I Need Some Textual Proof. Some Analysis. To Actually Show That Korn Is A Worse Person In The Original

i need some textual proof. some analysis. to actually show that korn is a worse person in the original timeline (calling it that for now) in ep 6 before we come to that conclusion. So here's my own analysis.

I don't think it's as simple as Great is imagining all of this differently and sees his brother as better than he is. The POV is more nuanced than that. And I think Korn is more nuanced than that. So here's a much too long analysis of each Korn scene in episode 6 (Original Timeline) and how it compares to equivalent scenes (Alternative Timeline)

The Dinner Scene

The Alternative Timeline scene in ep 1 was much more in Korn's POV and he actually seems a lot more annoyed and cold than in the Original Timeline.

Ep 1: The scene starts with a push in on Korn (it immediately follows him leaving Tonkla) vs Ep 6: The scene starts with Great entering the room. (Ep 1 images on left, Ep 6 on right)

Ep 1 shows us a lot more of Korn's reactions while Ep 6 focuses on Great. When Great arrives, Korn is annoyed. He looks at his watch. They've been waiting for him. Korn keeps tapping his finger on the base of his glass. In Ep 6 Korn is sitting differently. He actually looks more relaxed (relatively, for Korn) and he gives Great what looks like a sympathetic glance.

Episode 1:

Episode 1 vs Episode 6:

After Great moves to the other end of the table. Ep 1 vs Ep 6

Also Interestingly, their dad is harsh but a little softer in Episode 1 than Episode 6. Is it the different circumstances? Great's attitude? Or is it that Korn and Great percieve him very differently? If Ep 1 is just what Great is imagining, as people have theorized, why are we put emotionally in Korn's POV at the start? I think that's up all for interpretation (and part of what makes this show so fun to watch)

Episode 1 vs Episode 6:

I just noticed there are no wine glasses in ep 6 and they're eating very different food. I don't know what that means but it's an interesting change.

Episode 6:

In Ep 6 Korn looks aggitated only when Great criticizes their dad and his concern for the company.

But then he's very stressed when their dad gets upset and storms out of the room. First he flinches. Then he's breathing heavier and rubbing his hands on his legs. Go on and tell me this isn't a trauma response to their dad's anger.

In Episode 1, Great didn't talk back to his dad because he was preoccupied, thinking about the time jump. But the way Korn looks at him his much colder, more judgmental.

So which is it? Is one of these 100% the truth and one purely imagined? Are they both true? Are they both shaded by someone's memory and perspective? At the Gambling Business Compound

The next time we see Korn in ep 6 is after Nan has tried to escape and she has been shot. Tyme sees him wipe his bloody hands on a cloth, toss it to the family Henchman and leave. We didn't see this part in Episode 3, so there's nothing to compare as directly as the dinner scene. In Episode 3 we see Korn just after he has learned what Nan did. He's upset, frazzled. He orders Henchman to take Nan to an old warehouse.

I think that in Episode 6 what we're seeing is after Nan has been taken to the warehouse and the Henchman has just returned. I'm assuming Korn's hand is bloody because he's been cleaning up where they kept Nan until he arrived? He tells Henchman to finish up.

I find it really hard to make any judgment about Korn based on these different scenes. In episode 3 we get more of his initial reaction, which would naturally be different.

In episode 6 we get to see him leaving the scene and he just looks very blank. Maybe it's because he's cold and uncaring. I think it's something more like shock or dissociation. We're not really seeing this from his POV. We're with Tyme in this scene and so that also colors what we're seeing.

Tyme's Attack at the Bar

This scene is exactly the same as it is in Episode 3.

After Great Saves Tyme or Nan & Tyme

This is another big difference and the one thing that I think potentially supports the idea that Korn is more competent and a less reluctant participant in the business than the alternative timeline Korn. I am trying to be fair here lol

First, this is where there is the biggest difference in the order of events. In Alternative Timeline, Great has his date with Tyme and no one knows about it, Great helps both Nan and Tyme escape, Korn learns what Great did, Dad threatens Tyme (successfully), and then Nan releases information to the public about the company.

In the Original Timeline, Tyme has a date with Great and releases their sex tape, Dad threatens Tyme to get him to stay away from Great, Great gets to Tyme anyway, Great watches Nan die & helps Tyme escape, Tyme releases the information, Korn learns Great helped the man who released information about the company.

In both timelines Korn is naturally confused about what Great did. He's more visibly upset about Great in Episode 5 than he is in the Original Timeline and I won't ignore the fact that he's wearing a white shirt in Alternative Timeline and black in Original. This is the only time his clothes are different BUT i think that has to do with the timing of the release of information. The potential destruction of the company and all of Korn's plans for his life is the major turning point for him.

Alternative Timeline after Great helps Nan & Tyme, then after the release of information:

Original Timeline after Korn learns that Great saves Tyme and the information has already been released:

Back to the point of the analysis: Henchman does seem to defer more to him in Original Timeline than in the Alternative.

And in the Original, this suggests Korn is more involved with all the people connected to the business as well.

Conclusion

So is one of these 100% accurate and another shaded purely by Great's perception? Is the alternative timeline just the way Great is potenitally shaping reality in his mind? Who is the real Korn? I just don't believe that the answer is going to be as clear as "Actually evil." We also don't know for certain that episode 6 is purely the Original timeline, though it seems to be.

