the way heetae sincerely doesn’t care about anyone liking him, but really, *really* wants myunghee to like him. and like, even with his friends hyegun and kyungsoo, he’s insouciant and kind of a know it all, but with myunghee he’s serious. he’s still fun loving and jokes around, but he’s not flippant.
and the way he tells her he’s an outcast in his family, that he has no family, but it’s with myunghee’s encouragement that he reaches out to his little brother and it’s that connection later on that allows jungtae to ask his mom to unbind heetae and let him out of their father’s office, and then helps move jungtae to run to myunghee’s rescue when their dad sends someone to assassinate myunghee. she tell heetae “i’ll be your family” and proposes to him, but she helped him find some semblance of family even before that.
another thing i like about the show is heetae’s father–like as in how he’s written, not the character himself. at home he’s a tyrant. he slaps heetae around and eventually straight up tortures him; he belittles and ignores both his wife and jungtae. and so his violence isn’t only confined to his work/position as head of the anti-communist investigation. he’s as violent with citizens as he is with his family. because he’s a violent man ho uses intimidation, pain, fear, and threats as tools of control to access power. he’s Bad, but it’s not an inherent quality. he *chooses* violence because of the position of power it gets him within the military and within the then-current political regime. he’s violent because it benefits him within the system he operates.
the thing i like best about how the show handles him, though, is that by the end he is dwarfed by history, in a way no other character is. in the first 10, maybe even 11, episodes (the drama’s 12 eps long), he looms as the central villain, even when the military comes into gwangu and starts attacking civilians. but about midway through ep11, his power becomes unstable. we see that there are higher ups within the military who are invested in his failure, people he *can’t* intimidate with violence or bribe. within the structure of the military, even as he directs his henchmen to imprison and torture gwangu residents, he’s just some fucking guy. and just like his tyranny was both over citizens and his family, the stripping away of his power happens both in his work/public life and at home–jungtae eavesdrops on him and goes to save myunghee, his wife frees heetae and asks for a divorce. and then parallel becomes a confluence with hyegun. heygun is heetae’s friend, but he’s also one of the student proest leaders. when heetae’s dad captures him and has him tortured for days, and then threatens his family, he remembers something heetae told him–that if he ever gets acpatured all he has to do is mention his name and his dad will probably kill him on the spot. and that’s exactly what hyegun does. when he’s at the end of his rope and refuses to give up any information in the face of his grandmother being threatened, he drops heetae’s name and calls heetae’s dad “abeoji,” making as though since he’s heetae’s friend, he’s close with heetae’s dad. and he laughs in his face while doing this–just like heetae did when his dad tied and beat him up–cause he knows he’s got him. and the minute he acts like he knows him, an operative runs out to let military higher ups know heetae’s dad has been fucking around with a suspected communist spy. and so guilt by association with no evidence, the same things heetae’s dad has been using to torture and violently disrupt other’s lives, comes right back around to him.
and back to how he’s dwarfed by history–ultimately he’s just a bit player. he taunts heetae by telling him he’s an oprhan with no family, and heetae tells him *he’s* the one with no family, cause no one would choose to be family with him. this is confirmed when his wife asks for a divorce and jungtae defies him and essentially chooses heetae over him after he’s shot by one of his henchmen, but it resonates even more with the ending. it’s myunghee who’s murdered, but she’s the one who is loved and remembered. heetae remembers her, myungsoo, sooryun, jungtae, and kyungsoo all remember her. heetae reads her words 41 years after her murder and he writes her a responding letter *41 years after her murder*. heetae spends 41 years remembering her, missing her; 41 years being saved by her because the world refuses to give him a death he looks for because her last wish was for him to be able to live even with the pain of her loss. her life is taken within the violence of the history she lived in, but she isn’t dwarfed by that history.
prguitarman
tangentwithtanner
germansingergirl
dailybridgerton
vaporwave
andulkaphoto
pixelskylines
baratheonpilled
