Alchemy of Souls - Part 8

This drama repeatedly evokes a false sense of security in the viewers.  Even with the lurking and imminent threat of the Jin Mu army, now to be achieved through his crown prince puppet, we are led toward the altar of happiness with talk of proposals and weddings.  It promises an ending on a high note.  There is a belief that the good guys will win, and that someone will lock Jin Mu in the cave he is hiding in and throw away the key.  Leaving him to be eaten by his own creations, those fearsome soul shifters, would be divine justice well served. 

Not a chance.  No magic internal energy Jang Uk and she who is now permanently Mu-deok plan for a future among the ordinary folk.  Jang Uk grew up that way, so he’s used to it.  Nak-su started off that way, before her family was erased and Jin Mu ‘adopted’ her, so she can cope with it.  They are dizzy with love and the choices they have made.  Now let’s get married is like bells ringing for the viewers.  Whether of joy or as a warning will, no doubt, become clear.   

The relief from the fallout of the palace scandal continues when the densest man in the world of romance tries to give away the woman who has secretly loved him for years.  They have ballroom danced their way to their current situation, mostly with Maidservant Kim leading Park Jin by the hand, ear, or nose.  Clearly, it was all wasted.  He is a fool so much in love he is willing to gift her a house and a puppy to celebrate her marriage to another man.  He is the leader of Songrim but can’t work his way out of a paper bag when it comes to romance.  Too late.  Just too late, is Maidservant Kim’s refrain as she gives up and storms off.  Ahhh!  He gets it now.  She had to write it in kindergarten script and shout it out, but he understands, at last.  Neither age nor political authority, clearly, have any bearing on stupidity.  We are disbelieving witnesses to this man’s unbelievable lack of emotional insight.  Watching him banging his head repeatedly against the wall should have drawn empathy from the viewers.  Instead, the laughter at Park Jin’s expense is cruel but satisfying. Made more so by the belief that, now his eyes are open, he will (eventually) get his girl.

At the End

Bliss is sharing your love for one another with the world.  Surprisingly but unsurprisingly, Maidservant Substitute Mother Kim takes it well.  After all, whatever her boy wants, he gets.  What he wants is Mu-deok.  That’s good enough for her.  It requires a shift in the dynamics of the relationship, an equalling of status between the two women.  That’s refreshing; it’s good.  If only getting the engagement ring could go as smoothly.  Sadly, finding that each ring Jang Uk selects has been chosen before for a previous ‘fiancée’ should have been embarrassing. Repeated sideward glances at Mu-deok. Jang Uk’s past hilariously comes back to haunt him as he runs the gauntlet of ex-fiancées at the jewellery stall.  We’ll have this one.  Julia’s.  That one.  Margot’s… and on.  It is amusing to Jang Uk.  Less so for Mu-deok, who walks away in a huff. Or maybe she’s embarrassed at being number …14?  15?  He reassures her that none of them meant anything to him.  They were business transactions in his endeavour to have his gate of energy opened, which they all failed to do.  This proposal, he assures Mu-Deok, is from his heart.  It is the real thing. Never slow, Jang Uk’s answer to his number of past fiancées is to hold Mu-deok’s hand tightly.  It's the only ring they need, he convinces her.  He’s full of charm, and the discord between them is fleeting.  The future looks bright.  They make a lovely couple.

Soon after, in a disappointing storyline for poor Mu-deok, they make it all too easy to pop her bubble of happiness.  Not even a chance to enjoy her time as a fiancée.  No time to even pick that elusive engagement ring.  When Mu-deok talked happily about changing her fate, she didn’t expect it to reverse her fortunes. 

It was a mistake when Crown Prince Go Won told his master about Jang Uk’s lost internal energy that he was in on the secret of the fake claim about being the King’s Star benefactor.  In so doing, he inadvertently laid out the path to the destruction of his two best friends.  Go Won even reminds Jin Mu that Jin Woo-tak, his partner in crime against his own daughter, is alive and will give evidence against him once he recovers.  Telling Jin Mu to give himself up to save Go Won from having to do it is a coward’s way out.  Instead, Jin Mu is quick to return to scheming.  If Jang Uk has no power, it will be safe to attack him and kill Nak-su, whom he now feels sure is really Mu-deok.  First, he has to kill his fellow sorcerer, Jin Woo-tak, brother of Shaman Choi, and husband of Jin Ho-gyeong, leader of House Jinyowon.  Otherwise, the evidence connecting him directly to the Choi siblings will unquestionably damn him.

