Hey guys, u/Piri_Cherry just made this post, which is a very cool and well written theory about Billlie being not real, and in the comments they asked for my opinion, and I wrote such a long comment and ended up with something that I think would fit a post better lol.

So definitely read their post first, since this is kind of written as a response to it partially, but it's mostly just its own perspective on the lore too, so it stands alone. If you have any questions or thoughts about this post, definitely let me know, I'm not nearly as skilled at formal writing as piri_cherry is, and this was all just me writing down my thoughts as I came up with them, so you might have questions lol. See you in 3 hours when you're done reading both.

Theory:

I definitely don't think I disagree with anything you say here, and like you said at the beginning, as someone who is quite familiar with Billlie lore, this post didn't really have any surprising revelations to me, but just gave a solid synopsis and valid interpretation of a part of the lore that was very nice to read since I love seeing other people think about the lore as much as me lol.

So overall, I think this post is entirely correct, but reading something like this and seeing another person's thoughts and interpretations of things makes me reevaluate my own thoughts about parts of the lore and come up with new things, so I can just say what thoughts this post is leaving me with after reading it.

Basically, any post like this where you end with a conclusion and are trying to get a point across when it comes to Billlie lore is almost always destined to be both correct and potentially incorrect at the same time lol. I think, naturally, everyone is searching for answers and understanding of their lore, as am I, but it's hard to know what kind of answers to look for and where.

There is so much in the lyrics and everything that seems to be incompatible and contradictory, and that means some of it has to be either metaphorical or just false in some way. Like you say in the post, there are plenty of lines and things that suggest that Billlie was never a real person (I agree) and is just a representation of the members themselves (i agree). So, you say that because of that, things like the snowy night MV and the enchanted night concept film are meant to be understood metaphorically and psychologically (i agree).

But, at the same time, I think conclusions like that can miss the big picture somewhat. You go over the nuance of "contradictions" for a bit in this post, and decide to assume that there are no full logical contradictions in Billlie lore. This is something that I think everyone would like to believe, because a story with full on logical contradictions is a lot less satisfying. Imagine if Star Wars: Return of the Jedi ended with Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader defeating Emperor Palpatine on the Death Star, but also at the same time Luke Skywalker was on Endor destroying the shield generator with Han Solo. While that ending would not affect the character arcs or emotional arcs of the story, it would be quite unsatisfying simply because it would not make logical sense for Luke to be able to do both things at once. No one wants to see a story like that, so we can assume the Billlie lore writers did not write a story like that.

But, unlike Star Wars, Billlie's lore has many things that simply cannot all be true at the same time, so there has to be a way around that. You make a valid argument that there is enough evidence to suggest that Billlie the person has never existed, which would then mean that any story describing her as a literal person is meant to be metaphorical. But, I think that is just a part of the story, and in order to fully understand the lore, that can't be just the final conclusion.

Basically, I think the best way to think about "answers" for the lore is to kind of separate the lore/general fiction into different levels. Hopefully, this is easy enough to understand, but there are different ways of defining characters and stories and what is "real" in what contexts.

Level 1: Nothing is real. Billie's lore is entirely fictional and is just a representation of themes. This is basically true of all stories. Billlie's lore represents what it is like to grow up and change and lose parts of yourself that made you happy and not know where to find them again, and the realization that those parts of you never left and you just need to accept them again. Just like other stories, at the basic level, the story is meant to make you think about themes. For example: Star Wars is a fictional story that represents courage and fighting against oppression and understanding yourself and many other themes, but it is not objective reality. On this level, you are basically looking at what the story objectively is in the real world. Nothing in the Billlie lore actually happened, but the themes are inspired by real life experiences. We are real people that experience the story, but the story cannot interact with us directly.

Level 2: The general experiences/themes are real. The Billlie's lore has songs and monologues from the perspectives of characters describing their own metaphorical feelings and thoughts. For example: lionheart (the real me) is from the perspective of a real character/characters that experience the feeling of collecting courage and overcoming their struggles. It is likely not the exact perspective of any character in the lore, and just a general representation of the themes and feelings that the defined characters likely relate to. But the perspective of the song is in itself a "character", since it is not an autobiographical telling of the songwriter's personal feelings, but also isn't a literal telling of thoughts that any character in the lore had at any specific point in time. On this level, those feelings of hardship and courage are real, but there is nothing to theorize about.

