KJCKorea
Journal Central

This study focuses on the rapid rise of male-oriented web-novel intellectual properties (IPs) in South Korea’s screen-content industry since the 2020s. It aims to analyze the character archetypes manifested in such screen adaptations and to identify the narrative tendencies that characterize this contemporary shift. For this purpose, Christopher Vogler’s archetype model is adopted as the main analytical framework. Concentrating on television/streaming drama—the medium in which male-oriented web-novel IPs have achieved the most visible success—this study examines JTBC’s <Reborn Rich>(2022) and Netflix’s <The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call>(2025). In both dramas, the hero is presented from the outset as a “completed hero,” for whom flaws and the task of growth are largely minimized; accordingly, conflicts tend not to intensify over an extended period but are resolved swiftly. In this process, the hero internalizes the function of the Mentor archetype, whereas antagonists display a weakened Shadow function that would ordinarily drive the hero toward a decisive crisis; instead, their role is foregrounded as that of Threshold Guardians who impose step-by-step tests. Furthermore, archetypes such as the Ally and the Trickster are simplified, functioning less as independent narrative engines than as reactive devices that reinforce the hero’s superiority. This type of archetypal transformation suggests that narrative strategies favored by male-oriented web novel readership—namely, the presentation of immediate achievement and the rapid resolution of conflict—also function effectively within audiovisual content. This phenomenon can be understood in relation to broader social and cultural contexts, including the fragmentation of effort-based discourse following the IMF crisis, the intensification of nihilism and compensatory desires among younger generations, and the expansion of short-form content consumption environments.

male-oriented web novels, web-novel–adapted dramas, archetype, completed hero, instrumentalization