[Drama catnip] Fighting against fate

by solstices

When tragedy has already been etched into the chronograph of history, how can anyone hope to defy the flow of time and space? How can anyone possibly parse through the chaos that is sure to follow, and rewrite the past into something better?

Yet, relentlessly, protagonists take their destiny into their own hands, making an agentic choice about the life they want to live. It creates incredibly compelling tales about tenacity, and utterly inspirational characters with boundless mettle.

One of my favorite instances of defying prophecy is Choi Yoon (Kim Jae-wook) in The Guest. Despite the ghastly voices that told him he’d lose his life trying, Yoon refused to shed his priestly robes and stop saving others. Instead, he gritted his teeth through the bone-deep anguish that tormented him, culminating in a heartbreaking act of self-sacrifice for someone he’d grown to care for. In the end, Yoon’s willingness to trade his life for his friend’s was their salvation, subverting the curse and breaking the shackles of the past.

And there’s Deok-man in Queen Seon-deok — played wonderfully by both Nam Ji-hyun and Lee Yo-won — who swallowed an entire jade piece when she realized that both the proffered choices would spell her doom. When caught between a rock and a hard place, she forged ahead and carved out a third option. Her ascension to the throne was made possible by her initiative and ingenuity, allowing her to rise above the birth divination that once constrained her.

Faced with the impossibly futile task of averting their preordained deaths, the protagonists of 365: Repeat the Year raced against both the ticking clock and a mastermind who knew when their lives would come to a premature close. It was a thrilling mystery, elevated by a solid ensemble cast and the warning cards foretelling the murders with ominous lines of poetry.

Determined to save their fellow time-travelers, our sleuthing duo Lee Jun-hyuk (as Ji Hyung-jo) and Nam Ji-hyun (as Shin Ga-hyun) pieced together disparate clues to pinpoint the ruthless killer and reverse their fates. And when they were eventually backed into a corner by the sting of betrayal, their mutual trust was the key to devising a way out of the endless loop of resets.

When it comes to a race against time, who can forget Lee Je-hoon, Jo Jin-woong, and Kim Hye-soo in Signal? Their steely determination to prevent horrific crimes committed in the past, via their tenuous link through time, had me rooting for them to succeed despite the odds. Similarly, the camaraderie of the trio in While You Were Sleeping shone through as they used their premonitory dreams to alter the present, with an extra side of sass from our leading lady.

Another spunky and proactive heroine — and one of my favorite heroines, really — is Kim Hye-yoon’s Eun Dan-oh from Extraordinary You. When Dan-oh realized she’d been created for the sole purpose of furthering others’ relationships and functioning as a plot device, she could have easily wallowed in her miserable circumstances. But instead of lamenting the cruel fate that the Writer had planned for her, she decided she’d break free of the story’s trappings and write her own future.

Dan-oh’s character trajectory was all about asserting that she was the main character of her own life, so she was going to live it the way she wanted to. And how utterly relatable is that? How many of us can say that we’ve never felt overshadowed before, or that we’ve never been demoralized after being upstaged? Dan-oh proved that you can create your own destiny and chase your own happiness regardless — you are significant simply by virtue of being alive.

Bulgasal: Immortal Souls told an epic, bloody tale of lifelong regrets and intertwined fates. It all came heartbreakingly full circle when Hwal (Lee Jin-wook) realized he was the very creator of the destiny he’d been trying to prevent. Yet he still endeavored to cling onto the last bit of his humanity, in an effort to prove that he wasn’t the monster everyone assumed he was.

It’s what I hope Ban’s journey in Island will focus on — him overcoming his demon blood and overturning the notion that all demons are destined to hurt and destroy. And I’m also hoping that Goong-tan will be able to break free from the vicious cycle of vengeance and pain. (The drama has four episodes left to pleasantly surprise me, as well as give Kim Nam-gil and Sung Joon more to work with. Fingers crossed.)

So what makes this trope my catnip? The idea of fighting against a cosmic force infinitely larger than yourself — one that makes you feel terrifyingly helpless, and is one rooted in futility and despair. And so it is the sheer courage of rising up to the challenge — of facing your fear and overcoming it one arduous step at a time — that becomes so brilliantly inspiring.

It’s railing against the walls that box you in. It’s refusing to accept your lot in life because you know you have the capacity for more. It’s looking fate in the eye and saying no, I will not be subjected to your whims. My life is mine to live and mine alone. What could possibly be more empowering than that?

 
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