The dude: "Go with the flow"
Main character: "No"

The dude: "Objectify people for your own gain for future"
Main character: "No"

The dude: "GO STUDY"
Main character: "No"

I think the real problem is that the Author had to make the new guy actually bad, Protag was literally ready to break all ties with Hamin, since joonwoo suffers from severe self hatred and for now only lowkey depression.

Boy, this new villain relates.

I already expected this would be coming, but not in a very twisted way. Props to the author, good manwha! ?

The new guy pisses me off, but once again, he isn't wrong.

Props to the author, I don't think I ever related to antagonists so much before.

A legit psychopath, huh? I didn't see that coming. Certainly better than I was expecting from the end of the previous chapter.

@nfzeta I'm just shaking my head in disbelief. The goalposts have never been moved. My post right before this has been my consistent point throughout this whole exchange.

If anyone has failed to refute anything, it's you. You don't question your judgments. You're literally steeped in the same bias that Joonwoo has.

Of course he treats his old ENEMY differently? How the hell was he the enemy BACK THEN? Taewon only became an enemy in the same time frame as Lila. Again, you're literally inventing crap. And I never said that they were "friends". I specifically said "friendly/friends" to emphasize that they were NOT antagonistic back then.

The problem is that you consistently see Taewon as ALWAYS this enemy. For what reason? Because you're biased. And what's the reason that Lila isn't in the same position? Because you're biased.

It's fucking disgusting that you call other people trolls when it's you that is the troll.

@givemersspls No I'm calling you a troll because you're pretty much never refuting anything and even agreeing you may be wrong but just moving the goalpost or coming up with things that aren't there. Of course Junu treats his old enemy differently (no they were never friends, it was specifically said Junu was only friends with Taeyang and was barely even in the group)
They're treated differently because they are different. You speak of excusing myself when that's all you've been doing.

This will be the last because I should really stop feeding trolls.

@nfzeta I wasn't trolling, and it sounds like you've given up. It's a simple concept. Kim Taewon and Seo Lila are in fairly similar positions. Despite their similarities, Joonwoo treats them (and the author depicts them) very differently. That is bias. You're just calling me a troll because you no longer have a way of excusing yourself.

XD was starting to lose hope that something was gonna happen

@givemersspls lol you're just trolling now. I don't know why I thought otherwise in the first place.

@nfzeta But that proves the point. The only reason Taewon's motivation doesn't matter is because Joonwoo doesn't care. The only reason Lila's motivation matters is because Joonwoo does care. That's the bias that I'm talking about.

And your example of motivation in murder is nonsensical because this isn't a court of law. I'm not being trivial here. These are human emotions and ability to empathize. In a court of law, the law literally says X matters while Y doesn't matter to meet the definition of a crime. That's not the same with human emotions and the ability to empathize. You can have a myriad of reasons why you might empathize with someone or not, which is very different from the straightforward X matters while Y doesn't matter. Here, Joonwoo's reason for caring about Lila's motivation and not Taewon's can most easily be explained with his bias.

---

On the prejudice/bias part, you misunderstood. I said "Prejudice is bias. That's what it means." That means all prejudice is bias, which is exactly what you agreed upon. I NEVER said that all bias is prejudice.



Yeah, okay, whatever. I offer actual proof with how they're drawn, and then you just say this. Whatever.

and the rest of that paragraph.

I just fundamentally disagree. Look back at where Joonwoo talks about how he, Joonwoo, doesn't think that making friendships that way, by just looking for benefits, is a good method of making friends. He is not able to explain WHY, clearly. He is left almost speechless in the face of Sungouk. However, he still says things that most people would inherently agree with. He says the things that you don't have to think about to agree with. Contrast that with, in this case, Sungouk, where you have to actually think about what he says if you're to agree with him. Joonwoo has the easier position, the more emotionally appealing one.

and the rest of that paragraph.

Wow, you missed the obvious fact there. He was at least friendly with Kim Taewon as well. He was obviously closest with Lee Taeyang, but he was still friendly/friends with Shin-pig and Kim Taewon and all the rest.

