Philosopher

The Minotaur and Icarus

With the wings of Icarus you gave me/ Not towards the sun but towards you

--BTS "Boy With Luv"

Hello everyone!

I hope that the one other person who reads this book is doing great! Lol anyway, this theory is new and as with all theories is viable to completely off base. I'm currently taking a Roman Lit class and so I am learning a lot about the Classics of literature (both Roman and Greek, as much of Roman tradition is borrowing/ building off Greek literary traditions from a few centuries earlier). However, this means we are constantly talking about things that BTS does/has referenced and hence what this theory is based off. I was also a huge Percy Jackson nerd ten years ago and therefore know a ton about Greek mythology. 

I'm going to start off by paraphrasing the stories. These stories are classics and like many classics may be mildly inappropriate for underage audiences, however, these stories you may already know and are like I've said, classics, so they are widely accessible and read. However, there will be mentions of bestiality, sex in general, animal cruelty, and just some weird shit. 

All right, so the stories of the Minotaur and Icarus are closely tied, but we'll start first with the Minotaur. Neptune (Poseidon) gifted the king of Crete, Minos, with a snow-white bull, on the pretense that Minos would then sacrifice the bull to him. Minos, however, doesn't want to and doesn't kill the bull in sacrifice. In retaliation, the gods, with the help of Cupid/ Eros cause the King's wife to fall in love with the bull. 

The Queen wanting to consummate her love with the bull (yes, yes, stay with me) hires local craftsman and smart guy Daedalus (and also the father of Icarus) to build her a contraption that will allow her to climb into and take the appearance of a cow. Daedalus does this and consequently, the Queen gives birth to the Minotaur, half bull and half man.

Due to their partial compliance in the Queen's affair, Daedalus and Icarus are punished and eventually commanded by the King to build an inescapable Labyrinth to house the Minotaur. They do this and that's essentially the end of the Minotaur's story. 

However, later on, the Minotaur is killed and his slayer is able to escape the supposedly inescapable Labyrinth. As punishment (and to keep the Labyrinth secret), Daedalus and Icarus have been imprisoned in a tower this entire time. Daedalus crafts wings for the two of them and warns Icarus not to fly too high or low. Too high and the sun would melt the wax, too low and the feathers would get wet. 

Icarus, however, famously flies too high and falls into the sea and drowns. 

So, how does this all relate to BTS and the BTS Universe (BU)?

In "Boy With Luv", Namjoon specifically references Icarus and his wings. "the wings of Icarus you gave me" implies that he is using the wings, however, instead of flying too close to the sun, it's ARMY, or whoever the 'you' is in the song. However, I would argue this line is still dark and may be self-aware of the self-destruction this could cause. Just like it caused Icarus. 

In the music video, Namjoon is also wearing all white, which could be a reference to the bull that was technically the Minotaur's father. Namjoon's overall storyline in the BU could also be related to this story. For a long time, Namjoon's storyline was eluding me. It was obvious there was self-doubt in the character and internal struggle, but beyond that, it was difficult to tell what his storyline was. 

However, in the WEBTOON, we see Namjoon is imprisoned after getting angry and beating up a costumer. While--as a reader--we still side with Namjoon because of the costumer's rudeness and instigation, his actions were still overkill. The Minotaur is not imprisoned in the Labyrinth until he starts to become aggressive. Prisons are obviously supposed to be inescapable (although in practicality we all know that isn't necessarily true, but remember, the Labyrinth proved not to be inescapable as well). In the WEBTOON, Jin doesn't break Namjoon out of prison, rather he prevents the event from happening the first place.