#tgwdlm theory

[amazingmsme]

okay im like really stupid but like

what is half infected paul

You’re not stupid at all! Warning: tgwdlm spoilers

So at the end of the guy who didn’t like musicals, when Paul comes back out & starts singing, a lot of people speculated that he might not have undergone full apotheosis, & is therefore “half infected”

There’s a lot of posts on there from blogs that can explain better than I can & have specific moments to back it up, but I think it’s one of my favorite headcanons for the show, even if it wasn’t my initial interpretation

But yeah when you really start thinking about the implications & listen to the deeper meaning behind some of the lyrics, it’s very easy to come to & support that conclusion. Hope this helps!

[noplacelikelondon58]

MY TAKE ON "IS PAUL ACTUALLY INFECTED"

okay so i know this has been debated to hell and back but yknow? today ive decided to word vomit my opinion like it actually matters so LETS GO

during let it out we see paul gradually becoming more mr. hyde instead of mr. jekyll and beginning to sing, but we dont see any of the infected people actually transfer the disease to him (starkid hasnt neglected showing us how the disease is transferred, so we know its not a matter of them not showing it lmao). he's simply becoming "infected" because of his proximity to the meteor.

here's the theory part: it think that his infection is only temporary. i think that none of the infected people actually transferred the "blue shit" to paul. a part of paul is still normal, buried underneath the exposure to the meteor. because we all know our beige man would NEVER sing (moana doesnt count [but we all saw how he knew all the words, paul you sly devil you]), let alone sing to emma "let me puke in your mouth em, just open your food bin, girl"

now, the aftermath potential. we've seen that there aren't effects that occur from being around infected people (professor hidgens doesnt count, he's a born and bred theater kid, cant change that). so i think that after a little bit in clivesdale, paul slowly starts to return to normal. obviously emma gets infected, i dont think there's any way to bypass that. since paul doesn't have any infection to transfer to her, everyone else will do it anyway lmao

so the alien thing will start to wear off, and paul's quickly realizing "oh god i have to do something about this" and then uhhh the rest of the story i cant think of yet but also paulkins happens idk how but it has to theyre cannonically soulmates<33

[rockrosethistle]

If you guys liked the whole "Stephs flannel matches Peter's suspenders and bow tie" thing then this costuming detail is in tgwdlm gonna fuck you up.

When we get our first scene with Paul and Emma, the two are dressed in their respective main outfits. These are the ones people tend to associate with them.

But throughout the show, as they get closer and bond, their outfits become more and more similar. Pretty soon Emma's lost the apron

Then at the professor's house, Paul loses the jacket

and by the time McNamara is infected, Paul has his sleeves rolled up and Emma's bow tie has come undone.

At this point, the two are at their most aesthetically similar, and also the closest they've been the entire show. This is moments before the helicopter crash and their failed kiss. They remain this way for a good chunk of time...until Paul comes back

It's like some fast-paced foreshadowing. Emma remains in her changed state, the same as her character, but Paul is back to square one. He's wearing the same outfit he was when they met, and they no longer align. She doesn't know who he is anymore.

I don't know if this was intentional (and if it was, no one explained it to Jon) but it plays out so damn well.

[epitome-of-an-openbook]

No, because people keep acting like Grace Chastity being consumed with a lust for the power that Lords in Black provided her doesn't count as a world ending Cataclysm - but it very much does. Not only has she shown little to no empathy for others throughout the entire show and only ever felt bad for lying to authority figures and being horny - but the final song of the Musical is essentially a reprise of Max's Murder Song/Manifesto which places her as a parallel to Max. Max sings about how he's going to kill ALL the Nerdy Prudes and not once but twice tells the audience that it doesn't matter if someone is actually a Nerdy Prude because he makes the rules and gets to decide who is or isn't a nerd etc etc. Grace's take is that she is going to kill all the Dirty Dudes but she's literally singing it to a guy who has, throughout the entire musical, done nothing to indicate he's a pervy/dirty dude and only kissed her after she asked him too. Like Max, Grace Chastity doesn't actually care if someone genuinely fits the framework of her stated victimology, because she has the power so she gets to make the rules.

