#Burrow's End theory

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

So anyway, calling it now (and spoilers for Burrow's End Episode 1), the Red Warren is located in Chernobyl's 'Red Forest' and all the trees are red due to the radiation. The dust cloud was kicked up by vehicles moving along the road and the radiation within the dust is toxic if inhaled but it didn't affect the stoats until it was stirred up into the air by the heavy machinery. (This exact thing happened recently in the news, I believe)

The 'blue' is most likely the glow of radiation as seen through water (it's kept in water to keep it cool so it is always glowing blue). I'm assuming that one stoat saw it and passed the legend down through the generations. They mentioned in the intro that the blue gifted them their intelligence (paraphrasing) so perhaps they are mutated stoats and that's why they have language and societies?

The 'incorrect' and 'unnatural' rocks they talked about are probably overgrown roads and pavement. That would explain the 'burnt' smell. And it would explain why the dust cloud smelled like pavement if it was being stirred up by vehicles.

It was mentioned that Thorn remembered the smell from the clothes of the things he saw. That was a massive hint, as it's been established that animals don't have clothes in this world. So obviously Thorn came across some humans. He probably got his electrical burn from them somehow and maybe he also saw their machines?

Anyway, I'll be interested to see if this is indeed Chernobyl (or perhaps a fictional Chernobyl-like radioactive place)

[chungledown-bimothy]

I see the radiation and heavy metal accumulation theories and raise you, with the context of Thorn's scars and the lightning from the ground and the ozone Ava smelled:

St Elmo's Fire.

The magic is flashes of the blue, not a consistent glow.

It doesn't explain the fucked up animals, but it's worth consideration and could certainly cause any number of ecological issues (nuclear plant issues, etc.) if it happens in the wrong place or time.

[verosvault]

🚨Burrow's End Episode 9 Spoilers!!!🚨

I wonder why Dr. Robert Wenabocker lied to everyone about being attacked by weasels/stoats and instead told people that he was attacked by humans?

I wonder if he said that because he didn't think anyone would believe him if he said he was attacked by weasels?

Or maybe he's trying to protect Phoebe???

Or maybe he felt like if he told others that he got attacked by weasels/stoats that the humans he was working with would overly underestimate them? When he knew what these stoats were actually capable of???

I'm still kinda confused about Phoebe's relationship with Dr. Wenabocker 💀 but maybe we'll learn about it in episode 10?

[thesuperduckling24]

okay at this point it's like. Essentially Confirmed that the blue is radiation. to me.

the pins being shaped like an atom, the fact that only some of them glow (the ones who have blue in their backstories), the Fucking Mutated Bear, two legged creatures covered in plastic??? it's Gotta be radiation.

[theinvulnerabletide]

Okay, so. Absolutely WILD theory, and I'm not even done with the scene between Ava and the Director yet. But between how old the First Stoats are and their weird teeth formation and how honking big they are... I think the First Stoats were human once. I don't know if they got mixed with stoats like in The Fly, or what kind of weird mutation, but that's how they know human tech so well. That's how they easily live 20 years old. Because that's only a fourth of a lifespan for them, if they're lucky.

[oldbay-on-apples]

After Ep 3 of Burrow's End this thought/theory keeps circling in my head of like: It seems like Geoffrey never had anyone to say goodbye to, implying that no one was around when he died. But if...he just vanished and was assumed to be dead Aabria could pull him out later to use against the family.

This is crazy but say like the stoats get to this building with lots of stoats in it (as there seems to be in the trailer of episode 4) and they find Geoffrey. My mind is immediately suspicious of any seemingly human-made structure for the stoats: it's making me think of that rabbit burrow from Watership Down near the farmer and like the Lotus Hotel from Percy Jackson, the vibe of something's wrong but from the inside it's hard to tell.

