BTS UNIVERSE
In this chapter, I will briefly show the third narrative layer that I will use to analyse #1 BEGIN.
Having in mind this story and its main elements is essential to better understand the references in WINGS Short Films.
NOTE: In order to separate the artists from the characters (which share BTS’ birth names) the name of the latters will be written with capital letters for both the syllables (e.g. Jungkook’s character is ‘JungKook’ while Suga – stage name for Min Yoongi – in the story is ‘YoonGi’).
At the bottom, the appendix of this chapter can be found.
TRIGGER WARNING
this page contains sensitive content or mention of domestic abuse, suicide/attempt suicide, self-harm and violence
Dongkyung Lee claims that k-pop idols can be interpreted both as fictional popular texts and factual popular icons (2019) and this suggestion could help us describing the BTS Universe (or BU): a parallel storyworld with fictional characters inspired and acted by the members themselves. These characters share the same name, age of each member and even some peculiar interests and traits of their personas. For what we know, the story in the BU has nothing to do with their real-life experiences; however, all these factors blur the line between the fictional selves and the real members: this sense of ambiguity and the consistency of the storytelling are meant to be leverages for the fandom, but this will be addressed in the last chapter.
Below the plot, a quick look to JungKook character, the protagonist of the short film I chose for my analysis (see appendix for more information about the characters).
The plot (in a nutshell)
The story is about seven boys who meet in high school. Despite being very young, they have already experienced many painful situations and traumas (such as self-harm, abuse, mental illnesses and parental neglect) and the happy time spent together is the only way to escape from them. However, everything changes dramatically when SeokJin rats them out to the school principal. The group slowly parts and they are left at the mercy of their broken lives, which will lead them to tragic (and, in some case, deadly) events. After realizing what his actions led to, SeokJin wishes he could reverse time and is magically allowed to do so: he will have to fail to save them plenty of times before understanding that he cannot succeed by himself, thus deciding to cooperate with his friends.
A brief introduction to JungKook character’s story and recurring elements. The traits he shares with the real Jungkook are underlined and in italic.
Story
His father left him and his mother when he was a child;
Ignored and abused by his birth mother, stepfather, and stepbrother;
Considers his school friends as his family;
Gets beaten up wandering the streets at night;
Closes to YoonGi
Looks up to NamJoon
He is the youngest
Motifs & Imageries
Car accident,
Suicide by falling from a tall building,
Drawing/canvas/sketchbook,
Biting nails
some quotes
“Then I asked him [NamJoon], ‘Will I be able to grow into an adult like you?’.”
JungKook 2 May Year 22
“I didn’t tell anyone, but I felt on that long-ago day I had found a real family. Real brothers.”
JungKook 22 May Year 22
“Most of the stuff I said started with ‘the hyungs’ [‘my brothers’]. To me who was always alone, they became my friends, my family, my teachers. Every story of mine was in their story and I only existed in my relationship with them.”
JungKook 26 July Year 22 [trad. by ktaebwi]
After the release of BTS WINGS Concept Book (2017), every BU content has been labelled with ‘BU content certified by Big Hit Entertainment’ or with a brand new logo. #1 BEGIN and all the WINGS Short Films are labelled with this logo as well, meaning that they somehow narrate the stories of these characters and that, while watching them, the viewers should keep in mind the BTS Universe and its transmedia contents.
A transmedia storytelling
The first appearance of these fictional selves is in the I Need U‘s Music Video (10th May 2015), during the HYYH era. This one may seem a classic MV with its own storyline but, as more new content about the band was being released, it was clear that I Need U‘s story was still on, unfolding on different media and through the years. In fact, the BTS Universe can be defined as transmedia storytelling, a process where elements of fiction get dispersed across multiple delivery channels and where, ideally, each medium makes its own unique contribution to the story (Jenkins 2007). In this case, this narration unfolds through different media such as audio-visual contents (music videos, trailer and teasers), posters, for the Love Yourself era, written texts as the book 花樣年華 (HYYH) The Notes 1 (2019) and album booklet, both written like extract of diaries and telling the sorry from each character’s point of view, comics (SAVE ME Webtoon), Twitter, blog and video game, that are held together by songs references. All these narrative artefacts provide blueprints for the creation of what David Herman calls storyworld, a mental representation evoked by narratives (2009, p.106). Despite seeming so natural, mapping semiotic cues (either explicitly mentioned or implied) onto these worlds is a fundamental factor for narrative sense-making, and it is what enables interpreters to frame inferences about agents and action.
