Thanks to Baek San's orders, Seung Hee is released from the terrorists. North Korean military leader Gi Hoon informs Chul Young of his plans to create a war between the two Korea's. Section Chief Sang Hyun suspects Sa Woo is a mole within the NSS. Sa Woo and Baek San track down Yoon Jeong Hoon and assassinate him.
Sa Woo successfully enrages viewers with his deceptive behaviour against the NSS. In this episode, his irrational conduct is exemplified when he sends in his attack team to the terrorist hideout without the satellite surveillance set up, thus jeopardizing their lives. He seems to act nonchalant and dormant until anything involving Seung Hee being in danger comes up. As a consequence of his impatience, 3 members of his team die and 8 become in critical condition. Moreover, he lashes out at Mi Jeong and Tae Sung, calling them incompetent. Evidently, his anger and lack of control are on full display. Even Sang Hyun (his superior) and Mi Jeong (a woman!) call him out on his use of words. Sa Woo’s impulsive actions are a prime example of not thinking with one’s head.
ReplyDeleteIn episode 13, Director Yeon has come to Seoul and to take a tour of the summit location with Chul Young. Director Yeon stated his idea of the war that will happen between the North and South, even if the UN sanctions against North Korea. This was catastrophic news to Chul Young, who didn’t want the summit to happen because he thought the conditions weren’t favorable enough for the North, and thousands of innocent citizens would suffer. He, as always, ultimately wants a united Korea, but only if N. Korea has the same amount of clout as the South. However, he considered Director Yeon’s “face” (who has a higher hierarchical status than himself”, so didn’t declined his requests). As many study show East Asians show more concern for maintaining ‘face’. As we also discussed in Thursdays’ class, face is the amount of social value others give you if you live up to the standards associated with your position. Which in this situation, the Director has a higher position, who shows more or has higher “face”, people in lower position should show more respect towards. Somewhat, after their meeting, Chul Young calls up Leader Kang and changes his orders. He demands the leader to send all recordings to NSS and the Blue house (Korean presidential dwell). However, it was already too late, Leader Kang tells him outright that he can’t follow his order, due to Yeon’s order override his.
ReplyDeleteOn the topic of maintaining “face”, contrary to Chul Young, Mi Jung didn’t give a lot of “face” to her superior. Chul Young gave Director Yeon a passive reaction to his intentions of starting a nuclear war. Like Shengjie said, this was due to Chul Young’s consideration of Director Yeon’s “face”. Mi Jung, on the other hand, paid no attention on Sa Woo’s “face” while he was throwing a tantrum after he failed to find Seung Hee. Instead of enduring Sa Woo’s rudeness, Mi Jung talked back at him (who is supposed to be her superior) and said that he is crossing the line. Mi Jung goes against social norms of giving “face” to people of a higher hierarchical status, which adds personality to her already rebellious character.
ReplyDeleteAdding to Shengjie's point of Chul Young respecting Director Yeon's "face" , Chul Young is starting to have second thoughts about Director Yeon. He always respected Director Yeon for his "face" and superiority, but this time he doesn't want to obey his director because it is contrary to his values where he wants a united Korea, and more people to be safe. He finally realized that Director Yeon wasn't on the same page as he is, and is now in a dilemma. His decision could lead him down the same path as either Hyun Joon or Sa Woo, where he could either become a "monster" and "betray" his country for not obeying his superiors, or go against his own values, and obeys his superiors even if they are not doing the right thing. Unfortunately for Chul Young, his relationship with Director Yeon would not be as mutual as the relationship between Baek San and Sa Woo. Baek San knows that Sa Woo is doing all of this for Seung Hee, so he went out of the rules and contacted people from North Korea that are also part of IRIS in order to save her. But for Chul Young, he is just being jerked around like a puppet and would probably be used as a scapegoat if anything fails. Hopefully, Chul Young will stick to his values just like Hyun Joon did, and disregard Director Yeon's "face".
ReplyDeleteIn this episode, I think the biggest scene had to be the one where Hyun Jun is almost beating Seung Hee to death so the North Korean agents don't figure out their relationship. This had to be a huge talk among the viewers when this episode came out in South Korea because it was personally for me, disturbing to watch this type of violence against women since we are taught to treat women with respect and to never harm them. I'm sure that South Korea is very against this too and I am curious whether the viewers of the show had anything to say about this scene. In the director's point of view, the violent act against Seung Hee is okay because of his love for her but I thought that this scene was too graphic and unnecessary. Even after Hyun Jun knocked her unconscious, she was woken up and drugged to tell the truth. During the process, Hyun Jun is at a state where it's so obvious that he is hiding something but no one else notices. So in this scene, it really pushes how much love there is that Hyun Jun has for Seung Hee and like this love connection, I find that there are always fictional love stories in Korean dramas. With all this hype for fictional love stories, I wonder if this has any effect on South Korean people in general.
