On the surface it seems to me that the webtoon writer started his story but at some stage the story took on a life of it’s own and now he has lost control of it. I think that’s why he’s scared. He feels the only way to stop it is to kill off the main character. His story is fictional but perhaps with a grain of truth maybe he based it on an article he read some years back without knowing what had happened the young man accused of his family’s murders. Anyway it’s intriguing so far and has us all hooked.
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At first, I got little confused but as the story progress, everything is getting clear. I’m just gonna stay tune in this page since you all have very detail view. I love reading all your insight 
This drama remind me of old anime which is Fushigi Yuugi hahaha.
So far, W and uncontrollably fond got me hooked.
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First of all I love discussing this and since the timed comments don’t work for me right now (and I will probably keep them turned off) I will just go to this thread instead 
But they clearly said that the writer wanted him dead even before his daughter was pulled in for the first time! That guy working for the writer said to her even before she got sucked into the world that the writer wants Kang Cheol dead so that can’t be the reason…
I think it got translated as “Eat or get eaten” if I remember correctly, so yes, same meaning
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I love the idea that it might be based on a true story!
And that’s why Kang Cheol is able to come “alive”, maybe because the writer used a truth for the story so the fake character can turn into a true person? Idk, I guess I just love making up theories
But I really hope they will tie all loose ends at the end or it would be really frustrating…
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Yes, the writer wanted to kill Kang Cheol and end the story before she was involved. For sure, something happened. He also disappeared for a while. I suppose that father and daughter will meet in the other world.
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Wow, I’ve heard this song so many times but never saw this video clip before. Yup! Totally the same concept!
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This drama seriously got me so hooked. The mystery, thrill and excitement of it got me on edge. I’ve been racking my brain for any theories on what the actual crap is happening.
I think the cartoonist and Kang Chul’s relationship goes further than what was explained in episode 3. From what we can see in the 3rd episode, Kang Chul and his tormented past were created due to the cartoonist’s personal problems. Yeon Joo and her mother leaving him has caused heartache for him, thus him trying to end Kang Chul’s life.
At first, I believed that Kang Chul was kind of like a recreation of the cartoonist’s past. I thought maybe the cartoonist also had some type of childhood trauma or something, like his family getting killed or whatever but I’m not sure about that theory anymore. Kang Chul and the writer have a deep relationship that the audience hasn’t been allowed to see yet. Kind of like a relationship between a parent and a child, except less familial love i guess.
From the trailers that were shown of this show, we see a scene of her father injured, with a seemingly stab wound. I think the masked killer will definitely play a huge role in both the cartoonist’s and kang chul’s life. The masked killer seems to be able to cross both worlds easily. For me, I think the masked killer is a personal emotional trauma from the cartoonist, he locked it away but unknowingly to him it kept on growing and had manifested into something more sinister. I don’t think the masked killer is supposed to represent a person at all, I think the masked killer won’t be anyone or anything, just an empty dark vessel. Or maybe if it is someone, I think it will definitely either be someone connected to the Cartoonist or the cartoonist himself. If you think about it, the cartoonist controls ( well atleast maybe in the past he was able to control him, althout now kang chul literally is controlling his life) what happens to kang chul. In a sense, the cartoonist was the killer of kang chul’s family and the reason for his pain and torment. The masked killer is simply kind of like the puppet, with the cartoonist as the hand who controls it.
So it all falls back to the cartoonist himself. Which brings up another point, will the fact that the cartoonist, yeon joo’s father, was in a sense the reason for kang chul’s misery affect kang chul’s romantic relationship with yeon joo? Won’t he see her father as the reason for all the torture he had gone through, thus making his relationship with yeon joo strained? Yeon Joo loves her father, and sympathizes with him so if kang chul plans to kill or hurt her father, will yeon joo stand for it? I assume there will be some kind of showdown between the cartoonist, kang chul and yeon joo. Or maybe her father will end up getting “eaten” by the masked killer? Maybe the reason for the cartoonist trying to kill kang chul is that because he has to do so, in order for the story and the masked killer to be gone. Because of kang chul, the masked killer was created and maybe that’s what he means by he created a monster. He had created kang chul’s story, which allowed the masked killer to be a part of it. Or will the cartoonist be hard to kill, because kang chul and him are connected? What if kang chul and the cartoonist’s life source is connected, so if one dies so will the other? Or well atleast, if the cartoonist dies Kang chul will be gone as well. I think the most definite theory is that the masked killer has to do with everything that’s going on. He’s not only a villain, but something more cruel. He has to have played a huge role in what’s happening with yeon joo, her father, and the cartoonist.
