It's that time of the year, so let's talk about the current big boy in town: Revamp: The Undead Story
Hello my beautiful people, it's me, your favorite girl, Moonchild, back yet again with a small post about my current obsession, the apple of my eyes, my second most awaited comeback for 2025, my beloved "Revamp", BounPrem's comeback after a three year old hiatus (it was a nightmare having to wait to see them again on my screens, alongside having to also wait for The Ex-Morning. It was a FUCKING NIGHTMARE!). For someone who had to wait between the airing of Until We Meet Again and Between Us, I was actually really excited about this series because it has one of my and Boun's favorite theme, "vampires", so I knew he would do his best to provide us with an amazing story, very well thought out, and with the care he gives to all characters he plays on the series he appears (also, on 31st October "Zomvivor" is set to premiere, so please, if you're not scared of undead people, give it a shot, he's in the cast), and I was right.
Most of the time, I'm always right.
However, instead of me making a big ass post about the series as a whole, like I usually do when I talk about a series in this format, I wanna talk about how a specific scene, in the first episode, gave us a major spoiler about a major plot point and how smart it was. The scene in question?
Oh, this is about to get long, messy, confusing and full of biased praise but what's new here?
Anyway, this scene happens when Punn takes Ramil home after he leaves the painting, after Punn tells Ramil that he was not like "other vampires he knew" and Ramil asked his to show those other vampires. They go to the living room and on the TV, the scene that appears in it is from the last episode from "My Golden Blood", specifically when Mark (played by Joss) bites Tong (played by Gawin) (a bit of explanation and backstory for those who didn't watch MGB: Tong was a human with a "special blood", that was powerful enough to enhance the powers of vampires and the person everyone thought was a good person turned out to be the villain so, to defeat the villain, Mark, who was assigned as Tong's "bodyguard", had to drink all his blood to get enough power to destroy the villain, killing Tong in the process. It was a very stressful situation to everyone). That scene had a very specific theme, that was "sacrifice" and that theme is present throughout the first half of the series.
Even if it wasn't obvious, considering it was the very first episode, that scene from MGB would become a direct parallel to the one on episode 6 of Revamp, because both Mark and Ramil were deemed "one of a kind" (Mark as the perfect successor for Thara - the current "lider" of the vampires - and Ramil as the perfect lider for the vampires, for coming from a very powerful lineage) and Tong and Punn were "special" (Tong because of the golden blood and Punn because he was the one responsible to free Ramil from the curse), with Mark and Ramil refusing to drink from their lovers and Tong and Punn willing to die of necessary, it it meant to keep their loved ones safe; like...
...don't get me started on Tong's and Punn's expressions while being bitten...
...those were the faces of two people subjecting themselves to pain because they knew it was the only way to protect and keep safe the men they loved.
Moving on. Next, we have another instance of a brilliant foreshadowing, this time coming from the VERY FIRST SCENE OF THE EPISODE, the one where RamilPunn are kissing on the bed. At the time, without context from what was happening, no deep information about the characters (the only thing we knew is that one of them was a vampire and the other a human responsible for releasing said vampire from a curse), what was happening in that scene didn't carry that much of weight but, when you watch it a second time, with the information we have now about Ramil specifically, the dialogue, albeit short and simple, was basically the production time spoon-feeding us the plot of the story with a golden spoon because this...
...were TWO SEPARATE PLOT POINTS MERGED TOGETHER!
The first one being related to the revelation that Ramil can actually move through memories (and time travel at the same time, apparently) and the other related to how Punn was able to break the curse, even if seemingly by accident. His moving through memories was first presented as Ramil just being able to read minds (the fourth power we weren't aware that Ramil possessed because by having Methus, Mekin and Ciar as the physical representation of his powers (speed, healing and transformation), we were conditioned to think that Ramil only had three and that was a deliberate decision: Ramil was still studying Punn, by having access to his thoughts, so revealing too much too soon could backfire spectacularly, and create more problems that the ones they already had, ie the hunters going after them.
