of course totally ruined when the show revealed that the sister didn't in fact no crap and so all the romantic angst up until that point was all one sided. -_- Never have I been more disappointed after giving someone's intelligence more credit than was due. Still, that drama fostered in me a love for Jo-in sung so strong that I still obsessively watch all of his dramas regardless of plot or genre.

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My Girl was a really good fauxcest show! Although the leads know they're not really related and are in on this one big scam together, the fact that they have to keep up appearances as fake-cousins definitely brought about the angst, so I think it counts!

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Yay, someone who mentioned My Girl! Tbh I wouldn't mind fauxcest shows if they were along this vein, where the leads are in the con together and fooling the rest of the world. It's probably the only iteration I can get behind, but I would totally watch if that were the case.

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Not a catnip for me, but this isn't a catnope either. When done right, sibling love and fauxcest can be quite a compelling watch - like 'Nine: Nine Times Time Travel' where the hero's pain throughout the 'uncle - niece' episodes made their reunion so, so satisfying. I have two requirements though - no actual blood relations, and/or they haven't grown up together.

Maybe I can get behind this one because, like Beanfan, I'm an only child and can't imagine how gross it would be to like your sibling romantically. In real life, I'm okay with marriages between cousins - it's too common in many parts of the world for me to judge.

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Totally agree with you! Even if they are not blood-related, as long as they haven't grown up together, I'm on their ship :3 I'm in love with the actor-manager couple in Father is strange right now!

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This is a really interesting one. Incest is SUCH a taboo, on such a gut-level of reaction, and I think that therein lies its sometimes compelling nature on this platform.

Half the lure of kdrama romances is the delightful way that love conquers all, from the most forbidding of parents to the highest of social class walls to the worst first impressions and preconceptions. And then we have the concept of incest, which is the most impossible divide to cross...worse, it's a divide we shouldn't ever want them to cross. The ultimate forbidden love story.

Fortunately, this is only ever expressed in fauxcest on TV, in which the familial relationship is a misunderstanding, or only a legal technicality at worst. Thus we as viewers can be slightly more comfortable with the love story, even if the characters aren't. So the audience can watch the ultimate forbidden love story unfold without feeling completely horrified, and still experience the distress of not knowing if the couple that seems so right for each other should express their feelings.

It's the same toxic draw that keeps us tuning into melos like Nice Guy or Secret, and it works by tapping into extreme emotions that most ordinary shows bypass.

I wouldn't say this is a catnip of mine, but it's definitely a trope that I can't really look away from...like with trainwrecks, you know?

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This is literally the one that makes me do 20 steps backward from a drama, and build a wall out of lead from it.

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Not really my catnip, but I do enjoy some dramas with this sibling love and fauxcest! I do ship most of the couples especially TWTWB and My Girl. However, I don't like Autumn In My Heart couple because think it's kinda weird as they grew up as siblings until teenagers. And I don't like Ah Ro & oraboni couple from Hwarang as well! Gosh, I'd go for the King if I were Ah Ro.

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My first thought was Garbage and Sung Na-jung in reply 1994. They weren't biologically siblings, but it was weird for their "parents" when their romance came out in the open.

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I love how everyone still calls him Garbage all these years later. :D

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Hahah just like how the actor who did Jung Bong in Reply 1988 is still called Jung Bong.

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And Samcheonpo! :D

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It's not my bag, baby. However, I wanted to commend the poster on a really well-written articulate and thoughtful explanation of why this trope works for them by heightening the stakes.

Also to say, these shows are usually fauxcest... so imagine my actual shock when I got a few episodes into 90 Days- Time to Love. They were legit blood related first cousins.

The leads are gorgeous (young Kim Ha Neul) , but the despair is dialed up to 11, and I dropped it for being too melo for my taste.

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Oh man, Lee Wan in Stairway to Heaven was so good as the indifferent-turned-loving stepbrother to Park Shin-hye. He was her only glimmer of light and hope in her dark and tragic life and I adored them together. I liked seeing the actors together more than their characters, but it just so happened that they played step-siblings. It was a definite no no, but it didn't stop me from watching the spinoff, Tree of Heaven (lol), because it was Lee Wan and Park Shin-hye again! I really liked them together. Can't you tell? It was essentially the same setup and just as tragic as the original. Lol. I had quite a crush on Lee Wan and even watched Insoon Is Pretty just to see glimpses of him. Anyways, this theme can get icky fast, so you always gotta be careful, but if we're talking about forbidden romances in general, there's just something about 'em that's just so damn appealing.

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I like Tree of Heaven. I do rerun whenever i miss Lee Wan and Park Shin Hye together. They are amazing. They cry in nil second which is amazing when some actors cant cry.

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It is possibly dramaland's greatest sin that lee wan didn't blow up. He's just so my type it hurts, such a talented hot beefcake with a penchant for beautiful tragedy.

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So true. But when I miss Lee Wan, I get a dose of Snow White Sweet Love because he was just happy and bright there. And it didn't end in such a depressing tragedy.

