Red Flag vs. Green Flag: The Perfect Drama Boyfriend
Disclaimer
This article has characters described in its content, specifically villains, who have committed acts of cruelty and immorality, which are in no way justifiable. Regarding their wrong-doings, we have broached up some rather sensitive topics, some of which include teenage prostitution, sexual assault, and homicide. We thought it right, to apprise readers of what could be potential triggers while reading. We hope to not have come across as having any ill-intent on our part, but if we have, forgive us as we mean no harm...Also, since we will be exploring the backstories of villains, many of which are considered major reveals in the course of a drama, we would advise refraining from reading about the dramas that you haven’t watched yet, but plan to in the future! So basically, SPOILER ALERT!
USER GUIDE:
- The article works well in both light and dark modes.
- Every title write-up begins with a spoiler-free synopsis (grey), followed by major revelations about the villain, and ends with our comments about the show (again spoiler free) to help you decide whether the show will suit your taste or not!
- We hope you enjoy the article and can successfully dodge the spoilers!
from My Dear Guardian
Villains provide an interesting window into learning about parts of the self that we don’t normally explore. — Rebecca Krause
Dear MDLers,
Movie and drama villains are often written to be boo-ed and hissed at, for they challenge our heroes and create insurmountable odds. But you have to agree that there is a certain balance one needs to strike to create the perfect villain. A villain whose motives aren’t clear enough and their cruel and thoughtless behavior isn’t driven by a strong enough motivation, are just villains we hate to hate, we don’t enjoy them on screen. A great villain is someone we would love to hate but end up empathizing with, so much so that it cannot be helped. Their defiance and transgression give us a rare opportunity to perceive things differently and rethink the way we understand the world because if we actually try to look past the hockey mask and consider their reasons for acting the way they do, we might actually find ourselves supporting the villains.
For this, a solid backstory is needed, as it allows for us to get inside their scrambled brains and see what causes it to tick, making us think and revel in the villain's role, as much as we shudder because of their horrible actions. This gives us these moments of understanding, that prevent the villain from becoming a mere do-er of actions or a means to the end, but a character that we are truly invested in...Finally leading us to an opportunity to scrutinize the aberrant motives that made them resort to such measures, leaving us to make a moral choice of our own. Whether they are driven by loss, love or vengeance, these are elements of the human condition that make them more relatable. We're not saying that the actions committed by the characters in question are justifiable, nor do we agree with them but when you think about it, it is not that one chooses to be a villain, sometimes it's out of necessity, other times it's to right a wrong done to them. The antagonist might not be the most amiable in the moral sense, but their position, motives, or reasoning could be considerably relatable and capable of arousing sympathy as we all, in a way, have similar tendencies in us, which, make us all just humans trying to find our shade in the grey palette.
So...here are some villains with a cause, our intent being an exploration of how much an impact society has on people to result in such actions. It is with this in mind that we have written this article and we hope that our writing helps take the bad guy off the paper and breathe life into him or her to help re-live the hearty character we had sunk our teeth into!
Yoo Beom Jin wanted to control everything around him because that is all he had ever witnessed.
People like you and prosecutor Cha think the results are more important, but I want to know why the kids had to make those choices. I need to know, in order to prevent them from repeating bad choices. - Ha So Hyun
The drama Class Of Lies is about a highly successful lawyer Gi Mu Hyeok who loses his license to practice law when a high school case of attempted murder goes wrong. To regain his honor, he goes undercover and becomes a temporary teacher's assistant. At first for selfish reasons but then when the crime unfolds even more he decides he wants to protect the victims from their peers.
The villain is surprisingly a high school student, Yoo Beom Jin, the son of the country congressman and presidential candidate Yoo Yang-gi. You need to notice that I specifically mentioned his father here because even if Beom Jin was apathetic, domineering, manipulative, pretentious, self-centered, calculative, vindictive and someone capable of the murder of two classmates, I still believe
the congressman should be seen as the main villain in the show. I don’t deny Beom Jin was wrong nor am I defending his actions in any way. I am reasoning as to why a high school student turned into a murderer. Beom Jin justifies his actions by considering them to be just ways to put everything back in its place.
