This thread is open WAY in advance.
The schedule of rewatches:
Episode 9 – Mar 4
Break – Mar 11
Episode 10 – Mar 18
Episode 11 – Mar 25
Episode 12 – Apr 1Break – Apr 8
Episode 13 – Apr 15
Episode 14 – Apr 22
Episode 15 – Apr 29
Episode 16 – May 6
Note: According to @GB, you’ll all have a break on Sat, March 11. That’s good. You’ll have time to decide whether or not to stick with the original schedule. Daylight Saving Time begins on Sun, Mar 12 and clocks are set forward one hour.
Saturday, 13.30 UTC
5.30am PST
8.30am EST
9.30am Caracas
1.30pm London
2.30pm Paris
3.30pm Athens
9.30pm Singapore, Perth
Enjoy the rewatch!
Thank you @pkml3, WAY in advance as well!!
Hmmm… if the clocks will be set forward one hour, then I’d like to start the rewatch at 8.30pm SGT, so that there will be no change in the time for those with Daylight savings, but how about those others who don’t? I think I’ll have to check all the different times in different places then. It gets too confusing otherwise and all of us will be coming in at different times!!
@GB, Hi, you throw a doubt in me, with this time stuff. T T
@WE, your Daylight Savings only happens on 26 March while US starts theirs on 12 March!!! Therefore I guess if it’s 2.30pm that you normally come for rewatch, then you come at 3.30pm after the 26 March. Will that time be ok for you?
@GB, yes, any time, as long as it’s not 12h after or before (it would be 2 am, night)
@WE, Daylight Savings date is 26 March for London, Athens and Paris.
USA’s Daylight Savings starts on 12 March so our friends from PST and EST timezones can wake up later and join us 1 hour later.
To avoid confusion, I’ll keep to my time, 9.30pm, since I don’t have Daylight Savings. 🤪
Morning all. I am getting ready. Will join soon. I don’t mind doing the rewatch first thing in the morning, but an hour later will suit me just fine.
Hi salteddust.
Hi WE, GB & SD.
Hi @SD and @WE, I’m here!! 2 minutes to go.
Hi feifei.
Hi @WE, @feifei, @GB. Fresh coffee, ready to start!
Hi @FF, OK time to start!!!
Ok go. He says her to go out of the plane.
Greetings all! Looking forward to rewatch with all of you this dreary, overcast morning.
Started! And Hee Ju is taking her time getting off the plane. LOL she’s suspicious of him after the way he deceived her.
@WE, we get to see cute Min Ju. No end to her nonsense. Now she’s thinking that there’s going to be a proposal just because her sister likes him. LOL.
I love Min-Joo.
Well, he says her not to go in grenade.
But he have a ticket to go there.
So….. I could as well go with her.
Of course he will be in the game, but anyway..
@Lot of fun for the young actress. She play very well.
JW is Min Ju’s style, she openly says she likes him so much. So cute.
This actress who plays Min Ju is having the time of her life. LOL her character totally baffles JW… how she jumped from his divorce to him proposing to her sister.
Jin-Woo looks so calm and in controlled compared to later episodes.
@SD, yes, here he’s getting all those cool special items, but it’s sad that he didn’t get to use them.
He ask a lot of items. Will be usefull later, but not in the next quest.
It’s weird the coder create item, but he still have to pay for them in the game.
He could just cheat??!
Ask a radio for an air strike. lol. Like in COD.
We hear the ‘crazy delusions’ of Jin Woo based on the fact that he was haunted by NPC Hyeong Seok. The thing is, JW was the only one to guess what may have happened to Se Ju, because his relationship with HS more or less paralleled that of Se Ju and Marco.
In both cases they had been good friends who had a falling out over loyalty/taking credit/stealing. HS felt that JW had stolen his part in his father’s regard and his place in the company so he had stolen JW’s wife.
Marco had stolen the credit for game development from Se Ju to fund his drug addiction, and thought Se Ju would similarly sell him out.