ON A SIDE NOTE: ISNT LEE JONG SUK’S CHARACTER SO REFRESHING. I DONT KNOW IF I WANT TO PINCH HIS CHEEKS DUE TO HIS ADORABLENESS OR SWOON AT HIS SEXY AND COOL PERSONA. His chracter is definelty not a common main male lead charcter. Actually the entire plot is not a common kdrama one. Literally we get two kiss scenes in the span of 3 episodes. Not only that, but it seems like we’ll be getting more kiss scenes in the next couple of episodes. And Yeon Joo is so cute, like I love her as the main heroine. She is very considerate and caring, and her quirkiness is so adorable. When she literally flashed kang chul, i died. I was like wtf is this girl doing, I was so confused and just started laughing. Her character is not naive, but she has an innocent heart. She’s not weak nor strong, and I definitely think she will help kang chul let go or at least get past his demons. ANYWHOS, the cast are amazing, plot, setting, everything is well-written and exciting. i’m so anxious and excited to see what will happen next and how the plot is going to thicken.
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2 new episodes and I feel like a lot of mysteries got lifted already. When I look at my list:
What remains:
- Writer created Kang Cheol -> XX happened -> Kang Cheol started to act on his own --> WHY?
- why is it the daughter of writer-guy (the man who made Kang Cheol) that can save him? -> something family related?
Things we got to know:
- writer doesn’t know what exactly happened (XX?), he just seems afraid of Kang Cheol coming to life, that seems to be the only reason (seems like too small of a reason?)
- writer guy only seems to be afraid of Kang Cheol hurting him because writer “killed” his family?
- WE GOT THE ANSWER ABOUT THE TABLET. It seems to be the portal between the two world, at least in terms of Kang Cheol. Yeon Joo is still a mystery though…
- the evil prosecuter who tried to put Kang Cheol into prison at all costs showed up but doesn’t seem to be the main evil tbh…
New Questions:
- has the writer even ever visited the “other” world? What about the night he disappeared, if he isn’t the black guy (which I don’t think he is) what did he do then?
- writer didn’t “save” Kang Cheol, he wasn’t on the bridge at the suicide attempt, something else must have happened?
- is it really ONLY Kang Cheol who is alive from the other world?
- Where did writer get the tablet? Maybe we could find some answers there
- WHY IS THE STORY GETTING NARRATED? I think it’s Yeon Joos voice but I didn’t think too much of it yet (too busy reading subs I guess) but is she like telling the whole story in the future? Is it even her?
So what I just think is weird is that it feels like a lot of questions got answered in these 2 episodes? I don’t know, there is probably a backstory or something that’s going to happen but right now it feels like since Kang Cheol is in the real world there can’t be any weird things happening and he will just confront the writer and probably have a fight with him or something. It will be interesting to see how they will go from here but for me it feels like it will kinda just go over into a “normal” romantic/finding my true self story? I guess I will just wait and see, I mean it’s not like I don’t love these kind of stories, too
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It’s so amazing, the last minutes of episode 4 were EXACTLY like in the music video, just in “modern” omg
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Really? I’m going to watch episode 4 tomorrow.
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I don’t have any interesting theory, but just had to say:
OH MY GOD! I can’t believe I have to wait an entire WHOLE week until the next chapter 
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I thought the same thing!
Then don’t read my long post, there might be spoilers! I hope I didn’t spoil you yet O.O
I actually watched the 2 episodes before I went to this thread because I didn’t want to get spoiled
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Love this show! And it’s going to be hard to wait 5 more days. ><
By the way, I read a very interesting theory on Dramabeans, written by “deathbychocolate”. Have to share it, it makes so much sense!
