This probably got an excellence btw
Killing Stalking is a psychological horror manhwa (Korean graphic novel) created under the pen name Koogi, with its first part being released in March, 2013 and coming to a close in March, 2019. It follows Yoon Bum who had fallen in love with the man Oh Sangwoo to the point of stalking him and breaking into his house, where he finds out that Sangwoo is a long-time killer. Bum realizes he is not alone in Sangwoo’s house, and fearfully reveals his love to the other man. The story then follows Bum’s life and his conflicting feelings between the Sangwoo he thought he knew and the Sangwoo that is keeping him in his house.
The manhwa was praised for its refreshing take on the psychological horror genre and garnered a large fan base online. Though, many fans romanticise the novel and only focus on the romance aspect of it, completely undermining the story. Because of this, I think that some fans won't acknowledge that Sangwoo is a well written and complex character, due to Killing Stalking daring to be atypical of a standard physiological horror. This report will discuss how the author shapes Sangwoo's character to evolve the story.
The author first presents Sangwoo through the rose tinted glasses Bum wears, using a flashback to show when the pair were in Uni together. This flashback shows Sangwoo as sociable, smiling, and always talking to other women, Bum, who had joined Uni four years late and was always by himself. Bum was behind in life, had always struggled to make friends, and was envious of Sangwoo. Sangwoo was an example of a man doing just what Bum wanted to do - effortlessly. It wasn’t until their time in the Army where Sangwoo stopped Bum from getting assaulted that Bum’s envy turned into admiration. But their relationship never went further than that. Bum didn’t know Sangwoo, yet in stalking him, Bum constructed this perfect idealized version of him, but that was only made of the version of himself that Sangwoo wanted other people to see. That is all communicated to the reader within the first chapter alongside the fact that Bum is stalking this ‘perfect’ man. The author's choice to reveal all of Bum’s worst qualities before Sangwoo’s purposefully misleads the reader. This feeling is exaggerated by the contrast between the perfect Sangwoo and the stalker, Bum. In the first chapter the reader will take Sangwoo’s side believing that Bum is a creep, and that his behavior is abnormal (which it is) but in comparison to the behavior that Sangwoo then exhibits in private, comparatively Bum is the better of the two. Koogi wants the reader to feel how Bum did when he realized that Sangwoo isn’t what Bum had believed him to be, which was done quite skillfully in these first few chapters. Koogi completely flips the narrative, and establishes that Sangwoo’s character is extremely volatile. These changes keep Bum, and the reader, on their toes.
The next significant moment for Sangwoo’s character is when he first ‘helps’ Bum. This happens after Sangwoo has been keeping Bum to do the household chores for a while. The reader has gotten used to the mundanities of Bum’s new life, until Sangwoo brings home another man who he intends to kill. Sangwoo forces Bum and the other man, Seokho, to compete in a card game of cops and robbers for their lives. Quite quickly and easily, Bum wins. However, to his dismay, Sangwoo reveals that it was “just a practice round”. When Sangwoo forces the pair to compete in the game he removes their autonomy and establishes his power over them, and by making them play again it shows that he isn’t afraid to push his weight around. During the next round Sangwoo effectively gives this power to Bum by sitting behind Seokho -the other man - and instructing Bum on what cards to pick. This works until the final round, where Sangwoo instructs Bum to choose the wrong card, revoking the power he had just given him. When Seokho wins, Sangwoo blindfolds him and places a knife in his hands, instructing him to walk forward and kill Bum through his directions. It is not revealed to the reader until after the damage was done, but Sangwoo had changed the position of the knife to face Seokho. Throughout the whole game Sangwoo shifts his power in and away from Bum’s favour. This communicates to the audience that when Sangwoo has power, he likes to show it off, though he gains his power in a pretty cheap way. He uses his physical power alongside the other men’s vulnerabilities against them. This is shown during their game when it is revealed in a flashback that Sangwoo had met Seokho at a gay bar despite him having a wife and kids. Sangwoo chose Seokho as a victim because he knew this vulnerability and knew that it would be easy to establish his power over him. He also does this same thing to Bum. Even though Sangwoo wasn’t in control when he found Bum in his house, learning about Bum’s infatuation for him, he used that to establish his own power. An example of this is during the game, when Sangwoo helps Bum to cheat, Bum, having not experienced proper love, interprets it as reciprocation and this being the first time that Sangwoo shows a preference for Bum, it gets a much larger reaction out of him. This Sangwoo would’ve known. From the beginning of the story until now the viewer has learnt that Sangwoo is a very calculated character, he does everything for a reason. He could’ve just killed Seokho immediately, but by making it a game it showed Seokho and Bum that he had all the power in that situation, and by ultimately letting Bum survive it solidified Bum’s dependency on him. This scene also establishes the need for power as Sangwoo’s main motivation. Even outside of this setting Sangwoo uses his good looks and star personality to subtly gain power over others. Sangwoo especially keeps up this facade in front of the police officer characters.
