Speaker 1: Yes, I watched K Pop Demon Hunters, and now we're
going to talk about it. It's very odd because for
several weeks now, people were sending weird messages on the
Symbolic World Facebook group and then on Twitter and different places.
People were trying to get my attention on this K
Pop Demon Hunters. And you know, I often get weird
requests for weird anime series and stuff like that, and
I usually kind of, you know, don't really pay attention.
But then these requests started to get more and more,
and I was like, what is this movie? And then
someone on my team, who, to be fair, has a
very young daughter, said, you know, Jonathan, you really should
watch this Kpop Demon Hunter. Everybody's talking about it and
you need.
Speaker 2: To talk about it.
Speaker 1: So anyways, I was traveling, was I had a bit
of time, and so I decided to watch it, and
I have to say that I was first of all,
I was surprised. It was well put together. It was
a good animated movie. In some ways, it seems like
Sony with the Spider Man Spider Verse series and now
with this movie, is definitely out shining Disney in terms
of quality. The movie was well written, the characters were interesting,
you know, just that just that is almost enough now
because everything is such drivel everywhere. So but I guess
people were mostly interested in what does this have to do?
Why are there these demons? You know, is there something interesting,
some interesting symbolism to look at? And the answer is,
of course yes, with some caveats. There are some interesting
things in the movie, and there are some problematic things
I would say in the movie, of course from a
basic symbolic perspective, but I would say, obviously, of.
Speaker 2: Course from a Christian perspective as well. This is Jonathan
Pejol Welcome to the symbolic world.
Speaker 1: And so you probably know the concept the ideas that
there are these K pop stars that are secretly demon hunters,
and this is the long lineage of demon hunters that
are always women. And the way that they entrap these
demons is through song.
Speaker 2: Of course, they kill the.
Speaker 1: Demons, they fight them specifically, but the basic thing they
want to do is sing in a manner which will
create a kind of web they call the hone Moon,
a kind of web that will cover the demons and
will prevent the demons from poking into our world. And
these K pop stars are the latest iteration, and they're
right on the verge of reaching the Golden hone moon,
which is the moment when the demons will no longer
be able to come through. And so this the devil
demon character what's its name, gui Ma that is like
a kind of living fire that controls the demons, is
convinced to create.
Speaker 2: A demon boy band.
Speaker 1: And the demon boy band comes and tries to compete
with the Hunters, which is the band in the K
pop band and of course you know there are all
this ensues their secret demons, and so ultimately they get defeated.
Speaker 2: But there's also a story of love.
Speaker 1: Anyways, I don't want to The purpose isn't to give
you a big synopsis. If you haven't watched it, you
probably don't care to know what I think anyways, And
so the basic concept is interesting. The idea that music
in some ways is a way to defeat demons is
of course something that's very fascinating. The way that the
demons are represented and the way that the people are
affected by demons are represented is that they have patterns.
Speaker 2: Look patterns just.
Speaker 1: Now. These patterns are kind of these irregular, jagged patterns.
It's interesting to think that the word pattern would be
used negatively. We can get how that word is used
negatively when we talk about you know bad patterns in
your life, you know relationship patterns that you have, And
in some ways, these demonic influences are represented in two
specific ways. Mostly there are things you should be ashamed of.
On the one hand, there are the things you've done.
In the case of the genu character who has who
basically traded his family in order to be comfortable. But
in the case of the main female character her name
is Rumy, she has a kind of shame that isn't
based on something she's done, but it's based on something
she is, which is that she is the mix of
a demon and a human. And so interestingly enough that
this weird kind of nephilim imagery in the story, though
I wouldn't interpret it so much in that way. Of course,
it's a it's based in kind of Korean lore, a
lot of it, and so I wouldn't go too far
in that direction. But it's mostly the idea of having
something something from your past which is shameful, something that
you're not responsible for, but that you carry the waight for.
It could be being an illegitimate child. It could be
being born from a poor family or being born from
you know, certain having certain things in your past that
you didn't decide but that would bring shame upon you.
There's also something else that it suggests, we'll get to
that a little later. And then there's also the things
that you've done with the roomy character what you see.
And so the idea is that this is what the
demons do, is that they invoked shame in you on
the one hand, and therefore they get you under their control.
And in the other way is that they get your attention.
The whole thing is of course based on attention, which
makes it very interesting the notion that in some ways,
the way that these hunterricks are able to defeat the
demons is not just the way that they sing, but
the way in which they harness people's attention. So there
is a kind of, of course, confusion between religious attention
and celebrity.
Speaker 2: You see.
Speaker 1: Of course, in a normal religious world, this is true.
We come together, we would sing songs to worship God,
we would participate in sacred events, in sacred prayers, and
you know, as we do it together right not only
on our own, but as we come together and do this.
