#school spirits theories

[phantomoftheorpheum]

I know there are a lot of theories bouncing around that Maddie is still alive and it feels very weird to say this about a character that I genuinely like, but... I hope not? I mean, don't get me wrong, I totally see where the theories are coming from & it would explain why she's so different from the other ghosts, but I also feel like it would really undermine the emotional core of the show for me.

[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

[pssyinboots]

since the final is thursday here’s all my thoughts and theories about school spirits

maddie’s mom most definetly killed her (though i wouldn’t be suprised if she had help from someone)

one of the three main ghosts definetly knows more than what they are saying about maddie’s death (i think it’s really down between wally and charlie)

simon is involved in her death somehow someway but i don’t think he actually killed her

i don’t think there’s anything supernatural happening i just think the creepy teacher wants power and control so he’s making everyone think they have to be in the group and follow what he says to move on

i don’t think maddie is going to move on after she finds out who killed her i mean she hasn’t even been dead for a month

one of the main 3 other ghosties are going to move on

maddie and wally aren’t going to become a couple (possibly because he moves on)

[bluebirdcurse]

Chloe saying she was glad they didn't cancel homecoming just because Maddie is missing, presumed dead, sounds like a bitch move at first but later in the episode seems so naive and optimistic when we find out this town still held the homecoming dance after Wally died. Like the entire school sat in a stadium, watched a boy die, went home, set their perms, and came back for the big dance?

[sapphic-agent]

Why is Simon able to see Maddie?

I've been thinking about it for a while, and I think I might have an answer.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Let's start with what I don't think it is. I'm 99% sure that it's not because Simon's dying. There's speculation that he has a tumor or undiagnosed cancer causing him to slowly die and that's why he's able to see Maddie. But I have two issues with that:

Why is he only able to see Maddie? If him approaching death is what enables him to see and talk with a ghost, why is that only extended to one ghost? At the very least, wouldn't he have some kind of connection with the other ghosts? Maybe if not outright seeing them, then sensing their presence or something? But he's never given any indication they're there, we've seen that. If he was dying, he'd have a connection to the entire metaphysical plane, not just Maddie.

Why does he only start seeing her at that exact moment in season 1? If he was dying, wouldn't it have been sooner? Maddie was "dead" for three days before Simon saw her. And it was only at this specific time that he was able to do so.

What this tells me is that this isn't possible because of anything from Simon's end. Or, not completely from his end.

To answer this question, we need to look at the only other instance of a living person and ghost interacting. What enabled Maddie to see Janet and Mr. Martin arguing? What allowed Janet to steal Maddie's body in the first place?

I think it's a combination of things. Mr. Martin says to Janet, "What did you feel? You have to tell me." This implies that she did something that was completely unexpected by him. We don't know what it was exactly, but we can assume that it has to do with blurring the lines between life and death even if it was just a little. But I don't think it was just this that allowed Maddie to see her and Mr. Martin.

When Maddie describes her altercation with her mother to Simon, she says very deliberately, "She killed my spirit." Maddie wasn't just feeling upset in that boiler, she was broken. A lifetime of being battered down by her mother's alcoholism and negligence and this was the final straw. She wasn't physically dead at that point, but emotionally she might as well have been.

I think that these two things happening at the same time created a sort of passageway between Maddie and the metaphysical plane. The hollowness Maddie was feeling coincided with whatever Janet had done to blur those lines, and that's how Janet was able to push her soul out.

Now, if I'm right about all of that, what does that have to do with Simon?

Well, remember what Simon said to Ms. Fields, "I don't know how I'm going to survive this place without her." It's important to remember that Simon had a feeling she was dead, or at the very least seriously hurt/in trouble. He accepted the possibility of her being gone as fact, which is why he never questions her being a ghost. It isn't such a stretch to assume that he was feeling the same hollowness that Maddie was concerning her mother.

