Summary
My Royal Nemesis isn’t totally working in its final episodes, but it does seem to have clarified the transmigration premise and set up a happy ending.
As we trundle to the end of Season 1, I do have to wonder if My Royal Nemesis is getting a bit too confusing for its own good. Episode 12 seems to confirm what we already theorised about the transmigration thing, and that’s fine, improbable or not, but a lot of the chatter around the show seems to be rooted in a lack of understanding about the finer details, and when that’s overwhelming the effectiveness of the core relationship, we’ve probably got a problem.
Personally, I’m still invested in that relationship, but I do still find myself curious about the finer points of the transmigration, including some more outside-the-box questions, like to what extent Mun-do and Se-gye can recall their past lives as reincarnations instead of straight swaps (unless they’re swaps too?). Mun-do seems to have made a couple of oblique references that imply he knows a bit more than he’s letting on, but I’ll let the final two episodes unpack that.
You can make a case that Se-gye and Dan-sim’s relationship kind of undermines the corporate drama, since his comfort with Dan-sim being the only thing he’s really concerned about means that any threats looming from Mun-do’s direction don’t hold a great deal of water. The irony is that this is probably the strongest element of the romance, but if Se-gye isn’t fussed about Biojei or Dynaestie or whatever, then why would we be?
Of course, this isn’t the most important thing. The bulk of the runtime is devoted to the same thing as the previous episode, which is to say treating the ill-omened shooting star like a ticking clock device while Dan-sim tries to figure out why she continues to see so many of Seo-ri’s personal memories. Her initial theory is that it’s because her body is preparing for the arrival of its original owner, in a certain respect, but we know better than that.
With all this to worry about, she still prioritises Se-gye’s feelings. When he tells her about his mother falling sick, promising to return to him, only to never do so, it’s enough to compel Dan-sim to open up about being inevitably forced to return to Joseon in two weeks. This echoes through the time periods, since she also recalls Prince Cheongheon dying in exile while she was waiting for him, so she understands the pain that Se-gye has experienced and, given her own circumstances, is liable to experience again.
Again, this is so much more significant than Mun-do’s scheming that My Royal Nemesis Episode 12 never really escapes it. Eun-a continues to go after Dan-sim, but if she’s heading back to Joseon, so what? Tae-hee refuses to break off the engagement, but if Se-gye clearly only cares about Dan-sim, so what? Mun-do claims that Se-gye helped to buy out Grandma Nam’s restaurant, but again, even though he’s kinda furious about this accusation, this is of much lesser concern than everything involving Dan-sim.
With Nam’s condition worsening, she becomes a useful source of emotion and a way to create even more confusion around the connection between Dan-sim and Seo-ri. Every mention of Seo-ri in Nam’s diary prompts a new childhood memory of Seo-ri’s that Dan-sim experiences, but that shouldn’t be possible, since memories are tied to the soul of the person experiencing them. If Dan-sim is just borrowing Seo-ri’s body, how can she recall her memories? Of course, as we outlined in the previous episode, this is because Dan-sim is Seo-ri. Her consciousness was projected back to Joseon after the family suicide attempt, and then projected back when “Dan-sim” was poisoned. All of her childhood memories are from the 20th century. The transmigration caused Seo-ri to forget her original life and forge a new one as Dan-sim, and when she was pulled back to the present day, she presumed she was still “Dan-sim”, even though she was returning to her original body.
The bad news is that this is pretty confusing. The good news is that if I’m imagining the theory correctly, then the departure of the shooting star should leave Seo-ri in the present day, in her current body, meaning that she and Se-gye can be together. Perhaps we’ll be swerving that K-Trauma after all.
