 |
This Article Contains Spoilers -
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That is all. |
  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
| “ | I want to apologize for bullying you. I'm sorry, We even now? There was no need to call the cops on us, was there? We got scared. Speaking of which, Dong-eun, from this moment on, you'll check if my iron is hot enough. | „ |
| ~ Park Yeon-jin before brutally torturing Moon Dong-eun. |
Park Yeon-jin (Korean:박연진) is the main antagonist of the South Korean drama series The Glory.
She is the nemesis of Moon Dong-eun, the daughter of Hong Young-ae, the ex-wife of Ha Do-yeong, the lover of Jeon Jae-jun, the mother of Ha Ye-sol, and a former newscaster/weather girl at a television station. In the end she is currently incarcerated in prison on the charges of murdering Son Myeong-o.
She is portrayed by Lim Ji-yeon as an adult and Shin Ye-eun as a teenager.
Biography[]
Background[]
Park Yeon-jin was born into a wealthy family and grew up with her single, divorced mother in Semyeong, South Korea. Her father is implied to be a chaebol as he is mentioned to own a building. Her mother Hong Young-ae was a well-connected woman who believes in Korean shamanism and made her money by collaborating with shamans and pimping out young girls to wealthy and powerful men using fortune telling. Throughout her life, Yeon-jin fervently attended Lee Gil-sung's church even though she had little to no respect for the faith, giving her a "holier than thou" attitude.
From 2004 to 2006, Yeon-jin attended Sunghan High School. There, she formed a clique with Jeon Jae-jun, Lee Sa-ra, Choi Hye-jeong, and Son Myeong-oh. The group, who took great pride in their upper-middle class origins, pleasured themselves in bullying lower class girls, namely Moon Dong-eun and Yoon So-hee, mocking them for their impoverished backgrounds, as well as physically hurting them and breaking their belongings. Yeon-jin would even go as far as to test the heat of her blazing-hot curling iron on Dong-eun's limbs, leaving her permanently disfigured with large third degree burns and prompting Dong-eun to drop out of school. Dong-eun cited her reasons as bullying and named her bullies to the police, but Yeon-jin's mother Hong Young-ae covered up her daughter's severe bullying by bribing Dong-eun's mother Jeong Mi-hee as well as the teachers and authorities into silence and dropping the charges using hefty sums of money and her connections with a corrupt detective to cover up her daughter's crimes, and Dong-eun's departure was changed to "maladjustment". Shortly after Dong-eun dropped out, Yeon-jin and her clique targetted Dong-eun's former best friend Kim Gyeong-ran and burned her the same way they burned Dong-eun.
Some time after Dong-eun's case, Yeon-jin went on a night-out with Lee Sa-ra and Choi Hye-jeong, where they came across Yoon So-hee. Much to Yeon-jin's dismay, So-hee was wearing a dress identical to hers. So-hee tried to leave, but Yeon-jin stopped her in her tracks and yelled at her to take it off. So-hee apologized about the outfit, stating she did not intend to match and that her dress is just a knock-off, prompting the three bullies to pick on her even more.
One snowy winter night, Yeon-jin got So-hee to the rooftop of a school building where she tried to bully her into taking off her clothes; when So-hee apologized for their previous incident and refused by stating they're not even matching now, Yeon-jin pushed her to the edge of the roof. However, So-hee brazenly defended herself by asserting that Yeon-jin is nothing when she's alone, that she's not scared of her money, that she feels bad for Yeon-jin and had actually forgiven her because she herself is "a better person than Yeon-jin". In a psychopathic fit of shame, frustration and anger, Yeon-jin set So-hee's sweater alight and laughingly taunted her about how So-hee statement of feeling bad for her. Trying to put out the fire, So-hee begged Yeon-jin for help, and in a state of panic, Yeon-jin pushed her away, which threw her off the edge of the roof to her death. Fearful for her life, Yeon-jin called her mother for help, and Yoon So-hee's death would be covered up as a suicide. However, Yeon-jin loses her name tag in the process, something that would be instrumental in her downfall.
