#nell chats tkem | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nettlestonenell · 2 years

Photo

The object of his affection (no, not the King’s--the Traitor’s)

Citizens of the Republic, Subjects of the Kingdom, and Gentle Readers, here you will find Part 4 of a failing attempt to dictate my thoughts during a The King: Eternal Monarch rewatch.

Touching on topics such as:

Rich people who don’t like to share their special stuff

The historical roots of Manpasikjeok

Lee Gon’s relationship with the Dragon King of the East Sea

the Vault of the Supreme Heaven and what it has in common with JTE’s police precinct

the traitor. so much the traitor

Cue the Show

Right off the bat, we get Lee Lim [some would say Ri Rim, and I respect it and maybe even prefer it, but I watched Netflix English subtitles, and so my brain is prewired for ‘Lee Lim’] of course, but we don't know that we get his voice over in the bamboo forest or a bamboo forest telling us the story of the flute, and he does say for the record that it is a bamboo flute. So, out of his mouth, if you want to believe him [though he is likely a liar], it is a bamboo flute.

It sounds like a lovely fairy tale. I wasn't even sure that it was a real story, but I did some research, and it literally an actual Korean folktale, that a flute exists and that you got it from the Dragon King of the East Sea, etc. It all checks out [online]. So in this case the Traitor is not lying to us [keep your guard up, nonetheless].

This page at Korea.net says “it is based on the Legend of “Manpasikjeok (The Flute That Calms Ten Thousand Waves), written in the Samguk Yusa (삼국유사), a book that contains tales and legends from the Three Kingdoms of Korea (Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla).”

Cheapest (but most exclusive) way to visit Busan

Of course, this probably begins one of the questions that apparently dogs a lot of viewers through the series, which doesn't don't affect me, doesn't affect me. Which is what? What are we looking at? So we're in a bamboo forest, but we don't know which world the bamboo forest is in [we also don’t know if it's Lee Gon’s forest or Lee Lim’s]. That’s the question that many viewers, or perhaps just particularly vocal viewers, have an ongoing issue with: not being able to differentiate which world they’re being shown. [obviously, easily fixable with additional subtitles, but I’ll have to say there are only two instances I find myself uncertain, b/c usually within a moment or so something in-scene will clue you in as to where you are IF YOU ARE PAYING ATTENTION. I’ll be sure to mention going forward any times I experience uncertainty, as well as any signifiers that answer this persistent question]

There are some credits in Korean at the bottom of the screen. I think they're just credits but I can't be sure because I don't read Korean, and with the shot of--I don't know what you wanna call it--I'm gonna call it a gazebo. I'm sure that's not what it's called [the temple at the Busan palace of Cheonjongo (Vault of the Supreme Heaven, according to the Korea.net page referenced above) *I don’t know if there is any significance to it, but JTE works at Seoul Jongo Police Station—both these locations use the word “Jongo”, but again I am Korean illiterate]—Emperor Lee Ho is opening the case to get the flute out.

What I'll say is this is where my troubles on my first viewing began. They played out something like this: I don't know where we are and I don't know what year we're in. So, I will tell you, 'cause it's kind of silly, what I thought I was watching. Well, first of all, I knew it was supposed to be a supernatural show, so I'm, you know, checking it out for moments of super- naturalness. So to me, I thought that what I'm calling the gazebo, I thought that it was something like a Stargate, a portal to travel through time or space or both. And that somehow this is where you would leap from place to place (as the show description cited parallel worlds). I thought this because Lee Ho is in, I don't know if we can call what he's wearing hanbok--but if hanbok means Korean clothes, he's certainly in Korean clothes, in some kind of kingly robe.

I won't try to get into the Korean words for these things because I don't know them. I would have to look them up to begin with, and that might take some time to figure it all out.

[A “gujangbok” (九章服) is a ceremonial robe worn by the Joseon king, adorned with nine symbols, either painted or embroidered, representing the consummate authority and virtue of the king. -you’re welcome]

But Lee Ho's in traditional clothing. Nobleman clothing at the very least, but most certainly I'm sure that it denotes that he's the king.

Naturally this means nothing to me as a Western viewer, I can't tell that he's a king. He's not wearing a crown. Even with a small bit of Kdrama exposure, I could not tell that he was a king. His hat looks to me a lot like the hats that other noblemen wear in sageuk. Anyway, the scene that is set is, to me, not located anywhere in time and so I can't tell if it's the 1200s, or if it's present day.

I assumed on my first viewing that this was a man from the past that somehow had shown up in this Stargate gazebo and in this sort of area, I mean sidebar, the gazebo in Cheonjogno. It also looks a whole lot like where Snow and Prince Charming got married in Once Upon a Time that's neither here nor there, but I share it with you nonetheless.

Sorry, it is what it is

So we don't know—who is he? Does he belong there? Has he traveled from another time? Why does this whole scene and his costuming look so arcane? He's got a flute from a case. We don't know what's going on. If you're me, and you're watching this the first time, you don't even know where you're located in the timeline, much less what world you might be in. 'Cause we haven't been told there are multiple worlds yet [except in the description]. *again, this would likely be far less confusing for a Korean viewer

There is Korean writing down the right side of the screen. I have no idea what it says. I don't believe that Netflix ever translates it out, but I'm here to tell you if you were watching Viki, somebody would have translated that out for you. And for that and for Viki, I'm very thankful. It might be. It might be a translation of what? Lee Lim is saying ‘where enemies would retreat, diseases would be cured’. It might be a translation of what's probably something like a poem that’s about the flute. [this of the poetry on the Four Tiger Sword] “When the flute was played, the enemies fled, the plagues receded, the rain came in drought, the wind was soft and the sea was calm; it was called ‘the flute that calms ten thousand waves’ and considered a national treasure.” [additionally of interest may be that in the tale, the flute was crafted from a bamboo plant that grew as two separate plants that united into a single plant each evening/night.]

