I strongly believe that Eunseo suffered from narcissistic personality disorder, and i also can say that its not just ‘’slipping through” — it’s almost shining.
I had an old friend with whom we had been friends since our teenage years, and I literally watched how year by year he behaved more and more, let’s call it - ‘’strange’’. It took a lot of time for me to understand what exactly was wrong. My ex-friend became a mother early, so unfortunately i had a chance to see how a person with NPD communicates with their child. And, back to the topic - I see terrifying parallels.
Without going too deep:
Communicate with someone, who’s diagnosed with NRL it's like we find ourselves at the card table, where this person has only two suits to play with - hearts and spades: affection and aggression. And these cards are always drawn with the same face expressions - sufferer (do-gooder) or punisher.
1. Pressure through guilt in case of disobedience or disagreement
Situation: Child returned home from school and tells mother that he is not hungry. The child has to repeat twice about the lack of appetite before the mother slams the table and starts the pressure.
Why this is happening:
At this moment of the plot, Eunseo's psyche is already in critical state cause, let me remind, she killed her husband and left her son's DNA at the burial site of the body a few chapters earlier, and we know what she will do in the future. Her food and housework are no longer just ‘’household’’ - it’s an investment in her image. And also - a demonstration of care (only), for which she should receive gratitude. The child's rejection of such a “gift” means personal rejection and a direct challenge to her authority, because people with this disorder do not perceive their “cooked food” as a ‘’cooked food”, for them it is their own continuation. So it’s followed by coercion (forcibly shoving a spoon into his hand) and, finally, submission of the child. Moreover, her repeated “Eat! Eat!’’ is really hypnotizing, and I think that's what was calculated.
Here you can use a good, simple argument - the food was poisoned and Eunso NEEDED Sangwoo to swallow at least a piece. And this argument is absolutely true, but let me continue, because unfortunately - all is not that simple.
2. Narcissistic defense: a person who sees their weakness is perceived as "attacker".
This scene is a biggest link in this analysis.
The child witnessed her cheaing - it makes a lot of risks: risk of being exposed, risk of losing the image of a good wife, risk of losing control over the situation and authority in the child's eyes, risk of feeling shame. I could go on and on, but what connects all the episodes I've described here: the greater the risk of their own vulnerability, the stronger the retaliation will be. And this is one of the main symptoms of NRL.
Let’s dive into the absurd of the mind:
The child "attacked" by witnessing her cheating. She enters his room, and in her words there's no even an attempt to explain anything - only a clever, calculated "counterattack" and the subsequent "punishment". That's right: the sexual scene with her husband, where Eunso turned her child into a spectator, was a punishment.
"It's not me cheating, it's you who doesn't trust me" - this person will never admit what they’ve done, and the blame arrow will always point at you.
Remember my words about cards, suits, and how they are played with just two expressions? This episode demonstrates how Eunseo just JUGGLING these combinations.
3. Squirm
Eunseo returned home with her son after she faked her husband's death and secretly left her son's DNA in place, so that if the corpse was found - he would go to prison.
It’s important to note that she doesn’t say a word about what happened and where they’ve just returned from, because this could lead to uncomfortable questions or, even worse, the need to explain her actions (which has NEVER been done in this family). The thing is, such “silence” makes it hard to piece together the whole story in head and it feels fragmented. So the child lefts with many painful questions as deep as a CANYON. With one of them, “Did I kill my father?”, Sangwoo was wondering until he died. I swear: only narcissists are so inventive and cunning in their manipulations.
“You are the only one I can rely on... I will work hard so that you can rely on me too...” In this scene, Eunseo draws her cards again, this time with a deeply suffering face.
4. The final.
... All is not that simple.
Eunseo suffered from a list of psychological illnesses, so NRL and postpartum depression are just parts of it. Rereading this episode, I always have a feeling that her personality is simply falling apart, so despite her endless lies, for some reason I believe her words that she “loses her mind for a moment.” There is really a chance that she "shuts down" during the infliction of physical harm, which brings us back to the fact that there is something on the list of her diseases that we cannot identify.
After the violent scene, a sort of “splitting” occurs - she is emotionally thrown from one emotion to another, and at this point, unfortunately, nothing can be said for sure. Even her death looks to me like an act of narcissism, but at the same time it could have been a psychotic suicide (suicide in extreme state of psychosis).
