Oct 2023
4 / 8
Oct 2023
Oct 2023
JoshRaed
Oct '23
1

According to various people including the writer, the comic has been foreshadowing the protagonist being a shitty person the whole time. But... I don't see how that's so. I read it back and he seems to just have very normal un-rude un-toxic interactions with people, and no moments that make me thinks I should have seen it coming. But everyone else sees it and thinks that anyone not seeing it is an example of Webtoon readers just sort of ignoring any bad behavior committed by an attractive character. But I can't say that if this guy was ugly I'd assume anything negative about his behavior.

Can anyone explain this? Like I really don't see how he says or does anything wrong before the flashback chapter, especially not in a way so as to make him abusing his girlfriend feel like something he'd do. People also said that he straight up blames his parents for his mistakes, which I literally never saw him do, even during his abusive boyfriend flashbacks, and 70 plus webtoon readers agreed with it.

Can anyone explain this?

  • created

    Oct '23

  • last reply

    Oct '23
  • 7

    replies

  • 2.3k

    views

  • 1

    user

  • 8

    likes

  • 1

    link

LunarScyphozoa
Oct '23

Have you tried turning it off and back on again? That is to say, rereading it through the lens of knowing he was a jerk and trying to pick up on hints?

JoshRaed
Oct '23

I actually reread it and that's the reason I'm making this. I guess certain things he says are retroactively questionable if you know what happened ("I just want you back"), and one line he thinks to himself sounds sinister out of context, but they didn't hint that he did anything wrong. Like I don't think I'd ever find it weird if he didn't turn out to be a bad person based on that line.

moontokkym
Oct '23

I don't know much about this webtoon, but I do know too much about abusive realtionships.

If this is an abusif relationship portrayed well, then there won't be a singular moment where you realise the person is abusive until it goes too far.

Most verbal and emotional abuse starts off very subtle, and the victim can't point to one single phrase or statement that the abuser made to explain their situation, because the abuse is tons of "little things" every single day. Controlling behaviour like insisting on putting keys in a certain place away from the victim, rapid mood swings including flair ups of anger even if they are fast and don't lead to shouting or attacks, insisting that the victim didn't see or do something they remember seeing or doing, wanting to get into the victims personal belongings like their phone or bag, being absolutely horrible to people like waitstaff or friends while being a totally different person to the victim, being excessively possessive of the other person, controlling their clothes, outings and/or environment...

Most people in real life are unfortunately unaware of the more subtle signs of abuse or what abusive behaviour looks like beyond shouting, insulting, hitting, etc... And usually it takes knowing that it is going that far to recontextualise the earlier red flags that could have had the benefit of the doubt, especially as there are a ton of behaviours that are often cast as romantic in stories that are fully part of emotional and even physical abuse behaviours (stalking, tracking locations via phone without the victims knowledge, insisting on kissing them when they say nothing, say no or even fight back, pressuring them into not seeing their friends through jealousy...).

I don't know if some of these are behaviours you missed in the earlier chapters, but if you don't know what to look for and also have trouble understanding human interactions (which, going to be honest here, we know from the forums you do sometimes have that issue), it can just go over your head.

This is not having read the webtoon it's more a theory + a PSA to anyone who may be in the early stages of an abusive relationship to have some things to watch out for.

AxemanRifflord
Oct '23

I think the reason people thought it was obvious because the hallucinations of the protagonist’s dead girlfriend rub his guilt in his face.

As for Drew’s more polite demeanor in the “present,” I think the near death experience changed him. He’s become paranoid about his actions and words. Yes, he’s hiding the fact that he’s a werewolf, but he’s also become aware of how his actions can have destructive consequences.

A pretentious, stuff horror artist might argue that the werewolfism is being used in the comic as symbolism for guilt.

vapidink
Oct '23

Well, it literally starts with him telling us he's a monster. And yes, he literally is a monster, but we don't know that at the start and neither does he. So, dreams are a big thing in a narrative because they tell us things and truths about what's going on even when the characters aren't aware of these things. Andrew's dream tells us what he doesn't want to admit to himself, that he's a monster because of the things he's done, specifically, that he's the monster that caused Julia's death.

