#baekmorae

Been rereading I Don’t Want This Kind of Hero lately

Original image below

**SPOILERS FOR I DON’T WANT TO BE THIS KIND OF HERO**

While I was reading idwtkoh, I was bothered that Baekmorae didn’t seem to acknowledge he didn’t have a concrete realistic plan to get Raptor back. He was clearly intelligent enough to know she would not go from hate to love (or maybe he thought she would? Considering he toed that line himself with his relationship with the Doctor. Respect for him as a person, and hate about what he was doing and making Baekmorae do).

Raptor also has a lover in Haze that Morae recognises is too important to her to ever kill. So why, despite Raptor’s clear dislike of Beakmorae, would he continue to try and make her love him? Why would he think she ever would when he continued to do evil and cruel things?

In the flashback Raptor basically said to Baekmorae that the happiness he felt killing someone was something he shouldn’t be ashamed of or die for (she didn’t mean killing in general of course, she meant killing someone who abused you specifically). Alongside internalising the immortal mindset from number 2 that it’s a right and an instinct for creatures to want a prosperous life, and that it’s natural for creatures to kill each other for their own survival (which just explains how they see humans as simple creatures that can’t be morally faulted for all wrongdoings, and is why they won’t necessarily hate a human who kills people). He mixed those and believed it’s natural to kill others for the sake of his own pleasure and desires. However, ultimately the immortals are selfless in complete contrast to Baekmorae. 

So to explain my theory as to why he may act this way toward Raptor despite her clear permanent hate:

It also bothered me that Baekmorae went from a nice caring person who could barely stand the thought of people being hurt. The kind of person that wishes to 'punish' himself by sleeping in that room to lay witness to it because of his immense guilt....and then...just becoming someone who would happily kill all people other than the doctor who caused that guilt so quickly??

Baekmorae is someone who will just do what others tell him to. Specifically, what the people he respects will tell him to do. Even though his friends and basically siblings walked away after finding out about the experiments, he respected the doctor and number 2 more as people he should follow. He had the choice to leave, to report them, to fight for those tortured people. But he didn’t. He stayed. For the people he respected. He decided that was more important. If Number 2 told him to leave he would have. You could argue he lived with no will of his own. No 'selfishness'. 

And therefore, when Raptor came around and said, 'you can live for yourself, you can feel happiness and live despite doing bad things', he felt he could finally live 'selfishly'. He threw away any part of himself that was selfless and caused him pain in his trauma, his good natured heart, his love for children, his desire to teach the next generation, his guilt of others being hurt.  He has no mid-ground. He is other doing everything for others while sacrificing his own happiness, or everything for himself while sacrificing the happiness of others.

But is that completely true? What did he actually want and mattered most to him before he became a researcher? Probably to have respect from his teacher and the doctor. He wanted to be a teacher himself and liked children, so you could argue he gave that up selflessly for the sake of the doctor. But really it's more he had a greater desire to please the people he looked up to. He was still following his desires technically even if he thought he was being ‘selfless’. it just came at the sacrifice of his nature as a good person and his sanity. Maybe a part of the reason he stayed as a researcher was because he felt the actions of the doctor and number 2 were his responsibility because he continued to respect them despite their horrid actions. 

What is most interesting to me is that he hasn't changed in many ways despite it looking like he did a 180. His insanity and mind break led him to throwing away his past self to live selfishly in the way Raptor specifically told him to. And that's the catch isn't it? 

He is STILL DOING WHAT PEOPLE TELL HIM TO. 

He still isn't making decisions and acting based on what he wants necessarily. He still, still, will only live the way specific others tell him to. 

So if he doesn't have Raptor anymore, if he has to accept she hates him and won't ever come back, that he does not have her approval (the approval of someone he respects, which mind you, seems to be his biggest desire that has led to him throwing away important parts of himself. First teaching, second his empathy), 

Then what is he living for? 

During the time of the main story he cannot go back to teaching, he cannot go back to the doctor or his teacher which he killed. So other than raptor he has nothing else. What selfish desires could he actually strive for because she was his only purpose for becoming the way he is anyway. She was the one that helped him let go of his guilt as a researcher. If he doesn't have her to use as an excuse would all that guilt come back? Would it be worse because he didn't even save them, he killed them?

He has reached a point of no return. To protect himself from despair he must love her. He must get her back. Even if there is not chance at all. 

And therefore, he is blinded to his own reality. Not accidentally, or by force. He has chosen to blind himself from that truth. 

The truth that he is a husk that made many mistakes and threw out his individual motivators to do what others told him, who made that same mistake again to kill tortured lab rats because someone told him to chase that pleasure. Who tells himself he is selfishly going after his desires. 

And it IS selfish. But in the same ways he acted ‘selfishly’ before. To get that approval from people he admires is above ALL ELSE. 

Ahaha, who keeps re-reading some chapters for 'I don't want this kind of hero'? Sounds like me. The webtoon makes more sense when I read it again a second time. There were so many things I missed out.

Anyway I was thinking, what if No.2 had the chance to go back? Like he meets someone who's able to send him back in time and he jumps at the chance but in the end, he chooses to disappear from Baek's life altogether.

Time travel AU //

The doctor doesn't come out from his room one day and the kids in the orphanage were worried. They found him sobbing horribly in the dark and Baek watched him, thinking 'Poor doctor, I wonder how to cheer him up.'