i gotta say i really like your analysis on this series. i wasnt too sure what i was getting into based off of the comments but while reading i couldn’t help feeling bad for everyone. i think the author did a good job at creating such complex characters, where no one is inherently evil but both have their flaws. i honestly enjoyed it but i hope anyone who finds themselves in this kinda relationship can understand that they deserve better.
Glad my thoughts resonated with you! (reading it back my comment is so messy lol)
The complexity of the characters created this interesting reading experience. If just one character is the “bad guy”, then no matter how sad his backstory is, as a reader you will probably still root for the main character and wish the bad one all the worst. You side with the victim and don’t really care about villain’s journey, just the end result. But since both of them are ….less than ideal .. I ended up trying to understand and cheer for the characters that I would normally probably dislike and dismiss their reasons.
I completely agree on the romance to psychological pipeline because there are so many stories that I would feel would be so much better if the author meant for it to be psychological. Like the author of sadistic beauty and the side story with the two men. The author is clearly incapable of writing a healthy story involving men and yet she never embraces a psychological tag, which would make me view her stories in a more positive light. I think the same goes for this, where it’s much more of a psychological than a romance, as it’s debatable to whether the characters are in love or if they drained each other of so much respect and pride in themselves that they feel comfortable being on the same level now. Honestly, Minji describing a relationship where you date and wait until you like the person, which was then applied to Eunsung and Jinwoo, just made it feel a lot like Stockholm syndrome lol. Anyways I really like your view on their relationship
Thanks for the summary cuz I can't even read past chapter 5 :)
i would have to disagree on mc being a type of person who enters a relationship with a toxic person just to justify making them suffer when they fall hard. he genuinely liked them, but has some major flaws: he lovebombs, doesnt establish proper boundaries, he doesnt say anything when he loses interest, expect the other person to initiate the break up, AND does not recognize these flaws. he's also a bad judge of character and seems to be drawn towrds those who seek attention and love. since he's self-centered and believes expressing his feelings and chasing them without consideration of the other party is not wrong, he unintentionally lovebomb them so hard they fall for him. when he doesnt establish boundaries and just unconditionally pour his love on them, they becomes emotionally dependent, but mc is not purposely doing that; he just wants to give them affection until it fills their void bc he thinks the struggle of "changing" them makes his love worthwhile. and when the infatuation period passes, he lose interest. whether or not they start becoming abusive, he loses interest bc he successfully changed them with his love but bc he doesnt communicate or give proper closure they become anxious and in redhead's case, abusive and toxic. i dont think mc like seeing him suffer, considering when he was suffering he was also violent and controlling. mc only stayed bc he hoped he would change. in his relationship with ml, it is somewhat a different case; he learnt his lesson to not take abuse before it goes too far. still, he never communicated his issues with ml either and just resigned himself to accept ml's behavior and kept giving him what he wanted. but when it becomes unbearable and clear ml woudlnt change, he drops the bomb, intending to break up cleanly. ofc ml is confused and tries to win him back, but he didnt break up with ml just to make him crawl back and grovel, it's bc he had enough, but seeing him suffer was a bonus ig cuz it brought satisfaction for all the wrongs he suffered. nevertheless it all really stem from his lovebombing and lack of communication when he loses interest.
I was worried this will turn out to be this “suffering and abuse just for the sake of it” stories, especially seeing people’s comments on various chapters. But it turned out to be much more complex.
It’s obvious how toxic Jiwoo was, but Eunsung was such a surprise. It seems like he would willingly subject himself to suffering (choosing specifically unavailable red flags), knowing the other person will end up getting attached, and then cut ties the moment they actually start to return his feelings. Which isn’t that rare. The thing is, it seems like the reason he would distance himself wasn’t because he wanted to break free from the toxic partner, no. He did it knowing the other person would crawl back and it will be his turn to make them suffer. It’s so morally perplexing - sure, the other person was shit, toxic partner hurt him unprovoked and they did it first. But it kinda seems like Eunsung entered those relationships to have an upper hand in the end. Like he was also planning to hurt and emotionally torture them from the beginning. You know, like taking a few first punches so he can fight back and have people perceive it as self-defense or revenge. I hope you understand what I mean? Becoming a victim first, so that later his actions are viewed as justified?
(Of course, I can be totally wrong. And in the end, if the other person, such as Jiwoo, wasn’t an asshole in the beginning, he would never be provoked to hurt them too. I hope I don’t come across as victim blaming, it’s just my interpretation of his character.)
It’s a portrayal of deeply troubled people who are frustrating to watch, of course, but they aren’t created to be villains and heroes/main characters. They are both just broken. They are confusing to healthy, less troubled people, but if you think about it, their set up makes sense? Jiwoo - obsessed with the idea of one true lover, a relationship in which people prioritize each other over anything, even their own kid, cause his parents were like that, deeming a romantic love the most important and telling him that if he wants to be happy, he should find a relationship like that. So maybe he tested his lovers to find someone like that - someone who would never abandon him and always prioritize him. And Eunsung whose parents got divorced so you can assume their relationship was hurtful/toxic but they ended up forced to get back together anyway, due to his mother’s illness. We don’t know too much about it, only that he and his brother stayed with their dad. But maybe the reason why he is filled with disgust when he starts to mistreat his lovers and they show him love and care - because he watched his dad take care of his ex-wife in her last days, despite the fact that she “abandoned” them? This one is just a theory tho.
And what I like about this story, is that it’s not romanticized at all. All of the people around them, their friends - they react the way normal people would. They worry, point out the toxic behaviors, sometimes even react to the mistreatment when the person involved doesn’t. The story doesn’t pretend to be a “dark romance” and use that tag to brush over its characters behaviors. It acknowledges that the relationship it portrays is toxic and so, it’s more of a psychological story. As soon as I realized it shouldn’t be perceived as a simple romance, I started to really enjoy it. There are lots of bl stories portraying toxic relationships but most of them pretend it’s “romantic” and the characters and their development completely ignore the way that human mind/relationships actually work Like they are created in some weird alternative reality. (rape victims falling for the perpetrators and such, pretending trauma isn’t a thing, you know what I mean). But this story doesn’t normalize or romanticize it at all, so as a reader you don’t sit there questioning the morality and sanity of the author, you can just sit back and enjoy watching the shit show.
(shit, I didn’t plan to write an essay but I just kept going, sorry lol)