Honestly it's like some people didn't think about the implications.

[witchstormm]

I love forever and always, guys

[l0st-marblezz]

Ngl I would love it if Film Theory covered the Hatchetfield series lore. They’ve covered other YouTube series before so it could be possible.

[charlottesweetly]

The Clivesdale hospital redecorated, but I'm not sure they thought it through.

[hatchetfieldtheories]

Will We Ever Be Free of the Implications?

No, no I don't think so. And neither will Paul by the looks of it.

Ooof, its been a while since something has gotten my theory brain working, and Starkid are very good at peppering in just enough clues for us to all get excited. And for me to start trying to cobble together some theories.

I think I made the gif in about 2021, so its nice to know I'm making just as much sense 4 years later.

Its safe to say the main take away from the new TGWDLM Remount trailer is that Paul and Emma are aware they're living the same day again. Paul in particular knows what his colleagues are going to ask of him before they say anything and he very quickly becomes concerned with the implications.

Now. Do I think this is going to be as explicitly obvious in the remount. Not at all. The show is still the show at the end of the day, but as Paul exclaims, let's think about where the implications of what the trailer is telling us leads.

No Exits From the Broadway Venue

This remount is being described as a bigger and longer run, which is very exciting. It also leads me to believe there will be a bit more filling out of story and connections to the greater Hatchetfield lore.

As @ashtxeman has pointed out here, we're already getting this in this trailer. The Black Book, the reference to the Nighthawks and... well... the big flying Pokey rock in the sky, are all very explicit links. So I think its reasonable that they're going to use this as an opportunity to bring TGWDLM a bit more in line with the other Hatchetfield stories and make the link to the Tellytubbies of Terror more obvious.

Based on all these clues, we can presume for now that all the references to this being "done before" is true to the story they're intending to tell, and not just an easter egg referring to this being a second run of the show.

Ok, that's great Tazzy, but this isn't really a theory so far, I can hear you yelling at me. Well to that I firstly say, please yell a bit louder, all I can hear is Paul and Emma screaming into the blue void, and secondly, I say, this actually gives us the basis for a very interesting theory. For which we need to revisit some other parts of Hatchetfield lore, and our old friend, Tinky.

Time is a Precious Thread...

Since the dawn of time, otherwise known as around the time of the release of Black Friday, there has been quite a bit of discussion regarding whether the shows in the Hatchetfield Series are parallel universes, or if Hatchetfield is going through a time loop of some kind.

Then Time Bastard and Nightmare Time happened, and we learnt a few things. Firstly, that 2005 was a catalyst for the timelines of Hatchetfield splitting, and from that point on each of the shows we have watched have been in a different timeline. In Time Bastard, Ted travels back to before 2005, and this act is the reason why Ted as the Homeless Guy is de facto in every universe. Because it happened pre-split. If you would like to see the split timelines in a handy dandy diagram, @abiimaryy created a great one here.

And so, we rested, accepting the timeline theory.

And then the implications arrived.

Because now we are in a situation where both theories can exist simultaneously. Yes Hatchetfield has split, parallel timelines, but it seems that in this one - there is a time loop.

So how does Tinky come into this? Well he doesn't really. But the way he works, and affects Ted's life makes me look at this loop in a very specific way.

It's a Musical

I dont know about you, but when I go to the theatre and see an amazing show, I get so excited about it. So excited in fact that I wish I could go back and watch it again each night.

Well, I think Pokey has found a way to do just that.

Tinky traps Ted in his Bastard Box, which allows him to mess with Ted and affect his reality. Allows him to observe him.

Now let's look back to the Remount trailer.

We're told straight away, History doesn't repeat, it is - reprised.

We're watching old clips of the original run on a tv screen surrounded by black nothingness.

Look at Paul, sat there, in his little.. blue... box.. of a cubicle. Pokey doesn't have Paul and Emma trapped in a Box, but he does have them trapped. This is Pokey's equivalent. He gets to sit, and watch his favourite musical happen over and over and over.

Its a certainly a longer run.

And maybe, if that's the case. If Paul and Emma are acting this out every day, maybe the 2018 show, wasn't the first loop.

This would put the opening scene of TGWDLM 2018 into a more obvious context, especially in regards to the likes of Emma being involved with the opening song. That song takes place at the end of the previous loop, and is what brings the musical back into the new loop. It's Pokey's I Got You Babe.

[monstrousaffections1]

Gary Goldstein gives Paul a discount on account that he's his younger stepbrother. Imagine this, Gary marching into C.C.R.P with a Anxiety stricken Paul rushing after him trying to stop him. “Do you have any idea that my client, that is, my younger stepbrother, Paul Matthews, has autism? It involves misophonia, which is sensitivity to sounds…”

[nobodysdaydreams]

Hatchetverse Theory: The Parallels Between Paul (TGWDLM) and Grace (NPMD):

More thoughts and parallel screenshots under the keep reading, part of my #hatchetverse theory posts. Sorry these are all awful screen shots, I'm bad at gifs, but I hope I made my point.

The screenshots are pretty self-explanatory, but the parallels between Paul and Grace, especially with what happens to their characters at the end of their respective musicals, has been living in my head rent free, and I want to talk about it.

I've seen a lot of posts that speculate that the reason Grace went crazy at the end of NPMD is because she's just that blood thirsty and willing to kill, and while her character (at least of what I've seen of her in NPMD and what I've seen of nightmare time) is certainly intense, I wouldn't quite go so far to say she's always been that willing to hurt others, even for what she believes.

In fact, after rewatching NPMD, I realized something. When the kids first go to the Waylon Place, the others are the ones suggesting ways they can violently hurt Max. Pete even calls Grace's plan "goofy" and Richie is the one who suggests beating Max up. Grace is the one who tells them that all she wants to do is teach him a lesson and scare him and rejects their more violent ideas.

But after Max dies? That's when Grace's intensity starts taking a darker turn, and it's not as noticeable as it might be in the other kids because "Grace has always been kinda weird and intense" and the show has been playing that up for laughs since the beginning. But when you look at what happens to Grace in terms of her character's choices, she's the one who suddenly pulls a "bury the bully" plan out of nowhere when she was against even beating him up just a few hours ago. She's the one who suggests lying to the cops and trying to cover up what happened. She's the one who has a prophetic nightmare after the incident at the Waylon Place. That's also the moment when she symbolically loses her WWJD bracelet (though others have already pointed that out).

And if the LIB could infect Paul with spores just because he happened to be in close proximity to the meteor, then they could probably do something similar to any of the kids in the Waylon Place (and you cannot convince me that they were not the ones who collapsed the floorboards in the Waylon Place and killed Max).

But why would they target Grace you ask? Why not one of the other kids? That's a good question. I have a few theories.

The first has to do with what I mentioned before about hatchetverse's history of Webby's powers seeming to favor kids, and the LIB powers struggling to work on kids. We don't know how old most of the kids in NPMD are exactly, but the musical makes a point to tell us several times that Grace is "only 18" (Shaprio says she's a legal adult and will be tried as an adult in court). The musical also makes a point to have this be the Homecoming Dance (not Prom), which is in the fall, so most of the senior students wouldn't have turned 18 yet. We can also make an educated guess that Stephanie has turned 18 and Pete hasn't because she sings "wake me up when you turn 18" during their song. You could combat this by asking why the LIB never address Grace during the summoning and targeted Steph instead, which is a fair point. But interestingly, if you watch Grace, Steph, and Pete during the Summoning, Grace is silent most of the song, but looks completely horrified (especially when they tell her that they want what she cherishes most), despite the fact that from our perspective, the LIB aren't talking to her. She also seems to know exactly what the LIB want from her, because the next scene she's in is when she shows up to save Steph and Pete. During the Summoning, Pete, on the other hand, seems to mostly be involved in the conversation the LIB are having with Stephanie, although Grace also seems to understand what the LIB want from Stephanie. It's possible that this was intentional on the LIB's part, since they can see every timeline (in the "Abstinence Camp" episode of Nightmare Time, Grace gets between Steph, Pete, and Lumberaxe, risking her own life so that Lumberaxe doesn't hurt them. Grace might be willing to lose her own life for what she believes, but she might not be willing to lose her friends' lives. If the LIB know this, they'd likely want to make sure Grace understands that Steph or Pete will die unless she's the one who pays the price).

