JOIN OUR WHATSAPP CHANNEL
Doom At Your Service 3rd anniversary: Exploring themes of life, death, love, and fate juxtaposed in Park Bo Young and Seo In Guk’s fantasy romance
Doom At Your Service starring Park Bo Young and Seo In Guk turns 3 today. Let’s celebrate its anniversary by dissecting how it beautifully explored themes of life and death alongside love and fate.
Doom At Your Service remains one of the most beautifully written fantasy romances where major themes connect the characters into one single string. Doom At Your Service premiered three years ago today on May 10, 2021, and today as we look back at the fantasy romance, it is time to dissect the deeply meaningful themes at work in the drama.
Doom At Your Service is 3 years old today: Exploring major themes of life and death, love and fate in the fantasy romance
Doom At Your Service follows the story of Tak Dong Kyung (Park Bo Young), an ordinary woman whose life changes for the worse in a day. She finds she is terminally ill and has glioblastoma, her boyfriend is cheating and a creep is stalking her, to make it harder she only has three months to live. With nothing left, Tak Dong Kyung gets drunk and wishes for a shooting star to doom the entire world. 
Her wish to end the world is heard by Myul Mang (a Korean word that literally translates to doom) who decides to make it true. Myul Mang (Seo In Guk) is an immortal being created by God, his existence causes destruction but is indispensable to the world’s existence, without him the world will perish.
He is the link between gods and humans, created between dark and light, and his small actions lead to destruction: he starts a car and accidents happen, he lights his cigarette and a sinkhole opens, he walks and seasons end, and so on. Myul Mang harbors a feeling of self-loathing as he does not like the purpose he serves and is angry with his creator.
Since it is his fate, he has to accept it however, sick of his fate leads him to fulfill Tak Dong Kyung's wish to destroy the world.
Death and life’s eternal connection
Doom At Your Service has an overarching theme of death from the beginning, but the beauty of it increases as it juxtaposes with the theme of life. Doom At Your Service begins with the mention of an impending death, Tak Dong Kyung will die in 3 months due to a brain tumor, and similarly, her wish again puts death in perspective, this time death of the world.
However, as the fantasy romance drama advances, we see how death ultimately gives birth to life. We can see it as a process of metamorphosis that creates new life from the death of another.
Myul Mang and Tak Dong Kyung’s love story was always meant to end in a way that would have the viewers reaching for tissues. Their story needed one of them to end, only then the other would live. Myul Mang is not exactly a living being, he is an immortal existence who does not sleep or eat so, eventually, he chooses to end his existence and present his love, Tak Dong Kyung with a new life.
This sacrifice of Myul Mang, his death made way or in a way gave birth to Tak Dong Kyung’s life. This proved that death gives way to life and either one’s existence vanishes when the other one is not there.
Secondly, Myul Mang’s death did not mean an ‘end’ not entirely anyway. Myul Mang’s creator, a goddess in this life who is living on earth as a teenage girl has a bigger plan in place for his favorite creation.
God or Goddess, as you may call her is nurturing a small plant and waiting eagerly for it to bloom. This plant which in episode 16 finally blooms is revealed by the goddess to be none other than Myul Mang himself. The goddess also divulges that the plant is born from the remains of a butterfly. A few episodes ago, a butterfly died beside Myul Mang as he accepted his fate of dying, this butterfly was that one only.
So Myul Mang died and his death ultimately gave birth to him as a human, Kim Saram. As the goddess’ plant bloomed Myul Mang finally went through a metamorphosis himself and transformed into a real human from doom, establishing the theme of death and life’s eternal connection and how death gives birth to life.
Love can move mountains and even change fate, in a way
Another significant theme is love and fate, conclusively: love conquers all. Tak Dong Kyung and Myul Mang’s love at the end conquers every obstacle and brings them together in the end. Their love conquers Tak Dong Kyung’s terminal disease, Myul Mang’s destructive existence, and their fate of separation.
Tak Dong Kyung and Myul Mang’s love is what lets Myul Mang see the world and humans in a whole different way. The world he wanted to doom, but in the end, he saves it. Love changes him and finally leads him to become a human. Their love is so strong that even God herself waits for them to create a new fate for themselves. She always believed in Tak Dong Kyung’s love and how it would change Myul Mang’s fate.
But to conquer it all, Tak Dong Kyung and Myul Mang have first to accept their initial fate however sad it may be. Once Myul Mang accepts his fate and chooses to die to save his beloved and similarly when Tak Dong Kyung accepts his fate and learns to live alone for her loved ones, a new fate begins unraveling.
This new heavenly fate only happens when they accept their sad fate and hold the hands of the love that binds them forever. Tak Dong Kyung and Myul Mang’s love, in the end, creates a new fate for them hence, corroborating love’s power over fate and their connection.
Doom At Your Service was undoubtedly one of the most beautifully written fantasy romances in K-drama history and today, we guess it is time for a rewatch.
Stay updated with the latest Hallyu news on: Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat
ALSO READ: Park Bo Young reveals how she became 'friends' with Choi Woo Shik in new hilarious clip; Watch
Latest Articles
