son, my son ↯ bts

EXPLAINATION.

lemme just address the elephant in the room.

SEOKJIN

the wrists.
seokjin's labels on his wrists are a form of stigmata, a phenomenon of where religious believers adopt mysterious wounds on their wrists, feet and forehead, particularly where jesus christ was wounded during his crucifixion. most are round circles, but some roughly form symbols. rare occasions bare words.
stigmata is said to be given to extremely pious people, as a reward from god. in this case, seokjin got the stigmata as a gift for his hardships, and as a reward for surviving them.

his death.
seokjin was suicidal to begin with. hints of this are scattered across the book. seokjin thought he was insane, seeing 'hallucinations' of namjoon, jeongguk and yoongi (suga) and blamed it on jimin, hence killing himself. hints of this are in his speech, though it's very subtle.

anything else concerning seokjin that confuses you, please note down here.

JIMIN.

punishment.
some say that those who go to hell would be forgiven, for god is all forgiving. however, the punishments given to those in order to be sent back to heaven are far worse than hell. god understood that jimin was manipulated by the devil, therefore forgave him.

his 'mother complex'.
though i roughly explained this at the end of 'mother', i understand that most people might have not read it or skipped it over. for those people who did not read it, or did not understand it, i will explain briefly.
--
jimin was born in 1903, a period where religion was considered a large part of your identity. jimin was born an illegitimate child, and his mother always refered to him as a 'thing', or 'devil child'. he grew up without a mother figure in his life.
this is the part where it gets tricky, so read this carefully. jimin is sent to hell for his violent traits that he inherited from his mother. (in terms of death, he dies from a perfectly normal death, nothing out of the ordinary). the devil, who knew of jimin's past, insisted that he could be happy if he got another mother figure in his life. so jimin agreed to be a jinn.
(if you want to see what a jinn is, refer back to 'mother'.)
jimin pretended to be stuck in the alley. jimin pretended to be seventeen. he even pretended to be human. just to be loved by seokjin.
however, jimin was a jinn. he had to lead humans to wrongdoings. so in order to have seokjin to himself, he had to kill.
--
okay, so back to this story. notice back in chapter 12, jimin's words. i made him say very little so you can focus on what he actually says. but what he's referring to was his real mother. what became of his real mother. he realised that it wasn't the mother, it was him. so after seokjin died, he swiftly killed himself as well.

anything else concerning jimin that confuses you, please note down here.

HOSEOK+TAEHYUNG.

their absense.
hoseok represents happiness and taehyung represents freedom. their absense in the story is symbolic of seokjin's absense of happiness and freedom. both hoseok and taehyung only appear at seokjin's death, when he reaches heaven.

anything else concerning taehyung and hoseok that confuses you, please note down here.

NAMJOON.

his 'resurrection'.
namjoon died through suicide, again manipulated by jimin. after going to heaven, he is guarded by adam and the other prophets, together with hoseok and taehyung.
however, hearing about seokjin's misery, he was determined to do something. his 'dead' body was transferred back to earth for a temporary time. during this time, yoongi, jeongguk and namjoon decided to kill jimin one and for all.

his death.
there was a lot of confusion over how namjoon dies. in 'mother', jimin says,
"i have a spare noose if you want it."
i didn't want to outline namjoon's death as it would take away from the real action that took place at the end of the book. but the short answer is that namjoon was found in his bathroom, hanging from the ceiling.

anything else concerning namjoon that confuses you, please note down here.

YOONGI.
free spirit.
yoongi is a branch of jinn called a 'free spirit', jinns who went against the devil's wish to lead humans to wrongdoings and instead brought them to their right path. yoongi had been watching over jeongguk his whole life out of pure interest, but knowing that he was in trouble, came back down to earth. as he is a free spirit, he doesn't go to heaven and he isn't allowed in heaven either. unlike normal jinns, free spirits cannot be forgiven. they live in the empty space between earth and heaven.

anything else concerning yoongi that confuses you, please note down here.

i don't think that there's anything confusing about jeongguk, but if there is, please note down here.

other than that, thank you for reading 'son, my son'.

- siya