Kseniya Green

There are some plot decisions that raise questions and conflicting feelings for me, but I'll wait until the finale to decide how I feel about them.
What I like about the drama is that it raises the theme of how a narcissistic society creates a "Mozart and Salieri" scenario and forces people into it, even gaslighting them into believing it.
That in a relationship between two rivals, there's always a "villain" and a "victim," and sooner or later, you have to play one role or the other.
And Pio is willing to play the "victim" in Jeongyo's villainous scenario maybe because they both believe it's the only way for them to be together, in some very doomed sense.

And resolution with Jeongyo at this point is only possible through music. No words can restore trust.
Jeongyo mentioned that he suffered from terrible social anxiety. I think all the bad things in his life - his father's betrayal, the kidnapping, the inability to play - were intertwined in his soul with the image of Pio swinging a stone at him. Perhaps that moment deeply wounded him back then, even though he didn't express it and was understanding at the time. But after all the trauma and damaged memories, that image has mutated into a true monster in Jeongyo's soul. And nothing but music can break its spell.

Yes. In my opinion, this whole story of suffering will simply be meaningless if it ends in destruction.
And there's another point to this. Pio played his whole life to gain someone's approval. And maybe only when he hit rock bottom, in a situation where he has nothing left to lose, will he be able to play not for the sake of affirming his own worth, but for the sake of the music itself. And what it contains.

I think the catharsis the whole story is building toward is that Pio will actually be able to interpret Jeongyo's music better than Jeongyo himself.
Music has always been a realm of truth between them, pure water.
But now Jeongyo's perception is distorted. Consciously he feels hatred, but unconsciously his feelings for Pio are much more complex, and he himself can't understand why. And consciously or not, he expects Pio to give him that lost reflection. But when he receives it, he can't accept it.
If Pio can play this piece so that Jeongyo believes him, he will break the spell.

Someone mentioned allusions to The Little Mermaid.
Now we have an allusion to The Snow Queen.

From a psychological point of view, the only thing that can save Pio is anger. Until his anger at his mother turns out to be stronger than his fear for her, he will be completely under her hood. And now even stronger than before, because they are connected by guilt. Because he thinks that she did this terrible thing for his sake. If he can't open his soul to anger and tell his mother to go to hell, he'll be a melting snowman for the rest of his days.

I also have a suspicion that this also angers Jeongyo . Not only that Pio does not hear his soul, but also that Pio does not express his own soul, does not express his emotions, be it pain, passion or anger. I think it makes Jeongyo angry that Pio is so unbearably convenient for everyone. We'll see if I'm right or wrong, but I have a hypothesis that maybe Jeongyo actually wants Pio to get angry. Really angry.

Since Jeongyo can no longer play the piano, he now tries to play his other "beloved instrument" - Pio.
The poor boy has been the instrument of someone's desperate, unfulfilled desires since childhood - his mother's, his first narcissistic teacher, Jaein's. And now Jeongyo too 😭

Yes. I also think these sharp, intense emotions of Jeongyo's aren't just anger, but also a kind of hunger. Throughout his childhood and adolescence, Jeongyo healed himself by playing the piano. But when he suffered the most grievous wound of his life, he also lost the ability to heal his soul with his music. And he wants, with the demand of a desperate man, for Pio to do for him what he can't do for himself. For Pio to return the lost part of himself, to fix what's broken within him.

There's also that moment when grandfather talks about music as a "love letter." I think this music truly was born as a "love letter" for Pio. And even though after all the upheaval, this letter was filled with anger and pain, somewhere in its essence, it remained a "love letter." Perhaps Jeongyo feels that if Pio plays it right, this music will return a lost part of himself to Jeongyo too

I also think his anger at the "correctness" of Pio's play carries a special emotional charge because it's intertwined with Pio's inability to go against his mother. Pio is bound hand and foot by these rules, and for Jeongye, this is no longer a cause for sympathy, but a cause for anger. It's like, "Are your rules really more important than me?"
I perceive his condemnation of Pio's play not as cold manipulation, but as genuine and very burning anger: "You don't understand me. But you should understand me, of all people, you should."

But I definitely get the feeling that Jeongyo's attacks on Pio aren't based on cold calculation, but on acute frustration. Whatever he feels for Pio now, he wants to extract Pio's emotions, and when that doesn't happen, he feels rage and pain. I think the pain in his shoulder might even be psychosomatic. It's definitely a reflection of his inner pain.

