BTS Theory #3 - I Need U + HYYH on stage: Prologue

Hello team

So, I'm gonna finally move on to the actual theories, the perfectionist inside me is scrEECHING at me since I'm not 100% sure about anything anymore, but you know what I'm still going to try to get something done. Like I said in the previous post, I was going to talk about I Need U the last time but then changed the subject to the HYYH notes. Now that it's done, let's get into the real stuff. Here's the link to the original, more dark music video of I Need U, and here's a link to the prologue. There is a less violent version of I Need U too but tbh the story is just much easier to see in the original one.

The very first thing that I want to say about I Need U is that none of the boys are dead. If you've read any theories ever, you've most likely heard about Jin or V or someone being dead. Each and every one of them is still alive in year 22 aka 2017 according to the HYYH notes (here's my post about them), and I Need U takes place around the year 20. "But how did you come to that conclusion?" you ask. Well, buddy, let me explain:

We all are familiar with the scene of Tae killing a man with a bottle. There's a calendar on the wall, with a big, red 5 on it so I am making the crazy assumption that it's May. To be more clear, it is May 2015, so the year we're talking about is 20.

Here's a calendar from 2015, wowie wowie it's a perfect match!!

So, we know that Tae killed a man in May 2015. Which day specifically, we don't know. The exact date isn't that important. Now, who is this man? It's Taehyung's father, you probably knew that already. We know that Tae's dad has been a violent alcoholic, it's been mentioned in the notes ((and in the third Wings short film, Stigma)). I'm not gonna explain it much, here's a screenshot of Hobi talking about I Need U:

So, it's pretty easy to tell who Taehyung killed, when and even why he did it. He and his sister ((Tae says that he has no parents in Stigma and he mentions a sister in the song)) have been taking shit from their abusive dad for ages and Tae's finally had enough.

Now I'm gonna move onto 화양연화 on stage: prologue for a second. It starts off with Taehyung covered in blood and calling someone. I'm gonna say that this happens right after he kills his father, and that the person he's calling is Namjoon, because it a) makes perfect sense and b) Hoseok kindly said that that is exactly what happened.

    

Thank you Hobi for making my life 89 times easier. All of this means that after Tae killed his dad, he called Namjoon who has always been there for him, ever since Danger. The boys get together to have fun and they go on a trip to the beach again. They don't know it yet, but it'll be the last time they'll be together as a group.

This should actually make sense to you if you've read the notes. In Jin's note from June 13th, year 22 he remembers the last time the boys were together as a group. They were at the sea together, and later that night Jin said something that angered Tae who ended up getting punched by Jin. Tae ran out and Jin tried to find him but he couldn't, and after looking for him for a few hours Jin returned to the empty dorm. I think that the prologue is about this day, their last day together, and I Need U is about how they used to be as a group and how they are now that they're all alone.

"Oh no but Jin was talking about a different time at the sea, the one that happened 2 years and 10 months ago". No, that'd be June 11th, year 19. At that point the group had been together for barely three months aka since the start of the new semester (here's a link to SNU's academic calendar, when Jin arrived in the beginning or March the spring semester was about to start and they all started hanging out together). Taehyung killed his dad almost a year later and all of the boys went on the trip together. Besides, if they only were a group of friends for three months they wouldn't be very close and the story would be pretty boring.

So yeah, back to I Need U now, I hope you're all still on board. The music video can be divided into two parts: before and after the prologue. Since the prologue is about their last night together, the parts in I Need U that have the whole group in them are from before the prologue. Most of the parts where the boys are alone are from after the prologue. Makes sense? It better.

So, in the beginning of the music video we see each boy individually, just like in Danger. These are clips of them after the trip in the prologue. The clips are not necessarily all from immediately after it, but they show how the rest of the year is working out for each boy now that the group isn't together anymore. Jin feels bad, obviously, since he's sorta the one who broke the group apart. Hoseok is frustrated, the medication he is on doesn't seem to help at all and it just makes him faint, like he said in his notes. Jungkook is roaming around aimlessly, about to get beaten up by his bullies. Taehyung has no place to go anymore. Yoongi is staying at a motel, he finally had the courage to run away from his home. Namjoon's started to work at a gas station. Jimin is in a bathtub, burning the note Namjoon wrote (it's mentioned in Namjoon's notes), and the bathtub represents how Jimin has started to lie about his health and the lies are just piling up, drowning him slowly.

