Black & White & Color in ORV (6.9k words)
Yin and yang as a concept is rife throughout orv, black and white aside, it makes the basis of almost the entire book, "life and death companions" - "unstoppable sword and unbreakable shield" - "war of Good and Evil" every stroke and arc of this book deals with dualities, this is of course not rare nor exclusive to orv, this is a staple in any form of writing, there is a push (good) and a pull (evil), but in a lot of those stories the basis of this yin and yang tends to be simple, one triumphs over the other, there is a balance until there isn't and vice versa a very well done example of this is the legend of Korra and the avatar franchise - where the balance gets disrupted and Evil (vato) reigns, until the first avatar locks him away, locking him away has Consequences for the plot the balance is disrupted, the spirit world and the human world are separated and we get the philosophy of the legend of korra as a whole, which is a story where the world is thrown into a metronome for our consumption from one imbalanced side to the other.
for there to be a plot there needs to be an imbalance, but because of that not many stories tend to explore the intertwined nature of these opposing forces in their balanced states and furthermore less stories go beyond it into weaving them into the philosophies the stories are exploring we all know black and white as yin and yang, as push as pull as good and evil, but ORV looks at all at that and tells us, what if its is text and paper too? what does that mean then? to be part of one singular whole, to contain both the unfathomable evil and the unfathomable good and its all in our hands in the book we are reading, the black text against the white paper, the black text is no less than the white paper, you cannot read a blank page, just as like you cannot experience ink - they are intertwined into a single whole and because this is ORV, it never stops there, if black is text and white is paper, what is the cover that holds this book? what is the world around these bound papers? what is being described by the black and white? if yin and yang is to exist it needs to be painted with the world around it, for there to be a balance of parts there needs to be a chaos for balance to define itself against it, and that is in itself a duality - white is a reflection of color and black is an absorption of color in this post I will be going through not just how black and white is defined in the story but also more importantly how color exists in them, in between them and around them, highlighting and defining them I will be using the webtoon as a reference to ease the transition into explaining the colors because I find it is very well researched and very respectful to the color theory in the book you might find some contradictions in the things I say, ill try to touch and explain why ORV might break the rules it establishes as best as I can when I can but of course this is all just my observations from a text that is translated, if you can explain something yourself in a different way I encourage you to, ORV is a very well written text most often than not if there is a contradiction there is a reason
so starting off - ORV posits Black as text
what does that mean? well it means the closer your relationship is to black the more proportionally closer you are to the text and what that means, ie the plot elements, the writing, you are the character, you are wielding the story, you are being wielded by the story you are the black against white, the blemish, the focal point you are the black against white. I repeat the black against point twice, to emphasize the matryoshka effect of being the text, you cannot be defined as black without the white as such you see a lot of characters play with that duality in the story Black as Text like a lot of things in ORV is a gradual build up with many quotes illustrating it, however to give a blatant example in CH255 "Entrance as a character" Dokja has been cast outside the story post the demon king arc, and has gone through a lot to enter the story once more and be defined by text, but its not until he looks deep within himself that he finally starts allowing himself to be defined by black, aka the story
My coat and other clothing were charred black. I couldn't believe that the coat with the automatic restoration function was damaged like this… The ceiling of the office looked like it had been hit by a meteorite. "Are you okay?" "I'm fine. Of course, I'm fine…" Rather, I felt lighter. It was impossible. My body was burnt like this but my spirit was clear. The power of my stories felt fuller. [The effect of the exclusive skill 'Reading Comprehension' has increased understanding.] I saw the message and a previous memory emerged. That's right. I had obviously seen such a message. [Your understanding of the character 'Kim Dokja' has increased.] The message marked me as a character. It was something that never happened before. Cool energy filled a corner of my chest. I had seen the presence of 'characters' many times'. They were those who came from outside the original novel but was eventually assimilated with the original. They were mostly those who stopped reading the novel.
