The thread is open.
6.00am PST
9.00am EST/Canada
10.00am Caracas
2.00pm in London
3.00pm in Paris
4.00pm in Athens
10.00pm in Singapore
Enjoy the rewatch!
The thread is open.
6.00am PST
9.00am EST/Canada
10.00am Caracas
2.00pm in London
3.00pm in Paris
4.00pm in Athens
10.00pm in Singapore
Enjoy the rewatch!
Thanks for being so on the ball with opening the threads @pkml3! I’m the one who’s likely to forget nowadays!!!
@MM, I just realised that I prepared a reply to your comment in the Ep 11 thread, but that I never posted it!!!
You were saying that SW decided to tell MY the truth because he saw that her physical (and mental) well-being was at risk. My reply below:
@MM, true, SW found that the risks to MY’s physical and mental health if he continued in the lie and in being a jerk were too great. He had to end the lie and take the consequences of playing God, which he had done with mainly self-interest in mind.
In the beginning, he had been rather a jerk and full of self-interest too. Knowing that he was dying of a brain tumour, he still went ahead with a 3-month ‘marriage.’ Granted Joo MY found out about his impending death and agreed to the ‘marriage’, but still, he had selfishly created memories with her that would remain for her, perhaps saddening her, long after he had died.
MY CONJECTURE AS TO HOW THE TIME TRAVEL LOGIC WENT
One of the mind-blowing new things about Nine: 9’s time travel is that for the first time we come across the ‘same time 20 years ago/later’ principle. This is the principle where in 2012/2013 memories don’t kick in, until something of some significance took place at the same time 20 years previously. A bit more on this later.
The other principle that seems to be at play in Nine: 9 is that while everyone continues on their changed trajectory, Sun Woo seems to end up being ‘split’ on 2 trajectories, ie there seems to be 2 versions of Sun Woo, but with some connections. This is the way Writer ‘saves’ the hero. My guess as to why at this stage, only SW faces this strange split is because he deliberately sought out his younger self and revealed the time travel to himself.
More on the trajectories and back to SW’s self interest which I mentioned in my post to @MM. He took great risks because of self interest. Without knowing the ins and outs of how the incense sticks worked, he took the risk to go back to ‘make things better’ for his mother, brother, father and himself. We see how successful or bad the results are depending on our point of view. Not much change in mother since she is wracked by guilt, fear, regret but cannot right the wrongs without hurting Jung Woo.
Brother is alive but a drug addict, also ridden with guilt, suffers stress from fear that the ‘witness’ might appear to denounce him, and remains under the thumb of Choi.
Father remains dead but SW finds out what a jerk his father had been to his mother, and the horrors of the night he died that made his mum go mad.
As for himself, he loses his ‘wife’ but despite lengthening his life, he still suffers the pain in his head. The only thing he gets from going back to the past is that Choi manipulated the evidence to gain the top position in hospital and cover his nefarious dealings on the side. It does not seem like his playing God helped his family or himself all that much and it messed up MY’s life.
My conclusion: it was a bad idea to play God.
Continued below…
VERSIONING OF THE TIMELINE
Sun Woo begins in Timeline 1 (T1). His trips are on T1 and every change he made changed the same timeline in his 2012-2013. Each time he time traveled and returned there was a change, and we can name each version of time from 2012-2013 as T1.1, T1.2, T1.3, etc.
However, the interesting thing was that when he met himself in 2012, he created a Timeline 2 for his younger self, and this younger self continues on version T2.1. We find that, his younger 1992-1993 self continued on a separate timeline from SW in T1.3. Although split in trajectory, there remained the connection of being somewhat in the same body (that’s why adult SW didn’t have a brain tumour), and the ‘same time 20 years ago/later’ principle. What seems to have become somewhat separated in T2.1 is Sun Woo’s mind. He no longer knew what his 18-year old mind had come up with.
Although T2.1 SW took steps to prevent the brain tumour, and ‘saved’ Sun Woo in 2013 (let’s call him T1.4 for the current incarnation), T2.1 continued changing things in 1993 by inscribing messages all over the house to communicate with T1.4.
T1.4 could not recall any of these new actions taken by his past self who had been changed by his visits: ie T2.1 was a somewhat different person from T1.4, or his memories were no longer shared, again a different mind from the other version. T1.4 had to read his diary to know what was going to happen. He freaked out a bit to see writing appearing all over the house. Maybe he even heard the scratches as his younger T2.1 self scratched on wood.
