Part 6: The Carol

As mentioned in the previous part, there were two more teaser images released alongside Haseul's solo teasers. These featured both Heejin and Hyunjin, and were teasers for the b-side on Haseul's album, The Carol.

The first was posted on December 10th, 2016 with no caption besides the usual hashtags. The text, written in Haseul's signature green, reads "LOONA & Haseul," distinguishing Haseul from the other two - likely to represent how we haven't seen her officially meet them yet.

The girls wear pearl earrings, which as stated before connect to the moon and can symbolize innocence, beauty, sincerity, spiritual transformation, and motherhood.

All three also wear dresses patterned with circular and square clocks. Time is a very important concept in the Loonaverse, and we'll see clocks be used as symbols in the future.

Haseul is positioned between Heejin and Hyunjin. Interestingly, she's the only one to look at the viewer, while the other two stare off at something to the right. Heejin and Hyunjin have a focused, elegant look, while Haseul's is a bit gentler and closer to a smile. She appears to be leaning on Heejin, and there are twinkling lights in the background.

The second teaser was posted the next day, also without a caption. Once again, the green text denotes them as "LOONA & Haseul," and Haseul stands in between the other two.

This time, they wear frilly black and white outfits. We can see their earrings a bit better here. Hyunjin's are large and ornament-like, Haseul's are a smaller version of hers, and Heejin's have a small pearl with a tassel. The front of Haseul's dress is also decorated with pearls, and Heejin's top has buttons that also look like pearls.

This time, all three of them gaze at the viewer with ambiguous expressions (once again, Haseul's looks the closest to a smile.) They are all holding hands, and there's buildings behind them decorated with Christmas lights and ornaments.

The next day, the video teaser for The Carol's music video was released.

Once again, it doesn't contain anything of note that isn't in the MV itself, so we can save discussion of its contents for later.

The day after that, the "London" teaser was released. Like all the other location teasers, it's simply behind the scenes footage and isn't relevant for our purposes here.

Finally on December 14th, 2016, the music video for The Carol was released. In Haseul's album description, it's described as "LOONA's own Christmas theme" and "expresses a giddy feeling like that of an excited girl on Christmas." The MV was filmed entirely in London, along with all other promotional material.

Now let's get festive and watch the MV!

This MV is fairly simple. We see Heejin, Hyunjin, and Haseul all meet up in London for Christmas shopping and celebration. However, there's still plenty to discuss.

The MV begins with us getting a look at each of the girls in the city. It should be noted that London is where Haseul's teaser images as Birdseul were taken, as the city was described as having an "opposite charm" from her representative location of Reykjavík, Iceland where Let Me In was filmed.

Heejin is walking down a street, holding a bright pink gift box with a blue stripe. She's wearing a green coat dress (Haseul's color) with a red bow.

We get a better shot of her full outfit later, showing her yellow socks (Hyunjin's color) and black shoes. She also has a bright yellow heart-eyes emoji purse.

Hyunjin wears a similar long coat, in her signature yellow color. The dress underneath has a decorative brooch with a blue and red/pink ribbon. She also carries a bright red purse and wears shoes and socks in the same color.

She appears to be waiting for someone outside of a bar, looking around and making a frustrated/bored expression.

Finally, we see Haseul sat on a bench with a similar expression, also seemingly waiting for someone. She wears a blue and white dress with a red collar, and a blue purse. She's also seen wearing a pair of headphones in Heejin's signature Vivid pink.

Later, we get a close-up of Haseul's shoes, where we can see that they're a very dark pink/purple, with flower decorations in various colors and blue socks to match her dress.

The intro of the song ends with this shot of red presents, similar to the one Heejin was shown carrying, stacked around a decorated Christmas tree. We get a teal title card with the name of the song, alongside LOONA's name in Korean and little snowflakes and plants.

We see Heejin continuing to walk along, only this time she's wearing the same Vivid pink headphones we saw Haseul wearing. Are they the same ones, or do they both have their own pair?

She walks by two bright blue doors, labelled with the number 22. I can't think of any meaning this could have, but I thought I'd point it out just in case.

She looks at her phone and appears to get a text, starting to hurry over.

We then see her in the room with the presents and Christmas tree, wearing light pink pajamas with her hair in pigtails. This is a look at what will happen later in the MV.

We return to Hyunjin and Haseul. They both continue to wait around, looking at their own phones and looking around impatiently. It seems pretty clear that Heejin has texted them that she's on her way, and that they're waiting for her arrival.

Haseul looks over at a nearby clock, which says that it's around 3:53 PM. The fact that it's still 3 but on the verge of 4 could symbolize how we now have 3 revealed members of LOONA, and we're close to the reveal of the fourth.

We get this shot of Heejin in her green dress with her back to us, holding up one finger. Over this shot, Haseul sings "It feels like something is about to happen."

Right afterwards, we see this odd shot for a brief moment. Hyunjin is waiting in the same spot as before, but she's facing away from us like Heejin in the previous shot. Her arms are at her sides or in her pockets, so she doesn't seem to have her phone out. What is she doing then? Just staring at the wall? Very strange.

Afterwards, we can see that she is also wearing those Vivid pink headphones. Either it's one pair that the girls are sharing or, more likely, they each have their own pair of the same ones. Either way, this detail is likely meant to show that the three of them are friends and have similar taste.

Soon afterward, Heejin peers around a corner and spots her. She smiles as she realizes that she hasn't been spotted yet, runs up...

...and grabs Hyunjin's shoulder, surprising her.

