#<- for my mutuals who havent finished the novel yet

[metanarrates]

what do you think about the implications that the fourth wall/dokkaebi king is Jesus

i'm not sure it's an important piece of information in itself, frankly! i believe that someone COULD draw out that piece of info and construct a lot of meaning from it, but to me, it's just a fragment of the larger idea. the dokkaebi king is not just jesus - he is a representation of every founding myth and story in all the world.

so he is jesus. he is god. he is lucifer. I'm sure he is also yggdrasil, or the fates from greek mythology, or any other mythological idea that explains how the world is founded. or any important myth, too. I haven't read the epic of gilgamesh, but I would bet real money that something around him at least references it.

it's not even that any of these figures are his real identity, either. it's implied he doesn't quite have one. the way orv's universe functions, everything is just another incarnation of an older and deeper story. the dokkaebi king himself doesn't know where he originated. he is a representation of the concept of "the founding story," if you will. a story that seems responsible for the origin of everything, but is, in itself, a text whose origin is slightly shrouded in mystery. a final boss who seems like he might be responsible for all the world's evils, but who is ultimately a character in a text, and who by definition cannot be the author or reader who made the constructed reality of the fictional world.

I suppose you can draw a savior/jesus story out of his role as the fourth wall, but I also personally don't see it that way. the dokkaebi king represents not just the text of twsa, but literally all literature and mythology. and while he does protect kim dokja in this role, it is not an unambiguously good or healthy thing, as jesus allegories tend to treat the concept of saviorism. since kim dokja uses fiction itself as a coping mechanism to dissociate himself from daily life, the fourth wall becomes his shield. this makes it so the fourth wall represents both fiction itself AND fiction as a coping mechanism AND fiction as a way of understanding and interpreting the world. its a very multilayered allegory. and while orv ultimately settles on his usage of fiction being an overall good thing, it is HIGHLY nuanced and not afraid to point out how the thing that saves him can also be a hindrance at times. which is sort of antithetical to a jesus allegory lol

[steelycunt]

can already see penance by eliza clark being one of my favourites reads of this year and it is. the first read of this year