Thing by steampianist is ORV coded, specifically Kim Dokja, someone said KDJ 49/51 which is so cool and real but more specifically KDJ throughout all of his childhood wanting that warmth and wanting to be normal like everyone around him, and then again as a constellation so far separated by the emotional fourth wall barrier he set between all of his companions and himself.
I want hair like yours. Hands like yours. Fingers that curl in the cold like yours. Eyes to stare and to cry.
He wants so badly to understand what it means to be human because even before accession to becoming a constellation he didnt know it meant to be human, maybe nothing about him has ever been human, and he's been a god consuming pages.
A/N: i feel. very unsure about this analysis. i don’t think i really expressed my thoughts well and this is a bit messy… i apologize deeply, i’ll try to make a HSY analysis next. probably talk about joongdok and doksoo too like I did yoohan… also i barely talked about his relationships with others?? IM SORRY
To be honest, something that stuck out to me at the start of when I was reading ORV was how detached Dokja seemed from reality. He analyzed and viewed everything like how he did reading the book, which makes sense as he was a reader, but it felt as if he didn’t have a real built in panic for the danger he was in.
I think something that was a bit subtle was the way Dokja originally viewed them all not simply as people, but also as characters. It’s not fully obvious due to the fact that he grew a dependance on these characters, thus not hindering the way he treated them, but something that can be recognized more when we look at his interaction with people like Kim Namwoon and Anna Croft.
Simply put, Dokja doesn’t like KNW or Anna Croft because they reflect him in a way. KNW is a teenage boy who doesn’t want to die, yet the way Dokja talks about him at the start and lets him die in cold blood, he doesn’t talk about him as a person- he talks about him as a character he doesn’t like. This is also shown where he prefers SYS over LGY, as SYS is a character he loved.
Something I find to be prominent in Dokja is his low self worth. Genuinely speaking, Dokja is mentally ill and has impostor syndrome. He’s self conscious and you can see that he wanted to be like the idealized YJH he had in his head, with him regularly taking YJH’s name and appearing less anxious when pretending to be him. The thing about Dokja is that he can’t fully recognize why Kimcom and everyone loves and cares about him so much, thinking he’s alone, because he doesn’t think there’s anything in him to love.
The thing about Dokja is that he used the novel as his escape, and now that it’s become reality, he uses what he knows from the novel to avoid his problems. He has more “important things” to worry about than his mental health. I think Dokja as an unreliable narrator tries to convince himself that things he did, he did just because he’s selfish. And while he is selfish in a way, he’s also selfless.
Genuinely, the way Dokja views his actions I have to give the benefit of doubt, he views himself in such a bad and depressing light that I have to wonder if some of the negative stuff he points out about himself is true. He quite literally puts the memories of his companions first when making his 49% self, causing 49% to not hate tomatoes. Of course, this isn’t to say Dokja is some pure amazing person unaware of that- because he’s not.
Dokja isn’t a heroic character or major green flag, and we see this again and again. He manipulates characters and uses them for his own gain, can be shown to be a bit careless towards characters if he doesn’t like them, and one of the most glaring things for me is his favoritism towards SYS, as she was a novel character he connected to, unlike LGY. (This is not hate to SYS, I love her!)
Yet despite that, he’s still selfless and will sacrifice himself so his companions can have a happy ending as he sees it as the only way he can get the desirable ending. He lives on with the knowledge he has of the novel so that his companions will all survive and be happy, and we see this over and over with the Demon King of Salvation, and him staying back on the train. He was suicidal when he was young, and he still is, as his sacrifices can count.
Dokja has such a low self worth, yet to everyone else he’s amazing. He’s the perfect son to Hades and Persephone, the perfect friend to Kimcom, the perfect father to LGY, SYS and Biyoo, and the perfect companion to YJH. Sacrifice is in a way, Dokja’s love language, and I believe he learned that from his mother who sacrificed herself when Dokja killed his father.
At his core, Dokja is a reader. He doesn’t want to be the protagonist, and we see that at the start when he tells LGY he isn’t the protagonist. Rather, he’s an ‘observer.’ In his eyes he’s more of an extra, he’s intelligent and has so much knowledge but feels inferior to other characters, like remarking how he must be weighing them down since his companions grow stronger when he’s gone.
He changes the narrative, but that doesn’t mean he wants to be the protagonist. Yet, it ultimately makes him one. Because of this, it also shapes his relationship with YJH, the original protagonist. He looked up to YJH and now face to face with him, they have a sort of annoyance to eachother yet also camaraderie letting eachother grow and becoming companions.
It’s as if YJH becomes more self-aware and falls out of his regression hellhole, being given a reason to go on other than reaching the end, and in a way KDJ is inspired to be more assertive. There’s such a duality in the two roles, because while he is first and foremost a reader- he’s also situated himself into the role of a protagonist, giving him responsibility despite his prior detachment.
The key characteristic of Dokja’s growth to me throughout the story was how he truly became a leader. He takes responsibility for his team member’s safety, sacrifices himself not just because of his low self worth but also to save his companions. He also starts to realize his own value beyond being a reader- just how much he influenced his companions.
He goes from a detached character, satisfied simply being the reader, and looking on upon YJH and his companions journey. He’s so emotionally distant, yet throughout the story he acknowledges his own value due to his companions love and care for him, situating himself as the leader of Kimcom.
