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Notes -
I think the possibly most interesting aspect of Hangul was that it was primarily a product of the King himself, with great opposition from the powerful bureaucracy, and was subsequently discarded for classist reasons and then re-embraced hundreds of years later due to it's value.
It feels like a made up story about a wise benevolent monarch but isn't.
It sort of parallels the Cherokee alphabet, which was invented by a single (illiterate)man who refused to believe his elder’s explanation that the white man’s writing was sorcery- and needed to stage live demonstrations to prove that his system actually worked.
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There's a reason why King Sejong is the most beloved monarch in Korea, and he did even more than that - not only did he invent Hangul in an attempt to improve literacy, he also hugely supported and encouraged many other technological advancements. Most notably, he established a royal scientific institute called the Hall of Worthies meant to house Joseon's greatest minds, and offered a series of grants and scholarships to incentivise bright young scholars to attend. At one point he appointed Jang Yeong-sil, a nobi, as court technician. Jang would go on to make one of the world's first standardised rain gauges (the cheugugi), which would get used all over Korea, as well as a self-striking water clock. Upon Sejong's request, he also made a faster and more efficient form of metal movable type called gabinja in 1434, a number of years before Gutenberg developed the technology in the Western world.
Sejong also ordered that one thousand copies of farmers' handbooks be printed so as to improve agricultural output, and he also published the Nongsa jikseol, which was a compilation of farming techniques conducive to Korea's environment that documented the best planting methods and soil treatment and so on for each region. In addition, he was the king who granted the nobi class parental leave, and did strangely democratic things like poll the public on reforms such as new tax systems. It really does sound like fiction about a benevolent monarch, except it's real.
Regarding Hangul's use over the years, Sejong actually did manage to get it into popular culture if I remember correctly. Hangul continued to be used among the peasantry throughout the years in applications such as popular fiction, apart from a short-lived period in 1504 when it was banned by the monarch Yeonsangun of Joseon, an infamous tyrant who did so because people wrote letters in Hangul criticising him. That ban did not last for long, and eventually Yeonsangun was dethroned via coup, exiled to Gangwha Island (where he soon died) and his sons were forced to commit suicide. Later in 1506 King Jungjong abolished the ministry related to Hangul research, but Hangul saw a resurgence in the late 16th century and novels written in the Korean alphabet became a major genre of literature. I'd say Sejong largely accomplished his goal.
Joseon in general was a shockingly scholarly society. I visited South Korea recently and went to the National Museum, and 90% of what I saw from Joseon was just books on top of books on top of books, with the occasional world map and astronomical chart thrown in. They were dedicated record-keepers, and the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty are the longest continuous record of a single dynasty in the world, stretching from 1392 to 1865. This scholarly focus even affected their art to the point that there was an entire genre of folding screens (chaekgeori) which just consisted of still-life paintings of bookshelves - honestly that part of the museum is wild.
EDIT: wording
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