Okay I know some of you – well most of you LOVED Hotel Del Luna – and I am here scratching my head thinking ‘did I not eat the right pill – as @sicarius mentioned’ or ‘am I not paying attention?’ or ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ or ‘have I become mad?’. Because I think HDL is in my LEAST fav drama list EVER.

What was the story here? Girl gets rightful revenge for her entire clan getting massacred by a smooth talker. Girl meet a deity and deity goes ‘ let it go, let it go’ and she says ‘Nah’ so they make her the owner of the Hotel where she is meant to live a life caring for other dead souls instead of being able to move on herself. Yet our girl takes every opportunity possible to rip off her clients to feed her lavish lifestyle. Enter young one, who teaches our spoiled girl not to rip of people and directs her to spend less. And we are meant to feel his ‘money lectures’ are comedy. Pure gold comedy. But does our princess learn her lesson till the end? No.

Why did she need CS to let go of her anger? How did he help her? Why were they in love? What made them go like ‘you know what I will do anything for love (but I won’t do that)’ WHY? Why didn’t she want to stay with him? Was she merely just using our Harvard boy?

Our 3 trios didn’t even get a ‘resolve’ up until the last episodes. They were just merely there as scene fillers. Standing there and doing stuff..

And oh the MaGo’s. Basically they are the dramatised version of the Hong sisters telling everyone what to do because they basically know how it all ends. UGH.

I haven’t seen the last episode and I think I never will – Beanie wall basically told me how it ends.

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    I thought she always had plans to use him, the moment she ‘bought’ him from his father in ep 1. And I didn’t continue watching after ep 1 😂.

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      So then the ultimate message of this show, along with “letting go and moving on is actually just called waiting because Reincarnation exists”, is >“using people is loving them”?… Nice.

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        I don’t know why but I have been referencing a lot of songs with how I feel about HDL. Now I am thinking about “Love is Blindness” by the White Stripes and guess what? It was the theme for the Great Gatsby and we all know how that ends. ugh

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          It’s a good thing you’re not watching the last episode because they have two teary eyed supposedly romantic scenes but because Jingoo is apparently contractually obliged to not have more than two kisses per show, they just hug and act like five year old kids, and then hug and cry instead and it’s weird and really off putting and if I was previously unconvinced by their True Wuv, I was even more so after that.

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            LMAO they don’t kiss in the end??? NO F’ing way!!!!

            They also didn’t kiss after each confessed they ‘wuved each other’ WTH!

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            Nope. Zero kisses. Saying goodbye to your supposedly destined love of 1300 years who you won’t see again till you’re reborn? Nah just give her a hug mate, she’ll be right.
            (seriously. wtf. hence the contract theory)

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            your irritation is palpable. lol

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      You have done yourself a favour my girl. Do not even think about watching ep 2

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        Haha. I was sure turned off when she bought a child for whatever reason she had and no one said anything about how weird that was. 😅

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    It it clear that everyone has a different take on this show, and that the variance is particularly large… I found several things frustrating and not making sense, but I also found it really entertaining. Time flew by watching it and that’s all I expect from a watchable kdrama.

    I fell in love with MW right away, because she is prickly and traumatized and lonely and vulnerable and hiding it all behind a devil-might-care attitude, and shopping, and champagne… CS took a while longer, but his awkward kindness slowly endeared him to me. The two of them together had a dynamic that suited my kinks to a T — i just loved them together. As the show progressed, I grew fond of the hotel side characters too…

    some side-stories worked a lot better than others, and I was at times mad at the MGs as a manifestation of capriciousness of gods (and writers), but there was enough to keep me going ’til the end. It was not the best writing of the HS, but some of the most consistent. They seemed to actually have an end game in mind, which is rare for them — even if it did not always align to my perception of the story. The way they dealt with CM’s story arc was just as wishy-washy as the character himself (which was fine by me since I disliked him from the beginning, but what spoiled the story for the people who liked him). I most minded that the notion of right and wrong, and justice and personal responsibility were inconsistently handled as the story progressed.

    The show also made me think a lot about grief and sadness and letting go. My response to that aspect of the narrative is very personal; it says more about my experience than anything… it’s likely that proximity to death and loss and regret changes a lot how one approaches this story…

    Overall, again the HS gave me characters that I really love in an imperfectly written narrative. I am fine with that, it’s also ok that other people see it very differently. But I also got the feeling that some people were just thrashing everything indiscriminately, without any attempt at understanding other’s point of view. After all, that’s why we come to these forums, to exchange ideas… It’s sad when forums turn into echo chambers but it’s also sad to see people disparaged for their views. On several occasions I felt the need to share the ‘how to criticize with kindness’ rulebook again. So let’s just welcome the diversity of opinions and the diversity of the people behind them.

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      I am sorry if my post offended you. I am a firm believer of ‘respectfully disagree’ and moving on. I wasn’t trying to belittle anyones views but just merely talking about my views which, as you said, is so different to a lot of Beanies here. I am glad HDL hit your sweet spot which is the complete opposite of how I feel. Maybe I do not have the same life experiences as you or maybe I think differently. At the end of the day it really doesn’t matter. We can still all be friends 🙂

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        Oh sorry, no – this is not what I meant at all. I was just trying to say that this is a very divisive show, which makes it hard to have a real conversation about it. That comment was not aimed at you specifically. Take it as midnight musings of the general kind.

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    Thanks now I know, that I shouldn’t bother with this show, I dropped it at episode 1 and it can stay like that. I was a bit surprised by the amount of praise it got, so I was wondering what was in it -_-!

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    I’ve always thought of this show as a Goblin wannabe, but the past time line wasn’t as compelling and even the little side vignettes weren’t as emotionally gripping. And there’s no grim reaper/Goblin bromance or comparable girl-mance. And when the Goblin died, it was so much more heart-rending. I also think Hwayugi had more interesting side characters. (And I swore that would be my last Hong sisters drama.) The hotel staff is very pedestrian here. I’m still languishing around episode 6 on this one. Don’t think it’ll get finished anytime soon.

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      I absolutely loved Hwayugi’s side characters. This one did nothing for me. So disappointing

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