Probably because I went to school for film & media that I think about the structure & context of things more than base enjoyment. I left the last episode of Our Beloved Summer wondering what Koreans think about the tropes in their dramas. Because we’re about to have a “dying parent fixing a relationship,” “an elder leaving (or more likely dying),” & a “leaving the country” (& I swear if they lose contact I’m throwing myself out a window) trope.

The west definitely have our tropes too. But I think the big difference is ours are more fluid. But sometimes it feels like they’re clauses in kdrama contracts that certain things must be in them.

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    Tbh, I don’t care about watching a hundred dramas with the same tropes/cliches if they made them right.

    I love Shopping Wang Louie and what’s the plot? a chaebol with amnesia living with a poor girl. They could’ve make Louie a tsundere and use the amnesia in a more dramatic way, but no, they made those things (and all the other cliches) cute and funny as hell.

    So I wouldn’t care about ”dying parent fixing a relationship” and ”leaving the country” if they at least tried. But Ung isn’t telling YS that he wants to go; and the mom did nothing for 14 episodes and now she’s just dying? when the show is about to end?

    In Coffee Prince they used the “leaving the country” trope to talk about marriage, control over your partner, and support.
    And in most shows they try to make development for the child-parent relationship before killing the parent (My Daughter Seo Yeong, for example).

    I think the trope I hate the most is ‘love triangles/squares’, but I love how they used that trope in shows like Ho Gu’s Love, Coffee Prince or Protect the Boss.

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      Same. Except for Childhood Connection I don’t hate any of their tropes. It’s the way they do it that matters.

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      I don’t dislike tropes, and don’t think there’s good or bad ones (except childhood connections, that’s really just lazy writing.) I love when they take a trope & use it in a creative way or just apply it naturally into the story. But alot of times it seems like they just throw them in without any thoughts just because they think they have too.

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    I just commented the same sentiment: I am so disappointed in the show for using these eye-roll-inducing tropes. But the show’s spiral into “nth hour shenanigans” (to quote another beanie) since Ung’s abandonment reveal is so heavy-handed in contrast to its initial charm as an understated romance with an introverted ML.
    This definitely feels like a case where the writer was contractually made to include those tiresome tropes.

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