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not-majestic-bluenicorn · 3 years ago

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TXT Universe Theory: The Dream Chapter

Hello and welcome back to another one of my theories! This theory will be quite long and will take into account everything in the first chapter of TXT’s story. I won’t be doing Minisode 1 or either of the Chaos Chapters yet cause it will give us all a headache if I do, so yes, there will be things missing. Believe me, I know, I’m just pretending like I don’t know anything for the sake of my mind XD Let’s dive into the theory!

The Protagonists

Name: Choi Yeonjun

Keywords: Promise, guilty, sleepless, apricity

Association: Paranoid Park

Metamorphosis: Horns

Songs: Crown, Magic Island

Yeonjun is, perhaps, more relevant than his character wishes he was. Paranoid Park, the book (and perhaps also movie) he’s associated with, talks about a 16-year-old boy who accidentally kills a policeman and tries to cope with it while simultaneously hiding what he did. Yeonjun’s guilt can be seen almost everywhere. His Dream-Self grows horns during Nap of a Star, which are generally associated with evil and destruction, and in Crown he expresses his fear of being evil.

In the teasers for Magic Island he says “I think there’s someone else aside from us #itsmyfault”. And in the teasers for The Dream Chapter: Eternity he adds the hashtags #imscared #itwasjustajoke when revealing his association. He did something that makes him feel guilty. He possibly didn’t kill anyone (I mean, if anyone did, it’s most likely Beomgyu, but that’s not here nor there), but it hasn’t been revealed yet what he did do.

I associate Magic Island with him because it talks about promises and about the Odd Eye Cat, which I will talk about more in detail later, but suffice to say the Odd Eye Cat might have something against Yeonjun. There is a small chance that Yeonjun feels guilty about having forgotten their promise with the Star, since his word is promise. Everyone forgot, but maybe he’s more emotionally aware of it.

Name: Choi Soobin

Keywords: Tomorrow, invisible, understanding, apricity

Association: Le Doulos

Metamorphosis: Elongated ears

Songs: Eternally

Soobin is on the opposite side of the coin with Yeonjun. He too is aware about the promise with the Star, but in a very different way. He is perhaps what we would define as a traditional protagonist, as he can hear the voice of the Star well before anyone else can, even if he can’t remember the promise. The first time we see him perceiving the voice is in Magic Island, that is when he starts to feel separated from the group. He’s still unaware of it, but he knows something that the others don’t and that puts a wall between them. In the Magic Island teaser he uses the hashtag “#IThinkImTheOnlyOneWhosDifferent”, and in the Eternity concept photos he says “Why am I the only one having a hard time?” and “Everything is your fault”. He is also tagged as invisible, which alludes to the fact that he feels distanced from the others, and is also the only one to get no interactions on his posts. The fact that he’s blaming someone might be that he’s aware of the voice or that he knows someone in the group messed up.

Name: Choi Beomgyu

Keywords: Hope, unfair, relief, serenity

Association: The Catcher in the Rye

Metamorphosis: Spines on the back

Songs: ???

Beomgyu is an interesting if confusing character. Based on how he acts in the MVs, he seems to be rather headstrong and confident, much like the main character, Holden, of Catcher in the Rye, a story strongly related to growing up and leaving the innocence of childhood behind. Holden considers adults (and his life) to be quite unfair, doesn’t trust them, and wants to become a protector of the innocence of other children. However, much like Beomgyu, he’s rather headstrong and careless, moving forward without much consideration, which often gets him in trouble. These aspects can be seen reflected on the Magic Island Teaser, where he writes “What’s the problem? Let’s just do it. #rewind #hope #CantTrustAnyone, as well as the Port teasers from Eternity where he says things like “Who saw me that day?”, “We were all together then, right?” and “I don’t think this is the world I used to know” (which is tagged with “unfair”), and uses the hashtags #NothingToHide, #IsItMyFault?”. We do see him start the fire in both the Magic Island Teaser and MV, which might hint to the fact that he feels it’s unfair to blame him when they were all there, and he doesn’t actually believe himself to be at fault. He was just taking care of them.

Name: Kang Taehyun

Keywords: Clue, suspicious, breathe, serenity

Association: Philip Marlowe

Metamorphosis: Star eye

Songs: ???