What is the reason for his obsession with perfection and why does he wish to keep everything in his control? His obsession for perfection and his wish to control everything is a trait acquired from his father as he always saw the congressman controlling and eliminating just about anything that might harm his reputation or pose a threat to his power. The congressman does everything to maintain his image and supremacy, he even asks his kid to only do things that benefit his image. There’s a part in the show where he asks Beom Jin to follow the moral conduct publicly and not individually (indicating his mentality) alluding to the fact that everything the kid does is a reflection of the father and that the kid’s main priority should be to elevate his dad's image. The idea is that once the father has more prestige and power, the kid too will be able to benefit from it. And due to the repetition of these instances, even Beom Jin starts 
to believe that whatever the congressman does will eventually be used against him, and to protect his future he ends up killing a classmate, who, as a minor, was in an inappropriate relationship with his father. And in the attempt to hide this crime he ends up committing another.
I believe it was Beom Jin’s ill-luck for having such parents that eventually led him to the path he chose. Yes, that’s right, even his mother is to be equally blamed. Though the show doesn’t shed much light on her character, but from what we get to see it’s quite evident that she’s no different from the congressman. Mothers, as portrayed here leave no stone unturned to destroy their kid’s future…from buying achievements to using their kids' talent for business purposes, from manipulating their child's emotions to preventing them from being punished for their gruesome deeds. It sets a perfect example of what a mother shouldn’t be like. Just because they think it is possible to get away with their wrong-doings, they do not feel any remorse and there is no limit to how far they can go. If only Beom Jin had met someone who could lead him to the right path he wouldn’t have had to meet such a terrible end...
Author’s comments:
This drama is a perfect mix of mind games and puzzles spun by a web of lies that puts it into perspective, as to how the rich and powerful take advantage of the flawed system to benefit themselves. There have been many school dramas that have portrayed the misuse of this system but this drama has managed to take this theme to its darkest best. The unpredictable yet entertaining plot filled with suspense manages to successfully extrapolate the curiosity of the audience.
Personally, I felt that the portrayal of the story in this drama was very realistic. The evil guys did meet with a bad end, but not in a way everyone would have wanted. In real life not everything gets resolved and in this drama too, the ending was ambiguous. There were still some unanswered questions left lingering at the end, but I feel as though it just adds to the beauty of this series. If unraveling a twisted mystery in a school setting excites you, this drama is right up your alley!
Song Yoo Kyung was hurting others just so she could find a reason to be in pain.
Every time my husband saw Yoo-jin (victim), he told her to be sly. He said the world is too dangerous to trust anyone. But I told her that's not true. I told her to be kind, honest and to help other people. That's how we should live our lives...I didn't expect this to happen...I shouldn't have said that. It is because of me that she's suffering. -victim's mother
The plot of Criminal Minds revolves around a group of highly trained profilers in the fictional National Criminal Investigation (NCI) team who track down criminals to solve cases. A year after an incident that leaves team leader Kang Ki Hyung's confidence badly shaken, he returns to work and finds himself drawn into a serial murder case that requires the NCI team to collaborate with the local police agency's Violent Crimes Unit. They end up meeting police officer Kim Hyun Joon who later joins NCI and together they deal with various cases.
One of the cases in the show brings forward the story of Song Yoo Kyung, a girl who was brutally raped by her stepfather. What's more shocking is even when it was discovered by the police, her mother did not side with her. Instead, she asked her to cover it up. Shocking but true, the society we live in has still not given up on the trashy victim-blaming mentality, and adding to that, the fear of not being believed, insecurity and fear of getting into trouble are also a few reasons why victims are made to suffer silently.
The incident and the endless suffering that follows, have such a huge toll on the victim’s mental health that they often end up choosing the wrong path.
In retrospect, Yoo Kyung allows us to re-evaluate society's stand towards victims. Even if we think it’s too late to do so, it actually isn't that late and we can still prevent nightmares from turning into reality. We can still save many other young girls from turning into murderers like Yoo Kyung. If only Yoo Kyung had a mother who stood by her she would have led a totally different life. If the other people around her like the police officer or neighbors had put in a little more effort to find the truth, so many lives could have been saved.
