@growing_beautifully, I’ll answer this one first because people are getting confused about this two worlds and time-loop.
I say that there are only TWO parallel worlds. As of Episode 2, there’s NO evidence that there’s more than two.
This is what you wrote. But forget it for now. 🙂 The ID does NOT work that way.
More Universes: One prop that gets me thinking that there’s more than 1 parallel universe is the Police ID card(s) of JTE. One has her of her hair up and the other of her hair down and both are issued on the same date. So unless she loses her card and gets another issue with another photo, it is possible that another parallel LG (call him LG3) came back with another JTE’s (JTE3) card to save the current LG.
In the KOC, OCL could not find out what the card was and JTE did not exist there under that name. Therefore there might be a 3rd parallel universe.
Here’s the simple math. Please bear with me. It’s really not complicated; you’ll get this.
Adult Lee Gon = LG
Young Crown Prince Lee Gon = CP
The Lee Gon who went back in time to rescue the Crown Prince = (LG – 1) or LG minus 1.
When (LG – 1) went back in time in 1994, he brought this old (ID –
1):
However, when the current LG arrives in Seoul, he sees her like this.
With her hair down. But he notices that she likes to put her hair up.
Here:
And here:
THAT’s how he knows that this is the same girl as the one in the (ID – 1) he got from (LG – 1).
Do you follow me?
Now when this current LG goes back in time to 1994, he’s going to bring back a new (ID).
This one. The one that CURRENT TaeEul wear, showing her with long hair.
Do you get it now?
LG CANNOT bring back (ID – 1) because that old ID is back in the palace, hidden in his “Alice in Wonderland” book.
That old ID is from a previous lifetime. It belongs to a different TaeEul…to the TaeEul whom (LG – 1) met in a previous lifetime.
Do you see why the IDs have to be different?
When this current LG goes back in time to rescue the young Crown Prince (CP + 1), he will leave this ID with the child.
This ID, the one with the long hair.
And NOT THIS ONE: the one with the hair tied back. This ID was already brought over by (LG – 1).
Now this new Crown Prince (CP + 1) will grow up.
He’ll become (LG + 1) and look for the girl in the picture. But instead of seeing the girl with the long hair, he’ll meet a new TaeEul, a TaeEul with the blonde hair.
He’ll get her new (ID + 1), travel back in time and rescue a new Crown Prince (CP + 2).
This (LG + 1) will leave another (ID + 1) with the crown prince. This time, it’s an ID with a girl with blonde hair.
Now, let’s repeat the story again.
This (CP + 2) will grow up.
He’ll become (LG + 2) and look for the girl in the picture with the blonde hair. But gasp! instead of running into the girl with blonde hair, he’ll see a TaeEul with red hair in braids.
He’ll get her tag (ID + 2), travel back in time and rescue another Crown Prince (CP + 3).
This (LG + 2) will leave the (ID + 2) with this young (CP + 3). The tag he’ll leave will show a girl with red hair.
Do you get it now?
Each ID has to be different because it belongs to a different time, to a different TaeEul.
That’s why I say there are only two worlds: The Kingdom of Corea and the Republic of Korea. He’s just travelling between two worlds but the time is different.
But do you understand why he’s the Eternal King?
Because this can go on forever and ever. He’s stuck in a loop.
(Well, they ALL are stuck in a loop. Unless this is all happening in his dream, in which case, he can just wake up. lol. I’ll have to explain that too in my First Impression post, right? The King’s Dream. But I won’t talk about it now because it’ll just confuse readers. 🙂
As I said in my First Impressions, who knows how long he’s been doing this? From what I gather from the Old Court Lady, everything here has been done before. He just doesn’t know it.
Then it must be me who will get tired with LG running in the circle of time 🥴🥴🤣🤣
The Id-1 and the Id in Seoul we’re not issued on the same date I think. The one TaeEul has in Seoul issued in the past. The Id-1 issued in their future. She might be due to get a new one? In Nov 19 which hasn’t happened yet in Seoul. It’s october…? Am I wrong?
I think, FOR NOW, the issue date is irrelevant. The main point of the ID for now is to find the girl. And Lee Gon did.
One thing at a time @smarie. 🙂 Focus now.
