"The East Palace"'s Supernatural Finale: The Truth Behind a 30-Year Curse

For an eight-episode series, 'The East Palace' (originally titled '동궁') carries a surprising amount of density. The Netflix show is set in a fictional Joseon dynasty where the line between the living and the dead can be crossed. The royal family has been battling a curse targeting the line of succession for 30 years. When the life of the king's last surviving son is threatened, King Ju-sang (Cho Seung-woo) summons ghost hunter Gu-cheon (Nam Joo-hyuk) to the palace to break the curse.

Alongside Gu-cheon is Saeng-gang (Roh Yoon-seo), a princess who was exiled from the palace as a child for her ability to hear spirits. Saeng-gang's true goal is to avenge her mother, murdered years earlier; the pair starts out as a reluctant team but grows closer while trying to save the kingdom, the royal family, and each other.

The system of ghosts and spirits

The show's greatest strength is the world it builds. Writers Kwon So-ra and Seo Jae-won, who also wrote 'The Guest' and 'Bulgasal,' draw on Korean shamanistic tradition. In Korean folklore, ghosts are known as gwi-shin. In the show, gwi-mae are spirits bound to the world by regret left over from death; won-gwi are those who died consumed by hatred and a desire for revenge; and ak-gwi — the thing Gu-cheon fears becoming — are spirits that have killed and become increasingly corrupted.

There are also the ggeomeoksali, creatures that feed on the "Yang" energy of living beings. Lacking Yang himself, Gu-cheon fears them, but befriends one by accident during his days at the palace: a clumsy little creature in the mortal world, but huge and terrifying in the realm of spirits.

The Gwi Realm

Much of the action takes place in the Gwi Realm, the mirror world where spirits live. Director Choi Jung-kyu shrouds the mirror realm in an orange haze to separate the two worlds. Interestingly, visual effects make up only about 20–30% of the final cut in the Gwi Realm scenes: "I tried to solve as much as I could through production design; for instance, we built one set for the real world and another for the Gwi Realm," says Choi.

Who is the spirit in the pool?

As the show begins, the palace attributes the crown prince's death to the 30-year-old curse. The curse began when a court lady, once favored by the king of that era, was executed on accusations of conceiving a child with a royal guard. The one who spread the rumor was the status-obsessed Queen Dowager (Jang Young-nam), enraged by the idea of her husband elevating a mere servant to concubine. Before her death, the court lady swore that she and her unborn child would exact their revenge as a won-gwi.

Who actually cursed the royal bloodline?

The one who orchestrated the curse story is the king's mother — and Saeng-gang's beloved grandmother — Lady Choi Suk-bin (Hwang Young-hee). Witnessing the oath sworn on the day of the execution, she saw an opportunity to secure her son's throne: she poisoned her sons born to the Queen Dowager and pinned their deaths on the favored court lady's won-gwi.

The truth devastates Saeng-gang as much as knowing both her mother and father were aware of it, since her grandmother was nearly the only person in the palace she trusted. In Roh's words: "Her grandmother was her only support; I can't even begin to measure what Saeng-gang felt when that grandmother turned out to be not just a traitor, but in a sense the root cause of everything."