GFRIENDVERSE: Crash Course and Theory Crafting (PART 1)
Consolidating a continuous storyline named “A Tale of the Glass Bead”, GFRIEND also has their own fictional universe. The story goes from a school series to a magical narrative. The main plot revolves around the friendship of a group of girls while they grow up surrounded by a mysterious universe and need to deal with loss, their friendship falling apart and a bittersweet feeling as they struggle to be together. Melodies, lyrics, choreography and music videos all come together to tell a story, making storytelling a strong signature of the group. — TV Tropes
a tale of the glass bead (short videos : trailers)
i. previous story
ii. butterfly effect
iii. comeback show recap
we competed fiercely
and after persevering finally we arrived at the place we wanted to be
and in this moment everything feels perfect
the feeling of anxiety comes to mind
chaotic emotions, a moment’s hesitation
we were shaken before too many options
it wasn’t that we were afraid of an uncertain future
but back then we didn’t know where we should go
maybe we were just catching our breaththe right choice came at a great cost
the voice of temptation pierced our hearts
and a red apple laid before us
from then on a different world was open to us
any reason to hesitate disappeared
we weren’t confused in the face of desire
with honesty with confidence
without worrying what anyone would think
we chose to walk our path
even if that moment were to come again we would take that bite
ARC SUMMARY
- THE GLASS CYCLE
- THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
- PARALLEL LINES
- HEAVENLY BODIES
- WHEEL OF THE YEAR
1. THE GLASS CYCLE
We were born and raised here. Together. We lived ordinary lives, happy for being together.
Also known as school trilogy, it’s the beginning of the journey. Like a school girl series meets slice of life, they create memories with each other until the imminent departure when their desire to change time arises. Their friendship is comparable with a glass, pure and strong, but when they start to running through time… Will their friendship prevail? Or will they lose their innocence along the way?
chapter i: glass bead (season of glass)
• glass bead happens at school, the girls are training in a gym.
chapter ii: me gustas tu or starting from today, we’re us (flower bud)
• a summer vacation.
•️ introducing the village and village tree.
chapter iii: me gustas tu (japanese version)
• the girls are preparing for a school festival and they finally have a training room for themselves.
chapter iv: rough or running through time (snowflake)
• graduation year.
• the intro says “there is a place we need to go”.
•️ eunha holds a love letter saying that this love has been through their school days (full translation), then she throws it as a paper airplane from the bridge.
•️ there is a time capsule that they open in the end.
•️ there are many letters for each other in the story, even a shared diary (or notebook).
•️ sowon is leaving, we don’t know where (could be their hometown if their school is in a city, it could be the city if the school is in their hometown?). when she reads the letter, she runs from the platform to meet the other girls:
Sowon, if you’re going away too, live well! Don’t forget our friendship. We miss you so much! Contact us often.
•️ yuju dreams of being a ballerina, there are ballet pictures over their dance practice.️ there are paintings as well (umji's?).
•️ the music video is inspired by the girl who leapt through time (2016). if not plot wise, maybe they were trying to hint at a time travel story.
2. THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
After their wish to change time in “Rough”, “Navillera” is the next chapter introduced. A romance is born, but Eunha went back to their hometown or is it a different timeline from what they met in high school?
chapter v: navillera (a new timeline?)
•️ navillera stands for a neologism with butterfly (navi) to describe a fluttering action similar to the movement of a butterfly presented in the “the nun’s dance” poem.
•️️ eunha is often seen with a butterfly in the overarching story, it could be related with her ability (update: the butterfly myth is unveiled in the second mini book).
•️ yerin is in love and confessed to eunha (confirmed). sinb gets closer to eunha throughout the music video and yerin gets light-hearted jealous.
•️ they have a lot of trophies, can be related to the school series motif, whether it’s from sport or dance competitions.
•️ yuju is the one with a camera. she was the one who filmed the scenes as well. this is usually a popular trope for stories involving butterfly effect.
•️️ the lyrics create a “reset” imagery:
Back at the starting point / Let’s speed things up a little.
•️️ before the chorus with its title name, the phrases that precede switch between “fly like a butterfly”, “bloom like the flowers” and “wake up from the dream”.
