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twdmusicboxmystery · 3 years

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The Awake/Asleep Theme (and How it Applies to the CRM)

Okay, this is an epiphany I had thanks to 11x06. All of us theorists noticed how much emphasis they put on the fact that Connie had not slept, and that was a big part of why she was freaking out the entire episode.

At one point, Virgil even accuses her of hallucinating what she saw behind the wall because of lack of sleep. So, it crossed most of our minds that the creatures in the house might not be real, but might be a hallucination.

That, it turned out, was not the case. But mentioning it at all felt like a nod to the hallucination theme.

But when I re-watched the episode, I noticed something else. At the beginning, when Virgil is telling Connie she needs to sleep, and she keeps shaking her head, he says the word, “Rest.” All by itself.

It reminded me of something Maggie said to Daryl in 5x10, Them. After she wakes up and the two of them talk about Beth, and he gives her the MUSIC BOX, she says, “it’s okay to rest now.” It makes sense in the context of the episode, since it seems he was awake, keeping watch while the others slept. She was just telling him that since she and others were awake now, he could get some sleep. But it’s just such a weird wording, you know? I always thought it must be symbolic of something, but I never knew exactly what.

So, we have this sleep/rest theme that ties Connie and Virgil (Beth and Daryl template) to Them, which was right after Coda, and literally minutes before the music box woke up.

The other thing that jumped out at me is when Caver said to Leah, “Shaw, wake up!” The way he said it just reminded me a lot of how Denise said it to Daryl and Rosita right before she was killed.

So, as I often do, I tried to step back and take a broader view of what the characters actually mean when they say stuff like that.

For Carver, when he said it to Leah in this episode, he basically means that she needs to wake up to the truth. She can’t see the truth (that Daryl is deceiving her) and she needs to stop being duped by him and allow herself to see the truth.

The way Denise used it was slightly different, but related. She was talking about how Daryl and Rosita weren’t even trying to deal with their issues. Basically, they weren’t really living, which is theme we heard from Beth at Grady. Kind of the equivalent of “sleeping through your life.”

And then I thought about the fact that we actually see Beth wake up at Grady. And as always, it makes sense in context because she was, you know, unconscious, so clearly she’d have to wake up at some point. But they just emphasized it SO much. Seeing her eyes flutter open. Seeing her slowly sit up and look around. I mean, how many times has TD posted those shots?

And that’s when it all clicked for me.

I said in the Matrix theory that the truth, what’s really going on, has to do with what TF has not recognized yet. It has to do with the CRM and what they’re doing that is negative, but most of TF (excluding Beth and Rick at this point) are still completely oblivious to it. So that is the “truth.” The truth that people need to wake up to.

So, thematically, being “awake” represents knowing or being able to see the truth. Being “asleep” represents being blissfully ignorant of the truth.

Think about how they used this theme in 11x06 with Connie and Virgil. Connie hasn’t slept. She’s refusing to sleep, which we all know is a bad thing. You have to take care of yourself or you’re gonna start hallucinating, which Connie kind of does here.

But because she refuses to sleep and goes to check the house again herself, she sees the creatures in the walls. She sees the danger. Danger Virgil doesn’t see. Because she’s awake. When she runs back down to tell him, we actually see Virgil SLEEPING. See what I mean?

So how do we interpret this in other cases. When I started thinking through these, they kinda blew my mind. Such great planning on the writers’ parts.

Beth at Grady:

With Beth, as we’ve already said, Grady is most likely tied to the CRM. I said in the Matrix theory that Rick and co should have awakened to the CRM and what was happening when they visited Grady, but they didn’t. They left and went back “into the Matrix” as it were, and back into blissful ignorance where that was concerned. I’m gonna come back to that in a minute.

The point is that we saw Beth waking up, because she was basically waking up in “Wonderland.” She was in a place where it was possible to see the truth for the first time. So, she was both literally and symbolically “waking up” to it.

When Maggie says to Daryl, “It’s okay to rest, now,” I think that’s the writers’ way of saying that they all went back to sleep, as it were. Back into the blissful ignorance of the Matrix, not understanding that Beth really lived or what the CRM was up to. She says it’s okay to rest, and he agrees, and they all “rest,” closing their eyes to the truth. Because it’s just easier to do that than to stay awake after the storm.

Now let’s look at Denise:

We immediately tied her death to Beth, because it was so similar to what happened at Grady. But that sequence indicated SO much more than that.

Denise was yelling at Daryl and Rosita about not being awake to their lives. And I’m not claiming Denise knew anything about the CRM. What was happening in her arc was its own thing, but thematically, yelling at them about not being awake could be seen as yelling at them about not understanding what’s really happening with the CRM. What’s really going on.

Think about what she said. She said they were both really good people, and they weren’t even “trying.” And literally the last words she spoke were, “and if you don’t wake up—” and then she was shot. In the eye. And died. On the TRAIN TRACKS. Right in front of Daryl. Just like Beth.

So, it’s almost the writers hinting that something about what happened with Beth should have woke them up to the truth. They need to wake up and see it, or they’re going to die.

And perhaps by extension, Daryl needs to wake up and see it or he’s never going to get Beth back. I mean, really think about that sequence. “If you don’t wake up—” Bam. Shot in the head.

Rick’s Old Man Coda:

Remember in S8, we kept seeing visions, which turned out to be Carl’s, of Rick waking up as an older man? Some things I want to point out here.

Rick is waking up in this sequence. It also has the vibrant color scheme that we often see in these dream-like scenes. I think the vibrant colors represent Wonderland, or the “truth” which means they represent the CRM or the world outside the one TF is currently aware of.

So, these “old man codas” as I liked to call them foreshadowed many things. They foreshadowed Carl’s death, the fact that we’d see Judith as an older child eventually, etc. But I also now understand that they represent Rick disappearing into the CRM. Thus, why he seems to be “waking up” in “wonderland.”

There are plenty of other symbols we could point to. The flowers, which are reminiscent of his hospital experience in ep 1, and thus also point toward Grady (tied to the CRM). The fact that the song, “Another One Rides the Bus” is playing in the background. That’s part of the yellow theme. Which applies to Rick in a big way, btw. I already talked about how we saw it during 7x12, which foreshadowed his death fake out.

But we also have this huge arc where Michonne, and of course Daryl, are looking for Rick along the river. But he’s not there. They’re looking in the wrong place. Yellow theme.

Grace in FTWD 6x12:

I won’t go into too many details about this, but we also saw this theme with Grace in Fear. She had a dream sequence that also employed these vibrant colors. And you could interpret this theme about 5 different ways in that episode. Parts of the dream had truth in them, which means she was seeing truth in the dream. Just a different truth than she thought.

Parts of the dream were also false, so she had to “wake up” to reality. And then things that happened near the end of the season around these events led a chunk of her group to connect directly with the CRM. Several of them were picked up by a black helicopter in the season finale. So, the awake/asleep theme was definitely being employed there.

And finally, that brings me to Leah:

We still think the vibrant and sometimes blurry colors of FM suggest a dream-like state. We’ve been trying to nail down the timeline and things just don’t add up. So at the very least, we still think some of this is being remembered wrong.

But I also think perhaps the reason for the vibrant colors is that Leah is Daryl’s Grady. In the sense that he’s just getting a tiny inkling of what’s going on, on the outside with the CRM, but really hasn’t put it all together, yet.

I think Leah is going to lead him, in a big way, to waking up to the truth of the CRM. I think that’s her entire function in the plot. And of course there’s all this back story and all the stuff with Maggie and the Reapers. Lots of complicated arcs going on. But Leah is how Daryl will finally “wake up” to the truth, which will lead him to Beth. And eventually Rick.

That’s all. Thoughts?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethylforever

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bethgreeneishopeunseen · 7 years

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I honestly have a netural feeling about the show doing a mini-series of Beth's journey post-Coda. I have my doubts about it because it would mean it requires a lot more actors specifically for Beth's story, more studio sets and such. Oh and let's not forget about walkers. If they are doing the mini-series, then doesn't that mean that they'll have to air it until after Season 7B ends? It only makes sense because it would show Beth catching up with TF and filling in the missing gaps of S5 & S6.

As I already mentioned in my most recent meta about this, the mini series would have to air after 7B. If Beth returns in the season finale, the mini series could be nicely situated between TWD and FTWD during the summer. It wouldn’t be that hard to secretly film with walkers and other actors, because of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). Most actors wouldn’t jeopardize a job, especially for something as big as TWD, while under contract. The mini series also probably wouldn’t have many actors after Beth escapes Grady in order to make filming easier. Beth might be the only survivor of the Grady escape; that would be easiest to film. Regarding multiple sets, TPTB filmed Beth’s scenes in relation to other scenes being filmed at the same time. There is evidence that they matched up filming schedules to maximize time. For example, Norman’s bloody hand pictures hint at Daryl looking for Beth’s body, and they were taken while TPTB filmed 5x10, which took place in a woodsy location. TPTB also own acres upon acres of woods, and they’ve admitted they could film a whole season in the woods around the studio and no one would know. This is all possible if planned out, and Gimple has said he’s had Beth’s story planned since season 4.

#asks #summaries #filming spoilers #team delusional #beth's journey

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rickbisexualgrimes · 5 years

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i think it'd be cool for the group to settle down in a mall.

#ftwd lb #hopefully this episode has a good flow to it #so far 5B has been better than 5A (which was lackluster af)#ftwd #ftwd 5x10

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twdmusicboxmystery · 3 years

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FTWD 7x02: Six Hours - Analysis

Okay, let's talk about 7x02 of Fear the Walking Dead. I really enjoyed this episode. In fact, I'm going to submit upfront that it was sort of Morgan and Grace’s Them episode. I’ll illustrate as we go along.

***As always, spoilers abound below for FTWD. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

As it starts out, it's clear that several months have passed since the nuclear blast. We definitely got that feeling last week with Strand’s episode as well, but here, we have the baby looking older and then at the end, Baby Mo crawling. We don't know how old she was when the blast went off, exactly, but we saw her being born at the beginning of last season, so it's safe to say she was still a newborn.

As we start, the baby is hungry and they don't have anything except solids to feed her, which is not ready to eat yet. Morgan and Grace, like most parents, are irritable because they can't figure out how to get Mo to stop crying.

Grace climbs down a ladder to get out of the sub and look for food. She's determined that it's only safe for either of them to be outside for six hours, even with their suits on, so they keep a timer to make sure they don't go over that (hence the title). Grace finds a store and begins looking for formula. She actually finds some, but a man and woman come in and she hides. The formula she had been looking at gets ruptured and irradiated, to the point where she can’t use it.

There also rats in the store which a symbol we've seen a lot of lately. She returns to the sub empty-handed. Later, Morgan goes out and Grace is left the baby. It's clear she doesn't really want to bond with Mo. Which is understandable given that she recently lost her own child. Morgan tells her to sing to baby Mo, but Grace refuses, instead playing music for her. Turns out the baby really likes the music it helps her go to sleep.

When Morgan comes back, he says he didn't find formula, but he's been secretly outfitting a car so they can leave. Grace isn't crazy about the idea, but he doesn't want to stay, for fear of all of them starving to death.

The showrunner said at the end that the car is meant to be a nod toward mad Max, which it totally is.

They drive for several hours and are coming up on a town, when the tape (yes, cassette tape, lol) they are listening to begins to play In Dreams, which is the song Grace listened to during her labor. Grace freaks out and they almost crash. The couple with severe radiation burns all over them (the same ones Grace saw in the store) holds them at gunpoint and tries to take Baby Mo, saying she’s theirs.

Let me stop here to talk about some parallels I'm seeing. The episode is like of Them because they're dealing with not find not being able to find food. In 5x10, the emphasis was more on water than food, but it's similar. We also have the musical element. In Them, this came in the form of the music box, which is a clear symbol of Beth. Here, we see it in the form of Grace’s singing and a walkman that plays the songs. I'll talk more about this in just a minute. They’re also wandering through a wasteland, searching for food, and not sure when or where you will find it again. That's a lot like Them. Of course it wasn't a nuclear wasteland in 5x10, but they were hot and thirsty, so I'm sure it felt like one.

