A believable projection of things that could be invented or experienced. Example, holography was invented in 1947. Star Trek imagined the concept into virtual reality holodecks in 1974. The first live virtual holographic concert occurred in the late 1990s. In the past decade, VR headsets have become commercial available.

The holodecks were awesome!! What a way to experience escapism, even! I also see that you're back to emphasizing connection (things you can indeed imagine recognizing) over difference (things you can't). I get it!

Thanks for engaging with my questions, welh.

I think the contribution of the term alternatives to what we know is very welcome to this conversation.

Your connection to the world of rom-coms is also unexpected and amazing! I'd never thought of this connection to sci-fi...that sometimes the ridiculousness of the situation can help throw the human feelings into sharper relief. Thank you for this!!

@attiton This is where I always quote Marianne Moore, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." If the interactions and the feelings feel real, it doesn't matter that everything else around it is absurd or too much. Another cherished principle that I have probably said here too many times: real life doesn't have to be realistic, but fiction does. (But Korean dramas do not actually hold themselves to such a standard--they count on the actors to bail them out! 😃)

But for me, the reason many Korean rom coms are unsatisfying is not their lack of realism, or their lack of true human emotion, but rather their failure to capture a vision of mature, adult love that I am well aware is a fantasy. That would be my objection about Love Next Door, and actually with the majority of rom "coms" that have as their premise the FL realizing her outwardly successful life is meaningless; or the FL needing to go back home, or in time, to discover her true self, or to save herself or even to die of cancer amidst love ones. The problem is not the premise, which clearly speaks to a lot of viewers, or at least the Korean women writers who are basing stories on this classic trope. Its perfectly realistic in showing depression, or burnout, or harassment or illness or injury requiring a reset.

Where it falls short for me is that it always involves returning to men whose salient romantic characteristic is their immaturity—because they represent childhood, or innocence or authenticity or whatever their immature relationship behavior is supposed to signify.

Even this doesn't represent an unrealistic relationship--how many heterosexual couples in real life do we all know where the woman is more mature emotionally than the man? I think that might be the majority for me. But that realism doesn't make these portrayals satisfying in a fantasy romantic sense (unless of course, the viewer is so enamored of the "hotness" of the leads that the fantasy of a hot partner overwhelms the fantasy of a deep and last love. )

@hacja Ooh, I need to leave a comment here to come back and comment at greater length on Saturday night! I am thinking in the country where flirting is called aegyo (which has something to do with the word for baby, right? aegy?) immaturity equals cuteness. I want to think about this more!

I also love Ursula K. Le Guin's books. My favorite is the Earthsea series, but I have read some of the Ekumen books and they are beautiful too.

My favorite Ursula LeGuin novel really illustrates your point beautifully: THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS is nothing if not a profound exploration of what it means to be human.

Hi @hacja, I've been thinking about your comment for 24 hours! I thought about how in Good Partner, immature husbands were the ones who wound up divorced. The Korean romantic ideal is someone who is childlike in the sense of being playful, affectionate, cute, and still liking the people and things they used to like. (That's not about gender--the best transformation is any character who is sad and lonely who learns to make friends and enjoy activities.) They are not interested in men who treat their wives like they are their moms or their maids. They don't want a man who has tantrums. (Blowing your stack or showing your feelings is OK, just not getting angry to be manipulative.) Why are some K-drama romantic objects such jerks then? It's a good question and requires exploration!

@toomuchtv Thanks for your comment. In thinking about my wish for romances, where, regardless of how mature they are the ML and FL actually communicate with each other, don't engage in noble idiocy, and successfully work through problems I'm not sure whether that is a call for more "realism" or, since I recognize there are very few relationships like that in real life, a desire for more fantasy in my rom-coms.

@hacja If the leads communicate well and work through problems, the only conflict is going to be a murder mystery! (Noble idiocy is just poor communication by another name!) They have to work out the problems in their relationship for fifteen episodes or it's not a romance. For me, if they don't grow up a little as individuals, it's not satisfying. (You are My Spring, one of my early faves, has a really unsatisfying ending. But I think that's mostly because of the actors' discomfort with being physical with each other?? Don't know.)

I'm... not so sure about the example you choose lmao, but the point stands indeed.

A better example could be Harry Potter.

@welh they both have loose-ish lores with soft magic systems, but tropes used are mostly well done and every engaging indeed.

