Arang and the Magistrate

Human

Eun-oh looks for Arang and can't find her that night, worrying about what's happened. He sees Bang-wool running madly through the woods; she arrives home and immediately prays to the gods, crying that she did nothing wrong.

Eun-oh scares her half to death with his sudden appearance and asks after Amnesia. She tells him Arang went to the hereafter — for real this time, replete with a goodbye to the shaman. She wonders if Arang went loopy in the head, daring to threaten the grim reaper and demanding an audience with the Jade Emperor: "She probably won't be safe in the afterlife, either."

Mu-young leads Arang through the forest. I love that while he's as grim as his job description, Arang goes from walking behind him to sidling up to his side, asking whether he can really die. He answers, "Nothing in the world is infinite." If he dies, though, he just disappears — the same fate Bang-wool warned would befall Arang if their portal-trick went awry.

Again Arang sees no big deal in disappearing, which I suppose is what happens when you have no memory and therefore no pathos about not having ever existed. She asks if he has a human past too, but he doesn't answer.

They arrive at a clearing, and the reaper's lantern drops to the ground, absorbing into the earth — and night turns to day, just like that.

They're at the bank of the river to the afterlife — once they cross, she cannot return. He asks whether she feels no lingering attachment to this life, and she notes, "I didn't say goodbye." To Eun-oh, she means.

Still, she's ready to face what comes next and just reminds him to keep his promise. A boat floats down the river toward them, and he boards it. Arang joins him and takes a seat.

As the boat travels on carrying the two of them, Arang looks back toward the shore. It's eerily beautiful imagery, traveling on water that's littered with greenery, almost like they're floating atop the world.

Soon all the color drains away, leaving just black and white and coldness. The water turns choppy, and Arang looks on in horror as they approach an enormous waterfall. All around, there are other passengers in other boats, all falling over the edge. Arang falls, too, bracing herself.

She falls into the water, sinking deeper and deeper... and then somehow the medium around her changes and now she's floating in air, toward...

"Look here, Amnesia!" Where'd that voice come from?

Arang opens her eyes and finds herself standing with Mu-young in a large cave. A huddled figure in white suddenly leaps to its feet, vaguely human in shape but with strangely long, withery appendages.

The evil-looking scarecrow flies at her, face to face, looking at her with fiery eyes. It hisses at her...

Time skip to Eun-oh, who asks, "Hell?"

Bang-wool is explaining the process of punishment and passage into the hereafter, determined by the life you led as a human. Most people have a little leeway, she explains — you spend some time in an ethereal prison as punishment and then go on your way to what's next. But Arang? The thing she committed against that reaper? Instant hell for her, with no wiggle room.

Eun-oh argues that she can't know that, since she doesn't even have full shaman powers. Way to insult the only one who can help you, dude. Bang-wool huffily points to her shaman's guide, all, How dare you disrespect The Book?, and outlines the description of hell: there are ten of them in all, each with its own punishments. Boiling vats, flying knives, and other horrors.

After all this, I'm going to die laughing if Arang shows up amidst literal daisies and rainbows. But it's dire news for Eun-oh, who asks if there's anything he can do. But what can you do when the opponent is Death?