Fr though, cause ain't no way someone would want to live after suffering that much
I get why it looks like that at first glance, but no Taekjoo never had Stockholm towards Zhenya. Taekjoo isn’t just passively “falling” for Zhenya because of captivity—he’s consistently shown as someone who’s fully aware of the power imbalance and is actively making calculated decisions to survive and eventually regain control of his situation. During the whole island arc, he never romanticizes what’s happening and what Zhenya does to him, he adapts, but that’s not the same as emotional submission—that’s survival strategy. He bargains, he tests boundaries, he plans escape routes—that’s not someone mentally collapsing into attachment, that’s someone staying rational under pressure.
And even after he gets out, the dynamic doesn’t suddenly turn into “oh I love him now.” It literally shifts into a situationship built on conditions and mutual use, where Taekjoo is still in control of his choices and is very ready to walk away if Zhenya crosses a line, that’s the part people tend to skip. If it was really Stockholm syndrome, you’d expect emotional dependency 'during' captivity and blind attachment after—but Taekjoo never did. His feelings don’t even start forming until much later, and that’s after repeated compromising actions from Zhenya that he evaluates over time, not because he was psychologically broken into it.
Clock it
Girl your username looks familiar, are you the one on tiktok who makes threads about CNA?
Girl no I don't use tiktok
not me getting giddy over this recent chapter then realizing taekjoo is prolly suffering from stockholm syndrome