Continuing…
At the same time, T1.4 still retained all the memories of T1 and T2 timelines, all the pain of the tumour, and items/things from his time travels. However he left behind/lost his identity card and incense sticks in 1992-1993. The proof that he was no longer in the same timeline as his younger self is that if he had been in the same timeline, he would have had his identity card with him now in the present, ie it should have remained with him.
His companion in knowing about the changes was Young Hoon who joined him in becoming Young Hoon T1.2, T1.3, T1.4 because he knew about the incense sticks, and had had a hand in changing Sun Woo’s brain tumour trajectory. As for Min Young and the rest, they were not aware that they too were in version T1.4, or that they ever had their T2 versions, until something in 2013 triggered their ‘memories’.
So we see that MY and next Choi, beginning to ‘remember’ events in T1 or T2.1 respectively. The principle behind remembering seems to be that something triggers it first. Subsequently, the memories keep coming back and become clearer. In Choi’s case, it was possibly the ‘same time 20 years ago/later’ principle that also came into effect, because his ‘henchman’ Park gave him the video 20 years in the past that starts to trigger his memories in the ‘same time 20 years later’.
What do you think? We’ll have to see if this conjecture still holds true in the following episodes.
There will however be one big hole in this logic ie by the end of the series, there should be only 1 version of the timeline. Either one will replace the other, or the 2 versions will merge. That’s my guess up to this point!!
@GB I was just about to compose an email about the questions I still have. I have yet to read the above, but I am Really looking forward to it.
After last week I watched ahead agand I think I made it to the end again but I am not sure. I am thinking this is the most intricately complex time. Travel drama of this script writer. What do others think? W ? Same scriptwriter, I think can’t quite remember right now, Is complex as well but I think easier to follow The space time mechanics..
This is very helpful. I think it also explains why the incense sticks were not in Closet in the current timeline.
Having watched to the end at least twice during this rewatch,
This theory holds for me and I am looking forward to thinking about it as we continue our rewatch.
I am remembering now I did watch to the end last weekend.
Hi @MM, your posts made me laugh. You’ve watched this series to the end and forgot? LOL.
On my first watch I never really thought about the logic of the time travel. This time, I decided to watch differently, and anyway, 10++ years is a long enough time to have a different perspective.
I’d be very pleased if my conjectures turn out to be about right. We need to see if the logic holds and if there are holes in it, whether we can find the right patches for them!
See you in 5 minutes!
Here! Hi GB. Will read your text walls later. 🙂
Hi Everyone, let’s start now!!!
Hi @WE, yes, read the walls of text later. I want to add to it. I’ve watched Ep 13 and 14 as well and think I need to make a slightchange in the logic.
I have wait the girl almost dying under the rain to stop being a jerk and say (maybe) the truth. 😀
Hi @GB, @WE, @MM. Starting now.
This is a problem with rewatches. I have watched so many times to the end. That I can’t orient myself to where i’m at in the drama today. Helps me to know you are not remembering how it finishes. Is that correct? I am biting my tongue Or more aptly sitting on my hands.
Gosh, sometimes, when I type too fast, I confuse “I” and “He” or other words. DDDDaaaaammmmmmnniit!!
Most appropriately, it keeps raining at MY’s lowest point and when SW realises what a big mess he’s made of his and her life. One thing he failed to appreciate (and still doesn’t later) is that his life is tied up with others’ and therefore others will be affected too.
Hi SD and MM.
Hi @SD! I like that we get the flashback or backstories here and there at last.
WWooow! Isn’t it the first meeting?
But what timeline?
@MM, I can only remember the very end but not between now and then. I have watched only up to Ep 14. Still now, I’m watching only Ep 12 so that I won’t write spoilers.
Mmmh First encounter in the original timeline.
Hi, MM, SD, GB, WE and maybe LL?
@WE it is interesting that SW and MY meet in the hospital in BOTH timelines. I realized that as I watched his remembrances. So it is unclear to which MY is referring.
@WE, yes MY and SW met for the first time in the original timeline (I call it T1) at the emergency room after he accidentally bashed her head.
He yells on her an endless piece of trash talk, and the result is: “you speak so well, I love men speaking so well, you are so cute, waaaa”.
Hi @FF… I have not seen @LL here yet.
Hi FF.
@SD, first meeting in other timeline in hospital.
I note. I call that “correlations”.
Hi @FF
@SD, yes, that’s right… well almost. When MY was a child, he helped get her mother into the hospital, but may have met MY just before that.
I had a good laugh watching this scene in the emergency room again And before that when he knocks her out.
Oh, there is a kind of Joseon cringe music now.
I was thinking that this actress is not as bad as comments make her out to be. She plays this role well. I need to watch her in some other roles.
