An analysis of Moon Baek's character because he's more than a "hot psychotic villain"
SPOILERS FOR TRIGGER
I get that Moon Baek is an underutilized villain but I'm so tired of people reducing him to a mere psycho who had no reason to act the way he did.
I understand that Moon Baek shares some similar traits with people who are psychopaths. He was manipulative, exploitative, he committed many crimes, he felt no remorse for his actions and appeared to lack empathy. But while these are true, he is not just a crazy psycho who did everything for fun. Moon Baek is indeed a villain but we need to understand the reason why he became one and why he brought guns to Korea.
From the moment he was born, Moon Baek didn't know a day of peace in his life. He got abandoned by his mother, ended up in the hands of a child trafficking organization, got his eye ripped off, got sent to America only to end at the hands of an organs harvesting organization. He had no normal childhood and he never got to experience love and care. He grew up in fear, pain and violence and this is how he learned to deal with his problems. When he was a teenager, he lashed at the American organization that attempted to harvest his organs by killing them because he wanted revenge. And when Jake took him under his wing and taught him how to use a gun properly, Moon Baek felt for the first time that he had control of his life. He finally had the power to protect himself and punish those who wronged him (as he did later on with the man who had ripped off his eye).
For years, Moon Baek worked under Jake and when the opportunity arose, he decided to prepare his revenge against the country which failed to protect him. His actions were extreme, no one can deny it. But they were ultimately the product of his pent-up anger and feeling of injustice. In his twisted logic, Moon Baek genuinely thought that he did a favor to citizens by giving them the power to protect themselves against people who took advantage of them. He believed that if people didn't learn to live in fear and stand up for themselves, society would become better. He himself knew firsthand what it felt like to experience pain and fear and he thought that revenge was the only option left for people like him in order to take control of their lives and not succumb to others.
This is why he got disappointed by Lee Do. He expected him to understand his motives since both of them came from similar backgrounds. However, the main difference is that unlike Moon Baek, Lee Do had a supportive system around him. Before the death of his family, he grew up being showered with love and after the loss of his parents and brother, his chief showed him care and stopped him from killing his family's murder by rationalizing with him. Moon Baek never had someone to point him out the right path so he chose the only option he had left.
Moon Baek's motives might seem too shallow since the writing explored them on a superficial level but if one sits down and tries to crack his character, they will realise why they make sense in a way. Moon Baek didn't do what he did just to gain entertainment or to control the whole world. It's implied that he's aware of how little time he has left due to cancer and he seemingly shot himself at the end as a suicide attempt. Moon Baek wanted to re-establish society and prove that people will always choose violence when no other options are available. His character is pretty complex, the problem is that the writers kinda gave up on him so instead of creating a fleshed out villain, they relied on an archetype
I do not mean to insult people who call Moon Baek a psychopath. This is not my goal. I just wanted to attempt to analyse his character and provide more insight about his motives and emotions. I am disappointed at the way the writers handled this character because they had everything in order to make him a well-written villain but his writing ended up being shallow and as a result, many people weren't able to fully grasp his character. I believe that we should engage more critically with the media we consume, this is why I decided to make this post.
I completely agree & would like to add a couple of things.
More spoilers for Trigger
Guns - I think that after he shot the people who wanted to vivisect him for his organs, he felt not only in control, but also safe, probably for the first time ever in his life. And I do believe that he sees giving people guns as giving them the means to solve their problems - because this has been the only way that's ever worked for him.
His unwillingness to continue (?) his cancer treatment - now, this is just me speculating, but I feel like it's not just about the pain that comes with radiation therapy and chemo, but also about his possible fear to go under the knife again. Maybe I've missed something, but the scar on his chest and stomach, that he shows to Lee Do, is from the organ harvesters, you can see it in ep. 5. So I wonder if he ever had any of the cancer surgically removed, given his previous experience - not just with this, but with the eye removal as well.
His tattoos - I see them as a way of him trying to reclaim his body. Throughout the show, we can see many of them, for example 1987, which is Kim Young Kwang's year of birth, the phrase "Veni, vidi" (hopefully vici follows), the chest piece... but obviously, the most interesting is this one: I feel trapped in my own life. It almost seems like it was scribbled by his own hand and it's very different from the other, more professional looking tattoos. Does it mean it's more genuine than the other motifs?
