section_path: Reception and analysis
section_name: Reception and analysis
paragraph_text: Reception and analysis
  
  Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, compared it to the January 6 United States Capitol attack and the 8 January Brasília attacks, saying the effects of the declaration of martial law on South Korean politics and its reputation would be far worse than what happened in the United States.
  
  Youngshik Bong, an adviser to the Ministry of Unification and visiting professor at Yonsei University, said that declaring martial law should be reserved for the most serious situations, such as war. He added that this will backfire on the president as "his impeachment is really in the cards now".
  
  Park Sung-min, a political consultant in Seoul, said "I don't know what his end goal was here, because I think this was political suicide It seems clear that President Yoon is now more likely to step down in the middle of his term rather than seeing his term through to completion".
  
  Shim Young-sub, an adjunct professor of media video promotion at Kyung Hee Cyber University, noted that the martial law decree only mentioned regulations on legacy media but did not include the internet. Shim said attempting to suppress free speech "using a martial law document reminiscent of the 1980s was a pipe dream".
  
  Yang Sang-hoon, editor-in-chief of the conservative The Chosun Ilbo newspaper, called Yoon's martial law the "most foolish self-destructive incident in the history of Korean presidents" and apologized for doubting earlier predictions that Yoon would make such a move.
  
  During a press conference in Stockholm on 6 December before delivering her Nobel lecture, 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, South Korea's Han Kang, who wrote the novel Human Acts inspired by the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, called the martial law declaration a shock, but described sensing the "truthfulness and courage" of "unarmed citizens attempting to stop armed soldiers", "young police and soldiers who moved reluctantly, as if sensing some inner conflict" and "striving to do the least amount of harm as possible".
  
  The declaration of martial law was said to trigger memories in older Koreans of past military dictatorships and the authoritarian era, while younger Koreans, educated and exposed to elders sharing their experiences about abuses under past military rule, reacted with alarm and disbelief while recalling lessons about torture, imprisoned opposition leaders and deadly crackdowns on pro-democracy protests in the past. Unlike past military coups which had the endorsement of the United States, this was mainly a domestic political issue that was handled swiftly and decisively by South Korean citizens without external interference. Combined with troops refusing to abide by unjust orders, these were cited as reasons to believe that South Korean democracy and society has evolved in the last 4 decades to the point that a return to military rule or dictatorship would not be accepted.
  
  On 12 December, 510 psychiatrists issued a statement that "since Dec. 3, the whole nation has been suffering psychologically". They said in the statement "many people who remember the history of military dictatorship and state violence were forced to relive the trauma and experience a serious level of fear".
  
  In the days following the botched martial law order, the 2023 film 12.12: The Day, a depiction of the coup organized by Chun Doo-hwan in 1979 became the No. 1 South Korean film on the streaming platform Netflix, while memes appeared online of main character Chun Doo-kwang's (based on Chun Doo-hwan, portrayed by Hwang Jung-min) face replaced with President Yoon, and posts comparing scenes from the film with the footage of the recent events. There were calls for a theatrical re-release of the film. Additionally, a letter signed by 3,000 members of South Korea's film industry, including Parasite director Bong Joon-ho, said the martial law declaration threatened to send the Korean wave "into the abyss".