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Bear with me for a while as I squee about Bidam some more. Because wow, what a fantastic, complex and complicated character played so beautifully by Kim Nam Gil. I’m so obsessed that I can’t think about or watch anything else until I’m done with The Great Queen Seondeok. :)
My Firefox history tells me I watched the 21st episode on the 2nd of February, and I’ve just finished episode 50. So I watched 30 episodes in 10 days. But like I’ve said before, I mostly watched Bidam scenes, and there are episodes where he’s in just one or two short scenes.
More with spoilers below.
Bidam is the son of Mishil and King Jinji.
Mishil is the main villain and the main enemy of Deokman (that’s the name the future queen Seondeok uses now). She is a fascinating character, too – a royal concubine who will stop at nothing in order to achieve her dream of becoming a queen. She rose to power as a result of her relationships with prominent rulers and officials. She was a concubine to three successive Silla kings: King Jinheung, King Jinji, and King Jinpyeong. And when neither of them married her to make her a queen she killed the first one, deposed the second one, and now she’s working on overthrowing King Jinpyeong, who’s Deokman’s father.
When Jinji said that he wouldn’t marry Mishil, she abandoned Bidam, who was then only a few months old, saying “I’m sorry, but I don’t need you anymore.”
She’s a cold and ruthless person. And she’s a great villain.
For now I have two favorite scenes and they are both Mishil & Bidam scenes, because their relationship is endlessly fascinating to me.
The first scene is from episode 33. Bidam has just found out that he’s the son of Mishil and the former king. Mishil for now only knows that he’s the ally of her enemy, and that he’s the disciple of Munno, the former leader of Hwarang (the royal guards), who disappeared from the palace many years ago and who took her son with him then (Bidam’s had a different name when he was born, Munno gave him the name Bidam).
And they have this talk.
Mishil: “Munno taught you well. You have wisdom and cunning.”
Bidam: “But nothing like yours, My Lady.”
Mishil: “You compare yourself to me?”
Bidam (laughing): “And shouldn’t I?” He pauses for a while. “I never quite lived up to my master’s expectations. Too lazy, he said. Too cruel. No compassion, he said. Too quick to kill. Like you, he said.”
Mishil: “And is it true? Have you no compassion? Are you too quick to kill?”
Bidam: “Oh, it’s more like... When I kill the pain of it makes me grin. I think that’s what bothered him.”
Mishil: “All the same, don’t grin. A quiet little smirk makes you look stronger.”
Bidam (with a quiet little smirk): “Like this?”
When she leaves Mishil thinks to herself “Bidam... Is it Bidam?” And it’s clear from her expression that yes, she put all the clues together and she’s sure that he is her son.
And the second scene is from episode 50. In the meantime Bidam lost Munno, the only father figure he knew. And Bidam hates Mishil, for what she did to Deokman, and because she abandoned him, but at the same time she is the only parent he has left, and he can help but feel drawn to her. And I think he also longs a little bit for a mother he never had.
Deokman sends him to retrieve a document she hid which could destroy Mishil if it was made public. When Bidam sees what it is he hides it from Deokman, and he lies to her that the document was gone. He later has a talk with Mishil and he says to her that he took that document. When she asks him why, he says that it was too cruel to do to his own mother. And he’s suffering so much, and he has tears in his eyes, poor baby. :) And you can see it’s affecting Mishil, too. She raises her hand to touch his cheek and her palm hovers for a few second close to his face and then she pretends she just wanted to remove a straw from his shoulder.
Bidam at first seems like an easy-going, charmingly rude guy, who’s also an excellent fighter. But there is darkness inside him.
Munno disappeared from the capital with baby Deokman (because many people already wanted to kill her even then) and Bidam, who was maybe 2 years old then. He had this vision that when the children grew up they would marry, unite three kingdoms who were always at war with each other, and rule them together. That’s why he was making geographical survey of those three kingdoms. He told little Bidam that these books were very important and that Munno was keeping them for Bidam.
Bidam internalized this message so deeply that he did a really horrible thing because of these books when he was no more than 12 or 13 years old.
Two men stole the books from Bidam because they heard him saying that the package they were in was very valuable. Bidam found out that they were from the refugee camp outside of town. He took some food and said that he would exchange it for his books. But when Munno found out about it and run to the camp a few hours later he found all the refuges dead. Bidam added wolfsbane to the food and poisoned them all – 30 or 40 people in the camp including women and children.
And he didn’t feel guilty at all. He said to Munno that he had to punish them, and he laughed with pure joy in his eyes. It was a chilling scene.
He really is full of contradictions – there is good in him, but there is also this cruel little boy that laughed with glee after he killed all those people.
