An Ode to the STP

Oh, K-drama, where would you be without your OTPs, your UST, your HEAs?  "What are you talking about?" you ask. I'm talking about One True Pairing (the main couple), Unresolved Sexual Tension and Happily Ever Afters.


But what I really want to talk about are the STPs of the world of K-drama.  The Secondary True Pairing.  This is the duo that is overshadowed by the epic TRUE LOVE of the main couple. But the STP is the workhorse of K-drama.  They are not used in every drama. In fact I wish they were used more because their appearance, when done well, means that the drama is buttressed when the OTP is wallowing in angst because of a Love Triangle or to provide a counterpoint to the OTP's love story by offering a different take on What Love Is.  


So this is the first in what will probably be a series on my favorite STPs.  I'm going to start with Dong-ah and Manager Kim of Wild Romance.  This drama had terrible ratings and understandably so.  It started out so uneven and with characters so unlikable that it was difficult to get attached.  The drama really did improve as it went on, and I plan on a separate post about it one day, but for today I want to concentrate on Dong-ah and Kim.

Im Joo-eun really carried this relationship and pretty much stole every scene she was in.  As the porn-obsessed eccentric land-lady Dong-ah she provided encouragement and support to the main female character with a string of one-liners that were delivered with a restraint that leant them more weight.  Dong-ah could very well have been a totally over the top character, but in Im Joo-eun's hands she became a sweet, damaged character that reached a surprising level of poignancy in a drama that all too often veered into full throttle mode.

Kang Dong-ho's Manager Kim is another in the long line of k-drama boy-robots but he reacts to Dong-ah's eccentricity with an exasperation tinged with attraction that is charming. 


What I loved most about this couple is that there is a physical attraction (and goodness knows Dong-ah talks about sex enough) but their relationship is more of a meeting of the minds.  It provides a nice counterpoint to our two main leads who are united in their belligerent stupidity.  Dong-ah and Manager Kim are the brains behind the operation and they are the ones who make most of the breakthroughs in the drama's mystery arc.  Dong-ah knows how to manage Kim by appealing to his business sense and watching her manipulate him into a relationship is cute because you know he's not really resisting all that hard.

Yeah, she's making him put on her false eyelashes.

And the final scene between them made me look at hanboks in a Whole New Way. So there's that.