[Note: This series originally started as a project on Reddit, and we are archiving the posts here on our site. You can find the original Bible Study posts here.]
Happy Sunday! For our sacred practice today, we tried to build our own sermon around a line that stood out to us--it's a bit of a messy process, but in the end, we may have achieved Something.
Today, we are looking at Fever Pt.1, Page: 02 Seong Hwa “She, who was dancing to the beat". We recommend listening to Halazia before you begin.
01: What are your thoughts on the page?
BobbyJ: My first thought on this entry is always that it's--not odd but different--that Hwa's entry is the only one that has nothing to do with the other members
GD: That's interesting, and you're right. I hadn't really noticed that before. The thing that sticks out to me has always just been the idea of music being freedom, probably because it's very personal and relatable to me, but also for how explicit his entry seems. Do you think this is before the warehouse?
BobbyJ: Feels likely? You say his entry is explicit, but I feel like there's so much that we need to infer in order for it to make sense in the overall narrative
GD: I think because we're given the words "Be free" it feels explicit to me. It feels explicit as to what is drawing Seonghwa here and what he wants. Though what he's doing with the boys in the warehouse and how this relates to anything else isn't clear on the face of it.
BobbyJ: I agree, and I think that's what adds to his story but in a subtle way? (words are hard today) Like--the other boys are pretty clear about what their struggle is. But with Hwa, he never says. Why does the appearance of this girl and the music change his world like this? Why did his world need to be changed in the first place? It's a very interesting contrast with the rest of the entries
GD: There's the common music thread that ties him to Hongjoong, and also the line "common sense, rules and this tough world didn't have power over her moves." That line helps build some of the cold and isolation from the earlier scenes for me too. There's a sense that he's living under a lot of obligation and expectation in this world that they're in. Actually, maybe some Peter Pan vibes? Like he longs for a world that's wild and free and wants to escape the obligations that are tied to him? I don't know. Interesting that music is what "freed" him, and that's what they will later use to free the people of Strictland in Guerrilla, but I suppose that's getting ahead of myself.
BobbyJ: I think that's true, and it's interesting that they've chosen not to freely state that. It actually reinforces his characterization. He's not going to break free all of a sudden because he hears some music and sees a girl dancing. Of course he would withhold his true feelings. That's probably what he's used to doing in order to survive
GD: This is only marginally related, but feels important. Have you ever heard of the 4 tendencies from Gretchen Rubin? Obligor, Rebel, Upholder, Questioner.
BobbyJ: Oh, Gretchen Rubin I am mildly familiar with
GD: I say it's marginally related because Seonghwa's character strikes me as an obliger, which is also what I am. And obligors will do anything as long as its for others; they will rarely follow through with something if it's just for themselves. But obligors are prone to burnout and going into rebellion phases. And whether or not you buy into the four tendencies, that does seem to be the path that Seonghwa is on.
BobbyJ: I'm taking this quiz now. I am compelled
GD: Perfect. Please let me know what you are. I will retake it just to make sure I haven't changed in 3 years.
BobbyJ: I'm not sure this is correct, but I am a Questioner. Actually, the fact that I'm questioning it probably means it's true.
GD: It doesn't, on its face, appear to be wrong. As was expected, I am still an obligor.
Obligors meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet inner expectations. Of all the Tendencies, Obligors are the biggest group, and the ones whom people count on the most. They put a high value on meeting commitments to others, but may have trouble setting limits and meeting their commitments to themselves.
BobbyJ: Yes, that makes sense with what I know about you
GD: Because this is something I think about very often, I think it's really hard for me to read Seonghwa's page without reading myself into it. I know you read my post on the Giver that hasn't been posted but will one day be posted, so spoiler for that, but I think that's why Seonghwa's choices feel so inevitable to me as the story goes on. He has decided Freedom is this important and worthwhile thing, and now all of his choices will flow from that notion. So of course he joins up at the warehouse because they are free there--they all feel that way. It is the place of untamed wildness.
