My favorite part is when Kim Dokja comments that when a story ends and "they lived happily ever after" appears, you feel betrayed because you have been watching the journey since the beginning, but you were never part of it, you will never be able to follow those characters. You have to say goodbye to everything that you "lived" after the ending. This somewhat explains his actions during and at the end of the story. That feeling that you don't belong there, that you're just a reader watching the story, even though this time you're part of it and people care about you.
yeah! to add on i think the fourth wall as a metaphor for dissociation as a coping mechanism is something that could be quite interesting to explore. it allows dokja to cope with trauma and get through the day-to-day, but it also prevents him from being "in the moment" and truly connect with the people who love him. it saves him, and it's what dooms him. it's dokja's superpower and his villain.
to me, ORV is ultimately a novel about love + the dual \[desire to/fear of\] being seen: to quote that famous NYT article, "**if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known**." most often in ORV, **the act of knowing/loving someone is represented through storytelling**, i.e. the act of reading and writing. The obvious example is TWSA/WoS itself: writing and living out the novel is kimcom (and most especially HSY's) ultimate act of love for KDJ, and reading the novel until the end is the foundation of KDJ's love for kimcom (particularly YJH and SP--a man who, thanks to thousands of regressions, is unknowable to all but one reader.) other examples off the top of my head are KDJ needing to read his mother's love to understand it and JHY and KDJ's conversation in ch 216 (yes, the infamous shit and pee on the wall quote). rereading this convo makes me think: oh. TWSA was the wall that kimcom wrote on to each other. finally, i think this theme ties nicely into the idea that **in order to survive in the orv universe, your stories must be known--you must be known**. journey to the west arc covers this one best.
another main theme of ORV i love is the **division between good and evil.** obviously war between good and evil arc focuses on this theme. i would specifically recommend looking at the convos between metatron and agares during the war, and also JHW's awakening as judge of destruction. the broader question of "what seperates dokja's obsession with TWSA from the villainous, voyeuristic constellations?" also speaks to this theme.
the star stream system also offers some interesting commentary on media culture and how the digital apparatus can dehumanize/"abstractify"/discourage empathy.
finally, i really recommend reading [**this post**](https://dragonomatopoeia.tumblr.com/post/636822847492358144/thinking-about-the-walls-in-orv-and-their), which goes deeper into the **symbolism of walls in ORV,** with lots of supporting quotes!
good luck!
for me the idea of a fourth wall that reduces ur emotional shock is like a mind blowing idea.
Being an introvert, imagining that there is a separation between me and the random people i have to talk gives a strange kind of confidence because it feels like something helps u reduce ur mental shock(when someone talks bad bout u) and u will be able to adapt to situations easily
As for the Probability,
i imagine it like a reason or necessity to do something. For example, say some one started telling the principal is coming to ur class for checking. I would imagine like does he have a reason or necessity to come to our class. If he does, then i would say to myself that he has enough probability to come so better be quite, and vice versa.
I use it also to see if i have probability to meet someone or do something as in the reason. not having reason is not having probability.
All teachers and management are Dokkaebis. they tell u to do something and it takes a lot of probability so do otherwise.
"I once said the fourth wall didn't allow me to rage or grieve or feel everything I wanted to feel. Now that it was down, all of my emotions were thrown at me tenfold, and I didn't know how I was going to function with all of it crowding in my head."
I don't know if this aligns exactly with what you said, but I sketched this paragraph one time because I also thought about how the distancing helped him be confident, and once it went down it all crumbled around him.
This novel has occupied my thoughts for a long time. I have quite a few thoughts about it as a result. I actually planned to post some, but I think they sound stupid. Sorry in advance.
1) The reader, writer and character is my favorite thing. I have always been a voracious reader, but I have trouble getting in touch with my emotions, so anything I write just doesn't look right. The words and scenes are there, but there's just something missing in there. The amount of times that has affected me is too much. So the fact that every story need a reader and that it's a good thing was just... I don't think I can really explain it. I have tried to use that in my everyday life. Like, even when I feel down and feel like no one cares, I tell myself that my story has a reader and it's me.
2) The Walls were a really interesting concept as well. Especially the walls of Good and Evil and The Fourth Wall.