Now we see that Lee Lim’s splattered with blood. This, on my first viewing, because he's so prominent in the early part of the show I thought that he was going to be the hero, I thought that he was going to be the main character because so much focus is to him now. JTE reads Lee Lim’s statistics, you know, his age, but he's supposed to be 70. It talks about the year 2020, and there's a document that we're shown. I can't read Korean. I don't know Korean symbols/logos that strongly. It's possible that that document, although Netflix isn't gonna want me to look at it 'cause it's just gonna pop that add up if I pause the screen--that that document makes it clear that it's from the Kingdom, because that document--I don't believe there's a document in the Republic which sometimes I will probably refer to as our world because I assume that it is in fact our world--OK, looking at it as much as I can, it does look to me like it has a symbol on it that is not a Republic symbol, but instead it is a Kingdom symbol. It's on the back of the sheet that says maybe…personal information, top secret. Those are words in English that appear on it.

So it's possible that if you were a Korean viewer, you would understand that what you were looking at, what was being talked about, was unusual from what you should be seeing [a document with Republic symbols on it].

Interesting sidebar: If you look up stories about the flute, you will discover that King Sinmun (681-692), who was given the flute, is actually the son of the man King Munmu, who would go on to become the Dragon King of the East Sea, that gave the flute to his son. Which makes both of those people a direct part of the ancestral line of our Emperor Lee Gon. His great, great, great, great plus granddaddys were the one that gave the flute and the one that received the flute.

I suppose this is as good of a time as any as Lee Lim is talking to Shin-Jae to note that as far as I'm concerned, the Traitor is remarkably handsome. He looks great--perhaps another reason that I thought for a moment that he was going to be the lead in the show.

It is a royal family of good genes

The Traitor Lee Lim is talking about the deeper details on his list, so we get the reveal of his age, but it's inconsistent with his appearance, and that he actually is, in fact, 70, and that time runs slower for him.

I feel like it's already too much [this scene]—like, it needs [narratively] to cut there and take us somewhere else.

I have a lot of feelings about this first, like I said, third of the first episode because it's so disorienting and we're trying so hard to grab onto something we're supposed to pay attention to as viewers, and it just keeps throwing more wild stuff and more people at us, and we just can't locate our story, if you will.

So you know, Lee Lim is starting to, sort of, what--villain blather? I don't know. He's gonna start to tell us things about the flute. He's gonna tell us how his brother didn't believe in the flute, and [this speech/exposition] needs to be, I think, tighter and quicker to get us where we're going faster. I say that on a first viewing. On subsequent viewings, I think that this works fine. Like, I think we are already invested. We're curious about what he has to say. There's a lot of interest going on. But first viewings when you're just trying to get your bearings in a story? We've already been shown a bamboo forest. We've already been shown Cheonjogno, and a person that we don't know [it’s un-introducted Emperor Lee Ho] with the flute. We've been told--we've heard Lee Lim's voice over it all, and we're now in this interrogation room, where we've been introduced to Lee Lim himself and then two other characters that we don't know, and including the credits that have rolled [which we watched].

It's, we're two minutes and 48 seconds into a show, so we're confused, muddled and I think exhausted and although, as I said in its defense, it plays just fine once you've seen the entire show. On re-watch I'm not bored. I know what's going on. I'm even interested in it.

But that's gonna be to me [I’m going to be interested in it b/c I’ve got the whole weight of the show behind me and it is NOW of interest]. That's the song, so to speak. That's the theme of the whole first third of the first episode [this murky-if-you’re-not-in-the-know-about-the-treason]. And I often tell people, if I encourage them to watch the show, don't give up. Make it all the way to the end of the first episode and halfway through the second one before you decide it's not for you.

I feel like this is something you almost just have to get past, to endure [the first time]. Kind of like taking your medicine, although that sounds a little more negative than it is, but you have to get past this part in order to get into the show and then you'll be glad for this part on the end of the show 'cause you will go back and re-watch.

So the Traitor villain blathers about how his brother was close- minded and did not appreciate the flute when he had it and did not know that it would bring the world into his hands. And then Lee Lim specifically states actually two worlds [he can say this in the police station b/c at that point he knows about two worlds]. And so, of course, we know that this scene is from the actual, you know, very close to the end of the series. And even at that time the knowledge is simply of two worlds because the pathway through the obelisks is [still] just a two-way pathway [though Lee Gon seems to suspicion other doors, though he does refer to them as closed]; you can go to the Kingdom, you can go to the Republic.

You don't get other options that are open and available to you. We don't know that yet. So that's all that he knows [two worlds].

It's interesting why he couldn't see [the flute] on other days [beside the every 20 year presentations to the people]. Was it literally like he would ask? Lee Lim would go and be like, hey, can I see the flute? And people would be like, “no”.

Because if you don't believe it has any particular powers [Lee Ho], what does it matter if you let, you know, your half-brother go look at it or whatever? Like, what's he gonna do with it if it's just a flute? For example, what if it was a famous painting? Like, what does it matter to you if you happen to own this famous painting as a king and then your half-brother is like, can I go check that famous painting out today? Stare at it for awhile? You would be like, what? “No, how dare you! Only I am allowed to look at the famous painting, except once every 20 years!” Does that even track?

