Shafted, shafted, shafted: A Story of Female Second Leads

This is Janine Zhang, who plays Lan Xiying in Black & White (she’s basically an expert on everything having to do with the law, medicine, and a damned good sharpshooter into the bargain). I would love to be her, but yeah. I’m not that awesome.

A long time ago Thundie wrote an article-essay on the treatment of male secondary leads in kdrama, and I felt inspired enough that I promised myself that I would write up a similar one about the female ones.

This is just something I’ve noticed, but the amount of hate towards female characters almost always beats the hate for male ones. And while on one hand it’s seriously not cool, on the other hand I think the tired old tropes women keep being thrust into have something to do with it.

Without further ado: