Beyond the Reader's Viewpoint | a breakdown of the Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

Summary

The video script explores the semiotic analysis of the Korean webnovel 'The Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint' (ORV), drawing parallels with the concept of 'death of the author' in literature. It delves into the narrative's depth, discussing the characters' development, the author's intent, and the reader's interpretation. The script challenges viewers to consider the complex relationship between reader, text, and author, using semiotics to dissect the story's layers of meaning and the implications of the 'death of the audience' concept within the narrative.

Takeaways

• 📚 The script discusses semiotics, comparing it to an order of operations in mathematics, as a way to understand the true meaning of texts.
• 🐱 The author humorously mentions a cat in the background, indicating a personal touch and setting the scene for a casual discussion.
• 🌐 The essay focuses on the Korean webnovel 'The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint', analyzing its themes and narrative structure.
• 🔍 It explores the concept of 'death of the author' and 'death of the audience' in literature, suggesting readers' interpretations are as significant as the author's intent.
• 🎭 The script uses the metaphor of a theater audience to explain the concept of 'death of the audience', where the audience becomes self-aware and nonjudgmental.
• 🎮 The video game analogy is introduced to discuss how readers can influence narratives, drawing parallels with the interactivity of games like 'Undertale'.
• 📖 The central theme of 'The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint' is revealed to be about the act of reading, the love for it, and its impact on the protagonist's life.
• 🤔 The script ponders the philosophical implications of quantum superposition and its relevance to the story's narrative, especially regarding the reader's role.
• 🔗 It connects the webnovel's themes to broader literary concepts, such as the relationship between a writer and their audience, and the impact of narratives on readers.
• ✍️ The author of the script acknowledges the complexity and depth of 'The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint', inviting further discussion and interpretation.

Q & A

What is semiotics and how is it related to the understanding of texts?

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. In the context of texts, semiotics aims to understand the true meaning of any given text by analyzing the inherent meaning of words and symbols and how they are strung together to convey messages.

How does the essayist relate semiotics to the structure of a story?

The essayist compares semiotics to the structure of a story by likening it to an ecosphere, where stories have units that can be broken down into neat segments such as narrative, themes, arcs, chapters, scenes, and beats. This breakdown allows for analysis that can lead to an understanding of the story's truth.

What is 'The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint' and how does it fit into the discussion about semiotics?

'The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint' is a Korean webnovel that the essayist uses as a case study to apply semiotics. The novel itself is about a reader who is transported into the world of a novel he has read, and the essayist discusses how semiotics can be used to analyze the narrative structure and the author's intentions within the story.

How does the concept of 'death of the author' figure into the essay?

The concept of 'death of the author' is introduced as a semiotic concept by Roland Barthes, suggesting that the meaning derived from a text belongs to the reader, not the author. The essayist explores this concept in relation to the webnovel, questioning what 'death of the audience' might signify and how it affects the reader's experience and interpretation of the story.

What role does the 'Star Stream' play in 'The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint'?

In 'The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint', the 'Star Stream' is a metaphor for the readers or audience of the story within the story. It represents the idea that readers are voyeurs who experience emotions for the characters but do not carry those emotions into real life.

How does the essayist connect the concept of 'death of the audience' to the reader's experience?

The essayist connects 'death of the audience' to the reader's experience by suggesting that when the audience is 'killed' or made aware of their non-existence, they can no longer perceive the work outside of the author's demands. This leads to a direct conversation between the reader and the text, without the filter of the audience's preconceived notions.

What is the significance of the term 'Fanon' in the context of the essay?

In the essay, 'Fanon' refers to fandom canon, which is the widely accepted interpretation of a character by fans that may or may not align with the official canon. The essayist discusses how the protagonist's understanding of other characters is influenced by his personal headcanons, which are shaped by his readings and experiences.

How does the essayist interpret the character of Yu Junghyeok in 'The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint'?

The essayist interprets Yu Junghyeok as a character designed to show the reader, Kim Dokja, the importance of kindness, self-discovery, and the impact of one's actions on others. Junghyeok's character is shaped by his companions and his journey through numerous regressions, reflecting themes of growth, trust, and the struggle against one's own narrative.

What is the significance of quantum superposition in the essay's discussion of 'The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint'?

Quantum superposition is used in the essay to illustrate the concept of observation affecting reality, akin to Schrödinger's cat paradox. It is applied to the relationship between the author Han Suyeong and the reader Kim Dokja, suggesting that their connection is maintained through the act of reading, and that removing the text from their interaction would change the nature of their bond.

How does the essayist view the ending of 'The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint' in terms of the reader's role?

