Masters and servants should be treated with mutual respect and kindness, seeing each other as humans first. Ideally, there would be fairness and care, but often, servants face neglect and mistreatment while masters might act superior. In a perfect world, we’d all just treat each other like equals. We don’t really live in a perfect world though, do we? In the new series on Netflix, Master of the House, the master, Roongroj Thevasatitpaisarn, dies right at the start. As the series goes on, we learn more about him and realize his death wasn’t an accident—it was murder. But who did it, and why? This article will uncover all the details, so keep reading to find out.
Spoilers Ahead
What was the relationship between Roongroj and his sons like?
Roongroj Thevasatitpaisarn was a billionaire who owned a huge and expensive diamond company called Theva Gems. He had two sons: the older one, Phupat, and the younger one, Mavin. But their father-son relationship was far from perfect. From a very young age, their father never showed them any love or care. Whenever the boys sought attention from him, they were always ignored. Their mother had passed away, so they were dependent on their father. They never knew what unconditional love felt like because Roongroj always made them compete against each other. Even in playful fights, instead of resolving the arguments, he pushed them to defeat one another. It was too much to handle for the young kids. That was the reason that both boys did not have any brotherly love.
As they grew older, they took on the responsibility of their father’s business empire and did everything they could to grow the company and gain their father’s approval. They often fought over what was best for the company and offered suggestions. But their father didn’t care about their opinions; he did as he pleased and even considered giving the company to his servants rather than his sons; they were that useless to him. He had that much disdain for them, as if whatever they did could never please him. There was even a scene where Roongroj was gifted an expensive watch and a bonsai tree by his sons. He said he would have accepted the gifts if his sons were proper men, but to him, they were nothing. You can imagine how much resentment the sons felt towards their father. When they found out that they wouldn’t be inheriting the company, of course, they were bound to be mad. So, when we see that Mavin, the younger son, was the last one to visit his father in his chamber before Roongroj Thevasatitpaisarn accidentally fell from the balcony and died, the first thought that might come to mind is that the sons might have killed their father out of pent-up anger and hatred. Naturally, they are on the suspect list.
What was the relationship between Roongroj and his servants like?
Roongroj Thevasatitpaisarn lived in a huge mansion with his family. Now, when I say family, I don’t just mean his sons, their wives, and kids, but also the servants who worked in his house. There was a whole empire of servants who were called “family” by him, but trust me, it was far from that. Roongroj was the one who started the abusive servant culture in their house. Servants were hired based on their petite figures and skills in time management and multitasking. But if they messed up, like being late or not doing exactly as told, the consequences would be drastic. Roongroj would torture and abuse them mentally, physically, and even sexually. This went on for years, and no one dared to point a finger at him—it got normalized over time. It wasn’t just him, either. Seeing how Roongroj treated the servants, other family members also started treating them in a very inhumane way, like their lives didn’t matter. They acted like they were doing the servants a favor by giving them food and money, with no respect or dignity required.
The servants were like the butterflies Roongroj used to collect and keep even after they died, just so he could play with them, take care of them, or, when he felt like it, crush them to death. There was this girl named Dao, a personal servant to Roongroj. He tormented her, sexually abused her, tortured her, and demanded “special treatment” from her. She couldn’t take it anymore and eventually thought dying would be better than living with this man. Kaimook, another servant, knew all about it. She saw the other servants being tormented, and no one stood against it. So she decided to show love to the master instead of hatred, becoming his “butterfly.” She lured Roongroj into her love, and he, deprived of genuine affection for so long, fell for her—a servant! This was quite ironic because he had taught others to hate and mistreat the servants in the first place. Roongroj’s love for Kaimook grew so strong that he ended up writing his entire will in her name and their future child’s name, and he decided to marry her. He thought she would be the perfect wife for him, and their son would be the perfect one to continue his legacy—the example he set of being a “proper man.”
Now, you might wonder who killed him. Was it one of his sons or the group of servants deprived of respect and dignity? Well, it was the latter—the servants, specifically his wife, Kaimook. She planned the whole thing to look like one of the sons did it, so the blame wouldn’t fall on the servants. People would easily believe it because everyone knew about the clash between Roongroj and his sons. Kaimook mixed a drug into Roongroj’s drink, making him hallucinate, and he fell from the balcony to his death. She used the same drug in Mavin’s drink to have him killed by Phupat. Kaimook’s master plan was to kill Roongroj and his son, Mavin, while framing Phupat by using the same drugs in the victim’s drinks. This way, it looked like Phupat spiked the drinks to kill both his father and brother and take over the company. So, the blame would never be traced back to Kaimook or the other servants. But Phupat had nothing to do with it, and all this time, even Phupat thought Mavin might be the one who killed their father. That’s how the whodunit mystery got solved. With video footage of all the master’s misdeeds against the servants, it wasn’t hard to convince authority that the son was responsible for Roongroj’s death.
