#yun

For one, Kyoshi’s feelings for Yun always felt different from what she shared with Rangi. There was affection, admiration, and definitely a crush, but there was also a degree of idolisation. Yun was charismatic and confident. He was the person everyone naturally gravitated towards. Kyoshi even comments that he flirted with practically everyone, so I don’t think his interactions with her were necessarily unique. Despite his near confession before he nearly died.

I think it’s the fact that, neither of them truly knew the other.

Yun spent years hiding the darkest parts of his life. He never told Kyoshi about Jianzhu’s abuse, his assassin training, or the pressure he’d lived under his entire childhood. He buried those experiences so deeply that even the people closest to him only knew the version of himself he wanted them to see. I think that emotional repression is a major reason he eventually broke. Once everything he had built his identity around was taken away, all of that buried anger and pain finally surfaced.

The opposite was also true. Yun never really knew the person Kyoshi would become. He knew the quiet and awkward servant girl, but not the fierce, uncompromising Avatar she grew into. When he was finally confronted with the scars, the strength as well as, the willingness to fight, he rejected it. He wanted the Kyoshi he remembered, not the one standing in front of him.

Rangi’s relationship with Kyoshi develops in the opposite direction. She starts with the servant girl too, but instead of rejecting Kyoshi as she changes, she accepts every new part of her. She falls in love with the shy servant, but she also comes to love the powerful Avatar and the woman carrying the weight of the world. She constantly reminds Kyoshi that beneath all of those roles, she is still just Kyoshi.

That’s why I don’t think Yun could have filled the same role in Kyoshi’s life. After Kyoshi was revealed as the Avatar, it was Rangi’s unwavering support and belief in Kyoshi as a person that allowed their relationship to deepen from an early crush into lasting love.

At the same time, I don’t think Yun was incapable of accepting Kyoshi as the Avatar. People often point out that he rejected her before Jianzhu sacrificed him, but Rangi’s first reaction wasn’t exactly accepting either. She was angry and accused Kyoshi of deceiving her, while genuinely believing their lives had been turned upside down. I also remember Yun actually having a supportive conversation with Kyoshi before they went to the island with Jinazhu and reassuring Kyoshi that everything would ultimately be okay.

However, the main difference is that Rangi was given the chance to work through her emotions. Yun never had that opportunity. Instead, he was sacrificed by Jianzhu and trapped with Father Glowworm. He was manipulated, isolated and left to process unimaginable trauma all alone.

Had those events never happened, I think Yun eventually would have accepted Kyoshi’s place as the Avatar. It probably would have taken him longer than it took Rangi, but I don’t believe his initial reaction was something he could never have moved past.

I still don’t think they would have been romantically compatible. What I do think is that Yun could have remained one of Kyoshi’s closest friends and become one of her greatest allies.

That’s what makes his story so heartbreaking. Yun isn’t simply a villain, nor is he only a victim. He’s someone whose life was shaped by manipulation and impossible expectations. He was also traumatised deeply. His choices are still his own, but they’re impossible to separate from everything that was done to him. That’s what makes his fall feel so tragic.

But I reject the idea that Yun and Kyoshi would have ever loved one another in the same way as Rangi and Kyoshi, who are, in my eyes, soulmates.

이게 제 최신 푹 빠진 거예요.