ok this shit is emotionally concussing me. i went into it completely blind, stopped reading for a while because i was genuinely horrified by how bizarre and depraved it got, and then, against my better judgment, kept coming back. i'm just way too fascinated by juyeon as a character because, despite everything, i don't think his obsession with jiwook can be explained by revenge alone. sure, revenge explains the cruelty. it explains the humiliation, the desire for power, and the need to reclaim control after experiencing something so horrific at the hands of someone you once craved. there is even something almost cathartic about watching him pursue a form of justice(?) that many victims never get. yeah, his methods are monstrous, but they emerge from a wound that was never going to scab over. what revenge doesn't explain, though, is the fixation.
i'm starting to think this was never really about revenge, but about the target of that revenge: jiwook. honestly, the more i've thought about it, i realized that juyeon practically tells us this himself. he has admitted, in one form or another (in the novel), that he wanted to charm jiwook. he delayed his revenge because he wanted to continue living that life with him. he became furious when jiwook ran away, not because a plan had failed, but because he felt personally rejected. his anger often reads less like vengeance and more like wounded attachment. because after all, if revenge was all he wanted, why spend so much time trying to reshape jiwook instead of simply destroying him? i don't think juyeon is satisfied with punishment alone. he wants possession. he wants exclusivity. more than anything, he wants to become the person jiwook chooses. that's why so much of his behavior revolves around creating dependence, intimacy, and a sense of uniqueness between them. the point is never just suffering. the point is making himself indispensable to jiwook.
that's also why i've never fully agreed with the interpretation that frames the story as entirely loveless, even if this is definitely not my idea of love. because beneath juyeon's condescension, there are constant signs of admiration, fascination, and desire. he compares himself to a moth drawn to a flame. he recognizes jiwook's ability to captivate people. even while degrading him, he assigns him value, calling him a "hundred-million-won toy." there is obvious contempt there, but there is also a weird fucked up reverence???
also to me, juyeon's need to dominate jiwook comes from the fact that he cannot bear the alternative. if he doesn't control those feelings, they will control him. for him power becomes a substitute for vulnerability. possession becomes a substitute for confession. which is why i think the story is ultimately less interested in revenge than it is in what happens when love and resentment become impossible to separate. not because juyeon stops hating jiwook, but because his hatred becomes tangled up with desire. yes the grievance remains, but the person becomes more important than the grudge.
anyways, i’ll shut up soon, but my point is that what makes juyeon feel so tragically grotesque to me isn't just his cruelty or his willingness to perpetuate harm. it's the way his obsession slowly transforms him. in pursuing jiwook, he starts adopting parts of jiwook's worldview whenever it serves his own repressed desires. he bends his morality around the object of his fixation until the line between revenge and devotion almost disappears. i mean, is it ever worth wanting someone so badly that you reshape yourself around them? that you become a reflection of the very thing that wounded you in the first place?
yes i know this shit is probably pure goonery for the author (are they ok) and i probably shouldn’t be putting this much thought into it but i’m unemployed rn so it’s ok !
EDIT: when it comes to jiwook being subjected to the same kind of sexual violence involving multiple perpetrators that juyeon once experienced at jiwook’s hands, the intent on each side is fundamentally different imo. for jiwook, it functions as a way of dispersing blame, almost externalizing his own discomfort with his queerness and redirecting it through the humiliation of juyeon. for juyeon, it isn’t the mimicking of the trauma inflicted on him/revenge in the simple sense. it’s possession with the goal of isolating jiwook. juyeon never truly becomes “just another participant” in these acts. he positions himself outside the act while still controlling its structure, making sure that even when others are involved, he remains the only consistent presence within it. everything destabilizes around jiwook, but juyeon stays fixed. over time, that contrast begins to define their dynamic. because instability exists everywhere except where juyeon is, and that difference is manufactured by juyeon. without realizing it, jiwook is gradually conditioned to associate relief, safety, coherence, and even pleasure with juyeon alone. what looks like degradation meant to humiliate and break jiwook’s will to most people, is actually a slow narrowing of his world, until juyeon becomes the only place the experience ever resolves. they’re doomed together, and that’s their eternal punishment in this lifetime. ok i’m done fr now bye.
