Oh, Captain!
A Stray Kids Theory Guide
Pablo Escobar
Escobar was a Colombian druglord and politician operating the biggest drug cartel in the US between 1980-1990's. At the time of his death, he was the 7th richest person on earth, amassing $58 billion net worth.
In Stray Kids' storyline, Pablo is depicted as part of the political group SKZ attempt to overthrow. He's seen flaunting his wealth in Miroh, then leading the boys onto a bus in Yellow Wood where the timeline splits between those who stay, and those who go. Since he's in a position of political influence, it's likely he played a part in District 9's System and was the one supplying drugs to the D9 camp.
Woojin
I went to look up the latin on Woojin's tablet in I Am Not, which translates ''Ipsum, nosce, and cura'' , which grammatically correct is ''Nosce te ipsum'' as ''know thyself'', with cura meaning ''take care'' thought it can also be ''anxiety'', a side effect.
Woojin knew he was being drugged and was one of the first few to become self aware yet remains mostly passive. In Side Effects he talks about "throwing himself in with trust", and despite admitting he's being swayed like the others, he follows Chan's direction.
"Spread the wings and dream, immature forever like Peter." - Double Knot
"Thought it's all unfamiliar, I like the word 'first'. Thought it's kind of naive, I'll only do it this way."-
Young Wings
"Red light, green light, swag - bye or wassup man." -
N/S
Woojin keeps holding onto his hope in Chan's leadership even though he's seen through the flaws of his planning, in what he knows is a naive pursuit.
Chan
Chan begins as a leader, taking on the herculean task of organising Stray Kids' escape from a high-surveillance facility.
As their journey complicated and problems repeat, Chan's action become more and more suspicious and his leadership undermined.
He's the first one to take action against their oppressive regime, triggering an avalanche of events and self discovery - holding the master key we see through Miroh - Levanter.
His shirt in Side Effects is an inverted version of Hyunjin's 180802 outfit -Chan represents order - not obedience, but stability and self assurance.
But how can Chan be so confident in leading 8 brothers out?
He remembers the world outside, or he's already left before. Where Felix can predict the position of, or even summon the Hellevator, he holds the master key to it, travelling freely where the others can't. In the Levanter trailer, at first I thought he's collecting the members on purpose, but Seungmin and Jisung are in their own Hellevator first, and Chan is alone (His Hellevator is also the same room he was in in Road Not Taken!) before the two merge when Jisung makes contact with his other self and they start falling, so we can't say for sure if it was intentional.
But he is aware of the Levant and how to find it, because he references it in Mixtape 4 -
"I walked around a lot, in this empty sea and desert."
Minho
"My past memories where time stops, Neverland." -
M.I.A
"Under the blue sky our song burns red hot." - Maze of Memories
Hyunjin
At first, Hyunjin seems to be the first glitch. From the start of :Not era he's suspicious, giving Chan questioning side glances and constantly acting disconnected from the rest of the group. He's the one only questioning Chan when given red-paper instructions in the :Not trailer, and we see this attitude only build and escalate until Side Effects , where he convinces Felix to follow his directions instead.
He was the one with the most insight into the System from his role back in District 9, as he watched and studied its' inner workings and lessons through his visor/helmet, before we see him tear it off, and the video glitches.
But Hyunjin is only a trigger, an unfortunate puppet stuck between two extremes.
Walking the path between two conflicting possibilities, Hyunjin falls into further confusion and self doubt as the story goes on, unable to escape the clash when they meet. As Chan and Jisung make the connection (Chan by twisting the key, and Jisung by touching the mirror reflection) Hyunjin is struck still like a pawn.
"It's dark and I'm floating under the moon, but the stars help guide me."