Now we get the truth, the game start to bug because a kind of paradox. Fight where it’s not allowed. But fight in real world, what mix the reality with the game one. Smart explanation. Twilight zone like.
@WE good point, why couldn’t he have found an easier way to do the quest? He has the programmer to do everything for him, practically.
The only thing we find Yang Ju couldn’t do was break the alliance between him and Sec Seo.
Fight in a place where fight is not allowed, furthermore with real weapons. And so game weapons became real weapons.
@GB, no because anyway, we’ll see this quest accept only items from grenada, ahah.
Touching scene between Se Ju and HJ
@WE
I wrote a bunch of notes on the game logic. Yes, basically that’s how the bug got started… fighting to hurt each other, or physical contact between human players when it was not allowed in the game. The AR game world took control of the minds of those players and treated them like bugs as well.
Well, I guess humans who hurt other humans can be considered the bugs of society??!!
@SD, yes a touching scene, as envisioned by JW. But I believe that HJ did mention to grandma that SJ had called.
Ha, I like that @GB. If I had first seen Lee Jae-Wook in this film, I would never, ever have imagined him as a romantic lead. Quite a change.
If we look a bit, these bug zombis have a similarity with the faceless killer in W. They disapear in a zone, and materialize in another zone, without logic about travelling or thing like that. Like teleportation.
@SD, LJW is such a ruffian in this show, a druggie and a thug.
Part of the bug is that NPC attacks feel real and the pain is real pain.
JW smartly guess he’s not dead, because we didn’t find his body (well, it not needs to be so smart for that, lolol).
So he SeeJu disapear in the dungeon. And here, really, there is no more a kind of “realistic explanation”. It can only be paranormal, because he couldn’t survive a whole year here. What to eat, what to drink? And why other people (without lens) doesn’t see him?
@WE, well JW can say that SJ is alive with some confidence not only because no body was found, but because he’d just received a message from Master whom he assumed was SJ.
And SJ could have been just a few steps away in another reality, but JW could not see him.
JW’s logic is impeccable, except that he should have been able to see him get off the train if he lived, so either there is a blind spot in the CTV cameras at Granada station or he got off somewhere else where there is one.
You know SJJ visited Spain before to write this drama. And I’m sure she loved this train station. When she was on the station platform, she had the idea “hey, make a guy stuck here invisible, mysterious. Shit, I need to find a story leading to that now”.
@SD, Se Ju had somehow entered the Augmented Reality of the game and could not be seen in our normal reality. That was JW’s conclusion and why he felt compelled to play the game in order to find SJ.
Catching up with the thread: Unless, of course, SJ stepped off into another reality, ala W. Another aspect I am seeing in this rewatch is the pattern of JW’s interior life, despair, dogged determination, then hope when he sees the falcon, then repeat. I had not realized JW’s interior journey just so clearly before.
When she was in the pension “hey, make a guy fall from the 6th floor here, so fun”. ^^
@WE, that sounds plausible.
LOL HJ gives such a lame excuse for returning after the big deal of going to Granada.
I have to say @WE that I am becoming a fan of SJJ.
@SD, yes, that’s why a rewatch was in order LOL.
LOL @WE… that sounds likely too.
And I love this scene of Min Ju giving her older sister all kinds of hints for something that was not going to happen between her and JW. I laughed so much when JW came in later and heard that he was supposed to bring a ring.
Here, comedy. Again he find her by surprise (previous time, she was looking his photo). Now a ring. lol.
@salteddust, yeah, just watch her other dramas past “coffee house”. I didn’t liked this one, but after, it’s perfect. 😉
LOL I love JW’s expression over supposedly coming with a ring and a proposal.
He thinks that it’s HJ who looked like she wanted to get a proposal and that MJ noticed it.
After the fun scene with Min Ju we get the annoying almost family member Sang Beom barging in again.
AAaah. I was waiting for that.
