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Because This is My First Life
I’m human so I tend to be influenced by the opinions of others. Overall, I was very satisfied with Because This is My First Life. But then I read other viewers complaining about the final two episodes and I began to doubt whether or not I could honestly give the drama 10 stars. Not because I necessarily agreed with their criticisms but, because I acknowledge that the drama isn’t perfect. I mean, I’m sure I can nitpick here and there. So, let’s say that it’s a 9.9 drama and I’m rounding up. Ha.
Anyway, I’ll address some of the criticisms. Beware of spoilers. It’s an old(er) show but I go back and watch old dramas that I missed and I assume that others do to.
First, I’ll just get the Won Seok and Ho Rang thing out of the way. I’ll admit that having WS and HR permanently split is, perhaps, the better choice (or, at least, a more interesting one,) however, I don’t think that having WS and HR get back together is, therefore, a bad choice. A bad choice would have been expecting the viewer to believe that WS and HR actually had successful rebound relationships. There is more than one way for a narrative to resolve successfully. Personally, I think that believability is the key. If I’m willing to “go there” with the writer then I can’t say that the writer made a bad narrative choice.
Now, moving onto the main couple. It seems that some viewers were not willing to “go there” when Ji Ho decided to separate from Se Hee. I’ve watched enough dramas to know that this trope can really irritate viewers. Especially when combined with, say, noble idiot syndrome. I hate noble idiocy separation, too! But JH isn’t being a noble idiot. If anyone’s being a noble idiot, it’s SH. (Or just an idiot, to be honest.)
This drama employs nonlinear storytelling. I like nonlinear storytelling a lot and I think it works beautifully (at least for me) here. But I think it didn’t work as well for some viewers. Some of JH’s motivations don’t become clear until the final episode.
There seems to be some questioning of whether or not JH initially planned to leave permanently or if she actually planned to return from the beginning. Since JH mentioned an “intermission” before she left at the end of episode 15, I thought that meant that she had always intended for the separation to be temporary. But, after some thought, I realized that when JH told SH that she wanted to end the marriage contract that she did not do so with a solid intent to return. It wasn’t until after the conversation she had with her mother at the hospital (which the viewer doesn’t see until the final episode) that she decides to reframe the termination of the contract into an “intermission.”
If a viewer thinks that JH intended to return from the get-go, I can see how that action could be interpreted as mean or manipulative. But if you think of when she learns that SH is planning to ask her to marry him “for real” and you consider how finding out doesn’t make her happy, you see that she has reached a very low point. It’s not that JH doesn’t want to marry SH, its that she wants SH’s love first. Doesn’t JH ask SH something like, “wouldn’t people who get married for love be really happy?” She’s actually pretty transparent about her needs. She wants love.
I think that if SH said to JH, “I want to marry you because I love you,” her uneasiness would have gone away. But, in the end, he didn’t even ask her to marry him. Once JH said that she wanted to end the marriage contract, he completely deferred to her. I mean, if you loved someone and they said they wanted to leave you, isn’t it reasonable for you to protest a little? At one point, SH tells himself that he wants to be happy. For someone who wants to be happy, why does he give up so easily?
The next day, JH gives him another chance to ‘fess up. He doesn’t. I don’t think she’s testing him, here. She just wants him to be honest with her about his feelings. Once, she asked SH’s best friend Sang Goo whether or not he has seen SH angry or seen SH cry, SG admits that he has. However, SH has never revealed that side of him to JH. She’s never seen him angry or seen him cry. She doesn’t want him to be careful and considerate around her. She wants him to trust her with his feelings.
The morning after JH tells SH that she wants to end the contract, JH gets a call from her mom. This phone call is seen in episode 15. I suspected that JH’s pregnant sister-in-law must have gone into labor but we’re not told that definitively until episode 16. JH and her parents see her nephew for the first time. Later on, JH tells her mother that she’s divorcing. She asks her mother why she didn’t divorce her father back then (when she was ten and her mother took her and her brother to live with her grandparents.) Her mother reveals, basically, that she realized that since she would always miss JH’s father, she decided not to separate. JH’s mother tells her about her “pocket of stars” that help her to get through tough times. The stars are good memories.
I think that it wasn’t until after this conversation that JH decides to treat the separation as an intermission. She uses the analogy of half-time in a soccer match and she declares to herself that the second half of the match will be about love. Which sums up why I think JH’s choice makes sense. Her goal was never to marry; her goal was to find love.
I did wonder whether or not the choice to separate was avoidable. But I found it difficult to rewrite the scene in my head. I had the same issue with SH that JH did. He wasn’t opening up! Imagine JH doesn’t ask to break the contract first. SH proposes to JH. Perhaps he asks something like, “Do you want to get married for real?” Her answer would be “No.” He would accept her answer without debate. They would either decide to see the marriage contract through to the end or (more likely) to break the contract immediately. Then everything would play out more or less the way it did in the drama.
When JH is leaving, SH asks her what she plans to do. She answers that she wants to travel. Then JH asks SH what he’ll do. He answers that he’ll just do what he always does. (Go to work, feed the cat, retire, die, basically.) JH had no reason to believe that SH would use up his paid leave to go on a massive bender (and sell his house!) JH took him at his word. Honestly, as a viewer, his actions were a little surprising. Not to the point that it beggared belief, but I wouldn’t have imagined that he would fall apart so completely. In the end, it worked, though. (And, the last two episodes gave Lee Min Ki an opportunity to show more acting range!)
Like the viewer, JH is surprised, too, when she returns only to find that SH had sold his precious house. I imagine that, after evaluating her feelings, JH returns with the intent to confess to SH. As it turns out, SH confesses his feelings to her first. I think that its pretty clear that she didn’t leave with the hope of eventually wringing out a confession from him. She wasn’t thinking, “I bet when I’m gone, he’ll miss me so much he’ll binge drink 50% alcohol soju!” When she realized what he’d been going through, she was apologetic.
However, I imagine that, despite the circumstances, JH was happy to see/hear SH open up his feelings. Perhaps that rubbed some viewers the wrong way?
It’s not as if JH was reveling in his pain, though. She wasn’t happy that he suffered. As I already stated, she was apologetic. But, I mean, as a viewer, even I enjoyed it when he got angry. If he’d been menacingly angry, that would be a different story, but he was actually being petulant angry and it was sorta cute? He even dropped the formalities and was speaking to her in banmal. Considering that he’d always been very polite in his speech to her (even, you know, when they were becoming increasingly intimate,) it really felt like the wall between them fell down in that moment and her playful response worked for me.
Clearly, I could go on and on about this drama (how could I write about this drama and only mention the cat once!) but I started this (what turned out to be be ridiculously long) post days ago and it really needs to just be released into the wild.
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MyDramaList
I recently fell down the drama hole again and I became curious about how many dramas I’ve actually watched. So I signed up on mydramalist and began adding titles. I’m up to 54 titles which I think is fairly accurate. I am relying on my memory, here, though...
I started watching kdramas in 2004, possibly 2005. The first drama I watched was Full House starring Rain and Song Hye Kyo. Ha! I discovered drama (and kpop) on a defunct (probably) cable network. Then I moved onto YouTube. Then soft subs. Then, finally, streaming. I stopped watching dramas regularly in 2012. Though I did sneak in a couple here and there.
Ahem, in the past month or so, I’ve watched four dramas, including my first cdrama, Ashes of Love. Fell down the rabbit hole, indeed.
So, I have THOUGHTS and stuff. Thus, this tumblr.
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