Namjoon is hard to describe for me because he doesn’t really read as an idol personality. Idol personalities are superflat, like anime characters, and only harmonize when they are part of a group. There are set rules about what idol personalities can look like. You’re supposed to have some duality, to keep things interesting, but your duality is meant to function like a flat binary so that you don’t draw attention from the group but complement the dynamics within the group. Idol personalities are pairs of opposites that really mean the same thing.

But Namjoon is more of an American style celebrity. American celebrities seek the aesthetics of authenticity and, so, their real lives are speculated upon more so than superflat celebrities who behave more like fictional characters. So, I didn’t really want to analyze him astrologically at first—I am much more comfortable analyzing fictional characters and idols because these are public images where there is a consensual relationship between the ways that a fandom might speculate on impossibles and the people behind the images. Because Namjoon almost doesn’t read as an idol personality, it’s hard to speculate on his character as just an image. Images don’t have political beliefs, fatal flaws, or personal power—all of which Namjoon has.

But Namjoon is an idol. There is a fanfiction about him that is written consensually. He knows that there is fanfiction about him and he conducts himself in a way that makes it clear that he knows about it. He flirts with other members and he does have a role within the group. There is a superflat dimension of his image along with a seemingly authentic part. And, so, for his upcoming birthday I will analyze his chart. But only, as always, in terms of the image he casts and not in speculation of who he actually is.

I think, also, that Namjoon is someone who functions very differently within Asia than outside of it. Outside of Asia, he is seen to be goofy, sometimes tripping over his words, and making bad jokes. That is the authenticity component of his image. There is a harmlessness about it that men of color often have to perform. Within Asia, Namjoon is much more idealized.

I have a knee jerk reaction to someone who appears as Namjoon appears—he is the quintessential Confucian style scholarly male after all. He’s the kind of guy that your mother tells you, or maybe forces you, to marry. East Asian masculinity is very much about performing scholarliness as a marker of class and Namjoon does this exceedingly well. Internationally, he reads as a goofy type of nerd who tries to be really cool. Within Asia, he isn’t seen as nerdy. He is much more traditional and, being traditional, he reads as much more patriarchal.

Both Benefics in the First House, Venus in detriment and ruler in fall

Namjoon has both benefics in the first house. He projects power. Venus and Jupiter, being benefactors, are about power. You see this in the way Namjoon presents himself on stage. He stands a bit cocky and tall—he looks powerful.

He was a smartass kid. When he decided to become a rapper, he told his mom that he was going to become Korea’s best rapper. He’s used to being on top of his class in school and you get the sense that he gets along with his teachers. You get the sense that he gets along with his boss. He was the first member of BTS and he leads the group. He has a lot of control.

However, Namjoon’s Venus is in detriment. His Mars falls. Again, he doesn’t really have an idol personal brand but he also doesn’t have an idol’s face either. Venus in detriment spurns social expectations.

Having a chart ruler in fall means that you do not accomplish the task that you set out to accomplish. When Namjoon was first starting out at BigHit Entertainment, he was training to be part of a hiphop group. Then, the company realized that this would never be profitable and decided to make BTS into an idol group. Yoongi had the same experience and his ascendent is also ruled by a Mars in fall with Venus in detriment in the first house. Neither of them accomplished the task that they set out to accomplish and, instead, became idol members.

Jupiter being in the first house is interesting because Namjoon is also part of the age group, Hobi included, who has Jupiter with north node in Scorpio. People with this north node find it hard to share and there is an opacity to them. You can’t see everything there is to know about them. They keep their secrets well.

But there is a reason why Army has a running gag that Namjoon has a wife and three kids. It’s not that he looks older than the other members. It’s that he has this feeling of being a patriarch all about him. He looks like a father because he looks like he’s in charge.

One thing about Namjoon, with both benefics in the first house, is that he has wealth. And I’m not just talking about BTS wealth. He reads as someone who comes from a pretty wealthy, or at least upper middle class, family. He is educated. He knows English. Namjoon looks and moves like someone who had access to high quality education growing up. He looks and moves like someone who has seen the world and, now, works to both conquer and decipher it.