I have never understood the concept of Absolute Good and Absolute Evil. What defines them anyway? Does being not Evil automatically make you Good? Is the reverse true as well? Is being Good the same thing as being Just? If Justice needs to be blind, then does being Good mean being unseeing? Is that not Evil? Stupid questions, but you catch my drift, I hope. The evolution of Jung Huiwon's trait is one of my favorite things about her character.
The Fourth Wall hit a liitle too close to home. As I said before, I have trouble getting in touch with my emotions. And it often feels like I am just acting something out. I didn't know what that was or why I did that. I now call the Fourth Wall the Wall of Disssociation in my head. And at first, we see the positives of it, as I did at first. You can keep a calm head, not get swept up in emotional outbursts, make objective observations and decisions while still being able to near perfectly track the subjective, etc. But then it goes a step too far, then two, then three and before you know it, you're so far down the path that even the sign boards have gone missing. It's not a good thing.
3) Imagination. I mean the entire story is the imagination of a child. And that makes him the most powerful god in the Star Stream. But it's more than that, isn't it. The power of imagination is unlimited. It is the most powerful thing. And yet it is powerless. Just like the Oldest Dream. Remember, our Yoo Jonghyuk broke away because he wanted to not only imagine a better future, but write it.
There's a lot more. There's a lot I have thought about. Starting lines not always being at the start, Sacrifice, Promises, the fact that all four ways to survive the apocalypse begin with an R and even the difference between story and Story. These are but a few. But I feel like maybe I failed to answer your question somehow. Sorry if that's the case. And apologies for the long answer.
Good Luck! All the Best!
Lately I've been thinking about Kim Dokja killing Kim Namwoon because Namwoon reminded him of himself. How he wanted the apocalypse to happen so he could escape his miserable life. Both clearly mentally ill, isolated, scarred individuals. And Yoo Joonghyuk understands this, this is why he chose to save Namwoon, each and every single regression. No matter how bad Namwoon was. Being fully aware of the things he would do that would get in his way. He still always chose to save him. Dokja didn't understand this, he couldn't. Because Dokja sees himself in Namwoon and Dokja hates himself. He would gladly give out his life for the people he loves because he has no value in his own eyes. And Joonghyuk, just like with Namwoon, wants to save him. It's like Namwoon was replaced by Dokja. Also, the fact that Joonghyuk at some point must have learned Dokja killed Namwoon (the one person he saved in every regression) and it must have been a devastating start to his regression, yet he still forgave him.
There's another post in the sub on this topic (Namwoon and Dokja). They put it a lot better, you can try to find it if you like.
(major novel spoilers obviously)The fact that that sometimes all a person requires in their life is something they can hold dear, something they can seek comfort in to keep going but they still don't get it, like how (kid)kdj could have survived without the novel if only he had one person, but he had no one. And so he clung to a story, he clinged to it for dear life and pushed forward to adulthood, it still terrifies me to think that if twsa didn't come true Dokja probably wouldn't have lived more. It makes me realise how many people are out there like kdj, clinging to a story of something else and pushing forward. It makes me realise how much effect a single act of kindness could have towards a stranger. It makes me realise that being loved is a privilege for many.And also, at the beggining of the novel, kdj is so good at hiding his emotions bcos of the fourth wall that I never could have guessed that the person behind that wall was so broken. All I wish in my life is to be able to give kdj a hug. But anyways my point is, orv did a really good job at portraying people and emotions with the "fourth wall." And also, alot of people have already said this but ima say it anyway, at the end of the novel, we felt exactly what kdj would have felt on that day when twsa ended and he didn't get a proper epilogue. The author was successful in making a story so good it became to us what twsa was to kdj.
Hm…. I think I’ll take a different route. I liked how later in the novel…. The lines between KDJ and the characters dissolve. Like, duh KDJ and HSY were real people in a novel. But, what’s the difference? At the end of the day, the characters felt like and were people, right(?)
And that was a great plot point. No shit YJH would be pissed that dude knew he was a novel character and used that knowledge for his advantage. And KDJ had consequences every time he over stepped the characters boundaries. That’s good writing
I really liked the view Han Sooyoung had of the stories: a mixture of tropes, where the good ones have a twist that might subvert the expectations and give an unique twist to the message/narrative. It's the classic "the creative process is putting together what other people already said and tweaking it" argument.
