Les mondes fictionnels de W : une approche intermédiale des interactions entre réel et virtuel dans un drama coréen fantastique

Abstract

This paper focuses on a South-Korean drama entitled W – Two Worlds (MBC, 2016), and aims to analyze its complex and innovative narrative system, in order to expose how it investigates the way fiction works in recently emerged forms of mass-media culture. Although the series emphasizes the fact that manhwa, webtoon and drama are strongly connected in today’s South Korean cultural landscape, it is not through adaptation, but through internal representation that this connection is being revealed and questioned: the plot is based on the possibility for characters to cross the border between two constantly interacting worlds, one level of fiction being embedded in the other one. The first section of this paper addresses the narrative structure of this twofold world, staging a webtoon (i.e. online published comics) hero trying to escape his status of fictional character by conquering the author’s right to shape his destiny. This struggle between creator and creature is being addressed in the second section on a metafictional level, by combining the analysis of key scenes of the drama and the reading of quotes by its celebrated screenwriter. Lastly, the third section points out how the narrative depicts the very act of fiction-making, and how it puts the viewer of the drama at the core of the fictional system. By studying the aesthetics of W from an intermedial perspective, we would like to highlight how this drama investigates contemporary ways of creating, viewing and sharing media fiction.

Keywords

• Korean drama
• webtoon
• manhwa
• intermediality
• media fiction