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kickedin17 · 1 month

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OK so who's Clancy, Actually (but not actually)

I come to you with a post-start-of-tour waffling session about our favorite catboy. This will not be a formal essay, and I wrote most of it across breaks at work, so please forgive the lack of specific citations or small errors (everything I'm referring to comes from either the official Clancy journal, the music videos, or the live show).

This is also not intended to be a "canon" answer for who Clancy "really" is because quite honestly I don't think there is one. Maybe I'll be proven wrong and they'll drop a full lore bible or something, which I would love, but the boys have always been intentional about leaving things to our interpretation at least to some extent. They've given us the pieces. This is how I see them come together.

There will be spoilers below the cut for some of the current tour setlist & other details. It will be in its own section which you can fully skip, but if you're avoiding tour info please tread with caution

Lore smashcut crash course for sillies (and some speculation)

Clancy's bishop (at least at the time of the Trench cycle) is Keons. Keons eventually betrays the other Bishops to aid Clancy, suggesting they had a close relationship and/or Keons believed in what Clancy was ultimately fighting for. However, Clancy also has an extremely personal relationship with Nico and is seized by him frequently (thus blurryface). EITHER Nico was/becomes his Bishop at some point, OR due to his rebellion, Clancy just garners the attention of the lead Bishop. I lean strongly toward the latter and will ramble about this more in a bit.

"I am Clancy" and "My name's Blurryface" and Nico saying "Hello Clancy" are all statements which co-exist.

At some point prior to the start of the narrative Clancy became aware of the true nature of Dema, and he seems to imply that Dema used to be different - meaning the Bishops took over at some point and that Vialism hasn't always existed in the city

Between Trench and SAI, Clancy is imprisoned for his escape efforts and for spreading/inspiring anti-bishop messaging. He's a musician & is forced to produce and perform propaganda music for the Bishops leading up to the events of the Saturday MV. I'm pretty sure in-story, if he also produced the other lore albums, Trench is what led to his imprisonment

He is the only citizen, that we know of, who is able to be seized while alive. He is also the only non-Bishop, that we know of, who is able to seize others. He eventually uses this ability to spread further anti-Bishop messaging within the city while he's on Voldsøy (and also to make Keons get absolutely sillayyyyy)

He most likely knows the Torchbearer prior to the start of the narrative, but he also doesn't know whether the Banditos are real until he actually sees them for the first time when he escapes; this means they either met in the city or somewhere outside it if Clancy hasn't always lived there. He doesn't (seem to) know about Torch's projection powers until Navigating. It's unclear to me whether he knew that the Torchbearer we see for the SAI era was always a projection/figment of his imagination - he certainly thought Voldsøy Torch was real which implies he thought the Torch in the Saturday MV was real. But if I recall correctly he also never alludes to the Bishops capturing Torch in his writing, which you'd think would be his assumption? It could be he knew on some level they weren't real but was in a state of heavy denial. We also don't know canonically how far Torchbearer's projection ability stretches, so I think it's up in the air whether the SAI Torches were actually Torch, Clancy's imagination, an artificial tool used by the Bishops to torment/sedate Clancy, or some nebulous combination. Once Clancy is on Voldsøy it's definitely Torchbearer projecting himself to guide Clancy

Prodigal son, wanted dead or alive (also Josh Dun canon) (also Adidas canon)

Catboy?

He ultimately goes back to the city and confronts the Bishops head on and alone. We don't know the outcome of this at this point.

We additionally see in the Paladin MV that the Clancy on the cliffs (the one with the black paint) is either copying or controlling the movements of Torchbearer while the Banditos are fighting. Which is. Interesting

.....Okay now what about the tour (SKIP IF YOU DONT WANT SPOILERS)

Tyler described the Clancy tour as a reflection prior to the final battle, so I think we can read the setlist as a sort of inventory of specific moments for Clancy leading up to the Paladin MV. The choices for older songs are all quite striking to me. Addict With a Pen, Forest, Fall Away, Fake You Out, Slowtown - all of these have to do with struggling with identity in some way.