ReplyDeleteSeung Hee as an Emotional, Romantic Heroine
ReplyDeleteAt the end of episode 12 and the beginning of 13, we find out that Seung Hee has dared herself to go to the terrorist’s secret hideout by herself without informing anyone. Of course, she gets caught by surprise by one of the patrolling terrorists and is brought inside to be questioned and tortured. I was infuriated. Seung Hee’s course of action was mind-blowingly irrational especially of someone her stature. That is why my discussion for this episode will be on how IRIS has decided to portray Seung Hee, not just this episode but over the course of this entire drama, as an emotional and romantic heroine. We can assume for the first few episodes of IRIS that she was not always like this. She was cold and distant to everyone around her, but this abruptly changed when Hyun Jun actively flirted with her and she fell in love. This is the start of her journey as an emotional heroine. From here on out, she loses her appeal as a superior with the way she behaves and conducts work. This unravels even more when Hyun Jun “dies” and she does things out of her authorization and gets in trouble several times. I would go into specifics, but I don’t have the word space for that. I would say that in the event of Seung Hee falling in love, love has inhibited all her rational thoughts as she desperately seeks for that moment to be reunited with Hyun Jun. No matter what the trial is, Seung Hee is willing to break rules for Hyun Jun. By portraying Seung Hee as an emotional and romantic Heroine, IRIS is reinforcing another gender role.
This episode can relate to what we have learned during the language and etiquette lecture which was held this past Thursday. Korea has a complex honorific system in which includes a vertical model of society. People are usually thought of above or below oneself. This system takes place when a Koreans address someone who are either older or has a higher job ranking. They must use correct honorifics to show politeness and respect to someone in a higher position. In this episode, Sa-woo disregard the use of honorifics when talking to his superior, Sang-hyun, twice. Sa-woo allow his emotions to consume him as he is seen raising his voice and shouting when conversing with his boss. He even tries to tell Sang-hyun what to do and cuts the call on him. This is disrespectful behavior by Sa-woo as he shouldn’t be yelling at someone of a higher position.
ReplyDeleteI would like to point out a couple interesting things I observed in this episode on language and etiquette since we covered it in class. First, you can see the president of South Korea and his delegates including Baek San from NSS. It is clear that the president himself who is at the highest rank in the order of the government still using honorifics and polite body language towards his employees. This is not shown in the scene between chul-young and his North Korean commissioner Yeon. Yeon addresses his subordinate Chul-Young with a very aggressive manner much different from the way the South Korean president addressed his subordinates. One can argue that the president of South Korea is going out of his way to be mannered and that the norm of a leader addressing his lower rank officials is to be lax. As we discussed in class, the differences in honorifics is impossible to based off of the language itself. It is more the social relations between the people in a specific social context that allows or disallows people to speak to each other in certain ways. To judge between South Korean president or Commissioner Yeon as to who is speaking in a correct manner is very much debatable and arguable in both ways. Key message is that honorifics should not be simply a study of the words and endings of the language.
ReplyDeleteMelissa, I think you're right, but how can we go beyond summary of the episode and critique of the plot to talk about Korean culture?
ReplyDeleteShengjie, thank you for bringing in some analysis of the hierarchical interactions in this episode.
Karisa, nice short analysis on what makes Mijeong stand out to the viewer. Unfortunately it may be a partial justification (later) for her poor judgment (as you've probably seen by now).
Rachel, nice continuation of the theme
Byeonghan, why wouldn't it effect people to see these improbable love stories? We see self-sacrifice, being able to forgive anything for the sake of ---, and then you'll be over it (even though real people can forgive, but still sometimes get upset about it), and grand gestures. But all societies have these improbable love stories... the ways that they are improbable are culturally determined. So, the real question is how Korean culture determines the types of improbable love stories.
Karen, exactly. Nicely stated.
Donny and Jiyong, thank you for bringing up language here. Yes-- we can see a sort of "good powerful = still mannered" and "bad powerful = unmannered and authoritarian" in the ways the two leaders use language. Contrast with Baek San, who often uses polite language, but switches out sometimes to more clearly show his duplicitousness by showing two faces