So that that has Lee Lim upset and feeling traitorous. He seems to be, perhaps, even more upset that Lee Ho doesn't believe in the power of the flute. He consistently calls Lee Ho names b/c of his unbelief.

I read someone online who felt like Lee Lim considered the flute a religious object and wanted to or had developed a cult around it, so the sin of unbelief I guess would be a great one in that case.

I think it would have been nice--I'll probably say this a lot--during the first episode--Uh, I really think it would have been nice to be able to see them [Lee Lim and Lee Ho], perhaps argue about the flute and its potential abilities, or its mystical powers outside of, you know, the bloody massacre. Maybe over dinner, maybe following their father’s ancestral rites? Like, prior to this night of the treason, had they had spirited discussions about it? In all the years of growing up? Had Lee Lim tried to gain access to it in the past and been denied? Um. We don't get to see that, we don't get to see anything of their relationship prior to murder? Which I think is very unfortunate. [We don’t get to see it later on in flashbacks, either.]

Not that I'm trying to drag this [show-establishing] part out, but if some of what was the exposition of their conflict was cut, and instead like a shot inserted here or there of like action where the two of them were arguing, establishing the conflict through action, I think that works better narratively. [It helps flesh out Lee Lim far more than he ever is in the narrative that exists.]

It's three minutes and 39 seconds in and in the bamboo forest, standing in front of the obelisks, we see Lee Gon for the first time. He is in his ceremonial robe and he looks very, I think that we're seeing him prior probably to when Yeong shows up, before he is going through the obelisks, specifically to change the night of the treason the second time. [I assume it’s the second time and not the first—not the time he ended up visiting Tae-Eul and giving her the flowers. It SHOULD be LG waiting to enter the obelisks at the SAME TIME Lee Lim is about to be shoved in by Tae-Eul, for the sake of story continuity, but often kdramas don’t play that way (that Western storytelling would dictate)] But you know, I will admit as many times as I've watched this show, I have not made a flow chart, and without one, while I can understand the show while I'm watching it, trying to piece everything back into a timeline that's correct is very challenging. So when I look at this, that's what I think is happening.

And so we must be close to the time that JTE is going to take Lee Lim and walk through the obelisks on the side of the Republic if Lee Gon is already on the Kingdom side getting ready to go in in his ceremonial--is it a robe is it a jacket?

Probably if you're reading this, you're aware of the anticipation that after some two years away from entertainment because Lee Min Ho was doing his military service, he hadn't been in/acted in anything. But I think it's possible that he hadn't been anything since 2016, like The Legend of the Blue Sea is his last big work. I think that he was in a movie [Bounty Hunters] that was a Japanese movie in the interim, but nothing on television and maybe he was on, you know, some kind of a web or a short form program, but it's a long time for him to be gone, and then for them to feel totally comfortable not giving him to viewers, so to speak, immediately, but making you wait for his appearance.

presented without comment

It's gutsy. So you get this flash at the 3:40 mark. Around the 3:40 mark of his face; he doesn't speak, he doesn't interact with anyone. And then you have to wait considerably longer. I wanna say it's like 40 minutes--I'm sure I'll notate it when we get there--to actually see him do some acting and interact with people.

That's like a bold move. Like I think it's, I don't know if it's the right move. I'll say that not because of LMH, but because of Lee Gon [as a character]. And like I said, I just feel like for first time viewers this first third really stumbles and makes it a challenging road for people to stick to, but you know feel free to let me know if you disagree with that, if you love the beginning and it totally whetted your appetite for what was to come and it fulfilled everything that you wanted from setting up a story. I would love to hear about it if that's the case for you for sure.

...tbc...

#tkem #tkem meta #lee gon #lee lim #lee min ho #the king: eternal monarch #the king eternal monarch #nell chats tkem #chez nell mind palace #kdrama #more like okay: drama #queue-een jeong tae-eul #tkem rewatch

3 notes · View notes

nettlestonenell · 2 years

Photo

Let’s talk.

Citizens of the Republic, Subjects of the Kingdom, and Gentle Readers, here you will find Part 3 of a failing attempt to dictate my thoughts during a The King: Eternal Monarch rewatch.

Touching on topics such as:

the Netflix-available trailer review

how looking like you stepped out of a manhwa might harm your career trajectory

other ways in which Netflix destroys my constant-pause viewing style and how to switch them off

Hangul v. Hanja

thoughts on the opening credits

Anyway, back to the trailer. Does this trailer, is the question, does it make me wanna watch this show?

I'll watch it again, it's one minute long and then I'll review it.

Actually, it says god had released demons into the world and it shows us the flute. And it talks about how demons opened up the passage to a parallel world, OK, so my review of the trailer is that trailers on Kdramas are really hard for me because I have to read subtitles. This trailer is full of a lot of quick cuts, and so because of that, I can't really absorb what is generally going on.

And of course, TKEM trailer is gonna be even more confusing because it's babbling on about parallel worlds and doppelgangers and all these other things. It's just too much to keep track of. Obviously, it makes sense to me now because I've watched the show. But in so far as something that would make me wanna watch the show, I don't think that it would.

Now mind you, most Kdrama trailers are not gonna make me want to watch the show that they're for, 'cause once again It's just like my eyeballs are pingpong-ing between trying to see what is going on and reading subtitles. And it's just System overload.

