#pbio ep 13

[wanderchyld]

PBIO/IOTNBO theories

This is long so bear with me.

FYI, I watch the show on Netflix and while English is my first language, I know Chinese and Korean, so sometimes I ignore Netflix’s subs or (they tend to miss some nuances, not just for IOTNBO, heh) or change to Chinese subs for fun. If I quote anything, it might be a mix of Netflix’s subs and my interpretation.

There were 2 women in the Go household.

Moonyoung’s house had a group of dolls consisting 1 male doll (Go Daehwan), 2 female dolls (Do Heejae and ???) and 1 smaller female doll (Moonyoung).

There were 2 women that allegedly died: 1 in the basement, 1 in the lake.

I know there’s a "Moonyoung has a stepmom" theory going around, and a lot of fairytales have stepmoms. But I think there is a possibility that the other woman is Do Heejae’s sister. Why?

Welcome to Oz

Every episode’s theme is tied to a certain story. However, there’s one story present in the show almost every episode, yet it was never explicitly mentioned; and that is The Wizard of Oz.

The current mystery around Do Heejae, Moonyoung’s mother, must be related to her novel, which is titled Witch of the West’s Murder. There is no way the novel was named after The Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West for no reason at all, so this story has to be the the drama’s overarching theme. (I can also confirm that it’s the basis of the books’ content after reading the few pages they flipped on camera.)

Plus, the disgusting book reviewer from ep 2 mentioned that you can tell a lot about an author from their writing. So what does Witch of the West’s Murder tell us about the mysterious Do Heejae?

This story has multiple variations but I refer mostly to the 1939 film (the most popular adaptation) and the Wicked musical.

Who are our witches?

The Wicked Witch of the West (WWOTW) and Wicked Witch of the East (WWOTE) were sisters. This may be linked to the 2 women in the Go household mentioned earlier. The 2 women may be Do Heejae and her sister, and my guess is that the Head Nurse is the sister.

WWOTE = Moonyoung’s mother, Do Heejae

Known to be beautiful => multiple mentions that Do Heejae was beautiful, portrayed as feminine (often associated with beauty)

Used sorcery to control people => obsessive control over Moonyoung

Infatuated with Tinman before he became Tinman => she married Go Daehwan, so….

Caused Tinman to be without a heart => maybe she caused Go Daehwan a mental breakdown that landed him in the psychiatric hospital

Died from a house falling on her = died under a house => died in the basement, which is where? Under a house!

WWOTW = the woman in the lake aka Do Heejae’s sister, who might be the Head Nurse

Known to be a tomboy => Head Nurse has tomboy tendencies

Saved Tinman from losing his heart => Taking care of Go Daehwan in the hospital

Melted in contact of water => died in the lake, and Do Heejae loves to sing "Oh My Darling Clementine" which is about a woman drowning in a river

Who is Dorothy?

After WWOTE died, Good Witch of the North (GWOTN) gave Dorothy WWOTE’s ruby shoes, which WWOTW coveted, and told her to follow the yellow brick road to find the Wizard of Oz. Coincidence with the red shoes Moonyoung wore and the hospital’s brick path in ep 2 despite being linked to a different fairytale? I don’t think so! By now, we would have known that IOTNBO doesn’t do coincidences.

So Moonyoung is Dorothy. Not just because of the shoes. Firstly, what did Dorothy want the most? To return home. Just as how Moonyoung wants a warm family or home, they needed a sense of belonging.

Secondly, Dorothy was pointed to as the person who killed the 2 witches. While I’m pretty sure Moonyoung didn’t kill any of these 2 women, it’s almost definite that she’s related to or perhaps the very reason of their deaths.

The murder of the Witch of the West

Then what was the sister coveting? Go Daehwan? Her sister’s newfound wealth after marrying Go Daehwan? Or Do Heejae's attention (since Do Heejae loved Moonyoung to the point of obsession, her obsession may have ruined the sisters’ relationship)? (Thank you @honeyohhon​ for this.)

GWOTN described WWOTW as "worse than the other," so if this direction is right, Do Heejae's sister wouldn’t just sit back and accept it. She would be vengeful and put up a fight with Do Heejae. This might explain why she ended up in the lake, and why the Head Nurse, who comes off as an easygoing person, barely interacts with Moonyoung and even seems a bit cold to her (though Moonyoung doesn’t like to socialise lol). And Moonyoung doesn’t recognise the Head Nurse as her aunt because Moonyoung was always kept in the house.

