There is a video of BTS’s comeback live.
The screen opens with a night view of Gyeongbokgung Palace. The curved roofs of the pavilions and Gwanghwamun. And cut. Massive stage lights. Roars of the crowd. Seven silhouettes.
When I first saw this video, I felt something was off. But I couldn’t immediately say exactly where that strangeness came from. The video was beautiful. The editing was fluid. As always, Gyeongbokgung’s night view was stunning. Nevertheless, a feeling remained that something didn’t fit, that something was being forced into place.
This essay begins by searching for the identity of that strangeness.
Starting with What This Space Is
Gwanghwamun is the main gate of Gyeongbokgung, the primary royal palace of the Joseon Dynasty. A name meaning “the king’s virtue illuminates the entire realm.” So, in a sense, declaring a king’s return here might seem symbolically natural. A king returns before the king’s gate. As an image, it is clean.
But wait.
The history of this space begins with a dynasty, but it does not end with one. During the Japanese colonial period, the Government-General built its headquarters between Gwanghwamun and Geunjeongjeon. They severed the axis leading toward the throne room with a building. It wasn’t merely taking up space. It was an act of using stone and concrete to overwrite the fact that this land was a nation with its own center.
The Government-General building was not demolished until 1995. It took fifty years from liberation. In the meantime, the building changed names. It became the headquarters for the US Military Government, then the Central Government Complex of the Republic of Korea. Under the shadow of that colonial building, military regimes held parades. It became a stage for a new authority. To whom this space belonged remained unclear for that long.
Gwanghwamun was restored, and in 2023, even the Woldae platform returned to its original spot. It might look like a natural flow, but it isn’t. The fact that it took fifty years is proof. Within that time, there were long disputes and demands, and there were political decisions.
And somewhere in that process, something else happened in this square.
I cannot help but think of the winter of 2016. Millions gathered here. They held the candlelight. Whether one experienced that time directly or not, a certain memory of what that square was remains across society as a whole. In front of the dynastic gate, at the very spot where colonial traces had not yet fully faded, citizens bodily declared this space their own. That memory is layered within the space called Gwanghwamun.
The meaning Gwanghwamun holds in Korean society today does not come solely from the palace standing before it. It also comes from the history of what happened in front of that palace, and who stood there. This is the story of this space.
What is missing from that video is precisely this.
Being Absent versus Being Overwritten
To be absent and to be overwritten are different things.
When Gyeongbokgung is edited into a backdrop for the BTS stage, what role does it take on? It is no longer a place where colonial memory, restoration, and citizens’ struggle are layered. It becomes a device that proves “Korean-ness” within the frame. A backdrop that visually guarantees that this is Korea, and that these are Korean artists.
We know that images work this way. When you place two images side by side, meaning is produced. In the process of that meaning being produced, the complex contexts each image originally held recede. The night view of Gyeongbokgung becomes a beautiful backdrop, and upon that backdrop, a narrative of return unfolds. History is demoted to backdrop.
Whether this itself constitutes violence—I honestly don’t know. Images always cut out context. No photograph can hold all of history. So if one asks whether using a backdrop as a backdrop is a mistake, it is difficult to answer that question with a simple yes.
But that is not what keeps catching my eye in this video.
HYBE was in a position to know the history of this space well enough. When they chose Gwanghwamun as a backdrop, they could not have been unaware of what kind of meaning that choice would create. Yet, as a result, the story this space holds—the colonial memory, citizens’ act of claiming this space, the aspiration for restoration—is nowhere in the edited version. What exists are the silhouette of the palace and the phrase “The King’s Return.”
This is not the result of ignorance. This is the result of a choice.
In a video to be released to the global market, the complex history of this space was likely unnecessary. What was needed was an image that looked Korean, a grand backdrop, a visual authority suited to a narrative of return. According to that need, Gyeongbokgung was chosen, and in that choice, history was overwritten.
To abbreviate a space where history has accumulated into an image consumable in the global market. I realized only later that this was the identity of the strangeness I felt in the video.
What “The King’s Return” Overwrites
Speaking of this, I cannot just pass by the marketing language of “The King’s Return.”
Of course, this is exaggerated promotional copy. It is language chosen to dramatically express the return of the artists. One could say we shouldn’t take it too seriously.
But wait, let’s take this phrase literally for a moment.
If the story of this space is a history of a royal space being transformed into a public space, “The King’s Return” is a declaration that turns that direction backward. In a space that citizens made their own, the king returns again. This was likely not intended. However, the lack of intention does not negate the effect.
Erecting a stage at Gwanghwamun, turning on stage lights instead of the candlelight, placing a controlled audience instead of citizens, and placing “The King’s Return” above it all. This is the act of quietly overwriting the meaning this space has held—to whom it belonged—with its most opposite image.
And the reason this overwriting is more complete is that it is not done by force. It is achieved by borrowing the authority of this space, by using the beauty of Gyeongbokgung as a backdrop, and by using history as a wrapping paper rather than erasing it. That is why it is hard to resist. Because it is beautiful.
Regarding the Sincerity of BTS
But here, I want to pause once more.
Because at this point, it bothers me that this essay might ultimately be read as a critique of BTS.