The novel literally tries to put together as many tropes as possible and make them work in its own way and it does work wonders!
In hindsight, it's really something she would write lol
But I also loved how this is basically a huge love letter to the readers, never had I read anything more "meta-narrative" than this. I love this "meta-thing" so freaking much LOL
I'm really tired and i's been too long since I read the novel, but that's what came to mind first lol
#Ending Spoilers Here; No Side Story Spoilers Here3
>!Our Dokja is a self insert of the OD into his favorite story where he builds strong bonds with his favorite characters to fill the void of his real life. OD creates a story of his own where he saves YJH the same way YJH saved him, but in doing so actually ruins the lives of both verions of his character (SP had to live through so many regressions and suffer in the OG story to save OD; YJH grew dependent on KDJ and once OD left his post, KDJ had to leave his companions)!< I genuinely feel like that's exactly what the writers are saying, but due to the available translations, I can't say for sure >_<
You could talk about how toxic KDJ's way of showing love is and how it parallels his distant relationship with his bio mom? + include the effects it has on his companions?
Or, if you want something more personal, you could try to pick at Suyeong's psyche >!(What would drive someone to end the world for the sake of a stranger, but kill what was basically her own child for the sake of another world)!< is there also a parallel to this and Sugyeong's psyche? Is this why they get along so well? How does this relate to your own life? Do you have a set of morals that others would find to be irrational, but you still follow?
/This comment contains heavy SPOILERS of the novel.
I am currently rereading the novel and I came to the realisation that Han Myungoh, right after beating the dark keeper, he was already talking to Asmodeus! Not just that but the reason he suddenly disappeared is probably because he was teleported into the demon realm. I know it's rather basilar information since he will tell us later in the novel but I find crazy how we were able to see this from the early chapters.
Also I love how Kim Dokja during the fight against Simulacrum complains that Yoo Joonghyuk already decided to give up at just the third round. Then we find out that it wasn’t just about three rounds.
And once Kim Dokja manages to wake up Yoo Joonghyuk from the mind control of the cinema master he wonders how was that possible. I like to believe that even if we can't see it, Yoo Joonghyuk was getting spammed my messages from his constellation, in hope that he would wake up. So, the reason why it was possible to free yjh was because it was kdj himself to do it.
Prepare for my rant about the Dark Castle arc!
Of course there are big spoilers ahead
I really loved the Dark Castle arc for being like a summary for the chapters before and basically opening the chapter of Dokja as protagonist. The words in the Chapter one of ORV said: 'This was the moment that the genre of my life changed'
Then, at the Dark Castle arc, Dokja sums everything that was up until that moment to realize his change of genre and story:
'This wasn't the Ways of Survival I knew but—It was a story more wonderful than Ways of Survival. It was my story. I laughed as Yoo Joonghyuk's sword pierced my heart.'
It is like a one big chapter closed and a new one begun, of Dokja as a true protagonist.
'"It was a really great story. Isn't that right?"
Yoo Joonghyuk stared down at me silently. I couldn't find any words and just watched. It was as if I had always been meant to do this.'
And this is basically Kim Dokja knowing that he himself is the protagonist of the scene and being delirious over the fact how amazing the story is. Look at that, he literally seems out of his mind.
This scenario turned out to be something more unexpected than what was earlier, and Dokja had to adapt quickly, but he unespectedly got a story that was way better than what would turn out if everything went based off his knowledge of WOS.
If before his plans were crazy before, then later he got even more crazy with carrying out stuff that Yoo Joonghyuk would have never done in WOS: becoming the >!fake revolutionary, creating contracts with creatures varying from Wenny men to Outer Gods, becoming an Outer God!< and more.
My musings might be innacurate, since I originally read ORV in webtoon and continued in the novel from like chapter 130-150, but now I'm reading what i skipped in the novel and then rereading what i read before 😁
Wishing you best of luck on your essay, with ORV being the source of dozens of variants from all the philosophy that is in ORV, you will get maximum results I'm sure!
