To me, his mess is obvious. It's sad and also ... Honestly, though his fine features are not my style of "attractive", his mess is sexy.
As for Jae-Kyung, ... I find his lack of humour funny and kind of adorable, too, but apart from that, I am appalled at what a terrible person he is. I wrote up a whole thing about it but I am not sure where the right place to put it is.
But in short, he was amazingly terrible towards Hong-jo when they first talked. He lies to her. He is not attracted to her. And he is probably ungenerous

FAN WALL. I wanna read. I’ll have Jae-kyung gifs today too :)

I have written a bit here and there about Jae-kyung, but I will gather my skirts and make something fan-wall-ish. I will just finish my rewatch first.
@attiton

I wrote the Jae-kyung thing I promised. It ended up being in three parts.
It's here:
https://www.dramabeans.com/members/CecilieDK/activity/1456003/

I don't know how Real Life is on this point, but if any K-dramas is something to go by, marriage between rich people have near-Joseon standards. The general practice of blind dates also in lower classes (like, middle class) and of parents being *very* engaged in the process, leaves me with a feeling that it is not *very* easy to break out of.
In his case, I am not so much thinking about family *duty*, as much as that it takes a lot of emotional energy to break up (even for us normal ones) and he already did, and is being ignored. Most of the times, he seems something like depressed - i.e. with hardly the energy to walk.
Hong-jo has - untill her last protest here, after the kiss - continually told him she did not want him. So he has been told that if he correctly and valiantly goes against his energetic cheating girlfriend and both their families, he will be left with ... no one. No one will be waiting at the finish line, but everybody will be angry.
It's a new developement that Hong-jo has said that if it weren't for SFL, ... but even then she said that she didn't want to be the homewrecker. Still, I think it will make a different, ... when he has escaped his present kidnapper, as I suppose?
It will make even more difference if they happen at some point to compare notes and see that SFL is neither anyone's best friends, nor fiancé.

So he has been told that if he correctly and valiantly goes against his energetic cheating girlfriend and both their families, he will be left with ... no one. No one will be waiting at the finish line, but everybody will be angry.

Again with your amazing interpretations, @cecilieDK. This is such an apt justification for why he keeps asking her if she cares for him—it looks cowardly (and, in part, it is), but he has a lot on the line here, if he really is as committed as we might be led to believe about his family obligations.

Being left alone is a frightening thing indeed.

Also
I once visited a friend who had his to boys, aged toddler and pre-school , with him, and they decided to play indians, and I was tied to the totem chair, while they danced around me. I would like to make the kids happy, but I was feeling strangely under the weather. Turned out, I was having a fever. Their dad finally freed me.
But ehm, this story is a bit about being Shin-yu in this whole engagement business. There needs to be a real reason for him to break out and make his girlfriend "sad", as she had managed to make everybody believe, and everybody else mad. And he is dead-tired to begin with. And he thinks he is probably, maybe, going to die soon anyway. Remember that. He doesn't know if he is actually freed from that terminal disease. My allegory even have overwhelming and long-lasting infatuation and sleepless, tear-filled nights in it, but let's keep that in the margins.

That is what bugs me. I think Shin-yu is not well-characterized enough to make his behavior understandable. I never felt like he was under his parents' thumb and constant nagging. His mom seems like she would be in his corner if he decides to break it off with Nayeon. He isn't under any sort of pressure from guilt. Like did Nayeon pay for his law degree or something? He's a successful lawyer who would rather quit a highpaying law firm position than bow down to an unprincipled client.

Not the best example, but in The Real has Come, the ML intended to go through with the arranged wedding due to feeling like going through with it would make it easier for his mom who had raised him for 15+ years as a single mom until she married into this stuffy family that distains him. He was used to being bullied.

@asianromance
@asianromance

😍

"Shin-yu is not well-characterized enough to make his behavior understandable".

Absolute perfection  👌  the way you have cut through the clutter and pinpointed the exact issue bothering us.

The Real Has Come! example is also spot on. A well qualified, professional, independent doctor - we are able to perfectly understand his motivations and intentions for going along with the arranged marriage plans.

Jang Shin-yu - as a K-drama ML has been inexplicably opaque in his motivations and intentions. We actually are never shown why he works in a certain manner - inner workings of a lead being non-existent (for now) is mind-boggling.

We are not provided with any hints or interactions which let us know:
- how he got (or let himself be) attracted to Hong-jo,
- why did he interrupt Hong-jo and SFL in their initial conversation where SFL was (fake) apologizing and make rude remarks to Hong-jo,
- why he keeps asking her if she's swayed,
- why he's not breaking up with SFL,
- is he now "cured" or believes himself to be so,
- if he believes that spells don't work, he's still ill and may die young, why has he agreed to the arranged marriage and why is he pursuing (is he) Hong-jo.

Perhaps all will be revealed but there do not seem to be even breadcrumbs suggesting any hidden inner motivation.

