TXT’s Take on The Little Prince

Unpacking the profound life lessons in a classic novella, TXT’s discography, and the points where they collide.

Apr 01, 2024

The Little Prince, a classic novella by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, begins with the narrator lamenting how adults reacted to his childhood dream of becoming an artist. They saw his drawings and not only mistook them for things that they were not but rebuked him for thinking he could make a career out of his work. Disheartened, the narrator gave up art and became a pilot. The rest of the book covers the narrator’s recollections of the days after he crashed his plane on an island and befriended the other person there, who is referred to as the little prince. While the narrator tells his story to the readers, the little prince recalls his adventures to the narrator of traveling to different planets. Through his storytelling, the prince transforms and expands the narrator’s worldview in downright magical ways, reconnecting him with his inner child. TXT’s musical storytelling has a comparable impact, and while the group’s most overt nods to The Little Prince appear in their new era, minisode 3: TOMORROW, many of their previous eras share The Little Prince’s most important lessons, similarities that are clearer in hindsight.

Seeing and Believing

One of the first memories the narrator recounts is the little prince asking for a drawing of a sheep and repeatedly asking for a new version that looks closer to what he has in mind. Growing more frustrated and impatient with every draft, the narrator eventually gives up. He draws a box and tells the prince to picture the sheep residing inside it. The boy reacts giddily, saying that’s exactly how he envisioned the ideal sheep picture!

The last time the narrator tried perfecting an image through redrafts, he was a child, and adults saw his work’s unconventionality as a lack of quality. “Drawing Number One” was the narrator’s attempt to draw a boa constrictor digesting an elephant, but all the grown-ups saw was a hat. This became his test of character:

“I have had a great many encounters with a great many people who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a great deal among grown-ups… And that hasn't much improved my opinion of them. Whenever I [meet] one of them who [seems] to me at all clear-sighted, I [try] the experiment of showing [that person] my Drawing Number One… I… try to find out… if this [is] a person of true understanding. But [that person will] always say: ‘That is a hat.’ Then I [will] never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I [will] bring myself down to [that person’s] level. I [will] talk… about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up [will be] greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man.”

The reference to bringing his conversations down a level implies that the minds of grown-ups are actually less full, insightful, and creative than those of children. Adults wish to talk about what is in front of them, what is tangible. Children, on the other hand, also want to talk about what else the things they see could be (like imagining a sheep in a picture of a box). In other words, where grown-ups see something, children see many things. This imagination is what the narrator appreciates in the young boy. He remembers how it felt making art and realizing that “Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.” This brings to mind Peter Pan, a story in which the parents are described as not understanding the elaborate fictions their children dream up. What makes no sense to an adult makes plenty of sense to a child, who intuitively can understand what someone is trying to say through means other than words. Explanations are unnecessary for them.

In TXT’s previous eras, they have embraced a childlike worldview too, one that sees potential where others see nothing of substance. They don’t mind speaking their own language, their special “code,” as they say in “MOA Diary (Dubaddu Wari Wari)” (“Your and my secret / So what if it’s childish?”). To them, making sure that the people they care about understand them is the main “matter of consequence.”

“Matters of Consequence”

Both overtly (like in the above quote about adults the narrator has met) and indirectly, a topic that comes up again and again throughout The Little Prince is “matters of consequence.” What are considered “matters of consequence” to adults and to children are juxtaposed, one example being when the prince asks the narrator an urgent question: Do sheep eat flowers? What about thorns? What are those for, anyway? The narrator is focused on finding sustenance on the island and fixing his plane; he has no patience for this boy’s questions and tells him so. The boy is shocked by this attitude, insisting that his questions are just as important as the matters the narrator is focused on:

"I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never loved any one. He has never done anything in his life but add up figures. And all day he says over and over, just like you: 'I am busy with matters of consequence!' And that makes him swell up with pride… The flowers have been growing thorns for millions of years. For millions of years the sheep have been eating them just the same. And is it not a matter of consequence to try to understand why the flowers go to so much trouble to grow thorns which are never of any use to them? Is the warfare between the sheep and the flowers not important? Is this not of more consequence than a… gentleman's sums?"

The little prince is so distraught that he begins to cry, and the narrator feels out of his depth:

“I did not know what to say to him. I felt awkward and blundering. I did not know how I could reach him, where I could overtake him and go on hand in hand with him once more. It is such a secret place, the land of tears.”

