Dear Hongrang’s ending is nearly as sad as Scarlet Heart: Ryeo. The 11-episode K-drama follows the story of the Sim family, who lose their 8-year-old heir one night. 12 years later, a man returns to claim his spot, but Hongrang’s half-sister believes him to be an impostor. The show follows the complicated story of the Sim family, the Min Family Guild, and a mysterious “painter.” It’s a show about power, the strength of healing with love, and finding happiness despite being utterly broken by scars. At the beginning of the show, we learn that the patriarch of the Sim family believes Hongrang may never return, so he’s secured his position by adopting a boy to replace Hongrang as his heir. Mu-Jin is a good son, but there’s one problem here: he’s fallen in love with the person who is meant to be his new adoptive sister, Jae-Yi. So, is the man who returned the real Hongrang? Who is the painter? And does Jae-Yi get the happy ending she deserves? Let’s find out at the end of Dear Hongrang.
Spoiler Alert
Is The Real Hongrang Dead?
In an unsurprising twist at the end of the show, it is revealed that Hongrang died on the night that he disappeared, and the person to blame is his mom. Min Yeon-Ui always believed that her husband’s first daughter, Jae-Yi, was evil and had a demon inside of her. Yeon-Ui believed whatever Jae-Yi did was poisoning the family. But the last straw for her was when Jae-Yi invited her young brother Hongrang, i.e., Yeon-Ui’s son, to join her in the ancestral rites of her own mother. Yeon-Ui is angry that Jae-Yi made her son bow down to somebody else’s mother. So she decides to get her killed using black magic. But young Hongrang sees Gwigokja, Yeon-Ui’s advisor and shaman, doing some sort of voodoo magic to get rid of Jae-Yi. He sees her place the talisman at the door of Jae-Yi’s house. Unfortunately, when Hongrang tried to grab the talisman off the door, it was too high for him, and he ended up falling and hitting his head on a rock. Jae-Yi’s servant found him and tried to take him away, presumably so that the girl wouldn’t be blamed, but Gwigokja found the boy and disposed of him in the well, leaving the servant believing the boy had disappeared.
I suppose Gwigokja wanted to hold power over Yeon-Ui for the rest of her life. If she had learned that her son died because of Gwigokja herself, she’d have killed her immediately. But all this mess began because Gwigokja decided to play God and lied to the family for years. Finally, 12 years later, Jae-Yi finds the bones of her dead brother dumped in the well (I hope they weren’t drinking that water), but Yeon-Ui can’t fathom the idea of her son’s death. This is when Jae-Yi speaks up and tells her stepmother that she is the reason her son is dead. Till the end, Yeon-Ui believes her son will return, and ironically, it is Gwigokja who feeds her and keeps her alive, well, as alive as possible until she fades away completely. Guess the loss of one’s mind is punishment enough for all the crimes committed over the years.
Who Is The Painter?
While we all believed that the “Snow Man” was a supernatural creature who was abducting the kids and harming them, the truth was that it was a person much closer to the Sim family than we could’ve imagined. Throughout the show, imposter Hongrang conceals his back and has traumatic flashbacks to events that we get only glimpses of. He is eager to look for one person only, the “painter.” Dear Hongrang episode 10 reveals that the painter is the prince himself (this was quite predictable, but still an impactful reveal either way). The prince is a vile man who plans to perform a blood ritual that will apparently make him a god himself. For this ritual, he kidnaps children and tattoos their backs with heinous paintings, denoting 6 different aspects of life: fortune, fertility, wealth, longevity, the ability to control nature, and the balance of yin and yang. This is why, early on in the show, the prince talks about losing a yin and yang painting; he probably meant the boy who had the tattoo. I think this refers to In-Hoe, imposter Hongrang’s right-hand man and best friend, because they both escaped the prince’s trap many years earlier.
Who Is The Snow Man?
While we believed the Snow Man was a supernatural being, Hongrang kills him simply by slitting his throat. So, we can assume he’s human, but why does he look the way he does, and what makes him so menacing? My theory is that he is one of the boys that the prince wanted to “paint” on. Before the painting process, the boys are washed and bathed in alum to make them “clean as porcelain.” I think what could’ve happened was that the Snow Man was basically just subject to too harsh a cleanse and then forced into becoming a soldier for the prince. Like Frankenstein’s monster, but what do you all think?