It has really, it has some of the great music. That great instrumental? I'm not gonna know what to call it, but maybe I'll look up what instrumental that is that's playing. [I didn’t] It shows a little bit of that high-level, that elevated cinematography that you're gonna get [on this show]. That's very pretty. And then of course, while I don't know that it fully highlights him, because it does, but I think it probably does highlight him. It shows you LMH and it just brings to mind the quote that I heard, one of the directors said for Gangnam Blues, which was that he looks like he stepped out of a manhwa. [the director mentioned this when saying that quality got in the way of whether he should cast LMH in the role he ultimately got] And I mean, the person that said this, I think it tickled them and made them giggle in the same way that it makes me giggle because I find LMH to just be ridiculously striking on-screen, particularly in TKEM.

And of course, LMH's got all these glamour shots taken of him as if it's the 1940s, black-and-white-Hollywood, where they’d take four days to film an actress’s perfect close-up. So they’d look peak beautiful.

LMH definitely hits all of those notes in this trailer where you might have to just take a minute after watching it and try to, I don't know, recompose yourself, take a sip of water or find your smelling salts.

Someone bring KGE a glass of water, or a cold towel. As shown, her working conditions are egregious.

But if you looked back to the subtitles, it definitely says that the portal is opened by demons, so I don't know. I think I might have to ask. I can't think of her name. I'll have to look it up [@accioecho ] to get in her asks and see if she would translate the word as ‘demons’ when we're looking at the flute, or if that's referring to the Traitor. Who? What are the demons? But then also it, of course, as I say, it said that god had let demons into the world. Does that make The Dragon King of the East Sea god? I mean, he does seem to be a divinity in Korean culture. But as far as I can tell, not having studied Korean culture, there is polytheism at work historically. There are many deities. So, I don't know. Which god are we talking about?

I mean, somebody started us down this path before the Traitor took the wheel

Are we ready to start watching this? Says I've talked 5 pages. And I don't know if that makes me ready to start watching the show or not.

This is a show that I like to watch at night. When it's dark outside. Because for whatever reason, it's a show that makes me feel very cozy. Obviously, your mileage may vary as to whether this show makes you feel cozy, and I'm sure it didn't make me feel cozy when I originally watched it, because how could it?

I will also say that I'm tickled that Netflix has finally added a double thumbs up ability for me in rating the show because that was an issue that I was having that Netflix would always be asking me to rate things and I would think well, you know, I liked it, but did I like it the same as Rookie Historian? No, I liked Rookie Historian just fine. I liked it a reasonable amount. It scratched the itch that I had and I found it a pleasant experience, but I would not put it on the same par as this show which obviously is enough of an obsession that I am now talking to you about it, into a voice dictating word processing program.

If you don't think that every time that I hear the da dong of the Netflix “N” coming up on my screen and think of Eun Sup folding laundry, then you’re wrong.

Additionally, it is not lost on me that this is also the product of Studio Dragon, just like Crash Landing on You. Generally, when I was originally watching the show, I would skip after watching the credits once, I would consistently skip the credits. I don't do that now. I think because originally I was just very anxious to get down to business. I needed to see what was gonna happen on the show. But now I find the credits really enjoyable. They're moody, the music is cool. There's a lot to look at, and so I appreciate it more.

The icon which is, I don't know, the writing that has a clock sunk into it, and the clock is ticking backwards. Other than hopefully I think it means to show that time is not functioning properly, it's not like we really turn time backwards here, is it? I guess you could say that going back to the night of the treason is in a sense turning time backwards, but then we don't have to relive it in the same way, we don't really live through all of that time [again]. Anyway, it I like it. I like the ticking. I know that they use it in a couple of episodes at the end. I'm not sure that they use it in every one. I guess we'll find out [in this rewatch]. But I think it's effective.

Interestingly, although in canon the flute is made of bamboo, I think it's mentioned several times and then also historically the flute, which if you look it up, is a historical item, though no one that talks about it travelling between worlds, but the Manpasikjeok is definitely a historical item, and it is made of bamboo. But the tree that we're shown in the credits. I think is not. It's certainly not a bamboo tree. Is it a ginkgo tree?

Of the [kdrama] shows that I've seen, I feel like this is one of the few shows or possibly the only show that's going to give you both English and Korean for the names in the credits. Is it the Hangul or the Hanja? [I think Hangul] And then a Westernized version and one without hyphens, whichever one that is [it’s neither Revised Romanization or McCune–Reischauer, those would be: Revised Romanization= Gim Go-eun McCune–Reischauer= Kim Koŭn, it’s like a hybrid] of actors’ names. So that to me is interesting [the notion that already with the credits we are being shown that this program is expected to appeal to audiences outside of Korea].

But here's this first shot on the bridge where the bridge is twisted and there's someone standing on the bridge. And then we're seeing at the top of the screen it's, the truth is, it's not like we're seeing the Republic and then the Kingdom on the bottom, because we know that the Kingdom also has very highly technologically advanced modern cities, but it is something that's showing duality where we're sort of seeing a version of ancient Korean architecture on the bottom of the screen,

This is the yellow screen that has LMH and KGE’s names in the opener.

If a person is Korean, some of the buildings, when they start showing specific things they're gonna maybe be notable. We get like an arch, which of course to my Western eyes anytime there's an arch I think of L’Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which obviously this is not, but I assume that it might be a significant Korean landmark.

(also it morphs into another arch)

And then we end on an image that I just adore with all my being:

You've got the statue of Admiral Yi Sun-Shin in the background at Gwanghwamun Square, which I was familiar with before, when I truly watched (not that first time when I gave up)-- I was aware of that square because of Memories of the Alhambra where people are like fighting in it when they're fighting in their altered reality.