The essayist views the ending as a paradox where the reader's act of reading both sustains and harms the characters and the narrative. It suggests that for the story to continue, the reader must keep reading, which implies that the reader's role is essential but also problematic, as it leads to ongoing conflict and suffering within the story.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to Semiotics and 'The Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint'

The script begins by humorously acknowledging the presence of a cat, before diving into an introduction to semiotics. Semiotics is likened to the order of operations in mathematics, providing a framework for understanding the meaning of texts. The essay aims to apply semiotics to analyze the Korean webnovel 'The Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint' (ORV), which is mistakenly perceived as a sci-fi transmigrator story. The author clarifies that the webnovel is actually about the power of reading, using the protagonist Kim Dokja's journey through an apocalyptic narrative as a lens to explore themes of survival, love for literature, and the deeper meanings behind the story's structure.

05:02

🖋️ Death of the Author and the Concept of 'Death of the Audience'

This section discusses the semiotic concept of 'death of the author', introduced by Roland Barthes, which posits that a text's meaning is derived from the reader's interpretation, not the author's intent. The script then introduces the concept of 'death of the audience', exploring how it gives birth to a new type of person who is aware of their own non-existence in relation to the text. The narrative of ORV is used to illustrate this, with the protagonist Kim Dokja living out the story of 'Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse' (TWSA), thus becoming a participant rather than a reader. The script also touches on the idea of the reader's influence on a story, drawing parallels to video game narratives and self-help books.

10:06

🌌 The Struggle Against the Narrative in 'The Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint'

Paragraph 3 explores the resistance Kim Dokja faces in ORV as he tries to navigate the world of TWSA and achieve his desired ending. Despite his deep knowledge of the novel, Dokja encounters opposition from characters like Yu Junghyeok and entities like the Star Stream. The paragraph delves into the concept of fanon, or fandom canon, and how it shapes our understanding of characters, using Yu Junghyeok's character as an example. It contrasts Dokja's initial understanding of Junghyeok with the canonical version of the character, emphasizing the importance of engaging with characters as real individuals rather than as tools for one's own ends.

15:12

🌪️ The Impact of Relationships and the Tragedy of TWSA

The fourth paragraph examines the relationships between characters in TWSA, particularly Yu Junghyeok's core team, to infer Junghyeok's own character and role in the story. It discusses how Junghyeok's interactions with his team demonstrate the importance of kindness, self-discovery, and the impact one has on others. The paragraph also addresses the tragic nature of TWSA, revealing Junghyeok's suicidal tendencies and the existential crisis he faces as a result of living through 2000 lifetimes. The narrative's insistence on Dokja's continued reading is highlighted as a source of both life and suffering for the characters.

20:12

🌌 Quantum Superposition and the Tragedy of the Reader-Author Relationship

Paragraph 5 introduces the concept of quantum superposition, drawing a parallel with the relationship between Han Suyeong, the author of TWSA and ORV, and Kim Dokja, her reader. It discusses how the act of reading irreversibly changes the reader, writer, and the story itself, much like observing a quantum particle. The script explores the tragic nature of the story, where the existence of the novels both saves and dooms Dokja, and how the narrative's insistence on continued reading reflects the author's desire to maintain a bond with her reader, even at the cost of their well-being.

25:16

📖 The Paradox of Perception and the多层ed Nature of 'The Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint'

The final paragraph reflects on the multifaceted nature of ORV, acknowledging the many possible interpretations of the story. It mentions the author's reference to Roland Barthes in the epilogue and suggests that ORV could be seen as Han Suyeong's own 'Mourning Diary'. The script also addresses the video essay's hiatus and provides updates on the creator's life and upcoming projects, inviting viewers to engage with them in the comments and thanking them for their support.

Keywords

💡Semiotics

Semiotics is a field of study in academic disciplines that deals with signs, symbols, and signification. In the context of the video, semiotics is likened to the order of operations in mathematics, providing a framework to understand and interpret texts. The video uses semiotics to analyze the layers of meaning within a narrative, such as a novel or a webnovel, by breaking down its components like themes, arcs, and scenes. An example from the script is the comparison of semiotics to PEMDAS, illustrating how it helps to organize and interpret textual information.

💡Death of the Author

The concept of 'Death of the Author' is a semiotic idea introduced by Roland Barthes, suggesting that the reader's interpretation of a text is not dictated by the author's intent but is a creation of the reader's own understanding and experiences. In the video, this concept is explored in relation to the main character's unique relationship with the text he is reading, where his interpretations and the text's influence on him become central to the narrative's development.

