No fr... it also plays into this fear of "even if they love me now everything could all go wrong"
I think Mincheol is awful obviously, but there are layers to this as you said. I'm genuinely curious to see exactly what went wrong. Why is he the way he is? How could everything go wrong when they were so in love?
Don't we all worry a little bit that the people we love and trust so much will stop loving us?
I don't think this manhwa is perfect by any means but i think it does a good job at giving Mincheol depth without excusing his actions. The story seems pretty clear that he's an incredibly bad and selfish partner as of the present.
You nailed the fact that this happens in real life too. I could say this is the very definition of "If you saw the signs, why did you stay? Why didn't you leave?" And the very people who would tell this insensitive phrase are the people who as if know their whole story.
yeah, thats why i get na haesoo when she keeps being hesitant towards taeha in the present…bcs mincheol was once also so very in love with her and look at the way he changed..this manhwa is so relatable makes a lot of sense. shame for those people who cant be patient with the past scenes, i love them, gives the chatacters depth
I actually like that the author is giving us Mincheol’s backstory. It makes him more layered as a character and lets us step into Hae Soo’s perspective. I hate when characters are written flat and two-dimensional, it feels boring and unrealistic.
Here, the author is showing us why Hae Soo fell in love with him, why she took on his debt, why she worked herself to exhaustion, and why she worried about him even when he treated her terribly. Every time he was cruel, she remembered the good moments, and that made it harder to walk away. That feels true to life: people who cheat, lie, or disregard you usually still have a side that’s kind, even loving, and it’s exactly those glimpses that keep us forgiving them when we know we shouldn’t.
Because of this, I empathize with Hae Soo more. And I respect her even more for eventually finding the strength to respect herself and leave him.
I now also understand where Micheol's insecurity is coming from. He failed to live up to any of the promises he made her when they were teenagers. He had some crazy hero complex which got crushed when reality hit. And to feel better about himself, he chooses to believe he “sacrificed” for her, even though she never asked him to. He chooses to degrade her, so she doesn't leave him, because he knows she can do better if she wanted to and that scares him. It is honestly sad to see how he changed from being a good guy to absolute trash. But that also happens in life.