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Subverting the ‘Devices of Consolation’ - The Regression Structure in the Web Novel Be a Light in the Dark Sea

  • Journal of Popular Narrative
  • 2026, 32(3), pp.49~93
  • DOI : 10.18856/jpn.2026.32.3.002
  • Publisher : The Association of Popular Narrative
  • Research Area : Interdisciplinary Studies > Interdisciplinary Research
  • Received : September 6, 2026
  • Accepted : October 18, 2026
  • Published : October 31, 2026

Kim Yoonhee 1

1중앙대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study examines the regression structure of the web novel Be a Light in the Dark Sea through Umberto Eco’s concept of the ‘devices of consolation’, with particular attention to how the transformation of genre conventions in regression fiction shapes readers’ reception of the work’s central themes of altruism and solidarity. Over its relatively short history of development, regression fiction has established a number of recognisable conventions, including a clear dichotomy between good and evil, a capable and appealing protagonist, and a closed ending in which success is the only possible outcome. While these conventions reflect the positive dimensions of contemporaneity and interactivity, having emerged through close communication between web novels and their readers, they also risk reducing narrative experience to vicarious satisfaction, thereby obscuring the contradictions and injustices embedded within the social realities they depict. In particular, Eco’s discussion of the ‘consolatory’ function of popular literature draws attention to the ways in which its proposed solutions to social problems may instead reinforce contradictions and injustices through devices such as a binary opposition between good and evil and the intervention of a heroic figure. Be a Light in the Dark Sea, by contrast, initially adopts these conventions to offer readers the familiarity of a recognisable genre narrative, before gradually departing from them and prompting readers to question their consolatory function. First, by dismantling the clear moral opposition between its characters, the novel replaces an absolute moral standard for judging them with a complex configuration of competing interests and interpersonal relationships. At the centre of this configuration is a protagonist who remains an ‘ordinary person’ throughout the narrative. His perspective prevents readers from becoming confined to the viewpoint of a single character and instead encourages them to move between the perspectives of different characters, prompting reflection on relationships with others and the possibility of solidarity in the midst of disaster. Finally, the post-disaster narrative, which refuses to declare the disaster over even after all instances of regression have come to an end, challenges the assumption that a single, decisive act of regression can resolve and contain the events in question. Instead, readers are encouraged to approach the discrimination and inequality foregrounded in the novel as issues of the here and now, connecting the disasters and thematic concerns represented within the text to those of the world beyond it. By strategically transforming genre conventions in response to the distinctive relationship between web novels and their readers, Be a Light in the Dark Sea connects this formal transformation to the values of altruism and solidarity. Its significance therefore lies not only in offering an alternative to the self-absorbed and individualistic tendencies often associated with regression narratives, but also in demonstrating another possibility inherent in the web novel as a literary form. Through an analysis of this process, this study seeks to broaden the scope of scholarship on web novels.

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