there are only six chapters so far, so it’s hard to say exactly what is going on here, but… from what i can tell, it seems to be pointing to a pursuit of someone (something) unfamiliar in the midst of the mundane familiar. dennis, a gentle and honest person, is susceptible to being manipulated by an alluring, mysterious person like todd. i think it’s possible that todd is representative of a change of pace that dennis simultaneously craves and fears—dennis seems to be quite dutiful, and works hard to serve a purpose, upholding the values instilled in him by his upbringing. he tends to the sheep because it’s the job that was assigned to him. nevertheless, he finds himself growing bored of the monotonous life he has acquired, and it would seem he bears some curiosity for what lies outside of it, opening his arms to a stranger even after being told not to trust anything out in the middle of nowhere… i.e. away from social pressures keeping him tied to his values. todd’s arrival throws a wrench in everything that dennis once knew, planting an uncertainty that creeps out from deep within. in a literal sense, dennis falls in love with todd and becomes intimate with him, in spite of the social norms of the time. the sheep are killed one by one as dennis grows more deviant, straying further away from the beliefs burned into him by the society he lived in.
as of now, i’m not seeing todd as inherently antagonistic… rather, i think his hostile role in this story is moreso symbolic of dennis’s fear of letting go of familiarity. to dennis, this feels destructive; even though the life he knows is boring and cumbersome, it’s comfortable to him because this how he has always lived. for someone to come into his life and break all of that in half—to have feelings like this for a man, even though that goes against everything he knows—it’s like a coyote coming out of nowhere and killing all of the sheep he had been trusted to care for. yes, it’s all entirely out of his control—it must be—or is it? i think this story is indicative of an internal struggle between conformity and honest self-fulfillment. dennis pursues his desires readily all while feeling deep down that he’s doing something wrong. even though he’s fully in control of his actions, he convinces himself that he isn’t responsible for any of it… that it wasn’t him who killed the sheep, but a coyote that ambushed him when his guard was down.
…but that’s just my two cents. i also might just be talking out of my ass we’ll see, i guess…!
well, yes. i guess what i’m saying is that i think this could be a metaphor for his life as a whole… like, he aimlessly acts out his duties, caring for the sheep and upholding traditional values, but it’s a boring and unfulfilling life for him to live. then todd shows up and essentially tempts dennis with a good time… something new and refreshing… but dennis feels an underlying guilt for betraying the values he was once subordinate to/allowing the sheep to die.
i see a lot of people arguing about which one is in the wrong, but i would say that BOTH have hurt each other immeasurably. songrik and jinhyeong were both deeply traumatized kids with poor impulse control and underdeveloped empathy. their actions are largely derived from what has been modeled to them—jinhyeong will sit on his high horse, take the easy route and succumb to his father’s pressure out of self-preservation, while songrik is inclined to be nasty and try to knock jinhyeong down because that’s how he has been hurt in the past. songrik undeniably took it too far, avoiding communication in favor of using brute force and humiliation… i do pity him, but he absolutely escalated the situation in a petty, immature way. nevertheless, jinhyeong was also immature for retaliating in the way he did. he knew just how much it hurt to be publicly humiliated, and he did it back to songrik as a kind of retribution… but it’s all too much. neither of them deserved this.
jinhyeong made the wrong choice by going back to his father in the first place. this has nothing to do with songrik and his complex about personal sacrifice and whatnot. for jinhyeong’s own sake, he shouldn’t have made that choice—this isn’t to blame him at all, because what jinhyeong had with his father was a strong trauma bond that made it incredibly difficult for him to break free from his grasp… but it’s important to recognize that songrik was NOT the only one who relied on harmful, maladaptive coping mechanisms to get by. this entire thing was caused by a series of poor choices and ignorance by both parties.
guwon’s behavior is reflective of his complete lack of perspective. he makes decisions based on guesses and assumptions about morality and rightness. he does seem to be fully aware that he doesn’t know very much… he clings to jinwoo for that exact reason. it’s not that he wants to be scolded or anything like that—he wants someone to guide him. he’s big and dangerous and threatening, and because of that people hesitate to challenge him at all, when in actuality he NEEDS to be challenged because he doesn’t know anything… he’s ignorant and unsocialized like a child who just recently came into this world, but he lives in the body of a giant man, so everyone just assumes he knows exactly what he’s doing, lol.








jigu really just dumb as hell LMAOOO her face is literally identical to yeowoon like???