(This also answers why he was the only one. Sandra and Nicole still believed Maddie was alive, they weren't broken in the way that Simon was. And when Sandra did receive the news that there was a good chance Maddie was dead, she was at home, not the school. So her and Maddie wouldn't have been able to connect the way her and Simon did. Also, Maddie's relationship with her mother is very complicated. They don't have anything close to the bond that her and Simon do)

But like I said above, the connection has to be on both sides. Not only did Maddie watch him have this breakdown and was probably feeling similarly to him in that moment, she also had a tether to the living world; her body. So, the combination of their emotional bond, Simon's emptiness when faced with a world without her, and Maddie still technically being alive allowed them to connect past the limitations of death

[phantomoftheorpheum]

Yeah, I've come back around on both of them a little bit recently, too. I don't love it when the first person who is immediately suspected is the killer (exception: Scream, because I love everything about that film), but I feel like we're running out of characters they haven't made look suspicious at some point and there are things about Xavier's story & Mr. Anderson's story that don't line up or still haven't been fully explained. I'm not sure if all of it is on purpose, though. I'm still bothered by the loose thread of the Sheriff & Claire's stepdad and how many times they mentioned money/elections etc. but I haven't been able to figure out how they would tie that in to Maddie's murder right now in a way that feels earned.

I kind of wonder if the reveal of who killed Maddie is actually going to loop back around to one of the early suspects that we’ve ‘cleared,’ as in Mr. Anderson or Xavier. We’ve been given some reason to trust that neither of them did it but there’s nothing exonerating, and having them dismissed early would be a good way to throw us off the scent while still being able to understand the big reveal when it comes.

[thewhizzyhead]

ngl because of all the warriors talk here with it inherently being activism-spirited and how the people here engage with socio-political analyses, I've been more willing to talk about my activism again both inside and outside of tumblr and actually returning to studying the theory! So that's cool! Thank God for Eisa davis!!

[lavishtine]

//grooming mention

Anyway, I finished School Spirits in two days and the ending absolutely raised more questions than it answered.

So, I have a running theory about Mr. Martin and Janet, but I think it's a lot.

Firstly, I think there's a high likelihood that there was an inappropriate relationship between them, because we already know that Rhonda's counselor groomed her and ended up killing her in response to her getting into Berkeley. And there's something weird about their relationship, because Janet lied about a lot to the group and it seems like they had been the oldest ones, which is why they could so easily lie about being dead for five years before Rhonda.

I believe it's clear that Mr. Martin killed them both, but I don't know why.

Mr. Martin definitely had something over Janet, which is why she lied about when she died - she died two years earlier than the group knew [which is another thing, because if she did die in 1960, then Rhonda should have known her before she herself died since it seems like she died in Spring/Summer 1963] - the question is what exactly did he have over her? Personally, I think going off my theory of them having an inappropriate relationship, the most obvious answer is she was pregnant and she wasn't gonna keep it. You know, I don't think the writers are gonna make it the same as Rhonda's, so I feel like this would be different enough to be the reason she was killed And if she told him the truth, then it would be easy for him to resort to anger and kill them as a means of keeping them together forever.

Even if that's not true, he has something over her that he used to his advantage until she escaped and took over Maddie's body.

I also think Mr. Martin is more sinister than we think, even with the ending. I'm almost convinced that he is the one trapping them there as a means of experimenting on them, using them as test subjects [cannon], but I mean like he's trapping them there. He's the reason they reset and he's forcing them to relive their trauma to see what happens and he trapped himself and Janet there - again, as a means of keeping them together forever initially - and continues to trap any student who has died after them. The groups are canonically him running tests on them, not helping, so it would make since that someone from outside the group could eventually crossover given the right words to break that cycle. [He probably knows those words too]. And so far we haven't seen anyone before 1958, so that does make sense.

I have so much more to say, but I'm just rambling now and need sleep, so gonna do that instead.