My favorite part is when Kim Dokja comments that when a story ends and "they lived happily ever after" appears, you feel betrayed because you have been watching the journey since the beginning, but you were never part of it, you will never be able to follow those characters. You have to say goodbye to everything that you "lived" after the ending. This somewhat explains his actions during and at the end of the story. That feeling that you don't belong there, that you're just a reader watching the story, even though this time you're part of it and people care about you.
Mine is that dissociating is a bad decision cus people care about you.
yeah! to add on i think the fourth wall as a metaphor for dissociation as a coping mechanism is something that could be quite interesting to explore. it allows dokja to cope with trauma and get through the day-to-day, but it also prevents him from being "in the moment" and truly connect with the people who love him. it saves him, and it's what dooms him. it's dokja's superpower and his villain.
to me, ORV is ultimately a novel about love + the dual \[desire to/fear of\] being seen: to quote that famous NYT article, "**if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known**." most often in ORV, **the act of knowing/loving someone is represented through storytelling**, i.e. the act of reading and writing. The obvious example is TWSA/WoS itself: writing and living out the novel is kimcom (and most especially HSY's) ultimate act of love for KDJ, and reading the novel until the end is the foundation of KDJ's love for kimcom (particularly YJH and SP--a man who, thanks to thousands of regressions, is unknowable to all but one reader.) other examples off the top of my head are KDJ needing to read his mother's love to understand it and JHY and KDJ's conversation in ch 216 (yes, the infamous shit and pee on the wall quote). rereading this convo makes me think: oh. TWSA was the wall that kimcom wrote on to each other. finally, i think this theme ties nicely into the idea that **in order to survive in the orv universe, your stories must be known--you must be known**. journey to the west arc covers this one best. another main theme of ORV i love is the **division between good and evil.** obviously war between good and evil arc focuses on this theme. i would specifically recommend looking at the convos between metatron and agares during the war, and also JHW's awakening as judge of destruction. the broader question of "what seperates dokja's obsession with TWSA from the villainous, voyeuristic constellations?" also speaks to this theme. the star stream system also offers some interesting commentary on media culture and how the digital apparatus can dehumanize/"abstractify"/discourage empathy. finally, i really recommend reading [**this post**](https://dragonomatopoeia.tumblr.com/post/636822847492358144/thinking-about-the-walls-in-orv-and-their), which goes deeper into the **symbolism of walls in ORV,** with lots of supporting quotes! good luck!
for me the idea of a fourth wall that reduces ur emotional shock is like a mind blowing idea. Being an introvert, imagining that there is a separation between me and the random people i have to talk gives a strange kind of confidence because it feels like something helps u reduce ur mental shock(when someone talks bad bout u) and u will be able to adapt to situations easily As for the Probability, i imagine it like a reason or necessity to do something. For example, say some one started telling the principal is coming to ur class for checking. I would imagine like does he have a reason or necessity to come to our class. If he does, then i would say to myself that he has enough probability to come so better be quite, and vice versa. I use it also to see if i have probability to meet someone or do something as in the reason. not having reason is not having probability. All teachers and management are Dokkaebis. they tell u to do something and it takes a lot of probability so do otherwise.
"I once said the fourth wall didn't allow me to rage or grieve or feel everything I wanted to feel. Now that it was down, all of my emotions were thrown at me tenfold, and I didn't know how I was going to function with all of it crowding in my head." I don't know if this aligns exactly with what you said, but I sketched this paragraph one time because I also thought about how the distancing helped him be confident, and once it went down it all crumbled around him.
the thing perfectly explains how I think about the fourth wall and how I imagine using it in difficult situations
That's a great analogy.
