r/thespikegame

A lot of people in the community really miss the point of Siwoo as a character and it shows - the moment a main character is shown as naturally talented, people lose sight of every other dimension the character has.

Siwoo is not meant to be a depiction of what natural talent can do - he’s a depiction of the impact of mental health on a person, and the natural talent he has is what allows that to be expressed in the medium of the story. If it wasn’t obvious after the Phantom League arc, it should be after the Chapter 1 and 2 remakes, and the latest scene in Chapter 13.

Let’s start with the reason he quit volleyball in the first place - while he was at Rockwell, not only did it distance him from his friends and people his age, when they didn’t want to play the sport with him anymore, but it also led to conflict between his parents - his father who was obsessed with his talent, and his mother who was concerned for him (I do clearly remember this from somewhere, but I’m not entirely sure where - if anyone could refresh/fact check it it would be great. Chapter 8, I think?)

So, in Chapter 1, when we are introduced to Siwoo, he has quit on volleyball, because despite it being something he loves, it has driven the people he loved apart.
This is important, so keep it in mind.

Over the next 6 chapters, we see Siwoo begin to pick up volleyball again and rediscover his love from it, starting with wanting to help Dahee achieve her dream to eventually reconnecting with his own true feelings in Chapter 6, and finally decide to start taking volleyball seriously again - so far, so good.

In Chapters 7 and 8, they begin to set the stage for this,
introducing new characters and arcs mainly in chapter 8 - and then everything is turned on its head in the Phantom League. Here is where everything gets turned on its head, and it’s here where people seriously begin to miss the point of the story.

Siwoo arrives in the Phantom League to try and help his childhood friend, but when he arrives, he finds out that she seems to hate him - and then when she goes out to play against him, she breaks her ankle.

This is the first point which is key to Siwoo’s mental state, because while people talk about his trauma from it and his stress, what almost nobody realises is this: in his mind, the people he cares about are once again getting hurt because of him playing volleyball - and so starting from that very moment, all of the healing that has begun to happen since the first chapter begin to come apart.

And then Dahee gets abducted.

If Jenny’s injury was the catalyst that kicks off the unraveling of his mental state, Dahee’s abduction is the killing blow. He blames himself, and gets himself entrenched in the Phantom League to try and save Dahee.

Here, we see Carla recognise all of these factors, see what’s going on in his mind - and she decides to turn the screw. Siwoo’s “awakening” in the Phantom League is not an awakening - it’s not his love for volleyball, his own growth or determination or any such thing driving him, which is why it’s different from the Siwoo we see in Chapter 6.

Where that “awakening” was driven by his love for volleyball, this one is driven by one thing and one thing alone - his anger at himself and pure self-hatred. The statistics and the way that S+ mode works kind of go to support that - purely attack like he’s playing angry, lacking the strong defense and immunity to debuffs of his “True Engaged” form.

This also leads to the ending of Chapter 11 - when you play like you hate yourself, you inevitably push your body beyond its limits, and that’s exactly what happened with Siwoo - and that was the killing blow for his psyche, because not only is he hurting everyone by playing, he can’t even play well enough to do anything for them when it matters.

Now, in Chapter 12, I do think the way it went down was a bit obnoxious - Siwoo should never have been left alone. Three adults and a professional player came in after him, yet nobody thought to check on the high schooler they rescued from an illegal underground sports ring. Either ways, the way it happens, while everyone is off celebrating and Sara and Jenny are having their happy reunion, Siwoo runs into the worst possible figure he could have run into - Coleman, the man who once tried to make him great at the cost of his own health and relationships.

In this moment, what does Siwoo feel? He’s a tired, injured high schooler, thoroughly disillusioned with his dreams and the one thing he truly loves, believing that all he can do is hurt others around him, and he is too weak to help them.

He goes with Coleman - because he believes cutting off those ties will be better for the people he cares about, and at least this way he won’t be too worthless to make a difference when it matters the next time.

The change in Siwoo that the Phantom League signifies is that he no longer plays volleyball because he loves it. To him, his love volleyball has become inexorably linked to his weakness and failure, and he goes with Coleman because he wants to be strong, not because he loves volleyball.

Why doesn’t he quit? Maybe it’s all he has left, thinking that he can only hurt those around him - because even though he isn’t playing because he loves volleyball anymore, that love is still there and he can’t hurt it. All of this is conjecture, though, because we don’t know exactly what he was thinking when he made that choice, only the circumstances that led him to make it.

Was it a mistake? Yes, absolutely, and that’s the point. He’s young, tired and mentally devastated - it’s not a choice motivated by reason, or one made with an awareness of what he has - it’s a choice made out of despair and self-hate, in his worst state of mind, when he’s left alone after failing everyone he cares about.

As for his brief appearance in Chapter 13 and what he says to Jaehyun - it’s impossible to say for sure. Most people think he’s trying to protect him. My personal opinion is that he’s trying to distance himself from him while giving him some semblance of closure. It’s also possible that he’s just become an asshole in his time with Coleman - as for that, only time will tell.

But Siwoo exists not to show us talent, but to show us the impact of mental health on adolescents, and how poor mental health can affect even someone who “has everything”.

That’s my take, anyway.

TL:DR Siwoo’s story has more than the one layer everyone notices, and I just spent an hour and a half writing this before an exam. Pray for me.

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