Both Henry and Bendy Were Both Made From Tombstone Picnic
So a few Anons have talked about this before, and while I thought it made sense I don’t think I realized exactly how much sense it made.
You see, there’s only one thing Bendy has never known: He was there for his beginning, but he’s never seen… The End.
This quote always confused me. Whether you think the Ink Demon is Joey or soulless, he would’ve been made after the Ink Machine was created - which was at the end of the studio’s run, so he wasn’t “there for his beginning”.
Tombstone Picnic was released in 1929 - the same year the studio opened, according to the official website. This means that Tombstone Picnic was one of the first if not the first Bendy cartoon.
And given that Thomas says the cartoons are made from imprinting on a reel, it is very likely that this was the reel Bendy was made from - hence Joey saying he was “there for his beginning” - as in, he was made from one of the first shorts. And, of course, the cartoon’s ending is missing, which is why “he’s never seen The End”.
(This also explains why he’s immortal - Bendy is literally escaping from skeletons/death in this cartoon.)
However, it actually goes deeper than that. Tombstone Picnic ends with a human shadow being cast over Bendy. Given the context, there are really only two options that work here - Joey or Henry.
Now, here’s the thing - while it’s not uncommon for entire cartoons from back then to become lost, the ending only being missing is… strange. Even if something damaged the end of the film, the original cels should still exist to allow them to splice new copies. The only way I could think of that this would happen… is if someone deliberately was trying to get rid of the ending.
See, Henry left the studio in 1930 - so this is the only cartoon so far we’ve seen that he worked on.
So that figure at the end? That was likely him making a cameo appearance. When Henry left, Joey got upset and intentionally removed the last bit of the ending (probably keeping a copy for himself). Especially because right as the film cuts out, we see…
Bendy smiling. It’s likely this was the punchline to the “joke” - Bendy is being pursued by this scary shadow only to reveal that, surprise! It’s just your friendly creator Henry.
Moving on, there are quite a few things in the game that imply Henry’s an ink creature, but the two biggest are his respawning and the invisible writing.
The only argument that could be made against the respawning would be that it isn’t canon. However, there are a few things going against this - for example, Alice repeats her “try not to die on the way back” line when Henry respawns, and the “feel familiar?” Miracle Station is a nod not only to the loop but to the Chapter 3 trailer - where Bendy lunges at someone in a Miracle Station. Suffice to say, there’s no way Henry survived that.
Of course, the biggest piece of evidence is that you can literally find the respawn tunnel in the alternate beginning and walk through it…
Which makes everything turn black and white, like the cartoons.
The other main piece of evidence is Allison mentioning that all the ink creatures leave messages… which Henry does, just with invisible ink.
In other words, it wasn’t just Bendy that was made from the Tombstone Picnic reel - it was also Henry, hence the black-and-white filter when he respawns. His writing is invisible because he literally hasn’t been seen in the ending since the original run. (Being made out of a different type of ink is also probably why he has immunity to large amounts of it - “We’re not like you, Henry.”).
But you might be saying, “Wait, but Tombstone Picnic obviously has an entire scene missing before the end title card would show up, but The End reel only has the card. What about the rest of it?”
Well, following the idea that the shadow was Henry, the missing ending would be Henry approaching Bendy…
TL;DR: Bendy was made from Tombstone Picnic, which was one of the shorts Henry worked on before leaving. The human shadow was him, and Joey cut the scene when he left. The ink creature Henry in the gameplay was made using this reel. The ending of Chapter 5 parallels the missing ending of the short.
gummygunk
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
kianamaiart
areudirty