There are two main types of narcissistic personality disorder:
- The Grandiose type - The Controlling type
We don't see in her any beliefs in grandiosity or any fantasies of "boundless success", but she is an absolute master at control. Also, if you look closely at her acting, she behaves like a "quiet dictator", which is also a trait of the second type.
AFTERWORDS:
I had to omit a lot of details to avoid making the text too long. I will mention some of them in the following post, so…
That was my first analysis and thanks for reading it!
“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.
So I never really associated with the fandom. I followed only one killing stalking account and I was satisfied with their explanations for things (they helped break down translations more for things that we might have missed)
But I'm not sure why I never talked to anyone from the fandom or really looked into their theories. I have a friend I usually talk to and run theories by and we enjoyed reading it but we never were deeply invested in it. We stuck to it and read it through and through. At one point I tried to get my older sister to read it but at the time there was only 7 chapters available and she never continued it.
But as of right now I'm going through the killing stalking tag and seeing complaints. They say the ending is only okay. It's a psychological horror with an ending that appears realistic.
Now I know in my last post I mentioned An Uncomfortable Truth and I'm here to do it again.
They are both about being obsessed with someone and killing people. Ks is more focused on the killing and relationship between the characters while AUT (idk the actual accronym) were more focused on the obsessive or stalking of the characters.
Ks is so focused on figuring out why Sangwoos kills people and how he treats Bum while AUT was more about (I haven't read it in a few months so the names are lost to me) getting to the reason he was that way. We know he isn't okay and he tells the story himself about why he did it and I think that changes how personal a character is for you
Anyways the point of this is that:
Sangwoos death was definitely going to happen but we didn't know how, they way he dies isn't random or stupid, it's exactly as it should've been. Sangwoo was in pain over the betrayal of Bum and having nearly died already didn't help. Sangwoos was nearly killed as a child by his own mother using a pillow, there is foreshadowing here because a woman used a pillow to ultimately kill him.
Bums death (I still believe Yang Seunbae hit and killed him) is all over the place but it's planned. He's been in situations that include cars many times before. Having died from a car hitting him is predicatble but fitting. Him following his illusion of Sangwoo is even more so forthcoming because of the extra chapters that have been shown before.
Now think about if only one died, it's likely the other would be in jail or in a mental facility for the rest of their life.
That's where AUT comes in.
In AUT The main character kills people because of his obsession with his (foster?) Brother. In the end one of them dies in the most unlikely way while the other is put into a mental facility and it shows a realistic end for someone in that position but if you look at it and pay attention you realise that it's an ending you hate but it's real and raw so you can't complain.
For Ks, we're complaining a lot. I looked through the tag for 20 minutes and the majority of it was how disappointed everyone was and how it felt rushed and felt like bad writing and how they hope there's one last chapter: there isn't. Looking will post answers to questions but that's it. That's the end. The stories end wasn't rushed. It's been implied since the beginning of it. The chapter felt rushed because it's supposed to. Bum is in a rush to find Sangwoo, Seunbae is in a rush to find Bum, and in the end, Bum is still running after Sangwoo. It's meant to feel rushed because the characters are rushing. For the bad writing, there's been some instances where Kooji wasn't the best writer and yes there are holes, but what story doesnt? Kooji is an amazing writer who gives us realistic expectations and shows you how they see their world. It's not perfect, she never said it was, and maybe those holes will be addressed in the QANDA but for now, we don't know.
I'm here to simply say: it's okay if you're upset with the ending. It's okay to hate Kooji for it. It's okay to think she's a bad writter. It's okay to feel like the story has holes
BUT
if you truly thought Sangwoo and Bum we're going to live happily ever after and you honestly believe they would be truly together in the end then you have an issue.
Yes it shows that they only had each other, but it was still toxic and unhealthy.
If the story didn't end like this then Sangwoo would've eventually killed Bum. They had their honeymoon phase and it ended as soon as Bum dropped the pills under the washing machines. It was only a matter of time before they ended up gone for good.
Thanks for reading this. These are just my thoughts on it.