And again, you're proving my point here. You keep saying Taewon's motivations don't matter to anyone but himself. The only reason that you can say that is because you don't care about his motivations. Again, why don't you care about his motivations? You don't care simply because you don't care. There is nothing further than that. That is the bias that I speak of. You care about Lila's motivations because you want to care about hers, but you don't care about Taewon's because you don't want to.



I want to pay special attention here. You're not wrong, but you're not right here. You are correct that for Taewon's motivation to matter, it would have to become part of the main story. Why, though? Why is that the reason that it has to matter? You're missing the fundamental, underlying question here. The only reason it's not ALREADY part of the main story is that Joonwoo doesn't care. It would be part of the main story if he did, but he is too biased to care about it.

You have to dig deeper and ask why is it that way. That's what I've been getting at throughout all of this.

@givemersspls
Let me put it this way if you don't understand.
Say someone kills someone else. If it was in defence of themselves then the motivation matters. However, it wouldn't matter in many other situations because its still murder and they'll still go to jail. It wouldn't matter if they became a muderer because of an escalation of the situation during robbery or because they just are a killer and felt the urge.
Its a common thing that the impact of motivation matter more or less depending on the circumstances and the general ability of others to be able to or want to empathise with them. In Junu's case, Taewon's motivation didn't matter and seeing as its very limited in coverage it also doesn't matter much to the story. Lila's would have been the same if it wasn't for her affect on Junu and the sympathy he has for her situation.

It only sounds like that to you because of your extreme bias against her. I don't like Lila, AT ALL. Heck, I didn't even like Hamin much other than earlier chapters.

"Prejudice is bias. That's what it means. Prejudice literally means prejudging. Clinging to his old judgment in the face of new information IS prejudging! "
This (bolded part), by definition, is wrong. Prejudice is bias but not all bias is prejudice.


No you just want things lopsided against Lila.



He's not portrayed as being right, he just comes off as being right because as a reader most agree, even if subconsciously that Sungouk is wrong. Its why even people who may agree with some of his points still think he's being portrayed as evil. Both characters just stated their own positions and its only MC sympathy and innate morals that determine who was seen as right or wrong there.


Again you miss the obvious facts. For Taeyang they were friends before and the reason Junu hated him so much was because of that friendship that was crushed. The reason he partially squashed their beef is the motivation mattered, it mattered that he didn't turn on him for some foolish reason or some other reason he couldn't empathise with. You're basically proving my point for me here.
On the other hand Taewon's motivation means nothing to anyone but himself or someone who was similarly bullied and even then, hearing his motivation would only make them hate him more because if the other person was also suffering from unjust treatment and didn't come to the same conclusion then it only makes it look like Taewon would be innately more evil or just weak. I mean I really don't get how this is so hard to understand.
For Taewon's motivation to matter it would have to become fully a part of the story, other than just a flashback. There would also need to be an arc for him or at least his character and motivations would have to be present and in effect for people other than himself. That hasn't happened here.

@nfzeta Uh...no. Your whole comments, plural, sound like you want to forgive Lila by inventing excuses.

Do I expect every character to be portrayed the exact same way? Wrong question. I want more balanced. Yeah, there's bound to be differences. This is not mere differences. This is lopsided and skewed to hell in favor of Lila. There's a difference between random and clearly skewed. This is clearly skewed.

Prejudice is bias. That's what it means. Prejudice literally means prejudging. Clinging to his old judgment in the face of new information IS prejudging! This is just really weird that you're trying to argue this. That evidence is easier to see in hindsight, and it was counteracted already. Sungouk doesn't go to the same school anymore, and he explicitly said he had no way of contacting Joonwoo to apologize.

Again, yes, Joonwoo isn't always right. The difference is that he is ultimately right. He ultimately carries the day. Even here, with this confrontation, he is shown to not have a good response to Sungouk's opportunism. Joonwoo is still depicted as having the moral high ground. That's easy to see that his words are appealing, that you shouldn't make friendships just to use people. Even if he can't put it into words, he is still portrayed as being right.

