Updated 6/16/2020 6/18/2020.
Thanks, JT7!! -pm3
These are JT7’s revised final Timeline Notes. Please give credit to JT7 when copying them. 🙂
The King_ Eternal Monarch – Sheet1-3
Movement with half a flute:
credit: JT7
Lee Lim’s movements:
credit: JT7
Movement with whole flute:
credit: JT7
Lee Gon’s movement:
credit: JT7
Eternity and Infinity:
credit: JT7
Movement after Lee Lim’s Death:
credit: JT7
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I’m reposting JT7’s Timeline Notes here for easy reference. Thanks for sharing your work, JT7! You’re awesome.
I’m also attaching the link to Rahrah’s Notes on Frozen Time, too.
The King: Rahrah’s Frozen Times
Thanks!
pm3
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link: The King_ Eternal Monarch – Sheet1
These are JT7’s notes.
Just wanted to note some observations after working through the details:
1. All the time stops correspond to LG or LL crossing the portal in ONE direction (as in, either going from KOC -> ROK, or ROK -> KOC.). However there are 2 exceptions (highlighted in pink in the table):
a. Time stop 3 (25s): LG gets TE’s car after meeting her in the park, & drives to the bamboo forest alone. He sees the portal, confirming that the flute is needed to open the portal, but he does not cross.
b. Time stop 8 (361s): This is when TE supposedly returns to ROK after visiting KOC for the first time. The natural assumption would be that this trip has to be bi-directional, since whoever sends TE across to ROK has to return back to KOC.2. I am assuming these 2 exceptions still fit neatly into the whole scheme of things (ie, there must be a simple & beautiful solution). Which means, what causes the time stops isn’t about crossing the portal in one direction, because these 2 instances deviate from that rule. I think a more likely explanation is that the time stops are caused by the opening of the portal, rather than the crossing of it. This will help to explain time stop #3, where the portal is opened, but LG doesn’t make a crossing.
3. Going by that idea, it helps to explain time stop #8. The portal is only opened once, but LG (whom I think is most likely to have escorted TE) crosses twice, KOC->ROK to drop TE off, then returns back to KOC immediately after since he needs to rush for his battle with Japan. So even though its a double crossing, it still fits neatly into one time stop since the portal was only opened once.
(Side note: This idea made me super happy, because I am admittedly a shallow-islander. :p When I watched the episode initially I was horrified because what! you kiss the girl, declare you are dating, then dump her to cross the portal alone? It didn’t make sense, plus how does she cross without the flute?
When LG mentioned he wouldn’t be able to see TE off, I initially thought he would get JY to escort her, because there doesn’t seem to be anyone else he would trust to do so. But he definitely did not ask JY since JY saw the portal for the first time when he crossed to ROK later on. So it probably would have been LG himself bringing TE across, leaving her in the bamboo forest, then rushing back to go to battle. I mean, if he has enough time to go to NMland for TE to plant seeds, I am sure he has time to cross the portal with TE. Perhaps what he means is that he was unable to see her off properly, as in all the way to her door, but had to leave her in the bamboo forest.)
4. Deja vu events: All these occur when the portal has been opened/crossed, so they might be taken as an indicator that the portal is open/crossed. Also, I noticed that in 4 out of the 5 events, the person who experienced the event “meets” with someone coming from the other world shortly after:
-After TE sees Luna in her rearview mirror, she meets LG for the first time.
-JY drops his coffee, then LG returns from ROK
– PM Koo sees her double’s reflection, then soon after receives the newspaper with her double’s face
– Nari sees ES & Seung A, and soon after PM Koo visits her cafe.For the 5th event (LL henchman in the hospital), I am wondering if him meeting ES, or TE (when she visits ES) might be the thing that keeps the pattern, maybe I am just reading too much into it lol.
Another thing I found interesting is that time stop #16 seems to be when LL brings both Luna and PM Koo over to ROK. At least, that seems to be the only way we can fit all the events in neatly to coincide with the time stops.. and while time freezing is not shown, this is the only time when 2 deja vu events occur. So perhaps 2 deja vu events happened, because there were 2 people brought across by LL?
