True Taste Korea

Jo-won

  • Did Jo-won Really Love Hee-yeon in Netflix’s The Scandal?

    Netflix’s The Scandal seems to give us a familiar story.

    Jo-won approaches Hee-yeon because of a wager.

    Then something changes.

    He begins protecting her, helps her escape and appears to develop genuine feelings for the woman he was supposed to seduce.

    So the obvious conclusion is:

    Jo-won fell in love with Hee-yeon.

    But some viewers noticed something strange.

    What if it wasn’t really romantic love?

    What if Jo-won saw himself in Hee-yeon?

    Hee-yeon and Jo-won Are More Similar Than They First Appear

    On the surface, they are opposites.

    Jo-won appears confident, experienced and free.

    Hee-yeon is a widow trapped by the expectations placed upon women.

    But beneath that difference, both characters are prisoners.

    Hee-yeon is trapped by society.

    Jo-won is trapped by his past and his relationship with Lady Cho.

    Neither can simply choose the life they want.

    That similarity may explain why Jo-won’s feelings toward Hee-yeon become more complicated than the original wager.

    Was He Trying to Save Hee-yeon—or Himself?

    Some Korean viewers interpreted their relationship very differently from the 2003 movie.

    In the Netflix series, Jo-won may not fall deeply in love with Hee-yeon in the conventional sense.

    Instead, he begins to recognize her pain.

    He sees someone being pushed into a life she did not choose.

    And that experience is painfully familiar.

    Jo-won himself carries the memory of being unable to escape his relationship with Lady Cho.

    Helping Hee-yeon therefore becomes something more than protecting another woman.

    Saving Hee-yeon may be Jo-won’s attempt to save the version of himself who was never able to escape.

    That Changes Their Love Story

    This interpretation explains why their romance can sometimes feel unusual.

    Jo-won is attracted to Hee-yeon, and he clearly becomes emotionally attached to her.

    But their relationship is also filled with pity, recognition and shared helplessness.

    Hee-yeon represents something Jo-won has almost lost:

    the possibility of leaving.

    She still has a chance to escape the world controlling her.

    Jo-won increasingly believes that he does not.

    That may be why helping her becomes so important to him.

    And Lady Cho Never Really Disappears

    Even when Jo-won is with Hee-yeon, his emotional history with Lady Cho remains in the background.

    That is crucial.

    If Hee-yeon had completely replaced Lady Cho in Jo-won’s heart, the ending would be easier to understand.

    He could simply choose Hee-yeon and leave.

    But he does not.

    The past remains too powerful.

    Lady Cho represents the life Jo-won cannot escape, while Hee-yeon represents the life that perhaps could still be saved.

    Jo-won stands between them.

    And ultimately, he saves neither relationship.

    So Did Jo-won Love Hee-yeon?

    The drama never gives us a simple answer.

    And perhaps it should not.

    Jo-won may have loved Hee-yeon.

    But love does not have to be the only reason he helped her.

    He may also have felt compassion.

    He may have recognized his own wounds in hers.

    And he may have wanted Hee-yeon to escape the fate that he believed had already consumed him.

    That makes their relationship more tragic, not less.

    Because perhaps Hee-yeon was not simply the woman Jo-won loved.

    She was also the person he still had time to save.

    And by saving her, Jo-won may have been trying to save one final piece of himself.

  • Did Lady Cho Really Love Jo-won in Netflix’s The Scandal?

    One of the biggest questions left by Netflix’s The Scandal is surprisingly simple:

    Did Lady Cho actually love Jo-won?

    She says and does things that suggest deep attachment to him.

    But she also manipulates him, tests him and refuses to give up the world that keeps them apart.

    That is why some viewers see her as a woman who loved Jo-won, while others see someone who simply wanted to possess him.

    The truth may be somewhere between the two.

    Lady Cho Clearly Cannot Let Jo-won Go

    Jo-won is not just another man to Lady Cho.

    Their relationship is tied to their past and to feelings that society will never allow them to openly pursue.

    But Lady Cho has another priority: her position.

    She lives inside a social system built around family, reputation and status.

    Leaving that world would require her to sacrifice almost everything that gives her power.

    And she never truly does it.

    That creates the central contradiction of her character.

    She wants Jo-won, but she also wants the world that makes being with him impossible.

    Then Why Does She Push Him Toward Hee-yeon?

    This is where the story becomes much more complicated.

    On the surface, the wager involving Hee-yeon looks cruel.

    Lady Cho turns another woman’s emotions into a game and uses Jo-won as part of it.

    But some Korean viewers have suggested a very different interpretation.

    Hee-yeon may remind Lady Cho of her younger self: a woman trapped by social expectations and denied control over her own life.

    Under this interpretation, Lady Cho’s wager is not simply about jealousy.

    She may also be pushing Jo-won toward a woman who could give him the kind of relationship that she herself cannot.

    That does not make her actions innocent.

    But it makes them more tragic.

