Letās Drama!whump: Bai Ping Ting (General and I)
The Whumpee: Bai Ping Ting - female lead, former maid, brilliant military strategist, and star-crossed lover to Chu Bei Jie, a rival kingdomās greatest general. While she is often in harmās way, Ping Ting avoids damselhood by owning these moments - always several steps ahead of everyone else, Ping Ting is only ever in danger when sheās consciously put herself there in order to help people she cares about (rather than being a pawn or a macguffin). If itās for a smart and noble cause, Ping Ting has the resiliency and courage to withstand some serious suffering.
The Whump: One arrow wound, an almost-fatal stabbing, some light self-poisoning, and some generic fevery stuff sprinkled over the top of it all.
episode 2 [15:30-19:45]: Bei Jie finds Ping Ting washed up on the riverbank wounded, wrapped in the cloak of his nemesis, and wearing a hair pin which identifies her as his long-lost first love. Not quite sure how to treat her in light of this baffling information overload, he settles forĀ āI saved your life so I own you nowā with a side order ofĀ āIām rich and important so I like it when you sass me.ā
episode 2 [21:15-26:00]: Great schemer that she is, Ping Ting makes an escape attempt. Delirious and feverish, however, all she manages to do is crash the carriage she hijacks after making it a scant 200 feet. Bei Jie somehow gets her to a doctor, but has to leave on urgent business before she wakes up again. Armed with the clear head that comes with getting proper medical attention, Ping Ting quickly gives Bei Jieās servant the slip, ending the sequence.
episode 16 [10:00-24:00]: Having fallen in love with Bei Jie and gotten word that heās about to pay big time for a dastardly scheme sheās partly responsible for, Ping Ting swoops (quite literally) into the throne room and admits to the crime in order to save Bei Jieās life. The catch? To extra super duper prove his loyalty to his country, Bei Jie has to execute her in front of the whole court. While Bei Jie initially hesitates and a friend of Ping Tingās intervenes, trying to save her, Ping Ting throws herself in the middle of their fight in order to trick Bei Jie into stabbing her. She ādiesā in Bei Jieās arms.
[The great generalāsĀ āoh shitā face:]
[He pulls the sword out and she goes spinning off like a whirligig, because thatās how physics work:]
[Needless to say, Bei Jieās a little shook and protective over the whole thing.]
episode 17 [6:00-8:30]: Ping Tingās alive and Bei Jie sees her for the first time since the throne room incident. To no oneās surprise (because this is a historical drama and the main leads canāt die for another forty episodes or so) we learn Bei Jie faked Ping Tingās death by being an impossibly good swordsman, stabbing her in that unimportant part of the heart we donāt really need after all, and handing Ping TingāsĀ ābodyā off to an accomplished acupuncturist in order to revive her. Sheās far from out of the woods, though.
episode 17 [29:45-32:30, 42:15-end]: Ping Ting needs medicine, but not even Bei Jie doing the choo choo noises with the spoon will get her to take it. The acupunturist comes up with the idea of soaking Ping Ting in a medicinal bath.
episode 18 [1:45-8:15]: Somehow the two assistants drop a naked Ping Ting on the way to the bath, and Bei Jie ushers them out, leading to a bizarrely theatrical sequence where he combs her hair and lowkey keeps her from drowning.
episode 18 [15:00-17:30]: Bei Jie reads a letter Ping Ting wrote him in the event of her death.
episode 18 [23:45-27:45]: Armed thugs find the location where Bei Jie and Ping Ting are hidden. Bei Jie fights them off, but one gets away, compromising their position. He hears a crash inside the house; running in, he finds Ping Ting on the floor in tremendous pain. The acupunturist tries to help, but Ping Ting deteriorates quickly, vomiting blood. Things arenāt looking good.
[Perhaps skippable, but episode 18 from 27:45-30:15, Ping Tingās old master gets word sheās dead and breaks down - partly because he loves her, and partly because he was the one who perpetrated the crime Ping Ting ādiedā for.]
episode 18 Ā [41:00-end]: Psych! Ping Ting finally wakes up. Still woozy, her vision swims as she recognizes Bei Jie... just before he walks silently out of the room, asking the acupuncturist to lie and say he was never here.
episode 19 [1:45-5:00]: The servants try their best to lie, but Ping Ting is way too smart to buy it. She calmly goes on a hunger strike until Bei Jie will see her.
episode 19 [7:00-18:45]: Bei Jie finally breaks down and goes to bring her soup, but finds Ping Ting has somehow flown the coop. He finds her out enjoying the fresh air, and the two talk about what happened. Bei Jie has some pretty strong opinions about Ping Tingās suicide mission on his behalf.
