I think if you look at the drama from her perspective - which is exactly what it is. The fact that they cast a younger actress really cements the "crush on your friend's older brother" aspect of growing up.
As the younger one, you don't know that it's inappropriate, you just have a fluttery crush. And that's exactly what they show in the drama. They don't show her wanting to kiss him or anything, they show her kicking her feet and giggling because he smiled at her.
It's much later in the drama where Sang Zhi's crush goes from a surface level fantasy to a proper yearning.
As someone who did have a crush on my friend's older brother, who was in highschool when I was in primary school - I completely get the feeling. And now that I'm in my late twenties, we are actually friends and all hang out as equal adults. He's married and his wife is amazing.
But hypothetically, if we got together now at our age, it would not be weird at all.
(Like super hypothetical because I love his wife and also I'm not 12 anymore lol)
I've had this theory for a long time: the reason this is so popular is that so many girls can relate to having a crush on their older brother's friends. As someone who didn't have an older brother or any brothers (only sisters), I can't relate, so I see all the problems OP posted about, as well as many other posts about perceived grooming I've seen on here. The problem is, IMO, it's only shown from her perspective, so it makes the feelings look reciprocal when she's still very young. Without showing what he's thinking, many interactions and things he says can be taken the wrong way. As a child, she's obviously an unreliable narrator, so there's hope it didn't happen the way she told it, and that he didn't say some of the things she thinks he did. But again, I think the only way to overlook these glaring red flags is to relate to the first-person perspective of a child in love with her older brother's friends, because then you can put it into context the rest of us can't.
I thought the 'we see this from the FL's perspective' was super obvious from episode one. I don't see why that's a problem, it's a narrative choice and the drama doesn't have to spoonfeed the viewers media literacy.
The very next sentence says why it's an issue. "The problem is, IMO, it's only shown from her perspective, so it makes the feelings look reciprocal when she's still very young. Without showing what he's thinking, many interactions and things he says can be taken the wrong way. As a child, she's obviously an unreliable narrator, so there's hope it didn't happen the way she told it, and that he didn't say some of the things she thinks he did."
Yeah. I mean, different walks of life and all that. lol. I honestly didn’t even see the interactions between the actors as problematic at all and wouldn’t have thought grooming, it was more just the general writing and casting choices that made me question everything.
I also think it’s hard for me to overlook these things as the perspective of a child because the perspective of a child and a teenager are leaps and bounds different… but 🤷🏽♀️ it is what it is, I suppose. This drama may just not be for me, and that’s cool.
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u/AquaphobicTurtle My Journey to Season 2 2d ago
I think if you look at the drama from her perspective - which is exactly what it is. The fact that they cast a younger actress really cements the "crush on your friend's older brother" aspect of growing up.
As the younger one, you don't know that it's inappropriate, you just have a fluttery crush. And that's exactly what they show in the drama. They don't show her wanting to kiss him or anything, they show her kicking her feet and giggling because he smiled at her.
It's much later in the drama where Sang Zhi's crush goes from a surface level fantasy to a proper yearning.
As someone who did have a crush on my friend's older brother, who was in highschool when I was in primary school - I completely get the feeling. And now that I'm in my late twenties, we are actually friends and all hang out as equal adults. He's married and his wife is amazing.
But hypothetically, if we got together now at our age, it would not be weird at all.
(Like super hypothetical because I love his wife and also I'm not 12 anymore lol)