5. The only anomaly I found in the whole pattern is the time stop where LG throws the ring & walks away from sub captain Seok. The show clearly indicates the time taken was 3481s, so I placed it at time stop #17. But if you review the scenes & their sequence, this time stop seems to fit much better at #16, because LG finds out that PM Koo is MIA directly after this. But I guess this is of little consequence, I am still very mind-blown by how KES has been thorough in tying all the little details together! I really really hope she manages to wrap up everything nicely in the remaining 4 episodes.
I’m puzzled when LG said he went in to check the land between 0 and 1, hence the many balloons frozen in space there (Eun Seop took 1 balloon out though😂). It means LG opened up the portal in KOC and returned to his palace, multiple times. But those moments do not register with our time stops, right? We need to leave the 3rd ‘time-stop’ as blank because opening up the portal without anyone crossing to the other world seems impossible to be part of the P^2 sequence. Make sense?😅😅
@JT7, your timeline is easier to read!❤
How amazing to read all your posts and how all the brains hooked in TKEM could decipher the most relevant pieces of information!
I remember it’s @packmule3 who wrote that she believes the No Man’s Land where the many balloons are placed is located near the racetrack. While most viewers guessed that the NML is located in between ROK and KOC, If pm3’s theory is correct, it’s possible that LG tried to open the portal from KOC many times without crossing the portal. Therefore there’s no register of the time stops. Just for experiment sake and that he would tell JTE at the right time everything about whatever is it that he will discover. LG’s brain is so used to calculating as many times as possible to open the portal in NML just so that he could crossed faster to JTE’s world. IDK if my wild guess makes sense. He has not arrived with a beautiful solution regarding frozen times.
I want to know in the final 4 episodes if LG’s beautiful solution is indeed beautiful!
Only one episode this week 🙁
@rahrah it’s thanks to you, you were the one who managed to get the events to fit in!
@Eureka yes I think @pm3 wrote a post on it being separate, so this would fit in with the current time stops. There’s still so many questions left to be answered, I really hope they can give us that beautiful solution!
@pm3: Thanks for reposting, I think you filed this under “Hospital playlist”?
First time commented here. Feel so tiny miny….this blog gives the vibes of smart people voice out their opinion
I am rewatching all episodes of TKEM and I noticed that when TE and LG met for the first time, Nari’s hair was short…. she also has a short hair when TE came back from the KOC for the first time… but when she told JY about the deja vu of seeing herself with a short hair with JY doppleganger she has a long hair and all the other scenes… so it just means that all the events are jumbled up. Because Nari should have long hair first then cut it right? I am so puzzled I can’t formulate a nice way to ask these things lol
I am really curious on how Lee Gon and Tae Eul could meet in the first place? Is it because of the destiny? Or is it a loop?
@pkml3 @JT7 @Rahrah I realised that I read this but did not comment. Thanks for the hours of analyses and work that you put into this. I kinda wish we knew if KES knows how much effort we’ve put into her show and how much we appreciate her work. I feel her ideas and amazing creative mind are great, just that the execution let the show down . So many more viewers could have appreciated the story and the message she wanted to share, if only it hadn’t been put together in a way that was inaccessible to so many. While I believe it’s good to have to work to get an appreciation for the fruit of the labour, I’m thinking that for something that is meant to entice and entertain, one should not have to work too hard, over and again.
Making the ride of this show as much fun as it has been, was possible because of hard working viewers like you. Thanks a whole bunch!
@packmule: I just realized that I missed out one time stop! ARGH! I’ve edited the table and resent you the final final version.
Deja vu events happen at time stops 1, 4, 9, 16 (squares of 1, 2, 3, 4). There should be in total 36 time stops (square of 6). Fits in nicely with the idea that LG’s solution to his root symbol problem is 2 (이), he needs to add a 2 (as a superscript), to square the number to release it.
