I've always wished to be a bud, soon to burst into bloom.
”
–Dongbaek, Canto IV: The Unchanging
Dongbaek (Hangul: 동백, Dongbaek), is the leader of a subgroup of the Technology Liberation Alliance and a former member of the League of Nine Littérateurs. She was once a confident and spirited woman, but the destruction of the League led her to grow hardened and tormented, desperate to know who had sold out the group she'd cared so much for. She is a major supporting character and antagonist in Canto IV: The Unchanging.
Dongbaek is an exhausted looking woman with a poor, slouched posture. She has sharp yellow eyes, although only the left is visible, as her right is wounded and covered with dark bandages. She has straight shoulder-length gray hair, nearing on white, with bangs falling messily over her forehead.
Dongbaek wears a brown, tattered and dirty hoodie with long drawstrings of a lighter color. Over it she sports a lab coat, which is similarly dilapidated, and ends in frays above her ankles. She wears long jeans rolled up at the ends while her shoes and black sneakers with white accents and laces, both of which are also dirtied.
When fully utilizing the Lobotomy Corp E.G.O::Sunshower, she wears a dirty and tattered raincoat that reaches her legs, muddy boots, and is impaled with worn-down umbrellas.
When utilizing her own personal E.G.O, Spicebush, she wears a white hanbok and a grey po overcoat with brown leather sandals. On her head, arms, and back, yellow spicebush flowers and branches grow out. She wields a fan made of the same kind of flowers in her right hand and a branch-like spear in her left.
In Yi Sang's memory of their time in T Corp., Dongbaek is shown to have dark brown, chin-length hair with blunt bangs. She is shown with a straight posture, wearing dark pants and a brown aviator jacket.
Personality
Before the dissolution of the League of Nine Littérateurs, Dongbaek was a confident and down to earth woman, contrasting her friends Yi Sang and Dongrang's more idealistic natures. After leaving her hometown, she found a sense of belonging in the League, treasuring her compatriots and their time together. Even when invited to come visit the Wing that sought to recruit Young-ji, she turned down that opportunity as to not leave the League behind.
Her wish to protect and preserve the League would lead her to bomb their laboratory during T Corp.'s raid, risking her life in an attempt to preserve their inventions. This same loyalty would turn into fury upon learning a member of the League had betrayed the others, a thought that would torment Dongbaek for years, leading her to harbor suspicion towards the surviving members.
After the League's dissolution, Dongbaek's motivations shifted: having lost many of her loved ones and being unable of trusting the survivors, she instead decided to focus her energy into changing the status quo of the City, by destroying the vile technology that she believed had been the catalyst for the League's destruction. She would then join the Technology Liberation Alliance, and begin rallying together researchers that, much like her, had seen their lives ruined by the technology of the City.
Dongbaek would keep on single-mindedly working for her vision, being willing to sacrifice many of her allies and all the commodities of the City in the hopes of one day reaching her final goal: to create a world without technology where future generations would be able to rediscover the joy of creating. Her strong belief in her vision would lead her to feel a sense of contempt for Yi Sang upon meeting him again, recognizing in him the apathy that had seized him since the fall of the League, and affirming her attempt to kill him felt "unpleasant", as it seemed to be granting his true wish.
Dongbaek's determination remained with her up until her very end: even when near-death, being approached by the Voice of the Distortion, she denied it, instead manifesting her own E.G.O.
After Dongrang's admittance to his betrayal, her worldview and E.G.O shattering, failing to destroy K Corp’s Singularity, and even her own death, Dongbaek's consciousness still clung to life, true to herself. In the fathoms of Yi Sang's ego, she would manifest for a final time to speak to Yi Sang, reminding him of the worth of his invention and reflecting on the power to make possibilities into reality, before passing on.
[The paragraph below is a detailed description found in a document left in the L Corp. branch facility located in Nest K.] … An umbrella that may have been used to stop the rain once. Now, it’s too old and worn to perform that role well. This umbrella must have been the compassion for an abandoned somebody. But it might have come across as hollow. Hypocrisy, vanity, irresponsibility. Those are the emotions the umbrella has harbored now. Technology liberation alliance… It is said to be a group of former researchers from various firms. There may yet be members in the city who we haven’t met. Dongbaek seems to be the leader of a subgroup. As they forsook the world… the world will have forsaken them in return. She has always been good at attracting like-minded individuals and encouraging them, so it must have been a breeze for her to gather the abandoned. How did they accept her offer, then? I might see the answer to that question. Her hand would have been comparable to an umbrella in a heavy rain with no shelter to be found, a warm gesture of compassion. An invitation to comfort and warmth. … Alas, the umbrella must be a holed one, like the one we are seeing now. Dongbaek may have held an umbrella over them… It was only a means to further her own interests. She knows it well herself. Look. See how she is helplessly caught in the falling rain. She must have no intentions of avoiding it. She is simply showering herself and all others in the rain… Like a rusted umbrella, it would seem she has chosen to be stained in rust along with everything else.