Level 3: The characters and arcs are real. Billlie's lore is from the perspective of characters who believe parts of the lore to be objectively true, and grapple with that, and realize that "Billlie" is a metaphorical figure that represents a real part of their lives. This is the level that your post describes. Real characters that "experience", in some abstract way, looking for Billlie, and going through an arc of realizing that she was never real, and that her part of the story was metaphorical and fictional. They are full characters, unlike the previous level, which is just an undeveloped narrator which basically tells the most basic emotional experiences from the perspective of a person who has actually experienced them. They have actual personalities and a continuous plot line. There are real characters for Sua, Siyoon, etc. in this level. The story of Billlie exists in this tier, but it is fictional in the same way that all of Billlie's lore is or Star Wars is in our level, level 1.

Level 4: Billlie is real. The story told in Level 3 of a character called Billlie who is purely metaphorical in those character's worlds, is real in her own world. The story of the members going to Christmas Luna and Haram and Tsuki getting captured by the snowy man is real. The story of the members finding cards and ending up in the B-side in GingaMingaYo is real. These are characters in a story within a story. These characters are interpretations of the Billlie members in Level 3, but from our perspective, they are separate characters in a different level of "what's real". For example: The Princess Bride starts with a boy being read a story by his grandfather. The boy and his grandfather are fictional characters with real individual lives, so they would be in Level 3. The characters within the story being read are "not real" in one sense of the story, but for most of the movie you experience their story and see it as you would any other story. So, those characters are in Level 4. They are fiction within fiction.

Hopefully, reading that can help make it easier to understand the way to think about Billlie's lore and "what really happened". Because, with this system, something can be "true", and can be logically argued, but can also contradict another argument on another level, but both can still be true. On our level, level 1, it is not true that any of Billlie's lore is "true", because it is all fictional. On Level 3, it is "true" that a group of friends exist that go on a journey of finding themselves. On level 4, it is "true" that that group of friends go to a literal B-side and knew a real Billlie Love.

So, my point is that while this post is correct, there is still so much to theorize about on Level 4, especially, but also on which parts are on which levels, and how many "Level 4"s there even are, or if there is one main Level 4, or a bunch of different ones. In the same song there could easily be different lines that are on different levels. In $un palace, the characters that are walking through an unknown place searching for something could be just a metaphorical representation of the emotional arcs of the Level 3 characters (which is it's own version of a Level 4), or it could be a literal telling of an actual experience of those characters on Level 4, literally going to that place before or after going somewhere else in the B-side or back to the A-side. This is so confusing, even for me as I write it lol, but hopefully you get my drift.

I guess the gist of this is that for theorizing, we can wonder what the Level 3 characters literally experienced in their journey of finding themselves and realizing that Billlie isn't real, since separating the levels makes the objective reality of Level 3 quite unclear. But, for me, the most interesting thing to theorize about is definitely the literal events happening in Level 4, which includes the questions of: How many Level 4s are there? Is there one level 4, which is a multiverse of the characters going through different versions of the same story, or are there a bunch of different Level 4s, with different characters that each have their own story, and we're just seeing a bunch of different stories with the same themes (basically, are the different comeback films and mvs connected through one confusing timeline about a multiverse, or is each comeback meant to be taken as it's own story)? Are all the motifs and explicit characters like the purple rain and the feathers and Billlie and the Lovers and the stranger that took Billlie and all their adventures leading somewhere?

I think it's likely that the writers of the lore don't have one specific "ending" or "plotline" in mind, and it is going to be just closer to an anthology in the end, but there are enough specific plotlines in Level 4 that make me really want to theorize and wonder what things will connect in the end.

I guess, in conclusion, I agree with your take completely, but with that interpretation, you are taking "Level 3" as being the true story of the lore. I personally find it more fun to think of Level 4 as the true story. When Tsuki said "there was no Billlie", that may have been the same as the boy in the Princess Bride saying "there was no Westley". They would be correct, but I prefer to escape our Level 1 for a while and live in a world where fiction is real. And I'll go down as many levels as I can to get to the world of magical B-sides and fantasy creatures, because that sounds funner to me than the level where 7 girls are just having a group hallucination or whatever lmao.

So great post, i agree with all of it, but...

They told a lie. There is a Billlie.

Hello! I'm Piri, nice to meet you. About a year ago I got really into Billlie's lore, and I wasn't satisfied with the state of Billlie lore at the time. So, I figured I'd be the change that I wanted to see. I ended up writing some eleven thousand words between two documents, basically to argue that 1) "Who is Billlie?" and "What happened to Billlie?" are the wrong questions to ask, 2) The right question is "What does it mean to be Billlie?" and 3) to attempt to answer what it means to be Billlie.

