“how do you kill someone without killing them?” an analytical look at yoon bum’s character arc & ending
“How do you kill someone without killing them?”, it’s a question presented to the reader multiple times throughout killing stalking, however we were never given a straight answer to this question- at least not directly through speech. I believe the ending of killing stalking, more specifically the ending of yoon bum’s character arc, gives us the answer to this question.
The ending to killing stalking is described by most fans as, well, sad. depressing, heartbreaking, tear-jerking, all adjectives synonymous with sad. however, looking beyond how seeing the characters you’re emotionally attached to both die without a happy ending will make any fan cry, (operating under the presumption that bum does in fact die at the end of killing stalking, though it is left ambiguous it is heavily implied and widely accepted) in truth the ending is bittersweet- for yoon bum at least.
Now, of course let’s move past the obvious: seeing any main character die is sad for the audience. However from an objective storytelling stand point, yoon bum’s ending and his eventual death is complex in terms of morality and empathy for his situation. While a fan, like me and many others, sat there crying wishing bum had lived- would it be any better if he lived? what else does he have? yoon bum is alone in every sense of the word. he doesn’t have any real friends made out of true bonding and kinship, he doesn’t have a boyfriend after sangwoo’s death, he doesn’t have any parents, he doesn’t have any family in general. he’s an orphan, his uncle raped and abused him (though he’s dead anyways now so bum couldn’t go to him even if he wanted to), and koogi stated in an epilogue that bum’s grandmother was put into a nursing home after his uncle’s death. He is completely and utterly alone. Though toxic, manipulative, and often abusive, sangwoo was truly the only person bum had (maybe that speaks even louder for bum’s loneliness- the only person he has is his kidnapper. he has only ever known abuse). So if bum hadn't died, what would he have done? Live completely alone for the rest of his life, only finding solace in mourning the only person who ever truly cared about him, and even then he was his abuser?
So the question then is: was it better for yoon bum to die? In an earlier chapter, sangwoo makes bum promise that if he died first, bum would follow along close behind. Whatever he has to do to commit suicide or get himself killed, he would have to die when sangwoo dies. So then, did bum truly die accidentally because he was hallucinating while walking in traffic? Or was he subconsciously committing suicide; fulfilling that promise he made without even realizing it, still stuck in a dellusian? Whatever the case may be, was fulfilling his promise to sangwoo a better fate than living life hopelessly lonely, traumatized, and permanently away from his lover? Which fate would be more merciful?
Maybe that’s the answer to the question “how do you kill someone without actually killing them?”, you traumatize them so badly they can never recover, you toy with their emotional and boundary issues like a dog playing tug of war until they’re so confused about their own feelings towards you it all seems like unconditional love, you leave or die so that they’re completely utterly boundlessly alone, forever wishing they could just hold you one last time and apologize. So whether or not Yoon Bum survived the ending of killing stalking, he would have been dead either way.
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