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getoffthesoapbox · 7 years

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[7DQ] - The Tragedy of Yeonsan-gun

I started watching Queen for Seven Days (Q7D) on a whim this week. I went in expecting to enjoy a romance and some politics and yet another tyrant king who devolves into madness. But what I got was one of the most compelling character arcs for a “mad king” I’ve seen in a long time.

I’ll be the first to admit to having a soft spot for Wang Yo from Moon Lovers, but he had absolutely not a single redeeming quality to make the outcome of his sorry life anything more than justified karma. Q7D’s tragic Yeonsan-gun is a completely different story, and I’ve been obsessively thinking about him now that I’ve caught up with the latest episodes. I’d like to explore his character on its own and in conjunction with Chae-kyung, Q7D’s heroine, to hopefully pin down what exactly is so compelling about him.

Behold the twisted paths of a rambling mind under the cut below!

~ the tragedy of a self-fulfilled prophecy ~

The Yeonsan-gun we’re introduced to is a flat out tyrant, and his people and ministers are beginning to grumble about how unworthy he is of the king’s seat. Fairly standard for a mad tyrant. The creators initially make it appear that he’s tormenting everyone around him for no reason--he refuses to listen to his ministers give their reports, he berates them, he belittles his brother, he’s constantly paranoid and on the defensive. He’s one prickly pear, and it’s initially quite difficult to understand why he hasn’t had his own head chopped off yet.

I initially wrote him off, thinking there was no point in investing in a character so obviously set up to fall. But the creators surprised me on this one. Instead of treating him like a caricature of a person, they began to peel back the layers of the initial impression they gave of him, and with each layer peeled back a tiny hint of a potential pearl was revealed.

Slowly we begin to learn more about him. Why is he paranoid about his sweet brother Yeok, who looks at him with such affection and devotion? Why because the former king had told Yeonsan in no uncertain terms that he was to step down from kingship when his brother was of age, because Yeonsan was destined to destroy the kingdom. His own father wrote him off, stole his birthright, and didn’t see any value in him. That’s a pretty big pill to swallow for anyone.

Now, if Yeok was Yeonsan’s full blood brother, things might have turned out differently. Yeonsan loved Yeok, but he slowly watched Yeok stand in the spotlight of their father’s attention. Yeonsan, whose own mother had been deposed, was left abandoned and alone--the unwanted son of a traitorous queen, with a prophecy of doom on his head, writing him off entirely as being of any worth at all.

This I think quite understandably turned Yeonsan bitter and resentful, and upon taking the throne, he was determined to keep it. That being said, as Yeok mentions early in the series, Yeonsan never harms Yeok, despite having plenty of opportunities to. This is thanks to the affection Yeonsan bears Yeok, in spite of all the resentment and the envy. There is real love there between them, even as it begins to be subsumed by the heavy burdens and isolation of the throne.

Yeonsan’s troubles don’t end with his father’s death and his brother’s potential for usurpation. On top of these, his court is full of vipers--ministers hellbent on promoting their own ambitions and playing their little games. It’s clear early on that Yeonsan is completely and utterly fed up with the ministers to the point of holding each and every one of them in contempt. Worse, he has virtually no connection with his people, the people he’s meant to rule. Because he has no connection to the people, he is wasteful and extravagant and shows little interest in their welfare so long as his own needs are fulfilled.

Not a single person believes in Yeonsan as a person and moreover a king, other than Yeok, who is by birth Yeonsan’s rival and cannot become a trusted companion or advisor. Although Yeonsan has the comfort of a beautiful wife from the Shin family, he seems to have virtually no connection with her--likely she was forced upon him in marriage during his father’s reign, probably adding to his resentment. Had he chosen her on his own, I suspect he would be more attentive to her. He does have a concubine he seems to trust in a limited capacity, but this concubine is constantly conspiring with the ministers behind his back. Even though she’s working for Yeonsan’s sake, it’s also to keep herself in power. Basically Yeonsan has no team to support him, because they’re all acting against him in secret or are supporting him in unhelpful ways due to their own ambitions. No man is an island, and Yeonsan is isolated beyond reason. It’s no wonder he cracks.

