The Joker and Two Face - I think KS was influenced by these famous comic characters, and also by The Dark Knight (the film, which features both characters).

Examples of The Joker theme in KS:

Both Sangwoo and Bum are associated with story elements and imagery that invokes The Joker. In chapter 9 - in the “cops and robbers” card game where the stakes are their lives and “the one who holds the Joker at the end is the robber,” note that the Joker card shown is peering through binoculars and by representing a robber, this could be a reference to Bum’s stalking, robbing possessions from those he stalks, and breaking and entering into Sangwoo’s home. “You’re going to be the masters of your own fate! What a joke! But it’ll be exciting, like a rollercoaster,” Sangwoo says, but by calling it a joke, he indicates sarcasm, a lack of sincerity, and reveals that he either finds it amusing knowing their fates are subject to him or he finds the whole idea of anyone mastering their fate (or controlling it) a joke. He turns things around in chapter 10 so even though it looks like the “cop” wins, the “Joker” actually survives/wins/”gets away” - a very Joker thing to happen. In the Summer Special (chapter between 29 and 30) there is killer clown imagery, where Sangwoo is a clown with a knife chasing Bum but instead of killing Bum, he turns back into Sangwoo. This Sangwoo as the killer clown imagery appears again in chapter 37, when Sangwoo puts on a killer clown mask - one with a gruesome smile and green hair - in the amusement park gift shop and says, “You’re supposed to scream when you’re scared. We’re here to relieve stress, not make things worse. [...] Telling you to scream on purpose feels weird.” Most of you probably know, but The Joker is also referred to as the Clown Prince. And in hindsight, the sledgehammer - a type of “mallet” -  used in chapter 2 could be an incredibly subtle reference to the mallet weapons used by Joker or Harley Quinn. The abusive relationship between Sangwoo and Bum is another similarity, with the Joker and Harley Quinn’s relationship being an abusive one, as well as the fact that both relationships feature two criminals committing crimes together. The Joker is also known to laugh hysterically and maniacally and Sangwoo would often display hysterical laughter (often while crying) but Bum has also been shown to laugh hysterically at the end of chapter 66 while hiding his face (and possibly tears) in a bouquet distinctly featuring the colors purple and green (The Joker’s colors). And Bum and Sangwoo’s outfits tend to usually have an element of purple or green. Bum’s also shown getting therapy in chapter 66, which brings to mind how the Joker and Harley first met. Bum also expresses an interest in seeing Sangwoo in the hospital where he is under police custody, which if you remember in The Dark Knight, sneaking into a hospital and escape from police custody are both things the Joker does. Also prominently featured in the film is the two boats social experiment - a social experiment that KS also features at least twice (though arguably more). It’s based on game theory and the “prisoner’s dilemma.” It’s shown twice in KS where two people are pitted against each other with each having to choose between rational self-interest or what’s in the best interest of the two collectively. In the police station in chapter 34, Bum chooses the latter and even though the police lied about Sangwoo pinning a murder on Bum, Sangwoo also refused to incriminate either Bum or himself. In the film, a prisoner steps up and chooses to preserve the lives on the civilians’ boat at the risk of his own life, proving that moral choices are not limited to only the so-called “good guys” - people are complex and “bad” people can do good things and “good” people can do bad things. Both boats refused to explode the other to save their own lives, and in doing so, both boats survived. Given that as of chapter 66 in KS, Bum and Sangwoo are possibly set on a course of mutually assured destruction, they face a similar dilemma. The facial damage Sangwoo endured in chapter 65 and 66 is also a similarity with Joker, The Joker typically having facial disfigurement - his clownish visage a result of toxic chemicals, the brief stint where his face was removed before being returned, and his scars that feature significantly into his character’s story in the film. The Joker and Sangwoo are also both an intelligent psychopath with a warped sense of humor. Both are adaptive, able to create new personalities to fit the situation, and often utilizing misdirection to outsmart their opponent. This can be seen when the Joker character has a twin, or when he utilizes costumes to get his target to mistake his identity for that of someone else, or happen in card games where there are two jokers and when jokers are “wild,” they can represent other cards. Sangwoo also utilizes disguises, changing what he wears and his appearance in order to not be recognized. Remember that time in chapter 11 and 12 when Seungbae got involved in a traffic accident, only to realize much later that one of the drivers was Sangwoo whom he had met already. He observed, “The atmosphere and the way he spoke was completely different from when we first met... I didn’t even recognize him.”