-Mixtape 4
"Stop saying 'Don't go there', it's making me want to go more." - Question
"As if it was colouring me black, the inside of my mind burns and fills up with question marks that blame me." - Maze of Memories
Felix
At first Felix seemed to be the second glitch, after Chan/Hyunjin, but he's much more than that. He's been an outlier - since :Not he's been aware of alternate realities and playing with the idea of timelines, as we see him dance with his reflections in the :Not trailer. (The building behind him also says 'Fake') He doesn't realise the extent of his abilities until sometime between Miroh and Yellow Wood, though he keeps it hidden from the others still. Hyunjin asks him for help and tries to lure him to his side shown by Side Effects, not realising Felix can see both sides of the coin.
Where Chan and Hyunjin are triggers to these events, Felix is the key. He holds the compass they follow to guide them towards the next Hellevator apparition. Unlike Chan, who holds keys to go between floors, Felix is slowly gaining control of the Hellevator itself to where he could even summon it in the near future, as we see in Levanter's trailer film.
Double Knot choreo during Felix's verse mirrors a turning combination lock.
Felix exists inside a tesseract,one of the 4 symbols, in the centre of space and time. He's beginning to grasp his powers and control them, accepting his role as the key to unlocking the possibilities of Hellevator travel and reaching the Levant.
''I'm freely following the wind without direction, trust us, just gotta fly the clouds.'' - Mixtape 4
"Even if I paint every colour, only black will remain." - Double Knot
Working on it!
"In the place we reached past the moon, suddenly there was an ear-splitting ringing.
With my head down, I could see the hyungs covering their ears in pain."
Prism
The triangle symbol stands for a prism, which is what Changbin finds in the Levanter trailer film.
It’s also through a prism that we see Hyunjin’s conflicted choices. When refracting light through one, you see a rainbow (Chan saying Stray Kids are a rainbow on VLive) with red and blue on opposing sides of the spectrum, and yellow in the middle. Hyunjin finds first a blue, then red sphere in Astronaut, and in the Levanter trailer he’s frozen like a puppet between a red and a blue, faint light, while the spotlight upon himself is a pale yellow. If we consider each colour to be a different path he can choose, that puts him in a conflict between two extremes.
In “Question”, Hyunjin asks himself “To be or not to be, this or the other one?” as if he can’t pick which path to go down, which is shown in Astronaut as he runs down a bridge towards darkness.
"Under the blue sky our song burns red hot." -Changbin, Maze of Memories
"Throwback to the black nights I used to devour, now I carry the sun's crimson light.'' - Jisung, Maze of Memories
Fare Sphere
In the I Am Not trailer, Jeongin rests on the bus with his head against a panel of information. One listed is a mysterious “Fare Sphere”.
This is a reference to the spheres from Astronaut, inside which is a planet and two smaller moons in its orbit - the two moons we see throughout their discography.
The fare refers to the bus scene from the Side Effects trailer, a bus fare. By accepting a 'ticket to a new world', they're giving up their other path - the other universe.
Cross
Working on it!
Tesseract
The final symbol is a tesseract, that’s where Felix stands during the Levanter trailer.
A tesseract is an 4 dimensional shape, existing in width, length, height, and time.
If we consider Felix to exist inside the tesseract, it would enable him to oversee and travel between the prismatic paths. Tesseracts are symbols of space and dimension, and as 4D shapes also use time as a measurement, it loops in rotation.
The rotation of a tesseract is unique - though at first it looks as if one cube engulfs the other in an endlessloop, the points of both actually rotate in 2 separate planes (z, w, plane, instead of the regular z, y,.) and moving in a spiral as well as outward and in.
This, is also one way parallel universes might line up and exist together when thought of in a spacial sense, with width, height, depth, and time - one inside another, inside another.
Timeline
Stray Kids' universes exist on a spectrum, but ultimately along the two extremes of Red/Blue paths along the prism. Where these overlap and interfere with each other, we see references to past events and parallel timelines in choreography and visual hints. Mentioned throughout the story the impacts one might make when making decisions, misleadingly called Chaos Effect - or the Butterfly Theory.
