I’m starting my new year off by jumping back on the Chuno group watch bandwagon (albeit a little late). I have one question and one comment on this pair of episodes.

Question: Towards the end of Episode 9, Eonnyeon hands back Tae Ha’s folded robes to him while they are on the boat, and he gives her a surprised look, as if there was something significant in the act. Was there? Am I missing something? It seems like something shifted in their relationship at that moment, but I’m not sure what or why.

Comment: In Episode 10 during Dae Gil’s showdown with Keunnom, the more shocking thing to me, rather than the reveal about Keunnom’s parentage, was Keunnom’s description of Dae Gil’s reaction when his father sentenced Eonnyeon to death. The image of Dae Gil crying in his room over the injustice just didn’t compute with the swaggery character we’ve come to know. But then again, when I recalled some of the other flashbacks to Young Dae Gil hiding under a building during the big fight, staring at Eonnyeon as she cries out for him to save her, it becomes clear that Young Dae Gil was pretty spineless. That moment with Keunnom made me realize just how much Dae Gil has changed as a person over time, and how much the fire marked the divergence in Dae Gil and Eonnyeon’s paths. Other commenters have noted that Eonnyeon has always had the heart of a noblewoman, even when she was a slave. Escaping and reinventing herself as Hye Won was the path for her to manifest her true self. However, for Dae Gil, the fire marked a sharp divergence from the path he had initially set out on, and he ended up becoming someone very different from who he had thought he was, probably in part as a rebuke to himself for his past cowardice. Weirdly, to me, Tae Ha seems to be an idealized counterpoint to Young Dae Gil: also of noble bearings and with a similar desire to change the country, but a skilled warrior who would rather die on principle rather than accept something other than what he feels is right. In that sense, it seems almost natural that Eonnyeon would eventually settle with him. But even if Tae Ha doesn’t seem to have Eonnyeon’s heart the way Young Dae Gil did/does, the Dae Gil that exists now never would either.

I have been thinking about Kfangurl and BE’s statement that it was Daegil’s rather rash and irresponsible act (declaring that he wanted to marry Eon Nyeon) that put him on his tragic path. My question is, could he have done things differently? What other options did he have? How would someone else behave in the same situation?

The first option for Daegil would have been to marry a girl of his father’s choice and make Eon Nyeon his concubine. That was a perfectly acceptable practice at the time. However, I just can’t see Daegil doing that. Yes, he is naive and irresponsible, but there is really a room for only one woman in his heart. I find his earnest faithfulness really innocent and touching. Also, becoming Daegil’s concubine would not have improved Eon Nyeon’s situation much. She would have been at the mercy of Daegil’s wife.

Another option for Daegil and Eon Nyeon would have been to just run away, maybe go to a different city and assume new identities. But I still can’t imagine Daegil doing that. How is he going to make a living to support himself and Eon Nyeon? It is also very likely that his father would put slave hunters on their trail.

Daegil and Eon Nyeon could also make a new life in another country, like China or Japan. But again, teen Daegil does not seem to have the resources or the forethought for something like that.

So what really was left for him besides breaking up with Eon Nyeon? He tried to reason with his father, and ended up bringing a disaster on himself and his family, and losing Eon Nyeon. A happy ending would never have been possible for Daegil and Eon Nyeon…

I also tried to imagine Song Tae Ha in a similar situation. He is from a noble family, so he probably owned slaves. I can’t picture him mistreating his slaves, but he would probably keep a distance between them and himself. I also can’t picture him having a wife and a concubine.

It occurs to me that while I’m a first-time watcher of Chuno, I’m not having a very typical first timer’s experience. Reading the comments here each week fills in gaps and draws my attention to points more quickly and completely than most first-time lone watchers could ever imagine. I hardly have time to think “I don’t understand” before I do. The next time I watch, likely on my own, may be more like a first time… because I’ll never remember all of these thought-filled
contributions. 😉

Gorgeous couples costumes this episode. I loved Seol Hwa and Dae Gil’s new clothes. They are a matched pair wearing coordinating colors and rustic yet elegant ensembles. The clothes say they go together in a colorful earthy way – whether or not it ever comes to pass. Similarly, Tae Ha and Un Nyun’s ensembles complement each other and underscore a shared nobility/gentility. Tae Ha’s screams masculine while Un Nyun’s cries feminine. Dae Gil and Seol Hwa’s are both far more androgynous. Though it’s impossible to miss their masculine and feminine charms. And notice how Han Seom and Court Lady’s outfits complement each other in color and design, as well. The crisp whites, the true blues, the slashes of red. They, too, were meant to be together…if only for a few minutes.

While we were swashbuckling and torso-glistening through the first half of the show, I was distracted from the consequential, less light-hearted, stories unfolding. The spate of deaths of people with cast credits in these two episodes suggests we’re moving into more serious territory. I have some trepidation.

So much to see in these shows; didn’t feel like filler to me at all. Starting with….

