The Way TDJ Approaches Gender Is SO Interesting To Me.

I had to make this post after seeing this amazing post because this needs to be said for all new viewers of TDJ. 

I can actually confirm that the writer did intend for Yohan and Gaon’s relationship to be gay. 

Ji Sung said their relationship was one of “seduction”. At the Devil Judge press-con, he confirmed that his role was that of Mephistopheles (around the 23 min mark but I’m at work and can’t pinpoint rn loL) who “seduces” Gaon who is Faust. I’ve analyzed this in more detail in this post. 

Writer Moon Yoo Seok has been very open about his influences in crafting Yohan and Gaon’s relationship being: Beauty and the Beast, Goethe’s Faust, and the movie Let The Right One In .

All these influences are either romantic or homoerotic. All of them. 

The writer has also confirmed that Gaon occupies a traditionally female character and feminine gender role. He’s used tropes that we normally only see in heterosexual romances for Yohan and Gaon’s romance. A non-exhaustive list:

living together

snooping through the mysterious house of the man who’s whisked you away

undressing your partner and wound-tending

making him food, refusing let anyone eat unless said man returns

understanding him like no other, being the only one who sees through his facade to the loneliness within

choosing him over everyone else (ep 8 and then end of 15)

trying to die for him (twice)

defending him to the het love/past love, everyone around really

PINING, yearning (Gaon literally looked at the bed in ep 16 and thought back to shirtless Yohan okay)

taking care of each other

being vulnerable before and for each other

oogling him shirtless (both of them did this)

hand holding

DEEP. STARES.

sexy bomb defusal

love triangles (K and Soohyun)

Homosexuality is so taboo in Korea that the closest we’ve gotten to proper rep is the wlw couple from Nevertheless and Kim Seo Hyung’s character from Mine, and even then that’s because men find it easier to see women in love with each other than men being in love. And men finance drama production.

Writer Moon Yooseok (who has 25 years of writing experience) has literally done everything he can to get a queer story out there. Heck he’s even including stuff in the TDJ comic (spanking, anyone?) that wouldn’t fly on TV because he has more freedom there. 

Ji Sung and Jinyoung have known this from the start as well (that poster photoshoot), and it’s hard not to know that your character is gay when they’re staring at another for 95% of the show and undressing and oogling each other, or when the ending is 2 minutes of sappy staring. They knew. 

The director in episode 8′s bts at 6:04 as Jinyoung and Jisung rehearse Gaon ditching Min Jung Ho: “Gaon’s become cute now that Yohan’s here”. 

Jinyoung: nods.

Me: Okay we’re all in agreement clearly. 

Rather than new fans being disappointed for it not being gay enough, I hope they can uplift this for what it is: a serious attempt to bring a gorgeous romance onscreen. Writer Moon Yoo Seok really said lawful husbands. He’s been saying it from the beginning. 

gaon choosing to return to yohan again and again even though he fundamentally disagrees with him while everyone is convinced (including the man himself) that yohan is just an unchangeable Monster is peak “i can fix him” but also it’s so painfully beautiful. a taste of true unconditional love for two men who probably only ever really felt loved as a condition to behaving for the people they cared for.

Monstrous Things will befall the writer for this

not to start problems on purpose but the scene where yohan throws gaon out of the room when he says he’d die with him in the explosion is SO!!!!! like knowing the ending it just adds so much to yohans reaction like HE knows he’s getting out of this alive and truly has no intention to kill himself but GAON doesn’t know that and still says ‘I am willing to die with you/for you’ like imagine yohans reaction to that in his head, not only realizing that gaon is actually that much in pain that he is actually willing to die, to kill himself, and that much devoted to him that he is willing to die WITH yohan. It makes him throwing him out all that much more meaningful, like he’s so determined to ensure he lives, telling him ‘you might not think your life is worth anything but it is you idiot and I won’t let you throw it away’ like he could’ve easily just told gaon that he was gonna get out of the explosion alive, but I feel like he wanted to ensure that gaon knew he wanted him to live, regardless of whether yohan was gonna survive or not. Anyway. Much To Think About. Sorry for bringing this up randomly lol just needed to vent it to someone

start all the problems on purpose, babe. be the yohan you need to be in your life!!!!!!! lmao

but i feel the same!!!!!!!!!!! that whole entire scene is just so gut-wrenching and full of emotions, especially when you realize that yohan is upset and tearing up just after he throws gaon out. he literally doesn’t want to but he’s doing it because gaon cannot die with him if he doesn’t actually live.

