#burrows end theories

[castformbignaturals]

Okay, so I am starting to get a little worried that not enough people have seen The Secret of Nimh (or read the amazing novels it is based on), especially since Burrows End is very obviously based at least in part on this universe.

Ex. Tula=Mrs. Brisbey (Single Mom with Two Jobs and big soft eyes, raising several children alone after the death of her husband).

This is big, because there is A LOT we can extrapolate if we take that film and try to view it through Aabria’s perspective (or at least what we can glean of her perspective based off of other campaigns she has run which were inspired by preexisting IP, such as her scathing critique of Harry Potter in Misfits and Magic.)

I unfortunately don’t have the time to do a deep dive on the subject (nor ability to do so without vibrating out of my skin in excitement). Instead I IMPLORE any who are enjoying Burrows End to either refresh their memory of Secret of Nimh or, if you have never seen it, to watch it immediately for both your own enjoyment and to further your analysis of this season.

P.S. Also good to watch/read for analysis of Burrows End, Watership Down. Just be prepared to experience some shit.

[gayandtrashy]

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

[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)

[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??

[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.

[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.

[inspiredrawaw]

I wonder if maybe the reason why Tula “survived” while Geoffrey didn’t is because we know that Geoffrey was curious about the blue. And that for each of our fav Stoat family the blues abilities it gives them is slightly different.

So I wonder that maybe for Geoffrey his love for his wife and family caused his blue to allow the blue in Tula to keep her alive so their children wouldn’t be orphans

[aydaaaguefort]

what could it beee???????

[gayandtrashy]

A tale of "us vs them" you say Aabria? Give me my Last Bast battle map then, or is the them humans?

[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?

[queencaramilflinda]

One of the things I love most about actual play shows is that you can’t necessarily guess what will happen next, because the collaborative, improvisational, randomness of the medium makes it so it is truly unpredictable on a micro scale, if not a macro one.

I read a LOT as a kid, and through that gained a very good understanding of tropes and narrative structures work as well as common plot threads. I can almost always guess what will happen next in games, mainstream television shows, movies, books. But actual play shows keep me guessing until the last second, when the whole thing inevitably wraps up in a beautiful bow and is delivered directly to my doorstep.

I love actual play as a medium of storytelling truly so so much

[spontaneousmusicalnumber]

I'm so interested in the mystery of the setting of Burrows End!

How long has the blue been making changes in their world? Whose world is it? Clearly they're describing humans at points and I think one time they referenced a road. I think the map also has trucks on it? So it's not a generic fantasy DnD world. (Unless I'm not paying attention which is possible).

This could be a modern-ish real world-ish setting with the Blue being nuclear power. But then why were the humans controlling it like lightning? This is also a world where freaky DnD powers are possible. So likely not a world we know.

How much of the world is affected? Is the whole world in the middle of an apocalypse and the animals are only just now noticing? That bear didn't get that way overnight, so the world outside the burrow has been going through some SHIT for a very long time before episode 1.

Usually I feel like when grown-up animals are warning reckless cubs of vague dangers in talking animal media, the worst horrors they can think of are things familiar to us: either humans themselves, or natural predators. Having the Vague Horrors of the Outside World be things that we the watchers also find horrifying in new and unusual ways is really cool and really piques my curiosity about What The Hell Is Going On!