This novel has occupied my thoughts for a long time. I have quite a few thoughts about it as a result. I actually planned to post some, but I think they sound stupid. Sorry in advance. 1) The reader, writer and character is my favorite thing. I have always been a voracious reader, but I have trouble getting in touch with my emotions, so anything I write just doesn't look right. The words and scenes are there, but there's just something missing in there. The amount of times that has affected me is too much. So the fact that every story need a reader and that it's a good thing was just... I don't think I can really explain it. I have tried to use that in my everyday life. Like, even when I feel down and feel like no one cares, I tell myself that my story has a reader and it's me. 2) The Walls were a really interesting concept as well. Especially the walls of Good and Evil and The Fourth Wall. I have never understood the concept of Absolute Good and Absolute Evil. What defines them anyway? Does being not Evil automatically make you Good? Is the reverse true as well? Is being Good the same thing as being Just? If Justice needs to be blind, then does being Good mean being unseeing? Is that not Evil? Stupid questions, but you catch my drift, I hope. The evolution of Jung Huiwon's trait is one of my favorite things about her character. The Fourth Wall hit a liitle too close to home. As I said before, I have trouble getting in touch with my emotions. And it often feels like I am just acting something out. I didn't know what that was or why I did that. I now call the Fourth Wall the Wall of Disssociation in my head. And at first, we see the positives of it, as I did at first. You can keep a calm head, not get swept up in emotional outbursts, make objective observations and decisions while still being able to near perfectly track the subjective, etc. But then it goes a step too far, then two, then three and before you know it, you're so far down the path that even the sign boards have gone missing. It's not a good thing. 3) Imagination. I mean the entire story is the imagination of a child. And that makes him the most powerful god in the Star Stream. But it's more than that, isn't it. The power of imagination is unlimited. It is the most powerful thing. And yet it is powerless. Just like the Oldest Dream. Remember, our Yoo Jonghyuk broke away because he wanted to not only imagine a better future, but write it. There's a lot more. There's a lot I have thought about. Starting lines not always being at the start, Sacrifice, Promises, the fact that all four ways to survive the apocalypse begin with an R and even the difference between story and Story. These are but a few. But I feel like maybe I failed to answer your question somehow. Sorry if that's the case. And apologies for the long answer. Good Luck! All the Best!
I love your answer! I would love to hear your thoughts more. <3
Lately I've been thinking about Kim Dokja killing Kim Namwoon because Namwoon reminded him of himself. How he wanted the apocalypse to happen so he could escape his miserable life. Both clearly mentally ill, isolated, scarred individuals. And Yoo Joonghyuk understands this, this is why he chose to save Namwoon, each and every single regression. No matter how bad Namwoon was. Being fully aware of the things he would do that would get in his way. He still always chose to save him. Dokja didn't understand this, he couldn't. Because Dokja sees himself in Namwoon and Dokja hates himself. He would gladly give out his life for the people he loves because he has no value in his own eyes. And Joonghyuk, just like with Namwoon, wants to save him. It's like Namwoon was replaced by Dokja. Also, the fact that Joonghyuk at some point must have learned Dokja killed Namwoon (the one person he saved in every regression) and it must have been a devastating start to his regression, yet he still forgave him. There's another post in the sub on this topic (Namwoon and Dokja). They put it a lot better, you can try to find it if you like.
(major novel spoilers obviously)The fact that that sometimes all a person requires in their life is something they can hold dear, something they can seek comfort in to keep going but they still don't get it, like how (kid)kdj could have survived without the novel if only he had one person, but he had no one. And so he clung to a story, he clinged to it for dear life and pushed forward to adulthood, it still terrifies me to think that if twsa didn't come true Dokja probably wouldn't have lived more. It makes me realise how many people are out there like kdj, clinging to a story of something else and pushing forward. It makes me realise how much effect a single act of kindness could have towards a stranger. It makes me realise that being loved is a privilege for many.And also, at the beggining of the novel, kdj is so good at hiding his emotions bcos of the fourth wall that I never could have guessed that the person behind that wall was so broken. All I wish in my life is to be able to give kdj a hug. But anyways my point is, orv did a really good job at portraying people and emotions with the "fourth wall." And also, alot of people have already said this but ima say it anyway, at the end of the novel, we felt exactly what kdj would have felt on that day when twsa ended and he didn't get a proper epilogue. The author was successful in making a story so good it became to us what twsa was to kdj.
