Korean Drama Analysis Kiss Goblin

Welcome back to the Korean Drama analysis of Kiss Goblin. We are on episode two of this Korean drama. If you missed episode one, you can find it here.

When we left off in our Korean Drama, the goblin was being punched in the face by the heroine. The goblin confronted the heroine and asked her why she hit him. She projects her feelings from her act on to him, asking if he thinks it’s fun to play with people’s emotions and make him feel superior. The actress shows the depth of her character’s emotion by the quiver in her voice and the tears coming to her eyes as she talks about this.

We flashback to see that she’s really thinking of what happened with her and her ex in catching him cheating.

Goblin reaches his hand up towards her face, but she stalks away, her friend in her grasp.

We hear the Goblin’s voiceover telling the goblin queen that he feels strange because he wanted to wipe away her tears and pat her back. The goblin queen explains that this is the new emotion that he just received from girl number two, and it’s called compassion.

When the heroine and her friend are far enough away from the Goblin, her friend looks very confused. The conversation reveals that her friend does not remember kissing the goblin.

The Korea drama writer then cuts to a scene where the heroine is frustrated because she isn’t finished with her assignment. She has a flashback thinking about the goblin and wondering how it’s possible that her friend doesn’t remember kissing him.

She needed to be frustrated with her assignment because of what’s about to happen next. Her classmate offers to do her homework in exchange for going on a blind date with one of his friends.

We see the goblin in everyday life, and we are shown that he has lots of bills and his water has been turned off.

Now we see the heroin on her date. The guy approaches and is rude, saying that she doesn’t look like her dating profile. He wants to know what photo editing app she uses. She keeps a smile on her face to be friendly and says that she heard that he was pestering her classmate for four days and five nights for them to get together and she’s sorry that she doesn’t look as good as her picture does.

He said it was a joke, and she must be the type to hold grudges.

In her head, she says people sometimes confuse being rude with being fun-loving.

The date continues to spiral downward with him talking about himself and his preferences without her even asking him. She also notes that guys think that having manners is too old-fashioned.

He then says one last thing asking her how many people she’s gone on blind dates with and how many guys she’s dated in total.

She insults him in reply, with a smile, and then says, “just joking.”

Through this scene, we learned that she prefers old-fashioned guys with manners. Luckily the goblin is old and, therefore, probably old-fashioned. Check!

She then goes to work and bumps into the goblin (literally), who has taken a part-time job there. She is suspicious that the goblin is only there to get revenge on her for hitting him the previous evening. He reveals to her that he needed a job because his water got shut off.

Purpose of this scene:

-forced proximity
-sexual tension (he grabs her wrist and pulls her towards him to prevent her from running into a table. After interrogating him, he grabs her wrist again and pulls her towards him, trying to be intimidating. She kicks him in the shin in response. She demands to know his reasons, and he motions for her to come closer so he can tell her. He leans in close and speaks into her ear.)
-couple gets to know each other (she asks why he’s working there, why he kissed her friend, and he basically tells her to be respectful, call him by his name and mind her own business. After the kick, she shows her noncompliance with being a soft-spoken woman, defends her friend, and makes fun of his name. She asks again for his reasons. He tells her the truth, and she calls him crazy.)

When working together, there is an altercation between the heroine a male customer. The male customer becomes more and more irate and then tries to hit her, but the Goblin stops the customer. The heroine then slaps the customer across the face with his chicken (Kdrama Trope twist: Kimchi Slap) and has a massive outburst.

When alone, the goblin goes to her and tries to comfort her by bringing her a drink. He takes her side and tells her not to be upset because the customer was wrong, not her. He tells her he looked up online how to comfort others and gave her a carton of chocolate milk.

In the end scene of the Korean Drama, episode two, we are introduced to the villain who is looking at a picture of the goblin on his phone. This is an example of an external problem for the couple, more specifically for the hero.

The things the writer integrated into episode 2:

If we are following the Romancing the Beat sheet, then this episode covered Phase 1: Adhesion.

By putting these two characters together in their part-time job they now have a reason to continue to be in each other’s daily lives. The goblin needs money to pay for his bills, especially since he’s going to be human after eight more kisses.

We learned that the Goblin isn’t a liar – at least not with our heroine. She asked him twice why he was two-timing her friend and why she couldn’t remember it, and he answered her after the second time.

We also learned the heroine doesn’t get along well with normal human men. She finds them distasteful and rude. This is a contrast to the end of the episode where she sees Goblin offering her comfort in the form of a chocolate milk.

Another character trait for her is that she’s faithful and loyal to her friends as evidenced by her inability to let go what happened between the goblin and her friend.

Tropes Used:

Feisty heroine – she doesn’t stop herself from speaking her mind and she’s not afraid to get physical when someone crosses her boundaries.
Kimchi slap – In Korean Dramas there is a trope where a character gets slapped on the face with kimchi. The writer used a version of it here with the fried chicken (another common food in Korean dramas)
Forced proximity – they work together in the restaurant
Male knight – Goblin stepped in to keep the heroine from getting hit
Man in Black – clearly a bad guy is coming onto the scene – what part will he play?

That’s my analysis for Episode 2 of Kiss Goblin, the Korean drama. I would love to hear your feedback and thoughts! Did I miss anything? Did you find this helpful?

Be on the lookout for Episode 3!

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