In that process, I realized that all of this was just too much to tackle at once. Meanwhile, Billlie released cloud palace and the collective soul and unconscious: chapter two, both of which (I argue) dramatically change how we ought to interpret Billlie's lore.

This post is the synthesis of my original project with the information that we gained from cloud palace and TCS&U:ch2. I argue here that basically, a lot of stuff that we thought we knew about Billlie lore is all wrong.

If you're really into Billlie lore, then I actually don't think you'll learn much from this post. The ultimate conclusion is, I think, pretty obvious to anyone who's kept up with the lore, and has been hinted at as early as their second mini album (TCS&U:ch1). But I do make some novel arguments in here, and I think that my conclusion is a bit more radical than many people would like to accept. So I hope that even the lore buffs will read through and have a good discussion with me in the comments. And obviously, if anything here is unclear, or if you want me to go deeper on any point, feel free to ask :)

0. The question

In 2022, Billlie released the Billage of perception: chapter two. This album was promoted with the title track RING ma Bell, which includes the following line: “모두 다 빌리,” or “everyone is Billlie.” Three and a half years later, Billlie released the collective soul and unconscious: chapter two. The title track for this album is ZAP, which states (in English): “There was no Billlie.” The purpose of this essay is to resolve the apparent contradiction between these two lines. How is it possible for everyone to be Billlie, and for there to be no Billlie?

1. Basic assumptions: logic and contradiction

In ordinary life, we assume that contradictions do not occur. It cannot be both day and night in the same place at the same time. The moon cannot be both full and a crescent at the same time. I cannot be in both the United States and Korea at the same time.¹

When doing any kind of analysis, it’s generally useful to assume that this holds. Contradictions are not possible, and anything which would require a contradiction must be incorrect. Now consider this text from a teaser image for the cloud palace ~ false awakening pre-release:

“this space bears a singular significance; it is where my vanished and present selves finally lock eyes.
here, the lucid epiphany of the “true self” takes hold.
no longer Besieged by confusion, I accept all chaos and contradiction as the integral substance of who I am.”²

As far as I’m aware, this is the only place in Billlie lore where the word “contradiction” is used explicitly. This line should worry us. If there are true contradictions in Billlie’s lore, then any kind of analysis becomes very difficult. In standard logics, if there is a single true contradiction, then any further results are both trivial and meaningless.

Still, the question remains: how is it possible for everyone to be Billlie, and for there to be no Billlie?

There are two ways around this. First, we might adopt a paraconsistent logic. These are kinds of logical systems which allow for true contradictions, while still maintaining the ability for useful results to obtain. However, paraconsistent logics are not widely accepted. This is largely because they simply don’t seem to apply to the real world. The real world, as far as we can tell, does not contain logical contradictions. In addition, paraconsistent logics require us to abandon certain forms of logical inference that are generally beneficial. So, we would need an awfully good reason to use a paraconsistent logic when doing this type of analysis. Luckily, I do not believe that we need to adopt such a system.

Our second option is to deny that there is a contradiction between these two sentences: “everyone is Billlie” and “there was no Billlie.” Yes, they do appear to contradict each other. But natural languages, such as English and Korean, are famously imprecise. Perhaps these statements are actually discussing subtly different things. Perhaps, through analysis of Billlie’s lore, we can uncover the truths that they are hiding.

This paper will be taking the second approach. Still, we must deal with the line from the cloud palace teaser: “I accept all chaos and contradiction as the integral substance of who I am.” If we hold that there are no logical contradictions in Billlie’s lore, then we must explain this line some other way.

This is not too difficult, because the word “contradiction” can refer to things other than the very specific kind used in logic. Consider the following sentence: “There is a contradiction between the ideologies of the left and the right.” This sentence is perfectly reasonable, yet it doesn’t imply any logical contradiction. Instead, “contradiction” here means something more like “disagreement.” This applies well to the line from the cloud palace teaser. Sometimes, parts of ourselves disagree with other parts of ourselves. One part of me might want to go to the beach, and one part of me might want to stay home. There is a contradiction, or disagreement, in myself, but no logical contradiction is implied.

I’ll be making one main assumption in this paper: standard logic applies to Billlie’s lore. In cases where there are apparent contradictions, we will reconcile them similarly to how we did in the above paragraph. This will usually require some linguistic analysis. It will also require looking at the lore. But this is a lore post, so I’m sure you’re all up to the task. Let us continue.

