Damn @missvictrix, thank you. I love it when DB gets intelligent on such a "mindless" thing as K-dramas. We are paving the path towards a society of enlightened individuals crusading for philosophical drama watching.

I loved how you ended this with the death of a hero as the "sincerest kind of fan service." I couldn't agree more. This is bringing me back to the ending of Just Between Lovers. I remember people debating on whether our hero should die or not. If he dies, it sends the message that society fails those who got left behind which is a realistic and important message to make us think. Even though the sociologist in me tried to justify the potential tragic ending, the romantic in me can't stand the idea of our main characters not ending up together. I've also been thinking about this too for Soo Yeon in Where Stars Land.... but instead of death... a more realistic ending where he doesn't get the girl and get the use of his leg/arm back.... (still processing this)

But then I remember this is dramaland and not the real world. Because really, who am I kidding? I want a happy ending even if logic tells me it doesn't make sense. I already know how unkind and unfair the world can be especially these days, so why not give my fictional characters a happy ending. Watching dramas is a relaxing and fun hobby for me to get away momentarily from the world so I don't need reality all the time. I'll take my feel good happy endings to remind me that sometimes miracles can happen.

And then there's Hundred Million Stars From the Sky 😭😭😭
(Sorry, still not over it)

And here I am still hoping.. waiting.. for Hundred Million Stars From The Sky's "set to N years later" epilogue but to no avail </3 Maybe they aren't lucky enough to have a happy ending 😭 or maybe the writer's not a fan of "fan service" lol. Good read though @missvictrix! :D

Wait, City Hunter uses a spoon as a weapon?! I gotta see that 😄

Personally I'm not a fan of the fake death trope. It undercuts the story told. Of course I'm (temporarily) happy about the happy end but I feel ultimatly unsatisfied with the outcome. It makes me not want to think about the story anymore...

I remember that the hero dies in Cruel City. And then in the epilogue we see someone that could be him somewhere alive. I think fans were debating if it was him or not.

Anyways, I liked that even though there was no happy end for our couple, the story stayed true to it's mellow mood. That the hero lived (or not, depending on your interpretation) gives a bit of hope to the fans. I also wanted him to survive the last episode but then I was so confused by the epilogue that I wondered if the ending wouldn't have been better with him definetly dead... Am still debating. Although it's been a few years since I watched this show.

So in many cases the death of the hero leaves a lasting mark on kdrama fans hearts. Sometimes that leads to us never wanting to rewatch that show again (but it hurts so good) or it makes us think really long and deep about what we just saw.

I loved Nice Guy\Innocent Man, but it had the absolutely worse ending. How did he become a doctor again? I’m not sure if he had amnesia or face blindness or whatever. It was a happy ending but it was some alternative reality. Both leads ended not as their characters. And rather than feeling happy, I was scratching my head.

Also a notable resurrection, Cruel/Heartless City. I don’t care what the director wanted — he’s dead to me.

Thanks for a great writeup, @missvictrix. I haven't seen any of these dramas, which is what I get for starting out as a sageuk watcher. ;-) I have encountered various shows in which the protagonist or another character bites the dust. Sometimes it is a shocking but apropos turn of events necessitated by wrongdoing that has to be corrected by karma. I'm looking at you, Moo-yeon in 100 DAYS MY PRINCE, and Moo-young in HUNDRED MILLION STARS FROM THE SKY. I was not entirely happy with the way it played out in the latter, and am still a bit twitchy over the ending of LOOKOUT, although the writing had been on the wall well before then. On the other hand, I could accept the resolution of the just-ended BAD PAPA, a drama that I enjoyed a lot.

In addition to the misleading or even faked death trope that comes in so handy in espionage shows, there's also the Reincarnation Gambit. You know, the one that the audience was cheated out of in MOON LOVERS. -- The one in which the heroine croaks in Goryeo, but her Doppelgänger shows up in 21st-century Seoul at an art exhibition looking at a piece showing Wang So's solitary form dwarfed in the empty palace grounds. The End.

(What, moi bitter, you say? Yer darned tootin'!)

I do appreciate it when True Love extends across lifetimes. BUNGEE JUMPING OF THEIR OWN was my introduction to the concept. It's quite a movie, one of the first Korean films I watched. Another very touching one is WILL YOU BE THERE?

Me: JUST KILL HIM. I don't need your flowery sickly sweet happy ending epilogue.

I like happy ends but if it doesn't bother me if the hero died if it's logical with the story. In Bad Guy, I hated so much the end >_<

Personaly, I'm more bothered by the drama that transforms the villain in a nice person at the end and ask us to forget all it happened during the story...

Good article!

I'm just going to say it. :)
These examples are great but most of these dramas were terribly written. The stories were just plain bad. Nice Guy was possibly the worst. It's just my opinion, sorry people, don't mean to upset anyone. Anyway, some of these even started great, like W, or Cruel City, which should have been there, but the second half went crazy so they belong in the list. I guess the conclusion is the same, fake death is great fan service, but I'm curious as if a good, honestly decent writer has used it in a nice kdrama.