•️️ surprisingly, the most popular theory between buddies when the music video was released was that yerin was a ghost, but she said in navillera’s showcase that she thought eunha was a ghost (a/n: yerin likes open endings and to confuse buddies, umji is the one who usually gives the most reliable hints).
analysis: why the dynamics between eunha and the girls seem different? the girl leaving in “rough” was sowon, this leaves little evidence if eunha is returning. we know that she’s acting different and the group dynamics changed and if they were childhood friends, then they knew each other before this episode.
theory time: eunha has short hair in “love whisper” and “crossroads”. “navillera” could be eunha trying to fix one of these timelines. “fingertip” could have happened during “navillera” as well. this way, “navillera” could be a new timeline, one of eunha’s travels or a missing piece in a non chronological story.
They crossed the real world. We sense glitches. “Fingertip” introduces the beads, objects protected by a shield, a layer like a magic glass and butterflies (symbols only mentioned or materialized in performances before).
“Fingertip” is a space opera-esque story where the girls can astral project themselves. Introduced as a “consciousness, awakening and lucid dream” story¹, it could be a metaphor for their conflict. They are chasing each other, foreshadowing their friendship crumbling, and they only stop when the butterfly bead is opened. Eunha is gone.
chapter vi: fingertip (the awakening)
•️ eunha is trying to find the butterfly, she writes in her diary “where are you?”
•️️ the clock spins on and on.
•️️ sinb is astral projected from eunha. she held a clock.
•️️ yuju is also the one trapped inside the mirror in the room’s floor.
•️️ umji stays in the same room with stuffed animals (she holds one in the first mini book).
•️️ when umji hits sinb, she drops shining globes on the floor (it could eunha’s beads but they are forgotten in the floor, sinb runs away).
•️️ eunha crosses a portal searching for sinb. the door leads her to the room that appeared in the box (umji’s place). this box eunha pulls to find sinb resembles the box with butterflies from “crossroads”.
•️️ the lyrics are about taking the lead in love, but it could be used to understand the in-universe conflict , if heart is exchanged to soul / glass bead, the lyrics match very well with the story from the music video.
•️️ the conflict can be confusing… sowon, yuju and umji are trying to prevent sinb from escaping, she seems like stealing something in this dimension. we can see that eunha is searching for her, yerin is the one who helps sinb through it. yerin and sinb meet each other when sowon, yuju and umji are chasing sinb and escape. the guns clashing causes a glitch.
•️️ there is a break scene in the middle of the conflict where eunha opens the bead and releases the butterfly and yuju is the one floating towards the butterfly inside eunha’s room.
•️️ sinb holds a gun but seems afraid when eunha finds them and yerin tries to approach her. both were afraid that eunha could fall, sinb ends up hitting yerin. they are truly friends in a conflict with different motivations.
•️️️ yerin can create beads or her power is something related to hydrokinesis. sinb is holding a rose inside a bead (there are a butterfly, a rose and a lock in “time for us” limited edition showing that somehow they are important symbols). flower was also one of the sections (“season”) from their first concert season of gfriend (glass, flower, solo, parallel and awake) and the photocards show a big flower with a moon inside it. the flower could symbolize sinb’s ability as related to fire as well (fire flower = flames). it could be a reference to “the little prince” aswell.
•️️ after falling from building, eunha falls into her bed. a single tear (similar with sinb in “sunrise”) appears in her face, hinting that everything was a dream. the girls appear in the end as nothing has happened.
•️️ the room could be the same from “crossroads” since its intro shows a sequence to what happens with her fall, she ends up in her bed, but emulating a time travel (running through time as we see a clock), not a lucid dream.
•️ the most popular theory among buddies is that “fingertip” is a retelling of the orion myth.
•️
•️ something similar with the creation of beads (a spell?) like in the music video are the intro for the mma 2018 performance and yuju’s kbs gayo 2019 solo intro.
•️ the famous mma 2016 performance could give hints since yuju is surrounded by butterflies and sinb is the one with clock motifs in the dance solo.