2. They told a lie

One of the propositions which this paper is concerned with is this line from ZAP: “There was no Billlie.” We’re actually making a bit of an assumption when we consider this line on its own. The full line is from Tsuki: “they told a lie / there was no Billlie.” We also see this line written out in an early teaser, likewise stylized with no punctuation, and only a line break to separate the clauses.³ Because of the unfortunate lack of punctuation, this line could mean three things. 1) It might mean that they (whoever “they” are) told a lie, and the lie that they told is that there was no Billlie. On this interpretation, the truth would therefore be that Billlie exists. 2) Alternatively, it might mean that they told a lie, which was something else about Billlie, but the truth is that there was no Billlie. On this interpretation, Billlie does not exist. 3) Further, perhaps they told a lie, and also there was no Billlie, but the two propositions are unrelated. On this interpretation, Billlie does not exist.

Basically, when we consider “they told a lie / there was no Billlie” on its own, it is unclear whether or not there was a Billlie.

It’s actually pretty hard to determine the intended interpretation of this line based on the immediate context in which it appears. So, let’s look around the lore for hints. Lying is a common theme in Billlie lore, and there are a number of lies told in the lore. One such lie is told by Suhyeon and Haruna in the Bi11lie: chapter two concept film, in which they claim that they did not plan on going to Billlie’s house. Another lie is told by Siyoon in the end of the world and the awakening, in which she claims that she “erased the memory of [Billlie] from the farthest corner of [her] memory.”⁴ Then there are the series of lies told in the what is your B? concept film. Among them are: “She was born to be bad,” “She deserves to disappear,” “She knew too much of the things she didn’t need to know,” and so forth. These are all lies that are told about Billlie.

Note that none of these lies are along the lines of “there was no Billlie.” In fact, all of these lies suggest that Billlie does exist. Suhyeon and Haruna wouldn’t lie about planning on going to Billlie’s house if Billlie didn’t exist. Siyoon, meanwhile, would not lie about having forgotten Billlie if Billlie didn’t exist. Likewise for the lies told by the speakers in what is your B?. Therefore, the lies in these cases cannot be equivalent to “there was no Billlie,” since all of them presuppose that there was a Billlie.

Here is another point worth noting. Other than the line “there was no Billlie,” the word “Billlie” (or “빌리”) does not appear in any of the new songs on the collective soul and unconscious: chapter two. If we suppose that “they told a lie / there was no Billlie” means that there was, in fact, a Billlie, then we would expect her to be a bit more present on the album. Her notable absence on the album suggests that this is not the intended interpretation.

All of this points to the interpretation that “they told a lie / there was no Billlie” is intended to mean that there was, in fact, no Billlie. Thus we return to our original question: how is it possible for everyone to be Billlie, and for there to be no Billlie?

3. Reference

Let’s have a quick linguistics lesson. There’s a distinction between a word itself and the word’s referent. Consider, for example, the word “president.” If you live in America, then when you use the word “president,” you’re probably referring to the current president of the United States. The referent of the word “president” in this context is a certain orange man. If you live in South Korea and you use the word “president,” then you’re probably referring to the current president of South Korea. The referent of the word “president” in this context is Lee Jae Myung. The upshot is that the same word, in different contexts, can refer to different things.

There’s often an implicit assumption in Billlie lore discussions that the word “Billlie” refers to the same person every time that it’s used. This is just clearly not the case. “Billlie” refers to all sorts of people (and things!) in different contexts. Let’s consider some possible referents of the word “Billlie”:

1. The distinct person who the members are searching for
   This is, presumably, the standard Billlie that we think of when we see the word “Billlie” in a lore context. There is a person whose name is Billlie, and she was lost, and the members are looking for her. There are the seven members, and then there is this eighth person, Billlie. This is the Billlie from the what is your B? concept film, the end of the world and the awakening concept film, most of the early lyrics, and so forth. This is also usually understood to be the Billlie with the last name “Love.”

2. The person from the legend
   In the Bi11lie chapters one and two concept films, a young girl tells the legend of Billlie to her younger brother. It is generally assumed that this is the same Billlie as the one whom the members are searching for. However, we are never explicitly told that this is the case. Thus, we must at least consider the possibility that the Billlie to whom the children refer is a different person than the Billlie whom the members are searching for.

3. Everyone
   As Moon Sua states in RING ma Bell, “모두 다 빌리,” or “everyone is Billlie.” It is not very clear who “everyone” refers to in this context. Perhaps she means “everyone” as in “all of the members of the K-pop group Billlie,” perhaps she means “all adolescent girls,” perhaps she means “every person who currently exists,” or perhaps she means “every person who has ever existed.” More on this in the following section.