If she chose a different path and did not let hatred govern her decisions she could have lived a happy life but unfortunately, there was no one to help her or prevent her from turning into a deranged soul who started to find happiness in other’s pain. She, who was a victim and whose story of justice could have been the hope for so many who are suffering will now be remembered
only from the story of a murderer who viciously tortured victims and their families.
From what we get to see in the drama, Yoo Kyung deliberately chose victims who were kind and considerate. She lured them into her trap through their kindness, somewhat indicating that it's the tender-hearted who suffer. We agree that Song Yoo Kyung’s heinous deeds cannot be justified with her backstory but it is alarmingly easy to understand her descent into madness, and maybe even empathize with her dire outlook on life, and this is something we all need to worry about. She reminds us that no matter what, we need not give up on our kindness and need not hurt others because when we hurt others we inevitably hurt ourselves even more.
Author's comments:
The show is based on criminal profiling and being able to “predict” an unsub’s (aka unidentified subject) actions through their psychological state and prevent them from striking again. The drama did “well” in this aspect. They broke down facts and solved cases, but at times it felt like some details came out of nowhere. There were things that I really appreciate- the show does not try to push any romance between the main cast and it makes you ponder over reality, decision-making, mental health and morals.
While the story of the series revolves around one villain [Reaper] it was sewn with sub-stories, most of them start mid-way one episode and end mid-way the next one, this might feel a bit tiring and hence I feel like the dialogue/lines from the script require patience from it's viewers because some stories really have you question your view about right and wrong. Not to mention the series is a remake and I haven’t watched the original so I cannot compare the two, but treating it like an independent show (because it has nothing to do with original anyway) I would say I enjoyed it.
By the way the show features Moon Chae Won and Lee Joon Gi, yep the FOE (Flower of Evil) couple though there is no romance involved, it’s still good to have them together.
Hyun Soo was just trying to cope with the trauma of losing someone he loved.
Have you ever seen anyone close to you getting hurt? I have. I should've kept that person safe. There was a kid whom I couldn't protect. That's when I had this thought: When I'm a little older and have more power and ability, I shouldn't let anyone fall victim to such unfairness -Jung Hyun Soo
Suspicious Partner is a drama that successfully blends the two opposing genres of romance and crime. The show follows the story of two lawyers, No Ji Wook and Eun Bong Hee who are in the pursuit of proving Bong Hee’s innocence since she is falsely accused of murdering her ex-boyfriend, and in the process, they get themselves involved with Hyun Soo, a psychopathic murderer.
Hyun Soo is a pitch-perfectly creepy, mentally unstable, and subtly psychotic character. But he wasn’t always so, it is after the assault and rape of So-Young, a girl he had a crush on, that he took it upon himself to avenge her and finally turned himself into the sly and scheming psychopath we get to see in the drama. Till now he seems like a nice, righteous chap, doesn’t he? Well not really, the girl, So-Young had been assaulted in a warehouse by seven boys, one of them being him. While he was there at the scene and only just watched it happen, it left him so traumatized that he coped with it all by resorting to altering his memories and retaliating in a way that he felt was best.
I admit that I’d grown to love him in a really twisted way that I can’t even really come to describe and if it weren’t for his gruesome murders of innocent witnesses, I might have even been defending his actions. But the truth is that his cowardice in part allowed So-Young’s violation as even though he didn’t actually participate, he still didn’t do anything to stop it. He also deluded himself into believing what he wanted to believe, and that caused him to go beyond simple revenge, hence what he did is unforgivable.
Now to the reason why he didn’t seek justice for her the legal way. When So-Young’s rape case had been taken to court, since several of the boys who had assaulted her came from influential families, they could convince District Attorney Jang (the prosecutor in charge at the time) to bury the case and eve
n went so far as to blame her for trying to ruin their sons’ futures. After this, she took her own life after which Hyun Soo took matters into his own hands.
If only the legal system was not as corrupt or the boys who had raped her, repented, and felt the need to be held accountable for their horrendous actions, a villain would not have been born. It is appalling that people can be bought off this easily, and that such families are more concerned regarding their own reputation while someone's life is at stake. Even if the parents were facing a moral dilemma of some sort, the prosecutor is entirely wrong on his part as someone who is required to be the upholder of justice.
