#oh that's so sweet look an immortal love story - nope. also about family control and property rights.

[notbecauseofvictories]

I've seen that "the immortal loses their loved one but not their loved one's family; what if the immortal stayed close, followed them down the generations?" post a dozen times, and I understand it's intended to be sweet---but every single time I see it, all I can think is that it's straight-up the beginning of a horror story.

[theartfulmegalodon]

Some Thoughts on Coco...

First of all, the movie was fantastic, and beautiful, and moving, and everything all the reviewers have said. Go see it, it’s amazing.

But I’m me, so I can’t help but have a few nitpicks. I wouldn’t dream of putting spoilers out in the open here, so if you’ve seen the film already and want to read my comments, they’re past the cut.  (And, um, they’re long.  Sorry.)

So... okay, I think most everybody who’s seen the film and given it some actual thought afterward has realized that there are some seriously troubling rules in place about the Mexican afterlife.  It’s all fluffy and fairy tale-like at first glance, you know, older family telling the sweet story to the kids about how a picture on an altar keeps the memory of their departed family members alive... except of course in this case, it means keeping them LITERALLY alive, in the afterlife.

We’re shown that you NEED a picture of the person. Actually they only say “photo” throughout the entire film, making me wonder what happens if you don’t have any photos, or you were too poor to commission a painted portrait back in the day. Why wouldn’t, say, written letters count? Or family heirlooms, like jewelry or a comb? What if the family simply lost the photos in a fire or something? What if they didn’t manage to make an altar? Say someone’s the last of their line, keeping all their (photographed) ancestors alive, but right around DdlM they get hit by a car and are in traction for a week or more, unable to light a stupid candle next to some photos? The dead relatives are just SOL? Are poor people’s relatives also SOL, when the living simply doesn’t have the resources to do this ritual? And heck, if you’re an orphan with no family when you die, that means what? NO AFTERLIFE FOR YOU? Does it HAVE to be family that remembers you for it to count?

And then there’s the rule that you can only keep existing in the afterlife so long as your memory is maintained by someone who knew you in life.  Hector confirmed this when Miguel tried to insist he could go back and remember these new dead folks now that he’s met them in the afterlife, so they wouldn’t fade away.  But nope, “It doesn’t work like that.”

Except...

That can’t be true, because at the end of the movie, we see grandma Coco has died, and all of the extended dead family is still there, safe and sound. But Coco was the only one who’d remembered her parents, and especially Hector. So we see that Hector, and presumably anyone, can totally live on even after everyone who knew them in life is dead as well.

So... that’s a bit of a contradiction there.  And then there’s the whole De La Cruz storyline about fame.  Whether he chose to be famous at all costs just because he wanted the spotlight, or even on the off chance that he was trying to secure his immortality in the afterlife, it’s sort of implied that simply by being famous, he’ll never be forgotten, and as long as he has fans who put his picture on their altars (or his? not sure how that goes) he’s set.

So really, I have no idea how one stays alive in the afterlife, for sure. But Hector did say about fading away: “It happens to everyone eventually”, which... yeah, okay, makes sense. Which means, basically, that your afterlife is a whole new life, but you spend it knowing that your very existence depends on others to remember you and prove it with a ritual.  If you’re not one of the very lucky ones (and the movie made it seem like there are relatively few unlucky ones, because kids movie) you’d spend your borrowed existence wracked with anxiety that any moment your luck will run out. Not to mention, your eventual second death (their “FINAL death”, as they call it) will likely be way worse than your first one. When they’re dying their final death, they do it with the knowledge that there really is nothing left for them AND that they’ve been entirely forgotten by the living world. The entirety of their existence is over, and there’s not even some comforting Grim Reaper type to send them off.

Sigh.

This isn’t really what I wanted to pick at, believe it or not. I’ve got more real issues with the actually family dynamics. Because family, as was made super clear, is basically the most important thing in life AND death, and without family, life is meaningless (or possibly OVER FOREVER). And that’s... kinda problematic for me.  I know it’s culturally accurate, from what I know of Latin cultures and many others.  But I really dislike the whole notion that your BLOOD relatives are always a good thing to keep in your life.

Miguel’s family was cartoonishly restrictive when it came to music, his one passion.