Park Yeon-jin would go on to fulfil her dream of marrying a rich man and becoming a mother.
Adulthood[]
18 years later, Park Yeon-jin is a moderately-famous weather presenter and influencer, thanks to marrying a quasi-tycoon, Ha Do-young, a chaebol and the CEO of a prominent construction company, and has a daughter, Ha Ye-sol. Little does she know that one of her bullying victims, Moon Dong-eun, is watching over and tracking her and plotting her downfall after "18 years of hell". Also even though Yeon-jin has everything she wanted, she keeps a sideman, her friend Jeon Jae-jun who is actually the biological father of Ye-sol. Yeon-jin also continues in mocking and humiliating others when she's upset or in a bad mood, and continues to take advantage of and control people using her wealth. Examples of her misdeeds as an adult include her setting a trap for Choi Hye-jeong who told her a story at a bar, humiliating Hye-jeong in a big way and also threatening a junior weather girl after she made jokes as well as mocking another colleague who had written her manuscript. She also employed former victim Gyeong-ran, whom she and her clique bullied into literal submission and servitude, as her personal assistant and stylist; the reasons for this are unclear, but it is likely that Yeon-jin wants to keep a close eye on Gyeong-ran so that Gyeong-ran would not expose her shady past.
Park Yeon-jin goes to the 2022 award ceremony for the Alumni of the Year at Sung Han High School, with her four high school friends, located at the school gym, where Moon Dong-eun also shows up to the event and approaches her high school bullies, they recognise her and converse, with Lee Sa-ra remarking that she is not an alumni, therefore does not need to be there. Moon askes Park if she can write on the bulletin board and claps loudly and longer than everyone else when Park Yeon-jin eventually gets her award; having enough of being pestered by Moon, Park storms up to Moon Dong-eun and slaps her, before the group speaks to each other again, Park Yeon-jin attempts to show her authority and attack Moon Dong-eun again but Jae-jun refrains her by pulling her back, telling Yeon-jin to be the better person and dismissing Dong-eun as merely just "a kid with anger issues" When Dong-eun and Yeon-jin are the only ones left in the auditorium, Yeon-jin watches her leave uneasily.
The next morning, Yeon-jin learns from her daughter Ye-sol over the phone that Dong-eun is her new homeroom teacher. Already on edge over her nasty past resurfacing, she instinctively realizes it's no coincidence and drives to school to see her former victim. The two trade barbs; Yeon-jin remarks that Dong-eun's journey to become a teacher must have been hard, which Dong-eun doesn't deny, prompting Yeon-jin to yell at her, stating she should've died if it were hard, but Dong-eun calmly taunts her back by stating where would the fun be if she were dead, and welcomes Yeon-jin to her playground where she now makes the rules. Yeon-jin is unimpressed and sarcastically wishes Dong-eun luck, arrogantly believing her former victim would amount to nothing regardless (as evidenced with Kim Gyeong-ran, who continued to serve them by working at Jae-jun's luxury editorialist store Siesta and as Yeon-jin's personal assistant and stylist). However, as she leaves, Yeon-jin receives a text from Hye-jeong and learns about the death of her high school teacher Kim Jong-moon, and quickly realizes that the death is connected to Dong-eun. Her instincts are not wrong; prior to Jong-moon's death, Dong-eun had told Jong-moon's son Soo-han whom Jong-moon was proud of that she intended to reveal the teacher's complicity in her bullying case, and the night Jong-moon died, Soo-han filled his father's house with flowers to trigger his asthma so as not to jeopardize his own career prospects. She questions Dong-eun about her involvement, but Dong-eun answers that Yeon-jin and her group are the ones responsible for Mr Kim's death, and goes on to openly admit her intentions to make them suffer for what they did to her and other victims and that she has nothing to lose already after what they've done to her. This leaves Yeon-jin frustrated, as she never expected her former victim whom she had relentlessly tormented would have the upper hand.
