Bjorn resolves the inner conflict he has. Specifically when Lee Baekho called him out a few arcs back about NPCS not been real people and mocked the idea of settling down with an NPC wife.
Because in Canon the only reasons he has for not going full harem are
1. He’s actually gay
2. He agrees with Lee Baekho that they’re not real people and still wants to go home and is thus unwilling to abandon returning home to settle down with an NPC who can’t go with him.
3. His conservative value system and some unspecified additional reason for not settling down.
The only not shit reason I can think of is bjorn still wants to go home and he knows he can’t bring the NPCs back with him so he believes he is been respectful by not pursuing intimacy with them, while ignoring the fact that other than Amelia/Misha, they don’t know this and to them it comes accross as him leading them on / been a tease.
Were either going
1. consensual harem route where he goes evil spirit mask off
2. Stoic loner for value system reasons while been a coward about the truth of his identity
3. Single paring with Hyunbeol/Amelia/Misha since he hasn’t lied (too much) to them and they know what he is
He’s def not gay, by his self-assertion. He also doesn’t see them as NPCs, also by self-assertion.In canon, I think your #3 is closest. I mentioned in another comment, his character flaw is avoiding uncomfortable or difficult situations/realities. On earth, he didn’t have friends and basically lived in the game already – it was his escape. His mom was horrible, and Hyun-Byeol was a real challenge for him. In Raphdonia, he keeps his closest peeps at arms length, and the one time he opened up, he got burned. I’d like to see him start to overcome this flaw, and acknowledgement is the first step towards change, but we’ll see what is to come. I don’t see him settling down any time soon.One logical argument against settling down would be that he still has powerful enemies, and settling down would create more liabilities, especially with the growing number of enemies (Orqulus, Gavis, potentially Baek Ho, the King and royal faction, and whoever else he pissed off). Still, we know he’s not a complete logician devoid of emotion, so who knows.
Everybody talking about marriage and choosing partners….i just want to know what affects aynars, and amelia’s essences were. It’s damn Criminal giving us all of basement floor 1, Plus a rescue operation and only Bjorns essence stats were revealed smh….
I said it before but the author wrote himself into a corner. There won't actually be a good enough reason to excise his indecisiveness when it comes to women. He's decisive in every other aspect but uniquely weak when it comes to women. Grow the hell up and get over it. It's so unimmersive.
If it comes out he was straight up abused or assaulted by women, I still won't care. There is literally no valid reason for him to be this way anymore. Not when he overcomes every other life or death situation. Fear of intimacy, rejection or trust issues aren't satisfying enough reasons to excuse being that pathetic. It's really the only characteristic he has that doesn't fit who he is now.
As I said before, I'd happily take a harem now, just make a freaking decision already and move on to something now interesting please.
He just thinks of himself as a character in a game and tries to make a rational judgement but as we know as soon as Feelings are involved that isnt as easy as choosing your progression
The issue is that he doesn’t actually think of himself as a character in a game.He thinks this is a real, actually serious decision. If he thought of himself as a character in a game, he’s already logic'd out the “I can have a harem” route so he’d do the harem route.I’m still betting on Hyunbeol or Amelia because they’re the only 2 people he hasn’t lied to about himself. That or he goes mask off honesty about been an evil spirit and speedruns the harem route.
I also believe that the very mentality that helps him survive and thrive in other precarious situations is one of protectionism, and fails to help him in matters where he has to be vulnerable. He usually wants to protect himself and the people he cares for – he can do that in battle , of swords and shields or of wit, but in romance, it’s not about discarding what you can do without to get out safely. It’s about discarding your walls and safety to get closer to someone. He was almost there with Misha once upon a time, but now things are different.Tbh i’d actually say this here is a glimmer of character development. Normally hed just brush past everything, but here, he is in visible turmoil, accepting that he is a walking contradiction, comparing his morals with his desires. Obviously it’s a bit of a tease because he walks back everything with his rationalization, but we can see his acknowledgement of how he feels for everyone and how he recognizes they may feel for him. You’re ashamed of him, but he’s also ashamed of himself.Do I think he'll choose someone? Ha, I actually think he’s gonna find some underhanded way to weasel out (maybe go on an excursion or something to avoid the girls for a while) but maybe in about 100 chapters or so, we might have some kind of development. Hopefully🤞
You do seem to at least acknowledge that there is a limit to how long he can go without addressing it though right? You said hopefully in 100 chapters but what if not even then? What if it the novel ends and he still doesn't address it? Can you say it's still character development then? So it seems like you actually agree with my position but just disagree with how long he has to address it.Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like you're saying he needs more time to come to terms with his character flaw and it still contributed to his character development. I'm saying he's long passed that time and it's now more distracting and immersion breaking than building development.So the question is how long do you give him, especially considering the fact that the author hasn't even explained the freaking reason for his “trauma” to begin with. When is it no longer acceptable character development for you and just bad writing?
