omg i never shared my long ass analysis here that i wrote after reading hand jumper episode 106.. well i suppose it couldn't hurt, extremely wordy ramble beneath the cut
i think this panel is SUPER underrated for how much it sums up sayeon's entire deal and her conflicts of motivation.
after being so nicely informed by ryujin, she understands on a rational level that the concepts of "kindness" and "empathy" are what shaped the seemingly illogical actions of mr pak, yesol, and juni—however, she can't understand or relate to them in an emotional and personal way. to sayeon, they ARE concepts. they aren't feelings she has, she isn't burdened by them, her self-interest always comes first. sometimes this causes her guilt, and she may even find it to be a difficult choice to make, but she always protects herself first. she is not the "self-sacrificing" type.
but then, notice how immediately after listing them, she is compelled to say to herself that they are good things. they're values society upholds, or at least teaches! of course they're good! and yet, her true feelings peek out: they are, in her own words, "pervasive". she can't keep a mental straight face calling such things good. to her, they're a flaw. a weakness, a poison, something that could be exploited and put her in danger. it's a weakness she's purged herself of, and seemingly long forgotten. this is a constant theme with sayeon's character; every action she takes is carefully calculated to give herself the maximum benefit out of any situation, through gaining and exercising power over others.
however, if she were to openly and truthfully express this, society would look on her with disgust. what a selfish monster! she only thinks of herself, she's not even human! so she lies to everyone, including herself. and she's had so much practice constructing the facade of the perfect girl, the "model citizen", in order to protect her from scrutiny [and the guilt she feels for existing as herself], that she's actually convinced herself on some level that the mask is real. this is so beautifully summed up in the two panels in ep. 100: first depicting her lying on the ground, getting whaled on my ryujin and feeling "so much better", then followed by her distressed and bent down in civilian clothes, disguised as a normal person, saying her physical pain distracts her from her inner guilt, that in turn stems from being abnormal. she isn't the same as everyone else, no matter how hard she tries to fit in, yet she still clings to that self-imposed distortion. she IS doing everything for the greater good, she DOES want to be a good person, because she must want to be a good person, right? only monsters want to be bad. sayeon's not a monster. so she lies.
this creates the incredible duality of sayeon's actions and mind. the things she does would be called atrocious by most, and at the very least distasteful. she manipulates her team—fellow aberrants who had no more control over being born aberrants than she did—who are also the closest thing she has to "friends". her comrades. people who embody the values she claims to believe in, like mr pak, are tools to her. when pak stood up to juni to defend yesol, he called himself a "model citizen", he'd come there to find and rescue his daughter, even turning away someone else who wanted to help because it was too dangerous. in that moment, which is all sayeon knows of him, he became the symbol of self-sacrifice. yet how does sayeon remember him? a "random stranger". he's not real to her, no more than anyone else is. she is fundamentally isolated from every living being around her because she can't see them as people, only as factors and variables that can either help or hurt her. it's a survival tactic she's employed since youth.
we also see her deep disgust for aberranthood. to her, the word aberrant is inherently tied to criminality. there is no acceptable aberrant, and there is no innocent one. when thinking of an example of the worst class of people imaginable, to juxtapose with the presence of kindness and empathy, that is where her mind goes. and to juni. of course, she hates herself for being an aberrant. she's been taught that hatred and fear all her life, and to try to assimilate and protect herself she's totally internalized it, and it colorizes her view of the whole world. she hates aberrants because society hates aberrants. she hates herself because the world hates her. she hates that she can't wipe it all away, and be a normal human; she craves control more than anything, because control is safety. if she controls everything, she can never be hurt.
that is why it stings so much, why it disturbs her that she miscalculated the fateful meeting between mr pak, juni, and yesol—because it shows she doesn't control everything. kindness itself has become her enemy, because she cannot predict it, and therefore she cannot control it. "everyone has it," sayeon says, except her. she's alone in the world, and she's scared. just like agent han, a clear narrative parallel/foil for sayeon, says that disrespect comes from fear, so does dehumanization. sayeon dehumanizes herself, because she is a monstrous aberrant and she must protect herself from her own nature. she dehumanizes everyone around her, because she has to rationalize them as pieces in a game that she must win at all costs.
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