I have been asked multiple time why i want King Hak, when the obvious choice is Soo won or Yona, when being a king is not a reward or something good in the story’s narrative. It because I see Hak as the answer.
The story unravels to show us the fallacy of extremes. The questions are clear from very beginning, do we surrender to the divine guidance, choosing a passive, fragile peace? Or do we seek our own power and will, pressing forward through blood to grow and prosper? These ideas are represented and challenged through the characters and their conflicts. And after all this time, you see none of them is correct. Not Yuhon with his single-minded focus on power, not Il with his fear and surrender.
The answer is the balance, the balance between power and surrender, between war and peace, between violence and protection, the balance remanent of Hiryuu’s reign. It was absent between Yuhon and Il, and threatens to be absent between Soo won and Yona. Both showed a part of Hiryuu, Yona having his soul, while Soo won his blood, but none has his beliefs, the balance of his ideals. Or so we thought for a long time, until this parallel is complete:
The story is edging towards Yona and Soo won accepting each other, realizing the imperfectness of their ways, ways they did not choose for themselves, but are remanent of a past, wrong generation. Soo won and Yona are not, and should not, be their fathers. The story urges them to think and choose for themselves, to end the cycles of extremes and wrongs before them, It edges them to come together to create balance, to create what Hak stands for. This is so fitting and so foreshadowed considering their relationship with Hak. To them both, he is the goal.
Hak is their anchoring point, the thing they are knowingly and subconsciously stariving for, Hak is the answer.
