WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Solo Leveling Chapter 179 by Chugong, Dubu and h-goon, available in English now on Tappytoon.
Solo Leveling is an action-packed webtoon about a Hunter named Sung Jinwoo leveling up to get stronger. The story never failed to excite with breathtaking scenes of him entering dungeons to fight various monsters, gaining weapons and slowly building up a formidable army of shadows. It was everything fans could ask for -- and then it introduced a romantic relationship between Jinwoo and an S-Rank Hunter named Cha Hae-In.
Did adding romance ruin Solo Leveling? Not necessarily -- these additional scenes didn't detract from the story because they were few and far between. But that's the case in point: there were so few scenes between Hae-In and Jinwoo that the webtoon need not have included them in the first place. So why, then, did the romantic plot line between Jinwoo and Hae-In fall flat?
Solo Leveling actually introduced hints of romance early on as two women in particular had close ties with Jinwoo. One was Esil, the demon he met while climbing the Demon Castle. She was quite infatuated with Jinwoo, especially when he protected her against enemy demons. Afterward, she helped him climb the castle and even played a part in defeating Baran. Alas, as she was only part of the System and Jinwoo only saw her as someone helping him level up, a romance could never have developed.
The other was Joohee, who was introduced in Chapter 1 and fought alongside Jinwoo when he was still the weak E-Rank Hunter. She worried about him as he was constantly getting hurt and, although the way she scolded him felt like big sister behavior, the two of them even planned a date. In the end, Joohee was too traumatized by her time in the double dungeon and Jinwoo lost contact with her. However, because they had a history and an established relationship, it would have made more sense for Jinwoo to get together with her than with Hae-In.
Hae-In first gets interested in Jinwoo when she realizes he smells differently from the other Hunters. Most Hunters, and monsters, exude an awful smell but because Jinwoo is a Player in the System, he doesn't smell like the rest, piquing her intrigue. Her attraction grows and she develops a crush on him that he shows no signs of reciprocating until the end. The two of them rarely had any interactions or scenes together, except when they were being pushed into romantic situations.
They did go on a date when Jinwoo called her before he went into the enormous Gate to fight, but it ended up feeling cheesy. Although Hae-In was the one Jinwoo called when he was deciding who to spend his remaining moments with, it didn't feel like they had a deeper connection than mutual respect. Rather, it felt more like Hae-In was as close to Jinwoo's level as a Hunter could get so they were naturally pushed to be an item.
Even though Hae-In is powerful, there's a reason why Solo Leveling has 'solo' in its title. Hae-In was never going to fight alongside Jinwoo because there was no way he would allow her to. When he created his own guild, he didn't allow any other Hunters to join except for Jinho. This was always about Jinwoo's journey to get stronger by himself.
The webtoon did attempt to tie it all together in the final chapter when Jinwoo began having an existential crisis after he saved the world from the Monarchs. Now that they were gone, what did he even have to live for? Solo Leveling's finale went through a quick montage of everyone he'd met and ended with Hae-In at the end, hinting that she had now become Jinwoo's main reason for living. But that notion goes against who he is as a character.
Jinwoo's reason for fighting solo was so he could protect everyone he loved. This included his family, friends, allies -- everyone on Earth. It was never specifically about Hae-In, so having her become his reason for being comes out of left field because their relationship was underdeveloped from the start. Jinwoo didn't return to humanity because of his love for Hae-In; he came back, and stayed, because this world had people he loved. He realizes he doesn't have to be alone, or 'solo,' anymore. Solo Leveling could have done without romance and it would have been equally as satisfying -- perhaps even more so.
