Interesting! I never considered red flag/green flag to equal to a reductive all bad or all good character judgement. I figured it came about because in BL violent, abusive behaviour is so normalised and romanticised that it's a good way to signal to readers what kind of romantic partner and therefore what kind of romance a reader can expect. (I find it useful for that reason, at least.)
In fact, I find that many readers who love red flag MLs go to ridiculous extremes to present them as "really complicated" when to me the MLs only seem to work according to a base rape logic lol. *Some* webtoon authors create complicated stories and characters worthy of serious appraisal but I would say many more do not and most of them *never* truly contend with the violence/abuse they unleash in their stories—sexual, psychological, emotional, financial etc—as a matter of course.
So, for me, Guwon and that whole town were screaming red flags from the start . That is, there were clear signs of dark secrets being kept that could possibly make what appears to be a refuge for Jinwoo could instead be a different kind of danger. And Guwon's unpredictability stank of manipulation to me lol. But does it mean they're all bad? No. The build up is very promising! I already prefer it to DCS. (Sorry for blabbing.)
Absolutely! I can understand people not wanting to waste their time w bls that are borderline abusive horror or endless loops of misunderstanding and violence, so I also find it useful in that context.
Although I will say that personally there are a few BLs that I have enjoyed reading regardless of them of having a so-called “red flag” ml, because while it’s true I probably didn’t enjoy the relationship or the romance per se, I enjoyed aspects of the story, the characters, or the narration, so I tend not to pay too much attention to warnings of red flags if the premise of the story itself is interesting. Obviously the essence of bl IS romance so that doesn’t apply to everything and sometimes the extent of the abuse is hard to overlook, and it also sucks when the abuse is glossed over and not addressed properly, and everything goes back to normal after a few chapters of groveling.
And yes, I agree about Guwon and the town!! the author was obviously trying to build a false state of normalcy to them but there was always an undertone of unease for me, so I’m excited to have things out in the open now. This one is definitely more promising than DCS for me, which I liked but didn’t find very memorable.
Oh, I'm with you, I read and enjoy the red flags too. Sometimes I hand wave or sometimes it's because those stories have some of my favourite tropes. (Love an obsessive but not *toooo* psycho psycho lol.)
oh this is so interesting!! that’s one reaction I don’t think I’ve seen in manhwas before. honestly I like complex characters and don’t like reducing characters to just red or green flags because real humans aren’t all good or all bad and I think it’s shallow way to judge characters and stories, but there’s definitely a lot of things we still don’t know about the story - like what exactly happened to the world, why Guwon looks the way he does, the origin of the town, how Guwon came across Teach in the first place, and all the weird thing the doctor and the other town inhabitants where warning him about. I’m excited to see how everything unfolds!! it would’ve been boring if everything was black and white tbh