#dungeon manwha with female leads are always the best.

[yellowocaballero]

#Thank you for articulating the thoughts I've had brewing post-anime and post-second read through of the manhwa.#It's like SL doesn't want to look at Trauma outside of Lee Joohee in the beginning.#After that everyone else who experience traumatic events#(Jinho almost killed by other hunters - Jinah almost killed by orcs - Cha Hae-In almost dying on Jeju - Jinho again#- everything Jin-Woo's dad went through ffs) and Jin-Woo very much included is expected to move past it and grow from it.#The story does not want to spend time processing that trauma very much.#and see their fighting as a sort of dialogue discussing those themes that come up.#The theme of Solo Leveling seems to be Growth Through Self Reliance and to that end it is foregoing a lot of interesting explorations#into what would that mean for a Person to become totally self reliant to defend and isolate themself from the world in that way.#Damn if this story had actually tried to go into how all he does is in some way a trauma response that would have been so interesting#The line about “Were this any other story..” and while I agree with that whole point#I've read so many other similar hunter-dungeon that go the exact same way as SL#making it only about the powerfantasy of Becoming the Best#while also usually doing it slightly worse than SL. At least SL manages to mostly keep your interest throughout#and has a likeable supporting cast even tho they're never used by the narrative or interacted with by Jin-Woo in very meaningful ways.#But yes if this were a better story a different story that wanted to focus on looking at the person Jin-Woo becomes#and not just how powerful he gets then we could have had so much more.#If anyone wants a story like Solo Leveling but where the MC /does/ surround themselves with people they trust#and cooperate with them in a meaningful way to save the world or whatever - then big reccomend to “The S-classes that I raised”#or “My S-class hunters” on Webtoon.#MC is an F class whos power is nurturing others and is given a mission to nurture 50 S-class heroes or the world won't survive.#And he uses his stupidly brave older-brother ego to boss around all these stupidly strong S classes who could kill him in seconds#(including his younger brother who has some serious bro-con complexes about protecting his brother)#It's so fun seeing this hamster of a man ordering these lone wolves around and making them cooperate.#And he has some 'lone wolf/I must protect my family&friends at the cost of my own well being' behavior.#But at least this one is either trying or pretending to do some of what you're describing here.

Great tags by @star-stine. I feel like TSCIR and a lot of other good dungeon manwha are a reaction to SL and what it does. I would also love to recommend a dungeon manwha with a female protagonist, The Housekeeper In The Dungeon, which also does a ton of work in deconstructing this mindset and showing what kind of severe damage it does to young men.

Trauma in Solo leveling

Always haunted by what could have been of Solo Leveling if the narrative acknowledged the inherent trauma vision that guides most of Jin-Woo's actions through the series instead of glorifying him for that.

Like, it is pretty clear to me from the start that a lot of his obsession with self reliance and his increasingly cynical views of the world ("The weak are destined to be betrayed") are a direct response to the double dungeon incident, and in more ways than we initially realize.

I think it's particularly obvious in the way he is paralled with Lee Joohee; while they're both shown to be traumatized from their encounter, Joohee is supposedly 'worse off' than him. She has noticeable flashbacks to that episode and withdraws from life and work in an attempt to avoid possible triggers - becoming paralysed when she fails to do so. And because, while also afraid, Jin-Woo is instead making a point to return to dungeons we are very clearly meant to think that he is moving on when she is not. ...Except that he isn't.

Because, you see, along with withdrawing, the reenactment of a traumatic event is also a very common response to trauma. And so is the risky behaviour that might come with it. And what does Jin-Woo does as soon as he's able to leave the hospital again? Immediately throw himself into dungeons, alone, with a clear disregard for personal safety and an extreme need to both prove himself and give meaning to his near death experience before.

Not only does he goes right back into the very same place his trauma took place, but he seems to subconsciously be trying to recreate said event in a way that gives him control of the situation. This time, he wasn't abandoned to die alone in a dungeon: he did it himself, willingly. He placed himself in that position. And later on, when he risks himself with shady parties he expects to betray him, he seems almost content; once again putting himself in risk by creating a scenario where he is 'abandoned' and 'betrayed' but where he can come off on top. He is desperate to both have his belief confirmed that someone perceived as a weak hunter like he is will always be betrayed, always be left behind, and to fight that supposed fate. To prove that he has 'fixed' this aspect of himself and will thus not fall victim to that consequences of that abandoment again. In fact, he is so detatched from the current scene that he deliberately ignores the fact Yoo Jinho challenges those believes by protecting Jin-Woo, whom he believes to be an E rank at that point.

And were this any other story, all his development from then on would prove the faults of this mindset. The dangers of self reliance, of cutting yourself off from any support network, from depriving himself of any sort of meaningful trust or vulnerability with others. But instead, we're meant to respect the fact he is increasingly isolated from everyone else. That he becomes cold, emotionally withdrawn and paranoid (his refusal to join any of the existing guilds always felt to me like his need for control taken to extreme, plus the fact he could not deal with how exposed he felt working with others again). And I think that's really sad.

It would have been really interesting to have a story that is willing to challenge the notion that he is better off alone, and that trust in others is ultimately unecessary. And that would acknowledged the strength necessary to allow himself to trust and be vulnerable after everything - and the importance of surrounding himself with people he loves and knows will protect him too. Sad 😔