(Note: This post was originally published on Reddit. I have republished it here for archival purposes. You can read the original post and comments here.)
I have a new theory.
Well–a new spin on an old theory. And it all starts with the beginning and ending of life in The Giver.
Jonas’s father is a caregiver for infants. He tells the family one night about a newchild (a baby) that was proving to be a challenge to raise because he would not sleep well and was fussy with the night staff. In the Community, babies are raised in a facility until they are a year old and are deemed healthy enough to be sent to qualifying families while babies that have any mental or physical issues at all are released (a.k.a. euthanized). Jonas’s father cares very much for this newchild and advocates for him to be given some extra time to develop before being released. Although newchildren are not granted government-sanctioned names until they are placed in families at the Ceremony of Ones, Jonas’s father reveals that he sneaked a look at the names list and discovered that the newchild’s name was meant to be Gabriel. He tells the family he had thought “it might enhance his nurturing if I could call him by a name. . . I whisper [it] to him when I feed him every four hours, and during exercise and playtime. If no one can hear me.”
Jonas’s father seems to innately understand what has been all but stripped away from him: that our personal identity is, in many ways, essential to our survival.
From what we understand of the ATEEZ timeline, Say My Name happens right at the conclusion of the events of Fever. It’s unclear how much time has transpired between the Battle for Yeosang and the Morse code message from Ateez in the bunker. However, due to the excited reactions of the Resistance members present at the time, it seems that it’s been quite awhile.
Interestingly, the Resistance begins to cheer for the “Black Pirates,” but they are swiftly corrected: “SAY MY NAME. ATEEZ.” the message reads.
On the surface, this seems like a clear reference to our place in the timeline. We have finally arrived back where we began (Pirate King and Treasure simply don’t exist. Morocco who? Never been there.) at Say My Name, the true beginning of the Treasure series.
But, why is it that after all their adventures in Strictland, the first thing Ateez does is leave the Resistance behind for some unknown amount of time (enough for people to be excited that they’re returning) to question who they are and what their purpose is? To seek, as it were, their Treasure? And why do the Resistance members assume that they are the Black Pirates (a.k.a. Halateez)? We know that Halateez fades away in the ZFP3 diaries.
This brings me to the crux of my theory: Halateez does not exist. Not in the Treasure series.
What does this have to do with identity? Walk with me.
We begin in Zero to One presented with two sides of ATEEZ: themselves–-questioning who they are–and their new identity, the one that was thrust upon them. They never consented to the Black Fedora and all that it represents. They never chose to go to Strictland, and most of their efforts there were towards finding their way back home. The final battle vs. the Guardians in the Epilogue diaries was prompted by their desire to rescue Yeosang. We have no indication that they ever intended to begin a revolution at that point. What we know is that they were wearing the clothes of revolutionaries, and whatever they intended, the revolution had begun.
And then they leave.
So what follows in the Treasure series is what I feel is largely a metaphor for the attempt to escape responsibility, or rather, to escape a new name they never asked for. Ateez has become aware of a problem that they could possibly solve. But what does that have to do with pursuing their passion for music? Have we all forgotten about the ZFP1 diaries? (Bible Study attendees know that we certainly haven’t.) Have all their dreams suddenly shifted away from their original motivations? I don’t believe that they have.
What do you do when you are torn between responsibility and the pursuit of passion? Well, I think we see this illustrated in the Treasure series: you question (is this really who I am and what I’m meant to do?), you get distracted, you seek to forget and just have a good time. But then, eventually, you must decide–-it’s time to go to war. It’s time to fulfill your duty. And you make peace with your new identity. (Theoretically, you could also decide not to go to war, but if that’s your choice, you will wander lost in the desert until you sort out your priorities. Did I just bring Pirate King and Treasure back into the fold of the lore? Maybe.) How does the clear representation of Halateez figure into all this? I think they are ghosts. Not dead, necessarily, but they are a specter of ignored responsibility haunting ATEEZ, dogging their steps as they try to leave their new identities behind. However, the Treasure series ends with Answer, in which we see Ateez and Halateez meet and toast, as though Ateez has stopped fighting and accepted this new role.
Even so, what Ateez wants to make abundantly clear is that they are not Halateez. They are not Black Pirates, not the way Strictland remembers them. Ateez is clinging to their own identities, the ones they’ve chosen for themselves this time. And this is important, this merging of their new responsibility with their chosen name.
In The Giver, Jonas remembers the death of a young child named Caleb who had drowned in the river and recalls performing “the Ceremony of Loss together, murmuring the name Caleb throughout the entire day, less and less frequently, softer in volume, as the long and somber day went on, so that the little Four seemed to fade away gradually from everyone’s consciousness.”
I don’t know why re-reading this passage for the dozenth time tonight hit me so hard. This idea of purposeful erasure of a memory–-specifically in the context of that memory being replaced by a new one, in this case, a new Caleb–-strikes me as deeply sad. Perhaps I’m just feeling melancholy or perhaps I’m thinking of how far I am as a person from who I thought I’d become when I was younger. Have I been whispering my own name less and less frequently and more and more softly as the years go by? Am I losing a bit of myself each year as I get buried by all my adult responsibilities? I truly can’t say. It’s too big of a question for me to ponder this particular evening.
But I think in Ateez’s case, they make a very clear decision to keep their own identity as they accept the quest to save Strictland. I see it in Halazia when Wooyoung burns the black fedora, when Seonghwa mimics the posture of the Hala-scarecrow but in white rather than black, when they all stand in the place of the effigy as it burns and topples in a cloud of ash and embers around them. “We are not your Black Pirates,” they seem to say. “We’re doing this our way.”
They realize that becoming Halateez the way the Resistance wants them to be would lead them further and further away from themselves–-because I believe that they are at heart still the boys that want to passionately pursue music and experience the freedom and fulfillment it gives them. And I think that they cling to that in spite of their decision to attempt to liberate Strictland. Their passion for music that once was so weak it allowed them to be driven apart has become their mightiest motivation.
And so, their name will not be murmured less and less frequently and more and more quietly until their identities fade away. It will not disappear beneath the guise of a black hat under the weight of an inherited responsibility. It will not be forgotten.
“SAY MY NAME,” they demand. And we reply, “ATEEZ.”
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