Kolorful Palette: Family ties [Golden Cross]

by Fanderay

I’m finally caught up on Golden Cross (until episode 15 anyways) and I have to say, this is probably the least revenge-y revenge drama I’ve seen. I consider that a good thing though, since I tend to find that the super revenge-focused protagonists end up more despicable than sympathetic. Revenge never ends well either and pretty much guarantees a depressing ending, but with Golden Cross I can actually see some potential for happiness.

I think Do-yoon did seriously contemplate murder for about 10 seconds in one episode, but he’s otherwise just been chasing after justice, and that’s pretty easy to get behind. Sure, he got close to Yi-reh with ill intent, but he was way too much of a softy to drag her down and started taking her feelings into consideration almost immediately. He’s kind of pathetic at being cold-hearted. I do find his character a little one-note, but I appreciate that he can get things done without going too Darth Vader on us.

Yi-reh is the character I empathize with the most, and even though she’s had a few stints of naivety, she’s ultimately been admirable in her dogged pursuit of the truth (not to mention her acceptance of that truth). It’s terrible to have family members murdered, but I can’t help but feel that having a family member be a murderer is worse. Do-yoon can move on after all this and be proud of his family and enjoy all the memories they made. Yi-reh’s happy memories must all feel like a lie now, and I can’t imagine that it will be easy to move on. My main reason for liking her though is that she didn’t freak out at Do-yoon for lying about his suspicions regarding her father. It seems like a small thing, but I spent about five episodes bracing myself for an explosion of melodrama, and instead she just took the whole thing in stride. That makes her a badass in my books.

This show doesn’t have the prettiest scenes to draw, so I didn’t choose this scene based on aesthetics (although it has nice lighting from the window) but I decided I wanted to draw Yi-reh, and this confrontation with her father seemed like an important moment for her. I played around with mediums a bit again (conte on brown characoal board) and will probably switch back to my normal style for next week.

Overall I haven’t found this drama quite as exciting as I would like, but I think that’s because we’ve always been shown everyone’s hand, and the only real mystery has been when those hands would be played. Now that almost all the known factors have played out, the suspense has kicked up a few notches, and I found myself much more on the edge of my seat by the end of episode 14. It helps that all the well-connected villainous types have finally shown some competence, which gives Do-yoon a chance to rise to an actual challenge. Angry face-twitching only gets so much done, but it looks like everyone’s all-in now, and I’m hoping that the last six episodes are going to keep up the exciting pace.

It won’t matter how it ends though, because I’ll be happy either way since it’s going to be replaced by Joseon Gunman, and just the poster alone for that drama has me salivating. Lee Junk-ki is one my favorite action heroes (legit martial arts training, it works every time!) and I just know it’s going to be a pretty show with tons of great scenes to draw.

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