My ZERO : FEVER Part 2 Diary Version album finally came in, and you better believe that the first thing I did was pull that bad boy open to read the notes! (Very...gently...) This album gave us a lot of insight into the world of the Halateez as a whole, and in some ways was kind of the opposite of the first album (which gave us more info about the member's realm). So without further ado, let's get into it! I'm going to highlight some parts from each of the chapters in an attempt to link the Diary Film, the diary notes and ar cards from the first album, and the MVs together. To quote Intro : Long Journey, will you join us? Er--me? Introduction There are ten diary entries in Fever pt.2--one for each of the boys (of course Mingi included!!) and an intro and outro. The first thing that stuck out to me was, to literally no one's surprise, The Chromer. Chromer? Cromer? I'll go with Cromer. The Cromer. Apparently, this is the name of the hourglass device. We've evidentally had this name since Fever pt.1, I just didn't know because ya theorist nut is broke and couldn't buy the Diary ver. Sad days. In the outro note of Fever pt.1, we get to see the moment from the Diary Film play out in text. The man in the black fedora brings Hongjoong the Cromer and explains that it's the "key to connecting the world." Back to our note. intro + Hongjoong The intro note for Fever pt.2 starts exactly where the outro note for Fever pt.1 ended. Like, exactly. Right there. (I'm a Big Hit/Hybe Universe theorist, okay? I'm not used to just getting my information handed to me. Give me a sec.) The Cromer flashes and they shift dimensions, although they don't seem to realize it at first. Until an army of people in white masks breaks down the door of the hideout, staring at the Cromer in Hongjoong's hand. So...slow down. There's more than one white masked man? Apparently. Not to mention the fact that apparently they are "giants" and "do not feel like humans." This is important. That's pretty much all that's covered on the intro note, so let's move on to Hongjoong's, which is on the same page. The first phrase of the note starts with Hongjoong, in true Hongjoong fashion, saying, "It did not matter where this place was or whether [it] was really located in a different dimension. What matters now is that those dangerous white-clad giants are out for the Cromer in our hands and if we lose [it] we cannot go home." Hongjoong mentions that he now has to protect both the boys and the Cromer at the same time. I bet that's harder than it looks. ;-; Yunho hands Hongjoong the Cromer and Hongjoong proceeds to throw it out of the window. No, I'm kidding. He grabs a piece of glass from the floor and throws it out of the window, meanwhile clutching the Cromer and hurrying the others outside. San + Wooyoung San's note opens with a phrase that confirms what I had suspected: "The place around the hideout was very similar to where we used to stay. If I had not faced the strange creatures, I would not have believed all the sayings about the different dimensions and the Cromer." He goes on to explain what I think all of us had expected; Halateez's universe is very similar to Ateez's, but ever-so-slightly different. (Dystopian fans, you've got to know what this is like.) If you look at the MV for Fireworks, you can see that too. The bunker that they're in is vaguely reminscient of the garage they're playing in during the Diary Film. One thing that stands out to me about San's note is he once again mentions "Bobo." What the heck is a Bobo? Apparently, San also mentions Bobo in the first album at the end of his note, asking Bobo what should he do? Bobo evidentally replies that San should do things his way, whatever that means. Bobo also pops up in San's AR photocard for Fever pt.1. "[...] Therefore, the only friend that I can open up to was my friend Bobo, who was always there beside me. I've never been away so long with Bobo. I'm worried if Bobo is eating well or not...hopefully Bobo is worried about me as well. Hey Bobo, I'm on a strange journey with my first real friends. I'm not too sure how I am here or where I am but don't worry too much. I will be back. I promise." I...have no idea what I'm supposed to think, at this point. It sounds as though Bobo may be a pet of some kind, or perhaps an imaginary friend, since San mentions his "real" friends. (side note~! one of my theorist friends came up with the idea that perhaps Bobo is a reference to the man in white or to Halasan. San has had some iffy decisions the past couple of MVs (full theory coming soon) and it could be possible that he's been becoming corrupted by the man in white or his Haladouble, unknowingly believing him to be a friend. just a thought--full credit to my friend!) Wooyoung's note begins on a bit of a different note: "The child who saved me matched well with the moonlight." Awkward translation, I think, but we'll go with it. It turns out that the boys were ambushed by the white giants while they rested in the forest. They tried to run away but one of the men caught Wooyoung by the ankle. In the member's attempts to run them off, they lost the Cromer. A girl who lived in a cave on the cliff above them rolled rocks down the hill Indiana-Jones-style to get rid of the men in white before inviting the boys into her cave. (Personally, I wouldn't go into a creepy cave with someone I didn't know, but it turned