Taehyun’s character is observant and prefers to stay on the sidelines to catch every detail before casting his judgement. In the Magic Island Teaser he says “There’s got to be a way out” with the hashtag #LetsThinkAboutIt, plus, in the Port Teasers from Eternity, he keeps a reasonable suspicion on his team members about who’s truly at fault and uses the hashtags #EverybodyLies and #IWantToKnowTheTruth. This ties in well with his associated character, Philip Marlowe, the private detective. Both characters keep a distance and analyze everything carefully, never resorting to violence. It is worth noting that he keeps Yeonjun’s teddy bear at the end of Run Away, which in the teasers is labelled as “clue”. Taehyun is always observing.

Name: Huening Kai

Keywords: Secret, lonely, longing, apricity

Association: Stand by me

Metamorphosis: Wings

Songs: Nap of a star

Huening Kai is perhaps one of the most complicated and mysterious characters in the story, since his role isn’t as established as the others. He’s constantly out of the loop about the situation that is happening, which is demonstrated by phrases like “What the hell is happening?” (Magic Island Teaser) and “What happened?” (‘Port’ Teasers) as well as the hashtags #OnTheSidelines and #IKnowNothing, as well as two of his keywords being secret and lonely. His associated media is also interesting, as Stand by me talks about a man remembering the trip he did with three of his friends when they were 12 to find the body of a missing boy. At the end of the movie, the main character Gordie, recalls his friends and comments on how much he’ll always miss them and how he’s never had friendships like that again. This raises the question if perhaps one of the boys would be the dead kid the others are trying to find. Kai being kept out of the loop could point to him being it, as he’s always trying to reach for them but can’t quite do it, however it could also be argued that either Yeonjun or Soobin could fill that space as well.

The Setting: The Real World vs The Dream World

Back on the very early BTS theories, a lot of us didn’t think time travel or time loops were the answer, but it turned out we were wrong. At first, when working on this theory, I wasn’t sure where I should draw the distinction between reality and fantasy. In the end, I’ve decided that everything is real but in different ways, and I’ve decided to make the distinction between the Real World and the Dream World; after all, this is called the Dream Chapter.

The Real World is, you guessed it, pretty much just our normal world. Nothing magical or physics-law-breaking to be seen here. The Dream World is, well, a world made of dreams. But remember I said everything is real (I know the names I gave the two realities contradict this, hit me up if you have better suggestions). Whatever happens in the Dream World is just as real as whatever happens in the Real World, it’s just in a different plane of existence. It might also be of interest to note that sometimes these worlds blend.

So, if everything is real in the Dream World, what is real in the Real World? This is a complicated question because even our characters struggle telling reality apart from the dreams, especially because the dreams aren’t just dreams. The fires that occur in Run Away and Can’t You See Me are very much symbolic, but them jumping into the Dream World through the subway in Magic Island is real. The visions they have in Eternally aren’t happening in the Real World either. It’s just a matter of what is supported through other clues and pieces of evidence, which I’ll try to provide.

The Story

So, you know, what is like… happening? Everything is extremely confusing and it took me a while to understand that pretty much all videos are happening like, at the same time? As in, it’s the same event but from different perspectives and slightly different intervals of time. So let’s try to lay down a cohesive timeline.

It all starts with the events narrated in Nap of a Star. When they were children, the five of them (or well, maybe I should say six) met through the Dream world and became such good friends that they promised to meet there again. However, as it happens, they grew up and forgot about it, meeting once again many years later through the school and the company without remembering each other.

While growing up, they have gone through many different things that have hurt and changed them, which manifested in their dream bodies as the “imperfections” that they all have. I believe these imperfections are tied to each of their characters: horns tend to represent evil, which ties in with Yeonjun feeling guilty and blaming himself for everything. Kai’s wings look angel-like, which fits his sweet personality who helps the “demon” (Yeonjun) and is always believing the best about his friends. Beomgyu is very defensive, which translates into his porcupine-like spines. Soobin is a good listener (plus he’s literally the first one to hear the Star’s voice) and Taehyun is good at observing the others. So these are all manifestations of how life has shaped them to be who they are now.

They become very good friends once again and get along well, nice! However, we know things are not perfect, and they have to confront a series of personal conflicts. Especially Yeonjun, who’s so overcome by the negativity in his life that he starts a fire that can’t be put out in Run Away. This fire is metaphorical, and represents all the pain and stress he’s been dealing with. So what do they do? They try to find an escape from all their troubles.