In some ways, it binds a relationship of love between
people focused on God, and that is of course a
way to fight demons if you think of demons, of course,
as the thing that fragments us, the thing that separates
us from each other, which is of course very much
the case in this movie. The demons pull the Hunterrecks
apart by making them feel ashamed and making them feel
guilty about certain aspects of their life. So there's an
interesting relationship with the way that the world actually works.
But you can see how it's very much a parody
because now what we have are the hundreds who are celebrities,
and they have their fans, and so they gather the
attention of their fans into their song, and they sing
these songs that are about being confident in yourself.
Speaker 2: You know, what is the song Golden that is they're
kind of.
Speaker 1: Leading to, which is about moving up and being confident
and knowing what you are and knowing who you are
and being and all of that kind of self esteem language,
which you can see how it makes sense people tend
to oppose self esteem language against the idea of being
a shame of who you are and of what you've
done and so giving you trust and so there's like
a parody, right in this case, the fans celebrate them,
makes them feel good about themselves about what they're doing,
and then their song. The pattern that this brings is
now a pattern that will hold the Demon's back, which
is a parody of course of how sacred reality works.
And there are some really interesting things going on, you know,
of course, the the Saja Boys, who are the Demon
boy group. Uh there's this whole wordplay in Korean supposedly
about how Saja means lying, but it also seems to
reference uh, you know this these spirits, and they also
are related to the Grim Reapers the way they dress,
especially in the last song, the way they're dressed or
dressed kind of as as these Grim Reapers figure. And
so their first song that they come to sing, you know,
to get the Hunterricks fan is the song called Soda Pop,
which is about basically saying I'm going to consume you.
And it's a kind of smart way of doing it.
This notion that you know, in some ways in theory
the huntreds. What they do is that they take your
attention and they they put towards something positive, which is
defeating the demons, giving you confidence in yourself all of
that stuff. Whereas the Saja Boys, what they're doing is
just like the demons, they're stealing your soul by stealing
your attention, and they treat you as something to be eaten,
like a vampire to be consumed. And so there's all
this whole thread through the movie where the Saja Boys
what they do is, you know, as they gather the
fans away from the Hunter tricks, their attention is drawn into.
Speaker 2: The Saja Boys. But that also is.
Speaker 1: The demons coming and stealing their soul. So you see
people like looking at their phones listening to the Soja
Boys song and then you see a demon coming behind
them and like taking their souls, and so they people
take you know, these demons they come and they take
the souls and they bring them down to this this
satanic character that is in hell and is ruling over
the demons and is ruling over everybody with by let's say,
wielding their shame against them. And so then strangely enough,
what happens is, you know, as the competition kind of grows,
we discover that one of these characters, the main Hunter's lady,
is half demon, and so now she faces the shame,
and because she's kind of facing this shame, she doesn't
know what to do, and it is tearing the group
apart and is bringing her closer to this demon boy
and she tries to save him. Anyways, there's all this
stuff that happens, but what's really important to notice is
they participate in a competition, which is the idle competition,
right and supposing in Korean, and it's true in many languages.
In French too, it's a word for a celebrity, is idle?
In English too? Would American idol? All of that stuff,
this idea that is the idol. But then the Saga
Boys sing their final song as they're dressed as the
Grim Reaper, and now they really say I'm going to
be your idol, right, And they really use a story,
an image of false worship, and an image of saying,
you know, I'll be your God, but I will you know,
I'll take everything from you. But it's fascinating because in
some ways it's hard to distinguish what they're doing. To
be honest, and Mike, what I think, it's hard to
distinguish what they're doing that from what the Huntricks are doing.
Speaker 2: They're participating in this idle competition.
Speaker 1: They lose, and then the Saja Boys sing this idle song.
So what's the difference between the Saja Boys taking the
people's attention and sucking a dry basically being like vampires
who are taking their attention for their own power and
feeding on people's insecurity is in shame. What's the difference
between that and the Hunterricks. I think what they're trying
to suggest and that in this case, in the Hunters
case is because the Hunterricks, you know, they they're a
group that love each other and they're kind of modeling
a positive relationship and they're modeling success and and kind
of you know, self confidence and all that. But of
course the Roomy care she is half demon, and so
this is when things get very very weird because she
has to deal with that and the fact that she
have demon It's something she can't stop. In some ways,
this idea in somebody's that there's some secret that she
has that she's trying to repress, and there's this shameful
thing in her life that she's trying to hide and
to repress, so she keeps hiding. That's why she tries
to overperform, and then ultimately she can't hold it anymore,
and she becomes this kind of weird hybrid demon with
two different colored eyes. And then it looks like it's
all going to break apart, you know, the characters are
replaced by demons the other band members, and it looks
like everything is going to fall apart, and that's when
they finally sing the last song. And in the last
song you really get a sense, you could say, of
what the problem is, you could say, or how can
I say this? Of why this is a caricature true
spiritual battle or true the true spiritual life. The last
song is called what It Sounds Like, And in this
song you realize that the character Roomy has to come
to terms with what she is. And there's a weird moment,
you know, kind of in that song where the male
character sacrifices himself, and he sacrifices himself. Of course, he's
in more trouble than she is because he's done these
horrible things and all through the movie he's basically like
stealing people's souls.
