I have a thing for second leads since the advent of sevvy watching dramas. I would rather not tell you the history of it, because "cough" that is rather embarassing. Like Rant Numero Uno, this is stemmed from watching something, maybe as early on as Cunning Single Lady which introuced me to the rather charmin Guk Sung hyun. But I gave up on that show befor it disappoints me any further. Haha.

But there is certainly something wrong with the mould of story line where good men are treated as side dishes, and consider the fixer-upper as the main dish. I have always found main leads temperemental and insanely selfish. Second leads, on the other hand, are usually the perfect good guy (or the textured interesting gray guy, side eyes Park Hae Jin).

HI, Hae Jin. HIIII.

But Doctor Stranger aside (I mean, that show has issues! But Jae Joon was pretty cool, but he was evil so I don't think he works well in this post.), Hae Jin has filled the second lead shoes in his previous project in My Love from the Stars, and on point to point basis, Hae Jin could easily competed with Do-manager.

Hae Jin's character, Lee Hi  Kyung, is rich, kind and loyal... not to mention his nose arch is to die for patient, trusting, etc. etc. but he is brushed aside for someone who treats lead girl horrendously in the beginning. Now, I have no qualms about the original pairing of Song Yi and Min Joon. I think the thing about relationship is the choice to love a person, and I guess, it's seldom rational. While this show has questionable message (example: Are women waiting to be saved? Are women waiting for this love that comes from the stars (idealism)? Is fate so binding that we can not make choices of our own? To choose the person who is actually good for us?) Now am I combatting with this incredibly Eastern concept of Fate?

Soul Mates?

The romantic notion of destiny?

The fate of second leads to be dashed and doused while fate decides to pee on them?

I think I should tell you that I am writing this with my feminist on, and it is on a terrible bunch. And I hate everyone who use " on a bunch" like women are being shamed of wearing , and they do sometimes bunch... and for the hated implication of men receiving this comment and thinking it means they are being a girl like being a girl is bad. :/ I hate you all.

But yeah, every rom com out there I've watched because I like fluffy feelings, because my default is reading about morbid things and traversing the twisted roads of morality and philosophy. Love is a feel good drug, and is considered by some as the most proliferate mental illness. Yes. A mental illness because you can do some crazy when you're in love or in that zone when you think you are... but really sometimes, I think love is merely our delusions of grandeur... I guess there is a psychopath in all of us.

But I like love, you know, I still think I'm normal. And I have taken the second lead role, once or twice or thrice, I'm not going to lie.And I am unsure if this is coming because I'm older, but the practicality of feelings come in to play. When I was younger, I pursued every romantic whims I had. It was self-serving. Every relationship was a romantic conquest of bending someone's will and making them cry "uncle" except it's actually the cornier "i like you" blech. You may hurl in your nearest trash can. But these conquests are nothing but dragons slayed and I'm off to another heroics before the carcass goes cold. In parallel with Kdramas is the male lead's passion, and the female lead's... I guess that's what relationships are, a conquest of each other.

See Do-manager who thought of Song Yi was a loud, arrogant prat and recognized his "feelings" after some jealous stint and compelled heroism. I wonder if that is love? You know protectiveness, and kindness to that special someone. But then would that require a person to be apathetic in the first place to be capable of love? What if you're nice to everyone? Would that mean you have spread love so thin you can't even taste it anymore?

I try to get back to the point. The novel was first written sometime in the 18th century when stories are mass produced and the public was the audience. Now think who has time to read during those times? Women. Because women stay at home, and take on every fancy. Romance genre springs up and flourishes, because at that time women have only one permissible dream which is to marry well. Women can't dream of becoming anything but a wife. You can even see that in fairy tales, from Cinderella who needs to marry a prince to get out of familial slavery, to snow white who is an actual victim of familial murder.

This strikes me as well, the villainess. Notice that in the earlier forms of stories that the lead woman is pitted against another woman who are insisted to be jealous of the only trait of a woman to be worth anything which is beauty.

