Top 5
Annoying Candy Girls
Ah, the Candy girl. It’s one of K-Dramas favourite tropes and you’ll pretty much find one every two or three series you watch. Basically a Candy girl is that character who is bubbly, bright and innocent. She’s K-Drama’s average girl who comes from a normal family background, or more often than not a poor family. The main characteristics of our Candy heroines are that they are somehow always the subject of misfortune. Whether it’s family debt, no school tuition or some other unfortunate circumstance our Candy tends to stay happy and upbeat. While being depicted as a regular, non-spectacular girl, she somehow manages to snag the attention of handsome (often rich) men. Candy girls are often the heroines in Cinderella-like stories- cheerful, regular girl in unfortunate circumstances is courted by a ridiculously good looking man (or men). Although Candy girls can make decent heroines, they’re starting to get a little over-used and now come across as bland and boring rather than a nice everyday girl. Their ability to see the best in everyone can sometimes make them look stupid rather than forgiving, and Candy girls tend to be fairly prone to noble idiocy (leaving for the greater good). When constructed poorly, Candy heroines can come across daft and annoying, and completely undeserving of their much better developed hero’s affections. Here’s my top 5 pick of Candy girls so candy that they’ve become annoying.
Very obviously a Cinderella-esque story. Our Candy girl lives with her mean step-mother and step-sister and works several part-time jobs to save up for paying her tuition. So obviously a Candy girl. The heroine is happy and optimistic despite her hardships and magically finds herself living with three young, handsome grandsons of a large company. I will admit that this heroine had a smidge more personality than most Candy girls, but was mostly reduced to being the quiet girl that the three rich boys could fight over and try to win. While not the worst character out there, our heroine’s Candy traits definitely made her more annoying rather than appealing. It also didn’t help that the drama just wasn’t very good.
An average high school girl finds out she has an arranged marriage to the Prince of Korea. While the girl starts out with a bit of personality she takes the typical trajectory of a Candy. Even though she does virtually nothing to win the favour of the Prince, he falls for her anyway. As does the other Prince. Our heroine this time takes the weepy road- a common road for Candies to take. When the hardships all become to much she just deteriorates into a crying, blubbering mess and does nothing to improve her situation. The heroine's innocent, idealistic nature more often than not comes across as stupid, and makes it difficult to pity her when she encounters a rough situation.
Park Shin Hye is pretty much known for her Candy roles. In most of the dramas she acts in she tends to be a Candy girl, and ‘Heirs’ is definitely not an exception. Park Shin Hye’s character has virtually no character to speak of, and spends the entire drama being dragged around by the two male leads who have for some unknown reason fallen for her. This heroine exhibits all traits of a typical Candy girl- she’s pretty happy-go-lucky with a tendency to be quiet, lets men drag her around by the wrist regardless of if she wants to go with them or not, does not actively participate in kisses (just stands there with her eyes open and let’s the young chaebol kiss her), and cries. Oh and noble idiocy. Lots of noble idiocy from the Candy girl.
2: Moon that Embraces the Sun
This is a strange one in that I don’t actually think that the heroine was supposed to be a Candy at all. It just goes to show the overall negative connotations that follow the Candy idea around. While the young actors were amazing, particularly the young heroine, once we switch to the older actors everything just kind of falls apart. The heroine loses her memories (which doesn’t help her Candiness), and with them basically all her personality. She becomes blank and boring and serves no greater purpose than being someone the King is all angsty about. Our heroine wore a vacant expression for the majority of the series. Even when she cried she was kind of blank. As a typical annoying Candy she never really did anything and basically just let every other person in the story dictate her life. And of course she didn't kiss back either.
The Candiest Candy on this list- Geum Jan Di. The situation is similar to ‘Heirs’- normal high school girl gets enrolled in a school for the rich and prestigious and BOOM all the young, wealthy boys want to make her their Cinderella. Not only is Jan Di a typical Candy character (hardworking, bubbly, innocent to the point of naivety), but so many Candy situations happen to her. A main point of the Candy girls is that despite their apparent ‘normality’, everyone takes an interest in them, be they girl, boy or villain. So of course every situation under the sun happens to Jan Di so that she can show just how optimistic or forgiving or bright her character is, despite going through constant hardship. And of course this also means that the hero (and his best friend) have plenty of opportunities to come save her. Jan Di ends up being an annoying Candy for a number of reasons. 1- Her forgiving nature often puts her back in danger making her seem dumb rather than generous. 2- She often never actually did anything when she was in a bad situation and just waited around for someone to save her. 3- She cried. A lot. 4- She was an annoying Candy for an extended period of time (24 episodes as opposed to the usual 16).
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| Who are your least favourite Candies? |
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