The “maybe boyfriend” punch him. So fun.
The boyfriend wanna be appeared, acting like a boyfriend.
@WE Sang Beom took it too far, he never had the right to punch anyone based on his mere conjectures. Loved that JW pushed him back and beat him with the stick. Granny was great!
Boo boo scene. ^^
Hee Ju dressing JW’s wound, I like this part especially the tear on his shirt.
Truly an annoying character, that almost family member.
@FF the one who wanted to be betrothed but wasn’t was so annoying.
Here we find out that he married Yu Ra out of spite. Big mistake.
@GB, yes, but this kind of dude are here for that. We love to hate some dudes in a drama. 🙂
Drop of tear on the jacket. Woo.
She won’t let him buy a guitar to make up for the one he broke. “Am I that hopeless, I’m not even worthy of a guitar.” (This was once the arrogant CEO who had in the beginning thought of how he could find ways to get the better of naive HJ.)
Ahh TEARS again!
She does not even know why she’s crying. She’s managed to figure out what’s happening, that JW was playing the game in search of Se Ju, and only he could have a hope of finding him because he had leveled up so high.
@FF I like the pensive piano music at this part. Thank heavens it’s not THAT other OST.
@GB, I think when you learn Park Shin Hye will be in the drama you write. You change quickly the script and make her cry like crazy. 🙂
@GB is @WE going to tease you about the song again?
Oh no, MY HEART IS YOU!!!
Much long stares while the OST plays. 😣
And now, a beautiful drama song, very sensitive.
“my lovvvvve is yooooooouuu”. 🙂
but we here it only once. 🙁
Ah it’s “heart”, not “love” ?
Well I don’t understand anything.
‘Why do you trust me?” “Otherwise, I would live in misery”: writ large the basis for all human interaction.
@WE thank heavens only 1 verse of that OST!!!
THUNDER and lightning and the other music… the scary guitar.
More flashbacks and we find out what happened before he went to see HJ… and another flashback within that.
Every time I hear the “My heart is you” I will think @GB hates this ah but @WE loves it. lol so funny,.
@FF, it’s the fun of commenting about that OST!!! Cringe….
I don’t understand how he’s fired. Isn’t he supposed to have most of the parts of the company?
@SD that is how people fall into love scam, they will be in misery if they don’t trust the scammer.
@feifei, I like very much the first part of the song. I don’t care about the chorus. But I like to tease GB with that. Even more after the paranormal accident making I posted that 6 times a song I don’t like instead of other music. lol.
@SD, actually it’s a pretty good rationalisation so that one might have some peace with a decision. However much later (Ep 11) we find that she still chooses to believe JW when all his world collapses.
Pr Cha have a love plan. Scary.
@WE yeah I remember you posting the link so many times, and they don’t work. hahaha
Cha suggests that with the divorce, Su Jin and JW should get back together (I have no idea why).
Su Jin calls later to say it was to humiliate her, but I just don’t get it. What is he trying to control here? He wants the younger generation to be under his thumb? But they didn’t before and still won’t listen to him when they were married before.
Later he tells Park that it’s his life’s goal to find Se Ju. Somewhere along the way, his reason for looking for Se Ju changed from just it being necessary to fix the bug to because he owed it to HJ for conning her, and then he wanted to do it for her because he was grateful for her sincerity. So her TEARS paid off. LOL.
End of the flashback. Woo.
I forgot we were in a serie of flashbacks.
Su Jin calls and she also tells him not to trust Prof Cha. He had been humiliating her over and over again the last year. She says that they are both in the same boat, targeted by Prof Cha, and might be the next to be axed by him.
She says Cha only cares about his pride and does not cherish JW. He does not want to admit that his decision to prefer JW over his own son was wrong. That’s why he covered up the death and refused the autopsy.
Cha believes that JW killed HS.
We find out later that what she says turns out to be right.
