After extensive study of lyrics, themes, and general tone, I’ve developed The ONEUS Lore Playlist for those who might want to join me in the Lore Brain Trenches.
The set of songs, even among these, that stick out to me as particularly lore heavy/thematically important are:
White Night
Lion Heart
Blue Sky
Connect with US
Red Thread
Dead or Alive
To Be Or Not to Be
I’m actually a little upset that Black Mirror doesn’t seem to be a song with any lore importance, because it bucked the trend of all “color” songs being important.
A Unifying Theory of Loreography (Lore + Choreography)
(2/3/21) HELLO to all new folks finding this post! It is also now a YouTube Video, and I’m pretty happy with it so if you’d rather get your lore analysis visually please check it out!
Preface: I don’t think it’s just coincidence that we got full choreography for an intro called “Devil is in the detail”, and I’ve made it my mission since 반박불가 dropped to pull apart the threads that might link everything, lore-wise. This morning I believe I had an epiphany about it, so here are my thoughts.
If this flops I will feel my soul exiting my body so please validate me.
Notes: In forming this theory I mostly considered the events of the storyline MVs and teasers as well as the choreography, but a very important part of my epiphanies came when considering the post-MV stingers for TBONTB and 반박불가. It’s using these stingers that I feel like I can better understand the thesis statements in the choreo.
Part One: Now then, where were we?
At the end of TBONTB, the monarchs are approaching monumental, pitch-black gates made of skulls and desperate, reaching hands.
I can’t not interpret this as the gates of Tartarus, considering the Greek mythology in the canon lore already. Tartarus, however, is at the lowest depths of the underworld, and so my interpretation is that, while they reclaimed their souls from the necklace, they awoke physically in a realm beyond the underworld, and now have to make their way out of this psychological nightmare to breathe free the air, as it were. Through Tartarus, through Hell, this is not because I played 80 hours of Hades in the last three months but it might have a little to do with that. Stay with me. (Though if anyone is wondering, YES Leedo would be Zagreus, but that’s not why we’re here today)
Part Two: Devil is in the Detail
What an opening formation. The imagery is not 100% clear to me, but I feel as if this entire opening formation sequence is dual-wielding imagery of a crown (much like the killing part of TBONTB), but also the gates of Tartarus.
Look at this transition once Hwanwoong ascends to the top of the formation, and how the hands all come out, similar to the gates above. I’ll be damned if this is supposed to invoke anything else.
Rewinding a bit, this framing of Seoho being resuscitated and borne by their hands is stunning. Seoho’s journey in the TBONTB choreography merits its own post entirely, because there are a lot of moments that seem to be telling a story for him particularly, and this is just a continuation of that.
Ravn and Leedo being separated for the rap line part seems like an obvious utilitarian choice, and I agree that it is. However, before we prepare to dismiss all “pairings” as serving the progression of the song itself, I have another theory that ties together a lot of the inciting moments of choreo. I promise you this is going to sound like A Reach, but that’s just how my mind works and if you enjoy it I’m glad.
Leedo, Hwanwoong, and Xion are the monarchs who have absolved themselves by the events of 반박불가, and fully reclaimed their souls as well as their conscience. Seoho and Ravn, not so much. They have a lot of work to do to free their conscience - especially Seoho. Oh, lord, especially Seoho. Keonhee is an extremely interesting case, as he seems to have a foot firmly in both sides, More on that later.
For further paranoid conspiracy theorist proof of this, please note that their outfits in the choreography videos symbolically reflect this:
If you need more convincing, may I point out that Leedo, Hwanwoong, and Xion are the only members who got those wonderful “all clothed in white” shots in the back half of the 반박불가 MV? I tried to make a gif, and I did make a gif, but Tumblr doesn’t want to post it in this text post.
(you rn)
The most interesting moments of loreography in DiitD are the following:
1. These lotus hands. Again, the imagery, I die!! Keonhee is coming into his own, his character is blooming, expanding his consciousness, going sicko mode with the realization that he has power in the underworld.
2. Directly following this, Seoho offers a hand to Keonhee and literally drags him down (again, the light/dark dichotomy of Keonhee), while the two good good boys Hwanwoong and Xion are back there just trying to maintain balance so they can get through this Hell/Tartarus thing.
3. Good ol’ ONEUS Summoning Circle, but wait this time I think it’s actually meaningful beyond the imagery. Seoho is at the center because he has the vocal line, yeah obviously, but he stays there much longer than is objectively necessary without a formation change. This isn’t common in ONEUS choreography. As much as they love their Summoning Circles, they tend to move on to other formations quickly. This one has meat on its bones, and I think what’s happening here, loreography wise, are the other monarchs banding together in an attempt to save Seoho from the darkness. But Seoho is powerfully dark, y’all, even going so far as to overpower them in the moment above.
