"No man can walk so long in the shadow that he cannot come again to the light."
— Robert Jordan

It's been a long time since a drama made me feel so much. I feel drained, literally because I'm sleep deprived having binged this in 3 days while keeping up with work. Emotionally and mentally too because this was a well written drama that explored some scary ideas about the human condition through an intriguing thought experiment. The question isn't new, it's been around since the mid-1800s when Francis Galton coined the phrase "nature vs nurture" in a discussion about the influence of heredity and environment but history has shown us that our tragic flaw has been our ability to rationalise violence under the guise of humanity. Popular science fiction films like Gattaca and Minority Report had similar themes of free will vs. self determination, but what I think this drama does better is it's ability to demonstrate the nuances and implication of the debate and the various manifestations of our hubris through a very raw examination of how our humanity is nurtured, tested and proven in the way we experience pain, guilt and forgiveness.

I really liked Ba Reum's trajectory and ending. His emotional and spiritual journey was heart wrenching and Lee Seung-Gi did an excellent job of terrifying me one moment and making me weep for him the next. That ending, "He died in extreme pain as he repented for his sins. Did the deity do that to punish him or to save him?" I really love it not only because we see him get a redemptive arc and finally at peace with himself and with God but this idea that even "monsters" are extended grace is a challenging concept to accept spiritually but reflects an important characteristic of unconditional love.

Lee Hee-Joon's portrayal of his character's vengeful anger cloaking grief and shame was really well done. I really like how it explored his journey of forgiveness, learning to forgive himself and those who've wronged him. Forgiving is hard, but not forgiving hurts us even more.

At almost every critical moment we will see people given very similar choices make very different decisions, and what this writer did so well was you could genuinely understand where they were all coming from. Ironically this is also where I feel she dropped the ball with the ending. Specifically by having the people vote in favour for the abortion of foetus with the "psychopath gene" and the bill passing, while a realistic outcome, seems to undermine some of the thematic ideas being challenged through the narrative, made even worse by the idea that the schemer behind this devastating plot got what she desired - to see the bill passed and society enforcing a very dangerous doctrine.

On a lighter note, did you know that South Korea has a population of 51 million people and half of them are in this drama? And by the 4th episode a quarter of them are dead. I challenge anyone to find a historical with this many characters and deaths. The key difference here is unlike wuxia's and sageuk's where you can usually just go with the flow until things fall into place, this is one drama you do need to pay attention to every character's connection to get the most out of it.

Also somebody please cast Kwon Hwa-Woon in a rom-com, my shallow ass couldn't stop thinking what a cutie he was even while I thought he was a psychopathic killer.

Thanks to @Joerin who got me intrigued about this drama and @TheButterfly whose post got me motivated to start it.