Bum’s side of things in Chapter 64
Hi!
So, yep, this review is based solely on the new released chapter, that’s why:
( ^ω^ )
Ok.
First, I would like to make a mention on the chapter before on how we see Bum ties to a chair, beaten up, and clearly in a bad state.
In this chapter, I expected a Bum moved by revenge and attack Sangwoo when the opportunity seemed plausible. Yet the first move we see him do is this:
And there’s NOTHING wrong with it because he is helping both Seungbae and Sangwoo at the same time by stopping them from continue fighting. He tries EVERYTHING: actions, pleading glance, words, crying, the only thing he didn’t try was sex but at this point I believe that would be a ticket to death due to Sangwoo’s psychotic state.
Futile in the long run? Yes. He ends up badly beaten afterwards.
But so into his character that was to be expected.
In the whole series we see a Bum ridden with problems and in search for a tint of requited love. At the start he only felt obsession for Sangwoo, which in turn transformed into a kind of love (Stockholm Syndrome) and which in the end felt like real love to him.
Of course, Sangwoo does everything in his power to deny it and really, I believe in the between of hating and seeing his mother in Bum he fell prey to the Lima Syndrome.
If you don’t know what this syndrome is, then let’s just say it’s basically Stockholm Syndrome but with reverse roles.
The captor falls for the victim.
Of course, it’s not real love but to them, it feels like it. And Sangwoo hates to be subjected to anyone (he sees love as foreign and despites it) so of course he will deny it.
In another situation, Sangwoo MAY have persuaded Bum by appealing to his love for him.
But we have come to a Sangwoo that feels betrayed by his supposed lover and who -he convinced himself -never really loved him in the first place.
We are seeing a Sangwoo at his limits of sanity.
Hence WHY he hits Bum and threatens him to silence, saying things like: “Would you want me to kill you?”
When ever since the Christmas Episode Sangwoo had stopped threatening Bum’s life.
Yet there’s something that was not in his plans.
Bum.
Wether he wants it or not, Bum has come to hold a certain position in his life making him reconsider things once in his presence.
That’s why he says: “I can’t concentrate with your wailing.”
Bum has the power to attack him once he turns his back. But Sangwoo knows he won’t.
He is aware of the hold he has over the smaller man and aware that he would never do something to harm him, and uses it to his benefit.
That’s why, in his last attempt, he orders Bum to kill Seungbae and doesn’t fear of him killing him instead. And also why Bum seems so miserable in the last panel.
This is always present in couples with IPV in which one partner denies being hurt by the other even when the evidence is explicit and does not denounces them. Normally, psychological help is given to make them realise they were being hurt and that it was not right.
But Bum was abused all his life. And even when he knew it was wrong and undeserved, he never said anything because he thought himself UNDESERVING of help.
Now I know the whole chapter shows us the fight between Seungbae and Sangwoo, good and evil, with the victim behind. Yet who holds the most importance in it is in reality Bum, the victim, for he has the power to end this fight with one side as a winner and another, as the dead loser.
Bum is the jocker, the turning point, the center of the story, and his decision would shape the final of the series.
Now there’s a riddle: What side would Bum choose?
In many media, the victim, when not standing in the sidelines, mostly sees the wrong done to them and help the good win. In others they hurt themselves in their desperation or impotence of making a decision.
Koogi, however, likes to give us surprises and may give us a Bum willing to help Sangwoo even at the end of times. And I would completely understand it because in his madness, he has deluded himself of loving Sangwoo more than his own life.
I also believe Bum finds a way of not killing Seungbae and Sangwoo, yet I dare not make assumptions of how.
But everything will depend on how Koogi wants to finish the story!
End