@growing_beautifully, this reminds me This reminds me of our back-and-forth conversation in “Hotel del Luna.”
These are *my* explanations. I don’t know if KES felt the same way, but this is how I understood the show.
I’m still on Cynical Island.
Most because of the Qn: what’s the point of Lee Lim carrying out regicide in such a way that it was obvious he was the criminal. No quiet poisoning for him but an all-out gun fight and sword stabbing. How could he have expected that anyone would allow him to replace his half-brother or nephew is beyond me, unless all the military were in his pay. Or did he expect to play the flute and have everyone kow-tow to him without demur?
Generally, in coups, there’s a show of force to intimidate the citizenry and political opponents into accepting the change of regime. Lee Lim would have been claiming dominance. He would have been declaring, “I wrested power from my half-brother. Make no mistake, this throne is mine.”
It’s ingrained in our mindset that, in a man-to-man battle over a kingdom, the victor of the duel DESERVES to be crowned the ruler. Had Lee Lim succeeded in his plans, he would have been viewed as the vanquisher, the rightful King.
Most people wouldn’t question his legitimacy because he fought for it. He outsmarted his half-brother. Moreover, nobody would DARE to question his legitimacy because he/she can easily suffer the same fate as the dead king and crown prince.
In contrast to this powerful show of force, a poisoning is so weak and lame.
But but but but…
Lee Yim’s goal isn’t to be king of the Kingdom of Corea. Replacing his brother isn’t his goal.
He has bigger ambitions than being a mere ruler of a tiny kingdom. He wants MORE. He wants all the power that the flute yields.
Remember what the flute offers:
When the flute is played,
enemies would retreat,
diseases would be cured,
rain would fall during droughts,
the rainy season would end,
the wind would stop,
and strong waves would subside.
That’s why Lee Yim was fine with the “all-out gun fight and sword stabbing.” He wanted to kill the king who “safeguarded” the flute, @GB. The king stood in his way.
It didn’t bother Lee Yim that he’d leave a literal bloodbath because he wasn’t staying in the kingdom. The throne of KOC wasn’t what he was after.
He came for the flute. Remember the flute only reappeared every 20 years or so. So he bided his time and recruited men who would believe in his cause.
That’s why the Prince BuYeong said that Lee Yim must have planned an escape route already.
BY: What about Lee Lim’s whereabouts?
OCL: The Royal Guards and the police are investigating together. They closed off all the roads right away. If he’s still in Busan, I’m sure they’ll find him.
BY: I hope so too, but he seems to have thoroughly prepared for this. I believe he would have thought of an escape plan first.
Do you get it?
That’s the writer’s misdirection.
Viewers thought that the escape plan was Lee Yim’s CONTINGENCY plan should his coup attempt fail.
No.
The escape plan was for escaping with the flute. He planned to leave with the flute. That’s the “escape” plan.
Prince BuYeong knew that Lee Yim didn’t intend to stay. He came for the flute and he ran away with it.
Now, if Lee Gon hadn’t showed up at exactly that time, Lee Yim would have escaped with the flute. Lee Yim had NO intentions of killing the child.
That’s why he told the alternate child in Korea that “Even in this world, you’ve seen something you shouldn’t have. And you’re holding something you shouldn’t be holding.”
It was by “coincidence” that both children saw Lee Yim doing something bad.
Lee Gon said that he heard the flute that’s why he went to the Cheojongo. He must have been awakened from his sleep and walked, like in a trance, to the Cheojongo. That’s why he didn’t run away when he saw the dead bodies. He should have felt the wet blood on his fate but he kept walking to the Cheojongo because the flute was ringing loudly in his ears.
To me, the flute was calling him.
Here are some aspects that popped into my mind as I re-watched.
Coincidences: This show (and many kdramas, but more obvious in this show) depends rather too much on coincidences to make the plot go fast. For eg., Lee Lim (Bad Uncle) conveniently runs off into the bamboo forest and gets the portal into ROK just as he needs to get away. Over in ROK, the first person who bumps into him is no other than his parallel half brother, who ends up furnishing him with all the info and resources he needs to continue his evil plans. Similarly LG just happens to see the white rabbit at the racetrack and goes into the bamboo forest. Once in ROK he just happens to ride past Jung Tae-eul’s car.
