A HOLISTIC THEORY AND EXPLANATION OF HYYH 花樣年華, WINGS, & LOVE YOURSELF 起承轉結 SERIES.
Hello friends! I am a 24-year old Jungkook-biased ARMY with a career background in medicine, nursing, sociology, and psychology. It was interesting to see BTS take a direction that actually overlapped with what I got my degree for. I have been following BTS since the beginning of 2015 and I was there when the very first theories started surfacing.
With all due respect, I’ve seen some good theories here and there, but I notice there is a lot of “fluff” and “fillers” in some. I’ve also noticed some theories only look at one side of the whole picture. Some even sound like they contrast each other but are really saying the same thing in a different way. I understand the reason why people get so confused is because BTS likes to put a lot of double meanings into their work – typical of rappers (Did you see my bag? lol) and because of what I finally cracked about the whole series. Not to mention that they use Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and English in all of their works.
Over the years, I have seen the story and clues unfold, and I think I now have enough information. I will now share a concise holistic theory of the whole HYYH, Wings, and LY series, and what BTS and BigHit are really trying to convey as a whole. I will be using some scientific words here and there but I will it explain it in common language. I will also link the videos, some at specific times, and other evidence of what I will be discussing at that moment. Buckle up and prepare your brains!
Hwa Yang Yeon Hwa 花樣年華: The Most Beautiful Moment In Life Part 1 & 2 and Prologue
Ever since I NEED U, Prologue, & RUN came out in 2015, people started making theories left and right but didn’t have the evidence we do now (I was guilty of this lol). What BTS really did at that time is set up a very good foundation for a storyline, as we can now deduct because BigHit keeps referring to them. The purpose of I NEED U, Prologue, & RUN is to isolate Jin in many ways to convey to the audience that he is the protagonist. This is why he holds the camera– it’s his memories we are viewing. Please note that no one is “alive” or “dead” out of any of the members. In fact, they can actually be considered as both. Hang on to this thought! I will support this later. Also, note that everybody except Jin commits suicide in some form in I NEED U. This will be important later as well.
What a lot of new ARMYs don’t know about this era is that when the original video for Prologue was released, BigHit attached a French song called “Je Ne Regrette Rien” at the ending credits. This song is used to wake up the characters in the movie Inception after they travel in dreams. The credits then end with a scene of Jin in his truck by the sea as he reached for a polaroid picture in his dashboard compartment. He then sees he is alone in the picture despite Suga being behind him when they took it. His expression looked stunned.
BigHit re-uploaded the video after some months and replaced it with an instrumental of their own song, ‘House of Cards,’ because of copyright. Jin’s scene was also completely deleted. However, they did use the phrase “Je Ne Regrette Rien” everywhere for their RUN comeback pictures. If you go to BigHit’s channel and watch Prologue again, it will not have the scene I just described above. (I did manage to get a copy of the original Prologue here: link).
Now you may ask why did they also have to cut the scene out if it was only the song that was copyrighted? You’re not alone, ARMYs everywhere are asking. This is because the song signifies that Jin is not awake, in some shape or form, and therefore, it is played to wake him up. Without the song, they have to delete the scene since it is where he “woke up.” This leads us to the next era, WINGS.
The whole idea of the WINGS series is SELF-ACTUALIZATION. This is a term that psychologists actually use in the field. In layman’s terms, when you reach self-actualization is when “you found yourself.” The term is mostly used when discussing about personality development; how we form our personality with the influences of our genes and our environment. Now, there are a lot of big-name psychological theories about personality development that were constructed by famous psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and Myers-Briggs, but the most relative one that BTS uses is constructed by Carl Jung called The Jungian Theory of Personality. The Jungian Theory is a BIG theme in the book Demian, which WINGS is based on.
The Jungian Theory basically states that every person is born with various personality archetypes, and the goal is for us to merge all of them together in our unconscious to be able to find our one true personality– to find ourselves. You can think of archetypes as a template for your personality. There are many different “templates” but the most famous archetypes are called the shadow, the wise old man, the child, the mother, the animus, and the anima. Notice anything? There are 6 archetypes. Jin is our protagonist that needs to merge all of these 6 archetypes together, manifested as the other members, to form his true self. (You can search up more about the characteristics of these archetypes if you want, it may help you in psychology class. Note that some use ‘egos’ and ‘persona’ instead of ‘archetypes’ in some textbooks).