That white coat of his, is black for the first time, in a blatant showing of him finally accepting that he IS part of the story. Spoiler end--------
where the black is described and located also matters in explaining its function, wearing all black has multiple meanings, it is the literal effect of "wearing the story" using it as armor, or being deeply affected by the story, being defined by it etc
[img id: yoo joonghyuk, yoo sangah in a black suit, han sooyoung holding crystals, the first apostle] I use these examples because they are the most notable/ show case this most easily yoo joonghyuk: all black almost never defined by any other colors and if he is they tend to be in small amounts, the white around his neck (a collar around his neck), his sage eye golden etc he is completely swallowed up by the story and by black, he likes black, its where he feels most comfortable a fish in water, the text is his domain, but he is also constrained by it yoo sangah: yoo sangah notably starts out in a brown suit, and then transitions to a full black body suit, she is often compared to a heroine by both dokja and han sooyoung, when we next see her wearing that suit there is a remarkable shift in her abilities and the lengths in which she exerts herself on the story, wearing the black gave her the agency because she has started using the story, but also she is being used by the story (the constellations) to further their own goals, however she isn't as defined by JUST black as yoo joonghyuk is, gold and brown and later on more colors are part of her (SPOILERS CH 291) han sooyoung fragment: the han sooyoung we meet early on is just starting out her life, she is a character first a person second, not within the designs of the world and dokja's interpretation but within the designs of herself, this is not the han sooyoung with the most memories, she is a fragment she left behind, we can argue on how much han sooyoung she is (I like to think she split herself like dokja 49/51 for the story telling symmetry) but the han sooyoung we meet is "lesser" at the start, and when han sooyoung crafts characters they are almost Always wearing black clothes, and this fragment is no exception, she is wielded by the story and wielding the story, and I dont find it surprising that one of her first proper appearances in the book/webtoon she is holding all the colored crystals - holding all the meanings of the story, but when she tries to wield them they are empty, the sword doesn't work etc first apostle: I added him to strengthen the han sooyoung fragment example, whenever han sooyoung makes alter-egos they are wearing black the more important they are, she cloaks herself in the story with the first apostle and the advisor character, its akin to a visual way of showing us she is "writing" the characters into existence Spoiler end-------- honorable mentions: Uriel wearing black lace, lee jihye wearing black hoodies, the abyssal black flame dragon (he is to me the character most defined by black, due to specifically me seeing him as a personification of all the stories that people use for survival, he is the personification of every child's discovery of story as self expression, but also the overwhelming reliance on stories to give us purpose and never finding our own purpose, losing ourselves in the abyss)
wielding black weapons and items also is very significant, because it means you are wielding the story most notable mentions: han sooyoung wielding black flames that burn her hand, she burns herself to write, her black flame ability eats away at her for her to wield the story etc CH246 dokja giving yjh the black heavenly demon sword, as a symbol that he is giving him the ability to "wield the story" before he leaves him and kimcom - the significance of the duality in the name in the english translation also makes me think its also akin to wielding salvation? and then again in CH442 when yjh's black heavenly demon sword given to him by dokja, cracked after fighting secretive plotter and losing dokja to him - 999 gives yjh his own sword and we find out that 999 to the surprise of yjh wasn't wielding splitting the sky sword, but instead wielded the black heavenly demon sword, it emphasizes the heaviness of that sword, the agency it gives yoo joonghyuk, the salvation in his own story, his own form of wielding the story, he was relying on dokja because he was afraid of his own self, but he always had agency, he didnt need it from anyone else Spoiler end-------- another thing of note is that almost every enemy that dokja fights in the early chapters is wielding black weapons and or black is mentioned somewhere in the scenes but in Small ways, some examples the monarch of small fries sponsor:
Knuckles shining with a black gloss—they weren't ordinary iron knuckles. Did he receive it from his sponsor?
kim namwoon post zombiefication
My thigh was scratched by Kim Namwoon's overgrown black fingernails.
Black ether and the dark keeper that impregnates Myungoh
The dark keeper's tentacles rose. "Ooooof!" One of the tentacles entered his mouth and Han Myungoh turned black
I especially like the last example, instead of saying Myungoh was turning purple or blue, they specify Black, a lot of moments like this where other colors could suffice but instead they use black specifically and pointedly in general I think this is to ground the story in dokja's view of it, which is that its fiction, it is text, it is a story, all the wild enemies that are out to get them that are evil have black somewhere, and it appeals to our sensibilities as readers too, it feels right for the evil to have blackness to it
White on the other hand, is the gaps between the text
it is what exists outside the story, what is undefined, its what we need to read between the lines for, or the completely unknown, as long as its grounded in the text first, just like black, it cannot exist without being defined in some vague form by the text
[img id: lee seolhwa, kim namwoon, bihyung, 41st shin yoosung]
Obviously I should use kim dokja here too, but I think orv explains it better than I ever could
The texture of the soft paper touching my fingertips. The black letters blooming on a white field. The texture of the page I folded with my hands. 「 It isn't important to read the letters. The important thing is where the letters lead you. 」 My mother, who loved books, used to say this. At least for me, it wasn't just a saying. The gaps in the black print. My own little snow garden lay in between the letters. This space, which was too small for someone to go into, was a perfect place for a child who liked to hide. Every time a pleasant sound was heard, the letters stacked up like snow.