Throughout the story the perspective of Yang Seungbae, a police officer is also shown. He is suspicious of Sangwoo and believes that he is responsible for many killings, though this suspicion is not shared with his partner. Seungbae’s partner met Sangwoo when he was a teenager after his parents were both killed and is sympathetic to his misfortune. The author chooses to show the perspective of a police officer to add tension to the story and as a contrast to Sangwoo’s point of view. Police officers hold power in society, and by wearing their uniform, they earn respect because everyone knows what that uniform means, but Seungbae doesn’t experience this. He is a police officer who is certain that Sangwoo is a killer, but no one will believe him. Despite the power that society is meant to give him as a police officer, he feels none of it. On the other hand, Sangwoo, isn’t in a position of power like Seungbae but instead of using his smarts to work his way into a job that earns you power, he brashly takes it. It isn’t until Seungbae loses his job as a police officer that he is able to succeed in his confrontation with Sangwoo, during which Sangwoo’s house ends up being set on fire. After the altercation the police search the remains of the house and find the body of Sangwoo’s mum in the walls of the second story bedroom uncovered after the fire. This moment feels like the big reveal of the story, the answer to many questions. This moment is shocking due to the disturbing nature of keeping a dead body in the walls of the room in which you sleep. The same room that Sangwoo instructed Bum to never go into. Koogi always left Sangwoo’s Mother’s death a mystery. She tends to use flashbacks throughout the story to show why a character acts a certain way, but chooses to omit any memories of Sangwoo’s mother to make this scene more striking, because she is the character who is directly responsible for many of Sangwoo’s actions. Viewing the story in retrospect it is clear that the reason Sangwoo doesn’t kill Bum is because of his unusual (to say the least) relationship with his mother. It isn’t revealed until very late in the story that Sangwoo’s mother had forced Sangwoo into an incestuous relationship with her, and when Bum declared his love for Sangwoo he was reminded of her. This kind of relationship creates deep psychological issues within the victims of it and with the reveal of it, the reader may feel sympathetic for Sangwoo. Even though it is this relationship that made Sangwoo keep Bum and abuse him. This just shows that although Sangwoo might be the ‘villain’ of this story, it only takes one ‘villain’ to create another.
While writing this essay I’ve struggled since this story doesn’t make straight forward sense, but that is because abuse and psychological trauma don’t make sense. They are examples of things that defy any idea of ‘making sense’. The struggles of someone’s life (even if they aren’t extreme cases like abuse) won’t make sense, because people aren’t two dimensional beings. There is always more than one thing going on in someone’s life and the way that they deal with it may not make sense to you, because even if you share an experience with them the experiences that make you two up are vastly different. People are a collection of their own experiences that shape them into the person they are. In Killing Stalking both men are made up of some very unfortunate experiences. Koogi is able to communicate this point while also strikingly shaping Sangwoo’s character to create the story which is Killing Stalking.