We all have weaknesses and the pain associated with losing someone is something that none of us is exempted from. Hyun Soo had lost someone too and that was probably what triggered his behavior. It is not the right way to deal with any situation, sure, but the context makes us all human, including the murdering psychopath...
Author's comments:
There are many things to love about this series...its characters, the actors, the avenging murderer storyline and the evolving relationship between the leads, which are all very much on point, but is sometimes overshadowed by a few legal inconsistencies which I could usually overlook.
It is in particular that I would like to mention how much I loved how the writer played with the idea of memories, and portrayed how tragedy and other traumatic events can change a person’s perception of the truth. Having an interest in psychology for years, I found the show’s exploration of memory and reality to be infinitely fascinating and rather compelling. Being one of Kwon-Ki Young’s works, I enjoyed it, as she creates characters that we can relate to because they are flawed and human, making it as thought-provoking as it is enjoyable. Being a mix of both lighter and darker themes, this drama can appeal to many!
Lee Eun Ho did what he did, to save the kids from their own parents.
In the eyes of a child, their parents are the whole world, the entire universe. Try to imagine the appearance of the world in the eyes of a child who is abused. Is there a world more cruel than that? - Cha Woo Kyung
Children of Nobody features the story of a woman who intends to solve a mystery while fighting for her family and her own sanity. Cha Woo Kyung is a child counselor who works at a children’s center. Her life seems perfect since she is married to a great husband and is pregnant. However, her perfect life doesn't last long as an accident changes her life. She then meets Kang Ji Hun, a violent crimes unit detective, who is hurt for hiding his troubling past but is strict toward criminals and believes they should be punished to the full extent.
Children of Nobody introduces us to an anti-hero, yes, I don’t see Lee Eun Ho as the villain and I confess that I gravitate more towards him than the people on the right side of the law. Though I don’t justify murder for any reason whatsoever, I still find myself on his side because he isn't the "monster" he had been made out to be. From where I see Eun Ho was an extremely unfortunate individual with a wrong belief. He was abandoned by his biological parents at a young age and ended up meeting some terrible people at the orphanage, his experiences drove him to the road he took. Traumatized by the people whom he identified as his family, the poor kid decided to help other kids to offer them a chance to escape the misery that he experienced.
Though he resorted to murder which he shouldn’t have, unlike psychopaths and bloodthirsty murderers he did it only to help the kids. He was saving them from the people who brought them to this world. What could be more heart-rending to hear, than this?
“Children of Nobody”, every time I 
hear this phrase I feel like these three words are good enough to mock the entire existence of humanity. The show sheds light on the cruel side of humans and not through the villain’s story but the victims' stories.
The stories here are quite ordinary in setting, indicating the possibility of such things happening around us, at the same time us being unaware about it. As we all just assume that parents are beings whose entire existence revolves around their kids and they could go to any extent to ensure their well-being, but this might not be the case for some. The show brings us parents who not only are capable of child abuse but also the murder of their own children while not repenting at all. Aren’t we as a society also responsible towards the victims of child abuse? We couldn’t even allow them to exist in a world where they are safe but on top of that, we give them a world where they were hurt by the people who they consider as their own family, who brought them to this world. It’s really heartbreaking to imagine that what hurts so much to see as fiction, exists as reality.
Author's comments:
A slow paced but gripping show which gives a voice to so many children who are ignored every day. The show isn’t just about the answer to the puzzle it gives us, but about the things you learn in the process. The show hooked in the viewer for its suspense but what made them stay, was its heavy pathos. This drama is one of the few dramas that have ventured to a side that K-dramas hadn't before, good and bad is really blurred in this one, it makes you think hard whether murder is ever okay or if unlawful heroism is what we need in today’s world, because not all victims are saints themselves as everyone has their own type of sin.
As a viewer I really did not find too many flaws but still there were things that could be done better. The show uses some horrific reveals for its end, which are a tad bit extreme but that does not negate the underlying point it has always made throughout the show. It has smartly plugged in child abuse for the most part without it being contrived. The police might feel underdeveloped and some things were not really needed and it would have been better if not introduced. But then if you enjoy thriller, mystery, crime dramas, please do give it a try. I am sure you won’t be disappointed.
As a helpless father, Hee-Joon was seeking justice for the wrongful death of his daughter.