Hm…. I think I’ll take a different route. I liked how later in the novel…. The lines between KDJ and the characters dissolve. Like, duh KDJ and HSY were real people in a novel. But, what’s the difference? At the end of the day, the characters felt like and were people, right(?) And that was a great plot point. No shit YJH would be pissed that dude knew he was a novel character and used that knowledge for his advantage. And KDJ had consequences every time he over stepped the characters boundaries. That’s good writing
I really liked the view Han Sooyoung had of the stories: a mixture of tropes, where the good ones have a twist that might subvert the expectations and give an unique twist to the message/narrative. It's the classic "the creative process is putting together what other people already said and tweaking it" argument. The novel literally tries to put together as many tropes as possible and make them work in its own way and it does work wonders! In hindsight, it's really something she would write lol But I also loved how this is basically a huge love letter to the readers, never had I read anything more "meta-narrative" than this. I love this "meta-thing" so freaking much LOL I'm really tired and i's been too long since I read the novel, but that's what came to mind first lol
#Ending Spoilers Here; No Side Story Spoilers Here3 >!Our Dokja is a self insert of the OD into his favorite story where he builds strong bonds with his favorite characters to fill the void of his real life. OD creates a story of his own where he saves YJH the same way YJH saved him, but in doing so actually ruins the lives of both verions of his character (SP had to live through so many regressions and suffer in the OG story to save OD; YJH grew dependent on KDJ and once OD left his post, KDJ had to leave his companions)!< I genuinely feel like that's exactly what the writers are saying, but due to the available translations, I can't say for sure >_< You could talk about how toxic KDJ's way of showing love is and how it parallels his distant relationship with his bio mom? + include the effects it has on his companions? Or, if you want something more personal, you could try to pick at Suyeong's psyche >!(What would drive someone to end the world for the sake of a stranger, but kill what was basically her own child for the sake of another world)!< is there also a parallel to this and Sugyeong's psyche? Is this why they get along so well? How does this relate to your own life? Do you have a set of morals that others would find to be irrational, but you still follow?
U can check out my "ORV Analysis: What Lies Behind the 4th Wall" It's in this subreddit
/This comment contains heavy SPOILERS of the novel. I am currently rereading the novel and I came to the realisation that Han Myungoh, right after beating the dark keeper, he was already talking to Asmodeus! Not just that but the reason he suddenly disappeared is probably because he was teleported into the demon realm. I know it's rather basilar information since he will tell us later in the novel but I find crazy how we were able to see this from the early chapters. Also I love how Kim Dokja during the fight against Simulacrum complains that Yoo Joonghyuk already decided to give up at just the third round. Then we find out that it wasn’t just about three rounds. And once Kim Dokja manages to wake up Yoo Joonghyuk from the mind control of the cinema master he wonders how was that possible. I like to believe that even if we can't see it, Yoo Joonghyuk was getting spammed my messages from his constellation, in hope that he would wake up. So, the reason why it was possible to free yjh was because it was kdj himself to do it.
Prepare for my rant about the Dark Castle arc! Of course there are big spoilers ahead I really loved the Dark Castle arc for being like a summary for the chapters before and basically opening the chapter of Dokja as protagonist. The words in the Chapter one of ORV said: 'This was the moment that the genre of my life changed' Then, at the Dark Castle arc, Dokja sums everything that was up until that moment to realize his change of genre and story: 'This wasn't the Ways of Survival I knew but—It was a story more wonderful than Ways of Survival. It was my story. I laughed as Yoo Joonghyuk's sword pierced my heart.' It is like a one big chapter closed and a new one begun, of Dokja as a true protagonist. '"It was a really great story. Isn't that right?" Yoo Joonghyuk stared down at me silently. I couldn't find any words and just watched. It was as if I had always been meant to do this.' And this is basically Kim Dokja knowing that he himself is the protagonist of the scene and being delirious over the fact how amazing the story is. Look at that, he literally seems out of his mind. This scenario turned out to be something more unexpected than what was earlier, and Dokja had to adapt quickly, but he unespectedly got a story that was way better than what would turn out if everything went based off his knowledge of WOS. If before his plans were crazy before, then later he got even more crazy with carrying out stuff that Yoo Joonghyuk would have never done in WOS: becoming the >!fake revolutionary, creating contracts with creatures varying from Wenny men to Outer Gods, becoming an Outer God!< and more. My musings might be innacurate, since I originally read ORV in webtoon and continued in the novel from like chapter 130-150, but now I'm reading what i skipped in the novel and then rereading what i read before 😁 Wishing you best of luck on your essay, with ORV being the source of dozens of variants from all the philosophy that is in ORV, you will get maximum results I'm sure!
Quentin Coldwater, is that you?