Therefore, my take is that Do Heejae's novel is not about murdering Kangtae’s mother like some theories I’ve seen (she did write a few volumes before she killed Kangtae’s mother). It’s about Do Heejae killing her sister aka Head Nurse. And with all the foreshadowing and the mention that the novel had not been completed, both women might be alive………....????!?!!??!!???? Idk man 🤯🤯🤯I’ve no idea where Do Heejae would be.

Anyway, The Wizard of Oz doesn’t just apply to the 2 women in mystery. In IOTNBO, we also have our own tinman, scarecrow, lion and wizard.

Go Daehwan the tinman with no heart => no soul

Sangtae the scarecrow with no brain but is just young and naive => has a developmental disorder and infantalised by almost everyone

Kangtae the lion with no courage => ’nuff said

Director Oh the middle aged wizard who is "a good man but a bad wizard" and gave Tinman, Scarecrow and Lion what they needed => helping them as the director one way or another

Park Ok Ran the messenger

She’s definitely a red herring. Likely a pawn. WWOTW did have winged monkeys to do her bidding. Being the head nurse of a psychiatric hospital, Do Heejae’s sister/Head Nurse has easy access to the mentally unstable patients and their files. She could have conditioned the patients into certain behaviours or to do things for her. Perhaps she conditioned Kang Eunja in ep 5 and 6 into mistaking Moonyoung as her daughter? And Park Ok Ran?

Park Ok Ran had just begun reading the novel’s first volume in ep 5, the day after Go Daehwan choked Moonyoung. I really don’t think that’s a coincidence. By ep 7, she was at volume 9.

While she took volume 9 from the library herself, what made her start reading the books in the first place?

It seems like she received the first few volumes with cue cards like Sangtae did, judging by the cue cards kept in her copy of volume 3 (an earlier volume). Get this: she possessed a copy of volume 3 even when she left the hospital in ep 10 but the library wasn’t missing any volume when she went to get volume 9 in ep 7. 👀👀👀  

She used to be a theatre actress, and she seems clear that she’s not Do Heejae but a fan. Perhaps she received a role to play and the director communicates with her through the cue cards?

Kangtae also found her notebook, which seems to be a study of the books. I can’t read them because the shots aren’t very clear and it doesn’t help that the handwriting is a bit inconsistent. I then tried to compare her handwriting with the cue cards Sangtae received, and it is possible that his cards were not written by Park Ok Ran. I could be wrong because cursive vs neat handwriting? Ugh, spare me.

ETA: @annerossee��� mentioned that ep 13′s preview had Kangtae showing Director Oh the cue cards and Director Oh told him not to trust anyone. Seems like he recognised the handwriting.

If I’m right, then Park Ok Ran was simply passing the message to Sangtae. She was the last person to have the library’s copy of volume 9. And the volume Sangtae received in ep 10 was NINE. 👀 

End.

Any thoughts? 

I actually have have more theories on Moonyoung, her dad and Sangtae but this post is already quite a lot of work 😅Maybe tomorrow.

[wanderchyld]

Final PBIO/IOTNBO analysis and theory

This post is my final analysis and includes some questions I have as we go into the final weekend of one of the best dramas in history. It is VERY long as I consolidate and expand on my previous analysis and theories.

I also lost a big chunk of this post while I was working on the draft just a few hours before posting, resulting to this post as a little inconsistent. Excuse me if my points are messy and some points missing with some issues untouched (because I forgot 😭). I think most points can be linked back to my past theories so you can read up on them if you haven’t.

List of my theories before ep 14:

Do Heejae and the other woman

Moonyoung’s background and Go Daehwan

Head Nurse is NOT Do Heejae, she’s the previous housekeeper

Maybe Head Nurse really is Do Heejae

As usual, please note that anything I quote may be a mix of Netflix’s subs and my translation because I know Korean and Netflix tends to miss nuances sometimes.

Firstly, Park Ok Ran’s dead.

Let’s get this out of the way first. (You can read my first theory on her role in this whole saga.)