They have a personal reason for wanting her. In TGWDLM, Pokey hates Paul because...well, Paul doesn't like musicals but bigger picture, Paul resists Pokey's hive mind. Why would the LIB hate Grace? Possibly because she hates evil, the devil, and sin to an extreme degree. It could be a point of pride for the LIB: "we got the guy who didn't like musicals to join our musical and brainwash the world, and we got the girl who didn't like sin to devour souls for us." I've also seen a theory that Paul has some sort of resistance to the LIB because he doesn't like musicals and in a way sort of serves as a "prophet" in TGWDLM by warning others that musicals are bad. Grace arguably serves a similar role to Max in NPMD. She suggests Max becomes a better person "before he ends up in hell", which is ironic because then Max goes on to beat up Pete, which turns the nerds against him, setting off the chain of events that eventually lead him to actually being sent to hell (the black) by Grace. I've also seen some other theories suggesting that the LIB getting Paul in TGWDLM was really about getting Emma (since she was the one who starred in a musical before), and following that logic, it's possible that the LIB killing Max at the Waylon Place was really about getting Grace, because she'd still actually be alive. The LIB might have known this would work if they knew Max and Grace liked each other, and as seen in nightmare time, Grace is willing to risk her own life for her friends, and this might be consistent across several timelines.

Speaking of sacrifice, I know I covered this with the gifs, but the fact that Paul's last act was giving up his life, and Grace's was giving up what was essentially her morality and who she was so they could save their friends, only to have themselves turned into the very monsters they tried to destroy? Absolute tragedy.

But what's also interesting to me is how this happens. The way Grace and Paul both seem to lose control of themselves. With Paul it happens in one song and is more noticeable, but with Grace, it's a lot slower, and the more bad and morally questionable stuff she does, the funnier it is, and her character has been intense and over the top from the beginning, so you almost don't notice the difference in her actions until you rewatch the show. But her and Paul asking "Who am I?" has a similar creepy vibe, the screenshots I found for those moments (pictured below) even ended up looking very similar, though with Paul, you can see more of the fight happening during the song, whereas with Grace, it's more drawn out over the course of the show with these little moments of clarity where she has a complete breakdown.

Then of course there's the whole: What do you want thing?

Why do the LIB want what Grace cherishes most? Why do they want Paul to want anything at all?

And why do they phrase it in the creepiest way possible, asking for "a peek at Paul's soul" and telling him to "give up his choice" and telling Grace that they'll get "whatever they want" and that she'll "be forever in their debt?"

Well, probably because that does seem to be what happens. The most obvious screenshot parallels are probably their final numbers in their shows, which I think speak for themselves. The only unknown is what exactly is happening with the LIB and their whole "what do you want" thing. By taking what someone wants, do they replace that "want" in the person with wanting to serve them? How does that work?

At this point, I'm not sure, and I'm too tired to continue the rant, but I'd be happy to hear anyone else's thoughts on this.

I hope you enjoy Starkid fandom. Thank you for listening to my rants!

