The Great Seer Ep.17&18

The Great Seer officially ended it's run today 02/07/2013. It's been a rough road for them. From dismal viewer ratings (starting and ending in single digits), to production problems. Even before the show started, there was problems with funding. It was supposed to be 50 episodes, but got cut down to 36, and eventually later got cut down 1 more episode, ending it at 35.  I've thought of giving up on it, because  I didn't bother picking it up for a while, but I thought about it and continued to stick with it (hopefully). I mean, I kind of feel I had to support this show someway seeing how much trouble the production and cast had. In a way, I sort of felt bad for them. The actors in particular, they were a great cast with great potential. Unfortunately, I do agree that their talent was wasted with a draggy script. 

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Episode 17

Yin, but no Yang

 So it turns out these creepy woman are all widows and they kidnapped Ji Sang because they needed a male to continue the family line. Moohak exclaims " that's why there was so much Yin" energy and no "Yang" (men). Moohak pushes Ji Sang to solve the problem.

Formation of the Evil Crew

 

Ban Ya has officially joined forces with the E.P (Evil Priestess) and as her first act of loyalty points out that there's a snitch inside the house and E.P calls forth the loyal servant serving Bong Choon...and what happens after, we all can guess.

Husband's a douchebag, so poor Queen suffers

 The sad, naive Queen Noguk, obliviously walks into the tiger's den and thanks the E.P for helping her *ack*. She is given a cup of poison probably and is left to writhe around in pain, left alone....

 And on the other hand, her husband is spending time with another woman. Wow. How really pitiful.

The King hears of the Queen's condiiton and calms her down telling her that the baby is fine, lying to console her. (While I'm here cursing my brains out at him). She feels assured with her husband's words and tells him to take care of the 'baby'...and dies in his arms.

A salute to the Queen that could never give birth even if she sincerely tried. She never deserved this.

 

The King is grieving in his room, but the next scene shows him all happy after hearing that Ban Ya is pregnant with his son. Well, I'm sure Queen Noguk is going to jump out of her grave any moment to strangle this guy. He gives the creepy monk full power in politics. Wow, just...this man can never cease to make me shake my head in shame.

Let's get this off my chest shall we? King Gongmin. A real-character in history  that did exist and a character I first came across while watching "Faith". They certainly did kind of "glorify" him in that drama and I'd say some credit goes to Ryu Deok Hwan for being so charismatic and for showing that love and affection to the woman he only loved, Noguk. But here, it's totally different! I know the stories are told differently to fit the storyline, but he was a total douchebag in here! So if you want to see a better King Gongmin then watch Faith, and if you want to watch Great Seer, skip all of Gongmin's parts if you dont want to shake your head in shame. So what can I conclude about Gongmin, knowing a bit of history and watching these shows?

He wasn't that great.

With that being said, this show is probably going to follow history closely and Gongmin shall be assassinated soon...

Search for a Teacher

 Lee Sung Gye decides to start 'studying' and tries to find a suitable teacher, but none of them talk in 'normal' language. He remembers Moo Hak and decides he is the one.

The Map

I've got to say, Jung Geun is very lucky at 'listening' on to information that is important to him. I mean, he just so happens to be everywhere at the right time. This time, he overhears Ji Young and Hyo Myung talking about the Ja Mi Won map Dong Yoon left behind. Yes professors , let's talk out in the open about an oh- so -important secret.

 Betrayal

 Poor Bong Choon. She's basically been discared by Ban Ya because she's useless to her now. Ban Ya's going to spend time at her son's 'godmother's' place now. So scoot!

Ban Ya gives birth to a son much to the King's delight and the Priestess arranges a meeting between creepy monk and Lee In Im, stating that for the Monk to succeed, he needs a helper. He hesitates at first, but Lee In Im persists that he can always back out on them since he knows of their evil deeds...

Creepy Monk adheres and breaks the news to Bong Choon. Oh! Second shockwave! I don't know if she can handle anymore betrayal. She insists that the E.P is not someone they should join alliances but they don't listen...

Ah well, greater loss for them. Time for Bong Choon to join the other crew now!

