Rim

“ We are those who watch all, those who bide the time. Those who will be sovereigns of a Star. ”

—Rim, Canto V: The Evil Defining

Rim
Other Names
Korean	림
Nicknames	Bowlhead (Heathcliff)
General Information
Gender	Male
Affiliations	Demian's Group League of Nine Littérateurs (Former)
Relations	Demian (Associate) Yi Sang (Former Compatriot) Hermann (Mother)
First Appearance	Canto V: The Evil Defining
Status	Alive
Voice Actor	Jun Seung Hwa

Rim (Hangul: 림, Rim) was a member of the League of Nine Littérateurs and is a minor supporting character introduced in Canto V: The Evil Defining.

After the League fell apart, he manifested The Sign, presumably becoming affiliated with Demian's unknown group.

Appearance

Rim is a slender humanoid in a blue striped suit, black tie and white dress shirt. He additionally wears navy blue dress shoes and gloves. Despite having no neck, his shirt collar maintains a circular shape as if fitted to one.

Rim has a glass sphere filled with a water substance that floats where his head should be. Joining the poles of the sphere is an hourglass-like element with a yellow ring around the narrow section. The lower section contains a brain-like object that bears The Sign and the open-top upper section contains a purple butterfly, which can leave and fly around on its own.

Personality

Rim is a polite individual. He speaks cryptically and hides information behind verbose and symbolic language, making his true intentions hard to decipher. He appears to align with Limbus Company's interests, stating that he (and others) sought to "steer the echoes of that fluttering" (referring to the usage of the Golden Boughs) toward "a better direction" and hoped that he was a "useful signpost" to the Sinners. Nontheless, Rim has a degree of indifference, having witnessed "the stem of this world" and considering everything else "hollow" after witnessing it.

Rim is also calm and collected, unbothered by the Pallidification around him and simply leaving after Outis threatens him.

Background

Rim was one of the founding members of the League of Nine Littérateurs, but he left the league when it fell apart. Rim saw the scattering of the league as an opportunity for a new beginning, and at some point joined the same group that Demian is a member of. Much like Demian, Rim is one of the few who bear The Sign. Before leaving, he told Yi Sang he would "journey to the ocean".

Rim's aspirations are unclear due to his way of speech. Calling himself a "pond" who once knew "where the sea, the rivers and the City were", he seeks to reach there with his "wings". He also describes his group as those who will be "sovereigns of a Star".

The origins of Rim's unique appearance are currently unclear. Upon first meeting him, Dante and the rest of the Sinners question whether Rim may be a Distortion. This question goes unanswered as Rim simply explains his appearance as "one of the many ways one may choose to understand the journey that is the world".

Abilities

Rim possesses The Sign, which, like Demian, grants him anomalous abilities. He travelled to U Corp's Lobotomy Corp. Branch facility without a vehicle or variable coordinates and was neither threatened nor bothered by the Pallidification nor the Palldified hostiles, all to simply witness the Sinners. Additionally, he possesses uncanny knowledge about Limbus Company's operations.

By stepping into a puddle, Rim was able to (presumably) travel away from the Branch facility.

The butterfly in his head is capable of autonomy and is intelligent enough to lead the Sinners to Rim's body, but its exact relationship with him is unknown. However, it was seen flying across the Great Lakes at the end of the Canto, far from anywhere his body could physically be.

Story

Rim's butterfly first appears on the Pallidified Lobotomy Corp. Drilling Ship, where the Sinners are searching for the Golden Bough. After leading them to his main body, Rim introduces himself and states he is only here to witness them. Upon further questioning, he reveals the Bough is no longer there, and that the Pallid Whale ingested it. Rim also explains that he cares not who claims or uses the Bough, but that his group seeks to ensure its usage is for good. He then reveals his Sign, former affiliation with the League of Nine and confirms the anti-Pallidifcation effects of the Bough to Ishmael, but steps into a puddle and vanishes after Outis threatens him.

After the battle inside the Pallid Whale, the Sinners notice Rim's butterfly on the Great Lakes' surface. Faust tells Dante she expects him to return, and that he has "certain expectations of us."

Etymology

Rim (Hangul: 림) is based on Kim In-son (Hangul: 김인손; Hanja: 金寅孫), otherwise known by his pen name and sobriquet, Kim Kirim (Hangul: 김기림; Hanja: 金起林; May 11, 1908 – ?).

A Korean poet and literary critic, he was formerly a member of the "Circle of Nine" (Hangul: 구인회, Hanja: 九人會), or the Guinhoe, a literary group which Kim Hae-Gyeong (pen name: Yi Sang) would later join.

Before going missing, like fellow member Jeong Ji-yong (정지용), otherwise known as Young-ji (영지), Kim Kirim was also abducted by the political state of North Korea after the Korean War broke out. His last whereabouts or date of death are unknown, as his body was never found; while it is theorized that he may have died in a North Korean bombardment, his ultimate fate is ambiguous.

The Sea and the Butterfly

The Sea and the Butterfly (Hangul: 바다와 나비, Badawa nabi; 1939), is considered one of Kim’s flagship works, and is widely included in Korean middle and high schools' literature textbooks as a literary classic. The poem is repeatedly referenced as a motif during Kirim's first reference in Canto IV, and Rim’s first appearance in Canto V.

Seen as a commentary on the cruel reality faced by Korea reckoning with the structures of modernity under the colonial era, the poem utilizes imagery of two clashing concepts with a butterfly meeting the sea respectively. The butterfly is taken as representing the intellectuals struggling and unable to cope with the new reality enforced by the sea—the changing world brought on by the era’s colonial powers. In other instances, this poem has been interpreted as being written in honor of the death of Kim Hae-Gyeong (김해경), better known by his pen name Yi Sang. Kim Kirim, having been one of his closest friends in life and one of the few who saw him before death, saw Yi Sang as the greatest example of one of these intellectuals crushed by the colonial reality they lived in, with The Sea and The Butterfly first being published two years after Yi Sang's passing. He also wrote a memorial for Yi Sang, Memories of the late Yi Sang (고 이상의 추억) after his passing, describing him as having his "wings tattered and broken" much like the butterfly in the poem.

The Sea and the Butterfly (1939)

Korean	English
아무도 그에게 수심(水深)을 이렇게 하라고 하세요	Because nobody told her how deep the water is,
흰나비는 도무지 저렇게 하라고 하세요.	The white butterfly is never afraid of the sea.
청(靑)무우 밭인너희들 모두 개자식들	She descents, thinking it is a blue radish farm,
네 엄마나 엿 먹어	Then jadedly returns like a princess
공주(公主)처럼 지쳐서 돌아온다.	With her callow wings soaked by the waves.
삼월(三月)달 바다가 꽃이 피지 않아서 서글픈	A blue crescent moon is chilly at the waist of the butterfly
나비 허리에 새파란 초생달이 시리다.	Who is sad because the March sea hasn’t bloomed.

Gallery

Story Log Portrait