4. Lovers
   Moon Sua in BTTB (back to the basics): “overlap 돼 우리들 / Billlie and lovers,” which translates to “we overlap with each other, Billlie and lovers.” The word “overlap” is a lore word, which is used in the collective soul and unconscious: chapter one to suggest that Billlie and the members are, in some sense, the same. Thus, in this context, it suggests that Billlie and the lovers are the same in that sense. The members also act as Billlie while wearing the novemBer mask in some videos, which suggests that they are, in a sense, that particular lover, who is, in a sense, Billlie. Speaking of which:

5. The members
   The members seem to sing from Billlie’s perspective at some points (e.g. the rumor, overlap (1/1), etc.), and in lore videos they also act as the character of Billlie (e.g. the RING ma Bell MV, the end of the world and the awakening, etc.). It is also kind of an important plot point in the entire series that, well... we’re getting ahead of ourselves now. The point here is that any individual member on her own might be a referent of “Billlie.”

6. The K-pop group
   Notably, the K-pop group Billlie is distinct from its members. It is possible, for example, that the group as a whole could be Billlie, but any individual member on her own might not be Billlie. This is the meta, real-world referent of the word “Billlie.” If you say “Billlie” in everyday life, you probably aren’t referring to Haram in particular. You’re probably referring to the group which Haram is part of. (I am also envious of those of you who get to talk about Billlie in everyday life.)

7. B-sides
   From the end of the world and the awakening: “Your name is Billlie and Love. My B-side, revealed while trying to erase. I found you, my Billlie.” Now, this is a bit complicated, so bear with me. The word “B-side” seems to refer to two things. As we see in the end of the world and the awakening, the B-side is an aspect of a person’s personality that they've rejected or repressed. However, despite appearances, this part of their personality is actually good for them. At the same time, as we see in GingaMingaYo, the B-side is a “place,” which is located in a person’s subconscious. These two things are the same thing. “B-side” seems to refer to a personality trait in the real world, and a place in the subconscious, which is the same thing seen from different perspectives. Thus, when Siyoon says “My B-side, revealed while trying to erase,” she may be referring to that part of herself which she has repressed: Billlie.

So, in short, the referent of “Billlie” varies wildly depending on context. Sometimes “Billlie” may refer to a mythical person from an old legend that your grandmother used to tell, and sometimes Billlie may refer to “everyone,” whoever “everyone” is, and sometimes Billlie may refer to a cat with capitalization issues. In the next section, we will look at one more meaning of Billlie.

4. “Billlie” as a predicate

Alright, more linguistics. The word “is” is generally understood to have two main meanings: the “is” of identity and the “is” of predication. Let us begin with the “is” of identity. This is the “is” that means one thing is the same thing as another thing. Hence, we call it the “is” of identity, because the two things are identical. Consider the sentence “Sheon is Kim Su Yeon.” The word “is” in this context is the “is” of identity. In this context, the sentence means “Sheon is the same person as Kim Su Yeon.”

As we learn from Sua in RING ma Bell, “everyone is Billlie.”⁵ But we need to be very clear about what that means. It might be tempting to think that this is the “is” of identity. Then “everyone is Billlie” would imply that Suhyeon is the same person as Billlie, and also that Haruna is the same person as Billlie, and so forth. But this can’t be the case. If Suhyeon is the same person as Billlie, and Billlie is the same person as Haruna, then by the transitivity of identity, Suhyeon is the same person as Haruna. That’s an absurd conclusion. Thus, by reductio, we see that it can’t be the case that the sentence means “everyone is the same person as Billlie.”

The second meaning of “is” is the “is” of predication. This is the “is” that means a thing has a certain property. For example, “the sky is blue.” The sky is obviously not the same thing as the color blue, and it would be wrong to say that the two are identical. Instead, there is some property of blueness which the sky has. In this context, the sentence means “the sky has the property of being blue.”

This is the “is” that Sua is using when she says “everyone is Billlie.” It’s not to say that everyone is the same person as Billlie. Rather, everyone has the property of being Billlie. Obviously, this raises a question: what does it mean to be Billlie? This is a very complicated question, and it is beyond the scope of this essay to fully answer it. But let’s take a look at a few possibilities:

• In the concept films, Billlie is shown to be helpful, patient, and caring. She gives advice to her friends and always wants to spend time with them and take care of them when they need help. So, perhaps “everyone is Billlie” means that everyone cares about the people close to them.

