Watching this season of My Dearest crystallized something I was already thinking:
Is Jang Hyun a perfect choice in abstract? Probably not. He is terrible at making himself emotionally vulnerable first or communicating or trusting.
Guess what? None of it matters in the least.
He’s the perfect choice for Gil Chae, a 17th century lady living a horrifying invasion and its even more horrifying aftermath.
You know why? Because in the insane, bloody, human lives have literally no value and death and rape are constants world she finds herself in, all that matters is that Jang Hyun is the sole man who is both willing AND capable to do anything to save and protect her. Whether it’s fighting an entire military unit alone while ill and winning or committing to save her from Qing concubinage to a literal prince and everything else in between large and small.
If she were a 21st century yuppie, she could discuss with her girlfriends at leisure as to whether his habit of verbally lashing out when he’s hurt is acceptable or whether the fact that he tries very hard to pretend he doesn’t care as much as he does and just teases is annoying or whether the fact that he doesn’t understand her ties to her family and doesn’t want to accommodate them makes him a problematic long term prospect. Hell, she would even think long and hard whether his issues about his background would come back to bite if they have kids.
But none of it matters in the least in Gil Chae’s circumstances. All that matters is that he’s the sole man who always protects her. Everyone else, her husband included, is incapable, unwilling or both. They all have limits to what they will do. Jang Hyun does not. It’s like the Maslow hierarchy of needs only in a relationship.
I often joke watching period shows that the most attractive quality in a period man is his giant army. Jang Hyun does not have an army. But he does all he can to become a one-man army for Gil Chae and in 17th century, during an invasion and its aftermath, nothing else ever can compete with that.
