WMG / LOONA

LOONA is establishing a reputation for the depth of its lore (yes, that's right, a K-Pop girl group with its own lore) and the way it's embedded and hinted at in everything the group releases, from music videos to song lyrics to reveal pictures. So far, we know that the group's material all comes together to create one big story about the twelve members and how they're trapped in different dimensions. But many questions still remain:

• Which order, canonically, do the videos actually come in?
• Who are the songs written about - other members (and if so, which ones), ambiguous bystanders, or the members of another Blockberry Creative group?
• How is the LOONAVERSE physically constructed?
• Why can only some members communicate with others?
• How does each member pass to another world?
• How many dimensions are there?
• How are the members connected to each other?
• Who's the next girl and what will her era be like?

Our job is to work as fans to answer these questions, using the references and hints embedded in everything associated with LOONA. Hopefully, this page will help us.

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Notable Examples in Music Videos

Heejin and Vivid era

• The first colour shot in the whole LOONA video repertoire is Heejin's right eye opening, which foreshadows the eye motif featured throughout ODD EYE CIRCLE.
• When her head isn't shown, Heejin wears a black, Victorian-style dress similar to Go Won's and points a finger, hinting that the two girls are connected. If she's pretending to be her, maybe Go Won is in control of her?
• The Vivid set interior is very similar to the interior in Heart Attack, when Yves is sitting inside and Chuu is by the window.
• When Heejin hits enough yellow balls into the corner, we can see the three lights flash into ODD EYE CIRCLE's colours for a split-second.
• The golf motifs throughout this MV mirror those in Yves's.
• The end of the MV (with rabbits and swirling colours) appears to be modelled after a 1948 Magritte painting. This is made only more likely by the amount of Rene Magritte references in later releases, especially involving the third subunit.

Hyunjin and Around You era

• When Hyunjin walks down a hallway, we can see a photo stuck to the wall that looks like what could be a Yves reveal photo.
• At about 3:00 in the Around You full film, a bird call plays. The exact sound is later repeated at the start of Kiss Later, the start and end of Eclipse and the end of Girl Front. Especially significant; the scenes in Around You and Eclipse when the sound effect plays are very similar, with both girls walking towards a significant place with only their shoes shown.

Haseul and Let Me In era

• Similarities with Girl Front:
  • Haseul arrives in Iceland in the same car the OEC girls ride in. In both instances, we have no idea who's driving.
  • The drawings of paper planes that flash up on the screen are just like the planes the girls throw to each other.
  • The scene where Haseul kills her bird-self with a slingshot is the same as a shot in Girl Front where Kim Lip does the same thing.
• There's a shot near the end where Haseul looks down at the camera, which is the same as one in Girl Front where all of OEC look down at the same angle.
• The diamonds on the ground are similar to the earrings worn by Kim Lip and Jinsoul in Love Cherry Motion.
• The scenes in The Carol where the girls throw feathers at each other are the same as the sequences in Heart Attack where Chuu dreams of being with Yves at Christmas time. The two M Vs take place at the same time, as Haseul arrives in Heart Attack wearing her costume from The Carol.

Yeojin and Kiss Later era

• This MV is the first where the dream sequences take place in a pink room. Jinsoul's and Chuu's also follow the pattern, and these two members are already heavily associated with Yeojin.
• The IATA codes on Yeojin's fridge feature some locations the girls have been to already (Paris, London) and some they have yet to visit (Rio de Janeiro).
• The cakes scattered around in Yeojin's dream sequences (when she's in the pink room) are next seen in Chuu's "who's next girl" image.

LOONA 1/3 debut and Love and Live era

• Everything in Love and Live nearly adds up to 5; the girls run a relay race in 4:75, and Vi Vi's battery timer runs down from 5 hours. This probably symbolises the lack of Yeojin as the "slash" from the 1/3 unit as a 5th member; she couldn't promote the first time around due to her age, but will join the unit when the full group debuts.
• This MV is probably the culmination of LOONA's running motif; Kiss Later, Singing in The Rain, Girl Front, Sweet Crazy Love and One and Only also feature it to some extent.