Yes, there are coincidences here but unlike that crappy @#$@# “A Piece of Your Mind,” the coincidences in this kdrama are actually logical.
You see, these coincidences are “FATED” encounters. They are predestined because Lee Gon (and the rest of the world) are in a time loop.
Actually, the book “Through the Looking Glass” talked about this predestination.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Alice was stuck in a game chess. It would seem as if every time she was in trouble, the White Knight “coincidentally” appeared. But that was the point of the game. Everything that happened in a chess game must follow the predetermined rules of the game. Alice only SEEMED to have choices and to act freely but she was actually GUIDED throughout the game by a larger force/presence.
Likewise, the coincidences in this kdrama are actually INDICATIONS (and not contrivances in “A Piece of Your Mind”) that Lee Gon is living a preordained life. He may believe that he’s doing things by his own free will, when in fact, everything that’s happening is going according to plan.
That’s what the Old Court Lady said, remember? She said that there was a plan.
Thus, to me, all the coincidences aren’t truly accidental, like Lee Yim bumping into his brother and encountering his old self and the crown prince’s counterpart. Or like TaeEul sitting in her car when Lee Gon passes by in his horse.
These all have been prearranged and predetermined by the rules of chess…err…I mean by FATE to happen that way.
Also, I recommend that you view this kdrama like a reincarnation story. The plot becomes more accessible that way.
As I’ve said before the “eternal” in the title “The Eternal Monarch” meant that the Lee Gon is locked in time. He continually re-lives both his life and his quest to infinity.
But he isn’t eternal in the sense that Goblin was eternal.
In “Goblin,” the Goblin was eternal because he couldn’t die. He couldn’t be killed. He was an immortal.
With Lee Gon, on the other hand, he’s eternal because every time he dies, he’s reborn in the same life. He’s recycling his life over and over… or at least his life between 1994 to 2019.
Now, it’s been posited by believers of reincarnation that when an person repeats the same life over and over, he’ll begin to experience déjà vu or “phantom memories.” He’ll start remembering flashes from his past life. He’ll have an ambiguous feeling that he’s seen a person, place, or thing from somewhere.
This sensation is happening to Lee Gon.
When he saw the White Rabbit for instance, he suddenly chased it. He didn’t understand why. But it just clicked on him that the White Rabbit was something he had to chase.
But I think that he was alerted to the ticking sound.
To me, Lee Gon is very sensitive to sound. He said that the flute was loud during the night of the coup, so he followed it. Likewise, he heard the loud ticking sound of the clock, and he followed it, too.
Ha! I bet you that if Lee Gon’s sensitive to sounds, then TaeEul is sensitive to smell.
He also heard the flute in the forest.
His horse Maximus had suddenly stopped. He was asking it what was wrong when he heard the flute.
Note: This close-up to show his ears was to signify that he was listening to the flute. The director didn’t give us a close-up just to swoon over his profile.
Then the wind rustled through the bamboo trees. He and his horse followed the sound.
THAT’s the reason he didn’t startle and his horse didn’t buck up when it thundered. They were intent on listening to the flute. It was like when he was little, and he couldn’t hear the gunshots. All he could hear was the flute.
Re-doing: I’m thinking Lee Lim should have known fairly early that Lee Gon was still alive in KOC. He would certainly have known once he met his sidekick henchman. It would have behooved him to have tried to return to 1994 and re-do the regicide more successfully.
He can’t.
It’s all about the predestiny/predetermined fate. Lee Lim left in 1994 and he wasn’t expected back to grab the flute till 2019.
Besides the flute was hidden and it only came out every so often.
In the meantime, he’s been laying his groundwork. He lost all his men in 1994. He recovered one in 2004. And it seems to me that he’s been consolidating his connections and power while he’s on “hiatus.”
Time warp/travel: I’m leaning towards the time warp or time travel or that time is definitely affected by the time travellers because of the dates on TJE’s Police ID card and because show bothered to zoom out on the salt farm scene with Bad Uncle’s lackey and then to spin that farm horizon clockwise with a tick-tock sound going on. Immediately, when that stopped, Lee Lim steps into the frame.
