King’s Daughter: Episode 32 – The portrait of a royal family

Episode 31 ended with the King telling Jinmu that his father loves him very much.  More than anything in the world.  More than dreams, more than life.

HIGHLIGHTS

Jinmu:  What is good with the love of a dead man?  A love I never saw, never felt.

Muryeong:  Nothing matters other than wine and women?  Is there nothing else you care about?  If your father were alive, what would you do with him?

Jinmu:  If he were alive I would want to play Jopo with him.  A board was made for me. It is a game for 2 players.  Playing alone is no fun.

Muryeong:  Let us play.  You have never really enjoyed Go.  If you like Jopo, then let us play Jopo.

Jinmu leaves Muryeong’s pavilion with Hongrim.  Jinmu wonders to Hongrim if the King is about to kill that is why he is being kind to Jinmu. LOL

Jinmu:  I wasn’t allowed in the palace as a child.  He treated me like a beggar.  Not only that.  Any time the Crown Prince sent for me, I was ushered out and sent on my way.  Now he wants to play a board game?

Hongrim:  We had uprisings in 614 and 639. Both times the resistance tried to use you.  If the King had acted kindly toward you it might have been worse.  He has gone to great pains to protect you.

Jinmu:  Yon Dalsol (Dalsol is a court title) was the one who protected me.

Hongrim:  Yon Dalsol wouldn’t have been able to do so without the King’s help.  You should know that.  As things are, the rebels are gone and you have no use for them.  The King wants to see more of you.  Prince Jinmu, embrace what you are being given.  It may be the King will let you back into the palace.

Jinmu:  Did I ever say I wanted that?

Jinmu attributes the King’s change in attitude to him as the King getting old/senile.  But the next day Jinmu decides to accept the King’s invitation to play Jopo with him.  Yon Dalsol catches him wrapping the Jopo board in cloth.

Yon:  Playing a game with Yung makes you very happy?

Jinmu:  Happy?  It is just funny that the old King wants to play a board game.

Yon:  You need watching.  Talking to your enemy’s daughter.  Playing games with him.

Jinmu is happily on his way to the palace when he is stopped by the husband of a woman he had an affair with.  He tries to talk his way out of the situation but the angry husband ordered his minions to get Jinmu.  The King waits for Jinmu.  An aide arrives and reported to Hongrim that Jinmu was in a fight at the market.  Hongrim reluctantly reports this to the King.

Muryeong:  I see.  A game with me can’t compare.

By the time Jinmu arrives, the King has fallen asleep already.  Jinmu leaves word with Hongrim to tell the King that he will return the next day.

NEXT

Myeong Nong reports to the King that Soo Baek Hyang (SBH) would like to have a family portrait drawn.  The King agrees to this.  Myeong Nong further reports…

Myeong Nong:  We are scouring the village near where SBH lived.  We are bound to find someone that remembers something.  Sire, allow me to go look for SBH’s enemies and ease your mind.

Muryeong:  You have always been a good son to me.  Do I deserve it?

Myeong Nong:  It is my duty, Sire.

NEXT

Myeong Nong goes to SBH pavilion.  He sees her reading a book, the Dhammapada (we have to take note of this as they might come into play in a future episode.)  He asks her what her what her favourite verse is.

Seolhee:  If a man’s heart is pure, so too shall the world be around him.  (What an irony!)

Myeong Nong then informs SBH that the King has agreed to her request that a family portrait be drawn.  Myeong Nong tells her to choose her outfit as they will sit for the portrait on that very day.  Before leaving, Myeong Nong also tells SBH that they may soon be able to catch the people who attacked her village that resulted in the death of her family.

NEXT

The King, Queen, Myeong Nong and SBH gather at a room in the palace to sit for the Royal Family portrait.

Jinmu arrives again at the palace with his Jopo board.  Upon reaching the King’s quarters Hongrim tells him that the Royal family is having their portrait drawn.  Jinmu peeks in to the room and sees everyone seems to be happy.

Jinmu tells Hongrim that he will wait a bit, but Hongrim tells him to join the family.  Jinmu declines, saying that it is not his place.  Hongrim insists, and goes in to the room.  Hongrim informs the King that Jinmu has arrived and asks if Jinmu could join them.

Queen:  This is really just for immediate family.  Right, Princess?

Myeong Nong:  Queen, Jinmu is the late King’s son and like a brother to me.  Please.

