#school spirits theories

[jetsteeleyourheart]

School Spirits - Traitor Theory

I was rewatching School Spirits Season 2 with a friend the other night and a single shot changed my entire outlook on one of the characters. I think one of the cast is a traitor, possibly working with some big bad or at least keeping secrets in a huge way.

Spoilers for School Spirits S1 & S2 under the cut!

It says Traitor theory at the top, but what I really wanted to call this was:

School Spirits: Toxic Yuri

What started this:

Episode 6 of Season 2 we see the Gals doing a lot of investigating while the Boys attend Wally's School reunion. When telling this theory to my friends I started by asking them: What was the most exciting, distracting moment in all of season 2?

After they all said seeing Wally's entire ass down the studs, I amended my question: What is the second most exciting, distracting moment of the series and got the answer I was looking for:

The well gif'd TikTok dance to David Bowie's "Let's Dance"

I have seen a ton of GIF sets of this moment, but when re-watching the show I realize the GIF sets always cut out the one shot we get of what Maddie is doing during this time and this shot is the basis of my theory that Wally was right the whole time,

So what shot from the dance sequence am I talking about?

This one - I couldn't find a GIF online so I had to make one myself:

In the middle of the Dance sequence they have this single shot of Maddie, who is currently and importantly NOT in a scar at this moment. We don't find out for a whole episode that the lights flicker when someone enters their scar, so this moment goes by mostly unnoticed.

We have track of most other main ghost characters: Wally, Charley, Rhonda, & Quinn are dancing in the library, Maddie is in the hallway, and Mr. Anderson, while not present, is most likely too fresh off his ghosthood to even know how to access a scar. This leaves Yuri as our only real option for a main character who could be entering his scar.

So what was Yuri Doing in there?

Well, at the beginning of the next episode, while everyone else is having sexy sexy times, Quinn goes into her scar and finds the missing page of Janet's journal, the one that claims she was going lock everyone else away in their scars and leave them there.

So why do I think this was Yuri's doing and not Quinn's? Because Yuri was the only one who had access to the box Janet left in the Pottery Studio - the box where Charley find's Janet's Journal earlier in the season, which already has pages missing from it. Its clear that Yuri knows Janet can create permanent objects and he starts talking to Charley very quickly for someone who has been lying about being able to speak English since the 70s. I would love to believe its because Charley is just that irresistible, but Charley has been around since the 90s. Why now? Why would Yuri try to get in with Charley now specifically. He gets in with Charley very quickly, explaining away his reason for not talking with the others by immediately denouncing Mr. Martin.

Watching the later episodes with this in mind I started viewing everything he said or did with a layer of suspicion. He barely walked into the book racks before coming up with a theory about dopamine receptors in the library when helping Wally and Charley decode parts of Janet's book. He agrees very quickly to going to the dance with Charley as a date for someone who's been a recluse. He even knows how to get into his own scar and that his lighter is his Key - and Yuri, unlike Quinn, never mentions to anyone about going into his scar for the first time, and when we do see him in the last episode when everyone meets up in Rhonda's scar, he doesn't look any more traumatized than the others. In fact, he looks more upset when he sees Charley's scar.

I don't know exactly what he's doing but his main objective appeared to involve making sure Janet gave back Maddie's body no matter what. He frames it as more Yoda wisdom, but I am suspicious of the way he talks to Wally in Episode 7 to convince Wally to let Maddie go. Even the way he's lit in this scene (for those of you who like lighting design theory) shows his face half in light and half in shadow, something I teach to my students as the Harvey Dent Lighting, showing a character is two faced or playing two sides at once. I'm just so suspicious of his motives here. Like why make Wally feel worse than he did before?

Finally at the end of the season I noticed that more often than not Yuri is in the background of almost all of Mr. Martins shots. This isn't so much a grounded theory as my film prof (I teach film classes) brain coming into play, where they are trying to create a visual relationship between Mr. Martin and Yuri on screen by putting them visually together, which Yuri visually having Mr. Martin's back.

My theory is that Yuri knew about Mr. Martin needing Janet to forgive him to move on, and if he does, Mr. Martin will give Yuri something in return. I don't know if Yuri's motivation will be all that bad, and I'm fairly certain he's going to catch feelings for Charley for real if he hasn't already but I do think Wally was right:

Yuri is a spy, and he is lying to all of them.