RM said at the venue: “My goal for this album was to listen a bit more to my own voice and honestly capture my worries, anxieties, and even my wandering.” SUGA said: “I’m still not certain and I’m anxious, but I think these emotions are also what we are feeling right now.”
I do not think this is insincere. And that those words reach millions, and that a certain comfort occurs there—I do not doubt that. The fact that those who have returned after a nearly four-year hiatus for mandatory military service stand on stage without being certain of who they still are, and that such honesty delivers something to people with similar feelings. This is real.
If this essay were to negate that—if it were to say that structural correctness is more important than individual emotion, or if it were to judge the comfort people actually experience by the yardstick of discursive purity—it would not be the essay I want to write. And honestly, such an essay wouldn’t be right. The way a grand narrative overwhelms an individual’s fragile emotions is, after all, one of the things we want to resist.
However, this and the question of structure exist on different tiers.
It is possible to believe that someone’s sincerity is real while simultaneously asking what kind of structure that sincerity is distributed upon. Just as the fact that a good doctor’s diagnosis is sincere does not erase the fact that there are problems in the medical system where that diagnosis takes place.
And here is what I really want to ask.
There is a message of “Let’s love ourselves as we are.” A message to affirm individual vulnerability, not to suppress anxiety but to live with it. The space where that message is delivered—a space where citizens have collectively written its meaning—is processed as a contract between three entities. A voice speaking of individual authenticity echoes atop a structure where collective rights to a collective space are silently overwritten.
This is not to say BTS is bad. This is to say that even good things operate within a certain structure. And it is to say that the good is sometimes used as a shield to prevent us from seeing how that structure is shaped.
Looking into the Contract
Then let us look at the structure of the contract.
It was reported that HYBE’s fee for using Gwanghwamun Square for seven days was approximately ₩30 million; combined with the filming permits for Gyeongbokgung and Sungnyemun, the total was approximately ₩90 million. To manage the crowd of over 200,000 on the day of the performance, a large scale of police, fire, subway, and road control personnel were deployed, and those costs were covered by taxes. Netflix took the global exclusive streaming rights and secondary rights. For a domestic viewer to see this performance in real-time, they had to pay a Netflix subscription fee. On-site press access was restricted to ten minutes.
When you place these numbers side by side, a structure becomes visible. The costs are borne by the public, and the profits are concentrated in a few private hands.
In a space guarded by the citizens’ taxes, the citizens who are the owners of that space must pay a subscription fee to a private corporation to watch what is happening there. Writing this sentence, I feel again how strange this structure is.
Of course, it is difficult to make this a legal issue. The Seoul Metropolitan Government granted permission within current ordinances, and the contract is valid. However, the absence of a legal flaw does not mean there is no problem with this structure.
What I really want to ask is this: In the place where it was decided what kind of space Gwanghwamun would exist as, what would happen in that space, and how the costs and benefits of that would be distributed—where were the citizens, the owners of this space?
HYBE, Netflix, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government. These three decided. Is this sufficient for a decision regarding a public space? This is not a question of law, but of principle.
The Phrase “Economic Effect”
At this point, there is another counterargument. Commercial districts are revitalized, tourists come, and Seoul is promoted. These may be facts.
I do not want to say this counterargument is wrong. There would have been an economic effect.
I am simply curious about this: Can the fact that there is an economic effect replace the question of what it means for this to be a public space?
If so, then we must also accept the logic that building a shopping mall in Gwanghwamun Square is justified because it has an economic effect. If this logic goes to the end, the very concept of a public space becomes unnecessary. One can just use it for whatever purpose is economically efficient.
Economic effect and the public character of a space are things that cannot be measured by the same unit. When these are presented as if they are exchangeable, we have already entered into a certain language. It is important to recognize where that language comes from.
And we must also ask where the benefits of the economic effect go. The effect of revitalizing commercial districts is dispersed and temporary. The global exclusive streaming rights and secondary rights profits are structurally concentrated in two corporations. Even if it is true that “Seoul is being promoted,” the structure through which that is realized is a separate issue.
Again, Before the Video
I return to the scene where the panoramic view of Gyeongbokgung and the stage lights intersect.
That scene is beautiful. I will not deny this. Gyeongbokgung’s night view is beautiful, and the hearts that have waited so long for their return are also real. The fact that when the artists speak of anxiety and wandering at the venue, it reaches millions, is also real. These are facts simultaneously.
However, in that edited scene, the history of this space is absent. Neither the Government-General building, nor the candlelight, nor the something contained in the restoration of the Woldae—these have been flattened into the image of “Korean-ness.” Upon that flatness, the king returns.
I believe Gwanghwamun has been colonized twice. The first time was with the Government-General building, by physically occupying the space. The second time—more quietly, more smoothly, and so in a sense more completely—is through the editing frame, by extracting the meaning of the space and treating history as a backdrop.
The first could reach a certain conclusion by demolishing the building. Where do we even begin to demolish the second?
This essay is not recommending nostalgia. Nor do I want to say that Gwanghwamun was always pure. I simply want to ask: Who decides the meaning of this space? Through what procedure is that decision made? And in that decision, where were its collective owners?
Where the candlelight went out, a logo turned on. This is not a metaphor.
And if this sentence feels as though it no longer triggers anything, it is perhaps because we have already become sufficiently accustomed to it.