There’s something so Shakespearean about Tales of Nokdu with the the gender bending, mistaken identities, misunderstandings and great comic timings.

It’s very much like watching a play.

I only wish I could be sure it won’t inevitably lose all this and descend into the usual sageuk nonsense of palace scheming, prophecies and female leads that get potted.

For now, I could watch 16 episodes of these two calling each other “Mother” and “Daughter” and kicking arse across Joseon.

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    Hmmm…Robin Hood like tales of derring do with NokDu and Dongju that merge into legend…they have the village, an interesting cast of characters, … yes, that would have been fun, too.

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    I think this is why I love it so much – I have always loved Shakespeare’s comedies the best (As You Like It and Much Ado are my faves), and I have a thing for anything that plays with gender tropes (not just cross-dressing, but also subversion of gender roles though language or action). I wrote about this before, but I think the way that Nok-du plays the Widow Kim is so important because he doesn’t play her as a fool, and he respects women, and the drama as a whole has generally treated women as competent and capable, which I really appreciate and which changes the overall tone of the storytelling.

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      Yes to all of this. I usually dislike sageuk for a number of reasons but the normalisation of so-called “traditional” gender roles is my big one. Female characters are allowed to be only as awesome as would justify the male lead’s interest in them and are then basically planted in soil and left to grow a pretty flower while everything happens around them. This show has so many female characters and all of them full-developed people.

      More than that, the usual ‘comic trio’ role assigned to three men was, in this, assigned to three women. That was probably the best decision out of all of them.

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        Yes! I agree re: potted plants. But I also have to say, I’m less invested in Dong-joo’s arc overall because to me this is drama is wholly Nok-du’s story (it’s literally the title). But I love that the way women are used and treated by the drama as a whole is different and it’s refreshing (I got into this on my wall a while back). So even if they’re not the focus, they’re also not relegated to pure decoration or plot points.

        And generally, I’d be bored by now, because when the female lead peters off, I lose interest, but this is wholly Nok-du’s story (it’s literally the title) so I’m most invested in him. I wouldn’t say Dong-joo’s a potted plant so much as she’s not the focus of the plot, and that’s OK, as long as she stays true to her character and keeps going for what she wants.

        I know some people have complained that Dong-joo becomes a bit of a damsel in distress, but the way I see it is that she gets into those situations because she is proactive about her fate and what she wants, even if it is a danger to her. I don’t think she’s purposefully reckless, but it’s more that she goes into situations ignorant of what she is truly involved in, and that is not necessarily her fault. I think if she and Nok-du were more comfortable talking about their plans to one another that they would work better as a team; but at the same time, they are keeping one another in the dark to prevent harm to other, which I can’t be entirely mad at.

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          Honestly, every time the plot tries to damsel her I tense up like anything. But I feel like she’s already decided her plan will kill her so she’s not cautious about her own safety because she sees herself as already dead. Admittedly I’ve only just finished episode 8.

          I nearly threw something at the Widows Village massacre where she was unconscious and got taken back to Yool-mu’s house because I was anticipating a while episode of her being held captive and him having to rescue her and then… she rescued herself! Yay!

          I too would prefer the story to be them working together to meet their mutual goals, since the show was strongest when they were kicking arse together in Hanyang. But since, as you say, we know that isn’t the story the show was ever going to tell then it’d be churlish to get annoyed at it. Still, I’m a little nervous about the second half because I find sageuk second halves are nearly all the damn same.

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            Yeah…I mean, I’m caught up and so far, I’m not super mad at anything (they like each other! They express it! They’re not super timid about it!).

            I don’t know if their goals are even the same, but I feel really invested in Nok-du making the decision to leave the life that others seem to want for him behind. In a lot of ways this show seems to be about him finding his autonomy, which again, is a really interesting play on gender tropes. He is completely disinterested in politics, but he won’t walk away without answers about who he is. I think there’s something admirable about the doggedness in which he seeks answers, but at the same time doesn’t let those truths change him.

            Moreover, we know how the history plays out, but I think the manipulation of men by other men is interesting because it is often ambitious queens/concubines who are portrayed as the manipulative and conniving ones in these dramas, though there are always some evil ministers too (at least, as far as I can tell? I’ve only managed to finish a handful of historical dramas).

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            That’s a really good point about the evil/conniving female characters and how this show has men pitted against men.

            it’s always frustrated me how misogynistic texts force women into certain boxes and then judge them for being in that box. In particular, the way in which these societies only give women the option to use soft power to gain some type of agency and then judge them harshly for using the only tool they’ve been given. There’s an inevitable nun/whore dichotomy (expressed often as maiden/witch) here, where our female lead is a straight-shooting virtuous maiden and her opposing antagonist is a manipulative witch. And yet our lead only “wins” because of the inherent justice of the universe and male intervention, not because of any of her own actions.

            It’s why, as much as I dislike sageuks, I dislike modern sageuks that use the corporation as a kingdom backdrop just as much.

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            Yes! I actually wrote a paper on the virgin/whore complex and how its applied to ophelia imagery in music in university.

            My favorite villains in dramas over the last few years have been the female ones who are unapologetic in their need for power. I think most women who are played as villains are made to have fallen into that role. But when you have a female who is unapologetically looking for power it’s a whole different character and one that seems initially to be based on male tropes. Two off the top of my head are director Han from Graceful Family (another drama that did well in subverting tropes and not letting the female lead lose her steam) and the Judge in Lawless Lawyer. I loved these women because they were ruthless and ambitious and while they became twisted on their way to the top, it was never because of their femaleness. It was never because they were women that they were driven to this. It was purely because they wanted power for it’s own sake and not as a justification for being ill treated or scorned. I want more villains like that. Strong female characters come in all shapes and forms and not all of them are good people or have good motivations. I wish we’d see more modern chaebol dramas where the women fight for their place and not get relegated to a bargaining chip. It’s good to have women with edges, because not all of us are soft and kind.

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            What I really loved about Graceful Family was the way in which it explored the tension between an older woman who was taught she is only allowed to have soft power and a younger woman who believes she has the right to the real power. That is, Han was busy exercising her traditional female role of “the neck” in the belief that was the only power available to her as a woman while Seok-hee didn’t see a reason she couldn’t have the throne. That didn’t just threaten Han’s power base, it threatened her entire ontology. It’s why Graceful Family was (unwittingly, I suspect) a much better drama than it was even trying to be.

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