episode 36 [8:00-14:30, 17:45-20:15]: Having been kidnapped by her old master and hidden in a tucked away part of the palace, Ping Ting figures sheāll only be rescued from He Xiaās custody if other members of court find out heās keeping her hidden. To create the necessary hullaballoo, Ping Ting drinks a potion which would be harmless... if she werenāt pregnant. Descending quickly and painfully into a coma, Ping Ting is rescued when the princess takes pity on her and sends aid.
episode 36 [21:45-31:00, 38:15-end]: The imperial physician concludes Ping Tingās illness is the ancient version of jet lag, though pretty much everyone involved knows this isnāt true. He Xia and the princess (his wife) trade shade - the princess kills with kindness, being surprisingly chill and understanding about He Xia kidnapping and concealing a beautiful childhood friend within the palace.
episode 36 [38:15-end]: After a surreal dream in which she hears Bei Jie calling to her, Ping Ting wakes up in what seems to be He Xiaās childhood room, totally disoriented. He Xia explains he wants everything to be the same as it was when they were young and loved each other, but Ping Ting drops some pretty serious hints that times have changed irrevocably thanks to Bei Jie.
episode 42 [6:00-9:30]: An isolated incident. Ping Ting has a nightmare and wakes up in serious pain. Fearing for her child, she has the acupuncturist d her voodoo to get everything back to normal.
[For a scene thatās more emotional whump for Bei Jie than anything, check out episode 53 from 36:45-end. Long story short: Bei Jie has thought Ping Ting dead for a while and is reading poetry at her grave when she suddenly shows up. Pretty justifiably, he looks like heās seen a ghost.]
Hey fellow dramawhumpers! I'm so glad and grateful 50 of you have already joined me in whumping our way through the kdrama world. It happened so fast I don't have a cute GIF reaction prepared! I can, however, promise that in celebration and appreciation I have my first extra-long historical drama writeup set to drop in the next couple of days. I slogged through over fifty episodes to make it, and I hope it brings you many squees. So thanks, y'all! I appreciate you. ~ DW
The Whumpee: Ā Male lead Seo Jung Hoo, a.k.a. Park Bong Soo, mild-mannered cameraman at a small-time news agency; also a.k.a. Healer, faceless king of late-night, dubiously moral odd jobs. Either way, just a guy with a Liam Neeson-esque skill set, no friends, and no connections trying to save up for a private island (yes, really). Drawn against his will into investigating a bizarre conspiracy, he wants nothing more than to finish the job and return to the shadows. As someone for whom remaining anonymous is the difference between life and death, Jung Hoo is neurotically private and unattached; as such, his whump moments involve huge character growth as he learns to love and trust and be vulnerable again after a lifetime of stoicism and secrecy.
The Whump: AĀ āstabbingā (cut on the arm), hospital moments, some panic attacks and catatonic grief, and one GSW.
episode 13 [1:30-9:15]: Fleeing the scene of a caper, Jung Hoo suffers a deep cut on his arm; while someone runs interference for him, he staggers out onto the roof of the building and passes out from a mixture of blood loss and some pretty strong tranquilizers. Ajumma, his hacker partner, calls his love interest and leads her to where heās conked out. She calls 911 and keeps him company while heās unconscious at the hospital.
[It doesnāt sound like much, but everybody does their best to play up the drama and severity of the situation. Ajumma makes a big deal out of the tranquilizer.]
[Meanwhile, in my favorite line in the sequence, Jung Hooās emergency room doc reassures the love interest:
Translation:Ā āHeās just too damn fit and sexy for this to faze him.ā Is that your, uh, scientific opinion, doc?]
episode 13 [10:30-16:30]: After realizing from many, many context clues that heās secretly Healer, Jung Hooās love interest returns to the hospital to find him up and atĀ āem. Despite being a covert agent his entire life, Jung Hoo is the worst possible liar and briefly babbles some excuses about sleeping pills and falling down the stairs (onto a roof? in a public office building? where you had literally no reason to be? Really, Jung Hoo?) before falling silent. Doofus that he is, he leaves the hospital without her.