We also get Josh/Torchbearer singing Bandito during Paladin Strait, as a sort of call and response to Clancy (guiding him through the strait? a reminder of why he fights and who he fights with?)

Throughout the set we see Dema onstage in various states, most distinctly on fire. We also see during the Trees visuals that the tree is on fire, dead, and covered in vultures. It'll be a while before we see all of the visuals clearly, but destruction and death/dying seem to be big themes here (however I think death is purely metaphorical)

Clancy seems to be communicating thru his shirts? Or at least the shirts Tyler wears have some type of lore significance. Specifically mean the white shirts with black photos on them that look like demaorg scans. Twitter fans figured out that Denver n1 one of the pictures was of a crying angel statue, and his shirts from the next 2 shows both appeared (to me) to have pictures of Clancy on them along with imagery like fire, hands, etc. My current thought for this is that they're either a way for Clancy to communicate if he's in Dema, or they symbolize/showcase certain snapshots from his memories.

I don't think we'll actually hear any words from Clancy until/if there's a continuation from the Paladin MV. All of the letters we're getting from the FPE exhibit will be from other characters. I mean, I would assume, since so far they all have been already.

[SPOILERS OVER]

I also want to highlight some nagging issues I've had with the lore and where I'm at with them now

The main sticky point, for me, remains the Jumpsuit MV. At the time of its release, we were told canonically that Clancy was watching from the cliffs while the events of the video happened. This was later changed in what I strongly believe is a RETCON, to where Clancy was indeed the subject of that video but was experiencing it out-of-body. I've heard people justify this by saying it didn't make sense the original way because Clancy would've been seen, but like.... he said he was hiding in a cave. I believe him. That's not a difficult thing to believe or justify. And also the video ends with Clancy being dragged back to Dema, but then in his writing he describes being collected by Keons days later. I've spent a lot of time in the past trying to make this make sense to myself off the trust that the lore is 100% factual and intentional at all times, but it always requires me to bend so far backwards and go in so many mind loops that I feel like I'm reducing my own comprehension of the actual story & basically just writing fanfiction. So. This is a retcon. It used to not be Clancy in the video, and then it was. So now it is.

And about Keons. Why is Keons his Bishop when Nico is the primary antagonist and The Main Bishop for the last 4 albums? I was going to say this is a retcon too, but I don't think it is, because we heard about Clancy and Keons's relationship up through the SAI era. I think Keons is (was) still Clancy's Bishop, which was done for Lore Reasons. Nico is *Tyler's* Bishop yes, but the story is not about Tyler (or well..... we'll get there). I believe Nico's interest in Clancy is not specifically because Clancy was ever his own acolyte, but just because Clancy's a major fucking nuisance and also a weirdo who can be mind controlled. Nico decided to exploit that for his/the Bishops' own means. Afaik Clancy never even names Nico as his Bishop (outside of him saying the guy in the Jumpsuit mv was dragged away by his bishop, who was Nico, but that guy is Clancy................ grrrrrrrrr) so this isn't a big deal really

And rambling about lyrics for a second because I can't help myself

Subpoint to the above Nico point is the second verse in Morph, where he's first formally named, and Tyler/Clancy says "he told me I'm a copy / when I'd hear him mock me / that's almost stopped me" . A copy of whom? Nico himself? Tyler? Or does he mean copy in the more general sense of someone who's unoriginal? Much to consider

And then we also have Redecorate, where we get "she's not afraid of her reflection, but of what she might see behind it / she had plans to change her name, just not the traditional way." Identity, self recognition, changing your name, a new face, morphing to someone else.......

I am Clancy. My name's Blurryface. I find Nico. Hello, Clancy. This is a battle of identity, and always was.

And here are my conclusions from all of this, summed up as best as I can.

