that part where kim dokja realizes he only knew the lee sookyung that was his mother, he doesn't know what kind of person she is outside of that role and what kind of person she was to the wanderers and the other party members.... she's so much more than just his mother but he doesn't know anything else about her at all
And hsy comes in and says that he doesn't always know everything and that he's not a god aaugghhh........
orv you are so special to me!!!!!!!!!! the major whiplash i got from this... it's so obvious but i never thought about it seriously. You only know them as the person they present to you as, it's not possible to know everything of a single person
Normal Guy Dokja, DKoS, WoLaD, Sun Wukong, Angel, OD, Father, reader, leader, listener, speaker.
We see "Kim Dokja", but not Kim Dokja without the parentheses.
We never meet Kim Dokja, not like we meet Yoo Sangah, or Han Sooyoung, or Lee Gilyoung.
ORV is told from his perspective but we never get to truly meet him, because ORV was written by KimCom about a man who never showed his barest soul to even himself.
give it a listen and the analysis will come to make sense. trigger ⚠️ warning ‼️ : violence, abuse, suicidal thoughts
this post includes sensitive content so please heed the warnings.
for starters, this song is written to enunciate the horrors that victims of objectification go through. from verse to verse, the focus isn't on what death feels like to a person, but how the fear of what may happen to their body trumps their own personal well-being.
it reduces human experiences to precautions instead--the way women and those alike who carry rape alarms and consistently look over their shoulder when it should never be a fate they are subjected to.
it is a song written to give a voice to those who feel smaller in the face of predatory dangers. it's to share that we do not shake in the eyes of death but the terror of human violence is enough to make our bones rattle. it's a great song. exceptionally beautiful and so carefully crafted to be equal parts poetic, loud and unbelievably intimate.
now...applying it to orv.
we all laugh about how kim dokja harbours the entire fandom's objectification on his slutty little waist (which, don't get me wrong, it is SO funny), but besides that... there is an element of 'feeling reduced' that is pretty heavy all throughout orv. kim dokja has lived a life under the brunt end of a glass bottle, on the receiving end of punches and kicks and on the screen for all of Star Stream to see.
kim dokja has lived a life where he is consumed again and again, taken and stripped bare of each and every one of his self-preservations.
kim dokja throws his life away with as much cost-benefit he can rinse out of it, but still he throws it away carelessly. like having a monopoly on tomatoes in a village that has no food, kim dokja knows those tomatoes are valuable to others and will use that for his gain but he himself wouldn't touch a tomato with a ten foot pole. his lives are collected in bulk for the sake of increasing his chances at seeing the epilogue, not for the sake of living.
it's a little ironic in the sense that these first few lines from the song:
cremate me,
deliver me to safety,
so that when it's spent maybe,
it will be my own
doesn't traditionally fit with kim dokja's dire need to recklessly abandon his well-being for the sake of his companions (and their progression). his narrative is too far skewed to properly understand that his companions do painfully mourn his body, even if he is to come back.
so in a sense, the action of Paris (the songwriter) telling one to care for her body after her death is still fulfilled simply by kimcom tentatively reaching out and touching kim dokja's cold limbs and caring for his body (because this way he can't object to it).
scatter ashes,
leave no marker where you plant it,
so the hordes will be disbanded as they search on a treasure map for my headstone.
a tragic reality that the constellations (those greedy for kim dokja's story and his face on their screen) will search for him to favour their own entertainment. he's their little puppet, a limp little guy who dances funny. his and his companions' pain is their amusement.
those constellations will continue to look for him after death. they will eagerly wait until they catch a glimpse of his story again and subject him to the face of the Star Stream.
the watchers behind the streaming scenarios are the hordes, searching channel by channel for something to quench their thirst. they sit on their thrones and watch incarnations go through brutal scenarios like bugs in the wind.
"leave no marker where you plant it" both feeds into kim dokja's desire to hide his intentions and fade away from prying eyes (whether that be from the constellations or a wallflower kdj trait that he carries with him). it's the same way he was when working in MinoSoft, doing the absolute minimum with his coworkers, hiding away.
kim dokja wishes to remain invisible.
Chorus:
leave me to the beast and bears,
I'd rather that the feast was theirs,
to be mauled and torn apart by animalistic intent rather than letting the constellations have their way with his date and future. still, however, kim dokja falls under Olympus' clutches. and into the Secretive Plotter's tricks. kim dokja hates them, the constellations, even as one himself.
Chorus:
they can't reserve neighbouring plots,
or request to get buried on top.
and yet, if his enemies get too close, kim dokja (even in his death) will drive them to their own deaths.
Chorus:-
leave me for a day of two,
to make sure that i turn blue,
for the first time since i drew breath,
I'm undesirable again.
