So when discussing the ending of âOver the Garden Wallâ and the nature of the Unknown in general, I think it is important to remember that itâs left deliberately up for interpretation. You know, itâs not a Quiz with one concrete answer we must uncover, but itâs more about our interpretations and personal feelings. Each and every one of us experiences that journey with Wirt and Greg into the Unknown in a slightly different way.Â
So what I want to do here is not present a Correct Interpretation that will dispute all the others and prove them all wrong and prove myself right, I just want to share my own outlook on the nature of the Unknown. In the hopes that others will like it and itâll inspire more cool readings and interpretations
So on some level I do agree with the popular theory that the Unknown is some sort of Afterlife - but I donât see it as a regular Afterlife for human souls, I think it is an afterlife for Stories. This place is where fictional characters and stories end up once theyâve been totally forgotten by the living, âlost in the clouded annals of historyâ. and become.... unknown It is quite literally a place where âlong forgotten stories are revealed to those who travel through the woodâ.
Thatâs why the Unknown is a mishmash of different time periods and primarily visually and narratively influenced by stuff like fairy tales, ghost stories, childrenâs books and old cartoons - these stories have a high-tendency to be forgotten and thus get lost in the Unknown (whatever itâs because they rely on oral traditions or because they suffered from very poor preservation historically).Â
And that is what the theme song, âInto the Unknownâ is talking aboutâŠ
Where can we pretend that dreams do come true? In Stories.
And what are âthe loveliest lies of allâ? Now that would be Fiction.Â
The entire concept of stories is a huge theme of this song, I think.
Beatrice and her family, Adelaide of the Pasture, Auntie Whispers and Lorna were all originally fairy tales. Maybe the same fairy tale, or maybe they were originally separated before being âmeldedâ together. (If, for example, the last child to Remember them before they were forgotten just assumed the Bad Witch in both the Auntie Whispers and Beatrice stories was Adelaide)
Pottsfield was an old urban legend about a haunted ghost town, Wirt and Greg basically played through its âplotâ directly.Â
Miss Langtree, the schoolhouse and the other associated characters come from a long-forgotten and out-of-print childrenâs book. Thatâs why those characters tend to talk in comically-stilted expository dialogue.Â
The Tavern was the setting for a series of 20âs animated cartoons. (Although obviously set long before that era). The Tavern Keeper was created as a Betty Boop clone and was the main character. The Tavern setting was probably a mere framing device for all sort of musical animations. The reason why none of them can comprehend the idea of not having some sort of Title or Label is because thatâs how they were written - all given job-related titles but not named.
Fred the Talking Horse was a main character from a forgotten tradition of humorous oral stories where he was sometimes a trickstery anti-hero and sometimes a straight-up comedic villain protagonist.
Quincy Endicott and Margueritte Grey were characters from a satiric limerick about the greedy rich and their wacky habits. (Quincy was at least inspired by a real-life person since his name appears on a tombstone in the real world)
Possibly the same limerick where the punchline was the status-quo at the beginning of their OTGW ep, that both rivalsâ mansions have become connected and they assume the other is a ghost haunting their house. Or maybe they were each from different regional variations of the same limerick about a greedy rich weirdo being lost in their own house and going mad.Â
Frogland and their little boat might be from a childrenâs book as well, but I also think that maybe⊠from the vignettes shown at the opening of the seriesâŠ
That one might take place outside the Unknown, and shows the real inception of Frogland. Two brothers making up stories with their toy boat by the river. Since they never shared these stories with anyone else, when these two brothers died or maybe just grew up and forgot their boyhood misadventures by the stream - these stories also ended up in the Unknown.Â
The Fishing Fish we see briefly in âBabes in the Woodsâ might be a small comedic illustration from a childrenâs book, or another piece of limerick, or just someoneâs random notebook doodle that gained a life of its own first in the creatorâs mind and then in the Unknown.Â
Cloud City, the North Wind and the Queen of the Clouds were also, much like the Tavern, from a very old cartoon.
The Beast was once just a mere Boogie Man to keep young children from wandering off into the woods. Ending up forgotten in the Unknown just ended up giving him a whole world of lost souls to harvest.Â
Maybe the Woodsman and his daughter were always a part of the story of the Beast. But since it seems that the Woodsman being a lantern-bearer is a fairly recent development - they might have had their own separate story. Some sort of pastoral novel about a family moving near the woods? But their narrative has been âhijackedâ by the Beast.Â
Wirt and Greg ended up lost within the Unknown cause had they actually died in the lake that night - they would have become a Story in their town. I mean we have a moody lonely teenager and his adorable little brother disappearing/dying - on the night of Halloween - after last being seen in a graveyard - with the older brotherâs last act on this earth being to hand his crush a cassette of his love poetry. Can you imagine what sort of Urban Legenda you can grow from those seeds?
But as they were not yet dead, and not a Story yet⊠so they were technically an Unknown story. Between the borders of life and death from a human perspective because they were about to die, and from a Story perspective because they were just about to be born.
And the ending sequence, with the little vignettes showing where all the characters from all the episodes ended up. I think thatâs almost like Wirt and Greg back in the world of the living and the real - being able to create happy endings for all of those stories they've met. Thatâs how the Woodsmanâs daughter ended up being alive all along - it was less that the Woodsman's whole tragedy was a wacky misunderstanding all along. But it became so as a gift of thanks by their new storytellers - Wirt and Greg.
Because if dreams can't come true, than why not pretend?
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