Clancy and Tyler are not different people in the story, and never were. It has always been one person, and that person is Clancy. I believe most of the confusion on this point comes from (what I believe are) retcons, mostly very minor and one major (Jumpsuit MV), and also the fact that Clancy did not name himself out loud in the music until this album cycle

I don't think he named himself out loud until this album cycle because, for various reasons, both literal and abstract, he was not able to. He was being silenced, but I think he was also silencing himself. Clancy the album is an act of radical reclamation and staking a flag in the ground in terms of self identity

While there is a linear plot to the lore which we've been following through the albums, the nature of the Dema story is cyclical, and I believe we may be seeing glimpses or patterns of things repeating many times (this is also still my in-lore explanation for the fucking goddamn music video thing, I'm just toning it down a lot from past lore posts). How long has Clancy been awake, exactly? How many times has he escaped? How many times can he endure this?

When I said radical reclamation in the above point I do mean Radical. I think Clancy's final resort to breaking the cycle is complete and utter destruction because it's the only out he sees. Which is why he's willing to use psychokinesis for his own means in the Overcompensate MV, and why we get the fight in Paladin, and why the album cover is on fire, and why *waves hand vaguely at spoiler things iykyk* because what else is there left to do. Sometimes you need to destroy something as self preservation. Sometimes to stay alive you've gotta kill your mind.

Clancy and Nico are the same person. I don't mean this literally within the lore. I mean in a meta sense, they're both Tyler. Tyler is Blurryface, Tyler is Nico. Tyler is Clancy. This is lore and a plot and a story, but it's also a metaphor for someone's mind. Blurryface/Nico is Tyler's insecurity, and Clancy is his hope. (Or something like that.) One must naturally destroy the other to persist. Faith and sleep, we need to pick one please.

Clancy is also us. We are all Clancy. I mean this not literally, but as an act of mirroring and reflection which is innate to music and to tøp in specific. This is how I choose to interpret the Redecorate verse. I also believe this is why "Hello Clancy" is the last thing we hear along with Nico naming the few the proud and the emotional. He's talking to You.

We are also Not Clancy. Because I also know the Dema storyline is about control, on a lot of different levels, down to how Trench was produced. It's very much about losing control of your mind or your identity in some way (which is why we get allusions early on to Dema having once been different), and feeling trapped in an in-between state where you don't know who you are or where you're going. Tyler needed control. So he made Trench. He made this character. Clancy isn't anybody else's. He isn't anyone else. (Which is why it has to all be about one person. Because he is Clancy. Clancy is his own guy, but he's also just Tyler. That's called musical alter egos babyyyy)

Tyler created this world, and as such, so did Clancy. When Clancy is mirroring Torch's movements in the Paladin MV I think it's to visually reference the fact that this IS a story being told, that these are characters in a Story, communicating something real. I don't think Clancy has been (consciously) orchestrating everything the whole time - I think when we first hear "I created this world" in Bandito it's more of a self affirmation or reminder. By Overcompensate it's an open threat. He can and will do it and destroy it on his terms

With this in mind, there's something truly genius and almost haunting about Paladin being the end of the lore, assuming we don't get anything else (I have a feeling we will but you never know). We don't know how Clancy's story ends because it's not up to us. It's up to him. He took that back for himself. Whether the cycle continues, whether Dema truly burns, whether Clancy continues existing or is destroyed with the rest, we don't know, and maybe we don't need to know. We have our own stories to figure out. (And perhaps those stories are being explored in the new letters......)

"In Trench, I'm not alone / these faces facing me / they know / they know what I mean"

#twenty one pilots #clancy #tyler joseph #josh dun #posts this at 11:45pm on a work night closes tumblr app shoots phone with a gun goes to sleep #i still think my metaphysical mind fuckery everything everywhere interpretation is sexy and fun #but it was never meant to actually be a canon read of the actual lore it's more just my own bullshit #so this is my actual canon read #it's like the toned down version basically

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