#omniscient reader analysis

Imagine suddenly being visited by yourself from the future and that person seems to hate you, to want you gone. All the pain of trying to push through, to survive till it gets better must have been useless if the future your despises you so much

Yoo Joonghyuk regressing for the first time to find answers first and meet his sponsor second. A man driven by curiosity and a wish to understand his life but also wanting to know his benefactor. And then our YJH of the 1865th turn choosing to go on another journey to find his reader, his heart, his everything to ask him "what now? What should I do know? You know me the best, help me" and those questions feel important but feel second to the first goal: meeting Kim Dokja again.

ORV uses the tropes and expectations against it's readers. having read a bunch of other unlimited flow/book becomes reality/apocalypse web novels I came in expecting things. I expected some romance and not the constant teasing that was left alone as family was much more important than the simple answer who will Kim Dokja sleep with. I expected a theme of survival and not the question of when does the self-sacrifice for others become too much for the people you are trying to save. I expected a narrator, maybe even an unreliable one, but not the whole construction of the narrative to be a plot device. Of course there is also the main character of the original story playing the secondary character role - only YJH is as important as KDJ . In the end he is the one taking action to save the one he cares about. A protagonist once again but fully aware he is doing it for the other. I expected a companion character who starts out as an antagonist but I wasn't prepared for HSY's, well everything. She is so much more than potential love interest, a friend, an antagonist, a companion.

But for me ORV has been this cure for a feeling I've had about certain stories: I fall in love not with the story itself but what we as readers tell ourselves about it. Maybe it's because I've used too play too many gatcha games where the fandom did the heavy lifting for the story and characterisation. But I've also read so many stories where I had to turn to fanfiction to see the character truly explored instead of just being this representation of one theme. I won't be telling names but I have some beef with the "classics".

Kim Dokja and his 4 kids (Lee Gilyoung, Shin Yoonung, Bihyo, (arguably) Lee Jihye or puppy Lee Hyunsung)

So we have this guy who thinks he is unworthy of love and not a good role model trying to save children during the apocalypse. Someone who has no previous experience of good parenthood trying his best to give them what he never got. He gives them opportunity to grow, he trusts them to take care of themselves but also makes sure they don't face anything they cannot handle. But he also leaves them behind time and time again because it's not like they won't manage. It's not like they don't have anyone else so just because they loose him (and he will come back!) it isn't that big of a deal. Or maybe he knows it is but sees no other way and he will be back so they can get angry and clingy but for now he needs them to push through (but do we trust Kim Dokja to really consider how much he is worth to them?).

We have Kim Dokja as a son of an abusive father.

Even though this man shaped the whole story we don't see that much of him. We see his echos in the ways KD thinks of himself, of his relationship with his mother. He haunts the story the same way the abusing parents often haunt their victims all the way into the adulthood. The lack of self-worth, the need to separate yourself from your feelings to survive, to hide behind a wall - it seems like it started early. And we also see KD father in the ways KD is different from him. The bar may be on the floor when we are talking about someone being better than KD father but KD goes above and beyond. Even though he struggles with it it takes a lot to choose a different mind set when you were never offered alternatives, at least outside of stories you've read.

Which brings us to the other one of Kim Dokja's fathers. Hades. The book version of a father - a stoic, but loving man offering to fight for his child with a scythe and all the glory of the Underworld. Someone who will forgive you lying to him (normal) and then offer you a legion of soldiers (less so). If KD ever read about good fathers it could be someone exactly like this. And it's not realistic in the way KD is with his kids - it feels more like a wish fulfillment of a little child. A dream of a child beaten and berated by his own father to have someone who stands up for them, who forgives them and trusts them. And who ultimately dies for them.

Because both of Kim Dokja's fathers died. And both did that because of him. That's not fair. Hades did it for him. He saved Kim Dokja just like a father should. And on the other hand we have a father that had to die so KD could live, not because of some great curse or calamity. His death was the only thing that could keep KD safe from him. And even in death his shadow was there. KD mother had to leave him, his abuse at the hand of his extended family and children from school started.

So for me Kim Dokja on some level knows what he has: an experience of abuse. And he knows that in no way he wants to repeat that with his children. So he tries. He tries to offer them support, to be there for them, to forgive them. Just like a perfect, book version of a father would. But they're not in a perfect world and he isn't almighty. He still suffers from all those beliefs installed in him by the years of abuse which started at the hands of his first father.