K-Pop Demon Hunters: Shadow Work & the North Node in Pisces

This massively popular film calls out the Virgo South Node's obsessive purity culture and highlights an era of integrating our shadows with our light

After months of singing along to the incredible soundtrack of K-Pop Demonhunters in the car with my 6-year-old, I finally sat down and watched the movie last night.

It blew me away.

The animated film is Netflix’s most-watched film ever, with over 325 million views. The soundtrack has had 4 tracks on the Billboard top 100 for many weeks, and the hit song “Golden” got 3 grammy nominations. Tourism to Seoul has skyrocketed since the film came out this summer.

The movie came out on June 20, 2025, squarely during the current nodal cycle with the North Node in Pisces and the South Node in Virgo (which began on January 11, 2025 and runs to mid-2026). The south node in Virgo is currently conjunct my natal sun, and as I was watching the movie, I couldn’t help but to see it through the lens of our current collective nodal axis.

The south node in Virgo means we’re collectively releasing the colonial crutch of purity and perfectionism, and the north node in Pisces points to a collective hunger for integrating seeming polarities, transcending beyond the binary and recognizing that we’re part of something much larger than ourselves.

All KPop Demon Hunters images courtesy of Netflix.

If you haven’t seen the movie, here’s a quick rundown.

K-Pop: Demon Hunters is an animated feature about Huntr/x, a K-pop girl group from Seoul who are pop-stars by day and secretly fight demons by night. Their voices power an ancient protective barrier called the Honmoon that keeps the demons in the underworld where they belong.

The catch: Rumi, the trio’s leader, is half-demon, as evidenced by the purple patterns that stretch across on her body. This is a fact she hides from everyone, including her bandmates. She is told by a hunter mentor who raised her that if she succeeds in using her voice to create the Honmoon, her patterns will disappear. So, she launches a new hit single called “Golden” in order to fire up the golden Honmoon and keep demons out forever. But just as it is released, the patterns in her body that show her demon ancestry begin to creep up toward her throat, and she starts to lose her voice- the one thing she needs to erect the golden forcefield.

Meanwhile in the underworld, a sexy demon named Jinu proposes the idea to form a boy-band that would go to earth and rival Huntr/x, so they can claim the souls of all the super-fans in Korea for the Demon King’s feasting. Jinu is a former human who made a pact with the Demon King centuries ago to escape poverty, but in doing so he left his family and his deep shame has kept him in the underworld ever since. Jinu proposes the boy-band idea to claim souls for the demon king, and in return the demon-king promises to erase his memories of shame from his mind forever.

Jinu, the grim-reaper-esque demon is really a human with a sordid past.

When Rumi meets Jinu in a fight, he exposes her patterns, shocked. She agrees to meet him on a rooftop, and in a moment of vulnerability, he tells her he knows what it feels like to have the patterns that she does.

“Feel?” she replies. “You’re a demon. Demons don’t feel anything”.

“Is that what you think? That’s all demons do. Feel. Feel our shame, our misery. It’s how Gwi-ma controls us”.

In the movie, demons don’t just feel pain, they’re consumed by it. The Demon King Gwi-ma controls them by amplifying their shame, their regrets, and their worst memories. This emotional manipulation is the key to Gwi-Ma’s power, as he uses the demons’ own feelings of shame and misery to exert control over them and use them to gather human souls for his consumption.

Because of this, Jinu saw himself as far beyond redemption and hoped only for an end to the voices in his head causing suffering. But Rumi longed for more- to sing to change the world…and in doing so change herself.

Good vs. Evil… or is it more complicated than that?

With the North Node in Pisces, shadow work has become increasingly popular, drawing from Carl Jung’s notion that we can only truly be ourselves when we make the unconscious conscious.

In the same way, this incredibly popular movie shows that the only way we free ourselves from shame is by shining light on the darkest corners of our souls, and choosing to love ourselves despite what we see. To see what we want to change, and make an effort towards doing so. To forgive.

This film shows how important it is to reveal the parts of us that feel deep shame and darkness, find our peace with ourselves, and integrate it with the parts of us that feel powerful and bright.

A Virgoan shadow is to categorize and sort to a level where whatever has been deemed “bad/wrong” needs to be discarded or, at the very least hidden. So much of American culture, and certainly White Anglo Saxon Protestant American culture, has made it a habit to look the other way, to put it back in the closet, to say “let’s never speak of this again”. I see it in my own family, in my educational upbringing, in pervasive cancel culture and in the larger collective western landscape of the past several hundred years.

As the main character Rumi realizes in the film:

“The more I hid my shame, the more it grew and grew until it started to destroy the one thing that gave me a purpose.”