dokja is as defined by black as he is by white, however he finds comfort in white, like yjh finds comfort in black, even though like dokja he is also defined by outside interpretation
like black, I used these characters in the image specifically for ease of explanation, you'll also note most of them have a close relationship to death but death in ORV is not death as we think of it - as such white here has multiple meanings too, in orv "death" is to become unreadable/unconsumable/not a story, but Death also, is just a different kind of story too, one that we can create and add on and this is why white is defined against black lee seolhwa: personally, I find her to be the character most defined by white in orv, yes more than dokja, in the sense that dokja has a lot more going on, but lee seolhwa ONLY has white and some red to define her, and that's on purpose by the writers I truly adore how lee seolhwa's character is presented and then thereby later handled by the writers, in that there is a SPECIFIC and stark lack of character, dokja only knows her in a very specific setting in very a specific moment, as Yoo joonghyuk's previous lover read through a book, stripped of that setting she is unknowable to him and therefore to us, but she still plays a role around him, one he never bothers to examine or to get closer to her for moments where she is mentioned she is a backdrop faceless doctor, actually here is one of my favorite moments where she ISNT mentioned that illustrate why she is "the whitest character" (no race jokes intended)
spoilers ch141 novel - ch157 webtoon
So, in the book right before dokja gives his depression bandaid speech on top of the rooftop to yoo joonghyuk
"Hey, Yoo Joonghyuk." Yoo Joonghyuk turned to look at me. I didn't know exactly what scenery held value for Yoo Joonghyuk. As I said every time, reading Ways of Survival didn't really tell me about this person. After all, I was only understanding the text, which had been processed and transmitted to me. Some things couldn't be read because they were unreadable. "Let me talk to you for a bit."
and in the webtoon, they cut out his thoughts which are about not being able to understand him and missing context and things being unreadable (the definition of white against black) in the webtoon what they do instead is they show lee seolhwa in the scene right before this
making you remember her and go "oh yea, why don't we ever get to know her?"
and then furthermore in the book
"Kim Dokja, you don't know." This might be my misunderstanding. Yoo Joonghyuk could give up at any time because he was still in the midst of his regressions. In the end, Yoo Joonghyuk's purpose was to prevent the 'destruction of this world'. Paradoxically, he could give up on this world at any time. His essence was regression and this fact would never change. "No, I know," I replied. "What?" "The fact that you can regress at any time means that death is meaningless." I looked down at Lee Seolhwa caring for the injured. Lee Seolhwa was feeding her boiled soup to an unknown person. Despite her efforts, there was a high probability that the character would die. Even if they lived now, they would die tomorrow. If they miraculously survived tomorrow, they would die the day after tomorrow. It was the same in the fourth regression and the fifth regression. There would always be 'death' in the world of Yoo Joonghyuk, even after passing the 100th regression. "If there is no sense of death then the value of life also disappears." "What do you know…" "Yoo Joonghyuk, wake up. Don't think things will improve if you repeat them a few times."
