I have so many thoughts about Tanwa’s entire life philosophy being a coping mecanism
No honey, you didn’t stop your mom not because she was following her heart and had the right to do so, but because you were a child and had no idea what she was going to do — not to mention that when someone is actively suicidal, stopping them is not that simple.
And it was so painfully obvious that he was just trying to convince himself that he would allow everyone the right to leave him because, deep down, he couldn’t handle it. The only escape he found was to follow all his impulses and ignore the reality of the situation; and of course, telling himself that his mother left him because she followed her heart, just as he follows his heart, because everyone follows their heart or should start doing so. So yes, his philosophy of life was ultimately just a defense mechanism against his trauma and his own insecurities — hence the moral dilemma he finds himself facing in episode seven.
Because obviously, in reality, he couldn't prevent his mother's suicide because he was just a child and neither he nor anyone else knew her intentions, something he was never able to accept. But as for Trin, he knew very well what he was going to do if he found out about the protest, he knew Trin would be in danger; and he had the opportunity to take concrete action to prevent it.
Although his promise to Victor to hide the truth from Trin definitely played a part in his decision, I remain convinced that he would’ve done it even if he didn’t make that promise. Because after trying to warn Victor, he realized that he wasn’t taking him seriously — and that if he knew about the protest, Trin wouldn’t stay away and wouldn’t be able to do anything about it either, meaning Trin would still end up putting himself in danger trying to save Victor.
And faced with the very real risk that Trin was in danger, he decided that he couldn't let him go. He couldn't let Trin follow his heart, make his own choices, and thus choose to put himself in danger, especially since he had seen him break down in his arms due to his PTSD: in his eyes, he couldn't tell him the truth because he knew that Trin would rush to the protest and not only suffer because of his trauma again, but also risk being seriously hurt or worse. And he couldn't risk losing him.
For all these reasons, it seems to me that he promised to hide the truth from Trin so easily, even though he knew it was wrong, because he had already made that decision when Victor asked.
It’s so sad to think that if Trin had died in the protest, Tanwa would’ve had to relive his trauma of losing his mother, but since it was Victor who died, it’s Trin who had to relive his own trauma — and they both suffered so much.
This is why I think this was one of the rare times where the time skip was enjoyable because it wasn’t about an unnecessary break up due to a simple misunderstanding that could’ve been resolved through communication — communication wouldn’t have been enough because forgiving, just like grieving, is a long process. The separation was necessary for both of them to heal without falling into codependency (as to not replace an unhealthy coping mecanism with another, if you will.)
Because sure, Trin and Tanwa make each other happy. At first, when Trin mentioned having depression in the third episode, I assumed it was because of his bisexual awakening: maybe he was getting depressed because of it, because he thought something was wrong with him (which is scary and depressing, obviously), or because him trying to repress who he really is led him to depression — both things aren’t mutually exclusive. Maybe he even thought his attraction to the same sex was a comorbidity to his depression, because back then it was presented as a mental illness. But then it appeared clear to me that most likely already depressed long before that — as a comorbidity (for real, this time) to his PTSD — and that his sexuality crisis made things worse. But I digress, the point is that he tended to always look stressed out and/or sad, especially when he’s alone.
But he visibly relaxes and becomes happier when he’s with Tanwa. On the other hand, we see Tanwa drink and smoke less while he’s in a relationship with Trin (which is why it is tempting to assume that he his in pain in the last episode exclusively because of Trin.) They are happy together because they’re in love, but sometimes love isn’t enough.
Trin needed to make peace with what happened and time to grieve; and Tanwa needed to learn how to handle being left (and to fight for what he wants !) to be able to have an healthy, non-codependent relationship in which he could be open about his own feelings. I won’t get too much into it because I’ve already talked about it in previous posts, but what’s important is that they both had deeply rooted issues and given the context, staying together while trying to solve these issues would’ve been counterproductive: to name just one thing, how could Tanwa learn how to not be codependent if he and the person toward whom he is codependent were clinging onto each other ?
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