i think people tend to forget just how young jeon yeseul actually is. it pains me to think about just how much she has gone through at her age - all the manipulation, gaslighting, obsession, literal physical abuse she endured from her vile boyfriend.
but more than that, it's the fact that she has to wake up every day and have to pretend in front of her peers and classmates that she is the usual bright, cheery, and beautiful girl that they see her as. that she doesn't go to sleep every night hating herself, wondering what she did to deserve all this pain, and ultimately trying to hold on to the hope that she might escape from it one day.
i think back to her scene with jo yebeom in the study room, when he said she was a sight for sore eyes. i also wonder how many times her boyfriend has called her beautiful, relegating her to only that, undermining her intelligence, her kindness, her compassion... and how she always has to assert to other people the fact that she is in a relationship. maybe she's been told she only has worth when her name is attached to a man.
the problem with yeseul is that nobody sees beyond her looks, so they automatically think that she has it good. and she has had to carry that burden alone all her life.
at least, not until kang sol A. not until han joon hwi. not until professor yang jong hoon. my heart absolutely breaks watching yeseul's pivotal scenes with these characters. she has a lot of memorable ones with them, but i look back to these three the most:
when yeseul praises joon hwi's cross-examination skills and he gives her a whole new perspective on what working in law means. in that conversation, he says something like, "i have to tell the truth if i want to work in law", and later on in the courtroom when she says the exact same thing. in fact, it was so desperate when she said "i really want to work in law one day" and she understood that this one lie would haunt her for the rest of her life. just like everyone else, yeseul looks up to joon hwi, but this is the first time we see it actually being manifested. not only was this scene a turning point for yeseul, it was also important for joon hwi, especially when he got a little bit flustered when yeseul called him 'awesome': we see a more human side of him, and his principles about law and life become more solidified. i like to think this somehow inspired yeseul in some way as well.
when sol A seeks yeseul out in the bathroom and she asks her: "what do i do now?" it's so poignant and so devoid of hope that instead of offering empty words, sol A decides to envelop her in a hug instead, as if to say - let me hold you together while you threaten to fall apart. you are not alone in this.
and for yang jong hoon, it just has to be the scene where he wears the sunglasses in the courtroom, as she did in his classroom. given that he was not allowed to speak to yeseul leading up to the trial whatsoever, and the fact that yang jong hoon himself is a man of few words towards his students, regarding them in a more impersonal manner (at least upfront, because we all know how deeply he actually cares about all of them), i want to believe that the act of wearing those glasses was an unspoken promise to yeseul that he will protect her - and i suppose that was a promise that he kept by the end of episode 8, when he finds her in a panic state after what happened to her boyfriend.
i know this was a very long thinkpiece, but the tl;dr is that i absolutely love jeon yeseul so much and i think she is very strong, courageous, unapologetically bubbly and kind, and everything in between. more importantly, she is a woman of honor whose skills are severely underestimated. i want to believe there is more in store for her in the upcoming episodes, and i cannot wait for her girlboss revenge era. i just hope her 'girlboss revenge moment' won't come at the expense for the softness that she is defined by, the softness that she is known for.