Someone who really knows about world building is Ursula Le Guin. But then, her changes from the reality we know are just those that follows from the premises she set out with.
In that way, she doesn't have to keep track of whether it's realistic; it's not like in e.g. Harry Potter, where you can rightly ask "when they have that thing, why didn't they just ..." Like, if I were Harry Potter, I would demand to stand witness under the influence of veritaserum, so I couldn't lie, and everybody would then know that Voldemort was really back. I would demand some rules where in advance, the questioners negotiated questions they needed answers for, and that they could only ask the agreed-upon questions. They would swear an unbreakable oath to do that and only that (no questions about ordinary school naughtiness or whether you wet your bed and stuff like that) and then there were so many problems that could be easily solved.
But if the whole plot was "What if there was a liquid that made it impossible to lie?" then everything in the story would relate to that, and the writer would not have to explain away how someone could be falsely accused of fearmongering or of murder, when false claims could so easily be refuted.

@ceciliedk well, for starters one's person's subjective truth is not necessarily an objective one too... Esp in the world where magical memory manipulation/brainwashing is very much a thing. Even if people believed right away what Harry/Dumbledore etc said, they could've just call him crazy (from grief and rage - convenient explanation writes itself here!), delusional or confused/misinformed. Point was not that magical society COULDN'T believe his warnings - they DIDN'T want to because they were the ones scared that he was right and so did the ostrich trick with any new facts on the matter.

Ursula is great tho. Perhaps even too great - her writing is so deep and complex and HEAVY that it's a bit hard to get used to, and I'm saying this as a biggest fantasy nerd.

I think a good fantasy/sci-fi is the one which you can imagine existing and working somewhere somehow - in parallel universe, distant past/future, galaxy far far away etc. It doesn't have to LOOK real, but it must FEEL real.

So...just to clarify, because I think I don't understand...is the role of the things you don't connect to or recognize related to helping things feel real? Maybe like @toomuchtv says above?

@attiton no, I believe the main role of these elements is to be flashy, unique and fun enrich the story, work as a metaphor and POTENTIALLY broaden audience's horizons because I firmly believe that one can 100% relate or at least understand/sympathize even with something that doesn't hit too close to home on the surface level. Empathy IS a trainable trait, unless we're talking about born sociopaths, which are rare. It's tricky to find an effective balance between the fantasy and realistic parts, but good writers do that just fine. We're just overrun with the "creations" of less than capable ones.

Also there's this HIGHLY unfortunate current tendency of making only easily digestible and relatable stories that don't challenge audience at all... There is a room for such media too, but it shouldn't be the only one! Personally I feel like writer tries to insult my brain capacity - not to mention preaching, which I never took well - by making everything a low hanging fruit. I was 6 when I picked up "Master and Margarita" from our book shelves to my family's utter wtf horror - not to say that I understood much of it back then, but I was so charmed and excited to learn more! That's what fantasy stories are for - they are our window into worlds and things we wouldn't encounter otherwise.

References to Soviet literature are our bread-and-butter here on Dramabeans, so keep 'em coming, chingu!!

Master and Margarita - on my top three of most beloved books.

@attiton Soviet era, you mean? Because it's hard to get more anti-said-regime than poor author was))) That's why it took such a long and bumpy journey for his magnum opus to even get published...

Overall, the world's fascination with this book never fails to amaze me - there are so many for-same-aged-locals-only tongue-in-cheek references in it, like how much can you even get without knowing all that first? Then again, Shakespeare also wrote not very discreetly about events and people he was personally witness to and that context was largely lost with time, yet his works are still all rage even now.

It's a fantastic story about love, faith and ... integrity, even if you only understand like 2% of the local and time specific satire.
It is so funny and so deeply moving. And it has one of the more powerful female leads I can think of. Someone who would fly naked on a broom around a building and smash ALL the windows in a fury over bureaucratic pettiness, soullessness and corruption.
Even if you don't know about all those phenomena he satirizes, the feeling of "this is parodying something" shines through. It can be frustrating when you don't know what and who it is, but the last time I read it (out of more than five) I was helped along by generous websites with abundant annotations. (Can you say that? Like in an "annotated version", but those notes are not in the book itself?