The Butterfly Effect doesn't represent chaos, but rather the effects of changing the slightest measurement and observing the results. A single butterfly flapping it's wings seems mundane and minuscule in comparison to a hurricane, but over time as these little flaps and disturbances in air compile, a tornado forms. Depending on your choices, yes or no, go to work or stay at home, your reality will split like "two paths diverged in a yellow wood", sending two versions of you to each reality. One went to work, one stayed home. We see these mirrors everywhere in Stray Kids' discography, from choreo to visual reference.
Double Knot - I Am You
Double Knot - Hellevator
Chronosaurus - Astronaut
Merging of Timelines
The more self aware Stray Kids become, the thinner the veil between their universes becomes, leading to tears and glitches - When Changbin and Jeongin meet in the Levanter tunnel, they're separated by a split in the ground which opens up into space. Hyunjin can no longer deny what he knows, stuck on a bridge between darkness and the familiar, but trapping reality, until they reach the singularity.
Singularity is the core of a black hole, the point of infinite density - packed so tightly together the gravitational force is constantly increasing, to infinity.
When approaching the centre of a black hole, or event horizon (past where no matter, not even light, escapes), you experience 'redshift' - where everything seems bathed in a harsh, red hue, which might be the oppressive red light and warmth the boys are noticing.
We switch between timelimes through the MVs. For example, where they are free and unrestricted in :You (on top of the My Pace building) and the trailer for yellow Wood, where we see Miroh was just an option, a possible outcome Stray Kids didn't actually go into. The fake guns they in Miroh are what Chan uses to shoot a flare into the sky during Astronaut - unlike the real one from Victory Song, giving us a hint as to which are linked.
In I Am You, Seungmin photographs them without issue, because there's nothing left to uncover or hide, no disturbance. Changbin from District 9 is watching his past self, the one they reach out to in M.I.A, Jeongin in Miroh talking to Chan outside the door in Astronaut.
Hellevator isn't part of the timeline, but a trailer to the upcoming events, foreshadowing it all.
Levant Zone
Countries of the Levant were recognised as a group between 18th-19th centuries, in reference to an approximate area in the middle-eastern desert region.
These include -
Syria
Lebanon
Jordan
Israel
Palestine
Mediterranean Links
The Dead Sea, Levant Sea (entry to the Mediterranean) and Red Sea are all part of this group. The Dead Sea is in recession, lowering it's levels by 3 feet each year, risking an eventual disappearance by the drought. This future leaves us with this scenery from Final Piece, a dried waterbed in the middle of a red desert, and the entrance to Miroh/District 9, the Double Knot, and the crystals Stray Kids are under influence of.
Ghana's E-Dumping Grounds
Homeland Security, Chinese and Japanese governments, C.I.A - all send their electronic waste to Ghana's waste grounds as "donations", because it's cheaper than successfully recycling the hard drives and deleting their contents. But even trashed and shipped thousands of miles, these files can and have been recovered by local gangs, exposing multi-million financial agreements and delicate transcripts. Files aren't ever actually deleted - they're just marked as 'empty space', and are painted over with new files instead. But that space is never blank, and although the original files may become corrupted, they never truly disappear.
To Stray Kids, what lies in the Levant might be like Ghana's treasure dumping ground, holding the memories District 9 tried to over-write and corrupt.
District 9
District 9 is a research camp on the border of Yellow Woods and below Miroh. The flowers Chan spots in District 9 take on their colour through sunlight streaming through a crack in the Sky Dome. From these crystallised flowers, the pills Stray Kids are drugged with are made - These crystals are scattered throughout the Side Effects field (what Chan spots before their bus runs out of fuel), and what we saw in the Final Piece trailer.
Stray Kids might have left District 9, but they never escaped the System - The presence of these crystals means they're still on System premises, all that changed is their self awareness. In Side Effects, the barrier they reach is the beginning of District 9's Sky Dome, a structure of hexagonal hologram panels acting like an invisibility blanket to hide what's inside from the rest of the world. These holograms can be exposed by cameras, where a lens pics up imperfections and glitches the human eye will not, which is why Hyunjin doesn't want Seungmin photographing the area.