Sangwoo wakes from a rather unpleasant dream and finds Bum sucking him off (Side note: don’t have sex with unconscious people).
Bum is taking an active role, while Sangwoo is in a passive role. This dynamic that Bum has put them into angers him, and he grabs Bum off the floor and onto the table, reestablishing him in the dominant position and Bum in the submissive position.
Bum is either too drunk or too horney realize how ticked Sangwoo is. And Bum, just going with the flow, stares moaning out “Babe.” This is clearly triggering for Sangwoo, and so he finds the most practical why to shut Bum up: shoving a corncob in his mouth.
Bum, who’s not type to judge you on your cornkink, continues to go with the flow and decides he’s gonna ride that dick, because yolo.
However, doing so, reverts Sangwoo back into a more submissive position.
Sangwoo starts to panic.
His mind, responding to the distress, reverts to old tacts that kept him safe/alive in the past, which is appeasing the ‘attacker’. He asks if the other feels good (assessing the other’s state, while mimicking positive engagement), and states that he feels good too (assuring the other that everything is okay, that there’s no reason for violent escalation). At the same time he’s demanding to see Bum’s face, to help ground him in reality, that right now he’s with Bum.
But he slips up.
Now a couple small predictions for the next chapter, Sangwoo doesn’t want to disclose what his mother did to him, and so if Sangwoo is going to tell Bum, he’s needs a really good reason too. Bum, I doubt would judge Sangwoo for what happened to him, if Sangwoo does tell him the truth. However, in the last two chapter’s Bum has stressed that he wants to feel like they are in a real relationship, that he is loved, and that this love is genuine. But Sangwoo wasn’t thinking about him while they were having sex.
When Sangwoo brought Bum up from the basement, he told him three important things:
1. Bum reminded him of his mom
2. That he loved his mom
3. And he asked if Bum wanted to be the mom
If Bum convinces himself that Sangwoo is just projecting his mother on him, that Sangwoo doesn’t actually love him, it will break his heart.
whaddup its almost 2am and i had a caffeinated cold relief tablet instead and of a non caffeinated one so i am Wide Awake but ive had a revelation: jieun’s death mirrored eunseo’s and sangwoo planned it that way. is this just a caffeine-fuelled reach and a half? probably. but hear me out. sangwoo said, when jieun was tied up in the basement that his “plan bears fruit” right? yes he was talking about his plan for bum to kill jieun but i think he was also talking about re-enacting eunseo’s death. think about it- moments before jieun and sangwoo were having sex, and i KNOW eunseo and sangwoo isnt really considered sex but in sangwoo’s mind it might be. anyway so they were having sex, sangwoo made a weird comment about it being like breastfeeding (yoi know like a MOTHERLY thing to do), then moments later jieun was being stabbed in the basement like eunseo was. they way koogi drew both eunseo and jieun in death was similar: lying expressionless, blood everywhere, eyes wide open. jieun and eunseo even look similar, which is why i think sangwoo targeted jieun specifically. furthermore in both cases sangwoo did not directly stab jieun/eunseo, but was at least partially responsible for the stabbing. finally, he said to the woman at the ski resort “why don’t you beg for your life again” which leads me to believe that he is frustrated with the fact that eunseo didnt beg for her life, in fact she told him the words that would haunt him forever and then impaled herself which is why i think sangwoo wanted to replay the scenario with someone who would- to overwrite the memory to fit how he wanted it (with the victim, in this case jieun, begging for her life). anyway this was a reach and im grasping at straws because im tired but CANT slEEP but in any case thank you for coming to my ted talk.
Let me try to address what I think provides foreshadowing and clues to the KS ending. Koogi weaved a lot of symbolism, imagery, parallels, themes, and straight-up meta style hints throughout KS. Sure, some of it might be coincidence, but all of it? I think not! Koogi loves drama and she definitely planned the story out way in advance, which allowed her to plant the foreshadowing. My thanks go out to Koogi for all of her effort and hard work. :)
There are several recurring themes I have noticed throughout KS. Themes which I think could help us predict how the story will end.
WARNING! IT’S VERY LONG! Things I Noticed, Theories, and Predictions:
The Joker and Two Face - I think KS was influenced by these famous comic characters, and also by The Dark Knight (the film, which features both characters).