BobbyJ: So, let's piece together a little timeline because you know how I feel about chronology. This very important event, if it happens pre-warehouse, would have perhaps been his inciting incident that leads him to Hongjoong et al? Like, maybe he sees something in Hongjoong (an assumption that he's the one who brings him into the fold) that reminds him of the girl? Wait--is this addressed at all in the Diary Film or Fever Road?
GD: I can't remember, which is unfortunate considering the times I've watched them. But I do think this is Seonghwa's inciting incident. It's what puts him on the path to the warehouse and everyone else. Of note (an obvious note, but whatever), they tell this story in member order, which says nothing about whether it's in chronological order. Skipping ahead a bit, San does say that Seonghwa has always done things "his way", which implies that this is a pre knowing San Seonghwa
BobbyJ: Interesting because the rest of the diaries are not in member order and ARE in chronological order. Hmmm. . . how far back is this I wonder
GD: We probably should sit down and do a special religious watching of the Diary Film when we finish this book.
BobbyJ: Yes, I agree. And I would love it if someone would edit together all the Fever Road diary bits
GD: I think someone has because I think I've watched it
BobbyJ: Well I could not find it just now. I looked for at least ten seconds.
GD: Then it must not exist. But some thoughts on this picture: he's pushing open a door that says "open", which I can't help but contrast to the sign that says 'no-entry' on the warehouse, even though I don't really know that the contrast is trying to tell me something.
BobbyJ: The paths he meant to take and avoid per society? A stretch probably
GD: It does feel weird that he's trying to 'be free' by going into a convenience store? It feels like he should be opening a door to the outside world instead
BobbyJ: He seems paused at the threshold, like he's lost his motivation to keep doing the thing he was originally intending to do. It's an odd set
GD: And the open sign is all askew
BobbyJ: The lighting is weird
GD: Maybe it's meant to symbolize the throwing off of what he's been expected to do by society--not going inside to this place that represents the hustle and bustle. The door to what others expect of him is open, but he no longer plans to enter
BobbyJ: It's the saddest convenience store in all the land. Gives me that weird incorrect feeling
GD: Yes, it's almost the opposite of Hongjoongs while somehow maintaining the same ideas Hongjoong seemed to want to cross the threshold, and Seonghwa seems to want to avoid it, but somehow that leads to the same place
BobbyJ: He looks defeated. Worn down. Is it possible this picture is before the girl?
GD: hmmmm you know, the diary film might tell us. I know this set is in that film. So perhaps he starts here and then sees the girl.
BobbyJ: He does not quite look like a changed man to me in this picture which his entry implies he should be. But at the same time, I don't know how you're meant to look when your world has been shaken. In the film, he's standing in the void and he sees her dancing with the store behind her. He's on his way to the store, presumably, when he sees her. So that means this picture is after the sighting.
GD: The more I think of it, the more I feel strongly that Seonghwa is not meant to go into this convenience store. He is supposed to go into it, but he has decided he will not
BobbyJ: So, a convenience store is where you go to grab a quick bite when you're busy or you need to grab some things on your list--or perhaps you have a part-time job there. All things that imply that he's busy, which we know based on the film and the mv. Busy fulfilling expectations. But now he's resisting for maybe the first time ever
GD: I think it would feel very painful to choose to not follow expectations for the first time. An existential pain, almost. Like, wishing to live in a world that you don't. So the defeated posture makes sense.
BobbyJ: Another interpretation based on his line that implies that he keeps returning to that place to find her but she's never there would be that he's upset that he can't find her again.
GD: My sort of related thought is that he's sort of like the people of Strictland waiting for Hala to return. His story is of finding that freedom within himself instead of relying on this outside source of inspiration
BobbyJ: Yes, he says that he was changed but he couldn't do anything
GD: It is interesting; I'm thinking of the way he watches her dance from afar, and the visual isn't the different from when he shows up in Halazia before the people all staring towards the halacross
BobbyJ: Like his paradigm has shifted, but what's he supposed to do now? I enjoy the parallelism. A full circle moment
GD: Honestly, yeah. I'm just thinking of the prologue now where the narrator tells us that the people kept waiting for them to return. Isn't that what Seonghwa is doing here?
