#it's not that any of these characters are ever entirely enshrouded in shadow bar Nol whose whole Yeonggi to Nol process has involved pointed

[trashlie]

Shinae the Light vs Yui the Shadow

This post heavily discusses episode 138 but also pulls from 170, 179, and 180 and discusses things up to 214, but nothing from the FP epsiodes! 

Earlier today I read this post and it got me thinking a LOT - and trust me that I’m going to ramble about something else shortly outside of this lol - regarding shadows and lighting!

One of the episodes that most deliberately plays with lighting and shadows in a very in your face way is episode 138, where Shinae speaks to Rand about wanting to renegotiate her contract. It’s an interesting episode, because Shinae is met with another side of Rand than the man (the father) who was trying to help Nol. This version of him shuts her down immediately and informs her that he has no jurisdiction over her contract.

As readers, we can deduce that he is speaking this way because Yui is around and he cannot divulge any bit of knowledge that he has been working with Shinae, that there is any sense of relationship there. But also, he isn’t lying in that he can do nothing about her contract. Interestingly, he is in the light where she is in the shadow. He’s not the focus of this moment, but I find that very interesting regardless - Rand is unable to help because he doesn’t have that power. They aren’t on equal footing here. One is in the dark, one has the power of illumination - he knows more intimately than Shinae who and what Yui is.

But my thought is not about Rand but rather Shinae and Yui.

Throughout their conversation, Shinae is in the shadow. She is part of Yui’s trap, in a pit she cannot crawl out of. Yui wields power over her both in the sense of her employer and also as a person who has played with her as prey. Yui, too, is in the shadow. While some light casts on her, she faces away from it and it doesn’t reach her face.

I’ve wondered a lot about Yui and what her situation is, why she is the kind of person she is. I don’t think she’s without reasons - I just think we don’t know enough about her to really know yet. One of the popular theories is that of the Mukoyoshi Theory - that is, that a Japanese family with no male heirs will “adopt” the husband of (one of) their daughter, who will take their last name, rather than she take his. In this case, Yui comes from a Japanese family with a family business and it is deducible that there is no male heir. Hansuke’s family name is Shishido - not Hirahara, which means he’s related by his aunt (and Yui has mentioned her before to him). Rand, who we know is not Japanese, married into the Hirahara family and adopted their name and became a part of their family. Thus, his affair with Nessa is even more of a blight - he has a duty to the Hirahara family. It is his responsibility to not mar their name and upkeep their prestige.

We could do a whole think piece about this, and it really gets into my thoughts on Rand and Yui’s relationship, but to sum it up: it is clear that Yui wants to be the one in control, but must defer to Rand, and that she resents it. This is HER family business. I think she wishes that she was the one in control, and that she could wield that control without having to go through Rand. Yui harbors resentment for a patriarchal society in which she wields no power. There’s a lot to read into re: the way she wields her femininity as a tool, but that’s a whole other post. The point is: Yui resents that she does not have the power she thinks she deserves, the power that she’s capable of, and that fully plays into Shinae.

But, for the sake of this post at this time, it’s essentially that Yui, too, exists in the dark, in the shadows. She can only run this company through others - through her marriage to Rand, through Kousuke, the sole heir. But as powerful and intimidating as she is, she, too, is trapped. She, too, is relegated to the darkness, because it is only from the shadows that she can operate. Yui wears a constant mask, always putting on the front of a concerned mother, a feeble frail lady, a sweet simpering maternal woman. The real Yui lives in the shadows. She’s not allowed to freely be the person she wants to be, she puts on a front for society, for the patriarchy, for the sake of being able to move in the shadows.

Shinae’s objective is to escape the shadow, the prison, the dark. She longs to escape poverty, she longs to escape the prison she turned herself into, she longs to escape the job in which she feels unsafe, the contract that she signed, the agreement she made under false premises. She longs to escape Yui’s reach. And while she can’t escape most of those yet, she still works towards the light. unlike Yui, who has accepted that she belongs to and operates in the shadows and pulls people into them with her, Shinae strives for the light at all times. She wants to be a better daughter, a better friend. She strives to be able to help out her father and create a better life for them. And especially since the black and white formal, Shinae’s inclination towards the right side, the side of light, has grown stronger.

It’s not a bad vs good kind of thing so much as Shinae chooses to work honestly. She’s trying to address the things that scare her - the insecurity she felt about Maya and Rika’s friendship, the quiet plaguing fear that maybe Minhyuk also just tolerated her. She’s had difficult conversations with her father, she has had difficult conversations with her friends. Instead of shirking into the shadows, Shinae moves towards enlightenment. Even if things end, isn’t it better for them to end on good terms, with understanding? Even if she gets hurt, isn’t it better than she gets hurt being honest, than never progress at all? Even if she fails, isn’t it better to make effort than live with regret?

Shinae leaving Yui by way of the light is pointed. Yui’s goal is to pull everyone down with her. If she lives in the shadows, so, too, must everyone else. And the thing about this scene is - I think Yui means it, genuinely. She has a very different way of seeing the world than Shinae and even much of us as readers. Shinae believes in working hard; Yui understands that privilege and connections are more powerful. Yui can see in Shinae the makings of a strong, powerful woman - but power doesn’t have to look one way. For Yui, power is controlling those around her, especially the ones who are meant to have power over her. In a world where men are the all-power, Yui feels powerful when she can manipulate and push them around.

