In defense of Dohan

Moon sangmin has successfully played the most annoying male lead character I've watched in any kdrama this year. Jihan is annoying to me. The fact that he actively was pursuing his brother's girlfriend when he was under the illusion that they were sincerely dating, is a massive ick to me. They toned down a lot of jihan's annoying traits from the webtoon, but him micro managing aspects of his brother's personal life is odd, even if his backstory is that he's trying hard to be accepted. It doesn't justify living through his brother, when he has expressed time and time again to him that he has no interest in taking over the company, or marrying a girl he's trying to set him up with. Jihan called Dohan selfish, but he's the most selfish in this show, to me.

How could Dohan notice he likes ahjung when he's been, from Dohan's perspective acting like a premium crackhead towards her. Dohan isn't with them when they have personal conversations, and all he's seeing is him being hostile towards her. Maybe if they were children he could interpret his hot/cold attitude towards her as possible immature display of affection, but they're adults and Ahjung has been presented as his fiancee. Which logical and sane brother falls in love with his future sister-in-law?

And for Dohan is he selfish? To an extent yes. But is his selfishness justified? To an extent yes. He came back from the US, and everyone just expects him to be someone he's not. His obsessive brother is trying to manipulate him into dating someone he doesn't want to, his grandfather wants to put a whole-ass company on his shoulders even if he doesn't want it. Which is very valid. Him not wanting it is valid. Someone is stalking him, and is threatening to expose his sexuality to the public, even sending intimate pictures of him and his partner to his family. There's pressure queerness puts on you that Jihan/a non queer viewer will never be able to understand. And the most important part is that Dohan had the decency to not blindly trick a woman into believing he's in love with her. He laid out the terms of the contractual relationship, and didn't force ahjung to accept his offer. Jihan was the actual reason ahjung accepted it because he was acting extremely childish and she accepted to be in a 3 year contract, just to spite him.

Now you could bring up the point that 3 years is such a long time for ahjung to commit to this extent, and Dohan wasn't considerate of the emotions and possible feelings she'd have in that situation, but she's an adult, and she accepted the contract. It's not even for free. He's paying her approximately 2m dollars to pretend for three years.

And I'm just not feeling the chemistry between Jihan and Ahjung. He keep inserting himself into her personal business without any context. You initially irritated the girl so much that she made an irrational, in hindsight bad decision on the spot, and now you're pestering her because you like her and want to protect her feelings?

The gay brother has reaffirmed that he would do his best to make the three years of their contract a good experience for ahjung, and let her do whatever she likes, having a love life most likely possibly included. Ahjung knew she was marrying a gay man. She never expected him to be attracted to her. She didn't even like him in the first place, for that presumed expectation to be there.

But Jihan cornering her repeatedly to end the engagement makes no sense to me, when he was the main reason she made that call to accept the proposal in the first place. He just keeps doing serious things without context.

In summary Jihan feeling like an outsider in his home will never justify his chain of actions. Putting pressure on both parties for your own personal gain, putting pressure on your own brother to the extent he couldn't even confide in you, his only brother, that he was gay. It's one thing to have a flawed character, but It's another thing to be an immature, selfish, and hypocritical character. You can't be doing things for someone's benefit when they never asked you to. He keeps saying Dohan never experienced what he experienced growing up, so his solution is to treat Dohan like a build a bear, all through his life and impose a life he doesn't want on him? They both lack proper communication skills, and Jihan doesn't know how to take a hint. Dohan might be perceived as cowardly, but Jihan is extremely immature.

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