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There seems to be a fixation in Asian (Korean, Japanese and Chinese) drama about sibling love, not just faux incest, but also strong opposite sex sibling bonds. In Western fiction there doesn't seem to be much interest in this particular taboo. I wonder why? Does it stem from the value placed on blood relationships, the Confucius teaching separation of the sexes limiting contact except for family members, the idealization of the protective role of brothers for their sisters or an obsession with painful love stories?
I find it very strange and having brothers both genetic and adopted, totally unimaginable.

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Great questions! Although Shakespeare portrays incest in King Lear and subtly refers to it in Hamlet. More recent and notable example of incest in western pop culture must be the incestuous (not fauxceous!) love between Jaime and his sister in HBO's Games of Thrones which is a central plot line in the story.

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This is something I find particularly frustrating to watch haha. Our local shows use this trope all the time and the twist is often executed so poorly I can't root for the main couple. This trope leaves a bad taste with me haha. Sad, because K Dramas might do it better but I still might not give it a chance. Maybe if I hear the show was done well?

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Looks like most people run the other way from incest/fauxcest, so I'll be one of the few to say, I'm with you! It's a total catnip for me. I love heavy angst, heavy drama, and "taboo/forbidden loves" so I love it when the trope pops up. There's just something about the couple loving each other so much, and knowing that society will shame them for it, but they can't stop loving each other, that does it for me. I know a lot of people were turned off by the fauxcest recently in Father is Strange, but I'm just like, "yes give me more!"

Unfortunately this is a catnip that's pretty controversial, so there aren't that many incest/fauxcest dramas these days. Fauxcest pops up rarely, but incest is too daring for most dramas. I've have seen three older things with incest though. The japanese movie Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suro (twins), the kdrama 90 Days of Love (cousins), and the taiwanese drama The Rose (half-siblings). I wouldn't particularly recommend any of them though cause they just weren't that well written.

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Well there is one Taiwanese drama 'Devil beside you' where the girl and boy are going-tp-be step sister-step brother... Yet they fall in love and get together in the end without breaking the relationship of their parents!!!

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!!! My first drama! Woah, that takes me back. I wonder how well it's aged.

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The first drama that came to mind with this catnip is "Winter Sonata" heh

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Yes, I was just going to write about it! We can't forget the Hallyu drama of all time, Winter Sonata! **spoilers if you have not watched the drama**

Joonsang grew up without a father, doesn't know who his dad is and is searching for him, only to find out at the end that his father could be his true, only love's dad! There is nothing like going through heartaches to be with the one you love, only to find out when you are finally together that it may be taboo. This is not my catnip, but it will always have a special place in my heart as it is the theme of the first dramas I watched way back then, when yes, fauxcest, cancer, pain for 19 episodes out of 20, or even til the end...etc. were all the rage! Winter Sonata, Autumn Fairytale, My Girl, Stairway to Heaven...Ah, those were the days with really intense cliffhangers, you just couldn't wait to watch the next episode! Maybe because it was all still new back then! At least to me and my family.

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Haha And now we make fun of those types of drama plots, cliches, plot devices.... Oh, how the times have changed!!

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YES. I'm surprised no one brought this up until now! It was my first ever kdrama and thus the 'mother of makjang' I compare all drama ridiculousness to. The fact that I watched it with my mum made it all the more awkward and taboo at the time!

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Another trope that came from Jane Austen, I believe. Mansfield Park is the first time I encountered this. She was his 1st cousin that was sent to live with his family as a child. He's the only one nice to her growing up. Of course she'd fall in love with him. Still one of my favorites, if I don't think about the kids they'd have having the same grandparents on both sides, and autosomal recessive diseases they're at risk for! ??

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Not really the same grandparents, but pretty close.

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Marriage between cousins is still accepted in many societies, let's just be glad immediate family members are spared from this. >.<

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...and autosomal recessive diseases they're at risk for!

I love how scientific we're getting here! ?

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I don't have much of an opinion about this catnip. I'm not too picky as long as it's well written. However, I did watch "Ireland" with Hyun Bin several months ago. That was a incest/fauxcest drama about a Korean adoptee from Ireland going back to Korea and falling in love with someone who may or may not be her long lost biological brother. A very polarizing drama that one was. I liked it since the writer tried to subvert some of the cliches of this trope, but it had its flaws and contained some really cringey Ireland sequences. Definitely not for everyone.

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Sassy Go Go ending was rather strange too.

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Kill Me Heal Me - maybe, do second leads count?
I Can Hear Your Heart - same actress?

*Ani ni aisaresugite kommattemasu.*

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Song Hyegyo kept falling for her oppas ?

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Forbidden romance/fauxcest is one of my all time favourite catnip. There is just something about all those fleeting moments shared between the secret lovers in which they have to hide their deeper feelings from all around them. I just love it when one of the two or both just can't hide their feelings anymore and they just let them run wild, so to speak.

I do remember having watched quite a few dramas featuring this kind of romance. Of the top of my head - and the most recently drama that I have watched with this trope - is Hotel King.