This burned couple—Bea and Fred—actually reminds me a lot of Clara from 4x01. No, she wasn't trying to steal anyone's baby, but she was someone who seemed like a very decent person who had suffered so much it affected her mind. She wasn’t evil, but she'd sort of gone crazy, and was therefore a threat. These two are the same way.

Near the end of the episode, Morgan sees one of their pieces of luggage start to move, and realizes they kept their deceased baby in it and the baby has become a walker. Morgan puts it down. This also reminded me of Clara, who kept her deceased husband, who was a walker, and tried to feed Rick to him, thinking that the walker was "starving, and needed to eat."

Before Fred and Bea showed up, Grace asked Morgan to leave her behind. She simply wants to die. Once they show up, which means Morgan and Mo more in danger, Grace changes her mind. At least, she doesn't want to leave until she's sure they're safe.

I noticed an interesting line where Grace was asking what Bea’s name was and the two of them were starting to bond. It made her husband nervous, and Fred said, "this isn’t a potluck in the church basement." The metaphor seemed a bit like overkill to me. It would have been easier to say “this is in a social,” or even just the, "this isn’t in a potluck." But they added in a church basement. To me, it felt like an excuse to talk about a church.

Bea and Fred take Mo and try to leave in the car. They stop down the road and Morgan and Grace chase them.

They all go inside and Bea and Fred tell Morgan and Grace not to go toward Louisiana. They're looking for the place called Padre. This is the same place Will mentioned in ep one. They have a place on a map that they “think” it’s located.

Bea and Fred are searching for it, and they think they know what general area it's in, though they don't seem to be certain. I still think this is probably where Alicia is, but Morgan and Grace don't know anything about that.

Then we have an interesting sequence where the baby was listening to the walkman and being good, but suddenly the music stops and the baby starts crying. Grace says something about the batteries. I had to watch it a second time to realize it was because the batteries in the walkman died, which made the music die, which made the baby cry.

So, some pretty on-the-nose symbolism there. The batteries die equals the music dying. It works in general for our battery theory and how it's tied to Beth. But there’s more. I’ll come back to this in a minute.

They go out to fix the car and another car appears up the road. It stops and turns first its headlights and then a floodlight on Morgan’s group. A person gets out of the car and moves into the beams of light. It's clear that this person is wearing some sort of gear, including a mask. My first guess would've been that this was the CRM, but we find out at the end that's not the case.

Morgan also learns from Bea that it was actually Fred that killed her baby. He didn't do it maliciously, but because he was starting to lose it and the baby wouldn't stop crying and she was starving. He didn't want her to suffer. Fred nearly kills Mo for crying as well, and Grace has to shoot him.

We actually had in instance of the communication theme here. Morgan and Grace talked to one another via "telephone" which was two cans connected by a string. I don’t think we’ve seen that particular form of communication before, lol, but it occurred to me that it would fit in with that theme. Especially because at first, Grace couldn't hear Morgan, but then she did and was able to save baby Mo because of it.

So, then we get to the most important moment of this episode. In terms of the plot, this episode was about Grace bonding with baby Mo. She didn't want to. She was very reluctant because of her continued grief over her own child, Athena. But at this point, the baby is crying and Morgan is trying to figure out how to get them all out of there and there's a lot of chaos going on.

Grace finally picks up Mo and begins to sing to her. And not only does she sing, she specifically sings In Dreams, which was the song she had always reserved for her own baby. So, this is Grace accepting baby, bonding with her, and sort of taking her on as her own child. It was really a lovely scene and I thought it was sweet.

In terms of Beth symbolism, it's pretty huge. Not only does this correlate with Them, because at the end, Grace, who would not sing before (you could almost call her broken; because of her baby's DEATH, her music had stopped) suddenly began to sing again. Much like music box.

But the other thing I thought of was that they never figured out how to get the walkman working again. I don't think they had another set of batteries. That's why Grace couldn't simply play the walkman again for the baby. She had to sing if she wanted Mo to stop crying.

So, there's something there about the batteries dying leading to the resurrection of the music. I've never seen the battery theory quite like that before, but now that I think about it, we have other examples. In 5x02, Carol found a car with a dead battery, but a charger. She did manage to get the car working and that's what they used to go get Beth. Still, that dead battery led to them finding Beth. We also have the communication thing (cans attached by script strings) mixed up in this metaphor. So maybe something about the breakdown in communication is what will lead to Beth as well. Just thought it was a really interesting example of these symbols.

Meanwhile, Morgan gets the car started and comes back and basically slams it into all walkers. Fred had said earlier that these walkers were from the crater, so there were really slimy and nasty and decomposing in a weird way. Fred said that if you touch them, they fall apart. When Morgan rammed them with the car, they pretty much exploded. (Ew).

Whoever approached them with the headlights backed up and disappeared. (Morgan shot him, by the way, during the chaos, so he was probably injured.) Bea stayed behind with her deceased husband and baby, because she knew she had very little time left to live anyway. Grace and Morgan head back to the sub, since they don't know where else to go.

When they arrive, there are people there taking the food. One of them is Howard, Strand's right-hand guy. He offers to let Grace and Mo come with him to the sub, but Strand doesn't want Morgan there. Grace refuses.

Howard had some interesting dialogue. At one point, speaking about the place Strand is building, he said it was, "an ark that will carry us into the future." It was interesting to me that he called an ark. Made me think of Noah's ark. Something that would save and preserve them. If that's what they’re going for, definitely some biblical imagery. But the thing is, I don't think Strand’s community is the ark that's going to save everyone. I'm sure he thinks it is. But that actually won't be the case. Just thought that was interesting.

What little they had in the pantry has been cleaned out by Howard, but then Mo starts crawling, which makes Grace realize that there is a compartment under the floor. In it, they find a ton of food in cans, which will last them several months, including powdered milk for Mo. So again, this lines up with Them. They search the entire episode for the food they need, but only after a great deal of hardship and working together do they find what they're looking for and feel a little bit more secure about their future.

Then we see something that felt a bit like a coda. No, it wasn't an actual, after-the-credits coda. It was sort of a coda to the story because it didn't have much to do with what we saw in the episode concerning Grace and Morgan.

We see the man who is probably the one who stopped and turned his headlights on them. It looks like it's Emile. If you don't remember Emile, he was the villain two seasons ago, but Morgan killed him.

We see this man, played by the same actor, taking a zombified head out of the box and looking at it. He says, "sorry, brother. Morgan Jones might have gotten the better of me today, but there's always tomorrow." So, tomorrow theme. But it turns out this is Emile's brother. Twin brother, actually. The showrunner said that they really liked the actor and were looking for a way to bring him back. So, they did, not as the same character, but as his twin brother.

Here's the thing, though. They even show a scene from the previous season where Emile tells somebody about his brother. So, it seems to me they were setting this up two seasons ago when Emile was on the show. This explanation of them simply liking the actor and searching for a way to bring him back doesn't really resonate with me. I think this was planned all along. And in terms of the symbolism, this is yet another example of twin/sibling symbolism. Much like Noah's twin brothers, or Lizzie and Mika. So I’ll be interested to see where they go with Emile's twin brother. Clearly he’ll be yet another villain trying to kill Morgan, but symbolically he should be someone of great interest.

I didn't mention as we went along that there is lots of Beth dialogue in this episode. Grace says, "I get it," or some variation of that several times. She also had a “serious” (Sirius) mention when she first saw the car. I noted a couple of other instances, but I didn't write them all down.

The songs they listened to throughout the episode were also interesting. We have one called Baby Please Forgive Me, and another called Untie the Ribbon that has the line, "I am standing in the glow of a bridge that I must burn..." So, the songs were clearly chosen, at least in part for their symbolic words and phrases. I'll put the lyrics to the songs down below so you can look through them yourselves. At the end, they played a song called, It’s Time to Quite Crying.

That's about it for this episode of FT W. The. What does everyone else think?

I’m having a super hard time finding lyrics for the first song, Baby Please Forgive Me. Must be a super old song. But here are the other two.

Untie the Ribbon:

Lyrics HERE. I couldn’t’ get them to copy and paste. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s Time to Quite Crying:

Oh it's time to quit crying It's time to stop sighing And its time to quit crying over you Oh it's time to quit worrying It's time to quit hurrying And its time to quit crying over you

Well you know how you treated me Like I was a fool You know how I needed you But you just couldn't be true

So it's time to quit grieving It's time for leaving And it's time for crying over you Oh its time quit grieving It's time for leaving And its time to quit crying over you

Source: LyricFind

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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twdmusicboxmystery · 2 years

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FTWD 7x06: Reclamation

Hello everyone, like FTWD 7x06: Reclamation? Before we get into it, a quick personal note. You guys will have to forgive me for my posts this week. They're going to be short and I'll probably do one today for Fear, and then tomorrow for TWB. This week is too crazy with the holiday going on, so after Tuesday, I probably won’t post any more theories until Friday. Just FYI.

***As always, spoilers abound below for this episode. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

This episode is essentially Al’s story, and while we didn't have many massive events in the plot, I do think this is a setup for something in the future, which is kind of intriguing.

Throughout the episode, we see parts of a video in which Al is in front of the camera rather than behind it. We slowly come to realize over time that it was probably Isabel taking these videos.

So, we begin with Al in the MRAP (her van). She says she's leaving it behind for now, because there's no gas. She has a really interesting line here. She says, “I'll come back for you. A 50-ton nuke couldn't take you out. Just an empty gas tank.”

That feels very thematic to me. On the one hand, it foreshadows the end of this episode with Al and Isabel. “I’ll come back for you.” Which suggests a separation followed by a reunion sometime later.

Second, the gas theme has been a TD thing in regular TWD since S4. We don’t know what it is, but there is something about a lack of gas that plays into Beth being left behind. We know that not only because we’ve seen this as a symbol so often, but because at the beginning of 5x10, when TF leaves the white van behind, they say it’s run out of gas. But Abraham says, “it’s just like the other one.” Which implies that the other one (probably the blue suburban) ran out of gas. And we don’t know what exactly happened or why that’s at all relevant, but that was said right after Beth disappeared, so….

In terms of Beth, I think you can substitute “50-ton nuke” with pretty much any disastrous situation. Just something that SHOULD have taken it out, but didn’t. So, if this was being said to Beth, it would be “a gunshot wound too the head didn’t take you out. Just an empty gas tank.” See what I mean?

Moving on.

Al hears Morgan on the radio, but the transmission isn't good. She can't get a decent signal. So, she leaves her van to go try and get a better signal.

While she's gone, Morgan finds the van. She's not there, but he figures she’ll be back since all her gear is still there. He makes part of the video for her. Just then, some CRM soldiers arrived via helicopter. Al hides under the van. Once they leave, she thinks they took her camera. Morgan is hiding on top of the van and he and Al finally connect.

Apparently, Al was supposed to go back with the rest of the group (Sarah, Lucy, and the others) but she didn't. Morgan tries to convince her to come with him to find Grace, who is also out for Al. She doesn't want to.

Al and Morgan leave together, but the CRM reclamation team is following them. There’s a part here where they hide between some cars and Morgan looks up to see a blond, female walker in the front seat of one of them. It looked just like 5x09, and I’m sure that was meant to be a Beth clue. But overall, I think it’s just to show that this whole Al/Isabel episode is a parallel to Beth’s arc.

After being under fire, Grace finally picks them up. Al tells them she's going to do one thing, but she's has her own plan. She lures the CRM soldiers to a house that has a Civil War cannon at it. She plans to kill them, even if she dies in the process.

Unfortunately, things don't go well because the CRM soldiers get a hold of Morgan and Grace. She tells them to bring Morgan and Grace to her and she'll tell them where Isabel is.