You have to wait for KES to reveal the story. She cannot dump all the info onto her viewers in the first. As it is, many of them are confused. They still think the savior is TaeEul. lol.
I can only explain what SHE has already shown to us. But you’re ahead of most viewers when it comes to understanding the plot.
All in good time.
My guess is, there’s going to be only two loop-backs.
Just like in Goblin. There’s what? Two separations?? One when Goblin died. Then another one when EunTak died.
So I expect the same thing here.
KES can’t do three separations…not enough episodes. 🙂
It could be like you say or it could be that TaeEul gets a new ID on November 11 or whatever that date was (with her hair up – maybe doing it exactly like that because of LG), LG takes it to the past, leaves it to his younger self, the kid grows up, goes to RoK, meets TaeEul knowing she will get a new ID on November 11. She does, he takes it to the past and the cycle goes on and on and on without anything changing.
Somehow for LG it’s important to give that ID to his younger self, only to give him something to live for or probably also to give him reason to want to find her/love her/whatever.
Anyway, time travel paradoxes are fun. Lets see how KES is writing this.
That works too.
The face on the ID is not *as* important as that fact that he brings home a new ID each time he loops back.
ID – 1
ID
ID + 1
ID + 2
ID + 3
ID + 4
And so on.
For me it would be a very depressing love story if all the TaeEuls he’s ever met and he’ll ever meet for an eternity, had no distinguishing feature and just blended in. Each “love of one’s life” should be one of its kind, not a duplicate, because we’re individuals, not a group collective.
But that’s my opinion. Who knows where KES is going with this. It’s only Ep 2. 😂
But as I said, we have no worries. We’re ahead of the curve. Other viewers are still lost in this. 😂
Heh! @pkml3, Yup. Taking it as just 2 universes and endless loops with different Tae Euls works too. It’s a relief actually, not sure I want to cope with understanding the logic of multiple universes competing for attention!
Taking your CP = Child LG / Crown Prince
So ironically what this means is that LG1 never actually saves his exact self (ie never saves CP1… CP1 was saved by LG-1). It’s never the himself/same LG that he returns to in the past, but the next child LG ie CP2. So what we are waiting to see is what happens to LG1 after he saves CP2. He should not exist in the same universe as CP2, so does he die OR does he return to his own time and universe OR does he end up in TAe Eul’s time and universe OR even end up in another time where he did not yet exist (unlikely though). This we wait to find out.
👀👀👀
He’ll become (LG + 1) and look for the girl in the picture. But instead of seeing the girl with the long hair, he’ll meet a new TaeEul, a TaeEul with the blonde hair.
He’ll get her new (ID + 1), travel back in time and rescue a new Crown Prince (CP + 2).
This (LG + 1) will leave another (ID + 1) with the crown prince. This time, it’s an ID with a girl with blonde hair.
Now, let’s repeat the story again.
This (CP + 2) will grow up.
Sam Raimi Toomanygifs Maybe Idkw/E GIF by Maudit – Find & Share on …
He’ll become (LG + 2) and look for the girl in the picture with the blonde hair. But gasp! instead of running into the girl with blonde hair, he’ll see a TaeEul with red hair in braids.
He’ll get her tag (ID + 2), travel back in time and rescue another Crown Prince (CP + 3).
This (LG + 2) will leave the (ID + 2) with this young (CP + 3). The tag he’ll leave will show a girl with red hair.
—-
Didn’t get this. 😅😅 How would he get out of this infinite loop then?
My guess is, there’s going to be only two loop-backs.
Just like in Goblin. There’s what? Two separations?? One when Goblin died. Then another one when EunTak died.
So I expect the same thing here.
KES can’t do three separations…not enough episodes. 🙂
—-
Ah okay this makes sense.
I feel like there should be an important backstory behind two different pictures in the ID card. But one thing for sure, like you said, the person who went back to the past is a guy, it’S either LG or that detective friend of JTE.
No, can’t be detective friend who went back. Too short. 🤣
Ah really? I will check again. Re-watching episode 1. 😀
How will he get out of the infinite loop??
That’s the story right there, nearsea. That’s the story.
I told somebody here that I believe “The King” starts off where “Goblin” ended. With Goblin, he was still stuck waiting for his bride unless you believe that Euntak left that reincarnation business and went to Christian heaven where there is NO more rebirth cycle.
