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kitkatsudon · 4 months

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KitKat reads the TKEM Novel: Chapter 2

That night, a broken flute

So. Chapter 2. If you haven’t guessed already by the title of this chapter, it covers the topic of that fateful night back in 1994, when Lee Lim kills Lee Ho, little Gon comes in, gets traumatised, they both leave with half of the Manpasikjeok, etc etc. That’s kind of… the first half of this chapter? The whole chapter is definitely affected by this, but after this there are two more scenes in this chapter: one where Gon is looking at Taeeul’s ID card in his Alice in Wonderland book (notably skipping over “Are you having fun, Captain Jo?” and that subsequent conversation between Gon and Yeong which is one of my personal favourite scenes, but anyway. They do reference it, but it’s not the same), and then the scene where Gon is at the stables, he hears the sound of the flute, and he runs away on Maximus and goes into the portal.

My first thought? Not enough Yeong. Again. For real this time. Yeong has one line of dialogue, and that’s just a radio call to Hopil and the others to chase after Gon, there’s no new insights about Yeong in this chapter, absolutely nothing. And I know, I know that I can’t really judge a chapter like this on its Yeong content when none of these scenes contained Yeong in the first place, but like… they could have included that conversation between Gon and Yeong in Gon’s study? Instead, the allusion to it we get is this:

Why didn’t ‘he’ who saved him come back? Wasn’t it worth coming to see him at least once?

Yeong said that he didn’t come because Gon had grown up so well that he didn’t need anyone’s help, but Gon wanted to ask, ‘didn’t he want to come and see how well he had grown up?’

There it is, folks! That’s all we’re getting! And look… it’s easy enough to tell from the scene in the show that Gon isn’t really satisfied with Yeong’s answer, but a part of me does feel disappointed that this heartfelt conversation between those two in the first episode was boiled down to this in the book. None of the tenderness, none of the warmth, just “idc yeongie i still want to see my saviour :/.” And then… hoo boy. I can already tell that this book is going to test my patience as someone who is not particularly a taegon enjoyer, because a few paragraphs down we get this absolute gem.

The government ID in his hand was the only trace he had left behind, and it was a question. Every day, Gon would ask the woman on the card, ‘Do you know why he saved me? Why I survived?’ Thanks to this, the woman had become a habit for him. After twenty-five years, she was more familiar than anyone else. For Gon, it was comforting. Before he knew it, she had become the reason he was alive.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry, whAT?! The reason he was alive? His reason for living?? More familiar than anyone else????? Bestie… she is a piece of plastic!!! As far as you know right now!!!!! If this is your reason for living… Gon, blink twice if you need to see a therapist. Oh, wait, hang on, this reminds me of another passage in this chapter…

Was he really dead? Suddenly, he felt a surge of doubt.

Maybe it was because that night, twenty-five years ago, was still so vivid. The stickiness of stepping through the blood of innocents, the smell of blood that stung his nostrils. The pain of the strangulation, the thinning of his breath. The sight of his father’s lifeless body in front of him. The underlying dread, the fear. The emotions were as sharp as the sensations.

However, now that Gon was the king, they were emotions he couldn’t show anyone. Walking slowly to his desk, Gon composed himself as he sat down. The good news was that he wasn’t weak enough to be consumed by the memories of that day.

Oh, well, that’s ok then! Don’t worry everyone! Gon is fine, actually! Sure, he still has very vivid memories of that awful night, he still hates people touching his body, he can’t wear a tie without getting flashbacks to that night, he doesn’t feel like he can share this with anyone because of his status as the king, but don’t worry! He’s not so weak that he’s super affected by this or anything, that would be totally cringe.

Gon, I’m going to say this once again, blink twice if you need to see a therapist. Because this… my god. That’s an unhealthy thought pattern if I’ve ever heard one. I think the show wants the solution to this to be “gon is fine enough to be a great boyfriend, but if he ever does need to talk to anyone, this will only ever be taeeul because he the king to her.” What I’m hearing, however, is “gon needs to trust his loved ones, and learn to be comfortable with the fact that he’s both the king and a person, and he needs to be comfortable with communicating with people like yeong and lady noh and prince buyeong who have loved him for a very long time and want gon the person to be alright.” Like… surely the message here isn’t just that Gon can never ever trust anyone from the Kingdom with his emotions, right? Where’s the growth there? Finding someone from another universe is the most convoluted loophole in this situation, when he could just like… talk to his best friend? Even if that’s hard for him, growth is hard! But it’s important!