The next day, Yeon-jin pays a visit to Ye-sol's school to speak to the principal in hopes of getting Dong-eun fired, but fails due to Dong-eun's excellent resume. She then visits her Ye-sol's class, and is frightened to see Dong-eun threatening hovering by her daughter. After school, she tries to bribe Dong-eun by offering to pay for the physical and mental damages she caused her victim in the past, in order to get her to leave and never bother her again. When Dong-eun refuses, Yeon-jin angrily points out that their past is history now and there's no point in doing anything about the past, even claiming Dong-eun is holding Ye-sol hostage, to which Dong-eun replies she's done nothing of the sort or any of the things Yeon-jin and her group inflicted upon her back in high school. She later takes out Ye-sol's drawing, stating that if anything, she has only been supportive of Ye-sol as the child is color-blind, and points out that while it might not matter to her, it may not be great for Yeon-jin's position. This takes Yeon-jin aback, as no one except her knows that Ye-sol is red-green colorblind. Dong-eun promises that she won't hurt Ye-sol but threatens Yeon-jin with the prospect of Do-young attending parent-teacher conferences, and calmly tells her to never test how far she's willing to go or make Yeon-jin suffer. To Yeon-jin horror (though she's trying her best to remain calm), Dong-eun makes her intentions of revenge clear once more and wants Yeon-jin to understand the despair and torment that she felt in the past.
Yeon-jin is nervous about what the school will do to her if she reveals her bullying past, the secret of Ye-sol's birth, or what the school will do to her, and tries to talk to her friends, but they are of no help. Even Jae-jun, the most trustworthy of them all, only pressures her to divorce and come to him when he realizes he's the father. However, she refuses, saying that her conversation with Jae-jun made her realize that she truly loves her husband Ha Do-young. She doesn't even bother to lie to Do-young, who is learning about his wife's bullying past, and simply tells her husband to focus on the attractive traits that he loves most about her and to not open unattractive Pandora's box, which is a shameless admission.
At the end of Part 1, through Shin Young-Joon, the location of Dong-eun's house was finally revealed, and it turned out it was right in front of his own house. Park Yeon-jin barges into the house to take advantage of her weakness, and finds pictures of her gang in high school that Moon Dong-eun had been preparing in revenge. Park doesn't feel guilty when he sees them, but mumbles, "I should have killed her back then." The door to the room opens, and she thinks Moon Dong-eun has returned, but instead she finds her husband, Ha Do-young, who appears in front of her.
When Myeong-oh blackmails Yeon-jin at Jae-jun's shop with the information he learned from Dong-eun and corners her by offering to cut her pay if she sleeps with him, she hits him in the head with a liquor bottle in a fit of rage and fear. When he tries to get up after being hit in the head with the bottle, she freaks out and hits him in the head again. She then uses Chief Shin's power to destroy the evidence, including Myeong-oh's body, and from that point on, she is on an irreversible downward spiral.
In retaliation to Moon Dong-eun, Park Yeon-jin bribes Moon's mother, Jeong Mi-hee, with a hefty sum of money to stage a scandal to get Moon Dong-eun fired from her job at her daughter's school. To Moon, she sends a photo of Kang Hyeon-Nam's husband during her break-in into Dong-eun's house and learns the owners of the two cars Dong-eun owns through Chief Shin, and uses this to plot her own counterattack against Moon Dong-eun, recognizing the presence of her ally and her fatal weakness: her daughter. However, Moon Dong-eun has her mother locked up in a psychiatric hospital as "only family can do," and Kang Hyeon-Nam, with no intention of betraying Dong-eun in the first place, fulfils her role as a double agent and gets her revenge while also cornering Park Yeon-jin. When Park Yeon-jin later realizes that she was tricked by Hyeon-Nam, she lunges at her as if to kill her, but is instead slapped by Kang Hyeon-Nam twice.