BobbyJ: Right. He's waiting for her to save him somehow? She has the answers that he doesn't know how to find.
GD: It's interesting because it makes me wonder if his time in the warehouse is part of him still waiting or if his time in the warehouse is after he's found his own answers. I suspect it's the former. Because the warehouse is a hideout for most of them, and this adds the interesting layer that he's hiding and waiting.
BobbyJ: The title of his segment in Fever Road is Seonghwa's Liberty; Ep 4 btw. Which I am now watching... Oooh--the stop sign on the road. And his legs being tied to the chair. "The music in my ear will be my one and only plan in life".
GD: Reminds me of the phrase 'planning yourself to death'
BobbyJ: So he feels literally shackled by all his plans and expectations
GD: Exactly
BobbyJ: But this is before zfp2, so he's made this resolution before entering Strictland
GD: It's hard to know whether he acted on the plan tho; perhaps when they entered Strictland, he was looking for his escape route but still didn't know how
BobbyJ: Making a resolution and knowing how to keep that resolution are two different things. Progress isn't always a straight line
GD: I know when I wanted to quit my job, I had decided. I knew I had to, but still couldn't figure out how to do it. It took like a big horrible thing happening that forced my hand. So it's possible he's decided he needs a change, wants a change, but still hasn't figured out how to make that change a reality. The Fever Ep seems to commingle a little of what is happening here with that is happening when he is already a part of the Warehouse.
BobbyJ: I get the sense that he's on a new path now but he's not sure how to start walking down it
GD: So at the crossroads, made his choice, but hasn’t necessarily started walking
BobbyJ: Right. In the Fever Road epilogue, he takes a single step over the line that says stop. This is just the first step
GD: This is not for now, but for an as we move forward consideration: when we get to the next books, I want us to return to what we learned in their original stories. So place them in the whole narrative, but also really try to dig into their personal narrative. I want to follow up on whether or not we see Seonghwa start to walk down the path he has chosen in this entry
BobbyJ: I've made a note
02: Sacred Practice
GD: For today, we will pick a line that stands out to us personally, and then just sort of discuss why the line stands out to us, and if we were going to use the line as a sermon (read: teaching moment) what would we say about it. This is just sort of broad strokes the sermon--not actually write a sermon. I'll go first.
"I can no longer distinguish the structure, code, or the genre of the song."
For me, this line just stuck out to me on this read through for a lot of reasons, but probably because I have grown weary of people over analyzing music and art in the most clinical of terms. I'm not sure how they want us to read this line, but to me, it feels like Seonghwa has gone in the right direction, a less cold direction. Almost like Seonghwa is being freed of the burden of those terms because they truthfully don't matter, even though he's been told how important they are. So if I was to build a sermon around this line, I think I would want to talk about how feelings are not things that can be perfectly expressed with words, and how we can cover our fear of feelings by using words to separate ourselves from the emotions. And sometimes it's okay to just feel something. It's alright to allow ourselves to feel something so deeply we've lost the ability to describe it with words. The most intense emotions in the world are almost never describe with words; it's why we so often resort to metaphor to describe love and pain. Words fail us, and sometimes classifications don't matter. But emotion is how we feel truly alive, and this line is a reminder to let us live in that emotion without worrying how to classify it.
BobbyJ: Words are used for communication and for sharing how we feel. But, very much like opinions, not all feelings need to be shared. It's okay to just feel completely overwhelmed by Halazia and not have to explain yourself to anyone.