Muryeong:  The Queen is right.  It is not his place.  Tell him to wait.

Jinmu hears the King’s words outside and looks very sad.  He peeks into the room again and sees that everyone is still happy.  Jinmu leaves the King’s pavilion.  He is so hurt by what he heard that he dropped the Jopo board which breaks apart when it hit the ground.

NEXT

Yon asks Jinmu why he has become so quiet since leaving the palace.

Jinmu:  You said it yourself.  I only act like I want to kill Yung. But I don’t really.  You may have been right.  Maybe I didn’t want him dead.  Maybe I didn’t hate Myeong Nong.  Maybe I just wanted to come between him and Myeong Nong.  Actually, I am not interested in the throne.

Yon:  Now the truth comes out.  I thought as much.  I knew it.  Learn greed.  Learn ambition.

Jinmu:  I have been watching Yung.  I have seen the burden of rule, how it wears on him.  Worried that rains will bring floods.  Worried that no rain will bring drought.  No rest, not ever.  I have seen it myself.  Who would wish that for himself?

Yon:  So, now you are giving up?

Jinmu:  No.  Quite the opposite.  I have decided.  They took my father, left me alone in the world.  While they laugh among themselves.  The sight of it made me sick.  Yes, I have come to truly hate him.  I want to ruin him.  How would we go about it?  We’ll destroy what he loves the most.  And pay him back for taking my father from me.

Yon:  What he loves most?

Jinmu:  SBH.

Yon gets mad again because he thinks this is just another of Jinmu’s excuses to get near to the King by way of getting close to SBH.  Yon leaves Jinmu angrily.

Jinmu (to self):  SBH is a fraud.  The woman living in the royal pavilion is not SBH.  The real SBH is either dead or alive somewhere.  So the fake SBH has given me my excuse.

NEXT

The portraitist hands over to the King postcard-sized drawings of Jinmu.  The portraitist comments that the King’s devotion to his nephew is very commendable.  The King replies that that is the only way he can have Jinmu near him.

Later the King lays on the table the other postcard-sized drawings of Jinmu that he has been keeping in a box.  These small drawings show Jinmu at various stages of his life as he goes about various activities.  As he looks at Jinmu’s pictures, the King whispers to himself that he is proud of his Jinmu. Btw, this is portraitist is the one who helped Jinmu fix Muryeong’s portrait which Seolhee marred in an earlier episode.  Recall that Jinmu told Seolhee that this portraitist have been drawing portraits of him since he was a child.  So the drawings were meant for the King, after all.

THOUGHTS

I still don’t buy the King’s reasons for sending Jinmu to live outside the palace.  And after watching the episode with English subtitles and finding out how the King treated Jinmu while he was growing up, arrrghhh, I can’t understand him even more.

Toward the last part he tells Jinmu’s pictures that he is proud of his son.  If he truly is, why doesn’t he tell Jinmu that?  He can still show pride and love for Jinmu as a nephew without endangering either Myeong Nong and Jinmu.  I really cannot understand this father.

I think the prophecy’s moniker for the King as the “foolish bunting” is an apt name for him.  There he is the King of Baekje, supposedly the most powerful man in the kingdom.  And yet there he is a sad, old man who can’t even tell his own son how much he loves him.

I do not know if the writers intended for the viewers to pity the King, but I, for one, can’t summon any sympathy for him.

And this man (see picture below), I don’t like the way he looks at our Crown Prince every time my Myeong Nong does something filial.  It is as if he is doubting the Crown Prince’s every word and action when Myeong Nong have always been consistent in his show of love and support for his so-called father.

On top of that he is too presumptuous.  If he had not presumed that the King would allow Jinmu to join the family portrait drawing, then Jinmu wouldn’t have to hear the King’s painful words.

I know that Jinmu is pitiful because of his circumstances, but I cannot totally pity him because as a viewer I know that in this world, there is at least someone (Muryeong) who truly cares for him as only a parent can do, even if Jinmu may not be aware of it.

On the other hand, Myeong Nong may seem to have everything in this world.  A father who is proud of him, wealth, power, a position waiting for him.  And yet as a viewer I know that if something truly dire happens to the Crown Prince, no one would worry over him as only a true parent would do.  That makes my heart ache just thinking about it.

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Credit:  Photos from gall.dcinside.com/hyunjae