It'd be nice if Eunhyung Song was in a story I could more wholly recommend.
Heavy subject matter under the cut but elaborating:
I'm not going to pretend I don't have my social awareness gaps, and there is a cultural difference, so I don't mean to imply my thoughts may not be missing aspects of the overall story or that my hesitance may not have its flaws. One can guess I lean towards angst in fiction.
Eunhyung Song is from the manhwa Let Dai and she became such a meaningful character to me. She experiences an intense violent trauma and all the adults around her watch her sudden erratic shift of behavior and just write her off as a bad kid, and her character is so raw in its portrayal and she resonated so much with me as a hurting teenager who doesn't really know what to do. It's not vague or implied -- we see how angry she is, how anxious, how full of feelings she doesn't know how to deal with. It's very grounded in a grounded world.
She's a major character of the story with a prominent arc but she's not the main character and this is one of the biggest hang-ups. The true main protagonists are involved in a toxic BL storyline regarding delinquency, gangs and violence, and complicated trauma bonding. I'm not going to chide those who enjoy dark romances or find the crashing emotions to have value. There's a possible complexity of feelings and messy screwed-up relationships to observe. But one of these boys, as the leader of his gang, is remorselessly complacent in Eunhyung's gang rape and he's one of the deuteragonists the manhwa focuses on and he's who the other primary deuteragonist is in love with and this is the primary crux of Let Dai. The gang leader doesn't really feel like someone experiencing growing pains and struggling with immaturity to me - he does feel flatly remorseless in regards to this to me. The first volume even implies this gang also sexually assaulted the lovesick deuteragonist but in contrast to Eunhyung, it's not exactly reflected on. It's not that avoidance of thoughts/feelings isn't a genuine coping mechanism (it is) but it's something of a blank space in that particular character for me although I understand the trauma bonding aspect may be seen here too. And for myself, I did not personally care about any other character at all aside from Eunhyung but Eunhyung remains such a rich real character to me. Yet recommending Let Dai for Eunhyung's story when it's side-by-side with the focal storyline feels like a bit of a minefield.
The other big hang-up is Eunhyung's story does not have a happy ending. She meets her end in the tenth volume of the story and given one's likely have become attached to this struggling girl we're been following the journey of and rooting for, it's pretty devastating. (I understand for those who can't personally read DSoD's ending as ambiguous may share in this feeling. Although in the case of Eunhyung, her thoughts leading up to the end are also unambiguously heartbreaking.) I actually dropped reading Let Dai after her suicide. Years later I found it online to skim through the final five volumes. I think there's value in exploring the fallout and aftermath and guilt and remorse following such an event but, as stated before, I don't personally care about the other characters.
I still adore Eunhyung Song very much but there is an explanation of my personal hesitance regarding the overall narrative she's in.
