More on Doremifasolatido

Soo…. because I get overly obsessed, and because I suspect I am becoming a fan of JGS, I went over to soompi and read over the translations for the novel version of Doremifasolatido. I’m seeing traces of love geometry, but it’s done interestingly enough that I’d like to keep reading, though I hope it doesn’t end in tragedy.

Here’s a picture of our main girl and guy:

So, in the novel…

Character Overview:

Yoon Jungwon (played by Cha Ye Ryun): Main character. Quick-tempered girl who learned to fight after a traumatic incident with her best friend. Not known for her beauty.

Shin Eungyu: The lead singer of a popular local band. Quirky, loyal, and terribly attractive. (Played by JGS! For the unitiated, he’s the new pretty face on the block – though how he remains so pretty is beyond me – what with finishing HGD, filming this movie, his two CF promos and his other movie coming out end of this year, I don’t know when he takes a break to sleep, let alone refresh makeup. But then, celebrities always have time to refresh makeup.)

Kang Heewon (played by Jung Eui Chul): Ex-best friend of Jungwon. His father was reported by Jungwon after he did a hit and run – he was put in jail because he killed a little boy. Heewon sees Jungwon’s action as a betrayal and gathered a group of people to beat her up – it was very brutal. Since then, they have cut off all contact.

Shin Sohyun: Eungyu’s sister. Very pretty, reduces Jaewang to quivering and infatuated jelly.

Yoon Jaewang: Jungwon’s little brother. Uses his looks to get what he wants, but is a decent kid.

Nari: Another vocalist of the band. Cutesy and blue-eyed.

Seohyun: Awesome rocker person of band, is possibly the only rational adult in this pack of wild teens.

Yoona: Jungwon’s airheaded but loyal friend.

(They’re almost all high schoolers. Not sure when or where they get the time to be doing all that they do, but whatever. Who am I to question narrative logic?)

General Relationship of Main Characters:

Jungwon is a quick-tempered high school girl who falls in love with Eungyu, but things escalate out of control when her old best friend, Heewon, interferes.

Detailed Plot Overview:

Part one:

We are introduced to Jungwon at her worst: angry and hurt. A group of high schoolers insult her on the job, as she has to wear one of those terrible green dragon suits and serve people. She is so angry she overturns a can of soda on the main instigator.

She is fired.

When she returns home, we see that she has a love-hate relationship with her younger brother (don’t we all?) and frequently tries to rein in his less-than-satisfactory behaviour.

Jungwon discovers that her new neighbours are a quirky family, happy to give slices of watermelon to people as hello gifts. The boy she dumped soda on is the son of the house, Eungyu.

Eungyu catches her sneaking outside her house at night to go to a job with her friend Yoona. He blackmails her into carrying his guitar for him. She grudgingly assents. She also hears him sing and discovers his enormous CD collection (mostly given by fangirls, lol) and thinks he has a beautiful, joyous voice.

They become semi-friends. All along, there are hints of something that traumatized Jungwon so deeply she learned self-defense. (Militant protector of the weak, yum.)

Eungyu becomes attached to her, though he doesn’t admit this. Jungwon hears from her brother that he was responsible for murdering someone in middle school (and they didn’t lock him up because Korea likes baby psychopaths on the loose, yeah). She stops talking to him and Eungyu goes through a period of depression that only lifts when they become a couple.

Jungwon gets picked on a lot. Then she meets Heewon, who is Eungyu’s best friend. OH AWKWARD.

Neither of them want their dirty laundry aired (though imo, Heewon’s just being a bastard and Jungwon is bending over backwards to accomodate this jerk), so they avoid each other as much as possible. Eungyu doesn’t pick up on the fact that his best buddy is picking on his girlfriend, due to their strenuous fight-covering-up activities.

Then Heewon threatens Jungwon to make her break up with Eungyu. He does a number of nasty things, like planting pretty little Nari with Eungyu all the time, sending people to beat Jungwon up. Heewon succeeds in breaking them apart, only after a major screw-up the magnitude of which sends the angst meter into high alert.

It lands both Heewon and Jungwon in the hospital, and while visiting, Jaewang, loyal younger brother that he is, blurts out all the secrets in front of Eungyu. The singer is shocked and remorseful.

After Jungwon is discharged from the hospital, the two friends start fighting. They bond, and Heewon forgives Jungwon.