The idea is that Isabel defected from the CRM to help Al and airlift the group from the irradiated zone. So now, the CRM are out looking for her. If they find her, chances are they'll kill her.

Morgan and Grace put up a fight and manage to get away from the CRM soldiers. They drive in the van toward where Isabel is and soon a helicopter is following them. Al sets up a trap with a walker being attached to the cannon’s fuse, but it goes wrong. Al creates a diversion until Grace can drive out of the way and they manage to blow up the CRM soldiers with the cannon.

Morgan then interviews Al, just as she always did with most of them. We come to realize that she basically gave up on being with Isabel because she was afraid. She's determined to go out on her own and to stay away from Isabel so that Isabel is safe, and the CRM doesn't find her. She leaves Morgan and Grace and heads back to the house with the canon, looking for maps and drop sites that the CRM soldiers might have had on them. While doing this, Morgan returns to ask her one more time to reconsider.

I thought it was a little weird that they did it twice. They had the scene with him and Grace and Al, where he found her, and then they came back to basically have the same conversation again. They did attribute it to the fact that Al and John Dorie, Jr. never gave up on Morgan, but I also think there might be something foreshadowing in this. From a story telling standpoint, it simply wasn’t necessary for them to do the scene twice. I'm just not sure exactly what it foreshadows, though.

While there, the CRM gets on the radio and calls out to the reclamation team. Al answers, pretending to be the reclamation team since she’s already killed them. She realizes the CRM has tracked Isabel to somewhere close to her location and they're probably going to find her.

So, Al goes to Isabel and says that she wants to go with her now. She smashes her camera and says, “We will find something new.” (New Dawn theory.) Isabel asks, “And if we don't?” And Al replies, “then at least we gave it a try.” We’ve seen this “trying” theme a lot in TWD as well.

So, the short of it is that we have a situation where Al and her love interest were separated for a time, but eventually find their way back to one another. It’s not a coincidence that she finds Isabel at a cabin in the woods. It felt very Still-ish to me.

This is also another good example of the theme I’ve been constantly harping on around Daryl, where he chooses one thing, then changes his mind, and doing so leads him to Beth and romantic happiness. That’s exactly what we saw here with Al. And remember that when Al and Isabel first met, that episode had tons of callbacks to Still. So, they’re definitely be used as a proxy couple to Bethyl.

If I dug a little deeper, I’m sure I could find tons of details in conversations and symbols and foreshadowing, but I’m not going to go into all that because it’s all stuff you’ve heard me talk about before.

The biggest thing here, I think, is that they are setting up something for the future. I felt like they were preparing for a future storyline as I watched this, but I couldn’t be sure. In the “Inside the Episode” segment, the showrunner confirmed that this is the last episode Al will be in for the season. Not just for the first half, but for the entire season.

So, yeah. So, they’re kind of tucking Al and Isabel away for now, and I’m sure they’ll pop up either in a later season or perhaps even in regular TWD. But we’re definitely seeing some planning ahead here. Which I think is pretty exciting. I always like to see them planning ahead with the CRM storyline.

So that's really about all I have for this episode. It was an enjoyable episode to watch, but not as deeply steeped in symbolism as many of the others. What did everyone else think?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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twdmusicboxmystery · 3 years

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Have you seen this? Do you or any of your pals have any theories about it?

https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/fear-the-walking-dead-season-6-synopses-final-episodes-spoilers-nuclear-bomb/

I assume you mean the nuclear tie in? And the answer is yes, we have theories about it. I won’t go into a lot of detail here, but I can give you an overview. Actually, I think @frangipanilove sent me this exact article a few days ago.

To be honest, we’ve talked about the possibility of something nuclear being part of the storyline for a long time. I have no idea how long. But I know back in 10x01 when the satellite fell, we wondered if it would poison the water. And that idea (poisoning the water, even if we didn’t know what would or how it would play out) has been around since at least S5 of Fear, when Al met Isobel and was told the CRM was purifying water.

It was a foreshadow that at some point, TF would be dealing with not having water to drink. Once we realized that, looking back through the seasons of TWD, you can see that they have constantly had themes of bad water or no water. Think of their search for water in 5x10, Them. Or of Negan escaping in S9 and drinking bad water that made him sick.

Now, maybe it’s only natural and that’s why we didn’t pick up on it right away, because in a post-apocalyptic world like this, having clean drinking water would always be a concern. But what do I always say? Everything is a foreshadow. And they wouldn’t have focused on the water theme so often and so heavily if there weren’t more to it.

Only more recently—probably just this season (6) of Fear—have we really homed in on a nuclear possibility. And that’s because the show has hinted at it, especially with the red submarine.

So, I don’t want to get too detailed, but here’s an overview of my current theory about this. I honestly think this storyline is the entire reason for creating the FTWD spinoff to begin with. I think they’ve always planned and been moving toward this point.

From what we can tell (just what we’ve gleaned from articles and what the showrunners have said and what’s happening in S6 of the show), the red submarine has nukes on it, and Teddy’s group wants to get them and cause a nuclear winter. The finale of FTWD S6 will be Morgan’s group trying to stop it.

My theory is that at least one of the nukes will go off. I don’t think there will be an actual nuclear winter (that wouldn’t make sense since FTWD is 5-6 years behind regular TWD, and clearly that hasn’t happened in the flagship show) but I think some of the water will be contaminated.

From there, either more nukes will go off in the future or the contamination will spread. I think at some point, the main group (Daryl’s) will be dealing with not having any drinkable water. Most of the water in the world will be irradiated. So, it will be important that Rick and Beth are already inside the CRM, because the CRM will be the only ones with the technology to clean the water and make it drinkable.

So, much like with AOW, I think there will be a huge battle against the CRM, but in the end, they’ll actually have to make peace. It won’t be a matter of TF simply defeating the CRM or escaping them and going back to Alexandria to live their lives, because there won’t be drinkable water at Alexandria. TF will need what the CRM has.

So, this is what I think they’re heading toward. (As always, just a theory for now that may change as we learn more.) And given that Grady was probably tied to the CRM and that we had a “lack of water” storyline in 5x10, RIGHT after Coda, and hints of her being part of the “republic” in 5x09, I think this is what’s been planned all along. Or at least since Gimple took the reins.

So yeah. That’s probably more than you wanted with this simple ask, lol, but that’s the gist of it. I hope it illuminates some things for you! Xoxo! 💞

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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twdmusicboxmystery · 3 years

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FTWD 6x12 - In Dreams

Wow! This episode was Amazing! As I told my fellow theorists, this is one of those episodes, much like TWD 10x18, Find Me, that’s kinda gonna be a holy grail of TD symbolism. So buckle up! There’s a lot here to unpack.

***As always, spoilers for FTWD 6x12 abound below. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

This episode really was amazing, but also super-sad. While obviously it’s extremely tragic the baby didn’t make it, I will say that I’m glad Grace isn’t leaving the show just yet. It was amazing for the symbolism but also for the masterful storytelling. I got to a point at the end where I was trying to decide which ending they were going for (whether Grace would live or die) but the truth was actually a third outcome I totally didn’t see coming. I write fiction myself and so it’s really hard to take me by surprise, but this episode did it.

First and foremost, this episode is really great evidence that Leah is a hallucination and/or dream. I know I’ve posted about how we think the bright and somewhat fuzzy colors show that. But let me illustrate. Here’s is a pic from 10x17 of Daryl and Maggie in the woods. Just take note of the greens and browns. This is the filter they generally use in TWD and it’s not hugely saturated with color. That’s on purpose because it’s a post-apocalyptic world and they want it to feel bleak.

Compare that pic to the one below it from Find Me. See the difference?

Well, same thing in this episode about Grace. Here, they tell us flat out and pretty early that it’s not real. So they aren’t trying to trick us like they did in 10x18. So, this is evidence (if not proof in my book) because if the colors look like this and it’s a dream/hallucination for Grace, then it must be for Daryl, too, right?

Okay, but let’s get to specifics. First off, Roy Orbison. We’ve seen/heard references to him SO often, and usually in conjunction with Beth symbolism. Pretty much this entire episode centers around his song, In Dreams.

Not only is there the saturation of the colors, but there is tons of PINK. (Pink Theory).

So Grace wakes up in the middle of the woods, and already, things feel ethereal.

I didn’t even realize it at first, but she’s lying on her back and sees birds flying in circles above her. Just like Beth and Daryl in Inmates.

A walker attacks her, and both it’s arms end up breaking. We saw that very recently in the Aaron/Father Gabriel episode (10x19). We’re not entirely sure what it means yet, but forearms symbolism has been a thing, in different iterations, for a while. So, that’s one we’re working on understanding.

She meets a young woman named Athena (who we’ve looked into before for various reasons; for one thing, the owl a symbol of Athena, and that’s definitely been a TD symbol in the past).

Athena asks her if she can remember her name, and Grace can’t. This is reminiscent of Dawn asking Beth at Grady if she can remember her name.

When Grace stands up, she pulls her sweater up over her shoulder. Even though this isn’t a romantic situation, it reminded me SO much of when Beth did it in 4x01 after hugging Daryl. And given the bright yellowness of the sweater? Yeah, she’s definitely a Beth proxy.

In the opening credits, we see Grace, but just for a moment, there’s an overlay of Athena over top of her. We see her walking stick clearly, but then she disappears. I noticed that when I first watched it, and rewound, trying to understand what it was, but of course I didn’t until I watched the episode.

Speaking of Athena’s stick, @wdway did some research because she thought it looked similar to sticks the blind use to guide them. Check this out.

So, clearly Athena isn’t using it that way, but the theme of being blind is there. I’ll talk more about this later, but we see several walkers get stabbed through one eye, which both suggests blindness and is part of the Sirius/one eye symbolism. The “blind” walking stick is just another way to show this same theme.

Athena takes her back to Morgan’s community, and we quickly learn that it’s been 16 years since the last episode, and Athena is actually Grace’s unborn child. So clearly, this is a dream or vision of some kind.

She had to convince Morgan of who she is, which she eventually does.

So, here’s the thing. I, for one, am very focused on what foreshadows Beth, right? And there is TONS of dialogue in this episode that could potentially be applied to her.

For example, in this scene, Morgan says, “You can’t be here.” Grace: “Why?” And then it just shows her grave stone. Morgan says, “I buried you myself.”

Now, we don’t think Daryl actually buried Beth, but he tried at a white church. (X). However, the idea of Daryl saying something like this, (You can’t be here. You’re dead.) works very well.

Later in the same scene, Grace says, “people don’t get what they wish for.” To which Morgan replies, “Sometimes things happen that you just can’t explain.” It reminded me of something Dwight said back in S4/S5 when he was still looking for Sherry. He says, “impossible shit happens.” He was referring to him finding Sherry again, which he did. This was referring to Morgan seeing Grace again after he thought she’d died. Which he also did (even if it was just in her dream). Although, it definitely gave the impression that maybe she did die for a few minutes in the barn before he resuscitated her. So, you could argue that that aspect of her dream came true.

I had to chuckle when June showed up to check her out. She literally checks her eyes and says she sees no sign of brain injury. Um, yeah. Brain injury CAN show up in the eyes, but just because it doesn’t, doesn’t mean she doesn’t have one. Clearly, they didn’t want to use screen time to show June do an entire, thorough check of Grace, but there was a little bit of medical unreality here. Of course, you could argue that this is Grace’s dream and she’s not a doctor, so she wouldn’t have known better.

But more to the point, they mention a concussion (which Edwards said Beth had), traumatic brain injury (which Beth sustained in Coda) and then combine it with Grace not remembering her name at the beginning, and the unrealities of Carol’s recovery at Grady in S5, and I’d say this is a very on-the-nose replay of Grady.

We see a really sweet future where Strand and Daniel are friends and Sherry and Dwight are not only back together, but have two kids. A baby girl named Tina (Sherry’s sister who died in TWD S6 and, might I add, was a Beth proxy) and a little boy named John after John Dorie. Very sweet.