@GB yes I agree with you, the ideas and plot was great, but the execution was lacking, which is a pity. This show has made us work a lot harder than it should to tease out its complexities, and like you said, it was definitely more fun having this community to go along for the roller coaster ride!
Thanks, JT7.
Will check my emails when I get home and replace them.
@Packmule3 and @JT7, please check email. Thanks!
Lovely, helpful charts, @JT7.
@Fairyprincess About Na Ri’s hair length. She had longer hair in ROK. There was at least 1 time she tried on a wig in a shorter hair length to see how it would look. At times she tied her hair up. Recently I’ve been fooled by people wearing hair extensions, 😟 😳 which made them look like they have long hair when they might not. So it’s hard to tell about the sequence of events just by looking at hair length!! 🤔 😃
@Maine About LG’s and TE’s first meeting. It was ‘fated’.
I believe we have to consider that Yoyo Fate in child mode, was the one who got TE to lose her ID Card. Fate ensured that LG would be looking for TE based on that Card. Therefore it stands to reason that when the portals opened for LG, Fate would ensure that the first person he ‘recognised’ was the one he had been looking for, ie the one that Fate had chosen to restore the balance.
In TE’s voiceover, (after she received her new ID Card, when she looked back on what had happened), tells us that she realised she had been chosen by Fate to restore the balance.
Dear @GB you really are The Dependable Fairy of Answers! Thank you for your answers!
I had a somewhat similar question as @Maine at the back of my head about why must it be that ID card that started it all. Especially so when the ID didnt exit anymore in their latest timeline as LG was no longer wearing the dark sports wear and no ID tag with him in his long coat.
So what you said made complete sense. Fate decided upon TE to be the “balancer” because she’s BRAVE and if I remember correctly she was asked by Fate boy a few times that he could fish it out for her but she said no (her choice by her own free will) and the rest is history!
So Fate and Divine Intervention was there all along to guide them to get rid of that Traitor LL who had no respect for God.
@JT7 I came back in to try finishing reading your detailed reports. It must have been such hard work gathering all the points. Thank you so much for doing it!
I must say I still find it difficult to understand but that’s because I failed maths big time so analysis charts and graphs are my nemesis😳
@Carolstar you’re very welcome. I just hope my answers are correct (according to my faulty memory! I trust that if I’m leading anyone wrong, @pkml3 will sound us out on it. LOL) And yes, I do remember that Yoyo Boy/Girl did ask TE if he/she could help to retrieve the ID Card, but as I said before, TE was strangely fatalistic about it. Still Fate did not immediately walk away, but waited for TE’s clear decision.
From my notes:
Only after TE said it was OK 3 times, did Fate leave.
TE said there was no point in retrieving her ID Card … her promotion etc was all gone. In a sense, this probably came to pass, because if she spent every weekend out of town, she’d reject all those crimes that required overnighters on weekends… she’d never get propmoted LOL!
@Carolstar
The other point that we now know from hindsight for sure, and yes, @pkml3 did also mention it as situations being fated so that there were no actual coincidences … We see that as LG travels through the portals, he is led to specific times and places when the flute was whole, thus he was able to ‘meet’ young and adult SH, etc. I believe Fate still played a role in these.
Although a half flute did not allow him movement through time as in spanning the years, it’s entirely possible that it brought him to the right place in ROK and at the right moment in 2020 so that he would meet TE at Gwanghwamun. Fate had to do his/her part!
I just discovered your blog quite recently and I’m so bummed I didn’t discover it sooner! Would have been nice to participate in the discussions while the show was airing. On the other hand, now I have tons of The King posts to read through, so at least that will help me with my withdrawal.
I have one question regarding the timeline and this has been troubling me since the finale. When did the last scene in Episode 10 happen exactly? I still have a difficult time comprehending how that scene could have possibly occurred, given what we know about time travel in Episodes 15 and 16.
Thanks!