The narrator offers to draw more tools for the sheep to engage with to assuage the boy’s concerns about his beloved hand-drawn sheep, now that he has opened his mind to the reasoning behind the boy’s emotional investment in it.

Seeking to make sense of what triggers “the land of tears” to understand someone at a deeper level is something to which TXT routinely allude. The chapter of the “Magic Island” short film called “Song of a Star” features text on the screen that says, “I always tear up after waking up from a familiar dream.” They reflect on memories that generate “A smile that blooms tears on top” in “Thursday’s Child Has Far to Go.” They also draw attention to their tears during mid-video close-ups in “Good Boy Gone Bad.” And in the new video for “Deja Vu,” there are more close-ups of teary faces and a reminder in the opening text that some of the most precious things are “invisible to the eye,” like knowing how to console someone in pain. “The sadness we shared is my clarity,” they sing; they understand each other more intimately than they would if they focused on just stopping the crying, rather than stopping the invisible sources of it.

The Prince’s Seven Trips

The narrator explains to readers that parts of the solar system deemed “too small” to warrant a name are given numbers instead, such as “Asteroid 325.” He suspects that the little prince is from the planet B612 (“asteroid” and “planet” are treated like interchangeable terms in this story), which is too small to see without a telescope. Notably, TXT say they are from Planet B612 in the “minisode 3: TOMORROW” short film, and they gather around a telescope in “Nap of a star.”

In addition to physical smallness, some of the planets deemed relatively insignificant in The Little Prince include inhabitants with intellectual small-mindedness. The prince tells the narrator about his interactions with these people on seven planets.

Asteroid 325 is home to a king who acts like his powers are absolute, even though there is no one else on his planet over which to rule. The king’s power is meaningless, but he acts with a sense of superiority, even trying to persuade the boy to move to his planet by offering him a job as the “Minister of Justice.” The boy requests to see a sunset, one of his favorite things, but the king denies the request until more “favorable” conditions arise. To a self-appointed king, everyone is a subject that ought to do as they are told. “Matters of consequence” to the king have to do with what makes him feel powerful, while “matters of consequence” to the boy include getting to see sunsets. This scene subverts the expected determination of what is a stronger “matter of consequence”: getting to see a sunset or having absolute power. The power is all a sham, making the sunset more meaningful than it. The emotional investment in sunsets in TXT’s “Blue Hour” makes more sense in this light.

Just like the king wants to keep giving the impression of dominance, all the man on Asteroid 326 wants is to keep giving the impression of popularity. Asteroid 326 is home to a person just described as “the conceited man.” He literally cannot hear criticism and spends his days saluting a nonexistent crowd of fans. To a conceited man, everyone is a fan, and the presence of someone like the prince that feeds that illusion is his personal “matter of consequence.” The man is content with putting on airs, while the young boy wants to see something real.

Asteroids 327 and 328 are inhabited by “the tippler” and “the businessman,” respectively. Both men embrace circular reasoning. The tippler says he drinks to forget that he’s ashamed, and what he’s ashamed of is his drinking. The businessman wants to own anything that can be quantified, even the stars, because those stars can make him rich, and he wants to be rich because he wants to buy stars. The businessman overtly says he is “concerned with matters of consequence,” and that is why he loathes the prince’s interruption of his counting. Had these characters maintained a child’s insatiable curiosity, like the prince who peppers them with questions, perhaps they would have been able to break out of their circular reasoning and see the route to an alternative, more fulfilling way of life.

The “matter of consequence” to the man on Asteroid 329 is doing his job of lighting the lamp every day. The lamp-lighter does nothing but put out the light and relight the lamp, since a day on his planet lasts mere seconds. While the prince finds this exercise somewhat pointless, he admires this man more than the others, because:

“... at least his work has some meaning. When he lights his street lamp, it is as if he brought one more star to life, or one flower. When he puts out his lamp, he sends the flower, or the star, to sleep. That is a beautiful occupation. And since it is beautiful, it is truly useful."

Finding value in something for its beauty is what leads to a disagreement on Asteroid 330, home to a geographer. This man makes maps without traveling; he just draws what explorers describe to him. The prince starts to describe his home planet and its beautiful flower, but the map-maker brushes that comment aside, saying that flowers are not significant enough to go on a map. They are “ephemeral,” which he defines as “in danger of speedy disappearance.” The prince brings up an interesting point: His home planet also has volcanoes, and the map-maker willingly includes those on a map, but isn’t it possible that the volcanoes will not be there forever either? Isn’t the future of all living things anything but guaranteed? Why the distinction between flowers and other fragile things? Why value a volcano more than a flower?