@ceciliedk there was no need to include long contextual notes in the book (at least in early editions - mine is from 70s or 80s, so somewhere in the middle) because for most people it was still a pretty recent history - either from their own or their parents/grandparents memories. And many issues touched upon were universal for whole USSR and not just capital's intellectual elite capable of recognizing prototypes of certain characters because they had a displeasure to know them personally)))

There are MANY fiery vengeful women in Slavic literature. And, coincidentally or not, plenty of them are also witches/folklore creatures. Even human heroines can get pretty wild in no time - Ukrainian writer Nechui-Levytsky described this archetype as "a woman with pepper-hot heart" (c). So Margo, however badass she was, doesn't really stand out too much in the grand scheme of things (fanservice element certainly helped with popularity tho).

Of course there was no reason to have contextual notes in the book if you lived in Moscow - or in Hell - in the 1930's. And outside of Sovjet Russia we did know about corruption and thought police (or what they were called) and how little space there is for art if it's never allowed to disagree the slightest with some line set up by others. But I do remember wondering, apart from it being funny, why that whole office ended up on a truck, singing against their will. And the way apartments were conjured up out of the ground was easy to understand even with just a faint idea of how that kind of bureaucracy works, but it was nice to know a little more about it. And some things that I just thought was a parody of "things likely to happen" turned out to be named persons in power positions. And as for those reading it for the first time now, they just don't know what it meant that the Sovjet Union was so separate from the West.
How Berlin was even in early 1987, when I read the book first ... it is so strange to find out that they don't know if you don't tell them.

@ceciliedk "ideological committee"? There were multiple specific organizations for each case, but all tied together anyway.

Singing a "tune" against their will was a metaphor for The Party forcing people to do basically the same all the time. The freak out over supernatural powers causing this for once was funny because what's the difference, really? Plus all those mandatory communist anthems choir performances forced on kids and teenagers...

Magically enlarged apartment, aside of obvious machinations metaphor, was a VERY sore spot - owning a place, let alone in capital, let alone a big and fancy one was the sweetest dream of just about anyone (sans party elite, ofc). When bolsheviks overthrew empire, they also nationalized property - MOST property (lands, houses, livestock, everything). In a swift and brutal fashion, stripping vast majority of population to bare minimum (or nothing at all + 1 way ticket to Siberia if met with slightest resistance). To gain an ownership of even a tiny doormat afterwards one had to go through unspeakable trouble - either by slaving away for years on a job that came with housing/promise of it (Soviet queues are known as being WORSE than Hell) or resorting to world-class scheming, fraud or even violent crimes. As quote goes "they're nice people overall, it's just housing issue poisoned them". Part of the reason why Margarita made a mess of that critic's house was because it would probably sting way more than a good old beating.

I know that. But I didn't know it without someone telling me first. So what I'm saying is that yes, there's a lot one doesn't understand if you don't have detailed knowledge of late-1930's Moscow, BUT then there are professors, secondary literature, annotations ...
So whenever and whereever you were born, you can nerd along with Bulgakov.
https://www.dramabeans.com/members/CecilieDK/activity/1630467/

@ceciliedk reading nerds are a different breed altogether, but while "M & M" is a globally recognized classic, I have doubts that everyone who ever attempted to touch it also bothered to do an extensive cultural and historical research in addition. Reading bunch of books to read yet another book is not the definition of fun time for most^^ I applaud those who try, ofc.

I think we should REALLY stop here, it's getting too long)))

Wow, this is a complicated thread that touches on some profound thoughts about what makes a good drama. Good on you all!

The discussion about fantasy/sci fi touches on a drama I'm testing out this week: TILL THE END OF THE MOON (up to episode 13). It seems to be a drama loved by many, so worth my time to understand why it captivates. The good: dreamily good set design, costumes, main casting. The bad: makeup (I mean, it's not that hard!), creative camera angles, but mostly the plot salad. I keep thinking a teenager with a raging fever dreamed up the plot lines, and no problem whatsoever that each of the lines aren't going to necessarily get resolved. It's fantasy!

Me, I like good sci fi/fantasy that really makes me think about the future or the past (like THE EXPANSE/James M. Corey; or LORD OF THE RINGS/Tolkien -- the books, not the movie). Both of these do exactly what you all mention -- they touch on reality. They have strong plot threads that feel real and thus, the pathos, and why humankind can't do better.

I'm going to give TTEOTM a fair chance but right now, too much plot salad. (I am saying that in my mother scolding voice.)

Good context explains so much thank you again. Every Friday I'm schooled and learn something new.