Examples of The Joker theme in KS:
Both Sangwoo and Bum are associated with story elements and imagery that invokes The Joker. In chapter 9 - in the “cops and robbers” card game where the stakes are their lives and “the one who holds the Joker at the end is the robber,” note that the Joker card shown is peering through binoculars and by representing a robber, this could be a reference to Bum’s stalking, robbing possessions from those he stalks, and breaking and entering into Sangwoo’s home. “You’re going to be the masters of your own fate! What a joke! But it’ll be exciting, like a rollercoaster,” Sangwoo says, but by calling it a joke, he indicates sarcasm, a lack of sincerity, and reveals that he either finds it amusing knowing their fates are subject to him or he finds the whole idea of anyone mastering their fate (or controlling it) a joke. He turns things around in chapter 10 so even though it looks like the “cop” wins, the “Joker” actually survives/wins/”gets away” - a very Joker thing to happen. In the Summer Special (chapter between 29 and 30) there is killer clown imagery, where Sangwoo is a clown with a knife chasing Bum but instead of killing Bum, he turns back into Sangwoo. This Sangwoo as the killer clown imagery appears again in chapter 37, when Sangwoo puts on a killer clown mask - one with a gruesome smile and green hair - in the amusement park gift shop and says, “You’re supposed to scream when you’re scared. We’re here to relieve stress, not make things worse. [...] Telling you to scream on purpose feels weird.” Most of you probably know, but The Joker is also referred to as the Clown Prince. And in hindsight, the sledgehammer - a type of “mallet” - used in chapter 2 could be an incredibly subtle reference to the mallet weapons used by Joker or Harley Quinn. The abusive relationship between Sangwoo and Bum is another similarity, with the Joker and Harley Quinn’s relationship being an abusive one, as well as the fact that both relationships feature two criminals committing crimes together. The Joker is also known to laugh hysterically and maniacally and Sangwoo would often display hysterical laughter (often while crying) but Bum has also been shown to laugh hysterically at the end of chapter 66 while hiding his face (and possibly tears) in a bouquet distinctly featuring the colors purple and green (The Joker’s colors). And Bum and Sangwoo’s outfits tend to usually have an element of purple or green. Bum’s also shown getting therapy in chapter 66, which brings to mind how the Joker and Harley first met. Bum also expresses an interest in seeing Sangwoo in the hospital where he is under police custody, which if you remember in The Dark Knight, sneaking into a hospital and escape from police custody are both things the Joker does. Also prominently featured in the film is the two boats social experiment - a social experiment that KS also features at least twice (though arguably more). It’s based on game theory and the “prisoner’s dilemma.” It’s shown twice in KS where two people are pitted against each other with each having to choose between rational self-interest or what’s in the best interest of the two collectively. In the police station in chapter 34, Bum chooses the latter and even though the police lied about Sangwoo pinning a murder on Bum, Sangwoo also refused to incriminate either Bum or himself. In the film, a prisoner steps up and chooses to preserve the lives on the civilians’ boat at the risk of his own life, proving that moral choices are not limited to only the so-called “good guys” - people are complex and “bad” people can do good things and “good” people can do bad things. Both boats refused to explode the other to save their own lives, and in doing so, both boats survived. Given that as of chapter 66 in KS, Bum and Sangwoo are possibly set on a course of mutually assured destruction, they face a similar dilemma. The facial damage Sangwoo endured in chapter 65 and 66 is also a similarity with Joker, The Joker typically having facial disfigurement - his clownish visage a result of toxic chemicals, the brief stint where his face was removed before being returned, and his scars that feature significantly into his character’s story in the film. The Joker and Sangwoo are also both an intelligent psychopath with a warped sense of humor. Both are adaptive, able to create new personalities to fit the situation, and often utilizing misdirection to outsmart their opponent. This can be seen when the Joker character has a twin, or when he utilizes costumes to get his target to mistake his identity for that of someone else, or happen in card games where there are two jokers and when jokers are “wild,” they can represent other cards. Sangwoo also utilizes disguises, changing what he wears and his appearance in order to not be recognized. Remember that time in chapter 11 and 12 when Seungbae got involved in a traffic accident, only to realize much later that one of the drivers was Sangwoo whom he had met already. He observed, “The atmosphere and the way he spoke was completely different from when we first met... I didn’t even recognize him.”