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Oh Autumn Fairy Tale made me so mad cause they knew they weren't related, everyone knew they weren't related, yet the dad was being ridiculous. Like, I felt like it wasn't fauxcest cause they made that clear in the beginning when they brought her to her birth mother, but then the dad just kept screaming that is was ?

Oh the Second Lead Syndrome that that show was. Won Bin ❤️❤️❤️

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I was waiting for someone to mention Damo :) That drama was the first thing that came to my mind. Such a tragic ending. I couldn't get over it for a week.

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This one - Damo was lovable and justified.

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Piano make you cry so much and Ha Neul cried so much and there is also Jo In Sung in the drama. Damo also was good. Damo also frustrated me the girl being in between 2 guys and loving them equally. Tree of Heaven. Autumn love story made me cry so much at their forbidden romance and also amazing second lead- Won Bin.
I didnt watch Nine: Nine times travel though.

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Korean manhwa "Flowers of Evil" is truly tragic but it's my favorite. I guess Im also into reading/watching forbidden love stories

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How about game of throne

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the 1st two dramas that came to mind aren't kdramas: Hundred Million Stars From the Sky, which i haven't watch but looking forward to the tvn remake, & my ultimate love, The Rose from Taiwan.

im still waiting for kdramas to venture into this risky theme.. *smirks, OOPS*

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I would never consider this to be my catnip but--I don't know if any of y'all have read the book series The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare? The Main-tp of the series spends some time believing that they are siblings and there's a scene where Clary has to kiss the person she wants to kiss most with her boyfriend and her brother in the room--and she kisses her brother to the heartbreak/delight/ick/amusement of everyone in the room. The series has been made into a tv show--Shadowhunters--and they showed a preview for this scene in an upcoming ep and the pain of the kiss wasn't that Clary didn't choose her boyfriend. The pain was that she choose Jace even though he's her brother. In this past episode everyone learned that Clary and Jace aren't related and I found myself not really caring--the force behind the kiss was the incest not the cheating. So, maybe I have a bit of this catnip in my heart as well? I'll give one ago when I have some time (HA) for a marathon. Something that has a happy ending I refuse REFUSE to watch anything thats not going to end happy. *shrug*

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I've read the series and was pretty much into it until that incest storyline reared its head. I dropped the series after that, I couldn't get past the ickiness of it even though I knew it was just a plot device.

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This is something difficult for me to get behind, though I do understand the appeal of the will-they-or-won't-they and the ensuing tension. The reality that the leads might be related, even if they just grew up together as family and not really related in blood... it immediately becomes a catNOPE as the first comment said. ✌?

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NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
Sorry but no!! please no!! I can't handle it. Even in KMHM I couldn't bear the second lead's love. Blood relation or not (if adopted) , siblings are siblings, anything else is just gross >.<

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Definitely catnope for me too. fauxcest may be fine as it's just a case of impatiently waiting for the truth and courage to take action. But for real incest, it's like encouraging people to prey on their daughters and sons and little siblings. Sexual abuse propaganda *shudder*

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Don't have a problem, because fauxest isn't incest. Can I imagine falling in love with my brother? Hell, no. But Fauxest in dramas is usually between people who didn't grow up as siblings. So not being blood related, it can work for me in dramas. I think I am one of the few people who loves "One fine day.

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you aren't alone.

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Lmao. I just realized SHK has been in two incestual dramas. Sorry, but that is two dramas too much. I do not dig this sort of relationship at all. Cringeworthy.

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I remember watching Autumn tale and was so amazed by the writer that she knew what she was writing. The romance came so naturally and I think it's one of the best forbidden couples in a kdrama. The couple were truly soulmates. They were together as siblings and always got along so well. Then they found they weren't siblings at all. The separation only made feelings grew stronger and love was transform into something bigger than sibling love. It was my first otp that show unconditional love.

Another couple that I totally rooted was in Damo. The chemistry was all over.

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I used to be all about this trope. Doesn't gross me out because I know from the start the drama's only going to mine the premise for angst in an artificial way, and eventually eliminate whatever it is that makes them 'related'. It's been a long time since I saw tree of heaven, but if I remember correctly, they were stepsiblings and he fell in love with her, and then the drama killed off both parents lmao.

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I don't mind a drama with fauxcest because it is fake. I liked That Winter, the Wind Blows. The only true incest drama I can think of is 90 Days, Time to Love where the main leads were cousins.

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Quite my catnip but not... I'm more of a real sibling/cousin incest fan! gaaahhh anydrama with this catnip? I haven't heard of one ever~

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90 Days, Time to Love. The main leads are cousins.

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So I think I'm one of those rare people where this is a TOTAL catnip for me as well. Though to be honest, for me it's more the premise of two people who by circumstance or personal barriers feel like they cannot express how they feel for the other person. The reasons can range from class divide, familial conflict, personal guilt, whatever. As long as it means that the characters have to hide how they feel from the other person and suffer the angst (though ultimately overcoming it and getting their happily ever after), I am 100% on board.

Maybe it's because I grew up with so many fauxcest stories, but it doesn't bother me at all. For me, it's very strictly in the realm of fiction and fantasy, and doesn't cross over to how I feel about it in real life.

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