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We’re not a blog that is dedicated to reviewing music (including Kpop), but because we absolutely adore BTS and their music, we decided to do a theory prediction for BTS’ upcoming release.

***Note: If this is your first time browsing the Drama Files, please read The Rules on how our Memo-style reviews work.***

Memo

Dear Reader,

There have been some questions regarding the teasers for BTS’ comeback. You asked these questions:

(1) What is the significance of 起承転結 (Kishōtenketsu) or 起承转合 (qǐ chéng zhuǎn hé) to these teasers?

(2) How does BTS’ “Love Yourself 承 ‘Her'” album fit within 起承转合?

Conclusion

(1) The plots within BTS’ teasers reflect the structure of 起承转合.

(2) “Love Yourself 承 ‘Her'” is 承 where the focus is on the honeymoon phase of falling in love or being in a relationship.

Background

Please read the first post to understand how the BST MV fits in with the other MVs and the different types of reality in this MV.

Analysis

(1) The plots within BTS’ teasers reflect the structure of 起承转合.

起承转合 is a structure used for many Chinese, Korean, and Japanese narratives. The origin of 起承转合 comes from Chinese poetry, particularly from 七言絕句 (Qiyan jueju).

起 represents the introduction. This is where the characters are introduced and the setting of the story is established. In BTS’ 起 teaser, we see all the BTS members being introduced.

July 11th is when Jin meets the girl who dropped her diary. I’ll call her, Jin’s crush for now as we don’t know her name.

June 14th is when we see Jungkook in a wheelchair and he meets a girl at the hospital. They shake hands. I’ll also refer to her as Jungkook’s crush since we don’t know her name.

May 25th is when we see Yoongi working on some music while another girl accompanies him. Yoongi wants to smoke, but the girl takes the lighter away from him. She marks it with two letters “YK”. She then shows him a yellow lollipop, seemingly implying that if he wants to smoke, he can suck on a yellow lollipop instead. We also see that she is a musician because she goes to her guitar. I’m going to refer to her as Yoongi’s girlfriend. (I get the gf vibes from her in this teaser.)

June 5th is when Rapmonster sees this girl handing out flyers and seems intrigued by her. She drops her flyers and so Rapmonster goes to pick them up for her. She thanks him and walks away. Rapmonster stares at her yellow hair tie. She’ll be called Rapmonster’s crush.

June 18th is when we see Taehyung eating some ramen at a convenience store. He sees a girl attempting to steal some things and intercepts. He pays for the items and hands her backpack and items to her; however, she gets really mad at him and storms off. This girl, I’ll refer as Taehyung’s crush. He seems to be quite taken by her at the end.

May 31st is when we see Jimin and J-Hope first in a studio. J-Hope is dancing while Jimin is filming him. Then another girl enters this practice room. She has a birthday cake and hands it to J-Hope who seems to be happy. Jimin starts recording the girl, but gets shy about it.

Later, J-Hope is about to blow the candle, but then closes his eyes to remember a bad memory about the time that he was abandoned by his mother at an amusement park. I think it’s safe to assume that this event happened on his birthday; that’s why he seems to fake being happy about celebrating his birthday. I’ll call her Jimin’s crush.

承 is development. Basic circumstances are still being developed and they are leading to the twist. No major changes have happened. We learn more about the characters’ relationships to each other and how they fit in the world.

We first see time passing which is symbolized by the clouds changing to rays of sunlight and the subway passing by. Taehyung and his crush are together. Taehyung looks up in the sky and remembers something in the past; we see Rapmonster and a bit of Suga in this memory. This seems to be from the Run/I Need U era (based on their hair and the scene). Rapmonster asks Taehyung what he is doing. Taehyung is doing some graffiti on a wall. Taehyung finishes zoning out because his crush stares at him. He decides to place his cellphone on top of this water bottle and then uses a golf club to whack the water bottle to see how far his cellphone will go.

The next scene features Rapmonster and his crush. He follows her to the bus and doesn’t approach her. He has this hair tie in his hand and he seems to want to give it to her. He only looks at her from afar.