Then there was LOOKOUT. I’m still pretty sure our antihero, Do-Han, is convalescing in a crypt under that Catholic Church under the caring and watchful eye of his brother while orchestrating the Lookout team as they take down political corruption. Here, the forgiveness and redemption arc was almost complete with a priest right there. But the forgiveness was unspoken and death was his final redemption.

As someone who often administers death, THIS!

So, the next time your K-drama toys around with the “death” of the hero, just think of it as the sincerest kind of fan service.

Thank you @missvictrix for your eloquence and insightful analysis.

Serving as the vehicle of plot propellent, i.e. death fakeouts, my action is often the episode's cliffhanger. I demand an apology from those of you who have egged me before finding out the next week that the lead ends up breathing again. Those eggs are seriously hard to wash off my body, and no, they do not condition my skin!!!! 🥚🥚🥚🚐😡

I’d rather the dead heroes stay dead. Period.

I love this write-up! Great analysis @missvictrix. No wonder DB is the best site for Kdrama analysis and discussions! <3

Hmmm, this was quite an interesting and thoughtful write up ~ I enjoyed it a lot, @missvictrix and I hope we get to see more such quality content 🤓😘😊

Occasionally, a third possibility arises in kdrama. In Golden Rainbow, Jung Il Woo's character shoots himself in the head in a suicide attempt. Later, we see him in a wheelchair, disabled due to the consequences of his actions. That really surprised me as I was expecting either a total death or a miraculous recovery, but instead, it turned out to be more realistic. For that reason, that ending has stuck with me longer than many of the other "miraculous recoveries" in other kdramas.

So, the next time your K-drama toys around with the “death” of the hero, just think of it as the sincerest kind of fan service.
.
I remember in AM 97, a writer-nim resurrected her hero from the cancer death threat simply because the drama was the only joy of the resident cancer patients' lives, and doing otherwise would shatter their hopes. Talk about fan-service!
And yes, it probably annoyed the "analyser/view-with-brains" viewers of that drama (like us!😜😝) , but from AM 97, I too learned to look at this issue from a total different side. Yes, we who demand our dramas well-balanced, well-written and stuff can totally get annoyed when this trope appears in our dramas and it's totally rational and understandable.
But the viewers who watch dramas as an escape route after a harrowing day, or consider them as the only joy of their depressing lives......them wanting their characters living happily-ever-after lives is TOTALLY understandable too.

Sometimes it's actually a good thing that K-Dramas are now mellowing out than before. I dunno if some people here still remember Memories of Bali, but that ending...was nothing short of disastrous to elicit the taste of a true to life ending.

Plus I think realistic endings don't really belong on screen. What we want to watch on television is far from what we have in reality, and that makes it more appealing. It is, SHOWbusiness for a reason ;)

And then there's Gu Family Book...

Amazing piece as usual @missvictrix The reasons why I don’t like such endings is the whiplash I get. I wouldn’t mind it if made sense in a greater context but usually it’s a very jarring, almost unnecessary transition.

I really like your point about melodramas and how "death" is the last stop before the redemption of these guys that have done all these wrongs and especially to the women they loved.

It reminds me of the Tarot card meaning for death which basically marks a big change in life and not actual life ending. I can usually deal with death in dramas (but still be super sad), but there are sometimes, indeed, where I wish another outcome would have happened. Still, this gave me a lot to think about and I appreciate this surprise little essay. O:

(SPOILERS)

kdramas aren't nearly as bad at this as Chinese dramas. Whenever I go into a Chinese drama I wonder if this is a drama where a hero will die. Sometimes it's done very well and it's a good ending despite the hero dying (Nirvana in Fire and Princess Weiyoung), and sometimes it's done very badly (Princess Agents). You also have a lot of fake outs and most of the times they are very poorly done (Untouchable Lovers and The Flame's Daughter). It's an annoying obsession and I think Chinese dramas takes it even further then Korean ones because about 75% of the Cdramas I have watched either killed their character off or did a fake-out death and I hate the trend. I wish both kdramas and cdramas would move away from it and not use cheap writing tactics to try and get a rise out of their audience.

Let's not forget 'Goblin' where both the hero and heroine died in the series yet still managed to reunite in the end... I think. That ending was confusing.

I'm just here to say that I love City Hunter and I'm glad he's alive.

Oh don't forget Descendants of the Sun. Can't even remember how many times they killed SJK's character. It got ridiculous by the time the drama was over.

Ahhhhh City Hunter. I know I like that dram but the only memory I have of it was how it ended for the prosecutor. Whyyyyyyyyyyy

P.S. This was a very good read. Hopefully, there are more coming~

They also killed Bong Soo in Healer. But then his death had a purpose. He had to die so that Jung Hoo can live.

I think both Kang Chul and Lee Yoon-sung needed to “die” in order to be reborn into a new destiny. They were characters who had their scripts written for them (literally in Kang Chul’s case) and whose struggle was to take control of the fate forced on them by the men who created/raised them and attempt to deal out justice according to their own principals.
At then end of the story they were not the men they were at the beginning, thus the symbolic death and rebirth.