Based on Carl Jung, these archetypes have to be integrated to form your final personality, which he calls the Self. Jin is the Self, trying to merge all of them together in his unconscious. The other members are symbolized in WINGS as the 6 lily petals and Jin’s room is his unconscious. We can see him struggling to merge all of them together in his solo short film Awake. Interesting that they decided to call it Awake right? There were other clues in Jin’s Awake that say this is true since his room was filled with items that symbolize the other members (i.e. the apple, the piano, the painting, etc).
The other members’ scenes are also expressions of them inside his unconscious trying to integrate. Hence, why they were trying to communicate with each other through the letters, the phone calls, whistles, and the items that symbolize the each member appear in other member’s short films. The moment when Jin finally finds how to integrate them all together is when he will be “awake”– he reached self-actualization, he found himself. Now this is why I say that none of the members are “alive” or “dead” because in a sense, they are all “alive” because they are a part of Jin’s unconscious, but they are all also “dead” because they are only archetypes. I’ll leave it to you guys to say it how you want.
If you read the book Demian, the protagonist, Sinclair, goes through stages in his life where he goes through one archetype to the next in order to find himself. However, in order to do that, he has to be exposed to the evils in the world to mature. This is what Intro: Boy Meets Evil and Blood, Sweat, and Tears are about. Here is a good summary of the plot that relates to the members but obviously it will make more sense if you read the book yourself. This is written by my friend Tekeyia Hinton:
“Jin started out as a carefree and reckless boy (Jungkook) then something happened and he didn’t want to tell his family about it because they’re perfect and he’s not, so he lies to them (Jimin). Then he figures he’s already bad for lying might as well just delve into other things that aren’t “good” so he keeps getting worse. He feels different, he’s a sinner (V). He then finds a love so powerful that he wants to change for the better, he wants to stop sinning. He wants to replace the love and purity that his family represented for the new love/devotion he finds (Suga). He starts to reflect on his current situation and how he’s hurt people in the past because of his actions. He’s in a state of transitioning; he wants to take responsibility for his actions but at the same time he’s still young, making poor decisions and just trying to find his own path (RM). His new love has high hopes for him but he’s content being a dreamer because things will just happen eventually if he just lives his life. He begins to lose control because he’s doing nothing. He must act or fall in with the rest of the crowd like people tend to do. He also falls in love with Demian’s mother (J-Hope). He loses his chance with his love and soon realizes that in order to truly be alive, he must act in the present moment or he’s not living at all. Life is full of both happy and sad moments, but he is alive. Jin is now a man and he is awake.”
Pertaining to the logo of WINGS, notice how the circles that symbolize each member integrates with another but Jin’s circle never integrates with anybody else’s circle. Plus, the fact that all the circles don’t integrate as a single circle symbolizes that Jin has not yet reached self-actualization.
Phew! That’s a lot right? WINGS incorporated a lot of things in the series including seven short films, the album, the logo, and a book. A BOOK! It really is a handful. Now unto the next!
BigHit introduced the Love Yourself Series with another prologue, The Highlight Reels. I can tell you now that BigHit gave us A LOT of clues here.
What I’m about to say next is REALLY IMPORTANT! This is what I cracked about the whole series. What makes this era really confusing is that they further personified Jin’s archetypes to the point that they feel more real, making them have their own history and feelings for each other. In other words, they made a storyline of how the different archetypes will integrate manifested as the other members interacting with each other. They basically made a storyline within a storyline, so there is a theory within a theory. This is the reason why I say we have been looking at everything from only one perspective, because there are two layers to this whole series. (Edit: this theory is now proven true, BigHit released a statement that they have been putting the initials BU, that stands for Bangtan Universe, at ending credits for short films and at the bottom of pictures if they relate to the story line)
The storyline within a storyline is a huge headache because as you might already know, the storyline is patchy. The “bigger storyline” is Jin’s real past, but the “storyline within” happens in Jin’s unconscious, personified by the members trying to meet each other. The storyline within are the events where we see Suga getting mad, RM riding a bus, Jungkook in a wheelchair, V vandalizing, Jimin & J-hope dancing, and Jin preparing for a date. They even released the HYYH notes in the Her albums to extend each person’s history.
Despite the patchiness of the timeline, we can deduct what the ending will be. The end goal is for Jin to meet all of the other BTS members by the sea, and according to his HYYH note, only then will he accept himself and be happy. (The storyline of his past will be revealed on my next blog in detail with the use of the HYYH notes and the Highlight Reels timeline. This includes Jungkook’s accident, Yoongi’s drunkenness, Jimin’s illness, J-hope’s fake illness, Taehyung’s family history, Jin’s secret, etc. I’m just trying to convey the bigger picture here).
