Kinda old news but THEORY: Samuel Seo knows he is in a Manwha
Firstly his line in Incheon, now you may think this is just him acknowledging it's been a while since workers in verse but in reality, it's him acknowledging it's been long since workers IN REAL LIFE
secondly his goal, to be king of the word you need to be mad, something that's also required or at least something that Naturally comes with being self aware. He also attempted to recruit specifically a Taiwanese hong kong man in Ja-un Ryu, knowing yhe persecution he faces. Now what does that mean? Well in a meta contextual sense Ryu faces persecution from his very author in PTJ, who we know is Sinophobic and actively wishes the worst for his chinese characters alongside Ryu affirming trans fighters ofc, and Samuel knows this. Now why would he know this? Well there comes in my third point
PTJ is against Samuel as well, initially Samuel tried to become the main character by believing himself to be Gappy's son. He actively fought against the narrative to get his birthrite knowing the favoritism that PTJ gives to fighters of esteemed bloodlines(see Semi MC Jake and our actual MC, Daniel). But when Samuel could no longer delude himself he began to feel inferior, because HE KNEW that both the narrative and author were against him. Also, he uses hormones, which one could say can relate to alternative individuals especially with his usual crazy hairdo, something PTJ does not like as we know.
Fourth, his alter-ego(s), we all know of the centuries old meme at this point of Master Nicholas, but I believe that Samuel knows of this persona of his and has played it up to become known by the masses of the real world. Alongside this is his bastardized appearance in SMK in which I believe Samuel actively took the bastardized form to get eyes on both SMK and himself, and it worked.
Fifth, he challenges the dialog as well. As we all know lookism has bloody strange dialog, that is a given. But in scenes such as when he threatened to sue goo and that what he said was sexual harassment, he is actively fighting the completely ludicrous dialog and characters that populate the verse.
Finally, when Samuel says he wishes to be king of the world I believe he means it LITERALLY in that he wishes to rule OUR world and not just the world of Lookism, nor even the PTJverse itself.
Samuel Seo, is self aware.
