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Park Yeon-jin (Korean: 박연진) is the main antagonist in the Korean drama series The Glory. She is portrayed by Lim Ji-yeon and Shin Ye-eun.

Biography[]

Yeon-jin was born to a wealthy family. Prior to the events of the show, her father had an affair and her mother, Hong Yeong-ae, collected evidence of this to divorce him. Her mother was very controlling of Yeon-jin to the extent that she even dictated whom she could be friends with, keeping in line with her superstitious beliefs. Yeon-jin always fell short of her mother’s approval and had to endure the woman’s open disdain for her daughter.

As a teenager, Yeon-jin was the ringleader in her friend group, and the most conniving of Moon Dong-eun's bullies. Yeon-jin and her friends burned, assaulted and mocked Dong-eun. Yeon-jin also bullied Kim Gyeong-ran and accidentally killed Yoon So-hee. Yeon-jin's mother made sure she never faced consequences for her crimes, only expressing her disappointment in her daughter for not being able to handle the poorer children herself, for she thought of them as far beneath her family.

When Dong-eun asked why Yeon-jin and her lackies bullied her, Yeon-jin grew annoyed and told her she did so because nothing would happen to Yeon-jin and nothing would change for Dong-eun. Yeon-jin viewed it as natural that the powerful would punch down. She saw it as her right to exert control over her victims because of her socio-economic status.

Free of consequences, Yeon-jin learns to take the boldest path to get what she wants. To prevent her friend Lee Sa-ra’s minister father from calling her to church, she shows up braless under a thin white shirt to disrupt the service and stop him from ever inviting her again. To break Dong-eun’s spirit and drive home the point that no one will help her, Yeon-jin brazenly admits to the outraged school nurse that she is the perpetrator.

After dropping out of school, Dong-eun returns once to talk to Yeon-jin. She asks why Yeon-jin wrote that her dream for the future was to be a wise wife and mother when the others wrote things like ‘inherit the golf course’ ‘become a stewardess’ ‘become an artist’ and ‘become rich’. Yeon-jin is briefly laughed at before she scoffs it off and explains that dreams and jobs are for people who don’t have enough, while someone like her wants for nothing as she already has it all.

Now, as an adult, Yeon-jin is living her dream. She works as a local weathercaster, is married to Ha Do-yeong - a wealthy and powerful man, and has a young daughter named Ha Ye-sol, but Yeon-jin has no idea Dong-eun has been tracking her and her family for years in preparation for revenge.

Yeon-jin is resented by her co-workers, as she is the only weathercaster who hires a writer to write her scripts and as she only has the job for a hobby. With her wealthy husband, unlike them, she doesn’t actually need to work.

Throughout The Glory[]

Yeon-jin has a public image of grace and class, but she is quick to switch up into a calculatingly violent and cruel person to put people onto their place. Yeon-jin, while a doting mother and a charming wife, is known to subordinates and the lower class as rude, arrogant, and entitled to the dignity of those poorer than her. She tolerates no slights, resorting to being sharpish and even pushing a co-worker after she mocked Yeon-jin for hiring a writer. Further into the series she arrives personally to physically intimidate her enemies. She can easily juggle both identities for extended periods of time, as seen when she perfectly maintains a loving relationship with her husband Do-yeong for years while also having an affair with her friend Jae-jun the whole time.

Personality[]

Yeon-jin found the need to exercise control over other people from a young age, perhaps as a result of her mother’s own control over her and in turn observing the shaman’s control over her mother. She learnt early that those without power and money are worthless and have a certain place in society while others like her have the liberty of doing as they wish. In a bid to maintain this control over her peers, she constantly belittles people and for the insurgent like Dong-eun, resorts to giving them physical repercussions.

Yeon-jin has little respect for people and relationships. She preserves a rigid hierarchy within her friend group and treats her poorer friends like servants, though she has some affection to the richer ones. She was never loyal to her husband, viewing their union as an unspoken agreement of each playing their due part. Her husband once confessed that he chose her out of all his prospective brides because she wore the most expensive and the most revealing clothing, and she is seemingly unperturbed by this objectification. She justifies her affair as a fun activity she dabbles in while doing her duties as a good mother and trophy wife. This transactional understanding of marriage may stem from her enduring an unfaithful father as a child.

Throughout the show, Yeon-jin has proved herself extremely cunning and deceptive. She was able to blackmail, manipulate or take advantage of others for her own gain and safety while maintaining a facade for years. To ensure her innocence, she has little qualms betraying her friends. She holds no remorse for all her cruel actions and till the end doesn’t understand why what she did was so wrong.

Despite her callousness and cruelty, Yeon-jin holds some love for a select few regardless of her selfishly engaging in risky behaviours. Dong-eun correctly predicts that it would break Yeon-jin’s soul to have her daughter taken away from her, to be betrayed and abandoned by her mother, to be left by her husband and turned on by her closest friends.

Physical appearance[]

Yeon-jin is widely considered very beautiful, featuring in multiple magazines and becoming a celebrity. She has a sweet and pure appearance. Dong-eun describes her large eyes as darkening when she has fun, and comments on her crowning glory, her long black hair. Yeon-jin’s plump lips often break into a lopsided and cruel but arresting smile. This smirk is her distinguishing feature. She enjoys wearing designer clothing and very tall high heels. She is often seen wearing pink lipstick, professional but bold clothing, stilettos heels and fine jewelry.

Appearances[]

Trivia[]

  • Yeon-jin and Jae-jun began smoking together as teens. They still hold their cigarettes the same way.
  • She wore her hair straight in high school but keeps it wavy in adulthood.
  • Yeon-jin’s mother was physically violent to her and disciplined her infront of others.
  • Yeon-jin shows signs of having a crush on Jae-jun ever since highschool, though they were never exclusive. She chose to marry someone wealthier than him, knowing he could not fulfil her dream of being a mother by being a good father.
  • Yeon-jin arrived to her first date with Do-yeong dressed head to toe in Dior and showing a lot of skin. She correctly guessed that a chaebol would want a trophy wife to reflect his wealth and bolster his status.
  • Despite being a smoker, Yeon-jin is careful to keep her daughter away from the fumes and never lets the girl see her mother smoking.
  • Yeon-jin's preferred to bully one girl at a time, replacing them after each broke or ran away: some of them are Moon Dong-eun (dropped out), Yoon So-hee (deceased) and Kim Gyeong-Ran.
  • Yeon-jin's prisoner number is 3886.[1]

Gallery[]

Posters[]

References[]

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