Hello everyone, and welcome, to my most ambitious theory to this date, in which I attempt to convince you all that I am, in fact, not crazy and that all of MONSTA X’s comebacks can be put into one timeline whole universe. I’ve been working on this for months now, and to be honest I am exhausted, however I decided I needed to put this out before their comeback this next February 18. It’s going to be long, so tighten your seatbelts and pay attention, because we’re going to go deep with this one.
Let’s dive into the theory.
Basic Concepts
Like most companies and k-pop groups, Starship and MONSTA X didn’t to easy on us and introduced us to several interesting concepts like time and space travel and resurrection. You’ll need a basic understanding on how dimensions work for this theory to make sense, so I recommend you to watch this somewhat simple video about it because you’re probably going to need it.
They also make use of a lot of different symbolism, but I’ll explain those along the way because it’ll be easier to fit them with the rest of the theory like that. You might want to know a little about virtues and sins however since those will be mentioned!
The Setting
Before I go on explaining each of the phases of the MONSTA X Universe, I need to give you a bit of setting on how they are connected and why. There’s a vast quantity of in-verse connections but a lot of out-verse ones as well, so in each phase of the theory I’m going to explain each of the clues of both types and how everything ties together.
Almost all MONSTA X videos form part of a same universe that has been divided into several timelines, which can be distinguished by major events that happen inside the story. Not all videos are part of the plot, some of them are merely symbolic, and not all connections will seem obvious at first either, which is why out-verse clues are necessary to this theory as well, and let me tell you that “out-verse clues” is a very wide category.
In any case, now that I have cleared this up, it is time I start explaining the phases of the MONSTA X Universe and how everything ties up together, let’s go.
In-verse
Phase 1: The First Timeline - Origins (Tresspass & Rush)
Trespass and Rush might not seem tied to the theory at first, however, they are; even if they are not majorly relevant to the main events of the story. Both of these releases provide a background to what happens in The Clan, giving the boys’ friendship and origin and a point of comparison to when things start getting so bad they feel the need to go into war. They also show us they’ve been “problem” children from the start.
Phase 2: The First Timeline - The War (The Clan Part 1: Lost & The Clan Part 2: Guilty)
In my The Clan theory (which you can read here and here, and you’ll need to read it ‘cause I won’t go into much detail this time since it’s already there) I established that the boys were very close friends, even before Jooheon decided they needed to start a revolution and formed the X Clan. I believe that Trespass and Rush both happen before the events in All In, again, they’re not very relevant to the theory, but they provide a nice background to how things were before the war broke out.
Given the way they dared military officials and were clearly against the leadership of Hyungwon’s father, it wouldn’t be surprising that they went to jail a couple of times, hence Trespass. Rush is just them being dumb kids, like things should’ve always been. In any case, things start becoming worse and more difficult and Jooheon decides it’s time to start a war, so he forms the X Clan, discovers the magical flower (or the other way around), they make a pact and start the war.
During this war Hyungwon, Minhyuk and Shownu are all captured and rescued. Also, and a very important point, Hyungwon dies. I know in The Clan theory Gina and I said we weren’t sure, but I am completely certain he did die because it’s the only thing that makes him different from the others. Why? Because he’s the only one to be revived by the flower, he’s the only one that dies and comes back to life and frantically that defies the laws of nature. And that is what condemns them all.
We know the plant is magical because it heals their wounds and apparently is capable of reviving them and also of pulling them out of whatever spell Hyungwon and Minhyuk were in during their stay in the hospital. What if the flower can do other things as well? Yes, I am proposing that the flower was what gave Hyungwon his time-traveling abilities. Because the elixir made of the flower is literally what keeps his heart beating now.
Not only that, but the giant heart we see at the end of All In and of Fighter? I mentioned it was a symbol for their new beginning out of the war, but it might be more than just a new beginning. It’s a rift in time-space, the first one actually, and I’m willing to bet Hyungwon was the only one able to cross that door. That moment is the exact ending of our first timeline.
