Wondering why Jungkook was given the key? Still wondering why RM left that hairtie on the girl’s bag on the bus? Why Bighit won’t let us live (okay I can’t help with that one). How about why Suga was fighting with that girl? Heck… why Suga was fighting with Jungkook? Fake Love is going to fit everything into place. Here is my take on why…
First, let’s just address the elephant in the room… seductive J-Hope:
You’re welcome. Now, onto the theories. The MV opens with this:
What stood out to me with this quote is what it means for the symbology that is shown in the teaser. Each of the members are shown exchanging their fears from HYYH/Wings era for items that represent them faking the positive attitude as shown in the highlight reels.
So basically, what the quote means is that the highlight reels, Euphoria and the Love Yourself:Her era is a mask. They are attempting to fight their issues by hiding them or pretending they don’t exist and displaying this positive attitude while they attempt to love others/move on with their lives. Unfortunately, you can’t keep up a mask/facade forever and they will have to FACE themselves and their fears/issues. Only then can they truly love themselves and overcome their issues.
Let’s look at each member in more detail, what the objects exchanged represent and what fake love is for them.
J-Hope
J-Hope exchanges the snickers bar which you may remember from his Mama wings short MV and received the cake which you may remember from the Highlight Reel.
This exchange shows him trading his fear of his past/his issues surrounding his mother for his desire to move on from his issues and be happy again.
Symbol A - The snickers bar represents his fear because he ate it while looking at the image of the mother during his wings short.
Symbol B - The cake represents his desire for a positive attitude now. So when his birthday comes around he initially seems as though he doesn’t let it pull him back to remember birthdays with his mother/childhood birthdays. He even puts on a smile at the sight of the cake.
FAKE LOVE - That scene also shows his smile fading as he recalls his mother leaving. This is how this exchange leads to fake love because he tried to love himself and move on from his past… but it seems the exchange failed because he is still holding onto the pain.
RM
RM’s item was a shard of mirror glass with the Korean words for ‘we must survive’ (or something along those lines - I’m relying on translations) written on them from the Reflection wings short (as well as some earlier MVs I believe). In exchange he received the hairtie he gives the girl in the Highlight Reels.
This exchange shows him trade his fear of being alone (not loving himself) for a positive attitude in loving himself enough to take the first steps at loving with another.
Symbol A - The piece of glass is symbolic of the Reflection short where he raps/sings about wanting to love himself, wishing he had friends and (as per the lyrics) wanting to know the person crossing Han river. He likely felt this way due to living rough/in the trailer and not feeling good enough for others in the past.
The reason he places the hairtie down on the bag in the highlight reels finally makes sense to me…
Symbol B - The hairtie. He wants to reach out to this girl and maybe even love her because he is trying to love himself enough to chance it and that is his new positive attitude symbolized by the hairtie. At this point, he only has enough courage to give her the hairtie as a sign he noticed her (in the album notes we find out he notices her several times in a lift/elevator, so potentially they live in the same complex).
If you follow my other theory posts, then you will understand why I think this ties nicely back into him wanting to love himself (because the girl is him) and why the above has a whole other cool perspective with this understanding.
Fake Love - In the bus scene we see him leaving the hairtie for the girl as a step toward his attitude of reaching out to others finally, but in truth if he loved himself enough he would have made himself known to her/spoken to her, but he doesn’t because he doesn’t really love himself. It’s Fake Love again.
Jimin
Jimin gave a picture of the forest from his Lie wings short and in exchange, he got the umbrella he can be seen with in the highlight reels.
Jimin’s exchange shows him trading his fear of worthlessness/death/suicide for his attempted positive attitude in the highlight reels.
Symbol A - The picture of the forest from the Lie MV. He fears being trapped in the hospital that he LIED to escape before (as per album notes). He wants to be free in the world (hence the forest picture). He was there because he didn’t feel good enough/felt worthless (in the album notes he talks about wanting to keep up with J-Hope dancing).
Symbol B - The umbrella is a symbol for his way of surviving in the world outside the hospital. If you think back to when he was suicidal and in the bath - he was surrounded by water, this scenario is likely the one that landed him in the hospital in the first place. So the umbrella (which deflects the water) symbolizes him telling himself that he is okay enough to be out in the world (hence him lying to escape the hospital).