40+ facial stitches good grief. And this dictate about cutting/editing a drama to meet a maximum number of episodes is so dumb it defies belief. This destruction is ultimately petty and counterproductive. One can only hope for smart archivists and a future era of "director's cuts".

@cliosservant1846 you can even see the outlines in few close-up scenes((( Thankfully all those scars - but one, tiny enough to ignore - healed fully. There was another such incident not so long ago with an actress injuring her forehead during action scene, needing ~10 stitches too and people were legit worried if it's gonna end her career... I think she eventually got a very optimistic prognosis from doctors, but likely lost projects until full recovery anyway(((

Currently in China you cannot release anything without "approval from above", so director's cut, while remaining a sweet dream for fans of many butchered shows, will probably not come true anytime soon. Another day of censorship oppressing art and ruining all the fun, what's new...

I don't know about that. Granted the last romcom I remember is The Proposal haha

Romcoms seem to have moved onto streaming platforms.

Oh! I did see Crazy Rich Asians. Was that the last romcom I watched?🤔

Problem is not a sly marketing here, but a totally shameless genre-bait - if you're gonna sell an emotional melodrama, then say it's what it is, letting the viewers be informed and decide whether they want to get invested into potentially sad, if deep and meaningful, story. Romcoms should NOT have leads dying as their ending, period, that's just ridiculous and inexcusable. LND is still airing - and I don't even watch it - so no comments yet, but HEARTBEAT was marketed as a silly vampire romcom all the way, so what we got instead was a huge disrespect and "breach of contract", so to speak.

@gikata I would not defend the writing of Heartbeat, which as I recall suddenly changed tone around episode 9 or 10 or so, in a tell tale sign of a writer (or directors and writers) not in command of the material. But I'm not so sure genres are so clearly defined that promotional materials need to preserve the integrity of genre boundaries. I'm definitely of the caveat emptor school here!

@hacja perhaps, but something as drastic as a possibility of cancer trope should be at least hinted about - if not explicitly, then through overall vibe etc - just like serial killers shouldn't suddenly pop out in fluffy romcoms! Ever-presented ToDs alone are more than enough, imo.

If I were to build a conspiracy theory, I'd say that there was some mishap behind the scenes that led HEARTBEAT to change horses writer(s) midway, but it was never disclosed publicly to not damage ratings.

CHOCOLATE was marketed as a melodrama with sad stories to tell but it hit high marks on what it delivered to the viewers.

Yes, I know, and the rom-com genre is generally has been defined the way you define it. (I do have to say, though, that Shakespeare's comedies were genuinely funny. Even one that we might object to in principle today, like the Taming of the Shrew, has some witty exchanges, and I saw a pretty good production of it a few years back that by presenting a lot of the "taming" ironically which drew a lot of laughs.)

Anyway, not disagreeing with your point, but I do think there are a few more rom-comedies in western movies than in kdramas. That's an unfair comparison, though, since its easy to be consistently funny in a 90 minute portrayal of a romance than in a 12 hour one.

Do you know that the script for "Pretty Woman" originally ended with him pushing her out of his car into the street? It was changed pretty late in the process. FOr example, that was the script Julia Roberts had agreed to.

Thanks, I'll check these out!

My Husband Got a Family is gold! I like Smile You too.

So I've seen all of these, and they to me, they have a few funny characters or scenes, but with the exception of Mr. Queen, which I agree, is pretty comic, they are all kind of haunted by trauma in a way that lessens the comedy parts for me.

Ohh, I get what you mean.

But don't worry about Waikiki, it truly is all romCOM.

"SK cannot relate - yet, somehow, impressively they only keep making things worse"

When I see South Korean men in their 20s and 30s being virulently anti-feminist, violence towards women, and electing an incel president, I keep thinking:

"Ah look - the 'geniuses' just digging an even deeper hole for themselves!"

They are truly a prime example of how a privileged group thinks they are 'oppressed' when they see marginalised groups fighting for equity/equality.

Not to mention the irony of how the patriarchy is hurting them too through all the brutal and ridiculous ideas and prescribed behaviours of masculinity.

@9tailedvixen someone once suggested that lack of sleep during formative years - because kids must STUDY, not live and develop! - is also at fault and wow, that makes so much sense it's genuinely horrifying. I'm far less shocked by their many not-so-wise choices after that...

Well, South Korean girls are also not precluded from lack of sleep.

Yet somehow they aren't out there beating other people up and trying to suppress other people's rights.