What Does Hongrang Do To The Prince?
Imposter Hongrang fulfills his big revenge plot by killing the prince in Dear Hongrang’s finale, but before delivering the killing blow, Hongrang cuts his hand off. A painter is nothing without his hands, and imposter Hongrang showed the prince that he was nothing but a coward who ruined the lives of young children in search of power. The prince believed that turning into a “god” would be beneficial for all of Joseon…men, am I right? But I’m genuinely curious about who takes the prince’s position. Anyway, the prince was in close ties with Sim Yeol-Guk. It was a good partnership for Yeol-Guk, but the man realizes at the end of the show that he made a huge mistake.
What Happens to Sim Yeol-Guk?
Now, Yeol-Guk was in love with a woman named Kkot-Nim and got her pregnant, but Yeol-Guk’s mistress, Yeon-Ui, obviously couldn’t stand this idea, so she tried to have the woman killed. But it was the child in her stomach that bore the brunt of the sword, leaving Kkot-Nim alive and safe. Kkot-Nim then adopted imposter Hongrang and In-Hoe to infiltrate the Sim household so that she could steal the Min Family Guild’s property (Yeon-Ui’s guild basically). Kkot-Nim is successful in the end. Not only does she get the property, but she also shows up in front of Yeol-Guk, hears his confession of her being his one true love, and then kills him with a gunshot to the head (cool gal). I guess she leaves the property to Jae-Yi, though.
What Happens to Mu-Jin?
In the last half of the Korean drama, Mu-Jin chooses to join the prince out of his jealousy of imposter Hongrang. Mu-Jin’s jealousy made him forget his morality, because he was willing to do anything if it meant acting against the man Jae-Yi was madly in love with. But, finally, when the prince tells him that he needs to kill Jae-Yi because she’s evil herself, Mu-Jin realizes what a massive mistake he’s made and starts to fight the prince’s men to free Jae-Yi. Before Jae-Yi sends him off, he tells her that he should’ve never gotten ahead of himself and stuck to the role of an older brother. He tells her he’s relieved to hear her call him older brother, and that it will set his mind at ease. In the end, Mu-Jin dies while escaping into the forest, but he tells his protector to stay by Jae-Yi’s side and protect her for as long as he can. I don’t understand how someone who you’ve grown up with as your sibling can suddenly turn into your love interest, but love is blind, I suppose?
Does Jae-Yi Get A Happy Ending?
In Dear Hongrang’s ending, imposter Hongrang returns to Jae-Yi, collapsing into her arms. They both know that the end is near because the materials the prince used to tattoo the boys were toxic, leading to them all dying from the hives they got on their necks. Though Jae-Yi and imposter Hongrang knew he was going to die, they decided to stay together because they love each other dearly. It is very unfortunate that Jae-Yi doesn’t get the happy ending she deserves with imposter Hongrang after everything they’ve both been through. Jae-Yi’s life before then was spent looking for her brother and being considered a woman shrouded in evil, but ironically, she did have evil around her; the people who were meant to be her family never cared for her, and Yeon-Ui even tried to have her killed. Jae-Yi learned what true love was through imposter Hongrang (and Mu-Jin, of course).
The show then skips to two years later, and Jae-Yi doesn’t live by herself in the Sim household; she now takes in all the orphan children to keep them safe and protect them from evils like the prince. She knows exactly what it feels like to be abandoned, because that’s what Yeon-Ui made her feel like, so in the end, she chose to spread love, not hate. She even lets her stepmom live nearby, without any hate in her heart. Dear Hongrang ends with Jae-Yi sitting on her roof one last time, looking out for her imposter Hongrang. The end of the show implies that imposter Hongrang is always going to be by Jae-Yi’s side. She looks at the flower he imprinted on the wrap on her wound all those days ago, holding him close to herself. So while Jae-Yi didn’t get a romantic happy ending, she is free and happy still, knowing he’s looking down on her.
