Spotlight#76: The Tragedy of Lookism's 4 Big Crews

Across many long running webtoon series I've been greeted with many antagonists. From Weak Hero's delinquent union, Apollo and Minthe from Lore Olympus and many more. But much as I've stated in the past on how Lookism has my favorite casts in Webtoon, the titular Four Big Crews have proven to be a rather interesting subject for all of webtoon. While some people in fandom have argued that the Four Big Crews have taken the story into an unfavorable direction from the slice of life genre it had; others praise them as some of the most complex and well written characters in the series. However today I will be taking a far more different take, as I explore the tragedy of the Four Big Crews and how they fit with the themes of Lookism.

Note

Since the Crews have a lot of history and subsections behind them. So to make things a lot easier this will mainly focus on the four heads of the crews (God Dog: Johan, Hostel B: Olly,  Workers:Samuel and Big Deal:Jake)while giving a decent description of their history and how they've run them. Now let's begin

Johan Seong

Despite Big Deal being the first of the 4 to make a full on appearance. Except here is truly one member we need to talk about: Johan Seong. Because despite God Dog's listing as a crew Johan has proven many times over that his potential easily eclipses the need for one. Throughout the story Gun and Goo have even acknowledged that Johan's potential is arguably the greatest of the series as his ability to copy, adapt and evolve as a fighter makes him the arguably most improved fighter in the series. Yet despite that Johan is the one who probably has suffered the most of the heads.

During his younger years Johan had been born into poverty, the only thing holding himself together was his faith in God's mercy and his mother. But faith can only take you so far, and once he realized that the church they were associating with turned into a venomous cult, when he realized that his mother's condition started to get even worse; Johann turned his back on god and instead realized his own potential. And ironically it was this lack of faith that proved to be his biggest downfall. Johan's forceful attitude and lack of leadership quickly turned any potential allies into nothing more than rabid traitors waiting for the moment to strike. God Dog but still were very much defiant over their new ruler. Eventually years of hard work were undone in one day by the time he set his sights on eradicating J high.

And yet Johan kept working, kept improving, realizing that to fully rely on himself he needed to work even harder to win similar to Daniel. He kept improving to the point he became his own one man wrecking crew free of all weaknesses, all to one day get revenge on Gun and get his mother the proper treatment she needs. But that once again proved to be a punishing mistake.

With the reveal of his now worsening blindness it quickly becomes apparent that for all of Johan's achievements, potential and hard work doesn't even matter. He is nowhere close to beating Gun and saving his mother, and even in this new state where he has nothing but revenge left in his heart. The lonely rabid dog still decides to go in alone, if only because he truly believes all the more now that no one strong nor kind enough will help him.

Olly Wang

Out of the four it could be considered that Olly had the most normal upbringing of the crews. However much like many things in lookism, things aren't how they appeared at face value. Every minute of Olly's life was scheduled by his parents, meaning that it was no life at all. Combined with his inability to feel pain, the caged bird must've seen Eli as his light to freedom. The thing is though Olly never truly loved Eli, only the basic perceptions of him. Which is probably the main reason that Olly would eventually twist Eli's worst traits to suit his own needs.

At the end of the day Olly truly wanted to be free and that is probably the main reason why he gravitated towards the original Hostel so much. But because they couldn't see Olly's struggle, because Eli didn't want anyone to follow the same path that left him hollow they quickly turned Olly away. And to recapture that joy, Olly decided that he would have to make his own family. Out of the crews, Hostel is easily the worst one from a moral perspective. While the original was a family of outcasts with no wayback, Olly's complete autonomy, ironically led to the restraints of hundreds of innocent runaways for his family. Now they had nothing left to do but risk life and limb earning money anyway possible, all so they could have a place that would actually want them, regardless of if that want was for love.

To further feed his hollow soul Olly even tried creating his own Eli's effectively subjecting them to the same abuse that inspired his greatest idol. Fortunately Olly did pay the ultimate price for his heinous actions though. His freedom and total lack of fear made his body a wreck, and he had surpassed his old idol by such a large margin he was left completely imprisoned by his own lack of purpose. Once he fully realized that he was burned by his own guilt of partially killing Heather, he had no choice but to end it all and be at peace. Yet it seems after his death, his scars on society still remain strong. Those innocent kids are still being governed by James, who is intent on following his path for a new generation, Hostel might still be around and a young boy is destined to become a new Eli Jang. Either way Olly in a sense was the most imprisoned of the crews.