💡The Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

This refers to the title of the Korean webnovel discussed in the video, which serves as a central theme. The novel is not just a story but a metaphor for the act of reading, the desperation for understanding, and the love for immersing oneself in literature. The video delves into how the title reflects the narrative's focus on the reader's (Dokja's) all-knowing perspective and how it shapes the story's unfolding.

💡Transmigrator Story

A transmigrator story is a genre where a character is transported to another world, often with knowledge or abilities from their original world. The video discusses how 'The Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint' initially appears to be a transmigrator story but subverts this trope as the narrative progresses, focusing more on the reader's journey and the implications of living within a known narrative.

💡Fanon

Fanon, short for 'fandom canon,' refers to the fan-created interpretations of characters that become widely accepted, sometimes even overshadowing the original canon. In the video, fanon is used to discuss how the main character's understanding of other characters is influenced by his personal interpretations, which may differ from the 'official' story, leading to complex dynamics within the narrative.

💡Quantum Superposition

Quantum superposition is a principle in quantum physics where particles can be in multiple states at once until observed. The video uses this concept as a metaphor for the narrative's structure, where characters' fates and the story's outcome are in a state of flux until 'observed' or read by the protagonist, influencing the story's progression and the characters' development.

💡Schrödinger's Cat

Schrödinger's Cat is a thought experiment in quantum mechanics where a cat in a box with a random event trigger is both alive and dead until the box is opened. The video references this to illustrate the concept of quantum superposition in the context of the story, where characters' states of existence and the story's continuity are in flux until 'observed' by the reader.

💡Constellations

In the video, 'constellations' are entities within the story's universe that observe and sometimes interfere with the narrative. They represent the broader concept of audience or reader engagement with a story, where their attention and interpretations can influence the narrative's direction and the characters' fates.

💡Star Stream

The 'Star Stream' is an in-universe concept in the webnovel that allows for the observation of different narrative paths or realities. The video discusses how this mechanism serves as a narrative device to explore different outcomes and character developments, reflecting the broader theme of how stories can branch out based on reader interpretation and engagement.

💡Death of the Audience

This concept, discussed in the video, is a twist on 'Death of the Author' and refers to the idea that the audience's perceptions and interpretations are secondary to the text itself. In the context of the webnovel, it suggests that the reader's (Dokja's) understanding and influence over the story are limited, and the narrative has a life of its own, independent of the reader's expectations.

Highlights

Semiotics is introduced as the framework for understanding texts, similar to the order of operations in mathematics.

The essay discusses the application of semiotics to stories, breaking them down into units like an ecosphere.

The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint is analyzed as a story about reading and the reader's relationship with the text.

The concept of 'death of the author' is explored, suggesting that the reader's interpretation is primary, not the author's intent.

The idea of 'death of the audience' is introduced, proposing a new type of person aware of their non-existence within a story.

The Star Stream in the novel is a metaphor for the readers' voyeuristic relationship with the characters.

The video game concept is used to illustrate how readers can affect the story as it unfolds.

Fanon, or fandom canon, is discussed as the accepted interpretation of characters that may differ from the author's original intent.

The main character, Kim Dokja, is portrayed as having a deep understanding of the novel's world, which affects his interactions within it.

The narrative of the novel is shown to resist Dokja's plans, suggesting an active pushback against the reader's influence.

The concept of quantum superposition is used to explain the relationship between the reader, the author, and the story.

The tragedy of the story is seen in the unbridgeable gap between the author and the reader, despite their deep connection.

The video discusses the paradox of the reader's role in perpetuating the story's existence, which also causes suffering.

The essay concludes by emphasizing the symbolic nature of The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint and its multiple interpretations.

The author's personal connection to the story and the characters is highlighted as a key aspect of the narrative.

The video acknowledges the complexity and depth of the webnovel, inviting further discussion and interpretation in the comments.

Transcripts

If you hear a cat in the background,  

I have no power over him. I can trap  him in his room, that’s all I can do.

This essay starts with a  little background on semiotics. 

Semiotics is one of those topics in academia  that most people tend to shy away from,  

especially people who aren’t in the  humanities sector. I get it. As someone  

who is in the humanities sector, even I  get a little light-headed around White  

people who talk in circles about the  most nothing concepts in existence. 

They’re speaking English, by the– [laughs] But, to really give you the barest of bones  

on this topic, think of semiotics as  the order of operations, right. PEMDAS. 

When looking at a very, very long equation, you  at least have an order of operations to look to so  

you can start consolidating the smaller parts of  the problem to get to a solution. But that assumes  

that you already know what operations to do to  begin with, and what those operations’ symbols  

look like. You know that this cross sign means to  add, this dash means to subtract. You know that  

numbers, shaped like these, have an inherent value  that is greater than or less than other numbers. 

