On the Construction of The Ball Pit
In Into the Pit, there is a time-traveling ball pit in which a possessed yellow rabbit mascot costume (presumably Spring Bonnie) can come out of. While the book is very poorly written and the logic doesnât make much sense, this is what we know to be true about the construction of the ball pit itself:
âOswald elbowed the yellow thing aside and moved between it and his still-unconscious father. âYou leave⊠my dad⊠ALONE!â he yelled, then used the netting to bounce off and clamber onto the yellow thingâs back.â (Cawthon 62)
The above quote mentions that Oswald is standing between his father and the yellow thing (Spring Bonnie), meaning that he has to be in the middle of a ball pit large enough to hold two adults, one of whom is lying down unconscious, and one teenager. From here, he bounces off netting that is elastic enough to force him up 7 feet in the air (as that is Spring Bonnieâs height) to get onto his back. This means that there is elastic netting in the middle of the ball pit that can be bounced on by standing there.
âThe rabbit stumbled back into the netting and ropes, then grabbed Oswaldâs arms and slung him off its shoulders and into the pit.â (Cawthon 62)
After Oswaldâs attack, Spring Bonnie is said to stumble back (but not fall, meaning he is still standing upright) into both netting and ropes. This means that from where Oswald is, he is bouncing on only netting, but on the sides of the ball pit, there are both netting and ropes that are strong enough to support a ~300-400lbs robotic mascot costume without breaking. After this, he would need to stand again in order to throw Oswald off of him.
âOswald fell headfirst under the surface, grateful that the bottom of the pit was soft. His arm was throbbing, his whole body exhausted, but he had to get up.â (Cawthon 62)
This shows that Oswald is underneath the surface of the ball pit, and cannot see nor do anything about the situation above, where Spring Bonnie still stands perfectly fine. Oswald has not done anything nor can do anything to affect him.
âOswald rose unsteadily to his feet. Somehow, when it shook Oswald off, the yellow thing must have gotten tangled in the ropes and netting that lined the ball pit. A rope was looped around its neck, and it grasped the rope with its big paws, trying to get free. Oswald couldnât understand why it was failing to free itself until he saw that the yellow thingâs feet werenât touching the floor of the pit. The yellow thing was suspended from the rope, which was tied securely to a metal rod at the top of the ball pit.â (Cawthon 62-63)
Despite Oswald being underneath the surface of the ball pit and doing nothing to affect Spring Bonnie, somehow, by the time he stands again Spring Bonnie is hanging from a metal rod at the top of the ball pit by a rope. Spring Bonnie does not seem to do this intentionally, as he is trying to get free. Because Oswaldâs father is still unconscious, the only two explanations for this are that A) Jeff (the pizzeria owner who is watching this happen from ~50 feet away on the other end of the pizzeria) ran over and lifted the ~300-400lbs mascot suit and hung him himself, then ran all the way back to where he was standing behind the counter as if nothing happened, or B) the ball pit ropes and netting moved on their own, tangling Spring Bonnie in them, tying a knot, and pulling ~300-400lbs of weight upward in order to hang him. In the case of option B, it is very much possible that the ropes and netting are engineered to move on their own with robotic parts hidden inside to capture children (much like the Funtime animatronics were designed to do), or the ball pit itself could be possessed by the spirit of a vengeful dead child that died there previously (which is how the robots come to be possessed).
Along with that, this means that the ball pit is encased in a cube-like metal cage for Spring Bonnie to hang from the top of it, with netting lining every side (and somewhere in the middle for Oswald to bounce off of). Thus, as a final conclusion, we can say that the ball pit is completely encased in netting with a metal cage frame around it, along with a middle point of extremely elastic netting (however this cannot be the floor of the ball pit, as it is described as âsoftâ rather than being netting).
The definition of the term âball pitâ is as follows:
âA ball pit is a padded cube or box surrounded by netting filled with hollowplastiv ball whereas a container filled with balls is called a ball pool or ball pond and a tunnel full of balls is called a ball crawl. A ball pit may also have slides or climbing structures with in or trampoline flooring.â (Google)
By this definition, a ball pit is technically required to have netting in the shape of a cube around it, and so Scott Cawthon is correct in his usage of the term.