HOW I GOT SUCKED BACK IN K-DRAMA

or the power of narrative in the shaping of your life

A Korean drama series on Netflix lasts about 16 episodes. Each episode consumes an hour of your life. That’s 16 hours of your life vanishing into the ether, never to be reclaimed.

However, it is worth the price if the series delivers rousing entertainment and by rousing entertainment, I mean the kind that straps you into a comfortable seat and brings you on an emotional roller coaster ride.

But you can’t take roller coaster rides every day as it exhausts your spirit. Sometimes it is good to take a break and return to the comforting rhythms of the real world. I thought I had claimed back hours of my life when I stopped watching K-dramas. Maybe I could use those hours to finally learn a foreign language like Korean with Skillsfuture funding.

Then came this series called Queen Maker.

And I felt that familiar hook lodge into the addiction area of my brain, causing me to ditch all efforts to use my Skillsfuture funding.

The Premise Behind Queenmaker

Queenmaker is a political drama. It plays a familiar song, the tune of which you may recognize. The rich exploits the poor. The rich never get enough of power. Just when the rich have gorged itself on a buffet of power, they find room on their silver plates for a little more. The poor is oft betrayed, lied to, and made to look like fools, victims, and prey.

You are never in doubt as to who the heroes and villains are in this series.

What makes this series unique, however, is the heroine. She’s a fixer for the rich. She cleans up the fecal mess left behind by the powerful. She is, as those who dislike her would say, a guard dog for the wealthy.

However, the fixer has a conscience.

There is a line she cannot and will not cross. When her rich benefactor forces her to cross that line, she quits. She tries to redeem herself by helping an underdog civil rights lawyer activist to become the Mayor of Seoul. In this way, she tries to prevent the evil rich family from turning Seoul into an empire and playground for the rich and powerful.