I call it time loop because it loops back. It actually reminds me of a mobius strip because of the way things are turned inside out or inversed.
Yes, I agree, the clockwise spin of that salt farm scene signified that time moved forward for everybody.
When LG sees the rabbit again at the race track, the sounds that accompanied her was of the winding of gears… clock gears?
Yes. It sounded like gears, don’t they? Like something is being pulled up or pulled back, so it can be released.
If you ask me the coolest Lee MinHo scene for me was when he whistled for his horse. I can’t whistle very well so I envied him.
Also as mentioned, the entry of LG into ROK got ROK-time standing still for a moment, so that the bowl stopped in mid-air. However that did not affect Lee Lim who did not belong to the ROK universe.
I think only physical objects, if they’re already in motion (i.e., falling down, sliding, toppling over, crashing, etc.) will freeze momentarily.
I don’t think human movement is stopped.
White black rabbit: I caught sight of the rabbit in the Alice in Wonderland book and it is dressed in a dark suit with lighter coloured ears,… therefore, whoever it was in that rabbit jacket looked like the White Rabbit of the kid’s book, and led LG a merry chase.
Logo and Timeline: We are shown 2 times the 5-petal flower logo found on LG’s riding whip handle and drawn by Police friend Kang Shin Jae. However Kang had not met LG or seen his riding whip earlier. By the time he had met LG, latter was not carrying that whip around with him. Therefore where could he have seen that logo and why draw it into his notebook? It would have been something seen in the course of his investigations.
I agree. The design that he was doodling on his notebook had nothing to do with the logo associated with LG. On the contrary, I think it had something to do with his investigation of this deceased Lee Sang-do. Kang could have seen something at the hardware store which made an impression on him.
It could have something to do with the logo of the National Assembly. The National Assembly came up in the conversation, right?
Or the murder weapon that he saw. Those are crowbars, right?
There are so many possibilities. But patience, my friend. The writer isn’t going to reveal everything in two episodes.
We’re already ahead of the game because we saw what she did with the time-loop and the Old Court Lady…
The King: Eternal Monarch: The Old Court Lady
and the Prince Buyeong. I believe he’s also in the know.
He didn’t believe Lee Yim committed suicide because he knew that he was going to reappear. Thus, he had to falsify records and make a false statement that the cause of death was shooting by the Royal Guards.
Again, just like he talked about “escape plan” earlier, there was an intentional doublespeak here.
OCL: This can’t be revealed to the public, so I had to ask you to perform the autopsy yourself. I have not idea what to do about this.
BY: Calm down. You mad a wise choice. I heard the Royal Guards think he committed suicide.
OCL: Yes, they say it seems like it. He probably had nowhere to run. They say all his bones were broken. Probably due to the waves.
BY: Even so, this can never be suicide. This has to be a shooting by the Royal Guards.
OCL: Your highness.
BY: I’ll have to make a false statement for the young King and the Royal Court that is in chaos. Do you understand?
OCL: Yes, your highness.
So in the scene where JTE was interrogating Lee Lim, that has not been placed for us properly in the timeline, has it? Based on his bloody clothes, it was soon after he committed the murder(s). But then why was there no follow-up to his interrogation?
I’ve my theories but I’m keeping them to myself for now. I’ll have to wait and see.
Did he also have that 5-petal logo anywhere on him?
Not that we’ve been shown by the director. All we know is that he has an umbrella.
Lee Gon has the riding crop; he has an umbrella.
Lee Sang Do: Unless the theory of becoming younger is true, the police photo of Lee Sang Do, who is much younger looking than the elderly uncle, Lee Jong In, suggests that the dead LSD is not the parallel of Lee Jong In. However, his wife did not look as young as him. We need to get more info on this death to know if it is significant or not that his head wound and that of Kim Bok Man are the same.
🙂
I think one of the problems in this blog is that we’re getting ahead of the story. I blame myself for that because I came up with these theories. 🙂
I don’t with all certainty that Korea’s Lee Sang Do = Corea’s Lee Jong In/Prince Buyeong.
