Welcome back everyone,
Let’s dig in!
As per my post Who is “Her”?, I believe there are three “Hers” in the LY albums told from the three perspectives of Joon, Yoongi and Hobi.
Therefore, I am splitting my analysis of “Her” into three parts, each one dedicated to one perspective. Today, we will be analysing “Her” from Namjoon’s perspective.
Note: For the purpose of the main analysis, I will be referring to Namjoon’s lover as “Namjoon’s lover” because I find it helps remove our unconscious bias, allowing us to truly appreciate the lyrics and the story for what it is.
However, at the end of my analysis, I will point out the clues Namjoon left for us that hint his lover’s name.
I will also be referring to some lyrics from Trivia 承: Love because even though I thought I had said everything I wanted to say across three posts… more things just keep popping up.
To skip to my final interpretation of the song, click here.
Assumed Knowledge & Assumptions
I have written this post assuming you know:
- my theory , that all of the songs in LY albums are connected and reveal a story line when read in a specific order;
- there are three different “Hers”;
- the significance of the antithesis relationship between certain songs; and
- Joon’s story told so far through Serendipity, DNA, 보조개 (Dimple), and Trivia 承: Love (P1, P2 and the Rose).
As always, I have analysed “Her” based on these assumptions.
New Readers: If you have not read any of the above posts… I’m sorry but I may lose you in the detail as my lyrical analyses are built on existing knowledge!
I do this specifically to maintain my theory’s consistency and integrity.
You can absolutely still continue to read and follow how I draw meaning from the lyrics, but you may not, for example, understand the significance of the antithesis 🙂
If you’re wondering where to start, please start here.
Alright, let’s get it!
1. Finding Joon’s Perspective
Unlike DNA, finding the three perspective in “Her” was easy as Joon, Yoongi and Hobi rap three very distinctive parts.
Joon raps the first verse and chorus. Thus, these are the lyrics we will be analysing today:
The world is a complex
We wus lookin’ for love
I was just one of those people
Didn’t even believe in true love
Just said I wanted to be in love like a habit
But I found myself
The whole new myself
I’m confused too, which one’s the real me?
Did you figure out that I’m a book after I met you?
Or did you turn my page?
Damn
Anyway, I wanna be the best man for you
Of course, you’re the world to me
When you said you wanted to die with me
I promised to be the man you want, God I swore to myself
So many complex
But I’m lookin’ for love
I don’t care if it’s a fake me, if you hold me
You’re my beginning and my end
So you finish me
All of my wonder
You’re the answer
I call you her, her
‘Cause you’re my tear, tear
All of my wonder
You’re the answer
I call you her, her
‘Cause you’re my tear, tear
2. The discovery of Joon’s “whole new myself”
As alluded to in my previous post The Motif of the “Lonely Monster”, I discussed my reasons why I believe Namjoon went through an identity crisis.
Namjoon’s identity crisis is revealed through the following lyrics:
“But I found myself
The whole new myself
I’m confused too, which one’s the real me?“
Namjoon didn’t just find something new about himself, he found a “whole new myself”. This implies that Joon’s “whole new myself” is something very different from his (for lack of better term) “original” self, and is thus “confused” by this.
What is interesting is that he is “confused too“, suggesting that his lover is also confused by this whole different side of Namjoon.
The decision to use the word “confused” (as opposed to “surprise” for example) conveys to us that this whole different side of Namjoon is not something attractive or positive as “confused” has (negative) connotations of wariness and cautiousness.
In other words, both Namjoon and his lover are uncertain about the new side of Namjoon and are both confused if this new side is part of the “Real” Namjoon, or if it is something fake and temporary.
3. Joon’s reaction to his “whole new myself”
The Initial Reaction
Joon’s initial reaction to discovering his new side can actually be first observed in Trivia 承: Love. He ponders:
“If I wasn’t me, what would I be?”
He also contemplates the implications of this new side in the same verse in Trivia 承: Love:
“What if I go?
If I go, would you be sad?
If I wasn’t me, what would I be?
Do you think you’ll leave me after all?“
We can infer that from the above lyrics Joon is contemplating two (despondent) options:
- Option 1: Accept this new side of him as part of his “Real” self and leave the relationship, potentially making his lover “sad”; or
- Option 2: Stay in the relationship knowing there is a possibility that his lover will leave him eventually, because Joon is either being “fake” or his lover may not be able to accept Joon’s “whole new myself”.
Despite this, Joon finishes Trivia 承: Love on a cautious but hopeful note:
“You know…
We were always meant to be…
Destiny…
I hope you feel the same, woman… Love”
As we saw in Serendipity and DNA, Namjoon is a big believer in fate. In the above verse, Namjoon sounds like he is trying to reassure himself and his lover by reminding them that are destined for each other and “were always meant to be”.
However, mirroring Serendipity, we can sense that same seed of doubt and worry surfacing. This is conveyed through the trailing off of sentences (“…”) and the use of the word “hope”.
Namjoon is hopeful that his lover agrees that they are destined to be together. However, the trailing off of sentences indicate to us that Joon himself isn’t sure how his lover feels about their relationship after learning about this new side of Namjoon.
The Subsequent Decision
After contemplating these two options in Trivia 承: Love, in “Her”, Joon tells his lover (and us) his decision:
“Anyway, I wanna be the best man for you
Of course, you’re the world to me
When you said you wanted to die with me
I promised to be the man you want, God I swore to myself
So many complex
But I’m lookin’ for love
I don’t care if it’s a fake me, if you hold me“
Namjoon has decided to go with Option 2: To stay. Namjoon chose option 2 because he “promised to be the man you want” “when you said you wanted to die with me”.