But I was thinking while watching it that chances are, none of that will actually happen. And I was thinking about it from an outside-the-story aspect. They’re already talking about people from Fear crossing back over to main TWD. And I don’t necessarily think we’ll see it in S11, but probably in the spinoff. So, I feel like this community Morgan is building will go down at some point.

And that doesn’t mean Dwight and Sherry won’t get back together. I actually think they will. I’m just saying it won’t happen exactly as Grace saw it in her dream. Compare it to Carl’s dream of the future during S8, before he died. Certain aspects of that have or will come true, but he won’t live to see it. So not all of it will. See what I mean?

And then the showrunner kind of confirmed this during the “inside the episode.” He said what Grace saw was just a dream and none of it was actually going to come to pass. ☹

Grace then asks Morgan how he managed to build the community and bring everyone together. He answers that it was Athena. Because they lost Grace, everyone rallied around her child and that’s what kept everyone together.

I actually think we saw this theme somewhat in 5b. After they lost Beth (and Tyreese) everyone sort of rallied around Judith, who was still a baby. I had an idea while watching the beginning of the episode that Grace = Beth and Athena = Judith. Now, Athena doesn’t survive, so I’m not sure how far I can push that. But it’s still interesting to think about.

This walker is an interesting one. We could really go down a rabbit hole iwth it. First off, there’s the shirt that says, “don’t mess with Texas.” As I’ve been talking about Eugene lately, I’m sure you’ll recognize the Texas/New Mexico/western theme.

The missing eye is sirius symbolism. But the glasses make me think of two specific walkers we saw in the past. The woman in the food bank that father Gabriel had a relationship with,

and also this one that Glenn and Nicholas saw. You know, right before Glenn’s death fake out.

I won’t go into what they both mean in detail. I’m sure it’s enough to say that both walkers, in both situations, are Beth proxies of one sort or another.

And I’m sure we should be reading into the fact that it comes on a loop. They see/kill it over and over again as Grace becomes “awake” in her dream.

Of course, Athena has a Walkman and listens to music all the time. I’m sure I don’t have to explain that one. But what really caught my ear was the part where Morgan turned it off in the real world and in the dream, Athena said, “You broke it.” Very similar to the music box being broken in 5x10.

And then Grace says she didn’t break it. Morgan just turned it off. I’m seeing that as a hint that Beth was never dead. Just sleeping. When she finally starts connecting all the dots, Grace has lots of interesting lines that could apply to Beth, or could also apply to the Daryl/Leah situation.

“I’m unconscious.” (Beth)

“It’s just fragments of different memories. Things I’ve thought about. My brain is trying to make sense of it all.” (Daryl/Leah).

At one point, Grace tells Athena she is strong (Beth’s “I am strong,”) and that she’ll bring everyone together. Bring everyone hope.

Seriously, EVERY line of dialogue in this episode jumped out at me in some way.

Let me back up a minute. When we see the car with the “end is the beginning” graffiti on it, the trunk is open, which is significant.

Grace also talks about how she was on the highway with Morgan, and they saw this car, and there was an explosion.

Now, we’ve never talked much about anything like this with Beth because we don’t have tons of evidence for it. But I do remember that spoilers (the same ones that reported seeing her at the white cabin during S5 filming) mentioned a car chase near Terminus, and we never saw that, either. So, I think it’s possible something like this might happen during the missing 17 days. Just speculation on my part, though.

Also a major “wake up” theme here. I mentioned this about a week ago HERE when I did a bunch of mini rewatches. The symbolism of what’s real vs what’s a dream has actually been very prevalent throughout the entire series. I just don’t think TD homed in on it until the Leah episode just recently.

We heard it clear back in ep 1 with Rick. We saw it with Denise just before she died. And we saw Beth’s eyes flutter open at Grady when she “woke up,” so it’s safe to say this can be applied to Beth.

Morgan says repeatedly to Grace that she needs to wake up. Once she realizes she’s unconscious, she repeats it many times as well. “I need to wake up.”

In terms of how this might speak to Leah being a hallucination for Daryl, consider this. Grace is inside her hallucination, and she says things like this:

“I’m unconscious.” “This isn’t real.” “It’s in my head. Fragments of different memories…” Yeah, that’s what we’ve been saying about 10x18 for weeks.

Grace’s hallucination represents the future she hopes will come to pass, but what she actually sees is an amalgamation of people she knows and memories she has. Her brain just fills in the blanks.

By the same token, Leah represents something Daryl wants (not to be alone anymore) but she’s an amalgamation of past experiences and people he knows in real life. (Rick, Carol, and especially Beth.)

Then we have the white horse symbol. This is something we’ve known for a long time. It’s the black/white theme, but we saw a white horse and a “you’re still alive” sign near Morgan in 6x16. Rick also rode a white horse in 9x05, just before he didn’t actually die. So the white horse represents someone living.

Interestingly, the first time she sees the white horse, it’s a picture hanging in the air, apparently from nothing. But it reminds me a lot of the plate glass windows we see hanging from the trees during S8/AOW.

Grace and Athena rode one to the barn where Grace lived and sort of reunited with Morgan. And yes, it’s a little bit sneaky, because both Athena and Grace were on the horse, and Athena didn’t make it. It was hard to tell which one it would apply to. But that’s exactly how the writers keep us guessing. It’s why we don’t usually know things for sure until we can see them in hind sight.

But in this case, we could have guessed Grace would live because of that horse. More on that in minute.

When Riley shows up in the hallucination, Grace kills him and realizes Athena represents her real baby and can feel the contractions too. She has an interesting line. “I was wrong. You are real. It’s the only thing that makes sense. We’re connected.”

This is the kind of line that jumps out at me as a foreshadow of Beth. For years, we’ve wondered if Daryl will see Beth and think he’s hallucinating. In the wake of the Leah episode, I suspect this more than ever. Especially if at some point, he realizes Leah isn’t real, when he sees Beth, he won’t trust his own eyes and his own mind. So this line could apply to some future storyline.

Of course Grace says things like, “I need to wake up so you can be born.” “I need to wake up so you’re all right.” I was writing so fast, my hand was cramping, lol.

While riding the white horse, they cross a small bridge, which is clearly symbolic. But I also noticed that Grace passed the truck we saw her driving around last season. In the cab is a walker in a radiation suit and a radiation detector (I’m sure there’s a more official name for that, lol).

It gave me a new perspective on the cars. While I’m sure they represent many things, they represent things that have happened in the characters’ pasts. And that works well for everything we’ve always said, because it means when Daryl sees a blond walker in a car, it’s all about his past. And Beth.

There’s a moment when Grace actually seems to die. She stops breathing and appears to be dead, even in the dream.

Couple of things here. 1) I’ve said for years that Beth may have truly, medically died for a short time period. As in, her heart stopped before restarting. That would be a sneaky way to fulfill all the “death” symbolism around her but have her still live/resurrect. This may be evidence of that. 2) Did you see everything run backward? It’s at this part when Grace stops breathing, we see everything run in backward motion for about 30 seconds. Almost as though they need to rewind or reset to get the story back on the right track.

The key. I guess we should talk about the key. Very interesting stuff. As per this episode, the key represents the cost of peace. And they talked about it being the future.

Remember back in S8, there was an episode called “The Key to the Future.” So this is a repeated theme. But we’ve seen keys around Beth for a long time, especially at Grady. It kept showing keys being used to open doors in order to get Rick and Daryl in to do the prisoner exchange.

So, here’s what I’m thinking for this. I think the cost of peace was Beth being shot. We’ve thought for a long time that Beth will save TF in some way. Probably during the CRM war or maybe in some way that has nothing to do with war (i.e. famine or lack of water).

We don’t know how that will play out, yet. But if key = cost of peace, then seeing keys at Grady probably shows that the cost of saving TF down the road is Beth getting shot. It went the way it had to. The way it was always going to. So she could save them.

@frangipanilove likes to say that Fear functions as our key (like the kind you find on a map) to understanding TD symbolism. And this is a good example. They told us what the key symbol stands for and it makes other things we’ve seen and theorized make sense.

In a more literal, plot-related sense, Riley also said, “That key is going to change everything.”

And, I don’t actually think it’s a good thing that they gave it away. I think Grace’s logic in the moment was absolutely sound. The baby was going to be the Savior. And the baby’s strength would supplant whatever advantage that key gave whoever has it.

But the baby, tragically, died. So…they probably need to get that key back.

Also interesting to note that back in S8, the book “A Key to a Future” was about building windmills and water aqueducts. Major water symbols, and once again, water = Beth.

Speaking of the baby as savior, that’s definitely a theme, as I described above. The people rallied around her in Grace’s dream and she kind of saved everyone just by living.

@wdway pointed out that Grace giving birth in a barn on top of hay gives it a manger feel, which is probably what they were going for.

So, Athena, in the dream, is also something of a proxy for Beth.

When they enter the barn, we see something super interesting. There’s a walker point up at a cage with a dove in it. The walker doesn’t even try to get them when they enter, but that’s because it’s Grace’s dream. But this is SUCH a potent TD symbol. A bird in a cage = imprisonment. And there was an empty bird cage in Beth’s cell in 4x01, as well as near Connie just before she disappeared.

We also think it was probably a dove (you can hear it cooing). So with the manger motif as she gives birth, from a biblical symbolism standpoint, a dove makes sense. The dove generally represents the Holy Spirit branchy of the Trinity.

Just a super interesting symbol and, to me, it shows that this is all tied up in Beth symbolism, and that the person they’re foreshadowing here is the person who’s been imprisoned for a long time. The person who had the bird cage in her cell.

I also think we need to appreciate that Grace had a dream that made her believe one thing was true (that she would die and the baby would live). But in reality, the opposite was true. We’ve come up with considerable evidence that Beth lived. But Daryl believes that she died. And the exact opposite will end up being true. They also tried really hard to convince us in this episode that Grace would die. We saw her accepting it and acting accordingly. Similarly, they’ve tried really hard to convince us that Beth really died. We’ve seen all the characters accept it and act accordingly.

So, I said above that we saw several walkers get it in the eye, right? One of the sequences I noticed the second or third time through that I watched it, was when, in the dream, Walker Riley has Athena pinned against the wall. He was the first one to say, “I know you thought this would be different, but that was just a dream.”

So, what I noticed is that he said this, at the exact same time that Grace stopped breathing or “died” and then suddenly revived. And directly after Riley said this, he got a stake through the eye when Morgan showed up.

So we have this “dream” symbolism, Grace dying and then resurrecting and the eye/Sirius symbolism all within a few seconds of each other. It’s a very compelling and powerful scene. Maybe my favorite of the episode. I’ve watched it like a thousand times, lol.

And of course there’s that heartbreaking, repeated line, “I [know you] thought this would end differently. But that was just a dream.” First, walker-Riley (super cool walker effect, btw) said it to Athena in the Grace’s dream. Then she said it while holding her deceased baby.

More lines that jumped out at me near the end, and could possibly apply to Beth and Daryl:

“You found us.” (Athena says this to Morgan when he shows up to kill Riley in the dream.)

“He’s here for me.” Grace says this when Morgan shows up and takes her hand.

Grace: “I don’t want to say goodbye, but I have to.” Beth hating goodbyes and not wanting to say them.

When Morgan is trying to revive Grace, he says, “Stay with me. Come back.” (Geez, if Daryl says anything like this during those missing 17 days, it’s gonna be freaking heartbreaking.)

When she wakes up, he says, “Good morning. You’re awake. You’re awake.” So there’s that awake/wake up theme again. But the “good morning” is interesting, too. It may be morning time as this scene is playing out, but we didn’t actually see them go from night to morning.

We’ve said for years that the sunrise represents Beth and a new beginning, so that “good morning” line is highly symbolic of a new era in which Beth lives.

He also says, “I thought I lost you.” *coughs Daryl*

Grace replies, “I had to come back so Athena could be born.” And again, I really don’t think Beth will be pregnant when she shows up, but baby Athena represents the way in which she’ll save TF. Because Athena was supposed to be the Savior here.