Phase 3: The First Timeline - Interlude (The Clan Part 2.5: Beautiful & Beautiful World Tour VCR)
I discovered the VCRs were important when I went to The Connect World Tour in Mexico and realized a bunch of things, which is what made me look for the VCR of the Beautiful World Tour (BWT from now on) and I was not disappointed. This VCR perfectly connects Trespass (Rush really isn’t that important I promise) and The Clan. You can watch it here.
In the VCR we can appreciate their lives before the war and before the government became rougher. We can also appreciate how they grew to be troublesome kids and even see a glimpse of Hyungwon’s family situation.
Beautiful is a bridge that ties in the symbolism and the stories of the boys in All In and Fighter. But it’s also a video that explains their past and personal fights, everything that made them join the X Clan in the first place (this is explained in more detail in the part 2 of my The Clan theory). Hence why in the BWT VCR the chapter order is Beautiful, Trespass and Lost. Beautiful explains their past, their personal lives; Trespass explains how they came together and became friends, their invasion into a new world; and Lost explains how they lost it all and decided to take action into their own hands. Lost is also the first part of The Clan trilogy, which would then lead to Guilty.
Phase 4: The Second Timeline (The Code)
Our first timeline ends the moment they reach the beating heart. Whether they all go in together or just Hyungwon goes, I don’t really know, but I have a strong reason to believe it was only Hyungwon the one who made it. Regardless, this is what clearly marks the end of our first timeline, because next time we get to see them, they’re leading completely different lives.
While Trespass and Rush hold no contradiction with The Clan, in Dramarama they don’t even know each other, and some of them do not even exist in the same time and space. Jooheon is dead in this timeline as well. Although this could heavily imply they have changed concepts and story, I believe the only way this can make sense is if this is a timeline that occurs after The Clan.
Hyungwon already has his strange time-space travel abilities, yet there’s no sign as to how he obtained them. And even more than that, if it’s clear they don’t remember each other, then why is Hyungwon trying to help them and giving them tools to meet each other (even if it doesn’t work in the end)? If he were just playing the Good Samaritan then surely he would at least give watches to other people right? Yet he doesn’t, we never see him doing it.
Our time-traveling hero has a clear mission here: getting them back together. He’s obviously struggling with this, as there seems to be some sort of agency that catches his activities and stops the people he’s helping? I don’t really think this agency is important to the story itself. It’s just another obstacle to their coming back together. In any case, this timeline is doomed.
Phase 5: The Third Timeline (The Connect: Music Film D)
Destroyer is yet another timeline distinct to Dramarama. We know this because we see different pairings, completely different settings and completely different timelines. Much like the BWT VCR, the Music Film D is divided in three stages: Part 1 The Code (a very obvious reference, this is already letting us know they’re connected), Part 2 Finding the road (if this doesn’t sound like Lost then I don’t know what does), and Part 3 Connected (clear reference to the current album.
D shows us the boys as geniuses, Minhyuk and Shownu are artists, Kihyun and Wonho are science (physics?) prodigies, and Jooheon and IM dominate technology. Through their own methods they all come to the revelation on how to find Hyungwon. Here’s the thing, why would they be looking for Hyungwon in the first place if they don’t know him? This is an entirely different timeline after all and it’s clear Hyungwon is too tired to keep making watches and keep trying to put them back together. He has already worn himself out.
The guys manage to figure it out and find the train station, which could either be a real place in which every timeline and universe converge or just a metaphor for them figuring out how to do the same thing Hyungwon does, either explanation works. They meet each other, they remember, and they go into the train, which marks our second main event in the theory.
Phase 6: Interlude (The Connect: Jealousy & The Connect World Tour VCR)
Jealousy is like Beautiful in the sense that it doesn’t feed the plot itself but helps connect (pun not intended) and put everything else into place. Through different imagery, Jealousy illustrates how the different timelines push them together and then pull them apart, creating different pairings, but that despite this they still share things in common (the paper with numbers, the recorder, the glass of water).
Another thing this video does is allude to Jooheon’s death in Dramarama through the use of os symbolism. In one scene, a paper with his symbol is being burn, while in yet another, the chair he’s seen sitting on throughout the video is being burned as well and then falls down to the abyss.