The third scene shows Jungkook drawing something with a yellow pencil. He is hanging out with his crush who sits beside him on a white bench. He has a crutch now, which means that time has passed and his health is recovering. She, on the other hand, is not recovering. He is listening to some music, but she pulls one earbud out. Jungkook focuses on a girl playing a guitar; it’s Yoongi’s girlfriend. We know because of two reasons. First, we get a flashback of Jungkook recalling those happy days when he and Yoongi played the piano together and worked on music together in an abandoned room. Jungkook and his crush walk closer to listen to Yoongi’s girlfriend. Then Jungkook spots the cigarette lighter with the initials Y.K. (My gut says it stands for Yoongi or a combination of his first name with the girl’s first name.)

The fourth scene transports us to J-Hope who opens his eyes. From the first teaser, J-Hope closed his eyes to remember his past, but now he opens them to the present. Notice how the same time of lighting/filming style was used in the beginning of this teaser. J-Hope starts dancing with the girl while Jimin seems to be filming them from behind. In fact, we realize that Jimin is actually only filming the girl. This seems to imply that he might have feelings for her.

The fifth scene brings us back to Taehyung and his crush. He is walking down this railway path and she is trailing behind him.

The sixth scene depicts Jin who has finished reading an entry from the girl’s diary. That page is titled “Mysterious Flower”–that blue flower we have seen in the “I Need U”/”Run” era. We are also given a date, August 30th. Jin then starts trying out his clothes to see what he should wear. It’s likely a date that he’ll go to. He wears this grey sweatshirt and then he looks down to see this toppled over vase with white lilies. After, we see him buttoning up a white shirt and putting on a grey blazer. His hair has changed to a more formal style.

The seventh scene moves to Yoongi who is lying on this couch. The calendar in the room shows that it’s June, meaning that about a month has gone by. He checks his phone and then tosses it aside. He has a cigarette in his mouth and grabs a pack of cigarettes. Though he wants to light a cigarette, he remembers that his girlfriend has taken his lighter and laughs to himself. He sets the cigarettes aside. We also see that there are two yellow lollipops on his table; it’s obvious that he is trying to break his smoking habit. His cellphone vibrates on the ground, causing him to fall off the sofa to check his phone. Then we hear Jin’s narration: “Why is it that the happiest of moments usher in sudden fear?”

转 is twist. Something unexpected happens and it’s usually unrelated to the first two acts. The film colours are much darker here. We hear Jin’s narration about being afraid to love himself and about turning away from what he knew was going to happen.

We see J-Hope in a yellow t-shirt dancing with the girl. Jimin dances in the darkness by himself; he seems to be imitating J-Hope’s moves. We also see Yoongi stumbling up these stairs, seemingly drunk. V is vandalizing something. Jin keeps driving very quickly in his car; he has the photo of the 7 of them hanging in his car. V and the girl are being chased by the police.

We move to the day and I think that implies that these characters haven’t been affected by some twist yet. Namjoon gets the courage to move up a seat to sit in the same row as his crush; however, he still holds onto the black hair tie in his hand. Jungkook, dressed in nearly all white, has some white flowers in his hand and he is heading to give them to his crush. Jin keeps driving in the darkness. Then we see Namjoon put the hair tie on top of the girl’s white backpack when he gets off the bus. V and his crush keep running in the darkness, away from the police. Namjoon gets off on the bus stop that V vandalized, stares at the words, and walks away. Jin keeps driving faster and this time he closes his eyes with a grimace.

We cut back to Jimin who is dancing with the girl. The two fall on the ground painfully. Jungkook is still on his way to give his flowers to his crush. Yoongi is playing his piano in his apartment that has become a mess. Yoongi and his girlfriend fight on the street and he pushes her away. Jimin keeps washing his hands and the water is bloody. J-Hope gives the girl a piggyback and runs in the rain. Jimin is dressed in dark clothes and holds a black umbrella while looking at J-Hope and the girl. Rapmonster throws something away angrily at this crime scene place. V gives himself up to the police. Jungkook sees that the hospital bed is empty, meaning that she has died.