[team--edward]

School Spirits Spoilers

——————//////——————

My remaining questions are

How does the blood and the crowbar come into play? Janet faking the death maybe?? But still

Why was Janet-Maddie sneaking around her house, or was it someone else

Who took the money? Janet? I assume with the big bills at the station but idk

Maddie’s “spirit died” in the fight with her mom which is why I think Janet was able to posses her and she could see her form, but why could she see Mr. Martin fully before it happened

My first thought is he’s actually human and can see the ghosts which is how he was seen and able to collect the items, but it doesn’t align with supposedly not being seen with the other ghosts when they are around a bunch of people

Why is the sheriff so adamant on framing the janitor? Just to protect his son??? But that doesn’t really make sense

Too much previously unknown knowledge has been given to Simon from Maddie for him to think she’s his imagination

Side note, Maddie shows literally zero romantic interest in Wally so idk where that’s going

Would love some thoughts and theories from yall

[frecklesandpoverty]

I saw an article earlier from the cast of School Spirits talking about season 2, and how the season finale is going to be craaaazy, and it said something like "imagine the worst thing ever, and then it's even worse than that."

so now i'm worriedddddd lol

[kat-rose-griffith]

Wait a minute wait a minute, so if the theory that I’ve seen that [spoiler] they overwhelmed the barrier between the living and the dead so much that Simon accidentally just walked into the ghost world and his whole body and soul is on that side is true, then does that mean that the barrier could potentially work the other way too and the ghost kids could come into the living side too and get a second chance at life???

[ostriches-because-i-said-so]

Listen, I don't know how Simon got in the scar without letting Mr.Martin out. Maybe he just closed it really fast but I have a theory on how Simon was able to get in in the first place.

So Janet said that when she was in the scar for a long period of time it broke the barrier between the living and the dead for a moment. So if Mr.Martin was stuck inside his scar the whole night, it's very possible that Simon was able to get in through the broken barrier.

Now that's fine. That's neat. I'm more intrigued about what this entails about the living being able to see spirits. So far it was Xavier with his near death experience, Simon through his deep connection with Maddie, and the janitor when Janet was in the scar. So if Mr.Martin stays in the scar the whole next season does that mean we get more living-dead convos?

I'm mostly excited about, oh I don't know, Charley talking to Emilio. Especially now that he's with Yuri. Or maybe just any teacher/student finding out that Maddie was body swapped for a moment, Simon could see her ghost, and the rest of the group was doing illegal shit to get her back while using Simon's ghost connection as a helping hand. Like... what would the principal even say? And when Mr.Anderson comes in to vouch like, "Yeah, that happened. I got possesed to for a bit lol" like do you see my vision. If you do you know how spectacular it'd be.

Just a theory that will likely be 2000% off but hey, a [REDACTED FOR DYSPHORIA REASONS] can dream

[buffy-cyrus]

Theory about Yuri in season 3 of School Spirits (shared from reddit)

All of the characters were holding their keys when they died, but I noticed that they're also all linked to the *way* they died - all except Yuri, which I will get to.

Maddie's necklace: she tore off her necklace when Sanda 'killed' her spirit

Wally's football: he broke his neck playing football

Charley's letter: he drowned his sorrows in french fries after writing the letter, causing anaphylaxis.

Rhonda's letter: she was killed showing her acceptance letter to her guidance councilor

Quinn's field marker: she was killed in a bus crash on the way back from a marching band competition

Mr Martins watch: he was watching the time on his watch when the fire started

And then we have Yuri, who's key is his lighter (the show made sure we noticed it by focusing on him picking it up). Yuri claims to have died from an asthma attack caused by a panic attack in the greenhouse - nothing at all to do with his lighter.

We know Yuri smokes, and we know he's done a lot of medical research so he must've known how risky smoking was for asthma. He has also been very passive when talking about death, telling the others he doesn't believe in moving on and that he's content where he is now.

I think Yuri triggered his asthma attack on purpose in hopes to escape his anxiety. If he was smoking in the greenhouse when he died then it would make sense for his lighter to be his key. It would also make sense for him to lie to the others about his cause of death, as they didn't want to die.

[butihadsimon]

So minimal school spirits fandom that I now know exists, what do we think about the theory that this whole thing started bc of a science experiment gone wrong?

