Ughhh..

Well, historically this is what the rich and wealthy do.

Royalty was into incest and modern times they arrange marriages with rich and powerful families.

honestly it makes sense that this scenario happened not gonna lie. I'm not saying that I support incest but just like the other reply said, incest was common in wealthy families and the brother's attraction was definitely an issue from the start that getting beat up for it wasn't enough for him to lose his feelings (and it wouldn't make sense if he did because the author is trying to prove that his family was extremely toxic that he felt romantic attraction to his only saviour cause the family setting made him believe that it's normal to feel that way)

everhone making think pieces but honestly manhua authors just really like incest.

DNA tests are revealing how prevalent incest really is.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/03/dna-tests-incest/677791/

hmm, there is a Chinese YouTuber who explained this "incest" type trope among Chinese media. Alongside the Tale of Genshi, earliest Japanese literature within a romantic setting, which also depicted incest favorably. https://youtu.be/mE_MH2NetJI As for other Asian works, I'm not sure as I'm ignorant on their viewpoints/culture/why the tendency on this trope besides the "royalty only wanting the money within the family".

Well, the fall of the Roman Empire and the entire WWI is because of incestuous relationships within the descendants of Queen Victoria and genetic blood diseases.

So...and lot of it is just historical contamination of old ideas of romantic tales of love between cousins and such?

(?), isn't the focus here on why such trope is so common within Asian media in the modern era (specifically East Asia*)? The West has been riddled with incest in their history with political/royal matters. Currently (as the Chinese Youtuber said), there are many Chinese dramas coming up that do not see an issue within the "step-brothers" type incest + a romantic setting and its targeted audience do not see much of an issue. Furthermore, Chinese dramas have to go through their Chinese Media government with prior approval if wanting to broadcast them to the public. Looks like the approval for incest type dramas does not raise an eyebrow but lgbtq+ media does.

Meanwhile, majority Western works would not depict that incest favorably or "pure loving innocent romance" (GOT Targaryens) neither would their western audience. *Again, info from the Chinese Youtuber, Korean dramas do not go for the trope of "step-bro/sis incest" as their Korean audience does not like such (though, of course, it gives a contradiction as their manwhas are showcasing it hence the discussion here, sooooooo...idk man, even I'm getting a headache trynna find the why).