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You can only pick one: Ultimate love triangle
by DB Staff
You can only pick one, and boy the pressure is on. The DB team will answer a new prompt in each post, and you’re invited to do the same in the comments. Ready to play?
You can only pick one ultimate K-drama love triangle
missvictrix: After much consideration, my choice for “ultimate” love triangle is the one that ripped my heart out, trampled on it, and then spit on my grave. That’s right, folks, I’m talking about Answer Me 1988. And no amount of smiley Park Bo-gum as Taek can mitigate the pain inflicted by this love triangle with Deok-sun and Jung-hwan — I think it must be because it wasn’t a throwaway love triangle. Often the second male lead is sweet and sympathetic, but you know he has no chance, and the OTP is everything, so it’s only a small requisite pang when he’s rejected. But here, there was nothing throwaway. We followed Jung-hwan’s secret crush for so long, and felt his hope, his hesitations, and eventually, his heartbreak. I don’t know if there will ever be a love triangle that hits me in the gut quite like this one. And that might actually be a good thing.
mistyisles: As a general rule, I have very little patience for love triangles. Too often, they seem to result in one person scheming to separate the other two and/or two people fighting over the third without taking that person’s actual feelings or choices into account. But if my K-dramas have to have love triangles, I guess I’d prefer them to be in a similar vein to the one in Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha. Not only was the jealously spread across all three triangle legs (since the guys were becoming friends and wanted to spend time together, too), but the farewell conversation between Hye-jin and her first love was such an unforgettably beautiful, honest moment that it negated any complaints I had against this particular love triangle. That doesn’t make it immune to the problems I have with love triangles in general, but it does give it a definitive edge over a lot of the other ones out there.
DaebakGrits: I’ve written about the love triangle from While You Were Sleeping before, but when tasked with picking my “ultimate” love triangle, I have to choose this one because it’s extremely rare for me to root for the second male lead in a love triangle. But what can I say? Woo-tak is totally my type: geeky, sweet, quietly attentive, and a dog lover. Even if we ignore the fact that he’s my ultimate oppa, he’s also one of the few second male leads who does not get pouty, vengefully jealous, or wallow in self-pity even though his crush on leading lady Hong-joo goes unrequited. Instead, he actually gets to a point where he can joke with his competition Jae-chan about his one-sided love. It’s like even he can see that she and Jae-chan are the OTP and understands that he needs to gracefully bow out. Does it make me extra sad for him? You betcha, but it’s also enjoyable to witness a love triangle that teams up to work together through tough — and fantastical — times, and then remain friends after the OTP goes off to live happily ever after.
solstices: So, I’m generally not a fan of love triangles, which means I tend to avoid them. Still, there’s one that remains memorable even a decade later — Answer Me 1997. Instead of diminishing the female lead’s agency by reducing her into a prize to be won, as many love triangles end up devolving into, Answer Me 1997 put our headstrong heroine Shi-won front and center. Presenting her with another viable suitor, one that was stable and respectable and everything the hero was not, made her reevaluate her choices. What did she truly want? What would make her happy? It also served as a wake-up call for our leading man, Yoon-jae, spurring him into finally stepping out of his hyung’s shadow. So while I didn’t like the love triangle per se, I liked what it did for our main couple in terms of character growth. Plus, this was the start of the infamous Guess-the-Husband trope — whether that’s a good legacy or not is debatable, but there’s no denying that it left its mark on dramaland. Answer Me 1994 might have caused the biggest disappointment (Chilbongie!) and Answer Me 1988 might have sparked the most shipper wars, but Answer Me 1997 was the trailblazer, and it’s still my favorite of the three.
Unit: Usually with most love triangles in dramas, the “male lead” has the advantage over the other guy. But one of the things that set the triangle in Answer Me 1988 apart is that both guys had equal chances and opportunities to win Deok-sun’s heart. Heck, Deok-sun actually liked Jung-hwan at some point — real feelings, not the sympathy kind — and they might have even ended up together if not for (in his own words), his “many hesitations.” I hardly ever get second lead syndrome, and while I was Team Taek all the way, my heart still broke for Jung-hwan. Unfortunately, aside from being a Park Bo-gum fan, those darn hesitations of Jung-hwan were why I couldn’t root for him. I mean, I got the flutters when he finally confessed to Deok-sun! But no, he had to play it off as a joke and cause many hearts around the globe to shatter. Taek, on the other hand, did not hold back. Zero hesitation. Even when he tried to take a step back in consideration of Jung-hwan’s feelings, he still showed up when it mattered most — and that is how you cross the finish line first in the race for a girl’s heart.
Dramaddictally: I thought long and hard about the word “ultimate” thrown in here and decided to go with A Piece of Your Mind. I mean, it doesn’t get much more ultimate than competing against a person who’s no longer alive. I’ll admit this isn’t one of my favorite dramas (Jung Hae-in notwithstanding), but it does manage to capture the way our feelings linger — allowing even long-gone love to create a third party in our present-day relationships. The drama does that great sci-fi thing of using a technological version of this idea (the AI consciousness) to focus on a very human story. It shows us just how much our heartbreak can keep us locked into a love triangle (even if sometimes we’re not totally “conscious” of it).
alathe: So, hear me out: I’m not big on love triangles. Generally, my response is steadfast loyalty to the OTP, combined with the visceral urge to push the other guy off a cliff. So, I submit this to you, beanies: surely the ultimate love triangle is when the two romantic rivals share the same body? Semi-peacefully, whilst merrily pursuing the object of their affections together? Turns out, the key to making me like love triangles is by scooping out a hefty amount of the jealousy, and just making it all about three people being complicated together! Now, granted, Oh My Ghostess holds a special place in my heart due to the fact that it was my first K-drama ever. Still, the beautiful thing about this show is how clearly our star chef, Sun-woo, is in love with our heroine and her ghostly BFF: he adores Soon-ae for her knock-em-dead charisma, but he also truly starts to see Bong-sun, helping her blossom into a confident culinary adept. It’s a tough line to walk, but the writers managed to make our hero’s gradual transition from being stunned by Soon-ae to truly falling for Bong-sun feel authentic. Plus, you get Jo Jung-seok being iconic, Park Bo-young frolicking delightedly in two roles at once, and — as a bonus — Kang Ki-young in the ensemble, being hilarious as ever. What’s not to love?
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