I Have. Something To Talk About And Its Very Very VERY Important.

I forgot to say this last time. Baku, Gotak and I, we all know you visit your friend in the hospital and why he's there. But in my opinion it wasn’t your fault.

just here to confess that i am The overanalyzer. professionally. personally. academically. lovingly. in every way possible, even

i will read this now

i cant stand these two - now give me 3 more books about them

The Devil Judge in a nutshell.

why is skz hyunjin and chan’s new song “escape” genuinely So the devil judge gahan coded.

like. “by burning myself up i’ll melt your coldness,” “i can’t let you go ‘cause the world’s bout to break,” “i’ll take all this pain, can you promise me to give me all of you everyday?” LIKE. do y’all see that??? hello???

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.

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. 

the way TDJ approaches gender is SO interesting to me.

soohyun as the female love interest with a more traditionally masculine approach to problems (trying to take things on personally to keep gaon away from hardship, fighting with physical violence, literally being a cop) vs. gaon as the male main character with a more “feminine” take on the world (nurturing his plants and the prople around him, protective of children and the weak, how his work is in his words and he is really only ever allowed to be physical about his rage by the man he’s closest to).

then there’s yohan, who’s just Man at his peak i feel (gun-wielding, broody, aggressive, dark and powerful and dangerous… but misunderstood and chivalrous and a provider at heart… mr Beast from the hit disney film type beat) vs. seon-a, who is the actual definition of an ambitious Woman (her power coming from being underestimated as a woman, and how she forcibly empowered herself through the circumstances of being taken advantage of for her girlhood).

and then there’s soohyun and yohan being in explicit competition with each other for gaon everytime they meet while gaon and seon-a passive aggressively battle away in yohan’s home. LMFAO. enough said on that one i feel.

Kim Gaon is the most female coded character ever

Whatever Matt Stone is doing with Kyle is the opposite of healing your inner child. Giving your inner child AIDS. Putting your inner child in a migrant detention camp. Sewing your inner child into a human centipede. Like whats going on with you man do you need to talk to someone

this last addition is SO SO BARS i’m in love. yes, exactly; gaon chooses and thrives with the kangs from the start because that’s a place where he can comfortably act on his own based on what he wants and what he envisions. he has so much free will that he makes use of in that house, he has the chance to take charge in a way that he’s very comfortable doing, and he has so much influence on those around him — in contrast to his other relationships, where it is largely just him being influenced and affected by the choices and desires of the other person (min jungho, soohyun).

it’s honestly hard to blame yohan for wanting that family gaon had built up with them to be gaon’s first priority, but by pushing with that ultimatum — instead of, say, just talking to gaon and letting him make that choice — he’s effectively shown to gaon that even here, he does not have the power or equal standing to simply choose whatever he wants and be respected for it, not in the way gaon respects the decisions of the others around him (with a little nagging towards yohan sometimes but ultimately comes back to acceptance, at least up until that scene). and in being triggered into this realization, he pushes back against yohan, lashes out, walks away.

soon afterwards, he chooses soohyun, who dies barely an episode later. his choice is wrested away from him again by something completely out of his control, and it’s no wonder that being manipulated into thinking that there is, indeed, someone to blame for it, and that that someone is yohan, prompts such fury in him that he does go and confront yohan — who, actually, seems to understand and empathize with that anger very well, based on how he initially reacts to gaon trying to stab him.

gaon needs to heal and grow from this place of disempowerment, where his choices are so guided by those around him. he’s frankly a pretty static character throughout the show, and i think it’s done deliberately — that the people around him and his circumstances don’t allow him to really change or grow in a way that’s meaningful to himself. it’s only set up in the very end that he is entering new circumstances which will allow him to explore and exercise his power and free will. (god. i want a season 2 so badly.)

simultaneously, though, yohan is the same in some sense. despite how unilaterally he works and how in control of everything and everyone he seems to be, yohan is a man that’s been driven by his desire for revenge for years — that’s the ultimate “making choices based around the influence of others.” he needs to learn, too, how to take on a life he genuinely wants for himself now. in the time gaon spent with the kangs, yohan clearly realized how much he valued that sort of peaceful, domestic life with his loved ones; but yohan can’t rely solely upon gaon to realize that dream for him. if he wants it, he needs to put in the work to heal and prioritize that, too.

it’s why their choice to walk away / stay away from each other in the last scene of ep 16 is so powerful, in my opinion. no matter how much they still have left unsaid between them, and how deeply they still clearly care for each other, they know that both of them need to grow and heal in their own ways, separately. they want the best for each other — if not yet themselves — and so they choose to leave each other to their personal growing. to them, just getting to see one another, and ascertain that they are safe and healthy, is enough for now.

Kim Gaon as a character is so important to me.

This poor boy, whose parents committed suicide when he was so young, ends up being manipulated by almost everyone in his life who think they know what's best for him.

His mentor, who he saw as a father ends up manipulating him to further his own agendas and goals all while giving him the illusion of choice. Ga On has never truly had a choice.

And Soohyun too. Yes, she only ever wanted to keep him safe, and that is a nice sentiment, but in acting the way she did towards him she caged him in.

Maybe it's the Gemini in me, but if someone tries to limit my freedom of choice or influence my judgement in any way, I start to get suffocated. No matter what the sentiment behind their actions are. She didn't deserve the end she got, and she genuinely cared about Gaon but at the same time she ended up trying to influence him because she thought she knew what was best for him.

And then comes Yohan. Yohan is complicated (as morally grey characters tend to be), because for a good while in the beginning, he too tries to use (or at least wants to use) Gaon for his own ends.

But also, after he sees who Gaon truly is: a kind and caring and a firecracker of a soul, he is the first in Gaon's life to offer him a choice. And not the Min Jungho type of choice where it's just an illusion; but an actual choice.

And Gaon. Gaon only ever tried to do what he thought was right even while being pulled in a thousand different directions by different people. He tried so hard to make the right choices. He finally found the family he lost when he was young in Yohan and Elijah and Ms Ji. Lord knows I wouldn't survive if I found out that the fucker who drove my parents to suicide was living alive and well somewhere else with nothing on his conscience, and that I had been lied to for so long. And then, Soohyun, the last person who he has left from his past tied to his parents, his best friend, dies.

And then he loses his found family as well.

Kim Gaon, at the end of the show has absolutely no one left from his past; the Kangs, Soohyun, his parents and Min Jung ho are all gone.

All he has left is himself and a herculean task of rebuilding the justice system.

And how miserable must that be?