Most people have nowhere to lean on when something like that happens except for the police. But if the police turn away, those people will be tortured for the rest of their lives. -Yoo Ryung
Catch the Ghost is a drama that revolves around Yoo Ryeong, a girl who becomes a police investigator in the subway department to find her autistic twin sister who has gone missing because the report of losing her sister was ignored by Ha Ma-ri, the police officer at that time. She thinks her sister has been the victim of a serial murder by the Subway Ghost (he’s been nicknamed so, but he’s very much human). She has an exceptional knack for space perception and does not always follow the rules as she strongly believes in justice. She partners up with Go Ji-Seok to catch the Subway Ghost and together they make a terrific team!
Hee-Joon aka the "Subway Ghost" started committing murders after an incident that costed his daughter’s life. In a flashback, the viewer is made to understand that a few years back, Hee-Joon was just a carefree pickpocket. One day he and his daughter are seen to be on a platform at the subway station. It is while Hee-Joon is stealing a wallet that a dirty and menacing-looking man (Chul-Jin) approaches her and knocks the lollipop out of her hand which falls and shatters. Just ahead of her is seen standing Yoo Jin (Yoo Ryeong’s twin sister who goes missing) and all of the other subway ghost’s victims who do nothing to protect the girl. Meanwhile, Hee-Joon moves forward in alarm but is then handcuffed by a subway p
olice officer who has caught his latest theft in action. He struggles against it but gets pinned to the ground, and all he can do is watch as Chul-Jin steps forward to push Yoo Jin but incidentally, his daughter gets pushed instead, only to fall backward onto the tracks and his view of her gets replaced by the oncoming train that barrels ahead without stopping…
His agony doesn’t end there, when the case is brought up at court, the judge declares at Chul-Jin’s trial, that he had been suffering from a schizophrenic episode at the time and hence would not be held responsible. After serving time in prison for pickpocketing, Hee-Joon then gets released and makes his own ruling by arbitrarily sentencing Chul-Jin and all those present at the time of the incident, to death…
Hee-Joon isn’t a psychopath or someone with a mental illness. He’s someone in pain, someone with a lot of anger. It is in Hee-Joon that we see true vigilante justice, grief took to its extreme conclusion. Kim Hee-Joon is the dark side of what Yoo Ryung could have become. They’re both ghosts, in name and in the way that they haunt the subway with little left in them except their grief, to seek comfort from knowing that they’ve done all that they could. They both have felt helpless while a family member was hurt, saw bystanders offer no help, and the police focus more on their assigned role than caring for the victims and those they leave behind. In a way, it makes our hero and our villain two faces of the same coin, but since he chose a selfish path and considered only his own anguish which is in stark contrast to what Yoo-Ryeong did throughout the show, we conclude him to be the villain.
I don’t condone Hee-Joon's actions, I’m not an eye for an eye kind of gal. He’s a smarmy jerk and a pickpocket. But he didn’t deserve to see his daughter killed. His frustration with the justice system is understandable, though misguided. I felt his pain as he was held against the ground, unable to do anything but watch. I can understand how he might be bitter, stuck in jail for a petty crime while also mourning his daughter. So often, the criminals are driven to act because of some way that capitalism screwed them over. In this show, there's a spectrum of grey which he portrays and circumstances where anyone may have chosen a dark path.
Author's comments:
Catch the Ghost is a delightful mix of mystery, comedy, action and romance which, except for some illogical occurrences which can be ignored, is quite flawless. What was good about this drama is that the focus was more on the crime cases. Though the drama does pay attention to the characters' personal lives, it does not shift its attention from the main narrative of the story. There was humor too but it did not overtake the seriousness of the crime cases.
I think the show works for me because there’s a lot of really great setup and character work going on in the background that is interspersed with an adequate amount of "goofy". This strong foundation plus a great compact core cast proved this show to be both entertaining and moving. So for anyone, looking for a good crime drama that has lighter tones paired with interesting characters, this drama is the perfect fit!
Sigma hated humans because he'd seen the worst of them.
Not a single person asked me if I was okay. Not even one person... -Sigma
In Sisyphus: The Myth, an unfathomable incident introduces a genius engineer Han Tae Sul, a co-founder of Quantum and Time to dangerous secrets of the world — and to a woman Kang Seo Hae, a survivor of a future dystopian world who travels back in time in the hopes of altering the course of history by preventing the seemingly inevitable fate that might destroy the whole nation.
