Imagine a character in a novel with a tragic backstory. He was raised by his mother after his abusive father died and had to suffer the stigma from classmates who both jeered at his upbringing but also were jealous of his talents. When his mother seemed to have found happiness with a wealthy man who loved both of them with all his heart, the man died and the step family blamed him for causing his death. This person is someone who in the future will be written to watch his last remaining family member suffer an unknown fate while his unrequited love taken away by someone who's been nothing but cruel to him. However, he doesn't know the reasons why his life played out this way, nor he doesn't know what is to come, because he doesn't know he's in a novel that has reached its conclusion. He is unaware of the string of fate driving this world. Unaware that hi suffering and feelings of inferiority are all designs of the novel.

Now there's another character in the same story. When he was young, he stumbled upon a melodramatic book where the protagonist lost his family and friends and was ab*sed and forced against his will by what could only be described as a maniacal tyrant, someone who most couldn't describe as human. And as time passes and he begins to experience the same tragedies that the protagonist experienced. With growing terror, he does everything he can to changed his life. He tries to stop his family from being scammed and losing all their money, only for another scammer to bankrupt them instead. He tries to save his best friend from dying, but even that is futile. The path was set from the beginning. Even when he stopped his friend from being hit by a truck, his friend ended up in a mu*der case later on. As time went on, he accepted his fate and could only look to the future, scared yet knowing there was nothing he could do to save himself from the upcoming humiliation and grief.

Now the third person is someone who is from reality, not originally bound to any script or game. But suddenly one day he wakes up to find himself forced into the body of that robotic tyrant. Like a human stuffed into a metal contraption, he's unable to act in any way that is unbecoming of a "Crazy gong." He can only drink water or bitter coffee, he can only take cold showers, he's forced to skip meals and focus on work he doesn't even understand in a company he's never worked in before as the director. And if he acts out of line, the system forces status ailments on him, using fear of pain and death to drag him along the crazy gong's path. Originally, this was the setting of the game meant to highlight the outrageous stoic CEO gong tropes, but in practice it's torture that continues to affect him and the way he behaves even after the story ends and the system disappears.

Repeatedly the system reminds Seon-woo in every way that it can that it WILL hurt him if he stays with Seung-hyun, and tries to associate positive reinforcement when he acts nicely or intimately with Eun-jae. Seon-woo, afraid, caved into the easier solution to escape many times (when he's with Eun-jae, he's able to eat and drink properly. It's something so barbaric to think about. And the system makes sure Seon-woo's body is able to function without eating and drinking to an extent but if he interacts with people the system deems as enemies, Seon-woo gets punished. I don't have any words its just tragic). But more so than the despair, anger and defiance towards the system, further supported by his desire to be with Seung-hyun and to not treat Eun-jae as a person without any agency of his own (he didn't want to be forced to be with Eun-jae and he didn't want Eun-jae to be forced by him.

Sometimes it felt more human than a robot, but other times it was clearly mechanical. Sometimes I was so frustrated I wanted to tell it "if you love Eun-Jae so much why don't you go marry him yourself and leave Seon-woo alone!" Until I read the extra chapters, my view of the system is like someone inputted the desires and thoughts the original crazy gong had towards those around him into the system. I don't think the system is a person because it didn't understand Seon-woo at all. It didn't understand why Seon-woo wouldn't feel pleasant about Eun-jae or why Seon-woo couldn't sympathize with the original Seon-woo even after seeing the original's memories. Seon-woo himself could no longer fully consider himself a separate entity from the original crazy gong, but maybe the system couldn't understand that. No how could someone who's become so immersed in the life and memories of the novel character not understand the system's intention? The system never once understood Seon-woo's resistance. If it did, it would have known it's fanatical pursuit and objectification of Eun-Jae is what made Seon-woo want to run away from Eun-Jae the most.

Might be a problem on my side but the 'system notifications' don't appear in the translated novel, so the story may seem awkward, I had to go back and forth the raws and translated chapters to see the system parts because they're quite crucial

what happened to the original gwanggong after switching places with our MC, MC's game dev colleague and the gwanggong novel's author had alot of potential