We are currently in an era of collective realization that sweeping things under the rug isn’t working (Partly brought on by America’s Pluto Return exposing the underworld of the inequal colonialist tenets that this country was built on).

The longer that monsters stay hidden, the larger, scarier, and more difficult to face they become when they finally grow too large to be contained under the bed. This is currently happening on a societal level, but the work begins within each of us.

As Franz Fanon says:

“Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land but from our minds as well”.

This deep personal and collective work that we’re all being confronted with is incredibly important at this particular time, and we can glean some insights from the Virgo/Pisces nodal axis.

We are at a point where we must come to terms with our own inner demons, including our ancestral patterns, traumas, and hidden experiences. We must see them in full clarity so that they do not lure us deeper into the darkness, so that they do not dim our lights by making us believe that we are only unworthy, unlovable, or not enough. When you think you aren’t worthy of love, when you think you are broken, when you think you are someone that needs to hide, you find yourself incredibly vulnerable and more easily divided from those who care about you… it is much easier to be taken advantage of by larger malefic forces who seek to gain from your energy.

In the end of the movie, the pop-stars are deliberately divided from each-other, and divided from their larger purpose as well. It is at this point that the voices of shame- the voice of Gwi-ma- creeps into their minds, telling them that they are not worthy of family, of hope, success, or of life at all.

It is at this point, when all is almost lost, when Rumi’s epic ballad erupts into the crowd, the lyrics of self-acceptance releasing her friends from their inner shame-spirals. This, in turn, allows them all to find the communal power to beat the greater enemy.

The song where she discovers her voice without the lies (This Is What It Sounds Like) is powerful:

Nothing but the truth now
Nothing but the proof of what I am
The worst of what I came from, patterns I’m ashamed of
Things that even I don’t understand

I tried to fix it, I tried to fight it
My head was twisted, my heart divided
My lies all collided
I don’t know why I didn’t trust you to be on my side

I broke into a million pieces, and I can’t go back
But now I’m seeing all the beauty in the broken glass

The scars are part of me, darkness and harmony
My voice without the lies, this is what it sounds like

Why did I cover up the colors stuck inside my head?
I should’ve let the jagged edges meet the light instead
Show me what’s underneath, I’ll find your harmony
The song we couldn’t write, this is what it sounds like

I’ll find your harmony: Integrating our whole selves

Rumi’s markings match the demons’ and Jinu calls them signs of shame, reminders of a wound that never healed. She hides them from her friends, but as she starts to lose her voice, she comes to realize that secrecy strengthens the spell.

The worst of what I came from, patterns I’m ashamed of
Things that even I don’t understand

I appreciate how the marks are called “patterns”, as it alludes to thought patterns, behavioral patterns and ancestral patterns that live within our bodies, things that cause us shame but that are invisible to us because they are patterned into our very existence- sometimes originating long before we were born…“Things that even I don’t understand.”

The film helps us see that we cannot perfect ourselves by hiding the part that hurts. We heal by naming it, letting it be seen, and allowing community- and our current and future actions- to help it be integrated into who we truly are, rather than being trapped in the past.

When Rumi stops covering up her patterns, first to a single person and over time to the world, and she sees them for what they are, she stops letting them define her from her subconscious, behind the veil. She breaks the chain of ancestral secrecy, and grows into what it means to be her true self. And in doing so, she also helps the human-turned-demon Jinu see he can choose a different path too.

Finding compassion for the shadows that exist within each of us is so important at this time in history. Finding compassion for all parts of us, our whole selves - even pain, shame, and fear- is of the essence at this very moment. Moving beyond the binary with forgiveness for ourselves, and for our neighbors, is needed so that we can show up with enough energy and love to continue to face the real demons that exist in this world.

Because there are real demons. Entities, like the demon king in the movie, who seek to intentionally perpetuate cruelty, while taking advantage of other people’s shame and fear in order to help facilitate their efforts against .

There are several ChristianYoutubers out there talking about the dark message that is corrupting our children from within K-Pop: Demon Hunters. One influencer that I stumbled upon earlier said that the movie glorifies demons, blurs good & evil, and wraps it in catchy pop aesthetics that appeal to kids. Some say the film treats shame (instead of evil) as the real problem and “self-acceptance” as the cure, which they see as downplaying sin, evil and spiritual warfare in Biblical terms. Some worry this teaches that identity integration (including a half-demon heroine) is salvific.

As a huge fan of the film’s message, I disagree… but this conversation has gotten me thinking a lot about the nature of good and evil.

Many of the things happening today on the geopolitical front do seem truly evil- with so many in power being deliberately cruel and having a reckless indifference to suffering- and implementing systems that normalize both.