(And can we mention for a moment the absurdity of shielding an entire family line from ALL MUSIC? How exactly does that work? We don’t know for sure what time period this is. From the look of De La Cruz’s movies, and counting the generations hence, we could assume this is modern day.  (In a really underdeveloped part of Mexico.) But trying to eliminate all music from someone’s life is only slightly possible if they’re a child, and you can control exactly what they do and where they go.  But did Miguel never go to school?  People sing songs and play music in schools.  And did the adults in the family never go anywhere outside of their shoe shop and the cemetery? People in the world MAKE MUSIC. All over. All the time. It’s a deeply ingrained facet of human nature.  Yet this family can’t even hum to themselves?  It’s just... too absurd.)

ANYWAY.

Miguel’s family is ridiculous, and based on one (deceased) matriarch’s marching orders, this kid is forced to hide away his one joy in life and feel like a criminal among his own relatives for loving something that the rest of the world loves.  The moment where they present him with his shoe-making apron and cheer about promoting him to official Shoe Maker, I swear in my head I just heard, “Oh! You finally had the noodle dream!”  And when the grandma discovered his stash of music-related treasures and smashes them all in the street in front of him, I just saw Triton destroying Ariel’s human treasures, leaving the poor child in tears, of course.

In this case, the family was MOST DEFINITELY in the wrong. And yet Miguel is punished the second he tries to rebel. He gets cursed into the afterlife (a curse that was NEVER explained, btw) and then the family matirarch who started the whole mess basically holds his life hostage until he agrees to never pursue music again.  The family blessing was paramount.  They looked this little boy in the eyes and forced him to choose between a life without the thing he loves most or NO LIFE AT ALL. 

Yes, yes, I know that the point was that they were in the wrong and that it all worked out in the end because past crimes came to light, and some hearts were melted, and the family came around.  But the fact that Miguel and Hector had to beat the odds, escape capture, expose a murder plot, and tear down the reputation of the biggest celeb in the afterlife just so this old bitch (sorry, I really did like this movie!) would let her great grandson go back to being alive... That’s beyond unreasonable.  Miguel was fantastically lucky, and running into Hector was the most unlikely coincidence in the movie.

EDIT: I’ve been reminded that Dante the spirit dog was involved in leading Miguel to meeting Hector, but that... doesn’t really solve my issue there. That’s writing in a band-aid for a plot hole.  Can’t think up a reason your two long lost relatives would have a one-in-a-billion meeting? Spirits did it.  And honestly for me (maybe because I’m not a little kid any more) the slapstick antics of the dog weren’t especially entertaining or amusing, nor was he written as an actual character instead of a plot device. So I’m not surprised in retrospect that I forgot most of his contributions to the story.

OKAY. Let me make the only real point I wanted to make here:

I was genuinely surprised by the reveal that Hector was Miguel’s real ancestor and that De La Cruz had murdered him.  I think I was surprised because I was unconsciously expecting/hoping for De La Cruz to actually be his ancestor, but that he was simply a shallow, fame-loving, selfish dipshit, and that the Riveras were right to erase his memory from their family tree.  Miguel would have learned that not all family is worth treating like family. And there would be Hector, someone who protected him, guided him, and mentored him, someone who was worthy of including on their family altar. He’d learn that sometimes family can be the people you choose to be your family.

I mean, I get it, the story that they actually set up and carried out.  I liked the twist, really, and the touching backstory with Coco was, of course, very moving. There were tears.

But in the end, I guess I don’t like the convenience of the good guy he just happened to meet being part of his family after all, and the bad guy just being a bad guy, no grey area, no need to feel conflicted over anything.  Also, he never bonded with anyone in the afterlife outside of his personal family, which is, again, kind of a shame.  The entire crux of the movie, the matriarch’s elimination of music from the Rivera line, was based entirely on a misunderstanding, and only by luck (and spirit animals!) did it happen to resolve itself in the end. It still made a boy go through some ten years of cringing and hiding and emotional abuse over nothing he could control, all while framing it with the insistence that “your family loves you!”  They love you... but you have to be unhappy, son. The end. No arguments.

Oops! Sorry, we guess that grudge we were holding over a guy we never met for a great-grammy who’s long gone was our mistake. You go play your guitar. We love you!

Oh, and if this is the modern era, they should really think about making some photocopies of that picture...

[jahe]

My Thought on Goblin (Drama).

tI've been diligently watching Goblin since the very start until the end. I was so eager to watch because it is Gongyoo's drama after a while, and mythology fantasy precisely; but I also not that excited because it is Kim Eunsook drama, I don't know why (LOL). I just... I don't know, maybe I am quite buying people opinion toward her drama, like everyone knows how she wrote her dramas, right?