Semiotics is the same thing, but for sentences,  paragraphs, and other such texts. Words strung  

together have an inherent meaning. And the goal  of semiotics is to understand the true meaning  

of any given text. For the purposes of this  video, semiotics can also be applied to stories. 

All stories have units. They can be broken  down to neat little segments like an  

ecosphere. You have the overall narrative,  its themes, arcs, chapters, scenes, beats,  

etc. Breaking these down and analyzing them  can lead you to a truth. Notice I didn’t say  

‘the truth,’ we’ll get to that. For now: Like in ecospheres in ecology or orders of  

operations in mathematics, semiotics in literature  have concepts that can seem a little confusing out  

of context. I’m going deep into explaining all  this with a little help from our upcoming topic. 

Sort of? Semiotics is just kind  of like, gonna be our driver here. 

Now, I know most of my audience on this channel  probably have never listened to The Secret  

Treehouse, and those that have are probably  my friends. Hi, welcome to the mental illness  

video essay that is looking to be a little too  educational for its own good. Please uh… Yeah. 

So, our help for today is a little… 500-chapter  Korean webnovel called The Omniscient Reader’s  

Viewpoint. I… Yeah. 

Note that I’m going to be talking about the  webnovel specifically but will be showing  

pictures from the WEBTOON because, well, it’s  easier for me. I’m not really into the WEBTOON  

because I have my own ideas about what these  characters look like but. We’ll get to that. 

That said, if you’re here have only read the  WEBTOON, I will be talking about stuff far past  

where the WEBTOON currently is. Way far past. This  is 500 chapters. And from before the revisions  

were done for the international ebook because  the WEBTOON is taken from that ebook. I’m not  

talking about events that will happen, I’m talking  about why they were presented the way they were,  

what they represent, and how they are  connected to certain aspects of the  

story leading from the beginning to where they  are in the story. This is like, the most basic  

essence of spoiling you. [This] can be any  point between the prologue to the epilogues.  

I will not care. This is your last warning. Now, let’s do a quick semi-primer. Sort of?  

I’m not going to explain arcs or what happens  in the story. I’m not gonna go beat by beat  

because that’s too much. So much goes on in the  fucking story that it’s gonna take me days. I’m  

going to assume that if you, the viewer,  are watching this, then you at least have  

a somewhat formed understanding of what ORV  is about and what the main point of it is. 

So here— The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint is deceptive. 

Upon initial reading, it’s a transmigrator story—  pause here for the definition of that. A contract  

worker who basically just lost his job has been  transported to the world of the novel he’s spent  

more than ten years reading. Allegedly, no  one knows that this world is a novel except  

for him. Kim Dokja is the only person who has  ever read Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse  

(or TWSA) to its ending. But once you get to the  

proper ending, things begin… warping. The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint isn’t just  

named that for frivolous “it sounds cool,” sci-fi  reasons. You’ll want to think that because the  

world and universe of TWSA seems sci-fi-ish from  the get-go. You have scenario screens, currency,  

special items, special skills, boss enemies and  boss drops, all that neat transmigrator-esque  

stuff. It sounds like a video game. So it lulls  you into this assumption that yeah, this is  

probably gonna be a little futuristic, right? Wrong! 

The Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint is about what  it tells you from the title, from the start. 

"My name is Dokja. Kim Dokja." My father gave me that name so  

that I'd become a strong man even if I was  on my own. However, thanks to this name that  

my father gave me, I was simply living as a  single man, unremarkable in my loneliness. 

In short, my life was like this: Kim Dokja, 28  years old, single. My hobby was reading web novels  

on the subway while going to and from work. This is a novel about reading. It’s a novel  

centered on the act of, the desperation for,  and love for reading. It’s a novel that guides  

you through Dokja’s survival and multiple  deaths throughout the apocalypse with his  

favorite characters and the people  he managed to endear himself with. 

And it is with that that we  can now talk about death. 

When I began reading ORV, I didn’t  know about this specific concept. 

Death of the author was familiar to me, of  course. I’m trans and I’ve lived through the  

continued debacle about J.K. Rowling. Many a video  essayist and grown people who want to keep talking  

about and making fanworks for Harry Potter have  touted death of the author like it’s the best  

thing since lactose-free milk. So, here’s a quick jaunt. 