Why disappointing for Mu-deok?  Because in one fell swoop, she becomes a fully-fledged soul shifter running wild.  All it took were a few bells and a big spell cast by Jin Mu; both of which he learnt from Shaman Choi.  The bells the viewers were imagining are not these ones.  And the altar Mu-deok will lead Jang Uk to can only be one of death if Jin Mu’s plan works.  Intending to use Nak-su hiding inside Mu-deok’s body as a test run ahead of his army being let loose against the world is the strategy.  It’s way too easy.  No art in his scheme.  Frustrating for the viewer. 

With just a little black-magic powder and a tinkle from the bells, Mu-deok turns savage.  She’s back to being Nak-su and Jin Mu’s puppet.  No sooner do the lovebirds promise eternal happiness to one another, Nak-su runs wild and, thereby, towards petrification.  First, she’s in a trance, during which Jin Mu rachets up her magical powers, transforming it to assassin mode.  She’s again a killing machine on sorcery steroids.  First strike is against Jin Mu’s co-conspirator, Jin Woo-tak.  As Nak-su, no one can stop her.  The murderous rampage has started. 

Tight-lipped disappointment. Slow breathing in frustration.  Head-hanging shame at the lack of plot creativity.

Still, there is a little way to go, and patience is a virtue, is it not? The storyline is clearly set up to lead into the next chapter of the drama, so hope springs eternal, so to speak. 

Actually, we’ve run out of time.

The wasted opportunity to have these two supreme mages unit to fight evil is criminal.

The drama ends as it began.  Nak-su against the best mages of Songrim.  Except, this is Mu-deok with power attained through sorcery.   Or is it Nak-su?  As before, the combined skill of the best mages fails to stop her.  This time there’s Jang Uk.  Only he has no magical prowess.  Can their love break the spell?  It does.  After she kills him.  Mu-deok stabs Jang Uk with her sword.  Jang Uk understands what is happening and doesn’t want to survive the fallout, doesn’t want to live without Mu-deok.  He holds her hand and forces her to push the sword in his chest to the hilt.  He cannot now be saved.  His last breaths are used to call her name: Mu-deok.  Mu-deok. Over and over again.  He’s really calling out to Nak-su. Holding tightly to her hand, his fingers interlocked with her petrifying fingers, his voice briefly penetrates the trance.  It’s too late.  Jang Uk, who loved Nak-su more than life itself, has died at her hand.  Even as he holds her in a tight embrace, both understand that Mu-deok’s, too, will soon perish. 

The last we see of Nak-su is at a cliff overlooking the graveyard for soul shifters.  She’s taken back the identity of Nak-su.  This is the place her father’s body lies, in the depth of Lake Gyeongcheondaeho, and now she will join him.  It’s fitting that the lake that gives life also reclaims that life at death.  But it’s ironic that only the bodies of soul shifters go home to rest.  Jumping off the cliff, Nak-su sinks slowly towards her final home. Jang Uk?  With knowledge of his relationship with a soul shifter becoming commonly known, he is not allowed a traditional funeral.  The man who sacrificed himself for the better good of his fellow citizens is shunned and insulted in death.  His body is cremated in the public square -- a further insult.  But this is Jang Uk we are talking about.  He who would be king holds the destiny of ruling both among the stars and on earth.  More importantly, he houses the Ice Stone over his heart.  There must be a reason for that. 

So, like a phoenix out of the ashes rises Jang Uk.  From the depths of Lake Gyeongcheondaeho rises Nak-su. As power couples go, these two are undefeatable and, hopefully, are coming back for revenge.

A Family Affair

The father was responsible for its beginning.  The son was responsible for its ending. 

It was Jang Gang, the assumed father of Jang Uk, that discovered the sorcery capability of the artifact that has the power of the sky. That knowledge wasn’t exclusive to Jang Gang, but he was the first to exploit the capabilities of the Ice Stone. It was a discovery that he lived to regret. Ironically, the Ice Stone ends up with the son whose internal energy enabling him to do magic was sealed shortly after his birth.  As much as Jang Gang was the most proficient magician of his time, his (assumed) sort of non-biological but otherwise image-perfect son came to wield the same control over the same artifact.  Following closely in his father’s magical footsteps, Jang Uk is set, it seems, to become the greatest mage that has ever lived.  Fate and Destiny. Neither can be denied simply by wishing it gone.   One must hope that Jang Uk uses that greatness differently to his father.