“We don’t have much time,” is repeated two or three times. So that’s a time mention, but also probably foreshadows a future storyline where they’re up against a countdown clock in some way.

“I had to come back.” Tell me you aren’t thinking of Beth when listening to that line.

“The key is not the future. She is.” Okay, my fellow theorists and I have discussed that the child who will save the future may well be Judith. In that sense, Judith may be Athena, but that still leaves Grace = Beth. And hearing this line, I just can’t help but replace “she” with Beth.

When Morgan asks Riley what the key opens, Riley says, “it doesn’t matter.” Also a Beth theme from Grady.

And finally, after Riley takes it, he says, “Good luck.” Luck Theory.

Phew. Quite a few of those, right?

Side note: one of the reasons I really didn’t know if Grace would live or die, as I mentioned above, is that they were really trying to convince us she would, but a lot of what was said could be seen as dialogue foreshadow.

That could be a problem for some of our theories. But here’s the thing. Going back through it again, the writers were super-sneaky. Most of it could be quantified differently than it came across. For example, Grace says to Morgan, “I don’t THINK I’m going to survive this.” Not that she absolutely won’t. See what they did there? I’m just pointing out.

Finally, I want to mention a few more things the show runner said in his interview at the end.

First, in talking about Athena, he said they wanted to make her a very strong, together girl, so it was obvious she came from Grace and was trained and raised by Morgan. It just reminded me a lot of what they said about Beth after Still. The whole, “raised by Hershel, trained by Daryl, meet the new Beth Greene.” Athena gave off that vibe for sure, but the showrunner used almost the exact same words to describe her. Definitely side-eyeing that.

He also talked about how they purposely crafted the “dream” so that it wasn’t only a dream that Grace was a passive participant in. Parts of it had to be real and have real world implications so she was driven by a ticking time bomb. For her, in this episode, it was because her baby was coming and she needed to wake up to give birth.

I just mention it because I can’t help but wonder what implications this will have for the Daryl/Leah situation.

I think that’s what I have for this episode. But man, what a crazy, tragic, epic, awesome episode! Loved it. (And hey, they owed us a big one after killing off John a few weeks ago. ;D)

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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twdmusicboxmystery · 3 years

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The Divine Comedy Theory, Part 1

All right, here’s my Divine Comedy theory that I’ve been working on the past few weeks. First, let’s remember that tptb said the golf club in Still represented the 9 circles of Hell. The 9 Circles of Hell come from Dante’s books, including Divine Comedy and The Inferno. So they’re obviously using those books as symbol templates.

But the point is, that much of it isn’t a theory. It’s fact. Tptb CONFIRMED this. It’s now just up to us to try and figure out the interpretation, HOW they’re using it. And that’s what I’m attempting to do here.

We also saw a sign reading, “Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here” near Rick and Negan in S8. That is also a Dante thing. In the Divine Comedy (TDC) that sign is seen when one is entering hell. More on that later.

I decided to divide this into 2 parts because it’s very long. Today, I’ll summarize the Divine Comedy itself and talk about how seasons of TWD might correspond to the different circles of hell. Tomorrow, I’ll talk about Still and the “Abandon all Hope” sign. Here we go:

THE DIVINE COMEDY: A BREAKDOWN

The story starts on Good Friday and ends on Easter. Obviously, that's a good sign.

We start with Dante who is lost in the dark wood. Above him, the sun shines on a mountain peak and he attempts to climb it to get to where the sun is, but his path is blocked by a leopard, a lion, and a shewolf. (Yes, I'm side eyeing the she-wolf thing as well.)

Discouraged that he can't get to where the sun is, Dante returns to the dark wood. He sees the ghost of the poet Virgil, who says Dante's path must take him through Hell but Virgil will guide him and eventually he will reach his beloved, Beatrice. He also tells Dante that Beatrice, who is deceased, and two other holy women are the ones who sent Virgil to him. They knew of his plight and took pity on him. (I really think this is probably the tie to the three Marys.)

So, they head into Hell. This is where we get the sign, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

The first region that Dante enters is actually the anti-inferno. It's what you might call the antechamber or waiting room of hell. There are still people there, though. Those who couldn't commit to good or evil, fence-sitters who wouldn’t make a choice. They chase a blank banner while hornets bite them and worms lap up their blood.

To actually get to the gate of hell, Dante and Virgil have to go across the river. They do and then they reach the first circle of hell, which is called Limbo. Here, there are pagans. Those who never knew Christ.

The second circle is for those who committed the sin of lust. They swirl about in a terrible storm. The third circle is for the gluttonous. They lie in the mud and endure a rain of excrement.

The Fourth Circuit is for the avaricious and the prodigal. They charge at one another with giant boulders. I was a little confused by why the prodigal would be here. In the Bible, the prodigal isn't generally regarded as a crime or sin. But reading further, the prodigal son did waste the resources that his father gave him before returning to his father and asking for forgiveness. So, these are people who are wasteful in a really bad way. Apparently, they charge at one another around a semi-circle, smack into each other, turn around to go the other way, and repeat it all again.

In the fifth circle are the wrathful. The struggle with each other in the river Styx which is a swampy and fetid cesspool. The Sullen are also there, and they lie beneath the water, choking on the mud.

The sixth circle is for the heretics. The circle is populated by tombs which are surrounded by flames.

The seventh circle has three rings and houses the violent. The first ring is for people who are violent toward others. They spend eternity in a river of boiling blood. The second ring is for those violent toward themselves (suicides). This is kinda interesting. They endure eternity in the form of trees. (I don’t think TWD uses the trees as suicides, necessarily, but maybe more for people who inadvertently caused their own deaths through their actions. I was thinking about Deanna saying of Pete, “Let the trees have him.” Which suggests she’s consigning him to hell. Just a thought.) The third ring is for those violent toward God (blasphemers) violent toward nature (sodomites) and violent toward art (usurers).

The eighth circle is full of evil pockets of people. There are 10 pockets. I opted not to go through them all here because, at least for now, I don’t think they’re relevant. Just ten types of sinners such as flatterers, thieves, people who took bribes, etc.

Finally, the Ninth Circle. In order to reach it, they descend into a well that leads to a frozen lake. In the first ring are those who betrayed their kin and they are standing up to their necks in the frozen lake. The second ring holds those who betrayed their country, and they are standing up to their heads in a frozen lake. In the third ring are those who have betrayed their guests. They lie on their backs with only their faces sticking out of the water. The fourth week ring is for those who have betrayed their benefactors and they are completely submerged.

At the center of this ring is a shrouded, gigantic form which is Lucifer. He has three mouths that are chewing on three sinners: Judas Iscariot, Cassius and Brutus. Those who famously betrayed their masters.

Dante and Virgil climb down Satan's clothing to get to the very bottom of the 9th circle of hell. Interestingly, Dante is carried on Virgil's back. So, we have a serious piggyback going on here.

After they climb down Satan, they cross the river Lethe and emerge from hell on Easter morning before sunrise.

HOW IT MAY CORRESPOND TO TWD:

Okay, so that’s a very broad synopsis of TDC.

Let's talk about a few different ways we can possibly interpret this. First off, my very general theory is that (and we’ve said things similar to this before) that the post-apocalyptic world = hell and in a sense all our characters are Dante. Which means the walkers in this analogy represent the souls who are already in hell. Think of it this way. In the story, Dante is a living person that has to pass through hell. In fact, in many of the circles, the gate keepers and such try to keep him from passing because he’s still alive. But he always gets special permission to do so. So, it’s a “being alive among the dead” sort of theme. The dead, of course, being the walkers.

And the reason that’s important is because some of how we can interpret this is based on how walkers are portrayed throughout different seasons. Let me also say that this is a very loose interpretation and I’m by no means positive I’m interpreting this right. Some of this is hard to nail down.

So, I tried to make different seasons and arcs of the TWD story fit the different circles of hell. For example, I would say this analogy really starts in S4, because I think it's purposefully placed and wouldn't have begun heavily until Gimple took over. So, I think all of S4 was the anti-inferno or antechamber before they got to hell. In the same way that S4 foreshadowed many coming arcs, this was just a little bit beforehand.

Crossing into hell would be Beth and Daryl's separation. I was thinking that the first circle, Limbo, which is described as housing those who never knew Christ, might be Terminus. (Beth is the Christ figure and she never made it to Terminus.) The second circle is for those who lust and they walk about in a terrible storm. I thought of 5x10 and the storm they went through there. The third circle is for the gluttonous. This one stumped me a little bit. Its still rain and a storm, but it talked more about mud and people being blown around in the storm. So, it could be part of 5x10, but I also thought of the big storm they had in FTWD S5. I'm not sure about that one.

The fifth circle talks about people running at one another with huge boulders. I thought of the rock quarry in S6.

Total side note: I was looking for a picture of the rock quarry to put in here, and I came across this pic below. Quint means 5, and then of course it actually says “Gate 5.” I’ve always thought this pointed back to S5, to show that Glenn’s death fake-out is a template of Beth. But this may also point to this being a symbolic representation of the 5th circle of hell. Just saying. ;D

Then there's the sixth circle. It talks about people struggling with each other in the river Styx and it swampy and fetid. The thing that came to mind here is the swamp walkers in S8. This was when Tara was still trying to kill Dwight and Daryl and co took all the kids away from Alexandria and to Hilltop. Remember, they made a big deal about swamp walkers? So I wondered if this could be in line with that in season eight. The walkers show what circle of hell therein.

Another tier of the sixth circle is tombs surrounded by flames. I think the thing that embodies that more than anything else we've seen would be the Whisperers. We saw the burning of Hilltop and the Whispers represent death anyway. I could see Alpha representing a heretic in various ways, not least because they pretend to be walkers when they’re not.

What I’ve said so far is what I discovered and got super excited about a few weeks ago when I first started doing this. Because it told me that by using this template, we might be able to get an idea of when Beth would return.

But you can probably see the first problem I ran into. If we’re only at the sixth circle, we still have three more circles before Beth returns, right? (Assuming that she returns at the end of this and Dante emerging from hell on Easter will signal Beth and Daryl reuniting.) But I don’t think it will be three more seasons or whatever until we see her. Truly.

So, I kinda got stumped because even reading through the seventh, eighth and ninth circles, nothing was jumping out at me that suggests we’ve seen the events corresponding to those circles, yet. I'm sure we could find some way to compare them to events in the story, but just nothing really obvious stood out.

But don't despair yet. I was originally a little unsure about this, but I started looking at the actual events of Still, it made me feel much better. I think I understand now why it's laid out this way.

So once again, come back tomorrow and we’ll talk about Still, and then about Rick, and maybe about the chess theory. Stay tuned!

#beth greene beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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twdmusicboxmystery · 3 years

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FTWD 6x07 - Details

Okay, let's talk details. Even aside from the major and obvious parallel I talked about yesterday, there were quite a few smaller Beth symbols throughout the episode.

***As always, spoilers for 6x07 abound below. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

The first one was right in the opening shot. We see a deer being eaten by walkers and the camera zooms in closely on the deer's face and the eye. So, deer symbolism which points to both taxidermy elements of the episode, but also, deer symbolism = Beth. Which is important because of the Dakota both parallel, and it focuses in on the eye. (Sirius Symbolism).

When Strand and Samuels ride ahead to try and figure out what happened to Terry, there's a tree fallen across the road. And it's obvious that someone cut it down. (Turns out to be Morgan.) But we’ve seen this kind of symbolism around Beth proxies a lot. We saw fallen trees in 5x10 after the storm, and right before the music box woke up. We also saw one in 6x14, just before Denise died. And obviously she was a big Beth proxy two. So, I seeing one in this episode right before Dakota goes missing is important.

After they discover Dakota is gone, Strand says, "only one person matters right now and she's gone." So more of the “gone” symbolism and an echo of Daryl's, "she's just gone," from 4x16.