Relative Terms

The boy clearly shows his different perspective from the adults’ when on Earth, when the relativity of the term “big” is apparent. The prince is used to mountains that are knee-high, so he is appalled to witness Earth’s mountains and realize that not all mountains allow for a wide, unobstructed view! He feels smaller by witnessing them, a feeling the narrator theorizes would afflict humans if they thought deeply about the Earth’s size:

“All humanity could be piled up on a small Pacific islet. The grown-ups, to be sure, will not believe you when you tell them that. They imagine that they fill a great deal of space. They fancy themselves as important as the baobabs.”

Humans are humbled when reminded of how many other living things there are with which they must coexist, and the boy’s recognition of matters of perspective makes him wiser than the average adult. This explains why TXT do not see comparing themselves to animals as a bad thing, like in “What if I had been that PUMA” and “Cat & Dog.”

The prince is wise to be open to learning from all species. On Earth, while roaming the desert, he ponders how lonely and bored Earth-dwellers must feel, hearing their voices echo, symbolizing the hollowness of their ways:

"[Earth] is altogether dry, and altogether pointed, and altogether harsh and forbidding. And the people have no imagination. They repeat whatever one says to them… On my planet I had a flower; she always was the first to speak… ”

The lessons that bigger is not always better and that excesses can obscure people’s sight of the things that matter most remain relevant when the prince discovers that his home planet’s flower is not one-of-a-kind. He discovers tons of flowers just like it on Earth:

"I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world… all I had was a common rose."

Why has the prince been under the impression that his flower friend was special? Because it was the only one he had, and because he had made it special.

Lessons from a Fox

As the little prince lies down and cries, a fox approaches him but rejects his request to play with him. The fox says he cannot befriend a person because the fox is not tamed, and when the boy asks what “tamed” means, the fox says, “to establish ties.” They do not know each other, so the fox is therefore just another fox to the boy, and the boy is just one of countless boys to the fox. The fox explains that what would make their time in each other’s company special would be to establish ties, to “tame” each other. If they did that, the fox says, not only could their time together be worth remembering, but the ordinary could become extraordinary:

"My life is very monotonous… I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life.”

Later on, the fox describes how he can be “tamed”:

"First you will sit down at a little distance from me… I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day… It [will be] better to come back at the same hour… If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you… One must observe the proper rites… [Rites are] actions too often neglected… They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours."

The key word for understanding what makes a day meaningful is “makes;” people need to actively seek out things to love and cherish, and they then find things to look forward to, adding meaning to phrases like “four o’clock” beyond just “an hour in the day.” To the fox, four o’clock is not just any hour; it is the hour he can anticipate bonding with a new friend!

The fox also shows wisdom with his remark about words actually being a source of misunderstandings; adults can be all talk when it comes to getting what they truly want. Like interpreting a little kid’s artwork, finding sources of excitement requires imagination and open-mindedness, traits that kids tend to possess more than grown-ups.

TXT find meaning in their “today” by leaning on the people that make them excited for their “tomorrow.” The energizing and fulfilling power of love is the central premise of The Chaos Chapter: FIGHT OR ESCAPE era, and in “Dear Sputnik,” they sing, “In a crumbling world / I found a star called 'you.'” The word “you” is emphasized again in the “minisode 3: TOMORROW” short film: “The boy finds himself longing for ‘you.’” That film also repeats the fox’s line “If you come at four in the afternoon, I’ll begin to be happy from three” more than once. Furthermore, TXT’s desire to live out the advice of the fox is represented by the fox mask they carry with them. One constant reminder they get when thinking about the fox is that actions speak louder than words, and they send more messages through dance and expressions than they do through words in the film. They silently communicate to each other with gestures, like throwing and catching an invisible ball; and with a dance routine that incorporates a game of Musical Chairs, a symbol of childhood, playtime, and abstract (“invisible”) sources of contentment.

What it Means to Make Use of Time

The prince tells stories to the narrator about his interactions with a train controller and a merchant.

The train station worker tells him, “They are pursuing nothing at all,” when asked what the commuters are pursuing. They are simply going somewhere else, sometimes going away from places more than going to new ones. Humans are always going, and to where, and for what reasons, are sometimes not unpacked as much as they should be. What daily surroundings are people trying to replace instead of spruce up? What boredom or sorrow are they trying to evade instead of diluting by coming up with reasons to smile in the here and now?

