13 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.
연등 (yeon-deung) are traditional paper lanterns hung at Buddhist temples and during festivals like Buddha's Birthday. Using them as a landmark makes sense in Korea — temple lanterns are often the only warm light visible on dark hillside paths at night.
개또라이 (gae-tto-ra-i) is blunt Korean slang for someone acting completely out of their mind — 개 (gae) is an intensifying prefix (literally 'dog') stacked onto 또라이, a word for a crazy or erratic person. Nari is harshly calling out her own past behaviour rather than softening it.
기리고 (gi-ri-go) is the name of the fictional wish-granting app at the centre of the drama's curse. The word plays on 기리다, meaning to 'commemorate' or 'revere,' giving the app a deceptively reverent, ritual-sounding name.
The words chanted here come from the 천지왕본풀이 (Cheonjiwang bon-puri), a Jeju Island creation myth used in shamanist (무속, musok) rituals. In it, the Heavenly King Cheonjiwang and the Seven Stars (칠성님) are called on to restore cosmic order and drive out malevolent spirits — exactly the purpose Haesal is invoking them for here.
매흉 (mae-hyung) refers to a spiritually malevolent object believed in Korean folk belief to carry bad luck or a curse. Shamans (무당, mu-dang) identify and destroy such objects during exorcism rituals — smashing or burning them is thought to sever the curse's hold on the living.
Korean middle and high schools typically have a 멀티미디어실 (multimedia room), a dedicated AV classroom with projectors and computers. Because it is often locked and used less frequently than regular classrooms, it becomes the kind of overlooked space that works well as a secret hiding spot in the drama.
덜미 literally means the nape of the neck, and in Korean shamanist tradition it refers to the act of seizing a spirit by the scruff — essentially a supernatural hold a shaman can use to restrain a ghost or malevolent force. Haesal using herself as the 덜미 means she is turning her own body into the trap.
향 (hyang) is the incense burned at Korean ancestral memorial rites (제사, jesa) and at Buddhist altars. The fact that Siwan notices Seah smells of incense but says it is different from his own home's scent hints at the distinct ritual practices carried in each family's household — every family's jesa smoke has its own particular blend.
씹덕찐따 (ssip-deok-jjin-tta) is a harsh compound insult from Korean internet slang: 씹 is a vulgar intensifier, 덕 shortens 오타쿠/덕후 (a socially awkward obsessive fan), and 찐따 is an offensive term for someone perceived as slow or weird. Together it is one of the nastiest dismissals someone can throw at a socially marginalised peer — the line shows just how deep Nari's rage at Hyeong-uk runs.
명주실 (myeongju-sil), white silk thread, is a key ritual object in Korean shamanism. It represents the fragile boundary between the living world and the spirit world, and shamans use it to bind or guide souls. Haesal's blood soaking the thread is a sacrificial binding — the more of herself she gives, the stronger the spiritual lock on Siwan becomes.
The scene where characters address Hyeong-uk directly, urging him to let go of pain and go somewhere good, mirrors a common Korean funeral and memorial custom. It is not unusual at a 제사 or informal gathering to speak to the deceased out loud, telling them to rest and not worry about those left behind — it is considered a way of granting the spirit permission to leave.
저승차사 (Jeoseung chasa) are the grim-reaper-like messengers of the underworld in Korean folk belief who escort the newly dead. 삼도천 (Samdo-cheon) is the Three-Path River separating the living world from the dead — similar to the Greek River Styx. Bangul describing himself arm-in-arm with a chasa, almost crossing the river, is a culturally rich way of saying he nearly died.
달래다 means to soothe or calm someone down. When used about the dead in a Korean spiritual context, it refers to the practice of appeasing a restless ghost (원혼, wonhon) so their lingering han — grief and resentment — is resolved and they can pass on peacefully. What Bangul witnessed Seah doing for Hyeong-uk is rooted in this tradition.