something i wish we could've seen more of in part 2 was choi acting as a foil for hyw. hyw hates the bureau, for good reason, and this resentment falls equally on the shoulders of everyone who works at the bureau. he hates the system that voluntarily puts human lives on a scale and decides who deserves to be sacrificed to various forms of torture until they die. it doesn't matter that, without them doing this, people would still die. they're still picking and choosing who they would prefer to die, judging others worth, and using that judgement to send people to their death.
one of the clearest examples of this is during the ascetic in the box arc, where he pushes rjk into the box to be tortured for decades before eventually succumbing to his death. but what i find most interesting about this scene, is that he actively has rjk take choi's place. to be clear, this isn't an act of favoritism towards choi, but rather hatred to rjk. it's obvious that rjk represents the very type of bureau agent that hyw hates; choosing who, out of all the cult members, deserves to die the most, and using them as a sacrifice.
but choi is fundamentally different. while rjk is the current bureau ideal, tending to defer to whatever the bureau guidelines for that situation, choi goes out of his way to save as many people as possible, even if it puts himself in danger. other agents are told that survival comes first, and to prioritize their lives, but choi frankly doesn't care (to the eternal distress of all of the people who work with him). he wants to survive, but he also wants to save everyone he can.
hyw hates the bureau bc of the way they decide between lives, putting them on a scale as if a person's worth can be quantified. however, choi tends to save people indiscriminately (obv prioritizing his hoobaes).
hyw literally states, “By their standards, that’s almost a less hypocritical agent. Not very bureau-like.”
he clearly still dislikes choi, but i think he likes him more than any other bureau agent. funnily enough, despite not totally buying into hochoi propoganda, i also think it gives them a really interesting dynamic that i would love to see explored more.
i feel like i glazed cho way too much in this post i need to go drink a gallon of bleach to wipe that taste off my tongue ugh