On the other hand, The Connect World Tour VCR (CWT from now on, watch it here) functions like BWT’s, it creates a clear and obvious connection between Dramarama and D, revealing to us that they do have memories from other timelines. One thing worth pointing out about this is that they do not share memories of Hyungwon from the timelines shown in Dramarama and D, which means they can only have memories from him from The Clan, there’s literally no other way.
It also provides a clearer scene of Hyungwon crafting the watches himself and of him at the top of the Hero building (something I’ll address in more detail later). We can also see the last scene from Jealousy mirrored in the last few seconds of the VCR, which is something worth pointing out.
Phase 7: The Fourth Timeline? (Take 1 and Take 2)
The real question comes now, are Take 1 and Take 2 part of the MONSTA X universe? Despite the obvious change in theme, I have a lot of reasons to believe they do, part of them are in the Out-verse section that follows, so you should pay attention to that.
The most obvious reference I can think of that doesn’t leave room for question is Hyungwon in the Hero building and falling into the water. We saw this scene previously and we see it once again in the “Previous Film” that recently came out for We Are Here. This makes it clear that Take 1 and 2 are indeed connected to The Code - The Connect in a sense.
Plus, the use of symbolism to represent the sins and the characters is a very interesting reminder of other symbols that have been used since way back in The Clan. Finally, there’s also the narrations, which I will discuss soon in the out-verse. The only thing I am not sure of is if Take 1 and 2 form part of the universe from a plot point of view or only as interludes like Jealousy and Beautiful, we’ll probably have to pay a lot of attention to answer that question.
Out-verse
MONSTA X and May 14, 2015
The group’s name and their debut date are actually quite important in order to explain some of the symbolism used throughout their discography. As you might know, MONSTA means my star, and the ‘X’ represents the variable of a mysterious existence.
Back in Trespass, a number appears: M150514X. Any fan that knows remotely anything about MONSTA X knows this is their debut date, and it makes sense that it is in the video because it is, after all their debut video. However, we see something very similar after a while in D, when Kihyun solves the formula for time travel as X=4155102M which is basically the same number we see in Trespass, just backwards and with the numbers shifted slightly (full year still of only the last two numbers, and one number for the month).
This makes sense, because if X is the variable for a mysterious existence, then May 14, 2015 is the day that existence came to be, and I think it’s an amazing reference to make. Even in Dramarama we see Kihyun traveling back to 2015, the year everything began, even the story they are telling through these MVs, in and out of the plot.
References to Real Life
In Jealousy we see a very important reference that took me a long time to figure out. We see them sharing a paper that has a bunch of numbers in it, these numbers prove to be the members birthdays, which again ties up with the concept of existence, because those are the days they started existing.
Another very important thing about these numbers is that, ever since Jealousy, the comeback dates have been matching perfectly with this numbers. The Connect came out on March 26 and I.M was born on January 26, Take 1 came out on October 22 and Kihyun was born on November 22, and finally Take 2 is coming out on February 18 and Shownu was born on June 18. This is just further proof that Take 1 and 2 form part of the Universe.
The Logos and Individual Marks
MONSTA X have an easily recognizable logo that we’ve all seen at least once: a detailed and complex M and X combined on each other so that the inner lines come out longer on the bottom. This is their official logo and as such is present in all of their albums in some way or another (in the back of the photo cards, in the credits, somewhere), however it is not always the most visible.
As you might have noticed, for The Code and The Connect they had a ‘change’ of logo, which happened again with Take 1 and Take 2. Yes, their original logo is still present somewhere in the album (you can see that in unboxings) however it is not the main logo that takes the covers as it did with their previous releases.
I think the logos, in a sense, mark the belonging of one release into the series, as well as mark the important events in the story that change its course. First, we have the original logo that goes from Trespass all the way to The Clan Part 2.5: Beautiful, then it changes for The Code and The Connect, and then it once again morphs for Take 1 Are You There and Take 2 We Are Here.