This process is what enables viewers to use recurring motifs and imageries as hints to recognize all these different sides of storytelling as parts of the BTS Universe. Mapping these cues is crucial for us to identify the BU storyworld in #1 BEGIN and in the other short films. In this case, some explicit signs recur in the different contents, like the piano or the fire for YoonGi (he attempts suicide by setting a fire – like his mother did); some more implicit relationship, like the one between YoonGi and JungKook (we often see them together in videos and their connection is metaphorically portrayed in the WINGS era), and allusions to recurring events, like JungKook being beaten up or attempting suicide.,
Fire
YoonGi
“I went to the burned down house once after the funeral. A skeleton of what used to be a piano was still standing where Mom’s room used to be.
YoonGi 25 June Year 20 (‘The Notes 1‘, 2019)
YoonGi & JungKook
relationship
“‘Why didn’t you go see JungKook? Don’t you know what you mean to him?’ Of course I knew. Maybe that was why I couldn’t go into his room. I was distorted and thorny. Anyone who tried to come near me was bound to get hurt.“
YoonGi 25 July Year 22 (‘The Notes 1‘, 2019)
Now that the three narrative layers (Demian‘s storyworld, the artist’s personal lives and BTS Universe‘s storyworld) have been presented, we can analyze the content where these layers come to intertwine: WINGS Short Films, in particular, #1 BEGIN. The next chapter will focus on its form (as one of the short films) while the following one will analyse its content.
APPENDIX
BTS Universe as transmedial storytelling
This section gives more information about how the BTS Universe unfolds on different media and through the years, following Jenkin’ definition of transmedia storytelling. Below, after the presentations of the characters, there are descriptions and examples of every media used (audio-visual contents, posters, written texts, Twitter, comics, blog, video game and songs).
characters
SeokJin
Forced by his father and the principal to spy on other students;
Witnesses his friends suffering;
Stuck in a time loop where he has to save all his friends
Motifs & Imageries
Betraying friends,
Death of a loved one,
Flowers and petals,
Smeraldo (flower),
Butterfly,
Camcorder/Polaroid
Mirror cracking
YoonGi
Lost his mother in a domestic fire;
Authoritative father who despises his passion for music;
Expelled from school trying to cover JungKook from a teacher’s violence;
Tries to commit suicide by setting a fire
Motifs & Imageries
Death of a loved one,
Self-harming and suicide,
Fire,
Piano, guitar,
Lollipop
NamJoon
Struggles to live through poverty;
Works at a gas station to support himself and his family;
Loves studying and spends his savings on books;
Helps out TaeHyung but does not know what he is going through
Motifs & Imageries
Poverty,
살아남아야 한다 (You need to survive),
Hair band,
Container
HoSeok
Was abandoned by his mother as a child;
Raised in an orphanage;
Apparently suffers from narcolepsy and often takes pills knowing that thry will not work on him;
Meets JiMin again when hospitalized;
Loves dancing
Motifs & Imageries
Abandoned child,
Narcolepsy,
Pills,
Chocolate bar,
Cake
JiMin
Suffers from a traumatic childhood memory;
Forced to change school whenever he has a seizure;
Forced to be hospitalized for years by his parents;
Starts loving dancing because of HoSeok
Motifs & Imageries
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,
Water,
Bathtub,
Pulkkot Arboretum,
Hospital
TaeHyung
Struggles with an abusive father who is violent toward him and his sister when drunk;
His mother left them when he was a child because of their father;
Gets chased by the police because of his graffiti;
Seeks NamJoon for help
Motifs & Imageries
Domestic violence,
stabbing his father,
Diving into water,
Graffiti
‘Save Me’/’I’m Fine’
JungKook
His father left him and his mother when he was a child;
Ignored and abused by his birth mother, stepfather, and stepbrother;
Considers his school friends as his real family;
Gets beaten up wandering the streets at night;
Closes to YoonGi
Looks up to NamJoon
Motifs & Imageries
Car accident,
Suicide by falling from a tall building,
Drawing/canvas/sketchbook
audio-visual contents
MVs, trailers, Short Films & teasers
After the HYYH era and the clear connection among its MVs, hints of this storyworld could be found in the WINGS Short Films and its MVs as well, reaching then a more evident portrayal in the Love Yourself’s era Highlight Reels. Furthermore, there are even some promotional trailers and teasers.