Yeon-jin had initially hoped to reunite her clique to deal with Dong-eun as they have done in the past. However, much to her frustration and dismay, infighting within the clique of perpetrators whom she thought were her trusted friends begins in earnest; not only does she receive no help from Jeon Jae-jun, Lee Sa-ra, or Choi Hye-jeong, but suffers a triple whammy of loss (Jeon Jae-jun), confusion (Lee Sa-ra), and betrayal (Choi Hye-jeong). Immediately after Lee Sa-ra's drug scandal, she is suspected of bullying by netizens (under the suggestive name of Weatherman A) through a post about being bullied. After she covers up the bullying controversy with Lee Sa-ra's drug case, she falls for Choi Hye-jeong's ploy to get out of the crisis, and Lee Sa-ra, falsely believing Yeon-jin to have betrayed her, uploads a bunch of videos that she took of their high-school bullying days and implicates Yeon-jin for Yoon So-hee's murder. Confronted by her boss and colleagues about her scandal, she spitefully and bitterly writes a resignation notice and ends her career as a weatherman, but not before denying her murder allegations.
Following to her social downfall, Yeon-jin is completely disowned by her family. Not only is she facing the prospect of divorce from her husband, Ha Do-young (who has been trying to get her to come clean about her past but Yeon-jin refuses and would rather divorce than admit her sins), but her daughter Ye Sol quickly becomes estranged when she learns of the abuse, claiming she's not proud of her mother anymore and doesn't want to be a weather presenter like her mother. Her daughter's estrangement prompts her to hold a press conference in front of the police station where she reluctantly admits and apologizes for bullying, saying that it was a "mistake she made when she was young and still immature". However, in regards Yoon So-hee's murder, she tried to reverse public opinion by claiming that she was the victim herself and had been tormented by the bereaved family, and that she had only listened in silence to protect the honour of her friend who committed suicide because of an unwanted pregnancy.
Yeon-jin then attends Son Myeong-oh's funeral where she meets Jae-jun, Sa-ra and Hye-jeong, part of her still carrying hopes of reuniting and reconciling the clique to deal with Dong-eun. Upon arrival, she confronts Sa-ra for uploading the videos online. hoping that she could verbally subdue Sa-ra and by doing so intimidate the others into reconciling and uniting against their common enemy. However, Sa-ra believes that Yeon-jin was the one who leaked the video of her performing oral sex on Myeong-oh, and attacks her. Things take a turn for the worse quickly when Hye-jeong begins mocking Yeon-jin and Sa-ra about their behavior. This caused Sa-ra to realize Hye-jeong was the one who had double-crossed the clique and had a hand in their current misfortunes, and to Yeon-jin and everyone's horror, Sa-ra injured Hye-jeong by stabbing her in the neck with a pencil. Sa-ra is apprehended and sentenced to prison for her second offense, Hye-jeong is incapacitated and rendered mute, and Jae-jun leaves the scene before something worse can follow, destroying Yeon-jin's final hopes of getting the gang back together.
One night, Yeon-jin hides out in Do-young's workplace when she receives a text from Dong-eun, telling her she has sent her missing nametag to the police, prompting Yeon-jin to head over the Dong-eun's location to confront her enemy. However, upon her arrival, Yeon-jin finds her mother, Hong Young-ae, giving Dong-eun her name tag that she lost when she accidentally murdered Yoon So-hee, which her mother has been secretly keeping to save herself from Dong-eun's threats that she knew she had intentionally murdered Hyeon-Nam's husband. Young-ae is shocked at her daughter's arrival and questions Dong-eun about it, to which Dong-eun replies she indeed did as Yeon-jin deserves to know and witness her own mother betraying and abandoning her. Yeon-jin lashes out at Dong-eun in hopes of intimidating her, but Dong-eun calmly pins her name tag on her fur coat. To rub salt in the wound, Dong-eun then reveals that the nametag can't even be used as evidence, as it wasn't found the night So-hee died but was found much later, as well as that she never needed Young-ae's testimony and just wanted to know whether Young-ae would abandon Yeon-jin and Dong-eun's mother did to herself. Yeon-jin is shocked and emotionally devastated, and yells at her mother asking how she could do this to her own daughter, but Hong Young-ae replies without blinking an eye, "I should go down with you? When you're the one who couldn't get rid of [Dong-eun]. You can love your own daughter unconditionally; I don't think I can do just that". As Yeon-jin breaks down, the words she said to Moon Dong-eun, "Family betrays us the worst" are poetically echoed back to her.