As I said yesterday, Ed's hunting lodge sort of gave me white cabin vibes from the missing S5 scenes. When Alicia sneaks in, she crawls under a chain and squeezes through the door it's holding shut. I reminded me a lot of Daryl and Carol doing that and consumed, which was when they were looking for Beth.

I’ll say it again, but the animals we see stuffed inside also symbols we see used a lot. The bear (bear symbolism), a bird of some kind. I'm not sure what kind it is. But it does kind of remind us of the blackbirds in the opening credits of TWD. A bobcat (cat symbolism associated with Daryl) and, of course, more deer. Later in the episode, we also see a boar’s head. (Pig Symbolism).

Alicia finds Ed working on a walker which is strapped to his table in his basement. The whole set up reminded me a lot of the funeral home from Alone. Just having a body on a table like that and the fact that it was a walker, not a human.

The songs playing are “Tonight You Belong to Me,” and “Jeepers Creepers.” I won’t go into either of them too much, but look up the lyrics. The first is about belonging to someone for a short time and the moonlight. The second is all about a person’s eyes. And both mention the dawn. So yeah, we can definitely read into those. ;D

I probably shouldn't read into this too much, but the names used in this episode definitely caught my attention. First, there's Ed. Carol's abusive ex-husband was named Ed. I'm not saying that has anything to do with Beth, but they could've used in the name of the world, right? And they used a name well known in the fandom due to Carol's arc. Next is that he had a daughter named Emily. Again, I'm not saying they're necessarily trying to use that as some sort of TD/return symbolism, but it was just a little jarring to actually hear Emily's name come up in this episode when there such a huge Beth parallel in it.

Ed asks if either of them plays chess and then he plays Dakota. We’ve talked about chess before. There are a lot of reasons that they may use it as TD symbolism. For one thing, the Queen is all-important in chess. It's also a strategic game, where players are lost periodically throughout. Which might be the writer's way of symbolizing all the characters who have been lost. We saw it heavily around the governor, in the two episodes in S-4 where he had a lot of parallels.

While Ed and Dakota play chess, was also a record playing. (No lyrics in this song, though.) He says, “Queen’s Gambit.” I’m not much of a chess player so I had to look that up. Aside from the mini-series that’s currently popular on Netflix, it’s a well-known chess move. Feel free to look it up on Wikipedia yourself, but let’s just say that it smacks strongly of a prisoner exchange.

Ed turns the music on loudspeakers to draw walkers in. Obviously a music theme, but it specifically ties to things like The Big Spot in 4x01, or Operation Lead the Walkers Away in S6. They did this more recently in S10 to lead the Whisperer horde away from the hospital.

Ed has an interesting line when he's explaining himself to Alicia. He's trying is tell her that everything is his fault. That it's his fault his family died, etc. He makes a point of saying, "I created them, but I couldn't control them."

I feel like this is an important theme. I'm not sure where it's leading yet, but I'm wondering if there will end up being a reveal that the virus was man-made and then got out of control. Or maybe it will have something to do with the helicopter group. I don't know. But it felt like a mic-drop moment, and like something we should remember going forward.

Also? At Grady, Joan said something similar to this to Dawn. “You can’t control them,” speaking, presumably, of the officers.

Then of course Morgan shows up, saying that he heard the music. I talked about how suspicious I am about Morgan showing up at the end of this and what it might mean for Beth yesterday.

We also learned that, had Alicia's original plan to exchange Dakota for her and Charlie being released worked, she was planning on taking them back to the stadium. That caught my ear because there's been a lot of talk recently about Madison's return. You wouldn’t think she would still be at the stadium, but you never know. Maybe she is. After all the talk in the fandom about it lately, I just couldn't help but side-eye that a little bit.

Then Alicia and Morgan quarrel about what to do with Dakota. The thing that jumped out about this part is that Morgan basically wants to do another prisoner exchange, exchanging Dakota for the others in his group (presumably June and Daniel). They don't actually end up doing it, but it was sort of a nod to Grady.

We also learned that Morgan was the one who attacked the convoy, trying to get a hold of Dakota so he could use her as leverage against Virginia. Again, something we saw just prior to Coda, with TF purposely setting a trap for the officers so they could use them as prisoners in the exchange.

It’s also worth mentioning that, for the characters in the episode (Alicia and Charlie, though this was true of Al and Dwight a couple of episodes ago too) the moment when they saw Morgan was a resurrection moment. We, the audience, have obviously known he’s alive since ep 1, but they haven’t. So this was someone coming back from the dead for them.

We learn that Virginia may have killed her own parents. But we don't know how. Me and my fellow theorists talked about how trustworthy Dakota is. I do like her overall, but one thing that bugs me is that the main characters don't press her. For more information. She said before that not only is she Virginia’s sister but that she hears everything that goes on in that house. So, I think she has to no more than she's saying. But her go to answer about anything is, "I don't know." Personally, I don't think she's going to turn out to be evil or anything, but I do think she knows more than she's saying.

Finally, Strand returns to Virginia and says that he's on her side and will help her bring back everyone Morgan has liberated.

For the record, while Strand always seems to have an agenda and to want to do things his way, I don't think he's actually working against Morgan's group. I think this is his way of being undercover and helping them from the inside. But Virginia believes him and takes him to where she's secretly hiding Grace, it was still very pregnant.

Dun, dun, dun! End of MSF.

So, yeah. That's what I have for details. Anybody pick up on anything I missed?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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twdmusicboxmystery · 3 years

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FTWD 6x06: Bury Her Next to Jasper’s Leg

Okay, let's talk details from Sunday's episode of Fear.

***As always, spoilers for FTWD 6x06 abound below. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

As I alluded to yesterday, I saw the most details in the first 5 minutes, before the opening credits, when they mentioned Jasper. We see a woman running from someone, which incidentally reminded me a lot of Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham running from the group of saviors who ambushed them in 6x06.

Then she trips and falls — kind of like Daryl falling off his bike — and next to her is a fallen tree with a walker under it. Not only could we relate that to the helmeted walker in 6x06, but also reminded me of all the walkers who were trapped under trees after the big storm in 5x10.

Then Virginia relates a story of a bullfrog she thought was dead but who had actually just vomited something up and swallowed it again. That would have caught my attention anyway, as frogs are resurrection symbols and we've seen entwined with Beth symbolism quite often, including in 5x10. But then the woman, Paige, asks Ginny what that means. And Ginny says, "Sometimes you think something is dead and it's not.” Um…seriously?

Then came all the stuff about Jasper that I talked about yesterday.

Then we switch to June trying to save the life of a man whose appendix has ruptured. There are lots of interesting symbols here too. She gives him alcohol, they talk about infection. More than anything else, this reminded me of Trevitt at Grady. It's a different kind of medical emergency, but he was someone they found on the outside and brought in, but who was already too far gone to save medically. Sarah and Joan arguing about whether or not they could save him was a lot like Dawn and Dr. Stevens arguing about whether or not they should try to save Trevitt.

During the scene, Sarah says, "It doesn't matter, as long as it gets us to the same place in the end." They were talking about all the traveling they had to do, which is unrelated, but that line jumped out at me because we've always spoken about Beth’s arc in the sense of her eventually getting to D.C. with the rest of the group (hence the D.C. spoon) but just taking a different path to get there.

Then we get to the gasoline emergency. We learned some interesting plot stuff here. Ginny has been making them drill 3x the amount of oil for the last little while, but we don't know why or what she's up to with it. We also learned that she's trying to figure out who's writing “the end is the beginning” on everything and she doesn't think the oil well exploding was an accident.

Of course we could link these symbols have pretty heavily to Beth. Alcohol, gasoline, fire. These are all pretty common.

Then June fights a walker and finds that someone put some sort of steel claws on its fingers. Don't know what that was about, but it was interesting. They basically made the walker into Freddy Krueger.

There were some dog references with Ginny saying, "Some dogs, you just gotta know when to put them out to pasture," and in June echoing it back to her later in the episode.

It was also interesting to me that everyone who was taken out into the medical trailer died. I'm not sure why. I'm assuming one of them died and turned and killed the others. But our group basically helped a whole bunch people into the medical trailer and by the time they got back out to the trailer, all the patients had turned into walkers. It reminded me a little bit of the bus that left the prison S4. Everyone that died too.

Ginny is bitten and loses her hand. In exchange for saving her, June asks for her to build a hospital. Now, overall, I think John is probably correct. Even though June is hopeful about this, I doubt it will last very long. Ginny will either double cross them, or just find some way to screw it up like she always does. But just the fact that June is building a hospital jumps out at me because it's a Grady mirror. It will be interesting to see if it actually gets built or if it's just an idea that never goes anywhere.

Sarah calls Virginia Captain Hook because she's missing a hand. That struck me as part of the Peter Pan template. Remember that we did see that around Beth in S4.

Sadly, at the end, John leaves. I thought that was very sad, but I also understood why he did it. I may be reaching here but it actually reminded me, again, of Daryl leaving Sasha and Abe in S6. I think it’s probably because it showed the fork in the road from a birdseye view, which they did in that S6 episode as well. Normally, that wouldn’t be terribly compelling, but given all the other parallels to 6x06, I’m kind of side-eyeing it.

TWD 6x06:

Sunday on FTWD, 6x06:

This first half of the season feels like the group is still falling apart more than they’re falling together. Sherry and Dwight saw each other, but ultimately split up again. The exact same thing happened here with John and June. And of course Morgan hasn’t even figured out where Grace is. So, I somehow doubt this is going get much better before the next episode which they're calling the midseason finale. But hopefully in the second half, which will get in the new year, things will start to go better for our group.

Thoughts?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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twdmusicboxmystery · 5 years

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5x10 as a Foreshadow of the Arc in Which Beth Will Return

I said some time ago that lots of things pointed toward a pending drought and TF needing water at some point. I want to go over that in a little bit more detail now and how 5x10 foreshadowed it.

In 5x10, Them, TF was in dire need of food and water. The food situation was resolved fairly early on when they came across and ate the dogs. I won’t say much about that except it’s significant that they were dogs that were eaten. Dog = Sirius symbolism.

Even after that, they were still basically experiencing a drought for most of the episode.

Let me do a quick review of other instances we’ve seen pointing to a water crisis.

The thing that really got us thinking about this was in 5x05 of Fear, when Al and Isabel met and interacted. Isabel said that the helicopter group is purifying water.

That's basically the only thing she told us about what they're doing, but that's very significant. Again, they don't put anything into the story for no reason. There's something significant about the fact that these folks know how to purify water, and that Al knows they do. Because if Morgan's group ever gets to a point where there isn't water, she’ll know that she can find the helicopter group and that they'll have some. Obviously, that will come into play in story at some point. But that's not the only water clue we have.

First of all, let's remember that Beth = water and we believe she's with the helicopter group anyway. So, Beth = water and water always saves and the helicopter group has water. All these things work together and at some point, people—read TF and Morgan's group—will need to go to them to get water and be saved. And chances are, Beth will be there, which is how they will meet up again.

There are a few other references as well. Remember last season when Negan escaped from his prison in Alexandria and he drank some water and then vomited because it was bad water? Yeah, foreshadow there. There were also a bunch of Still callbacks in his outside-Alexandria sequence. Dogs, being in a golf-club-like store, etc.

There's also Oceanside and all the Beth symbolism we saw around Oceanside. I think the writers use the fact that Oceanside is on the ocean, inextricably paired with water, to show a lot of Beth symbolism because it’s a natural water setting they can use for that. (And of course may also play a part in her arc down the line.)

There are plenty of other small references as well—such as Beth holding a water bottle in Still, every bottle of water we see, even in FTWD, seeming to have a reference to Beth, the pictures of baby Moses on the river in FG’s church (baby Moses was put on the water to save his life), Enid throwing a bottle of water at Glenn in 6x07, the hurricane episode last season (FTWD S4) having dog references all over the place, the seahorse on the keys Maggie used to open the trunk in 5x10—I could go on and on. My point is that my list here is by no means exhaustive. This is why we see water, dogs, and Beth symbols entwined all the time. Picture the end game, people!