There’s two ways this could’ve happened: the first one is that they stumble with the Dream World by accident on the Run Away MV when they go in through the pool. This seems fitting because of their reactions. After that they research it and Soobin discovers that there’s a secret magical entrance at a train station, as we can see in the Sanctuary Photo Teasers from the Magic comeback in the official BigHit website. The other option is that this accidental discovery didn’t happen and they simply researched. This would turn their visit in Run Away into a “summary” of sorts of their first impression of the place.

[Translation:

Soobin: I saw how to find the hidden magic platform?

Soobin: When you close and open your eyes there, your dream becomes reality

Taehyun: Woah, cool

Taehyun: (not sure about this one) for real?

Soobin: Should we go together?]

Either way, they get there. Of course, as shown by the door being set on fire at the end of Run Away when Yeonjun looks at it, his worries aren’t entirely gone, but at least they’re under control now, or so it seems. This part of the video also ties in with the end of Nap of a Star. All of the children come together to help the “monster” and they reunite at the Dream World once again, awakening the Star.

After this, though, weird things begin to happen. Someone or something is trying to reach out to them, and causes them to have really strange dreams. This entity, presumably the Star as marked by the pieces of dialogue, even follows them to their practice room, and keeps begging them to remember them. Yes, I think the Practice Room Ghost and the Star are the same character (and I also think they represent MOA, in a way).

[Translation: Remember my name.]

Here’s where the visions in Eternally come into play. The individual vision each of them has is, physically speaking, nothing more than that: a vision or dream. So they start having these visions, and some of them, especially Soobin who keeps hearing the Star’s voice, start doubting their reality. Plus, weird things start happening in their practice room, so no doubt they end up hearing about the Practice Room Ghost.

They have a conversation about it on the subway, and Soobin goes to mention he had a weird dream but then he backtracks. Obviously, he’s talking about the vision we see in Eternally, because he even says he always wakes up crying from it. In a split second, they decide to stop at the Magic Island using the method that Soobin found previously, and they go have fun there.

[Translation:

Yeonjun: Did you hear about the practice room’s mirror ghost?

Beomgyu: *sland for shivering* A ghost? Wow

Taehyun: I heard about it. There’s no ghosts, you’re just tired and saw wrong.

Soobin: I’ve had weird dreams lately *cries* Maybe it was because I’m tired...

Kai: Did you have a scary dream again?

Soobin: (deleted message) In the dream we...

Yeonjun: Ah, I shouldn’t have said anything.

Beomgyu: What’s scary about this? If there’s a real ghost let’s go and check at night *laughs*

Kai: Hyungs, stop talking about scary things please *cries*

Taehyun: Beomgyu hyung is joking about this too??

Yeonjun: Should we just go to Ttukseom?]

Naturally, things go wrong, what else were we expecting? Their antics end up setting the magic forest on fire, until they end up destroying the whole Dream World, and it leads us to the start of Eternally. One thing I believe to be very interesting is how, when they’re trapped in the storm, Soobin keeps touching his ears, Kai touches his chest like in Nap of a Star, and Beomgyu touches his shoulder. Yeonjun and Taehyun aren’t properly shown but they probably also touch the affected places.

I would argue that Can’t You See Me? is also just a reinterpretation of the conflict they’re going through, both within themselves but also as a group, because they did just destroy their secret place. This is pretty much where the current timeline ends. I’m a bit uncertain if they’re trapped in the Dream World or outside of it without being able to go back, because Taehyun does mention wanting to go back in the Port teasers, but he doesn’t specify where. I want to bet that they’re trapped in the Dream World but I do need to analyze the Chaos Chapter better to decide that.

The Practice Room Star

Yes, this is a play on words, as I fully believe that the Practice Room Ghost and the Star are both the same entity. When they were kids, they made a promise with the Star, but they’ve forgotten it with time, and now that they have reunited and found their way into the Dream World again, the Star wants them back. The Star is probably a very powerful being, since they are able to interfere with the Real World to reach to them, enough to make them confused about their own reality. Their bond seems to be stronger with Soobin, who’s even able to hear them reach out on occasion. It’s uncertain what exactly it is that they want.

