I was talking with a friend about KPDH and shame the other day, and at some point he said something along the lines āwell yeah, Gwi-Ma controls them with guiltā and I had to stop him and be like. No no no weāre talking about shame here.
And, to be fair, we generally use those words interchangeably!
But they arenāt quite the same. Guilt is the āI did a bad thingā emotion. Shame is the āI am badā emotion. And KPop Demon Hunters is about shame.
Jinu and Rumi are not the same.
Jinu is a guy who made a selfish deal that only saved himself, spent four hundred years being a demon, proceeded to craft and enact a plan to ratchet the demonic mass murder up in scale to an insane degree (and without Gwi-Maās prompting!), gave his best shot at manipulating Rumi, and then added a whole other plan to reveal her most deeply held secret to the world on live television in the most traumatic way possible, including using insecurities sheād told him about in confidence and assaulting herāall so he could stop having to feel bad.
Rumi⦠lied to her friends some. Oh, and she said something mean when she was feeling cornered and immediately regretted it!
Jinu and Rumi are not the same.
For Rumi, shame comes from something that doesnāt actually matter. Like, okay, babygirl, youāve got a skin condition. It still has her spiraling out, building on itself until itās consuming herādamaging her relationships, her voice, even the Honmoon (by way of those screams).
For Jinu, shame comes from whatās probably the least bad thing he didābut itās still pretty messed up! I too would feel some type of way if I chose to only save myself from poverty. And because he knows heās bad and selfish, then he doesnāt try to be anything else, and he doesnāt think about how heās harming others: yeah, mass murder plan. It only benefits him? Thatās just whatās expected from selfish Jinu.
When Mira bluntly says that she canāt wait until the demons are going to be tortured with Gwi-Ma for all eternity, itās just Rumi with her, cringing. And the first time, I cringed too: Rumi doesnāt deserve that! Rumi is attached to Jinu, and doesnāt want that for him!
And I paused: who does deserve that? What would that⦠help?
Like, sure, the Honmoon is useful in that it protects people from, again, mass fucking murder but are we really saying weāre into being tortured forever and ever by the guy who preyed on you as a human in a bad situation and has been pushing you to be worse since?
Jinu organizes the Takedown performance. Mira and Zoey reject Rumi, and she runs to him, and he says no weāre both going to be miserable and horrible forever and ever and we might as well fucking die and she is actively suicidal afterward.
Because Rumi is a demon. Rumi is a creature of shame. Thereās no saving her.
So she goes to the last thread of a support system she has left, and she says, āKill me?ā
And Celine says, āThis is why we have to hide it.ā
Which is when Rumi figures it out: theyāre the same. Her and Celine and Jinu, drawing from the same well long after itās run dry, shame boiling them all from the inside out as they try to hide it, try to fight it, instead of justā
Well, as she says not long after: I donāt know why I didnāt trust you to be on my side
Rumi did bad things. Jinu did bad things. They can still get up and turn around and be something else, because they are not inherently bad people.
Pretty much everyone in this movie fucks up at some point: Celineās scattering emotional scars all over Rumiās flashbacks, Mira and Zoey are raising their weapons on their partner, all those other Saja Boys are totally down for soul thieving.
And they are not inherently bad people.
So we were cowards, so we were liars/So we're not heroes, we're still survivors
Celine throws away the sword. Rumi gets back up, armed with the truth. Mira and Zoey start fighting beside her again. The other Saja Boys? They go down choosing to be awful.
But Jinu, my dear walking red flag king, figures out how to be more than selfish Jinu. There is, as long as he chooses it, still hope for even a guy like him.
This is a movie that doesnāt give a fuck about guilt. It is, in its entirety, about how shame is a lying liar who lies.
And I think thatās neat :)