There definitely has to be some sort of rhyme or reason to why a person gets a decree. Why the hell would a baby get one? It seems to be pretty clear that it's not God handing down these decrees. But they're inter-dimensional AND can revive you just to beat the shyt out of you (
) so you die twice. So it seems to be spiritual in nature OR has means of control over that field. One thing I noticed though is that when they send someone to "Hell", the body of the three monsters glow with energy. So maybe they're not damning people -- maybe they're absorbing souls. And maybe that's why the baby survived: the price was paid and they got their fill, so that's all they were concerned with.
Although, it doesn't explain why Park Jungja was revived. Why kill her if she's meant to revive four years later? But this also opens the door to Jung Jinsu coming back in Season 2 potentially.
Min Hye-Jin's change in four years makes sense though, because as soon as they smoked her sick mother, I figured she'd want to make a "resistance group" against the New Truth. She got Peter Parker'd and had her face plastered everywhere for talking shyt about them, and she survived the attempt on her life (by pure luck on her side) by those same people. If she didn't learn to protect herself in some way, they'd find her and finish the job this time.
Not gonna lie though... The newborn's mom was annoying. She walked right into the enemy den, not even considering the fact that due to her baby being the sole exception, they'd want to get that child and everyone connected to them out of the picture.
If you're running a religious cult, you wouldn't want evidence of a contradiction leaking out. When she searched the New Truth app and nothing came up and she knew her baby was the only exception, she should've been using her head more. But at the same time, they did paint her as someone who honestly wasn't very mentally stable once the decree came (understandable) and was in a state of panic. Still, it was pure luck that they got out of there in one piece.
Ask a cult why your baby contradicts their doctrine and be surprised why they turn hostile on you, brehettes.
And it goes without saying, but, the irony isn't lost on me that all of the people condemning "sinners" and wanting to create a more pure world "in God's name" are also the ones behind some of the heaviest sins you can commit. "We're trying to please God... So in order to do that, we're gonna break the breaks, tires and chassis off a sickly old woman. And then, we're gonna do the same to her daughter, and throw her in a ditch." But that's just to show how irrational cult worship and indoctrination can make people. "Ends justify the means", all for the glory of whoever they put on a pedestal. The Arrowheads were probably as scary as the Hell demon things, because those people didn't have a shred of humanity in them at all. And I think that's pretty clear as to what the show is trying to say, that humans can be way scarier if you remove their ability to reason.
Great series. Can't wait for a Season 2.