Death of the author is a semiotic concept brought  about by Roland Barthes some 56 years ago. The  

idea being that whatever meaning you glean  from a text, you do not owe to the person  

who wrote it but to yourself. Your knowledge  and the things you learned while reading the  

text form your understanding of a person’s work  regardless of their intention. The death of the  

author states that in this conversation between  a reader and a text, the author doesn’t exist,  

they may as well be dead. This is why more literary,  

anecdotal demonstrations of death of the  author in action include a reader asking  

a writer if an incident in their work has  ever been influenced by XYZ event in history,  

maybe. And that same writer going, “Huh?” I was processing this idea while reading ORV and,  

on Kim Dokja’s second death, began  wondering, “If death of the author  

is a conversation between reader and text, then  what exactly is death of the audience signaling?” 

David Kornhaber from the  Harvard Crimson had this to say, 

To kill the audience is to give birth to a new  type of person, a person who is suddenly aware  

of [their] own temporary non-existence and the  thoughts that characterize that world. It creates  

a person who can extend that sublime nonjudgment  of the darkened theater to the less-than-sublime  

world in which we live the rest of our lives. This, of course, was in the context of theater,  

which is still applicable for  our purposes. In semiotics,  

everything that can be understood is text so shh. TWSA’s Star Stream is a gigantic streaming  

platform, where constellations get to watch  Dokkaebi channels to see what incarnations  

are up to. This whole thing is a  giant metaphor, of course. While  

the constellations are the Greek chorus to  this ongoing tragedy, we as readers are the  

constellations to the characters’ incarnations. All readers are voyeuristic— something Kornhaber  

mentioned in his article. They feel quick  passionate bursts of emotions for their favorite  

characters, feel pain, sadness, love, anger—  but once the show’s over, once you hit happily  

ever after, these feelings go nowhere and those  same sympathies don’t apply to real life people  

experiencing the exact same hardships. To that, Tomislav Brajnovic says, 

[abolish] the artist, the audience and art, for it  abolishes the space of freedom and introduces the  

censorship of art at the level of thought, idea. ORV in itself is the act of killing the audience  

over and over. By turning TWSA into a reality,  there can no longer be a reader because he’s no  

longer reading TWSA, he’s living it. This is where the video game  

concept begins turning its head. One of the best examples of a reader affecting a  

story as it plays out is through video games. I’ve  seen a lot of people compare ORV to Undertale and  

while that contains a kernel of truth, that’s  a misconception of what ORV is trying to do  

with its version of death of the audience. Or, at  least, it gives you an idea of questions to ask. 

Faye Seidler in their article about all  works Davey Wreden gives us this diagram  

when talking about intent and interpretation.  About death of the audience, they said, 

[It] suggests [that] we remove [the text]  from the equation. [... It] isn’t the story  

that dies. What dies is the ability for  the audience to perceive the work outside  

of the author’s demands. The story becomes the  author having a conversation with you directly. 

Undertale, Seidler ventures further, is a very  literal understanding of this as it strongly  

pushes against the player character and the  player themselves when doing a No Mercy run. 

Seidler also gives the example of self-help  books playing into death of the audience,  

as the readers of most self-help books seek  guidance and don’t feel weird when the author  

addresses them or their experiences directly. In ORV, Kim Dokja is not helpless. In most  

situations, the guy has a backup plan  because he knows TWSA like the back  

of his hand. He has a route he’s taking and  he’s frustrated that it seems that everything  

he’s trying to do is being met with resistance. It begins with Yu Junghyeok’s lack of cooperation  

and the Company’s lack of trust in him. When he  wins Junghyeok’s faith and the Company’s loyalty,  

the Star Stream starts pushing back with  probability— an in-universe status check  

on whether the scenario is maintaining  suspension of disbelief. When he outsmarts  

the Star Stream’s system, the Fourth Wall, his  exclusive skill, begins refusing to cooperate  

and tries to actively sabotage him by sending  him revisions to TWSA. When he begins leaning  

on his teammates for survival and starts  ignoring TWSA’s canon, the constellations  

and Dokkaebi begin tamping down at him. So it seem the world of TWSA is actively  

resisting Dokja’s plans to reach his desired  ending. TWSA, made to keep him alive, is trying  

to pull him back from what is functionally a final  swansong that would end with him having nothing  

to do but to accept other stories he receives,  passive in his readings and having nothing else  

to say or bend to his will. He may as well be dead. 

Before, Dokja had his own thoughts, feelings, and  interpretations of TWSA. Almost to the detriment  

of his companions because his understanding of  them, though high, means jack shit if he’s not  

seriously engaging with them as people. And this is where fanon comes in. 

Fanon is… well it’s not entirely too  complicated a concept but for the sake  

of the flow, we’ll get specific. Fanon is fandom canon— it is the  

widely known and accepted interpretation  of a character to the point that all fans  

deem this to be the norm. Whether or not  this aligns with canon is irrelevant. No  

author is engaging with fanfiction, after all. Yu Junghyeok, the protagonist of Three Ways to  

Survive in the Apocalypse, has gone through  nearly 2000 regressions to get to the ending.  

