Sincere desire will the connection of fate take form. And only memory can make that moment come true

by kappy

Someone asked me a while back to share my feelings on Eun Soo’s quote (below).  Little did I know that weeks later I would still be working on it.  It’s one of those sayings that aren’t cut-and-dried and takes more than a fleeting thought or two to do it justice.  And so,  I included two translations in hopes to get a clearer idea of the intended message. 

"Earnest desire creates connections, and only memories will bring those moments to life."  (Viki translation)

"Only from true sincerity will the connection of fate take form. And only memory can achieve that moment...” (WithS2 subs)

(Added later - Still another  version of the end.  Not sure whose it is) “ ... only memory can make that moment come true.”

I will spare you the wordy version of my breakdown and comparisons of the above translations and just say that I ended with this:

“Only through sincere desire will the connection of fate take form.  And only memory can make that moment come true.”

I will say that coming up with the meaning of “that moment” baffled me the most.  What does it refer to?  Has it happened already, or is it a continuation of the connections born of earnest desire?  It seems like the latter. I think it means that if our sincerity has gone as far as creating a meaningful connection, then only through memories can these connections be perpetuated throughout time.  But how can memories do this if they point backwards?  When you take into account the time-space continuum, it’s a different ball game.  What previously would seem impossible is now possible.

“Sincere desire creates connections of fate...”

I think the first part of Eun Soo’s quote is easy enough to comprehend.  Fate - the opposite of coincidence or chance, the belief that when something happens to us, it is the result of fortune, done with intention, and is meant to be - comes from our sincere desire to make something happen.  In other words, if you want something bad enough, you can create your own fate.  

For Eun Soo, the fate referred to here is her meeting Choi Young, their falling in love, and all that is encompassed in that connection.  In the first episode of Faith, we see Eun Soo with the fortune teller guy expressing her desire to meet the man of her dreams, one who would enable her to fulfill her career goals and help her live a comfortable life.  He wouldn’t even have to be all that good-looking, though it was preferred.  As for love, it was not even mentioned.  Her previous experience with the guy she’d thought could make that happen bombed.  The hurt she felt because of the disastrous ending of that relationship would haunt her to the point of closing her heart to future possibilities for romantic love.  That is, until Choi Young entered her life.

The fortune teller told her that she would meet a man from heaven, that she would be gone for a year, that he was somebody from the past, and that she would need to enter a door to meet him. Ironically, she was the one who was viewed as being from heaven.  She was gone for about a year.  He was someone from the past, just not her past as she had originally thought.  And the door she entered was a certain heavenly gate/portal through which she walked into another place and time.

Did her seeing the fortune teller reflect an earnest desire that would create a connection of fate?  At first glance, it might be seen as her being shallow, but deep inside I believe she really wanted to find a man to love who would love her unconditionally.

“Only memory can make that moment come true.”

The first glimpse we have of the (entire)  quote is in epi 16 when Prince Deok Heung looks over the contents of the box which contains Eun Soo’s possessions from the past.  He comes across the quote on the journal page he opens up to.  It is prefaced with, “I really hope that this will reach you...” He thinks on it for a second, but it fails to keep his interest, so he sets it aside and moves on to investigate the other items in the box until he is interrupted by his minions to handle a more pressing matter.

Earlier in this episode, a recovering Eun Soo attempts to convince Choi Young of her need to meet with Prince Deok Heung to take back her journal. The dream/memory she had while on her sickbed of a dead Choi Young scares her, seeing it as an ominous premonition.  She feels that the back portion of the journal may contain crucial information that could help save his life, and she is set on retrieving it. 

Towards the end of epi 16, Eun Soo reads bits from her diary in the presence of Jang Bin. She has no memory of this journal, nor is she sure it’s her own handwriting, though she suspects it.  This, and the constant mention by the journal’s author of “that person” - who she thinks is Choi Young but appears to be in denial about - frustrates her to the point of drinking.  She relates to Jang Bin how, for a long while, she’d met men but hadn’t taken the relationship past a certain point. She wants “that person” to be Choi Young, but her heart has blocked these kinds of feelings for so long that she is not absolutely sure. 

At the end of epi 16, she has another dream that seems like a memory.  It warns her that something terrible could happen to “that person” if she doesn’t take heed.  Since it seems like she’s recalling a memory, it feels that the harm has already come to him once before,  but in the time-space continuum where beginning and end are not defined, she could somehow prevent it from happening.  Despite her difficulty in making sense of this, she heeds the warning. As the events unfold, he is saved - through her sacrifice - from an untimely death. 

In epi 19, she receives another message, or memory, sent to her in a most unexpected way from her future self.  Having trusted her words before with success, she readily accepts the instructions and follows through.  Again, the would-be harm is circumvented as a result.  

The memories that come back to Eun Soo through dreams and other means are a lifeline of sorts and perpetuate the fateful connection she has made with Choi Young by their protecting and loving each other.

 

In epi 24, we hear the quote again after Eun Soo discovers she has gone back too far in time.

The following dialogue is Eun Soo’s words:

“On that day, what aspect, what moment could have been wrong?

After leaving him once already, what did I need in order to go back there?  

Was I lacking in learning?  Or in faith?

I have been separated from him again.

I was left alone in a world 100 years before the world where he was dying.

Despite the circumstances, even so, I believe every day that on that day he didn’t die.”

Here, you can just feel the earnest desire oozing from Eun Soo.  She wants desperately to return to Choi Young to be reunited with him again.  She exercises her faith which is the determining factor that opens the portal returning her to his side.

I have asked myself this more than once:  At what point did she realize he was the one?  As I watched, I hoped for a scene where it clicked to Eun Soo that Choi Young fit the description, but it never came.  Despite my initial wish to witness this “aha moment,” thinking of it as a loose end that needed to be tied, I realized I really didn’t need it after all.  It was enough to me for them to realize they were meant to be with each other after all the hardships they endured, and ultimately, to be reunited to live out their lives together as one.  Their faith in each other, their sincere desire to always be with “that person” was the driving force that enabled them to finally be together in the end.