    Love and Possession Become Almost Impossible to Separate

    Lady Cho’s problem is that she does not know how to love Jo-won without controlling him.

    She wants him to remain emotionally connected to her.

    But she cannot offer him a life together.

    When he moves toward another woman, she reacts.

    When he tries to escape their old relationship, she pulls him back.

    This is why viewers can interpret the same actions in completely different ways.

    If love means wanting someone to be happy even without you, Lady Cho repeatedly fails.

    But if love can exist alongside fear, jealousy, pride and selfishness, then her feelings for Jo-won become harder to dismiss.

    She may genuinely love him.

    She simply cannot love him in a way that sets him free.

    Jo-won Seems to Understand This

    That may also help explain Jo-won’s ending.

    He eventually realizes that Lady Cho is unlikely to abandon her world for him.

    But he also cannot completely remove her from his own life.

    Their relationship has become a prison built from love, resentment and memory.

    Hee-yeon briefly appears to offer another path.

    But by the end, Jo-won seems to believe that simply leaving with someone else cannot erase the past.

    Lady Cho still has power over him.

    So Did Lady Cho Love Jo-won?

    Probably—but The Scandal asks a more uncomfortable question:

    What is love worth when you refuse to risk anything for it?

    Lady Cho wants Jo-won.

    She needs him.

    She becomes jealous of losing him.

    And she may even try, in her own twisted way, to give him another chance through Hee-yeon.

    But when the moment comes to choose between Jo-won and the world she has built around herself, she cannot simply walk away from that world.

    That is what makes their relationship tragic.

    Lady Cho’s feelings may be real.

    But love alone is not enough.

    Because throughout The Scandal, the person Lady Cho is least willing to sacrifice for Jo-won may ultimately be herself.

    Lady Cho’s feelings for Jo-won raise a question that goes beyond love and jealousy: how much control could a woman truly have over her own life in Joseon society? Her desire to control others may also reflect the restrictions surrounding her own choices. Explore the real history of women’s rights in Joseon Korea to understand the social world behind Lady Cho’s complicated behavior.

  • Why Did Jo-won Kill Himself in Netflix’s The Scandal?

    The ending of Netflix’s The Scandal left many viewers with one question:

    Why did Jo-won choose to die?

    At first, the ending can feel sudden. Jo-won could have escaped. He could have chosen Hee-yeon. Instead, he walks into the water.

    But his death makes more sense if we stop seeing it simply as the end of a love story.

    Jo-won Was Never Truly Free

    Throughout the drama, Jo-won appears free.

    He meets women, ignores social expectations and behaves as if nobody can control him.

    But emotionally, he never escapes Lady Cho.

    Their relationship began long before Hee-yeon entered his life. Lady Cho repeatedly pulls him back through desire, jealousy and manipulation.

    One Korean viewer described Jo-won’s death as the only way he could finally escape Lady Cho.

    That interpretation changes the ending completely.

    Jo-won does not die simply because he loses a woman.

    He dies because he believes there is nowhere left for him to go.

    Did Jo-won Really Love Hee-yeon?

    This is where viewers disagree.

    The 2003 film makes Jo-won’s feelings toward the widow easier to read as romantic love.

    Netflix’s version is more ambiguous.

    Some Korean viewers believe Jo-won sees something of himself in Hee-yeon.

    Both are trapped by forces larger than themselves. Both carry wounds caused by other people’s expectations.

    When Jo-won helps Hee-yeon, therefore, he may also be trying to save the younger version of himself that nobody saved.

    That could explain why their relationship sometimes feels less like a conventional romance and more like two damaged people recognizing each other.

    Lady Cho Is Still at the Center

    The most important relationship in Jo-won’s life may ultimately remain his relationship with Lady Cho.

    He loves her, resents her and cannot completely leave her.

    Lady Cho, meanwhile, wants Jo-won close without abandoning the social position and world that protect her.

    That contradiction traps them both.

    Jo-won eventually understands that nothing will fundamentally change.

    Lady Cho will not leave her world for him.

    He cannot return to the person he once was.

    And leaving with Hee-yeon would not erase everything that came before.

    So Why Does He Walk Into the Water?

    Jo-won’s final choice can therefore be read as more than heartbreak.

    It is his final refusal to continue playing the role others have created for him.

    He cannot win Lady Cho.

    He cannot completely escape her.

    And he cannot simply begin again as if the past never happened.

    Death becomes the only exit he believes nobody else can control.

    That is why the ending feels so bleak.

    Jo-won spends much of The Scandal looking like the freest person in the story.

    But in the end, he may actually be one of its most trapped characters.

    His final act is terrible precisely because it may be the first choice he believes is entirely his own.

    Jo-won’s final decision raises a question that cannot be answered by his tragic ending alone: did his feelings for Hee-yeon represent genuine love, guilt, or a desperate attempt to escape the life he had been living? Understanding their relationship may offer another perspective on his fate. Explore whether Jo-won truly loved Hee-yeon in The Scandal for a deeper examination of the emotions behind his final choice.