Responses
so well said. i recently binged everything in 2 days, now i wish i took it in slower. been reflecting on heejae’s impact on each of his students and the fact that one is depressed, another is a recovering alcoholic, and the third has anger management issues is pretty heavy. i am looking forward to see how compton (or if) resolves his issues. i feel like he’s had it the worse considering he still really begrudges heejae and i really hope heejae is able to give him some closure. compton’s arc has been the longest and i think most complex out of the former students and i’m so glad to be able to read it, so i really liked your analysis!
I think bad memories don’t just disappear. Sometimes they stay with you and make you want to prove to the person who hurt you that you’re better than they thought. That’s why I think all the praise Compton gets from others means so little to him—because the approval he actually wanted, from Heejae as his teacher, was never there.
Compton needs to accept that Heejae isn’t the center of the musical universe, but that’s easier said than done. When a teacher tears you down so badly that you feel inadequate and even become afraid to touch your instrument again, you find your own way of coping. For Compton, I think becoming a conductor was part of that.
I like Heejae as a character, but there’s a difference between being blunt and being an asshole. He genuinely doesn’t know how to communicate or understand other people’s feelings. I’m an adult and I still carry some trauma from my first teacher’s humiliation and insults, even though I was the best student in my class, so I can understand Compton to some extent.
I also think Garam means so much to Compton because of their shared pain. It’s like siblings who grew up with an abusive parent—they carry the same wounds and understand each other in a way others can’t. Garam feels like someone who truly understands Compton, so he becomes a kind of balm for his wounds. That may also be why Garam’s praise matters so much to him—it gets tangled up with the validation he always wanted from Heejae.
And while Garam managed to get through Heejae’s thorny exterior, truly see him, reach him, and love him, Heejae’s other students were left with anger, resentment, and feelings of inadequacy. So, according to the spoilers, I can understand why Compton feels betrayed and played when he finds out about their relationship. It’s not just jealousy; Garam got the version of Heejae that they all wanted but never got to see.