GD: Which is how I feel. I truly could not give you any musical classification reason that I think Halazia is the Second Coming, but I do think it. And I think it's important to realize that those classifications aren't necessary--and just because someone has classifications, doesn't make their opinion any better than mine
BobbyJ: And it reminds me, just a bit, of that one drama. . . Because this is my first life. It's been a minute since I watched, but that room that the author keeps for herself: There was a book that I think what's her face read about a mother who kept a hotel room for herself, sort of where she would go to just be. She wrote a book about it. Or maybe it was a story of a woman who kept a room. But the point was it was a space where she wasn't classified by any terms at all.
GD: Oh, actually I think I do remember this. I think in a lot of ways, Seonghwa's story is about throwing off the shackles of classifications. And to me, there is something very beautiful about that
BobbyJ: What are expectations if not based on classifications
GD: They've applied it to music, but it's obviously deeper than that. Actually, it reminds me of Wooyoung in his documentary too, where he said even when he's old, he wants to be who he is now
BobbyJ: Please I've cried enough
GD: Just, the idea that we can and are more than the sum of our parts. Okay, that's it for my sermon. I'd bring it all home somehow--end with a deep Wooyoung quote, and we'd all go out into the world free of the burden of words. I'd include Margaret Atwood's You Begin because I've always read the poem to be about the limitation of words.
BobbyJ: the final hymn would be Mist
GD: yes, close with Mist. Obviously, the service would open with Halazia as all services do and will forever. Your turn.
BobbyJ: It is not profound, but as you know I am incapable of profundity at this moment.
"Right this moment, my world broke along this snowy road."
It ties back to what I was planning to say in that doomed post about Paradigm, but the gist is about the pain and discomfort of change. We tend to stay in our ruts (like Hwa says in the Fever Road Epilogue) because they are comfortable and familiar even when they are not what we want. “Better the devil you know”, you know? In particular, holding onto beliefs that you’ve long had just because you’ve had them a long time is quite dangerous. But questioning and re-examining them is very uncomfortable. It’s extremely unsettling to find that your foundations might not be as strong and enduring as you once thought them. So this feeling of his world being “broken” with the addition of the cold and isolation (a recurring theme) would be both freeing and painful. Letting go of who we’ve always thought we are to become the person we want to be is not easy and requires breaking. It reminds me of when doctors need to re-break a bone that has healed incorrectly in order for it to fully heal.
GD: I can't help but read The Giver into the snowy road--and yeah, it does seem like it can be just as painful to finally understand what you want from the world, especially if what you want turns out to not be what you have. Some things have to break before their can be change
BobbyJ: The process of Jonas's eyes being opened to the truth was both painful and beautiful
GD: are you at all familiar with the Japanese idea of wabi-sabi?
BobbyJ: Is that the method of repairing things with gold? Or do I have it confused with something else?
GD: It's related to that, but not really what it's about. My husband is Japanese and brings it up a lot when something breaks or gets messed up. It's sort of a philosophical belief that there is beauty in imperfections, and things are more beautiful when imperfect. Or at least that's how my husband has always explained it to me, though I'm not an expert.
BobbyJ: It makes me wonder if our idea of "perfection" is quite wrong
GD: Perfect implies some sort of sameness, uniformity, or standard, which actually, isn't interesting, you know? Perhaps breaking of the sameness is what will create something beautiful and different and special. Sort of reminds me of Ateez's dance philosophy. They are interesting and beautiful because you can see who they are as artists on the stage instead of the perfect image of sameness. I guess what your sermon made me think is that the act of breaking is the act of making something different.
BobbyJ: In this case, Seonghwa is doing something different than what is expected of him. He's breaking from the path he was on, from his former beliefs or standards. We've talked about the idea of equal exchange before. There's also an implied letting go of something so that he can walk this new path.
GD: I like the idea that something that is broken can be put together anew. Or put together differently. That the pieces can be combined in a new way. Something is lost, but something new is found. What Ateez song will close out your sermon?
BobbyJ: Not Too Late
GD: ahhhhh an excellent choice. I was thinking My Way, but Not Too Late is Very Good. Should we do our murder board wrap up that I've forgotten what we call?