Having lost all her former glory, being abandoned by all those she loved and trusted, and having suffered a crushing defeat by an enemy whom she's looked down on all her life, Yeon-jin is on the edge of a mental breakdown, despondently sitting in her closet among her collection of handbags and absentmindedly humming her once-favorite song to her nametag. She then receives a video of the lounge where she murdered Son Myeong-oh as well as the murder weapon from an anonymous number. Yeon-jin panics, and, in a desperate final attempt to protect herself, rushes back to the crime scene to dispose of the evidence, but the forensics team and police are already at the scene, collecting evidence of the murder, including bloodstains and, to her absolute despair, the bottle which she used to murder Son Myeong-oh. As she is being led away in chains by the detectives, she tries to call the number that sent her the video, but the call is not answered and the detectives take her cell phone away. The date of her arrest at the scene is January 19.
Yeon-jin ends up in prison. Do-young comes to visit her with a divorce settlement contract, which she bitterly signs. As Do-young leaves, perhaps out of consideration that she was once his wife and mother to his legal daughter, he asks her to find herself a good lawyer and makes a sarcastic remark about how she should spare no expense when it comes to legal issues, to which Yeon-jin remarks how cruel he is and asks how could he serve her the divorce papers in person. At her inquiry and assuring him that she will not follow him, Do-young tells her he will be leaving for the UK. She asks if she ever writes, would he deliver her letters to Ye-sol, but Do-young coldly tells him to take care of herself and leaves, wanting Ye-sol to be raised right and rid of such a horrible influence. Fortunately for Yeon-jin, Do-young does love and accept Ye-sol as his own regardless of blood ties.
Yeon-jin later gets a visit from Dong-eun and shares her resentment about her imprisonment. Yeon-jin remorselessly states that she's sorry she didn't get away with it, but quickly realizes that something is wrong and openly wonders what does she have to regret. Through a flashback scene, the truth is then revealed: Myeong-oh did not die after Yeon-jin hit him with the bottle. Kim Gyeong-ran, who has made a home at the shop storeroom, woke up to a noise and saw Yeon-jin in the parking lot via CCTV footage. Soon after, Gyeong-ran found Myeong-oh covered in blood on the lounge floor and freaked out. Myeong-oh, who was still alive, crawled towards Gyeong-ran and grabbed Gyeong-ran's ankle, begging for help, but Gyeong-ran, who had previously been molested and assaulted by Myeong-oh and thus traumatized, panickedly picked up the bottle that Yeon-jin had wielded and struck Myeong-oh in the head once more, dealing the final blow that killed him. Gyeong-ran later contacted Dong-eun for help in dealing with Myeong-oh's dead body, also to make up for abandoning her and their friendship in the past out of fear she too would be implicated and bullied by Yeon-jin's clique. In other words, Park had unwittingly taken the blame for Gyeong-ran's crime. However, Dong-eun doesn't tell her this, but simply stares at Yeon-jin. Yeon-jin urges her to tell her what she's guilty of, but Dong-eun only says that she regrets everything that has happened and hopes Yeon-jin live in this hell for as long time without knowing anything about it, mirroring how Dong-eun herself felt when Yeon-jin bullied her in the past. This proves to be the final straw for Yeon-jin. who goes berserk and is dragged away, screaming profanities at the top of her lungs that if she gets out, she'll tear Dong-eun's head off.
Later, while traveling from wing to wing to work within the prison, Yeon-jin spots her mother, who is also imprisoned, among the prisoners coming from the opposite wing. Yeon-jin desperately calls out to her mother, but Young-ae walks past her as if she hasn't seen her daughter. Yeon-jin tries to approach her mother and screams out in despair until she is subdued by a prison guard.