The next interesting thing about the music video is the train. Trains are a huge thing in all of the music videos, especially this specific blue one: it appears in I Need U, Run and even Namjoon's short film Reflection. It's a place where they all used to hang out together, and Namjoon would even spend a lot of his alone time there, which is why Namjoon is in the train cart thingy in Reflection. In Namjoon's notes from year 22 he also calls the place he, Tae, Hobi and Yoongi hung out in "my trailer". He might even live in the goddamn cart at some point of his life for all I know.



The next thing I want to talk about is what happens after Jungkook gets beaten up. We see him bruised, crossing a road. He seemingly gets hit by a car, but it's not 100% sure since we never hear or see the car actually hit him, we just see that he might get in a car crash. If the accident really happens, it's not the one Hobi tells Jin about in year 22. As always, here's why:

In the Highlight Reels we see Jungkook with a cast on. This is most likely because of the car crash Hobi talked about. Hoseok called Jin on June 13th, year 22, and when we see Jungkook in a wheelchair in the Highlight Reels, the date is for June 14th. Later in the Highlight Reels we see Jungkook again, this time with a cast and crutches, meaning that when he was in a wheelchair the accident had just happened. It would be really weird to include events from 2015 and 2017 in a single music video. Also, when you break your leg you usually have the cast on for about 6 weeks, so it wouldn't make sense for the car crash that Hobi talks about to happen in 2015. Basically, we're left with two options: either Jungkook just had a close call in I Need U, or he got hit by a car twice, in I Need U and again in year 22.



Here are a few more things I wanted to point out about the music video and prologue:

• Jin burns six white flower petals, symbolizing that he's leaving his six friends behind
• Yoongi is associated with fire because his mom burned to death in year 16
• Hoseok faints because of the medication he's on
• Jungkook gets beaten up by his bullies, they're still around in year 22 according to his notes
• Hobi burns his pills, meaning that he knows that they're useless
• Yoongi burns down the motel room, symbolizing how there's no place for him to feel like he's home. I can't figure out if he actually burned the place or not but so far it doesn't even really matter
• In the end of I Need U the boys are all together at the sea they go to in the prologue, meaning that they used to go there a lot
• Everyone's together in the prologue, nobody's dead or missing. It's the last night they are together as a group
• Namjoon keeps writing the words "you need to survive" in mirrors. It's mentioned in his notes too, saying that he wrote it on a note and then wrote "we will meet again" on the window of the classroom they used to hang out in
• Taehyung jumps off the platform at the end of the prologue. I don't think it's a suicide attempt like some others have said, but I think it's symbolizing how he's starting to become slightly evil ((*cough* foreshadowing the Wings stuff)). In his note from year 22 he did say that he feels like he's struggling alone in a cold ocean and scaring people around him
• The letters OMN are written all around the empty swimming pool from the prologue. I tried to search for the meaning but found nothing, it's probably nothing super important but it's still worth mentioning

There's really not much more to talk about. The Japanese version doesn't have much story in it, it does have similarities with the original one though (Jimin's bathtub, Hoseok's pills, Namjoon and the text saying "you need to survive" etc etc) but nothing super important except for the ending where Jin is shown on a bed with white flower petals, watching a butterfly fly towards a light.

This and some scenes from the original MV make me think that there's something more to Jin's character. Like yeah, obviously there's more to everyone's characters but Jin seems to have something huge-ish going on. We don't know what he told Taehyung to shock him so badly, but I bet that it has something to do with this all being so dramatic. After all, he had to have a reason to say whatever he said to Tae, and if he wanted to fix things then he could've tried to keep in touch with the others. He also talks about wanting to be a good person and "not being ready to face himself" in his notes.

I guess this is it for this time, lads. I hope this made sense to you, the main point is that I Need U shows the boys from before and after the trip in the prologue happened. I really love talking about theories so if you wanna talk or ask something then please do, I don't have anything better to do anyways. But yeah, I honestly hope that this isn't too wild and hard to understand, see ya next time~