合 is reconciliation. This last act is about the third act’s impact on the first two acts. The fourth act reconciles all of the acts.

We start off with Jin getting out of his car to talk to this other car in front of him. This reminds me when someone accidentally hits a car from behind; they have to sort things out with the driver in front of them. Nothing big happens as the other driver drives off. Jin has a bouquet filled with those mysterious flowers and he is excited to meet his crush. His crush is rushing to cross the street and he sees her get hit by a truck. The lighting turns a bit neon purple, reminding me of the “Blood, Sweat and Tears” MVs. Jin starts his narration and thinks if we could turn back time, where would they go? There are these flashbacks of what happened in “I Need U” and “Run”. At the end, Jin catches the vase that was about to be toppled over. He is wearing a grey sweatshirt and puts on his black cap. We are back to August 30th and then shown the sea.

What’s interesting about 起承转合 is that there’s no actual conflict, unlike in Western narratives. It’s important to note that the conflict isn’t built into the story as a key trigger.

Usually, in three acts, you have a conflict that’s introduced in the first act. The second act builds on this conflict and the third is where the conflict is resolved. (See this website for more examples.)

If you think about each character’s scenes in the 3rd act from “Love Yourself”, you’ll notice that the events aren’t really connected to what happened to the characters in the 2nd scene. We go from Jungkook seeing Yoongi’s girlfriend playing a guitar to being on his way to hand flowers to someone. There’s also Taehyung thinking about the past to running away from the police.

The twists/unexpected events are definitely shown in the 3rd act/teaser. Then, we have the final scene that tries to tie everything together. I see that there could be a few possibilities to explain what has happened.

A popular explanation I’ve seen online – Jin being a time traveller and trying to go back in time to stop things from happening. It’s possible that this has happened given the date we see at the end of the 4th teaser and the fact that he catches the falling vase. I’m not sure whether an element of the supernatural would really give off the message of “Love Yourself”. I don’t see it as being so well-connected with what we’ve seen from the previous MVs’ references to Demian. Simply put, I personally think a time traveller device would be not be that satsifying and would feel more like a cop-out to explain things. Perhaps, the message of loving yourself could still be kept if despite his time travelling to revert things, it doesn’t work out because pouring love to someone still isn’t going to make everyone happy. In the end, one must learn to love oneself.

There could also be two parallel universes going on. We have one universe where all the unexpected events happen and then another universe where Jin is about to experience them happening. This time, he chooses a different path by dressing up casually and wearing a baseball cap. This explanation, however, does have a weak spot; it doesn’t explain Jin’s cynical look very well.

All the events have passed and everyone is just filled with regret. Though the date is August 30th, we are never told the year. Perhaps, it could be the following year and Jin is just thinking about what happens if he could turn back time. I think often, when we experience some sort of failure or drastic event, we keep thinking about the areas where we could change. We’d ask questions like what if we did this instead of that. Then we realize that you can’t keep dwelling on the past and you have to move onto another “storm”.

I think the 3rd explanation makes the most sense due to a few reasons. First, Jin’s narration in the third teaser is telling. He talked about how he was afraid to be loved for he was and how he knew that this glittery world had darkness. This part of his narration reminded me of Sinclair discovering the darker side of the world; I see that parallel there. Jin, along with all the other members, are being forced to grow up. Second, this understanding matches the characters’ lines for their posters. The BTS members are filled with regrets like “Jimin – “I lied, because there is no reason to love someone like me.” and Jin saying “If I could turn back time, I want to be the best man in the world.” Third, Jin’s note/diary is dated “June 13th, year 2012” and he wrote about Jungkook getting into a car accident. In the first teaser, we see June 14th as the point where Jungkook is at the hospital. I think we can assume that the accident likely happened on June 13th based on how the note is translated and that the members end up reacting to Jungkook’s accident in different ways. I get this feeling that they all learn about Jungkook’s accident at different time periods–at least I’m quite certain that’s true for Yoongi and Jin.

