Solo Leveling: Why Did the System Force Jinwoo To Kill? Could He Have Spared Them, or Did He Become Evil?

Solo Leveling is a South Korean web novel written by Chu-Gong. The story follows Sung Jinwoo, an E-rank Hunter, who is the weakest of the weak in a world where gates to dungeons have appeared, unleashing monsters upon the earth. However, after a near-death experience in a dungeon, he can level up and become stronger. This is the Sung Jinwoo we are following in the series, and whose recent actions have sparked a lot of controversy. In the C-Rank Dungeon, Sung Jinwoo was forced to kill the six “Lizards” led by Dongsuk because the System forced him to. Why? Keep reading to find out everything you need to know about this event.

The System forced Jinwoo to kill the vile Hunters because they would have killed Jinwoo instead

Soon after obtaining more power in the Instant Dungeon, Jinwoo was released from the hospital and began looking for work. He found a party entering a C-Rank Dungeon that would pay him 2,000,000 just for showing up there and avoiding any battle; these kinds of Dungeons required a certain number of Hunters, so Jingwoo, an E-Rank, was summoned and paid to fulfill the quota. Really, all he had to do was carry their belongings. At least it appeared that way.

After some time, the group found the boss’s chamber, which was filled with Mana Crystals, and they made the decision to dig it out while the massive Spider Boss was still asleep. It was all a deception; the two lower ranks had conveniently forgotten their mining equipment, so the other members stepped outside to “guard” the area. As it turned out, Dongsuk and his crew were “Lizards,” thus as soon as he gave the order to seal the boss’ chamber door and confine the two lower ranks with the now-awaken boss, he gave Cho Kyuhwan a frightening sneer.

Jinwoo and Jinho were supposed to die there, but Jinwoo’s newly-awakened powers were enough for him to defeat the giant spider; then the “Lizards” came back, they were surprised to see them alive, but wrongly thought that Jinho was the one who saved them. They tried to make Jinho kill Jinwoo, which he refused, and they then proceeded to kill the falsely-ranked E-Rank themselves. Of course, they failed, and during the fight, Jinwoo received an urgent quest to kill his attackers under the penalty of death, which is what he ultimately did, showing a darker side to his character, a side that we had not seen before.

No, Jinwoo did not become evil

Now, as we have explained above, Jinwoo murdered the six Hunters in cold blood. He was forced to do it as the System left him with no choice really – he did not have the option to simply defeat them and/or knock them out; he had to kill them. If he decided not to do it, the System would have stopped his heart, so he would have died anyway and this is, really, not a choice per se.

The System did this, of course, to save Jinwoo’s life, as the “Lizards” would have killed him for sure, but also to teach Jinwoo an important lesson about the world he was in. The world of Hunters was a ruthless and amoral world; sure, not everyone was bad, but people really weren’t idealists and weren’t courageous like some of Jinwoo’s former colleagues. This is why Jinwoo had to learn that the world is corrupt and he learned the hard way – by becoming a murderer.

Despite the menacing aura that emanated from his body, Sung Jinwoo did not become evil. The aura was a symbolic interpretation of what was going on inside his head, how he had realized how corrupted his world was, but also a foreshadowing of what Jinwoo would become in the future. So no, he did not become evil and he is still the same old Jinwoo, but he is now more experienced and more of a realist than an idealist.

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