Hesse’s Demian as a Framework for the Message

However, the film shows Jungkook in the role of Sinclair as he paints Demian’s portrait, before sending him the sparrowhawk painting. My interpretation is that the sparrowhawk—representing Abraxas—is a symbol used by BTS to represent growing up and finding independence and the self, with each short film representing different stages of Sinclair’s journey.

But “Begin” does not take place in Sinclair’s childhood, instead acting as a prologue to the story, where Jungkook (both as himself and Emil Sinclair) reflects on the past, remembering the childhood innocence that he’s had to let go to grow into an adult, with Abraxas acting as a symbol for growing up and self-realization. Jungkook recalls his early days in BTS in the song, as a boy of fifteen full of self-doubt helped by the other band members to grow in confidence.6Michele Mendez, “All of Jungkook’s Songs Perfectly Capture His Growth as an Artist,” Elite Daily, October 29, 2021, https://www.elitedaily.com/entertainment/bts-jungkook-solo-songs.

V scratches the name Abraxas onto a graffiti image depicting the bird-like Gnostic god, before police arrest and interrogate him. There are flashbacks to his storyline in HYYH; as the scene is intercut with a modern-style dance depicting V being beaten by something invisible and shots of his family: his abusive, alcoholic father and his abused sister. Although V killed his abusive father in HYYH, it is only implied but not shown. Instead, V is shown holding a puppy before being trapped in a giant, descending cage that is symbolic of his loss of innocence, and the song starts with the accompanying lyrics: “I’m sorry my sister / Even if I try to hide it / Or conceal it, it can’t be erased / So, cry, please, dry my eyes, ooh. // That light, that light, please illuminate my sins (Oh) / Where I can’t turn back / The red blood is flowing down / Deeper, I feel like dying every day / Please let me be punished / Please forgive me for my sins / Please.”11“Genius English Translations—BTS—Stigma (English Translation),” Genius, accessed November 25, 2022, https://genius.com/Genius-english-translations- bts-stigma-english-translation-lyrics.

The theme and lyrics tie back to Sinclair’s loss of innocence through the lies and sins he commits because of Kromer (the reference to the sister also echoes Kromer’s final demands before Demian intervenes), but, unlike Sinclair, V’s sin (patricide) is far greater, and as mentioned before, a symbolic one of rebelling against South Korea’s hierarchical society. However, V’s story of stabbing his father also evokes the recurring nightmares Sinclair has about Kromer compelling him to undertake a murderous attack on his father, even though this part of the BU storyline pre-dated the Demian concept.

Rather than the romantic love expressed by Sinclair in this chapter, Suga’s first love in the song is his first piano and music. In the film, Suga sees a piano in a music shop. He smashes the window and breaks in to play the tune from Jungkook’s “Begin” on the piano, before he hears the whistle from “Begin” calling him out of the shop.

Suga’s role in the Wings narrative represents the organist Pistorius. The symbol of music—the piano—and fire both tie into Pistorius’s character in Demian. Fire is also integral to Suga’s storyline, as in the HYYH videos and films, as Suga sets his room on fire following V’s death. We also see him in the video for “Blood, Sweat, and Tears,” playing Passacaglia in D minor by Dietrich Buxtehude on an organ, a piece Sinclair asks Pistorius to play.

The video for “Mama”15Hybe Labels, “BTS WINGS Short Film #6 MAMA,” YouTube Video, 2:51, September 10, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu82g0vyyTY. opens with the quote from chapter seven, where Sinclair meets Frau Eva, Demian’s mother and the archetypal symbol for the “Great Mother,” appears to be relevant for his overall story: “With a face that resembled her son’s, timeless, ageless, and full of inner strength, the beautiful woman smiled with dignity. Her gaze was fulfillment, her greeting a homecoming. Silently, I stretched my hands out to her.”16Hybe Labels, “BTS WINGS Short Film #6 MAMA.”

J-Hope awakes in an isolation ward and is fed a cocktail of pills—an allusion to his overdose in HYYH—which transport him into a psychedelic world with paint and bird wings on the walls. He tries to fight his way out of the room, but when he awakens, he walks through a door into the clinical room where Jimin was interrogated. He takes out a chocolate bar from his pocket (the same as the one his mother gave him) as he stares at a painting of a forest, which morphs into a painting of a mother and child, with the words “Eva” signed in the bottom right corner. It is obvious here that J-Hope represents Sinclair searching for the “Great Mother,” and as Sinclair did, also finds it in Frau Eva.