This lack of inner dialogue makes it very difficult to relate to any character and is probably fatal for a lead.

@asianromance About being sufficiently well-characterized to make Shin-yu's behaviour understandable.
What I am trying to demonstrate is not my huge potential for understanding people who cheat, or anything like that.
To me, his inaction feels immediately recognizable, and even if I would love to know more about what made him see ice in a glass and a bloody hand crawling up his chin, for example, I don't need that to fully understand that he, in his hopelessness does not act to stop the relationship and the wedding plans, as he ought to.
I know the feeling of being ill and not have the power to protest. I know the feeling of having tried to protest and being overheard (as in: ignored) and just "... phew ... What now? Nothing matters, nothing I do works out, anyway. No one listens."
And if at least Hong-jo said: "Break up with her, and I'll be there for you." But she doesn't. So he is being what he hate, even if he tried to break up. And as I said before, 2FL is vigorously interpreting him as well as Hong-jo; Without apologizing for bullying Hong-jo so that she had to leave school, she says she is sorry about her dad. And when Hong-jo says: "I was very upset, but mu dad didn't die because of you", 2FL interprets it as Hong-jo having forgiven her, and presents her as her "best friend in High School" (or college or what is was).
When Hong-jo hands her a napkin for tears that aren't really there, she promptly declares to Shin-yu: "She made me cry!"
Like wise every gesture from Shin-yu and, we can imagine, anyone else in her life, is twisted and interpreted in her favour, and Shin-yu, too, is coaxed from having been kind to be her fiancé.
She is fly paper, she is quicksand.
And Shin-yu has nothing and no one to help him get out.

That really made me laugh out loud ... and made my co-passengers try to take a peek of my screen!!

🙌

All hail the master of expression.
This is exactly how we feel but are unable to verbalise.

I should have said “Hanja characters’!

As I don't know nothing about Korean characters, I remember just when they were asked about that, Jo Boa answered Big for Shin-Yu and redness for her face for Hong-Ju. But in the episode, she said big (hong) and morning (Jo). Maybe the writer chose name with double sense :p

@kurama: Interesting.
Hanja characters are the Chinese ones and since the majority of the contemporary Korean names are of Chinese origin, parents register the names using Hanja and then write them in Korean. My Korean teacher said that a minority of pure Korean names are also in use such the unisex name Haneul which means sky.

Lol, I hope they show some dimension for you, but honestly I'm not hopeful, but Heartbeat has given me doubt for my predictions.

@kafiyah-bello To this I say, https://imgur.io/rONTeTu

(Safe to click, I promise)

@attiton, sending hugs, love, and luck. lol

I get it but a bad mess is psychologically destabilising both in RL and here so I wish you a good mess if you have to encounter one again. Here, the bad mess is threatening to undermine my enjoyment of the chemistry which is the only reason I am sticking with this.

Oh @dncingemma it’s always a mess Chez Seon-ha.

Yikes. I completely missed that.

My only takeaway from that scene is our heroine is dumb. He corrected her once already, yet she made the same mistake again.

There has been no indication that Jae-kyung is gay. On the contrary, I believe that he has liked Hong-jo ever since he posted a compliment for her. He was just pushing her away due to his dysfunctional family. He told her as much when he rejected her, "I'm very cold to my family... If I weren't who I was, when you confessed your feelings for me, I would've been happy."

He's dumb too -- he forgot to press the rice cooker button. I understand why you all don't like him, but I don't believe that he's the evil stalker.

It's more like it's a strange thing for the scriptwriters to use the ingredients' list to demonstrate, for som reason, the stupidity of the heroin.
Since we are looking at scripted dialogue, it's fair to assume it's not arbitrary.

There is very interesting write up, shared online: https://www.tumblr.com/kalena-henden/728514188714098688/is-magic-real-are-curses-real-are-spells-real

I am quite sure that his inability to love and his illness were connected, at least. Magic or nor not. Or magic as metaphor, most definitely.

Good one! Haven't thought about mayor's family being not all that compared to THE Jangs, but of course. Now it makes even more sense why NY is trying to speed up the wedding despite knowing SY is very sick AND fell for another woman... She wants to get his name, even if it's gonna be the last thing he gives her.

I feel like it all is one big karmic recreation of their Joseon tragedy - he's engaged to a woman he's not supposed to break up with easily even if he truly wants to be with a woman of lower status (HJ) - as if fate FORCES our players in the same situation again to see whether any of them learned their lesson and will make different choices this time around. That's for supernatural aspect.

As for why daddy dearest insists on wedding so much - well, I'll be the cynical one and say that dad believes SY ain't gonna make it, but since their precious bloodline needs to be continued... It's all but spelled out loud here - SY MUST marry and produce some kids to keep the clan going before he's gone. That's what Jang men did for generations since the curse started. No wonder the boy isn't very excited about fulfilling his breeding horse role... In a slightly different drama I could've even theorize that dad is afraid of becoming curse's target again if SY was to die before passing the torch to his own son, but I don't think the man is THIS heartless. Yet. Who knows? WE also shouldn't forget that dude knows NOTHING about his son's current love life mess and may be genuinely convinced that SY only pushes NY (perfect woman in everyone's eyes) away due to noble idiocy reasons.

