diamond absolutes

And that makes his relationship with Yona so goddamm fascinating. Because through Yona's travels, we've seen all sorts of reasons why Su-Won kind of had a point! King Il may have sought peace, but his laissez Faire approach to governing let so much corruption and ruin slip through the cracks in his kingdom. His ideals were noble, but blindly pursuing peace with no regard to the effort of making that peace stable arguably caused as much damage as fighting endless wars would have. And Yona's had to accept, over and over again, that she needs to stray from her father's path and get her hands dirty to fix the messes he left behind. So really, Su-Won and her are on the same side now, fighting for the same ideals. But he's still the man who killed her father. And now Yona has to grapple with the realization that not only does she agree with a lot of the reasons that drove Su-Won to regicide, but that he may just end up being the king that Kouka desperately needs, thus kind of justifying killing her dad in the first place.

What Soo-Won did to Yona and Hak was just wrong, on a deep, fundamental level. However, he is practically an ideal king: capable of making choices in the best interests of the kingdom as a whole, without regard for individuals.

So the same thing that makes him a good king makes him a terrible person. He can be trusted with a kingdom, but not with the heart of the people.

Yet, while he is a good king and his motives for overthrowing Il did make sense, the reason he's been so successful lately is really that his coup partially failed. He didn't kill or manage to control Yona, the heir to the king he overthrew. His biggest mistake and his biggest victory.