It’s interesting to note that when YJ was first sucked into the webtoon, her father’s reaction puzzled me. Given that he knows that the webtoon has a life of its own, it wasn’t the reaction I was expecting when he found her daughter in it and even during their confrontation. He didn’t even ask how and why YJ was able to go inside the “manhworld” like how his assistant was curious when he realized that YJ was really able to go inside that world. So I conclude that YJs father already have an existing knowledge on how and why someone can go and exit from that world. He probably knows or have an idea how crossing the two worlds is possible. Remember his reaction when he just said that YJ shouldn’t have interfered with his plans on killing KC, no reference at all about how she’s inside his created world when in fact it more weird to have someone enter that world and interact within it than seeing it on his computer.
Also, I can’t shake the thought about KC statement about how YJ is the key to his life that maybe YJ is his original creator. I mean, she’s the one who conceptualize him first and all and only his father adapted his character in a manhwa, given that it already said that YJ can draw too(conversation between her aunt and mom about sending her to med school instead of pursuing art).
I especially find the part about YJ being the original creator of KC very interesting! It would explain lots of things. Like why it’s only her that gets sucked in (apart from the cartoonist of course). Aaaah so impatient to see what’s next.
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Oh I can answer why the story gets narrated. It’s like why for 24 episodes we have Yi In Jwa (main evil psychopath in jackpot. introduced in ep 1) hard subbed. For the new people. It is only narrated during recaps at the beginning of the ep. It is annoying to subtitle those because along with narration is the actual flashback. So have to sometimes determine if it is important. The flashback dialogue.
If things are narrated in 4 past the 40 min mark. IDK. I only watched up to 40 min into 4. Editing this show is hard because there were close to 10 new words I learned today. We listen for each word because errors are quite… embarrassing. Some of our friends (aka ex-teammates) watch and will point out errors. More than one native Korean too. To try to help the whole community I’ve taken to personally copying the harder vocab (defined as words you don’t hear at the dining table in an ordinary daily convo with parents) onto TD.
Already I learned 1 new 4 character idiom and if no one on the team knew the 5 clouds surround you, now they do. Came out like at least 5x this ep.
mmm don’t think Father is the killer. The physique isn’t right.
Definitely need to rewatch this ep. But no time!!! ah!!! when I mindlessly watched kdrama i’d speed through by now… eek takes me hrs to finish an ep.
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Han Hyo Joo narrated the end^^
Well, it seems that the simpliest answer is the right one… the author wants to kill his character because he has no idea, he never ever thought about sove the mistery of the Kang Cheol family murder.
The picture showed in the first chapters is Chronos eat their sons because there was a profecy that one of his children kill him, so eat or be eaten… the author have to kill his character or be killed by Kang Cheol.
I have a theory, what happened if Kang Cheol was drawing firstly by the authors daughter? So, she is the really author and her wishes are stronger than his fathers one, so she can change the story. She wish a happy ending for Kang Cheol.
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Agree!! I think YG is the original author… she was living with his father by the bridge moment, and it seems that she likes the cartoon world. She wanted to be a cartoonist, but her mother insisisted to be a doctor and have money.
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With all the flashing back and forth between the worlds in ep.9, I had trouble knowing which world we were in at which time! At the end, I was thinking to myself, maybe the villain kills the dad, but… Creepy faceless guy!! D:< I was watching in the middle of the night with thunderstorms outside. Nearly had a freakin’ heart attack.
The show already had me questioning what I thought I knew about reality, but after the dad put his face onto the villain in the manhwa and subsequently lost it himself in the ‘real’ world… I get the idea that once the manhwa characters attain a sense of self-awareness that they’re fictional characters in a fictional world, that they can sort of bend that world to their will. But what kind of higher power made it so that the villain guy can mess with the real world?!! Is that breaking the rules or are the rules way more complicated that I’d have imagined?
Should’ve waited until the final week to start watching. As always, I couldn’t stop myself.
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I belive that is culp is the evil when he entered in the drama the firt time he created the enter in two worlds this is posible that kang Cheol is here in the real word on other hans when the writer the give his face he created to exist in the real world (ep 9) if he was give other face to the evil he not lose her face only can recover his face when his assistant will back drawing and change the things in the history.My second theory is that she will can create other end for the history she could be the only person that change, must be she is the firt character the w, and when opend the portal of the two worlds anyone the reald world created two alternatives realities.
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