#They don't believe in the devine right of kings/queens!

[ultra-creepy-fucker-things]

Part of me wants Toffee/Seth/most septarians to have genuinely radical politics. Part of me thinks it would be funny if every radical belief the magic high commission feared them for was something that Marco specifically would consider entirely uncontroversial.

[mii-ruby]

I'm not saying that Yon-hi did not care for Yu-Hon, but she was terrified of him.

I don't read Viz translation as I consider it has a lot of flaws, I read the French translation but I can't remember what it said and I don't have the book with me right now. In the English fan translation she said "you're terrible", but even if she was afraid of him it wasn't shown nearly as enough. She was always happy looking at him and they often hugged, and she felt her world collapsing after his death. Who would feel like that towards a person they fear?

Sorry but I personally can't take the subjective attractiveness of a drawing and seriously equate that to how morally grey the character is portrayed.

I applaud you for resisting that, but it's not the case with a lot of people. They tend forgive/ look past the errors of attractive characters. It also happens with Soowon too. I cannot count the number of times I saw a people admitting they forgive him just bc he's hot.

I guess you were one of the people who liked the romance between Yu-Hon and Yon-Hi.

Not at all haha, in fact I too think it was toxic, but the way it was portrayed was too romanticised imo (well, it's not a first in Shoujo history). Instead of the narrative acknowledging he was pushy, he was portrayed as daring and forward. Also Yonhi not criticising his acts made it seem like it was okay. I find myself agreeing with your joke too, maybe if Yonhi had married Il she would've had a better life and all those horrors wouldn't have happened.

Yeah, I wouldn't call that "happy" with those lurking issues.

Yeah but that quick transition seemed like Kusanagi was urging us to look past what we just saw and simply be happy to see baby Soowon with his parents.

I don't know if it showed incredible maturity, considering Il likely would not have cared whether or not he got his brother's support on this matter

I don't think this matters though, what's important is what was shown to the reader, not how Il felt about it. Yuhon, despite being the eldest and better than his brother at everything, was stripped from his right to the throne, and he accepted it, just bc he loves his brother so much and wants to support him and the country. That's maturity imo.

Il expressed regret over thinking how religion had made him think Kashi had known he loved her. He also regretted not telling Yu-Hon that he had gotten revenge because he loved Kashi.

True, but it didn't struck me as he was blaming religion for it. He regretted it but never said it all happened bc he was too religious. If anything, in his letter he assures that he's going to remain a religious fanatic, as he says he won't try to do anything to prevent Soowon from deeming him a bad king. He'll continue to pray to the gods and not do anything for the people. He'll work as a place holder until Yona, the devine figure, takes things into her hands.

Right, but the way his letter is written, to me the tone of it felt like it was like some sympathetic fact that he is incompetent of doing anything, rather than any sort of actual judgement against him. He's painted as a tragic placeholder who could not take action because of fate

Hmm, I did feel that Il considered himself a martyr, but I didn't really think so of him while reading. If anything, it  further proves his religious fanatism to me: He is satisfied to be this martyr that'll allow Yona to be queen, there's even that flashback in which he proudly says to Soowon that even if he kills him, he can never be king, and Yona, the Crimson king, shall deliver him to death. Also, some of his arguments in the letter were really shitty. He said that he doesn't know how to approach Soowon or deal with him, which is pathetic. As an adult, he should've been the one to try and mend his relationship with Soowon, to explain things, but he preferred to be a matyr bc he believed too much in Kashi's visions. How am l supposed to sympathise with him like that?

What we definitely do agree on is this: I don't really mind if Yu-Hon did end up killing Kashi (and trying to kill Yona) if there is a scene beforehand where he actually starts hesitating or thinking "hey... am I going a little too far? Have I been doing that this whole time?"

Yeah I wouldn't mind such a scene, it could be a nice addition, but I also wouldn't mind if we don't get it, as I consider that both Il and Yuhon were treated equally in the flashback.

EXPLAIN IT TO HAK

I'm sorry but man when I go reread back to when they got back to the castle and see Hak just being clueless about Su-won's motivations (he STILL is behind on some things like what happened between Yu-hon and Il), why is he just blankly sitting there when she says it wasn't just "revenge".

I wish Hak knew more, although it would probably make the story a lot shorter than it is. I really think Yona should have told him more about Yon-hi's diary. Su-won had to be the one who told him about the crimson illness??

I wonder when Hak will find out about everything.