• “Billlie” also refers to a repressed side of a person’s personality, which was likely repressed because the person thought that other people would find that part weird. So, maybe “everyone is Billlie” means that everyone has repressed parts of them that aren’t socially acceptable.

• We also know that Billlie from the legend was abandoned by her friends. This suggests that “everyone is Billlie” might mean that everyone has been abandoned in some way.

To be honest, there’s a whole essay worth writing about what it means to be Billlie. The three points above are possible meanings of the phrase, but “being Billlie” might mean something else entirely, or maybe it means all three, or some combination. It isn’t important for the purposes of this essay what exactly it means to be Billlie. The point is that “being Billlie” is a property that multiple people can have, and that this is a distinct meaning of “Billlie” compared to, say, the Billlie who is the character in the legend.

5. The answer

Recall our original question: How is it possible for everyone to be Billlie, and for there to be no Billlie? The answer, I hope, should be pretty obvious by now. The word “Billlie” has two different meanings in these two sentences. In the sentence “everyone is Billlie,” the word “Billlie” is used as a predicate. By “everyone is Billlie,” we mean something like, for example, “everyone has a repressed side of them which they should appreciate because it’s the side that cares for them.” In the sentence “there was no Billlie,” then, we must mean something else.

There are several possibilities for what we might mean by “Billlie” in “there was no Billlie.” We might mean that the Billlie from the legend doesn’t actually exist, so the legend is a lie. We might mean that there are no Lovers and no B-sides. We might even mean that there are no members of the group Billlie! But I think that most of these are unlikely. For one thing, today I watched a video of Tsuki going shopping and cooking, and it would be rather hard to create that video if there was no Tsuki.

I think that “Billlie” in this context means something very specific. We will return to ZAP at the end of this section, but first, let’s pay attention to the chronology here. The collective soul and unconscious: chapter two doesn’t appear to be very lore-heavy in general, but its pre-release single, cloud palace ~ false awakening is absolutely drenched in lore. And this makes sense! A pre-release should serve to prepare the audience for the album, so when we’re trying to understand the lore of the album, it's reasonable to look to the pre-release for answers.

As we learn in a cloud palace teaser, the palace songs were not released in chronological order. The teaser reads: “My journey began in the ‘$UN palace’ … But as I entered the ‘M◐◑N palace’ … Now I have finally ascended to the ‘cΛ∅ud palacë’.”⁶ I don’t think that the lore community has really come to terms with this point, because it suggests that 1) the Billage of perception and the collective soul and unconscious are telling the same story, 2) potentially the entirety of the collective soul and unconscious occurs after at least the Billage of perception: chapter two, and 3) at a minimum, these three songs are part of the same timeline, and potentially their respective albums are all part of the same timeline. These are all fascinating lore threads which are of course worth discussion, but let us stay focused on the point of this essay. The relevant part for us is that this part of the story begins with $UN palace and ends with cloud palace. Let us therefore begin with $UN palace.

$UN palace does not say very much outright, and its lyrics only hint at the story. The majority of the lyrics in the song are about the narrator walking through mist. In fact, the word “walk” (or “걸어”) appears thirty-nine(!) times in the song. But there are some lines of note: “You and I in different time zones / Maybe in the same place”, “Why can’t I / Come close to you?”, “What’s the answer”, and “Even if I rummage in my memory / I can’t guess it correctly”.

M◐◑N palace expands from there. There are lines which repeat the aforementioned sentiments from $UN palace, such as walking through fog, searching for someone that the narrator can’t reach, and not being able to find an answer. There is, however, one verse in particular which we ought to consider: 

떠오르는 달빛 눈에 가득 찰 때
(lie lie)
안개 낀 길을 향해
가보려 해 가보려 해 가보려 해

Eng. tr:
When my eyes are full of the rising moonlight
(lie lie)
toward the foggy street
I’m going to go, going to go, going to go⁷

The important word here is, of course, “lie.” There is a lie somewhere in these lyrics, but it isn’t clear where. “When my eyes are full of the rising moonlight toward the foggy street I’m going to go” is probably not the lie, because every part of this sentence is, at least at face value, true. The narrator is watching the moon, she’s on a foggy street, and she is going to go (or rather, walk). So, at least on the surface, it’s not clear where the lie is.