I Need U (original ver)
10.5.2015 [MV]
Era: HYYH
HYYH on stage: prologue
01.10.2015
Era: HYYH
RUN
9.11.2015 [MV]
Era: HYYH
I Need U (Japanese ver.)
01.12.2015 [MV]
Era: HYYH
RUN (Japanese ver.)
11.3.2015 [MV]
Era: HYYH
EPILOGUE: Young Forever
19.04.2016 [MV]
Era: HYYH
Blood, Sweat & Tears
09.10.2016 [MV]
Era: WINGS
Blood, Sweat & Tears
(Japanese ver.)
09.5.2016 [MV]
Era: WINGS
LOVE YOURSELF Highlight Reel ‘起承轉結’
18.8.2017
Era: LOVE YOURSELF
Euphoria : Theme of LOVE YOURSELF 起 Wonder’
05.4.2018 [MV]
Era: LOVE YOURSELF
FAKE LOVE Official Teaser 1
14.5.2018 [teaser]
Era: LOVE YOURSELF
FAKE LOVE (extended. ver)
01.6.2018 [MV]
Era: LOVE YOURSELF
Love Yourself 結 Answer ‘Epiphany’
10.8.2018 [MV]
Era: LOVE YOURSELF
BU Story Game
21.8.2019 [trailer]
Era: MAP OF THE SOUL
BU Story Game: ‘MAP OF THE SOUL’
19.9.2020 [trailer]
Era: MAP OF THE SOUL
posters
LOVE YOURSELF Posters
On 11th and 12th August 2017 Big Hit Entertainment released eleven posters to promote the upcoming album LOVE YOURSELF 承 ‘Her’, which marked the start to a new era.
Some hints like the mention of JiMin’s lie and the portrayal of the three relationships (HoSeok/JiMin, NamJoon/TaeHyung and YoonGi/JungKook, already mentioned in the previous contents) can make us guess that they are related to the BU. When, a week later, the LOVE YOURSELF Highlight Reel ‘起承轉結’ came out, the connection became evident.
written texts
花樣年華 (HYYH) The Notes and booklets
After the posters, on 13th August 2017 Big Hit Entertainment tweeted an extract from SeokJin’s storyline with titled ‘花樣年華 The Notes‘, where episodes from the HYYH era are mentioned.
During the Love Yourself era (starting from 18th September 2017), in every album there has been a booklet with the same title containing bits of the fictional storyline. These looked like extracts from diaries, each one with its own different date and write by one of the characters. The notes were not identical, meaning that each package contained random ones, different from version to version. Other two entries, one from JungKook and one from SeokJin, during this era were posted on the same Twitter account.
The Notes appear in the next era albums as well (Map of The Soul).
Everything became clear when, after social publishing on Smeraldo Books‘ account (see ‘Twitter’ paragraph), the company released 花樣年華 (HYYH) The Notes 1 on 5th March 2019, a whole book with the complete diaries in chronological order (available in Korean, English, Japanese and Spanish).
On 25th August 2020, following the same pattern, another book called 花樣年華 (HYYH) The Notes 2 was published.