but with that said, also god i know…. yohan’s never really had anyone choose him, and this man comes to find him during a moment where it’s truthfully, a 50/50 shot whether yohan makes it out alive. gaon literally telling him i’m going with you, and yohan turns quickly but then schools his facial expression because obviously, he knows the plan, and he can’t say anything.

and i think that’s also why it’s another reason yohan kept it from gaon because if he’d told him and yohan actually died, then what, you know? imagine having that false hope that he’d make it out and yohan doesn’t keep that promise. plus, i’m pretty sure yohan was thinking of elijah in that moment, too, but gaon certainly wasn’t. yohan absolutely wanted gaon to live and to do it in a way that wasn’t interfered by yohan or the elite. yohan was clearing the stage whether he lived or died, and him being upset at gaon’s words just shows you how much he realized what gaon was promising.

as you said, it’s not gaon willing to die for yohan. he was willing to die WITH him, beside him, partners til the very end. and that is so damn profound.

(me, my parents, my sister, and the baby are sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch)

baby, pointing at the light fixture over the table and signing "on": o.*

my sister: we actually can't turn that light on right now, because the lightbulb inside is burnt out! it needs a new one.

baby: ighbu.

sister: yes, lightbulb! granddaddy said after we eat he's going to climb up there on a ladder and change it, and then the light will come on!

baby: gadada! adda, uuu! ighbu o!

sister: exactly!

baby, signing "on" and pointing at the light and then my dad, with increasing urgency: GADADA ADDA UUUU. O.

my sister: we're going to finish eating first though, ok?

baby: nonono. O. gadada adda uuu.

[a split second goes by]

baby, pointing to himself: ba. adda uuu. ighbu.

me: you're going to climb the ladder and change the lightbulb yourself?

baby: dzyeah. *pointing to the buckle where he is buckled into the high chair* ububu.

me: unbuckle you? so you can change the lightbulb?

baby, highly businesslike: dzyeah.

*pronounced like "on" without the n

whc2 used the character that haunts the narrative trope and fucking delivered — a rabid (relatively spoiler free) 4am review

Ending off of S1, albeit (extremely) sad, I wasn’t expecting the S2 script to include much of Suho. The original webtoon had made it clear that Suho would be a passing memory for Sieun. It just so happens that Jihoon and Hyunwook had so much chemistry they rewrote the course of what would have been.

Then again, it’s not only because of the og webtoon characterisations that led me to believe Suho wouldn’t be mentioned a lot in S2. It’s because as much as sieun and suho clearly had a close relationship, what S1 never did was have sieun narrate his inner thoughts and emotions. Hence in fact, all of us viewers, were never privy to Sieun’s feelings apart from the incredible emotive acting on Jihoon’s part — we are never completely sure how deeply Sieun felt for Suho. Which is why I was so pleasantly surprised at how the writers made efforts for Sieun to recall Suho in every episode, and Beomseok, in frequent scenes.

Right off the bat in S2E1, we see Sieun have war flashbacks to S1 with Beomseok and Suho. Both Beomseok and Suho? Fuck yeah. We need to remember that both were close to Sieun and of course, impacted Sieun emotionally.

As the season progresses, it’s made clear that the writers prioritise featuring Suho and Beomseok, rather than have them appear in one off scenes. Beomseok always returning in flashbacks and of course, the dream sequence with Sieun in the boxing ring. We see clearer than ever now what morals and fatalistic viewpoints separate Sieun and Beomseok, even though they are both lonely souls hidden beneath everything.

We don’t even need to talk about Suho — Sieun physically and mentally cannot forget about him. Sieun continuously writes his feelings out on text messages which he then sends to Suho’s number, suffers from insomnia because of Suho, and is endlessly reminded of Suho when he fights.

It’s not easy to write a compelling “ghost that haunts the narrative” trope without it being too sappy, but god, the way WHC2 did it for both Suho and Beomseok was compelling and believable. Because of course, Sieun cannot simply forget about either of them. These two will eternally be locked into his reflexes — which the directing and script cleverly includes and remembers.