episode 14 [00:00-2:15, 4:30-7:00]: After suffering a major loss, Jung Hoo has a panic attack in a parking lot, holding his head and rocking back and forth, while his friends try to calm him down. Instead, he ducks his crew and sneaks into the morgue to confirm his friend is really dead, wherein the gravity of the situation really hits him and he has panic attack number two.Ā
episode 14 [45:45-end]: With Jung Hoo having gone completely off the radar for a few days after losing his friend, a worried Ajumma confronts Jung Hooās love interest and tells her how to find his secret apartment, hoping that she can coax him into opening up. When she arrives, she finds Jung Hoo in a near-catatonic state, to the point where he (adorably) thinks heās still dreaming / hallucinating when Young Shin wakes him up. Fans of sickfics, rejoice! Young Shin spends the rest of the episode cooking and caring for him in a very fluffy way, while Jung Hoo spends the rest of the episode trying belligerently to kick her out of his apartment - not because he doesnāt want her there, but because after losing someone close to him and feeling like it was his fault, he cares for her enough to not want to see her to get hurt on his behalf.
episode 20 [52:45-54:15]: DuringĀ a daring final caper, Healer is apparently shot. For about 90 seconds of glorious slow-mo, Jung Hoo falls to the floor and seems to bleed out while his friends freak out and mourn his death. But - psych! - the whole thing was, to no oneās surprise, faked in order to allow Jung Hoo and hisĀ āwomanā to live happily ever after.
Letās Drama!whump: Park Tae Il (Youāre All Surrounded)
The Whumpee: Park Tae Il, a mild-mannered, soft-spoken rookie who left a promising career in medicine in order to join the police force. Reserved and diplomatic, Tae Il always tries to downplay his struggles and dismiss his suffering, his first priority being to reassure his friends. A rare case of a well-developed side character getting whumped, and whumped well.
The Whump: A pretty serious stabbing followed by some solid hospital moments.
episode 16 [48:45-54:30]: Confronted alone in a parking lot by two hired thugs, Tae Il is beaten, mugged, and stabbed twice in the stomach when he refuses to give up the piece of evidence the thugs are after. MC Dae Gu comes around the corner to find him bleeding out and calls for help in a panic. Tae Il is rushed to the emergency room.
episode 17 [00-2:15, 15:00-17:00, 19:45-21:00]: Tae Il wakes up in the hospital surrounded by his squad and assures them heās all right. His partner chastises him for being so reckless. Later, Dae Gu gives him a charm bracelet meant to keep him safe. After telling a deeply personal story about his brother, Tae Il is comforted and pampered by his squad mates.
Letās Drama!whump: Eun Dae Gu (Youāre All Surrounded)
The Whumpee: Eun Dae Gu, a rookie police detective who joined the force in order to solve the decade-old cold case of his motherās murder, which he witnessed as a child. Stoic and private about his past and feelings, Dae Gu is a different person when heās injured.
The Whump: Stabbing followed by hospital scenes.
episode 11 [2:00-9:00]: After duking it out with his motherās killer, Dae Gu is stabbed, saved by his CO, and watched over by his fellow rookies while the ambulance comes. He passes out.
episode 11 [13:30-18:00]: Finally waking up after surgery, Dae Gu angrily confronts his CO, who he thinks is implicated in the attack.
episode 11 [27:00-28:30, 38:00-40:00]: When Dae Gu tries to leave the hospital prematurely, his fellow rookies convince him to stay. They watch over him and care for him. When he returns to work, he gets a good luck charm bracelet to keep him from further harm.
The Whumpee: Kim Je Ha, ex-covert agent and current bodyguard to an unscrupulous politician and her flight risk of a secret daughter. Je Ha isnāt afraid to show heās in pain, but fiercely loyal and dedicated as he is, he always soldiers on through it to get the job done, especially when his love interest, Anna, is in danger.
The Whump: One car accident, a few GSWs, and a lot of punches taken.
episode 3 [20:30-26:00]: After a tense car chase, Je Ha saves a former enemy from a burning car, then collapses after being hit by some shrapnel when the car explodes.
episode 3 [30:00-33:00, 52:30-53:30, 56:15-1:00:30] Waking up at the hospital, a still-recovering Je Ha is offered a job as a bodyguard to the woman he saved, which brings up some feelings of PTSD from his last tour as a bodyguard.
episode 14 [5:15-12:00, 13:00-18:00]: Je Ha is shot in the side and passes out. Heās rushed to his home base for medical attention, where he flatlines during surgery and has to be defibrillated.
episode 14 [39:00-41:00, 48:15-53:00]: Je Haās love interest visits him in the infirmary while heās still unconscious. By the time he wakes up, sheās already gone; he rewatches the security footage of her visit, sad to have missed her.
episode 15 [50:00-51:30, 54:00-1:04:00]: Je Ha is shot in the side again and fights his way through a crowd of enemies while wounded.
episode 16 [12:15-16:00] Despite already having lost a lot of blood, Je Ha rushes back to home base, fights off another wave of attackers in order to save Anna, and then passes out in her arms.
episode 16 [29:30-31:30, 40:00-56:00]: Je Ha regains consciousness in the infirmary and waves off medical attention to rush to Annaās rescue once again. In the course of rescuing her, he survives an elevator crash, although none of the aftermath is shown.