Again, your statements about their motivations shows your bias. You're asserting that Taewon's motivations aren't important. It's only unimportant if you don't want them to be important. Let's give an example. Lee Taeyang bullied Joonwoo and beat him up for about a year because Taeyang thought Joonwoo betrayed him. After the motivation for this was cleared up, they had somewhat of a reconciliation. Obviously not a full on back to friendship, but they were able to come to an understanding. Why is that impossible for Kim Taewon? Why is his motivation not important? It's because you don't want it to be important. You don't want to recognize that it could change the story.

@givemersspls
You're whole comment just sounds like you wanted Lila to get a more rotten deal, just because.
Do you expect every character to be portrayed the exact same way? That doesn't happen in any story and never will. Lila isn't always shown crazy because her craziness is simply not as on the sleeve, its part of her character. Just because it isn't shown 24/7 doesn't it make it any less so. In fact most would say it makes her more crazy.

Also Junu wasn't prejudice against Sungouk but just plain bias. He didn't pre-judge him, he just clung his old judgement. Also there was evidence, though its easier to see in hindsight, Sungouk never went to apologise and yet spoke as if he had been hoping for that chance. Its why he was willing to walk away, because he wasn't right. He thought Sungouk's actions were backed by malice just like all the rest and the fact he let him talk him down only goes to show his flaws as a character. Junu also isn't always right, as seen by plenty of bad decisions and bad judgements he's made in his decisions and about people up to this point. Of course everything won't work out totally negatively for him as the MC but it isn't like he's always given the good shake. He gets a lot of sympathy as the MC not necessarily positive light. Even with his interactions with the student president he's painted quite negatively quite often.

Both their motivations aren't important because the story is barely affected by finding out the motivations of Kim but affected by his actions and for Lila her actions were just as much a contribution factor to the story as her motivations, because of what they were. If you just had her actions but not her motivation then Junu would have hated her and probably never gotten out of his slump. If you had her motivations touched upon but her actions didn't happen Junu would still have recovered out of his slump but would have never met his old enemies. The only bias here is that you aren't seeing the obvious.

You're again mixing objective character traits with subjective reactions. Junu not caring about motivatiosn isn't a character trait. It was a subjective reaction to what happened and nothing more. In no other area of this story does Junu not care about reasons for people's actions.

Lila is a bait and switch character because that's a common character quirk used in story telling to create conflict. How could Lila be a bait and switch character due to Junu, now that's ridiculous, its an author controlled aspect.

Oh, look, Hisao collapsed again.

@nfzeta It would be very repetitive if I went line-by-line, so I'm summing up some points here.

I still disagree on the depiction thing. Lila is still painted in a pretty and charming light despite her outright criminal behavior. It wasn't just her gloating when she was having Joonwoo beaten up. It was also when she was "joking" about killing Hamin. It was also when she was lying to his face about her past and her ex-boyfriend. Yeah, in more recent chapters, we have obviously seen her flip-flop between overtly "serious" and "joking", and then it's left ambiguous whether she's serious or not. That alone proves my point. The fact that she has even some ambiguous moments shows that the author makes her look at least partially acceptable. Contrast Taewon who always looks crazed and maniacal. That's the difference.

Then, on the issue of Joonwoo being the main character and the author going along with him, you missed the point. It's that ultimately Joonwoo is proven right. Look here with Sungouk. At the time of his first re-encounter with Sungouk, Joonwoo had no reason to believe that Sungouk was lying. Hamin vouched for him. Sungouk himself apologized. Then came Sungouk's evil villain rant where he explains everything (in and of itself really weird and nonsensical). Ultimately, Joonwoo's straight up prejudice, literally pre-judging, of Sungouk was proven right even though it was against all evidence to the contrary.

In the same way, then, his prejudice against people like Taewon and in favor of people like Lila gets viewed in a positive light. Yeah, no duh there are cringe moments. No duh Joonwoo wavers and does stupid shit. We've seen that time and time again. Ultimately, though, Joonwoo is still the main character, and he is painted in an indisputable positive light. That makes his actions, including his prejudice, get painted in a positive light as well. Let me ask this. Yes, obviously there are exceptions, but isn't it extremely common to root for the main character in any story? That's what's happening here. Regardless of whether he's ACTUALLY right or wrong, the main character gets a lot of positive light simply by virtue of being the main character.