THIS!!!

if season 1 was a testament to sieun’s fight of self-determination — standing up for himself, punishing those who hurt him and his friends — and eventually realizing through beomseok’s plotline how damaging that sort of mindless violence can be, then season 2 is the portrayal of sieun’s reckoning with that, tempering down his viciousness, choosing force only when it is necessary, in an effort not to be cruel or do excessive harm.

it offsets so well with the baku-baekjin plotline — baekjin, a similarly intelligent and calculating boy who grew up bullied by others, who has that capacity for swift, harsh violence that sieun demonstrated all through season 1. but that’s not the person sieun is anymore, nor is it the person he wants to be.

“don’t cross the line” - that’s what embodies sieun’s approach to violence now. it’s why his takes resonate so much with his new friends at eunjang, who have all seen and felt very personally the harm of those who carelessly do so (jun-tae with hyoman, gotak with seungje, baku with baekjin). this is what broadly characterizes the motivations of our protagonists in s2, and it’s certainly a breath of fresh air in the vicious cycle they more broadly exist in.

"What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going, I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all"- The quote at the beginning of WHC.

And this is so perfect because:

This time Sieun didn't fight to avenge, he didn't to damage, to hurt, to win, he never fought for himself. Not once. This time, he fought to protect. And what makes WHC2 great is that you can actually SEE this difference in his fights this time. He is not vicious, just calculated, just enough to hold it at bay. He was calculating before, too, but this time it was subdued, quieter.

Park Jihoon truly is amazing as Yeon Sieun. Because everything this season, the way he acted genuinely showed the trauma, he embodied loss, hopelessness, not really belonging, the desperate plea to not get into a fight if he could avoid it, not to make the violence personal, Jihoon portrayed this all soo sooo well: from his body language to his eyes.

reblog to give your headache to elon musk instead

recently watched the devil judge (2021) for the first time and i truly can’t get enough of this guy. and also: his devil

beomseok is told and shown his entire life - by his bullies, by his abusive father, all the way back to the fact that he is adopted - that he is unworthy of respect, that he belongs beneath others, and that he deserves to be hurt for it. he’s trapped in a perceived reality of give-and-take relationships, hierarchical struggle between peers, and friendships built upon facing a “common enemy,” and his perspective on human interaction and “acceptable” violence is extremely skewed by what he’s had to live through.

it’s tragic. beomseok was not ready to be the kind of friend that sieun was to him and suho, and beomseok was not ready to be friends with suho - a person who viewed them all as equals even as he echoed words and wounds all too familiar to beomseok’s past. beomseok was fighting and flailing, trying to find his place in the hierarchical world he felt he was stuck in, trying to battle his way to earning respect; he was not ready to recognize the genuine care and sense of equality that sieun and suho provided outside of that worldview, because that was not the kind of world he had ever experienced, and because his worst fear was to be the outsider. in actuality, he needed to heal his wounds and grow his self esteem in ways that didn’t rely on external validation. but… well.

in another story, beomseok’s arc could have been taken as a broken kid standing up for himself, and things could go very differently. but within the context of this show - delving into the damaging spiral of the cycle of violence - beomseok is punished for using the violence that he’s faced his whole life as a tool for his self-determination. he’s rebelling against what his father and bullies have told him, which should be something empowering. and yet because he does it in the wrong way, it all falls apart. his defensiveness and his fear and his resentment take him way too far into violence that comes to extreme ends, and his inability to take accountability (because genuinely, who ever even tried to do so in his view, other than sieun?) only feeds into blame shifting and worse behavior.

and none of this excuses him, and it doesn’t take away the very harmful consequence of his mistakes (suho!!!! suho nooo!!!!!) — but it’s very, very human. beomseok made mistakes, and the narrative didn’t let him get away with them whatsoever. there is no happy ending in continued violence, and so there is no happy ending for beomseok in this either.

“we need more complex male characters in korean dramas!!” you couldn’t even handle him.

BRAIN SNIPPET……

*shaking screaming* (hootering and hollering) (a WIP that might be expanded on??? i haven’t properly written in ages idk if i can execute the vision)

HELP. Me. they are making me unwell 👆

and another lil segment. a treat.

(tagging a few people who i hope may be interested to see my writing maybe perchance >_< 🤞: @clawbehavior @gayautisticraccoon @gaylilsherlock )