Sangwoo in KS ch 41 quote: “I don’t think. I don’t plan.“

The Joker in The Dark Knight quote: “Do I really look like a guy with a plan? [...] I just do things. The cops have plans. They’re schemers. Schemers trying to control their little world. I’m not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. [...] I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go ‘according to plan.’ Even if the plan is horrifying. [...] Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair.”

The Joker in The Dark Knight quote: “You just couldn’t let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible, aren’t you? You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness and I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.” B: “You’ll be in a padded cell forever.” J: “Maybe we could share one. They’ll be doubling up at the rate this city’s inhabitants are losing their minds. [...] I took Gotham’s White Knight and I brought him down to our level. It wasn’t hard. You see madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.”

Examples of the Two Face theme in KS:

Again both Sangwoo and Bum have imagery that associates them with Two Face. In the Summer Special (between chapter 29 and 30), Bum’s gallery image had color blocking, which at first made me think of Harley Quinn, but it’s actually more like Two Face’s typical costume. Sangwoo’s facial damage shown in chapter 66 is obviously reminiscent of Two Face’s scars, as seen in The Dark Knight. In the film, Two Face gets severe scarring over half of his face from an explosion. Also in the film, he escapes from a hospital. Similarly to Sangwoo who had an abusive father and Bum who had an abusive uncle, Two Face suffered mental health problems before he was scarred. He had an abusive father who would play a cruel game with a rigged outcome. His scarring served as a turning point, giving him more of a split personality. “Two Face” also refers to when a person lies a lot, and given that Bum’s gallery image resembled Two Face, this could be in reference to his lies - both early in KS out of self-preservation while trying to endear himself to Sangwoo and recently in chapter 66 where he lied to police. Something also worth noting is that Two Face outed a girl, thinking that with no one else to turn to, she would have no choice but to love him, which is clearly similar to what Bum did in his flashback in chapter 19. However, there is another KS character who displays an awful lot of similarities to Two Face and that’s Seungbae! He works in criminal justice - Harvey Dent (Two Face) as a district attorney and prosecutor and Seungbae as a police officer (demoted from detective based on bad behavior at a previous precinct). They both have horrible tempers, often flying into fits of rage. Seungbae displays this frequently throughout KS with his many overreactions, his use of excessive force, his horrible abuse of Bum in chapters 28, 29, and 35 - where even though he thought of Bum as “the victim” he still grabs him harshly by the wounds he himself pointed out. And then, even though he is basing all of his wild accusations on the flimsiest of coincidence, his own stalking of Sangwoo and harassment of Bum, and no real evidence, he attacks Sangwoo and physically assaults him in chapter 35, pulling him out of the van by his ankles in a disturbing reminder of how he grabbed Bum’s legs on the wounds and building a pattern of abuse and violence. One half of his face gets burned in chapter 63 and 64 like Two Face’s did. Both Seungbae and Two Face cite police negligence in the death of a loved one. Will Seungbae go bad in the end like Harvey Dent (Two Face) did? We’ll see.

Bum in KS ch 29 quote: “Ugh... LET GO!!“

“I’m saying I’ll save you!” Seungbae yells, while squeezing Bum’s clearly wounded wrist hard enough to make it start bleeding again. :(

Bum: “HA... HAHA. You’ll save me? How?”

Two Face in The Dark Knight quote: ”You think I want to escape from this? There is no escape from this. [...] I’ve done plenty wrong, Gordon. Just not quite enough. Yet. It’s not about what I want. It’s about what’s fair. You thought we could be decent men in an indecent time. You thought the rules could be bent but not break. You were wrong. The world is cruel. And the only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased. Unprejudiced. Fair.”