This brings us to talk about one of the deadliest villains who even after destroying a whole nation doesn’t seem to repent for anything and is willing to do it all over again. What makes him hate humans to the extent that he is even willing to kill the people he has never met this was one question which
kept on bugging me throughout the drama and I was somewhat able to understand his stand, though I agree that his level of hatred was quite colossal and he could be easily assumed to be mentally ill which I feel he is.
The flashback of his early childhood and youth reveal a lot about why he did what he did. Sigma was a victim of severe child abuse, neglected by both parents the poor kid turned to his peers in hope for some solace but it was all in vain. They even bullied him for all sorts of reasons, leaving the poor tormented kid all alone to deal with this cruel world. The torture doesn’t stop there, the world keeps on pushing him to the edge even in his youth. He was constantly being looked down upon on and no one cared about his existence. Having no one to rely on, he decides to give up on life but due to a turn of events, ends up becoming a human monster.
We agree that this unfortunate background is not an excuse enough for his wrongdoings, but he had no one to teach him the difference between right and wrong. It’s no wonder sigma turned into a monster. If just anyone around him paid a little attention, things would have ended differently and also mentioned in the drama by Sigma himself- "Although I had decided to take my own life, I was still scared. So I was going to just give up if I came across even just one person who told me not to die. I
n hindsight, if anyone tried to take me out of it back then. Then maybe the world wouldn’t have fallen into pieces."
The only one, who once defended the kid from being bullied was Han Tae Sul which made Sigma obsessed with Tae Sul for life. And this obsession proves to be the curse and resulted in him punishing everyone. To be honest, Sigma's eloquent talk on how he had given everyone a chance to save the world, but all failed to choose it, was quite a convincing pitch. For it made me feel that we all are worthy of some sort of punishment if not exactly death sentence...
Author's comments:
The show is for sci-fi lovers who enjoy watching tropes like time travel it also contains a mix of action, drama, and romance genres along with themes of revenge, redemption, remorse, friendship and familial bond. As a sci-fi lover the show kept me hooked till the end, the plot was fresh and action sequences were done well. You also get a psycho villain with a solid backstory (I dare not ask for more). If you don’t try to look for plot holes you can easily avoid them. Some things might not make sense but then when we are talking about time travel that is bound to happen. The ending might disappoint you a bit. A lot of things are left unexplained so you can come up with your own interpretation about the end.
At times it felt like some things were done very conveniently and at times things even started to go haywire. But at the same time some things just kept me glued to my seat and I enjoyed my time. Being patient and allowing the writer to lead the way is the key, things might sometimes feel very hard to follow but towards the end most of it makes sense. So if you do give it a try please keep it in mind that things might not unfold in the most logical way but it doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t enjoy it…..for some things, it’s better to just go with the flow.
After losing his family, Min Joon turned into a beast to avenge his loved ones.
In all those long years, not a single person in the defendant's world has stopped to listen to his voice. If a single person had stopped even once in their life to listen to his cries, what do you think that would have been like? The ones who put the defendant in that seat may not be the defendant himself but it may be the rest of us.
I Hear Your Voice features Jang Hye Sung, a bold, sassy, thick-faced, materialistic public defender who becomes a lawyer after overcoming poverty and painful memories from her childhood. She comes to a realization about society and justice after meeting Park Soo Ha, a 19-year-old boy who reads other people’s thoughts and Cha Kwan Woo, an innocent lawyer who lives a disciplined life. Jang Hye Sung is actually Soo Ha's first love after she gave a decisive testimony on his father's murder case 10 years ago and Soo Ha promised to protect her from the killer's threats. Together they will team up to find justice in the courtroom and solve the toughest cases.
Min Joon Kook, the villain in the series, is a victim of societal corruption and ignorance due to which he ends up losing his entire family, everything he cherished...his wife, his mother, 
his son, with nothing to lose and no one to protect he decides to punish Soo Ha and Hye Sung whom he considers responsible for the death of his loved ones.
