1 Corinthians 10:14 (KJV)
Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.
Fan Interpretation of Charming Gold’s parents from Running Man Animation.
When I was watching Running Man Animation, I at first never really paid much attention to Charming Gold. Before him, I was more interested in Pala, and even with the whole villain reveal, I still did not really pay him much attention until his backstory was revealed. I immediately became attached to CG after that.
In Charming Gold’s backstory, we are shown his parents and what’s interesting is that they are the only characters with faces. The other Pikok members have some sort of comedy theater mask on their faces, or even not drawn at all.
I probably thought more of these characters, if you can call them that, than what was intended. They were only present for precisely 15 seconds combined but there are so many storytelling elements on them. We were only shown their bust and side view and for this reason, we were never shown their full designs. It was hard trying to make their designs as it was in a flashback sequence with a yellow filter on everything so we, the audience, did not even know what colors they were. They do not even have names! They are called “Charming Gold’s mother” and “Charming Gold’s father” or “Charming Gold’s parents”. Even then, I actually liked these characters. Or their story potential regarding Charming Gold.
I’ll go talk about their names first instead of calling them “Charming Gold’s mother” and “Charming Gold’s father”. I named his mother Charming “Darling” Diamond because the diamond is one of the most valuable gemstones, fitting for the queen of the beautiful Pikok tribe. For his father, I was originally going to name him Charming Cobalt so his name is an alliteration similar to Charming Gold and also to reference his blue feathers. However, I thought that would make Charming Gold an outlier. My friend pointed out many years ago that Charming Gold's name is “Gold” but he’s blue. Since there are already characters with alliterations on their names I changed it to Charming Platinum. I made this as a reference that Gold's father is higher in power than him as platinum, which can also be known as white gold, is more valuable than gold.
On to their designs, as I said before in my Dazzling Diaspore character art I have a headcanon that the women of the Pikok tribe have duller colors compared to their male counterparts. I used a real-life image of a peahen so that’s why Diamond has a blue neck. Platinum has a hue of deep rich blue color, to further emphasize his authority over Gold, who has a standard blue color.
Using Charming Gold as a reference for their designs, I noticed that while looking at Gold’s design his whole body is a gradient. From a light teal on his nose to dark violets on the tips of his hair to even the icy blue color of his tail. With bold colors of red and gold on his face with purple eyes. I incorporated that detail into the designs of Pikok characters.
I did not want Charming Gold’s parents to be an exact copy of him, so I tried my best to make them look different, but still similar, to CG. Granted that, I may have overdone it. I did 3-4 color tests to see what I liked the most.
Another headcanon is the makeup they wear is a part of their face. So that eyeshadow and goatee on Charming Gold is actually a part of his face. While looking at the close-up shot of Platinum I noticed that there seemed to be some sort of bottom eyeliner, and since I wanted them to look like their son more so I made him have eye makeup similar to Gold. There seems to be no make-up on Diamond so I had to improvise.
Charming Gold seems to embody Korean beauty standards like his androgynous body and flawless skin. His backstory of being horrifically bullied is a common story in Korean Media, especially stories about beauty standards.
With that in mind, I designed Diamond and Platinum from those beauty standards. In Korea, facial hair is seen as unattractive, but according to history, men were not allowed to harm their bodies and that includes hair. That is why I had Platinum sport a beard than Gold’s goatee. (Side note: Fandom Wiki just described it as a “red line” but I personally see it as Gold having a goatee.) Diamond have freckles and a mole because from what I had researched these beauty marks are at best neutral or at worst ugly in Korea. I found no solid statement even though some KPop idols, who are known to follow Korean beauty standards, have these same beauty marks. She was shown to have pronounced eyelashes so I made sure to show that.
I also have a headcanon that as they age, their faces darken from a white to a gray color. I picked the gray from their grayscale.
For the clothes, Charming Platinum's design was simple enough as his clothes seemed to be a long-sleeved polo shirt with buttons paired with black pants and shoes. He had this cloth wrapped around him like a belt and was wearing a large cape or a royal mantle. He was noticeably wearing the same backless vest Gold wore in the show. Hence, I see the vest like a crown, where the king, Platinum, passed it down to his heir, Gold. And let me tell you, it was hard getting a decent reference for this very symmetrical pattern.
For Charming Diamond here, we were never shown much. I had interpreted it as her wearing a royal mantle and a sleeveless dress and that is all. I noticed that the design on her brooch has the same design that can be throughout the show, like the window in one of the references.
Their royal mantles are rather interesting to me since Charming Gold never wore one in the show; however, since the mantles have peacock patterns on them, I think they were supposed to represent a peacock’s tail, similar to how Gold wore one during Season 1. I did some creative liberty while designing their clothes as we were never shown their full frontal view. Clothes from the Pikok tribe are surprisingly rather simple.
For my headcanons about their deaths, it is rather simple. I did not really think much about it, just a vague idea about how they died. Charming Diamond died from an illness, and she never knew about Gold’s ability and that he was the one behind the missing persons cases. Charming Platinum was stabbed in an assassination attempt by a member of the Mong tribe, who Gold killed to save the former, ultimately revealing his secret power. Platinum later died from the injury he sustained but was on rather good terms with Gold after learning the latter’s ability.
I do not really like the idea that Charming Gold killed his parents. While yes, he probably killed all of the members of the Pikok tribe I just can not really see him as the type of person to kill his parents. Maybe that is just my rose-tinted glasses, but I like to interpret his relationship with his parents as complicated but loving. In his backstory, it was implied that Gold immediately went to his parents after being bullied again. We can assume that this was not the first time this had happened to him, and he possibly went to his parents for consolement.
When he realized that even his own parents were ashamed of him, he was completely heartbroken as implied by the emphasis on the single teardrop. Charming Gold’s parents were ashamed of him because of his appearance, so it is possible that when Gold gained his energy absorption ability and became “beautiful” they started to treat him better. They did have some sort of familial love for him before that, but it became more apparent after the “curse” was lifted. But this is just my interpretation.
For their personalities, we were never shown much. What little we get is where they are in a stressful situation, so we can not really know for sure how they normally act. But Gold’s personality and skill must have come from somewhere.
I might draw and flesh them out more but this is it for now. I have been trying a new art style where I lean into the gothic medieval style so that is why the art has a yellow filter, but there is still the other version where there is no filter. Drawing these two was hard because as it turns out, I’m not actually good with drawing two characters existing in the same space with correct proportions.
Thank you for reading!