Anyways what if Geoffrey is acting different if they run into him in the stone building or even worse the he is exact same as the characters knew him but just didn't come back. In the recent Screen Rant interview (https://youtu.be/FyjMmhoSmlo) Brennan mentions the theme of the season is heartbreak and he created his character to be the most heartbreakable (25:55). Additionally if you wanna watch Brennan gush about Aabria's skill as a GM, which relatable, (17:12-18:58 and 26:34). But I can't think of something more heartbreaking than assuming the only thing that could keep your partner away from you and your children is death, only to find out it was actually a choice.

So that's my crazy theory that me might actually get to meet Geoffrey in the upcoming episodes but if not I bet he'll still come up and possibly be used against the characters because Aabria Iyengar is wonderfully evil and I love it!

[spiritofcamelot]

With each episode my suspicion that Geoffrey is alive gets stronger. At first I thought he was missing, assumed dead and him being alive would be a dramatic twist for everyone. Someone else theorised that he was in the nuclear plant and I liked that.

But now. Now I wonder if Tula/Brennan knows he's alive. And if so, what does that mean? What is Tula hiding?

Did she send Geoffrey away in anger and lied to her family about why he wasn't there anymore?

Did Geoffrey get captured or run away and Tula lies to herself that he's dead because it hurts more knowing that he might be alive out there somewhere?

Or even more dark, did Tula kill him? Maybe an accident with the Blue and her magic, or maybe on purpose?

One thing for certain, Brennan is a very good actor and I'm certain that whatever the big reveal is, we will later be able to watch back and see the foreshadowing and I cannot wait to do just that.

[taylorannnx]

Teeth with wolf sharp canines and flat teeth in the back?

First Stoats being alive for 20 winters?

A wolf skull and a human head in The Light/Blue?

They First Stoats were never human. Those teeth are dentures 🤣 no way a stoat is living that long and biting that many humans and still having all of their original teeth!

[emthepotatocat]

I honestly think this a great theory. Geoffrey probably did try to save Tula (who already 'died') and ended up real dieing himself. However it does seem like Tula is unfamiliar with Last Bast and of Reactor Charlie imo so maybe it happened at another reactor/another source of major radiation Blue? It does make sense that they wanted to start a new life.

Just finished the episode.

My current theory surrounding Tula is that she and Geoffrey were at Last Bast to attempt to start their life, she "died' in Reactor Charlie (Maybe even being part of that issue the tape mentioned???) And Geoffrey real died to attempt to save her which would explain the "hero?"

[my-clerical-gnomance]

i do find it incredibly interesting looking at previous events from a perspective of “ it always pays to follow the neurodivergent child “ while lila is very arguably also neurodivergent

jasohn is energetic and more accident prone so he gets most of the adults’ attention . from the adults perspective he’s not as smart as lila , so they need to take care of him

they praise his skills because they know they also look at him as a bit slower than his sister . his skills are less obvious . as brennan puts it , he’s a screw up . so the things he does do well they praise him for , and that’s great , but because lila so consistently grasps concepts and helps without needing to be asked , she doesn’t get as much recognition for it

i wonder if part of the reason she doesn’t trust thorn is because he’s truly acknowledging her skills from the perspective of an outsider , someone who hasn’t gotten used to her always being there and forgotten to keep saying she’s doing a good job

i wonder if lila is so good at listening because she’s used to being in the background

[cementcornfield]

beat writers talking about ja'marr teasing joe in the locker room after the game 🥲

[kittyoverlord]

I had to clip just the tape bit so I could rewatch it on repeat. The voice acting, the expressions, the clues... so good!!!

Caption Corrections:

"If we can't fix this fu-" (at 1:13)

"I'm trapped in here" (at 2:18 in this clip, 01:33:35 in the actual broadcast)

[lilu-the-almighty]

I'm saying this straight up, NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE IMPLICATIONS OF VIOLA'S VISION!!!

BECAUSE GUYS, up until this point the stoats have been implied to be unintended casualties in all of this. They were animals living in this fucked up forest and being in the forest while it is fucked up made them fucked up.

