'The East Palace' Ending Explained: Is Gu-cheon Dead?

[Spoiler Alert] The East Palace’s ending was essentially about Gu-cheon bringing an end to the Crown Prince’s reign of terror and returning some semblance of normalcy to the titular establishment. How did things come to that? Well, the proceedings started with the death of the third Crown Prince, which was actually a repeat of the events that had happened 30 years ago. Everyone was under the impression that it was the pond spirit that was responsible for the murders, but the King said that it was a baseless myth; that was until his son, Prince Yeongan got possessed. That was when the King hired Gu-cheon, a feng shui master, to get rid of the spirit that was tormenting Yeongan; the King’s daughter, Saeng-gang, was assigned to assist him. Initial efforts to free Yeongan from the pond spirit’s clutches seemed to be successful, but when Yeongan stepped out of the palace, he died. The King tried to have Gu-cheon killed because of his failure, but on Saeng-gang’s insistence, Gu-cheon was allowed to keep working on this case, which led to the revelation that it was actually the Crown Prince’s spirit who was haunting the palace and was looking to end the King’s bloodline. Due to the Queen Dowager’s personal vendetta against the King, she had joined hands with Prince Iksang and a shaman to ensure that the Crown Prince succeeded in carrying out his task. In addition to that, it was revealed that Saeng-gang’s grandmother was the one who had killed the crown princes (the Queen Dowager’s children) thirty years ago, thereby paving the way for Saeng-gang’s father (Saeng-gang’s grandmother’s son) to be king. Saeng-gang’s grandmother was also responsible for killing Saeng-gang’s mother (who had helped Saeng-gang’s grandmother kill the crown princes back in the day) and putting the blame for it on the Queen Dowager. The Crown Prince had been killed by the King because he had learnt (due to his ability to hear the voices of the spirits) about the murders that the King and his mother (Saeng-gang’s grandmother) had committed. The other reason why the Crown Prince was killed was because, after learning about the method that the King’s mother had opted to put her son on the throne, the Crown Prince killed his brothers to be the only one in line for the throne after his father’s reign came to an end. Hence, as a spirit, the Crown Prince refused to allow the King to exist (he even hurt Iksang’s son, Prince Inha, because he had been adopted by the King to be the Crown Prince). As if that wasn’t enough, there was a plague or pestilence that was spreading through the villages around the palace, which was something that the King chose to deal with via extermination. And the Crown Prince consumed the body parts of those diseased spirits to become powerful enough to bypass Gu-cheon’s protective spells and attack everyone in the castle, including the King. Who succeeded in the end, Gu-cheon or the Crown Prince? Let’s find out.

Gu-cheon Made A Deal With The Primordial Gwi-mae

Since the King had fallen sick because of the Crown Prince’s curse, the Queen Dowager took the throne, albeit momentarily, in the finale. She had lost her sons. Her efforts to take down the King had failed. Moreover, she had been blamed for killing the Queen. So, yeah, her desperation was lowkey justified. But her self-appointed ascension happened a little too late because as she sat on the throne, the Crown Prince’s curse mixed with the spirits of the diseased villagers wreaked havoc all over the castle and began affecting her and everyone in the premises. Gu-cheon intended to seal the Crown Prince in an enchanted box. Saeng-gang wondered why he wasn’t sending the Crown Prince into the afterlife. Gu-cheon said that since the Crown Prince’s soul had become entangled with those of diseased villagers, it would be impossible to erase him completely; he could only be trapped. But even that was easier said than done because the spirits of the diseased villagers would have to be “appeased” in order to weaken the Crown Prince. Now, Gu-cheon wanted to go into the Realm of the Gwi and tackle this whole issue all by himself. Saeng-gang wanted to go with him, but he didn’t want to put Saeng-gang’s life at risk. Since Saeng-gang had seen Gu-cheon throw himself into the jaws of death so many times, that too for the sake of an immoral royal bloodline, she benched him by giving him a potion that knocked him unconscious. By assisting Gu-cheon, Saeng-gang had learnt how to travel back and forth between the mortal and spectral realms, which was why she decided to go on this do-or-die mission all by herself. On that note, she interrupted the Crown Prince’s assassination attempt on their father and it seemed like she had succeeded, but the Crown Prince was just too strong and he overpowered Saeng-gang with relative ease. To make things worse, the Queen Dowager’s shaman stranded Saeng-gang in the spectral realm by cutting off her thread to the mortal realm (because he was still carrying out the plan of letting the Crown Prince kill the King to make way for Iksang). 

The Crown Prince made a hole in Saeng-gang’s body and began consuming her Yang energy to become even more powerful than he already was. While all this was going on, Gu-cheon resumed consciousness and realized what Saeng-gang was up to. Since getting to a water body to enter the spectral realm was too time-consuming, Gu-cheon killed himself and began making his way to Saeng-gang and the Crown Prince. On the way, Gu-cheon came across this massive kaiju-like entity, called the Primordial Gwi-mae, in the spectral realm. What did it signify? Possibly the negative Yin energy created by all the deaths and wrongdoings that had happened in the kingdom, all of which was a result of the bad governance of the royals. And I am not just talking about the current King, but every King that preceded him. Gu-cheon asking this Primordial Gwi-mae to give him its power in exchange for whatever it wanted was kinda his way of giving it back to the royals and delivering some form of justice to all those who had been hurt by the royals. From a tactical point-of-view, it was a smart move because the Crown Prince had consumed Saeng-gang’s Yang energy, and Gu-cheon needed to counter it with that raw Yin energy. The Primordial Gwi-mae gave Gu-cheon a sword that was cuffed to his hand with an adjustable chain. Armed with that, Gu-cheon engaged the Crown Prince in a brutal battle.