Speaker 2: It would be very hard for him to have a.
Speaker 1: Positive arc except to do exactly what he did, which
is sacrificed himself. But then he says this weird thing,
and he says, I give my soul to you, which
is very odd thing to do as he's kind of dying.
And then as they sing this last song, the Hunterricks
start to wield people's souls and they gather all these
souls together and you see this light coming out of
people's bodies, and they wheeld these people's souls in order
to finally defeat the satanic character. But you know, at
the beginning there was the sense that they were trying
to create the golden hon moon, right, this golden field,
this golden pattern that would hold back the evil patterns
or the demonic patterns. But now they of course create
what do you expect. They create a rainbow on moon
and you can see all of these colors coming out
of people, and then they create the rainbow had moon.
And then in the song, Rumy sings about how you
know she was shattered into all these pieces, and you
know she was ashamed and she was hiding. But now
no more lies. Now we tell the truth. And now
I see the beauty in the broken glass, and now
I see the light refracted in the jagged edges, and
you realize that basically this is a coming out out
scene where she is basically saying, I am no longer
going to be ashamed of what I am. I am
no longer going to hide what I am. But all
this brokenness and this, these these things that are fragmented
in me, they're part of me, and therefore I will
put them out there. Now, this is of course a
huge difference, and this is where a lot of Christians
they become confused, because I've seen people, you know, say
that this is a Christian story. And like I said,
there are some elements of it that are similar to
kind of Christian thinking, but the basic trope of it,
or the basic idea of thinking that the way in
order the way to deal with the shame of our sins,
or the shame of the things that we that are
holding us back, or that.
Speaker 2: Are that are are you know, in the.
Speaker 1: Shame of our parents or the shame is in some
ways to say, this is me, and I I'm going
to put it out there, and I'm going to not
be ashamed of it.
Speaker 2: I'm going to show it to the world.
Speaker 1: Right, and then we'll have this refracted rainbow one moon,
which will be the real pattern that will hold back
the demons. That is a deep mistake. It's a deep
mistake in many ways. The best way to understand why
it is a mistake, because it's very simple structure, right,
it is that when we are together, it doesn't matter
in what situation. If we are together in a team
that builds robots, then while we're in that team, what
we will do is we will emphasize the things that
join us together. We will emphasize the aspects of us
that are part of the way that we come together.
That is how society functions when we go outside, when
we encounter our friends.
Speaker 2: When you go to school, what we're doing.
Speaker 1: Is we are putting in front the aspects of us,
of our behaviors, of our thought, of our actions, right,
and even of our identity that can participate in the
common good. And so if I'm at school, I don't
do the things that I do at home when I'm
lazing around.
Speaker 2: Right, if I go to school, I don't.
Speaker 1: Wear my pajamas, you know, I don't sit there and snack,
or I don't stream whatever movies, or I don't play
video games or whatever people do at home.
Speaker 2: That is more and other things. You don't do that
when you are in.
Speaker 1: A space where that's not appropriate, and if you did,
it would be shameful, and that is what shame is for.
Speaker 2: Shame has a function shame.
Speaker 1: The function of shame is to help you understand what
it is that can participate in the unity of a
group and what can't right. And so there are certain
things that are shameful. For example, the behaviors of the
main male character are shameful because they break apart as family,
because they break apart society. Most of our sins are
shameful because they do that. There are other things that
are shameful to us that are shameful because they're only
shameful if they're not in their appropriate place. Going to
the bathroom and doing the things you do there is
totally normal when you do them there, but if you
did them in the living room, then that would be shameful.
And so we really have to understand what shame is
for and what shame functions. And the solution to shame
is not to say I'm going to take a dump
in the living room.
Speaker 2: That is not the solution. Coming out and showing all.
Speaker 1: Of your insides and all of your idiosyncrasies is not
the solution to shame. The solution to shame is to
understand what things are in what place and what part.
If we deny the darker aspects of ourselves, that is,
of course, it will create the voice of demons in
your ears, because the demons they accuse. That's what the
satan is, right, The satan is the accuser is the
one that comes and says, oh, you're guilty of this,
You're not good enough, you're not you know, you shouldn't
be here, all of that. But the answer is it
to say, well, yes, I should be here, and here
are all my faults and I'm not going to be
ashamed of them anymore. That is not the way to
do it. The way to go through this is humility.
