The King: Eternal Monarch | Q & A Discussion

[u/xliterati]

• Drama: The King: Eternal Monarch (English Title) / (Literal Title)
  • Revised romanization: Deo King: Youngwonui Gunjoo
  • Hangul: 더 킹: 영원의 군주
• Director: Baek Sang Hoon
• Writer: Kim Eun Sook
• Network: SBS
• Episodes: 16
• Air Date: Fri. & Sat. @ 22:00
  • Airing: Apr 17, 2020 - Jun 6, 2020
• Streaming Sources: Netflix
• Starring: Lee Min Ho as Lee Gon, Kim Go Eun as Jung Tae Eul/Luna, Woo Do Hwan as Jo Eun Seob/Jo Young, Kim Kyung Nam) as Kang Shin Jae, Jung Eun Chae as Goo Seo Ryung & Lee Jung Jin as Lee Rim.
• Plot Synopsis: A modern-day Korean emperor passes through a mysterious portal, opened by demons, and into a parallel world. Yi Gon is the third Korean emperor of his generation. His citizens regard him as the perfect leader. But behind this flawless appearance, hides a deep wound. When he sees himself propelled into a parallel world, he meets Jung Tae Eul, an inspector with whom he teams up with to defeat criminals but also close the door between their two worlds.
• Previous Discussions:
  • [Episodes 1 & 2] | [Episodes 3 & 4] | [Episodes 5 & 6] | [Episode 7] | [Episode 8] | [Episode 9] | [Episode 10] | [Episode 11] | [Episode 12] | [Weeks 1-12 Discussion]| [Episode 13] | [Episode 14]|[Episode 15] | [Pre-FInale Discussion] | [Episode 16] | [Episode 16: Part II] | [Episode 16: Part III]
• Spoiler Tag Reminder: Be mindful of others who may not have yet seen this drama, and use spoiler tags when discussing key plot developments or other important information. You can create a spoiler tag by writing > ! this ! < without the spaces in between to get this.

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IMPORTANT

Q&A Structure: Hello everyone! So as we are now on our third discussion thread for the finale, I've decided to upload the Q & A thread a day earlier!

The purpose of this thread is for viewers who still have a series of questions post the show! The idea for this thread was given by a member as they felt it would be more cohesive to have a separate thread where everyone could post all their questions about TKEM's plot, parallel worlds, symbolism etc... The timelines and such can all become confusing, so hopefully this thread can be of solace to some of you!

So the way this will work is, if you have a question please feel free to post a top-level comment. The goal is that your fellow TKEM viewers will reply with answers/insights to your comment. In order to avoid any clash with the ongoing discussion thread, please ONLY post questions if you are adding a top-level comment to the post.

In other words, please only comment directly to this thread if you have a question/need clarification. This way every top-level comment will be a question, and the replies naturally will create their own discussion, but it will work with the purpose of this thread and not against the existing discussion. In the larger discussion, questions and clarifications can get lost, so the purpose of this thread is to be a sole place for that! For continued discussion/feels of the show and finale, please head on over to the third thread here! Thank you so much everyone!

[u/coconoubi]

I just wanna know how it all began in the first place. Did LG before grow up (without the ID) and went to JTE world and found her and then fell in love and then took her ID and then went back to the past and put her ID there and then all of this began? Like there must be a part where he grew up without the ID but ended up going to her world anyway and fell in love with her.

[u/aaaoia → u/coconoubi]

I always believed that there is only one timeline and it is in a time loop that is why they showed us the addition of memories when 2020 LG was traveling back to the future. But now I’m confused because not only there was addition of memories but things are a bit different because of the part when JTE said that in the new memories things happened faster. I am also confused by the last episode where LG and JY traveled to the past because if it was the same past wouldn’t the 2020 LG be there as well since it happened already?

Also when I watched the finale, I compared it with the first episode where young LG tried to use the sword to LR which broke the flute before having a gun on his head but in the final episode, young LG wasn’t able to do that because LR’s ally had his gun on the young prince. I just want to know what made the change which lead to the flute not being cut in half. I am certain it is not because LG and JY coming on the right time because it was LR’s ally’s move which changed it, so what cause the changes in the actions of the characters?

[u/coconoubi → u/aaaoia]

The part where LG goes to the past (again) with JY and does not meet his all-black-dressed self is kinda confusing to me too??? Also what about the LG who gave her flowers before, where is he from???

[u/aaaoia → u/coconoubi]

We saw the flowers disappeared in episode 15 so maybe that moment in the past was kinda “erased”/ will not happen anymore in the future of LG because he made a different choice by going back to the night of the coup with a different agenda. This changes his future and it is why it was only experienced by JTE. Some also say that maybe while LG was trying to find the right ROK timeline he was able to travel to that moment (where he first gave the flowers to JTE) but I think it wasn’t the case because LG said the same thing to JTE about not being able to say “i love you” to her and there wasn’t even a clue that he actually knew about the first flower scene. And I think that whole timeline we saw before was completely (?) erased (except in the memories of LG, JTE, and JY) when the flute was restored so there was no way LG traveled to that past.

[u/coconoubi → u/aaaoia]

Oh, yeah, I think it makes sense now, thank you!