In November of 1813, AFTER Napoleon was defeat seriously at the Battle of Leipzig, the Allies began squabbling.
Austria did not want the Russians, who supplied the most number of troops, to take dominance of Europe and so its foreign minister, Metternich, offered Napoleon a term which would have allowed him to keep what is now Belgium, the Rhineland (Germany west of the Rhine) and some parts of northwestern Italy.
Even the British envoy in the deal, Lord Aberdeen (who would be later better known as a neighborhood named after him in Hong Kong) agreed to it, and the only one angry about it was Castlereagh, who ran Britain's foreign policy and whose unending determination to end Napoleon was limitless. At that time Britain was fighting USA as well while maintaining an army in Spain so Aberdeen's decision was reasonable.
Napoleon refused the deal. Why he refused it is not part of this discussion, but if he did accept the deal the there would be no Waterloo Bridge in London and no Waterloo University in Ontario.
===
Unlike Napoleon, Bang Sihyuk realized where the wind was blowing when Jungkook was defeated decisively against the coalition of Taylor Swift, Drake, SZA, Doja Cat and Beatles in Nov 2023.
This grand defeat of JK probably will mean the end of BTS' world domination once for all.
But Bang did not panic. Jungkook was sent to the military, where he is now cooking rice for the soldiers in his unit, while Bang's staff released Illit to counter New Jeans.
And Bang put money into Universal Music Group, and agreed to let UMG, whose most famous client is , of course, Taylor Swift, to give it the right to distribute all Hybe albums (including that of New Jeans!) thru there.
So it seems an agreement has been reached between Hybe and the world's music giants - BTS would not go out and challenge world domination while Hybe's stake in global music market will be secured.
Given the example of Hi5hli5ht and BTOB, it is unlikely that a supreme success, like the halcyon days of 2021 when no act, except a certain owner of a company whose name I will skip today as usual, dared to challenge BTS' will, is likely to be waiting BTS. It might sell some albums , win #1 at Billboard Hot 100 for maybe a couple of weeks like Bruno Mars and Sam Smith before their collapses, and will have probably what will be their final stadium tour in 2026-early 2027.
Given that Min Heejin decided to release the NJ album when RM is releasing one in the same day, she showed she does not respect BTS. One of the points Hybe had alleged, but was buried in the MHJ media circus, was that MHJ had asked her psychic friend whether BTS would be drafted. So she expected NJ to become the dominant act in Hybe until BTS returned.
Bang does not have seemed to cared about the whole situation too much but Bang's staff apparently did since they did not want Min Heejin to become a company in a company, lording over them.
So they released Illit, with only one member who could sing (and trained from another company), 2 others who could make sounds (and one one of them left), and 3 who could not sing to save their lives.
However that ticked off Min Heejin greatly, making her fear that Hybe would release groups after groups to bury NewJeans and end its special status in Hybe as it were going to bring huge amounts of money while Seventeen, the only real competition in Hybe without BTS, was getting older.
What happened next, everyone knows. But imagine a universe where Illit did not debut, because the members were not ready.
NJ would have released this album, and do very well in Japan, and an inflection point would have been reached in early 2025 when NJ's income , which is now 5% of Hybe's total revenue, would have exceeded 10% (and probably more ) of its aggregate income as the solos of Seokjin and Hoseok go nowhere and Min Heejin overshadows everyone else in there.
She would have debuted her boy group in late 2025, and would have attacked - BTS directly.
She had the whole plan ready, but she moved too fast because Illit had ticked her off. Without Illit inciting her, she would have developed her plan farther, not as underplaned as it had come out. She acted stupid but she did that with the advice of the lawyers, and we all know she is very calculating.
In the decisive battle between BTS and New Jeans,Big Hit and now-too-big-to-be-suppressed Ador, with the aforementioned lifelong enemy of BTS and KPop probably allying with MHJ (a song featuring the archenemy of BTS would have been featured in the album), I think New Jeans would have won.
Min Heejin now the Boss of Hybe for all practical purposes.
----
Illit , and its YG-trained vocal who was decisive on putting Magnetic at Melon#1 and the Billboard Hot 100, probably saved BTS from a fate similar to Waterloo.
The decisive moment for MHJ to attack Hybe was when BTS was going to release its return album, and if she defeated BtS, that would have been the end of it.
The guy who made the decision to debut Illit, who were not ready yet, probably saved Hybe and BTS. (Bang did make the final decision but withiout that guy in Belift deciding to debut it, despite of the departure of the key member who was the most important, Illit would not have debuted.)
I think BTS should thank Illit by making the lead vocalist, who still appears to be loyal to YG as she chose to sing a Taeyang song instead ofa BTS song in a TV Program, featured in a more important song of its, since without her and Illit BTS would have been put into a ship to St. Helena.