But in the film we learn that there is a difference between calling the demon-king evil and calling all demons evil- especially when we learn that most of the lesser demons are simply people being held hostage by their own pain and shame so that they can do the divisive and soul-sucking bidding of the truly evil Gai-Ma.

I’m drawn in by the the nuance in such a widely popular film, with the underlying message being about forgiveness and the ability to see beyond the black-and-white binary - while still rising up to fight on the side of good.

While I believe that evil actions (and evil systems that have compounded over generations) truly do exist, I also know that the binary concept of good and evil often used as a tool that one group wields to vilify another for their own political gain, and that is the nuance that we’re investigating now with the North Node in Pisces.

The ideological concept of good and evil, when not looked at with nuance, become dividing forces, where leaders, movements, or algorithms convert moral language into identity markers, labeling their group “good,” and other groups “evil,” so those in power can get instant cohesion, permission to punish, and a shortcut past nuance.

Common tactics that are used in taking advantage of the good/evil binary invoke the shadow of Virgo’s south node. For example: 1) Moralization of preference. Treat lifestyle or aesthetics as moral facts to police outsiders. 2) Purity politics. Demand flawless conformity, exile the imperfect, and keep the group bonded by fear. 3) Scapegoating. Blame complex problems on a chosen out-group so the in-group avoids responsibility. 4) Dehumanization. Call opponents vermin or machines so harm feels justified. 5) Absolutism. Frame disagreement as existential threat to block compromise and due process. 6) Propaganda loops. Reward outrage content so audiences consume caricatures, not people. 7) Sacralized rules. Claim divine or historical inevitability to make dissent feel immoral rather than debatable.

In the film, the stars write a song that needs to be compelling enough to win a competition against the demon boy-band, in order to seal the protective barrier and keep the demons out forever. The lyrics of “Takedown’ show this binary, fueled by hatred, in action

‘Cause I see your real face, and it’s ugly as sin
Time to put you in your place ‘cause you’re rotten within
When your patterns start to show
It makes the hatred wanna grow outta my veins

I don’t think you’re ready for the takedown
Break you into pieces in a world of pain ‘cause you’re all the same
Yeah, it’s the takedown
A demon with no feelings don’t deserve to live, it’s so obvious

I’ma gear up and take you down (whoa-oh, da-da-da, down)
It’s a takedown (whoa-oh, da-da-da, down)

But the main character Rumi (with her half-demon shame secret) can’t get behind the hateful lyrics. This causes a rift between her and the other girls in the band, making them question if Rumi’s really on their side. If you’re not with us, you’re against us…. right?

The Healing power of the Pisces North Node

The north node in Pisces, the last sign of the entire Zodiac, is the energy of compost, a rich and interconnected soil that has been created out of the merging of every living thing that has come before it. Pisces is the primordial soup, the esoteric sea, the reach peat that is made from generations upon generations of life and death, of ripe and rotten merging together into a universal soil. And this, of course, is the very place from which new life, and new cycles, grow.

Pisces understands that life is messy, that boundaries between things are often arbitrarily created, that intimacy and healing come from integration, and that true wholeness cannot be broken down into a sum of its parts. Where Virgo seeks to purify and contain, sorting wheat from chaff, ripe from rotten, and good from evil, Pisces recognizes that even the rotten parts contribute to a healthy soil, as well, as long as they are given oxygen and light.

Pisces heals by accepting the full spectrum of experience, forgiving those who are brave enough to look into their own depths, and letting shame dissolve so the fissure can close. When protection becomes obsessive purity or perfectionism, anything messy gets pushed out of the frame, which does not lead to true healing and leaves many behind. The “enemy” is not evil essence. It is the shadow of what was discarded. When seen and metabolized, it stops feeding on secrecy. That is the shift from Virgo’s purge to Pisces’ integration.

The more absorbed we are in our own shame, and the more we hide it, the more we get trapped by that energy, lose our internal light, and project it onto others. K-Pop: Demon Hunters lands like a pop-parable for the North Node in Pisces, and I highly recommend watching it. Its cure is not purity or concealment, but inclusion and witness. When the hidden patterns are named, seen, and held in community, shame loses it’s power, the voice returns, and the many voices can harmonize into one song.

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Over the coming 3 weeks, Mercury will be retrograde in Sagittarius, the sign of philosophy and expansiveness, and Scorpio, the sign of what lies beneath the surface. At the same time, Jupiter is beginning its 4-month retrograde through Cancer, the sign of nurturance and care. Retrograde periods are all about re-visiting, reviewing, and reconsidering, so I invite you to use the next weeks and months to contemplate the dynamic interconnections between your shadows, your light, self-love, and collective care.

Have you seen the movie? How does it relate to your experience with the nodes in Pisces & Virgo? I’d love to hear your thoughts.