Beyond this, Yeok’s mother the Queen plays her own games and is always lurking in the background, scheming to destroy Yeonsan in favor of her blood child. Yeonsan clearly wanted her affection and love, but was unable to receive either, adding further to his resentment toward Yeok despite Yeok having done no wrong.

All of this leads us to the present day Yeonsan, who is a man full of paranoia, rage, resentment, impotence, thwarted hopes, and desperation. He wants to prove the world wrong, but this very wish is driving him toward fulfilling the very prophecy he wants to escape. It’s a terrible tragedy that his family pushed him down this path and the ministers helped shove him over the edge, and then in the end he’ll be the one who must take responsibility for his failures, despite having never had a chance to begin with.

The most tragic aspect of his character is that there is within him a small, tiny flame of light and justice. This small flame, if only someone could have found it much earlier, could have truly led him toward becoming a sage king, rather than a paranoid figure of tragedy. I know historically Yeonsan-gun was considered mad, and perhaps that’s accurate in truth (maybe he really did have a genuine and legitimate mental disorder). But it’s easy to drive a person to desperate acts that appear insane on the surface or to an outsider but are actually quite rational given the limited decisions the person has left to them, and perhaps this more nuanced version of Yeonsan is meant to highlight that not all madness comes from the mind--sometimes it’s a reaction to external influences, and without a strong foundation to guard it, the mind soon crumbles under the onslaught. Not to mention the old adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely, which may also be the more truthful result of Yeonsan’s fall. I’ll leave that to the historians, though, lol.

All I can say is that I’m going to cry buckets when this man meets his end. I’m not usually the type who wants to save villains from their foolish or arrogant actions, but this man is such an unfortunate wretch that my heart bleeds for him. It would be one thing if he’d been given every chance in the world and had squandered it due to pride or arrogance or selfishness. But I can’t bear how he was written off before he’d even been given a chance, how his own father could believe a prophecy over his own eyes. It’s one thing to try and fail and then be deposed, it’s another to be told from day one you never had a chance and you’ll never succeed no matter how hard you try. What a debilitating thing to tell your own son. All I can think is that the former king must have hated the deposed queen and his own resentment must have come out against Yeonsan.

Although I know Yeonsan-gun’s story is headed straight to tragedy, I can’t help wishing there was some way to save him.

~ the king who can only move a single space ~

One thing I really appreciate about Yeonsan is how he just rips into his ministers nearly every episode. I get such vicious glee out of watching him chew them out and taunt them and mock them. After watching so many sageuks where the ministers drive the sweet and kind heroes to distraction with their games, it’s absolutely refreshing to see a king who won’t take any of their shit.

Unfortunately, he’s ultimately impotent and powerless. I think this story does such a wonderful job at highlighting how helpless a king is when he doesn’t have the natural charisma and wherewithal to navigate the political waters. Yeonsan has no support, and he seems to be under the childish impression that because he’s wearing the crown people have to do what he says. It’s a tragedy of the highest order that he doesn’t have wise advisors around him to help him understand that the crown is only a symbol and that it has no power in and of itself.

~ a song of what might have been ~

A few things struck me after the time skip. One was that Yeonsan-gun is ridiculously talented--he plays instruments and paints professionally. He seems happiest when he’s playing the bard, a free spirit floating around the town, nameless and unknown.

I can’t help but wonder if he wouldn’t have been happier giving up the throne entirely and abandoning politics altogether. It would have been impossible for him, I know--the throne is really all he has and to let that go would cast him adrift into a sea of chaos he might not emerge from intact. He’s so desperate to prove his father wrong that he would never have been able to let the throne go. His resentment’s too strong for that.

Still, it’s touching that he is willing to dispense with guards and servants and live on his own, helping Chae-kyung with the anniversary service meal without a single complaint, shopping with her, eating peasant food without turning his nose up. It makes me want to write some kind of alternate universe story where he realizes he needs to sacrifice the throne for his own good and goes on to become a renowned minstrel or something. Then he really could have gotten his own back on his father--rather than destroying the kingdom, his poems and songs become emblematic of the kingdom’s prosperity.

It’s too bad humans are so foolish that they cling to the things that hurt them the most when letting go and sacrificing them is sometimes the only way to move forward.