I understand this logic, but something about Jeongyo's emotions doesn't add up for me. Jeongyo has every reason to be angry with Pio, but to be a sadist towards the person he loved, even if that person turned out to be a traitor, requires a very specific character. That is, my doubts are not about the justice of Jeongyo's reaction, but about its plausibility in the entire context of his character and their relationship. But I'll see where they end up before I give my verdict.

That may be true, but for me in this case, it's a logical inconsistency in the character of Jeongyo. A man who still cares for his worthless father wouldn't torture an already crushed man, especially a man he once loved. No matter how justified his desire for revenge. It's simply psychologically unrealistic, in my opinion.

I'm no longer sure where this drama will lead, but I still think that what Jeongyo is doing to Pio isn't just revenge. Jeongyo doesn't want Pio to suffer for the sake of suffering, he wants Pio to experience and express his, Jeongyo's, pain. Because even in his anger and frustration at Pio, Jeongyo sees no one else who could do it for him. He wants Pio to play his heartfelt cry. And that's why he gets so angry and hurt when he doesn't hear this understanding in Pio's performance.
And the thing is, Pio would have found it easier to cut off his own hand than to truly embrace someone else's feelings. Guilt and compassion are not the same thing. And without compassion, there can be no restoration of connection, no matter how much Pio breaks his hands on the piano.
But for me, the question of whether compassion can be beaten out of a person in this way is highly debatable. And can there be any future for this relationship, even if Pio manages to go through this hell.

I'm also thinking about how people in the comments noted that Jeongyo the conductor gave Pio instructions to play "with pain/with sorrow."
And I see in this not a desire for Pio to suffer, but a desire for Pio to live his pain through music. Not only because it is everyone’s natural desire to receive empathy from a loved one. Not only because Pio has guilt. But because no one ever taught Pio that you can be with other people’s emotions and not lose yourself in it.
All Pio knows is to either adapt to other people's desires or get angry because of them. He has no experience that it is possible to empathize with another and feel strength in this, and not worthlessness.
And the piano may be the only means for Pio to gain this experience. Piano and Jeongyo.

The thing is that if a person does not have a stable core of himself, his feelings for others can also swing from one extreme to another. Moreover, the more significant the person, the stronger the connection, the wilder the swing. And we've seen this before. At one point, he is ready to do anything for Jeongyo. At another moment he swings a stone at him. And then he sincerely regrets it.
He really needs long and thorough therapy. But he also needs someone ready to love him no matter what. Relationship trauma cannot be fully healed outside of the relationship.

I think his pain of feeling unvalued is comparable to the pain of loss and guilt. This is the truth of a person’s life in such trauma - it is impossible to adequately express and experience love when a person has a black hole in the place of self-worth. This does not mean that he is not capable of love, he loves sincerely. But he is constantly tossed from side to side, he either dissociates from his emotions, as in the interview situation, or drowns in them.

Perhaps at some level the image of Jeongyo is dissociated for him too - Jeongyo as the person he loves and who gave him the happiest memories. And Jeongyo as a competitor for a place in the music world and in the eyes of all the people significant to him.

Exactly. It's not that we want everything to be bl. There are countless dramas with interesting relationships between male characters that read exactly like friendship. I might ship some of them, but that's purely my imagination, not the author's intention. And I absolutely can separate these two cases.
This particular drama was made with the clear intention of appealing specifically to fans of queer romance. Every script beat, every camera choice, every subtle element of the acting. Romance isn't just, and doesn't even necessarily have, a kiss. There are stories with romance without a kiss, and stories with a kiss without romance. Romance is a whole complex of how the characters' relationships are portrayed.
And if creators are so diligently building a romantic subtext, I want them to be consistent throughout, to the end. Otherwise, it feels like gaslighting.

Yes. It's clear that when a relationship isn't explicitly stated, everyone has the right to interpret it their own way. And I don't dispute that.
But it irritates me that specifically regarding queer romances, there are always comments that the romantic interpretation makes the story "less profound" or "simplifies" it. I haven't heard any complaints that the heterosexual romance in Mr. Sunshine makes the drama less profound. Or that Mercedes in The Count of Monte Cristo would have been better as his sister. Or Catherine and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights would have been better siblings.