[aka Falling for Innocence, aka Falling in Love with Soon Jung]
The Whumpee: Min Ho is the male lead, a hot tempered yet also goofy CEO whoāll stop at nothing to take legally complicated revenge on the people who carried out a coup on his fatherās business when he was young. The fact that he has congenital heart failure and is doomed to die young makes this goal even more urgent. When whumped, he often tries to hide the pain heās in with bravado and humor.
The Whump: Heavy on sudden fainting and hospital scenes.
episode 1 [50:00-end] and episode 2 [0:00-3:00, 4:00-6:00] -Ā Faints into the arms of the female lead when his heart acts up again. Female lead rushes him to the hospital in a cab when he refuses an ambulance.Ā
He almost immediately discharges himself and gets back to work, so not much hospital involved here, but heās pretty fragile all through episode 2. See especially a haunting conversation in which his personal assistant asks him why on earth heās so devoted to his revenge with so little time left to live -Ā āDo you really want to live like this?ā - and Min Ho replies,
episode 2, [42:00-44:00, 50:00-end]Ā - After a very upsetting business meeting, Min Hoās heart well and truly gives out, and he faints again, this time hitting his head on a broken glass table on the way down. Ouch. Heās rushed to the hospital for what his staff and doctors assume will be the last time.
episode 3 [6:00-8:00] - The first in a long series of dreams/nightmares Min Ho has from the perspective of his heart donor. Theyāre more surreal than whumpy, so Iām not going to list them all out, but know that they exist and there is more than one if you dig that sort of thing. Obviously Min Ho wakes up in the hospital this episose, but these scenes are brief and humorous.
episode 5 [51:30-end] and episode 6 [2:00-5:15] - After recognizing someone at a heated board meeting, Min Ho faints AGAIN and is rushes back to the hospital. He wakes up under heavy sedation, staggers out into the hallway all confused and drugged up, and has a touching little scene with the female lead before collapsing AGAIN.
episode 15 [0:00-1:30, 3:30-8:30] - Min Ho is bashed by a motorcyclist with a lead pipe and mugged while the female lead watches helplessly. Another trip to the hospital. As a joke, Min Ho pretends to have lost his memory, and the female lead (who is no stranger to loss) goes completely to pieces.
episode 15 [21:00-23:00, 33:30-36:00] - Min Ho starts running a fever and gets a headache (totally not ominous for someone with a head injury, not at all) and female lead feeds him magical girlfriend food to make him feel better. At the hospital, his doctor breaks the news to him that his body is rejecting his donor heart and he once again has a very short time left to live.
episode 16 [8:30-10:00] - Min Ho is in the hospital for his immunosuppression treatments, and discusses the dwindling options for his care with his doctor.
episode 16 [48:00-50:00] - Min Hoās time has come. Fainting into the arms of the female lead, he slips into that coma his doctor kept warning him about and zips back to the hospital for a classic defibrillation scene.
And thatās that! Hope you all enjoyed this whumpy recap. Thereās also some whump for the female lead (Kim Soon Jung), but thatās a whump bible for another day.
Hey all, so there are no shortage of whump blogs on tumblr (yay!), but I wanted to do one that specifically focused on Korean dramas. On the one hand, hurt/comfort is such a common trope in kdramas that it seems silly not to look for whump in them. On the other hand, they can be really long (individual episodes an hour long, 24 or 30 or even 50+ episodes a series) so it can be extra difficult to find what youāre looking for.
I donāt read or speak Korean, so this is really just me keeping track of stuff Iāve found as I go along and/or stuff I run across because other more talented people have created things like recaps or episode summaries in English. Iāll be trying to track all the instances of whump in a given series which happens to any of the leads - I might do that as a whump bible, like whumpsadaisy does, or I might do one post for each instance, or I might group recurring related instances (like if a character has a chronic condition).Ā
I stink at GIFs, so itāll mostly just be text descriptions, timestamps, and tags based on what kind of whump it is. If I get really ambitious, there may be screencaps.
If you have a favorite whump-heavy drama or suggestions for particular episodes of things I should check out, Iād love to hear about it! Always on the lookout for new stuff.
