[SAGEUK WORLD] 선덕여왕 (Queen Seondeok) Ep. 07~32

It was likely one summer afternoon, in 1992.

After watching the latest episodes of my very first sageuk, KBS' 삼국기 (The Three Kingdoms), on fuzzy tapes which traveled along with who knows what other amenities -- carefully hidden kimchi? Jo Yong-pil cassette tapes? The latest installment of the 애마부인 (Madam Aema) series, with "Disney Films" written on the side? -- I asked my neighbor's grandfather, a veteran historian who left Korea in the early 80s, to explain us a few of the subjects we saw on that deliciously corny potboiler of fake mustaches and strangely clothed old men looking like aristocrats, but speaking like drunken middle-aged men at the pub down the street. He took out one dusty, gargantuan volume with strange characters written on top, began carefully turning some of those pages, and after a few minutes of arcane mumbling, he started his erudite vernacular. I only learned this quite a few years later, moons after that tremendously fascinating old man had already crossed the pearly gates, but it turns out those characters on top of the dusty book read 三國史記 (Samguk Sagi, History of the Three Kingdoms). It was with hilarity and a bit of brewing nostalgia, then, that I found myself approaching the same exact source, this time in the eery and impersonal comfort of the digital format, all of 17 years later. The issue was more or less the same, the mystery behind the name Shilla, but unlike a grumpy teenager's wonder at the discovery of such archaic notions, my reaction was closer to the ennui and boredom of deja vu.

- From the Samguk Sagi, 1st Volume, 1st Shilla History Section, King Jijeung's Annals
四年冬十月
群臣上言
始祖創業已來 國名未定 或稱斯羅 或稱斯盧 或言新羅
臣等以爲 新者德業日新 羅者網羅四方之義 則其爲國號宜矣

4th year of King Jijeung's reign (503), tenth month.
The courtiers sought audience with the King.
"Ever since the foundation of our nation, our moniker has never been decided upon, as some call it Sara, others Saro, and some even Shilla*."
"Your humble servants interpret this 'Shin' as the heralding of new virtuous achievements by the day, and 'Ra' as enveloping the four corners of creation with our might. We hence propose that our country be christened as Shilla."

*Shin+Ra, pronounced Shilla, as a character finishing in "ㄴ(n)" attached to a character beginning with "ㄹ (l/r)" is pronounced as a double l, as in Jeolla (Jeon+Ra).

Kim Bu-Shik, the Goryeo historian of Shilla ancestry who led the Samguk Sagi's compilation (by supervising 11 other historians under Emperor Injong's command), concocted this little scenario for a clear purpose. Of course saying "concocted" would be a little misleading, considering the amount of sources they had at their disposal - from the 신라고사 (Ancient History of Shilla) to Kim Dae-Moon's original 화랑세기 (Hwarang Segi, Annals of the Hwarang), not to mention plenty of historical documents from the Middle Kingdom. Yes, 新 (Shin) meant new, and 羅 (Ra) meant net, or something enveloping, embracing, including many other elements, so that kind of interpretation wasn't too far fetched. But the sudden christening of a nation's name through this alleged and mucho convenient court deliberation, centuries after the country's foundation at that, was likely an ideological (hence political) move to justify what was to come. That is, Kim Bu-Shik offered a quintessentially Confucian interpretation of the name Shilla, and pretty much justified what many call the unification of the Three Kingdoms, all in a couple of sentences. The result? A dangerously large number of people still think Shilla actually unified the Three Kingdoms.

Compared to our modern concept of 민족의식 (national consciousness), where a people share ethnic fabric, culture, language and customs, Kim's 국가의식 (state consciousness) worked more along geographical and administrative lines, which is why Shilla never had too many qualms about sending hordes of Baekje and Goguryeo soldiers to kingdom come despite their sharing very similar ethnic fabric and language. Back then, not only diplomacy but even succession claims (say, Goryeo with Goguryeo) were more based on convenience, politics and affinity which had very little to do with ethnic mores. For Shilla, their neighbors weren't brethren, but merely another enemy, their often controversial relationship with the Tang just the most convenient piece of diplomacy serving their interests. I could go into a rampage about the origins of national consciousness, which -- although some misguidedly believe it to be born during the "Unified" Shilla period -- is a concept created during the final days of the Joseon Dynasty to fight off Western influence, and something which exploded in popularity during the colonial period, producing nationalist historians like Shin Chae-Ho. But the point is, be it 20th Century national consciousness shaping modern historiography, or the state consciousness which adorned Kim Bu-Shik's prose, we're still dealing with ad-hoc historical interpretations with the purpose of serving one's current interests. It's not exactly malicious revisionism, as some of those interpretations are still plausible, but never for a moment believe they're the strenuous and humble efforts by historians to preserve the truth. Because from Sima Qian all the way to Lee Deok-Il, historians were, are and will always be "players" as well.

I feel a little embarrassment myself, placing someone like Kim Young-Hyeon next to the Shin Chae-Ho and Kim Bu-Shik of the world, but what the writer of 선덕여왕 (Queen Seondeok) is doing is not unlike what drenched the pages of what we today consider historical fact. She is taking several documents (some of which are nothing more than historical fiction, truth to be told), and has been trying to concoct a somewhat plausible story out of certain details found there, details which clearly serve her purpose. If Kim Bu-Shik's purpose was legitimizing Goryeo's roots and provenience by aggrandizing Shilla's feats -- making it seem as if the unification of the Three Kingdoms was some sort of divine project which began centuries before the fact, when it was more likely the result of able diplomacy, luck, and a bit of cunning douchebaggery when dealing with their neighbors -- and Shin Chae-Ho's goal in aggrandizing (or re-interpreting) many overlooked figures was arousing national fervor amongst people who were forced by the Japanese to forget their roots, then you can formulate a theory as to what exactly Kim Young-Hyeon and Park Sang-Yeon are trying to do. And that's when the annoyance begins.