That night, Yeon-jin is despondently sitting in the corner of the room, seemingly out of it. Another inmate taunts her and keeps throwing sweets at her, but she doesn't react as if she's lost her mind. Then, when a higher-ranking and stronger inmate mockingly asks what the weather will be like tomorrow, she reflexively jumps up and hastily fixes her prison uniform like a weatherman in front of the camera, smiling as she gives a weather forecast like she used to without the slightest hitch.
However, even though she is smiling, her eyes begin to fill with tears and her smile is likened to that of a grimace, and the other inmates laugh and ridicule her for crying about the weather, showing that although she is not physically injured, she is nonetheless karmically suffering at the hands of the inmates who bully her, and her soul and heart are completely broken and crushed, just as Dong-eun had aimed and planned.
Personality[]
Park Yeon-jin is an entitled, self-absorbed, arrogant, manipulative, narcissistic, and cruel woman. As a teenager she had a superiority complex and had signs of sociopathy; she was careless and apathetic, openly indulging in hurting her classmates with her "friends", knowing she could get away with it. As an adult, she "has not changed much," as quoted by Moon Dong-eun, and shows neither remorse nor empathy for hurting others. However, she is a bit more careful and controlled with her offensive actions so she can maintain her polished public image and reputation, though behind the scenes, she is still vulgar and often uses swear words.
Park Yeon-jin is an elitist and a classist, and her continued privileges from birth made her feel untouchable, leading her to be grow up ignorant, lazy and careless compared to her peers. This was proved by her not even writing her own scripts for her weather forecasts, instead bribing her colleagues with money to write them for her; she even justified this by saying that "anything she writes is bad", openly revealing her own weakness to her colleagues without even considering the possibility that they might use this information against her. In fact, it was revealed that the reason Yeon-jin was able to keep her job as a forecaster is through her husband, Ha Do-yeong, paying the television station large sums of money for adverts, showing that she is a nepotee (recipient of nepotism) that lacks proper education; it is even mentioned that Dong-eun and Hye-jeong were academically better than her, which suggests that the other reason Yeon-jin was bully was to cover up her insecurity for underperforming academically. Yeon-jin's lifelong superiority complex is further powered by her "Christian faith" and degrading nature to non-Christians. During a preaching she giggled sadistically when her pastor quoted a famous line of Jesus: "Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." making her feel as if she could get away with her crimes of hurting her classmates as if she were protected and her actions were justified by her religion. She was also the leader of her group back in high-school and appeared to be the most spiteful and cruel of the five bullies.
By the time she is an adult, Yeon-jin remains the same cruel narcissist she is, but due to lack of proper rest (it is mentioned that she wakes up at 3am every morning to exercise and drive to work which is about an hour away from her home) and having a family of her own, her mental and emotional state has deteriorated and she has become more cowardly, wanting to keep her husband ignorant as well as protect her daughter from her shady past. In addition to this, whatever intelligence or cunning she possessed in the past has atrophied. She initially hoped to unite her group to deal with Dong-eun as they did in the past, but she failed to predict or imagine just how informed, well-connected and cunning Dong-eun had become. With Dong-eun giving everyone in the group blackmail on each other which quickly prompted mistrust and infighting, things spiraled out of control for Yeon-jin and whatever hopes she had of defeating Dong-eun through group efforts faded into nothing. If anything, Dong-eun's return and revenge scheme only made her condition worse, which is exactly what Dong-eun wanted and gave her opportunities to strike.
Appearance[]
Park Yeon-jin is a beautiful Korean woman in her mid-thirties of average height with a slender figure - she has pale, flawless skin, long silky black hair, and wide dark brown eyes. She often wears her hair loose and wavy. She is always donned in dresses in designer pieces, often a dress with high heels. As a teenager, Park Yeon-jin often wore her long hair loose and straightened and wore her student uniform at school. Moon Dong-eun described her as having "eyes which would darken with pleasure".
