There have been many real-life examples in contemporary times where, in a capitalistic setup, the government is dictated to by the business owners, who more than often try to lobby for only the policies or bills that favor their own interests. Though, most of the time, politicians and businessmen act in tandem, in Black Knight, the Cheonmyeong group had more power as compared to the government itself. They had bought the ministers, and they owned the license to distribute essential resources like oxygen and even the entire delivery system. With power came responsibility, and the President of Korea had no issues as she knew that Chairman Ryu was a man she could trust.
The entire core district had been created by Chairman Ryu together with his colleague, and though he could not be said to be a socialist, he was not opposed to the idea of relocating the refugees to the general district. But unlike him, his son despised the refugees, and if given the option, he would have burned them alive. They had not wronged him in any manner, and there was no particular reason why he hated them. He was one of those classists who considered them unworthy of living, and he always kept telling his assistant, Mr. Oh, how they wasted the resources that could have been otherwise used for their cause. Ryu Seok’s attitude was like that of that privileged person living in a posh locality who not only has a condescending nature but also looks down upon the downtrodden with a lot of disgust and considers them abominations as if it were their fault they were born in such deplorable circumstances. Ryu Seok was not only promoting corruption, but he was always trying to structurally change the government and take it more towards dictatorship. Ryu Seok had some loyal allies, but his own father did not resonate with his extremist ideologies, and that was one big problem that he knew he would have to handle in the near future.
Spoilers Alert
Why Did Ryu Seok Hold The Delivery Man Tournament?
The delivery man tournament fulfilled two purposes: firstly, it distracted the minds of the people from important topics, and secondly, it gave Ryu Seok the opportunity to commit genocide and wipe off the majority of the refugees in one go. Ryu Seok created a lot of hype for the tournament, and the entire nation got hooked on it. Then during the finals, he held public screenings of the match, and he knew that a huge crowd was going to turn up for it. As soon as So-wal struck the last blow and won the match, there was a huge explosion at the screening centers, and all those innocent refugees who had gone to have fun died on the spot.
But even after this, Ryu Seok was not done, and he wanted to make sure that the remaining population was also exterminated. Ryu Seok had devised a relocation plan for the refugees so that they could be shifted to the general district and avail themselves of certain privileges that they otherwise were deprived of. The refugees were being given vaccination shots before they entered the general districts, but as soon as the fluid was injected into them, they started losing consciousness and then eventually died. It came to be known that the vaccination had a contagion and was meant to kill all those who took it. 5-8 had been against Ryu Seok and his organization since the very beginning, but Ryu Seok’s blatant misuse of power increased with time and reached a point where it became unbearable, and that’s when 5-8 decided that he would openly wage war against his oppression and bring down his empire.
Will Ryu Seok Return In Season 2?
The main antagonist of the series, Ryu Seok, was diagnosed with an unnamed terminal illness about which no one was aware, not even his father. A separate laboratory was opened to experiment on young children and find a cure for his illness. No matter how hard Ryu Seok’s team of doctors tried to find a solution, their experiment always failed, and they started losing hope that they would ever be able to find a cure. But that’s when, during the delivery man competition, it came to Ryu Seok’s attention that So-wal was a mutant and probably the healthiest one among his breed. From his BMI to his medical history, everything was on point, and something inside Ryu Seok told him that he could be the cure he had been looking for. The genetic modifications of the mutants were such that their wounds healed very quickly as compared to a normal human, and though it is not clearly stated in Black Knight, we believe that they couldn’t be killed so easily by the generic ways.
The team of doctors injected So-wal’s blood into a patient who was almost on his deathbed and suffering from the same illness as Ryu Seok. The results were miraculous, and Ryu Seok was elated as he knew that he would survive. Ryu Seok took So-wal’s blood, but before he could figure out if it was affecting him positively or not, 5-8 attacked the core district, and Ryu Seok decided to burn the entire place down. Ryu Seok wanted to take his own life and then explode the entire facility to kill the others too. But 5-8 didn’t want to give him the satisfaction that he had taken his life and that nobody was able to lay a finger on him. 5-8 wanted to crush Ryu Seok’s bloated ego and make him feel weak and helpless before he died. 5-8 shot Ryu Seok and then escaped the facility with So-wal. In the end, we saw Ryu Seok’s hands twitching, which made us realize that he was still not dead. Though there was a huge explosion just after that, we believe that Ryu Seok will survive that too and come back in the second season of Black Knight (if there is one) to once again try to destabilize the government and control the destinies of the people living on the Korean peninsula.