After more singing, we get this shot of a mannequin wearing blue with a cape, dramatically turning around. This song is a Christmas love song, so perhaps this is meant to some kind of imaginary "prince" for the girls?

(We see the mannequin after Heejin makes her own dramatic entrance, so maybe it's meant to represent her?)

Hyunjin has joined Heejin, and they now walk along the streets together.

Interestingly, in this shot there's decorations above them that depict small birds, owls, a wolf, and a rabbit - all of which are representative animals of LOONA members. (Small bird = Haseul, Owl = Kim Lip, Wolf = Olivia Hye, Rabbit = Heejin)

Hyunjin has now also appeared in the Christmas tree scenes alongside Heejin, wearing similar light pink pajamas. Hers appear to be patterned with strawberries... interesting.

We see flashes of various Christmas decor, and then a shot of them walking beside this monument.

This is the Seven Dials monument, which features six sundial faces. It was originally built in 1694, removed in 1773, and replaced by a replica in 1987 which stands to this day. The monument had a poem inscribed on it at one point, which reads as follows:

From what I can tell, the poem is dedicated to Frederica Charlotte Ulrica Catherina, Duchess of York, who died on August 6th, 1820.

Heejin and Hyunjin hold hands and start running, similar to how they did in I'll Be There. We also get a better look at the dress Hyunjin wears underneath her coat, which is dark blue.

As the lyric "just between the two of us" is sung, we get a shot identical to the one of Heejin before, only this time with Hyunjin. She wears her yellow coat and faces away from us, switching from holding up one finger to two.

We then see figures of their representative animals standing next to each other; a rabbit for Heejin and a cat for Hyunjin.

We see the Christmas tree again, as the presents progressively pile up.

There are three socks hanging from the lights in the background, each with an animal pattern. It's blurry in the original MV, but luckily the vertical version gives us a closer look.

There's a black one with turtles, a yellow one with dinosaurs, and a blue one with dalmations. None of these are animals associated with LOONA members though, so the patterns likely aren't important.

After more singing, we see Haseul look into the window of the shop behind her, smiling.

The shot of the inside is particularly odd. (Brightened here for visibility) We can see some kind of movement between what looks like two figures, but it's so blurry and quick that it's quite hard to make out.

To me it looks like two people dancing or otherwise celebrating, but again it's really hard to tell.

We know that it's not Heejin and Hyunjin though, as the shot is followed by the two arriving to meet up with Haseul. (Now carrying the presents we see in the Christmas tree scene.)

Now all together, the three of them continue to walk through the city as it gets dark.

We see them go into a shop and get more shots of various Christmas decorations and treats.

Haseul has now also joined them in the Christmas tree scene. Her light pink pajamas feature the Pink Panther. (lol) Like in the teaser images, she sits in between them.

Like the shots of Heejin and Hyunjin before, we get Haseul in her blue dress facing away from the camera and switching her fingers from two to three to mark the change.

A bird figure has now joined the rabbit and cat to represent Haseul. Interestingly, it's blue instead of the usual white.

The girls finally arrive at the Christmas tree room, now done with their shopping and ready to celebrate. It's unclear where this is meant to be, since as far as we know none of them live in London and it doesn't look like a public area. Perhaps it's a space they rented out for the night to celebrate? At the very least I don't think it was Heejin's doing, since she looks the most surprised.

The girls read a card, play with fake snow, and stack presents on top of Haseul. (lol)

They peer into a present and suddenly it explodes open. They watch in surprise as feathers burst out from it into the air, resembling snow.

We can see here that Haseul's sleepmask says "FIND ME!" on it. (It's assumedly part of a set with her Pink Panther PJs, though I wasn't able to find an exact match online.)

We then see the girls set off party poppers filled with confetti and continue to dance around in the fake snow.

Afterwards, we see the girls back out on the street in their coats. (Either this is before the Christmas tree scene, or it's afterwards when they're leaving. I'd guess the former.) Heejin and Hyunjin wait for Haseul to adjust the camera.

They then pop up in debut order: Heejin, then Hyunjin, then Haseul. And that's the end of the music video!

I consider The Carol to be similar to I'll Be There - while not super important lore-wise, it exists to get across information about the character's relationships. Just like how I'll Be There established Heejin and Hyunjin's friendship, this MV establishes Haseul as a part of the friend group.

It's clear that Haseul knew the other two before the events of the MV, since they planned to meet up. It's likely that Haseul befriended them after the events of I'll Be There, since the imagery of this MV shows Heejin and Hyunjin meeting first before Haseul joins them. Still, the exact timeframe and circumstances of the three becoming friends is left vague.

Another important but subtle thing this MV does is give us more information about Haseul's character. When discussing Let Me In in Part 5, I mentioned how we don't really get any information about Haseul's circumstances, since the entire MV takes place out in the wilderness.

Here though, we see her hanging out and doing everyday things with Heejin and Hyunjin, who have both already been established to be normal girls. Thus, this MV shows us that Haseul is also just a normal girl.

The Vimeo and Vertical versions of this MV don't feature any notable differences, but I did want to point out how they did these shots just cause I think it's cute.

That's basically all there is to discuss in this one. There is one lingering mystery though... who were those people Haseul was looking at?

Unfortunately, we just don't have anything to go off - at least, not yet. We will be revisiting many things from this MV a lot later. But that won't be for a while, so just keep it in the back of your mind.

Overall, The Carol serves to give us additional context for our three known members. But now, we can finally introduce our fourth member. I'll see you later in Part 7! ;)