These changes match with the two main events I have described so far. After they meet the heart in All In and Fighter the logo changes (let’s remember Beautiful works as a way of explaining their past and characters, so technically the story is contained within All In and Fighter only). And then, after they go through the train’s doors in D (same thing with Jealousy) it changes again. Yes, the logos for Take 1 and Take 2 are slightly different because the colors are inverted, it could be ‘cause of the choice of colors or maybe because they’re “two sides of the same coin”, either way the logo is pretty much the same.
Aside from marking the important changes in the Universe, I also think their logos are a symbols of their own. The first one is the original, it’s their identity and matches well with The Clan, it represents them and their union. The second is the loops they’re trapped in, the infinite repetition of timeline after timeline until they’re able to get back together. The third one is what we know as an impossible figure, it’s a shape that can’t exist in a tridimensional plane because it doesn’t make sense, just like how they’re are trapped and followed by their past mistakes and the sins they carry within them.
As for their individual marks. During The Clan they all have an X tattoo that looks just a bit different for each of them, this symbolizes their union as one team. However, after they break apart because of what happened, they start having individual symbols that are sometimes fused to each other. This is the case for The Code’s stylized initial and The Connect’s initials that were put as clocks. For Take 1 and 2, I think their symbols will be the deadly sin that identifies each of them, but we’ll see.
Album Titles
Although I don’t think the album titles are such an important element, I think it’s worth mentioning the structure they follow. For The Clan, The Code and The Connect they all have a repeating structure of ‘The’ and a word that starts with the letter C. Even inside The Clan we had 3 parts, and for the last two albums we’ve had Take 1 and Take 2, which makes me think there might be a Take 3, but do remember what I said earlier. (I remember reading something about a Take 4 because there’s four versions to each album).
Narration Elements
A lot of the MONSTA X videos that aren’t Music Videos contain in the a lot of narration, Take the VCRs and The Oaths for example. The way these narrations are structured mirror each other a lot, and we can even find some recurring elements between them.
Check these comparisons. The phrases under the same colors are related.
Shine Forever, Newton and Hero
Lastly, I feel the need to explain why I didn’t mention these three much. Newton is the easier one to explain: it is a commercial MV. That’s it, it’s obviously not part of anything because it was a commercial, and even if it were part of the universe I think it would lack relevance to it.
As for Hero, it is mostly just a dance video, but the place is clearly representative of something important since it has been using repeatedly in different eras, so I think it’s mostly just the location rather than anything else.
And finally, when it comes to Shine Forever, it just doesn’t fit anywhere. I desperately tried to tie it with everything else, especially after I saw the lights they used in Music Film D and the car crash in Dramarama, but it just doesn’t fit. Plus, it doesn’t fit within the logo theory, it doesn’t have the first logo anywhere visible and it doesn’t have any variation of the logos either that could explain it as a different timeline or setting, which is why I discarded it, which is a shame cause I love the song and MV.
Conclusions
Ever since the beginning, MONSTA X’s albums have been part of one sole universe that poses the journey of a group of seven boys trying to get back together after they get split apart, probably because of what Hyungwon did in All In. But not only that, this is also a story about them, about their struggles and how they’ve grown up. They’re each other’s friends and family, the value of X is their debut date because that is when they came into existence, they are each other’s dreams because they wanted to become artists and they did so by coming together into one group.
So far, we’ve seen the growth of their strong bond, the separation, the reencounter. But just like the narrations says, it is just not enough. D showed them reunited at last, but their sins follow them even beyond that, and their journey is not quite over. They could be the salvation of each other, or their doom.
I hope you liked this theory, and be assured that I’ll add onto it as more things come out and new mysteries are to be solved. If you have any questions you can hit me up on my Tumblr (@not-majestic-bluenicorn), Twitter (@soft_bluenicorn) or my CuriousCat (@soft_bluenicorn)! I’ll be glad to answer them ^^
Okay so I’ve been having post concert depression ever since I saw Monsta X in San Francisco last Wednesday on August 1st. (I also tried posting this the day before yesterday but I had no WiFi and we finally got it fixed today) but anyways enjoy this video of Monsta X performing Dramarama and me freaking out 💖
