#demoonieo

[insomooniac]

my understanding of kinn anakinn theerapanyakul

it's no surprise a lot of people don't like kinn. he's what we would describe as a rich asshole. and while i personally think that the execution of how kinn is supposed to be portrayed could've been more, i sort of get what they were trying to show us.

anakinn is bad at being the mafia. why? simple. because he hates it. the only reason why he even does it is because of the manipulating hold his father has on him. he has nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. he can't go to tankhun because he doesn't know how to deal with his older brother's eclectic-ness and, i believe, was traumatized seeing tankhun become what he is now no matter how fabulous he is. he can't go to kimhan because of their strained relationship; his younger brother rarely even visiting the compound as he deals with his own traumas. he can't go to vegas because of the rivalry their fathers have raised them to have, and while he does have friends in tae and time, their backgrounds are too similar, rather than giving him an escape from the mafia life, they give him companionship and comfort instead.

this is when porsche comes in. he gets to experience and get time off from being the heir of his father's crime-dom. even with porsche unwillingly getting involved with the business, they get stranded in the forest which is the only time in a long time that he's been away, they sneak out on dates, they celebrate porsche's birthday, he got to meet new acquaintances through porsche; kinn finally found something else to do rather than look over files and worry when someone else plans to put a bullet in his head.

porsche is a huge reason why kinn is unliked by a lot, most of it due to episode four. i have rewatched that scene over and over again and listened to gaywatch's love scene breakdown on it, which i do recommend you go watch it, and i sort of see where kinn is coming from.

quick disclaimer: before you send me death threats, i am not condoning rape or any dubious consent. i understand what consensual non-consent is and this isn't it.

i do believe kinn did not mean any harm to porsche. that is the main take away here. he never means porsche any harm. even looking at his body language, the way his eyes look, his fist clenching, the constant breathing in to calm himself down, his main goal was just to get porsche clean, dressed, and off to bed because he doesn't know that porsche even remembers their kiss on the pier until porsche says so. the moment porsche absentmindedly admits he remembers the kiss after teasing kinn, kinn sees it as porsche also admitting to liking him.

should he still have done it? no. while porsche did start to like him and did want to sleep with him, i do agree that kinn shouldn't have made any moves onto porsche being out of his mind and having been drugged, but then again, being raised in the environment he is in, i can't be surprised that he did what he did.

another reason to why kinn is heavily disliked is his lack of communication with porsche, which is the part that i feel is so overlooked by so many viewers. when tawan returns, kinn doesn't even attempt to tell porsche his plans before or after imprisoning him. that part is what is overlooked. again, kinn means well, he doesn't mean porsche any harm, but he doesn't execute well. why? because that's what his dad does, that is what he was taught to do. make decisions without consulting anyone and without anyone questioning why you've made that decision.

that leads me to contrast and compare him and vegas. in psychology, we are taught of the stereotypes of the different forms of abuse, and it is prominent in how his and vegas's abuse are portrayed in the series.

while kinn and vegas are both victims of their fathers' abuse, their forms are different. with vegas, khan is verbally and physically violent. vegas gets slapped, punched, gets told he's worthless, and isn't deserving of being khan's son. with kinn, korn doesn't beat him up, instead is verbally and emotionally manipulative. in episode 5, kinn is called to join his father in a game of chess in which korn reminds kinn of what happens when he starts to trust people easily and lose sight of what is important, casually saying, "like what happened before" which is a reference to tawan's betrayal. he disregards kinn's ideas and opinions, though kinn was right when he said that these things are happening to porche because he got involved with their family.

since kinn wants to be a good son, what does he do? he punishes porsche to show his father that he is still in control and that he does not show any favoritism from his bodyguards even though korn never explicitly said to punish porsche, also showing how much of a hold he has over kinn and if questioned, he can deny ever planting that idea onto kinn because he never actually said it.