We Are Merely Hunting Dogs

King Useless hands over all political matters to a monk. Yes, a monk. And as suggested by Lee In Im, he gets rid of the great general, Choi Young, giving him a measly magistrate title. Lee Sung Gye laments that they are just hunting dog's of the King's and brings up something. What if Choi Young were to be master? Lee Sung Gye would be glad to help, but Choi Young understands the meaning behind his words and stays silent...

Let's not Kill People, but Save Them Now

Lee Sung Gye sets off to find his 'teacher' and meets up at the temple. The two have a little conversation, a spark that will soon set a fire.

Yes, rebellion!!!

Episode 18

So this was the time (and episode 19) where the issue of the actors not getting paid arose and where viewers started seeing choppy plots and I really did see it in here. Especially with the time jump of 5 years. I think one of the reasons this drama kind of failed was the build up to the actual 'plot', overthrowing the Goreyo dynasty and making the Joseon, was not carried out well. I thought they especially wasted time on the childhood part (what, was it 8 episodes or something? I'm sure viewers would have lost interest by then). Okay, back to the episode.

Divine Eyes and a Kiss

So Ji Sang promises King Useless to find Ja Mi Won in order to save his mom and he gets a 5 year limit. Moohak becomes his 'teacher' and trains him to open up his divine eyes. Skip 5 years and he's a pro at looking at mountains and seeing animals around them. He finally decides to go back to the palace to save his mom, but without Ja Mi Won because he hasn't found it yet.

I try to make myself believe in Hae In and Ji Sang's 'love' but it's kind of hard to when they've never really had special moments together. They just sorta happened, and in that aspect I can't bring myself to think they are in love. But anyway, he tells her he's leaving to the palace and she doesn't want him to because he might get beheaded, but oh well, he has to save his mom. Then they kiss.

The Fall of Shin Don

 

The H.P and Lee In Im feel the Creepy monk will be an obstacle in the future so they decide to carry out their plans to get rid of him. And what better to do then to use a lady to seduce him. They succeed and he's killed on orders of the King.

Shin Don, was actually a real figure in history and he did 'try' and help Goryeo with his own 'ways', but it didn't end up so well as we can see.

One great thing about K-dramas especially saegaks is that I get interested in Korean history. I think, how did this differ from real history? And, what were the real figures like? (because obviously for drama purposes, historical figures are not properly represented as they were.)

Shin Don doesn't seem like such a big character in this drama and they certainly don't emphasize on him, but he was quite important in history. MBC also produced a drama about Shin Don in 2005.(You know he's great when he gets picked to be the main character of a Kdrama!)

An excerpt from Korean History Project (great site by the way for reference if you watch saeguks with real historical people) nicely summarizes who and what Shin Don was.

King Kongmin chose an obscure Buddhist monk to administer his reform program, a man with no connections to either the military or the powerful families. P'yonjo, whose name later changed to Sin Ton, not only held the government's highest clerical post, but had the requisite power and authority necessary to carry out the reform process. The appointment may have been made to make reform work with less conflict, but Sin Ton went about his work with far too much vigor. He soon instituted a wholesale reorganization and reestablishment of royal authority and bureaucratic government. With Kongmin's consent, Sin Ton created a special agency for land reform and placed himself at its head. He then proceeded to return lands and slaves seized by the powerful families to their original owners and in many cases actually set slaves free. It did not take long for Sin Ton's actions to become the target of aristocratic landlords who saw him as a direct threat to their power and wealth.

A minority class of large landowners, deposed aristocrats and military officials who greatly benefited from the Mongol presence in Koryo were not at all pleased by the Mongols' departure. Upset over their future prospects without Mongol support, they joined to form the core of a strong, conservative faction opposed to reforms. The focus of the pro-Mongol faction's anger was King Kongmin's reform leader, Sin Ton. In 1371, under a cloud of trumped up charges that he wasted state funds on Buddhist ceremonies, they orchestrated his banishment from government. Soon after removing the Buddhist monk from office, Sin Ton's opponents quietly murdered him.

Lee Sung Gye, a Change

Given that Lee Sung Gye is the 'main' character of the story, the writers haven't really given him much screentime. But Ji Jin Hee is amazing at portraying Lee Sung Gye with such little he has. In fact, I personally think the whole drama is staying afloat because of him.  Especially in scenes like this one where Lee In Im is here to tread the waters and see what Lee Sung Gye is up to and then decides to humilate him by pouring him an overflowing cup. He resists at getting angry (something he would have done immediatly long ago) but turns humiliation into a joke. I can't imagine anyone else portraying these emotions better than Ji Jin Hee.