@melone, welcome to BoD. Congrats on hitting the big plot hole. LOL. At least, I’m the one who is thinking of this as the big plot hole. @pkml3 can come and give us her take on it. It’s been fun teasing it out. Try and see if it makes sense.
Let’s look again at that scene:
My understanding of the timelines is that the main fated events stay the same, but the ‘smaller’ events that do not upset Fate or the balance of the worlds can change, depending on what is introduced into the history. Therefore Fate could play out different timelines with different endings/alternative futures. So TE was fated to receive flowers from LG dressed in ceremonial robes, but this could happen either in the timeline before he killed LL or in an alternative timeline after he killed LL.
We know that the LG that we are following ie LG1 went back in time at least twice and came forward to 2020 at least once. In order to time travel, he would have required the whole flute.
That scene of LG from the future (for simplicity we call him LG2) coming to TE to give her the flowers can only be possible if either:
1) he entered the portal at the same time that LL did so that both halves of the flute were in No Man’s Land, or
2) he had managed to gain the whole flute or
3) this was LG from another timeline (LG2) who had found another way to time travel, using the frozen moments of time, but who could only do so for limited stretches of time. In a show like this, anything is possible!!
So the plot hole is this. In order for this scene to make sense, I choose to go with option (3) but this option has never been shown to us to be possible. I also have as my premise that alternative timelines with differences could be playing out simultaneously, which again, the show sort of allows but does not overtly mention.
Why not option (1) since LL and LG are enemies, LL is not likely to help him out by coinciding his time with LG’s in the No Man’s Land to enable LG’s time travel. Anyway, Fate had said that if they entered the NMLand at the same time, they would be transported to a time of Fate’s choosing ie 1994 just before the treason that would bring chaos to the world, and when they would save themselves.
(1) where it was not by arrangement, but by chance that LL and LG are in NMLand at the same time, is even more unlikely. LG wouldn’t have had the chance to have flowers with him, never knowing yet, at that time, that he could time travel, let alone when LL would be in NML.
If (2) then there was no reason for LG to say that he had to go as soon as he gave TE the flowers. If he had the whole flute at his disposal, he’d have suggested taking her for a long trip to other times and worlds. He also would not have looked so somber.
So plot hole or not, (3) seems the most workable. LG had discovered that he could time travel, in the frozen moments of time, but with restrictions, like maybe only for as long as the time freeze lasted. Like the show, Your From Another Star where our alien kept disappearing from time to time after he returned from across galaxies, so too LG could manage time travel for short spurts.
@pkml3… you mentioned something of this before, … good boyfriend alert here as well!!
LG thought about how he’d never even given TE flowers. He had just enough time to bring her the flowers and then return to his own time. In the same way that he rode like crazy to ROK just to make a phone call to TE, because he missed her voice, he traveled across time to when he knew she’d have been waiting for him for some time (weeks? months? maybe even years since we don’t know how long it took LG2 to figure out time travel) to give her the flowers.
As to when it happened, it would have been the time before he went back to 1994 and killed LL, assuming that LG2 did manage to kill him. The reason it’s not after is because he’d surely have told her if he’d succeeded and he’d have been cheerful. He didn’t and wasn’t.
He’d been dressed to kill LOL. It was to be a glorious moment when he ended chaos in the worlds, so he dressed for it, but he thought of TE first. He did not know how his fight against LL would turn out, and just in case he died, he did not want TE to miss out on getting flowers from her boyfriend. So he traversed time and space, crossing the universe, to give her the flowers. So @pkml3… that makes him even as LG2 or whoever, one of the most swoonworthy boyfriends ever!
Another reason I feel this is LG2 on a different timeline and not LG1: he assumed that she would recognise him and that her memories were intact. IE LG2 had not yet gone to the past to change history. This trip was in a different sequence of events from what LG1 did.
However, this timeline with LG2, in the end did not come about. When the flowers disappeared, TE feared the worst, ie that he had gone back to 1994 and died there. But it could also mean that enough change had entered LG1’s plans and life so that his timeline did not become the same as LG2’s but rather the possible alternative timeline of LG2, merged with LG1’s.
