(CW: Mentions of rape)

Source: @welovelookism on twitter | Original post

Image transcriptions:

"My favourite character was Jiho tbh. I drew Jiho as the 'dark side of PTJ', so I expressed my inferiority, sadness, shame and all the thoughts that I couldn't speak up to others through Jiho. Basically my inner self. I originally had Jiho's own story ahead and his backstory, but the main story had so many big turns. Which is why Jiho's role kinda disappeared. He was the antithesis of Daniel Park. I can't really write them out because he is dead. Anyways, he had a definite role and clear situations in the story, but as I was writing the story I started to have another storyline and ending in my mind, making Jiho a little uncertain. I might be the saddest one to feel about Jiho's death. To conclude, he wasn't the type of guy to die in that way, he shouldn't have died like that. Readers were asking if Jiho is going to resurrect… but no, he is not going to. But 'this' guy is going to resurrect. He is going to resurrect in the most bs way possible. There is a character that is going to resurrect in Lookism. Jiho got a lot of hate when he made an appearence. I always felt sad about it but at the same time I liked it because I knew I wrote this character well. Jiho is like an inner self of everybody at least to a certain extent."

"Juvenile prison arc was the arc where I was so greedy about it. Tbh, there were a lot of things that weren't available for the Lookism age limit. Readers only saw 60% of what I wrote. It is actually very dark and full of speechless stuff, I knew Naver would ask me to edit it. But I just drew. I even drew the panels that I knew that would not be available to readers with all I got… because I was hoping if Naver would allow them. But they rejected them as I expected. Jiho actually got raped by Darius. I drew it to show that it is a very terrifying thing, but there were a lot of changes in the end. From removed dialogues to panels… a lot of edited panels. The Darius dialogue 'I will come back later' before Jiho's one when he fought got edited too. When Jiho said 'I made sure I washed motherfucker'. Darius's lone was originally 'I will come back after I wish'. That is why Jiho went for a revenge match against him, where Jiho's mindset of actually killing someone was fully completed. Jiho says 'I made sure I washed motherfucker' after seeing his lowest point of himself and his misery. It didn't really manage to connect with Darius's previous dialogue. The dialogue 'I made sure I washed motherfucker' is for Jiho to say to Darius, but I put a meaning of where Jiho washed his old self away. But I think not a lot of reader noticed it."

Although the translation seems a bit messy, there's a lot to unpack here. This is a very interesting piece from PTJ's writing.

The parallel between Jiho and Daniel has always been there. It's more obvious some times than others. Both of them suffered a lot at the hands of others and both of them were offered "a light" (a positive situation to make things better), but the main difference is: Daniel managed to hold onto it, Jiho didn't.

Daniel's insecurities are, most of the time, internalized. The one time he lashed out at his mother, it stuck with him and made him value her more than anything in the world. It's easy to like and relate to him, because he's the palatable side of trauma-related issues.

Jiho isn't. He always takes the worst decisions possible, he lashes out at his parents and friends, he acts selfishly many times. Even after attempting to murder one of his closest friends, he's desperately thinking of a way out for himself, not the guy in a coma. His arcs are frustrating to read through at first, because his worldview is so distorted and his actions are hard to digest.

And at the same time, it's clear Jiho really hates himself. From start to finish. But he spirals and never stops; even at his last appearance, he can't acknowledge that Daniel took better decisions (and ultimately is "a better person" in the world's eyes) and boils it down to him "being luckier".

So, he's easy to hate. Even if you relate to some of his attitudes, you might end up disliking Jiho, because deep inside you know those are wrong.

However, there's a deeper reason for that.

(Other than us being conditioned into empathizing with people who match Daniel's profile of mental illness and trauma and casting those like Jiho aside.)

And the reason is: people don't like seeing the ugly side of themselves on the screen. They don't like the senseless aggression, lashing out or other behavioural problems that are common in humans. Being unnatractive, being physically weak, being paranoid, taking bad decisions at every corner, misreading kindness, fucking up even the purest of relationships, those are all very human "flaws" that might not be easy to fix. Jiho checks all of those items.

That's the same reason so many people hate on Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Both of these characters are traumatized and abused, but the audience frequently turns to the "pathetic" or "insufferable" aspects of their personalities.