~ love arrived too late conquers none ~

Okay, I saved Yeonsan-gun and Chae-kyung for last because...holy mackerel this ship’s gonna be the death of me. ;D I never expected to get on board this thing, but now that I am it’s going to be such a heart wrenching experience watching everything fall apart.

I probably should have put this in its own post, but I feel so much of Yeonsan’s interactions with Chae-kyung point out the inner light he still carries that it has to be part of this exploration of the depth of his character. So here we are, lol. From the moment they first met in the pool after she chased him down, I thought “oh no, this is my ship.” It’s absolutely adorable that Chae-kyung checks Yeonsan out--she has more of a reaction to him as a man than she does to Yeok later on, lol. What an adorable meet cute. It’s such a shame they’re doomed to never even have a chance.

The thing that I noticed Chae-kyung brings out in Yeonsan is his smile. The man does not smile, unless it’s a mocking or derisive smirk. When he’s with Chae-kyung, his eyes light up like a sad puppy’s and although he tries to keep a poker face, these small tic smiles force their way onto his face. He usually covers them up quickly, but it’s just so deeply endearing to see Chae-kyung surprise a smile on his face, or a laugh. You can tell he’s not used to joy, and that it comes unnaturally to him, and that says a lot about his character without us needing to explore his back story any further. Kudos to his actor for doing such a fantastic job--the sheer amount of micro-expressions he puts into Yeonsan’s interactions with Chae-kyung never cease to leave me speechless.

Chae-kyung also brings out Yeonsan’s sense of humor, which is adorable and dry and clever and fun. If his court could have seen this side of him, maybe he’d have more political sway. But to show humor, you have to be wiling to be vulnerable, and Chae-kyung’s the only person who’s able to give Yeonsan enough of a sense of safety that he’s willing to let down his guard.

And that’s really the main thing I love about Chae-kyung’s effect on Yeonsan--her simple, honest affection is enough to make him feel safe for probably the first time in his life. He’s looking for a home, a place to rest and feel secure. It’s easy to see why he’s never had that--his father threw out his mother and then rejected him entirely, and his stepmother gave him nothing. Yeonsan took care of Yeok, and Yeok loved him back, but Yeok’s love wasn’t enough to cancel out the resentment. Yeonsan has never had that feeling of “home.” That’s why Chae-kyung, and her father really, get under his skin so much--these people offer him family, something he desperately, desperately wants underneath it all. Although he tells Chae-kyung not to call him brother, he doesn’t press the issue and continues to allow her to attach herself to him. Near her, he can sleep and the nightmares disappear, because he feels protected. It might seem kind of bizarre for a grown man to feel protected by a child, and then by a woman later on, but I think that’s what’s going on here. Something about Chae-kyung makes Yeonsan feel safe, the way a mother or sister does.

I don’t know if Yeonsan has romantic feelings for Chae-kyung. I’d say those are probably in there now that she’s older, and that they’re growing now that he’s getting heavily involved with her, but at the same time I think the simplicity of familial devotion that she offered him was the foundation of their bond, and I think that’s the piece that will always remain, no matter what happens.

He responds to Chae-kyung’s devotion with such a fierce desire to please her that it’s hard not to compare him to a puppy she picked up in the rain, haha. When she tells him that family should stick together, he rethinks his position on Yeok. When she tells him just to punish her alongside Yeok, he’s flabbergasted at her desire to protect both Yeok and him. When she tells him that he can become a sage king and do his father proud and restore his mother to her rightful place, he begins to change his actions to meet her wishes, much to the derision of Yeok and the Queen and the ministers. When she tries to get him to paint red on the ink wash painting of the Chinese rose, he immediately gives into her wishes despite an obligatory refusal. He clearly wants to please her and make her smile, and these are aspects of his character he’s probably never had the opportunity to explore.

This man has never known tenderness. He doesn’t know how to demonstrate affection or speak of his feelings. His love comes out in all these adorable, quiet ways that Chae-kyung sadly will never notice because her heart is elsewhere. When they chat at the table in episode 5, he gets all shy after he touches her face (I love how he’s always looking away shyly when he notices her as a woman or when she makes him smile and he doesn’t want her to know). When he finds her drenched in the rain, he offers his own umbrella to her, catches her in his arms, and then immediately begins ordering her to get herself dry. Anyone else would ask her if she’s alright, but he’s never said those words in his life. Instead he offers gentle orders to eat or dry up or tell him what’s happened. In time, perhaps, he could have made that final leap to speaking more gently and carefully, but he softens where he can.

