A Dreamcatcher Guide Part 4: Dystopia Era Explained

Dystopia Era: Scream - Odd Eye

This is a lot more “up to interpretation” than the nightmare era, and not as straightforward. This is just my interpretation. Also, I am not going to be analyzing every single symbol or theme, this is just a basic understanding of what is going on, and what it is about. The MV’s are super complex, and I'd recommend finding the time to hyper analyze them yourself.

The overarching theme of this era is the power and corruption of harmful language. Scream starts off by explaining the corruption of a once utopia. In the MV, we see a tree which contains the harmful language. This is released to contaminate the world by Gahyun after touching the stone that she is drawn to. There is a direct correlation between the imagery of Gahyun and the release of the bad language and pandora's box. Pandora’s box is “a metaphor for severe troubles arising from a single, often well intentioned action”. Although not seen yet, the “pandora’s box” in this case is the rise of technology and social media seen in Boca and Odd Eye. 

Continuing with Scream, the MV portrays the start of the corruption in this world, and how people can start off fighting it, but then can become the very thing that they were fighting in the first place. This is portrayed through the lyrics through the switch from “I don’t want to scream” to “I just want to make you scream” by the end of the song.

Scream was set in the past. Boca is set in the present day with the rise of social media fully taking control of society, and explores how social media can amplify harmful language. Similar to Scream, the girls start off the MV by resisting the trolls online, and being portrayed as ethereal beings. However, eventually they are “shot” by the words of strangers online and are seen bleeding gold. Showing how even the most innocent and good people can be hurt by social media. The line “too many angels dying now” really encompasses this, and how the idea of the harms of social media, and how it can literally kill, especially in kpop. There have been so many instances of idols having to go on hiatus due to mental health concerns, and instances of suicides. This is why it is so important that songs like this exist in kpop.

Finally, Odd Eye is set in a futuristic world where technology can quite literally consume people. The girls have been defeated by the harmful language, and now after being consumed by it, have turned into the enemy they were once facing. The theme for this song is how as much as we can hope for a utopia, sometimes the sad reality is that there isn’t one. This is exemplified in lyrics such as “but a lie in the hope faced again”. Going back to the idea of pandora's box, technology is an amazing tool, however, sometimes the things that we turn to for a utopia, like tech, can be the thing that causes our demise. 

A couple of random things:

There are a bunch of symbols that are seen in the MVs. The tree, eyes, masks, and the drink in the Odd Eye are the ones that I spotted, but I am sure that there are more. Also, “boca” in spanish means “mouth”, so when they say “I’ll lock up firmly boca” they are basically telling people to shut their mouths.