Characters make up a fundamental part of Kdrama.
They bring life to the fights, deliver the emotions, and introduce plot developments.
As K-drama geeks, we always find ourselves attached to at least one character on the
screen.
And yet, there are just some characters so bland that we doze off watching them.
And they are included in today’s list of the most USELESS characters in K-drama land.
Go Ara in Hwarang During the pre-release promotion of the historical
drama ‘Hwarang’, we got teasers that painted Go Ara’s character as someone “different
from other girls”.
Here, she plays Kim Aro, daughter to a respectable minister, but her mother is only a lowly servant.
Therefore, she’s treated like a despicable half-breed in the Kingdom of Silla.
Despite this mistreatment, Aro trained herself to become a skilled physician, and tried to
set out as a self-reliant girlboss to defy her low social status.
Sounds cool huh?
Sadly, this character profile only works in theory.
As the story unfolds, Go Ara’s character also fell flat.
She became dependent and passive, despite being promised as a strong female lead.
Specifically, although Aro is said to be an irreplaceable part of the defensive line,
she often finds herself in restraint, captivity, or injury, and there’s always someone risking
their lives to rescue her.
Even worse, the romance between her and Park Seo Joon, who plays the male lead, was as
bland as tap water.
It is irrelevant to the plot, not as interesting as the bromances in the show, and holds no
fight against the cutesy but awkward second lead couple.
The damsel-in-distress trope is used on this character so much that many yawned while watching
her tethering by the side, doing absolutely nothing important.
And we can only blame the bad writing for that: Hwarang tells a good tale, delivers
good emotional developments, but apparently, it does not know how to integrate a female
lead.
So there we have it, Aro is just a character full of wasted potential.
Im Yoona in The K2 Yoona is such a familiar face by now that
literally everyone knows of her.
She’s a member of the legendary Kpop group Girls’ Generation, and has established herself
a name in the acting field.
But her acting career hasn’t always been a flower path.
Her first TV debut in ‘You are my destiny’ was not exactly welcomed with praises.
So, when she announced to play Go Anna in the highly anticipated action series ‘The
K2’, viewers started to have doubts.
And damn were they right.
It’s not totally the actress’s fault though.
In the drama, Yoona plays Go Anna, the illegitimate daughter of the presidential candidate Se
Joon, kept away from the public to protect her father’s reputation.
She has always been watched by her evil stepmother, lives in isolation, and suffers from terrible
mental triggers.
There is just so much potential for this character: she can grow out of her shell, try to defeat
the evil stepmother, or at least develop a mind of her own and grow to be independent.
And yet, what we have got is a princess always waiting for a prince charming to come - Anna
adds nothing to the plot, and the only thing she really does is run and cry.
She’s naive and always needs guidance and attention from the male lead, and her story
is so boring that some viewers even expressed that she’s just added so that the main character
can get a young love interest.
Much as Anna could have grown and become a profound and fleshed-out character, she ended
up being a mere eye candy whose only purpose is to highlight the cool male lead.
Now that we have talked about useless female characters, how about adding a male one for
a change?
This time, it’s Kim Hyun Joong in the high school drama ‘Playful Kiss’ at the end
of our slander.
Kim Hyun Joong was the dream man of all old K-drama geeks, because his role as the second
male lead of ‘Boys Over Flowers’ was legendary - We mourned that he didn’t get the girl,
put up posters on the walls, and squealed in presence of his handsome appearance.
Sadly, whatever charm he had in Boys Over Flowers did not make it to Playful Kiss.
Instead of the gentle second lead, this time, he plays an arrogant and cold-hearted rick
kid called Baek Seung Jo.
The story of Playful Kiss is so simple there’s not much to add.
It revolves around Oh Ha Ni’s love pursuit for Baek Seung Jo with the typical hate to
love storyline.
If written properly, then maybe the series can still be a guilty pleasure to binge-watch.
And yet, the lack of character development in Baek Seung Jo is the ire of all viewers.
Even when Hani and Seung Jo got married, he barely showed her any affection.
He’s still scornful, insecure, and trying to control the girl like she’s his puppet
doll.
While Hani is also an annoying character, she at least makes the series somewhat entertaining
with her antics and high-spirited side.
Meanwhile, Seung Jo is as active as a brick.
He shows no development, no depth, and we may as well replace him with a standee.
He’s just there to squint his brows and be mean to Hani, kissing her when the plot
asks for it.
So yep, Seung Jo is definitely useless to the point of being replaceable.
4.
Shin Se Kyung in The bride of Habaek Despite having way too much experience in
the acting field.
Shin Se Kyung is still regarded as a terrible actress with “stiff expressions”, “little
personality”, and “lacking acting abilities”.
And her role as the female lead in ‘The bride of Habaek’ is no exception.
In this fantasy-romance drama, Shin Se Kyung acts as a neuropsychiatrist called Yoon So
Ah, who is struggling both financially and emotionally.
She is a descendant of a family that had served the Lord of Habaek for generations.
And when the God Habaek descended to earth, he asked for So Ah’s help to retrieve his
magical stones.
Not that she offers much help throughout the entire thing.
Basically, Shin Se Kyung’s role in the entire drama goes like this: she frowned, she got
surprised, she got hurt, and then she cried.
Compared to other female characters like the Goddess Mura, So Ah is basically useless,
contributing little to both the plot and the romance.
In fact, Mura, who is played by Krystal Jung, is such an alluring and mysterious character
that we can’t keep our eyes off her despite her malice.
The fact that So Ah was completely outshined by a fellow character really begs the question:
Is she even a main character at this rate?
Finally, we are arrive at the last useless character of today, and the number five is
no other than Park Shin Hye in Memories of Alhambra
Now, Park Shin Hye is a super talented actress who has shined in a great diversity of roles:
from a meek high school girl to a kick-ass action woman.
And throughout it all, the actress had shown us that her acting is not to be joked with.
Yet, ‘Memories of Alhambra’ can be said to be a dark spot in her acting career.
The series was highly anticipated, embracing action and fantasy as a whole.
So when Park Shin Hye was revealed to be female lead, we expect stunning actions or at least
an in-depth character worthy of her acting skills,
In an interview with Shin Hye, the actress commented on her character Jung Hee Joo as:
“Someone who is strong and not afraid to stand her ground.
Though she has had to give up her dreams and run a hostel, she has never given up her artistic
side.”
The character was basically hyped up as an iron lady, only to end up as a total disappointment.
Despite being a provider in the family, she is often seen as a passive character.
In her confrontation with Yura, Jin woo’s ex-wife, she was obedient to Yura’s tantrum
and did not react while Yuna was thrashing the hostel out of jealousy and sheer craziness.
These behaviors did not correlate with the resoluted Hee Joo that Park Shin Hye described.
All the other characters basically outshined her, including minor ones like the mysterious
Hyun Seok and the reclusive Se Joo.
And despite this being an action-fill series, what did Hee Joo do throughout the entire
series?
She cried, was bullied, and dressed up to play an instrument and wait for her lover
to return.
She might as well be replaced by an NPC with her zero contribution to the plot.
And that’s the list of totally useless characters in Kdramas.
Do you agree?
Or do you have more to add?
Feel free to share your opinion with us in the common section!