12 timestamped notes explaining the Korean cultural context in this episode — customs, idioms, food, honorifics, and history, at the moment each appears on screen. These notes discuss events across the whole episode. To see them revealed scene-by-scene as you watch, use the episode page to find an airing.
양기 (陽氣, yang-gi) is the life-force energy associated with warmth, light, and the living in Korean cosmology derived from Taoist thought. Shamans and exorcists in folklore are believed to carry concentrated yang energy that repels dark spirits, which is why offering half of it is treated as an enormous personal sacrifice — and a potentially fatal one.
저승 (jeoseung) is the Korean word for the realm of the dead — essentially the underworld. In traditional Korean belief it sits in direct opposition to 이승 (iseung), the world of the living. Ghosts who cannot reach 저승 are stuck between the two realms, which is the source of all the hauntings in this story.
A 무당 (mudang) is a Korean shaman, most often a woman, who acts as a medium between the living and spirits. Being called one was historically a social stigma, especially for a noblewoman — shamans occupied one of the lowest rungs of the Joseon class system. That is why the comment stings so sharply for a royal princess.
귀매 (鬼魅, gwimae) is a broad category of malevolent spirit that haunts a fixed place, like a room or a building. 꺼먹살이 is described here as a rarer, more dangerous subspecies that latches on to a living person rather than a location and drains their 양기 until terror kills them — think of it as a spiritual parasite rather than a haunting.
동궁 (東宮, Donggung) literally means 'East Palace' and refers both to the physical quarters of the crown prince and, by extension, to the institution of the crown prince himself. When characters say the foundation of 동궁 is shaking, they mean the royal succession itself is in crisis — there is no secure heir to the throne.
세자빈 (世子嬪, seja-bin) is the official title for the crown prince's primary wife. Entering the palace as 세자빈 at age eleven was not unusual in Joseon; royal marriages were political arrangements made when children were very young. Once inside the palace walls, a royal consort was expected to remain there for the rest of her life, which is exactly what the Queen Dowager describes.
후궁 (後宮, hugung) were the king's secondary consorts, ranked in a strict hierarchy below the queen. A child born of a 후궁 who had originally been a palace maid (궁녀) faced the worst possible birth stigma in Joseon — considered tainted by low-born blood no matter how high their father sat on the throne. This is the wound at the center of the king's complicated relationship with the court.
생과방 (生果房, saengkwabang) was the section of the Joseon palace kitchen responsible for making fresh fruits, tteok (rice cakes), confections, and ceremonial sweets. Staff there — called 생각시 when they were young trainee women — held a specific and modest rank in the palace servant hierarchy. It explains why this new roommate is present inside the palace walls.
Korea follows the twelve-year zodiac cycle shared across East Asia, with each year named for an animal. Being born in 뱀의 해 (the Year of the Snake) is being used here as a damning political accusation: the wall inscription saying 'the snake's shed skin killed the dragon's child' is being read as a coded attack on the queen, whose birth year is the snake. This kind of zodiac-linked slander was a real tool of Joseon court intrigue.
원귀 (冤鬼, won-gwi) is a ghost driven by 한 (han) — a deep, unresolved resentment or grief. Unlike ordinary ghosts, a 원귀 cannot move on to the afterlife until the injustice that created them is acknowledged or rectified. Korean folklore holds that grinding bones and dispersing them breaks the anchor that keeps the spirit tied to a location, helping dissolve the resentment rather than simply destroying the soul.
극락왕생 (極樂往生, geungnakwangsaeng) is a Buddhist phrase meaning to be reborn into 극락 — the Pure Land or paradise — after death. It is the standard blessing spoken at Korean funerals and in rites for the dead, equivalent to 'may you rest in peace.' Hearing it in a ghost-exorcism context is intentional: sending a 원귀 onward is treated as an act of mercy, not just banishment.
승은상궁 (承恩尙宮, seungeun sanggung) is a 궁녀 (palace maid) who received the king's special favour — meaning she became his concubine without being formally elevated to a 후궁 rank. Their position was precarious: beloved one moment, disposable the next. A 승은상궁 who fell from grace or was killed under false pretenses would have overwhelming cause for a 원귀's curse, which is exactly what is being revealed here.