[anastacialy]

alright im sure that this fandom is full of ghosts (ha) at the minute but i just watched school spirits and looking through the tag i see a common theme which is the shock about how many kids died on campus. but with the reveal in the final episode... doesn't it sort of make sense? spoilers + speculation under the cut

now, i've only just watched the series once, and of course i didn't know exactly what to be looking for on my first watch. but here's what we know:

we had main character ghosts specifically from the 70s, 80s, 90s... the earliest ghosts i remember being mentioned were mr. martin and janet from 1958. now i don't doubt that i missed some, and there's a possibility there are older spirits.

but either way, mr. martin was revealed to be able to move physical objects as a ghost.

he was seen by maddie before she was possessed, able to write in actual notebooks that got stored (and changed the physical / 'alive' world around them, which they supposedly weren't able to do?) and hoard the objects directly related to the other ghosts' deaths.

he's been treating the ghosts like a science experiment for the last sixty years, documenting everything they've told him, the entire reason for him setting up the support group.

and, oh yeah, he caused the fire that killed himself and a student.

doesn't it stand to reason that a ghost who wants to study other ghosts might, i don't know, find a way to... make more? get himself more test subjects? this might be why he discouraged them thinking about the ways in which they died. we know ghosts are able to possess people... when they were speaking privately, i got the feeling rhonda's guidance councilor and mr. martin were very... similar. hm.

he may have manipulated those situations just a bit, causing death and creating new ghosts for him to study. the only death we actually saw was dawn's, where a light bulb started to flicker, calling attention to her and getting her to electrocute herself in order to stay hidden. we've seen several times in the series ghosts affecting electricity, even if it isn't explicitly pointed out. plus, dawn's hand on the light bulb is part of the intro sequence, a detail i found quite curious, even after that reveal.

i think, with the information we have right now, the amount of ghosts in that school makes perfect sense, actually.

[phantomoftheorpheum]

Just finished episode 6 of School Spirits & I have so many thoughts! I really liked this episode, it may be my favorite one yet! I'm going to place my thoughts below a cut, because they get very long.

Okay, the first thing I want to go over is Claire's story, because (assuming it's all true, which rn I am) it answers (mostly) a lot of questions. According to Claire- Mr. Anderson stole the money and she found out about it. She used this information to blackmail Mr. Anderson into giving her straight As. Claire & Mr. Anderson received the blackmail video discussing everything. They think Maddie sent the video. Claire stole Maddie's phone to try to delete the video, but then couldn't get into it and gave the phone to Mr. Anderson, who destroyed it. At some point, Mr. Anderson paid off "Maddie" at Claire's suggestion. They (or at least Claire) presumably think that Maddie is possibly still out there somewhere with the blackmail and money.

Here are a couple of questions/assumptions I have about this timeline-

Why did Claire replace Maddie's phone with a different one at all? Surely the first time Maddie looks at that phone & it doesn't have any of her stuff on it, she's going to know it wasn't hers. Wouldn't it be less suspicious (from Claire's POV where she thinks Maddie is blackmailing her) for her phone to just be missing in general? She could believe that she just lost her phone, but if someone replaced her phone, that would immediately be weird/suspicious to her. What exactly was the timing of this? Claire had to have stolen Maddie's phone before Xavier did, since he ended up with the replacement. Did she literally buy a phone just to switch with Maddie's for a short period of time? Or did she just realize she couldn't get into Maddie's phone, gave it to Anderson to destroy, and then bought a replacement? Honestly, I think maybe this plot point is a little muddy and always will be. I think we're supposed to believe that Claire switched the phones (still don't get why she bothered to do that, like I would 1,000% be less confused/suspicious if my phone was just missing for a couple hours than if I suddenly had a phone that looked like my phone, but had none of my settings/data/etc.) when she stole Maddie's and was intending to switch them back, but then Xavier stole the replacement phone and Maddie disappeared.

So, obviously we know that Maddie didn't take the video or get any money from Mr. Anderson. The most likely suspect for that, I think, is still Nicole. She's obviously hiding something (was she burying stuff in the woods, or digging stuff up? Either way, she has something to hide and they definitely hinted at that in episode 5, but it seems whatever it is must be pretty serious or she wouldn't be digging a hole in the woods in her homecoming dress in the middle of the night) and she could be planning to use the blackmail money for college. The question is, did she kill Maddie, or did she just get Maddie killed by pretending to be her and getting mixed up in all this? Perhaps Nicole's hope that Maddie is still alive out there somewhere is because she knows if something happened to Maddie over the money/blackmail, it's her fault.

