At the rate the ongoing South Korean drama series, ”Doom at Your Service” (DAYS), created by tvN, is unfolding, it might end up to be a new classic when it comes to unexpected (chapter) endings. I wish Netflix would air the series as soon as possible to reach out to the increasing number of fans worldwide, including me.
Marketed as a fantasy-romance series, understandably because of the presence of the creation and destruction deities as characters in the story, DYS actually delves not much on supernatural phenomena, but more on the dynamics of faustian conflicts in a modern setting as well as the freedom humans have in choosing and charting their destinies.
The storyline also explores on how love and compassion can affect the course of creation and destruction in one´s world, and the world in general. The dynamics between the main characters, including their love story, is nothing out of the extraordinary, yet it is one for the books. It is a pity millions of intellectuals and romantics in South Korea have not yet discovered the gem in this series like their counterparts in the rest of the world. Whatever ending this K-drama series might have, the South Korean writers have already succeeded in hinting to 100 reasons why life is precious or why death or the end of one´s life, is not something to be feared.
The main character in the story, Tak Dong Kyung, is a woman in her late 20´s or early 30´s, working as an editor of a Web publishing company. One day, she is diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive type of cancer in the brain og spinal cord, and learned she just had 100 days to live. That news was followed by a series of unfortunate events that all happened in a day – learning her boyfriend of three months was married via his wife who splashed water on her in a restaurant, having onlookers who recorded that event and confrontation on video that was later circulated on the Internet to bash her as an ”adulterous” young woman, getting berated by the CEO of the company she works with because of returning late to their office and because of the video that has become viral, confronting and then running after a pervert who took a video of her without her consent while she was seated in a train and then seeing this person fall in a sinking hole, and eventually getting caught in the rain (without an umbrella) on her way home.
This woman did not cry at all with all the misfortunes she experienced that day, or almost her whole life, starting when her both her parents died when when she was about 10 years old. To drown her sorrows that evening, she drank alcohol. When she got drunk, she saw a falling star, and wished for the doom of the world. This was the start of the faustian conflicts she had to deal with. Her wish was heard by an immortal being that is responsible for the end or disappearance of things in the world. Doom or Myul Mang in the Korean language literally knocked on Dong Kyung´s door that night and the two eventually entered into an agreement: Dong Kyung must wish for the end of the world within the 100 days before her death or else the person she loves most will die.
I cried after knowing about what happened in the 10th episode of this K-drama. The strong woman who would not cry or could not cry in all her 30 years of life shed copious tears for the first time when she saw love for the first time, and realized that love has a double-edged sword. The writers have spun puns intricately here, because the main character´s object of love is the human version of Doom itself, and that person is willing to sacrifice his existence for the person he loves. Would the main character accept Doom´s sacrifice or not, and what would her choice lead to?
I usually hope for happy endings for my favorite stories, but this time, I just wished the the writers would remain true to their original storyline, and not be swayed by the wishes of fans like us for happy endings. I hope, too, they would expound more on the origins of Doom and his story as a an object of divine creation in the human world.