They confused us more by trying to introduce another concept of maturity on top of the Jungian Theory of Personality. They now introduced the Chinese phrase ‘起承轉結’, which is beside the title of the Highlight Reels video. It is basically a description of how any kind of storyline typically goes when you read a book or watch a movie. A storyline has a beginning, a development, a turning point, and an end.
起 (qi) means the beginning, 承 (chéng) means development, 轉 (zhuǎn) means turning point, and 結 (jié) means end.
Now stay with me here! This Chinese phrase is also paired with the word ‘WHAT’ and the following Intros. (The phrase BOY MEETS WHAT was shown at the end of the Fire music video). Here’s what they all stand for.
起 - Wonder (Intro: Euphoria)
承 - Her (Intro: Serendipity)
轉 - Answer (Intro: Epiphany)
結 - Tear (Intro: Singularity)
Now, the one who deciphered this is not me but it has a strong evidence considering Intro: Euphoria came out titled as it is and these words were shown at the Melon Music Awards. Plus, the chorus of their song Outro: Her has these words in the lyrics.
Anyways, the same kind of theme applies in the Highlight Reels, just expressed in a different way. The 6 members are still archetypes of Jin. There was something significantly different about the Her era than the others…there are girls! BigHit incorporated girls in Her because they want to show that love and relationships DEVELOP (承) us into who we are. Furthermore, the Jungian Theory also states that within each male is a female, and within each female is a male. In other words, there is a balance between masculinity and femininity in each person’s personality according to Carl Jung.
Notice that throughout the whole video that the members are again trying to meet each other? NOW AT THIS POINT, J-hope and Jimin have already integrated together but the others still have yet to do it. This is because 承 is the DEVELOPMENT of the archetypes integrating together. They are at an intermediate state. At final Love Yourself 結, Intro: SINGULARITY is when Jin finally does this. They will all become a SINGLE being, Jin’s Self.
Now that we have established that the girls are a personification of the various girl archetypes, why are they there? These girls can be seen as “helpers” to the boys in order for them to meet each other. The paired members either have not yet integrated, are about to integrate, or have already integrated. Pair V & RM get separated from the girls, signifying that they are not able to integrate yet. Jungkook sees Suga’s girl performing at the hospital because they are about to integrate. Pair J-hope & Jimin only have one girl because they already have integrated together. By the end of the scene, their girl collapses and they try to save her in order for J-hope and Jimin to stay together. Notice that after the girl collapses, Jimin and J-hope once again part ways. As for Jin’s girl, she dies. Her death is very significant since Jin has not been able to meet all of his personalities together and lost his opportunity to do so with the girl’s help.
One big clue that BigHit gave in Highlight Reels that the girls are archetypes of Jin’s unconscious is the scene where Jimin and the girl bump into each other. If you watch closely, J-hope and the girl were practicing in the studio by themselves and Jimin practices in the SAME studio but at a DIFFERENT time. J-hope’s and the girl’s room is brightly lit whereas Jimin’s room is dark. All of a sudden, the girl and Jimin crashed into each other, as if all three of them were in the same room at the same time. But the preceding scenes told us that they were NOT.
After a few days of releasing the first Her video, BigHit released a statement that further supports that the 6 members as archetypes of Jin. Even explicitly telling us more that the members are acting as their ‘false selves.’ These selves of Jin have formed as a coping mechanism for him to handle stress in the past. Again, these “selves” of Jin are the other members trying to cope at different points of Jin’s life.
At the end of the Highlight Reels video is where we turn our direction back to HYYH era and the theory of time travel emerges. Jin was seen to travel back in time to stop the lily flowers from falling over his table. There are hints of parallel universes because of this from Spring Day to Japanese Blood, Sweat, and Tears where Jungkook’s and Jimin’s present-selves and past-selves meet respectively. When Jin lost his ability to integrate his personalities together, he realizes he must have done something wrong in the past. This is when he metaphorically travels back in time to correct something. And that leads us to Love Yourself 起 Wonder.
If you’re at this point by the way, thanks for reading it! It took a lot to write this and you should give yourself some ARMY points lol.