The Body Count. Not one, but two consequential characters cut down in these episodes. Not gonna lie…aghast and sorry to see Lady Ninja go down so soon. I thought she was great. And Keunnom, following major exposition/secret sharing. From a dramatic viewpoint though, these losses bode well because they signal that Show is willing to Do What It Must and that Anything Can Happen.

I share kfangurl’s shipping Han Seom with his Court Lady, only partly b/c I felt unnecessarily proud of myself for recognizing Seom from “Tree With Deep Roots”. It’s easy to forget that everyone has a life, not just Main Characters, and they all matter. It’s a sign of a good show that they can invest us in this side-story so concisely yet compellingly.

I had serious suspension of disbelief issues with Commander Hwang defeating an entire troop after the interview with Tae Ha. I mean, really. This isn’t a superhero saga (or so I thought).

I found Gae Hil’s respect for the recently deceased Baek Ho touching. May he, indeed, rest in peace.

And while Cheobok may never be able to wash her face, her teeth look FANTASTIC! Actually, I suspect that Chun Ji-ho may be more the norm for the era than the rest of our group.

And, I totally, completely, unequivocally agree that Tae Ha’s taking time for kissy-kissy made zero sense and made me crazy. I can say more about this next time, but man! Get your priorities straight!

There is so much to unpack in these two episodes. And I have many different takeaways than you did.

First and foremost, I think that we finally get the real reason for the title, to which I would add one thing. First I want to know if chuno is a singular form. I believe the title of the show should be The Chuno, A Tragedy. That this is not about slave hunters, but one slave hunter and the tragedy of his life in which the tragedy of his age was most dramatically embodied.
First of all with all the carnage of these two episodes does anyone really doubt that as in all tragedies inevitability has set in. Whatever may happen to anyone else, it is clear to me at this point, based on what I know now about our main character, what has led me up through the first nine episodes, culminating in the confrontation at the beginning of episode ten, and what I know of how the arc of tragedies transpire, I cannot envision from this point in our tale that there can be any happy ending for Dae Gil.
We now know for a certainty that Dae Gil put Eon Nyeon in mortal danger,by confessing to his father his love for Eon Nyeon, something that Keun Neom recognizes instantly. And we know Dae Gil did nothing, nothing, nothing, but weep and moan about it while she was first beaten, then imprisoned to die of thirst. This recognition has been prepared for in previous scenes as we have gone back and forth about earlier.

We know on the other hand Keun Neom did something. He first begged Dae Gil’s father for mercy. Then he tried to leverage the reality that Dae Gil’s father had raped his mother, thus the fact of Keun Neom’s birth. And as he is telling Dae Gil this, he makes the point that such (rape) was ubiquitous behavior by such as his father. Dae Gil with all his arrogance about nobility and slaves, even right up to the moment of this confrontation, with his empty promise of a casteless society to Eon Nyeon, Eon Nyeon, who remembers that promise, then telling Tae Ha, there is nothing worse than being a slave–ah, it is not Eon Nyeon who is the catalyst of this story but Dae Gil himself, revealed as the pure embodiment of the worst, the most cowardly, the most privileged and hypocritical element of the outrageous injustice between the noble class and their slaves.
And insult to injury, finding out that Eon Nyeon has wed Tae Ha, in denial, in screaming denial, before and after, Keun Neom forcing his hand by placing his trust in Dae Gil’s love for Eon Nyeon that Dae Gil on the blood of his self sacrifice will propel him to doing the right thing in the end, Dae Gil is overwhelmed by the abject shock of his situation.
Irony heaped upon irony, Dae Gil’s denial bursts out of him upon the empty rationale of his emotions that Eon Nyeon has eloped with another slave, Tae Ha, whom we should not forget he was hired to hunt down by the Left State Minister, Evil Incarnate, that Dae Gil has been played by the epitome of the corrupt, avaricious, and murderous noble class.

Much else to discuss–an elaboration on the theme of who is really noble; the heroic beauty of Tae Ha and Eon Nyeon; the mendacious but human evil of Commander Hwang; the epic poem of Han Seom; team Ji Ho; the problem of dislocation and sense of time; the relative sword bad assery of Tae Ha, Commander Hwang, Han Seom, whereas Dae Gil fists and knife; laughter as a dramatic device–think Dae Gil, Ji Ho, and Left State Scoundrel; Eon Nyeon disappearing from Dae Gil as she embraces Tae Ha; Han Seom’s comment about saving one person one saves a nation, commenting about Tae Ha’s nobility in going back for Eon Nyeon–but for me the single most important element of these two episodes is how they culminate all that went before and direct where we will be headed from here on out, and above all show us the abject complexity of Dae Gil. There is no other character half so conflicted or complex. I feel much warmer toward Tae Ha than I did in my first viewing, Eon Nyeon as well–something epic and heroic about the two of them, but I understand better than at any previous point why Dae Gil is the focus of this drama, and it has nothing to do with liking or disliking, simply there is more there there to Dae Gil as magnificently enacted by Jang Hyuk.