As I said, parallelism between the two worlds required a reverse image.
So:
Corean Lee Gon: Alive. Picked up sword, attacked uncle, broke flute but rescued by 2019 LG, became king
Korean version: Dead. Picked up a steel bar, killed by uncle, thrown in reservoir, died in 1994.
Corean Mother of Lee Gon: Dead. Doesn’t exist.
Korean version: Alive. Abused by husband. Loved son.
Corean Lee Yim: Alive. Healthy man, attempted coup and failed
Korean version: Dead. Disabled man in wheelchair, definitely no coup plotter
Corean Prince Buyeong: Alive. Elderly stateman, erudite.
Korean version: Dead. Middle-aged hardware store owner, always broke.
Corean Luna: Alive. In her 20s? High schooler? Wanted for petty theft.
Korean Tae-Eul: Alive. In her 30s. Police officer.
Corean Capt Jo: Alive. Handsome dude. Admired. Not a pushover. Only child.
Korean version: Alive. Looks like a pushover. Has siblings.
Right now, I don’t know if the age matters so much as the status in life.
Weapon: Would that stick that Lee Lim carries around have been heavy enough and of the right design to kill Lee Sang Do? His death, if it was done by Lee Lim or his henchman, only makes sense if Lee Sang Do really is/was Lee Jong In’s parallel.
We’ll have to wait and see.
My answer about the IDs are here: The King: Why is He Eternal?
lol.
Dear @packmule3, as alwais it is a pleasure to read you.
First of all, your Moebius strip’s GIF doesn’t show it expicitly but one of its characteristics is that it only has one face. You heard me well =D. Cut a strip of paper or ribbon and with a piece of scotch tape unite both ends, but befoe you form a ring twist one of the ends and tape it so it form the Moebius strip. Then use a marker (I asked for a scotch tape since it can be written upon) and draw a straight line through all the length of the strip without rising the tip of the marker. You will notice that the strip is marked in all its surface and not only one side!!! XD . So it is not only a symbol of infinity but also of wholeness.
On the other hand I stand with my Convolution operator theory, but this time since the King is the one that can make changes into his mirror country, I’d rather think that ROK is the original function, The King is the operator and KOK is the function operated, reversed and shifted.
I don’t know if I am reading too much into it but I am having a blast =D
Hope to read all of you soon!!!
Yes. I know about the mobius strip. That’s why I mentioned it. 🙂
No boundaries = infinity
and only one surface = unity
But I’m off The King now because I’m shifting over to Hospital Playlist. There’s no unity and infinity in my life right now. lol.
When Lee Lim recounted the legacy of Manpasikjeok during his interrogation, he said it appears every 20 years. I wonder if that is only true for KOC. There was only one of everything until the early death in Korea of Prince Sohyeon (d. 1645, age 33); in Corea Prince Sohyeon lived long and became king. Lee Gon pinpointed the timing of the parallel worlds’ split during his library research. So what about Manpasikjeok, which had been in existence since 682, long before the parallel worlds split? Did one Manpasikjeok become two? (If so, then Lee Lim, now in Korea thanks to his half of the Corea flute, should be looking for the unsevered Manpasikjeok in Korea.) Or because of its magical properties, does the one artifact move between the two parallel worlds? That could explain the flute’s 20-year appearance cycle in Corea: Korea is the continuation of the initial world, and Corea came into existence as the parallel world. Manpasikjeok stayed in the real world, but in Corea “The Manpasikjeok was revealed only once every 20 years to wish peace upon the world.”
There’s another part of the Manpasikjeok legend that’s confusing me a bit. As it is described, it brings good out of bad: enemies retreat (safety from peril), diseases cured (health from sickness), rain during drought (sustenance from famine), rain would end (terra firma from flood), wind would stop (calm from storm), strong waves would subside (smooth sailing instead of dangerous conditions). It sounds benevolent. Considering what Lee Lim did in his attempt to possess and control Manpasikjeok, he seems far from benevolent. Can the Manpasikjeok’s powers be used for evil? Did the Manpasikjeok sense Lee Lim’s evil intentions and call to Crown Prince Lee Gon for help? If so, why him instead of warning the King so he and his Royal Guard wouldn’t be caught off guard? It is that the child Lee Gon was more pure of heart?