And as my smart friend @snarkivistfic observed, if the alternative timeline is only what Great is imagining, why is he imagining his brother having some really hot sex with Tonkla? Asking the real questions! lmao

I think that scene is more from Tonkla's POV and we might only see Original Timeline Tonkla. So what we're seeing of Korn when he's with Tonkla would be Original Timeline Korn. We don't see those scenes again, we don't see any of the scenes with Fasai or where Korn is showing any of his reluctance or vunlerabilities in episode 6 because they're not necessary to the episode. So we can't leave those out and decide he's actually a fully willing, enthusiastic participant and an irredemably terrible person based on a single interaction.

Anyway, we still have two episodes left and each episode is so full of new information and new questions I'm not ready to feel certain about any of the characters. I will just continue to love Korn unconditionally since he never got that from his shitty shitty dad.

i wish tumblr would let you append a little memo when you blocked someone so i could remember if i brought the hammer down for virulent transphobia or for having slightly too annoying of an opinion on a day when i was hungover

Imagine your icon being your therapist

4 Minutes, Family, and Perceptions of Reality

Last week, before episode 6 aired, I was itching to pen some thoughts about breaking down family ties in 4 Minutes and how I thought themes like intergenerational trauma and filial piety (I stay so typical here on this blog) were affecting each character.

I'm glad I held off, and it's still probably just too soon to write this kind of analysis without knowing the entirety of the story. But this post by @cookie-kat777 about Great and possible present depression has me thinking at least about family, the way we are raised, and how our upbringings at least contribute to how we see the world as adults.

In this past Friday's episode, with @cookie-kat777's post on my mind, Great struck me as lonely and sociopathic -- and did Bible Wichapas ever do a HELL of a job acting out Great's generally questionable reactions as compared to everyday, normal social expectations of behavior surrounding INCREDIBLY intense and traumatic exposures to literal murder and/or death. At least we see him taking meds, but those giggles at the dinner table with his family were clearly off-putting and indicated that Great is not quite “there” in the head.

Even if Great didn't know about the illegal gambling business that built his wealthy lifestyle -- the choices, separately, that his father and his mother made to ensure their existence as a wealthy and important family certainly had brutal impacts on Great as he grew up, as well as, we assume, their emotional neglect of him during his upbringing.

(And, if I can bring up an example from the previous timeshift of earlier in the series, we know Great's parents used money to literally buy him happiness by way of toys that had no emotional meaning to him. Money may have bought him protection from consequences, but we've known from the start that it's never brought him happiness.)

Great's perception of what's SAFE and morally/ethically RIGHT, or at least, ACCEPTABLE, in the wider world, versus his own internal world, are UTTERLY OFF. While @cookie-kat777 absolutely lays out how that mental state could affect Great internally vis à vis depression, I'll also posit that it was Great's family environment -- his mother, his father, and Korn growing up knowing that he'd inherit at least some of the family business -- that also is fucking up his perception of the expected binary of "right" and "wrong" of society. We don't know quite how his mother clawed her way to Great's father's side, without Korn's mom present, but I'm going to guess it was brutal -- especially, as we see in this latest timeshift, Great's ability to walk away from death multiple times, and his father's angry ease in making death "go away," as it were (and let's throw Title in there, too).

A child's understanding of the world, how to go about in the world, how to interact in the world, how they relate to the external world, comes so much from their upbringing. An upbringing of a child creates relativity for that child. As children, we see the world as our caretakers interacted in it, and we're inclined to repeat that behavior -- until we are challenged by external forces to change our behavior and our viewpoints. Just as the four minutes from the time oxygen is cut off to a brain creates a new sense of perception, a specific upbringing of a child -- by parents, by grandparents, by a foster family, by an orphanage, etc. -- will have direct impacts on how that child grows up to relate to its world as an adult.

Tyme is the person that offers a challenge to Great's understanding of and relation to the external world and, subsequently, Great’s internal world as well. In this new timeshift of episode 6, I appreciate how Tyme seems so much more bitter, transactional, and "real" in straight-up using Great -- all while Great admires Tyme's tenacity to fuck with Great's family, as if Tyme were doing an action that Great has longed to do against his own family. Great ultimately does something, a one thing, in saving Tyme, but Tyme still walks away from Great, and Great is still left alone.

But in that process of being left alone, AGAIN, this time by someone who challenged him -- Great then moves forward to challenge his own existence and upbringing, confronting, finally, his parents for their decisions, and driving away from his mother. ...

... only to get shot by a grieving person in Tonkla, someone seeking revenge for a murdered brother that Tonkla simply loved. No matter where this story goes, at least we know that Tonkla loved Dome, to the extent of murdering others on Dome's behalf. While this storyline also isn't fully revealed, the Tonkla/Dome storyline narrates back to us, in another strange way, how family and familial ties can drive a person to go utterly haywire in their existence to survive and understand the world.

And, finally -- we learn that Tyme's parents were possibly the kingpins of the Sriwat illegal gambling business. How Tyme sees the world, in whatever timeshift he's in, has now also gotten jacked up with this piece of potential truth. What is his new reality vis à vis what he's been told? What is his capability to survive, especially after being saved by Great?

Like I said before, ha: I think it's too early to write this post without knowing if we'll be given a final, central narrative line about how all of these timeshifts link up. But I am LOVING, in this FABULOUS show, how we're being shown that the truths of how our families lived their lives can have such great impact on the way WE live OUR lives as adults, and I'm taking that theme away as something this show is commenting so very sophisticatedly on.