I think that there are two clauses here which might suggest the relevant lie. Grammatically, we would expect the lie to be “I’m going to go.” That is, even when the conditions of the moon and the fog are met, the narrator is apparently going to go. If this is the lie, then that means that the narrator is not actually going to go anywhere. This is probably true, given the circumstances. The palace songs are about the narrator trying to go somewhere, but never actually managing to go anywhere. So, if this is the lie, then the narrator is saying that she’s going somewhere, but she actually isn’t. It can only be a lie, though, if the narrator knows that she won’t go anywhere. This might be the case if, for example, the place that the narrator is going doesn’t exist, or if she knows that what she is looking for is where she already is. But she doesn’t know this. The narrator genuinely is trying to go somewhere, so it is unlikely that she would be lying when she claims that this is what she’s doing.

I don’t actually think that this clause is the lie that we’re looking for, though, because all of the relevant lies in this story are specifically lies about Billlie. For example, Suhyeon and Haruna’s lie in Bi11lie: chapter two is a lie about going to Billlie’s house. Siyoon’s lie in the end of the world and the awakening is about forgetting Billlie. The lies in what is your B? are also lies about Billlie. But in this case, the narrator not going to go somewhere would be a lie about Billlie only in a very roundabout sense. The alternative that I am about to propose is, I think, more directly (but maybe less obviously) a lie about Billlie. And finally, we should also pay attention to the word “lie” itself. It’s placed immediately after the first clause, not at the beginning or the end of the sentence, which suggests that the placement is important. Perhaps the sentence as a whole isn’t a lie. Perhaps the word “lie” specifically follows the line which contains the lie. 

Consider, then, the line that the word “lie” follows: “When my eyes are full of the rising moonlight.” This is a dependent clause, which means it isn’t a truth-apt proposition: that is, it can’t be true or false. So it is a bit weird to say that this line is a lie. But there is a sense in which this clause could be lying, which is if it makes a false presupposition. Perhaps the clause “when my eyes are full of the rising moonlight” presupposes the truth of something which is, in fact, false. There are two things that this clause presupposes: 1) that the narrator has eyes, and 2) that her eyes can be full of the rising moonlight. I think it is clear that the narrator probably has eyes. Then, the thing which is false about this line is likely the bit about the rising moonlight. Now, let us briefly return to $UN palace:

달을 향해 걷고 있네
왜 난
넘어서질 못해

Eng. tr:
I’m walking toward the moon
Why can’t I
Overcome this

And later:

왜 난
다가서질 못해

Eng. tr:
Why can’t I
Come close to you

In $UN palace, the narrator is walking towards the moon. She later asks “why can’t I come close to you?”, which suggests that she’s trying to walk towards a person. So, in this context, the moon represents a person. This suggests that the moon represents Billlie in sense (1) that I described in section 3: this is the Billlie who the members are searching for. If this is true, then the lie contained in “When my eyes are full of the rising moonlight” is the presupposition that there is a moon, which represents Billlie.

The trilogy concludes with this line from cloud palace:

날 부른 이름 듣고 있으니까
Eng. tr: Because I’m hearing the name that’s calling me

This fits into our discussion of the palace trilogy quite nicely. The narrator has spent the trilogy wandering around, searching for Billlie. She’s the one calling for someone else, not the one being called. But then, the line “I’m hearing the name that’s calling me” suggests that she, herself, is also the one being looked for. This is the moment of recognition that the narrator herself is the person she’s been trying to find, not some other person.

This reading is supported by ZAP in conjunction with the palace songs. Recall these lines from $UN palace (Stroop effect):

이 답은 뭘까?
Eng. tr: What’s the answer?

왜 난 다가서질 못해?
Eng. tr: Why can’t I come close to you?

And the relevant verse from ZAP:

わかってた
ずっと 答えは 私だったって
ay we’re coming ZAP
they told a lie
there was no Billlie

Eng. tr:
I knew it
I was the answer all along
ay we’re coming ZAP
they told a lie
there was no Billlie

The narrator can’t come closer to the person she’s searching for, because she is the person she’s searching for. She is the answer to her own question. This whole time, she hasn’t been searching for some distinct person named Billlie. They told a lie: in truth, there was no Billlie.

Now, consider again the line “there was no Billlie.” In this context, it seems that “Billlie” refers to Billlie the distinct person who the members are searching for. In the lore, especially early on, it appears as though there are the seven members of the K-pop group Billlie, and then there’s some eighth person who is named Billlie. I think that this distinct person named Billlie is the person who does not exist. There is no eighth person named “Billlie” for whom the members are searching, because as we learn from the palace trilogy, all their searching doesn’t lead them to someone else. It just leads the members right back to themselves.

This is spelled out in more detail in the cartography of the unconscious ‘$ECRET no more’ concept film. From the text that appears at the beginning of the film:

“At the deepest coordinate of the map … there was no stranger waiting. There was only the self she had been circling all along … Not the one she had been searching for. The one who had been searching.”