He’s lived nearly 2000 apocalypses, has seen  several companions and family members die in  

front of him over a thousand times already. Since Dokja is our narrative character,  

our understanding of Junghyeok is tilted  slightly towards Dokja’s personal headcanons  

and thoughts about Junghyeok. This is not  a normal thing to do to a real life person,  

so if you’re aware from the get-go that Dokja is  unreliable, this might seem a little unnerving. 

Multiple times, before we even get a grasp  of Junghyeok’s personality or the gravity of  

his role in TWSA from the way Dokja understands  it, he’s called a psychopath, he’s treated like  

a means to an end, he’s frustrating to work  with and unreasonable, he’s choosy, arrogant,  

smarmy. He’s cool and collected, too handsome,  and too skilled. He’s simultaneously stupid  

and smart because he has a knowledge base about  the apocalypse above most people’s scope but he  

refuses to trust anyone else with that knowledge. Truthfully, you’ll only ever understand Junghyeok  

as TWSA’s protagonist when you look at Secretive  Plotter, the canon Junghyeok who hadn’t even  

been introduced to the reader. Plotter set out to  become a constellation to try and meet his reader. 

The shape of him is clear by his  main core of companions— this is  

technically the [999th Junghyeok]’s core  of companions but it’s his now. He owns it. 

The soldier Lee Hyeonseong, the grieving  Lee Jihye, the reckless Kim Namwoon,  

and the vindictive Uriel. There are very many  other versions of the main core. A few regression  

turns make Lee Seolhwa to be a main companion, a  few include Shin Yuseung. But in most of them, and  

in the one Dokja loved the most, it is these four. From these four, you can get a picture of the kind  

of person Junghyeok really is because,  no matter how shoddily written TWSA was,  

Han Suyeong is still a very good writer. Lee Hyeonseong is a soldier who has difficulty  

adjusting to life outside the military. He lives  by the manual and feels lost without it. This  

makes him susceptible to deceit and led around by  smarter people who seem to have their wits about  

them. In the face of the world ending and the  lack of direction, he first puts walls up then  

wards off enemies by turning himself into a  weapon. Whether he uses it for protection or  

for revenge is more easily represented by Uriel. Uriel is a little… confusing. She’s still a  

scary fuckoff angel who can literally  burn you alive just by standing there,  

but she’s also fundamentally a righteous being.  In Junghyeok’s teams, she more or less would adopt  

Jeong Huiwon’s role— vindictive, making quick  judgment calls, and loyal to a fault. She’s  

also got a bit of a temper and potty-mouth. Lee Jihye also has the same temperament,  

but she’s 16, she’s allowed. Jihye is driven by  grief. She freezes when she remembers having to  

kill her best friend to survive, she contemplates  killing herself to rid herself of that guilt.  

On top of this, she’s eager to learn to adapt to  this new environment, finding the silver lining in  

everything while trying to adjust, like seeing  the Star Stream and the scenarios as a game. 

Kim Namwoon always gets pinned down as the  first to die in Dokja’s timeline because he’s  

allegedly there to represent Dokja’s younger  self. Which is… It’s a read. I know it’s  

from like, Journey to the West arc but. Ugh. His role in TWSA and Junghyeok’s core team is  

much like Hyeonseong’s, but in sharper contrast.  Namwoon has the potential for both good and evil,  

depending on which way you guide him towards.  Because he’s really just an impressionable  

teenager. Junghyeok always keeps Namwoon on his  team not because he’s actually a good noodle,  

but because he knows Namwoon can learn. And once  he learns, he can be damn near competitive with  

teammates that have been there since the start. So, from that list you can infer Yu Junghyeok’s  

role as a character in TWSA. He was made to show  the reader, Dokja, that kindness takes practice,  

that you can find yourself in the people  around you and that you affect them just  

the same— making you inseparable due to those  bonds. He was made to show that utility is not  

the end-all be-all of a relationship. Give  everyone a chance to learn, even yourself,  

be generous. Don’t let your guilt and resentments  shape your future or keep you in place. If you  

have hardened yourself against your fear of  directionlessness, that’s okay. Find your moral  

compass, your pack, and stick to them. You’ll  survive longer and a lot less lonelier if you  

lean on those who trust you and those you trust. The scarce few times we are put in Junghyeok’s  

perspective without Dokja’s lens of bias, this  list of traits is embodied throughout. When he  

launches himself up into space to try and get  to other world-lines in that last desperate bid  

to save Dokja, Junghyeok expresses deep insecure  vulnerability. He has no companions on this ship,  

no author. It’s just him and the blank void of  space and a hope that maybe this will turn out. 

