This is very interesting, indeed. Now that you mentioned it, I've kinda wondered, f it's really all about release from the abuse Sangwoo received from his father, and he loved his mother as he says, why unleash his anger against women? The fat dude in Sangwoo's circle of friends is just as much of an a**hole as the girl Ji Eun, yet it was her he chose to kill. He even said, back when he was threatening to kill Bum, that he hadn't killed a man since his father... so the old guy he seduced and brought home was his first male victim since his father... And Sangwoo also said he used to have nightmares about his mother screaming at him angrily, which have somehow gotten better now that Bum is there.
This is why I think, there has to be more into his targeting of women than just the release of vengeance and pent up anger. As many have suggested, I think he may have been trying to find his mother's replacement, and killed the girls once he realized they acted more "like his father" and not "like his mother".
Unfortunately, I also think Sangwoo, for some reason or other, also killed his mother... and that's why he kept hearing her "angry screams at him" at night. If that's true, then not even "acting like his mother" or being her "replacement" would be an absolute guarantee that he won't get angry or sick of Bum for some reason or other, and kill him.
But I admit this is just speculation at this point...
Personally, i think he decided to kill jieun because she was talking crap on his wife (bum), though it could be debated that he'd been planning to kill her for a while as she was already into Sangwoo when Bum first saw her and she only started talking smack on Bum once she met him.
Also, as far as him not killing many guys i think it's a very simple explanation, his sexuality. Sangwoo is not gay as seen when he goes after the gay guy and talks about how disgusted he was, especially when the guy tried to get him to give him a blowjob. Sangwoo targets women specifically because he uses sex/intimacy to lure victims in as seen with literally EVERY one of his victims shown in the manga. I realize this sounds like a weird statement coming from me as i've been saying that he is in love with Bum, but it's actually not weird if you think about it, sexuality is extremely complex. I believe Sangwoo fell in love with Bum, not men in general, Bum is the exception.
His choice of victims has always been females. We haven't really been given any concrete information why though. Although we can hypothesize that the reason is related to his mother. This is because the females he targets more or less resembles his mother. The victims resemble, more or less, some facial features of his mother. Jieun for example, has a mole and dark brown hair. Sangwoo's mother has a mole and dark brown hair.
I'm not entailing that he kills only the women for release of negative feelings. What I was implying is that when Sangwoo experienced his first kill, he might have felt some kind of relief, that the essence of killing itself gives him some form of relief.
My theory as to why he targeted the old man at the gay bar, is that during that time Sangwoo was 'testing the waters' perhaps? Maybe it was right about that time that he realized that he found Bum sexually attractive. Because he was able to 'get hard' because of a man.
Sangwoo loves being the superior male (although this is more of my hunch-opinion than anything else hehehe) he might have adapted this because of his father. His father had showed him that being superior equates to having power. So when the old man pushed Sangwoo's head, urging Sangwoo to give him a blow job. Perhaps to Sangwoo, that is a threat to his superiority and it pissed him off. He didn't like being inferior because maybe it reminds him of his experiences of his past wherein he and his mother are inferior to their 'superior' (the father)
You have an interesting insight about about the Bum/mother replacement. I would also like to input some of my insights regarding that later. I need to perform an experimentation for my thesis right now. So I might reply a bit later, when I am a bit more free. :)
Your demisexual!Sangwoo theory is very interesting. In a way, I see your point. However, I personally think he chose that old man just to 'test the waters'. Check the response I gave @Me if you're interested :)
I have re-read this response. And you do have a point, until we are given any indication by Koogi that the affection/feelings Sangwoo displays is fake, then we shouldn't very strongly lean on it being fake. In a way, I support your claims also. The feelings of Sangwoo seems to be genuine, although those feelings coexist within the pit of the bad stuff (abuse, manipulation etc) like I replied to @Fallust
The biggest problem I have with saying the things Sangwoo were out of love is because of the ambiguous intent Sangwoo had. In the first couple of chapters I believe Sangwoo decided to keep Bum around instead of killing him because he found Bum to be interesting. There are a lot of factors that caused Sangwoo to treat Bum differently from his typical victims so I think any affection Sangwoo showed Bum early on was manipulation. I think that Sangwoo kept Bum around to try to understand Bum a bit better and possibly for entertainment. Sangwoo said himself that he had something he wanted to confirm in Bum. Because Sangwoo was putting Bum through a series of tests I can’t say if any of those actions were out of love or if Sangwoo was just playing with him.
Now if we want to talk about the physical intimacy between Bum and Sangwoo those were done from arousal and sexual attraction. Arousal/sexual attraction and love can come together at the same time but do not necessarily have to. The first two times we see Sangwoo aroused was during the period he was testing Bum. I think the first time Sangwoo made advances towards Bum, he did so as a test to see what to what extent Bum loved him. When Sangwoo later allowed Bum to give him oral, I think it was so Sangwoo could understand the cause of his own arousal from before. Pretty sure Sangwoo was not sexually attracted to Bum at that point, he’s said some pretty homophobic remarks to Bum about his sexuality, and that is why he was shocked by his arousal in the situation (the blushing scene). I think what arouses Sangwoo is Bum’s submissiveness to him. Sangwoo loves to feel superior . Sangwoo’s lust for submission, is could also supported by the erection Sangwoo had while choking Bum in chapter 9(?). You said Sangwoo “came” after the finger biting but I don’t think he ejaculated or had an orgasm. I thought the grunt was more so from the slight pain from Bum suddenly biting him.