Samuel Seo

While the Workers are still the most ambiguous crew in the series, they've easily proven to be the most effective crew in terms of business. If Hostel preyed upon the poor and vulnerable then the Workers only hired the best of the best, all in the effort to make as much money as possible. Any hungry young talent will easily get devoured into the Workers as they become literal corporate slaves. The Workers are in fact so big and powerful that each of their 4 affiliates might as well be crews within themselves, with the added benefit of physical force not being enough to take them down. The very fact that the full leader of the Workers has only been shown as a shadow with glasses proves this more cold hearted nature all the more. The only thing that can truly stop the workers is money and unfortunately have enough to make the world go round.

But how does this all relate to Samuel Seo? Well quite a lot, because ever since he was a kid Samuel it seems wanted to suceed. Due to never knowing the identity of his real father and living a poor life where he was either bullied or suppressed it was only natural that Samuel would try to fantasize his lineage. He imagined that he was the son of the famous politician and gangster Garyong Kim and grew hatred against Jake despite the fact that he knew it was a lie. Because when you have nothing, you instantly want a piece of everything. This inferiority complex slowly ate up whatever real potential he had. 

Samuel is often seen by Gun and Goo as a complete failure, mainly because of his complex. Samuel is a natural gangster, manipulator and leader; his fighting skills also prove that he is arguably the strongest of the 4 physically. However his need to prove himself to others, to gain validation and become great makes him completely unstable. He can't maintain a crew to save his life nor does he have the talent to compensate for it. That rage that he feels is a manifestation of all of his supposed shortcomings, which has lead him to be even more unstable. However it does seem that Samuel isn't out yet, with the workers supposedly giving him the chance to become all he's longed for.

Jake Kim

Last but certainly not least we have the leader of Big Deal: Jake Kim. In a sense you could probably say that he had the saddest tale of them all. For you see Jake was all power with no purpose, a man with the most balanced strength of the crew heads, with a natural charisma that makes him the least likely to ever be betrayed. Big Deal represents Jake perfectly as well, considering that they are primarily a gang that looks out for the weak and have remained rather solid compared to the other crews. But to do that we must learn of Jake's story.

Originally Jake wanted a normal life but he was drawn to Big Deal due to the manipulative charisma of Sinu. And Sinu was also impressed by Jake's natural skill so much to the point where he decides to force ownership of Big deal to Jake, in a vain attempt to purify the crew while giving them enough time to truly follow the demands of Gun and Goo at the cost of his own life. However it was eventual that Jake had to sacrifice his own morality to get ahead in order to save sinu, only to be punished for it and thrown in jail. In the span of a couple of months Jake went from an ordinary man who wanted nothing, to a guy who was pushed into a destiny that led him to ruin, all because he was trying to be a good man.

Now that he is out of jail with his crew in hand, Jake has adopted a new philosophy. Now that he realizes how far being good ever got him, he will now employ just as ruthless methods to get what he wants. All so he can get back sinu and kill Gun with his own hands. Because even the best men can quickly fall once hit down hard enough.

Epilogue

Later on within the story the true purpose behind the four big crews got eventually revealed. Despite all of the money and sadness they've caused it seems their only purpose was to produce fast and loose cash in service of chairman Choi. And now that he has no further use for him, he has cut their strings in order to avoid any legal backlash.  Thus the crews are now a foreign entity that are about to get cleaned up by the powers of the h group and j high combined, with only the workers and big deal remaining.

Despite stating that the crew heads were all easily replaceable failures the series has shown us otherwise. Jake,Johan,Olly and Samuel have all proven themselves as some of the strongest, smartest, most talented characters in the series. And because of their influence our protagonists were able to become equally strong. Yet all of that talent, hard work and resolve meant absolutely nothing in the end as they still had everything taken from them, while taking the lives of so many innocent victims. All to service the personal wealth of one man.

Some have stated that the crews have done nothing but turn this school story into a mindless action Shlock but isn't what I just described emblematic of real life? Doesn't our upbringing or natural born talent often decide our fate despite the unfairness? Doesn't it "look" unfavorable when you see someone who looks stronger, better, richer succeed despite your hard work even without knowing their own story? If so then I think you've come to realize that Lookism hasn't changed so much as grown up. So maybe we should try and stop looking for prejudices and instead let people tell their own stories themselves. Just because we die alone doesn't mean we have to live alone. Maybe if more people do that, these four great men would have found paradise instead of a tragedy.