Questions, questions! I’ll have to wait and see if any of them are answered as this drama moves forward.
@Growing Beautifully (GB), I like your theory that the portal between the two parallel worlds was activated when Manpasikjeok was split in two. The descriptions of this drama released to the media back in February talk about Lee Gon, “who tries to close the door between the two worlds.” Doors are designed to have reversible action, closed to open, open to closed (as opposed to, say, a hole torn in the fabric of space and time). The drama’s beginning graphics show the flute whole, then sliced open and glass shattering; a severed half of the flute turns toward us and inside we see high-level mathematical calculations…I’m guessing quantum mechanics formulas. These are hints about the thoughts behind the drama, and I think they confirm your theory that the door (which may have already existed, but was closed) opened when Manpasikjeok was split in two.
But now that makes me wonder about the role the Four Tiger Sword played in that event. Does the engraving on the sword hint that it is also magical? The engraving speaks of helping the earth balance and making things just. And from the way Crown Prince Lee Gon struggled with the weight of the sword, I suspect magic enabled him to lift it and strike the blow. LG wasn’t targeting the flute: he wanted to kill Lee Lim. Was the target of his blow predetermined? More to ponder.
A couple of things to clear up.
When Lee Lim is being interrogated by police, we can figure the year because the form says he was born in 1951 and his current age is 69. That puts the year of the interrogation at 2020. I don’t believe the blood spatters we see on him are from the 1994 assassination of the king. During that assassination, when the sword sliced Manpasikjeok in half, it also cut Lee Lim’s hand in the fleshy part between his thumb and index finger. During the interrogation, his cuffed hands are up on the table, and you can see the old scar in that location.
About Lieutenant Tae Eul’s two ID cards: We see the back of the one Lee Gon has had in KOC since 1994, the one with TE’s hair pulled back, while LG is looking at it while sitting at his desk. The date of issue is on the back. We’ve only seen the front of the ID card, the one with TE’s hair down, that Lieutenant Tae Eul is using in ROK. We’d have to see the back to see the date it was issued, so that’s still a mystery for us.
Random thoughts…
On the “god” hints. I’m wondering if I’m reading too much into this, but I found myself thinking not just of aspirations to kingship or even to just power, but of becoming god.
The part that got that into my head was as @pkml3 kindly quoted above and I quote here:
When the flute is played,
enemies would retreat,
diseases would be cured,
rain would fall during droughts,
the rainy season would end,
the wind would stop,
and strong waves would subside.
That is stuff that many believe only god is supposed to handle. He has omnipotent control over nature, groups of humans and disease. Having the flute confers omnipotence or at least 99% of it upon it’s ‘owner’.
The other thing that struck me was in the beginning of Ep 2 when LG tells JTE that he has no ID because he is who he is. Smacks of the Old Testament words of Yahweh: “I AM who I AM” (Exodus 3:14). It also smacks of a lot of arrogance, but yes, in several cultures, I believe the king is also considered a deity. I didn’t realise that deified royalty was quite the norm.
Flute: So now, if that flute turns up once in 20 years, we want to know (and I hope future episodes make it clear), how it turns up … where from and how long it stays. So Ep 1 was about Lee Lim waiting for the time when King2 would find it and/or place the flute in it’s case, so that he could wrest it from him, and play god.
If/since that flute deifies it’s wielder, then it’s strange that there’s only 1 guy after it. Perhaps KES is not into writing a tale of many groups all on a quest to unite the broken flute pieces, to get the power, but I think that would be the more ‘normal’ route for a drama. Still I’m happy to go the unconventional and more hopefully more creative route.
Possible for plot: So conjecturing what the story is leading us to … the choices made by LG, a king (both mathematical and open to fairy tales) as to what he’ll do with two worlds and his reason for being. If he remains his rather self-absorbed and entitled slightly bratty self, he’ll concentrate on being happy with JTE in her universe for a stretch. He did however say that he had not yet thought of going back to his own universe, but that does not mean he will not ultimately want to. That was his ‘fairytale side’ speaking. However he has a logical side and once he knows that bad uncle is still about and going to cause trouble, he’ll have to think like a king.
