pachinko’s hansu

extremely late to the game but i finally read pachinko by min jin lee and absolutely loved it. naturally, i went to view other takes and reviews on this book and noticed that everyone seems to love koh hansu! this shocked me, as i found him to be a selfish man at best and absolutely despicable enemy at worst. to me, he came off as self-motivated, violent, (more) misogynistic (than other men), and controlling. the only explanation i can think of why people like him: he’s rich.

am i missing something? does he have character motivations that i overlooked? am i crazy? most other characters i could understand the like and dislike for, but hansu just seems irredeemable to me. he literally kickstarts a series of bad events in sunja’s life, whether she chooses to see it that way or not…