Did others notice that they implied He changed her shirt. This becomes relevant later In another very brief scene that could easily be missed
Script comments on how strange it is that the remembered timeline is so precise (MY commenting on how strange she completely remembers the emergency room conversation between them). Not how my memory works (LOL). And is this a clue? It certainly is an oddity. This is not the memories flooding back, precisely, 20 years later. This is memories of the original timeline.
Oh the music,… I like how the sound of the microwave and the OST sounds merged so it was hard to tell what we were listening to.
Ah the writing on the guitar that disappears and appears. The young SW is doing his own thing.
@GB I was having the same thought about her acting
@SD, yes when something untoward happens that starts them remembering, the original timeline memories also start kicking in.
WAIT!!!!!!!!
His younger self found the sticks??!
SO: Why he didn’t use it??
Could go back in time in 1972 ???
IGB I probably would not have noticed the microwave OST merging if you had not mentioned it. I just watched that scene right now.
With that, ofc: biblical music with voOoOooices.
@MM, Yes I know the scene about the change in shirt that you’re referring to. It was nothing that the husband changed his wife’s shirt … but problematic when it’s an uncle who did it for his niece.
The return of the incense!!!
@WE, he will be too young to do anything in 1972.
I am struck anew as I watch the conversation between SW and and MY as she lays in bed at the incredible cognitive dissonance she is going through. To have two memories in your head, completely irreconcilable: which one is my real father? That way lies madness. Although as I recall, MY ultimately handles this well enough.
@WE LOL you and your biblical music. The OSTs or BGM at least, are more interesting this episode.
@FF @WE, he cannot go back 20 years when he’s only 18 or 19!!!
@FF, he will meet himself as a… baby?
Mmmh, was he born at this time?
Meet himself as a spermatozoid. In the balls of his father. 😅
@SD, yes, I pity MY. She’s calling SW sunbae instead of samchoon now.
She recalls that she’s already married.
He almost suppose the incens has a kind of self-aware wanting, and come back to him with a purpose. He’s high in his mind. 🙂
@WE you and your nonsense!!
At least SW admits that he played God impudently and is scared of what the others who have been stirred up will do. But going back in time has become too dangerous.
I am watching the scene where he retrieves the incent sticks from the closet and looks at her..
I am thinking this time. He is contemplating more of a selfless reason for the time travel. It is to help her with her distress More than for him to have his girlfriend back.
Did you notice that “maybe boyfriend” has not less than 5 big pens in his pocket? This guy is for sure a bit schyzo.
@WE Young Hoon always has the idea that the incense is evil and out to ‘get’ them.
Now we have SW meeting his brother at last and telling him everything. After this time, his brother will also slowly start to remember stuff.
I am glad that SW told MY the truth to spare her the agony of mixed memories. MY is the innocent character who suffers because of SW returning to the past to try to change things. SW is the technically not a villain character here.
Yes @MM, SW’s motives changed but going back in time was still a bad idea. Still it was necessary for the plot to move forwards. I must say this series did a fine job of filling up 20 episodes.
@GB this might be in your summary above, but it is interesting how physical objects change in this ‘combined/new’, T2 timeline. Was the incense container there in his drawer for 30+ years on the T2 timeline? Did it just show up now, like the writing on the guitar does —which is super weird when you think about it. I think it is the latter. But if so, this show then has a time travel logic that is exceedingly strange!
@WE!! now you’re noticing pens???
SW still has his headache. Jung Woo now starts to think… what will he remember?
@FF, the protagonist is the “technically not villain”. ahahahah. It will be an endless joke now. +He had been jerk! “technically not jerk”. 😀
@GB, I’m looking at anything helping me to hate more this character. ^^
@FF, yes, this show has the main protagonist as the not-a-villain but causing pain for everyone.
She says she is already married. Is she saying this because They married informally. Or was there some sort of wedding certificate or event that I missed?
@SD, yup … I mentioned that logic. It is the hallmark of this show. In no other time travel show do we have things only show up now when 20 years ago to the second it was placed there. Really weird.
@WE how did you notice the pens! I could barely see them and only looked because of your comment!
@WE, but why waste brain cells on not-a-boyfriend when there are other not-a-villains like SW?
SW is such a pain for everyone now (including himself). Each time he tells other people “ok dudes, I go back in time”. And everybody scared about how it will change everything in their life. Ggoooogogogogo.
@MM, no, they ‘married’ informally by just saying that they were on their honeymoon. Heh!
