my personal view of orv

If I knew what I was going to read was goingo to make me suffer, I would have read it anyway. That's how I am. Honestly I don't know how to put into words my feelings.

I began reading orv from the webtoon on April of last year... actually I had read the first ten chapters when it first came out but only for the coins but i found it a weird copy of Danganrompa and I was already pretty done with the killing games. I regret thinking that two years ago, but maybe it spared me from becoming some weird chuuni like Kim Nawoon... besides that, I've found the time to read it while I was on the bus or at night or while I had lunch. Then I reached the part when kdj went to the underworld and I had to follow the weekly updates. I've never had enough of it. Almost anything else on webtoon seemed generic or boring after I've continued reading it. Waiting felt like eternity and my life felt like I was simply living it because of that webtoon. Orv had me on a chokehold and I kept wanting more.

That's when I began reading the novel. I've read Kim Dokja's story again and it felt rather different from what I had remembered. The webtoon missed something in the novel was way more clear: narration. This story was told from kdj and we had to rely on kdj and fourth wall sometimes, but mostly kdj. And it was easier to find kdj as a really sensible and interesting character: you had his thoughts, his feelings written, something I've found harder with drawings. I love the artstyle and I've loved the webtoon, but the novel is the right experience. And I knew that also when I've found myself reading parts that went missing during the webtoon: hsy almost getting assaulted and the coin-looting building had also places where men raped women; the "mistranslation" of the battle against the calamity of the floods where yjh actually said "Kim Dokja is my companion" and not "Kim Dokja is a companion of mine".

The last one makes little sense considering how Shin Yoosung then reacted like: yjh valued trust a lot; someone by his side was no joke, expecially if we consider how many time he got betreayed and saw his friends die: either they betrayed him while he trusted them like a fool or they died next to him. He didn't want that and he choosed carefully his rightful right hand man. Let's also not forget his anger. He kills with a straight face, yet he dashed against her with such impulse... "a companion of mine" is too generic for a feeling like that, too cheesy or too soft. That's the way I see it.

Then, at midnight, I've finally finished it. Again, I don't know how I feel.

We were the only readers all along. We were Kim Dokja once, we just forgot. And how couldn't I know it when I realised it way before the ending? The Oldest Dream reading a story to its end just to find the place they belong. Home. Home is where there's the people you trust.

I always liked kdj, I sympatised with him deeply, I understood what it meant being a reader, feeling affectionate to the characters and getting attached to one because I was a reader like him. A story doen't end when the writer stops writing but when the reader stops reading the sentences. I believe that. That's why I knew why kdj had to slit apart: he was the only reader, if no one reads thos sentences then time doesn't exist and you're as good as dead. He, who sacrificed so much for one happy ending, wasn't going to stop there. He wanted yjh to see what was after a ruined world and there he found happiness. But one piece would always be missing; because in that happiness one being couldn't be there.

I've never realised how much hsy loved kdj (romantically or not, that's besides the point) I, sadly, only had eyes for the passion and dedication yjh and dkj had for each other, which is a grave mistake. They only exist thanks to hsy. Kdj wouldn't have lived without twasa and yjh wouldn't have existed if it wasn't written. And she did that at the cost of dooming the world. I don't think I had put much weight into that until I reached the end. She saw with her two eyes the bloodshed the birth of that book caused and yet she did that anyway for the sake of one person. That's nothing different from yjh's sacrifice.

Something I loved about this story is also the fact that it helped me to see the concept of immortality, something I wished to dive deeper into with "The curse of --" by diving into yjh character and, if needed, of secretive plotter and oldest dream.

I've cried different times throughout the novel. One I'll never forget is when I've read about 1863th yjh. I knew how he felt when he rembered all the times he was happy:

"yeah, that really happened"

"how could I forget  that?"

"what went wrong after that?"

"why did it have to end?"

"nothing lasts but I stay here. god must hate me."

"they end because I can't feel happiness, right?"

"if I stay here, no one will make me happy and nothing will hurt me."

"I'll leave the rest to the others, I might as well rot here inside myself."

I find awful kdj used it against him but I also understand he was going to die if he didn't, still, to think he, for the last time, he hoped for someone to make this hell end, broke me. I knew what it meant to wish to die but stll drag along the same routine, I knew what it meant to find death meaningless when it was going to fix noting. I knew it all. I bet kdj knew too.

The zero turn was really sad: I don't think I'd sacrifice everything just to seethe faceof the one that brought me there. I wouldn't die 1864 times not even for the love of my life, I'd move on way earlier or I'd go mad even faster.

The only thing I'll never understand is why yjh wanted kdj with him so badly, and... will I ever know?

edit: I'm unsure if I'll be able to make a decent revision of the essay, but once I clear my head up with all the messed up emotions the epilogue gave me, I'll come back.