In LG1’s timeline, he did not discover any other way to time travel. He also looked for TE with flowers, but that was after he’d returned from 1994, and not before. In LG1’s timeline, he did not expect that she would remember him.
He had changed enough of history that all their previous history had been wiped out in their new timeline, but they recalled it in their memories. In the same way TE had been given a memory from the future (maybe Fate had a hand) whose disappearing flowers had galvanised her into action to kill LL in NML. By so doing, she had taken on her role as Queen beside LG. TE has the privilege of being the only one to have the memories of the past and future alternative timelines.
Anyway, I understand completely the question about the ending scene of Ep 10. It did not fit in the timeline that we were following. Hopefully this fun plot hole explanation does a little better!!!
@GB, I’m re-posting this on the blog so it can have its own thread and people can comment. Thanks. 🙂
Thanks @pkml3. You are up already! I’m wondering if it was wise to play with the idea, but nevermind. As usual I wanted to see how far it would go. On its own thread, it can have a life of its own.
@melone: That was a good question! I tried answering you over on the new post on this. 🙂
@GB: I agree with @carolstar, you are our dependable answer fairy! Thank you!
@carolstar: If you can drop me an email over at makingmum (at) gmail (dot) com, I can send you my explanatory notes to go with those space time graphs. I find graphs do help to make things much clearer.
The timestops table is just to allow us to see if there are any notable trends or patterns. I’ve omitted most details/events in between the timestops, but @Welmaris has done a very detailed timeline in case you need to fill in more details: https://bitchesoverdramas.com/2020/06/04/the-king-welmaris-frozen-time-recap/
@GB You are so right! 🤣🤣
That cryptic dialogue which TE was rambling on about her performance assessment and not getting her promotion was off tangent for me then because why would losing a ID tag cause you losing out your promotion?!
But of course like you aptly pointed out if she had weekends getaways every weekend she definitely won’t go far in the police ranks🤣🤣 so it was a hint/clue too of the future to be for TE!
This TKEM really needs 3 rounds of rewatching to finally get the gist of all those cryptic dialogues and scenes with notes from @packmule3 and yours @GB @JT7 @Welmaris @Rahah and all the vital informers (am sorry I can’t remember all the contributors names) to fully appreciate it’s subtleties.
Talking about plotholes and minor incidences (I will give my take on blue flower scene over at the new thread that @Packmuke3 posted up 🙂 later)
Would you happen to know if the species of that flower was named somewhere in this expanding chats and posts? And also was there an answer to the fleeting Luna in black rabbit jacket that LG saw ? I think someone said it was to show where the portal is. How would Luna know where the portal is? LG’s portal and LL’s are in two different parts of the bamboo forest. The beach with vertical lights appears when LG crosses over his portal in the bamboo forest. That’s my thinking. And it was also connected to their own respective NMLand when the flute was halved.
But I also read here somewhere that there was another portal which LG found (the beach) but we never saw LG finding it did we? And if there were two portals then LL should have had two portals too as the flute was still halved till the last episode. Have I thrown myself down the bottomless rabbit hole with my dismal confusion ?
I dare to ask you because your recapping of time places and events is astounding and you have been so kindly answering everyone’s doubts and queries always. That’s why you have been my dependable Fairy of Answers! Am afraid @packmule3 would think me silly for bringing up old news if they were answered but I couldn’t find it nor comprehend it if someone had already answered them.
I think a separate thread on portals would be helpful for silly goats like me.
Thank you in advance may I give you cookies 🍪🍩🍪🍩 and 🍵 or these🍹🥂🍸🍶 might be your preferences?😉
Heh @Carolstar.. going backwards on your post.
Actually I leave those with a better memory and clearer understanding to answer the queries. Just sometimes some questions ‘tickle’ my fancy and I get embroiled in them LOL.
About NMLand – Some of us believed that the sequence of shots was confusing and that while NMLand was shown to us after LG and TE first exited the portal in KOC, that actually it was the space between the portals. The sequence, we felt, was wrong.
