We Asked Industry Experts to Compare A Loona MV to Deadpool 2 - And the Results Will Shock You!

Loonaverse Theory: part 1 (current) / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 | part 6 | 

To make a trickster character sympathetic can be controversial. But recent media, such as the Deadpool franchise, has pulled it off with major success. Trickster characters are fascinating to certain audiences, because they challenge society's comfort zone. In "ViViD," Heejin, the first of the LOONA girls to have a release, is a trickster figure who uses her cleverness to bring the audience something our ordinary lives were missing.

God said "Let there be light;" Heejin said "Oh my God, yes!"

The video begins with a faceless figure telling Heejin to clean. This is, of course, not a fun task, and Heejin expresses her discomfort through the lyrics, calling every day "all same." Her animal guide, a white rabbit, appears and leads her to fill her life with color.

Read about a bunny in a T-ARA music video that was also an animal guide.

"I would like it clean, the supplies are over there."

"Déjà le matin, dejavu"

The bunny as a trickster: The rabbit is a trickster figure in various Western and African myths. Think the White Rabbit who leads Alice to Wonderland, the mischievous and clever Peter Rabbit or even the goofy Bugs Bunny.

Like the White Rabbit, Heejin's bunny leads to her to a greater, metaphoric understanding of the world. She is able to leave her boredom behind. However, Heejin is not hero; she is a trickster who enjoys choas more than justice. She fits many archetypal traits of the trickster:

1. Amorality: Heejin values disruption above all else, good or bad. She does not hate happy endings because they are good, but because they always happen. A trickster tale "puts a creative value on disruption, even destruction—for the new to emerge, the old has to be exposed and degraded" (1).
2. Selfish: "ViViD" allows Heejin a streak of vanity: "I want to walk, like [on a] runway [...] I want to show myself to you." What some would call confidence, others might call the capitol sin of pride. Additionally, her want of new ideas is to treat her own neophilia, not for any other person.
3. Strong appetite: Classically, a tricksters appetite is for sex or food. We do not get Heejin's perspective on either of these subjects, but there is definitely a strong vein of greed throughout the song: "Red, orange, yellow, green, more vividly [is] okay." Her vice of choice is color and the thrill of the rush; "Everything puts me on my toes, making my heart go crazy." Read more about pop music theory and the pleasure of the body.
4. Culture hero: Tricksters are often culture heroes, meaning that they introduce something new to a group of peoples. In this video, we can argue that Heejin introduces creativity and art. By refusing to let her day pass as society as taught her to she "disrupts normal hierarchies and rules of everyday or official behavior, either through cleverness or foolishness" (1). "ViViD" is set in a high class, fancy French house, emphasizing a class struggle and its rigid rules, which Heejin is eager to break.
   
5. Shape-shifting: Heejin uses her cleverness to hide herself from the matriarch figure that governs her life. Throughout the music video, the woman leaves, but seems to sense trouble and turns around to check on Heejin. Heejin senses her gaze, and reverts back to a humble girl doing her work. 

Tricksters are also notorious for playing roles in origin/creation stories. Read about the OH MY GIRL music video that features a twist on the Biblical creation story. As Heejin is the first Loona girl to have an official release, we can call her releases an origin story of sorts. She set the bar for the creativity and artistry we have come to expect from LOONA releases. And, even though the video's fearsome God-like figure came back to watch over Heejin instead of letting her play, it is too late. Like Prometheus, Heejin introduced something special to humanity and pop music culture that can not be redacted. She showed us color, art and fantasy. Art and expression is what differentiates us from beasts.

This is just the beginning of a series I am doing on LOONA analysis, check back for more!

Sources/further reading:

(1) http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/terms/T/trickster.htm

https://faculty.gcsu.edu/custom-website/mary-magoulick/trickster.htm

http://classic-literature.yoexpert.com/genres-themes-and-topics/what-are-the-different-characteristics-of-the-trickster-archetype-in-literature-49530.html