[sneezingisnotnormal]

One thing I love about tgwdlm is that even though it’s kicked off an entire theatrical multiverse, Starkid is smart enough to keep its ending shrouded in mystery. Like the beginning and end contradict each other in such a cool way, to the point where you can’t tell if Paul is just playing along to survive or if he’s really joined the hive, and if it’s the latter, why he isn’t in the opening number but Emma is, and they’ve managed to keep that ambiguity even though there’s hours and hours of content now. Every time I watch I’m still formulating ideas about what happened here and not a single other show/nightmare time gives any real clues because they’re all in alternate universes. It’s just so cool because what really drew me to tgwdlm at first was the weird open ended nature of it and how you never get a satisfying ending, and it’s amazing that I can still get that feeling 7 years later

[stephlautersadhd]

something something even through all the change we still stay the same

day 5: change

@lautski-week

[isogenderskitty]

this is ruining my fucking life rn

[rockrosethistle]

If there's one thing TGWDLM fans are gonna do, it's think about the implications. And the implications of the opening number are crazy.

So. We know that the show isn't completely chronological since the opening number takes place before the meteor hits. So that song is a sort of "flash forward" moment. But when you think about it, we don't really know how far in the future it takes place.

What we do know is that by the time it's happening, Emma is infected. She has a little solo in it singing about how Paul is pining over a barista

And we know that this is meant to be an infected Emma specifically. Lauren had other characters in the show, if they wanted to avoid the Emma implication they would've just dressed her as one of those.

So we know this is meant to be Emma.

And Emma isn't infected until the very end of the show. She's dragged off stage during the credits. So since she's infected in the opening number, we know the number takes place after the events of the show.

Another important detail is that Paul is infected before Emma. He's the one that passes it on to her.

So back to the opening number, Emma is infected. Which means by just following a simple timeline, Paul must also be infected. He should be singing and dancing, right?

But that's not what happens. Paul misses his entrance.

If Paul is infected, then there's no reason he should be missing his entrance. Furthermore, if he's a part of a hive mind, there's no reason other members of the same hive mind shouldn't know where he is. They are literally all connected by one brain, and yet both Mr. Davidson and Bill express they have no clue where he went.

What I'm saying is that Paul is not infected. He was infected (again, we know that because Emma is infected and he was infected before her) but now he's not anymore.

I'm saying there's a way out of the hive, and Paul found it. That's the only explanation that makes sense given the facts of the situation. Sometime after the events of tgwdlm, Paul is able not only to break out the hive mind, but to hide from it.

And if he broke out, others could do the same. Maybe even Emma.

Edit because a countertheory has emerged: Yes it's possible that everyone is infected the entire time and the show itself is just Pokey replaying the events for the fun of it. But it seems unlikely to me. First of all, each of the Lords in Black has a distinct personality. They all are evil, but within that they seems to fall somewhere on a spectrum of "silly billy" to "prick." For example, Tinky is more of a silly billy. He toys with humans without much of a motive and more for just shits and giggles. But in every instance, Pokey's more on the extreme side of prick.

He's one of the few with an actual motive behind what he does. In Yellowjacket, it's confirmed that Pokotho hates the sound of anyone's voice except for his own. The events of TGWDLM don't happen because Pokey is bored, they happen because he is executing a plan. So I don't think that he would just have them play out their little scenario just to entertain him, especially just one small island? I just feel like he'd be more focused on world domination.

If the theory is that all this is happening after Pokey's already taken over the whole world, no one was successful in stopping him, then yes it's plausible, but still weird. There are a strange amount of things in that show you just think an eldritch god wouldn't include.

Edit 2: New evidence has emerged???

The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals is loosely based off of Invasion of The Body Snatchers. Paul's last name is even a nod to the main character, Matthew. At the end of the film, Matthew survives, and continues living among the infected, pretending to be one of them. And wouldn't that be just such a fun little parallel...

Obviously it doesn't prove anything but the source material doesn't lie folks.

[mintytrifecta]

WE'RE SO FUCKING BACK ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[the-mystical-aquatic-gay]

i don’t think i’m the only one thinking this (at least not if the youtube comments are anything to go by) but i don’t think the new staging of tgwdlm is just gonna be the same show again

calling it right now, this is gonna be an alternate universe, or a time loop or something. ain’t no way it’s just gonna be the exact same show again