But *ahem* anyway, sorry, this is meant to be about the novel, not my wider thoughts about the show in general…

You might be wondering, hey KitKat, you said that this chapter was half about the night of the treason, so why haven’t you spoken about that? And that… is because I don’t really have that much to say? It’s mostly just an action sequence, there aren’t really any character moments that made me like !!!!, like the other parts did. The main detail is that it really hammers in the detail that Lee Lim feels unfairly treated because of the nature of his birth. He’s jealous of his brother and his nephew for being born into a life where they never really had to struggle.

Actually, you know what? I am going to share this paragraph, purely so I can go on another side tangent.

Prince Imperial Geum. Lee Lim was crowned Prince Imperial Geum at the age of thirteen. He was the firstborn son, but his mother died before she could become queen, and she was posthumously declared a noblewoman. So, his younger brother, who knew nothing and was only good, became the king.

Now, let’s do some maths, shall we? Both Lee Lim and Lee Ho have confirmed dates of birth in the show. Lee Lim was born on 27th February 1951, and Lee Ho was born on 23rd October 1952. (Another fun fact is that Gon’s mother was born on 8th August 1965, so when Gon was born on 28th October 1987, his mother was 22 and his dad was 35, and I know that age gap relationships can be perfectly consensual and loving but man… I can’t deny that something there feels a little bit icky… but anyway.) Assuming neither Lee Ho nor Lee Lim were born prematurely, this implies that Lee Lim was conceived in May 1950, and Lee Ho was conceived in January 1952. If their father, King Haejong, was doing everything by the book, if Lee Lim’s mother was his official partner, and the earliest that she died was 27th February 1951, this means that King Haejong moved on from this love of his life to get to the baby-making stage with Lee Ho’s mother in less than a year. It’s… plausible? But if Lee Ho was legitimate, then King Haejong and his new partner had to be married somewhere between February 1951 and October 1952, and it would have had to have been a big royal wedding with a lot of planning, and… mmmMH I don’t want to make any conclusions, because there are a few explanations for this quick timeline and it’s much more fun if this is left up to individual interpretation, but what I am pretty sure on is that this situation with King Haejong and his lovers wasn’t as simple as “:( lee lim’s poor mother died before she could be made the queen.” It’s giving… less tragic, more scandal, somewhere on this timeline. Either way, I am narrowing my eyes at you, King Haejong.

Mmmh… anything else? Maybe this:

In the Cheonjongo scene, Yoo Gyeongmu, Lee Lim’s second in command, says to him that they need to leave because the “Golden Army” is coming. In the official English subs on Netflix, this is just translated as Royal Guard, BUT it’s definitely a different word. Royal Guard, in the book, has always been 근위대, but Yoo Gyeongmu specifically refers to a certain 금군, and this had specific Hanja next to it in the book, so it must be a thing. What is this Golden Army? Will it be referenced again, other than in this scene? It’s not a code name, little Gon also thinks to himself that his saviour is leaving because the Golden Army is on their way. Is it a specific task force within the Royal Guard? If so, what do they do?? I have a horrible suspicion that we’ll never know.

Oh, and one more thing before I bullet point exactly what we’ve learnt from this chapter.

It was said that the prince was a prodigy, a genius who could read, write, and do mathematics at an early age.

*quietly adds ‘hyperlexia’ next to ‘savant mathematical abilities’ onto my imaginary list of evidence of gon being autistic*

That post will come eventually. But not for a while.

So!! What have we learnt in chapter two?

Somewhere on the palace grounds, vaguely near Cheonjongo, is a gingko tree!

Where Lee Lim was described as being bold and cruel, Lee Ho was described as having a “cool temperament that could be considered weak.” Even if Lee Ho isn’t in my good books for getting a 21 year old pregnant when he was 34, that still feels kind of mean.

Cheonjongo was home to “various treasures, from crowns to cash, ceramics to swords, treasures handed down from generation to generation.”

The current Captain of the Royal Guard died that night, stepping in front of Lee Ho.

The Netflix subs miss out Lee Ho saying something that roughly translates to “What the heck?!” before he asks “Brother, what do you think you’re doing?” which is something that I wish they’d kept in.

When Lee Lim killed his brother, he was happy to prove that Lee Ho was weaker than him.

Gon was commended as a little genius, and this is the only measure by which Lee Lim thinks he might be better than his father. That doesn’t change the fact that Lee Lim still has to kill him, though.