I didn’t read many spoilers, but I know that his ending is a tragic one. And I can’t wait. Bring on the angst, I’m ready for crying my eyes out. :D
My Firefox history tells me I watched the 21st episode on the 2nd of February, and I’ve just finished episode 50. So I watched 30 episodes in 10 days. But like I’ve said before, I mostly watched Bidam scenes, and there are episodes where he’s in just one or two short scenes.
More with spoilers below.
Bidam is the son of Mishil and King Jinji.
Mishil is the main villain and the main enemy of Deokman (that’s the name the future queen Seondeok uses now). She is a fascinating character, too – a royal concubine who will stop at nothing in order to achieve her dream of becoming a queen. She rose to power as a result of her relationships with prominent rulers and officials. She was a concubine to three successive Silla kings: King Jinheung, King Jinji, and King Jinpyeong. And when neither of them married her to make her a queen she killed the first one, deposed the second one, and now she’s working on overthrowing King Jinpyeong, who’s Deokman’s father.
When Jinji said that he wouldn’t marry Mishil, she abandoned Bidam, who was then only a few months old, saying “I’m sorry, but I don’t need you anymore.”
She’s a cold and ruthless person. And she’s a great villain.
For now I have two favorite scenes and they are both Mishil & Bidam scenes, because their relationship is endlessly fascinating to me.
The first scene is from episode 33. Bidam has just found out that he’s the son of Mishil and the former king. Mishil for now only knows that he’s the ally of her enemy, and that he’s the disciple of Munno, the former leader of Hwarang (the royal guards), who disappeared from the palace many years ago and who took her son with him then (Bidam’s had a different name when he was born, Munno gave him the name Bidam).
And they have this talk.
Mishil: “Munno taught you well. You have wisdom and cunning.”
Bidam: “But nothing like yours, My Lady.”
Mishil: “You compare yourself to me?”
Bidam (laughing): “And shouldn’t I?” He pauses for a while. “I never quite lived up to my master’s expectations. Too lazy, he said. Too cruel. No compassion, he said. Too quick to kill. Like you, he said.”
Mishil: “And is it true? Have you no compassion? Are you too quick to kill?”
Bidam: “Oh, it’s more like... When I kill the pain of it makes me grin. I think that’s what bothered him.”
Mishil: “All the same, don’t grin. A quiet little smirk makes you look stronger.”
Bidam (with a quiet little smirk): “Like this?”
When she leaves Mishil thinks to herself “Bidam... Is it Bidam?” And it’s clear from her expression that yes, she put all the clues together and she’s sure that he is her son.
And the second scene is from episode 50. In the meantime Bidam lost Munno, the only father figure he knew. And Bidam hates Mishil, for what she did to Deokman, and because she abandoned him, but at the same time she is the only parent he has left, and he can help but feel drawn to her. And I think he also longs a little bit for a mother he never had.
Deokman sends him to retrieve a document she hid which could destroy Mishil if it was made public. When Bidam sees what it is he hides it from Deokman, and he lies to her that the document was gone. He later has a talk with Mishil and he says to her that he took that document. When she asks him why, he says that it was too cruel to do to his own mother. And he’s suffering so much, and he has tears in his eyes, poor baby. :) And you can see it’s affecting Mishil, too. She raises her hand to touch his cheek and her palm hovers for a few second close to his face and then she pretends she just wanted to remove a straw from his shoulder.
Bidam at first seems like an easy-going, charmingly rude guy, who’s also an excellent fighter. But there is darkness inside him.
Munno disappeared from the capital with baby Deokman (because many people already wanted to kill her even then) and Bidam, who was maybe 2 years old then. He had this vision that when the children grew up they would marry, unite three kingdoms who were always at war with each other, and rule them together. That’s why he was making geographical survey of those three kingdoms. He told little Bidam that these books were very important and that Munno was keeping them for Bidam.
Bidam internalized this message so deeply that he did a really horrible thing because of these books when he was no more than 12 or 13 years old.
Two men stole the books from Bidam because they heard him saying that the package they were in was very valuable. Bidam found out that they were from the refugee camp outside of town. He took some food and said that he would exchange it for his books. But when Munno found out about it and run to the camp a few hours later he found all the refuges dead. Bidam added wolfsbane to the food and poisoned them all – 30 or 40 people in the camp including women and children.
And he didn’t feel guilty at all. He said to Munno that he had to punish them, and he laughed with pure joy in his eyes. It was a chilling scene.
He really is full of contradictions – there is good in him, but there is also this cruel little boy that laughed with glee after he killed all those people.
I didn’t read many spoilers, but I know that his ending is a tragic one. And I can’t wait. Bring on the angst, I’m ready for crying my eyes out. :D
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