#still in the heart of danger despite porsches best attempts to keep him safe and away from all this

[dontgofarfromme]

So I think Kinnporsche uses the vegaspete relationship in a REALLY interesting way to make explicit and horrifying both the abuses of power and restriction of autonomy Porsche experiences and how much he and Kinn are under the family's (Korn's) control in the series. Kinnporsche the relationship appears at a brief glance to evolve into something good and positive for both parties but the parallels with vegaspete force you to recognize the immense complications in this relationship and the fact that it's probably always going to be fraught as long as they are under the Theerapanyakun household.

Porsche is coercively brought in as a bodyguard in the first place because Korn wished it, and tries to leave multiple times, but because a lot of these instances are sanctioned by Korn, most of them (with the exception of the jailbreak with Vegas) feel less like escape attempts, especially when he, for instance, returns with Kinn willingly. When you hold them up against Pete's capture by the minor family and explicit, desperate attempts to escape the violence he's facing, it's a lot easier to recognize the similarities in their situations, especially when Pete, too, willingly returns to captivity for Vegas.

This goes right down to the way their first sexual encounters play out--both Porsche and Pete appear to be assenting to what's happening, but it's clear in both situations that neither of them are capable of saying no should they have wanted to, pulling a really sinister undercurrent through what would appear completely isolated from context to be mutually agreed upon actions. Once again, the physical image of the chain returning to Pete's wrist following sex makes explicit the inability to consent, which is more ephemeral in Porsche's case which has no explicit threat of captivity or violence.

More than this even is the intrusion of family politics on these relationships: Kinn's chastisement by his father regarding what the implications of his liason with Porsche might be to his other men lead to him ordering Porsche disciplined, and despite the growing connection between Pete and Vegas, censure from Gun leads to him choking Pete, the first time to our knowledge that he has raised a hand against him since they began to build a tentative understanding of each other. Korn uses soft, persuasive manipulation and questioning of Kinn's leadership to bring his son under his control, and Kinn responds by laying out consequences for Porsche at arms length from him, something he orders but does not observe. Once again the causal chain of this abuse of power and control is spread in a somewhat intangible way despite the fact that the ultimate result is once again the degradation of the basic human respect and kindness Porsche is owed. In looking at the actions of Gun on Vegas and Vegas on Pete, however, the thread becomes clear: Gun hits Vegas, and despite whatever care or growing trust they had before, Vegas responds by lashing out at Pete. The actions are explicit, violent, and force you to both reckon with them and to look back on what you think you have made your peace with in Kinn and Porsche's relationship and consider again what the implications of it might be.

I think ultimately, what really clinches this parallel is the incredibly dissonance in the end of the series, the way once again Kinn and Porsche are framed from a first glance level to be happy and whole and together happily. However when you look carefully at what occurred in Nampheung's room and parallel Porsche and Pete, the extent of the darkness in that ending becomes clear. Porsche takes the family ring, a marker of new responsibility but something that will also allow him to remain close to Kinn. However in the same scene, Pete has left the room removing his markers of belonging to the Theerapanyakun family, explicitly quitting and distancing himself from what is the ultimate origin of the abuses of power he has seen and experienced.

The understanding of Pete's choice and actions highlight just how heavy Porsche's choice (non-choice, really, in this situation, because when Korn offers you leadership of the minor family when the corpse of the previous leader's is still warm on the floor with his bullet in its head who are you to say no), is, the fact that he is binding himself tighter to something that Pete has just chosen to separate himself from at great emotional cost. Everything that follows is overshadowed by this and the parallels laid out in bright contrast--Pete, as free as one can possibly be from the Theerapanyakuns and with the freedom to go his own way at any time, with Vegas, injured and no longer tied to the Minor family's leadership or his fathers' wishes; and Porsche, inescapably bound to the Theerapanyakuns, with Kinn who loves him but is unable to deny his father anything, utterly beholden to the system he wanted nothing to do with in the first place.