(I could be misremembering here so correct me if I am) Mr. Martin and Janet died in a fire in what is now the fallout shelter, and in one of the articles they found another student in the class was blaming Mr. Martin for starting the fire and bringing Janet in there with him.

what if

stay with me here

what if, they were doing some kind of research experiment together (hence the chemical formulas in the beginning of Janet's notebook, and the shorthand) that went wrong, and what they'd done of that experiment plus them dying in the room in the fire with it, trapped their souls there.

which raises the question, when Mr. Martin locked her in that room, was it with the watch? was she experiencing that freaking red room thing relieving that day over and over for months? is that what they were arguing about right before Maddie found them? was he making her relive that to try and figure out where the mistake was in their experiment, because he wanted to try and redo or reverse it and that's why Mr. Martin was trying to force her to tell him what she saw?

as far as we know date wise Janet and Mr. Martin are the oldest ghosts, they've been there longest, they could very well be the start of it all.

[advisortotheadvisor]

I really really hope they're setting up for the barrier between the living and the dead to fall. While I love the respective dynamics of the living squad and the ghost squad, I think letting the groups intermingle more would introduce some new dynamics + let us see different facets of the characters

[cordialcorvidae]

I feel like every ghost (aside from ones who have been body jacked like Maddie) died in a really bizzare way and had some kind of emotional distress at the same time. The fire for Janet and Mr. Martin, not knowing the full circumstances but taking the possible clue that Janet started it, meaning she was certainly in emotional turmoil and his remark about not paying attention was what got me thinking about this. Next Rhonda is rather obvious as to why her emotions tied her to unlife. Dawn just an immense amount of sorrow, shame, and betrayal before she died. She ended up continuously isolated and mocked in death too, until Maddie granted her kindness. Mina is really fixated on safety and her death is likely because of neglectful practices, she is fixated on it never happening again, honestly I saw it less as anger and more so similar to how I would feel as an elder sibling. Protective. Wally is an odd one, because he didn't remember his death aside from the fact it happened. I feel like it was his devotion to his mom, and lack of ever finding out who he really is. His loyal nature became tied to Mr. Martin and now Maddy. Charley was breaking down over being outed and was angry at Emilio, then sudden freak unexpected death and he's stuck. He got closure with Emilio, but im certain his fears and regret over not just being himself hold him back. I definitely need to learn more about the band kids, but I think the dying as a group and not even realizing it holds them all there. Quinn breaking out of the loop is likely step one to her understanding her life and death, eventually moving on. Now having analyzed the known ghost deaths I'm really trying to solve the more unknown ones. Yuri is clearly disassociating. He spent a couple decades pretending to loop and be Russian. He also seems to assume there is nothing beyond what he has, or it might be worse. Genuinely dying in the green house is so strange? What could have happened? Was it not so much an accident, was he intending to end things and escape? Instead being trapped eternally? Or maybe again freak accident like everyone else? The other death zones seem to be the gym, garage, and a bathroom??? I definitely need more information on these spirits and whether or not they're looped. Any way super long ranting over. Would love for people to add to this.

[skektrek]

I very much think school spirits is going to have a Romeo and Juliet ending. I think Simon isn't really dead, but Maddie won't know that and thinking everything she loves is on the other side, will go back permanently. But since Simon isn't really dead, they'll end up back where they started and he'll make the choice to stay with her.

[theorygenic]

oh okay so we just straight up tied Xavier up and threw him in a boat and sailed him off, gOT IT

[coolguyincsworld]

ok but can you imagine how terrifying quinn’s scar is??

like it’s either like wally’s and she had to watch herself die on impact while also simultaneously being thrown around as the bus crashes

or (my fav cuz i love throwing angst at my fav characters) she had to sit there and slowly feel herself die with nothing to do abt it because she was either trapped or physically couldn’t cuz of injury’s or blood loss.

like i think quinn’s scar could easily be the scariest

[itswhatyougive]

I bet Rhonda's healed scar will have echoes of lovely music playing 🥹🎶

[kat-rose-griffith]

Oh wait what if the sad thing to end the season is that Simon stops being able to see Maddie because he starts to actually move on with his life and properly mourn her

[chimiriah]

I have a feeling School Spirits might end similar to Ride the Cyclone with Maddie being Jane Doe

[lyxchen]

Everyone hating on Janet can leave right now because Have You Seen How CUTE She Is?????