Fake Love - We see Jimin attempt to keep up with J-Hopes girl while dancing, but he accidentally knocks her over and falls right back into the despair of not feeling good enough. So his mask for telling himself he is okay enough to be out in the world is actually a facade and he still feels worthless. It’s his fake love.
Suga
In Suga’s exchange, he receives the yellow lollipop that his girl from the highlight reel can be seen telling him to use instead of a cigarette.
Symbol A - Unknown (this will possibly be a piano key if they do show it in the MV or maybe the lighter). It would be easy to assume here that his exchange is from smoking to none smoking, but that is just a small part of it. The thing Suga actually fears is truly getting close to others. That’s because he suffered a tragedy where he lost his parents… his mother to a fire and his father who pushed him away then too (again, this is in the album notes). So he feels as though anyone who he grows to love - he is no good for, just look at this bit from the album notes about him getting drawn back toward Jungkook:
Symbol B - The yellow lollipop. This is a symbol for his attempt to allow himself to get close to others. He lets this girl close to him, close enough to convince him to swap his cigarette for a lollipop.
Fake Love - He seemed to love himself enough to allow others to get close, but in the end, it turns out to be… FAKE LOVE. Sorry I had to haha. So, this one is fairly obvious when he pushes the girl away and the girl who clearly still loves him can’t understand his reaction.
This in itself is a mask, because he does care about others, but tries to push them away due to his issues. Remember him fighting Jungkook in run? That’s what happened before the scene where they are at the Piano together, where Suga is drawn back toward Jungkook who he cares for.
V
They were careful not to show what V gave in the exchange however, he received the backpack that we saw in the highlight reels, the one that belonged to the girl he stopped from shoplifting.
Symbol A - Unknown (possibly the knife ** edit - broken glass bottle not knife - TY @voltrons-white-lion ** or a spray paint canister, again I’m unsure if they will decide to show it or not, if they show a knife they will have to raise the MV age rating so probably not). V’s fear is who he really is/what he is really capable of (stabbing his father). He doesn’t love himself because of what he did.
Symbol B - Is the backpack. This is symbolic of him trying to move away from his past of crime where he used to graffiti and even more significantly, where he stabbed his father. When he stops the girl from stealing and pays for the items he is acting as a good person, within the law.
Fake Love - However, later on, we see that he is still the same person when he starts to graffiti on the bus stop, so it’s an act. Bighit revealed in a recent post that In Singularity the white masks and dark scenes depict him faking himself to gain love. This is why he wears a white mask at the end but his tear/pain still come through because you can’t hide who you really are forever. He can already feel that he won’t keep the love of the girl because he is not being himself… Fake Love.
Jin
So Jin gave his earpiece from the Awake wings short video. I’ve included a second image of this as due to the lighting in Awake it’s hard to tell that it is white and supposed to be similar to the one from Fake Love otherwise.
Symbol A - The earpiece. This is symbolic of his feelings during awake. He takes out the earpiece to stop from hearing his true thoughts - that he can’t save the others. That’s his fear. He ignores his own voice and goes to burn the petals/change reality/turn back time (however you wanna look at it, again read my main theories series if you want my take on this) anyway.
Symbol B - Unknown (again, if they do show this in the MV then it might be the Smeraldo flowers or perhaps the red diary his girl drops). Jin is trying to hide the fact that tragedy keeps coming to the people he loves and continues to restart the cycle because he has this positive attitude that he can and will save them.
Fake Love - At the end of the highlight reels we see Jin realize that he has failed to save her (what we don’t see is his potential previous attempts). Look at these lyrics from Don’t Leave Me:
No matter what, rain falls No matter what, darkness erases I’ll definitely save you You are not alone
Jin believes he can save her, but the sadness on his face at the end of the highlight reels tells the real story, his belief is a mask, a mask of hope… or is it denial?
Jungkook
I saved Jungkooks story for last because he is special… it’s different. He doesn’t give an old item or receive an item from the highlight reels. His exchange is much more symbolic and significant.
Jungkook arrives in suddenly like he unexpectedly ran into the room which is a stark contrast to the others who all walk forward to exchange their items calmly. He proceeds to the counter and receives a Key.