We know that show is meant to explore greater concepts (KES style) and not just LG’s navel gazing. I expect that LG’s decisions are going to bring danger to the worlds, and that he has to decide to save the worlds at some personal cost.
It would be interesting to play around with the idea of whether 2 worlds, rather diametrically opposite, can co-exist for the same person, or whether any form of unifying them might ever be a viable idea. (A comment on our own world?) We wait to know what the splitting of the flute may have done to the universe and whether rejoining its halves will bring healing or destruction.
Off topic, @PM3 if it’s okay with you, can you give me your email address? I wanted to write to you about something, more like an advise. 😀 Of course if you have time.
@pkml3 Finally replying to you. Yes, it’s great to have another show to dissect for all its signs and symbols and to guess what clues KES is dropping around for us.
The power of the flute, sounds, like I mentioned in my comment above, like the power of a great deity. It’s limited though, if it only appears once in 20 years. Its power is mainly manifested when it is blown or played. However the legend did not say who was to play on it. What we see now is that even as a broken flute, and while no one is blowing on it, it makes a sound that only certain individuals can hear. Possibly members of the royal family only. Instead of the flute conferring power on them, they seem to be under the command of the flute, to be called by it, led like the child LG through the bloody hallways.
As you say, if those coincidences are actually signs of pre-ordinance, then perhaps the mover of those coincidences was the flute, bringing the people together. It is the flute (or the spirit behind it) that determines their pre-destined actions, for instance, it leads them to the bamboo forest and takes them deliberately into ROK 2020.
So my next question, or what I’ll look out for, is whether Prince Buyeong also hears the flute, since he seems to understand what is happening.
= = =
This sounds very tiring. Just going through a day of normal stuff is tiring, let alone repeating one’s life over and over! But yes, let’s take this as happening, then we can look for other occasions where he gets the déjà vu experience.
As for LG’s and JTE’s sensitivity to sounds and smells, we’ll jump on any occasion they mention hearing or smelling LOL. Bad Uncle Lee Lim also hears the flute.
= = =
This part I do not understand, about Lee Lim not being able to re-do the assassination:
1) The principle of being able to go back in time should work for Lee Lim (LL for short) as much as it does for LG.
2) If we say that the Child LG (CP) is always the earlier iteration (CP-1 or CP minus 1) that (LG+1) saves, then the LL who’s killing (CP-1) is (LL-1). If the next rescue is by (LG+2), saving (CP+1), then LL must be (LL+1). LL would also be caught in the time loop.
Copying from your other post on the Eternal-ness of LG
Unless you are saying the difference is just that it’s another JTE and another Police ID, always another time’s Tae Eul, but that both LG and LL are the same who are looping back and forth forever, until one of them breaks the loop. Is that what you’re saying?
= = =
That King’s Dream thing that you keep mentioning … are you positing that like Alice in Wonderland, he is dreaming, and that we are all caught up in the happenings of his dream (the way we were caught up in Alice’s adventures)? All that we’ll see in some 10-16 episodes are not really happening at all in any universe? LOL. That would solve every mystery of course!!
I’ll answer on the blog. It’s easier that way. 🙂
@Welmaris, I do like the many theories you propose and the endless questions that arise from them.
I asked about the 20 years of the flute being hidden, and it’s making the rounds of parallel universes or at least vanishing from KOC to materialise in ROK is a thought with probability. When I was toying with the idea of many parallel universes (after all, why should there be just two?) I wondered where it went, and what the significance of the number ’20’ might be.
I also like the logic of how if the flute is meant for good, then it might reject one who is evil, and that could explain why LG was called by the flute, to the scene of regicide that fateful night.
I missed the pre-drama ads and teasers and did not see the description of the flute with mathematical calculations. However, I just looked up that quantum physics does consider tiny portals as possible, so looks like show is possibly on ‘that’ track.
As an aside: I like the (increasing) mention of maths (although I am hopeless at it) as a sign that LG is a good logical thinker and able to figuratively and literally put 2 and 2 together.