But this, this image I really love, so I paused Netflix and I like this image a whole lot where she's opposite him on the horse. And there's the reflection in the water. And it's just beautiful.

What doesn’t it tell you about this show? There’s reflection, calling out the parallel worlds in the water, but also Lee Gon’s side is bluer, Tae-Eul’s is yellow/orange, they’re in opposition to each other. We’re in Seoul, the wind has JTE’s coat but not Maximus’ tail. Lee Gon not only looks white knightly/kingly, he’s seated on a very tall horse, elevated from JTE who stands on the ground in her very regular trenchcoat. The leads are not on equal footing.

The image is epic, showing the type of story we’re going to get, and the high quality of the cinematography to come is also teased by it. It is, as GBBO would say, an absolute showstopper.

I could talk about it for a long time, probably, but this brings me to this annoyance that I currently have with Netflix that I don't know that I can stop, and that is when all they want to do is slap these advertisements over a paused image.

I like the paused image. I wanted to see it, but I can't see it, because now you're telling me I need to watch Hi, Bye, Mama. And this is not like much time elapses as I'm sure you know. If you watch Netflix, before this pops up, this pops up Kaboom almost instantly. And I don't know if that's 'cause they don't want me to take a screen grab of it. I mean, I'm watching it on my television so I wouldn't have the ability to do that anyway. Maybe i need to get down into the Netflix settings and see if there's some way to get rid of this but boo i hate it.

For me at least, these advertisements popping up are newer. I used to spend time like trying to look in the reflection [of the image] to see if things were different, of them standing on the square, looking at each other, but I have not been able to discover if anything is different. I I think it's the same. I think that it's the actual reflection of what we're looking at, but you can never be too sure with this show, 'cause this the show has got a lot for you to look at on reviewing, as I'm sure you know if you're willing to still be reading six page in.

[PSA:: Here’s how I found you can turn off those image suggestions that pop up when you pause Netflix:] There's a way to turn them off.

Account page, scroll down to the link for "test participation"

Once you are in the test-participation page, simply toggle the button to "off"]

...tbc..

Good news! In the next post we’ll actually start the show!

#tkem #tkem meta #the king: eternal monarch #the king eternal monarch #lee gon #jeong tae eul #queue-een jeong tae-eul #kdrama #more like okay: drama #the king: eternal monarch netflix #nell chats tkem #chez nell mind palace #lee min ho #tkem rewatch

2 notes · View notes

nettlestonenell · 2 years

Photo

Welcome to my [Mind] Palace

Which is to say, Citizens of the Republic, Subjects of the Kingdom, and Gentle Readers, I’ve done an insane thing: decided to dictate into my word processing program while watching TKEM, and I’ve frankly frightened myself, b/c even without getting all the way through the first episode, it’s A LOT of pages.

To be clear, I don’t know that it’s a sustainable way to share a rewatch of the show, but I’m probably going to post (over many posts) what content I actually have so far.

Mind you, it’s Granny Weatherall stream-of-consciousness, it’s only lightly edited, and has more journeys off-piste than...that scene in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Which is a terrible reference, but certainly nothing to what are likely multitudes of terrible references and obscure ephemera to be found within the text below.

Consider yourself warned.

It's no surprise or secret that The King: Eternal Monarch has been a flashpoint, shall we say, in my life. Since when--? I mean, Netflix knows, but sometime in 2021. Probably for the latter bit. I should go and check that and see. And so I'm always looking for a reason to rewatch, and it seems like now is the time where I'm going to rewatch, and I'm going to just record in my word processing program, the things that I wanna talk about and say I don't know how much editing I'm gonna do. Um, probably at least a little. Get rid of some of the junk. But maybe this will make us all feel like we're watching it together.

Just to set the scene, before getting into the meat of the episode, interestingly. Well, interesting to me, I started watching it before I watched any Kdrama and before someone recommended watching Crash Landing on You. To me, that was @reblogginhood, and I thank her for that eternally.

But Netflix just kept recommending The King: Eternal Monarch every time I would turn on Netflix. It would be one of those things. I don't know what you call that in the banner where it's like, hey, check this out. And I had read maybe an article or two [about the rise of kdrama] They seemed like they were in specific articles that didn't mention particular shows, or if they did, [those show titles] didn't stick with me talking about, you know, how everybody was getting excited about Kdrama. And it was the new thing. And I thought, “Well, maybe I'll check this out and somebody on tumblr. @tatzelwyrm maybe kept posting. Oh. What what? What was it for? I don't know. It was one I might be a Chinese one, where the two…There's two dudes, and they have very long hair and it's clearly set in the past. [it was The Untamed, from China] And I thought, well, I'm gonna check this out [kdrama, via Netflix’s suggestion of The King: Eternal Monarch].”

And I am here to tell you. It was not a good experience. It was a terrible experience and in a minute we’ll talk about why it was a terrible experience or we'll try to break that down because I continue to try to understand why the first episode, and particularly the first half, maybe at least the third, if not the half of the first episode is what I would say almost, just a viewer-killing experience. Which is very hard to get your mind around, narratively speaking. 'Cause you, you honestly don't know what you're watching, I don't think? Or what to focus on, and there was a lot of blood, I think in the interim [of trying to figure out where the focus of the story is].

Obviously, since then, I've watched a fair amount of Kdrama and it's become very clear that at least on the screen, Korean folks have like 375% more blood in their bodies than Westerners. Or [that may not be Science, but] at least the way they like to represent it on the screen. I mean, there's so much blood, so much blood, and they wanted-- Well, we'll talk about that in a minute. They wanted so much to have wee Lee Gon literally walking on the blood of his father. It's just wild. And [the first time] I couldn't figure out what's going on. I couldn't figure out who I was supposed to be paying attention to.