@GB, you forgot to say “technically”. 😂😂😂
So now I understand from his phone conversation. When he is in the car, he is in effect also commenting on his younger version developing different motvations consistent with GB’s ides above. .
At least the second half of the series gives Jung Woo a slight redemption arc. He did want to right his wrongs… but SW goes back and suffers to try to help his brother turn himself in.
They are “technically married”. 🙂
@MM Yes, that’s right. SW has lost control over others who have their own motivations and take action without him knowing.
Poor Jung Woo is able to appreciate that he really should have died in the Himalayas because life was just dragging him along. What a sad way to live.
Resto scene. I remember… By the end of this, the resto scene will change because of time change. But I don’t remember more.
Is this the first time the brothers meet after the fight? I can’t remember now.
Hi all, yes, I am here. Started a bit late and then took the time to read @GB’s theories.
Now that things are truly messed up SW starts to give the other “main characters” choices. To MY he says they can either run off together, live platonically as they are now as uncle and niece or sneak and see each other. He also gives his brother the choice of SW going back 20 years and talking him into turning himself in for death of father or not going back. So “playing God by committee” now. Parts of SW’s arc?!
2013 Jung Woo may agree to own up to his mistakes but Jung Woo in 2003 may not be easily convinced to surrender himself to the police. The two brothers are such risk takers.
SW’s friend Young Hoon says when you go back in time, don’t die again.. this is a foreshadowing.
Thematic is close to the Djinn in the bottle, giving 3 wishes. Just it’s 9 ones and more complicated ones.
@SD, Yes, this is the first time the brothers meet face-to-face. They only spoke over the phone before.
Hi @LL! Good question! Play God ‘by committee’ LOL. In the end, he still takes matters into his own hands and finds that many things are taken oug of his hands. It’s all mostly out of his control now.
A last minute impact from a previous time travel comes to the brother, showing that is SW goes back in time now, it could be dangerous, as the villain identified him.
It raises the stake!
@FF, yes you’re right. The Jung Woo was also a big risk taker – he believed in the incense first, he took the risk and died in the Himalayas. He also took the risk of marrying a divorced woman with a child.
@GB I think SW was stabbed in his time travel this time round.
An interesting thought that the brother’s actions Created A watershed moment for the villain’s villainry.
Now the brother is tempted to play god to reverse his Life long regrets.
@LL, play god by committee haha so that they can have more people to share the blame if things go wrong.
I am still confused about these messages that SW leaves for his friend. oh I think I get it – the 20 year principle?
@WE so the title could be 3 times 3!
I knew I had seen a poster of the Bodyguard. It is behind JW’s back as he just gets back into the record store after receiving SW’s photo from CJC. I don’t think it is just chance exactly (to show the era), SJJ is pretty thoughtful about themes and items representing a theme (picture of Saturn eating his children in W), but I can’t think for the life of me what the theme would be.
Gotta run, see you all next week.
Staying with the metaphors of the show, The brother is tempted by the shiny fruit. His redemption arc is at others expense. His wife now is drawn in To what could be similar to MY’s fate. SW will face life and death challenges.
@FF yes something will happen to SW in Ep 14.
Bye @FF!
@MM Jung Woo’s wife does not know she may end up with a husband who is dead and who never married her!
I’ve to go, have a good week!
Perhaps the theme is time and its convolutions. The writer also draws our attention to another significant event in time-Psy’s Gangnam song which was an era changer for korean music and presence on the world stage. There is also an older korean movie called the Bodyguard that is referenced in some shows I have watched, Crash Landing on You, for example. I may be stretching it here but perhaps she is referencing events that changed the course of time.
Just remembered this actor plays a bodyguard I think in Spy Mungwol.
Back to my theory in the top of this thread… I thought I made a mistake but on 2nd thoughts, I think the logic still holds true for now.
By talking to his brother and telling him about the Timeline 1 when JW died, SW is the one triggering JW into remembering his previous timeline past.
Bye @WE! Come back later and read the walls of text.
@GB Now that would be difficult to get her head around!
@GB, I’ve read.
I need to rewatch the drama I think. ahaha.
I loose track over time, with one episode a week.
Here my new theory: SW splits because he dies.
So, now he’s in a frozen past, his previous timelines.
But he’s no more “updated” by the memories of his younger self.
He just get the physical consequences. So if his younger self chose to take medication for the tumor, indeed, he doesn’t die from this. But in theory, he shouldn’t remember he took the medication. To be confirmed by rewatching, aaahhh no no, I can’t, I don’t have time. T T
Else, we can consider there is only one timeline. But it’s a rewritten one with a delay. But I’m agree we say different timelines to remember the different steps.