Anyway, I still decided to watch for the sake of the casts, especially because of Gongyoo and Dongwook. Yeah. Hehe.

Now that Goblin has ended, I can say... well, the drama is fun and sweet but also confusing and absurd. I don't know how to detailed explain what makes it is bad to my taste, I only feel that KES build her fantasy world with little effort? I know I am not fantasy story expert nor I know Korean folklore/myth nor I am not write story that well, but as fantasy/mythology lover and as a viewer I am a little disturbed. I have right to feel that, like you can say a food is bad when you are not a chef your own.

I know a writer can build their fantasy world as what they like it, modify the old tales or even make a new one, but as for me, I failed to understand her Goblin's world. I just feel something off with her characters' characterization, a little bit (or maybe completely) Mary-Sue-ish, there was no deep connection between each other creatures.

Like Kim Shin is immortal, rich (can produce his own goldbar), can kill and bring life, can control the weather (or can't, depens on his mood), can see the future, a guardian; like the world is in his hand already except death. He can overpowered the god himself at this rate. Not mention before Shin changed into powerful Goblin, he was a warrior that always win at the battlefield; a loyal subject but killed nevertheless by a less powerful King's mandate. Well, I know KES also shown us how stubborn, temperamental and also a little stupid he is despite living hundred years (so it is not completely Gary-Stu), but still.

Also Grim Reaper. I just thought he only had one job: escorting the dead to afterlife, but nope. He able to erase memory, able to know someone's past life with direct skin touch and bring it back with one kiss. ONE KISS. Oh gosh, that's so weird, I mean for a GRIM REAPER, a kiss???? Just for the sake of romanticizing Reaper and Sunny?

And so much of absurdities in Goblin that I can't tell because I am not even fluent in English and I AM THAT SO MUCH CONFUSE (ALSO UPSET).

So I tried to make my own rendition, or in the other hand fixing KES fantasy world to satisfy myself. You can continue reading or not, you can agree or disagree. Everyone has their taste right? So here is mine.

When Goblin ended, I tried to search about Korean folklore about goblin and also to cross-check my knowledge about korean grim-reaper and I found this. (http://koreanhistoricaldramas.com/korean-folklore-goblins-and-other-beings/), it said:

Goblin and Dokkaebi are different creatures. Goblin in Europe myth is a creature while Dokkaebi is a spirit that inhabitate old tools (inanimate object) like broom and stuffs, not human but I assume when they are in that object I guess they turned into some kind of creature since there are many illustration of dokkaebi appeared like a Kappa.

Grim reaper doesn't have other powers beside being invisible to normal human eyes and only escort the dead to afterlife.

First thing first, in KES story, what I get is Kim Shin punished as an immortal because he didn’t listen to King’s word and instead killed himself in process. What missed from KES story is Sun is not even want to protect the King anymore, she said to Shin to go to the King and don’t mind her because it is her destiny. But in the later episode Shin claimed his sister protect the Fool that she died. What.

As I want to understand Shin punished being immortal because he confronted the King (because basically King is another form of God), it doesn’t make sense to me. The King is fooled by the eunuch, but it is also wrong to kill someone who is fool. He needs to kill the evil. So, I make this version of Kim Shin (and the sword) instead.

The sword that King gave to Kim Shin is an old sword that handed down to the General from generation to generation, it witnessed the fall and rise of Generals' in battlefield. It killed so much people the blade is glistened. The sword is sacred that it formed a quite complicated spirit: it is evil but also divine at same time. A man/woman that wield it will possessed by an evil or divine spirit depends on their character. Because Kim Shin is a loyal subject that wanted to protect the King and his people thus how the sword helped him won the wars.

King felt threatened. With some instigation of the evil eunuch he killed Shin's soldiers and family, including his beloved Queen that was Shin's little sister. Shin killed by King's hand with the sword that King gave to him. Actually Shin wanted to kill the eunuch as what his sister said to protect the King, but he failed. He dead instead.

But he didn't. Shin become immortal instead, initially he was so angry he wanted a revenge. But the spirit in that sacred sword that stabbed him conflicted with his own spirit (as a ghost), it melted into one thus make him back to life but immortal. That was the start of his own immortal journey.

So it is not about punishing Shin, it just the side effect of wanting to do revenge. GOF wants Shin to give up also, that’s how he could avoid the death of everyone, the death of himself, and to avoid the evil spirit of the sword. Off course GOF can’t tell him before hand, and that’s how fate is work, right? We don’t know any of it. Fate is a big mystery.