…Why did I come this far? There were moments when his  

purpose would become blurry, uncertain. He came  this far to carry out his mission. To deliver a  

'story' to the reincarnated Kim Dokja. To revive  the 'Kim Dokja' his companions remembered. 

Why, though? He still had something he simply  

had to ask Kim Dokja, that's why. …But what was the question? 

– In a world where the scenarios have come to  an end, what should he do to continue living on? 

That's right. That's what he wanted to ask  Kim Dokja. Because that guy knew everything. 

As people, we aren’t offered a clear-cut remedy  to our own inadequacies. Reality is much stranger  

than fiction because while we can make worlds  where people exist with a purpose and a message  

to deliver, reality doesn’t offer us that same  cushion. TWSA becoming reality has us and Dokja  

himself facing the fact that Yu Junghyeok’s lack  of direction and vast amount of drive is a steep,  

steep problem to face when you’re trying your  best to keep everyone in the story alive. 

Because TWSA is a tragedy—  Yu Junghyeok is suicidal. 

The quirkiness of ORV’s setting of a contract  worker being put into his favorite novel runs its  

course when the reality of Junghyeok’s situation  is presented the way it is. The Star Stream isn’t  

fun and games. There are real costs, consequences  doggedly tailing every action. And Junghyeok,  

who has the best chance out of anyone to survive  it, has been living this reality for over 2000  

lifetimes for the sake of finally reaching  Dokja by himself. He is tired and lonely. 

He is in dire need for any companion. Junghyeok never once defies TWSA’s  

narrative throughout ORV. When he comes to  Dokja’s rescue, when he discovers the truth  

behind his own existence, when he actively  tries to defy Dokja’s understanding of him,  

he is dooming himself further. The only  time he’s ever defied his narrative is  

when he committed himself to being Plotter and  peeling himself away from TWSA’s narrative,  

which becomes moot in the end when he comes  to his own ending with, again, his companions. 

He and TWSA, in essence, were made  to make sure Dokja is kept alive,  

and that purpose will keep him chugging along  the narrative train ride until it’s made certain  

that Dokja isn’t going to kill himself. And the reason for Junghyeok’s general  

lack of philosophical and semiological agency  here is part and parcel with our last topic. 

Quantum superposition— Stay with me here, come back. Gimme a chance. 

Quantum superposition is a concept of quantum  physics that is more philosophical than it has  

any right to be. It’s when atoms split and  simultaneously hit and not hit an object on  

impact. And really, the only way of actually  having a measure of whether or not it hit is  

if you yourself observe it. You would end up with  a conclusion and observation, but you will have  

irreversibly changed the course of the atom itself  by doing so— after all, to perceive something is  

to interact with and connect with it and affect  it. The concept is just as true for atoms as  

it is for most everything in life. The idea of quantum superposition  

is often understood through the more  popular concept of Schrödinger’s cat,  

where the act of checking to see if the cat  is either dead or alive within its box with  

radioactive materials will lead to equal chances  of it being dead or alive. Not checking will  

maintain its status of being both dead and alive. I’m not talking out of my ass here by the way,  

this is still relevant. I did research— I  don’t know if that’s correct. Do not correct  

me if I’m wrong. I’m sorry. I’m just sorry. Han Suyeong wrote both TWSA and ORV in an intense  

desperation spanning world-lines and timelines to  keep Kim Dokja alive. Dokja is her only reader,  

and the only reader that ever really mattered  to her. He saw her work and connected to it  

on a personal level. He gave it his most  scathing comments and loving compliments  

and ultimately, judged it, but not her. The trouble with this is that the existence of the  

novels both condemns and saves Dokja from death  and, by keeping the text within the equation,  

she and Dokja will never meet in the middle. The text separates the author from her reader.  

When you remove the text from this conversation,  both of them cease to exist. They will only ever  

know each other through this story and will only  ever be acquainted to each other through it. 

Personally, this is what I see as the true  tragedy of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint:  

the wall standing between a writer and the  reader she wants to dedicate her craft to. 

This is evident in the similarities between Han  Suyeong and Lee Sugyeong, Dokja’s mother who went  

to prison and wrote a book that both condemned and  saved Dokja from scrutiny. Suyeong and Sugyeong  

are both writers who had fed Dokja a narrative to  save him from himself. If Dokja had just believed  

that his father’s death and mother’s incarceration  were his both his fault, the guilt would have  

killed him. On a similar level, if Dokja believed  that the world had ended to keep him alive,  

he would have killed himself to save everyone. Despite the efforts of these stories existing  

to keep him alive, they ultimately both ended up  killing him— both literally and metaphorically in  

the sense of death of the audience. While he buys  both lies and misdirections, he still manages to  

find a way to blame himself for the continued  suffering of those around him and of himself. 