Jang Uk.  Headstrong.  Righteous.  Arrogant.  Also caring, astute, and insightful.  Patient. Compassionate.  When you hear again and again that he only does what he wants to do, you are put on alert as to the driving force behind this King’s Son.  Is this to suggest he is portraying his noble birth?  Is it identifying traits Jang Uk just happens to embody?  Is the drama suggesting that, born under the King’s star, his destiny is determined because he is a royal son? Or is his destiny reflective of the life bestowed upon him to ensure what is determined for him is realised?  Perhaps his fated early existence was specifically for the purpose of preparing Jang Uk for the greater hardships ahead of him.  The one who eventually hosts the Ice Stone with the full force of the energy of the sky within his body can’t be just anyone, nor could just anyone cope with the burden of carrying it.  There is an expression that says we are only fated with what we can cope with.  No one so burdened will agree.  But the fact is that few people die from the burden of existing, even if, at the time, they expected it to kill them.  Instead, they generally became stronger, more resilient, wiser, and able to achieve at levels an ordinary life could never enable. The drama introduces our hero as living a lonely, miserable life, until another similarly lonely, abandoned individual appears.  They recognise one another’s souls, recognise their mutual need, and they cling to one another for dear life -- literally. 

There is a lot of soul-shifting, petrifying, and murder in this drama. None are new as themes. But happily, the real story is about a boy, and then man, who defies those who would change his fate by force, as well as those who would deny him the destiny bestowed upon him by the stars.  It’s also about whether the coincidences of crossed paths can be viewed as contributing to one’s fate, or if their presence is, in fact, fate itself.  When Jang Uk and Mu-deok meet, there is an immediate shift in their respective expectations of what the future holds for them.  That they mutually become both master and subordinate is appropriate.  Each holds the fate of the other in their hand, but not their destiny.  That, as we come to see at the end, cannot be changed.  “Alchemy of Souls” is at its heart a love story, or rather, three love stories spun around people who are closely connected through friendship or family.  It is, too, about the decency of those whose love is unrequited, whose desires are unrealised. 

Where the drama truly excels is that those disappointments are not used to trivialise what are otherwise decent characters with pure intentions.  Not getting what one wants is a lesson even kindergarten children learn.  Yet, it seems to be forgotten by too many adults.  It was nice to see friendship, loyalty, and duty trump selfish desire.  Of significance was that the concept of agency was played so well.  We can all freely choose what happens in any given situation.  That’s despite the part others play in framing the future drawn for us by the web of paths that connect us.  In particular, Crown Prince Go Won could have been portrayed as someone only interested in possessing things and others based on his status.  Instead, under the influence of the two people he claims to hate the most, he matures, learns to ‘share’, learns how to make friends.  Jang Uk.  Mu-deok.  Each possesses qualities he admires.  Their influence interrupts Jin Mu’s ultimate intention to hold the future king hostage through misplace loyalty, blackmail, and remorse over past decisions.

With Seo Yul, too, feelings for Nak-su are separate from that for Mu-deok.  Nak-su is the love in his memory and the only one he wishes he had been brave enough to pursue in his youth.  Although he separates the soul shifter from the maid, still, Seo Yul’s naturally compassionate nature preferred to save them both rather than kill both to destroy one of them.  An honourable man, he chooses to suffer in silence over the guilt he feels at having left a young Nak-su, the abandoned orphan, to fend for herself in a remote and dangerous valley instead of bringing her into the safety of his world.  It’s a past shame that leads him to betray his oath as a mage to destroy all soul shifters.  Given a second chance, Seo Yul wants to make up for his mistake by trying to protect Nak-su, even in her disguise as someone else.  He understands, too, the need of his friend, Jang Uk, for the maid who is instrumental in releasing him from the torture that had been his existence up to the point she enters his life.  They belong together, and he does what he can to facilitate that.

Ultimately, the success of “Alchemy of Souls”, for me, was the ability to turn a potential nightmare into a comedy with romance.  I accepted the highly creative soul shifting theme as an antagonist and as a concept to drive the plot of the drama.  There was nothing to worry about; none of it felt remotely real.  Maybe the promised Part 2 of this drama will ratchet up the scream fest.  I hope not.  Even though the sadness of watching both our heroes die made me pout, I nonetheless pondered on what, then, to expect going forward in Alchemy of Souls: Light and Shadow.[1] It has a lot to live up to.  It has been given promise with the resurrection of Jang Uk as the physical embodiment of the Ice Stone, and with Nak-su seen being raised from the giver of life, Lake Gyeongcheondaeho.  The viewers have been given hope of a happy ending, after all.  Otherwise, why raise the dead?

To close, I could have provided episode numbers, but decided it wasn’t necessary in this case, at least for this drama.  Rather, I invite you to binge watch Alchemy of Souls [2].  They say it’s a choice between love or money.  Be assured, you will feel richer for having given your heart to Jang Uk.

Leonora

asiandramaobserver@gmail.com

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[1] Alchemy of Souls: Light & Shadow. Screenplay by Hong Jang-eun and Hong Mi-ran; Director, Park Joon-hwa;  www.netflix.com/watch/81608518

[2] Alchemy of Souls. Screenplay by Hong Jang-eun and Hong Mi-ran; Director, Park Joon-hwa;  www.netflix.com/watch/81608518