Sangwoo in KS ch 41 quote: “I don’t think. I don’t plan.“
The Joker in The Dark Knight quote: “Do I really look like a guy with a plan? [...] I just do things. The cops have plans. They’re schemers. Schemers trying to control their little world. I’m not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. [...] I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go ‘according to plan.’ Even if the plan is horrifying. [...] Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair.”
The Joker in The Dark Knight quote: “You just couldn’t let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible, aren’t you? You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness and I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.” B: “You’ll be in a padded cell forever.” J: “Maybe we could share one. They’ll be doubling up at the rate this city’s inhabitants are losing their minds. [...] I took Gotham’s White Knight and I brought him down to our level. It wasn’t hard. You see madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.”
Examples of the Two Face theme in KS:
Again both Sangwoo and Bum have imagery that associates them with Two Face. In the Summer Special (between chapter 29 and 30), Bum’s gallery image had color blocking, which at first made me think of Harley Quinn, but it’s actually more like Two Face’s typical costume. Sangwoo’s facial damage shown in chapter 66 is obviously reminiscent of Two Face’s scars, as seen in The Dark Knight. In the film, Two Face gets severe scarring over half of his face from an explosion. Also in the film, he escapes from a hospital. Similarly to Sangwoo who had an abusive father and Bum who had an abusive uncle, Two Face suffered mental health problems before he was scarred. He had an abusive father who would play a cruel game with a rigged outcome. His scarring served as a turning point, giving him more of a split personality. “Two Face” also refers to when a person lies a lot, and given that Bum’s gallery image resembled Two Face, this could be in reference to his lies - both early in KS out of self-preservation while trying to endear himself to Sangwoo and recently in chapter 66 where he lied to police. Something also worth noting is that Two Face outed a girl, thinking that with no one else to turn to, she would have no choice but to love him, which is clearly similar to what Bum did in his flashback in chapter 19. However, there is another KS character who displays an awful lot of similarities to Two Face and that’s Seungbae! He works in criminal justice - Harvey Dent (Two Face) as a district attorney and prosecutor and Seungbae as a police officer (demoted from detective based on bad behavior at a previous precinct). They both have horrible tempers, often flying into fits of rage. Seungbae displays this frequently throughout KS with his many overreactions, his use of excessive force, his horrible abuse of Bum in chapters 28, 29, and 35 - where even though he thought of Bum as “the victim” he still grabs him harshly by the wounds he himself pointed out. And then, even though he is basing all of his wild accusations on the flimsiest of coincidence, his own stalking of Sangwoo and harassment of Bum, and no real evidence, he attacks Sangwoo and physically assaults him in chapter 35, pulling him out of the van by his ankles in a disturbing reminder of how he grabbed Bum’s legs on the wounds and building a pattern of abuse and violence. One half of his face gets burned in chapter 63 and 64 like Two Face’s did. Both Seungbae and Two Face cite police negligence in the death of a loved one. Will Seungbae go bad in the end like Harvey Dent (Two Face) did? We’ll see.
Bum in KS ch 29 quote: “Ugh... LET GO!!“
“I’m saying I’ll save you!” Seungbae yells, while squeezing Bum’s clearly wounded wrist hard enough to make it start bleeding again. :(
Bum: “HA... HAHA. You’ll save me? How?”
Two Face in The Dark Knight quote: ”You think I want to escape from this? There is no escape from this. [...] I’ve done plenty wrong, Gordon. Just not quite enough. Yet. It’s not about what I want. It’s about what’s fair. You thought we could be decent men in an indecent time. You thought the rules could be bent but not break. You were wrong. The world is cruel. And the only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased. Unprejudiced. Fair.”
The Bait and Switch - Misdirection! KS is filled with misdirection, a trick to get the reader to pay attention to (or believe) one thing so that they can be surprised by a different thing. A common form of misdirection shown in KS is mirroring, where many characters wear the same clothes as other people - taking on someone’s identity and leading to cases of mistaken identity. In chapter 41, a girl at the ski resort happens to be wearing the same outfit as Bum, causing Sangwoo to briefly mix up the two. Sangwoo will sometimes deliberately create this effect, though - like when he dresses up Bum in chapter 3 or when he dresses up Jieun’s corpse in chapter 22, and possibly even in this latest confrontation with Seungbae where he was wearing a very similar outfit. He also will change his demeanor and appearance sometimes with a hat and glasses, like he did in chapter 11, when Seungbae failed to recognize him.