“She can’t come anymore.”

Can’t have her exposing Park Haengja. Or plot twist: she is alive and returns to save the trio from the villain 😆

No one’s memory is reliable

Not Kangtae’s as established in ep 6 that he didn’t remember his mother brought them to eat jjamppong because he’s the one who liked it, not Sangtae.

Not Sangtae’s. In spite of his good memory, it was established in ep 10 that he didn’t remember Kangtae saving him, so his memories can be flawed as well.

Therefore, not Moonyoung’s, and definitely not Go Daehwan’s.

There are few things that we can be sure because they are concurrent:

There was a female body in the basement that was disposed or disappeared.

The murderer of Taetae Bros’ mother wore Moonyoung’s mother’s a one-of-a-kind brooch.

There was a body in the reservoir.

Taetae Bros’ mother was the new housekeeper (I saw that some people disagree but here are the supporting screenshots).

There were definitely two women

My theory that there were 2 women in Moonyoung’s family still stands and I’m expanding on it.

Let’s look at the family photos first. There are multiple versions of the family photo, and I suspect they were taken at different times. Here they are in what I think is the chronological order.

1) Photo in the basement: Go Daehwan had full-rimmed glasses, Moonyoung wore a scarf and stood closer to him with his hand on her shoulder, and the lady wore a fully black high neck top with the brooch on the right.

Before the family moved in, on the day Go Daehwan showed the lady around the house, he was wearing the full-rimmed glasses, and the house looked lived in (fully furnished, fully decorated, shelves full). 

2) Go Daehwan’s photo: Go Daehwan had half-rimmed glasses, Moonyoung stood right in the middle and without the scarf, and the lady wore a blazer over a straight neckline blouse with the brooch on the right.

3) Park Haengja’s photo seems to be the same as Moonyoung’s: Go Daehwan with half-rimmed glasses, can’t tell whether Moonyoung was wearing a scarf or not but she sat nearer to the lady who wore the same blazer over a straight neckline blouse without the brooch.

Go Daehwan had half-rimmed glasses when he realised his wife killed Taetae Bros’ mother.

Photos are evidences of relationships. In a group photo, the people who are closer would pose closer to each other. These family photos tell us that Go Daehwan and Moonyoung were actually close, and showed us the progression of Moonyoung’s relationship with the woman.

But why were multiple photos taken? If they were the same woman, why are they still hiding the woman’s face in the photos?

When Go Daehwan killed his wife, he said, “If I die, my daughter will become a monster like you.”

Why was it “my daughter” and not “our daughter?” It’s even odder for Koreans because being a very collectivist society, they don’t claim people or objects as mine. They say “our country,” “our father,” “our daughter” to show unity even when they actually mean “my country,” “my father,” “my daughter.”

Moonyoung insisted she’s an orphan. Technically, when one biological parent dies, the child is an orphan (single orphan). So perhaps Moonyoung’s not wrong. And as explored in my second theory post, she might have been referring to her biological mother. The abusive woman was probably her stepmother.

Go Daehwan told Director Oh that his wife loved Moonyoung “terribly. Very terribly,” and we have Moonyoung who doesn’t want a child to not get jealous over Kangtae’s affection. Judging by the family photos (Moonyoung posing closer to the woman each time), perhaps the stepmother was jealous of the father-daughter relationship and became obsessed with Moonyoung.

Would a child be afraid of their parent because they didn’t want to be hated? I was just afraid my mother would scold me (which was a lot). Right, we can argue that her mother was abusive, but this is something to think about.

Park Haengja: stepmother and crazy aunt

Bluebeard the French folklore, which ep 6 was based on, is about a man who married several times as he killed his disobedient wives. According to Wikipedia, his final wife had invited her sister and others over for a party before she snuck away to explore the forbidden room. Bluebeard found out and was about to kill her on the spot when her sister and brothers arrived to kill Bluebeard.

It was also in ep 6 when Taetae Bros moved in that they specifically had a shot of the dolls in Moonyoung’s old room (the brothers’ new room). I mentioned this previously: one male doll as Go Daehwan, two female dolls in similar dresses as Moonyoung’s mother and stepmother, and one small female doll.

You can see the two dolls behind little Moonyoung in her memory of her father reading her a book.