The enter the train with destination… DEATH! 🙂
The game servers control 2 places in particular… Seoul and Granada. More NPCs can appear in these places.
THere is thunder. What means…
even BOTS are killing one.
In the morning JW gets out of the cabin and logs in. He’s in the toilet, the train stops and Sec Seo gets off first. It’s interesting that there’s no lightning and thunder yet.
The thunder starts later when Seo is on his own outside and gets shot by an arrow. It feels like a real arrow. Pity that Seo saw the message that JW had killed Cha and so didn’t reboard the train. If he had, he’d have been okay.
Flashbacks within flashbacks. This is so difficult to pull off, and yet SJJ does.
Mmmmh no, because the zombi appears. Forget.
I’m wrong about the reason.
But WAIT….
ANOTHER THUNDER !!!
YEAHHH it’s that!!!
Bots are killers now !!!
JW look at the death zombi…
… understand the new truth.
Everything is danger and mortal here!!
@SD yes the writer and the director and the editor managed the flashbacks within flashback… Amazing how it all makes sense.
This is aother bug the NPC’s can hurt for real! Poor Secretary Seo.
Why this bot wait so long before to shot?
But bullet in the air.
Remind me the bullet in the head of yeonJOo in W too.
@FF I think JW didn’t realise it was going to be so deadly in Granada. It would have been OK under different circumstances but I’m not sure if it would have been better in Seoul compared to Granada.
THis is such a pivotal moment in the drama. Realize the true horror of the game and what Granada has become.
@GB, yeah, suddenly, grenada became a hell. I don’t know why.
Maybe because JW is higher level now?
In this kind of game, enemies are adapted to the player level.
@SD JW had said that Granada would be full of magic but it was full of horror for him and Sec Seo.
Game Logic
The game is ‘normal’ when players have to wear the smart lenses, login and start playing in the city where the game server is. The pain of being stabbed or shot would hardly be felt by human players. Winning the normal game would mean one was the highest scoring player who had killed all enemies.
The bug kicks in when human players make physical contact in battle or wound each other. The abnormal game allows players to still sense the AR of the game without lenses or logging in. This means the MOTA AR program has gone supernatural. It is able to link itself directly to human brains and behaves independently of the server login. This means that human beings have lost control over the game, while the game has gained control over their minds. It even enables JW to no longer feel the real pain in his leg so that he does not limp in the game. This is super scary.
However even without logging in, JW can earn points in the game when he kills NPC HS. So the server accesses the human brain directly to accumulate points for the player!
continued…
The game cannot be played out of Granada?
Since the players’ brains are so closely connected to the AR of the game, they start to feel ‘real’ pain when hit. JW had fallen off his bed in hospital after being struck by HS, Se Ju passed out after getting shot and getting off the train, Sec Seo complained that he really felt the pain of being stabbed.
When JW is out of range of the server and not logged in, he gets to see NPC HS once a day no matter where he is. He sees just HS and no other enemies until he logs in. However when he returned to Granada, not only had he already leveled up, but he also had logged in on the train. He kills HS, but this does not end the game for the day … more enemies turn up.
Possibly because he had leveled up, he and his ally have to fight not just individual enemies, but groups of them attacking at the same time.
The program includes yoking allies together to share points but fortunately not to share death, or else JW would have died along with Seo. Another part of the bug is that the player cannot un-yoke himself from enemy or ally. Even in death, allies as well as enemies remain NPCs who turn up for battle or in times of need. It’s scary to think that a player is doomed to encounter killers every day for the rest of his waking life!
Cont’d…
Full or dark magic.
@GB, please continue haha then it will be homework for me to chew over the weekend.
@WE, yes that was my theory too… JW had reached a high level and on a quest… I think the number of NPCs sent to stop him was increased.
Just realised that if I post the end of my Game Logic, there’ll be spoilers so I’ll hold back for now.
