|
| Notes
on
Heartless
C
|
|
 |
|
 |
Notes on Heartless City IV: What a tangled web Ten mienuts to go and I was resigned to and somewhat relieved by the idea that the storytellers of Heartless City had found a seamless, painless way to avert the inevitable. Death did come knocking, taking our hero's childhood friend, his sometime surrogate father and even his best friend, but mercifully leaving him be. Yes, Kyung Mi was felled early by the sniper's bullet, the sniper was cut down by Baksa Adeul's trusted driver/bodyguard who turned out to be an undercover cop himself, a puppet to Min Hong Ki's manipulations. This poor puppet, in turn, was killed by his puppet master and in the next instant Safari leapt in the path of the puppet master's bullet meant for Shi Hyeon, assuring his own belated redemption in a final act of avuncular devotion.All this because once Baksa Adeul rebels against his machinations, Min Hong Ki, drunk on his ability to play puppet master, decides to alienate Shi Hyeon from those who love him by outing him to both Kim Hyoon Soo and Lee Jin Sook. At first, it appears to take with Hyoon Soo, but Jin Sook remains true and overflows with a compassion so overwhelming that Shi Hyeon cannot but weep all his grief, frustration and loneliness in one mighty, heartbreaking flood of redemptive woe.And when Hyoon Soo also proves himself true, despite Min Hong Ki's efforts, Death takes him too. And with that, Shi Hyeon breaks completely. So many of those he has loved and who have loved him are mercilessly slain and his grief throughout this final episode is wrenching. He does not even think twice about simply shooting Chairman Choo regardless of whether it will resolve the problems of the long drawn out case.So you see, it seemed that by having Shi Hyeon suffer so much loss, the storytellers afford him some reprieve from the death that seemed so inevitable for him at the beginning of the story. And with ten mienuts left before the end, I could buy that, did buy that, with a quiet sort of relief, newly hopeful that now Shi Hyeon might get to simply live an ordinary life, away from all the intrigue and corruption and manipulation all the fetor of the world he was forced to inhabit as little more than the fading memory of a mythical shadow known as Baksa Adeul .It is this hope in which I had newly invested Shi Hyeon's future prospects for quiet happiness that makes his death so much more bitter, and the drama so naturally whole. I remember writing, after the first chapter, that there was no other way out of this story for Shi Hyeon except death; I remember declaring my conviction that the story that we were being told allowed for no other outcome, even citing the Universal Laws of Inevitability and recalling Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, that tragic masterpiece in which everyone protagonists, antagonists, innocent bystanders and even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern dies in the end.I am thrilled that this drama ended the way it did. I am glad that the storytellers neither violated nor simply capitulated to the Universal Laws of Inevitability. I am glad that they rather seeded just enough hope in the possibility of an alternative to the inevitable so that in spite of its ultimate triumph, none of the souls felled by it went either gently or pitifully into that good night.
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
(VISITOR) AUTHOR'S NAME
Cendrine
MESSAGE TIMESTAMP
20 december 2014, 04:25:28
AUTHOR'S IP LOGGED
186.88.32.236
|
|
|
|
