What better way to start a new year than to discuss murder?
There are two way to interpret the death of Marco:
according to the script
according to the JinWoo’s delusional interpretation
As I said in last post, based on the script, SJ isn’t dead but trapped in the game somehow.
In Episode 1, he was shot on board the train and he wasn’t holding a gun when he opened the door. In Episode 5, he was able to get off the train and reach the train platform where he “died” holding a gun. To me, the fact that only SJ’s gun became static-y, and not his body, in Episode 5, was a clue in the script that SJ hadn’t transformed into the NPC SeJoo yet.
So it amused me that JinWoo finally caught on to what we already figured out. In Episode 9, he also concluded that the absence of SJ’s dead body meant that Marco hadn’t killed him in a duel and he was alive somewhere.
Bravo, JinWoo. lol.
However, I think he erred in thinking that SeJoo saw the dead body of Marco in Barcelona.
You see, Marco’s body was found in the woods near Granada, not Barcelona.
Based on the deaths of HyungSik and Sec Seo, the users’ dead body didn’t travel far from where it was killed.
For instance, HS died on the park bench and his body was found on the same park bench the following morning. JW last saw Sec Seo fending off his NPC attackers at the Granada train station, and his body was also found near the train station.
Marco’s body was located in the woods near Granada two months after his disappearance. Of course, it was possible that he was killed in Barcelona and his body was moved and dumped in Granada sometime afterward. It would take time to discover his corpse probably because the area wasn’t frequented. But SeJoo himself didn’t move that body.
The LATEST estimated time of death of Marco was a few minutes before 8AM on the tragic day because based on what we know of deaths of HyunSik and Sec Seo, their NPC versions appeared in the game AFTER they were confirmed dead in real life.
When SeJoo’s train rolled into the train station and the NPC Marco showed up outside his train door, Marco was definitely dead in real-time.
See the conundrum here?
If Sejoo killed Marco, then the murder must have occurred before he boarded the train in Barcelona. But if he killed Marco in Barcelona, then the corpse couldn’t have been found in the woods outside Granada.
Sejoo wasn’t Marco’s killer. And he couldn’t have seen his dead body in the woods in Granada as JinWoo speculated.
So the follow-up question is did HyunSik order Marco to be killed?
I don’t think so. Remember the sequence of events:
JinWoo failed to catch SeJoo disembarking from the 8am Granada train. Instead, he met his ex-wife SooJi who disclosed that she and HyunSuk had been in Granada since the day before.
Agitated that HyunSuk could have beaten him in acquiring the program, JinWoo put on his special AR lenses and discovered that another “user” logged on. He immediately set off to find this “new” user and it turned out to be HyunSuk. They were going to duel but JinWoo cried off at the last instance.
After he left, HS called up his minions to blast them. “What’s going on? JW was in the game. Why are you asking me? You idiot! Damn it. Listen. It seems like the boy contacted him too so find out if they agreed on anything.”
He didn’t know that JinWoo was also involved. His minions then went back to Barcelona to search for Marco. That night, his head henchman reported that they’d broken into Marco’s place but couldn’t find him. Marco’s cellphone was off and he hadn’t been home for some time. His henchman said, “It seems like a little traitor,” and HyungSik replied, “Be more certain, you little shit. Who are you referring to? Who was betrayed? Was it us or Marco?” And his henchman answered, “I’m not sure, sir. We only dealt with Marco and have no info on the other guy.”
This phone call with his minion was interrupted by JinWoo’s phone call. The time then was 10:06pm.
JinWoo summoned him to the park continue their duel. After winning the duel, JW called up Seoul to brag about destroying HyunSuk. The time in Seoul was 6am or 11pm in Granada. The duel didn’t even last longer than an hour.
All this time, HyunSuk couldn’t have ordered Marco killed because 1) his people didn’t know where he was and 2) Marco was already dead. He showed up as an NPC Marco to SeJoo at 8am that morning.
finally had time to catch up on episode 9 & 10 after the guests from yesterday left and ..
“I think he erred in thinking that SeJoo saw the dead body of Marco in Barcelona.” – I need to check back on some scenes but I don’t think he thought SeJoo saw the body of Marco in Barcelona. I kinda remember that after they got HS interested in trying out the game they all left from Barcelona to Granada. Marco died in Granada (was found dead there) then came back to Barcelona (not sure why) where he phoned JW and got back on a train to Granada after seeing he’s being chased by NPC Marco.