This was disputed because the exiting from the portals was shown, then the race track was shown and then the NMLand was first shown to us. So we wondered if there was another entrance to NML. We did however agree that it was a space that could be traversed to reach the other universe. Now that the show is ended, it seems that the portals are the only known/shown entrances/exits to and from NML.
The whole flute offered only 1 portal with red lights and space-time travel. The half flute offered a different smaller portal each with green lights and with only space travel in the same timeline.
White Rabbit Luna – Another chicken and egg conundrum.
Did Luna always run that way, always pickup that rabbit hoodie and always find the access card to the race track in its pocket in what is a time loop? We are to assume that the answer is yes. Fated… you know. LG came along as he traveled through time to reach 2020 and to make sure that Luna would run to the racetrack he placed the access card in the hoodie and place the hoodie on the bench. Welcome to the paradox of which came first.
Since Luna grabbed the jacket, LG of that time (2019) followed her. Since Luna found the card access… she went to the racetrack where LG would see her. He followed her again and so finally encountered the portal that would bring him to TE. We are to assume that if this sequence of events had not happened, LG might not have gotten to ROK at that time. But surely, Fate would have done something about that!!! 😉
About the flower
It was, but where I can’t recall! At that time, I looked it up, but other commenters did a more thorough job than myself. I was looking up other names for the lilies. ‘Magic’ and ‘Resurrection Lilies’ did pop up. Also there were references from commenters about the Chinese/Korean names and about it symbolising Hopeless Love. I guess you could search the posts using ‘hopeless’ as a search term and find the elusive reference LOL.
Heh @Carolstar … I thought I posted this already, but I see it isn’t here! Anyway … going backwards on your post.
Actually I leave those with a better memory and clearer understanding to answer the queries. Just sometimes some questions ‘tickle’ my fancy and I get embroiled in them LOL.
About NMLand – Some of us believed that the sequence of shots was confusing and that while NMLand was shown to us after LG and TE first exited the portal in KOC, that actually it was the space between the portals. The sequence, we felt, was wrong.
This was disputed because the exiting from the portals was shown, then the race track was shown and then the NMLand was first shown to us. So we wondered if there was another entrance to NML. We did however agree that it was a space that could be traversed to reach the other universe. Now that the show is ended, it seems that the portals are the only known/shown entrances/exits to and from NML.
The whole flute offered only 1 portal with red lights and space-time travel. The half flute offered a different smaller portal each with green lights and with only space travel in the same timeline.
White Rabbit Luna – Another chicken and egg conundrum.
Did Luna always run that way, always pickup that rabbit hoodie and always find the access card to the race track in its pocket in what is a time loop? We are to assume that the answer is yes. LG came along as he travelled through time to reach 2020 and to make sure that Luna would run to the racetrack he placed the access card in the hoodie and place the hoodie on the bench. Welcome to the paradox of which came first.
Since Luna grabbed the jacket, LG of that time (2019) followed her. Since Luna found the card access… she went to the racetrack where LG would see her. He followed her again and so found himself (finally) encountering the portal that would bring him to TE. We are to assume that if this sequence of events had not happened, LG might not have gotten to ROK at that time. But surely, Fate would have done something about that!!!
About the flower
It was, but where I can’t recall! At that time, I looked it up, but other commenters did a more thorough job than myself. I was looking up other names for the lilies. ‘Magic’ and ‘Resurrection Lilies’ did pop up. Also there were references from commenters about the Chinese/Korean names and about it symbolising Hopeless Love. I guess you could search the posts using ‘hopeless’ as a search term and find the elusive reference LOL.
Noemu Noemu Kamsahabnida @Growing Beautifully! My mind is more settled now. What a relief knowing about the portals. I guess we will never get all the answers about Luna unless we interrogate KES 😅
When I find the name of that blue flower I will post it up.
Now I hoping to catch the first episode of Psycho but it’s ok! I have been running after time this weekend 😄