Mr Queen - The Ending
Okay, so, I have seen a lot of commentary about the ending of Mr Queen being ‘The Worst of the Worst’ of it being ‘homophobic’ and a ‘blight on Queer rep’.
These points might be valid - it is an unsatisfying ending and I was personally rooting for Jang Bong-hwan staying in the past and, you know, creating a whole new history. But. There are some incredibly valid reasons why the ending ended like it did.
One: (and honestly a pretty important one) is so the show was aired. It ended on a (very queer) heterosexual note, which was probably vital in getting the show air time.
(I don’t think the ending made enough sense to have been what the writers were going for - not with how brilliantly the rest of the production was done. So I don’t think it was meant to convince us.)
If the show had ended how many watchers wanted it to - Jang Bong-hwan and Cheoljong together - then it may not have been around to watch.
(And, honestly, shows not going the way I want paves the way for glorious fix it fanfiction.)
Two: it turned a popular trope completely on its head - it unfridged a woman.
Kim So Yong was, essentially, dead.
The ending brought her back to life at the expense of the main male character (or at least, initially representing as male - genderqueer/trans Jang Bong-hwan rights!).
It brought back a side/background character to play the title role, to be happy when she thought it impossible.
Yeah, from a Cheolbong perspective, it sucks. But Kim So Yong is living the good life.
(Even if she probably would be happier if they switched bodies properly rather than, you know, literally taking a backseat in her own life.)
Three: it gave an almost perfect show a big, visible flaw.
(This is not saying the show is faultless or pristine clear.)
Without this ending I, personally, would have been content to watch the show on repeat for years and never consider anything else.
With an ending that felt...incomplete, well, that leaves fanfiction, world building and head canons galore (bring on the hyper fixation!).
People like to fix imperfect things, like to keep poking things into place until it settles that ‘just so’ urge.
That ending? Poke away.
So: TLDR:
The ending of Mr. Queen.
Do I like the decision? No.
But I don’t have to.
It served a purpose.
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bored so i’m looking for shit to overanalyze. anyway you know how nikolai has the 3 diamonds thingie on his eye. and how the diamonds suit can be switched with pentacles in tarot. anyway
upright this card has nothing to do with him (tldr: teamwork, collaboration, learning, implementation. maybe that last one...? if you stretch it) but reversed it’s p much all on point imo. this part^ is more for the doa in general. they literally all have different goals, but like, theoretically, i can see why the other 4 would work on the same things bc at the end of the day it can help them in some way. but not nikolai. he always stands out to me the most in that regard, bc his personal goal is the literal opposite of what the doa’s trying to achieve
this is interesting to me, bc we are first introduced to him when he’s disguised as a government worker that’s definitely overlooked by his superiors, BUT even in the doa he was meant to do his part of the plan then die. he really is basically meant to sacrifice everything for this plan and not even live to see its fruits, and there’s no way for him to further his own personal agenda either
at the end of the day, he went against the plan and saved himself, then went against it again by saving sigma all on his own, AND he’s the one breaking fyodor and dazai out of prison (even if. um. in his own unique way). every time we see him, he works alone. the most he does is drag sigma around with him, but not really involve him in anything actively outside of simple mundane things, never actually letting him in on it
NOW! and interesting thing i thought about, is that the upright meaning of this card is actually more aligned with the plans fyodor has for the doa. his plan relies on collaboration and everyone doing their part. and i thought, “wouldn’t it be funny if fyodor had a 3 of diamonds thing going on too”. and!
this is the card his game with ace ended on! what a crazy coincidence amiright. (i WILL say tho that’s not the case in the anime)
i mentioned a tldr of what the three of pentacles is, but to go in a bit more length, it’s everyone doing their role and bringing their best to the table. everyone is at different levels of experience and skill, but if they work as a team, they will bring the best out of each other.
i think this is def what fyodor’s going for. for example, he thinks sigma’s lack of history is his strength. he sees his lack of experience as something that contributes to his plan, and he’s willing to work with that. if anything, fyodor is closer to fitting the meaning of the three of pentacles
now. the thing about playing cards is they don’t really have a reversed form, they’re always upright. when we first meet nikolai - out of disguise - he does seem to fit that idea, talking excitedly about why he joined the decay of angels. but... we also see that his words are written by The Page. no better way to implement teamwork than controlling your coworkers’ actions!
there’s this theory running around that whenever nikolai has his eye cover off, that means he’s being his true self. if you wanna go into symbolism, you could say that working with a team - the meaning of the upright three of pentacles, or, the three of diamonds, the symbol literally covering his eye - is what’s diverting his eyes from his true goal, and only when he takes it off - becomes the reversed meaning of it - can he be himself and work towards what he wants.
you could also say, to an extent, that his attachment to fyodor is the thing that’s blinding him, and that this is the reason he wants to kill him and be free. to support this idea, he quite literally removes it when talking about it
the thing holding him back from going and achieving what he wants, the thing holding him back from true free will, the one who planned for him to die, the one whose plans involved nikolai’s actions to be written in the book. his attachment to fyodor. that’s why he has to kill him to achieve freedom
i’m not sure how to transition into the next thing, but this official art
becomes even more interesting to me in the context i’ve laid out so far. this is naturally designed to look like a card, one of the royals specifically, and i doubt that’s not intentional
well. we’ve just said that fyodor (or at least, his plan with the doa, which i’d say is his connecting thing to nikolai from his personal perspective) and nikolai are the inverted meanings of the same card. but the interesting thing is how nikolai’s the one upright in this one, and fyodor “reversed”. this might just be bc nikolai’s the more recent character so he needed high quality art to show off his design for the first time, but... ig if i stretch things again (which, tbf, this entire post is one big stretch lmao, so what’s another small one), his goals are more aligned with the protagonists - free will for all of humanity, rather than peace at the price of everyone being mind controlled. also killing fyodor lol. it could simply mean that this reversed meaning is the “correct” one, in the context of the story.
anyway, i’m not sure how to end this post, but i hope you enjoyed this blurb of words and maybe took something from it to add to your own future theories or analysis of either of them/their relationship 😌
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