The Bait and Switch - Misdirection! KS is filled with misdirection, a trick to get the reader to pay attention to (or believe) one thing so that they can be surprised by a different thing. A common form of misdirection shown in KS is mirroring, where many characters wear the same clothes as other people - taking on someone’s identity and leading to cases of mistaken identity. In chapter 41, a girl at the ski resort happens to be wearing the same outfit as Bum, causing Sangwoo to briefly mix up the two. Sangwoo will sometimes deliberately create this effect, though - like when he dresses up Bum in chapter 3 or when he dresses up Jieun’s corpse in chapter 22, and possibly even in this latest confrontation with Seungbae where he was wearing a very similar outfit. He also will change his demeanor and appearance sometimes with a hat and glasses, like he did in chapter 11, when Seungbae failed to recognize him.

Metamorphosis - There are several examples of symbolism in KS which represent change, a transformation that is not always for the better. Butterfly symbolism appears in chapter 34, frog symbolism shows up a couple times, and the poison apple symbolism is prevalent throughout. Acquiring a new identity could also count as metamorphosis, whether by living under a new name or adopting a new (possibly murderous) outlook on life.

Escape - This theme includes escape through mistaken identity and misdirection which could very well happen. But escape has also already been hinted at in KS. In the Christmas Special that came out before chapter 36, there are several methods of transportation that are associated with escape shown, including 2 hot air balloons, 2 (possibly 3) sailing ships, the helm wheel on the mantle (imagery of a sailing ship). Season three of KS sees Sangwoo take Bum on a vacation trip, first to an amusement park “to relieve stress” and then to a ski resort to “enjoy” the break, escaping the stress of home. In chapter 51, Sangwoo shows Bum the movie Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is about not being able to escape your nature (like in the scorpion and the frog) as an animal at heart, and embracing it to escape.

PREDICTION: I think that at least 2 of these themes will be featured in the ending of KS. Any 2. So, maybe a Bait and Switch and Escape, or Two Face and a murderous Metamorphosis? Which 2 themes do you think have the best chance of showing up in the last chapter? And who do you believe is The Joker of KS and who is the Two Face?

What’s furthermore interesting about this is that either Bum or Sangwoo or both could be the frog prince symbolized. For example: Bum could be “the frog prince” because in The Frog Prince (a classic Grimm fairy tale), the emphasis is made on love shown to the frog by taking him in, letting him eat their food, and letting him sleep in their bed - all things that the frog needs in order to break the curse and all of which Bum himself has emphasized that Sangwoo has given him. Meanwhile Sangwoo also seems to fit the part of “the frog prince” because in more modern versions of the tale, the emphasis is placed more on love shown through comfort - both emotional and physical (kiss) - such as in The Princess and The Frog (the storybook), which contained the following, “Suddenly, she heard the sounds of weeping. She turned the light back on to see the frog beside her, wiping tears from his eyes.” A familiar scene, right? We’ve seen Bum briefly wake to Sangwoo crying beside him and asking for comfort several times. In The Princess and the Frog (the Disney movie), both partners became frogs! The frog prince turned his potential rescuer into a frog. The parallel for this within Killing Stalking is clear, with Sangwoo leading Bum to share his “curse” (remember the shared Poison Apple was also symbolism) and take a darker path into murder. It’s also worth noting that the frog prince in these classic tales is “cursed” or made to be this way usually by an “evil witch” figure, which Eunseo qualifies as, having both poisoned Sangwoo (mentally and physically) and cursed him to “die the most painful death.” A cursed state that he could be saved from and a mental poisoning that he could transform from by regaining his humanity. THEORY: Just a theory... Either Bum or Sangwoo will transform into a better person. LOL. Or they will live happily as “frogs” together.

In some of the more gruesome versions of the Grimm’s tale, the princess throws the frog at the wall - which turns him back into a prince, or - as in The Maiden and The Frog - the girl must chop off the frog’s head to turn him back into a prince. The point being that, as ridiculous as these versions are, this classic tale has had associations with violence in the past. And fairy tales overall have a tendency to be more violent or abusive than the Disney versions. So, the violence of Killing Stalking definitely doesn’t preclude it from containing some of these literary tropes and classic forms of symbolism.

Fun facts: Poison Dart Frogs are the most poisonous animals alive, which is why their poison was used for deadly poison darts. The Brothers Grimm collected folk tales and popularized both The Frog Prince and Snow White. And if you see thematic similarities between The Frog Prince and Beauty and The Beast, it is very likely they were inspired by the French fairy tale La Belle et la Bête (the origin of Beauty and the Beast) as that was published before The Frog Prince.