Relationships[]
Hong Young-ae is Park Yeon-jin's mother who is known for being rich and well-connected. She was the one who orchestrated Yeon-jin's marriage to Ha Do-yeong, a powerful CEO and continued protecting and supporting her daughter and granddaughter, Ha Ye-sol. While the two trust each other very much and share many dark secrets between each other, they are also somewhat strained and Yeon-jin fears her very much. Hong Young-ae is the person most to blame for Park Yeon-jin's wickedness, being a cold and selfish maternal figure who only saw to her daughter's academic education (though Yeon-jin does badly at that), reputation and career prospects and essentially neglecting her moral and emotional development, and when Yeon-jin does something illegal and risks their reputations, Young-ae immediately resorts to harsh discipline and insults, which explains why Yeon-jin fears her mother. Nonetheless, Hong loved Yeon-jin enough that she was willing to cover up her daughter's severe bullying of Moon Dong-eun and murder of Yoon So-hee in 2004 by bribing the victims' parents, teachers and the authorities into silence and dropping the charges with hefty sums of money and using her friendship with a corrupt detective to cover up her daughter's crimes. This in turn further caused Yeon-jin to grow into an unsympathetic, elitist snob who believes fear and violence is the only reliable way to secure absolute loyalty and that money solves all problems. However, when backed into a corner, Hong Young-ae will put herself above family, as she willingly betrayed and abandoned Yeon-jin to save her own skin from the law, with her even remarking that her daughter can love her child but she (Hong Young-ae) cannot love her's. When an incarcerated Yeon-jin comes across her mother as an inmate in the same prison as her, she calls out to her but she does not respond, having given up on the child she had a hand in turning into a monster.
Ha Do-young- Park Yeon-jin's ex-husband. He is CEO of a construction company who gave her the life she always wanted, showering her in luxury and securing her a job as a weather forecaster for a local news station. However, it is shown that Yeon-jin did not truly love her husband as she only married him for his money and managed to fool him for a long time by playing the role of a loyal wife and loving mother, though it is implied that Do-young also married her for convenience. She even maintained a secret long-term affair during their marriage with Jeon Jae-jun, who impregnated her with their daughter, Ye-sol, which Ha Do-yeong also later learns through Jeon Jae-jun continously bombarding Ha Ye-sol at school, claiming to be her biological father. After Yeon-jin is imprisoned on the charges of murdering Son Myeong-oh. Ha Do-yeong persoanlly delivers their divorce papers in prison to her and Yeon-jin co-operates with him signing their divorce papers with some bitterness.
Ha Ye-sol - Yeon-jin's daughter and the much loved legal daughter of Ha Do-young, even though its later revealed that her biological father is actually Jeon Jae-jun. Yeon-jin was the perfect mother to Ye-sol, but this could not save their relationship when her dreadful past was exposed to the world. Park Yeon-jin loves her daughter dearly and is very gentle and nurturing to her, giving her nearly anything she wanted with her husband, as well as assigning Ye-sol a nanny and putting her in private school. But once Ye-sol learns of her mother's scandals, of alleged high school bullying and murder through viral videos and word of mouth from her classmates, Ha Ye-sol openly voices her disappointment in her mother to her, expressing that she no longer wants to be a weather forecaster like her mom, and even reveals that her classmate Seung-ah became scared that she would hurt her. This leaves Yeon-jin heartbroken for breaking her daughter's trust. Following her divorce and even after her imprisonment, Yeon-jin does hope in contact with Ye-sol in anyway possible, though it is highly unlikely as Do-young would want to rid Ye-sol of negative influences, Yeon-jin included.
Lee Sa-ra - A famous abstract artist and the daughter of the famous pastor Lee Gil-sung. She is a long-time member of Park Yeon-jin's friendship group and also was an accomplice to Park Yeon-jin back in high school where they bullied poor students and attended the same church. The two maintained their friendship as adults. Lee Sa-ra turns on and betrays Yeon-jin however, after Lee's drug addiction is exposed to the church with Sa-ra later posting up old videos taken on her phone of Park Yeon-jin bullying Yoon So-hee, this being done so Sa-ra could cover up her own drug scandal and her parents' tax evasion and money laundering, showing Sa-ra's erratic behaviour and that she never truly was a loyal and caring friend to Park Yeon-jin, who was sad to lose her friendship with her. It is assured that the two are no longer friends at the end of the drama and hate one another.
