What's going on with Yunho and Yeosang?
Yeosang sleeps, Yunho wakes.
I don't think it's a coincidence that they're styled to look so similar
These two have emerged as main characters within the Ateez storyline, with so many similarities but wildly opposite trajectories.
They have each suffered. Yeosang was subjected to terrible abuse by the Guardians in World Z, and the trauma lingers in World A:
Back then, after the others had finally made their way back to World Z and saved Yeosang, it was as though he’d lost his voice - as though he were someone who had lost all feeling, devoid of emotion and showing no reaction even to the members’ words. It wasn’t until much later that Yeosang began to open up about that time.
“I thought there was no way out. At first, I tried to find ways to survive, to escape, but before long… I realized there was no way. I don’t know if the Guardians stole my emotions from me or…”
In Yeosang’s dark, tear-filled eyes, the wounds left by despair and fear were still there, raw and unhealed.
He was the last to awaken from Sopro's trance when Wooyoung first activates the cube...
Jongho: “Yeosang hasn’t woken up yet, right? Hold on…”
Hearing from the other members what happened, and seeing Yeosang drowning in sorrow, he decided to use the same method that had worked for him. Like a doctor diagnosing and treating a sick patient, Jongho calmly played ATEEZ’s music for Yeosang. For a moment, Yeosang held his head in pain, just like the other members had, before life returned to his eyes as he regained consciousness. Wooyoung pulled Yeosang in for a tight hug, sorry that he had misunderstood and resented him for so long.
If we follow the theory that parts of Golden Hour, if not all, have been a dream or the influence some kind of mind-altering mechanism from World Z, then Yeosang seems to be our Dreamer. Ash would suggest some level of awareness, or perhaps subconscious direction.
If Yeosang is our Dreamer, then Golden Hour is his dream of a peaceful life, conjured to escape the pain and failure of his time in World Z. It's why he grows so defensive when Wooyoung urges them to rekindle their flame of passion:
Yeosang: “I don’t consider my current life to be ‘defeat.’”
Wooyoung: “So, then, you think we’ve all achieved our dreams?”
Yeosang: “Let me put it this way: You think life that doesn’t follow your original dream is a failure, then? Something to be ashamed of?”
The members grew pale at the suddenly charged atmosphere of the conversation.
Yeosang was frustrated with Wooyoung, who clung blindly to his obsession with dreams. And while blindness is at times both enchanting and noble, there are other times when it becomes a trap. The reason why hard work and effort put towards one’s dream feel so noble, is that dreams can often seem like a sort of divine mission - and many people blindly accept them as such.
If you believe that the only way to live is to follow your dreams, it’s only natural that anything else would feel frightening and shameful, like a failure. The sense of defeat the members felt before arriving in World Z was that exactly - the trap of blindness. But what they learned in World Z was not that they could be heroes, but the importance of emotions and art, dreams and hope. And that blind belief in anything leads to grave consequences. At least, that’s how Yeosang saw it, and he had hoped the members felt the same.
Yeosang: “Grow up. How long do you plan on acting so recklessly?”
Sopro emerges as an element of chaos in Yeosang's neat, orderly reality. Even its appearance in World A is a mystery to the members, including Yeosang, which I find very interesting. Yeosang is already an unreliable narrator, so how did Sopro really make it to World A?
San: “Yeosang, you mean you took this without telling the rest of us?”
Yeosang: “What’re you talking about? I asked you over and over which one of us should take it.”
Everyone was shocked by Yeosang’s sudden remarks. Yeosang continued, “I asked you all again and again in both World Z and World A, but either you weren’t listening or changed the subject on me. I had no choice but to bring it back myself.” When the members questioned “When? When did you ask us?”
Yeosang replied: “Don’t you remember me asking you all ‘What should we do with Sopro?’
One could speculate that Sopro not the "antagonist" of the Golden Hour era, but a red herring. Has it been incepted into the collective dream of the members in order to wake them up? If so, then by who?
Would "defeating" Sopro trigger the realization foreshadowed at the very beginning of our Golden Hour series? That nothing has ever been as it seems?
The mv trailer suggests that Yeosang is already beginning to struggle with Sopro's influence on his dream; the visual callback to Crazy Form, with its blood red moon, reinforces the theory, shared by many, that they never left World Z....
Meanwhile, I've already shared my theory that Yunho is aware that they're in a dream. He has already broken control and now seeks to awaken the others.
Like Yeosang, Yunho has also endured unimaginable pain due to the loss of his brother, which he traumatically re-experiences when they go back to the past. In the end, Yunho makes the choice to save Yeosang, and history repeats itself.
But unlike Yeosang, still suffering the aftereffects of his captivity, Yunho has been able to achieve some kind of closure, thanks to his brother's final words:
“There’s something I need to tell you… It wasn’t your fault that I got injured back then, and even now, it wasn’t your fault. So leave me in the past and move on with your own life.”
Yunho was weeping. His brother slowly patted Yunho’s head. “I love you, my brother. You know what I always say, right? You’re doing your best just by going through the day. I was happy enough for the last two weeks. I appreciate it.” Then, Yunho’s brother passed out. Yunho put his head down on his brother’s chest and wailed.
Of the two of them, Yunho appears to be the one to wake up from the Golden Hour dream they're in. The mv trailer reinforces this theory with some deliberate callbacks to Lemon Drop, perhaps the most "we're in a dream right now" of the Golden Hour music videos.
In Lemon Drop, the tv was on and the fan was running. In the mv trailer, both appliances are turned off.
And recall, in Lemon Drop, that it's Yunho who is separated from the group and finds the Halateez boots in the trunk of the car.
A few loretiny have pointed out that the Yunho/Yeosang connection has been foreshadowed since Inception era. In this performance, Yeosang falls asleep, and Yunho wakes up 👇
In the music video for Inception, there are some interesting visual parallels between Yeosang and Yunho (positioned in much the same way as in the Bad mv trailer).
How might Yeosang's role as Dreamer clash with Yunho's role as Awakener?
Are they in opposition, or two sides of the same coin?
