In the BTS universe, the beautiful moments of youth can only be found among numerous moments of anguish and pain.
- The BU as a whole is the story of one young boy trying to save his younger friends from terrible fates, which include jail, hospitalization or death. Sadly, these are all realistic consequences of mundane things like abusive families, trauma or poverty.
- The original, 05:32 version MV for "I NEED U
" is full of these, setting the tone for the rest of the BU. It contains scenes like Hoseok swallowing pills and passing out, Yoongi burning himself alive, Jungkook getting beaten by strangers and hit by an oncoming car, and Taehyung viciously stabbing his abusive father to death. - "Prologue". Seemingly after his part in "I NEED U", Taehyung reunites with the others and spends moments of happiness. Then they go to the beach together... and Taehyung throws himself off the watchtower.
- The Stinger in the deleted version. Jin sits in the truck, staring serenely at the sea, and looks for the Polaroid picture Namjoon got earlier of Jin and Yoongi. When he looks at it, he looks confused: Yoongi has disappeared from the photo. Or rather, his image seems to have been burned off.
- "RUN" has the characters jumping back and forth between past and present, seemingly losing their sense of reality.
- A scene has Taehyung spraying a huge "X" over Jin's body. Which becomes Harsher in Hindsight given later entries of the BU.
- Taehyung being playfully thrown into the full bathtub by the others, laughing, intercut with Taehyung drowning in the sea.
- In particular, a scene has the boys causing havoc for the cars in the middle of a highway while Jin looks on blocking the path with his truck, then Jin picking the boys up and driving away. As a Youtube comment pointed out, the only phrase uttered by the drivers is "move the car!"... implying that the boys weren't real, except for Jin.
- The WINGS teasers up the ante in symbolism and Mind Screw elements, entering into Surreal Music Video and World of Symbolism territory. In all of the teasers, each member appears completely alone.
- "Lie" is rather eerie. It features Jimin alone in a white, sterile hospital room. It's all pretty dehumanized; no other person appears during the psychological tests he goes through, with Rorschach tests being displayed by a mannequin hand and a camera observing it all.
- He then appears dancing in reverse, with the choreography in itself containing a lot of jerky movements, as though he's in severe distress.
- Then there's the Jump Scare, with distorted noise suddenly playing with Jimin reclined over a chair, appearing to have several heads.
- "First Love". Yoongi breaks into a music store to play the piano, until he hears someone whistling the "Begin" melody. He gets out of the store into the street, looking for the source. Then a car suddenly approaches, Yoongi dodges at the last second, and after the car goes offscreen, we hear a car crash- cut to black. Then we see Yoongi again, standing alone, the street now inexplicably stained with blood. Yoongi runs back to the store in anguish, only to find it in flames.
- The Mushroom Samba in "Mama". Hoseok sits in the middle of a room in what's implied to be a mental facility. Doctors write notes while looking at him from the outside, and then pills start filling the room. Hoseok takes one, and the room suddenly changes; it goes all dark with colorful fluorescent stains on the walls, and Hoseok looks around and starts making jerky movements in anguish while "Mama" starts to play, until he collapses.
- "Lie" is rather eerie. It features Jimin alone in a white, sterile hospital room. It's all pretty dehumanized; no other person appears during the psychological tests he goes through, with Rorschach tests being displayed by a mannequin hand and a camera observing it all.
- The "WINGS Tour Trailer". Following after both the teasers and "Blood, Sweat and Tears", it shows a lot of imagery referencing those and then some.
- The very first image is Jungkook on a swing on a black background. He swings away from the shot... and then the swing comes back, with the space where Jungkook used to be now in flames.
- There are several shots with the members collapsed on the floor. Namjoon is surrounded by broken glass, Jimin is still on a blindfold, Hoseok is in the middle of a field full of arrows.
- Black tears start to run from Jimin's face while he's floating horizontally. Jungkook gets multicolored tears while he stares at the camera.
- Cracks appear on Jin's face, and parts of his face and body start to break and fall off.
- Taehyung grows big black wings, and stares at the camera with a Psychotic Smirk.
- The Japanese version of "Blood, Sweat and Tears", which is radically different from the Korean one. The video is full of very strong Color Wash and Mood Lighting, giving the scenes a nightmarish feel.
- Jungkook runs to the bathroom to throw up. A worried Yoongi enters and tries to get Jungkook to react, as Jungkook stares ahead, lost. Then Jungkook violently pushes Yoongi away.
- At one point, Seokjin beats Taehyung on the kitchen floor. The music stops for a second so we can hear a single line of dialogue ("Sorry."). Taehyung manages to throw him off, looks at Seokjin (and the camera) with an unbelieving Slasher Smile, and attacks him with a knife.
- Namjoon raising his hands to show cut wounds.
- The video for "Fake Love", especially its extended version, has moments of terrifying imagery, especially if you know their BU story context.
- Hoseok finds himself in a room reminiscent of the amusement park where his mother abandoned him and immediately trying to escape through the door, only for the room to slowly be filled by candy bars as he curls up in a fetal position. In the extended version, his final scene has him being buried alive.
- Yoongi is sitting alone in a burned room with a piano (implied to be the one where his mother died in a fire), breaking things and generally displaying anguish (the extended version shows him with a Thousand-Yard Stare). In his final scene in the climax, the room is quickly consumed by a giant ball of fire - and Yoongi is smiling at the approaching flames.
- Similarly, Jimin ends up passively staring ahead as the room quickly fills up with water.
- Throughout it all, Jungkook travels through the house within which all of this is happening, escaping collapsing floors and only being able to see his friends through vents or wall gaps, unable to do anything to go in and help them.
- The end of the extended version video. Jungkook receives a hooded robe from a very ominous person in a similar attire. He immediately puts on it, and goes to join a line of other hooded people (who may or may not be the other boys). And then a giant stone blocks suddenly falls from nowhere, just where they just stood.