lee seolhwa plays a VERY important absent part in both the lead up to this scene and in it specifically, in how she is the personification of an unknown character, this scene, like many scenes in orv boils down multiple of its messages very succinctly, you can never truly know a person, you can still try your best to reach out, lee seolhwa reaching out to someone she doesn't know who is injured, dokja reaching out to yoo joonghyuk
we never truly know kim dokja, and we never ever truly know lee seolhwa she is always at the edges of dokja's story, nothing beyond "doctor" and I think that they handled the concept of her character brilliantly
Spoiler end--------
Kim namwoon: like I said Death is just a different form of a story, and white is to be written out, banished between the space in the sentences - kim namwoon within the first chapter is both marked for death and marked to be written out, we never get to know kim namwoon outside of dokja's perceptions, like lee seolhwa, kim namwoon is a tool to highlight dokja's biases (and subsequently the texts biases)
bihyung: his color scheme is actually one of my favorites in the webtoon, his fur being white, as a being intrinsically outside of the story, a watcher, a voyeur and a director, wearing black, being under the confines and control of the story and the viewers (has to keep them happy), with tiny gold horns
41st shin yoosung: someone who lived most of her life outside the story, banished and lost and imprisoned, and when she finally thinks she has hope to be part of the story in a kind way, she dies, her soul/story golden and then white
white seems to appear commonly in hair and clothes, it is used both as a shield (kdj) but also as a wall/prison too (41st sys) the only instance of a white weapons I can remember is blade of faith and also jung heewons "white flames" both used in ways that change the story for the better, kinda like "white out" or an editor burning and cutting away at the story, white space (outsiders) fighting the author back, pausing their writing to deliberate on the next words most notably white appears as a location often, white fields, snow, white sand, reinhart von djerba's house, actually when we get to paradise I wont be surprised if they depict it with a lot of white in the webtoon, bonus points if its an inspired tunisian-greek style based on the actual djerba
one of the hurdles of separately explaining black and white like this is that you might lose sight of their intertwined nature in all of this. Rather than looking at them as "black" and "white" its "black against white" and "white against black" for example, in the webtoon characters change clothes a lot, lee jihye doesn't always wear ONLY black in fact she wears white, gray, black, blue rather than looking at that and being "she isn't defined by black" its best to look at that and ask "'what are they trying to tell me in this moment" this allows for more flexibility in analysis, and a broader view when looking at these characters, none of them can simply be described with one or two colors, or even a lot of colors as ORV explains, we never can truly understand someone, but what their function here is to direct your eye and to help in easing the pieces together when you are reading.
black and white are the clearest and easiest to keep track of but ORV utilizes other colors in a very similar fashion all around them, but in a lesser, less obvious amount, a lot of these I am still not certain on to their meanings, its much easier to connect threads together and sit here looking for meanings after the fact, ill start from the ones I am most confident about to least confident. --------------------------------------
Blue This color I think is the most frequent after black and white, its every where in the webtoon and in the book, in fact one of its first mentions should explain it
A character from the novel had appeared. Now I really had to acknowledge the situation. "Soldier-nim! What is happening?" "I have been trying to contact my unit, but…" "The Blue House! What is the Blue House doing? Please contact the president quickly!" "I'm sorry. I am just an ordinary soldier and don't have a hotline to the Blue House." Lee Hyunsung explained.
Blue is government, Blue is systems that govern the world, where do we see blue the most in the webtoon? its in the quest logs, its the structures that keep the story going, its the printing press and advertisers and a publishing house and the store front, its capitalism and money
Its the title card.
[img id: Omniscient reader spelled out against a white background, the text is colored blue and black]
I also specifically like how when you are reading the book, blue doesn't jump at you as being used a lot, sure its here and there, but in the webtoon its suffused everywhere, a product of the capitalist consumption of stories
[img id: lee sookyoung in a blue mask and blue prison uniform, han sooyoung in blue body suit with black and white on it, lee hyunsung in a blue shirt] prison uniforms being blue, yet lee sookyoung still masking herself in blue, hiding behind the systems ( a different way of dokja's face being blurred by the system) how han sooyoungs body suit is only ever described as blue in the book but in the webtoon they interweaved black and white into it elevating its original intent, she is in control she exploits the systems, she wears the system, she is the system how lee hyunsung is defined by his military past and his utter reliance on systems
dokja specifically "wields" blue a lot, blade of faith has an attribute that turns it blue which he did a couple times, his lightning is often described as "blue-white" --------------------------------------
Red
[img id: screenshot from early in the webtoon where dokja tries to wipe away blood from his face but he finds that its on the glass, not on him, also wearing a blue tie] (I know im supposed to be talking about red, but dokja's tie being blue <3 noosed by the capitalistic system he used to work for a parallel to yjh's collar being white) red, and subsequently where it pops up the most as, blood, is reality and truth but also a lie, a lie specifically because this is dokja's worldview and he views reality as a lie, its actually very interesting because this color pops up a lot within the view of "fiction" too (example: gong pildu's turrets) but its most present moments is specifically when it comes to the truth about trauma and the reality of is this a "story" or "fiction" that dokja struggles with