He takes a huge step forward when he rescues her from being tied up on the cross and feeds her the antidote for the poison with his own hands. Like this is huge stuff for a king, especially this king in particular. For him to allow himself to express this much affection for someone is a milestone. Of course, this alerts all the ministers to a new weakness, which is unfortunate. Just as he’s beginning to learn to love, he’ll be quashed by the calculating cunning of his ministers. Still, he tries to save her father and her. The moment when he faces her down in episode 8 as she begs him to punish her rather than her family breaks my heart. He says her name over and over, wanting her to let him save her, but she won’t give in--insisting that in spite of all he’s offered her, she’s the one who’s let him down.

That’s the other thing about Chae-kyung that I think really gets to Yeonsan. She absolutely appreciates and values how he sticks his neck out for her, but she also fears for him and doesn’t want him to lose his influence because of her or her actions. Even though she loves Yeok and is desperate to protect him, she also wants to protect Yeonsan. The girl just has so much love in her heart, and it’s such a shame she’ll ultimately be unable to bring these brothers together and rebuild the torched fence between them.

I think Chae-kyung’s interactions with Yeonsan-gun help us see what he could have been if someone had only given him the chance. Chae-kyung enters Yeonsan’s life far too late to achieve any great results, and his course was long since set before she arrived on the scene. He was already married and in the hands of a cunning concubine; there was never any room for Chae-kyung, and now Chae-kyung has no room for him either.

In the end, I just feel grateful for anything the creators are willing to give me with this pair at this point. I know Chae-kyung will marry Yeok and that Yeonsan-gun’s in for a tragic end, but still... I hope there’re still some moments in the future episodes for me to enjoy highlighting this pair and their potential. Ultimately, they’re a love that can never be which was over before it started, but still, I can’t help but find it the more compelling love story in Q7D. Yeok, you’ve got a long way to go to overcome your big bro. Good luck, m’boy. ;)

#queen for seven days #seven day queen #seven days a queen #queen for 7 days #yeonsangun #chae kyung #7dq

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spjcomicart · 5 years

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On The Futility of Longing

Stefano Junior

On The Futility of Longing

A handsome stuttering sailor with a mysterious past impressed aboard a warship, a fourteen year old girl suffering an unfortunate onset of blindness desperate for fatherly affection, a gaunt and haunted mother hindered by secrets, a thirteen year old insightful girl impeded by circumstance, and an aristocratic businessman who through devoted obsession curates a private museum of memories, are among a cast of lovelorn, lustful, and longing characters within the pages of Billy Budd by Herman Melville, the Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen, Winesberg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, the Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, and The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk-all disparate pieces of literature occupying different eras, yet unified in their homogeneous tragedy.

One of the many unique aspects of the human animal is its’ capacity, not just for self awareness and conversely the awareness of others as uniquely individual, but with its breadth of empathy and emotional intelligence; the latter forever remaining the focus of artists and writers across all genre, since humans have had the ability to write, to explore, exorcise, and condemn. What are we seeking and yearning for when our basic needs are met? After we are fed, after we have found shelter and slept, after we have found labor or a function in our contemporary society, are we ever sated? It is this human longing that is the bedrock of religion and faith-a means by which people can describe their universe and singular purpose amidst a terrible uncertainty in an ephemeral and fickle physical world that is most assuredly brief and final for all living beings.

It is this longing, coupled with the inability and/or afflictions obstructing the characters aforementioned, to assuage their inherent longing that despite their greatest wishes and self admonishments result in a seemingly fated doom for all of them. What purpose did their silent prayer or intangible human longing serve? As humans, we are born alone and perish the same--yet in order to thrive we must commingle and develop relationships, both professional and interpersonal to further our survival and propagate the species. Yet even when these tasks are met, as is the case with Elizabeth Willard in Winesberg, Ohio, the loneliness and longing for which she suffers is almost magnified by her inability to communicate with her son and those around her. Is human internal suffering the price for evolution? And if there is no assurance of peace and fulfillment from an intangible yet perceivably real experience as human longing, especially given the ultimate misfortune of these characters despite their deepest urgencies, than what is the point of longing?