From the subs of episode 8 (Happy New Year also):
Ep 08
“00:07:02
Marco: Pack a bag. We’re heading to Granada.
[…]
Secretary: They all left a day before you went to Granada.
Mr. Cha, Jung Se-ju, and Marco all went to Granada.
JinWoo:
Se-ju called me from the Barcelona train station.
For some reason, he went back to Barcelona alone and disappeared on his way back.”
It’s in Episode 9 at 11:29.
They were in the forest and SJ searched his pockets for the paper with JW’s contact info. Then he started running in the woods. Then he was back in Marco’s druggie alley and entering Marco’s room. He began typing on Marco’s computer and sent JinWoo the program.
Thunderstorm and the guitar music and NPC Marco appeared in the room. Shooting. And SJ ran out of the Marco’s room. And went to the Barcelona train station where he took the train to Granada.
Marco was based in Barcelona. He met with HS and told him to go Granada so he could try out the game himself.
But he also called SJ to Barcelona to meet with him. SJ was waiting for Marco’s phone call in Marco’s room when Marco updated him about his successful “meeting” with HS and warned him about telling his grandma and unnie about the deal.
Yes, it’s because Marco was based in Barcelona. He called SJ to meet up with him there. (And probably to get the program flashdrive from him if SJ was the programmer.)
But once they’re there, he alone met with HyunSik about selling the software game. When he left the meeting, he called up to update SeJoo who was waiting for him in his apartment.
That’s why he said, “Pack a bag. We’re heading to Granada.” For SJ, he was actually RETURNING to Granada. (I’ve to check when he actually left Granada to go to Barcelona… three? four days? before JinWoo arrived?)
And no, that mysterious “A” was lying/misreported when he said that “They all left a day before you (meaning JinWoo) went to Granada.”
Because the fact is SeJu was delayed. He didn’t leave for Granada till 11pm after he called up JW at the station. He’d been delayed. From ~11:30pm to 8am, he was on the night train from Barcelona to Granada.
Also, I’m not quite sure if Mr Cha DID leave in the morning, too. Because remember when JinWoo was calling “A” on the phone? It was around 11:30pm. We were shown a scene of Cha being driven around Barcelona (he passed the Barcelona Arch) at nighttime. This is in Episode 1. I had thought that Cha was eavesdropping on the phone conversation of “A” and JinWoo…but maybe the director had another reason for showing that brief image.
According to the ex-wife, they’ve been in Granada for a day, but who knows… she could be lying to hide something.
The scenario JW imagined about what happened to SeJoo makes sense (it was so cool you spotted SeJoo’s body on the platform not flickering, I missed that). Marco was killed in Granada after going back there with Mr. Cha.
But even if true, it’s surely not the whole story. Something must have happened there to also get SeJoo to think that Mr. Cha is a bad guy. SeJoo tells JinWoo on the phone in episode 1: “I hate to sell it to that guy (HS) but I have to decide until tomorrow”
Plus what I find a bit fishy with JW’s scenario is .. would SeJoo still want to sell the game after realising the people you kill in a duel in game actually die in real life?
But if SeJoo didn’t kill Marco why would NPC Marco come after him? Do other players who are your enemies come after you as NPCs in game if they are killed by a third person? Or only if you kill them in a duel?
Also if HS had killed him he wouldn’t have been so peaceful when JW met him and asked him to duel, no? Not if he had known what duels meant. It could make sense if he didn’t know, if he defeated Marco in a duel and left without seeing the outcome and not enough time passed for NPC Marco to spawn and try to kill him. But it feels like a stretch.. because 1-2 days did pass.
The scenario JW imagines is pretty believable with what we have, I think. I don’t really buy it only because it’s a drama.. and they made a point of saying this was JW’s delusional interpretation. The writer is telling me to take this with a grain of salt. So I am.
oh, the things you notice! The scene with HS in Barcelona when JW talked to “A” (that dude looked suspicious to me from the first moment I saw him somehow, you’re right about not trusting on the info he relays, I almost forgot about him)
See? I can’t figure A out, too. He looks suspicious BUT at the same time, he was the one who told JW that the way to buy the program was to get ownership of Hostal Bonita.
So I don’t know who he’s working for. lol.