Uh, it definitely made me think that the traitor was going to be the main character. Probably I think that it made me think it was him and Lee Ho that were gonna be the main characters, anyway. [That experience of watching the first episode] was a huge turn-off. I did not get it. Oh boy. I don't even know if I got to the point where he killed Lee Ho, but maybe I did, and then I was just like, “yeah, this is. I don't understand what's up”. And it's very puzzling. So I gave up.

I gave up for a long time. And as I said, @reblogginhood had said, you know, you ought to check out this Crash Landing on You. And I did. And I, I mean, I'm not made of stone. I loved it. But. Then there was some time after that where I think I watched--Rookie Historian Goo Hye-Ryung?

And I watched that, and I liked it. And I was sort of casting around trying to find other things that I could watch and enjoy, but also things that did not immediately remind me of Crash Landing on You. 'Cause I didn't wanna watch, you know, something that was less [good] after I had seen what was clearly, you know, the Gold Standard. Um. Just the best. You don't wanna go from [your first exposure to the genre being] the apex and then start going downhill immediately.

So I'm trying to think of what brought me back and I think that what brought me back [to TKEM] was I started talking to chrysophyta. And she had been looking around herself [for kdrama], I think she has Hulu. Yeah, she has Hulu. And so Hulu was either recommending to her or she was able to find The Legend of the Blue Sea. And she kept laughing about the description about, you know, a man that keeps falling in love with a mermaid. The description’s pretty wonky. It's not that the description is a lie. I also think you find this with Kdrama descriptions or summaries of kdrama shows. They're not a lie per se, but they don't necessarily accurately represent content or tone, What this show has got to give you.

Here is a sample summary (which won’t seem entirely off to you unless you’ve actually watched the show: “A magistrate's plan to release mermaids into the ocean backfires when they're caught by fishermen.”

And so, we both were kind of rolling our eyes over the wild description that Hulu offered for Legend of the Blue Sea and it occurred to me that she was going to watch it. And I was like, well, I mean, I've got it, too. So let's watch it. So, we watched it together and that was when we ended up with, you know, Lee Min Ho. And that's when I realized that he was the King [from TKEM] 'cause I kept calling him that [to her] because I had, for some reason, by that point I had connected that it was him and I must have had some latent understanding of who he was in the Kdrama universe, even though I don't believe I had ever watched him do anything. [*wrong, I had watched Personal Taste, for Son Ye Jin following CLOY]

I wanna say that Legend of the Blue Sea was the first time I watched him do anything. Although maybe I need to go back and check to be sure about that. [see above] After watching that, I wanted to see him do something else. That show is so underrated, like steeply underrated to the point that I'm puzzled by it. The lack of respect that it gets, because it, I mean that's another post obviously, but that's an amazing show. So, that's when I decided, I think, on the heels of that to give TKEM another try, because of course in the parts that I had watched, trying to get into The King: Eternal Monarch, LMH wasn't really in it. You get that brief flash of his face in the lightning where he's standing at the obelisks, and I never made it to where he was actually on-screen and had words. I ended up with Legend of the Blue Sea having me love nearly every one of its characters and portrayals, so

I thought, well, this deserves more of a try on my part. And of course I’m obviously glad that I did.

...tbc...

Part 2

#tkem #the king: eternal monarch #the king eternal monarch #tkem meta #tkem rewatch #nell chats tkem #lee min ho #chez nell mind palace #queue-een jeong tae-eul

3 notes · View notes

nettlestonenell · 2 years

Photo

[talk TKEM to me]

Citizens of the Republic, Subjects of the Kingdom, and Gentle Readers, here you will find Part 2 of a failing attempt to dictate my thoughts during a The King: Eternal Monarch rewatch.

Touching on topics such as:

LMH w/ facial hair

questions of translation

what Kdrama and Bridgerton have in common

the Netflix suggestions algorithm

the Past Lives trope

and some things about counterparts in TKEM

I have established that my first LMH exposure was in an abandoned attempt to watch TKEM. Because of this, when I watched him in other things (Personal Taste, The Legend of the Blue Sea) I would often refer to him as the King when I was talking to kdrama co-watcher and roommate chrysophyta [not on tumblr].

But let's watch together. I'll keep this on [the microphone]. I guess I'll have to turn it off or else you'll be getting all of the dialogue from the show, which could be pretty interesting [ensuing Korean sounds transcribed by an English-set AI dictation] and we'll see how many pages we end up with using voice dictation.

Now, have you ever watched the trailer for The King: Eternal Monarch?

I don't know who did the translation, and it may be somebody that did the regular translation on the show, but in it they have Lee Gon call the Traitor Lee Lim a demon. I am not entirely sure how to take that. I don't know, in Korean culture, what it means to be a demon--if it's the same kind of thing that Westerners think of as a demon? I don't know if it's a figurative way to describe him as a bad guy, rather than a supernatural being? But I do find it interesting, and I don't believe that you can find in the show, at least not in the translation, and then the English subtitling, I don't believe that you can find him referred to as a demon.

So there's a single trailer for the show. “Season one Trailer 2” it’s titled, which is interesting 'cause there's no “Trailer 1” that my Netflix has for us, but I'm gonna watch it and and then I'll tell you where he—[I get distracted, here] I don't know about a lot of you, but I have a restricted pin on a lot of content on my streaming services because I have children. And so I do find it funny that on so many Korean dramas and shows that they [Netflix] want to rate them a certain way that requires me to put in my pin. And so what it does is it will show, I think it shows that Kdramas might be getting rated [having their ratings set] by people in actual Korea as opposed to people in the US, because a fair amount of Kdramas carry a TV-MA warning, and the content that a Kdrama thinks is TV-MA…there's nothing at all like a Game of Thrones or a Peaky Blinders or these other types, or like Bridgerton [content].