“I never took the smile away from anybody's face And that's a desperate way to look

For someone who is still a child”, lyrics by Big Country via their eponymous self titled track from 1983 perhaps best personify Melvilles’ charmingly innocent stuttering protagonist. Longing for acceptance and the power over language ultimately prove to be his undoing when, unbeknownst to him, he inadvertently creates a foe in the guise of lieutenant Claggart who both admires, envies, and perhaps lusts for the handsome buck whom has usurped him in popularity through naive charm and guile on the British Warship Bellipotent in the maritime exploration of the 18th century.

Despite Billy’s best intentions and even after discovering the accusations laid forth against him, Billy’s inability to overcome his handicap and control his, up to that point unseen, fury betray him and ultimately doom him to an unjust adjudication and death. How often are we, as humans, at the mercy of circumstances and forces unknown to us when we embark on a new venture or employment? Regardless of our best intentions, private observations, rumination, and wishes, are just as helpless as Billy, if a colleague, a manager, an educator, an administrator, etc of malicious intent-or perhaps arriving at a misconception even, acts against our interest, and we are just as powerless as Billy to stop it. Billy, of course, is ever the more tragic, because we observe omnipotently as the reader, that he is without recrimination and halted by his own inability to speak, seems a pawn in a greater metaphor of our lives as actors converging and collapsing upon corridor upon corridor on wooden ship rocked precariously by a violent and treacherous sea--a veritable chutes and ladders game-board of existence where the player has no concept of what may befall him/her next and no inner or outward pleading can circumvent arriving at following destination.

In the Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen, N’er do well photographer and friend to the inquisitive and moralizing upper class-man Gregers Werle, (for who's father both he and his father Ekdal are both capable of survival, yet for reasons that become apparent later, are also beset by his betrayal) struggles to both assert his dominance in his marriage and supply the attention his ill stricken daughter Hedvig so desperately vies for. But it is in Hedvig herself, a cheerful and hopeful innocent amidst a storm of an envy, hardship, and the product of infidelity and betrayal herself that proves the most tragic of this group of characters. The wounded wild duck saved and cared for by the senilic grandfather in the attic is a metaphor for her failing body, an affliction the (that) will eventually serve reveal her origin and dismantle her life. Though she lauds for the affection of her presumed father, ever facet of her life conspires to prevent her that validation: her withering eyesight, the seeds of discord planted by Gregers, a foreboding image on a book of her grandfathers she often revisit in his collection,:

“But then I look at the pictures. — There is one great big book called Harrison's History of London. It must be a hundred years old; and there are such heaps of pictures in it. At the beginning there is Death with an hour-glass and a woman. I think that is horrid. “

And ultimately the revelation fo her illegitimacy which leads her to commit suicide, a vain attempt to entreat her “father” even as a final solution of devotion. Hedvig seems to have been born to die before living life by circumstances beyond her scope of understanding and ultimately succumbed to it by her own design-alleviating her longing for the love and adoration she craved from a father who, though ironically was not biologically her own, but was arguably the only father she had known.

Elizabeth Willard in Sherwood Anderson’s Winesberg Ohio, the ill stricken wife of a failed politician who eventually abandons her and inheritor of the depreciating and dilapidated hotel in Winesberg, mother to would be journalist and central figure George, becomes a cartoonish ghoul like figure amidst the hotel walls, an actualization of inhibited longing and unrealized potential.

"When I have killed him," she tells herself, "something will snap within myself and I will die also. It will be a release for all of us."

We learn that in her more vibrant and philandering youth, Elizabeth meant to extricate herself from her unhappy marriage, revealing an inner turmoil and perhaps a penchant for violence, becomes unable to do so, and thus leads a silently tortured existence despite her son, for whom she is equally unable to communicate with--even so far as not being able to reveal to him the whereabouts of money she had hid away for herself in the event of her escape, on her death bed. Elizabeth’s inability to vocalize her yearning becomes the central aspect of her characterization-maybe even the crux of her recurring illness that will ultimately take her life. What good did any of her internal pining possible provide if she was unable to will action and leave?--solely an entire lifetime haunted by youth and circumstance, rage and desperation, the alienation of a son, and finally oblivion. What value did her feelings hold if they could not furnish her the tools of her emancipation?

