#anyway jeokyeon for emperor

[seoafin]

like obviously jeokyeon's complex relationship with his gender and the fact that he had to essentially become a boy/man to compete in the games lends itself to the narrative because he understands what it means to be a woman and has empathy for marginalized groups (women, biseol as a ghoul, etc) but the handling of other women in the manhwa is....abysmal. women are only given as much as depth as they pertain to other male characters. yes women are strong, independent (and often abused by men) but we don't actually see the few female characters in the manhwa outside of their role in society as a mother wife virgin spurned abused lover or prostitute before jeokyeon is saving them. we were briefly there when we were introduced to doha's mother who was a strong woman in her own right but then she's killed off anyway! for being the emperor's wife. it's just......hmmm.....i feel like the author focuses way too much on jeokyeon's harem of men and their obsession with him than like....plot. jeokyeon is comfortable as a man! he's been living as a man for the last hundred of years! except biseol still often refers to him as a woman at times (especially when he's thinking about his sexual and romantic urges for him), or the girl she used to be. it's like oh here's a character that hid their gender and even mutilated himself to be perceived as a man and is now comfortable living as a man and being perceived as one but the second sexual and romantic urges come into play the narrative decides he's a woman again. i feel like we could have really interesting commentary on the treatment of women and jeokyeon's loss of autonomy both in terms of becoming a man because he had nothing else and how romance and the love of his love interests force heteronormative gender dynamics upon him once again. the SAME THING he was trying to escape by becoming a MAN.