BUT NOW it is implied that some stoats, either in the past or future, were directly involved in some sort of experimentation.

Now this could definitely be taken as some sort of premonition, that maybe the group is going to be captured and brought into a lab/holding facility of some sort. Which is definitely a possibility and is also has some deeply fucked warnings to it.

But personally I think that this was a sort of glimpse in the past. Because of how Aabria approached Thorn's flashback, we know that she is ready and willing to alter past occurrences in visions in order to add context or hints as to the rest of the plot. I am willing to put money on the idea that in her vision Viola was not Viola, but instead on of her ancestors who was experimented on in that laboratory. Perhaps they escaped and they were the ones who made the red warren, and the ones who didn't escape then took over the human warren when it was evacuated. Maybe the reason their family has this way with the blue is because they inherited those genetic mutations imposed on their ancestors when they were experimented on.

[ima-ghost-art]

GUYS WHATEVER HAS HAPPENED TO AVA AND HAS ALREADY HAPPENED TO TULA IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO THORN OR ALREADY HAS!!!!!!!

Okay what do we already know?

Thorn recognized how Ava is now, because she is now like Tula

we know the last place Tula saw her husband was the same place Thorn saw they humans in the hazmat suits and gained his magic

Thorn Ava and Tula had always been the 3 first connected to the blue

What if, like Ava and Tula, Thorn is also the same and just never realised? And if not, that means in the next few episodes, whatever happened to them will happen to him?

The fact that they are the only 3 glowing, and two are now confermed to be really effected by the blue... well it's only a matter of time before it involves Thorn Vale right??

[major-sesquipedalian]

CHEWED THROUGH????????

i only now was able to get caught up on burrows end so i know im late to the game but???? HELLO????

how long were the first stoats planning that whole thing???? how did they have the forethought to CHEW. THROUGH. THE. COMMUNICATIONS. CABLE. the fact that we now know there was INTENT behind the reactor charlie situation???? i need to know EVERYTHING about the first stoats how did they come to be what was their deal how did they have partial skin and most importantly WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON

AND ANOTHER THING - IF THE FIRST STOATS HATED THE HUMANS ENOUGH TO CAUSE A NUCLEAR D I S A S T E R WHY OH WHY HAD THEY ADOPTED SO MANY HUMAN CUSTOMS/CHARACTERISTICS??????

and i think it’s so important to note that wenabockers last words mentioned how SNEAKY the first stoats were…i don’t know if im just reading into things at this point (highly likely) but that seems kinda odd that those would be his last words y’know…? i don’t remember who brought it up but i know someone suggested that maybe the first stoats were being experimented on…could the “sneaky” comment imply that maybe the first stoats were completely aware and plotting while putting on a front for the experiments? like they might’ve been sneaking around the facility while not being observed?? but how would that be the case when wenabocker didn’t even know they were stoats/must not have recognized them…? plus in a facility like that i would assume there would be very strict surveillance. but then again the first stoats had the wherewithal to cut off communication and strand anyone remaining???? so it’s not so crazy to think they might’ve figured out how to mess with cameras???? oh boy i am just talking myself in circles

OH YEAH AND NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT TULA???? DIED???? but not in the same way ava died???? what does this mean?? why tula?? is this in anyway way similar to the first stoats’ apparent “immortality” ??????????

also i don’t think we ever found out the purpose for the arena…? it was stoat-sized, so were they making stoats fight other stoats like gladiators?? for what purpose????

im at least glad to know that bennett remains cool as hell love them

my mind is reeling i am so completely enamored by this story and am awestruck by everyone who had a hand in creating it

[je-lurk]

I have a theory about the sashes.

All we know is they’re made of some sort of fabric which stoats very specifically do not have (even though they’ve made backpacks, but it might just be the same material). We also know they are yellow. So what can we find in (presumably) an abandoned nuclear plant (or at the very least dealing with biohazard) that is made of yellow otherwise unspecified material?

The sashes might just be made out of torn hazmat suits.