4. This is flame imagery. Seoho has been engulfed in flames despite everyone’s best efforts.
5. At the last minute, he gets yeeted via backflip back into Hell/Tartarus
6. Keonhee takes the initiative in going back for him...
7. We’re back in Hell, that’s just great. Thanks, Seoho. You’re lucky we love you and your extremely disturbed conscience.
With this in mind, you can probably get way ahead of me, here.
Part Three: 반박불가
Perhaps not remarkably, the title track doesn’t have nearly as many loreography beats as DiitD. However, we know it’s part of the lore, and this was made abundantly clear simply with that opening move...
This is where we left off TBONTB, but not exactly. There is a slightly different formation of dancers here, which suggests it’s not picking up exactly where TBONTB left off, but rather that this is a cue to let casual fans know, explicitly: yes, this is a continuation of the TBONTB story.
Some moments don’t have choreography allusions, but they are loud in the MV, such as:
- “Youngjo, would you stop playing with flowers, our lead vocalist is going to Hell.” Ravn, who barely scraped out of Hell last time, ostensibly with Leedo’s help according to the rap line break in the choreography, has a rough time of it in the 반박불가 MV, but Hwanwoong isn’t going to let him fall back into toxic behaviors and lose himself to that psychological prison again. Hwanwoong drags Ravn back out of Hell, but not before Ravn successfully makes contact with Seoho. Obviously, Ravn would be the one to make contact, because Ravn’s still a little on edge about his own conscience and can easily backslide if he wants to. Who does he find down there? Seoho.
- Keonhee, who led the charge to return to Hell, is staying on task but seems to be the chief of operations to Hwanwoong’s chief of intelligence here, exercising his newfound sicko mode. Those two are certainly working hardest at keeping the servants of darkness in check down in the depths so they can make a quick break for it.
- Leedo’s actually having a grand time fighting his own demons - or rather, smirking at them and realizing that nah, he’s good. He can use his guilt and regret to motivate him towrd good things now.
- Xion is literally just above all of this and can move between Hell and Earth with ease, so he’s just waiting to see if he has to pull any Fallen God-Prince cards here to save his friends.
Now, for the key loregraphy moments. It’s obvious that 1Million was choreographing for a new direction in the ONEUS style, here, so it’s nearly bereft of the usual lyricism and formations, but they’re definitely there. Unsurprisingly they almost all deal with Seoho.
1. God, this moment whips. They’re all working to free Seoho and lock the gates behind them, with Keonhee giving Seoho one final push. That’s not a normal choreography move. That is storytelling and it sticks out like a beautiful sore thumb with an entire sonnet written on it.
2. With Seoho on lock, now Ravn may break out. He does so rather easily, but it’s not without Hwanwoong’s help. Please notice that Keonhee and Seoho are the two BEHIND him, and what that symbolizes.
3. This fucking bridge. It’s amazing with the loreography. First of all we have Keonhee, and the Summoning Circle is using the same imagery/texture that was formerly used to represent engulfing fire. Uh-oh.
4. Keonhee reaches out...
... but gets dragged under.
5. (excited football commentator voice) but who’s that on the outside making it to the surface, literally with the support of the other monarchs? IT’S SEOHO (cheers)!!
And Seoho finishes things out in the center, as well he should because he got us into this mess.
Part Four: What just happened to Keonhee
I’m so angry at this post-MV stinger. It took me forever to wrap my brain around what is being suggested here, because I thought “hey wait, the red lighting represents darkness/hell, doesn’t it?? DOESN’T IT?? RBW???? I thought we just GOT OUT OF HELL????
So I leave the final interpretation in everyone's individual hands, but the thought that occurred to me today was:
What if this entire scenario was a test of resolve and camaraderie, an illusion, a trick by the Devil (or that donger Helios, whatever). What if Keonhee was the only one who saw through this, and the only one who genuinely made it to Earth at the moment he appeared to have been dragged back to Hell? Because, as we know, Keonhee is a tactical genius, a monarch among the monarchs, and all his visual imagery in the MV suggested a sort of power cabal.
What if he realized that they weren’t all strong enough to face the challenge of breaking this cycle, so he schemed to leave them behind, but leave them safe in the illusion, while he struck out with the power of God and anime on his side.
I... I think Keonhee is about to go kill and dethrone a God, y’all.
So, I’m a sucker for lore, and Oneus just had a comeback.
Two moments that really stuck out to me as potential lore fodder were these (sorry for the bad quality, I don’t know how to make gifs so I just used a free gif making website):
In the first one, we have Ravn dancing in that red room with the mirrors, but once he turns his back, one of his reflections is replaced with a black and white Hwanwoong, doing something completely different. The second has the same set, but with Seoho dancing, and all of the reflections are replaced with Keonhee doing a different dance, one of them black and white.
Now, I’m not entirely sure about the lore implications of this, I’d need to talk about it first, but there was definitely a connection established between Ravn and Hwanwoong in No Diggity, and this might imply a similar connection between Seoho and Keonhee.