I think Sangwoo demonstrates his selfishness a lot in chapter 14. He didn’t stop making Bum wear women’s clothes. He bought Bum a change of clothes so that he could take him out in public for his later plans. While inside the house, there was no need for Bum to wear men’s clothes. Sangwoo needed to take Bum out to meet his friends and having him in women’s clothing wouldn’t be acceptable. I even saw Sangwoo as being a bit selfish and controlling during the bathroom bj scene.
Let’s just say our disagreement is just a matter of seeing things from a different perspective. Neither of us are necessarily wrong but I’d like more proof that Sangwoo loves Bum. (Really wish Koogi would give us scenes where we can see what Sangwoo is thinking but oh well…) Sangwoo has undoubtedly grown increasingly attached to Bum but right now I can’t call it love.
Thanks for putting your thoughts in such clear words. I agree with you so much...
I can't say that i can see Bum's submissiveness as a reasonable counterargument to my "its love" theory, if it was Sangwoo just being sexually attracted and not in love because of submissiveness then any one of his victims would suffice, they all beg him to let them live and even say they'll do whatever he wants (jieun being the most recent example saying exactly this). If all of these scenes were explained off by sexual arousal due to submissivesness then wouldn't it make more sense for him to be with a woman? It is heavily implied that Sangwoo is heterosexual since he sleeps with plenty of women that we see, but the one time he kills a man he doesn't have sex with him so why out of all his submissive victims would Bum be the one that trumps them all? Wouldn't that be love? and in that sense aren't you arguing my point?
I think the time of submissiveness in this case is the type of submissiveness Sangwoo saw in his mother, the battered wife, and not the occasional begging, crying and and making of empty promises the victims did to persuade Sangwoo not to harm them... It's a different type of "naturalized" submissiveness, I think, resulting from years of abuse in people who're already used to the abuse and have resigned to it, who're already, in that sense, "broken". It's very different from the occassional, desperately faked pleas and empty promises Sangwoo managed to get from his victims in between their insults, bargains and death threats. Sangwoo would only have been able to get that from each of his other victims after years of keeping them in that basement, provided he managed not to lose his patience and kill them before it. With Bum, he didn't have to do much because Bum was already broken from years of abuse from his uncle and other bad experiences.
So...it's love?
You're basically bringing up my point from my response to jaz just now, that Sangwoo favors Bum's Submissiveness over that of any other victim, only you're giving a reason as to why. Are you saying you agree with me now? that Sangwoo definitely seems to be in love with Bum in his own way? Or does Sangwoo favoring Bum in literally every situation we've seen so far still not convince you? He literally SPARED bum after bum tried to escape from him (during the "i'm leaving" scene) and he said, and i quote, "let's be together forever" when he realized that Bum hadn't betrayed him and ran while the cop was searching his house. If we're taking that sentence for face value, it is literally canon. I really don't know what else you need...
Well, if it's a power-play in that sense it's an aspect in a relationship between two people that develops independently from the presence or absence of love: it may overlap with love or it may not. It may as well happen between two people who claim to love each other (or who loved each other at some point) just as it may also happen between two people who don't love each other.
And how exactly would it be a power play exactly? In what scene specifically do you see Bum challenging Sangwoo's authority? You bringing up power play seems kind of off course.
I'd like you to consider what it means to only be sexually attracted to one person as well. Since that seems to be your argument, that all the "love" scenes i described were just Sangwoo testing his sexuality with bum, discovering that he's sexually attracted to bum and then acting off that sexual attraction. You're saying that he's not in love, but in lust. I realize you didn't directly say that he's ONLY attracted to Bum, but we can assume so based on the the insight you've given us on the scenes that i (still) believe are love scenes. You state that the blushing scene is him blushing because he realizes that he's sexually attracted to a man for the first time, if blushing is the indicator for sexual attraction in Sangwoo then we can assume he hasn't had any lust for any of his victims as he hasn't blushed even once during any of their attempts to turn him on or during sex with them which would seem to point towards him ONLY having lust for Bum. What kind of feeling would make him ONLY lust after one person?
Just because Bum is acting submissive to him, doesn't mean Sangwoo can keep controlling, abusing and manipulating him as he likes. It doesn't work that way. Even power-play and BDSM have rules. There are clear distinctions between BDSM and abuse. If he abuses his power as the "dominant" party, it doesn't matter if he "loves" him, he's still an abusive bastard.
Now you're just going off into territory we weren't talking about.
Also, how much the "Sub" can take from the "Dom" is solely dependent on them... you can't assume that Bum is dissatisfied with the way Sangwoo is treating him romantically just to further your point (which honestly doesn't seem to strong at this point). The ONLY thing we know right now (from bits of Bums thoughts on Sangwoo) is that he is scared of Sangwoo killing him. He actually seems to enjoy it when Sangwoo treats him nicely as seen in the concert scene when Sangwoo is singing and Bum literally says: "the warmth of that moment is still present. Hug me and don't leave me..." Honestly, that entire scene can be used as an example to further my point, he's saying that despite realizing that Sangwoo is a killer and damaged he still loves him.
What are you talking about?
If it's consensual it's sado-masochism, if it's nonconsensual, it's sexual violence. But they're both originated from a similar principle: Sexual attraction to a lover's acts/shows of submission.
That's the point, he likes it when Sangwoo treats him NICELY. He doesn't like it when Sangwoo hurts him, forces him to do his household chores or forces him to watch or participate when Sangwoo seduces and later kills someone. Bum is not exactly sane, but he doesn't like pain and he doesn't seem to like violence or get off on seeing Sangwoo's violent either. He gets off on NICE gestures from Sangwoo, yet Sangwoo's treating him like an ultra hardcore "Sub" that can be taught to get off on the violent things Sangwoo does or on same kind of things Sangwoo gets off on.
I'm about to kill Sangwoo myself at this point. Just leave Yoonbum alone, god damn it!