Hellohello~~ It me! Hope you’ve had a good week. I finally got around to trying out that peppermint hot chocolate yesterday. It was alright – a bit too sweet, though. I didn’t have it with frothy milk as they recommended so maybe that’s why it was just alright. But hey, I finally tried it so yay.
Noble Idiocy (here we go)
Maybe I did need a little sweet because this week’s issue is about the drama trope I loathe - Noble Idiocy. In the dramaverse, a Noble Idiot is a character (usually an OTP) who decides to sacrifice their relationship based on the assumption it would be in their partner’s better interests. It’s seen as noble since they’re willing to give up their own happiness for their partner but ultimately idiotic because both halves of the OTP end up crying themselves to sleep during this period of needless separation.
Some insight into why this hurts so bad
I hate it. I hate it so much. I mean, can you imagine? Right from the meet-cute, you knew. Heck, right from the casting announcements, you knew this was on the cards! The union of the OTP. The sailing of the ship. Sure, the ship would have to weather a storm. It’s a drama, after all. But it’s okay. You’d get some pockets of blissful OTP moments that you can hang on to and rewatch while you wait for new episodes to air the following week. So, for now, you wait for your OTP to board the ship you’re already on, too tense to sip on your drink with a smol umbrella in it. You run to the bridge and watch, transfixed as one half of the OTP, feet firmly planted on the ship, reaches out to the other. Take their hand, take their hand, you want to scream. But all you can do is stand and watch. You, of all people, know by now that, as much as you’ve prophecised where this ship will go, its destiny is not in your hands. Nothing happens and, for a brief moment, you wonder if you miscalculated. Are the stars not fully aligned? Is this not the night that the ship would sail? But wait, look! The other half is reaching out too. You clamp your hand over your mouth, eyes widened in delight as your OTP boards the ship together. Suddenly, the sky is the most pastel shade of blue and clouds morph into fluffy little hearts. You lift the umbrella out of your purple drink and raise the glass to your lips. Suddenly, lighting cracks across the sky and the world is engulfed with darkness. No! No, no, no! You swivel round to find one half of the OTP, the Clueless Partner weeping at the edge of the ship while the other half, the Noble Idiot is…swimming back to the harbour?!
BUT WHY! You shout. WHY?!
In Secret Garden, the female lead looked at you and said ‘I should tell him I hate him so he never finds out he was there when my dad died.’
In Beauty Inside, it was ‘I’ll just ghost him forever so he won’t suffer when I transform into someone else once a month’ (Yeah, she *did* physically transformed into someone else once a month.)
In Encounter, they took turns with ‘I’m too old; he has his whole life ahead of him; I’m holding him back’ and ‘I’m too young; all I’ll do is ruin her career and hold her back.’
In Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol (DDSSLLS), it was ‘I’ll FAKE MY DEATH so she doesn’t have to suffer by my side while I get treatment for cancer.’
And just like that, time and again, you find yourself collapsed against the side of the ship. Your drink has spilled into the cracks of your soul and the smol umbrella lies on the floor, crushed.
The reason why Noble Idiocy frustrates me to no end is precisely because of how much it undermines character/OTP development from earlier episodes. The characters would have overcome so much to board the ship and now one of them willfully swims back to the shore. This is especially so when it occurs in the latter half of the series. (It’s quite amusing how much rage I feel right now; is this why my mum calls me a drama queen ahahaha). When there are so many other situational obstacles that the writers can throw in the path of the OTP, Noble Idiocy often feels like nothing more than a cheap trick from a dated playbook.
Does it matter when it doesn’t? Does it?
The subsequent 2-4 episodes of angst seems pointless to endure (but I do anyway, because the OTP Watch goes on, yo) when two adults should be perfectly capable of sitting down and talking about their insecurities and fears. Even if talking is scary, you could text about it! Eventually, either the Clueless Partner becomes clued in and runs after the Idiot or the Idiot would wake up one day and realise that there’s nothing noble about causing mutual heartache (what about my heartache man?) So yes, they usually find their way back to each other. But it takes a while, I’m telling ya. It takes a while.
Ok, sometimes…it’s not so bad…?
Yet, some might argue that the trope itself is fine – it’s the execution that matters. I suppose that does have some truth to it. In When The Camellia Blooms, the female lead had been stigmatised for being a never-married single mum. It made sense that she had internalised that no self-respecting man would want anything to do with her and that the ones who did were too naive to understand the kind of scrutiny they would experience, causing her to keep her distance from the (genre-defying) male lead. So yes, contextual explanations behind Noble Idiocy can help to make the trope feel a bit more natural.
On a personal level, I did relate to the Noble Idiocy that occurred in Reply 1994. Hmm, this is actually the only example I can think of where the relationship didn’t actually end when the Noble Idiocy kicked in. After Trash Oppa and Na Jung got together, they were pulled apart due to a long-distance relationship and Trash Oppa somehow decided that it would be easier for them both if they spent whatever little time they had on the phone talking about more positive and upbeat things. So he stopped talking about the tiny things that made him frustrated during the day – like an unreasonable colleague or just an altogether bad day. Thing is, if you don’t talk about the things that upset you, all your sad feelings get repressed and weird vibes start to filter through, regardless. Na Jung eventually picked up on his cues and tried to be as upbeat as possible too. But yknow, I understood how you sometimes don’t want to bombard your partner with a rant if you’ve only got like 15 minutes of talktime per day. Everything kinda sorta made sense until…Trash Oppa thought it was a good idea to not tell Na Jung that his mother passed away. *takes a moment to breathe because this Noble Idiot was such an Idiot I need to find him and make him write a 400 page reflection on how that was such a bad idea*
Noble Idiocy in real life
All things considered, though, I wonder how many of us actually find ourselves thinking that our partners’ lives would be better if we weren’t around. It’s not a happy thought in the least and a part of me does relate to that fear. The biggest fear, of course, is never in that you believe it yourself, but in the possibility that one day, your partner might believe it too. I suppose it comes down to self-acceptance, at the end of the day. If we don’t accept ourselves, it’s inevitable that we would assume no one else would.
Yet, this is why dramas matter. I don’t think I would have understood how ridiculous Noble Idiocy is if I haven’t seen it played out over and over again in the dramaverse. If you’re with the right person, it never makes any sense. So, if you ever feel this way and need someone to talk to, this space is always free. I won’t make you write a 400 page reflection (or will I?) but I will remind you of how awesome you are and how the last thing any of us should ever be is a Noble Idiot.
Have a good weekend, my friends <3