so, again, while i do believe they could've done more in different parts in the series, whether it was intentional or not, shining more light on vegas's pain from his father in contrast to kinn's turned out to be perfect because that is how it usually is with physical abuse versus emotional abuse.

vegas' trauma is obvious because it's corporeal, kinn's gets overlooked because he gets manipulated by words. unlike kinn and his brothers, vegas and macau are close because of the corporeal abuse from their father, and this is probably what has made them closer as vegas does khan's bidding to protect macau, whereas kinn and his brothers only drift apart because of their father's words.

while khun is the oldest, he is mostly childlike since he was so young when he was kidnapped, and while also wisest of the three, attached to their father as he was the first victim of korn's manipulation before he was unfit to be the heir. kinn is the middle child and carries all of what was supposed to be his older brother's responsibility, becoming the main target of manipulation, and isolated from most kinds of relationships by his father. kim is the youngest and probably the one who has seen what has become of his older brothers and resents their father for what he has turned them into, which made him decide to leave.

khun isolates himself with his bodyguards to watch dramas, kinn isolates himself from everyone and everything to make their father proud, and kim isolates himself from their home because he believes that to truly know what their father has done, he has to see the bigger picture from the outside looking in.

in comparison, vegas and kinn are similar in a way. khan is violent towards vegas therefore vegas's go-to approach is violence. korn is manipulative towards kinn therefore kinn is more accustomed to manipulating others.

my understanding of kinn is that he is a person with a lot of trauma & pain (from his mother passing away, tawan's betrayal, and his little brother leaving, not being able to pursue his passion) but he has yet to discover the present trauma that he is experiencing, which is his father. i do believe that once kinn eventually realizes and accepts that what korn does is not out of love but out of greed, it's going to be a completely different anakinn that deserves his character arc to be shown, and it's just a shame that we will never get to see it because the possibilities are endless. imagine him and vegas working together, that is my biggest wish (them heading the theerapanyakul empire? omg), him and his brothers finally being brothers again, him learning to be a little brother to khun and an older brother to kim, and most importantly, him using his father's tactics against him. i believe the cruelest way to defeat korn is for his heir to use his own chess moves against him while working together with the son of his rival.

in conclusion, kinn is the product of his father's emotional manipulation--he is the perfect puppet. you can hate kinn all you want, i understand why you do. i just hope people understand where he is coming from rather than automatically blaming him for everything wrong that happened.

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notes:

i wrote this in the comments but i find it too funny. kinn makes me want to grab him by his hair & smash his head, repeatedly, against concrete, but also wrap him in bubble wrap & kiss his forehead goodnight :((

@kinyeee made an excellent point (thank u for ur input btw) that vegas's verbal abuse from khan wasn't just how "he was not worthy of being his son" but also emotional manipulation. that is how vegas learned & used it to manipulate tawan, porsche, and all (if i'm not mistaken) of kinn's previous lovers (i think that's in the novel? idk. i refuse to read the novels). that also adds to my point of the contrast and similarities that both of them have. it makes me wonder how powerful they could truly be if korn & khan just worked together. they really fumbled.

some of kinn's wrongdoings are his own. episode 4? naur. i want to say this again. i can see his point of view but i am not condoning it. other shit he's done, i can "forgive" to some extent. episode 4? hell no. while the apology in episode 6 with him & porsche in the ravine reflects how morally grey he is & how morally grey porsche was becoming. when that episode was released, i needed more than that...which we will never get to see now that kinnporsche is over. and, again, disliking kinn is up to you. i understand & support that. how i feel about kinn is how i feel about vegas. that's the main reason why i wrote this highlighting some of their contrasts and comparison.

another great point is that the viewers weren't meant to forgive kinn, that's something only porsche was to do, and i think it adds to the morally grey aspect of it all, and that kinn (vegas, kim, pete, etc.) isn't someone we should expect to even have "perfect" morals. even if kinn & vegas were to settle their differences, it doesn't change the fact that they are still mafias.