[img id lee sookyoung with the blue mask, the blue mask has a red circle in the middle, asuka ren who has red hair, min jiwon in red formal wear, lee jihye holding her sword with a red tassle, jung heewon amidst a blaze of fire with a red tie being mind controlled, anna croft her left eye is a red demon eye] lee sookyoung's mask just having a red circle in the middle of it, a reminder to dokja, an emphasis on reality, on not being able to run away ch133 book ch145 webtoon spoilers asuka ren's entire storyline culminating into "what is a writer's responsibility when writing a helpless abused world? and what does reality mean when fiction is real? who remembers a story after the writer forgets? was the story ever the writers?" these questions that blur the line are where red exists to dokja, its not the blurred lines between black and white, its the blurred lines between black against white and reality, its "does fiction affect reality" but also "does reality affect fiction" an ouroboros
Spoiler end--------
min jiwon holds a similar place to asuka ren in the story, she is there to make dokja question reality, he knows her as a character purely, but she is a famous actress and he uses her as a backdrop to understand if this is fiction or real, the other apostles forgetting she is a character blurring her in their minds lee jihye's red tassle is a visual detail in the webtoon that I don't quiet remember if it exists in the book, but its an important one to me, because it raises questions, specifically with how much it stands out in the webtoon, and I think its tied to her trauma, her past and her friend, it being in her sword she uses it as a tool, her reality is one she wields, she has bloodied her hands killing her friend, none of this is fiction to her but it feels like it is from how absurd it is
jung heewon is interesting because she often suffers from an over abundance of red, she is controlled by red with that red tie around her neck, and while a lot of characters have trauma in this story, red is almost always reserved to people acting as characters or are viewed as characters by dokja, so for gilyoung and yoo sangah who both have a lot of trauma each we never see red define them because dokja views them as "real-ish" furthermore she is the only one who acts on that trauma, whenever she is mind controlled or reliving her past she starts attacking, and I think specifically why red defines her is that who does she have to blame? the story writer? the people who have harmed her? she along with dokja are one of the few characters that wield white They are both trying to carve out a kinder existence in the story for themselves, wielding subtext because the text has no place for them, she was written off and dokja gave her a second chance, what is her reality then? destined to die and suffer in obscurity in every iteration? except for this one that gave her meaning? also just as an aside lee hyunsung is MOST defined as blue when he is next to her in the webtoon, its a visual thing because red and blue next to each other are good, but also its also interesting from a story telling perspective, lee hyunsung relies on systems the most around her
anna crofts great demon eye lets her see possible futures, possible realities, half truths unrealized I am not as confident of my reading of red as I am of blue, because I feel like there are also a lot of examples that are harder to fit in this definition of it, mainly gong pildu's turrets ngl😂 also red is heavily emphasized with the demon kings also, so red does have as heavy of a space in fiction as it does in reality, its just a versatile color --------------------------------------
Gold/Yellow
[img id: prisoner of the golden headband, yoo sangah with gold aura all around her wielding golden weapons, painting of 41st sys looking at 3rd round sys, while she is holding biyoo, the painting is infused with gold, painting by renibet_ on tumblr]
gold/yellow is an extension of black, gold/yellow is a well loved story, and more often than not a well loved story is a popular story, and a popular story is a strong story in the world view of orv, you can be a strong story without being popular of course, too, usually by being an old story. a lot of the strong constellations have gold in their presentations, Olympus and Eden as examples, but gold is also control, a prison
prisoner of the golden headband is the strongest incarnation in ORV his story 'journey to the west' is one of the oldest, most well loved, most adapted stories and orv emphasizes that, but it also emphasizes how the great sage is trapped within this "love" he has had so many adaptations of himself, his own story traps him with the headband being his prison. in CH444 for example he joins the sides of the yogoe, the side of the story that is never understood because who is he? what is his story? what does it mean to be understood? Spoiler end--------
yoo sangah also starts having a heavy emphasis on gold when she joins up with Olympus who are a very well loved story, she fights with it, its all around her, entrapping her, but also she loves stories and that gold in her is also a manifestation of that the shin yoosung industrial complex of stories
sorry I had to phrase it like that, but I am trying to encompass all shin yoosungs at once biyoo included and thats why I used art instead of the webtoon, she is a strong story, as 41st shin yoosung she has spent immeasurable time trapped in time, and we know time in orv is proportional to the strength of a story, so thats why 41st sys is gold, but furthermore 3rd round sys is well loved, her story is one all of kim com cultivate slowly with love and care, she is young, but her story is bigger than her and she inherits it slowly, biyoo specifically only has a golden horn, and I KNOW there is a significance to horns, and their colors, but I haven't figured it out, if anyone does feel free to add it honorable mentions of gold: nirvana, the golden throne that gets destroyed, the young gold dragon heart, yjh's sage eye, jang hayoung and most importantly,
my favorite instance of gold in the story CH294
Yoo Joonghyuk still didn't answer and the Fourth Wall laughed like it knew everything. The letters of the Fourth Wall started to increase. Gold letters soon filled the room. Yoo Joonghyuk stared at the letters drifting around him and reached out for one of them. The letters seemed to respond to his hand and started to speak. 「 "My name is Dokja." 」 「 I usually introduced myself to people like this and then the following misunderstanding would occur. 」 It was the story of a world he had never experienced. The Fourth Wall giggled. 「 Very in te res ting. 」 Yoo Joonghyuk quietly listened to the story.