It’s safe to say that “Love Yourself” is the continuation of HHYH and BST. I see it picking up right where the Japanese BST MV left off. I also see “Love Yourself” as the point where the BTS members are already deeply immersed in the darker side of the world and are trying to find themselves again. That’s just like Sinclair’s journey in Demian. At the end of the day, the BTS members realize that you have to love yourself first before you can love others. You shouldn’t rely on loving others to determine your self worth.

(2) “Love Yourself: Her” is 承 where the focus is on the honeymoon phase of falling in love or being in a relationship.

As mentioned before, 承 is development and it still is the moment that’s setting up the stage for the twist. (When I refer to BTS here, I don’t mean BTS personally. It’s just BTS in this story setting they’ve set up for the album theme.)

As such, throughout the album, we have a consistent theme of loving “her”. “Intro: Serendipity” starts off by describing that BTS was fated to meet her and all they want to do is love her. The lyrics and the music are very poetic, romantic, and dreamy, which are the feelings you’d expect to get when you feel like you’ve met the fated one. Jimin’s soft, sweet voice matches this song’s feelings very well. He was the perfect match for this intro, I think.

Then, “DNA” takes it further by focusing on how they’re destined to be together and how she has become part of their “DNA”. The song has a far more energetic vibe. The whistling is rather addicting and becomes ingrained your mind just like how someone becomes incorporated into your life/DNA. This verse fits so well for the idea: “You are me and I am you.”

“Best of Me” follows a similar theme of love, but it also does become a bit more obsessive and needy. The lyrics repeat “All I need is you . . . I need you so please don’t leave me. You got the best of me.” and “All I need is that one phrase”. I think the lyrics implicitly show that BTS has become more reliant on love and needs “her” to feel complete.

“Dimple/Illegal” is after “Best of Me”. The love for “her” turns obsessive, in my opinion. A feature of “her” is praised and obsessed over like a fetish that they know can be potentially unhealthy. The lyrics include:

Was it a mistake from an angel Or was it a deep kiss Those dimples are illegal But I want it anyway anyway anyway

Dimples are supposed to be innocent, yet they are also considered to be appealing and even sexy. I can see why Rapmonster would use a “mistake from an angel” to contrast with “a deep kiss”. In the song, the beginning also starts with a recognition that an innocent angel could be dangerous.

Don’t lie, you are an angel What are you

But you That smile is so cruel Cruel

Despite all these conflicted feelings, BTS still succumbs to the feelings of temptation/love and go crazy over “her”.

The next song goes from BTS being enchanted to being the enchanter. I can see why some people have commented that this seems like BTS’ song for fans after reading the lyrics.

Let’s stop looking and and start studying for the exams Your parents and boss hate me The video clips you watched, various pictures and tweets Gotta watch V app I know that you like it, what do you do Stop it, you can analyze the movie later You already have plenty of my pictures in your room Not one hour, but a year or two flashes by This song is a reward I give you

I think if one pieces “you” as a BTS fan, then that explanation does work. If that’s the case, it’s interesting to see how BTS sees themselves in relation to their fans:

Follow the sound of the flute, follow this song It may be a little dangerous but I’m very sweet I’m here to save you, I’m here to ruin you

To make it fit into this album’s theme, I think this could also be a song to show that the enchanted becomes the enchantress over time. After being obsessed with “her”, BTS has learned to intrigue and seduce “her” and the relationship becomes sweet yet dangerous. That’s why we have all these contrasting themes like “danger vs sweetness” and “ruin vs save”. We do get the feeling of being led by the Pied Piper, a story that we’re all familiar with. (I’m not talking about sexual seduction, fyi. I’m just talking about pure fascination/obsession/fan culture like how one can be obsessed with watching dramas.)

The skit comes after, which is fitting, as it shows BTS’ appreciation for the fans. After enticing fans like the Pied Piper, they are very thankful for all their fans all over the world. Moreover, to fit with this album’s theme, it seems like BTS has reached a huge accomplishment, getting the “best of me” through love.

