The Devil Judge - Blog Posts

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

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 that if you think hard enough about this, Gaon’s reaction to Yohan’s death could totally be interpreted as a parallel to how he perceives the deaths of his parents (one dies first and the other immediately follows)…

It is not like that with Suhyeon for him. It is, in fact, like that with Yohan though.

Can you please explain the part whereby Gaon said soohyun was his world, and how that doesn't mean he loves her despite the confession.?

Hey Anon!!

I poured out the bulk of my thoughts in this post here! But in essence, Soohyun to Gaon is as Isaac to Yohan (which Writer Moon Yoo Seok confirmed in this post). He definitely loved her; there's no denying that, but that love was very different from what he feels for Yohan. The latter was so all-encompassing and wild, and painful that after Cha Kyunghee's death, which itself harkens back to Gaon's parents' death, our man ran to what was familiar and soft and comfortable, all of which Soohyun represented to him.

He was swept up in a maelstrom of emotion: all the death, the Foundation nabbing people, Soohyun not wanting to talk to him. He was essentially adrift and he can't be faulted for latching onto the only anchor he's had since childhood. But even with those flashback scenes of them as children, what we see is Soohyun playing more of a caregiver role than anything else. She blows on his scrapes, he comforts him when he's sad. She might as well be his sister or his mother, because she truly is his Isaac.

On top of everything, Gaon was under the false belief that Soohyun rescued him from the thugs when it was really Yohan, all that gratitude, and his need for comfort, and the fact that she came back for him despite being angry with him, manifested in him confessing emotions that were long dead if he was being honest with himself.

But Gaon was too confused to be honest with himself and he just didn't want to think at that point. So he didn't.

But at the end of the day. Gaon brought a knife to avenge Soohyun and a bomb to avenge Yohan. Gaon tried to die for Yohan twice.

Gaon's reaction when Yohan was announced as dead is so so telling. While Sunah collapses, he's silent, frozen, then he leaves, because he knows he'll be joining Yohan in death.

And even when Yohan's alive, when Gaon no longer has reason to be guilty anymore, he still wants to die with Yohan because it's better than living without him. Soohyun might have had a pretty confession, and a wooden kiss (really wooden) but Yohan won in the end, because by word and deed, Kim Gaon vowed before all of Korea that he would die with his Chief.

Plus when he thought Yohan was gone for the second time, he went through Yohan's bedroom and reminisced about them ogling each other. That's gay. We love to see it!!

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.

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