Spoiler end-------- like red, there are a couple of instances that are outliers to this, mostly due to how loosy goosy the translation is with yellow/gold being interchangeable, for example I'd like to add anna croft as an example here for "strength of the story" but I cant tell if that is the actual intent of yellow in her hair and the yellow eye that follows her around, in contrast there are a lot of moments where they describe yjh's transcendent as yellow, when clearly they are emphasizing his strength of story --------------------------------------
Brown brown is past trauma, trauma that still defines a person, actually brown and red get blurred/mentioned together a lot in the book so maybe I should've just combined them like I did with yellow and gold, but there is still enough of a difference that I want to make a distinction even if they do overlap heavily conceptually, brown is more "realer" or rooted in "reality" as dokja sees it, things that happen outside the time from of the start of the end of the world and cant be attributed to a writer but to life
this color isn't actually mentioned a lot alone in the book, and is more prominent in the webtoon - there is only one specific instance in the book that I can think of where it meets how its used in the webtoon
CH489
This intense stink of the brown coal, the sight of his father and mother lying on the ground like dead cockroaches – memories of him poking on the cold, unmoving flesh. A funeral without portraits came to an end, and the fatigued eyes of his relatives looking at him.
[img id: gilyoung in a brown shirt, dokja in a brown school uniform with a red tie being bullied, dokja in a brown suit that looks like the old uniform getting his shit kicked in by his bully, lee sookyoung in a brown coat, yoo sangah in her brown suit]
lee gilyoung, very early on in the story has hints of deep rooted trauma that he is struggling with, mostly seemingly centering around his mother
kim dokja, for him I was mostly going over his outfits in the webtoon and their significance in my head, and I couldn't come up with a reasoning behind the brown suit till my friend pointed out it looked a lot like his brown school uniform, and to cinch the deal further the chapter where he gets that suit in the webtoon, CH69 (nice) the title is brown
yes, the chapter titles change colors, yes it seems to track with my insane color thoughts, yes the webtoon artists pay a HUGE amount of attention to details like this so far the only colors the title has been is black and white, blue, red and brown off the top of my head
but yea self explanatory trauma around his highschool bully brown uniform+ brown suit lee sookyoung's coat is a mirror to dokja's, she uses her trauma as a shield and a cover, she wears it like armor and hides behind its lies
yoo sangah's office job was hell, sexually harassed by her superior to the point that he'd steal and hide her bike, it pushed someone who is generally nice and well mannered to the point of retaliating and then we find out how her job is an escape from a life her parents built for her
this isnt to say only these characters suffer trauma, on the contrary but the closer their relationship is to the story and the trauma being under the story, the redder the brown gets, for example I assume yoo joonghyuk's hell of eternity will be depicted in red's the only thing that fudges with this which is admittedly a bit of a wrench, is lee hyunsung, he is often depicted in blue, gray, green and brown, brown is actually pretty prominent in lee hyunsung, I dont know how he fits in against everything, I assume its because his trauma is older? so the relationship between brown and red is simply just trauma before the end of the world and trauma after? --------------------------------------
Grey
okay we are entering the territories of colors I can barely explain but I know there is something going on with the symbolism because its too consistent, Grey seems simple enough to explain at face value its what lies between black and white for example theoretically it would be something between good and evil, neutrality, but have you ever seen grey in yin and yang? ever read a book that had a portion of gray text?
