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Codex Gigas - Bang Yongguk

In Bang Yongguk’s album there is a track named Codex Gigas. The Codex Gigas, or Giant Code, is believed to be the biggest medieval manuscript. It is also known as the Devil’s Bible due to a full page representation of the devil. Many are the legends regarding the monk and the creation of this code but what is interesting to me, in relation to the song, is the fact that its representation of the city of Heaven depicts no one in it.

Bang Yongguk opens with a reflection of humanity’s destructive drive but it is not yet a cynical consideration of the human being because 

Destruction is the mother of creation. Hatred is the father of love

Men are self consciously criticized as born angels who become vile beings, in their aspiration to compensate to their faulty evil nature, they end up just like that: 

Man wants to be a God but he is so weak, I want to hide its essence

Bang later defines humans, me, you, himself as the “true demon”. We tend to represent evil as otherness, as a Devil. However, as Bang notes, the true evil is you. He does not offer a resolution, perhaps because there is still no one. In the end of the song we are invited to wake up, to become self aware of our devilishly being. In order to change ourselves, we have to see what we are. But my pessimistic view is that we won’t ever be able to absolve ourselves. We are inherently faulty beings who imagine a holy city, but we cannot imagine inhabitants in it.

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Chronosaurus - Stray Kids

Last episode we ended on a very dysphoric thought: "Divina Comedia" by G-Dragon brought us to the conclusion that we lack agency and our journey to self-consciousness ends up only on numbness.

Stray Kids' "Chronosaurus" faces another dysphoric issue - the devouring nature of time - but Stray Kids do not succumb to it, they keep fighting.

The lyrics are penned by the absolute geniuses that 3Racha are. The title is an invented word made up by chrono - meaning time in greek - and saurus, referring to reptiles and secondarily to dinosaurs. Chronosaurus is a play on word which refers to the kronosaurus and chrono as time, but it may also evoke the greek god Cronos or Kronos.

The Chronosaurus was one of the largest marine reptiles and also one of the biggest predators of the ocean. By substituting chrono to krono, the trio depicts time as a predatory and devouring creature and us as its preys.

In the first verse fear is reigning over Stray Kids, they keep running away from time but they cannot seem to find a sliver of light. Maybe they should succumb as 'They say time will solve everything' but Stray Kids know that time cannot solve anything because it only consumes us therefore 'those words just give me fear'.

We wait for time to heal our wounds but we do not realise that by waiting we will get trapped into time, so they do not surrender to fear, they decide to fight, to heal themselves: 'I need to do something/ I have no other way'. We are told time is precious, time is gold, but could it be a beast? Don't we all fear it? Don't we all run away from it? Don't we all exhaust ourselves and chant "there is no time" everyday?

Could the line 'When I get caught from hide and seek, is it me or is it a dream?' mean that the real price we pay to time is not us but our dreams? Could it mean that the only way to not get devoured by the Chronosaurus is only if we give up our dreams?

And then I wonder, is it really time the beastly creature or is it our fear? The pre chorus, after all, laments that 'Day and night, every day/ Fear holds onto me'.

In the chorus we hear them struggle for breath because 'I’m running endlessly/ Why is time running so quickly to me?'. And in the post chorus we hear the tick tock of time passing by. 3Racha have become desperate, like time is ever present and something that cannot be escaped: 'Feels like I’m trapped in an hourglass'. And they wonder, if maybe they should just stop, at least everything will be over: 'what do I do now?/ If I stop, it’s over'.

In the bridge, which is my favorite part, they reach the bottom of despair, they feel trapped in a 'tunnel with no light' and fear is reigning over them. The song ends with the chorus, reiterating that the only thing we can do is not surrender ourselves, not to wait for time to fade our scars. 'Hurry and run' because the only thing we can hope is that in the depths of the sea if we keep running the Chronosaurus won't see us.

However, if we consider the mythology of Kronos the song has another meaning. The mythology narrates that Uranus, father of Kronos, in fear of being dethroned by his offspring, imprisoned his own children. Kronos then, helped by his mother, mutilated his own father. Given a prophecy of Kronos having the same destiny as Uranus, Kronos decided to devour his children in fear that they might betray him like Kronos betrayed Uranus. The spouse of Kronos, Rea, managed to trick him and saved Zeus. Zeus made Kronos disgorge his siblings and with their help he fought his father.

Kronos, the parricidal Titan, father of Zeus and by Zeus dethroned. The self fulfilling prophecy narrated in this mythology gives the song an second meaning: just like Kronos, we are the devouring beast swallowing our offspring, owr own dreams, in order not to get consumed by them; by running away from time and its devouring nature we end up precisely in its trap: self consumption.

Do not get washed away into the sea of time, do not consume yourself in order to gain time because you won't ever gain leverage over the mighty beast. The silver lining is that our domain is ourselves, we can fight and wash out our own pain.

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