What an impressive amount of platitudes.

@BotR I get what you mean, that the grandmother's general advice was 1) love happens in ways that aren't necessarily explainable, regardless of your age difference and 2) you're in love right now, so you should just accept it because love just happens.

But it's because of those points that I disagree with both her and you.



So...arranged marriages. That's literally what this story is about even if it has never used the term(? I can't recall). In fact, it's not a normal arranged marriage; it's an insidious one because it fools the people into thinking that they had a choice when, in reality, there was very little choice.

Let's look at Ma-Ri. She had social phobia and couldn't keep a stable job, and her parents' home had become so unwelcoming that she had nowhere to go. She had strong pressures to accept Sang Won's father's invitation to live with them. Sang Won's situation is even easier. He's a minor. He has to follow his father's orders. As a result, they have both been forced into close proximity with the notion of a marriage hanging over them. Of course they're going to think about it. When it's revealed to all be a lie, they still keep appearances up because...the father says so. The father says something along the lines of she is still your fianceé to Sang Won even when his lies were revealed.

You say it's not calculated who you're going to fall in love or bond with. Sang Won's father has done a pretty good job of making sure these two bond [and potentially fall in love].

@givemersspls
"There's no way to tell what Sang-Won could be thinking."

Pretty sure that is what she was coercing her to do. I think the conversation boiled down to:

Do you have feelings? Let's check. Yes you do. Now go act on them.
"But Grandma what if he doesn't like me"
Well you can never know that just thinking about it... so what do you think the next logical step is now champ?

"Also, the entirety of her speech on how meeting other people isn't a calculated thing. Hmm. Who is a kind of crappy parent who has manipulated basically all the main characters?"

I don't think the calculated element she was referencing was the one you are thinking of. She isn't talking about their meeting beeing calculated but what I think what was implied is that it is never really calculated who you are going to fall in love or bond with. For example, I worked as a door to door salesmen at one point. Even though my routes were preordained, the types of people I met were completely random. Some were the kindest people on the planet and others wanted me to die because I was a solicitor. One of the nice ones is my friend to this day. Even at first when I was smoozing him up to sell him a package or personalities didn't click very well. Still to this day we are quite the mismatched pair on just about everything but he is still my bro.

For the record. I quit within the week because I was told we would be going to places who do not have a soliciting ban. I felt like a total jackass but I needed the job. I got a new one the week after though so it all turned out OK.

It's nice and all, especially in how it inspires Ma-Ri to have more confidence in herself, but the grandmother's advice was rather...bad. First, "There's no way to tell what Sang-Won could be thinking." Uhh... it's called asking? It's called communication?

Also, the entirety of her speech on how meeting other people isn't a calculated thing. Hmm. Who is a kind of crappy parent who has manipulated basically all the main characters? Oh, right, it's Sang Won's father! He literally has orchestrated the entirety of Ma-Ri and Sang Won's relationship, whether that be through direct lies or more benign methods.

So sure, it's nice to read the grandmother's words here in general, but in this specific case, she's really, really wrong.