#suphakit nlmg

[kattahj]

"Why are you pointing your gun at my son? Put it down!"

This line has been bouncing around my brain for weeks, because of what it says about Kit's and Chopper's relationship, and how that in turn informs Chopper's character arc.

Kit's just been shot by Chopper. He probably doesn't think his son would go so far as to kill him, but he didn't believe he would be shot by him either, and that just happened. But in that moment, his immediate reaction is to yell at his henchmen to stand down.

Because out of the two possible risks here – he dies, or he has to see his son die – he vastly prefers the former.

Compare and contrast the similar scene between Shin and Thana in 3 Will Be Free. Thana cares for his son, may even love him, but when Shin betrays his father, Thana doesn't hesitate to throw him in with Neo and Miw to be killed.

Kit, on the other hand, only points a gun at Chopper for a second before turning it towards Nueng (who is unarmed, cradling Palm, not a threat at this moment). He is certainly angry with Chopper. He wants to punish Chopper, for stepping out of line, for being disobedient enough to choose those two over him. But he doesn't ever want Chopper to die.

And Chopper doesn't want Kit to die. (In this, he is of course entirely similar to Shin, who also cries over his asshole father, except Chopper gets his wish. Kit survives.)

In a show full of daddy issues, Chopper is closer to his father than any of the other characters. Nueng's dad was distant, Palm's harsh, Ben's homophobic. Chopper is used to being by his dad's side, the apple of his eye. Used to being told that everything Kit does, he does for him. And no, Kit doesn't listen when Chopper protests that he doesn't want it, but what BL father ever properly listened to his son?

I don't know if Kit was the kind of dad to give piggyback rides and come to school concerts, but it wouldn't surprise me.

And that's half of the reason it takes Chopper so long to stand up against his father. Resisting abuse is hard, but resisting love is hard in a different way. To look at someone who has cared for you, who you have cared for, and sever that bond in a way that hurts both emotionally and physically. To have to make that sacrifice to save not only yourself, but others, because the person who was so kind to you was a monster to others, and in order to keep their love you have to become someone else entirely.

It is, in its heightened, soap opera way, a quintessentially queer experience.

The other reason it's so hard for Chopper to take a stand is that he is by far the most empathetic person on the show. He feels for everyone. His father, yes, and his beloved cousin, but he also feels for Ben even as Ben is pursuing Nueng. He feels for Palm when he senses Palm's awkwardness in his new employment. He feels for the guy who gets his finger cut off as punishment by Kit.

And what does he do in the finger-cutting scene?

He turns away.

Empathy isn't always positive. Empathic distress is a term used when someone is so overwhelmed by other people's emotions that it starts to hurt them, and that's a common cause of burnout and can be a hindrance to actual help and compassion. You don't want a surgeon who starts crying in the operating room.

Chopper wants everyone to get along. He wants everyone to be like him, and not hurt anyone. But not everyone is like him, and someone is going to get hurt. The longer he waits to act, the worse the situation gets. Chopper has been trained to shoot, but it's not until the end that he can steel his heart enough to do it – and even then, just until his father is arrested. Then he's swept up by his emotions again, taking on all the guilt that Kit ought to be feeling.*

"You are nothing like me," Kit admits at the end. He spits it out in anger and disgust, a curse – but in a way also a blessing. At last, he truly sees his son, and through that, Chopper is finally set free.

*A couple of thoughts from Scandinavian children's fantasy: I've been thinking about the Shamer Chronicles, Drakan who does so much evil and feels no shame vs. Rosa who does no evil and feels so much shame. Also, the argument from The Brothers Lionheart about how Jonatan can't kill anyone and Orvar says, "If everybody was like you, evil would get to rule forever!" and Skorpan counters by saying that if everybody was like Jonatan there would be no evil. But I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with either of those thoughts, so that's why they're stuck in the footnote. :-)

[quodekash]

bl characters as things my friends have said

Chopper: Hey dad! 

Kit: No. 

[koyangii]

Had a good potential but got lost on the way: Never Let Me Go (2022-2023) review

Rate: 7/10

Hello my fellow BL watchers. February 28th was not only the last day of the month, but also the day of Never Let Me Go’s last episode and, honestly, I hope your February ended well, ‘cause this series certainly did not - at least for me. But maybe it’s my fault, I had too many expectations for NLMG and, unfortunately, I was very disappointed. Well, enough with the complaining (for now): let’s start the review! 

Never Let Me Go (a.k.a. NLMG) tells the story of Nuengdiao (Phuwin Tangsakyuen), the son of a very rich man who runs a hotel business. Right at the beginning of the first episode, we can see that Nueng is very close to his parents, even though they have lots of expectations on him to continue the family’s legacy.  Sadly, on the day of Nueng’s birthday, his father is murdered and, because of that, his life completely changes. Nueng’s mom, Thanya (Rasee Watcharapolmek), starts to lead the business, not allowing Suphakit (Nat Sakdatorn), his greedy uncle, to take over the presidency of the company. She also hires a bodyguard, Palm (Pond Naravit), to guarantee Nueng’s safety. Palm is the son of Chanon (Pitisak Yaowananon), the closest employee to the family and the person who does everything for them: from driving them everywhere to escorting and protecting them. 

Nuengdiao and Palm don't have much in common, starting from the most obvious difference: their income. Nueng is the heir of a very important company, meanwhile Palm is a boy who was raised on the coast, spending several hours in a fishing boat to make some money. Nueng is interested in studying, but Palm prefers to exercise the muscles rather than the brain. Nueng is assertive, stubborn and self-centered. Palm is reserved, lacks self-confidence and gives a lot of himself (maybe too much) to help others. 

