hey cutie! ♡ don't worry, i'm new circa r6 hype as well, you are among good company 🌟

mmm idk if this is necessarily a theory so much as "how do you choose to read this character, based on the limited amount of information the series creators have chosen to divulge" LOL. i'm glad to hear you enjoy my rambles 🥰

okay, okay, that's enough yammer, jumping into it:

—motivations: i think in order to talk about ivan as a character at all, we have to talk about his motivations. we, as the viewer, have WAY more insight about what ivan is up to than most of the characters in the universe (especially the segyeins.)

i think that ivan is "survival mode" type of person, especially as a kid who grew up in the slums. you do what you can to fit in. he's not particularly interested in rocking the boat, and if you want to make a direct contrast to till (or even sua or mizi), he never seems to be in any sort of pain or required to wear his collar, demonstrating that his behavior EVEN AFTER he attempted to run away was so excellent, his keepers felt no need to leash him or lash out at him so he would behave.

to me, this demonstrates that he knows exactly what to do to keep himself out of trouble, even if he doesn't necessarily follow the rules. he knows how to curry favor and do things to protect his own ass.

—self-identification: i don't think that ivan would classify himself as subhuman...not exactly the terms he would use.

i, specifically, headcanon ivan with a antisocial disorder (psychopathy / sociopathy) + autistic. what this means in the grand scheme of things, is that his processor is severely different from most of the people around him. his moral compass about right and wrong is completely dependent on observational tactics.

e.g. till fought back against their keepers. he got tased for his efforts. ivan's processor says "okay, won't do that" since action A = result A. that's why till is such a baffling person to him, because how do you keep repeating action A knowing it's going to get you tased, etc.

however, looping it back to the beginning of this segment, i think ivan thinks something is wrong with himself because nobody else seems to think the way that he thinks. the best contrast for this would be sua — who doesn't mask at all, but still performs very well. in addition, even though sua might have the same kind of fucked up thoughts and impulses ivan has, she feels no desire to act upon them (specifically with mizi) because sua does not have an antisocial personality disorder nearly as severe (or even as existent) as ivan's.

it makes ivan super frustrated (in my read) because "why are you so good at this, you should be bad at this, LIKE ME" kind of energy.

—"the why": with all of the above being stated, i personally choose to read ivan's lifelong hesitance as a sort of "i'm fucked up, what if i fuck till up by accident?" sort of thing. he has spent his WHOLE life learning how to "play the game" so to speak, and playing the game means never showing how he feels, never letting into that dark, miserable, and vulnerable place in his heart, even at the cost of his own happiness.

i also the thing for me is, specifically in these comics with sua [1] & [2] — both of which have multiple parts — is that ivan genuinely thinks he is superior for choosing to put his feelings second so that his..."companionship" with till isn't something that will traumatize till. (because till doesn't like him.)

leaving everything to the side about how very obviously horrendously traumatized till is going to be about ivan's death regardless...that is the "why" behind ivan's choice not to do anything that could be truly interpreted as romantic (and lends closer to antagonistic bullying). he can't take that risk of till having sympathy for him for any reason. having attachment. because the very last thing he wants is for till to be sad over his death.

—HOWEVER!!!!!!!!!!! at the end of it all. ivan is a creature with very limited impulse control. can he restrain himself? of course. he's proven that time and time again. but at the final hour, it probably killed ivan inside to see till without his spark. "if this is going to be the last chance for us to see each other ever again, i want this one thing (the kiss) selfishly for myself. i'm sorry" kind of vibe.

(my opinion) he even thought about killing till! so that they could stay together...and he couldn't do it. till is his spark and his light and it probably made ivan ache even worse because till closed his eyes and gave up. i think a lot on ivan glancing up at the scores and giving till the most gentle peck ever after that because he was satisfied like "oh thank god i can be a little nice the way i've always wanted to be because someone is going to put me out of my misery in the next sixty seconds and till will live"

anyways!!! wow this was a lot of words. thanks for reading if you made it this far, thanks for asking and letting me yammer 🫡