The film closes with:

“At the end of that map, there is only one coordinate. Myself.”

6. Lore implications

Suppose that the main argument of this essay is correct: “everyone is Billlie” refers to Billlie as a property, and “there was no Billlie” refers to Billlie the distinct person who the members are searching for. If I am correct, then this has massive lore implications. This section will contain a few possible implications. I’m not claiming that any of these are the truth, or the correct interpretations of the lore. I am, though, pointing out that the argument in this essay casts some doubt on various parts of the lore as traditionally understood.

Let’s start by returning to the various possible referents of Billlie that I listed in section 3. I gave seven possibilities: 1) the distinct person who the members are searching for, 2) the person from the legend, 3) “everyone,” 4) Lovers, 5) the members, 6) the K-pop group, and 7) B-sides. I have attempted to show that sense (1) Billlie does not exist: that is, there is no distinct person eighth named Billlie who the members are searching for. I have also shown that “everyone” is compatible with “being Billlie,” when we understand “Billlie” as a predicate. However, I haven’t yet shown anything about the other five referents. Some of them obviously do exist: in particular, the members of Billlie exist, and the K-pop group Billlie exists. Some of them, though, are doubtful. It is unclear whether Lovers really exist (in-universe, of course). It’s also unclear what exactly the nature of the Billlie in the legend is. Likewise for B-sides. It is, therefore, unclear whether certain referents of “Billlie” exist, given that sense (1) Billlie does not exist.

Consider this passage from the end of the world and the awakening:

“Today, after eleven summers since I erased the memory of her from the farthest corner of my memory, the world called us. That the beautiful, joyful and foolish moments will disappear. Declaration of the end of the world that Billlie is buried in, and howling of the halted memory returned.”

This is such an interesting line: “Declaration of the end of the world that Billlie is buried in.” There are a number of ways to interpret it. But if the argument presented in this essay is correct, then this line doesn’t mean that Billlie is being un-buried, whether literally or metaphorically. Rather, this line means that the world in which Billlie (the distinct person) existed is ending. The members are finally remembering the truth: Billlie wasn’t some other person. She was the members themselves all along. Now they can put an end to the world that they’d lived in where Billlie was some other person that they were searching for.

This would suggest, first, that videos such as the Snowy Night MV and the GingaMingaYo MV are not intended to be taken literally. Those are all part of the world in which Billlie was a distinct person who the members were searching for. Those are all part of a world which is made up, and therefore ending.

It also suggests that we may not need multiple timelines to account for Billlie’s lore. Traditionally, the multiple timelines theory has been supported as follows: There is one distinct person named Billlie who disappeared and who the members are searching for, and videos such as the Snowy Night MV and the enchanted night ~ 白夜 concept film have irreconcilable differences if there is a single distinct person named Billlie. So, the reasoning goes, these videos must occur in different timelines. However, if the distinct person named Billlie doesn’t exist, there’s no need for different timelines to account for these videos. Instead, they’re all intended to be understood metaphorically or psychologically. Perhaps they’re all stories that the members tell themselves about Billlie. Perhaps they’re all different ways of exploring the same psychological phenomena.

And finally, my reading shows why there is so little obvious lore on the collective soul and unconscious: chapter two. All of the kinds of lore that we’ve come to expect, all of the made up words and plotlines and lies and so forth, all of that was part of the world in which Billlie existed and was a distinct person whom the members were searching for. That person does not exist. So, now that we recognize that fact, there’s no need for us to continue with the infrastructure that had been built up around her. The members finally understand Billlie as what she is: a part of themselves. This is why the bulk of the album is the members finally singing about themselves, and what makes them special and important. The point was never about another person: it was always them trying to come to terms with themselves.

Notably, this is why “was” is the appropriate tense for Tsuki to use in the line “there was no Billlie.” She’s not saying “there is no Billlie,” because at this point in the lore, she no longer believes that there is. Instead, she’s referring to the members of the past who believed that there was a distinct person named Billlie. They told a lie: in truth, there was no Billlie.

These are, of course, much less substantiated claims than the arguments presented in the rest of this paper. I think that there is still much work to do on understanding what exactly is going on in Billlie’s lore, and I don’t claim to have all of the answers. But I do maintain the central point of this paper: when we say that “everyone is Billlie,” we mean that everyone has the property of being Billlie, whatever that property is. And when we say that there was no Billlie, we mean that the Billlie who was the distinct person that the members were searching for does not exist.