Vi Vi and Everyday I Love You era

• It's highly possible that the boy Vi Vi loves in her debut MV is actually Yves in disguise. Vi Vi has a swan sticker in her scrapbook, which is Yves's animal.
• Vi Vi is also reading the Girl Talk books. One of their covers features two girls skating together, just like in "new". Girl's Talk is actually the title of Chuu's B-side.

LOONA 1/3 reissue and Sonatine era

• Sonatine starts and ends with the same shot of Hyunjin, which foreshadows Odd Eye Circle's loop/mirror motif.
• When Jinsoul is revealed in the Everyday I Need You special MV,she's wearing an inverted version of what Go Won wears in her reveal pictures.

Kim Lip and Eclipse era

• The shot at the end, where Kim Lip is visible from behind a wall, is an exact repeat of one in Girl Front.

Jinsoul and Singing in the Rain era

• Jinsoul's running scenes in this MV are shot very similarly to Yeojin's in Kiss Later.

Choerry and Love Cherry Motion era

• Theories about the mirror pattern we see in the field:

• The mirrors make the shape of a paper plane, like the ones we see in Girl Front and Let Me In.
• The mirrors make the shape of a bat (Choerry's animal)
• The mirrors make the shape of a butterfly (Go Won's animal)
• The paintings shown in the backgrounds of reveal pictures from Yves onwards can be mapped out based on the museums they're housed in. The pattern would be the same as the formation of mirrors in the MV. This works perfectly well until it comes to Go Won's Renoir necklace, so would have to be limited to paintings hung on the wall.

Odd Eye Circle debut and Girl Front era

• The map is formed in the same pattern as the mirrors in Love Cherry Motion.
• Viewers who look carefully will notice there's a tiger sticker on the map (no, not a cat, that appears separately to mark Hyunjin), and an apple, which respectively hint to the twelfth member (maybe) and to Yves.

ODD EYE CIRCLE reissue and Sweet Crazy Love era

• The symbols on the sight test are a butterfly (Go Won's animal) and a plane (probably a reference to Haseul's filming location)

Yves and new era

• The whole MV is a callback to Heejin, from the golfing scenes to Yves' outfit when she's operating the arcade game.
• Yves is a transwoman. She cuts ties to her name, changes out of the masculine converse into the feminine high heels, the Ugly Duckling story she's based off of stars a male swan, and most significant of all, in "Everyday I Love You", she actually is male. The great change in herself she sings about is her change from man to woman.

Chuu and Heart Attack era

• Chuu's MV is full of Edward Hopper references. The bus and corridor scenes are modelled off actual paintings by him. In her dream sequence, there's a painting by him, although viewers might not recognise it first-hand as it's from his lesser-known seascape career.
• One shot is an exact copy of Rene Magritte's 1952 painting "The Listening Room".

Go Won and One and Only era

• The butterfly used as Go Won's signature animal is a papilio ulysses. This is a link to James Joyce's novel Ulysses, which is split into three parts and eighteen "episodes" - just like LOONA, which has three subunits and eighteen predebut title tracks.

Notable Examples in Song Lyrics

• Vivid's lyrics reference other members of LOONA; Heejin sings about "a white rabbit, a dove" (her and Haseul's animals) and "red, orange, yellow, green" (Kim Lip, Yeojin, Hyunjin and Haseul's colours)
• Singing in the Rain's lyrics have the lyric "For the sin of swallowing all the stars in the sky" and is referenced again in Egoist.
• A common fan theory is that Jinsoul stole Kimlip's odd eye. This is primarily theorized due to a lyric sung by Jinsoul in Why Not "Countless eyes fall on me and gets tangled up with My eyes which causes misunderstandings easily" paired with a visual zoom in on Jinsoul's odd eye (But this could also be a Red Herring).
  • Other evidence includes the lack of Odd Eye imagery for Kimlip within the next two music videos, especially her distress at the colorless three moons(Common symbol for OEC)in Why Not and the lack of her assigned colors ring-light in PTT, unlike the other two OEC members.

