REVIEW: Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Re-watch value: 3.5 out of 5 stars
SYNOPSIS
*From DramaList*
The story takes place at the beginning of the 19th century. Goo Hae Ryung is an intern to become a palace historian. However, it was not acceptable for women to write historical records at that time. She takes one step at a time to create her own destiny in Joseon, where the Confucius ideas are deeply rooted.
She wants to fulfill her duties as a historian and prove to the world thateveryone is equal. Along with the fight of the female palace historians, the drama will tell her romance with Prince Lee Rim who has a secret of his own.
RAMBLING
*beware of spoilers*
“Let me tell you what I wish I’d known
When I was young and dreamed of glory
You have no control
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story
[…]
History has its eyes on you
—“History Has Its Eyes on You” from Lin Manuel-Miranda’s Hamilton”
These lyrics from the amazing Hamilton musical felt right at home in this review of Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung.
It’s a pretty solid show covering major relevant themes like: gender equality and politics, women in the workplace, and a relationship where the lady “wears the pants.”
We enter in on Hae-ryung (played by Shin Se Kyung, whom I haven’t seen since The Bride of Habaek), a young lady of the upper class who has a side hustle as a book reader for the wealthy—you know, because women in the Joseon era were kept uneducated and ignorant. She’s a whopping 26 years old, which is an ancient age to still be unmarried.
Her obvious love interest is young Prince Dowon, played by the effervescent and ridiculously cute/hot Cha Eun-woo of ASTRO. This little prince moonlights as a romance novelist of the caliber of Nicholas Sparks because his books sell like hotcakes.
Although their meet-cute was in fact very cute—Dowon sees Hae-ryung reading in a bookstore and he’s immediately drawn to her, love at first sight—I didn’t quite like the follow-up. She insults his writing (good), he gets offended (good), and then she proceeds to impersonate him at a book signing later on just to make a quick buck and Dowon shows up to oust the fraud only to find out it’s her. The ensuing chaos as the cops show up to bust the now illegal author meet ‘n’ greet (the government banned books Nazi-style, you see) seemed a bit lame and amateur to me.
But I stuck with the show, intrigued by the absolute rage the king and few key player officials displayed when they realized a questionable book was being circulated to the masses—one titled The Story of Ho Dam.
Anyway, the more compelling portions of this show revolved around (1) the romance, (2) the coup that dethroned the former king 20 years ago, (3) Dowon’s “secret” as the DramaList synopsis put it.
ROMANCE
Cha Eun-woo is adorable. There’s no arguing it. He’s a perfect person in my opinion, and this show let him shine quite nicely because he wasn’t limited to the tsundere character type like in My ID Is Gangnam Beauty. I appreciated the softer aspects of him: he was a hopeless romantic, had a sweet disposition, had obviously pretty/feminine physical features, wasn’t athletic (he couldn’t even shoot a bow and arrow), was naïve and innocent, and was just overall very vulnerable.
It contrasted brilliantly against his girl Hae-ryung. She was decidedly unromantic, athletic (she could in fact shoot a bow and arrow), beautiful but lacking humility (she knew she was pretty, declaring she knows what she looks like, she can see herself in the mirror every morning—ha!), assertive, an eloquent speaker, firm and fearless in the face of opposition, and focused on her career to the exclusion of all else.
Despite their differences, they strike up a very good romance, which included some great kissing. So rare for a sageuk to get great kissing!
Again, Hae-ryung was the one taking all the initiative in the relationship, a welcome creative decision! The man wasn’t the one pressing the woman for kisses or skinship or grand declarations of love. In fact, Hae-ryung finds Dowon’s gorgeous poem that revealed his true feelings to her scribbled on a piece of paper; Dowon didn’t have the guts to deliver the love letter himself. She finds him outside, quotes the letter verbatim, and then gives him a pretty good smooch.