While we're on the topic of Nicole, it seems very odd to me that she went to Mrs. Nears house alone when Mrs. Nears thought someone was poking around. (Also weird that Simon wasn't worried about her doing that, since he knows for sure that Maddie isn't the one leaving her backpack places, liking social media posts, etc. and presumably her murderer is doing that stuff, but I think this whole thing might just be an oversight). The only two explanations for this behavior from Nicole's POV, imo, is that she really thinks Maddie is alive & therefore didn't feel threatened by it, or she killed Maddie and isn't worried about getting murdered because the murderer is her. But those are complete opposite reasons, so not that helpful.

We know that whoever was at Mrs. Nears (assuming there really was someone there, but I am going to assume that because it seems really unfair to the audience to include that scene and then just be like "nvm this was just an accident") can't be Nicole, Simon, Xavier, Claire, etc. which leaves a pretty short list. I think it's notable that Ms. Fields didn't appear to be chaperoning homecoming (if anyone spotted her there, lmk. I didn't.) and is one of the only characters not accounted for during this time.

Here is a big question I have that they may have answered in the show (if any of you know the answer, please tell me) and I missed it at the time & haven't gone back to look for it yet. Do we know if the police ever found the money that was stolen by Mr. Anderson? When Simon initially accused him, they searched his room and said there was no money in the wall. Did they find it? Or is it still missing? If it's still missing, I have a couple of theories-

Nicole is the murderer. She took the video and blackmailed Claire & Mr. Anderson with it. I don't know if she always intended to pose as Maddie, or if that was solely just a bad assumption made by Mr. Anderson and Claire (we don't know why they thought it was Maddie, do we?), or even if that was something she came up with later. She needs the money for college/her applications/portfolio. She doesn't want to be left behind when Simon & Maddie go to Chicago, but she doesn't have the financial means to go with them unless she gets a scholarship from her portfolio, or she has to make a down payment for loans or something. Idk. She needs the money. She and Maddie end up in a confrontation about this, where Nicole kills Maddie (not premeditated, but out of fear/anger/etc.) and has been hiding/trying to cover up everything since. Nicole planted the boot prints, ticket, backpack, etc. and disposed of the murder weapon. She kept Maddie's necklace due to guilt and we will see it again. She is burying the clothes she wore when she killed Maddie because they have blood evidence on them. She may have also stolen the money from Mr. Anderson's walls before the cops searched the room. Maddie can't remember her death because it was so traumatizing to be murdered by one of her best friends. However this doesn't explain the situation with the insta photo (unless she was staging it, but that's kinda iffy, considering she didn't really have an audience). It also doesn't explain why she wouldn't have gotten rid of all the evidence along with Maddie's body in first place (unless what she is doing at the end of episode 6 is burying the second round of money she stole from Mr. Anderson's classroom). She also could not be person who Mrs. Nears heard in episode 6, since we know she was at the dance. This theory definitely leaves some loose threads.