Yes to LL’s interrogation. I looked for the scar to be sure. So he’s been on more killing sprees in between and one day ends up interrogated by JTE. As long as he does not know what a significant person JTE is to LG, she’s safe. However when he realises that she’s been ‘arrowed’ to be Queen, all that will change.
I was not sure if I had seen the back of just one Police ID or both. However I knew that if I threw it out here, someone would probably remember that we got to see the registration date on only 1 card. 😊 😆. That date might only be significant if it differed on the cards, but I was thinking of the cards in terms of their proving the existence of a different JTE, of a different universe, from the one we see. The registration date probably is not important and can be ignored. If not, the camera would have zoomed in on it for both cards. LOL.
@pkml3
– I don’t get this … Buyeong was sure that LL would reappear, however, does making the death a shooting make it any less absurd that the dead man returns?
– So LG’s method of choice is to make his victims look like drowned suicides.
– However I don’t understand LOL. The method of death seems to matter, but I don’t see the significance. Does suicide make it less that he received his comeuppance and so add to the chaos in Court? Does a shooting by the Royal Guards mean that the Court was on the ball and in control, and so reduce chaos?
@GB,
Are you asking me why death by gunshot from the Royal Guards is preferable to suicide?
I think it’s because of logical reasoning. IIRC Alice in Wonderland had all these logic syllogisms: You know, those, “If A, then B, Not B, Therefore not A” type of stuff. Here, I think the logic is simple: If A, then not B.
So how does that apply to our story?
Prince Buyeong has a problem in his hand.
A dead body was found.
He has to make a statement.
He can go with:
A = death caused by suicide
or
B = death caused by anything OTHER than suicide. Could be gunshot, by sword, or by poison by Royal Guards, And there’s also the Truck of Doom, lol.
There’s no other option, right? It’s an either-or.
He could hardly go with the truth, that is,
C = dead person is not Lee Lim
because people who found the body could tell it was Lee Lim. Wasn’t he brought to the Royal Hospital?? (I don’t know I didn’t check)
So what can he do?
He can’t say A because he KNOWS it isn’t suicide.
So he’ll go with B. That is, death OTHER than suicide.
A false statement saying that he was shot by the Royal Guards is the simplest and most efficient explanation for the body that was found. He and the Old Court Lady can falsify the report and close the case expeditiously. They just want this dead body (who isn’t Lee Lim) disposed off and buried before people can raise more question.
Besides, hit-and-run trucks would require a truck driver and a truck. 🙂
Anyway, that’s MY interpretation of the conversation. I could be wrong. I’m sure people can come up with another interpretation. We won’t find out until later anyway if I’m correct that Prince Buyeong is in the know.
Wondering if Prince Buyeong has the ability to hear the flute reminds me of something: During OCL’s conversation with LG when he revealed he’d heard the flute so loudly on the night of the assassination he couldn’t hear anything else, OCL was adamant the flute doesn’t make sound. How did she know that? From descriptions she’d read or heard about the flute, or from personal observation? She’s an older person, so she would have lived through a number of cycles of the flute’s appearance in KOC. Being that she plays an important role in the court, it is possible she was present when a previous king tried to play it. Can the flute be played ceremonially, or whenever and for whatever reason its possessor wants, or is its magical use limited to being played in time of need?
Along with believing that Manpasikjeok doesn’t make an audible sound, OCL knew enough about it to keep the half found with LG after the assassination and return it to him. She could have destroyed it, thrown it away, or hidden it. What did she know of its value, even in damaged state, that motivated her to preserve it?
@Growing Beautifully (GB):
“I asked about the 20 years of the flute being hidden, and it’s making the rounds of parallel universes or at least vanishing from KOC to materialise in ROK is a thought with probability. When I was toying with the idea of many parallel universes (after all, why should there be just two?) I wondered where it went, and what the significance of the number ’20’ might be.”
Hmmmmm…20 was the street number of the bookshop that the yoyo boy was standing outside when the lady when it, and also the bookshop (looks like the same one) Lee Lim went into to find the secret message about the king leaving the palace. It also sounds like that bookshop was a regular meeting place of Lee Lim’s supporters.
I’m off to watch Episode 4. I hope some of our questions will be answered.