(Um. Righto. But now we have the problem of Heewon maybe liking Jungwon – no one goes after a girl with that level of intensity unless there’s some major denial of feelings going on, and I’m starting to see hints of Jungwon liking Heewon back. Gah. Do not abandon the cute JGS. Poor guy’s getting abandoned in all his projects. What about this actor that says ‘Second fiddle’? Is it because he looks too pretty? Because if this were Japanese, he’d be winning major points.)

Suddenly, everyone gets pink eye so they stay home. Jaewang picks up a stray cat and names it Pupu. (Don’t ask me.)

Jungwon and Eungyu enjoy some couple time. (I have a feeling this won’t last.)

(Yup, it doesn’t last.)

Heewon starts his Campaign to Get Jungwon Back. Oh god. I knew it. I kneeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww it. Friction begins between the main couple, argh. Just to complicate the brew of trouble running around, Eungyu’s gorgeous childhood friend comes for a visit and viscously clings.

Gah, Jungwon’s given herself a month’s time to be with Eungyu… because she cares for Heewon’s escalating depression more – or not more, but fic logic dictates that guilt takes precedence over love. In the meantime, Eungyu’s busy preparing for a band competition, which ends … you guessed it, next month.

Aww.

Eungyu wins the competition, but Jungwon feels she has to break up with him because Heewon’s become suicidal. (And the obvious solution of making this guy see a psychiatrist didn’t occur to anyone? Sheesh, people.) The two friends fight over her, it begins raining (typical fic logic: weather compats with mood, yay), and Eungyu slowly backs away as he realizes Jungwon is devoted to making Heewon happy again.

After distancing herself from both guys, she bumps into an gangster friend, Jungbin, who is simple-minded but looks out for Jungwon’s interests. He thinks Heewon’s not sincere, so he tests him. Heewon fails with spectacularly bad colours.

The boys fight some more. (There must be a sort of vicarious pleasure to seeing people fight over you, no other reason to be so violent.)

Then Heewon gets framed for kidnapping – he’s put in jail, and Jungwon goes crazy trying to exonerate him. She feels responsible because his mother’s disappeared and his father has gone crazy from being imprisoned for so long that being released does absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, Eungyu goes through a very dark phase.

We are hit by angst, and it hurts like a icepick+ sledgehammer.

Eungyu and his band are picked up by a record label, so they host a farewell event at his high school. At the concert, Eungyu sings a special song for Jungwon. Heewon pleads with Jungwon, and she decides, through indecision, that she’ll stay with Heewon as happy therapy. There is a tentative promise from Heewon that he will release Jungwon from her ‘obligations’ once he’s back to his normal happy self, and that he’ll form a relatively normal relationship with Seohyun, who’s put up with all their demented shenanigans so far.

Part two:

After a year, Heewon’s healed and he finds his mother (his father is on the road to recovery, but no cameo).

When Jungwon goes to look for Eungyu, she discovers that Eungyu gets amnesia. (Sorry, couldn’t resist. Such a common card to play.) Actually, he is mentally disabled because a light fell down on his head during a later concert. Right. So now he doesn’t remember anything, or he does, but his brain fractures it so he’s vacillates between 5-12 in terms of aged behaviour.

This makes Jungwon sad. But also determined. She brings him back to Seoul for therapy and reconciliation, but finds to her dismay that he prefers Nari’s company to hers. Nari, annoying leeching thing that she is, can’t seem to grasp the gravity of the situation, and is perfectly happy with a gorgeous but disjointed Eungyu.

Eungyu’s doctor is of the opinion that Eungyu has retreated to his happy child-like mindset to escape from a terrible hurt (I’ll let you guess what that is) and tells Jungwon to leave things be. Meanwhile, his family has decided to send him to the countryside, for his peace of mind and theirs.

Jungwon, being stubborn almost to be point of pigheadedness, restages the last concert, during which there was a lot of angst, in front of Eungyu, hoping to revive his memories. It does. Eungyu has a small fit, trying to escape the memory of Jungwon abandoning him.

She won’t let him go, however, and he regains his memory all at once.

Love is all powerful, so they are happy in the end.

End specials. (There is stuff about the cat too, but I won’t include that here, as it’s not the most relevant thing ever.)

Commentary/Rambling:

– OMG YAY JGS GETS THE GIRL.

– I hope they use the epilogue/specials too, because to end the movie on the original novel’s end is just too depressing. Okay, they do, take a look at the trailer, posted here. Thank you to a Mousie who pointed out that the novel was split in two! I thought the previously labeled Epilogue was a side story.

– 1633 words. My brain, you fail at being academic. Will post a review of movie when it comes out – Korean release date is April-ish, so late fall?

Ta,

Sevenses