Can we all just take a minute to thank the hair stylist for this FREAKING LOOK though? Genius. Now, as some of you may have noticed, Jungkook is getting a lot of freaking screen time during Love Yourself era (not complaining). Let’s take a deeper look at what’s going on in Kookie world right now and why that might be.
Unlike the others, Jungkook does nothing to hide the fact that he doesn’t love himself and makes repeated attempts to get hurt/die.
Back in HYYH era, Jungkook didn’t give a crap whether he lived or died. He sought out some thugs and purposely antagonized them. That showed a complete lack of love for himself.
He was hit by the car, which is what most people believe landed him in the hospital in Highlight Reels. After a bit of research, I disagree because in Jin’s LY:Her notes he says to J-Hope ‘Hyung, Jungkook had a car accident that night’ referring to something that happened in the past and that note is dated Year 19, not 22.
Then in the hospital, Jungkook meets the girl who he seems to come to love until she later dies (the empty hospital bed).
In the older album notes, he talks about climbing a construction site where he considers how few people would miss him if he were to just jump off the edge - the date quoted is ‘Year 22 - April 11′.
Then we get this bit of imagery in Euphoria:
However, the new album notes that Bighit recently dropped are from ‘Year 22 - May 22′. Let’s take a closer look at those notes (translation credits):
So, what if, Jungkook did jump off the construction site building and that landed him in the hospital… perhaps, in a coma? That would explain the gap in the dates from April - May. There are a lot of signs that this could be the case. Most people when they wake from a coma feel very thirsty and he talks about not being able to talk or move and his ‘drifting conscience’.
Most importantly at the end someone asks him ‘living will be more painful than dying - do you still want to live?’ Therefore, I believe…
Jungkook didn’t really have anything to exchange, he exchanged his life.
Well, sort of… he ran in and exchanged his youth for his life (he had to grow up to make the choice). So the symbolism in Jungkook’s case is him bringing his life to the counter (maybe during the coma) and the key is the question ‘do you still want to live?’ he then goes on to choose one of two doors - Life.
When he arrives in that room he finds himself alone with six coat hangers, eerily similar to the one that Taehyung used to ‘love himself’ in Singularity, which we also find out is a lie as V puts on his mask and cries a black tear…
That’s because the other members all ‘KNEW’ what they were doing in their exchange, or so they thought. They thought they didn’t need a key or a door and they went out the way they came in, lying to themselves, wearing a mask, not loving themselves.
Jungkook was offered something different because he arrived in a different way. Remember him running in differently to the others? This is because he arrived during his coma. When he arrived he chose life, he chose to love himself and to live. He then finds himself alone in the room because the others aren’t there yet, they still don’t love themselves.
So to summarize:
Serendipity & Euphoria are both fake love… they are about being in a good and happy place/time, but it’s all a facade, their true selves/mental states are hidden behind a mask, the mask which starts to slip in Singularity. Singularity is the intro to Tear, the album where we will likely see the other six members fall in their own ways as they realize the mask isn’t working. Then on Love Yourself:Answer, Jin’s intro ‘Epiphany’ will be about loving yourself first before you can love others.
Predictions for what we might see happen with each member in future. Not necessarily during this comeback (although it is still possible), perhaps in the final part of the Love Yourself Series (Answer) when we may get some more highlight reels.
Jhope - As the girl he carried on his back dies, he will go back to his old issues and maybe even take an overdose.
RM - His girl will meet a probably tragic fate which will stop her showing up where he normally sees her, he will miss his chance altogether and go back down into his issues too.
Suga - May attempt to kill himself by fire again after pushing everyone away.
Jimin - May go back to ‘water’ somehow to try and end his life again.
Jin - Has already lost his girl when she was hit by the car, but he will continue to try and save those he loves only to fail even more. He believed he had done it in Euphoria when he took V’s place at the top of that tower by the sea, but Euphoria is the biggest mask/fake utopia of all.
V - I’m not 100% sure in his case, but one way this could play out would be for him to try and protect the girl from tragedy by killing to save her.
Jungkook - Will be the first to realize that they need to love themselves and will have a different story to the others most likely.
Please remember these are all just theories. I actually change my mind about them myself all the time/from post to post. However, if you found this interesting please reblog 💜 (it will mean a lot to me), I worked super hard to put this together so quickly tonight!