We don’t even know bro is trauma'd.The only Canon reason we have is he thinks of himself as someone with Confucian values, extrapolated out this means he subconsciously agrees with Lee baekho, ie he knows they’re all NPCs and can’t consent so hasn’t made a move.The character development I think were going to get from this arc is him making a choice about whether he considers NPCs “people" and is willing to marry and settle or if he rejects that concept and wants to return home.Because what everyone here isn’t addressing is that whatever waifu he picks here, if it’s not hyunbeol, they can’t come back to reality with him.
Everyone is assuming that trauma is the cause as what's left otherwise is an overused Asian trope where the mc is just bad with women for relatability or comedic effect. We're giving the author the benefit of the doubt with his writing style so far, but I'm admittedly being worn down the longer this goes on.The problem is if they NPCs then their consent isn't necessary because they're not people. It's no different than picking romance options in rpgs. Bjorn clearly considers everyone people as he's willingly risking his life for his party. If they're not people then he'd just bang everything and impregnate anyone because it doesn't matter, especially as a min-maxer.I also don't think he plans on returning. Even Baekho seems to believe so. If anything, he'll be forced to leave while having family here which will lead to a bittersweet ending. Saving the world he can't be a part of sort of thing. Personally, my problem is that no one is willing to explicity state when the trope has worn out and just becomes bad writing. I've been complaining about this for a while now and literally no one can say this. People seem to intuitively understand that there's a limit to the troops but never want to define what that limit is. I've gotten into extensive arguments about this before and there is NEVER an answer. It's pure fanboyism defending bad/lazy writing.
I agree MC been bad at relationships Is bad / cringe writing.My opinion on that frankly is I just lower my standards. Personally i’d rather the MC have the guts to just reject love interests if the author doesn’t want to write them or better yet, not introduce the problem in the first place.Benefit of the doubt for the author in my opinion is its bad comms and he doesn’t want to commit to a relationship where he’d have to effectively abandon the parent of his child. I’m prepared to be incredibly disappointed though.
I interpreted his confucianism as him viewing himself as a one-woman man. Funny enough is that he has a contradictory mentality (self-admittedly) as he seems to pick and choose certain aspects of confucianism to adopt. Also he doesn’t see them as NPCs like Baek-ho does, he just normally has trouble opening up to ppl. Even Hyun-Byeol was surprised he had actual friends – as the person who knows him the longest, it highlighted a good part of his closed-off nature. He’s gonna have to open up to choose anyone, if that ever happens. Maybe if he accomplishes his goals and decides to settle down… maybe
My 100 chapters bit was more a hope for his character development, but tbh it doesn’t bug me in a similar way. Maybe I’ve been desensitized by all the harem plots in similar media – I actually find this work to be the more sensible of plots involving a possible harem. Hansoo is primarily focused on surviving, is not oblivious to everyone's feelings (at least most of them), actually took a step with one of them, and is reflective about the situation. That’s leagues above most harem plots, so I’m not really mad at it. Plus he is notorious for escaping being cornered, so it’s not really out of character.Hansoo has a history of escape mentality – he did it to avoid his situation with his ma, did it to avoid getting sticky with Hyun-Byeol, dove in the game for 9-10 years to avoid reality, he’s mastered the craft. Good character development for him would be learning not to default to escaping difficult realities, but learning to open up and take risks at being vulnerable. The self-reflection is good, but hopefully we’ll see some actionable change in time
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Speculation for this Arc:
Bjorn resolves the inner conflict he has. Specifically when Lee Baekho called him out a few arcs back about NPCS not been real people and mocked the idea of settling down with an NPC wife.
Because in Canon the only reasons he has for not going full harem are
1. He’s actually gay
2. He agrees with Lee Baekho that they’re not real people and still wants to go home and is thus unwilling to abandon returning home to settle down with an NPC who can’t go with him.
3. His conservative value system and some unspecified additional reason for not settling down.
The only not shit reason I can think of is bjorn still wants to go home and he knows he can’t bring the NPCs back with him so he believes he is been respectful by not pursuing intimacy with them, while ignoring the fact that other than Amelia/Misha, they don’t know this and to them it comes accross as him leading them on / been a tease.
Were either going
1. consensual harem route where he goes evil spirit mask off
2. Stoic loner for value system reasons while been a coward about the truth of his identity
3. Single paring with Hyunbeol/Amelia/Misha since he hasn’t lied (too much) to them and they know what he is
Everybody talking about marriage and choosing partners….i just want to know what affects aynars, and amelia’s essences were. It’s damn Criminal giving us all of basement floor 1, Plus a rescue operation and only Bjorns essence stats were revealed smh….
I said it before but the author wrote himself into a corner. There won't actually be a good enough reason to excise his indecisiveness when it comes to women. He's decisive in every other aspect but uniquely weak when it comes to women. Grow the hell up and get over it. It's so unimmersive.
If it comes out he was straight up abused or assaulted by women, I still won't care. There is literally no valid reason for him to be this way anymore. Not when he overcomes every other life or death situation. Fear of intimacy, rejection or trust issues aren't satisfying enough reasons to excuse being that pathetic. It's really the only characteristic he has that doesn't fit who he is now.
As I said before, I'd happily take a harem now, just make a freaking decision already and move on to something now interesting please.
Romance flag raised on all the names listed?
Raven…so easily manipulated.