out alright for them, at least.) The girl had a brother who explained that the girl was mute because the giants had taken away her voice. This makes me suspect that she was a singer since (as Seonghwa will explain in a minute) art was outlawed. The boy says that their names are the Grimes siblings. (pronounced grime, not grim) seonghwa Seonghwa's note is the first to take up its own page, but since it gives us a lot of information, we'll forgive him. "'One day, they suddenly disappeared.' The Grimes siblings looked at us with sad eyes." I don't know who "they" is but pay attention--we're getting the lowdown on the entire Halateez world right now. I'm just going to copy what the note says because to be honest it explains it better than I can. "According to the Grimes siblings, the central government here established a stable future policy for the entire human race by running AI simulations. They put the blame on human emotions for causing crimes and terrorisms that threaten[ed] humanity and so the key to their policy was to control the variables called [emotion.] A bill to lower human emotions below the thresholds (?) by using advanced technology, and a bill to ban the arts which greatly affects emotion, had been passed. Consequently, the central government had achieved high growth under a strong control policy, and people enjoyed material affluence. However, laughter disappeared from their faces and only efficency and logic became the priority in this society." TL;DR--in a traditional dystopian sense, the government took control of emotion by using AIs, androids, and banning all artistic activities. Everybody gained a lot of stuff (material affluence), but nobody was really "happy" as they were all focused on logic. "As those days continued, men wearing black fedoras began to appear one day. They sung and performed here and there and that was said to have the power to attract people. Being stimulated by these men, people who escaped the control began to appear. People from various fields formed a resistance against the central government and called themselves 'the Black Pirates.'" TL;DR--the Halateez are actually subjectively good, as they're the rebels of their society. Also--hello, pirates!! "The central government put the men in black fedoras on the wanted list, but they repeatedly failed to arrest them due to them being able to teleport using the Cromer. However, at last, by putting in the new Android Guardians--probably the white-clad giants who came to catch us--the government succeeding in capturing the men in black fedoras." TL;DR--because of Ateez's entrance, the Halateez got captured. Now the government has control of the Halateez, the Cromer, and the men in white, who are known as Android Guardians. This is bad. Seonghwa, in an abnormal Seonghwa fashion, says that he couldn't care less about the Black Pirates and the resistance. All he wants is to get the Cromer back so they can go home. His note reads very much that way, too--he does not care. yeosang Yeosang's note is different as it's the only one written like a letter. A letter to his father, to be exact. We already know from the Diary Film and Fever Road that Yeosang has an interesting relationship with his parents--restrictive at best, controlling at worst. Despite all of this, the letter still begins "To my beloved father." Yeosang mentions "strictland," a word which you can find written in the music video inside the train car that serves as their door to the outside. "Strictland" is an archaic term for an isthmus--in normal person words, it's an old word for a strip of land with sea on either side of it. Here however, it may more be referencing an irreversable change, as his letter reads "Father, I am walking towards the Strictland where I may not be able to come back [from]." Yeosang talks about though the road he's chosen may be difficult, he'd prefer to walk it rather than his father's, because at least it's his choice. One of the parts of the letter is very interesting; it goes as follows: "Everyone says this is a new world but somehow, I'm familiar with the scenery here. The city I faced after coming [out?] of the woods, I could only see people who were running without taking a single look at the sky, as if they were being chased,* people who took the escalators like products being placed on machines, people who removed unnecessary smiles and only talked about their needs, and people who are only looking at small machines having forgotten how to see each other face to face. I thought that maybe this place is not a new world, but that I'm just taking a microscopic look at the world I was in." * - This is probably a reference to the concept trailers which mention people not looking at the stars. Also, in Yeosang's concept photo from Fever pt.1 his image had the caption "Adults said 'look up at the stars in the night sky.' But the stars did not shine in the night sky that I was looking at and I continued to walk looking at the ground." His character references the sky and specifically stars multiple times... Yeosang also mentions in the notes for Fever pt.1 that he liked to mess with mechanical things. "Every time I felt stuffy, I would disassemble various appliances or instruments and then reassemble them back together." This is striking me as weird for some reason. Mingi + Jongho Y'all don't understand how happy I was when I flipped the page and