@gikata Oh, I take your sageuk-type point about who has to marry whom and why (and then the continuation of the bloodline thing)…with then the present being a reincarnated “what were the lessons learned” situation. I fear that might end up being tedious. I’m gonna hope for the best because at least there are two spell books now… :)

I really want the success of this OTP to hinge on Shin-yu authentically wanting to treat people better not being “past-lived” into it.

“I feel like it all is one big karmic recreation of their Joseon tragedy - he's engaged to a woman he's not supposed to break up with easily even if he truly wants to be with a woman of lower status (HJ)”

I’m 💯 with you. It’s just the parallel doesn’t work as well when you’re no longer in a restrictive society such as Joseon. The cost of his breakup in the modern era just doesn’t match up.

@indyfan , yep, he only has to realize this important difference and pack his bags out of this marriage asap. But I feel like there's going to be some nasty consequences anyway - both him and HJ technically work for NY's dad... Will she end up jobless for loving him? Well, still better than dismembered, I'd say)))

I really want the success of this OTP to hinge on Shin-yu authentically wanting to treat people better not being “past-lived” into it.

Ouch, that's one thing reincarnation romances can never deliver))) But we'll see how well (or not) drama goes around that... Plus we have plenty of characters who I suspect won't have any past life memories and thus will operate independently (sort of). Btw, it's possible that SY remains the only one with "flashbacks". HJ is yet to have any so far, right?

@gikata That sounds right for the moral/ending. Pls no tragedy for this lightweight show. Losing your jobs is awful. Tho less so when the boy is Richie Rich? I still feel modern romances can't show doomed love with quite the same weight as historical ones. *Cough* My Dearest. *Cough*Cough.*

Considering why the dad wants this marriage so desperately: doesn’t the „curse“ seem to be passed down in the Jang family? I had the feeling that the dad was pretty much aware of this „problem“ that he passed on to his son. (The whole “our family owns a shrine and the youngest son is in charge of it” situation, too.) Somehow marriage seemed like a way to „do it all away“, which is why he married quickly („and look how it went for me“ initially seemed sweet as his parents gave of adorable, normal vibes, but kinda leaves a bitter aftertaste now). And if it’s only that the father is cured once he has a son, LOL! That seems pretty outrageous (if you decide to have kids because of it), but his father does seem pretty egoistic, too… 😅
Both parents literally jumped at the news that solving a riddle could “lift a curse”… 🤔

@indyfan , yeah, that's my main problem with modern romances - stakes are often unnaturally high for the sake of angst, which feels fake. Sageuks are better in that regard with their endless stifling rules and draconian laws.

My biggest ray of hope is that tragedy already happened to them - in past lives, so we're sorta done with that and can move the plot somewhere else. And lol, losing your job to date the guy THIS loaded doesn't sound very bad indeed. Plus mayor isn't a lifelong occupation as far as I'm concerned...

@sonai , oh, I'm sure parents know, at least dad! The actual rules of curse's inheritance are unclear so far, but I've seen two big theories online - that you're safe once you pass it down to your son, as you said, and that the key is marrying for love (or at least there being one-sided feelings). SY's dad has a loving wife (who may or not may endangering his life with that divorce threat lol) and overcame his illness somehow, grandpa is still alive and kicking as well, tho we don't know much about his marital life. The only thing that's clear is that there IS some loophole, but none of Jangs unfortunately know what it is. We've also been lowkey told that HJ can end the curse once and for all... but again, how?

@gikata Yes, up to this point Hong-jo has only had that one vision of Jae-kyung in her modern house—no other visions that I can remember.

Also, don’t say “Ouch, you’ll never get what you want from this show.” LET ME DOWN EASY. I’m fragile. :)

@sonai Yes, we’d like more “curse rules,” plz. Although HeartBeat has taught me that Korean “television” is more than willing just to change all the rules mid-stream and betray expectations.

So, I want TWO things. I want there to be clearer curse rules at this time, and I want them to be consistent. Thx.

You wouldn’t happen to have any sway over the DWY show runners, would you?

PS: I got the impression, although, I may be mis-remembering that the father’s curse was lifted after SY was born—at very least, I am 100% positive that he claimed that his was “curable,” whereas SY’s is not…

@attiton “You wouldn’t happen to have any sway over the DWY show runners, would you?”

Ummm suuure, let me quickly don my white dress, grab my foldable table and shaman suitcase. 😂 The “Get a grip, show makers” spell seems just right for this occasion!

But you are right, it was mentioned Shinyu’s illness is “incurable”. 🧐 But there is still hoping that Hongjo holds the key to that! So let’s see how this plays out. Anything can happen at this point!