The Crown Prince’s Soul Was Destroyed

The Crown Prince unleashed the full might of the diseased spirits that were under his control on Gu-cheon, thereby pinning him down. It seemed like the Crown Prince was gonna succeed in killing the King but the King subverted expectations by owning up to the crimes he had committed. He welcomed death with open arms because he knew that that was the punishment he deserved. I supposed that regret and guilt acted against the feelings of revenge that fueled the Crown Prince as well as the diseased spirits, causing all of them to crumble in the spectral realm. While the Crown Prince was unable to let go of his resentment, the spirits of the villagers went to the afterlife. That weakened the Crown Prince, which allowed Gu-cheon to deliver the final blow. Yeah, Gu-cheon tried to reason with the Crown Prince, but he was so far gone that Gu-cheon had to destroy the Crown Prince’s soul. Gu-cheon then proceeded to transfer his Yang energy to Saeng-gang and send her to the mortal realm. When Saeng-gang found Gu-cheon, he had bled out to death. The Primordial Gwi-mae then summoned Gu-cheon to it and since that was a part of the deal he had struck with the entity, he chose to go towards it, probably with the intention of killing it and freeing himself. The day after all this, it was revealed that the pestilence that was ravaging the neighboring villages had come to an end. 

Given how the disease was seemingly related to the Crown Prince’s curse, or the fact that the King was refusing to own up to all the crimes he had committed which had led to the build-up of the Yin energy, the resolution to both of those things cured the people of the kingdom. Saeng-gang’s grandmother was chucked out of the palace, while the Queen Dowager continued to live in the palace, seemingly losing her mind with each passing day. Iksang had murdered the shaman for failing to have the King killed at the hands of the Crown Prince, and he was being investigated by the royal authorities for conspiring against the King; As for Inha, I’m sure he’s doing fine. With all that said, was the King a transformed man or was he going to go back to his old ways? That remains a mystery. There’s a good chance that his sense of remorse wasn’t authentic and he just used it as a tool to avert death. When he initially went on a crime spree, he didn’t know about the consequences. If he does a repeat of those crimes, despite knowing the consequences, that’s not gonna be really messed up. He is young enough to rule the kingdom for a couple of decades. He can use that time to build a legacy that’ll set a positive precedent for future generations; or he can plunge his kingdom into another era of darkness which’ll be so devastating that no feng shui master or shaman will be able to fix it.

Gu-cheon Was Alive But Not Free

In The East Palace’s ending, Saeng-gang was seen sitting beside Gu-cheon’s dead body, still not ready to accept the fact that he was gone, at least in the mortal realm. That was when she noticed the presence of the ggeomeoksali that had taken a liking to Gu-cheon. Gu-cheon had said that, unlike the gwi-mae (which tethered itself to places instead of people), the ggeomeoksali tethered itself to living beings. So, Saeng-gang realized that, since the ggeomeoksali was still around, it meant that Gu-cheon was around somewhere as well. Saeng-gang rode out to the river where Gu-cheon’s mother had killed herself and had tried to take Gu-cheon along with her, but Gu-cheon had survived that near-death experience, thereby making him a walker between the mortal and spectral realms. Saeng-gang called out to Gu-cheon and urged him to live on. Initially, it seemed like Saeng-gang’s request had fallen on deaf ears, but when the waters began shifting, she felt that Gu-cheon had heard her. Hence, she went back to the palace and found a resurrected Gu-cheon. After his healing period was over, Gu-cheon prepared to return to the temple where he resided. Gu-cheon met with the King and he assumed that he was gonna kill him because he knew too much about royal affairs. It’s possible that was what the King would have done. 

However, when Gu-cheon pointed out that the throne was surrounded by the spirits of past kings and dead crown princes, the King let him leave, probably because he knew that if things went sideways, and those spirits attacked him, he’d need Gu-cheon’s help. Gu-cheon didn’t hesitate and walked out of the palace; Saeng-gang joined him because she wanted to repay him after he had done so much for the royal family. The ggeomeoksali also tagged along because, well, it was eternally attached to Gu-cheon. The final shots of the series revealed the chain that was linked to Gu-cheon’s wrist and the Yin tentacles wrapped around the titular palace. What did that mean? Maybe that Gu-cheon was linked to the Yin energy of that kingdom forever. We don’t what the Primordial Gwi-mae wanted in exchange for that sword that it gave to Gu-cheon. We don’t know what happened between Gu-cheon and the Primordial Gwi-mae after he lunged at it after destroying the Crown Prince’s soul. It’s possible that Gu-cheon gave the Primordial Gwi-mae access to the kingdom’s Yin or Yang energy, and if it faced any kind of pushback, it’d yank that chain and force Gu-cheon to remove any obstacles to its source of food. That’d put Gu-cheon at odds with the King, Saeng-gang, and the rest of the kingdom. Nobody, other than Gu-cheon and maybe the ggeomeoksali, knows about his deal with Primordial Gwi-mae; so, Gu-cheon will have a hard time explaining his predicament and an even harder time destroying the Primordial Gwi-mae’s chain. Maybe Saeng-gang (after learning about the chain and the Primordial Gwi-mae) and the ggeomeoksali will assist him and free him from that pit of Yin. Well, at least that’s my interpretation of that chain. If you have any alternative theories, let me know in the comments section below.

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