I wrote about in “First Impressions” how the savior has to be LG. He’s the only tall one there. He used one of the bad guys as a shield/body armor and he was taller than the bad guy.
The ID kept in the Alice book looks the same as the one Tae-eul is wearing at the interrogation in 2020. You’re saying they’re not the same?
Send me screenshot and I’ll check. Thanks.
I’m busy right now with Hospital Playbook.
@scout and @pkml3 It’s true! Nice catch @scout!! Episode 1, 1 minute 48 seconds into the show, there’s a shot (unfortunately not close up) of JTE with her ID card and the photo looks like her hair is tied back.
Based on the scar on Lee Lim’s hand, this is way after he first came to ROK. But once again he is bloodied. Perhaps he had just returned from time travelling to 1994 and from yet another bloodbath at the palace.
If according to our theory that it’s always a later version of the person who goes back to past KOC, then this is another Lee Lim (Lim2?), and as for JTE and Policeman Kang, we are also seeing the different versions of them (JTE2 and Kang2)! So the very first scenes in the first episode are already showing us the future selves of 3 of the characters!!!
It’s all conjecture still but mind boggling!
I really didn’t pay attention to that picture on the Id card. But I wondered why the heroine insisted so often on tying her hair up… That’s a good point. But I shouldn’t read your articles, because I feel like I’m reading spoilers!
It’s looking more and more like a script in the style of “Primer”. ^^
Just a few quick thoughts, to get a headache…
If it’s LG saving himself, there are these possibilities:
– If he goes back in time, normally he would meet himself (his previous iteration) trying to save the 5 year old LG. This is the “accumulation” and “rewriting of the time frame” hypothesis. The rescuers will accumulate, they will become an infinite army if nothing is done to stop this insane thing. It’s the “Primer” way of time travel, in the same time frame, but without paradox.
– The other hypothesis is the conjunction: when he comes back in time, he replaces the previous iteration of the Saviour (with a new Id card). This seems to simplify things at first, but in fact it is the kind of hypothesis that creates paradoxes.
– Finally, last hypothesis: going back in time creates a parallel universe, with a new timeline. So there is no overwriting or accumulation as in the first hypothesis. Just an infinite number of parallel universes created, as many time loops of LG.
However, in any case, the savior escapes the loop, once his mission is fulfilled.
So the savior will continue his life from the moment LG is 5 years old, after having fulfilled his mission. He will be about 50 years old, when he will see his other one himself coming back in time. Normally, he should continue to live outside the time loop. Here, there is still a bug in the case of hypothesis #2. A paradox. Since the loop always produces significantly different versions of the savior (mostly because he gets a different Id card each time), how can these versions get stuck in the one that continues his life?
Of course, this could be actualized in his memory: an infinite accumulation of significantly different versions. Normally, if I wrote history using this hypothesis: his brain would explode. It would be his immediate death.
For a time travel story, that’s why I think the second hypothesis is not valid (the conjunction), but it’s often the solution chosen by screenwriters.
But there is a solution that fixes everything: what will the savior do at the age of 50? He’s going to see himself, and tell the LG of the drama: no need to go back in time, because I already saved you (the previous iteration). So there’s going to be two LGs. The one who will be able to continue to live normally (without having to go back in time), and the other, older, who took care of the job. Theoretically, the time loop takes place only once. As a result, the King is no longer eternal. Or maybe there’s another meaning.
Another way: the savior dies once his mission is completed. Perhaps he was mortally wounded in the process. The King is both eternal, but at the same time condemned to die as soon as the loop is renewed. That’s good for a tragic end.
I don’t know about the “stuck in a loop” idea. There is obv a loop at the moment but I don’t think they will be stuck in it. I think it’s more likely the king (Lmh) will get his hands on the other part of the flute. That will give him the power to time travel back to defeat his enemies. The story line I see happening is that he will have a choice. He can go back and save himself/ himself and his father but if he changes anything then he’ll forget all about TE. Oh no! What will he do etc? Of course he will forget (ep14 or so). She will remember but he won’t. That’s what I would do with the story anyway. Hope writer is better plotter than me!!
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