花樣年華 The Notes 1 & 2
Example of the booklet albums (this is from Map of The Soul: 7) [scans by KM13 on issuu]
First note posted on Twitter
on 13th August 2017
SMERALDO BOOKS account
Smeraldo Books was created in early 2019 to promote different publications.
Before the SAVE ME webtoon and The Notes 1, some clips and notes were published in January 2019 with the hashtags #화양연화 #TheNotes1 #SMERALDOBOOKS . These clips were from any video ever made during the past eras.
For the video game and the second book, besides publishing more notes, the account started some threads where extracts from the narration were posted, paired with a poll where users could choose what the character should have done. After 24 hours the choice with more votes was revealed, including the consequences it had.
An example of post with polls for The Notes 2 and BU Story, 30th July 2020. Scroll to see the thread or go on Twitter
COMICs
SAVE ME Webtoons
After the promo on Smeraldo Books (and before The Notes 1), on 17th January 2019, the SAVE ME Webtoons was released. In this fifteen-episodes online comic (optimized for mobiles but available for desktop too), we follow SeokJin at the beginning of his mission: the time loop is finally revealed and it is clear that there are different timelines in this storyworld. It is the first time where extracts from the notes are connected to scenes of the previous MVs, and scenes that will be on the following books and videos are shown as well.
From Ep. 2: SeokJin becomes aware of the loop after experiencing the main timeline and the things that will happen to his friends if he does not act.
From Ep. 4: JungKook getting beaten up in the street, like in the I Need U’s MV
BLOG
Testesso
Testesso (translation) is a blog which contains posts written by the owner of the fictional “Smeraldo” flower shop (this flower appears in The Notes 1 and in the Highlight Reels). The blog posts describe the flower’s history and the events leading up to the shop’s opening. The characters are not mentioned but there are hints that the customer the owner talks about in the blog is Seokjin: narratively speaking, it does not contribute to the plot. However, its function seems to be connecting fiction and reality: the blog has only been active and changed/reuploaded the posts whenever BTS was gearing up to have a comeback that would introduce a new era (this was the case for the Love Yourself era, the Map of the Soul era, and the Dynamite single in 2020). So far the mentioned date of the flower shop’s alleged opening always corresponded with the time BTS had their comeback.
VIDEO GAME
BTS Universe Story
This interactive game was released on 24th September 2020, after some social publishing on Smeraldo Books’ account and its trailer.
Besides giving people the opportunity to create their own narrative using the characters, the main story of BTS Universe Story is The Most Beautiful Moment in Life <I’m Fine>. Here we follow SeokJin in his mission to save all his friends and we understand that the starting point is empathy. This is like an adventure game where clues lie behind microexpressions, social behaviours and the comprehension of psychological states.
We can find references to different timelines portrayed in videos, in the SAVE ME Webtoon and in The Notes.
Trailer of the game (19.9.2020)
The presentation of the story ‘The Most Beautiful Moment in Life <I’m Fine>
From episode 3 of Namjoon’s story “How to Offer a Hand”: SeokJin notices something helpful for his mission
From episode 3 of Namjoon’s story “How to Offer a Hand”: SeokJin starts seeing things differently after discovering new info about NamJoon.
Recurring songs
Butterfly (2015)
The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 2
As we saw in the previous chapter, the butterfly is a recurring symbol in this universe.
Besides that, this song is one of the most representative of this story and we can find it in the HYYH on stage: prologue or as a background in the video game.
Save Me (2016)
The Most Beautiful Moment In Life: Young Forever
I’m Fine (2018)
LOVE YOURSELF 結 ‘Answer’
These songs are not heard that much but are relevant because their titles can be found in different contents. The title is written in a way that can be also read upsidedown as well: on one side it says ‘Save Me’, on the other ‘I’m Fine’. It is usually related to NamJoon and TaeHyung.
The organization of these sources has been possible thanks to A Guide to BU Content
You can find the whole organized timeline here.
All original BU Content © Big Hit Entertainment