Everyone in Borderlands during a forced dialogue: Be careful! These men are trained psychopaths who will end you by one single look! I’m not shitting you! O N E.
Vault hunter who stopped listening at the word “careful”:
Kinnporsche meta: Rise of the OG Theerapanyakul brothers and Queen Porsche
Hello everyone, this is my first meta on my first BL show. I have read so many interesting analysis here but many people seem to miss a very important aspect of Asian culture: Class or Caste. I am not Thai, I am South Asian. The closest I have been to Thai culture is spending a week in Bangkok. But pan Asian cultures share some similarities that I want to explore in context of this show.
I have not read the novel so NO NOVEL SPOILERS.
Rise of The OG Theerapanyakul (TPKL) brothers
We start Kinnporsche in media res. The mafia hierarchy is pretty solidified. The main family is headed by Papa Korn, his heir apparent is Kinn. The head of the minor family is Uncle Gun/Kun (I am going with Gun that is in mydramalist), his heir apparent is Vegas. Papa Korn has some vague illness and is in the process of handing over his empire to Kinn.
This is the main conflict of the show.
Let’s turn back time and consider how this empire was established. Korn and Gun are brothers but they are not from money. It is likely they got their start in smuggling goods in the black market. Perhaps they had a knack for evading authorities and contacts with corrupt cops so their business grew and they started dealing in the highly lucrative business of drugs, weapons and maybe human trafficking.
Now, this kind of business requires two fronts. First you have the civilized high class face that is Papa Korn. Papa Korn, while a ruthless mafia boss himself, appears to be well dressed, well spoken and well educated. His skin tone is lighter in the show.
Papa Korn at home
Uncle Gun on the other hand, dresses more flamboyantly, like a “low class” mafia and has a darker skin tone. Skin tone in Asian series is a shorthand for someone’s caste. The lower caste workers, thugs and villains are usually tanned compared to the upper caste heroes, CEOs and intellectuals.
As their family business grew, it is very likely Papa Korn’s job was to deal with the politicians, the businessmen and the bureaucrats. His primary job became less about violence and more about wining and dining the guests. We can see this in his house. It’s a western style house with all the modern amenities. His bodyguards dress in western suits and are well educated.
Coconuts with senpai
A tangent on the major family bodyguards:
The major family’s bodyguards are all well dressed, well spoken and well educated. They are professionally trained and are expected to maintain a gentleman spy look. They are more like office workers with guns. Their skin tone is also lighter. (Porsche has the darkest skin tone among the major family bodyguards. We’ll come back to this.) If you’re wondering why these bodyguards are so polite and mediocre, this is why. They all come from middle class families or higher. They are NOT street smart, they do not have that ruthlessness. Their violence is cultivated in sterile gym environments. They cannot relate to anyone who doesn’t speak English well (speaking English well is a shorthand for implying someone has been privately educated. In Asian cultures, all working class parents and above send their children to various kinds of fee paying English medium private school. State schools are bad and reserved for the poorest of the poor.)
Papa Korn and his bodyguards are expected to deal with VIPs and leaders. They held to a higher standard of decorum. They are expected to not gape at physical or sexual promiscuity (western greetings among their masters like kissing/hugs, women in short cocktail dresses, opulence). They are also expected to not steal from the guests.
Now Uncle Gun is the opposite. His job is dealing with the low class thugs. He is the one enforcing violence and intimidation on the ground level. He deals with cheats and scoundrels all day long while keeping the lesser mafia bosses in check. We can see this in the way he dresses. Uncle Gun cannot deal with street level bosses in a three piece suit, they would laugh him out of the room. He cannot dress like Papa Korn and remain relatable to his half of the business.
Uncle gun at home
We can also see this in his skin tone as he spent more time in the sun dealing with the realities of the mafia empire. When Papa Korn says a shipment is arriving at 2am, Uncle Gun and Vegas are the ones checking that everything is in order. It is very likely they fell into this role naturally. Papa Korn seems more like an intellectual who handled the bureaucracy. Uncle Gun revels in the violence and the physical aspects of mafia.
We can see this in the way they live. Uncle Gun lives in a very old/Thai style of building with a big compound. The house is made up of wood instead of concrete. It is also right in the middle of the market. This is most likely the TPKL ancestral family home.
Contrast
We can also see this in his bodyguards.
Tangent on the minor family bodyguards
The minor family bodyguards dress in bright colors. They wear native Thai clothing, silk shirts and pants. They are not fit like athelets, they are thick like tanks. These people cannot run a marathon but they can throw a punch. Their skin tones are darker. It is very likely that these people are not highly educated. They fell into this business because they weren’t many job opportunities for them. They live next to the TPKL family home, their family members work as staff. They grew up with Uncle Gun and Vegas.