Then, he runs away from his own guilt, even though he tells himself he didn't do anything wrong. Well, why would he feel guilty then? Everything his girlfriend says when he hallucinates her is coming from his own subconscious. Yes, he tells himself he's not at fault, but that's just in line with a pattern of him not taking responsibility for his actions and very much what an abuser tells themselves. They don't want to admit they are the monster, so they put the blame on the victim.

Even before we see the flashback, we see Andrew blaming his dead girlfriend for his situation. So, he's blaming a dead woman for him choosing to run away from his own guilt.

The flashback is a giant red flag from the start. We see him following Julia, then everyone around him tells him she doesn't want him there, something we then find out is true when we hear Julia tell him over the phone. she mentions her friend advising him to separate from him, and says she's looking back at past actions of his she's excused. So that tells us he's done things that have raised alarms for people around Julia. Then we find out how Julia died, and even though he blames her, it was his fault. She wouldn't have been there if not for him not respecting her wishes to not see him and dragging her out of the party. He doesn't even want to take responsibility for the crash or get medical help because he doesn't want to get in trouble.

One more thing I noticed is the post Julia's friend made. She mentioned she was grieving Julia along with their friends, because grieving someone means they are loved. Well, Andrew isn't really grieving. He's haunted by Julia and his guilt, but he doesn't really grieve her. He's actually trying to run from her memory, so that tells us more about his thoughts. Again, he's putting himself first.

Deep down, Andrew feels guilt, but his actions show us he doesn't want to bear the consequences of his actions, he wants to forget about Julia and the things he did. But, because the things he did ended up with her dead, he's now forced to see the truth of who he is.

Sorry this got longer than expected, but it's an interesting story. The signs are there, you just have to pay attention and think about it. Don't take the things you're told at face value, because sometimes you're dealing with an unreliable narrator like Andrew.

JoshRaed
Oct '23
1

Wait does he blame her? I don't remember him saying anything to the effect of this being her fault. (edit: I must have missed a line where he said that, because I caught it on a third reading)

Also didn't he leave because he kind of knew he was a werewolf? Like I don't see how most of this makes sense if he's not aware. Like the ghost telling him he needs to eat something alive, and him eating the bird. She even tells him that he knows the real reason he's leaving is because of the werewolf stuff. Like the implication is that he fully knows and that's why he left.

Also someone said that he blamed his parents or something, and I don't see when or how he did that. He's told he's blaming his parents but when he talks to them he just says that they're weird around him now and his mother blames him.

Though I do see how him becoming a monster kind of foreshadows his behavior, that the dream symbolizes something.

vapidink
Oct '23
2

He doesn't know, because then he wouldn't be shocked at his transformation or about the things that are happening to him. Julia isn't a ghost, she is a hallucination and a representation of the things he's trying to bury, like his guilt, and the hunger he feels because of his changing nature. Him eating the bird was a moment in which he lost control of this new instinct and let the monster take over as he gets closer to transforming. You can take it as a bit of symbolism, with Julia being the bird and Andrew "devouring" her as he loses control.

To me, it was very clear that he left because he felt guilty. We don't see him even thinking about him being a werewolf, we see him thinking about Julia and seeing her in other people that even vaguely resemble her. He's running from her/these visions of her that we know are a manifestation of his guilt. So, he's effectively running from the consequences of his actions and the truth of who he is. Even the first part where he's talking about his dream with his therapist tells us this when he says the narrative of the dream changed. He no longer sees both him and Julia as the victims, only Julia while he's the perpetrator, so he's starting to see the truth, doesn't like it, and tries to run from it.

And yes, he's definitely blaming his parents for who he is. He blames them for putting pressure on him, for his failures, and for seeing him in a different light after what happened to Julia because he knows they're starting to see him for who he really is and doesn't like it. He doesn't want to acknowledge that he is who he is in spite of his parents not because of them. It's establishing a pattern of Andrew not wanting to take responsibility for his actions and choices, just like he blames Julia for her own death, even though it was his choices and actions that put her in harms way.

Edit to add: I'm pretty sure it's his first time transforming because we're told it's been a month since Julia died and are shown the full moon when he transforms, so I'm assuming we're going by the usual werewolf lore where the transformation happens once a month during the full moon.