ok this shit is emotionally concussing me. i went into it completely blind, stopped reading for a while because i was genuinely horrified by how bizarre and depraved it got, and then, against my better judgment, kept coming back. i'm just way too fascinated by juyeon as a character because, despite everything, i don't think his obsession with jiwook can be explained by revenge alone. sure, revenge explains the cruelty. it explains the humiliation, the desire for power, and the need to reclaim control after experiencing something so horrific at the hands of someone you once craved. there is even something almost cathartic about watching him pursue a form of justice(?) that many victims never get. yeah, his methods are monstrous, but they emerge from a wound that was never going to scab over. what revenge doesn't explain, though, is the fixation.
i'm starting to think this was never really about revenge, but about the target of that revenge: jiwook. honestly, the more i've thought about it, i realized that juyeon practically tells us this himself. he has admitted, in one form or another (in the novel), that he wanted to charm jiwook. he delayed his revenge because he wanted to continue living that life with him. he became furious when jiwook ran away, not because a plan had failed, but because he felt personally rejected. his anger often reads less like vengeance and more like wounded attachment. because after all, if revenge was all he wanted, why spend so much time trying to reshape jiwook instead of simply destroying him? i don't think juyeon is satisfied with punishment alone. he wants possession. he wants exclusivity. more than anything, he wants to become the person jiwook chooses. that's why so much of his behavior revolves around creating dependence, intimacy, and a sense of uniqueness between them. the point is never just suffering. the point is making himself indispensable to jiwook.
that's also why i've never fully agreed with the interpretation that frames the story as entirely loveless, even if this is definitely not my idea of love. because beneath juyeon's condescension, there are constant signs of admiration, fascination, and desire. he compares himself to a moth drawn to a flame. he recognizes jiwook's ability to captivate people. even while degrading him, he assigns him value, calling him a "hundred-million-won toy." there is obvious contempt there, but there is also a weird fucked up reverence???
also to me, juyeon's need to dominate jiwook comes from the fact that he cannot bear the alternative. if he doesn't control those feelings, they will control him. for him power becomes a substitute for vulnerability. possession becomes a substitute for confession. which is why i think the story is ultimately less interested in revenge than it is in what happens when love and resentment become impossible to separate. not because juyeon stops hating jiwook, but because his hatred becomes tangled up with desire. yes the grievance remains, but the person becomes more important than the grudge.
anyways, i’ll shut up soon, but my point is that what makes juyeon feel so tragically grotesque to me isn't just his cruelty or his willingness to perpetuate harm. it's the way his obsession slowly transforms him. in pursuing jiwook, he starts adopting parts of jiwook's worldview whenever it serves his own repressed desires. he bends his morality around the object of his fixation until the line between revenge and devotion almost disappears. i mean, is it ever worth wanting someone so badly that you reshape yourself around them? that you become a reflection of the very thing that wounded you in the first place?
yes i know this shit is probably pure goonery for the author (are they ok) and i probably shouldn’t be putting this much thought into it but i’m unemployed rn so it’s ok !
EDIT: when it comes to jiwook being subjected to the same kind of sexual violence involving multiple perpetrators that juyeon once experienced at jiwook’s hands, the intent on each side is fundamentally different imo. for jiwook, it functions as a way of dispersing blame, almost externalizing his own discomfort with his queerness and redirecting it through the humiliation of juyeon. for juyeon, it isn’t the mimicking of the trauma inflicted on him/revenge in the simple sense. it’s possession with the goal of isolating jiwook. juyeon never truly becomes “just another participant” in these acts. he positions himself outside the act while still controlling its structure, making sure that even when others are involved, he remains the only consistent presence within it. everything destabilizes around jiwook, but juyeon stays fixed. over time, that contrast begins to define their dynamic. because instability exists everywhere except where juyeon is, and that difference is manufactured by juyeon. without realizing it, jiwook is gradually conditioned to associate relief, safety, coherence, and even pleasure with juyeon alone. what looks like degradation meant to humiliate and break jiwook’s will to most people, is actually a slow narrowing of his world, until juyeon becomes the only place the experience ever resolves. they’re doomed together, and that’s their eternal punishment in this lifetime. ok i’m done fr now bye.