As for the merchant, he tells the prince that he sells magical pills because "Computations have been made by experts. With these pills, you save fifty-three minutes in every week." Talking to himself, the prince says, "if I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.” Many people would likely jump at the chance to gain 53 minutes each week, but they might do so without even thinking about how they would spend that extra time and why they want it. The prince knows that he would spend that time just lingering longer on doing what he loves, but the on-the-go nature of Earth-dwellers indicates they would not react the same. The prince observes that, unlike him, people on Earth:

“… set out on their way in express trains, but they do not know what they are looking for. Then they rush about, and get excited, and turn round and round… It is not worth the trouble . . ."

What use is a journey with no destination or co-travelers?

Reconsidering Priorities

On the day when the narrator runs out of his water supply on the island, he is annoyed by the little prince’s mind being elsewhere, on thinking about the fox he’d befriended. Like he did when the narrator belittled his reaction to his question about flowers’ thorns, the prince strongly defends the high value he places on remembering the fox:

"It is a good thing to have had a friend, even if one is about to die. I, for instance, am very glad to have had a fox as a friend . . ."

It might seem bizarre to prioritize friendship at the same level as water when in need of some, but this makes perfect sense to the young boy. After all, what good is living when it is without loved ones? When not thinking in the technical, “practical” way of adults, it makes perfect sense to deem relationships and water as equally essential.

Embracing Ambiguities

In each story within The Little Prince - the intergalactic travels, the “taming” of the fox, the interactions with the train station worker and the merchant - a central question arises: What is it all for? More importantly, who is it all for? The adults the little prince meets do things to please imagined audiences; to accumulate wealth, “wealth” referring to both time and money, just for the sake of having it; and to follow forces of habit. The prince, on the other hand, watches the sunset, tends to his flower, and seeks to bond with the fox because those things bring him joy and a sense of companionship. These are not small things and are arguably much more admirable things to seek than what the adults want. Between people who tend to their own impulses and people who satisfy their own needs while also tending to the needs of other living things, who is really living more wisely?

TXT’s story is about living life more like the prince than the adults the prince meets. Their song topics include rejecting black-and-white thinking and stereotypes (“What if I had been that PUMA,” “No Rules,” “New Rules”), money not buying happiness (“LO$ER=LO♡ER”), and endlessly searching for sources of joy amid mundanity (“Chasing That Feeling”). They live complex but beautiful lives, filled with both rain and rainbows, and they keep their priorities straight by living as if society never told them who or how to be.

As detailed previously in this essay:

“When listening to The Name Chapter: FREEFALL from start to finish, audiences are in for a much more nuanced emotional ride than they were when listening to the Neverland-set The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION. TXT’s ‘TEMPTATION’ era basked in the ‘sugar high’ of Neverland, one that wore off quickly and revealed a hollow core… They acknowledged [the fall to reality] would be brutal, but they recognized the rewards that reality can offer are far more vast and long-term than anything Neverland ever could.
“TXT’s ‘FREEFALL’ era is about how living with both ups and downs is actually preferable to living with just ups. In reality, they appreciate ‘That Feeling,’ the ability to dream and to be adventurous that Neverland gave them, more than they could when it was their sole emotional state. Taking the bad with the good has given them a permanent energy boost, the opposite of the temporary high from Neverland. Overall, The Name Chapter: FREEFALL embodies the harshness of entering a new life phase while never losing sight of the reasons to stay the course.”

Like how the little prince’s love of the fox and the flower come with heartbreak after having to leave them, TXT’s new reality requires taking the bad with the good and staying hopeful by preserving and revisiting memories of the good. Also like the little prince, what keeps them going is not a false sense of someday discovering eternal bliss (like the one Peter Pan tries to sell them), but a sense that finding purpose in today leads to the brightest possible tomorrow. Neverland’s logic treats life as a sprint; the “FREEFALL” era is when they recognize it is best lived as a marathon.

Dreams as Motivation

In “Dreamer,” TXT say:

“An adult who doesn’t dream and a boy with nothing but dreams / Between the common fork in the road, I’m gray / Even when it gets dark, the starlight is shining / One step closer, following the light.”