saw Mingi's name at the top of the next diary entry like seriously- T.T Mingi's entry is just so...Mingi. I can't explain it, but his character's tone comes through the best in his diary entry. Mingi says that if the boys want to find the Cromer, they have to go to the bunker of the Android Guardians. (Yes, of course. Go to the headquarters of the bad guys. That can't possibly be a bad idea.) To find the bunker, however, they have to know where it is. The boys have to talk to 'Left Eye,' who is the owner of the Strictland dump. Apparently. "As if they were continously burning trash, the yellow smoke, which is said to cause hallucinations, was constantly soaring. Perhaps because of that, the man named Left Eye was mumbling to himself in the air. (?)" The smoke around the area causes hallucinations...or illusions. "Thanks to nosy Wooyoung, we decided to find out the location of the Android bunker as well as regain the voice of the Grimes girl. That dude is always so unnecessarily nosy like that." Now might be a good time to bring up the fact that Mingi and Wooyoung's characters have been friends for a very long time. In the first album, Mingi's note was all about Wooyoung--how he's the reason Mingi went to the hideout in the first place, how Wooyoung was with him through all of his school years, how Wooyoung wouldn't let him sit alone, etc. This is likely meant in either a teasing manner or to show that something is going on between them. "By what we've heard from Hongjoong and the Grimes siblings, that Left Eye man seems to have his own story too. Whatever, there's no one without a story. Anyway, we split into teams. Members who wil go into a pile of trash that resembles a cave to find the voice and members who will convince Left Eye to find out the location of the Android bunker. I was in the latter." The sarcasm in this note resembles Mingi's character so well... Aside from my writing nerd popping out, we now "know" why Mingi wasn't in the video and why the boys were all surrounding the stereo--he went to find Left Eye. The only other person that I know went was Yunho. "Boing boing. I heard a basketball bounce." Oh, poor Jongho. Here we go. Jongho explains that to find the Grimes girl's voice, he had to go into the cave. He had a gas mask on to keep out the smoke and a string around his body that way he didn't get lost. "I don't even know how someone can abandon a voice and find it back, but they say it's possible because of the new energy extraction thing." The what-what? Jongho goes in to find the voice after hearing that (apparently) a voice looks like "a bead with blue condensed energy inside." After that, I don't know exactly what happens. I don't know if he takes the gas mask off or what. Somehow, he must've inhaled the gas because all of a sudden he's "in" the basketball court, illusioning himself into the game where his career went up in smoke. yunho + Outro Last but not least is Yunho. "Left Eye, who ran a small but unique brand shop after studying fashion design, was often disqualified from interviews at the fashion house due to his unfriendly appearance. However, he had great skills and was a warm person with a passion." (are you sure this is the same story-?) "Until he lost his daughter." (yeah it's the same story-) To sum up a long story short, Left Eye's daughter was trying to save a flower in the middle of the road when she was in a car accident. Nobody helped her and Left Eye only found out later. He met his daughter's illusion while wandering around in the dump and the Android Guardian selected him to become the manager of the Strictland. Of course, Yunho feels sympathetic because of what happened to his own brother. He explains that to get the location of the bunker, they have to make Left Eye realize that his daughter is an illusion. And in the outro note, that's exactly what happens. It's a short note, so I'll type the whole thing here. "The safety strap tied to Jongho's body stopped and no longer moved. Worried Yeosang went into the trash cave wearing the last reamining gas mask to find out about the situation. ~ The game that caused Jongho's ankle injury was going on in front of his eyes. Jongho dismissed all the things that had happened as mere illusion and deja vu and ran more fiercely to erase the disgrace of that past. ~ Left Eye started to attack the members. Running away from Left Eye who was chasing them, they secretly lured him into a smoke-free space. When his daughter's illusion disappeared, he became even more furious. Everyone was unsure what to do, but then Yunho shouted amid the silence. 'Your daughter is dead!' Everyone looked at Yunho in surprise. 'You're denying it because you don't want to believe, but aren't you already aware of the truth?' Yunho accused him once again. 'I'll kill you!' Left Eye let out a shriek and swung a big bat at Yunho. ~ 'Jongho!' When Yeosang had arrived, Jongho was intoxicated with illusion and was running furiously towards the cliff." To sum things up-- Jongho's caught in an illusion of his last game of basketball and Yeosang goes into the cave to find him. Yunho and the other boys that went to talk to Left Eye are trying to get the man to snap out of it. Alright, enough of the analysis. Part three will be coming out soon and it will have my full Fever Pt.2 theories! Keep an eye out!
- Ilona O'Connor
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