Notable Examples in Reveal Pictures

• Heejin's sixth reveal photo, where her name is in Go Won's colour and she's riding a carousel horse. This is a reference to the Catcher in the Rye; the caption to Go Won's "Who's Next Girl" photo was "The Catcher In The Apple Field". This novel ends when the protagonist takes his little sister on a carousel ride.
• One of Hyunjin's reveal photos is exactly the same as one of Choerry's.

General Theories: Group Structure

6 of LOONA's members can be connected through their complementary colours.

• Jinsoul and Yeojin
  • Their blue and orange colours are complementaries
  • They have the only aquatic or semiaquatic animals in LOONA
  • Although their videos are different in tone, both have near-identical running shots.
• Haseul and Kim Lip
  • Red and green
  • Their MVs are eerily very similar, in colour palette and shots used
  • The same shot is repeated between Haseul in Let Me In and Kim Lip in Girl Front, where the member in question shoots a bullet at a version of themselves
• Choerry and Hyunjin
  • Yellow and purple
  • Both have nocturnal animals
  • Facial shots line up in their videos, and both depict them travelling to a different reality

Overall, this would link every ODD EYE CIRCLE member with somebody who isn't in the subunit - a purer version of themselves. Since pink doesn't have a definite complementary colour, it could be that Heejin and Vivi just act as messengers and gateways for the rest of the girls. Heejin's song can definitely be seen as an introduction, and Vivi introduced an OEC girl in her second MV.

The Last Member Fits Into The Next Unit

• Each subunit of LOONA has a special characteristic within the group which all their members share.
  • LOONA 1/3 members travel to different countries to film
  • ODD EYE CIRCLE members have glowing eyes
  • yyxy are represented by fruits
• The last member of each unit so far (Vivi, Choerry) has something in common with members of the next unit.
  • Vivi's eye can light up (see Love and Live MV) which associates her with ODD EYE CIRCLE even though she debuted in 1/3.
  • Choerry is represented by a cherry, which associates her with yyxy even though she debuted in OEC.
• From this, we can guess that the last member of the group will travel to film like members of the first unit (as LOONA is a loop - see the Mobius section).
  • Proven wrong - Egoist was, as far as we know, filmed in Seoul. It's likely that the last unit's first MV will be filmed overseas, though.
    • Confirmed - yyxy's MV for love4eva was filmed in Hungary.
• This troper just realized that, while none of the yyxy girls traveled to a different country to shoot their first MV, one of the OEC girls did: Jinsoul's first appearance was in the MV for Everyday I Need You, which was filmed in Hong Kong. Thus, could it mean that it's the ODD EYE CIRCLE unit that ties the loose ends in the LOONAVERSE?

General Theories: Mobius

• The idea of an infinite loop has been repeating in LOONA M Vs and to the point where it's become unavoidable. Kim Lip actually said to a Dazed UK interviewer that "People might not have noticed, but ‘Möbius’ is an important hint for LOOΠΔ moving forward." Fan theorists mostly think that the LOONAVERSE itself takes the form of a Mobius loop: members are isolated from, connected to or able to meet each other according to where they're located in the loop. Some examples of hints to this:
  • Kim Lip's shirt with infinity signs as buttons
  • Mobius Strip bracelets worn by ODD EYE CIRCLE in the LA era
  • The Girl Front MV starting and ending with the same scene (Kim Lip operating a cassette player), with a repeat at the end of Eclipse's ending shot
  • The Greek letters for P and D at the end of LOONA's stylised logo, meaning some accidentally pronounce it "Looped"

Sweet Crazy Love MV and a second Mobius

• There's a clear shot of a neon sign spelling out "Mobius" in mirrored Korean Hangul.
• Next to it is a neon sign that says "Back Of The Moon" in Hangul.
• The Mobius crater, named after the mathematician, lies on the dark side of the moon.
• This crater was discovered and photographed by a Russian probe named...Luna 3.
• Our group name is Loona. This MV arrived just before members from the third subunit were revealed.