These lyrics speak to TXT’s faith in tomorrow and acknowledge the in-betweenness they have embraced. Stars need darkness to shine bright, and their lives need some downsides to have the good sides mean anything. The contentment living in a shade of gray is indicated by the minisode 3: TOMORROW teaser scene in which their vehicle straddles a fork in the road; they refuse to take one path over the other, leaving their vehicle tilted to cover both paths. The text on the bus’s side reads:

“We made a promise when we were very young. That’s the reason I have to live for tomorrow.”

TXT embrace living life with a mix of childlike optimism, with their limitless dreams, and adult-like pragmatism, with their awareness of persistent obstacles ahead. They lean more heavily on the former mentality, however, proudly calling themselves “dreamer[s]… with memories of stars.”

Things Unseen

The narrator and the little prince walk for hours in search of a water well, and when they find one, the water tastes extra-special:

“Its sweetness was born of the walk under the stars, the song of the pulley, the effort of my arms.”

This is no longer just an ordinary well; it is special because of the effort it has taken to reach it. Similarly, the island’s sand is not just sand to the narrator, once a flashback hits him and he remembers the sense of mystery he has been told places like it have:

“When I was a little boy I lived in an old house, and legend told us that a treasure was buried there. To be sure, no one had ever known how to find it; perhaps no one had ever even looked for it. But it cast an enchantment over that house.”

The narrator tells the boy:

“The house, the stars, the desert… what gives them their beauty is something that is invisible!”

Indeed, the prince recalls, the fox told him:

"[T]he eyes are blind. One must look with the heart.”

When it dawns on the narrator that his time with the prince is quickly approaching its end, he thinks of the fox:

“One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed.”

Earlier in the book, the narrator felt incapable of understanding the root cause of the boy’s tears; he failed to understand why something as seemingly simple as a flower had provoked such a profound emotional investment. Now, he gets it. Tears arise when something or someone that one has made ties with (in the fox’s words, that one has “tamed”), what turned one’s “ordinary” into “extraordinary,” is set to leave one’s life. The things that light the sparks in people’s lives are grieved when they are at risk of becoming extinguished, like the narrator and prince’s relationship.

Like the planets too small to have names beyond numbers (places that both TXT’s characters and the little prince call home), some of the “little things” in life are actually the biggest things, the keys to understanding the “secret land” of the most unfiltered emotions.

Making Things Magical

After the little prince’s soul ascends to live among the stars, they are no longer just ordinary stars to the narrator. Now, the child’s laughter makes the narrator love listening to the star’s “songs” every night; it is music to his ears to see the stars and think of his friend. TXT’s “Magic Island” short film mentions “The song of your and my star… the memory that sparkle[s] with dreams.” Like the fox that becomes more than just another fox, the time of day that becomes more than just a time of day, the flower that is more than just a flower, and the well water that is more than just well water, the stars become more than just stars. Both TXT and the narrator in The Little Prince find their enthusiasm for life and for “TOMORROW” through making average details in their present days anything but. They are able to ascribe special memories to these average things, thanks to their connections to loved ones and their ability to still see things through a child’s enthusiastic, limitless lens.

Conclusion

TXT have answers to the key questions in The Little Prince: What and who is it all for?

It is all for intangible things. They do it all for love, for friendship, for the people and the things they have ascribed special meanings to, for all of the tomorrows that they can eagerly await as a result of ascribing those meanings. They do not find the meaning of life through going through the motions (like the men the prince visits on different planets), through following “practical advice” that results in giving up one’s dreams (like the narrator), through talking about merely “sensible things” (like the grown-ups who disliked the narrator’s eccentric drawings), or for no end goal at all (like some of the travelers and pill-buyers in The Little Prince). They determine that life is meaningful when they find meaning in the invisible, in the things that cannot be “seen with the eyes.”

minisode 3: TOMORROW, when considering the context of TXT’s previous eras, is an ode to the little things and the sources of lasting light in life: togetherness, a willingness to live in a shade of gray, and, most importantly, the mindset that loving and losing is always better than never loving at all. They can take the pain of loving someone or something, and they must, for taking time to appreciate those people and things is the wisest possible choice, the ultimate “matter of consequence.”

For even more decoding of TXT’s videos, a review of their new album, and additional commentary about The Little Prince, stay tuned for an upcoming episode of 17 Carat K-Pop!

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Check out past episodes and articles that analyze TXT’s discography below!

Decoding TXT’s Neverland

KIMSEJEONG’s and TXT’s Related Life Lessons

Who is Thursday’s Child?

TXT Story Recap

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