As we saw in 보조개 (Dimple), Namjoon desires to die with his lover too.
Because of their reciprocal desire to die with each other, and Joon’s yearning for his lover to continue to “hold me”, Joon makes the decision to suppress his new side and be “the man you want”.
This suppression results in the creation of “fake” Namjoon.
The language “I don’t care if it’s a fake me…”, “God I swore to myself”, and “Of course, you’re the world to me”, also convey a deep sense of desperation from Namjoon.
Namjoon’s desire to be loved by his lover is so deep he is desperate to do anything, including becoming a “fake” version of himself.
4. Namjoon the “Book”
I refer to the following lyrics from Trivia 承: Love:
“I want to be part of your bookcase
I’d like to be involved in your novel
As a lover”
And I refer to the following lyrics from “Her”:
“Did you figure out that I’m a book after I met you?
Or did you turn my page?”
The imagery of books appear in both Trivia 承: Love and “Her”.
We can observe that:
- Namjoon’s lover has a bookcase “I want to be part of your bookcase“; and
- Namjoon wishes to be part of “your novel“, suggesting his lover reads novels.
We can infer from this that Namjoon’s lover loves books.
The word “novel” is also associated with stories that are long, complex and in depth. This conveys the meaning that Joon desires to be part of his lover’s entire (long) life story “as a lover”.
Interestingly, Namjoon asks his lover: “Did you figure out that I’m a book after I met you? Or did you turn my page?”
The act of having to ask those questions indicate that Namjoon himself is unsure of the answer.
Therefore, the questions Namjoon asked his lover suggest to me that Namjoon just started to realise that maybe… his lover hasn’t actually quite understood how complex of a “book” (i.e. character) he is.
5. Hints of Namjoon’s lover’s name
To understand how I have identified hints of Namjoon’s lover’s name, I will share with you my thought process.
I want to make sure my process is clear to you (and myself) in order to demonstrate that I am not purely speculating when I write my posts and make my conclusions.
I’ve set out my thought process below. Criticisms are welcome.
My process
First, I had previously identified (thanks to RJipurpleyou) a potential word play from Joon’s solo mixtape. The song “everythingoes (지나가)” (romanised as “Ji Na Ga”), sounds phonetically the same as “진 아가” (romanised as “Jin A Ga”), which means Jin baby.
Next, I had also previously observed that the song “uhgood”, the track before “everythingoes (지나가)” contains the following repeated lyrics:
“진짜 네게”
(Really, to you)
(Romanised as “Jin Jja Ne Ge”)
진짜 means “really?”, “true” and “real”.
I observed that the lyrics are pronounced in such a way, it sounds like “진진 아가” (romanised “Jin Jin A Ga”), meaning Jin Jin baby.
I have provided snippets of the two songs (uhgood and everythingoes) to support my point:
Therefore, I pay attention for the words “진짜” because I believe it could potentially be a word play used by Joon.
Observing the “진짜” in “Her”
“진짜” appears in the song “Her”. I refer to the following line:
“진짜 사랑인지 뭔지 믿지도 않으면서”
(Didn’t even believe in true love)
The word 진짜 is used here to mean “real love” or “true love” (“진짜 사랑”). See Google Translate screenshot below:
Now, we have talked about Antithesis previously in this post, and we know that the antithesis of “Real” is “Fake”.
I observed that the following line in “Her” references the word “Fake”:
“가짜 나라도 좋아 니가 안아준다면”
(I don’t care if it’s a fake me, if you hold me)
가짜 means Fake and 준 means Joon.
Given we have been talking about:
- the antithesis pattern in the LY albums;
- how Joon’s lover is portrayed as someone true, sincere and angelic like; and
- how Joon has chosen to suppress his real self to become someone “fake”…
The fact that Jin’s name appears in the line that is about something “real” and that Joon’s name appears in the line that is about something “fake” feels too poetic and elegant to be a coincidence.
In addition, the last part of the sentence (안아준다면) that Joon’s name appears in means:
Poetically, this can be read: “If you hug (Joon) me”
Author’s Summary
In summary, I believe the story behind “Her” from Namjoon’s perspective is:
Namjoon has found a whole side of himself that he and his lover are uncertain about.
He feels that there are only two options to deal with his whole new side: Accept his new side and leave his lover, or stay in the relationship and be fake.
Namjoon chooses to stay because he loves his lover so much he desires to die with his lover and to be continued to be loved by him. This decision to stay results in the creation of “fake” Namjoon.
I believe Namjoon’s lover is Jin because Namjoon’s lover loves books (and Jin loves books), and because of the word play I discuss above.
And that is all for today everyone, the mood is really turning isn’t it?
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P.S. I am so sorry some of my quotation marks are not facing the right way… I have spent ages trying to fix them but I can’t figure out why some of them refuse to face the right way! Please know that I tried and I’m sorry that it looks shabby and imperfect.
x G
Lyric Sources: “Her” (English); “Her” (Hangul), Trivia 承: Love
Disclaimer:
As per my first author’s note, please, no hate!
I do not have a shipping or individual bias, I love all seven members equally and I do not write my blogs because of a particular personal desire for one of them.
I analyse songs with consideration to the author’s perspective (and Namjoon just happens to be the main author of most songs).
It does not matter one bit to me if they are straight, gay, intersex, a skrull, a mutant or if they could lay eggs. I love them wholeheartedly (as a sister who would love her younger brothers) for their individual selves.
This theory of Her is based on my interpretations of its lyrics. Please enjoy.