Jin sits in an opulent home, at a dinner table. He takes a few photos with his polaroid camera. He walks back to a bedroom, with scratches on the door resembling wings, and sets fire to a bunch of lily petals (this is a recurring image from HYYH). He wanders a corridor papered with a pattern imitating the ancient Gnostic depiction of the god Abraxas and stops at a framed version of the sparrowhawk painting seen in “Begin” and “Reflection.” The lyrics of the song translate from Korean as: “Maybe I, I can never fly / I can’t fly like the flower petals over there / Or as though I have wings, yeah / Maybe I, I can’t touch the sky / Still, I want to stretch my hand out / I want to run, just a bit more.”19“Genius English Translations—BTS—Awake (English Translation),” Genius, accessed November 19, 2022, https://genius.com/Genius-english-translations-bts-awake-english-translation-lyrics. In the end, the polaroid photos develop, one for each other member: a mirror (RM), the mother and child (J-Hope), the apple (Jimin), the piano (Suga), the sparrowhawk (Jungkook), and the scratches on the door (V). Jin is Sinclair towards the end of the book; he’s almost grown up but feels nostalgic about his lost innocence, with the other members symbolizing himself at different parts of his journey—it is fitting he takes this role as he is also the oldest member of the group. This connection becomes clearer in the music video for the title single of the album, “Blood, Sweat, and Tears.”

Jungkook is seen on a swing and later levitates in the same room, which along with the various paintings depicting the fall of Icarus, presents a subtle reference to the conversation between Sinclair and Pistorius about flying in chapter five. Sinclair dreams of flying and learning to control his rise and fall with this breath, to which Pistorius says:

According to Michael Dürr’s analysis of BTS’s relationship with Demian, flying can be seen as a symbol for going one’s own way, where those who fear flying would rather follow traditions and conventions rather than question them; preferring to stay on the ground and not risk flying at all.23Dürr, “BTS und Demian—Hermann Hesse in der Popmusik,” 216. Personally, I feel the message in the context of BTS also represents the fear of dreaming among Korean youths, where conformity and rigid expectations from family and society restrict the freedom to follow personal desires; a topic BTS already explored in their early work. Flying can also be interpreted as a symbol of growing up, where wings are a symbol of personal growth.24Dürr, “BTS und Demian—Hermann Hesse in der Popmusik,” 216.

The seven members are then gathered around a table, in a setup resembling Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper—the topic discussed in Sinclair and Demian’s final lesson with the school’s pastor in chapter three. The lesson marks the beginning of the end of Sinclair’s childhood: He goes through his church confirmation, is sent away to another school, and is left alone without Demian. “Everything was transformed. My childhood tumbled about me in ruins,” Sinclair says.25Hesse, Demian, 54; SW 3:286.

Jin appears at the head of the table about to make a toast, resembling a Christ-like figure, but later he stands on the same chair, clinging to a balloon—a symbol of his childhood innocence—that he releases when the music pauses as RM narrates the quote from Demian: “He too was a tempter, he too was a link to the second, the evil world with which I no longer wanted to have anything to do.”26Hybe Labels, “BTS (Blood, Sweat & Tears) Official MV.”

The video cuts to Suga playing the Passacaglia in D minor by Dietrich Buxtehude and the members run out of the museum, except for Jin, who turns back. V covers Jin’s eyes with his hands, revealing a prominent marble figure with black wings to Jin when he uncovers them. Jin is alone; he walks up and kisses the statue, which is intercut with a scene of V kneeling under a rising veil that reveals a scarred back where his wings once were, implying he is a fallen angel or Demian as the seducer who led Sinclair to Abraxas. After the kiss, the chorus of “Blood, Sweat, and Tears” resumes and the world bursts into chaos. Colors explode, statues shatter, and both Jimin and the statue weep colors. Jin paces over to a dark mirror inscribed with a quote in German from Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra): “Man muss noch Chaos in sich haben, um einen tanzenden Stern gebären zu können.”27Hybe Labels, “BTS (Blood, Sweat & Tears) Official MV.” Translation: “One must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star.” Freidrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, trans. Thomas Common (Ware: Wordsworth Classics, 1997), 10. His face cracks like porcelain in the reflection. This kiss echoes the final scene between Demian and Sinclair—when Demian passes a kiss to Sinclair from Frau Eva—and echoes the closing line of the book: “I find the key and look deep down into myself where the images of destiny lie slumbering in the dark mirror, I only need to bend my head over the black mirror to see my own image which now wholly resembles him, my friend and leader.”28Hesse, Demian, 135; SW 3:365. I agree with the interpretation presented by Dürr that the kiss embodies the acceptance of Abraxas, allowing the protagonist to exist between the light and the dark world.29Dürr, “BTS und Demian—Hermann Hesse in der Popmusik,” 214.

It is also interesting that BTS chose to focus on the image of the sparrowhawk and Abraxas from Demian, particularly as they have used avian imagery to represent the class hierarchy of South Korea, and the Korean idiom of the crow-tit, as explored earlier in their song “Silver Spoon/Baepsae.” By embracing Abraxas and finding their own wings, it is almost as if one is invited to transcend the societal constraints imposed by South Korean Society.

Although the socio-critical commentary in Wings is toned down when compared to BTS’s earlier work, the message about finding your own path and discovering the self is subversive in a society where collectivism and conformity are expected and where young people are discouraged from pursuing individual dreams due to financial insecurity, social and family pressure. This is a message that has been consistent with BTS since the beginning, and continued beyond Wings. For example, following Wings, BTS continued to explore these themes from a Jungian point of view in the search for the self in their album Map of the Soul (2020).30An interesting parallel can be drawn between the two albums as they both explore themes like understanding the self, not to mention that Hesse’s Demian was also heavily influenced by C. G. Jung.