I mean, it's just mostly like somebody might have suicidal thoughts, it'll say under the warnings, or there's somebody, somewhere that smokes a cigarette, which, honestly, I think that The King: Eternal Monarch has people smoke cigarettes but I mean, off the top of my head I can't even think of who does it, so it might even be in the deep background… [getting back to where I got distracted from talking about the trailer] OK, so here it is. It says that demons have opened the parallel world. Mind you, this is all in the voice of Lee Gon/LMH. And they're showing us on-screen, like, Manpasikjeok, the flute, when they talk about demons being released into the world [is it saying the flute is the demon?]--let me go and look and see. I'm trying to remember if. Oh, I'm trying to find the description. And I'm not seeing it. Let's see if I go to credits in more info.

For example, it’s [rated] TV-14. For those of you that don't pay attention to things like that, it says it includes fear, language, violence, suicide and smoking. And I don't disagree that it includes all of those things, but. Well, OK, in this instance, I suppose TV-14 seems a reasonable thing to rate the show. But there are some others like I said that get rated TV-MA and there's absolutely no rhyme or reason to why that is.

Additionally, looking at the credits we have under creator, they're actually three names. There's not just Kim Eun Suk, and I would have to go and look and see if, for example, in Descendants of the Sun, if she is the only creator that's listed. But for the most part, at least in media that's available to Westerners she's the only name that gets talked about with respect to like, for example, this show. So the other two, I don't even know if those are men or women or anything about them but they're definitely part of this thing that I love so perhaps I ought to them up.

Netflix offers 15 titles that it says are “more like this”. So, you know, if I was interested in trying to watch more content like The King: Eternal Monarch, I don't know if yours would come up the same as mine because of the algorithm, but what is interesting, as I'm looking at this, is I don't have any idea [behind the logic of what got included] other than these are Kdramas. Why they would particularly have anything to do with the same kind of stuff that The King: Eternal Monarch has to?

So I'll skip ones that are regular Kdramas, like When the Camellia Blooms. Which I did watch and I enjoyed, but I'm looking, like is it because there's a mystery? Do they suggest it because it has LMH’s co-star Kang Ha Neul from Heirs? Is that why they throw it out there? I don't know. What makes that algorithm say, oh, you might like this? They suggest Rookie Historian. Do they select that because it's a sageuk and they saw people in hanbok and they're like, oh, there's a lady in The King: Eternal Monarch that's in hanbok?

[I’m currently watching The Bride of Habaek, and it’s a much better suggestion. A soon-to-be-crowned-King Deity travels through a portal from the Divine Realm to Earth where he encounters a modern day woman whose family is destined to serve the gods/him, unbeknownst to her. Their eventual romance is complicated b/c the are separated by both their stations and by geography. The portal even looks like the obelisks 1.0 (it is my assumption that TKEM writers would be familiar with this 2017 drama and/or its source material)]

So they select also My Holo Love, which obviously has a sci-fi, I guess, sort of bent. So that one, you know, maybe you could try and say they share something there, but for the most part, the things that they are recc’ing me it really does just show that there's, I don't know, I mean, I've only been watching Kdrama for so long, but I have consumed a great deal of it. I don't know what you compare it to. It plays in so many different genres and it twists them.

So for example, I don't know that this was exactly when I was gonna mention this, but past lives.

TKEM introduces doppelgangers. In a way, it's like a twist on this very common past life sort of storyline that you'll see that Kdramas just love to play around in. They just love to talk about past lives. TKEM’s a story that gives you both a present day story but because you have the parallel universe, the other world in the Kingdom, you have people wearing traditional Korean dress and you have elements of a Royal Court and intrigue in a Royal Court, which then brings to mind sageuk, the historical dramas. TKEM just plays around in so many different tropes and genres. It has the mystery element. It obviously has sort of the romance element and the lovers that can't be together, but it's not because you know, their families disapprove of them, it's because the universe is literally keeping them apart. So. It has so many things and if I thought longer and made an entire post just about that, I would also be able, I think, easily to come up with even more. Let me stop, and I'm gonna look up and see the show description.

Here it is: “Korean emperor Lee Gon tries to close the doors to a parallel world which was opened by demons; a detective tries to protect the people and the one she loves.”

Above: Legendary general and defender of Korea/Goryeo...and a 2010′s-era plastic surgeon

I do actually think there is a similarity between this show and two of LMH’s prior jobs, acting jobs, and one is Faith. Also, I think, known as The Great Doctor, where he plays--don't ask me to remember the person's name. Maybe I'll look it up [Choi Young]. He plays a historical figure, a general in the past who was able to pass through a portal that brings him into the present day where he kidnaps a plastic surgeon because someone royal in the past needs a doctor to heal them, and he takes that person/doctor into the past and then they spend time trying to... Well, for a while in the show, he and his compatriots are trying to keep the doctor there because obviously she has a lot of knowledge that is useful to them. But then when LMH makes a pledge that he will return that doctor to her own time, which I don't know, is it a spoiler? Ultimately he does, but then she spends time trying to get back to his time. So there's definitely some story beats there that are similar to TKEM’s.

