TW:- depictions of blood, mentions of rape, suicide, abuse, humiliation in this post
Someone in my comments asked why Minho is dearly loved while he's also said to be a misogynist with a big ego. It wasn't addressed to me but it inspired me to write this:-Minho is supposed to be the antagonist, someone we're supposed to hate in a manhwa about a strong, goal-driven woman. I too, was expecting to do the same for his character but I came at such a roadblock. I noticed that author wrote him in a very peculiar manner wherein he's very arrogant, bitchy and critical but also poor, lonely, insecure and inexperienced. So instead of seeing him as a character who is mean by choice, you understand why he behaves this way. He is constantly bullied for his penis size (something the author strongly insisted is small), erectile dysfunction (which goes away when he's being raped), his poverty, low paying job, money-strapped ways, sexual inexperience (he's a virgin until he's raped by the fl), he is also shamed for his alleged tendency of being a masochist even though he's "tall and muscular". Not to mention he doesn't have one genuine, consensual sex scene in the manhwa, each one has the element of force and the worst scenes show him peeing, puking, crawling, feeling suicidal, getting beaten, pierced, locked up with his bones broken. Therefore, even though he's unbearable with his meanness, you understand his side of the story, feel sickened by how he's being treated and wonder how he'd be if he was actually seen as a human being rather than a piece of good-looking fetish flesh by the author.
Another thing to break down is how, despite his struggles and trauma (something author glosses over lest we feel worse for him than we already do), he's still not a rapist, abuser or someone who exploits his position for power be it in sex or at work. He is also shown to be a good writer, something the mc looks up to him for and his writing was even shortlisted for the creative writing competition back in university. Although he is shown to talk in a very misogynistic manner, he is very respectful towards D* and doesn't ever exploit or violate her like Wookyung was trying to do (yet he's shown to be the better guy and friend to the mc, who talks and looks nice but is ultimately an opportunistic rapist if you boil it down). Minho's criticisms about D*s work (that he made in the short period they were dating, 10 years ago) are never contested, meaning that he's not wrong but is just too mean when he voices them. Aside from that, after D* cheated on Minho with Wookyung, he was willing to talk about it, he approached her first but she was extremely dismissive. Even after their bitter break up and after D* dropped out of college, he stayed to complete his major, worked his part-time jobs, didn't harass or stalk her (while D* learnt to vent her anger out by thinking of raping and choking him all the time), he was working hard as an instructor, was well-liked by his students and was a valuable employee to the Dean (where it's canonically mentioned that Minho tutored his children and organised many of his family functions, things he never got credit for).
Minho's misogyny is also addressed towards the end of the manhwa where he confesses that he doesn't really think less of women or their work but is actually deeply insecure about his own shortcomings hence he feels the need to pick on others. Yes, this makes him a very bad person. You shouldn't ever bully, criticise or be mean to someone just because you feel insecure about yourself but in the context of the manhwa, every character alongside him was just as (mostly more than), messed up than him. We as readers, are made to see the flaws of each of these characters in a non-negative light. Wookyung is shown to be the clever, calculating, rich sadist who is still helpful, has a big dick, is good in bed and is on extremely friendly terms with the mc (so friendly that she comfortably had sex with him after she found out that he had raped her ex) he doesn't suffer any consequences of his actions and author really likes him by the way he is described and his actions are encouraged. Haesol too, is shown to be very submissive and someone who simps blindly with no personal opinion to offer to the world, so much so that he joins the mc in raping her ex in later chapters and he ends up swearing a lifetime of cooking and cleaning to her (this is shown in a positive and ideal manner by the author, as if this behaviour is desirable and required in a partner). In a similar way, D* has always been impulsive, aggressive, careless, sex-driven, avoidant and also someone who regularly overlooks consent and aftercare for her own pleasures and always goes overboard in her non-consensual abuse but she is still a "BDSM queen", according to the author, someone who deserves a good future, where she "wishes her well", she also suffers no repercussions for raping a man relentlessly despite stating in some previous chapters how it's important that they (the subs) should like it too.
To end with, that's why... when we got an arrogant, sassy, misogynistic man among a set or rapists, simps and criminals, whose worst crimes are stealing and being judgemental (there are others like slapping the mc, or beating up the other ML but like... how does he only do that once in the story when he is to be subject to 3-4 long drawn out chapters of "punishment" via rape and humiliation right after?), we awaited his growth arc as is typical to any love triangle romance drama character. Instead, we got, and are still getting, chapters upon chapters of him getting more and more violated in the ugliest of ways. And neither of it is recognised as rape, abuse, suicide and violence by the author. That's what sickens me. She has every right to write whatever she wants but she has no right to sell me a romance story that has all this in it without any prior warnings. I'd have nothing to say if author understood the impact of what she wrote but she doesn't and mass classifies this horror under "mature romance", Byun Minho being the worst scapegoat of a twisted mind I've ever seen.
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