so the knight always wins in the end meaning taekjoo is gonna kill him

I’m not sticking around long enough to see if we’re that lucky

tbh i think the plot is fine unless taekjoo ends up falling for him. but that's probably where its gonna end up so i get u

The author always forces the victim to randomly fall for/forgive their abuser because it makes the toxic one look less shitty and minimizes the impacts of their abuse, thus allowing the black flag character to maintain a shallow semblance of a red flag character

i know and its annoying as fuck but i cant even see it happening in this one. like how are they gonna properly pull that off its just gonna seem forced

Yes, exactly, that’s why I hate reading them. Zhenya will probably generously spare his life, then there will be some common problem or threat (often another character who is even more violent/abusive than the toxic mc for no discernible reason than to make them look better in comparison, then there will be some small and grand gestures, followed by Taejoo magically getting over or conveniently forgetting about all v the things Zhenya did to him before that