Hello Dear, i hope you R doing great. i just found your blog and im sooo happy that i found you and your analysis about *painter of the night*. And i hope it's ok me sending you this ask. I'm trying, reaaally trying to understad the story and your blog helps me BIG time, but something i still didn't and can't get is : WHY the rape??? Just because SH is gay and his father found it unacceptable? I appreciate your answer! 💖🙏
Thank you so much for your interest in my blog! I love the story of Potn and I'm delighted that you asked me this question, which I find really interesting. I'll try to answer it, it's only my opinion of course! You can also ask the question to @bebebisous33 and @dreamingsnowflake2013 make very interesting and detailed articles. I would be delighted to have their opinion on the matter.
First of all, someone who has experienced abuse is more likely to repeat it. And we know that Seungho suffered a lot of abuse in his childhood. This does not mean that ALL abused people will become abusers.
Then to answer your question I'll use chapter 25 as an example. Nk rejects Seungho's advances and prefers Inhun to him despite Inhun's obvious mediocrity.
And so Seungho feels rejected and finds the situation particularly unfair. This stirs up a lot of wounds in him: in his whole life he has never been chosen, no one has ever been by his side.
Everyone abandoned him. We know in the following chapters that his father preferred his brother, that his brother tried to use him in order to get a high position, Kim denounced him to his father and abandoned him, Jihwa who claims to love him but refuses to assume his love in broad daylight (he continues to hide his homosexuality from everyone and calls Seungho himself a bastard...)
So it is a very deep wound in Seungho. He is convinced that he is not lovable and that nobody will ever be his.
As he feels rejected, he has a need to reaffirm Nakyum's belonging to him, it is HIS possession. The idea that NK escapes him and does not belong to him is unbearable. He feels a need for domination and control and cannot stand NK's insubordination.
He takes advantage of the fact that he is a noble and has power to reassert his dominance.
Also, Seungho is marginalised as a "vaunted rake and pervert" man when it is his family and society that are responsible for his current mental state. He was "sold" by the nobles and underwent conversion therapy. All of this has created s*xual traumas for him and this can create hypers*xuality in the traumatized person.
I think seungho can't stand this hypocrisy and that's why he hates social rules and dogmas.
He also can't stand the hypocrisy of NK who calls him a perverted demon while also being possessed by desire and fantasizing about Seungho.
If he is to be hated, Seungho wants to be hated thoroughly. It's a self-fulfilling belief: he thinks no one can love him and refuses to believe anyone who might say otherwise (for example in chapter 63) (Now that NK has said he wants to stay with him, seungho's beliefs are slowly fading away). So he destroys all relationships around him and makes people hate him so that they don't have time to give up on him. He is self-destructive.
Also the difference in social status between Nakyum lowborn and Seungho noble makes it difficult to build a balanced relationship. In Korean society at that time, lowborns are nothing and are by essence inferior to nobles. Nk has integrated that he is worthless, he has assimilated his lowborn status to his personal value. Moreover Seungho as a noble takes everything for granted.
So it is very difficult for Nk to have his dignity respected and therefore to have a noble/lowborn relationship where there are no power games.
Of course none of this excuses Seungho's behaviour. It just explains it. Their relationship is very far from perfect. But little by little Seungho comes to his senses and because he loves NK he wants to change.



















