Out of all of the complicated loves in this currently airing set of dramas, the struggles of Hae Soo in Scarlet Heart: Ryeo seem to be the most impossible to sort out. With 18,000 princes, a king, a jealous princess and no relatives around to protect her, it’s easy to understand why Hae Soo’s life is more than a little complicated but when you throw in a tangled mess of love interests and a plot to steal the crown, you’ve got a story no drama-lover can resist.
Before I dive into the highly addictive, albeit complex, world of Hae Soo and her thousand suitors, I should probably state right off that I’ve only watched through episode 6, so again, anything that’s happened since writing this will have to be discussed either in the comments or in a later post. That being said, with the death of Hae Soo’s cousin, her life has gone from comfortable to completely unstable. Even though she’s been living in the house of the 8th Prince, Wook, since her cousin’s death, she has no guaranteed protection. Which means that when her elders decide to see her off to a “rich old man with a bunch of sons”, no one can do anything to stop the marriage. Well… an admirable group of princes did try to save Hae Soo from this awful arranged marriage but their efforts really didn’t really do much good. Rescue attempts tend to prove pointless when the rescuers learn their actions are going against the king. Go figure!
With the king willing to marry Hae Soo, there’s really not much anyone can do to prevent the marriage from taking place. Princes Wook and So made the most valiant attempt to stop the marriage, risking their own lives to appear before the king and Princes Eun and Jung deserve an honorable mention for pleading with their mothers to intervene but it all came to naught. Apparently when the king sets his mind to something, no one can stop him. Except Soo herself. Which she does. (And yes, I totally cheered for her, even as she was bleeding out. You’ve gotta admire a girl with that much gumption!)
So now we have a scarred Soo who can’t marry the king (Woohoo!) but can’t really marry anyone else either; at least not without the king’s permission. (I think that’s how it goes for women working in the king’s palace… Don’t they all technically belong to the king and are only allowed to marry if the king permits them?) Assuming that’s the case, Soo is now in an even more precarious position that she was living in Wook’s house because though she may be saved from a life of slavery, she’s no longer allowed to live with the freedoms she once enjoyed. This means that all of that innocent flirting she received from Eun and all of the affectionate attention she receives from all of the other princes could be misinterpreted as an attack on the king, or a conspiracy against him, or any other sort of nonsense that some random evil-doer might try to come up with. So any time any prince comes to visit her, they run the risk of being charged with treason and dying. Talk about impossible love!
To make matters more complicated than they need to be we have Prince Wook who, despite being heart-broken over his wife’s death, still manages to find the time to toy with Soo’s heart. I don’t think he’s playing with her emotions just for the heck of it. In fact, I believe he truly cares for her and would like to marry her. My problem is that no matter how hard I try to be okay with this match, I’m just not. Wook may be a great guy, he may be a suitable match for Soo but something about the two of them together just doesn’t feel right. Maybe it has something to do with Wook’s wife dying before Wook could confession his feelings. Maybe I feel sorry for this woman going to her grave broken-hearted. Maybe it’s just because I really want Soo and So to be together… It’s hard to say. But whatever the reason, I’m not okay with Wook stealing so much of Soo’s attention and I’m really not okay with it if he continues to make her love him while she’s under the king’s roof. If they’re gonna court, they should have done it while she was still a free woman and not when his attentions could ultimately lead to her death.
Of course the same holds true for all of the other princes as well. Which has me wondering just how the heck Soo is supposed to get together with my most favorite Prince So??? We all know they’re supposed to be together (despite what history may tell us) so how is this going to happen? How is a man who can’t even admit he likes a girl, convince her to fall in love with him when 1) she’s currently falling for someone else and 2) she’s technically the property of the king and therefore off-limits? This seems like the most impossible of loves at the moment and THAT JUST DRIVES ME CRAZY! I need So and Soo to be together more than I need air! So how can we make this happen!?! I have all sorts of ideas and theories and plans I’d love to be able to set into motion but I’m stuck over here, on this side of the computer, waiting impatiently for the day when these two finally realize they’re the most perfect match in the whole history of the world. Ugh! The pain that comes with watching this drama is awful!
To distract myself from all of these desperately pathetic thoughts of Soo and So, I’ll ask you what you think of Soo and her impossible love. Loves? Stuck in the past, surrounded by adorable and handsome princes who are all slowly warming up to her, how is she going to decide which path to take? Will she fall for one of the many princes currently interested in her or will she fall of one of those who hasn’t quite succumbed to her charms? What if she ultimately decides that none of the princes are for her? After all, she knows she’s not from this time period and she could, theoretically, find a way back home at any given moment. What if she decides falling in love with a man who’s technically been dead for a thousand years, isn’t something she wants to do? There’s nothing in Drama Law that says she has to fall in love with anyone. (Oh wait…) Still, there are so many options available to Soo at the moment, how does someone in her position even decide which is the best? Does she even feel the need to make such a decision? Surely I’m not the only one asking these sorts of questions, am I? Feel free to let me know in the comments below!