(And, while talking about this deliberate decision, let me sidetrack a bit and talk about how I think we are watching this story from Punn's perspective: since the first episode, every discover we have, like major discover we make, we have it at the same time Punn has it: Ramil and the power restoration ceremony, how to properly kill Ramil, him being a mind reader, the full scope of Ramil's curse, Ramil and how he can enter memories and time travel, everything we find out about Ramil happens to us at the same is happening to Punn, we are living the story through his lens. Don't get me started on how Punn is not a typical main protagonist: he's an unreliable narrator, he's a grey character, has a bloody past (Punn's an actual killer, don't forget that), manipulates, lies, talks by omission and a lot other things that people would usually frown upon because it doesn't usually get people rooting for you; however, the more you uncover about his life, the more you see the beauty of his character and you can't help but fall in love with Punn and all his layers.)
Sidetracking aside, when we talk about Ramil's curse, we need to pay attention to the conversation between Punn and Lilith on Greenmoore, because she talked a lot about the place and Ramil but three specific lines of dialogue had to be highlighted because those were the ones really connected to Ramil's curse, literally the conditions necessary to release Ramil from the curse:
1. The utterance of his name
2. The blood of the one responsible from saying his name
3. Both Ramil and the curse breaker having romantic feelings for each other
Number one was confirmed with the conversation RamilPunn had while Punn was trying to convince Ramil to go into his memories to help them gather information, and ties back with the fact that Punn "saw" Ramil on the night of the attack and was saved by Ramil, despite the fact that at the time of the attack Ramil was trapped on the painting. Ramil being seen by Punn was the reason the hunters started targeting his family, and was also the way Ramil found to help Punn get the information necessary to free him (temporarily) from the curse, by telling him to remember his name, something that Punn needed to do to get Ramil out of the painting.
Number two goes back from episode one, when Ramil says he doesn't drink human blood. Punn's blood was shown to be important to everything Ramil related, from being needed on the power restoration ceremony, to being able to physically heal Ramil from injuries. Every time Ramil uses his powers, specifically his mind reading/manipulation/memory walking, blood is necessary to give him more strength to it (also because it exerts force on the other person's body, so of course blood would be spilled).
Number three is the tricky one, and where Lilith said that she was the one responsible to out Punn on Ramil's path. Actually, she said "I decided to put myself on the line with him and you" and "then I saw you in my vision", and that gave me the impression that Lilith showed Ramil the image of the man responsible to break the curse (in a weird and confusing time loop but not really a time loop), and that made the all RamilPunn encounter happen. Then, she talks about how she made sure to say exactly how the curse was to be broken (confirming that she did that because she knew Ramil would find a way to go to Punn and tell him that) and how both of them would need to put their love to the test; she says that Ramil would love the one responsible to break his curse but that Ramil having the feeling wouldn't be enough, the other party (Punn) would have to reciprocate those feelings.
"Ramil never loved anyone" and "he was never loved" were the most important parts from the curse. Because until Punn said that he loved Ramil back, Ramil was only free from the painting, not the curse, the full conditions had not be met yet. So, after Punn said his name back on episode one, and after he gave Ramil his blood to both his ceremony and to heal him from his wound, Punn needed to actually verbalize that he had feelings for Ramil, to prove with actions and words that those feelings were real and not manipulated by Ramil, to really release Ramil from his curse.
And to prove to you guys I'm not tweaking, that same conversation RamilPunn had before the end of episode 8, really shows how Ramil getting into his memories really helped them find each other...
...while at the same time helped Punn in moments of high distress.
I could end with a clever block of text, to show how "smart" I am but this entire post only happened because I was on the bus listening to "Vision of Love" from Mariah Carey and realized that Punn had actually gotten a vision of love in the form of the dreams of them and Ramil together, with Ramil making sure that they would see each other again (I mean, he actually said that they would see each other again someday and made that happen!) and heal every single wound Punn had, slowly but steady.
"You treated me kind (yeah)
Sweet destiny (and you know that you did)
And I'll be eternally grateful
Holding you so close to me (prayed through the nights)
Prayed through the nights (so faithfully)
So faithfully (faithfully)
Knowing the one that I needed
Would find me eventually (he would find me)" - Vision of Love, Mariah Carey