Coconuts in the wild
They are also portrayed as being low class. One of the bodyguards leers at Pete who is not used to such behavior. This would NOT work at the major family home. You cannot leer at a VIP’s western dressed date/daughter and expect to survive the night.
Dress code ARMY
Their loyalty is real, perhaps more real than the major family bodyguards. It is loyalty bought in goodwill, informal money exchange and leg up in society. We’re getting to Porsche, I promise.
Salt of the earth.
End tangent
Uncle Gun’s bodyguards are thugs. He pretends to be the same class as them and treats them like friends. There is not formality here. They are very good if you want to assault someone in an ally. To break into homes and threaten collection. Their violence is natural as a result of growing in poor neighborhoods with less opportunities. They are the essential workers of the mafia empire.
Uncle Gun is the bridge between the real mafia work and the sanitized face of Papa Korn.
He is the Queen.
Will the Real Heir please stand up
Now this mafia empire that Papa and Uncle has created is at crossroads. Papa Korn wants to retire. Uncle Gun considers himself the real heir to the empire. After all, he has put in the dirty work. He has helped built the empire from the ground up. Why shouldn’t he move into the big house and spend his days wining and dining VIPs.
But Papa Korn has other plans. He doesn’t consider his brother capable of diplomacy. That is why he is handing over the reigns to his son. Uncle Gun cannot believe this. Kinn should earn his place at the mafia empire. He should start at the bottom in the TPKL family home.
I will let a politician from one of my favorite movies, Maanaadu 2021 explain Uncle Gun’s thought process.
pls excuse my shitty gif
(If you are able, please watch this absolutely bonkers time loop Tamil movie.)
Now we have established how the mafia family runs, what is Uncle Gun’s motivation and his position in the family business.
Papa Korn being the shrewd businessman understands that Kinn cannot be expected to do the nitty gritty ground work of the mafia business. He was not raised that way. He cannot relate. His bodyguards cannot relate. And he cannot rely on his uncle or Vegas to take that position. So Papa Korn sets out to find him a Queen.
Enter Porsche
all hail the queen
Now Porsche is unlike the other bodyguards in the major family home. He is working class. He is darker. His mannerisms are not refined. We see this during his orientation day from hell.
He is not used to the boarding school environment of the bodyguard building. He is not used to the dress code, the English and the avocados. He equates the inability to wander his community, following a strict schedule, being isolated from his friends and being shut inside a luxury compound to being in prison. Except, that’s not true. The bodyguard life follows a boarding school life to a middle class life in a high rise community. The people there only interact inside a gated community, work and play inside and don’t relate to the “dangerous” outside world.
unhappy meal
And then he fucks up. He pulls down Ken’s pants, sleeps through classes, smokes inside, set off the fire alarm, drinks on the job, pees in the pond and kills Elizabeth and Sebastian. (RIP)
Now to the most enlightening scene, Porsche’s confrontation with Macau. Macau is dressed casually. He is not wearing suits like Kinn or fancy designer clothes like Khun. Porsche equates him with being the maids’ kid. Altercation happens and Porsche gets choked. His punishment is not even a slap on the wrist.
Remember the major family bodyguards are meant to deal with VIPs. Porsche is not showing that behavior and he is not getting appropriate punishment.
When Uncle Gun confronts about this to his brother, Papa Korn brushes it off as learning curve. Uncle Gun can see that Porsche fits better in the minor family instead of the major one. If Porsche had come from the street to become a bodyguard by his own means, he would be more suitable to work with Vegas.
Alarm bells start ringing in Uncle Gun’s head.
Porsche is not meant to replace Big or Ken. Porsche is meant to replace Uncle Gun.
Porsche is working class. His dress, mannerisms, looks everything scream that he is close to the ground. Which means his loyalty also needs to be earned. Papa Korn wants Kinn to earn Porsche’s loyalty so that he can be Kinn’s Gun.
Papa Korn knows a confrontation about the heir status is inevitable. Even if both Vegas and Uncle Gun are sufficiently cowed, Kinn will still need someone he can trust to work with the low class thugs. Kinn himself is not suitable. But Porsche is.
(Why Porsche you ask? I am sure there is a big novel secret that will be revealed later on)
Porsche needs to be the bridge between the street mafia life and Kinn’s sparkling reputation as an honorable young master.
This is why Uncle Gun is interested in Porsche. This is why Porsche got elevated to his title even though he is a piss poor bodyguard. Remarkable, relatable working class guy but not a gentleman spy.