Metamorphosis - There are several examples of symbolism in KS which represent change, a transformation that is not always for the better. Butterfly symbolism appears in chapter 34, frog symbolism shows up a couple times, and the poison apple symbolism is prevalent throughout. Acquiring a new identity could also count as metamorphosis, whether by living under a new name or adopting a new (possibly murderous) outlook on life.
Escape - This theme includes escape through mistaken identity and misdirection which could very well happen. But escape has also already been hinted at in KS. In the Christmas Special that came out before chapter 36, there are several methods of transportation that are associated with escape shown, including 2 hot air balloons, 2 (possibly 3) sailing ships, the helm wheel on the mantle (imagery of a sailing ship). Season three of KS sees Sangwoo take Bum on a vacation trip, first to an amusement park “to relieve stress” and then to a ski resort to “enjoy” the break, escaping the stress of home. In chapter 51, Sangwoo shows Bum the movie Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is about not being able to escape your nature (like in the scorpion and the frog) as an animal at heart, and embracing it to escape.
PREDICTION: I think that at least 2 of these themes will be featured in the ending of KS. Any 2. So, maybe a Bait and Switch and Escape, or Two Face and a murderous Metamorphosis? Which 2 themes do you think have the best chance of showing up in the last chapter? And who do you believe is The Joker of KS and who is the Two Face?
And if you know of any examples of these themes that I missed, feel free to share them! :) And THANK YOU for reading my incredibly long post. XD
So here’s an unpopular opinion: uh... Sangwoo wasn’t sexually abused by his mom.
This is how I interpret Sangwoo’s dream. Sangwoo’s mom has been mostly indifferent towards Sangwoo throughout his childhood because she’s been getting abused by Sangwoo’s father. So she seems like she’s sort of busy wallowing in her own misery and self pity.
When Sangwoo is in his late teens (probably) he starts to seek affection because maybe he understands the situation better. He approaches his mom instead. He wants affection from his mother but he still receives nothing even when he gives her affection (kissing her hand).
He becomes scared and then full of rage (or hatred) when he sees his mother is practically a living dead. He thinks about killing his mother.
Also, here’s a flashback:
He turns around to kill his mother and that’s when his mother is ‘replaced’ ...I repeat, REPLACED with Yoon Bum. Why? Because they’re mostly similar, personality wise, in Sangwoo’s head... EXCEPT ...
BUM MOVES! Bum actually starts to approach Sangwoo. He looks at Sangwoo affectionately, touches him, shows interest in him. This is what Yoon Bum did in real life! This is what Sangwoo probably HOPED his mother would do. To give him affection. (Maybe even that kind of affection!)
This is not his fucking mom. It’s Yoon Bum’s body. Thin and bony, dressed like a “country whore”. He’s seeing Bum all worked up because YOON BUM is the person he saw worked up like that, not his mother! But the words are what scare Sangwoo and make him snap out of it, NOT THE SEXUAL NATURE of the whole thing!!! Now we get to the part where people actually call ‘proof’ that Sangwoo was sexually abused.
The words, and the ‘turned on Yoon Bum’ aren’t related! It’s possible that Sangwoo heard those words from his mother before but not in a sexual context! It’s pretty much the same thing that Yoon Bum said before. He dreads those words! Maybe even BECAUSE IT’S WHAT BUM SAID BEFORE COMMITTING SUICIDE! You do remember how hard that was on Sangwoo, right?????? Here’s more flashbacks:
In brief, seems like his dream is a mix of past and current incidents. This is a dream. Not his exact memories. Yoon Bum is right there. I don’t understand why we should ignore his presence. Yoon Bum is the one saying those words and him and Sangwoo’s mother are pretty similar, personality wise. Sangwoo’s worst fears are all mixed up in his dream! He’s enjoying the affection until he hears those ‘alerting’ words.