Let’s take several steps back though, because  personally there’s something more interesting  

here than Dokja’s self-imposed annihilation. From a metanarrative standpoint, the assumption  

that the world is ending because of Kim  Dokja is correct. As the reader of the story,  

his goal is to witness how the main ensemble  survives and triumphs throughout the apocalypse.  

But as long as he keeps reading,  they are never going to find peace. 

Scenes and scenarios are supposed to have  conflict, are supposed to serve a narrative  

purpose. All of them. Whether it’s to share more  about a character or to see that they develop a  

skill or to resolve a hangup of theirs. This is  why his companions level up faster when they’re  

not with him. It’s not because Yu Junghyeok is  better than him, it’s because he’s not looking at  

them. They are not having a shitty time because  he’s not seeing them. While he’s not looking,  

he’s to assume that they are both improving and  experiencing more hardships. Schrödinger’s cat. 

But, ORV’s narrative insists that in  order for the world to stay alive and  

for the epilogue to continue past its main  conclusion, the reader needs to keep reading. 

Who is suffering, then, in this epilogue he is  reading into existence. Him? If the scenarios  

are over, whose conflict needs resolving? This conundrum exists because ORV never frames it  

from the inverse. In order for a story to continue  and for a reader to read it, it would have to be  

written first. Reading is a secondary function.  You can’t read what’s never been written. 

Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint is a paradox of  perception. It tricks you into placing blame on  

any one person for the existence of this tragedy. Han Suyeong wrote the story. 

Yu Junghyeok lived that story. And, I read that very story. 

And that's how this world barely  managed to reach its completion. 

Dokja can’t have been a reader if Suyeong never  wrote the story, who wouldn’t have written the  

story if she hadn’t wanted him to keep reading. The reason why ORV’s narrative insists, then,  

that Dokja has to keep reading for the epilogue  to exist, is because Han Suyeong still wants  

him to read even if the act of reading  actively harms him and his companions. 

Because if he’s not reading, then the bond  between them quite literally doesn’t exist. 

Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint is very  much symbolic. A lot of its statements  

are literal and declarative, its scenarios  are straightforward. But it all adds up in  

sentiment and meaning the further in you  get. This is why I had that lengthy talk  

about semiotics upfront. This video is just one  of many interpretations of ORV out there from the  

millions of other readers who loved this story. Because of its length and density, ORV can have  

so many different meanings that you can take  to mean many other different things. This is  

why I said that semiotics’ goal is to  find a truth. Not the truth— a truth. 

Tangentially, Barthes actually gets brought up in  the epilogue, but it’s less to talk about death of  

the author and authorial intent and more to talk  about The Mourning Diaries, which alluded to and  

implied that ORV was Han Suyeong’s Mourning Diary. But really, okay, if you’re not into reading ORV  

as a semiotic thought experiment,  this would have been one hell of a  

lengthy video essay to sit through. There  is a lot here I left out, believe or not. 

There’s Peace Land’s Asuka Ren. Namgung  Minyoung’s existence in TWSA’s narrative  

and what her purpose may have been. The role of  the constellations. Dokja actually has a similar  

main core of people that are like [999]’s core  companions that are indicative of his character.  

But instead of people from the Company,  it’s actually his first four constellations. 

If you wanna know more about that, you  can… ask me in the comments? Please? 

Listen, this is a 500 chapter  webnovel and I’ll be real with you,  

just YooHanKim— they’re enough to fill  out about 13 pages worth of an essay. I  

think I’m fine if I cut it off here. So, thank you for sticking around. 

Um, some updates. I know this is a bit  much to drop after nearly a year of  

hiatus but I think I’m allowed since life  is a little hectic. I’m still in college,  

my schedule’s a lot more fucked now, and there’s  some trouble brewing at home so. Bear with me. 

As always, if you liked that and the work I do  consider supporting me through Ko-fi. I do have  

a project coming up but I don’t know I’m going to  like, uphold writing it when I have so many side  

projects I wanna work on. I also actually already  had an episode about ORV in The Secret Treehouse,  

so if you haven’t listened to that, the  link will be flashing up here or down in the  

description. Sources will also be down there. Thank you so much for sticking around,  

and especially to Alina and Danny  for continuing to support me  

monthly despite the very VERY lengthy hiatus. As always, take care, ingat tayong lahat… Bye!