Episode 32 was in many ways the most important moment Queen Seondeok has offered us in the last two months' worth of broadcasts - or maybe the only. It tied together many important elements which were only mentioned en passant during the first two episodes, and put the final building blocks of that alluring temptress known as Mishil in place. All the evil misdeeds she was responsible for, from the poisoning of King Jinheung and obliteration of Lord Geochilbu (a predictably fabulous Kim Gi-Hyeon) to the dethronement of King Jinji and even all she did to obstacle Deokman's rise to the top, all came down to a very simple notion. That she all did it for herself, to become Queen. And, sure enough, the reason why this third meaning, the expanding of Shilla's territory to include (or, well, conquer) the neighboring nations, is not kosher for her comes down to the same issues: she is not the Queen, and war would require an united front standing under the King's might, so she'd have to become King Jinpyeong's new favorite Pavlov's Dog, her power slowly vanishing away like all the other courtiers. Turning all this labyrinthine narrative conundrum into such barebones personal greed makes the Beholder of the Royal Seal all the more humane, and thus charming. But then you start wondering... if Mishil's purpose was simply egotistical, what on earth is the writers' purpose?

What happened on Episode 32 could have easily been shown around Episode 20, had Kim and Park been writing with storytelling flow and overall quality in mind. But their purpose has never been that. It wasn't the case for Kim when she wrote 대장금 (Dae Jang Geum), which pretty much had a beginning, 40 episodes patterned all more or less the same way, and a frantic rush to an insipid finish. It certainly wasn't the case for 서동요 (The Ballad of Seo Dong), in which she suddenly forced our hero to give the viewers a lecture on ondol heating techniques to buy time, turning him into the Three Kingdoms' version of MacGyver. And, sure enough, her latest escapades into well recorded historical shenanigans are no different. We've been witnessing twenty episodes of asinine quest-based storytelling, creating a problem, subjecting our hero(ine) to a certain disadvantage, and then paving the way for her eventual success. The most basic narrative techniques cut and pasted over two months' worth of television, with a different argument every two weeks or so, but with our baddies and good guys gaining experience points as time went on. As if this was freaking Dungeons & Dragons.

I already talked extensively about the origins of this RPG-like structure in the sageuk of the last ten years, but when you strip it down to its quintessential purpose, it's a disarmingly simple equation: those quests only minimally further the plot, and neither they develop characters in ways which significantly progress the main story. They just add some experience (positive or negative as it may be) to the characters, and capture the viewers' attention with cheap storytelling 101, fancy little stories lazily put together to only last two weeks or so, until the next story comes saving us from fatal boredom. People do get the urge to watch the next episode (hence the ratings), given the vague idea that "fun things are about to happen," but then writers pull the rug from behind right when the payoff is about to be served, exactly because they need to hesitate another little bit. It has been done for Deokman's exhausting journey of discovery, with Bidam (a quite solid Kim Nam-Gil), and will certainly be done for Kim Chunchu, who seems to be headed for a debut next week. If all you care about is the bottom line (and why would you, unless you're making any money off of this?), then Queen Seondeok has done wonderfully. It's now cruising at over 40% with a full ad-plate, its extension has been confirmed, and there's enough buzz for it to remain afloat even if boredom should kill off the remaining few characters with some verve. Which would be... two. One of them likes to poison large quantities of people. The other hates plants enough to poison them. Talis mater talis filius, as them Latins say.

But, really. This drama is called Queen Seondeok, not Princess Deokman. If you stop to think about what the show has accomplished in 32 episodes, then you should realistically start worrying. Other than creating this formidable black widow known as Mishil, and doing last minute switcheroo tactics to make people believe that little Deokman is now suddenly a genius bent on controlling the world, what have we gained? Slender-brush writing carved on a tiny dagger telling us that Shilla's raison d'etre is unifying the Three Kingdoms? If we add another good 10 episodes for Chunchu's storyline to truly kick in, we'll reach episode 42 with Deokman still princess, still playing mind games with Mishil, and still "entertaining" the masses with mini-stories lasting three-four episodes to keep asses firmly in the seat, lest ratings might fall. Any Tang, Baekje and Goguryeo presence is still nowhere to be seen - who will Shilla fight on its way to that grandiose unification, huge armies of fifteen people coming out of nowhere like in 주몽 (Jumong)? Kim Yushin is still a bumbling simpleton with a heart of gold whose greatest achievement was splitting a rock, and the only real war we've seen is the game of which Hwarang minion will manage to create the least hilarity in a single episode. As always, the curse of the RPG sageuk infects what was another promising production.

We'll continue getting 40 minutes of "filling in the blanks" scenes made of inept comedy and questionable drama, and then a big payoff like on Episode 32, waking people up and reminding that "good things are still to come." Then, one day around January, we'll suddenly wake up and find out that this drama called Queen Seondeok hasn't really talked that much, nor shown what was so special about the first ever queen in Korean history. Find out that all it did was filling its makers' coffers with the kind of dirty money only this shallow pap can bring. And once again, its purveyors will grace the morning with a complacent smile, knowing they've been part of the greatest MMORPG in all of Korean television. And that they've all lost at it....