The dolls are a representation of the Go family in the house because in ep 7, only the small female doll (Moonyoung) was left, and I think there are 2 more new figurines as Taetae Bros on that cabinet but I can’t be bothered to search for a clearer shot 😁

When Go Daehwan strangled little Moonyoung, afraid she would become like her mother, they featured one of the dolls in the shot.

The point of mentioning the dolls is: Moonyoung’s mother wore a similar dress as the dolls in most of the flashbacks.

Ep 13 was based on the Korean folklore The Story of Janghwa and Hongryeon and its popular movie adaptation The Tale of Two Sisters (2003). IOTNBO has more links to this story than “the bystander is worse than the abuser.”

In the movie, Moon Geunyoung’s character frequently dressed in floral patterns (like the dolls’ and Moonyoung’s mother’s dresses).

In both the folklore and the movie, the sisters were named after rose and lotus flowers. In the folklore, it’s the sister that died who was named after the rose flower. In the movie, it’s the surviving sister that was named after the rose flower. The rose is also a motif of Moonyoung’s mother.

The flower language of rose is love and passion. Personally, considering how Moonyoung always thought of her mother when she brushed her hair, and her love for a head pat, I think the rose also symbolises her mother’s "affection."

The movie is a story of two sisters who were abused by their stepmother so badly that one of them died. As it turns out, the remaining sister developed dissociative identity disorder (DID; the same disorder as the patient Yoo Sunhae) with two other personalities: her dead sister (Moon Geunyoung’s character) and her stepmother.

I take this as a lead that Moonyoung has a stepmother, who also happens to be her aunt obsessed with her sister. Wicked Witch of the West (WWOTW) coveted Wicked Witch of the East’s (WWOTE) ruby shoes; perhaps the aunt wanted to be in her sister’s shoes, figuratively AND literally.

Now here’s another “coincidence” from the same:

Left: Moon Geunyoung. Right: Im Soojung (sister with DID).

The story Go Daehwan read to little Moonyoung mentioned a bad wizard that wasn’t invited to the birthday party so he went to the castle.

The story Go Daehwan read to little Moonyoung mentioned a bad wizard that wasn’t invited to the birthday party so he/she went to the castle to cause trouble. 

Glinda the Good Witch of the North described WWOTW as worse than WWOTE.

Go Daehwan, who had recognition and memory impairment, said his wife has an angelic face but a devil lives within. Perhaps he remembers two persons as one.

We learnt from Sangin that 1) Do Heejae came from a prestigious family of medical professionals, 2) she dropped out of 3rd year of med school, and 3) she cut ties with everyone in her family. Could she have a sister in nursing? Could she have cut ties with her family because they cray cray (or the good old "you’ll starve with a creative career")?

Park Haengja has not claimed herself as Do Heejae, and the woman in the family photos are still covered.

Following these, we can assume that Park Haengja’s the bad witch who is neither Do Heejae nor Moonyoung’s birth mother. She’s the stepmother and crazy aunt (I cover more about the sisters in the next section).

There’s always a crazy aunt or uncle.

It’s just too easy if Park Haengja really is Do Heejae. I’d also be disappointed in the writer if she takes this route because it’s cliché villain and this is not a makjang drama with illogical plot twists. It would also be a step back from all the efforts this show has been making to dispel stigma against mental illness.

So they were sisters and...

...one of them died. In water. 

As per my first theory, the WWOTW and WWOTE are sisters in some adaptations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. WWOTE died under a house then disappeared into thin air, and WWOTW pretended to die in contact of water but she returned disguised as a good person. Sound familiar?

The Story of Janghwa and Hongryeon is a Korean folklore of a stepmother who abused two sisters to their death. She had her biological son push Janghwa the older sister into a pond and she drowned. The remaining sister couldn’t take the abuse any longer and drowned herself in the same pond.