Okay, so that attempt to getting back to the point drew out some feminist inquiries. OTL

But yes, the press, as in the more root expression of it and the modern meaning, the media tells the consumers of romance, which is still largely holders of the xx chromosome, or women if you want to be lame about it, that love is flying off the handle and completely irrational. That it is not kindness we want from a kind guy, but special treatment from someone, at the worst, apathetic and rude, at the least, emotionally crippled.

Now while, I am an emotional cripple and hooray for my disability being considered an ideal <333. I would wonder if love can be logical.

Sure, logic sounds utterly boring, but then again, the romantic notion of loving with all your heart is not only corny, but totally untrue. We love with our heads, our brains, and when we love, we think of it, even when it is haphazard thinking.

I have always considered myself unromantic, (no, do not base my romance stories to my personality. seriously), but still I am in a ten year relationship to someone I love with all my head, and blood, and hormones.

Have you ever thought of that thing media keeps imposing on us: You do not choose the person you love.

But I did. Ten years ago, I dated habbu with the flimsiest conviction of actually staying with him, then exboyfriend comes back and expresses his interest of being together (make that 2 exes) and while I want to tell you that my love for habbu was epically strong and unwavering that isn't quite true. My exes are extremely good looking and well, they are from the male lead template (willful jerks who treat me one day like god, the next like trash) and they were passion. I am not saying habbu is not like that, habbu has a long history of girls, and he is quite cool, and good looking. LOL. But he wasn't just passion, he was consistency.

Now what does drama show us? That consistency and certainty is lame that in romance we should weather through the storm. But let me tell you that a story thrives in conflict and it's actually quite all for the show. Because no one really wants a happy ever after show, we all just want to be picked at and tormented. LOL

But still, I wonder about the state of people's romanticism, how people ship a couple who have obvious co-dependency issues (cough*twilight*cough) and how people insist on innocence as a virtue when it is ignorance and all these philosophy around how society wraps us in different colours of semantic tins. Love, in the media, in mainstream, seems to be only equivocal to bad decisions. one where a person teeters to either acting on selfishness or selflessness to a fault.

Consequently, in dramas we see a man being the expected knight in that shiny armor, while they protect women, never really treating them as partners, or for that matter someone capable.

And I wonder with this many stories where the woman is dumb, are we as women our own egos of being smarter? Or is it the escapist way of idealism where we'd find a place with someone who we don't need to be smart to? I wonder about this things. LOL.

I philosophize K-drama. OTL

So in the end, the second lead syndrome is actually a viewer influenced by rationality. That in love, we aspire to be treated kindly from the beginning, because we deserve kindness not as a love interest but as human beings. I celebrate second leads and wish their triumph outside story moulds, :3 :3

My current second lead gallery:

Shin Suk Rong in Trot Lovers. He has been good to female lead from the beginning. He doesn't act weirdly jealous, and thinks of her in the most positive light. Good luck, sajangnim.

Jin Woon in Marriage, Not Dating.

Though Ae Reum can be an A Class A-hole sometimes, he actually want lead female to be true to herself and not be transformed to a woman-player. I am unsure if he is truly interested in lead female, but he is the kindest to her and well, it helps that he is a cutie. LOL

Special mention:

Yoon In Na in My Love From the Star

"You said you had a long time one-sided love? I was disappointed. How could you not tell me such thing? Who’s that bastard? Which bastard gave my Se Mi a heartache for this long? Don’t be like this. Just confess to him. What’s so difficult about it? If you think it will be hard to do it in person, then call him. You call him and say ‘Hey, you punk, I like you’."

For once, the side-girl isn't interested in first male lead. <3 And though she had not been completely clean, she was actually very kind in situation when she could have gone completely rotten. I liked how she fell at times, and gave in to jealousy. And I cried for her so many times. Ugh, possibly my favourite character in My love from the stars. Love you, Yoon In Na. Can you date Taey-daddy now that you are single again? LOL

So now, I am leaving and fixate on Se Mi scenese in my love from the stars.

Life wasting complete for the day.