How ‘Dear X’ Exposes the Appetite for Female Suffering

Here’s the thing everyone seems to be missing about Dear X: Ah-jin (Kim You-jung) survives the crash and escapes alone, choosing not to rescue Jun-seo (Kim Young-dae). She’s the one who walks away. She’s the last one standing. She is the final girl.

But let’s talk about the absolute audacity of watching people online cape for Jun-seo like he’s some tragic romantic hero, when this man was literally obsessed with her from the jump. He wasn’t protecting her out of pure love. He inserted himself into her trauma, appointed himself her savior without asking, and when she didn’t play the role of grateful damsel? He created a documentary exposing her manipulation, her role in her father’s death, and how she used people, dropping it during her acceptance speech at the Blue Dragon Awards.

The documentary revealed her lies and manipulations to the entire nation, including details about orchestrating her father’s killing. However, it conveniently left out the years of abuse she endured. No context about her father pushing her mother down the stairs while drunk, or Jun-seo’s own mother attempting to drown Ah-jin when she was just a child. No mention of the violence that created her. Just the sensational villain origin story that gets clicks.

Who Is the Real Monster?

He painted her as a monster because she wouldn’t be his. That’s it. That’s the tweet.

And when his grand exposé doesn’t break her the way he wanted? Jun-seo drives his car off a cliff in what amounts to a murder-suicide attempt. He literally tried to kill them both because if he couldn’t have her, no one could. But sure, let’s all stan the “tortured soul” who weaponized her trauma for content (he literally made money with a bestselling book on her story) and then tried to take her out when Plan A didn’t work. Meanwhile, Ah-jin? She survives, climbs out of the wreckage, and when Jun-seo, still alive, reaches for her, she pushes him away and leaves him to die. That’s not villainy. That’s a Final Girl move. She refuses to be dragged down by the obsessive “protector” who became her biggest threat.

The real horror of Dear X isn’t Ah-jin’s manipulation. It’s watching a man position himself as the hero of someone else’s story, then turn into the final boss when the narrative doesn’t center him. Jun-seo is the call coming from inside the house. He’s the “nice guy” with a body count.

Ah-jin survives because she had to. Not because she’s redeemed or because she “deserves” it by moral standards, but because in the slasher film of her own life, she’s the one who knows how to fight dirty, who refuses to die for someone else’s closure, who will not be the beautiful corpse in some man’s redemption arc.

The Final Girl Who Won’t Die Pretty

She’s not the victim. She’s not the villain. She’s the Final Girl who looked trauma, obsession, and a literal murder-suicide in the face and said: “Not today.”

And that’s what’s got everyone so pressed, because people are used to Final Girls being pure. Being worthy. Being grateful for the men who “save” them. Ah-jin said fuck that noise, survived anyway, and disappeared into the night while everyone’s still arguing about whether she deserved to live.

The answer is: she did. Because she’s the only one who wanted to.