It so easily could have been abt the brother doing psychological warfare as part of a power play and Dojun’s ego that’d been demolished over years of being used by other alphas to make themselves feel like they’ve got the upper hand, and the doctors careless reinforcement of that bc he uses Dojuns emotional volatility as a trump card in any disagreement regardless of whether he’s right or not.
And it would have been so much more satisfying for Dojun to end up in a place where he realises that by abandoning the societal competition to be the best Man, by forfeiting a game he was never in a position to win and refusing to play, those remarks can’t hurt him anymore. “You are a failed Man,” “Sure, and? Maybe that matters to you, but I’m free.”
INSTEAD we go in a big circle where the doctor is this enormous asshole the entire ride and stumbles into the realisation he’s in love without any active agency from Dojun at all, every demeaning and insulting implication abt how Dojuns a child is vindicated, Dojuns constantly ambushed by his creepy brother who Sucks, and any emotional development is totally blurry bc all you can see is the hideous Incest Elephant in the room.
They make these beautifully interesting stories with wonderfully compelling main characters but they aaaaaalways always always add this weird incest twist and it’s gross. Like idc how much the text looks down on incestual attraction on the surface, it’s weird by virtue of constantly showing up. They’re obsessed with this dynamic of an abusive brother interfering with this disinterested mc’s love life and the inability to cut off a sibling relationship without humiliating themselves in front of a parent and creepy tragic incestuous SA and… god it rly sours the whole read.