BobbyJ: We call it Mental Murder Board
GD: Can't believe we've been in church for two hours.
BobbyJ: Well, when the spirit moves. . .
03: Mental Murder Board
BobbyJ: Isolation has been and will continue to be a theme. But Hwa feels extra isolated. Like he's fighting his demons very much alone.
GD: The broken road (his choice) being cold and lonely (implied by the snow) reminds me of the same isolation we see in other places.
BobbyJ: Ah--timeline. So, snowy roads implies winter and we know that the first diary entry that seems to kick off the story is July 29, 2016, which is summer. So, it's been some months since Hwa saw the dancing girl
GD: unless of course the snowy road is symbolic/metaphorical
BobbyJ: I think it's both. Snowy isn't really an isolating term? "Cold" "chilly"; these would be better metaphorically speaking, imo
GD: That seems right.
BobbyJ: It reminds us of cold because of the season. So I think he's been in the process of making this first step for months. In his entry he's remembering this event from the past--so important that he's been recalling it for a long time. I won't get into all my memory research and talk about how he's probably remembering it incorrectly at this point
GD: What he probably accurately remembers is the feeling, right? Everything else about it doesn't really matter
BobbyJ: Exactly. Plus he's probably superimposing his desires for himself on her. A bit of idol worship maybe. Kind of like my theory of Halazia.
GD: I'd like to mental murder board that in both Hongjoong and Seonghwa's images, they are being literally cut off from something even though the feeling of what's on the other side is different. I've yet to decide how I want to interpret that--isolation is there, but it doesn't feel about isolation to me. So just put them on the board.
BobbyJ: Barriers. Used in different ways
GD: Another contrast, I'd like to point out: Hongjoong's had a lot of light imagery and we don't see that with Seonghwa's. He has frozen and snowy, which make me think cold, but they're less prominent than light was in Hongjoong's.
BobbyJ: There are two references to cold, yeah. But not about light. I wonder if each entry will focus on a different symbol? Different imagery?
GD: It will be interesting to look out for and collect
BobbyJ: I do think there are some weird lighting things happening in the photo. But I don't know if they're meant to tell a story.
GD: just assume they are; it's easier that way.
BobbyJ: Well, I see three different sources of light--or rather light from three sources. The store is brightly lit, there appears to be a warmer kind of street light behind him? And there's a very bright white light on him. It's the third light that feels out of place
GD: It reminds me of what you said last time: perhaps being in the light can also be lonely and isolating. If people are expecting things from Seonghwa, maybe that means he is currently under a spotlight of sorts
BobbyJ: Both Joong and Hwa seem to be lit in a way that is unnatural. As though they are being highlighted in their environments.
GD: Also different from Hongjoong in a way that I think feels Important: Hongjoong mentioned music shortly at the end, most of his passage about being a star. Whereas music seems to be the point in Seonghwa's entry--or at least, what the music means to him. We know they eventually use music to wake up the world, so I think another thing I'd like to track is each boys relationship to it.
BobbyJ: Music means something different to both of them. For Hongjoong it's a means to reconnect with his lost family. For Hwa it's freedom. Almost opposite motivations.
GD: You're right; that's interesting. I don't have anywhere to take it, but an interesting note.
BobbyJ: Pinned.
GD: Any other thoughts or shall we conclude? Funny that you thought each page wouldn't be as juicy after the first one. Because I think I could've kept going on these 10 sentences, and I don't know what that says about me.
BobbyJ: Meanwhile, I think I’ve said all I could possibly say and need a nap
GD: Attempting to discover the universe's divine secrets is hard and good work
BobbyJ: I’m ready for Yunho though. His story is my favorite
04: Closing
Thank you for joining us for our third week of Bible Study as we attempt to become Enlightened through Atiny's sacred text! Please feel free to share your own Deep Clowntiny Thoughts below.
We will be back soon with a transcription of our discussion of Yunho's rich page. Until then, may the light of Halazia guide your path!
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