Okay, so let’s return to episode 5x10. We have TF in a drought and not sure if they’ll survive because they have no water. Then what happens? Just before the storm hits, they find water in the road. Aaron left for them. They didn't drink it because they didn't trust it, but the point is, someone left the water when they needed it.

A few minutes later, the storm comes and they get water that way. Daryl leads them to the barn and inside we get all kinds of Beth symbolism, including a Holy Bible and the walker lying in the back room that Maggie and Carol see, complete with blue coolers and the November calendar behind her. So think about that. There’s a drought, and then symbols of Beth around them finally receiving water again.

But the other thing I think is interesting is that it's not until after all of that happens that the music box wakes up. I’ve said before that parts of Them, such as Rick's speech and the group working together to hold the door shut, represented All Out War. It could also represent the Whisper War, as these are two very well-known wars from the comic books. But either way, it wasn't until after the drought, and after the wars, that the music box finally woke up.

And who shows up when the music box comes to life? Aaron. The same person who gave TF water before the storm. It all the points to the same thing no matter how you look at it. Beth = water after the drought and saving TF from thirst.

I’ll also say that this, combined with other things we’ve seen concerning Aaron (other Beth-related symbolism around him that I won’t go into right this moment) makes me think Aaron will be involved in Beth’s return right now.

In fact (and I’m not going to tell you exactly why today so this is a bit of a tease; sorry, but…) the people I think will be involved in bringing Beth and Daryl back together are Carol, Connie, and Aaron. They’re all tied up in the symbolism somehow. I have theories on how Connie and Carol will be involved. I’m a little less clear on how Aaron will tie in. But because of what I’ve laid out above, and a few other things that have recently been brought to my attention (I’ll discuss them at some point, I promise) I think he will be.

I have one more post I REALLY want to get out before the episode airs on Sunday. Today is a super busy day though and I’m not sure I’ll get it finished. But if I don’t finish it for tomorrow, I’ll get it posted over the weekend. Stay tuned!

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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twdmusicboxmystery · 4 years

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Acorn Symbolism: Romance, Promises, and Peter Pan!

Morning Everyone! Sorry it’s taken me so long to get this posted. As I keep saying, cray week. So, I said before that I thought they represented romantic love And I stand by that. For one thing, there are both a male and female component in the germination of acorn seeds. Hence, the romantic love symbol.

But let me mention a few other important acorn references as well.

@frangipanilove pointed out Daryl’s line to Carol last season about Ezekiel being “corny.” A play on the word acorn, perhaps? Now, maybe that’s a silly word play, but given the Serious/Sirius references and “Del Arno Foods,” it’s obvious that the TWD writers don’t mind silly word plays.

Now, @frangipanilove is working on a “nut” theory that will probably be much more comprehensive than this one. She has other “corn” references that are specifically around Ezekiel. I’ll leave that to her. But I suppose you could argue that this is a Carzekiel thing, rather than a Bethyl thing.

Or is it?

I would argue that it might simply be…a romantic love thing. After all, people in love tend to wax a little corny, right?

But there’s something else @wdway thought of that kinda proves the acorn reference is tied to Beth. I’d completely forgotten about this acorn reference in the show, so kudos to her for her awesome memory.

Do you remember there being acorns in the show before? Think about it for a minute. I will say it’s pretty subtle.

Okay, so take a stroll down memory lane to 5x11, The Distance. That’s two episodes after Coda and the one directly after 5x10, where the music box woke up. TF brings Aaron into the barn, Rick knocks him out, and they spend the episode trying to figure out whether he’s trustworthy or not, and also driving to Alexandria for the first time.

At one point, Rick sends everyone out of the barn to hide in various places and keep watch in case Aaron is part of a larger group that might be a threat to them. Then Judith starts crying because she’s hungry, and Aaron offers the applesauce in his bag, right?

But just before that, Rick tries to mash up acorns for her to eat. Voila! Acorn reference!

Why is that important? Because this scene has almost every major TD symbol in it, sitting in that barn. We have the flare gun (fire), a bottle of water with "Greendale springs” written on it, the music box itself, bullets, toilet paper, the applesauce, and even a dog reference (Fido) on top of the applesauce jar.

And this is the barn from 5x10, outside of which the music box has just awakened.

So, the acorns are most definitely a Beth reference.

Where do we take it from there? I’m not sure. I do think it’s significant that we saw acorns around Aaron right after the music box woke up, and we’re seeing them again now, right when something is happening with Aaron and the Whisperers. To me, that says Beth is about to appear.

Also, I won’t go into all the details now, but 5x11, The Distance, is another episode you should go back and watch if you can. There are SO many amazing references in that episode that we had no way of identifying the first time through. Eugene makes a “copulating dogs” reference. Rosita says, “we’re halfway there,” which I can’t help but see as S5 being half way to S10, suggesting the “dog” will return in S10. Tons of stuff like that all through it. Go watch! 😝

If you look up acorn symbolism, they can represent strength, much like the oak tree (which I’ll talk about in a minute). But that could also represent Beth’s strength. They can tell the future, so yes, they definitely portend something Daryl’s future, and are kind of the ultimate foreshadowing symbol. They suggest looking deep within ourselves (Daryl feelings for Beth) and that if something is nurtured in the right way, it can become powerful. Again, Beth nurtured Daryl like no one ever has.

@frangipanilove and I researched the phrase Carol uses, “double capper.” It doesn’t seem to be a real thing. I just figured it was slang, but it’s not coming up in online searches as even that. So I don’t think it means anything by itself. It’s just something mean to draw our attention to the acorn and its symbolism.

Also, the “double” part (2) might represent that we’ve hit the second phase. This hearkens back to retellings and the fact that carrots take two seasons to grow into maturity. It’s something I haven’t mentioned for a while, but we always figured there would be, symbolically, two stages or two times around for Beth and Daryl. The first was S4/S5, and they, as characters, hadn’t matured all the way at that point. We always saw it as Beth returning as stronger, more mature in her character and survival skills, etc. But it’s true of Daryl as well, at least emotionally. This is something I have touched on recently, about how he does understand his own feelings now and will be able to communicate them. So again, the “double” part might represent that we’ve entered phase 2, which is just a fancy way of saying we’re in the part where Beth will return.

Oak Trees

Let’s talk about oak trees, which produce acorns. You might even call acorns the offspring of the oak tree.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell what kind of trees we’re seeing, because we don’t get close up shots of the leaves. But we think all the trees in Fear, on which we’ve seen ladders painted, and Alicia is now painting Phoenixes, are oak trees. (Ladder Theory, Phoenix Theory).

We also talked about the tree in the opening credits—the one the plate glass windows hang from—and whether it might be an oak or not. We also looked up biblical symbolism because we all know biblical symbols are big in TWD, and they’re a big deal in the bible as well.

There are several cases of the holy men of the bible (including Abraham, Jacob, and Joshua) making sacred vows under oak trees. Sometimes they bury things in token of these oaths. Jacob’s is very significant, especially as it is entangled with the story of Jacob’s ladder, and remember that in FTWD, we’ve seen ladders painted on oak trees.

One story that stood out to me was that of Joshua. Reading it, I became convinced that the tree we see in the opening credits is, indeed, an oak tree. Let me explain.

In the story, Joshua utters the famous line, “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” He then asks if the people will do the same. They make a solemn oath to always serve the Lord, and they do it under an oak tree. Joshua puts a rock under the tree (which represents Christ, btw) and says if they break their promise, the rock will testify against them in judgement.

So, the oak tree = a solemn promise. It occurred to me that’s pretty much what Rick did under the tree with the plate glass pictures hanging on it at the end of S8. He made an oath to honor Carl’s last wishes and not kill Negan. (“My mercy overcame my wrath.) And if that was an oak, then the one in the opening credits must be as well. (Bc of the plate glass pictures.)

And the more I think about it, the more significant that becomes. I don’t want to go into all the details of this today (because this post is about acorns), but I’ve said before that I think Negan will lead to Beth in some way (hence all the bats we saw around her). And the only reason Negan is still alive is because of Rick’s “oath” to let him live in order to honor Carl’s last wishes.

Remember the Phoenix near Carl at his death? (Alicia is painting phoenixes on trees in FTWD.) Well, if Carl hadn’t died, I absolutely think Rick would have simply executed him at the end of AOW. And if Negan is as instrumental in Beth’s return as I think he’ll be, then that’s super important. You could argue that but for Carl’s death, Beth wouldn’t have ever returned. Which explains the phoenix we saw just before Carl’s death.

Also, these new opening credits that start and kind of center around the oak tree began in S9, after AOW ended. Which says to me that Rick’s oath (keeping Negan alive, etc) is what’s driving this part of the story, now. So, this really is all beautifully and intricately connected.

And how do we go from the oath under the oak tree to an acorn symbol? How should we interpret that?

Well, this may become more specific as we learn more, but for now, here’s how I think of it. Just as the acorn is the offspring—or offshoot, if you will—of the oak tree, so Beth’s return (and Daryl’s happiness) will be a result or offshoot of Carl’s death and Rick’s oath.

Peter Pan:

All right, I’m going to switch gears and talk about one more possibility for this acorn reference that the lovely @weapon13whitefang.

She said between the acorn in this scene with Carol and Daryl, and the “kiss” reference, she was immediately reminded of Peter Pan. In Peter Pan, there are tokens of kisses exchanged. Like thimbles. Peter didn’t know what a kiss was, so Wendy gave him a thimble, which was a token of a kiss.

In return, Peter actually gives Wendy an acorn button. Now, technically, this is not an actual acorn (though many PP interpretations use actual acorns). Rather this was a term for a button made of wood, which in slang, was known as an “acorn button.” (Source) In symbol of their friendship, Peter and Wendy wore their gifts for one another around their necks on necklaces. Wendy’s acorn button even saved her life when the Lost Boys (on Tinkerbell’s angry lie) shot her out of the sky. The button stopped the arrow from piercing her heart and killing her.

This has SO many promising implications.

But first thing’s first. My first thought was about what this meant for the question of romance. You all know I don’t think this signifies romance between Carol and Daryl—I know it doesn’t—but I need to be able to explain why.

So, Wendy and Peter exchanged tokens, much like Carol giving Daryl an acorn in this past episode. The question is, was there ever romance between Wendy and Peter?

Meh…a little bit. Wendy was definitely crushing on Peter when she first met him, though it was as much the prospect of adventure as anything else. (Which might have also been true of Carol early on, especially as Daryl helped her search for Sophia.)

But think about it in the long term. Things don’t work out romantically between Wendy and Peter. Wendy leaves Neverland, grows up, gets married and has kids, where Peter doesn’t. They always have a deep and abiding friendship—and even love—for one another. They wear their token necklaces for decades after their adventures together. But romance? No, it’s not really part of the story.

In fact, if you want to get REALLY detailed, why did Wendy first become disillusioned with Neverland? Because she came to understand that Peter brought her there, not as a girlfriend or companion, but to be a MOTHER to the Lost Boys. (Daryl and Carol have a mother/son relationship, as confirmed by Norman in S7.)

You could also argue that Carol finally putting the tragedy of Sophia behind her and marrying Ezekiel and finding happiness represents Wendy moving on from Neverland and getting married and having kids. Daryl is still Peter Pan in Neverland who’s never sustained a real relationship before. Of course, we think he will, when Beth returns. But for now, the Peter and Wendy analogy is very apt.

And it opens up a lot of possibilities for me. I’m super intrigued as to what will happen with this acorn. He put it in the pocket of his vest. Will it save his life? Deflect a bullet or something? Or is this less literal than that? If it represents Beth or his relationship with her, maybe it foreshadows that she’ll save his life in some way. (Something we’ve all theorized about for a LONG time.)

I also think it’s interesting that Wendy was flying when she was shot out of the sky and the acorn button saved her. They even called her the Wendy-Bird. Now, granted, in this analogy, Carol, more than Beth is Wendy. But still.

