Demon Discourse

Spoilers ahoy for anyone who hasn't watched K-Pop Demon Hunters yet. What are you doing? Get your hands on it. Watch. You're welcome. And apologies for getting Soda Pop stuck in your head.

Now that we're all on the same page, more or less, allow me to introduce the fandom discourse:

Why are they still killing demons after they accepted Rumi as one?

Well. It's a little bit complicated, isn't it? Firstly, not all demons are redeemable. We're shown repeatedly that quite a lot of them are intent on doing harm of their own volition. We know that Gwi-Ma, the demon king, can control them all via the patterns all over their bodies. This is shown on screen by the patterns glowing every time they're under direct control.

Secondly, I don't believe that Huntrix is actually killing them. And I have, more or less, proof.

And it's this particular demon. She's what I'm naming as a "true demon" rather than a "converted demon". The latter of those two being Jinu and the Saja Boys. They used to be human, but Gwi-Ma used some kind of corruption on them and converted them into part of his horde.

Since this is a movie primarily made for kids, the demons are goofy-looking and not super effective in a way that will give them nightmares. Cartoon violence has been perfectly acceptable for literal years. Practically a literal century.

During the first fight scene, we see a lot of violence done to the five demons crewing the Huntrix plane, notably the actual dismemberment shown in the splash picture, up top.

I've watched this sequence over and over and, despite the fact that the physiognomy changes, there is only one pinkish-red demon in the five person crew. So either the animators messed up or our demons can change shape depending on their emotions. Anyway. She gets sliced up. We see it.

Yet, moments later in the very same setting...

There she is, in one piece, gloating. We don't see her get sliced up again as part of Huntrix's musical number, but we do see five demon figures hurtling towards the concert, so we can presume some fireworks happened and she was forcibly ejected from the mortal plane.

The next time we see her, she's facing Gwi-Ma in a classic "You have disappointed me for the last time" scene.

And then we see what actually kills a demon:

The fires of the real bad guy.

So therefore, I can confidently conclude that Huntrix isn't killing demons. They're sending them back to where they belong, and keeping them there with the Honmoon as a kind of restraining net.

We also see more than one demon actively killing people through the dark point of the movie. The old dude in the bathhouse? Dead for real. The Jirumi shipper from the autograph session? Lost membership to the Breathing Club. All the passengers aboard the train? Joined the choir invisible. They are never coming back, never restored, and are actually fed to Gwi-Ma.

We see that happening on screen.

Obviously, heroes need to stop those kinds of shenanigans.

In order to save the audience in the final battle, they had to stop all the demons wanting to kill people. That included all the Saja Boys except for Jinu. What else was Huntrix supposed to do in that situation?

All that said, I think the concept of Redeemable Demons has been opened up by Jinu - who may have become Rumi's sword. Which is another avenue for sequel/series fodder.

If they decide to go there. I'm no expert. I just come up with weird theories like this one.