Dongbaek was rather fond of fireworks. It’s an activity of entertainment where gunpowder is launched into the sky and blown up. Some of us called it an aggressive hobby and teased it. Some others joke that she might showcase a bomb in a future conference. Of course, it was all an innocent jest. However… Dongbaek must’ve yearned to see something beyond that. As we all did, She wished to see stars form a stream in the skies, and flowers blooming across the land. That was all there was to it. Now, the old League of Nine Littérateurs has fallen apart. As I peeked into the course of her life, I saw the world fall apart in a tragedy caused by technology. She must have been furious. She must have been consumed with a longing, agony, sorrow, and despair. As I was. All of Dongbaek’s emotions have now pushed through the flesh, blooming into a mass of petals. Ahh. Are you stopping at last, Dongbaek? Do you finally effloresce the gorgeous scenery of our hometown with your own body. I see, now I see. The reason you bloomed, sowing seeds of nostalgia, was to set your heart upon our new beginning. Dongbaek… The fireworks you used to love are now being recreated on the soil, as you manage to get the buds to bloom. … Indeed, it is no wonder you would be fond of them.
Trivia
Dongbaek (동백) is the Korean word for camellia flower. Her name references the titular yellow camellia flowers of the short story, The Camellias (동백꽃, dongbaekkkot), by Gim Yujeong (Korean: 김유정, Hanja: 金裕貞).
Gim Yujeong (Hangul: 김유정, Hanja: 金裕) was a member of Guinhoe, or "The Circle of Nine" (Hangul: 구인회 , Hanja: 九人會). Gim Yujeong was a close friend of Kim Hae-Gyeong, otherwise known by his pen name Yi Sang.
The most popular modern interpretation of Jumsoon as depicted in Cae Changbi 2nd grade 2015 textbook, which Dongbaek's past design was inspired by.
In "The Camellias", the yellow camellias are largely associated with the main female character Jumsoon and her attraction for the protagonist.
The Camellias begins with Jumsoon offering potatoes to the protagonist as one of her many ploys to get his attention. This is referenced by Yi Sang's strong attachment to the rotten, burnt potato he finds in Intervallo I: Hell's Chicken and seems to be a form of subtle foreshadowing for Dongbaek's character. This is further emphasized by the potato being brought up once again in Effloreced EGO:: Spicebush Yi Sang's afternoon greeting line.
During Canto IV, 4-27, Dongbaek quotes an abridged version of a line from The Camellias:
“
“That piquant and fragrant smell made me feel as though the ground was sinking” (Korean: “알싸한, 그리고 향긋한 그 냄새에 나는 땅이 꺼지는 듯하였지”)
”
This line corresponds to a scene in which Jumsoon pushes the protagonist into the blossoms and the two “fell” with each other. In Limbus Company, the scene is visually referenced by Yi Sang literally falling to the floor under the Golden Bough’s tree branch — stabbed into him by the woman named after the camellia flower.
Dongbaek is the only member of the League of Nine Littérateurs to not be named after a pen name belonging to one of the real-life Guinhoe's members, and the second character whose name is based on The Camellias, with Jumsoon from Leviathan being the first.
The camellia on the left, and the spicebush on the right.
As she was stabbed with the Golden Bough, Dongbaek's coughed up blood appeared to transform into red camellias. This is a reference to how her name, dongbaek (Hangul: 동백), is not only the Yeongdong colloquial term for the spicebush, but is also the Korean word for the camellia flower.
Dongbaek's E.G.O, Spicebush, takes the form of a men's everyday wear hanbok. The extensive use of white clothing among the commoners lead to Korea being referred as "dressed people of white". She wields a traditional korean fan (합죽선, hapjukseon) made of spicebush branches on her left hand, and moves in a way that resembles a pansori (판소리) singer.
Dongbaek's SunshowerE.G.O is also wedding-themed, being derived from the Drifting Fox, an Abnormality based on the Korean belief that sunshowers, or "fox rain" (여우비, yeoubi) occurs when a tiger marries a fox or fox spirit. A cloud, that fell in love with the fox, weeps upon seeing the wedding and causes it to rain due to its unrequited love.
Dongbaek's voice actor, Kwak Gyumi (곽규미), also voiced Tenma and Rose from Library of Ruina.
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