•️ the bside “please save my earth” can play a role in the story since songs written by mio (“mermaid”, “flower garden” etc), noh joo hwan (“time for the moon night”, “sunrise”, “crossroads” etc) and iggy youngbae (all title tracks until “summer rain”) could have a link with the storyline and the manga story is similar with the planetarium scenery in “fingertip”.
[…] as the six teenagers and one child start to piece together the chronology and content of their dreams, they began to realize that their “dreams” are not simply dreams, but rather suppressed memories of their past incarnations that ended tragically. And now, as their “game” begins to unravel, the kids must strive to come to terms with what happened in their past lives, as they struggle to prevent their past incarnations’ rivalries, jealousies, and dubious actions from taking over their new ones. — Wikipedia
ymmv: there are some similarities with the indie game yume nikki (eunha’s room, dream land, doors for different dimensions and other possible spoilers).
3. PARALLEL LINES
From a lake in the village we were gifted small abilities, each of us appreciated our own power but couldn’t help being envious of each other […] It’s strange being alone.
“Love Whisper” has the imagery from previous music videos. The tree, the bridge, the train station… but in a different context. A parallel. The past (as unveiled in the “A Tale of the Glass Bead: Previous Story”).
The butterfly leaves a message.
chapter vii: love whisper (parallel)
•️️ the cassette tape first appearance.
•️️ the lyrics constantly ask to not forget about them, please listen to this story.
•️️ tree: me gustas tu; train: rough; butterfly: fingertip. the bridge is theorized to be a symbol of their youth, a bridge appears in “rough” and “navillera” as well, but non-metaphorically, the bridge from “navillera” and tree from “me gustas tu” show it’s happening in the village.
•️️ later “love whisper” was revealed as the origins story that can be seen in the a tale of the glass bead: previous story (2020).
•️️ the train tracks seem important as well (crossroads concept photos from labyrinth era).
•️️️ “holding hands in the flower road” appears again in their music.
•️️️ the intro for the music video shows yerin with a recorder / detector (?). they go out in an adventure to find something, sowon has also an antenna.
•️️️ they find a tape recorder under a tree in a swing and says goodbye to the butterfly that left the message.
•️️ the album name meaning two bodies travelling the same path but never meeting is a theme from “rough”.
The butterfly’s message tape go directly to the tune from “Summer Rain”. From parallel to rainbow. The future. What happened after the end of their high school? The letters, the time capsule. Gone wrong? They lost each other. It’s the first music video where they don’t meet each other, even as a wishful thinking, even only in the end or in memories. ”Summer Rain” is the painful reality, a consequence or the aftermath.
chapter viii: summer rain (rainbow)
•️️️ umji drew a rainbow and as we know, after the rain comes the rainbow (also the bside and album title). ️here, umji’s paper motif is a paper boat.
•️️️️ the lyrics give a hint about the next story, they are waiting for a miracle to be together.
•️️️️ the girls constantly try to write letters, but it never reaches each other.
•️️️️ sowon’s phone booth (yerin uses one in “sunrise”).
•️️️️ sinb has a notebook (the same that umji was holding in “rough” and sowon in “sunrise”?).
•️️️ yuju’s wrote a letter, but then destroys it. yerin drops her letter in the rainy streets.
•️️️️ in the beginning eunha drops her umbrella in the rain, it could be part of the sequence near the end, where she drops a package and a letter. she looks like someone or something appeared for her, but it wasn’t what she was expecting, she seems sad and is (left?) alone in the rain.
•️️️️ get to know more about schumann’s dichterliebe (a poet’s love).
•️️️ different from the letters that appeared in “rough”, yuju and yerin’s letters aren’t deciphered yet (if you know what’s written, please let us know @meetgfriend)
theory time: iris, the greek goddess who is personification of rainbow, could be a bridge between the parallel arc, the sun and moon arc and the japanese music videos (wings and heaven motifs).
her name contains a double meaning, being connected with both the Greek word iris “the rainbow” and eiris “messenger.”¹
CONTINUATION IN THE NEXT PART:
Any correction or suggestion can be done through Curious Cat or the r/gfriendverse subreddit!