Now, it is important to note here that Love Yourself: Wonder 起 comes before Love Yourself: Her 承. The 起 (beginning) comes before the 承 (development). BigHit said that there was a reason why they introduced Her first before Wonder and I now know why. The scenes that unfolded in Her is the present, but Wonder is the past. Wonder acts as a prequel to Her. At this point in the series, Jin will go back in his unconscious and his memories to try to correct something in his past; he will go back to the beginning 起. But what was Jin’s past? (Again, the storyline of his past will be revealed on my next blog in detail).
We do know that Jin’s past resembles what happens in Demian. Remember in Demian that Sinclair, Jin, went through a different archetype at different points of his life. When he was an innocent child, he was Jungkook. When he first lied, he was Jimin, When he sinned more and more, he was V. When he found his first love, he was Suga. When he felt lost, he was RM. When he falls in love with Demian’s mother, he was J-hope.
At those different stages of Jin’s life where he was another BTS member, his archetypes commit suicide because at those points in his life, he has not found happiness. His archetypes were not able to accept who they were at that point– who Jin was at that point of his life. This is important to note because Jin, the Self, will try to save all of them in order for them to integrate, and for him to reach self-actualization. When his archetypes died in his past is when Jin’s girl dies in the present. Despite other theories, I strongly believe that he is not trying to save his friends by time traveling, he is trying to save his archetypes, parts of himself, in order to find himself.
In Intro: Euphoria, we see how Jin goes back time and he saves them in various ways. He saves Namjoon by picking up the $20 dollar bill Namjoon was supposed to light up in the gas station. Somehow, Jungkook was saved and was able to save Suga from the fire. J-hope was also saved and he stops V from killing his dad. Finally, Jin saves V through the camcorder. The camcorder signifies his memories and the past phases of his life. He goes up to the platform to where V was, reversing his mistake by reversing the camcorder.
I predict that Love Yourself 結 Answer Intro: Epiphany will be the big turning point in the series, not only because ‘起承轉結’ said so, but also because Jin reverses something that was not supposed to be reversed. He was only supposed to save his archetypes from committing suicide at those points in his life, but not change the events of his life. He changed what happened to V, avoiding him to sin, but in order to mature, you need to be exposed to evil and sin. No one matures without sinning. This is further supported by leaving Jimin alone in the hospital, signifying his first lie, his first sin. Jin altered what he does in the bad phases of his life, erasing his sins, through his ‘bad’ archetype’s life. This is why it is called Wonder and Euphoria. By erasing his bad deeds, Jin’s world is “happy,” without evil and sins. At the end of the video, he smiles as though he thinks he has integrated all his archetypes, symbolizing the white outfits and the coming together by the sea. However, it is a folly.
I also predict that Love Yourself 結 Answer Intro: Epiphany is where Jin will find out that in order to truly find yourself, you have to accept your past mistakes and leave it at that. Your mistakes are part of who you are. Only then can you truly be happy and love your imperfect self. Jin going back to save his archetypes in the past from committing suicide symbolizes that things get better even at worst of points of your life. Again, at the fourth and final Love Yourself, 結 Tear Intro: Singularity, is when Jin finally integrates his archetypes, becoming one, himSELF. Only then will he be able to mature into a man. Going back to the HYYH era, “Je Ne Regrette Rien,” means “I regret nothing.” Kinda cool how it all ties together right? This is BigHit’s overall message all laid out in a complex but beautiful manner, so brew it and sip it lol.
Right now, the only theory I’ve seen that I don’t think is plausible is that Jin sacrifices himself or Jimin in order to save his friends, assuming his friends are actual real people. This is a big no no for me. If you broaden your perspective about BigHit and BTS as a whole and not just this particular series, they advocate for mental health and participate in the UNICEF Anti-Violence Campaign. They would NEVER, I REPEAT NEVER, send a message to their audience in ANY WAY to kill themselves or sacrifice others no matter how interesting it may be that the story plays out that way. I cannot feel strongly enough about this.
SO THAT’S IT! ALL THOSE 3 YEARS OF BEING A DETECTIVE ARMY HAS FINALLY PAID OFF! I literally had an epiphany (no pun intended) and wrote this for 5 hours straight. You can reblog or like if you found it insightful to help other confused ARMYs in distress lolol. BTS and BigHit are really very unique artists as seen by this long convoluted brain-wrecking series, don’t you think? lol. I will make a theory about the storyline within the storyline and maybe also more in depth about each era in detail. Thanks for reading. Again, give yourself some more ARMY points since reading this goes to show how dedicated you truly are!
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