The Visions (Eternally MV)

The night of the last day & Song of a Star (Soobin’s visions)

Eternally starts at the end of Magic Island, with the Dream World completely in ruins. Eternally happens before Magic Island, so this dream Soobin has at the beginning is nothing but a prophecy. In the dream, he is holding a book, which we also see Beomgyu with. I think this book is the one they got the information about the Dream World during the Magic era, since the cover is very similar to the symbols we can see in Run Away.

I believe Song of a Star is the Star reaching out to him. He’s the first one to be able to hear the Star, as shown in Magic Island, and he also references the Star’s song in teachers. The kid he sees is probably the version of himself that first entered the Dream World as a kid (or maybe Kai lol), which might be why he wants to cry everytime he has that dream: it’s the nostalgia for a time he left behind.

Room No. 17 (Beomgyu’s vision)

While I’m not sure what the number 17 means yet, and my research on numerology yielded no results, this vision is particularly interesting to me. Through it we get to see Beomgyu’s more ‘brash’ nature as he defends the book that Soobin was seen holding previously. If that book is their key to the Dream World, then it makes a lot of sense that he’s trying to protect it. I’m not sure who the other person trying to stop him is, but it does kinda look like things didn’t go well for them after Beomgyu transformed.

Girl of Eternity (Huening Kai’s vision)

Perhaps the strangest of names for visions, this clearly represents how the rest of the members keep moving far away from Kai and become unreachable to him. He mentions several times how he’s clueless about what’s going on and wants to understand, but the rest of them continue to keep him in the dark, so he feels a distance growing between them, which might increase in the future.

Moratorium of Rest (Taehyun’s vision)

Taehyun’s vision is perhaps the most shocking of all, as it shows us Yeonjun sitting on a chair and covered in spines and purple “paint”. Yeonjun is sitting in the middle of a field of all sorts of violets, and Taehyun tries calling him before realizing the condition Yeonjun is in.

Promise (Yeonjun’s vision)

Yeonjun shares the misfortune with Taehyun of seeing his lifeless corpse, except his vision is much less artistic about it. After finding his body, he sees a fire from the corner of his eye, and right next to it, you guessed it, the odd-eyed cat. His vision in particular finishes with the phrase “I thought it was salvation, then.” And here is where things turn south.

Yeonjun’s promise and the Odd-Eye Cat

I have a very strong reason to believe that Yeonjun is in danger of dying an awful death, and it’s only partially because of the visions. Since Nap of a Star, Yeonjun has been followed by the vigilant eyes of the Odd-Eye Cat almost religiously, and it usually never brings good situations with it. It’s bad enough that the neck cut in Nap of a Star is replicated in Taehyun’s vision, that Soobin sees Yeonjun all bloody in Eternally, and that both Yeonjun and Taehyun see the former dead, but there might be some external clues that hint towards Yeonjun’s upcoming demise.

In the official BigHit website for TxT’s discography, where we found out that Soobin researched and figured out the way to go into the Dream World, we can find a picture of Yeonjun reading a book. In English, this book is called The Alchemaster’s Apprentice. This book narrates the story of a black cat who sells its soul to a sort of wizard in exchange for food, since he’s starving to death. The wizard agrees to fatten the cat for a month, after which it will kill it and use its fat for magical purposes.

The cat in this book doesn’t have heterochromia, however I found out some pagan groups in Eastern Europe believe that a different colored eye was a witch’s eye, meaning that the eye has literally been swapped out with a witch’s. I fully believe that Yeonjun made a deal he shouldn’t have, and the Odd-Eye Cat has been sent by whoever made the deal with him to check on him. It might just be that Yeonjun’s time is going to run out very soon, and the visions are trying to warn everyone of that.

Conclusion

Magic exists and TxT might have bitten more than they can chew because they wanted to run away from the problems of real life (relatable). Now, the Star that they made a promise with is trying to reach them, and maybe warn them about something that’s coming. The fact is that they’re not safe, especially Yeonjun, and things might turn south very quickly very soon.

I’ll try to come back soon with the Minisode 1 + Chaos Chapter Theory update, but for now, if you liked this, please interact with the post and check out my other theories here!

#txt #tomorrow by together #tomorrow x together #the star seekers #txt theory #tomorrow x together theory #tomorrow by together theory #txt yeonjun #txt soobin #txt beomgyu #txt taehyun #txt kai #kpop #kpop theory #bluenicorn does theories

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