So there wasn’t as much narrative as usual in this mv, but I picked out what I could!
The prevalence of the idea of a “barrier”
Verivery utilizes this idea of a barrier in auditory, visual, and choreographic ways
In the beginning of the MV, the opening audio is suppressed, almost as if you’re listening to it through a barrier of some kind, blocking out the full sound
To go along with that idea, the lyrics in the opening part are “Who’s gonna pull the trigger, a shot that cuts the fate--No more barriers”
I bold those specific lyrics because it as this point that the sound becomes unmuffled for a bit, almost as if the boys are shouting that they won’t let the barriers around them stifle them and it works
However, then their voices are suppressed again as they chant, “You can’t beat em up, yeah you can’t beat em up” as if that doubt creeps back in and their confidence fades once more as the barrier over takes them again
Visually, there’s one specific scene that I want to focus on. It’s leading up to and during the first chorus in which Dongheon starts running towards something and we end up seeing that that thing is a glass barrier of some kind. Dongheon manages to break through it as they sing “Go beyond the barrier”
Also worth noting is that Dongheon was the one who actively ran towards Kangmin in Thunder, and is the one who breaks the glass barrier in G.B.T.B.--he tried to break the barrier before, and now he’s doing it again
Dongheon physically broke the barrier and all the glass, the remnants of the broken barrier, is around them as they dance
Additionally, their choreography also seems to have this sense of being blocked by a barrier. It’s very tight and you’ll notice that they never seem to go past a certain point.
The compass
We started to see the compass in Thunder, in which Minchan was using it to search for Kangmin
I’m going to first address the scene with Kangmin before I get into Minchan and the compass
In Kangmin’s scene he is surrounded by a bunch of compasses. Now, this scene is open to many interpretations, but here are a couple of mine:
Kangmin feels confused and lost after everything that has occurred in the events of the Face It series. The abundance of compasses around him serve as a contrast to his inner turmoil, by counteract his confusion with compasses which are supposed to help guide him.
Perhaps in a nightmarish way the compasses are mocking Kangmin for constantly being out of reach of his members, who are always searching for him. And it feels to him that there is a constant barrier between him and the members who are always trying to get to him.
Again, this is only a single scene and could be interpreted many different ways. Moving on to Minchan, now.
Minchan uses the compass again in this MV, but it looks like he isn’t searching for Kangmin this time, but Gyehyeon
In the the Thunder + Connect DIY MV, Gyehyeon appeared to be the main character. (For more context to what I’m talking about refer here.) Gyehyeon lacked any objects that turned red near him, and he was the one member who we followed when he woke up in that abandoned room.
In this MV, Gyehyeon’s first solo scene is him sitting on top of an abandoned piano
The very next scene is Minchan approaching that same abandoned piano, no Gyehyeon in sight, as he pulls out his compass
A little bit later, Gyehyeon and Minchan are shown meeting face to face outside
Next, Minchan is still holding the compass but all 7 members are present this time, and they’re looking up at whatever the compass has led them to--a giant satellite in the sky
The satellites
Something quite prominent in this MV is the satellite dishes
Satellite dishes “receive or transmit information by radio waves to or from a communication satellite”
This idea of communication and receiving and transmitting information is important to the ideas in Verivery’s music videos, whose main goal it has been to find each other (Kangmin, usually, but also others when they are separated. Gyehyeon in this MV.)
Quite possibly this idea of communicating with each other is prevalent in From Now in which the members were separate in their own distinct solo scenes most of the time until Hoyoung sent a signal to them all with his flare gun and they were able to reunite
In the Thunder + Connect DIY MV, at the very end they’ve all been separated again. There’s even a scene where Dongheon bangs his fist on the lockers in frustration, suggesting that they were close to being together, but had lost each other again.
Also consider the Face It concept trailer #1, in which all the members are again separated. Minchan and Gyehyeon again are trying to establish some kind of connection with each other as Minchan reaches for Gyehyeon’s hand, but they ultimately fail and lose the connection
Hoyoung is also seen trying to connect 7 dots, most likely symbolizing the 7 members, together with a line, trying to see if he can bring them back together
Back to the topic of Minchan, I would also like to point out that in Tag Tag Tag, Minchan was the member who was blindfolded and had to go looking for the other members when they disappeared. So his role with the compass and looking for lost members to make a connection with them is consistent.
Looking back to G.B.T.B. specifically, the satellites could symbolize this overarching idea of trying to communicate with each other
Notably, there is a giant satellite dish in the background when Minchan finds Gyehyeon, suggesting that they’ve finally managed to successfully communicate with each other and meet again
Blindfolds
We all know that blindfolds have been huge to Verivery’s narrative universe since Tag Tag Tag
In this MV, Yeonho is seen wearing and then removing his blindfold
Notably, he put a blindfold on for the first time in the Thunder + Connect DIY MV
Minchan is seen clutching his in his hand, as if he’s managed to look past the barrier that the blindfold has been to him. Yeonho also seems to clutch his in the same way after removing it.
The static people
So all these static images of people appear at the end of the MV suddenly, but given our discussion of satellites and radio waves I think they could possibly be connected to that
Notably these people only appear when the boys are outside, near the satellites making it possible that those people are some kind of correspondence from them. But who?
My guess stems from that one scene where the boys are staring up at the people in the windows. They all appear to be stuck up there, just looking outside. Maybe it’s nothing and they’re just looking outside? Or maybe they’re searching for help? Who knows.
BUT what if they are searching for help? And those static people at the end are signals from those people in the windows sending a message of some kind? It’s a stretch, I know, but it’s all I’ve got.
The idea of other people sending a message does fit into the idea of communication that I’ve discussed
The chairs
I think the circles of chairs are another symbol for a barrier
Whenever they’re inside the circle of chairs it acts as a barrier, and they can’t leave, keeping them from each other
Notably, in the shots that have the chair barrier, the satellites are never shown in the background
This could symbolize how with the barrier in place, they can’t communicate with others and they need to go beyond the barrier and break it down in order to receive and transmit messages
When there are no chairs present, the scene highlights the satellite
And at the end, without the chairs, all the signals from those people appear before them because there is no barrier preventing those messages from getting to them, because they’ve finally broken it
Now this could be good or bad. Perhaps these are the people they have to “face” as a group (the “us”) and who knows what their intentions are.
Or perhaps now that Verivery have faced the “us” they can now move onto a new chapter and help others with facing their issues
Regardless, the barrier is gone and the means something for the future
