#salessji

I have been discussing this pretty heavily with @salessji for their recruiter (Gah-mi) and In-ho. To set the scene here, Gah-mi is extremely obsessed and infatuated with In-ho, to the point of making it Gah-mi’s point of life to please In-ho. I think this actually disgusts In-ho because there are no rules. 

Dependency is inherently illogical. The belief that there is only one person for you and that there can only be one person for you to rely on, depend on, and be with is completely illogical. In-ho doesn’t understand the rules of Gah-mi’s feelings and so does not participate in their game; Gah-mi does his job well, but seeks too much approval, which In-ho does not give beyond being professional and cold. 

In-ho is aware of this dependency but cannot make sense of it. There are rules to wants, to In-ho, and the number one rule is that you make sacrifices. The other, invisible and contradictory rule, is that it must never come at the harm of yourself. In-ho will sacrifice for Jun-ho, but will not sacrifice his entire life for Jun-ho. It would be easy to give Gah-mi a little bit of affection, but then it snowballs. In-ho cannot afford to spend his entire life with Gah-mi as intimately as Gah-mi wants, and so cannot give him anything.

And this sort of affection-seeking is too much for In-ho. There’s not a rubric for how much affection Gah-mi needs, and if In-ho opens the door, Gah-mi will ask for too much. Love is distant and Gah-mi is close, and In-ho is very uncomfortable with the idea.

This goes in contrast to @pavlovianpanic and I’s one-sided ship with In-ho and Sean (with In-ho being the one wanting), but it is on In-ho’s terms. In-ho is professional and distant, but willing to sacrifice his time and energy to make sure that Nathan Prescott’s crimes are never discovered. His morals bend, absolutely, but he’s not sacrificing any closeness. And Sean doesn’t want closeness, so he never has to examine why he’s so afraid of it.

In-ho doesn’t date, he obsesses.

This is pure mind palace thoughts alone since Winnie and I haven’t had the chance to write much, but for an example, @amhaengeosa’s Gi-hun is someone that In-ho does obsess over. I mention these two important studies in my dossier for them, which is: “obsession coloring all actions,” and “forced observer.” I’m going to break this down before I continue.

Obsession coloring all actions.

I think that In-ho does obsess. It is the natural inclination, or at least an inclination we’ve seen after meeting our two winners, that happens after beating the Games. Gi-hun spent three years obsessing over going back; if not the exact same, then similarly, In-ho obsessed until he went back after he won. With nothing to return to, you’d want to return to familiar misery. (I can’t find the name—but it’s a thing for depressed individuals!! The want to not get better because you’ve been depressed for so long)

Since In-ho has been encouraged to be obsessed these last eight years—keeping tabs on winners and leavers, on guards, on VIPs, on the games and the enjoyment of the VIPs, never leaving the same cycle—it’s not surprising that In-ho would be easily obsessive over other people. It makes sense. In-ho has to be obsessive for everything else, it’s probably not even like flipping a switch. Just a constant slurry of information with no break, all day, every day, for eight years.

Because even if the games aren’t running, they’re finding people, finding sponsors, testing games, watching the others and making sure they aren’t telling anyone, and if they are, they aren’t getting close to the island.

In-ho’s survival relies on him being obsessive.

Forced observer.

This one seems self-evident to me, but I’ll explain it the best I can anyway. In-ho has his little pervert room where he watches Red Light Green Light and listens to Frank Sinatra, but also is completely removed from his whole life. His career and family might as well be gone if not dead, and he might as well be dead to them in turn.

In-ho is not typically allowed to play in the Games. He is allowed that 001 tag, of course, but it’s probably not something he does often. He most likely heavily considered the part he was going to play before he played, and it was likely Gi-hun who took him over the edge to participate in the Games at all.

This only worsens In-ho’s discomfort of being a person with other people and his fear of intimacy. As an observer, In-ho sacrifices nothing about any unsavory obsessions he may have. As an obsessor, this is the safest place to obsess. It’s lonely and isolating and terrible and puts him at this weird blurred line of authority and commoner, where is completely uninvolved but also totally the fault of everything. 

It’s perfect for him.

Back to obsessing, not dating.

In-ho doesn’t “date” because that implies a level of intimacy in his involvement, which he doesn’t like. Intimacy implies being any level of dependence, which also implies that he must be some level of dependent, intimate, or close with another person, and In-ho doesn’t like that.

Rules get messy when you’re close, and you want to make exceptions. In-ho doesn’t do exceptions. He makes and abides by rules and conditions. He doesn’t like there being the idea that someone could just not do what the rule says, even if he likes them. I think this is showcased best with Gi-hun, where the exception becomes very close to the surface.

Why kill Jung-bae and not Gi-hun, the revolutionary? He killed Jung-bae to subdue Gi-hun, which is the closest “you are the exception” I have ever seen In-ho display. Had it been any other revolutionary, and the others still caught despite them surrendering, did die. Everyone but those who went back to the bunker and Gi-hun died, and that’s the only exception we’ve seen to In-ho’s rules.

And why, though? I don’t know. It could be any number of reasons. In-ho could want Gi-hun to experience grief in the same vastness and terribleness as the other participants to put him back on the same “playing field,” or maybe his obsessions do cloud his vision and he wants to keep Gi-hun alive to see his reactions and pushed to the edge again, like with Sang-woo.

But In-ho doesn’t want to date Gi-hun. Maybe the mask does, when In-ho imagines himself as Young-il or 2015 In-ho, they could’ve been together. But 2024 In-ho simply does not operate on terms of intimacy.

TLDR: In-ho defines love as something distant and calculating to spare the least amount of feelings from being experienced while also giving out the most amount of safety he can provide. To In-ho, love is cold, something you don’t feel. 

In-ho is extremely obsessive while also being a forced observer, and these two elements feed on each other nonstop and have been for eight years.