sara

breaking: comment section of a drama titled "a love other than yours" get absolutely shocked when the main characters explore the possibility of finding a love other than their partners'

that's how you all sound

thank you for this comment, couldn't have described it better

yes, what i'm talking about happened in episode 6! and yeah, i also think namgung jas strayed a lot with sua, and that's one of the things i condemn him for. he doesn't know the limits of acting like a brother and acting like a boyfriend, and he's acting more like the latter. both of them (mido and namgung) are displaying incorrect behaviours, so none of them is green, but i don't think they are red either. that's the whole thing: they are grey, like most humans are :)

if this was episode 8 —the halfmark of the show— i'd totally agree on this, but we still have a bit more than half so i think it will depend on how they solve everything

but i think my view agrees with yours, my comments were about avoiding over simplifying the behaviour of mido to just "cheating". because she is cheating, yes, but that behaviour has a reasoning —which is not the same as a justification— and i agree with you on what that reasoning is: pushing limits to try and find herself. i don't agree on your view of the SML tho, i can't justify his actions and i believe he has done very grave things.

i am not defending her. i'm just saying that the reason to critique her behaviour can't be as simple as "she cheated". she did a lot more things we can critique her for. and cheating is one of them! you are right! but what i'm saying is we can't forget she has cheated in a more complex way than simply for the sake of it, she did it from a position of being taken advantage of

no, namgung's behaviour is also complex. that's the quid of the question: the whole relationship with themselves and with each other is very complex

i'm defending what you are saying, about taking steps to cheating. my comments are not about saying she will not be cheating. i never said she won't. in fact i just said she will. i'm just saying we can't base our critiques solely on her cheating, saying not everything is as simple as red or green. because that would be a very shallow and simplistic

and again, she is not in the right headspace to set the right boundaries. and we can blame her for her irresponsibility on that. but taeseung could very much clearly see this and he still decided to take action. that's why he took advantage of a vulnerable —yet irresponsible, because those two can coexist— person.

oh yeah let's just blame the victim for exploring what a new person in her life could bring to her table and ending up being manipulated!

you do realize how insane that sounds, right? she can and should be held accountable for numerous things —as i said right in the start of my first comment, i actually defend namgung over her—. but being taken advantage of is DEFINITELY not one of them

i think you should go back and read all of my comments again. because the answer to this question is what i've been saying this whole time: this is not a "i'm perpetually the one to blame" and a "i'm perpetually the better person". being wrong and right can coexist in human behaviour because of how extremely complex we are. if she falls for him, she will indeed be cheating. but we can't take her cheating out of context. we don't have to justify it, but still, we should ask ourselves some questions: /why/ and, most importantly, /HOW/ is she cheating? is she fully conscious of her actions? is she being a cheater for the whole sake of enjoying it and harming namgung? or is she actually hating every minute of it and harming herself too? she will be a cheater if she doesn't stop it now —which she won't—, but reducing our whole critique to her as a person to the cheating we've been shown for now is oversimplistic as hell.

both of you are spitting facts!! thanks

thank you for this comment, i was going crazy navigating through this entire comment section lol

yes, taking advantage of an emotionally unstable woman that has told you multiple times she's in a relationship is abuse. getting completely obsessed over her just because you feel the need to control her is abuse. she left openings for him, she did. but she also tried closing them, albeit in a very clumsy way —the best she could in her unstable state. physically forcing yourself onto a woman like that IS abuse. she's not aware of her actions, she is "drunk" in her problems. but HE is aware. so yeah, he did abuse her emotionally and sexually.

but that's why i commented on the extremism of our morality nowadays; because while i think what i just said is true, i also know she will indeed fall for him. because our thoughts are complex. our actions are complex. our behaviour is complex. because sometimes we are red, sometimes we are green. and most of the time we are grey.

but precisely because i believe we can't deny our complex behavioural conducts, i also have to say that she will not fall for him out of real love or atraction, but because of falling victim to his really good manipulation techniques.

i think mido wasn't thinking of him as a love interest until just now. as i said, mido is in the middle of an identity crisis. she doesn't know if she still wants to achieve what she's been dreaming of for her whole life. and taeseung appeared in her life as an obstacle to that dream, so she naturally felt attracted to him in the way a moth feels attracted to a lamp; she knew he was an obstacle to that dream, and since she doesn't know if she wants that dream anymore she's seeing him as a guiding light. is this light a lighthouse guiding her to solid ground? or is it just a fire that's going to burn her? she didn't know that at first. but she's in such a vulnerable state that she decided to take the risk, to see where the light would actually take her. but she certainly did not get close to him with the main objective of cheating on her boyfriend. that's just a collateral effect of her questioning all of her life decisions. and she clearly wasn't the one in charge of the situation when they kissed.

mido has done a lot of questionable things in the relationship and i truly don't believe she is the better one here. in fact, i'm a namgung defender in terms of who has been hurt more by the actions of the other (i'm also holding him accountable for certain things but —and i'll get more in depth into this later— turns out people are not perfect shades of red or green as today's moraly extremist consumer profile demands).

however, i can't possibly be the only one of this whole comment section that felt a horribly deep, unsettling discomfort with taeseung grooming and abusing her? she is a woman in a very vulnerable state —a huge identity crisis that is eating her alive, which is the main underlying issue in her relationship— that was taken advantage of. i had physical pain in my stomach watching that scene, and i got nauseated seing her wholeheartedly believe it was all her fault. she didn't even realize she was being taken advantage of. and i came to the comments to read and discuss about all of this, but instead i find you all just over simplifying and reducing it to "she cheated? that is unforgivable!". do you really think that's it?

i don't defend that this show is a masterpiece, but i also truly believe none of you are even half qualified enough to critique, and your reaction to mido cheating demonstrates it perfectly. as i said, today's consumer profile is very extremist, and loves to hide behind the morality blanket. but let me tell you: no, you aren't better people because you hate mido for cheating. you aren't better for saying "she cheated. cheating is bad. she is bad" —you are just highlighting how shallow your morality and emotional processing are.

no, for a show to have depth, it can't only have red or green flagged characters. that's not how we, humans, are. we are neither morally perfect nor totally evil, inmoral creatures. sometimes we are the victims, sometimes we are the perpetrators. we are very complex beings. we are never just "right" or just "wrong". we are and will never be only red or only green. we are all shades of grey. and we are all shades of every color, too. and the situations that suround and affect us do, in fact, determinate our behaviour and our response. that's why morality is not and should not only be one extreme or the other, but every little spot along the spectrum of said extremes.

i'm open to, and looking forward to, having discussions on this, hence why i'm posting this comment. but please: ponder on the topic for a bit, refrain from replying if your reasoning is going to be so simplistic that you completely turn a blind eye to the abuse of emotional power taeseung has inflinged on mido. we can't be losing our ability to process, delve into and question human behavioral process for the sake of a surface level morality badge.

thanks!

i literally had to go back and make sure i wasn't crazy yet i still see no one commenting about this?