Choi Hye-jeong - A flight attendant and one of Park Yeon-jin's long term "friends" from high school along with Jeon Jae-jun, Lee Sa-ra and Son Myeong-oh. Out of fear and under the pressure of possibly being a victim of this gang, Hye-jeong joined Yeon-jin in bullying underprivileged students at their high school, essentially supporting her and sucking up to the group. As an adult in her mid-thrities, Hye-jeong is still friends with Park Yeon-jin and the others, due to her craving social status and wealth whilst her four "friends" all continue to childishly mock and belittle her, just like in their high school days, simply because of Hye-jeong's parents are laundromat owners and not having affluent backgrounds and Hye-jeong being a flight attendant and having a lower income than each of them (despite the fact that becoming a flight attendant in South Korea is hard). As a result, Hye-jeong holds a deep resentment and hatred towards them, especially Yeon-jin, and is determined to prove herself to Yeon-jin and possibly out-do her. Combined with Moon Dong-eun's blackmail and manipulation, she immediately sided Moon Dong-eun to help her in her quest against Yeon-jin. Throughout the series and her alliance with Dong-eun, Hye-jeong begins to distance herself from Yeon-jin and even take steps against the other three, with her confidence growing and even seducing Yeon-jin's longtime lover, Jeon Jae-jun.
Jeon Jae-jun - One of Park's long-term friends from high school. As teens they preyed upon poor students at Sunghan High School. As adults they remained close, often using each other for pleasure and regularly meeting up for afternoon hookups at Jae-jun's luxury store Siesta. Even after Park Yeon-jin married Ha Do-young for social status, she and Jae-jun continued their adulterous affair behind Do-young's back. It is later revealed that Jae-jun is the biological father of Ha Ye-sol, who is also colorblind like him. Following this revelation, he tried to persuade Yeon-jin whom he loves into leaving her husband and eloping with him, but she does not, preferring to maintain her elite position than be with Jeon whom she is only using for personal pleasure; another reason to why she doesn't want to be with him is because of his status as an illegitimate son and limited inheritance. His chance to be with Yeon-jin became impossible when Hye-jeong switched his eyedrops which blinded him, giving Do-young an opportunity to get rid of him for good so he would no longer bombard Ye-sol, whom Do-young loves and treats as one of his own.
Son Myeong-o - Another one of Park's friends from high school. Myeong-o grew up to be the least successful, as he now works for Jae-jun, and due to his inadequate status, Park is never respectful towards Myeong-o. He admits later how much her condescending tone annoys him. Myeong-o attempts to threaten Park after learning that she was the one who killed So-hee, hoping to blackmail her for roughly a billion won, although she ends up beating him to near-death later on. Although Kim Gyeong-ran is the one to actually finish Myeong-o and kill him, Dong-eun makes sure to frame it so that it looks like Park really was the one who killed Myeong-o. It is because of Myeong-o's death that Park eventually gets arrested.
Trivia[]
- Hong Young-ae had told Park Yeon-jin that she should avoid anybody with "O" in their Korean written names, based on a prediction from her Mudang (Korean Shaman), and specifically instructed her daughter to only hang out with Jeon Jae-jun and Lee Sa-ra at her high school because of this. Ironically, Hong Young-ae has the most "Os" in her Korean written name out of the people in Park Yeon-jin's social circle and Hong herself allowed her daughter to marry a man with "O" in his name and approved of her granddaughter's name containing an O, foreshadowing that Hong Young-ae is the root of her daughter's evil being the one who raised her and would also eventually betray and disown her.
- A running gag throughout the drama is Yeon-jin's inelegant posture and duck-footed gait. It is widely believed that actress; Lim Ji-yeon purposely gave her character such traits to show that despite her high-class life and marriage, Yeon-jin is still the unpleasant and vulgar person she has been since high school and can never escape her shady past.
[]
 Villains
| ||
|
Moon Dong-eun's Bullies Moon Dong-eun's Additional Targets Other | ||