Interlude Shadow & the journey down the map of the soul - how Yoongi shows, rather than tells, of his deeper foray into his subconscious & growing understanding of his self [ thread ]

Throughout this track, Yoongi not only creates distinct identities for his persona & shadow +

+ without ever actually spelling it out, but he illustrates his discovery of the shadow, the growing presence of it around him, the final conflict & resolution of these 2 parts of himself, through a range of creative choices. In filmmaking, there's something called +

+ the "show, don't tell" principle - effective storytelling happens when the viewer can piece together the narrative from what they're seeing, what characters say (and don't say) to each other, than having someone dump a load of information on you (ie. exposition) +

+ Yoongi is an expert at this principle of "show, don't tell". I've often described his music as cinematic - this is because he is so excellent at contriving every minute detail within his songs to evoke a specific effect, tell a specific story. Shadow is no exception +

+ if anything, Shadow is a prime showcase of just how masterful he is at creating entire, multi-faceted experiences through music.

Interlude Shadow is from the POV of rapstar, rockstar, king Yoongi. How can this larger than life person make the listener, with our different +

+ lived experiences, relate to his singular dilemma? By taking us directly inside his head, into his subconscious. Right down the map of his soul. +

+ the first lines of this song are in English - this is Yoongi's persona speaking, the outward projection of his self. Befitting of the persona, he tells us of his desires +

+ as we progress through the song, we move deeper inside; Yoongi encounters his Shadow - the part of the subconscious that his conscious mind isn't aware of, the unknown. And as most of us react to the unknown, Yoongi is afraid of this Shadow, of the darkness +

+ he says he tries to run away, but it follows. This is the crux of the matter - you can't outrun your shadow. Think about that old riddle - I was with you at birth, and I will be with you until your end. Your shadow exists as long as you do. Yoongi not understanding it, & +

+ wishing to outrun it, indicates that his persona is still unaware of his subconscious self and its desires, unaware of his shadow.

But the shadow's presence exists throughout this song, & the more Yoongi speaks about climbing higher, afraid & dizzy, the larger it grows +

+ and I ADORE this imagery. This is so clever because from basic science we know that the closer an object is to the light source, the bigger the shadow is casts. Yoongi describes the irony of meeting himself at his lowest when he is at the summit - high up in the cloudless sky +

+ this is the moment that the shadow is at its largest, it's grown into this fully realised presence and it is once Yoongi has reached this height that his shadow starts talking to him. I love this detail so much. Yoongi paints this picture of himself climbing, afraid, +

+ inadvertently casting a bigger and bigger shadow the closer he gets to the light, until it's grown enough for him to see, recognize and hear. +

+ but I don't think this is the first we hear of the shadow. It's presence is there throughout the song, and as its presence deepens around Yoongi, it asserts itself more powerfully. First, in the extended version of the song, Shadow starts off with +

+ scratches & distant siren sounds - they're far away, for now. I've compared the scratches before to the type of sound a gramophone makes when you slot a dusty record into it - the needle scratching at the grit. I like that analogy a lot, bc it's like a physical embodiment of +

+ unleashing what's inside, outward. Pretty literally, it feels like the persona - the outward self - versus the shadow - what's stored inside the record. +

+ Another detail that I love SO much in the extended version is the background vocals in the chorus. Yoongi sings, his vocals powerful & pleading & devastating, but each line is followed by a somewhat distorted echo - "please don't let me shine (shine)" +

+ I love this detail so so much because I like thinking about this little echoing voice as Yoongi's shadow - not yet fully realised or recognised but it's there, it exists, & it's almost contradicting him, or embodying that in reality, as much as Yoongi is afraid of this height +

+ he still craves it. And in fact I think the acceptance of the persona and shadow as two sides of the same coin hinges on recognizing this fact. Yoongi's persona says "now I know that sometimes running away is the second best" while his Shadow says "do you get it now, that +

+ always doing your best is the first best"

It feels like they're two sides of the same argument here, except they agree. Both sides of Yoongi agree that running away isn't the first best, but what Persona Yoongi hasn't figured out, Shadow Yoongi tells him +