However, they do have some similarities: they’re both teenagers and don’t have friends who they can count on. And that desire to feel important to someone, to love and be loved - that was enough to create a sparkle between them and make them grow closer and closer to each other. 

I confess this plot was very appealing to me, not because of its originality, since it is pretty clichè, but for its maturity and its characters, who were far away from being perfect. I was very curious about the path each one of them would take and how they would work to overcome their obstacles and grow throughout their journey. And that’s where my list of disappointments begins, so beware: spoilers ahead! 

Palm

As I said before, Palm and Nueng don’t have anyone else to rely on apart from their parents. This is very coherent for Nueng, because of his past being filled with people who would always approach him with second intentions. He is a rich boy after all. When it comes to Palm, on the other hand, we don’t know much about his past, but he didn’t mention anyone in particular nor seemed to be missing someone, so a lot of his personality analysis is based more on speculation than on actual facts. And that’s the major problem for me in this series: while Nueng has a really good character development, Palm is “just there”. 

Palm doesn’t have a proper backstory. He’s there just to be Nueng’s significant other and follow him everywhere. Apart from being with Nueng, Palm doesn’t have any other interests. Every decision he makes is somehow related to Nueng, even the one from the last episode, when he decides to take care of his mother’s bar. At first, one can think he wants to pursue his mother’s dream, but he actually left because he didn’t want to be a burden to Nueng. Even if the first reason was true, it would be his mom’s dream anyway, not his. 

“Ok, but maybe this is what they wanted to portray: a person who lives only to see someone else happy.”, some may say. Sure, it could be that. My Beautiful Man is a good example of a story in which the protagonist puts his love interest on a pedestal, showing reverence and adoration for them as if they were some kind of god. This show portrays this kind of dynamic really well, especially because it explores the characters’ motivations, unlike NLMG. 

So yeah, the love between Nueng and Palm could have been intentionally planned to represent a relationship like that, but I strongly doubt it and that’s mostly because of how Palm was described in the first episodes. 

Given he was raised in a very humble way, Palm didn’t seem to have much life perspectives or plans for the future. My first thought was that this was going to be the key for his character development, since, in the beginning of the series, the theme of “is important to pursue your dreams” was approached a lot. Nueng, for example, didn’t like the idea of taking care of the family business: he wanted to study music. It was the same for Maggie (June Wanwimol): she wanted to live her own life. Palm’s mother, Mam (Panadda Ruangwut), also says she left him and his dad because love wasn’t enough for her. Even Palm argued a lot with his dad because he couldn’t understand why Chanon was so devoted to someone else’s family instead of his own. 

Unfortunately, by the end of the series, Palm is pretty much the same character he was at the beginning. But he deserved a better storyline.

2. More script problems 

Of course NMLG’s script has a lot of problems beyond Palm’s plot and I’m going to highlight here the ones that annoyed me the most.

The first one is the relationship between Ben (Chimon a.k.a. Wachirawit Ruangwiwat) and Chopper (Perth a.k.a. Tanapon Sukumpantanasan). I really liked Chopper’s storyline because it was very consistent, from the beginning to the end of the series. His love for Ben was always there, so his confession was expected to happen. Ben, on the other side, had feelings for Nueng, but then when Nueng leaves the picture, he starts to like Chopper out of nowhere. 

Another thing that bothered me a lot was that Nueng and Palm were constantly going back and forth with their relationship. They would make a fuss about not being the right one, but every conflict would be quickly solved in a very simplistic way. After some episodes I wouldn’t be worried about anything anymore because I knew nothing major would happen. Actually, the whole series was like that: there was no depth to the story, we always knew who was behind everything and that, eventually, things would be sorted out somehow. Even that tale of the couple that could only meet once a year, which was brought up quite a few times, didn't seemed to be important anymore. Actually, this foreshadowing they made with the tale was so pointless that itself became an item to my list of disappointments. So let’s talk about it, shall we?

3. The totally unnecessary foreshadowing 

In episode four, Palm tells Nueng about Qi Xie Jie, the Chinese festival that celebrates the tragic love story between the cowherd and the weaver girl. In the tale, the lovers are separated by a river in the sky and can only meet once a year. I guess, like me, many of you also thought this was a foreshadow - I’ve seen a lot of analysis about it on Tumblr. Also, as I said, this tale was referenced more than once in the series. 

However, by the end of the last episode, it seemed to be just a plot hole and I really wish it was - but it wasn’t. In fact, they made this whole drama just because, in the end, Nueng would study music abroad and visit Palm once a year. I mean… really? This is what it's all about?

Ok then.

“Okay, but it wasn’t all bad, right? After all, you’ve watched the whole thing.” Sure, NLMG is not a bad series, especially if you’re new to BL. It’s an entertaining show, visually beautiful, the actors have great chemistry, the women are very strong characters and I should highlight Chopper and Nueng’s storyline, because the script nailed both of them, especially when it comes to Nueng’s development. Nueng was always an intelligent boy, but he was very self-centered and full of self-pity. Throughout the series, he started to use his abilities to take action and protect his loved ones. He was a very interesting protagonist and I really admire him as a character.   

In conclusion, do I recommend Never Let Me Go? Sure, mostly if you are new to watching BL content, but be careful not to have many expectations about it. 

And that was it for today’s review, guys. Thank you very much for reading and feel free to share your opinions with me anytime =) 

Bye, bye!