I love how they are doing the Charn Jet story line. I knew that it had to be changed from the book (both romances happened at the very end and primarily in the bonus chapters), but I have been really satisfied with how they have been building the connection between the two. (Also, I have no idea how it happened but I have slowly become obsessed with Tle and Firstone. I'm glad they are getting a show of their own soonish.)
The shots of Jin and Jet replacing each other as the promise is made in the library and of Da and Jin crying and holding hands flashing to the current moment and Charn and Jet holding hands…it’s all just so very good.
Charn is the very grounded, down to earth, logical character. He can seem like a Debbie downer, but he is really just trying to keep up with all the new things he is learning and focus on the most important thing, keeping Khem alive. He also has one of my favorite traits, he is truly intellectually curious. Charn is thrown into this world that doesn’t follow any of the rules he knows. Many (maybe most) would be fearful or defensive, and/or straight up reject any new information, but he accepts it and tries to learn as best he can. As a scientist, I love people that are genuinely curious about the world and are open to new things when experiences prove their previous assumptions wrong. Those people are a joy to work with.
I also like that they make it clear that Charn is naturally good at meditation, while Jet is likely not. It makes sense for their characters.
We see Charn struggle with the realization of their past connection and I’ve seen some say that he is rejecting it. But I don’t think that is exactly what is happening. I think there are two things going on.
First, as I mentioned, his whole world view has significantly changed in a very short period of time. He is taking in a lot of info at once, and every day he learns something new and big. He just learned about Khem’s curse and past life. Now he finds out he is tied Khem’s story in a very personal way he never imagined. That is a lot to take in, and being a logical sort of person, he wants to think through it all and what it means. (Though he may not have time to…)
Second, he is now trying to figure out how he feels and what feelings he considers valid. This is an interesting thing to think about in regards to reincarnation stories. How much of your current feelings are due to your life/experiences in the present vs those of the past. Or does it not matter? If you loved someone in your past life, are those feelings valid in this life? Or do only feelings generated in the here and now matter? Charn clearly felt drawn to Jet and Khem in a way that didn’t have a logical reason. Now he has that reason but isn’t sure what he thinks about these feelings that came from experiences he doesn’t fully remember. It is also super interesting to me that he is the only one of the 3 (maybe 4? who knows if Peem realizes this or not) that now knows that all 4 of them are tied together in this way.
Personally, I think a mix of both past and present feelings can be valid. I certainly don’t think you can build a relationship entirely on your past life’s feelings, but I think a desire to reconnect with and love the same souls being so strong that you reincarnate in a time and place to be together again is beautiful and shouldn’t be fully discounted (for friendship as well as romantic relationships). I don’t know, I’ll have to think about it some more. I also want to think about this in regards to Until We Meet again as I think the two shows have both similarities and differences in how they treat this.