• However, just Googling "mobius sign" creates a whole other theory.
  • We mostly know of Mobius the mathematician, but there was another important man by this name, Paul Julius Mobius.
  • He was a psychologist, researching causes of human disease.
  • He discovered and named the "Mobius sign," a symptom of Graves' disease in which the eyes are, literally, odd. As in, odd eyed, as in LOONA's second subunit, ODD EYE CIRCLE.
  • It's possible that all or some of these members have this disease. We can see fast shots of a virus in the MV for Sweet Crazy Love, and lots of eye trauma imagery.
  • There are also plenty of allusions in the song's lyrics to a fast heartbeat, a major symptom of the disease. For example, "You made my heart race" and "my heartbeat quickens". Although this isn't extremely unusual in a love song, it's a more prominent theme than in the rest of LOONA's discography.

dlrowehtanool

• From Yves onwards, roughly half of a member's reveal pictures feature a reversed website link; what was once "loonatheworld.com" is now "dlrowehtanool.com". The reversed website originally featured LOONA's logo over an animation of a Mobius loop, but was changed in Olivia's era to show a pink and blue strip of DNA.
• Interestingly, the photos for each member that have a reversed link are usually different in style to the ones with a normal link:
  • Yves' photos with a reversed link feature her wearing a Swan Lake costume. When the link is normal, she's dressed as a schoolgirl.
  • Chuu is overly cute in her photos with a normal link. When the link is reversed, she's either covered in shadow or sitting with Yves.
  • Go Won has black hair in her normal link photos, and blonde hair in the reversed links.
  • These examples might tell us that in a reversed LOONAVERSE, Yves is a ballerina, Chuu and Yves are together, and Go Won is blonde; so at the end of One&Only, after Go Won cuts the pineapple ring, the world reverses.

General Theories: Ulysses

It was revealed in One&Only that Go Won's butterfly isn't just any butterfly; it's a papilio ulysses. Ulysses is Odysseus' Roman counterpart and the character is the star of Homer's The Odyssey.But how is this relevant to LOONA?

Character Similarities

• There are twelve female characters in The Odyssey, which is the same amount of members who will eventually make up LOONA.
• Each character represents one member:
  • Eurycleia, the maid who proves Odysseus' return, is Heejin. It's revealed at the end of ViViD that Heejin is a maid.
  • Penelope, Odysseus' wife who waits demurely for his return and wards off suitors is represented by Hyunjin, because of their shared shy demeanor.
  • Haseul is Arete, Nausicaa's mother.
  • Yeojin is Nausicaa, a young girl who refuses to show romantic affection to Odysseus (a la Kiss Later) but sends him on his way with a blessing. She's the daughter of Arete (Haseul).
  • Vivi represents Clytemnestra, a princess born under the same circumstances as Helen (Yves), which explains why they know each other so well in "new".
  • Kim Lip represents Athena, the goddess of war, as they're both symbolised by owls. Athena is also the mother of Pandora, who is namedropped in Eclipse.
  • Jinsoul represents either Scylla, a fearsome monster of the sea, or one of the Sirens; sea-dwelling maidens who sing men to their deaths.
  • Choerry is Circe, the goddess of magic and witchcraft, because of her bat symbol and refrain of "love, cherry, magic." They also both live in abandoned mansions within forest clearings.
  • Yves is Helen of Troy. She can shoot down others with just her face (as seen in Heart Attack) and has multiple suitors. She's also born from a swan's egg.
  • Chuu is Calypso, a nymph who traps Odysseus on an island for seven years, because of their unorthodox methods of finding love.
  • Go Won is Ino, as they're both crowned queens and associated with a veil (Ino gives hers to Odysseus)
  • This leaves Olivia Hye to represent Aphrodite. This means that LOONA will be reborn again with Heejin as, of course, "Aphrodite Means Death"; this is the title of the book Yves reads in Heart Attack.