“Mic Drop” is to show how far BTS has come and appears to be words for their haters and “Go Go” addresses how the young generation seems to be generally behaving these days with the motifs of “YOLO” and spending away all of their money to put up this image of wealth and luxury. I think these two songs kind of go hand in hand because “Go Go” shows potentially what happens when you let your ego get to yourself. As we see from “Mic Drop” that the boys have tons of trophies and many more accomplishments. This is, of course, not to ever say that the boys are arrogant. They have always been humble and hardworking. That’s why I see “Go Go” as more of a critique of the fast life that we often see on social media or even around us. We also get that little whistling, tropical vibe in “Go Go” that fits very well with their message. The whistling is obsessive and addicting like the Pied Piper, making us feel like this lifestyle also is reflective of those notions.

“Outro: Her” goes back from a neurotic sense of love/life to a more sweet, reflective, yet somewhat desperate feelings of love. Rapmonster, Suga, and J-Hope all have verses that signal that they have changed for “her” and they’d continue putting on a mask for “her”. J-Hope raps: “Like always, mask on/Greeting me with joy, her”. Rapmonster’s verses include: “I can be a fake self as long as you embrace me/You are my beginning and the end itself/Will you finish me.” Finally, Suga’s verses also echo the same sentiments:

I can never take off this mask Because, within this mask, I am not the guy that you know Again today, I make up to wake up And dress up to mask on So that I can become the me that you love So that I can become the guy that you love I quit XX which is used to enjoy very much Just for you

At the end of this album, we see that the boys have reached a point where they see that through loving someone else, they have become someone else. In fact, often when we’re in love, we do want to show our best sides and we want to become who they want us to be. In this sense, we see that happening in this song. “Her” becomes the point of their existence and there’s this sense of desperation throughout the song. There’s this feeling that they seek to be loved back and are also afraid of her leaving them.

I think the laid-back vibe of this song due to some piano chords being repeated paired with a simple drum beat matches the motifs we see in this song. Ironically, there are very faint, soft flute notes being played, which seems to suggest that the fixation is not over.

In fact, we see in the teasers of 承 that they feature the happy moments. The colour yellow is also used throughout as a symbol. Yellow often means happiness, energy, positivity, optimism, joy, honour, and loyalty. Sometimes, yellow can also represent caution, deceit and cowardice. I think it’s a good colour to use for the feelings of love. We do have all of those feelings. (Interestingly, we also see Yoongi giving up smoking in the teaser like he seems to imply through “Outro: Her”.)

We’re left with Jin’s narration at the end of 承: “Why is it that the happiest of moments usher in sudden fear?” Therefore, whatever follows 承 will not be so glowy after all, but in the end, BTS will show that we have to love yourselves in order to even love others. I think this matches what Rapmonster has hinted as well:

[About the meaning of ‘harmony’] Rap Monster: “I think love is an ability. If you can’t love yourself, you can’t love others. I often hear people saying that love is an illusional and vague thing these days. I thought about the method of loving. The time we spend looking into ourselves is getting lesser ad lesser because of smart phones and news media. I consider loving oneself to be the answer to many things. We don’t have the confidence to love ourselves completely, but we want to try and think about that answer. Starting from loving ourselves. That’s how it started. Although we haven’t been able to find that answer yet, we hope we can as we go along with the ‘gi seung jeon gyeol’ series.” (Mydaily, Joynews24; credits for the translation goes to kat)

I’m looking forward to seeing the album that will showcase “loving yourself”. Though I admit that this mini album hasn’t been my favourite out of all the albums they’ve done, I still see this mini album as an interesting take on the honeymoon phase of love. (I do really like “Mic Drop”, “Outro: Her”, and “Go Go”. That whistling in “DNA” . . . I almost feel like I’m hearing that whistling everywhere. @_@)

Memo: BTS – Love Yourself 承 ‘Her’ Mini Album Review We're not a blog that is dedicated to reviewing music (including Kpop), but because we…

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