Find the Prince

Ji Sang volunteers to find the Prince with his 'seer' abilities and of course to save himself from getting beheaded. This entails a chase around the country with everyone searching for the Prince. Especially Jung Geun who wants to find him more than anyone else because he doesn't want Ji Sang to live (whoever finds the Prince first gets rewarded).

So they're asking a maid questions and Ji Sang with his great detective skills notices her hair pin and gets information that a good-looking merchant has been selling them stuff. He asks her to describe her and infers from facial features and characteristics that the 'person' has a 'warm face' and is a woman. Further more, they're probably at a wooded place...and furthermore that the place they're at is at the position of the mother rat who's hiding from the tiger and another animal. Why do I mention this part? Maybe because I'm not as educated with all this 'feng-shui' ability. I often find myself feeling its a bit ridiculous that they can pinpoint somebody's wherabouts just by asking about how someone looks and connecting them to woods...then looking at animals. But, we can't rule out that this knowledge is true and reliable especially since the ancient civilizations were very very very smart in these areas (astronomy, math, geography). It's just that, watching a drama and seeing it all happen kinda makes it cheesy.

 It's kind of intense at this part where Ji Sang and Jung Geun are so close to finding the prince, you wonder who will find him first and if they'll escape in time. But with the help of Ji Sang's good-for-nothing 'father' Jung Geun steps in to take away the prince, and feeling relieved about kicking Ji Sang away for good...

 And then the satisfying moment comes when Lee Sung Gye and his crew trod in to stop him from doing so. I love how Hae In is also here and is a kind of 'restraint' for Jung Geun to do anything bad to Ji Sang.

King Gongmin and Jajewi (the boy bodyguards)

If you had yourself scratching your head at the intimate interaction with King Gongmin and his bodyguard, you are not alone. Prior to watching this, I only knew of King Gongmin when I watched Faith and this show. I had absolute zero knowledge of who they exactly were. I first thought Gongmin was a pretty okay guy while watching Faith. Then I watched "The Great Seer" and totally changed opinions. THEN I finally started researching more about him. So once this scene showed, I typed in "King Gongmin..." in google and the first word that trailed after that (the most searches made) was "King Gongmin gay"

So apparently a lot of people are interested in this aspect of Gongmin. So I wanted to know a bit more that explained his behaviour in that particular scene and came across a blog

King Kongmin created a body called the Jajewi that brought handsome boys into the royal court. It’s said the king enjoyed engaging in homosexual sex with the boys everyday, and that he once engaged in group sex in the royal bed chamber.

King Kongmin overdrank and occasionally beat the boys. He also gave out awards and punishments as he pleased. He did not send the boys on vacations as stipulated in regulations. The boys would fight with one another for the king’s affection and grow jealous, and dissatisfaction grew over the violence and vacations not given.

One day, King Kongmin was lying in the royal bed chamber drunk. About six our seven of the boys of the Jajewientered the bed chamber and stabbed the king with knives. His reforms unfulfilled, the king died in the prime of his life at the age of 45. His absorption into homosexual fornication might have been due to an abnormal mentality trying to fill in the emptiness in his heart.

So in short, King Gongmin fell into a delusional state after Princess Noguk's death and engaged in homosexual behaviour. The good-looking guard here by Gongmin is actually someone named Hong Ryun, the King's closest one.

So...King Gongmin's image in my head right now...is kind of messed up.

Still intrigued by Gongmin? Then learn more about him here.

Bong Choon: Danger

Lee Sung Gye escorts Bong Choon to his camp and brings her to Moohak. Here she spills the beans on the E.P and Lee In Im's evil doings and the 3 discuss on whether or not they should tell the King. Well they obviously don't know how 'delusional' the King has fallen, so I suggest they shouldn't. But Bong Choon offers to see the King and tell him the truth.

On the other side, E.P and Lee In Im hear that Bong Choon is with Lee Sung Gye.

Ohhhhhh crap. They think, she's the one that knows everything!

So they say "we must kill Lee Sung Gye" (pfft, like how many times have you failed at that?). More than Lee Sung Gye, I have a feeling Bong Choon will be the one to die...