I see it a bit differently. Sure, only two people are physically present, but that doesn’t mean that the protagonist’s own demons and past failures, or his idealized type for a woman, do not function as a sort of third character. Most of what we get of Yuna is filtered through the protagonist’s inner monologue and so she exists in relation to him as well as in fact. That makes for three characters in the first chapter: Jihoon, Yuna, and the ‘Yuna’ that Jihoon has already constructed in his mind – a conflation of his hopes and desires and the real woman. More interesting than a simple list of names, that.
And the anonymity of the story adds to its mystery. This beautiful and melancholic piece about an anonymous connection between two human beings has been created by unknown people and thus we readers connect with the story without knowing who created it. And in the same way as the two main characters of the story experience warmth, we experience it too as we are reading this story about an anonymous connection between two unknown human beings. Maybe that was even the intention of the creators of this story. (I’m probably overthinking this now…).
You want the best order? Just read it. Start from Chapter 1. IT IS NOT THE WITCHER OR NARNIA. It’s a sweet noona-romance webnovel. Each chapter is short and it’s a linear plot. The intended order to read it is the order in which it was written. There’s no complex chronology or timeline tricks in this novel. Just enjoy the fluff, some awkward situations and then the confession. Don’t let online fandom complicate things for you. Just open the app, click on Chapter 1 and swipe.
Tracking down the official list of ages for each Arc chapter is turning into its own mini-mystery. Chasing after information regarding the chapters in various volumes, cross-checking with other fan-translated chapters, and searching the Internet for interviews with the creator of Arc have become new pastimes within the fandom. The searching itself even becomes part of the enjoyment of reading Arc, plunging the reader deeper into the story than they would have gone had they simply been reading it.
Just read through all of these brilliant analyses of theRoald Dahl Book of Ghost Stories and I am now even more in awe of the author’s genius. All these years I have forgotten that the parrot and the dog are statue still in one of the tales and that should have been my first warning sign. Oh to go back in time and read the stories again and this time pick up on all the clues that I had so gruesomely missed the first time around.
It’s a tragic play which ends with a fatal misunderstanding. All along the play Billy misinterprets what he believes to be luck, but in reality it is doom. Finally in the ending Billy sees things for what they really are, however the correction comes too late and the tragedy is not that he was dumb, it’s that his typical, polite way of viewing the world is turned against him. So the play is a victory of monstrous reality over normal perception and the landlady, the bringer of reality in this case, gets the last smile in the play. It’s a terrible statement on how vulnerability can be used against decency.
I also read somewhere that Radcliffe was going to do a sequel from the landlady's point of view but couldn't write it because then she would be too human. He said that he couldn’t give her an internal monologue because then she would be less of a force of nature and less of a monster. There are a few interesting interview clips online where Radcliffe discusses this conundrum.