My King 2 Hearts Dissertation

Seriously, this post is so freaking long. I'm warning you now.  I've had a chance to think about episodes 9 and 10 and I'm having a lot of...feelings.

Please tell me that we’ve reached the Black moment.  Cos I don’t know if I can handle much darker than this.  Buckle up because this post is so freaking long I wish I could get college credit for it.

Spoilers after the jump...

 So here is where we are now:  Jae-ha knows who murdered his brother but is helpless to do anything about it and Hang-ah suffers a miscarriage on her own while feeling abandoned.  Bleak doesn’t even begin to cover it. 

The Black Moment is the nadir of a character’s story arc.  It’s that moment when things are at their worst and there seems to be no way to climb out of the hole and into the light again.

I can’t imagine at this moment how Jae-ha can make this up to her.  Yes, she was nasty to him.  But Momma dropped some education on him and explained that he was the one who committed the unforgivable sin.  By sending her away, he made it impossible to work things out.  By sending her away, he made it too late to say sorry.

The low here is so low that the high is going to have to be truly epic.  

And can we talk for a minute about Shi-kyung.  Why so awesome, Shi-kyung?  When everyone is kicking the Puppy, you’re the one telling him you believe in him.  I’m loving you so hard right now.  And then they go and set up their own friendship club, complete with secret password.  Too. Damn. Cute.

When Shi-kyung asked Jae-ha to take off his mask and be the king that he knows Jae-ha is, I almost fell out of my chair.  I’d been thinking about archetypes as they relate to this show (yeah, okay, I think about this show waaaaaaay too much.)

So: Archetypes.  The Mask is the persona one adapts in society.  It can be different around different people just as a man can be a son, a husband, an employee all in one person.  As he plays out these rolls, the mask changes, as the reason for the Mask is to protect.  But under the Mask we find the true person.  Jae-ha has been wearing the mask of the Fool for most of his life.  

You know who else played the Fool?  Roman emperor Claudius.  Because of his stutter, hearing impairment and limp he was discounted by others.  Because of this he was the only male of his family left alive thanks to his nephew Caligula.  After Caligula was in turn assassinated by his own guard, Claudius was the only one left standing. 

The Fool often ends up as the Chosen One, the only hope when everything goes to hell.  The Fool also often conceals an inner wisdom and strength.  So far Shi-kyung and Hang-ah are the only ones who have seen this.   Actually, I believe that Shi-kyung sees Jae-ha better than Hang-ah because his view isn’t clouded by emotions.  

How did Shi-kyung first meet Jae-ha?  He pulls a gun on him and Jae-ha laughs it off and points it right back at him.  Shi-kyung saw Jae-ha running on the treadmill for hours with a bomb beneath his feet.   He saw him face down the panty inspectors in North Korea.  He saw him cause an international incident over a girl group and then get himself out of it again.  He saw him master his fear, and his determination to not be used as a bargaining chip, when the South Korean half of the team thought they were going to be killed by the North Korean half.  And he saw him run 60 km in 8 hours with an injured leg.  When you spell it out like that, you can see that Shi-kyung really has seen Jae-ha without his mask and knows exactly who his king really is. 

This is going to be the Best. Bromance. Ever.