I wasn't gonna complain...I'm more of the silent majority when it comes to watching dramas, but somehow, someone has got to take notice of viewer demand and make some change to the character development in these dramas. Otherwise, this trend is off putting.

It has nothing to do with the actors, who are doing their best. They work hard, I get it.

Why are many female leads such sorry wusses? There's more attention paid to ornament their bodies than their brains. I see the beautiful outfits, the perfectly coordinated accessories, the hair, the flawless skin, etc., but I also see the deficiency in capturing them with traits that respect them as human beings, capable of myriad thoughts that allow viewers (especially the female ones) to appreciate the kinds of effects they have on the rich and powerful men around them. If you bring down the woman by limiting her agency, you bring down the men who eventually fall under her love spell.

At first, I thought the female lead would learn to mask herself, assume a new identity, contemplate how to use her role to revenge against the loan shark and his minions, and the brother in law who forces her into his twisted predicaments against her will, and take advantage of her role to elevate the financial status if not honor of her family (overtly or covertly.) Maybe somewhere along the way, she begins to confuse her new identity with the old as she struggles to accept her husband through the contract marriage even as she slowly falls undeniably in love with him. Maybe for his part, he sees her as perfectly dislikable in the beginning, yet through intimate moments is compelled to discovery aspects of her hidden self which draw him in, deeper and deeper, into the truth about who he has actually married. This, as a plot, would have been interesting.

Instead, you have a woman who cannot think rationally, who cannot keep her actions consistent, who cannot differentiate the line between doing no harm and defending herself, whose first impulse is to sob, and sob, and what else, sob. If she gets high on emotion, she becomes an instant loose cannon, totally unpredictable and uncontrollable. This is the type of person our supposedly intelligent villain and equally enviable hero are obsessed with for the whole of the drama.

The drama is actually not that different from Goong (maybe that's why JJH was the male lead.) The character of the female lead in both dramas is weak and ineffectual, but hey, at least she is dressed like a barbie.