And the performance is LMH distancing himself from bad boys having tantrums. General Choi Young is centered, doesn’t speak a whole lot, is someone to fear physically in a fight and is without a doubt a grown man. [there are a tantrum or two in the earliest episodes, but both his character and the doctor’s Willie Scott impersonation melt away as the series carries on] Choi Young is a continuation of the action/physicality LMH took on in City Hunter, and if you’re counting also showcases (in early episodes) an evolved-BOF hairdo (in the final ep you can briefly enjoy LMH with facial hair, if that’s your jam)

Magistrate/Town Head Dam Ryeong of Joseon...and his mermaid boo (shh, don’t tell)

The other one [character and performance], and I think this one is also really closely related, is The Legend of the Blue Sea where he plays two characters. And one of the conceits is that the character in the past, the story that we're watching in the present day, the character in the past dreams of and has sort of access to, although it's not as exploited in-story as much as that could be [for the character in the past], but LMH plays a sort of a magistrate character, a village head Kim Dam Ryeong in the past, and that performance, in my opinion, is a stepping stone to the performance that he gives as Lee Gon. [hint: I love it] It's a very controlled performance. It's kind of a quiet performance of sort of quiet strength and nobility and gravitas and it is very, it is very opposite from the performances that he's been the most famous for, like Gu Joon Pyo and Kim Tan. It’s a very adult performance. [and clearly related to Lee Gon]

[The other character he plays, Heo Joon Jae in present-day, is also an adult performance, but one that more encompasses the playful aspect of a grown man (the character is a con man). As the two identities begin to bleed over onto each other, Heo Joon Jae matures (as LMH’s performance leans in toward more of Dam Ryeong’s gravitas bleeding over into the present-day identity).]

Sound a bit familiar, JTE? The Legend of the Blue Sea is interested in memory and finding each other again and accepting the pain along with the sweet and attempting to change Fate.

That, and The Legend of the Blue Sea is a past lives story. So it involves characters meeting multiple times. It involves characters trying to avoid the [known] negative outcome of their Fate. And it involves sort of constantly being involved in your lives, surrounded by the same people. I suppose that sort of reincarnation carasse(?) that you hear about sometimes, the notion that if you reincarnate, you'll always encounter the same people, which here in TKEM we run into. Because in both worlds you're still connected to the same people.

Or at least that's true with Jo Yeong. Well, no. I'm gonna take that back. Are you connected with the same people? you encounter the same people? Um so. Tae Eul. You know she encounters the Myeongs; so she encounters Na-ri and Seung-Ah in both universes. She encounters Eun Sup and Jo Yeong in both universes, as does Lee Gon. And that people are romantically involved with the same people. Across universes that seems to also be a thing?

And there's a whole other post that I have. The one about Fate versus Ardent Desire, where I talk about this notion that in all parallel worlds your parents are the same, so that bloodlines still exist, even though who you get as your doppelganger is different--there are things about them that are different--they're still gonna have the same parents that produced you.

[This always puts me in the mind of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Sliding Doors (how’s that for an obscure reference?), where a woman who missed the sliding doors of the tube (missed her train) creates a branch reality for her, making two hers and two separate realities. A single decision/action. Which seems similar to the multitudes of JTE’s we meet who are not that different. They all have the same parents, all live in Seoul, in the same building--even the idol JTE. *Luna being the only exception, but she/her situation may well be a symptom of the broken flute/worlds. It’s as if one small choice might have set those JTE’s on divergent paths, created their branch reality.]

Which I think also means that Lee Ji Hyun in the Republic, he must be a descendant of kings, of Korean emperors, even though obviously [the genealogy] is so muddied by now and lost to history, and he has no idea but he must be the direct descendant, which I mean, I don't know, have fun with the idea, but I tend to also think there that if he hadn't died, if Lee Ji Hyun hadn't died it would mean that Eun Sup would somehow have become important and crossed his path in his life, b/c of the carasse(?)

That said, that does beg one of the questions that, of course, [because such questions are left unclear and unanswered] the show gets criticized for, but you can endlessly try to armchair quarterback, and that is Lee Ji Hyun is dead, so what does that mean for offspring?

Because if you're, if everyone is the product of the same set of parents, how is that gonna work? Or was that always gonna be? That would mean that Lee Gon and Tae Eul couldn't/wouldn’t have a child because in his universe, Lee Ji Hyun was not able to have a child, he was killed.

This is one of the reasons that time wasn't running properly. And so Lee Gon had to take the risks and do the things that he did to rescue it [time/destiny], because of that, for a simple example. He can't have children [unless Lee Ji Hyun can also have children], but it also means that, you know, Eun Sup and Na-ri, when they have children, that means that we could also be expecting Jo Yeong and Seung-Ah to have children as well in the same timeframe [at least insofar as what we’re shown in-show, doppelgangers share parents and ages].

This is something I talk about in that post (linked above), and I call out mention Jo Yeong’s parents in the final episode as problematic, but I’ve had time to think it over, and I think that when he says that he’s been babysitting the twins, it makes more sense that, rather than them being infants (when their Republic doppelgangers are now in Kindergarten), his comments really mean that when he returned to the present from the night of the Treason getting fixed, he found his Kingdom parents back together (they may never have gotten divorced in the fixed timeline), and the twins of the Kingdom already existed (as they were always supposed to have), the same age and birthdays as the Republic’s twins.

...tbc...

Part 3

#tkem #the king: eternal monarch #the king eternal monarch #tkem meta #tkem rewatch #chez nell mind palace #lee min ho #lee minho #lee gon #nell chats tkem #queue-een jeong tae-eul

1 note · View note