But when she tells Shinae she doesn’t want her to make the “wrong choices” I believe her. It’s just... what does Yui consider to be the wrong choices? Much in the same way that so much of ILY changes based on whose perspective you view it through re: Nol and Kousuke, we the same of Shinae and Yui. Yui is a woman who knows how to make the world yield to you, how to get what you want out of it.

This is a whole other tangent, but because I’m trying to validate my Yui views lol, I believe this is part of what Yui has done with Meg and Alyssa. In fact, I feel like Yui has absolutely treated Meg and her obsession with Kousuke as a joke - what woman demeans herself in such a way for a man? It’s the complete opposite of Yui’s power. Men yield to HER, not the other way around. Is Alyssa a test of her will, to see how much she will bend before she can break? Does Yui hope to find a hidden spine in her, someone who will eventually push back? I think that’s why she has shifted to Shinae - she has the fight and the spirit that Yui wants to mold. Shinae is strong and faces her fears. But she also stands for the complete opposite of Yui, which makes her a fun challenge.

As Shinae moves into the light and leaves Yui to the shadows, Yui makes an attempt to pull her back into them. Or maybe, rather, she’s planted the seed? It’s an ominous moment, Yui’s certainty that there will be a time when Shinae will go running to her, will want her help, her step up in the world. But at this moment, Yui is unsuccessful. Though Shinae cannot renegotiate her contract like she wanted, she still makes the choice to deny Yui’s offering. She will continue her path in the light. She refuses to let Yui pull her down into her shadows.

As much as we view this story as a game of chess between the white and dark side, so much of it gets told through the shadows and the light. Who else spends his time illustrated in the shadows, existing outside of peoples’ view, wearing a mask out in the light? Nol is one of Yui’s prey - he’s learning how to stand on his own feet as himself, but so much of his imagery has been enshrouded in shadows, a victim of Yui for so long that he’s forgotten how to make his way out of the dark, until now.

Shinae has the ability to bring him out of the shadow, to give him the eventual courage to exist outside of the shadows, to allow himself to enjoy the light. Every time he turns away, he finds himself drawn back in. Every moment he’s angled himself away from her in effort to stay where he thinks he belongs, to skulk in the dark, he still ends up moving towards her.

And every time that Nol choose to go towards Shinae, he moves towards the light.

Like literally lol. In the pool, he basked there in the dark, willing to finally throw in the towel accept that peace, but because of Shinae, because of his penance, he chose to move towards the light once again. Maybe he thought it would be for the last time, but we’ve seen better.

Shinae guides him back out of the shadows.

And that brings us to my next post: how Shinae is the true adversary of Yui. 

Really, go read @denjidomination​’s post! It’s got me going off on a whole different tangent than I planned to this week, but I think I’ll be able to get to it before the next update. I’ve said for so long now that Shinae is very likely meant to help bridge Nol and Kousuke, but I think more than that, Shinae is the guiding light for them - that in very different ways, both Nol and Kousuke exist in the shadows and are imprisoned by their circumstances and experiences, and Shinae, I think, is the one who will be able to help them fight back against that darkness. I don’t mean this in a “She will save/fix them” kind of way as much as her presence in their lives, what she means to them, will help them to move from that which holds them down. 

But I have a headache so I have to work on that another time lol 

#I Love Yoo #ILY Brainrot #Shinae Yoo #Yui Hirahara #Nol #Nolan Oliver T. Lochlainn #I'm pointedly saying light vs shadow because i think in some ways shadow represents feeling trapped and enprisoned #it's not that any of these characters are ever entirely enshrouded in shadow bar Nol whose whole Yeonggi to Nol process has involved pointed #shadows lol but more in the sense of what these characters are representing if that makes sense? #In the chess theory Yui plays for the white side - but from Shinae's perspective she plays for the dark side #I think it's easier to view it as Yui pulling people down and imprisoning them? and please know i mean this very metaphorically! #i'm very well aware that their choices are theirs #it's more like i feel like esp regarding Kousuke and Nol Yui influences that shadow that prison so much #we see that Kousuke's cognitive dissonance pushes him to the breaking point and that this has been propped up by Yui before #I think Yui is happy to keep Kousuke in the dark with her at her side because people like them don't require honor and moreso because #I think Yui resents what Kousuke can do and possess the opportunities afforded to him that she was not allowed #and she is vicariously living through him that he has become a shadow puppet without realizing it #I think Yui is also the main obstacle to Kousuke ever changing himself because she alone is able to pull him back which is especially #important at this stage as she is the only immediate relative who has made Kousuke feel supported and loved - she is the only pillar of #of stability that he has and this absolutely affects how he acts and behaves. how far can he stray before he's forced to return to her side? #look at how things went when he went off to college #and likewise we know that Nol has been imprisoned in the shadows and Yui has actively made his life harder and worse. though he makes the #choice to remain in the dark #he is the one deciding he is undeserving of the life #who created that thought? who put it in his mind? where does it all stem from? #anyway lmao this is so long oh god i always get into the tags and start rambling #but i'm also really excited to explore this thought about Shinae #we always talk about the chess theory as being Yui vs Rand or that Yujing is the formidable opponent #and don't get me wrong Yujing certainly is #but I think the true adversary is Shinae; I think she is the one who can guide everyone out of the shadows