"undesirable" implies being an object of desire in another's eyes, whether that is curiosity or animosity wishing for his downfall, kim dokja is a name that many watchers of the Star Stream know of. his fables and achievements make him untouchable, so naturally, desirable.
was it not feeding the desire to see him battered and bruised that his bullies beat him up every day at school? was it not his father's desire to drink recklessly and then take it out on his family?
was it desire that led lee sookyung to writing that book for the world to know, a desire to be recognised as the survivor of such a graphic tale? she's a survivor of domestic abuse with scars to show for it.
desire does not mean intention in this case. his mother didn't plan meticulously when she was writing her story, but he actions were hopelessly emotional--which is ironic considering she tries her best to act cold and indifferent when she interacts with kim dokja during the apocalypse.
and then comes the media and its desire to capture each and every one of kim dokja's hanging words whilst they pester him with questions on how he feels after his father was murdered in front of him. desire does come with intention--the media intend to make a story out of kdj, the murderer's son. "does violence run in the family?" "did you see any signs that your mother would kill your father?" "did she enjoy it?"
you know what that does to a person? where you spend years of your life escaping from the reality that your father beat you black and blue and your last memory of him was a growing puddle of red blood. and once enough time has passed, the cameras come out, the reporters, the bullies, the side glances from teachers. his aunt and uncle who never took care of him. absolutely nothing to fall back on as he's reminded every single day the horrors of his past.
wallflower kdj wishes to fade into the wallpaper. he wants not even the faintest memory of him left when he does eventually fade away. kim dokja jumped off the rooftop of his school in hopes he would never be subjected to the pain of being alive again.
is that what he'll have to do to be free from their sick, perverse desire to seeing him so reduced? so small and weak?
does kdj have to trade his life to be free from their subjection?
does he STILL do that in the scenarios? yes, he damn does
in the second verse, there's a line that sticks out to me:
if you really love me, you'll dispose of me, unceremoniously, in the waves.
this is him saying "show me that you care by not caring about me at all" because the mere fact that kimcom mourn him feeds into his story that watchers consume. kdj you stupid man. even after his death, he does everything he can to puppeteer the conditions, tries his best to control everyone's reactions even when it's something he'll never be able to control. like, no kdj, no you can't expect kimcom to turn a blind eye to your self-sacrificial plans. you can't expect them to tread over you grave with not a tear in their eyes. kim dokja spoiling his companions rotten in the demon realm was kdj exhausting however much he could give so his companions wouldn't feel like they lacked anything when he'd have to leave.
he treats himself as a vessel. a vending machine if you will. or even a gumball machine with a massive sign that says "USE ME". he considers himself someone who can be interacted to but not interacted with. everything is for an alternative gain (flashback to kdj going "oh why is yjh sad that I'm dead? ohhhhh it's for the coins i see i see, smart man"). kim dokja sees himself only capable of giving everything he's got for those that matter to him, up to the clothes on his back and the skin of his palms, but incapable of receiving anything back.
to dispose of him unceremoniously is the most kdj request you can get.
and they will come in such dismay
but they never did discover where i lay
cue the rampage that the constellations brought out when they saw a chance to act on their vengeance against kim dokja.
but that slippery squid gets away every time.
and i will burn my flesh and form,
screaming the words i will never be yours,
this, if anything, is more yoo joonghyuk coded than kdj. but maybe it's the fact that Kim Dokja understands the protagonist's suffering so intimately that he projects that anger against the watchers on himself.
I'll take the flames over desecration,
please make on these arrangements,
don't you dare think it's overkill.
ouch.
I wouldn't wish the watching on anybody,
so if for that reason only,
promise me you will...
NOW THESE LINES MAKE ME SICK.
the crescendo. the heavy feelings. the pain in her voice whilst she's singing those lines.
kim dokja may not feel anything for his limp corpse, HOWEVER, only with the condition that he has "won" whether on behalf of someone else or in the long run. as long as kdj gets what he needs for his epilogue, he will happily trade in his body.
if he doesn't....if he's backed into a corner and does not see a way out for his companions, he's utterly distraught. if he's got no ace up his sleeve, if he's exhausted all his options and everyone is looking his way to omniscient his way out of situation, what the hell is he supposed to do?
if he loses whilst shin yoosung and lee gilyoung are watching, those kids who need a figure that will protect them and save them from the whims of the scenarios, how could he live with himself knowing those young eyes watched him get consumed by the constellations? how could he instil that fear in them?
if his companions ever found out how many times kim dokja was victim of twisted submission--from his father, the bullies, the news, the Star Stream--could they ever recover?
Paris talks about what sheer predatory horror she would be subjected by from those remaining on earth with her lifeless body. when their hands land on her flesh, they will not be removed and any bystanders will be left to observe helplessly.
isn't the tragedy that Kim Dokja has lived already subjecting his companions as those observers?
man I love this song and I love orv so so much
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and so the song posts begin- ( @sunfish5149 thanks for the encouragement)🤭