It's the entitlement imbued in Korean boys by toxic son preference that is part of what makes them this way.

@9tailedvixen not to defend k-boys, but I wonder how much of k-girls not doing what you suggested en masse is caused by the lack of physical ability rather than lack of intention. Also, with seemingly very rampant teen bullying committed by both sides...

@gikata Yes, girls can be bullies too and bullying is an issue that should be taken seriously regardless of gender. Girls can be just as vicious without needing to use brute strength or sexual violence. And we rarely hear of teen girls raping classmates/schoolmates. We do hear about teen boys (especially older teens) committing sexual assault against their female peers.

However, what we're discussing here is how the patriarchy enables boys to be far more violent - male violence against women, sexism, misogyny are all systemic.

@9tailedvixen I thought we sorta moved on to discussing other possible explanations of that low-intelligent behavior aside of the most obvious Great Joseon Values... my bad. Anyway, it's already morning and I need to sleep, preferably without nightmares involving infants terrible of any gender (not a big fan of kids overall - I've personally known way too many of them).

a) there's not enough of them. Significantly.
b) existing ones largely don't want the Joseon-lite treatment their men offer.

😂👌 right??

Interestingly, he says it in that same show with Jun K, that he is very old-school and prefers the old ways of strict hierarchy, and it is very hard for him to conform to the more relaxed ways of today.

But I know that most of these talk shows are just shows and not exact representatives of the celebs' characters, so who knows really.

@midnight dude must be joking. I remember very vividly how kpop idols interacted with each other during 2-3 generations - compared to now things were much more relaxed and easygoing. The idol shows of that era were WILD, nowadays anything that casually happened there would never fly.

Then again, maybe he's talking about things happening behind the scenes... I've heard talks about younger idols largely dropping traditions of politeness from back then - like personally greeting seniors when you're on the same show etc. Now it kinda feels like groups are discouraged by both their companies and fans to interact AT ALL, unless its planned and scripted.

I agree with every word you've written.

I don't mind your brutal honestly. I'm not a kpop fan so I don't know much any of the groups, past or present. I just know BTS is the biggest idol group out of SK followed by Blackpink (I think) and Girls Generation is considered the best girl idol group of the 21st century or something.

I guess I referring to their cultural impact and popularity. Like I think some of the BTS guys are in the military and yet it doesn't even seem like it cause they're still constantly in the news or have pictures released. Before their enlistment, there were even debates about if they should or ended to enlist cause just existing was beneficially to the economy apparently.

Note: I'm not trying to slam or diminish their efforts or contributions. I'm sure they've worked extremely hard to get where they are. They are also crazy lucky haha but yeah

@britney well, if I had to be honest while also somewhat civil and laconic, I'd just say that I'm an old hag who still clings for the dear life to clearly outdated idea that singers should be able to SING first and foremost. To give you a small taste of WHY TVXQ/DBSK were as famous as they were in an era of sns barely starting being a thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxBoZbX155A

That's a fully live concert performance - with live band, I believe. And the point is that they could sing THIS well even while doing intense choreos. Very few kpop groups ever came close, and out of 3 others you've mentioned only GG can be objectively placed in said honorary list. Ofc, if people want to stan their musician faves for things that have nothing to do with music, it's their right, who am I to argue? I'd probably have much more fun in life if I could do that too!^^

😂😂😂

I'd like to give it a try, but I'm not sure I'd like it. As you say, a show about taxes in Joseon sounds dull.

Believe it or not, it's on my Amazon Prime and I've stopped by the first episode, actually it looks well done. So, it's a maybe!

@isagc then try - you'll never know based on someone else's opinion)))

@cliosservant1846 oh, I believe it's well done, it's just hardly anything bores me more than counting money that's not mine^^

Under the Microscope is actually quite delightful, and I say this as someone who normally doesn't get very excited about a deep dive into the Ming dynasty tax code. It also has the advantage of being short and sweet, and, as you mention, having an absolutely stacked cast. Also it has ZRY with a kitten - I mean, what more could you want?

@wonhwa wait, why no one told me before that there is a kitten?! That's a very important point!

Nice! Thank you. ❤️

If they go further down the s3 road next thing will be that the cembaloed pop music will be AI'ed and played with recognizable synth sounds. I can hear it as an audio nightmare in my ear right now. And next step will be "hooked on classics" style clap track under it all.🤢