trainerlyra | bad news coming || joongdok @trainerlyra3 | Uploaded 2 months ago | Updated 5 minutes ago
SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING OF DARK CASTLE/73RD DEMON KING!!!!!

"it was a really great story. isn't that right?" this is still honestly one of my favorite scenes in orv period. while the disaster of floods is when i knew that orv was gonna be GOOD, the ending of this arc - kim dokja's birth as the demon king of salvation - is when i knew "oh, this is going to stay with me forever". and i was right, considering i literally can't go a single week still without orv making me cry. so! now that we FINALLY got here in the webtoon i figured it was appropriate to edit it. actually more like at like 1am i became possessed and had half of this done before i realized it was 3:30 in the morning and i needed to start getting into bed lmao

i think part of what gets me so much about this scene is the absolute desperation of everyone. moments before, yoo joonghyuk had been wiling to sacrifice himself to make sure everyone could make it to the end. that KIM DOKJA could make it to the end. and kim dokja gets so ANGRY. he's so angry that yoo joonghyuk could change in this way and do this, because to him, there's no point in reaching the finish line if yoo joonghyuk isn't the one to do it. but when kim dokja flips the script, he... doesn't fully understand that everyone else feels the same way about HIM, also. it's of course not the first time that we see him sacrifice himself or start on something without letting everyone know his plans, but it's the first time you are really forced as the reader to grapple with exactly what's happening - with how painful kim dokja's choices really are for everyone.

and that's the beauty of it, right? "incarnation kim dokja will be killed by the one he loves most." it was the story that he loved, that saved him for thirteen years, that was written *just for him* who was to fight him, but it was yoo joonghyuk who had to deal the final blow. it was his protagonist. it was his brother, his father, his only friend. and BECAUSE it is yoo joonghyuk it hits even harder, because slowly he has been changing from what kim dokja described initially. he's been becoming someone kim dokja doesn't recognize, but because he is the most unreliable narrator in the universe, this arc is where you as the reader fully understand that shift.

but kim dokja fundamentally does not understand his impact on others. he fully does not recognize he exists in the same way other people do, that there is space in people's hearts just for him that he created, and that they need him as much as he needed them when he was alone in the world wanting to die. that because he spent time with these people, he matters to them. he thinks of himself as unnecessary. the concept of "salvation" i think is so important here. the definition is "the deliverance from harm" which is what kim dokja believes he is accomplishing. he believes he alone is capable of saving everyone. in reality, his choices hurt. his loved ones suffer. he traumatizes them constantly by having no consideration for their feelings.

that's because kim dokja only understands how to love through sacrifice. it is the only way he had ever been loved, before, by his mother. he does not understand his salvation is not what the people he loves want. he does not understand they would rather fail together than make it to the end without him. and this point is hammered in over. and over. and over. and OVER again throughout the rest of the novel.

and really, how could he think of himself as someone with worth? he has gone his whole life trying to be small enough to disappear, and just flowing through the motions. the one sole thing in his world that mattered was the ways of survival. he doesn't think he exists to other people because he had never existed in any way that mattered before. it's a terrible trend that continues all the way to the end, because no matter how much you love someone, they must learn to accept that love on their own.

"how could somebody ever love me?" i don't believe you can fully ever answer why you love someone. the moment you try is the moment the feeling loses meaning, because love is not a logical thought. it is not something you are having a reaction to, like happiness or sadness or anger. love is a state of mind - it is a choice you make every day. kim dokja doesn't understand why someone would make that choice for him. but that doesn't mean they stop trying. it just means they know they have to try harder to reach him.

i just. ough. i love kim dokja SO MUCH. i know i've said it a million times, but orv is something that if you finish it, it will never leave you. there is nothing like it. there is nothing that understands love for a story quite the way orv does.

please read the novel. it will change your life.