Sun-Moon Mutable Square

The other thing about Namjoon is that he is a mess. He seems to always trip over his own two feet and he breaks things in a way that makes no sense. He closes a door and the door itself collapses. He is told to get a garbage bag and he not only takes way longer than is necessary but he also leaves the entire contents of the box the bags were in all over the floor. He unravels the entire spool of garbage bags to get one bag. He has no idea how to cook.

I’m not sure why Namjoon is like this but I have noticed that Virgo Sun with Sagittarius Moon is a Sun-Moon duo that finds mundane tasks almost impossible to do. They are people who think about one thing while doing another. Every small task, for them, is endless because every small thing always means something more.

These people are poets. They like to read three books at once. They have no idea where the kitchen knife is and they have no idea how to cut an apple.

That’s all I have to say about this placement, really. Nothing more. Let’s move on.

Fifth House Saturn and Mercury in the Twelfth

Usually, when I talk with a person with Saturn in the fifth house, I ask them how they like to have fun. When I ask that question, I’m trying to see if they know how to have fun. This is because, often, fifth house Saturn is a person who felt like they weren’t allowed to be a child when they were a child.

Planets in the twelfth house, on the other hand, are planets that we feel that we must do because they represents things that the parents didn’t have access to. Namjoon’s Mercury is in his twelfth house, which is about his voice. He’s always telling fans to “Speak Yourself”—I think that this slogan comes from a deep place. A lot of the time, people with Mercury in the twelfth house say parents who weren’t able to be honest, parents who were not able to study, or parents who were not able to figure out their voice in some way.

So, Namjoon seems like a good student. Because of that, he seems like a good kid with a good family and a good education. The Mercury in the twelfth house makes me wonder if education became a duty for him because of lost opportunities for his parents. The fifth house Saturn makes me wonder if he was able to play as a kid or if it was all study, study, and more study. His fluent English would make sense. He could only speak English this well if he had to study it all his life.

But, that is all speculation. When we see Namjoon in In The Soop, he seems to approach play as an early childhood thing. He plays with model airplanes and does a little boy cosplay. The other members don’t really do this as much. They are making art or fishing or playing video games. Namjoon seems to find joy only in small child activities. And then he’s gone, earlier than the rest, because he has to work.

For this reason, and because Namjoon seems so educated, he reads as someone who was never allowed to play as a teenager to me. His Saturn hasn’t returned but I wonder what will happen when it does. I wonder how that will change his creativity.

Despite being wildly successful, Namjoon seems to have his hangups around creativity. He says at one point that he is a better emulator than originator and his calls for “Speak Yourself” seem to come from a personal place. I don’t think Namjoon was allowed to be creative or identify as creative. I think that he had to fight for it.

Mercury in Libra is also a memetic Mercury—a translator’s Mercury. It’s a Mercury that speaks in subtlety. When Namjoon spoke about the Korean war, he said something that infuriated a lot of people. He said that there is tragedy on both sides of the war. Namjoon has said recently that BTS is now an apolitical project. When he speaks for the group internationally, he’s not just speaking English. He is also translating the group’s cultural dynamics. Libra Mercury smooths things out and over. They make things a little less spicy but a lot more palatable.

Namjoon is a professional. He’s a spokesman, an icon, and he is a professional idol. When he engages with music, he is engaging as a professional. This becomes problematic when Namjoon engages with hiphop as a professional—as a source of Korean soft power. Part of Namjoon’s professionalism means that he doesn’t try to do things that he is not already good at. He has his niche and his role within the group. This is the most idol thing about him. He’s a rapper and he’s the leader. He doesn’t try different styles and he doesn’t try to be anyone other than himself. He never learns how to drive and he doesn’t do things that make him fumble. He is resistant to learning how to dance better, much to Hobi’s chagrin, and he doesn’t style himself as something that he is not. He knows who he is—a career idol, polished and accessible.