Joon Kook wasn’t a monster nor could he have imagined himself as one, until the day he lost his family due to unfortunate circumstances. His wife was supposed to receive a heart transplant and had been at the top of the donor priority list for a long time. He had been working day and night to gather the amount required for her treatment and when the time finally arrives for when she is supposed to get a transplant Soo Ha’s father blackmails the authorities using his connections and power that come from being a journalist, to manipulate the donor priority list to save Soo Ha’s mother who later passes away after a month of having undergone the transplant.
Eventually, Min Joon discovers the truth and decides to punish Soo Ha’s father himself. He tries to kill Soo Ha and his father but ends up in prison due to Hye Sung’s confession. After he ends up behind the bars, being the only breadwinner in the family,
his mother who suffered from dementia, and his kid are left all by themselves. They fail to gather even the bare minimum and end up starving to death being victims of society's negligence.
I know it might not be possible for one person to help everyone in need but even if we help the ones around us we can still save many lives. If even one person had tried to find a means of survival for the poor kid and grandmother they wouldn’t have met such a ghastly end. If we were more aware and informed in society, people like Min Joon wouldn’t have been wronged. I am not trying to cover for his heinous deeds by using his past, but I believe that somewhere the law is responsible for the death of an innocent grandmother and kid and the society, for the death of his wife. Because even if we gloss over the fact that the rich and powerful have an edge, the fact in itself doesn’t change and we will have to face it someday or other.
If we do nothing to change the way things are, we’ll have to cross paths with more people like Min Joon time and again. I agree that things don’t change in a day but if we leave it to tomorrow they might never change and, on the contrary, might get even worse. We, as a part of society, need to accept that we are in some way responsible for turning Min Joon into a beast and need to change for good so that no one has to end up like him again.
Author's comments:
The show is strongly focused on the thought that life is too precious to be hung up on dark emotions and regret. The show proceeds through courtroom triumphs and struggles wherein some might feel that the lawyers rely too much on emotional arguments rather than evidential ones and hence the trials might seem unrealistic but then it being a drama I think I wouldn’t really nit pick on something like that. For me, something I really liked about it was that it talks about both the negative and positive side of the law, as to how laws that save a murderer can also be turned around and used to save the innocent.
The show includes a love triangle and an age gap factor in romance (I have no issues with either but I need to mention it because it’s not something that everyone might enjoy) The acting was really well done and all the characters were human, in a sense that everyone had flaws, made mistakes and tried their best in every situation they were put in. As to whether you should try it or not, if you enjoy mystery, law and romance dramas, please do give it a try.
If you believe that being able to relate to the so-called "villains" makes you an evil person, it will be of comfort to know there is no such set standard to being evil. In a world of imperfection, it is all relative. While the character you like might not conform with the standard virtue code but since there are always so many redeeming qualities in each person, compartmentalizing only his flaws will not give you a clear picture. People identify with characters who resonate with their own situations. This doesn't mean that they are the same as those characters, just that they see things in the characters that connect with their own feelings or how they perceive the world. I have found myself relating to a few villains, simply because, at the end of the day we are all just humans and no one is born good or bad. It is the surroundings and one's circumstances that shape us into what we finally turn out to be.
Since some of us are more fragile, even a casual comment which may seem harmless otherwise, could hurt someone enough to act as a trigger for something much more gruesome. Often, after I find out about what made the character turn to the dark side, I feel the urge to take that person out for a cup of coffee to just hear him out by lending an ear, and I truly believe that it'd go a long way-don't laugh, I've felt that way, more than once! I've caught myself thinking, Well no wonder that guy's so messed up, nobody has ever tried to be his friend! and that maybe I'll succeed even if others haven't! Am I thinking too highly of myself? Maybe... But since it is in the human nature to be fond of someone that resembles oneself, maybe you too would want to be nice to that part of yourself that needs a friend? To quote Jean-Paul Sartre, "Hell is other people" we hope to be leaving you with some food for thought as you have now come to the end of this article. So long, until we meet again through words!
Credits:
We do not own any of the images; credits go to their respective owners. The images are from drama screenshots, official posters, and stills. Gifs are made by us, from clips and episodes that were available on YouTube, Viki, and other sites.
A special thanks to the editors!
Editors: BrightestStar (1st editor), KimWanHee (2nd editor)
