Yuri Han - A Character Study

I’ve been working on some character studies and I have a lot of thoughts. I thought I’d start with Yuri because I felt I had less of an understanding of her and wanted to dig deeper. Here are my current thoughts - would love to discuss more!

The first episode of XO Kitty establishes a few important things about Yuri: - She’s wealthy and privileged (buying fancy clothes, driving in a limo) - Her life is under a microscope (photographed frequently by paparazzi, mother is her head of school so sees everything, her father is the head of a hotel empire that is trying to expand) - She’s in love but its not simple (her girlfriend isn’t responding and seems to not be coming back to school, she’s not publicly out) - She puts herself ahead of others (makes Dae date her for her own self gain, is rude to Kitty and says she knew about her, tells assistant that she can get her fired). - She doesn’t have supportive relationships (her parents don’t support her or each other, her friends seem more like followers, and the only person she could think to fake date is her driver’s son)

Yes, Yuri is presented as self-absorbed and privileged, but we also immediately see that she is hindered by her sexuality and lack of acceptance in who she is. In some ways her public image hurts her more than her privilege benefits her.

We also see that Yuri grows extremely attached to all close relationships she gains. At the beginning of the show we see her attached to Juliana and (understandably) fixated on finding her, and with a bunch of “followers” who don’t necessarily seem like confidants. While Eunice is perfectly nice, we find out in S2 that her background is very different from Yuri’s and Mihee is such a minor character that all we know about her is that she doesn’t sing well and wore glitter eye shadow once. Any of Yuri’s other “friends” aren’t worth mentioning by the show and it seems that most relationships are largely superficial; after all, when she leaves her family to move to the dorms we see her go straight for Kitty and Dae. It’s probably for this reason that the loss of Juliana is extra hard on her, and why she becomes jealous of Kitty’s connection to Dae once the two of them start becoming friends. Yuri also becomes intrigued by Kitty pretty much the moment Kitty defends her, and then also takes her to be a “special person” as well, rooming with her on the trip to help Ocean Park’s grandmother, and suddenly showing up pretty much everywhere.

As Yuri has so few close relationships and connections it’s understandable why she asks her mother to allow Kitty back to the school amidst the scandal when she arguably no longer has any plausible deniability that Kitty has feelings for her. She may not fully realize it but she’s essentially keeping Kitty on her hook as a back up relationship for Juliana, but she doesn’t know how to do friendship without it becoming all encompassing and ends up putting Kitty first at the expense of Juliana, who she really does love in a bit of a different way. Intimacy and closeness matters to Yuri because it seems that it’s something she’s been without throughout most of her childhood. A little bit of intimacy and closeness with Kitty as their friendship becomes tighter is also inherently confusing to Yuri because she doesn’t know how to have a real friend, or process emotions through a non romantic lens.

We know that Yuri isn’t a strong student (she’s low on the list when Kitty checks her grades, she has a tutor, and when she hands in a quality paper it’s stated that she’s usually more “colloquial”), much of her self worth ends up being in her image, and that these relationships are hard for her. She’s managed to gather an online following that’s significant (even Jiwon is familiar) and she likes DJing and is apparently good at it, but she doesn’t have a lot of identity outside of her money and status. It will be interesting to see her navigate the world without money during the lawsuit against her dad in season 3, and see where her values and attachments truly are. So far we haven’t been shown much of this, and I have doubts that Yuri herself really has a good grasp on who she is without money.

For Yuri in season 3, I hope to see an understanding of how to have friends and meaningful relationships that don’t go to the extreme. Meaningful character growth for Yuri would be her understanding how to be close to multiple people in her life and having different places for different types of relationships that are both give and take. Her relationship with Alex is a potential for one sort of different connection, but as of now it’s clear that she is still mainly using him for her own support and not playing her own sisterly role yet. I’d also love to see a redemption arc with Jina as she seems to have good in her but was beaten down by Yuri’s dad and the shame of her teenage pregnancy for nearly 30 years. A restored relationship with her mother and a connection to a fully platonic sibling could pave the way for Yuri to have more healthy, not all-encompassing relationships with a romantic partner as well. For all her flaws, she is a broken teenage girl who hopefully will be able to have a happy and meaningful life.