the boyz ateez and stray kids mama 2020 + kingdom theory!!
now that i’ve had time to Think and Stew on ideas and analyze the mama stage, here’s my theory surrounding kingdom and mama and how everything ties together. and also pls rt or like bc i spent a long time making this!!

tbz are the current rulers since they won road to kingdom, but also they are ‘royals’ bc of the allusions to persona/phantom thieves/persona 5 royal in rtk. they used the phantom thieves are a big concept point then turned that into a game of chess with check mate where they +

were the royals and they had the three person chess board in their checkmate performance, which could be a hint to the three contestants of kingdom. the goal of chess is of course to win, but you win by taking out the other person’s king (ie the crown used as a central piece)

but what are the boyz’s goals. i think some of that can be seen in the lyrics of reveal and their choice of reveal as the song (moreso than just for performance quality):

the boyz also bear the sword as their ‘weapon’ which could mean that they are moving forward and looking for something to conquer with their swords, but we also see juyeon on the throne so it could also mean that he is defending his kingdom and his place on the throne

stray kids are an invading nation and it holds lots of references to sparta and the movie 300. in 300, the king leonidus leads his army against the persian army who is much larger than they are, and there’s a state of war between persia and greece.

in this case, tbz could be persia and skz could be greece, seen in skz’s use of props and set design. tbz also used a sword as their ‘weapon’ in the statue backdrop while skz used a shield which could mean that tbz are invading their space and trying to take from them.

i think skz are trying to take the crown from tbz tho and they are aiming to win against tbz for it, and they’re confident in doing so as seen in their choice of victory song for the performance. but in changbin’s rap he says:

‘don’t you know who we are, you can’t defeat us, this is our kingdom, bring it on’
which could be seen as a mocking sort of threat to the boyz saying like ‘hey yeah your crown is ours’ because at the end we see hyunjin taking the crown

i think atz plays a super special role because they were strategically sandwiched between tbz and skz which i think it very intentional. atz have cerberus in the back drop as well as a hammer as their statue’s weapon. typically with hades, the symbol used to associate with him is

a key or a cornucopia or cerberus himself HOWEVER (and this is an extreme reach) in the game God of War there is a weapon called the maul of hades which is a two-handed hammer which has a helmet resembling hades on one end, and the head of the hammer is fashioned with spikes

NOW i think a huge hint lies in the title of the boyz’s performance ‘open the gate of hell’. ateez are very clearly emulating demons (in my opinion demon pirates), and if the boyz have decided to open the gate of hell, that would mean that ateez have come out of hell.

tbz either did this because they were greedy for more power and wanted to invade the underworld, or they thought they could use demons against skz to win against them. we also see the dancers with ateez crawling on the floor as though they are zombies or creatures that are not +

alive/human (yall doing great by the way i see ur effort and i love it). we see the scenery look very red and hellish, things that are typically used to depict the underworld as well.

so either tbz summoned ateez before the fight with skz (which would explain why ateez is sandwiched between the two) or tbz are trying to invade the underworld and ateez is rising up to stop them from doing so. a huge thing it that both tbz and skz focus a lot on the crown itself

however, ateez places a lot of focus on the throne, seen with hongjoong sitting in the throne at the end of the performance. i think this is meant to show that hongjoong (and ateez as a collective) is already the king of the underworld,

so in this case, hongjoong would be hades the ruler of the underworld. it could also be that he is taking the throne from juyeon and tbz tho and asserting dominance in doing so (taking the throne instead of the crown)

the choice of song tho i think ateez could very well have done just inception and thanxx and called it a day, but i think they very decisively chose answer for the full length song bc that song has lyrics like these:

in the collab stage, we see san with hyunjin and juyeon and we see the crown present, so this could allude to these rulers of the underworld coming out to conquer the world and take the crown.

each group has their own colors and animals as well. tbz has blue and a snake, skz has red and an eagle, and ateez has green and cerberus.

tbz are also the only ones wearing white for their performance, which i think it meant to portray them as ‘good’ whereas red is typically associated with aggression (skz invading and taking the crown) and green is associated with evil (ateez rising up out of hell to conquer)

cerberus is the gatekeeper of hell. he lets you in and makes sure no one leaves. there are three heads to represent the past, the present and the future. this could be used as a symbol to show that ateez do not want the boyz to come into their kingdom or try to take it

eagles represent three things: freedom, courage, heraldry of change. the changing of power to a new king, the courage to fight, and possibly the freedom from the boyz’s reign as rulers

snakes can represent rebirth, transformation, immortality, and healing. this could be the rebirth of a kingdom, the transformation of a good ruler to a bad one, or the desire to be known as immortal rulers.

so i think tbz are trying to guard their power or spread their power. skz is invading or being invaded. ateez has risen from hell to spread their rule and take over more, or to keep the boyz from taking their kingdom in hell. let me know what you think and pls rt to spread!

also it's confirmed that skz based their perf a bit around ares god of war, so it's possible that ateez represent hades and tbz represent zeus??

@devilhongjoong here it is !!