HALFWAY HERE | me

i spew some nonsense about bangtan's new shit

[published 08.18.17]

WHATS UP LADIES AND GENTS I'M HAVING SOME FEELINGS AND IT'S TIME TO TALK BANGTAN

So, there are obviously a ton of new theories going around about Bangtan MVs since the Love Yourself highlight reels have been coming out, and with today's new thing I think I have one of my own. I don't necessarily think it's right, even, because of just how open-to-interpretation the story is, I just kind of like the concept of what they're doing. And no, this isn't one of those huge overarching theories that connects actual plot points in hyyh, but more a theory on what they're doing with the Love Yourself films in relation to the hyyh ones theme-wise. I've linked the most recent video in the multimedia above, so I'd recommend watching it if by some odd chance you haven't already. That being said, let's begin.

So, obviously, the boys are playing with some sort of "turn back the clock" mechanism, as the narration explains at the end of the video, while, just to make things even more convoluted, clips from hyyh are playing in reverse in black and white. The narration says: "If we could turn back the clock, where should we go back to? Once we reach that place, can all our mistakes and errors be undone? Will happiness be ours to stay?" I think that Bangtan's answer is actually no, but we'll get to that. A lot of people have jumped to the conclusion that they (mostly Seokjin, so I've seen) are literally going back in time to try and fix all the things that happened in I NEED U. I don't think this is the case. What I take that whole sequence for is a blatant statement on the theme of this whole thing, and that theme is, to put it lightly, pretty somber. So often in media of all sorts, we see people traveling back in time to try and fix a mistake only to end up in a bigger mess than the one they started with. They've got to deal with the same kinds of issues, but more exacerbated, and often times they regret going back in the first place. I think what Bangtan is trying to say in terms of theme is that there is no point we can go back to that'll fix all of our problems. No matter what we do, outcomes are the same, or even worse. It's a message about fate and destiny, and what can be done to change it. I think, in the case of the Bangtan Cinematic Universe™, that the boys are set to suffer no matter what. At least in what we've seen so far, nothing has gone well for any of them. This begs the question: are they actually taking part in time-travel? I don't think so, but I do think they're doing something similar. The device Bangtan and our supreme overlords at Big Hit Ent are using is alternate realities.

So, why do I think that? What's my rationale? Well, for starters, I think the whole "turn back the clock" thing is just a statement of the theme and shouldn't be taken so literally. Secondly, because we still have no idea where the Love Yourself stuff is chronologically. I've seen people relating it to post-hyyh stuff, people deeming it all prequel material, and everything in between. It's kind of hard to immediately deem something as time-travel when you don't know where you're coming from, right? Either way, this is easily disputed and it doesn't really matter overall. Whether they're using time-travel in one same reality or glimpses of different ones, it all tells the same story with minimal changes. I just happen to prefer the concept of alternate realities, is all. So we've got alternate realities/timelines, and right now, of the two (maybe three, because I don't even want to think about how all the WINGS stuff ties into this) has the boys in similar situations with some minor changes, and because I'm the worst, I'm gonna talk about them.

TIMELINE/REALITY 1: SUFFERING IS BROUGHT UPON YOURSELF
This whole timeline is the events carried out in the hyyh saga. We all know what this one is, right? The boys are alone, Yoongi lights himself on fire, no one's happy, and only Jimin, Taehyung, and Seokjin are for sure left alive. I'm a firm believer that Run is a prequel to I NEED U, so the latter track is the end-game for this reality. The boys lose pretty much everything they have, and according to some, their lives.