You misunderstand what I meant by motivation. I'm saying that if Taewon lacked a motivation to participate in beating up Yuri, then he wouldn't have beaten up Yuri. That's very straightforward and undeniable in any kind of setting. That means that his motivation is important. You say it's just his actions that are important while it's Lila's motivations that are important? Uh...no. That's your bias in favor of her and against him. Why is it that both of their actions AND motivations can't be important? Your only argument is that Lila's part is important because of how similar she was to Joonwoo. Yeah, no. If we actually look at it, in the first place, her situation was not really similar at all. In the second place, we can reasonably find similarities between Taewon's situation and Joonwoo's. Both of them were literally being beaten by people through no fault of their own (Taewon's father and Taeyang after his falling out with Joonwoo). I can go on, but the point here is that you're ignoring the similarities in favor of the differences that you want to emphasize and enlarge.

No, Joonwoo very clearly does not recognize those as his motivating factors. Again, I don't care what your reasons are. You ruined the lives of three innocent people, and that is unforgivable. Lila has reasons, obviously. She ruined the lives of innocent people, obviously. Joonwoo should therefore not care what her reasons are. That's the simple and direct fact of the statements. You're saying it's Joonwoo's personal reason for hating him and motivations won't change that. You mean his own personal bias? That's literally what it is.



I quote this one specifically because of just how ridiculous it is. You don't see how there's bias in that? You don't see how you're trying to make up a difference there? Why is Taewon ALWAYS the enemy? Why is Lila this bait and switch character? Because... It's because of Joonwoo's bias. It's because he sees one as always his enemy while the other is easily forgivable.

@givemersspls

That's exactly the thing though, it doesn't happen with her. She 'gloats' for like 2 seconds when she first betrays Junu along and then snaps when he pokes at that not being her. Kim on the other hand is repeatedly shown to be not only be delighting in his pain but also in his plans to inflict further pain.


Only it can't, it was even said specifically about him and not the others.


Not being as contained as others is exactly what a loose cannon is. Also it does, it says that about most of the group and even him especially.


Her maybe being serious is touched upon right then and there, both in the atmosphere and Junu's reaction. Only she turns around and says she's joking and Junu shows no signs of truly believing her. The fact that she switches back only links back to her previous flip flopping behaviour.


If you think the author always goes along with Junu then you have missed a lot. All those cringe moments and down arcs are basically the author putting him and his opinions through the ringer. The same happened in the Lila arc. The author is following his journey but he's definitely not only on his side.


Your not only contradicting your earlier statements by basically saying he's very motivated in messing with the main characters but also that reasoning is very weak considering its so indirect. Lila's part was major because of its direct similarities to Junu as a character at the time, while for Kim his motivations don't matter, at least not yet, only his actions do. Using your logic you could say that about all characters, even minor ones, if they were ever covered or hinted at, even in the slightest.




You said she, also it would be more that 'its a belief that he has the right to spread the unfairness because he experienced it'.


He does recognise those as his reasons. Its even what's touched on in these more recent chapters. As for whether or not the author was on his side is easy to see because as usual he was portrayed as basically being overflowing with anger. By saying he doesn't care what his motivations are Junu is admitting its pretty much his personal reason for hating him and motivations won't change that. Also even back then he explained why he thought she was lying and why her betrayal wasn't enough to totally turn his back on her. The very reason I've been constantly putting in many of these comments, she helped him work through a difficult time and they were dating and also his want to 'save' her, similar to Sungah.


The reason for that is simply because Lila was supposed to be a bait and switch character and was then dropped from the story after for a while. On the other hand Kim was always Junu's enemy from the time of Yuri's bullying and was brought in earlier as well. You're attributing additional motivations to something that's just due to screen time and situation.

Only bad logic of being an opportunist is when people figure out who you are they wont want to associate with you