grey has a LOT of uses in the story, it muddies the relationship between black and white, it fades away the intent of the story/character, a half way point to white, a halfway point to black, but its also just..used a lot? especially in the webtoon characters wear grey a lot, I assume its because they are background characters in the instances where they are present, it seems like a filler dokja especially ping pongs a lot at the start between grey and black and white in his outfits in the webtoon, and so does jung heewon but its brief
the Biggest prominence of grey is around CH365
in the great war of saints and demons, when the relationship of good and evil is under examination and subsequently that means dokja's relationship to the text and his morality is also under scrutiny, grey plays its biggest role
in it we meet an angel called Michael who is the embodiment of satan, an angel who ate the forbidden fruit and who became a demon and has a contradicting modifier "Saviour of the Corrupted" like dokja, but unlike dokja who defines himself in stark black and white, Michael is defined with greys and purples
grey as such is also a form of corruption, when things lose meaning or struggle to define themselves, Michael is constantly buffeted by forces greater than him, used as a pawn
Good' and 'Evil', in conflict against each other for eternity itself. And Metatron's face, the one who had managed to endure all those years, continued to carry the exact same smile for thousands of years. – You need to be careful about one thing. When using this power, you must never… [The power of 'Fruit of Good and Evil' is going berserk!] All of his memories were swept away in one go; Michael was enveloped in horrifying pain akin to his head being ripped to tiny shreds. Aaaaaaaaah-!!!! All 'Good' in the world cried out in sorrow. From the blades of grass to trees; from small insects to every type of 'Good' living in Creation fell into a state of sorrow and cried out in grief. [You have directed a fatal attack at an opponent on the side of Absolute Good!] [Story, 'Evil that Destroys Evil', is roaring out in bitter sadness!] [You have broken the taboo!] [You have been handed a terrible penalty!] A grey-coloured angel covered in blood was smiling at Michael.
what disables Michael here is the lack of clarity, by being grey he isn't capable of being either black or white
grey is a difficult one to explain specifically due to the amount of use it sees, and then you have ch365 with a very specific usage of grey, so I assume its just a flexible multi use thing --------------------------------------
Purple
okay so the best I can explain the relationship of purple is this, its like the inverse of gold, in that it has a deep relationship to black, just like gold, but in the opposite direction
I dont want to say its "hated" stories because honestly its not used like that, the most prominence it sees is in regards to corruption in general and also han sooyoung and ABFD, strong stories that are difficult to stomach I guess? the intersection between blue and red? traumatic fictional stories? best I can do. I also find it funny that han sooyoung is often depicted in a purple hoodie when its never mentioned in the book that she wears purple, she wields it though! --------------------------------------
Green
[img id, lee gilyoung wearing green hoodie, lee gilyoung in brown shirt holding green grasshopper box, lee hyunsung with a green glow around him, nirvana in a green sari, uriel winking, one emerald eye open, the jade from the demon king arc as illustrated by manadream] these images are all I have, I literally have ZERO explanation for green, I just know lee gilyoung and nirvana are heavily defined by it, lee hyunsung is also defined with it slightly, mostly old military uniform and when he is protecting people
I've been thinking about green in orv for a long time, the only thing I can kind of guess is that it might have something to do with philosophy? a frame of thinking?
if you have any guesses feel free to share in this post --------------------------------------
anyways I hope this was an entertaining read, I know there is a lot more I've probably missed but I hit on all the big things I've been thinking about, I'd like to reiterate that pointing out the function of the colors in the story isn't meant to pigeon hole these colors into one single function, a lot of them do a lot in the story beyond these descriptions, these are just common threads I picked up on and wanted to share, that I felt made reading the story richer to me
and I also wanted to emphasize paying attention more to the webtoons artistic depictions because more often than not I find them elevating the already existing story, and they really do put a lot of thought into it, to the point where I wonder if they have singnsong on speed dial to get approval or opinions
if there are any glaring mistakes, feel free to correct also, Ill edit the corrections in