Like what I stated above actually I don’t really like how Goblin has that so many power but after a while thinking while typing I guess that’s how the consolation become. However, in my own rendition I would like the Goblin can’t produce their own gold bar (he is not marvel mutant, seriously) but instead, like most goblin/dokkaebi did, he steal and dig all those golds and gems. Steal from the bad guys off course.

I don’t have any objection with that creation of Goblin’s Bride aka Euntak and her purpose of life to be the one to make Kim Shin back to mortal and die. The only problem we got from the drama is Shin and Euntak’s story as an immortal being and the one who can make him die not progressed intensely. Sugarcoated with the romantic aspect thus the actual plot is missing. They feel like doing push and pull.

And also the appearance of devil ghost, Park Joonghun. It kinda abrupt and absurd. After all those hundred years, not even once goblin and eunuch met. If only they met back long before and confronted each other, Shin will know how to end Park Joonghun, because the original purpose Shin use the sword for the last time was to kill him, to protect the King. Then it will enlightened him about why he is immortal and this will change how he looks upon his bride. To take the sword to end eunuch life, as what he wanted, his sister wanted and the King wanted even he didn’t want to admit that.

If it is goes with my version like what I said in the previous paragraph, Shin won’t have power to not fall in love with his bride thus makes him torn in between to die and fulfill longtime grudge or keep himself immortal and loving Euntak until she died. But then she had to make him die in order to live, like what originally should be. (LOL WHO AM I REALLY, afterall KES is the author).

I don’t mind with the romance, it is good. The only irking thing happened is Euntak’s behaviour and how KES always make her female lead be. But what to do with a high-schooler age, where she is an orphan, a goblin’s bride that can see ghosts. She is total weirdo. And get to meet a rich mythical creature maybe excite her, moreover her groom to be. But KES not even want to make her lead character has nice character development. Euntak should’ve accept the fact, that she had to help the groom die in order to kill eunuch, or she had to die for nothing. The goblin and his bride need to do it together. They can do romance in between searching for Park Joonghun anyway, afterall devil ghost is not something who roam the world leisurely. He could be anyone dark side, so working with Grim Reaper could be fitting. Then Goblin can die; Euntak can move on and accept her fate to die at her 29th, then they reunite in afterlife. They could be reincarnate and fated to each other again as a human, a normal human. Well.

Anyway. Talking about Grim Reaper, I have said about not buying the kissing power because KES simply said a kiss from grim reaper can recalled memories. PLEASE EXPLAIN!!! Because such concept is not fitting with reaper’s image. Let’s be real, there is no happy moment in their jobs. I don’t mind the other power like erasing memories, knowing someone past life by touch. It is only that kiss is disturbed me. So I made my own reasoning why Reaper can recalled Sunny’s memories with a kiss.

First of all, reaper won’t touch humans because they can see their past life and it could be annoying or even create problem in their ‘office’; if touch can make them see their past life so intense skinship, at this case, like a kiss, a hug or make out session (lol) can trigger reaper’s power to bring out all those memories to the person they do intense skinship with.

But it still doesn’t make sense. Reaper can just touch and they can see everything no need to kiss, if the other reasoning he wanted to confirm with the memories form that person point of view, that’s it. But (again) what the purpose of kissing if he is gonna erase it again, that’s create another problem. Duh.

ANOTHER THING! Reincarnation. I still found weird about not drinking your tea to retain past life memory in the next life, because isn’t it annoying when you born as new person, growing up and suddenly you remember your past life miseries like you won’t have problems with your new life. Seriously. The tea shop could be still there as a tea shop, let just say it is a tea of afterlife, before the God of Death decided whether you will be go upstairs or downstairs? But that’s okay, though. It is not as disturbing as Reaper Kiss, even in the last episode there is mistake when Wangyeo and Sunny didn’t even drink their tea and they fucking forget who they are in their next life. LOL.

I think I should stop here because I am talking so much nonsense. Well!!!! Goblin is still a good drama, I admit. If it is not good people won’t watch, lol. It just, don’t watch it seriously, just enjoy it and don’t think anything! That’s it.

It was a good ride so far and I will really really really miss the casts, especially that three idiots Shin, Yeo, Deokhwa. And also I want Gongyoo and Goeun in another project. Euntak didn’t do justice, they need another experiment to see if they have that chemistry.

So.

Thanks for reading. If you decided to read until the end, I bet no one reading this gibberish thought. Please forgive my limited English.

Bye.