Rules & Principles of the Drama

Intrigued by the world view of this drama, I decided to make a summary of the rules that bind the world to aid our understanding and to make it easier to form theories.

Here are some consistent rules I've observed between ep.1 ~ ep.20, and some theories I derived according to those rules:

State 1: The "Stage/Concept" (aka what happens in the manhwa)

• Events and character actions and dialogue that happen on stage are fixed/ decided by the writer(s) of the manhwa.
• There are two types of storyboards -- "Drawn" storyboards and "blank, unconfirmed" storyboards. "Drawn storyboards" are, literally, pages already drawn in the book. Some drawn pages have already happened, while some are yet to happen.
• As of now, only Haru can move freely and change things on stage. Everyone else can only stick to the plot no matter how hard they struggle to break free.
• Not only can the blank, unconfirmed storyboards be changed be Haru, even drawn storyboards that have already happened can still be re-written by Haru. (Example: The extra that plays tennis with Baek Kyung suddenly becomes Haru while Squid Fairy was reading that page.)
• When a buggy character disappears (e.g. Haru), everyone with no self-awareness forgets the character ever having existed. The character will be replaced by another extra in the pages he has appeared in.
• Dan Oh has premonitions of the unconfirmed storyboards. The premonitions are concepts that the writer(s) have either come up with in their heads or have written out as drafts, but haven't been drawn into the book yet.
• Injuries inflicted on stage are considered part of the story and do not disappear until the story development suggests the injuries have healed. This brings me to a theory about Haru’s true identity, which I will explain further below.
• Similarly, if someone dies on stage, they are dead forever in that manhwa. Their "souls" are idle until they are written into a new manhwa. (Example: Squid fairy appears in both Flower and Secret.)

State 2: The "Shadow/Back" (aka what happens off-stage/in between page flips)

• All characters can move around freely in the shadow, but only people who gained self-awareness can remember what happened during those intervals.
• Characters who are not self-aware largely follow their character settings in the shadow, and give the same responses when being prompted the same questions; characters who are self-aware may or may not follow their original character settings. (Examples: Dan Oh has a completely different personality from her manhwa self, while Do Hwa maintains a similar personality as his manhwa self.)
• It is possible for a person to jump from one stage to another without experiencing any shadow/back in between. (Example: Dan Oh experiences days of time skips while she is hospitalised.)
• Anything that was moved around in the shadow will be re-arranged back into place when the stage starts --> there is no use changing things in the shadow as it would not affect the stage, unless Haru does it. (Example: Haru gives Dan Oh's heart-rate monitor watch to Sae Mi, moves Dan Oh away and Sae Mi becomes the one who faints in the next stage.)
• While some characters are on stage, other characters who are not needed will stay in the shadow. Characters who are in the shadow cannot enter the stage because they do not belong there. (Example: Haru cannot leave school to go visit the hospitalized Dan Oh, because he is not a part of the hospital scenes.)
• Injuries inflicted in the shadow are irrelevant to the storyboard, so they go away when the next stage starts. Characters can heal themselves by entering a stage.
• If someone dies in the shadow, their death contradicts the storyboard, so they return when the next stage starts, but they lose their self-awareness.

About Haru’s True Identity

• As I have mentioned above, injuries inflicted on stage are considered part of the story and do not disappear unless specified by the writer(s). This brings me to the theory that Haru is from Flower, not just as the same soul, but in the same body as well. He has a scar on his hand that doesn't disappear in between stages, which indicates that he got it on stage. Since he never injured his hand in Secret, it must’ve been from another book. But if he had lived through his whole lifetime in another book, died there naturally, and got written into Secret as a whole new character, he would have been reborn without any scar. The fact that he still has his old scar intact can only mean one thing -- he travelled from Flower to Secret (probably through the portals), and lost his memories and self-awareness in the process.
• This is hinted when Haru lost his scar by being reborn as Baek Kyung’s tennis pal. He got the scar and his original identity back when he put his hand into the portal. My interpretation is that the portal is a link between Flower and Secret, so when his body comes into contact with the world he comes from, it restores him to his old self (like how stages restore a person back to their “storyboard state”), with his old self being the one with a scar who knows Dan Oh.
• Some additional evidence would be the fact that he’s great at ancient Chinese, playing the flute, and painting with ink. He’s definitely from ancient Joseon.
• Haru often talks about wanting to find his purpose and why he is here, he only remembers Dan Oh’s name, and he often sees the trumpet creeper flower which means “waiting”. With all these hints combined, it is very likely that Haru came to Secret in search of Dan Oh, who had died/left Flower. She is the one he is waiting for, but he forgot.
• Haru has vague memories of Flower – at the beginning, he remembers the pond with the flower trees, the palace, and the trumpet creeper. He then starts to remember more and more after spending time with Dan Oh. Hopefully he will remember everything later on.

Relationship Between Secret and Flower

• The events (both on stage and in shadow) that happen in Secret after Haru throws the original plot off-course start to resemble those in Flower. Some lines are even word-by-word the same. This could imply that the encounter of Haru and Dan Oh has caused the two manhwas to merge together, as Haru is from Flower, while current Dan Oh is from Secret. 
• Haru also becomes more and more like a male lead in the shadow – he’s admired for his good looks, gets no.1 in class, gets the girl etc. while Baek Kyung assumes the role of the second male lead. Could this have been the dynamics in Flower as well?

Changing Destiny

• From what’s been shown till now, it is possible to change what happens to a character on stage only if another character takes their place. Even then, all events that are meant to happen will happen anyway, but simply later.
• This means Dan Oh’s death is largely inevitable, and can only be delayed but not stopped, unless the writers change their minds.

That's all I can think of for now. Feel free to leave a comment to tell me what you think! :)

Nice post! Thank you for gathering all these facts in one single post, it will be easier to form theories now :D

 haruny:

Nice post! Thank you for gathering all these facts in one single post, it will be easier to form theories now :D

Thanks for the appreciation! Feel free to add some of your own observations that I haven't included :)

@Cnjussym about someone else dying in Dan Oh's place, I know Haru is the lead so it may be unlikely, but I think he will try to die in her place instead. But hopefully he doesn't actually die or anything and it can be avoided :( Because it just seems so plausible and very Haru-like that he would sacrifice himself for Dan Oh. 

 haruny:

@Cnjussym about someone else dying in Dan Oh's place, I know Haru is the lead so it may be unlikely, but I think he will try to die in her place instead. But hopefully he doesn't actually die or anything and it can be avoided :( Because it just seems so plausible and very Haru-like that he would sacrifice himself for Dan Oh. 

Yes, I also thought that Haru would die in her place if necessary :(