Is to understand that, no, you're right, that you are
not completely worthy to be wherever it is that you are,
that you are not you don't have everything you need
to be in the place that you are, But that
it's not through this like pride of all your idiosyncrasies
right in some ways, it is to take the position
that you are seriously and to do the best you
can with all the brokenness that you have does it
mean putting that brokenness out there and trauma dumping on everybody.
What it means is to understand that you're right, you
shouldn't be there. You know, none of us are worthy,
none of us are worthy of the positions that we
have ultimately, because we all are broken, and it's true
that we are these broken, these broken figures. But the answer,
like I said, is to say, therefore, I will take
very seriously the fact that despite my brokenness, I'm here,
Despite my brokenness, there are people that love me despite
my brokenness.
Speaker 2: There are people that care.
Speaker 1: For me, that are willing to be my friends, that
are willing to hire me, that are willing to be
that And I will therefore be the best version of
myself that I can be. As I was watching K
Pop Demon Hunters and I was seeing, of course Christians,
some of them being extremely angry at it and some
of it being strangely seduced by the movie, I was thinking,
isn't it time that we take back our stories? Isn't
it time that, as you know, people who care about
the most important things stop only complaining about culture or
commenting on culture, but start making culture ourselves. And that
is why I've spent the last few years trying to
retell the fair tales in the most beautiful way possible.
And right now we have put out our third book,
which is Rapunzel, beautifully illustrated by Heather Pollington. It is
in some ways this story itself, but in that story,
you're going to start to see how this series of
fairy tales we're putting alcohol tales for once and ever,
is going to bring the fairy tales together in a
way that you never could have imagined. And so go
to rapunzelbook dot com and you can get your book today.
It will ship in a few days and you will
have it very soon. And so I think that that's
why this movie is depth is playing into this weird,
this weird kind of self esteem aesthetic that we've seen,
and this self esteem aesthetic, and what's good is that
you can see how the self esteem aesthetic this idea
that my sins I should be proud of my sins,
that my shame is I should in some ways stop
pretending and show the things that are shameful in a
way that is in public, and that is is almost
like as if I'm proud of my my shameful situation.
But that is a serious mistake and it leads to
a lot of the chaos that we've seen, you know,
and it leads to it leads to pride stuff, and
it leads to all of that, and so and so. Yeah,
and so I hope that you that this was helpful.
I hope that it can help you kind of see
what the story is about. Like I said, you know,
it's interesting because I still.
Speaker 2: Like the movie.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is so pervasive in our culture. In
some ways, it was interesting because things have become so
bad in our culture that simply having a movie where
there are there are girls and boys attracted to each
other is so rare now that it's like, wow, okay,
this is this actually seems better than a lot of
the slop that we've been that we've been watching. And
in some ways a movie that makes us understand the
reality of the demonic and the reality of the relationship
between our sins, our shame and you know, these intelligences
and these voices that whisper in our ear and that
kind of take our energy from us. Also the understanding
of the relationship between spirits and attention and how you know,
the manifestation of spirits are related to worship, right to
what it is that we pay attention to, and that
is how that is how those things manifest themselves in
our life. All of that is actually quite interesting and
something that I thought was quite was pretty coherent.
Speaker 2: Of course, the.
Speaker 1: Only thing you could say, in some ways, there's only
one mistake in the movie.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty central one, but there's only one.
Speaker 1: Mistake is that the the the idea of fans that
give attention to celebrities is a parody of how we
pay attention or how we give attention and how we
follow or how we model ourselves on people that are
above us in the true sense, right of course, saints, heroes,
people that have done so much to build our world,
and then ultimately, of course God, who is above us
and who is the source.
Speaker 2: Of all of us. And in some ways the air
that we see.
Speaker 1: In the movie of the manner in which the main
character deals with her shame and her demons, is one
of the reasons why I struggle with Youung, with the
psychologist Jung, because it is this notion of integrating the shadow, right,
this notion of in some ways seeing that the shadow
is part of you and embracing it to some extent
and integrating it properly. And this is of course a
serious mistake. It's a mistake. It's a very basic mistake
because it's close.
Speaker 2: To the real world.
Speaker 1: It's close to the idea, the Christian idea of being
truly honest about the thoughts and sins and things that
devour you, but then being humble about it, right then
use it, letting that humble you, and letting that prevent
you in some ways from being prideful and arrogant and
thinking that you are completely in control, and leading you
to confession, leading you to transformation. But this is not
at all the same as the idea of, you know,
embracing your dark side and integrating it in the best
possible way. That particular aesthetic is one of the reasons
why we have this kind of self esteem problem that
we've been led to in the twentieth and twenty first century.
And so, yeah, so I hope this was helpful to
help you understand the movie and why it's so, why
it's making the rounds, and why so many people are
attracted and interested in it.
Speaker 2: And I'll talk to you very soon. Bye bye.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy these videos and podcasts, Please go to
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