@GB, Anyway it’s a rewatch, so post. 😉
@FF I saw a later episode where the servers were to be shut down and the guys asked the boss for which place, Seoul or Granada. So so far only these 2 places for the game playing.
But JW could see NPC HS anywhere, without lenses and without logging in.
@WE, I thought @OAL is watching for the first time. So maybe not good to have spoilers.
Ok but what’s strange: the last NPC he sees in this episode vanish,
because out of sight of server.
Yes, the game only works within a certain radius from the server.
@WE fortunately for JW since the bullet vanishes as well (very like W).
@WE @FF so back to the server question… were there 2 servers in 2 cities and can they be joined to each other to control the game in tandem?
@GB. Re: the servers. That makes sense. In reality, they would have to buffer things a bit I would think (though my computer knowledge is second-hand — husband and sons– and otherwise a bit old).
@FF @WE, OK I’ll post the last part of my idea of the game logic here with SPOILER warning.
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
Strangely, instead of the programming code being the bug that needs to be fixed, the game treats the players as the bugs. Emma was installed to fix/kill the bugs, but she needed a tool to help her. It’s ironical that the players are supposed to level up so that they can supply the tool to Emma, in order to be killed by her. This part of the game is illogical. The bug makes it such that to be free of the game, a player has to be killed by Emma. What does it mean to win the game, though? Jin Wu ended up no longer having to fight enemies who were bugs, but he was trapped in the AR game.
When he entered the instance dungeon, he replaced Se Ju who suddenly found himself in reality, presumably without the gunshot wounds.
The only respite anyone can get from the game is if they are asleep or the servers are totally shut down.
End of Game Logic for now…
So I left you all some thoughts and a question… something to come back here and comment on. Does the logic sound about right? Did I leave out anything?
A gentle REMINDER – we are taking a break from this rewatch next Saturday, and when we come back the week after that, some of us will be in Daylight Savings time so take note of the time in the post by @packmule3 on the next thread!
Mmmmh. No buggy players are supposed to give the tool to Emma too.
So, Emma can’t do much. It’s not her fault they are bugs. 🙂
But of course, if I do a game without bug. I will preferably hire a team of good developpers, instead of a girl in the game you need to level up 100 to meet her (and in a buggy game). LOL. 🙂
SPOILER
@WE, yes that was one of the things that bothered me about Emma. She was so passive. She didn’t even initiate a conversation.
I found it strange that the ones with the bug were asked by her to give the tool to her. I’d have thought the ones to do so should have been the heroes in the game but they get killed as bugs!
@WE do I detect a naughty note in the buggy?
As an NPC, Emma can tell you “ho, it’s raining outside”.
But why whould she say “hey I’m here to eradicate bugs” ?
It’s out of context in the “story” of the game.
It’s like you’re playing a game about Lords of the Rings, and a NPC say you: Hey you should buy a better keyboard to fight me.
?? nauthgy in buggy ? I don’t see. Is there a meaning I don’t know??
Mmmmh… looks like you see naughty by yourself. ahahahahaha. 🙂
@WE I can see all kinds of naughty if I try LOL.
Yes, the Emma role is out of place, here’s where SJJ had to just plug her in to give her more air time in the game, otherwise she’d be mainly crying in real drama life.
Perhaps Se Ju saw his sister as the solver of the bugs of his life and believed that his programming might have bugs too, so he preempted that by creating a bug killing Emma.
OK everyone, thanks for a great rewatch! Please continue adding comments whenever you have a thought. I always drop by to read.
Time to go! See you in 2 weeks time!!
Yes, it makes sens he choose to personnify this with her.
I’ve to go. Say you all bye bye, see you in two weeks.
Oh @GB, you gave me lots to think about …. luckily we have 2 weeks to spare. I will see if I can run into some IT experts at work and get some free advice from them.
Bye everyone!
Thanks all, my brain is on overload… need some time to mull over your theories. Not being a gamer myself adds to my difficulty in seeing from gamer POV. Love all of this in-depth analysis.