1) We saw a plane crash this past season on FTWD, and we’ve seen several helicopter crashes, including one on the roof of Big Spot in 4x01 (Beth) and one when Merle returned in 3x01 (resurrection of character).

These are representations of birds falling out of the sky. You MIGHT even be able to lump the satellite in with that. I don’t know if satellites are ever referred to as birds, but it did fall out of the sky, after all.

2) How many birds have been used around Beth as symbolism? Blue Heron. Yellow Wagtail. Phoenix. Songbird.

3) And of course there’s a major precedent for the writers using children’s stories as symbolic templates in the show. The Wizard of Oz. Little Red Riding Hood. The Little Prince (FTWD). Why not Peter Pan?

So yeah. I gotta stop now, but let’s just say I’m still loving the acorn symbol and the acorn scene. They portend great things for TD and Bethyl. 🎉

Which acorn interpretation is your favorite and why?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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twdmusicboxmystery · 5 years

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FTWD 5x10: Analysis

How did everyone like last night’s episode? I absolutely loved it. I have a lot of different things to say. Today, I’ll give a brief synopsis and then talk about the big TD take-aways. I’ll probably do predictions and details tomorrow.

***Warning: As always, spoilers about for this episode below. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned.***

Okay, so most of this episode was focused on Morgan, Grace and Dwight. They go into a mall to find a man who contacted them over the walkie-talkie. He tells them at the beginning that he's already been bitten, so he's not going to survive, and he'd like them to come get him, both so he's not alone when he dies, but also so they can put him down. He would do it himself, but he doesn't have a gun.

Once they get to the mall, Dwight goes to get the rest of the caravan to come to the mall and load up on supplies. Along the way, he meets one of Logan's men. I’ll talk about his story briefly at the end.

Let's first talk about something that me and my fellow theory theorists discussed even before the episode aired. I wanted to get a post written about this last week, but I didn't find the time. The episode is called 210 Words Per Minute.

That is super significant to us because both 2s and 10s are very big Beth numbers. Remember that episode 2x10 is 18 Miles Out, where she tried to commit suicide. I've written tons of posts about that and so has @frangipanilove. And then there's the 10:10 clock. While it reads 10:10, the hands point to 10 and 2.

@frangipanilove especially has talked lately about how she thinks either episode 10x2 or 10x10 could be very important. Like maybe Beth will show up in one of those episodes. Of course, we can't know for certain, but we've definitely seen those numbers a lot lately.

So, the fact that this episode was called that, and then in the sneak peek, we saw that bird at the beginning.

I did some research and I think it's a Tanager bird. I didn't find any huge smoking guns about that type of bird, but it just looks like a Phoenix. And then of course we have the Beth = songbird. On top of that, while seeing the bird, we hear the man (Chuck) ask Morgan's group kill him. Sort of a suicide request. We have the 210 in the title, someone who wants to commit suicide, and a bird that looks an awful lot like a Phoenix. All that was super significant to us and we were hoping this would be a big Beth symbolism episode.

Yeah, it totally was.

I even remarked to my fellow theorists at one point during the episode that my brain just exploded. I'll explain why. Basically, the scenario in the mall was one great big Beth parallel.

So, the man, Chuck, who broadcast Morgan's group in the first place, told them he'd been bitten and that if he turned into a walker before they got there, they would know him because he was wearing a red coat. When Morgan and Grace got to the mall, they find the place where he’d been staying. This was really interesting.

First, there were tons of typical TD symbols in his room. There is an exit sign, and we saw a NO EXIT sign in Beth’s cell. I saw scissors,mustard, and a few other things. There is also a bed where he'd been sleeping. It reminded me a lot of the hidden bed Daryl saw in Dwight's rooms in 7x10 when he escaped the Sanctuary. I only bring that up because there are a lot of Beth symbols in that scene (like peanut butter) and Daryl looking at the hidden bed was never fully explained. I feel like it's symbolic, and this was a parallel of it.

Morgan and Grace also saw a chair with ropes around it that had been broken through. They surmise that Chuck probably tied himself into the chair because he knew he would turn into a walker. But once he did turn, his walker self got out of the ropes anyway. So, they figured they were looking for a walker and would have to keep an eye out for the red coat and simply put him down, as per his last wishes.

Later, we saw Grace go after walker with a red coat. She assumed it was him and tried to kill it. She did manage to kill it, though she accidentally brought the horde down on her and Morgan. She then tells Morgan that she made a mistake. There was no way that walker could be Chuck because the walker was too decomposed. Chuck would have only died a few hours before and this walker had obviously been dead for months, possibly years. So, it wasn't him.

That's when everything clicked for me and my brain just about exploded. Let me explain. It really had everything to do with that red coat.

So, of course, we had the red coat hanging in Beth’s cell in 4x01. That’s where a lot of our red symbolism theories originated.

But what this really reminded me of was something that happened just prior to Glenn's death fake out in 6x03. He and Nicholas came upon a male walker with blonde hair, wearing a bright red coat. Nicholas had known this young man in life. They said but in what they said and that made me realize that the walker was a Beth proxy.

In this episode, the red-coated walker was actually a distraction. A decoy, if you will. Not something that was put there purposely or anything, but Grace believed this was Chuck, who'd been turned into a walker. We've always believed that TF (especially Daryl) believes Beth was turned into a walker.

So the big epiphany was that the red not only represents death as I've always thought, and also resurrection (see @frangipanilove’s Mary Magdalene post about how Easter eggs were originally red), but also very specifically represents the death fake out. It represents that TF thought this person was dead, but they really weren’t. The thought she'd been turned into a walker, but she hadn't. The red tricked them into thinking that, but it isn’t the truth. It’s a random, coincidental deception.

When it clicked for me, I even said to my fellow theorists in my FB group that I was willing to bet Chuck was still alive. Morgan and Grace assumed he was dead, but I bet they're going to find him alive. Of course, because he was bitten, he was going to die either way. But the important symbolism here is the red coat in the fact that this wasn't Chuck, as they thought. He was still alive somewhere else.

And as always, I don’t show you this to toot my own horn. This really has nothing to do with me being a genius or even guessing correctly. I READ THE SYMBOLISM. This is just more proof that you CAN predict events in this show if you can interpret the symbolism correctly. An TD has been right about 99% of what we’ve predicted.

Furthermore, the chair with the ropes reminded me of the blind blond Beth walker in the wheelchair in 4x06 (Gov episode). That walker was tied into the chair and couldn't get out.

I'm not sure what all this points to as far as Beth is concerned, but it sort of suggests that maybe TF tied or strapped her in somewhere—it could even be a matter of simply enclosing her in a car; something she theoretically couldn't break out of--but then she broke out of it. Because they thought her dead after the head shot in Coda, they must have assumed she broke out specifically because she’d turned. Hence, it reinforced their believe that she was dead, and that she’s a walker.

And honestly, it was a logical assumption, just as Grace's assumption here was logical. Chuck said he'd be wearing a red coat, and this walker was a male and wearing red coat. It wasn't like her belief was unfounded. The fact remains, it wasn't Chuck. It was a distraction. And Chuck was still alive. The same was true of Beth.

Near the end of the episode, they find Chuck on the roof. We could read all kinds of things into this scene. He talked about wanting to be buried under the stars, so he goes to the roof in order to look at the stars. Obviously, we can associate stars with the Sirius and North star theories. It even occurred to me that going up on the roof might be important because the helicopter pads were on the roof of Grady, and the helicopter in 4x01 it crashed into the roof of the Big Spot. Plus, Hole in the Roof Theory.

The problem is that it's a cloudy night and Chuck can’t actually see the stars. Grace ran back into the mall and found a turtle nightlight of sorts.

The light shone out through stars carved out of the turtle’s back and projected stars onto the roof. It was a sweet way for her to help him see the stars.

But now we’re looking at star symbolism and turtle symbolism combined. Yeah, I'd say that's important.

So, if you look at this in terms of this being one great big Beth parallel, seeing the bird, which looked like a Phoenix, at the beginning makes sense. There's the 210, which might've been called back to the suicide episode, but could also be a foreshadow of her eventual return (10×2 or 10×10).

But that is not all my friends. No, that is not all.

There is also an interesting situation with Grace. She wanted to get into an Urgent Care in the mall to use the x-ray or sonogram machine to see if she was sick. The idea was that if she already has cancer from the radiation, she’d be able to see it on one of the medical machines. They spend most of the episode trying to get into the Urgent Care for this purpose. Unfortunately, it’s locked behind one of those pull-down cages they have in malls. Finally, at the end, they'd taken down all the walkers and turned off all the alarms and have the key (Key Theory) to get into the Urgent Care.

(Let me just point out that we saw keys constantly when Rick and Daryl went into Grady to get Beth and Carol. So, there were keys opening the medical facility. Here, Grace tried to get in but couldn't and had to find the key in order to get into the medical facility. Coincidence? No, that would be part of the Key Theory.)

When she finally has the ability to get in, Grace decides she doesn't want to know whether she’s dying or not. She would rather live her life with hope and believe she still has more time, rather than always worrying about her impending death.

One could argue that the mystery of Grace’s possible death lay in that medical facility, which was literally behind a cage. Meanwhile, there was a 2:50 clock (hands at 10 and 2) on the wall of the Urgent Care behind the cage.

I’m translating that into, “the mystery of Beth’s possible death will be revealed in 10x2 or 10x10.” This symbolism has been pretty consistent lately.

So that's the biggest thing I saw in this episode. But I was especially blown away by the red coat thing. It represents something much more specific than I ever realized before. (Once again, FTWD teaches us how to read this symbolism.) And if nothing else, we saw something similar before Glenn’s fake out, and of course he survived it.

I do want to touch on Dwight’s story here for just a minute, because I think it’s relevant. Basically, Dwight knew somebody from Logan's group was following them. He purposely put out on the walkie-talkie where he would be (what road he was taking) and then pulled over on the side of the road to relieve himself, knowing the person following him would take him captive.

In short, Dwight was taken captive, but he eventually got free and took the other guy captive instead. He then took Logan’s guy to the woods, as though he might shoot him, but instead let him go.

He then referenced Daryl. Not by name, but he said someone else once gave him a second chance and he wanted to give this guy a second chance, and then he let him go. It's nice to see Dwight's transformation and him helping someone else in this way. And of course it's always nice when he references Daryl, even if it's not directly.

I was thinking about this arc and how much it's like 6x06, only Dwight and Daryl’s roles are reversed. So Dwight (from the current bad group, the Saviors) took Daryl captive. At one point, Daryl managed to get away and hold Dwight and Sherry at gunpoint. This also happened in a big way when Dwight defected from the Saviors. He became TF’s prisoner, and they held him at gunpoint perpetually, forcing him to help them defeat Negan. But then Daryl let him go in 8x16.

So, I was thinking that letting this guy go might actually backfire on Dwight at first. Because the first time Daryl let Dwight go (in 6x06) he came back and killed Denise. I'm wondering if this guy from Logan's group will come back and kill someone from Morgan’s group. But eventually, as Dwight did, he may be turned to the good side, and end up helping them.

Now, that might not seem very important except being interesting in terms of Dwight and Daryl story lines, but given that this whole episode was one great big Beth parallel, there must be some reason they included this little snippet of an arc concerning Dwight.

I'm hoping it means that were all correct and Dwight will somehow play a role in Beth's return and bringing her back to Daryl. More specifically, maybe this man he let go will play a role, such as introducing Dwight's group to Beth or Beth’s group in some way. Just conjecture on my part, but it gives me a lot of hope.

I’m going to stop there for today. I have a lot more to say, but I’ll talk about more things tomorrow. I’ll do a predictions post, especially as concerns Morgan, and get into the little, detailed symbols we saw in the episode.

So this is giving us big hope about TWD episodes 10x2 and 10x10. And let’s not forget that for FTWD, this is episode 5x10. TWD 5x10 was Them, where the music box woke up. What did you think of the episode?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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