Trapped in our psyche or trapped in a secret annexe. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank provides historical and biographical evidence of how the real world is no kinder or forgiving those individuals that are victim to bad timing and circumstance. Armed with an enthusiasm for learning, self examination, inherent insightfulness, and youthful optimism, Anne accounts the trials and travails she, her family, the Van Dann family, and Mr. Dussel, coupled with office employees of the 263 Prinsengracht office building in Holland who assisted in hiding the Jewish group from Gestapo police during the second world war in a secret attic two floor annex accessed behind a trick bookshelf, over the course of two and a half years. Ultimately the group are captured just before the allies liberated Holland and Anne perishes in a concentration camp. Though confined to shared cramped quarters and rationed food, Anne struggles and registers the plights of every teenager, the want of a brighter future, the validation of her parents, and the affection of a love interest.

“I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.”

Though Anne was wise enough to recognize the severity of her situation and of those being persecuted by the Nazis, she never lost her sense of longing and optimism for a better life and the satisfaction fo having her lust requited by Peter Van Dana, or the respect of her parents. She would never realize the freedom of the former, but ironically would the latter after her death and the remainder of her diary was collected by her father and published. But Annes’ own life was also, as in the characters in The Wild Duck, or Winesberg Ohio subject to circumstance and malevolent forces like in Billy Budd that would ultimately doom her. No amount of self analysis, hopeful prayers, or adolescent fantasizing could possibly be assured to save her.

Anne differs, in that, through her entries, we as readers have evidence of her innermost longings and perspective--a collection of memories forever frozen in time, by one who’s imprisonment was imposed on her. In Orhan Pamuk’s The Museum of Innocence, Kemal Bey self imposes himself amidst a collection of trinkets, personal effects, and ephemera in his mother’s abandoned apartment that subsequently becomes an art museum in the real world imitating art in Orhan’s own creation in Istanbul, where which the story takes place in the 1970s, much as Anne’s Secret Annexe has become a museum of dark history.

In the case of the Kemal Bey, who we as the readers are deceived into believing is the true narrator of this robust tale of class, lust, love, addiction, and ultimate tragedy it is his desperate yearning for someone else, his shopgirl and much younger cousin Fusun with whom he engages in an affair that leads both the the separation of he and his fiancé, Fusun’s marrying another and the many years that ultimately reunite them, that unravels in the ruin and destruction of Fusun. Kemal believes his love for Fusun can overcome the convention of his time and class, Fusun’s marriage and time itself--his obsession and fixation on collecting mementos of their initial affair, ritualistic engagement with them, and insistence on breaking the barriers between them, seemingly cement their destiny together in his mind. Early on we are reminded in a tale about a distant relative relayed by Kemal’s mother ,by the true author, Orhan, whom we learn plays a fictional version of himself as confidante and biographer to Kemal, that a woman like Fusun, who is aspirational and libertine will quite literally crash and burn. The very conception of Kemal and Fusun’s relationship harkens back to a childhood witness to another car crash overlooking a ritual blood sacrifice of lamb. How could Fusun escape these heraldic omens that the author and has spun for her?

Of course, she does not and is violently penetrated beside her beloved Kemal in a booze generated car crash that ends her short life and fulfills the metaphoric prophesies strewn throughout the story.

The central feature of all these characters is their inability to circumvent the very circumstances lain before them that result in their demise, regardless of their deep desires and cravings for validation, extrication, absolution, and love. So what purpose does longing actually serve once our basest needs for survival are met, if not only to perpetuate an ever expiring existence of suffering, if not to be definitely met by a cruel fate of destruction, but not necessarily alleviated in a lifetime--especially if we are most often not given prescience or the tools needed to circumvent our circumstances and ascertain and attain whatever metaphysical “grail” we need to quench that uniquely human thirst.

SPJ

December 2018

#longing literature

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