The song “Oh My Darling Clementine” has a few variations but here’s the traditional lyrics (I removed repeated stanzas):

Oh my darling, oh my darling Oh my darling, Clementine You are lost and gone forever Dreadful sorry, Clementine In a cavern, in a canyon Excavating for a mine Dwelt a miner, forty-niner And his daughter, Clementine Light she was and like a fairy And her shoes were number nine Herring boxes, without topses Sandals were for Clementine Drove she ducklings to the water Ev'ry morning just at nine Hit her foot against a splinter Fell into the foaming brine Oh my darling, oh my darling Oh my darling, Clementine You are lost and gone forever Dreadful sorry, Clementine Ruby lips above the water Blowing bubbles, soft and fine But, alas, I was no swimmer So I lost my Clementine How I missed her! How I missed her How I missed my Clementine But I kissed her little sister I forgot my Clementine

These stories are all about 2 sisters and dying in water. Whether they’re sisters or not, a woman died and she’s related to Go Daehwan somehow.

The Murder of the Witch of the West

Do Heejae’s novel hold huge clues. Here’s my translation of an excerpt from volume 9 shown in ep 10.

… __’s scalp skinned with a hunting knife without hesitation. The corpse’s lips sewed in a fence stitch. The body dismembered with a hand axe and thrown into the trunk. Yooyoung persistently as she watched the back of the West Witch leave unhurriedly after finishing the killing and leaving notes.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Why do you choose to kill happy people only?"

But as usual, there was no answer. Was it because of Yooyoung’s tenacity to catch the West Witch? Yooyoung always sees the West Witch at the crime scenes. A faceless woman who always observed Yooyoung work hard on finding the criminal before leaving abruptly. Yooyoung began to look at the crime scene from the criminal's perspective. Why here? Why kill by stabbing this way? As she simulates the crime, Yooyoung finds herself assimilating with the criminal. She felt a thrill from imagining that she stabbed and cut the victim. She’s getting confused. Is she a detective or a murderer?

Around the same time, a murder occurred. The West Witch mimicked a passage from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, everything was in line with the Wicked Witch of the West, right down to the signature butterfly design. However, Yooyoung somehow felt guilty.

...

The suspect was a middle-aged woman in her 40s.

Yeah.

The misunderstanding

Othello killed his wife because he mistook his wife for committing adultery.

Romeo and Juliet mistook each other’s plan. Romeo died from drinking real poison, and Juliet faked her death before realising the mistake and killed herself with Romeo’s dagger.

Janghwa was framed and wrongfully accused by her stepmother for being unchaste. Her father believed it. When Janghwa ran away, her stepmother and stepbrother chased after her, and her stepbrother (under her stepmother’s instruction) pushed her into a pond to drown to her death.

What did Go Daehwan misunderstand? What misunderstanding did his recognition and memory impairment cause? Why was his wife being crazy but looked so shocked when he turned her around?

I do not believe that his memory of killing his wife is a complete memory because it has been mentioned multiple times that his memories are corrupted. I think it’s fragments of different memories pieced together.

What’s going on with Park Haengja?

There are a few possibilities.

Park Haengja is Do Heejae’s sister who coveted her sister’s position and grew obsessed with her sister’s novel.

Do Heejae’s Moonyoung’s biological mother and Park Haengja’s her stepmother.

OR Moonyoung’s biological mother died when she was born, Do Heejae’s the stepmother (abusive but still her mother because she raised Moonyoung), and Park Haengja’s the obsessive aunt.

She got so obsessed she came to believe she’s Do Heejae.

So obsessed she was always keeping an eye on Moonyoung to fulfil the prophecy that is the novel. ("You’re my greatest creation," and volume 3, shown in episode 10 with Park Ok Ran’s copy, has passages that describes episode 3.)

Park Haengja’s the one who killed Taetae Bros’ mother (screenshots of Do Heejae vs murderer below).

She took advantage of Go Daehwan’s cognitive impairment and instigated him to kill the real Do Heejae. She’s the one who saw Go Daehwan kill the woman and hide her in the basement.

Do Heejae wore her butterfly brooch on right, the murderer wore it on the left. Do Heejae always wore red nail polish and a gold rose ring, the murderer did not (although she could have had them removed if it’s premeditated).

Moonyoung’s mother:

Murderer:

Moonyoung’s mother:

Murderer:

Clearly Do Heejae didn’t wear her brooch all the time, so it would have been easy to steal the brooch. However, Do Heejae wore her ring all the time, so Park Haengja can only get the ring after she dies and "truly” become Do Heejae.

End.

I think I recovered most of my points but they’re still feel incomplete 😭

Let me know your thoughts 😊