I have to say that I loved that she was older than Cha Eun-woo’s Prince Dowon, who turns 20 somewhere in the middle of the show. In doing the simple math, that would make this show technically a noona romance. And if y’all have been around here in Daebak Foreign TV for any length of time, you KNOW I love a good noona romance.
At some point in the show, there’s pressure on their relationship because the Queen Dowager and the king decide it’s time to find Dowon a wife, and obviously Hae-ryung is unsuitable. They break up because of that tense season, but not before Dowon practically proposes to her and tries to turn the ship around by announcing to his grandmother (the Queen Dowager) that he already has someone he loves. Hae-ryung soon sets him straight—she won’t have him, she won’t just become a wife and get her wings clipped, she won’t give up everything she’s worked for to be a prince’s wife, she’ll just end up resenting him.
Now, I got the wind knocked out of me in the final episode because our main couple have overcome all the drama and are still together. Initially, I thought they were married, BUT NO. They’re essentially in a common law marriage, nothing official, he just spends as many nights as he can with her whenever he’s in town back from his worldly travels. I about fell over. A finale romance that doesn’t end in marriage? Our main couple just having sex and sleeping over and everyone is OK with it? THIS IS THE JOSEON ERA?
Ya. It was awesome.
THE COUP AND THE SECRET
So this was a decent little subplot, although I guess it couldn’t be called a subplot if it’s the main driver of the story. Throughout the show, it’s revealed that the current regime didn’t oust the former king because he was a secret Catholic, a heretic who espoused Western beliefs and therefore unfit to be king.
The former king was slaughtered by one of his subjects along with his own brother, who then assumed the throne. The duo proceeded to rewrite history, creating a fabricated story to justify their crime and defame the good king they murdered.
The good king was actually very forward-thinking and open to Western beliefs, although he wasn’t a Catholic. He set up and endorsed this liberal, coed school called Seoraewon, and this enraged his officials. They thought he was upsetting the moral code of their country by allowing women to study and alongside men, and not just study but study Western languages, medicine, etc.
The revisionist history aspect tied in perfectly with our historian Goo Hae-ryung. And the drama surrounding Dowon actually being the former king’s firstborn son and therefore the rightful heir to the throne was a delicious way of inserting tension and division between Dowon and his benevolent older brother the Crown Prince (except they’re really cousins but whatever).
More than the story itself, I liked how it played out. I liked the final episode, which didn’t succumb to the usual bloodbath but was a deep cut on how nonviolent protest can work. A few key people stepped up to take the blame (which they rightfully deserved) and others banded together to pressure the stupid king into launching an official investigation into what happened 20 years ago.
I’d like to particularly key in on Hae-ryung’s speech here. She plops down next to Dowon, on her knees in a prostrate position, and keeps writing the scene in front of her (because she’s basically a stenographer). The king had already screamed for every historian to stop writing what was going on, so he commands that she be killed for her insolence. With a sword at her neck, she says, “We’ll never stop writing. If you kill me, someone else will take my place. And if you kill that person, someone else will keep writing. And if you kill every historian, it will still be written. The truth is more powerful than lies and the people will know of it.” (or something to that effect, as I’m going from memory here)
Is the pen mightier than the sword? This show seems to think yes.
GIRL POWER
There was plenty of it, and that was just fine with me. When Hae-ryung runs away from her own wedding (which would have been to a complete stranger) and off to take the entrance exam for civil service as a historian, I was like YESSSSS. This is the content I’ve been looking for.
But it’s not just her that passes the exam—her and three other ladies join the historian ranks as clerks (aka interns). Together they upset the delicate balance of testosterone in their department and face so much discrimination and bigotry. I valued that they eventually became beloved members of the historians, that the guys really rallied behind them in the end, finally respecting them as colleagues even as they still playfully tease them.
All in all, if you need a shot of feminism in your sageuk and a little Cha Eun-woo to make you weak, watch this and be happy.
Did you see Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below!
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