Nicole took the video and blackmailed Claire & Mr. Anderson with it. All of her motivation, etc. that I posed in the last theory still applies here. She needs money for college. However, in this theory, Nicole did not kill Maddie. She may still have the necklace (someone does. it's somewhere). Maybe she stole it before Maddie's death to use as proof to Mr. Anderson & Claire in some way that Maddie was the blackmailer, but then Maddie disappeared? Maybe she doesn't have it. Nicole believes that Maddie may still be alive, and she is clinging to hope that she is, because if she's not, Nicole may be the reason she was murdered. She hasn't spoken up because she has the money she extorted from Mr. Anderson. Perhaps she is burying the money in the woods, or some other evidence that she feels is incriminating to her, now that it appears Maddie may be dead. She didn't kill Maddie, but she knows she might be responsible for whatever happened to her and she's still trying to cover up her crimes. In this theory, Ms. Fields was in on the money scheme with Mr. Anderson (maybe not initially, but they share a wall, so she could just as easily have had access to the money stash as he did. Maybe she found it and cut a deal with him, maybe they were in it together from the beginning, doesn't really matter for the purposes of this theory) and so she is aware that Claire & Anderson think Maddie is the one blackmailing them. She confronts Maddie, things get out of hand, she kills/injures her and removes her body through the tunnels. She doesn't tell Anderson about this (and Claire doesn't know about her involvement at all) and instead, removes the rest of the money from the walls before the cops search the building, keeping it for herself. She planted the evidence of Maddie still being alive and is the one in who was at Mrs. Nears'. However, this theory doesn't provide an explanation for why Maddie can't remember her death (she could be alive somewhere, don't love that concept, but it's possible), since she doesn't seem that close to Ms. Fields. This also doesn't totally explain the motive for killing Maddie, like yes, it would be about the money/blackmail. Maybe Ms. Fields thought Maddie knew that she was also involved?? I don't know. I will admit, it's a little thin.

So those are my two big theories atm. They both have some holes, I am very aware of that.

Some other thoughts about the episode-

I'm basically ignoring the Mr. South thing because it feels like such a red herring.

What was Rhonda doing in the fallout shelter??? Whatever is going on there feels like possible story set up for season 2.

no extra ghosts this episode (just Rhonda, Charley, & Wally) so I kinda expect we might get more from them in episode 7.

"part boy, part golden retriever" honestly someone just protect Wally, pls.

so happy Charley got some closure in this ep! <3

I know I keep saying it, but where tf is Maddie's necklace???

[keep-your-eyes-wide-open]

i have this wild theory about School Spirits (POSSIBLE SPOILERS):

-wally had a crush on maddie while she was alive, so he would follow her around while she was at school.

-the day that she was murdered he had been with her, so he knows how she died, (this would explain why he told her that it might be better not to remember what happened to her) but he doesn’t know who killed her (either it is someone who doesn’t attend/work at the school, so he wouldn’t know who they were, or he couldn’t see who the person was for some reason).

-I think that wally knows exactly what happened to maddie, but doesn’t want to say anything because he can’t answer who killed her. he clearly cares for her and since he doesn’t know who the murderer is he doesn’t want to upset her by telling her what happened.

-if for some wild reason this ends up being the case, I can’t imagine how awful it was for wally to watch the girl he likes get murdered and know that he physically couldn’t do anything to help. also, if this theory ends up being true there will be so much angst between maddie and wally.

[purplerakath]

Current theories for who killed Maddie in School Spirits.

1. Xander - We never really investigated him, the teacher became suspect 1 because he was creepy and had a bunch of money he shouldn't have. So looping back to him still feels fair.

2. One of the non-Claire cheerleaders - Claire is too early to be the one who did it, BUT, if we show more of her idiot friends being not an idiot maybe they did it for or to Claire.

3. Mr. Martin - No human murderer explains why Maddie isn't a normal ghost. Why her memory is missing, or why Simon can see her. But if a ghost did it, well, that means the rules change.

Add to that his rules don't really seem to matter, and how the antilife society seems to be wrong about the other ghosts, he's a good suspect.

(Wrong in that the Theater Ghost is aware of her afterlife, she's just dedicated to her own death in an unhealthy way. And Dawn isn't trapped in 1972, she's fully embraced 2023. To such degree it weirds out the ghost clique.)

(...Band Ghosts are still weird though, no getting around that.)

[mostly-functional]

I know this isn’t (supposed to be) a School Spirits blog, but I just had to share this.

I don’t trust Rhonda. Why does she keep coming to the group if she’s not going to participate? Dawn only comes to events that interest her like the movie night and everyone seems fine with that, so why doesn’t Rhonda do the same?

And where did she get those pants? Girls weren’t allowed to wear pants in most American schools in the ‘60s.

