[Beanie Recs] Hard-fought happy endings

I would agree with @miso2019 about the genre’s that do this well. Fusion sageuks, fantasy, and action-y dramas do a great job of it because they are able to keep the stakes high and have external reasons why a couple can’t be together right off the bat. As much as I love and appreciate dramas where the main plot is the characters growing and changing and overcoming aspects of themselves and their internal struggle, the endings usually don’t feel quite as hard-won to me as when they are literally battling to be together.

My main recs are the first to dramas I ever watched: Crash Landing on You, and 100 Days My Prince (which has so far not been replaced as my fav sageuk). CLOY works so well because the whole situation dooms them from the start. It’s an impossibility for them to be together in the way they want to be, so there is a lot to overcome. And I would classify it as a happy ending, despite it’s bittersweetness. 100 Days has all the classic sageuk barriers to our OTP: childhood trauma, he’s already married, palace politics, war. You know, the usual

I’d also add Live Up to Your Name (and probably other time-slip dramas that I haven’t seen) in which the OTP is separated by literally hundreds of years. If that’s not a barrier to overcome, I don’t know what is. My only reservation here is that you don’t get to see them for very long in the happy ending. I could have used another 5-10 minutes of happiness at the end of this one to really sell the reunion. But still one of my favorites.

[Beanie Recs] Hard-fought happy endings
Source: Buzz Pinay Daily