Sorry to bother you again and apologies if it’s been asked already, but: what do you think of the take/opinion that Jinu’s death is tragic and even in bad taste due to him being killed by his abuser?
Hmm, so like... narratively or metanarratively?
I think it's pretty complicated, but let me try to break it down.
I do think that there's an element of tragedy to Jinu's death. I don't think it's the only thing going on with Jinu's death narratively speaking, but it is one of the things that the narrative is pushing. Jinu's death is meant to be sad. Even though it acts as a solution in many ways--he saves Rumi from Gwi-Ma, his soul gives her a boost, he's able to have a moment to apologize to her and do something selfless for her, and he is, in a sense, "freed" from Gwi-Ma--it is not the ideal solution.
Bluntly, K-Pop Demon Hunters is a kids' movie; they're not exactly subtle with the themes and messaging they're trying to put across to the audience. And one of those themes that to me feels obvious (and that you know I've beaten a dead horse about, lol) is the theme of "self-acceptance is good and self-hatred is bad".
Like, I could go through and point out all the moments in the movie where the narrative portrays Jinu having hope that he can turn his life around as good, and portrays Jinu believing that he deserves to suffer as bad, but like... do I need to? I would just be repeating the entire arc of the movie (and many of my previous posts, lol). He delivers the theme of the movie when he says "if hate could defeat Gwi-Ma, I would've done it a long time ago," he is blatantly wrong when he tells Rumi, "You're a demon, just like me, all we get to do is live with our pain, our misery... it's all we deserve".
--Which, I know Jinu antis hate to hear it, but I really do think that a part of the movie that requires consideration when we're analyzing it is "as Rumi, so Jinu." The two of them are character foils, and it seems to me to be a very consistent pattern that if something is true for Rumi, it must be true for Jinu as well. If she is doomed, he is doomed. If she can have hope, he can have hope. The narrative seems to agree with this, I mean.
Yes, Rumi projects onto Jinu and Jinu projects onto Rumi. That's obvious, and there are times when they're clearly wrong about those projections. But from a narrative perspective, the reasoning for the two of them continually talking as if their fates are linked is because these two are being compare-contrasted against each other (as narrative foils usually are) to help the audience realize that despite Jinu doing bad things that Rumi hasn't done, he and his struggles are not that different from Rumi's own, and they do not have a markedly different solution. Which is to say, if acceptance of flaws is the solution for Rumi, it must also be the solution for Jinu. And vice versa.
("But Maia," you say, "How do you know that's the reason Rumi and Jinu are being compare-contrasted? Couldn't the movie be pointing out how they're different and Rumi is wrong about the two of them being the same?" --To which I say, the movie could be pointing that out, but if that were true I think they'd be framing different things as bad and different things as good. Again, Jinu believing Rumi and having hope that he can change is continually framed as a good thing. Framing, framing, it's all about framing. When the two of them empathize with each other it is framed as a good thing.)
...So back to Jinu's death: he doesn't deserve it. The narrative doesn't believe that he deserves it. That's the tragedy, the sadness undercutting all the solutions that his death provides. Rumi's first instinct is to say "No, I wanted to set you free," and we are narratively meant to agree with her because Rumi has figured out the solution to the entire movie at this point. She has gotten to the place where the narrative wants her to be. She is, in this scene (not just Jinu's death, but the entirety of WISL), correct, and we're supposed to understand that. She wanted to set him free. So it's a tragedy that he dies.
Do I think it's in bad taste? I think it's tragic. Bittersweet, maybe, but there's definitely that strong element of tragedy in there. I don't think it's very much "in bad taste" because I don't think the narrative is trying to say that what happened was fair. If they had pushed that angle, yes, I'd think it's in bad taste. But I just don't see it, given the themes and messaging of... the entire movie, lol.
There's also--I've mentioned this before, but I think that Jinu coming back will resolve this concern pretty neatly. And I do think he's coming back. I mean, you know that. I don't like to speculate in general, but at this point, I really do think he's coming back, given the way his death was left so carefully open, the way the team behind kpdh talks around the possibility of him coming back in interviews, given the dokkaebi motif on Rumi's new sword, given... everything. So with that in mind, if we consider this as a stepping stone in his journey instead of the ending, it comes across differently, you know?
Anyway, I do think that the way some fans of kpdh talk about Jinu's death is in bad taste. It's something I've alluded to before on this blog, but... haaa it can leave a very bad taste in my mouth, sometimes. Saying that a person who made a bad choice due to being in poverty and starving, who was then entrapped under an abuser for hundreds of years and given incredibly limited agency, "deserves" to die at the hands of the thing that ruined his life and drove him to make every bad choice he did in the first place... ooh it makes me mad. I've said it before, but Jinu's not a dog, people ought to stop talking about whether or not he was far enough gone to put down. I also think it betrays a refusal to think critically about how people who are marginalized and ostracized by society are, structurally, given limited agency and are often forced into making difficult and sometimes poor choices. Which makes the statement "he deserved to die for what he did" come across to me as classist, bluntly. Did Jinu have choices available to him? Yes. Did he have any good choices available to him? No. He made choices that enabled him to survive--not even thrive, just. survive. And I think that many Jinu antis are entirely unwilling to sit with the full weight of that fact.
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