sua and luka are very similar aesthetically and personality wise, but when you dive into it, there is a clear difference in the way that they crave affection and love in their world.
both luka and sua experience jealousy from different people. sua with her sisters, and luka with heperu and hyunwoo. however, both of these cases are sort of different, which is why they are able to differentiate more. luka craves affection through being more controlling, and sua craves affection but thinks she has to gain it by being passive. why?
luka, from a very young age, taught that if he couldn’t rise to the top, he wouldn’t be worth anything to anyone. if he couldn’t dominate others and have a strive to win, he should die. he should be “grateful” that he was lucky enough to rise above all of his clones. so, of course luka associates love with dominance, because of how heperu abuses him. he wants to feel control over hyuna and his situation, because to him, without it, he’d be worth nothing. ironically, hyuna felt interest towards him because she thought he was someone she could be able to protect.
meanwhile, sua thinks that she has to be passive and submissive to be loved, which is why she is so elusive and quiet around others. when she tries to interact with her sisters that are not hia, she gets pushed away, which to her, means that she cannot be confrontational or else she will be rejected. additionally, with hia projecting onto her, and with nigeh’s obsession with forcing her into femininity, sua thinks that she can only be loved if she’s weak, because that’s all she’s worth. this is what made her relationship with mizi a veil of innocence from everything else, and also why she cannot make friends with others easily.
ironically, this is where their parallels come full circle. because of how they were taught love and how they give love, it hurts those around them, and it fractures their ability to explore their identity more. luka can’t see what he did wrong, because in his eyes, he did exactly what was expected of him to be loved, which is why he shows not a lot of regret about hyunwoo until it slaps him in the face. sua, because of how she was treated, never had faith in herself to be stronger for others, so she chose to die for mizi, because she believed because of her fragility, she was doomed from the beginning.
i wish more people would talk about these parallels. while i do love ivan-mizi-luka parallels, these two are very similar and different in interesting ways.