Structure of the Hellevator
The Hellevator is to Stray Kids a means not only of travel, but a means to an end. Jisung and Changbin refer to themselves as "Jack Sparrow", whose compass works not by pointing north, but by pointing in the direction his goals and dreams lie. We already know it exists beyond the physical plane, because it appears in multiple locations throughout their journey, taking them to locations scattered over the globe - but also because Felix's compass guides him to the next location it will appear in. The Hellevator is like their space ship, a bridge between their dimensions, where every floor is a different reality.
Travelling the Hellevator
Here's where it might get complicated. Light, or rather photons, exist in every place, at every time. Quantum mechanics explains this travel like a wave. If you have a pool, a controlled body of water, and produce two waves from each corner, in the middle of your pool the waves will crash against each other, creating interference. You throw a ball into the water to be carried by those waves, and on the other side of the pool, you have a screen to measure where your ball might end up. Because the two big waves move in a determined direction, there's a bigger chance your ball will end up in two certain points on the other side. But because of the disruption from them colliding, there's also an infinite amount of other places your ball could be thrown, and infinite speeds, so your ball exists, theoretically, everywhere at once. And at every time.
Stray Kids use this to create clones of themselves - versions of themselves created to exist as they are, scattered all around the world and through the universes.
In I Am Not we see Jeongin find a clone of himself, but by the time he runs off the bus, his clone is gone.
The Hellevator is like the pool of water, a carrier and means of travel between the Prism paths.
"The moment I lifted my head to find where the sound was coming from, the broken compass pointed clearly in one direction.
A new door." - Levanter Tracklist hidden text
Jeongin's List
Aberdeen, London, Helsinki
Above Jeongin's head in I Am Not: Trailer, Aberdeen, London and Helsinki are listed (alongside other cities, of which only the first few letters are visible). Though there's little obvious connections, London was on collision course with the 2019 reiteration of Storm Pablo before it dispersed.
Sky Dome, K.R.Q, Unon Tros
Unon Tros isn't a place or object, but a scrambled clue. Take the second , third, fifth and seventh letter - N, O, T, O - To spell the first word, 'onto'. The remaining letters make up 'us'. If we treat it as one word, "unontros" it unscrambles into "unroots", giving two possible hints.
The Sky Dome is a structure of hexagonal hologram panels acting like an invisibility blanket to hide what's inside from the rest of the world. It stretches over District 9, cutting out external influence and preventing any unwanted documentation.
K.R.Q is a radio station in Tuscon, Arizona, broadcasting since 1971 on the 93.7 frequency. They broadcast in Spanish and English and stream podcasts, weather, and current music charts.
The Yellow Wood
Yellow Wood lies below level L, below the city of Miroh but neighbouring with District 9.
Stray Kids fall through floors 34, 15, 27, 23, 11, 16, 31, 01, 45, 37, 38,11, 21 and slow down at floor 09 before descending to floor "YW".
The Yellow Wood is home to the field Hellevator emerges into, some time later. The tire marks from their van left permanent streaks in the now withered grass, because the Hellevator MV wasn't ever the beginning - it was just an introduction, an overture to the events that follow.
Tropical Storm Pablo
Pablo began on October 5th and ended on October 9th as a tropical storm at 60mph alongside the category 1 hurricane Noel. It never reached land.
Pablo returned in 2019, on October 25th, and ravaged across Ireland and parts of UK over the course of a week.
Tropical Storm Felix, 1995
Storm Felix began on August 9th, 1995, and ended Aug. 23rd that same month as a category 2 hurricane. It never reached land, travelling at 140mph over the pacific ocean.
Both of these storms held risk of devastating nearby lands, yet dissipated before ever causing damage.