And why doesn’t she know how Janet died? The fire was in 1958 and Rhonda died in the early ‘60s. She should have known about something as dramatic as a fire that killed a teacher and a student. It would’ve been all over the local news.

At the homecoming game, she asks Mr. Martin to do for her what he did for Janet. She doesn’t ask for help crossing over, she asks for help leaving. She wants a body of her own.

My theory is that she’s been working for Mr. Martin the whole time. Her job is to bring in the people who don’t trust Mr. Martin and Janet (like Maddie.) This could also explain why he wanted her to watch Maddie.

Keep in mind, her first words to Maddie were “how’d you die?” She was double checking that she didn’t remember what happened

[karin848]

The Murder of Madison Nears

School Spirits episode 1: My So-Called Death

[pssyinboots]

these are my thoughts i wrote down while watching the final its all over the place but pls don’t read it if you haven’t watched it yet

THE NECKLACE

i was right about mr martin he’s just a sad man that wants control

my heart breaks for maddie

SLAY XAVIER

rhonda babes don’t do that to charlie

the scooby gang that we don’t need

JANET AND MR MARTIN KNEW EACHOTHER AND DIED AT THE SAME TIME

SIMONNNN

she used her college fund to buy a cabin?!?!

maddie my heart is breaking

PLS DONT TELL ME SHES NOT ACTUALLY DEAD JUST HER SPIRIT SO THATS WHY SHES THERE

YALL IN DANGER GIRL YALL IN DANGER

pls charlie is so funny (nick definitely made that line up himself)

he sees them as subjects??? what is happening

this episode is so sad

MR MARTIN GET AWAY FROM HER

that’s not very comforting xavier you cheated and lied to her best friend

DONT SPLIT UP WTF

OMG HOODED FIGURE IS MADDIE IT HAS TO BE

WHY DID THEY HIT HIM

HE STARTED THE FIRE WHAT IS HAPPENING

RHONDA WHAT THE HELL

He’s keeping things from their death for why?!?!

HE LOCKED THEM DOWN THERE

is her body possessed by janet?!?!

WHAT

that’s so badly photoshopped

not doomsday

there has to be a season two

omggg JANET POSSESSED HER

NO

WHAT THE HELL

[wallyclarksnewmom]

I was so caught up in finding out what happened to Maddie that I never even thought about what Mr. Martin and Janet are talking about until just now - Maddie finds the door to the fallout shelter because Janet was screaming for help. She was saying "help, I don't want to," and as Maddie opens the door we hear Mr. Martin say "we have to find out exactly what happened, what did you feel? You have to tell me-"

The article Wally and Charley find says that Mr. Martin started the fire, and revealed that they had been told the wrong year for her death (Wally and Charley both believed Janet died in 1960, not '58). But for whatever reason both Janet and Mr. Martin lied about this, and I wonder if Janet was going along with it under threat. Basically, they had to have been the first ghosts, because otherwise they wouldn't have been able to lie about when Janet died. Rhonda didn't die until at least 1963 (the year "He's So Fine" by the Chiffons came out), so Janet and Mr. Martin were alone together for 5+ years.

Anyways I don't really have a solid point here beyond just the fact that I think we might have missed how much of a victim Janet is in all this. I might even posit that her possession of Maddie was unintentional - she was just trying to get away from Mr. Martin and whatever he was yelling at her about, and the door opening gave her a shot.

I also wonder about their relationship prior to their deaths, if Mr. Martin starting the fire was purposeful, if Janet was targeted, etc. Since they were the first ghosts I imagine Mr. Martin may have done something then which triggered the weird ghost curse the school has going on. Maybe the rest of the ghosts had to do with Janet not wanting to be trapped alone with Mr. Martin, seeking some form of help. OH and what happened to Janet that Mr. Martin wanted to know but which Janet was so desperate not to share? We know he was recording findings on all the kids, was he outright experimenting on Janet because she knew about him already? I need to go to bed I'm sorry this is like 10 theories in one lol