Even in that horrible moment, and despite Gon being seven years old internationally, he was actively thinking about strategy, wanting to strike Lee Lim with the Four Tiger Sword while he was laughing, because it was a moment of weakness.

Lee Lim got his royal title when he was thirteen, Korean age, so presumably he was 11/12 years old internationally.

The first time little Gon heard the flute music was when his saviour came for him, not before, which begs the question as to why he went to Cheonjongo that night in the first place. Maybe because his dad wanted to show him the Manpasikjeok?

This “Golden Army” section of the Royal Guard existed, at least in 1994. Maybe it still does in the present. Maybe it doesn’t. That remains to be seen.

The official story was that Royal Guards shot Lee Lim dead on the beach, not that he was found washed up dead like I assumed in the show. Maybe this was just a detail in the show that I forgot about, but I’m including it here because it confused me at first.

Lee Lim’s “death” had always seemed futile and meaningless to Gon.

Apparently, according to Gon, all the fear, grief, and hurt has already faded away from that night with time, and the only thing he still has is the question of why his saviour hasn’t come back for him. Apparently.

Please imagine a strained voice for this next point: Jeong Taeeul’s ID card became Gon’s reason for living. *sigh.*

This is something I’d noticed before, but this whole scene where he looks at the ID card in his book, and everything in the show immediately preceding it that the book cut - this all happens on 10th September 2019. Is there a significance to this date? YES! THERE IS! IT’S YEONG’S BIRTHDAY! THEY CUT OUT YEONG’S SCENE ON HIS GODDAMN BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

The Royal Guard was on high alert after the shooting at the rowing competition, and yet Gon still managed to escape? He’s quite impressive.

The main reason Gon was suspicious that Lee Lim wasn’t dead, despite them having a corpse, was because Lee Lim risked everything to get the Manpasikjeok, but his half wasn’t found on this corpse. This is what Gon is thinking about as he’s looking at the portal for the first time.

As Gon is riding through the place in between, in the portal dimension, he’s thinking of the passage of Alice in Wonderland that he read to the children a few days ago, of Alice following the clock rabbit into the rabbit hole, and then falling further and further down.

And that’s it! I’m… actually surprised at how long this ended up being, because I definitely found the first chapter a lot more entertaining than this one. Though to be honest, that was mostly the shameless Gon worshipping. There was definitely some of that this chapter, but not at all to the same extent. Next time… I haven’t really looked very hard at the next chapter, but I think it’s going to cover Taeeul and Gon’s first meeting, from their very first interaction to Gon’s time in the police station. And now I say that, I’m suddenly realising that I’m quite excited to find out what Gon is thinking when he sees Eunseob for the first time. But not too excited. I don’t think it’s wise to have expectations that are too high with this book.

Final thoughts? Underwhelming. I know this book can’t deviate much from the show, but I was disappointed with how little extra information we learnt about Lee Lim in the Cheonjongo scene. Does he really just want *gestures vaguely* power? Is it really just because he feels it’s unfair that he wasn’t born to be the king? Come on, where’s the flavour? Does he want to be more powerful than God because he just wants power? Does he want to rule Corea? Does he want to rule the world? The multiverse??? What is his endgame here??? He gets the Manpasikjeok, then what??? I was hoping that the book would give us some more insight, but it absolutely has not done that so far. Ah well. I suppose it’s only Chapter 2. There’s still time.

Other than that, my main takeaway is that Lee Gon is taking a long, long swim in a certain river in Egypt in regards to how he’s Totally Fine And Ok after the night of the treason. Did he ever get therapy after that night? If so, his therapist didn’t do a very good job if he still thinks that he can’t tell his loved ones about his “weak” feelings because he’s the king. If he didn’t get therapy, then I want to have serious words with whoever looked at this child who just saw his father murdered and almost got murdered himself, and decided “yeah, he’ll probably be ok.”

But of course, he’s fine! It’s below the king to have these so-called “mental health struggles.”

#kitkat reads the tkem novel #tkem #lee gon #lee lim #I can’t believe they snubbed Yeong on his birthday #actually I very much can believe it #that feels very right for this show #I don’t think I have that much more to say #other than that gon being a gifted kid who could read and do maths at a very early age #but is now trying to convince himself that he’s totally perfectly fine and he can’t tell his loved ones about his problems #gon baby… so many people on this here internet can tell you that this is a slippery slope

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