+ first, he forces persona Yoongi to confront the very thing that perhaps he was running away from. Isn't this what you want? And if it's not, why aren't you letting go? It's brutal in the way that only we can be with ourselves - the switch to the pronoun "you" vs persona's "I" +

+ the moment of facing oneself. I have 0 technical musical knowledge, I can't comment on flow or rhythm or whatever the term is, but as a living breathing feeling person, there's so much to unpack in just Yoongi's tone here, the inflections he uses +

+ this entire new section in the extended version just adds a whole new dimension to the narrative journey of this song. Yoongi sounds distinctively different here - he emotes aggressively, almost as though he is bitter or mocking his persona's naiveté +

+ he throws a plethora of rhetorical questions at himself, pushes him to question himself. I /adore/ the little pauses and inflections peppered throughout this entire section because Yoongi makes it sound like a conversation, like he's goading himself, reprimanding himself +

+ he's taking his persona's much loved & referenced lyrics, spoken thus far outwardly (big house, big cars, big rings) back at himself & feels like a deep personal cut +

+ the next time we hear the words of Yoongi's persona from the beginning of the song, stating his desires, the acoustic music with the piano & violins we started the song with, vulnerable & emotional, are faltering, & his voice rumbles with what feels like resignation +

+ but those faraway siren sounds from the beginning are right up close now & almost like watching Yoongi transform into a different person we can HEAR him switch into his Shadow +

+ the music gives way to more jarring dissonant aggressive industrial sounds & when Yoongi asserts all the things he wants to be, his voice no longer carries the same wistfulness of his persona's - he is unapologetic & assertive now, & there's a new line - "I wanna be me" +

+ according Jung's philosophy, Shadow is the instinctive or irrational being - the rawness in this part of the song, the unleashed aggression, mirrors that thought. Meanwhile, the less one is aware of one's shadow, the less complete one's realization of self is +

+ hence the culmination of this entire journey; "yeah I'm you, and you're me, do you see it now?" he repeatedly asks, as though hammering the point home, and in a way, that's exactly what he's doing. And it's only with the acceptance that the final wish to be "me" & to just "be"+

+ to exist, can be realized.

I love, LOVE how the Yoongi shows us the moment the two sides merge into one, the moment Yoongi realizes that his shadow is an extension of himself - we've gone from the pronoun "I" of the persona outwardly expressing themselves +

+ to the "you" of the shadow beginning to speak to Yoongi, to "we're one body and sometimes we'll crash, / you can't take me off you, whatever you do" (contrast to persona Yoongi trying to run away from his Shadow) to "we're you & we're me, do you get it?" +

+ the final line of the song with the pronoun "we" shows the moment of acceptance this has all been leading to - the final acceptance of oneness between Persona and Shadow. I love how the MV shows this in the really cool way too - Yoongi walking away, with mismatched eyes +

+ he embodies both sides of his self now. I also really love this moment in the MV where he drops down from the corridor on to the top of a VERY elevated stage. It's the visual representation of the lines about meeting himself at the lowest when he's at the very top +

+ I also think Shadow's narrative isn't contained JUST within Shadow. Yoongi's verses in Black Swan & closely looking at Shadow & BS side by side made me think about how Shadow might be the inside out version of what Black Swan's narrative is all about https://twitter.com/anotherunperson/status/1310253295525482496?s=19

+ I'll end here with the disclaimer that all these are my opinions and interpretations & apologizing coz I know this isn't structured well & I think I left out things I wanted to talk about...i get very overwhelmed when trying to talk about Shadow it's just so insanely ingenious.

+ a wayyy better written thread I've actually grown kinda proud of if you're interested in reading https://twitter.com/anotherunperson/status/1309502985731358721?s=19

Translations I used by the lovely @doolsetbangtan https://www.google.com/amp/s/doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2020/01/09/interlude-shadow/amp/

I'M BACK to add that I also think it's really cool that at no point does Yoongi actively say the English word Shadow or make any direct Jungian reference, he allows the experience of the song to speak for itself