Late ticket to heaven thoughts on barthtanrak's relationship and self-actualization (because ofc, as a queer raised Christian who is non-religious now)
(disclaimer: this is very freeform so…yeah)
Barth does not act as a character trying to take away from Tanrak's life (or to take Tanrak away from his life), but he instead begs, pleads for the right to add to it.
Barth has questions, he realizes Tanrak questions himself, and tries to get them to figure out the answers together. What's so interesting about this is that they have mostly separate needs in regard to their faith. So Tanrak's journey regarding his guilt is not connected to Barth in that sense because it's his internal tug-of-war with himself. His guilt is something he carries alone (just as Barth has his own) and never asks Barth to do so because he knows that their situation is no one's fault.
At first, their relationship is something he both finds solace/clarity in and feels tortured by. He attempts to release these feelings of tension through water (bathroom scenes, rainfall, waterfall) or fire (burning). (The scenes in eps 2, 3 (rain), and 5 to me felt like acts of self harm along with the purging/cleansing aspect but that's a wholly separate thought experiment.)
But Tanrak's “struggle” that Barth wants them to fight (with the hope of reaching the other end) doesn't make the “point of it all” not worth it; just bc their love is difficult to hold on to doesn't make it an inherently bad/wrong thing to go after/seek. Barth has this unbridled self-assured dialogue at the end of ep 5 partially because he has separated himself from religious expectations and this shame for being happy mindset (as “happy” sometimes includes making “selfish” decisions), but also because he is so sure about his love for Tanrak that he's given himself no other option but to save it, to save them.
By the time ep 6 happens, the guilt from choosing Barth over and over again is less on loving him in the first place and more so because he chose himself as well in the process. Adding more weight to what he's carrying as he leaves the Institution™ that raised him in order to do so. And the acceptance he craves to resolve some of this guilt is from the Father as a dad, not just as a priest. But Tanrak never even leaves his faith, instead understands it better at an older age because he knows himself more and has more love to give and receive.
He's told by Auntie Lek and Father to love himself at two different points in his life, and both characters feel like truly holy figures (for Father obviously but it's important that it comes across that way in the story here) with a certain proximity to God that tell Tanrak what he needs to hear. Barth is also framed as such from ep 1: a holy figure meant to push Tanrak towards self-actualization.
(Barth as God/a Godsend for Tanrak, Tanrak as God/a Godsend for Barth)
Tanrak is hugely focused on his destination (Heaven) without caring much about the journey (why would he, seeing as his options were limited and he had no foundation left), but Barth's character asks him symbolically and literally to slow down, take a look at his surroundings, and try to find beauty in the journey first.
Tanrak attaching his self-esteem to the religious Institution™, Barth coming in and challenging him to separate his worth from the Church—not to then have Tanrak reattach it to Barth, but to have him recognize himself and face himself.
The reason why the “path isn't easy” for Tanrak is bc “the path” so to speak, is what you make it out to be—for him, self-discovery and self-love. The shame, guilt, fear and loss are all unfortunate byproducts of that bc Religion™.
But his love with Barth, when they're together, is portrayed as something holy and symbolically protected by the very pillars people would use to condemn them. And the way they find a way out is to leave the Church™, the people, the microcosm weighing over their heads. They carve out a new space, a “land” for themselves because they have to, if they want to see where their relationship takes them. But they were able to take it that far with their own effort.
What ends up being so important in this show is to trust oneself and one's own feelings/heart (which is controversial enough imo as someone who grew up with a religious parent), but it's exactly what Tanrak cannot do at first, as his attachments were towards something that didn't/wouldn't fully accept him as is (esp not without him being forgiven or repenting first, which only serve to enhance his guilt). Barth accepts all of him unconditionally, and acts as a mirror for Tanrak to see himself better through. The show simply challenges why Tanrak should choose suffering in the name of reaching Heaven at some point when he could be happy and with love—something he has the right to do simply because he is alive and human. (The “fleeting worldly happiness” having the potential to last their lifetime and after–then daring to ask how that love would be worth any less than what eternal life in Heaven means for people.) Which is probably why both characters have, and are, such clear representations of love overall.
