The Nowhere and the Waking world
For years we have tried to make sense of the world surrounding the Little Nightmares franchise, and after years of waiting, we finally have the one thing we never knew we could have...Answers. Thanks to the release of The Sounds of Nightmares podcast, some much needed information was finally brought to light, while many more things were finally confirmed. This world was everything we had theorized it would be, and so much more, and after years of waiting, we have a name for this nightmarish world...."The Nowhere".... and just as we have always theorized, this world was no little nightmare...it was always real.
The Nowhere itself is separate from the human world(a.k.a the waking world), but it is a world which one can travel to none the less...through dreams. After a person enters a dream state, their minds can reach the space between the two worlds, "The Threshold", a dark and endless abyss where one will float through a dark mist. The dark mist obscures one's vision until it dissipates enough to allow a person to see what is beyond the darkness, the gateway to Nowhere. Once a human crosses this gateway, they are judged by a giant red pulsing eye entity(more on this in a moment) and its many eyes circling around it, all sparkling with a hypnotic, enchanting light, their light dripping down into the abyss just as we saw it drip down into Monster Six's music box in Little Nightmares 2.
The eye entity's eyes look on as every child is presented to them within the Threshold, and if they like what they see in the tormented child, the all seeing eye will equally be pleased enough to open up and permit the human child entry to the Nowhere. Once the human child is permitted entry into Nowhere, their physical body will disappear from the waking/human world to complete the journey, leaving the child trapped among the monstrous Residents, or even becoming part of the Nowhere itself should they open themselves up to it.
However, this gateway and the Nowhere itself, are not all as they may seem. The gateway alone is guarded by the Ferryman, a Resident of the Nowhere we have known about since the very first game, primarily from the Little nightmares issues #1 and #2 comics, whose main duty is to find human children whose tormented lives have left them vulnerable enough to his manipulation, and desperate enough to find any escape from their current lives in the human world. Once a child has been selected, the Ferryman will guide them through the threshold and through the gateway, to Nowhere. The Ferryman's existence is primarily to not only guide children to Nowhere, but to also convince the children to give into the Nowhere and remain there, through any means necessary, usually by convincing them there is something only the Nowhere can provide, such as freedom from something specific, including all illnesses within their body or being liberated from whatever it is the child feels tormented by, such as other people, their own fears, loneliness etc.
While Children are primarily targeted and given permission to cross over into Nowhere, adults can also be granted permission, though through a more meticulous process. The Ferryman proclaims in chp. 6 of The Sounds of Nightmares, about there being another way to enter the Threshold to find the Nowhere, as for what this other way is? Well, more on this in another theory. As for obtaining permission to cross over into Nowhere, the Ferryman states an adult like Otto must pay a "toll in torments'", and considering it is the tormented children who are of the highest priority to claim for the Nowhere, I and many other theorists have theorized adults like Otto...must commit to the Ferryman's duty of sacrificing a large sum of children, as a way to please the very being which rules over the entire Nowhere...the eye entity, the giant pulsing red eye said to be the size of a moon, which can be met once a visitor crosses the gateway hidden within the Threshold.
The eye entity itself has been theorized to have existed since the very beginning, the most obvious sign of its constant presence being of course, the eye symbol with rays of its hypnotic light surrounding it, a symbol depicted on every game and the franchise as a whole.
Thanks to the podcast, we have finally gained some understanding as to just what the all seeing eye is, it is not just an all powerful entity which rules over the Nowhere, the eye entity/all seeing eye....IS the Nowhere, and this alone was something I and many other theorists gradually realized was always revealed... as far back as the first games DLC. In the Little Nightmares DLC: The Residence, the Runaway Kid came across various things within the lady's vast library, including a giant astrolabe depicting the all seeing eye's various eyes, looking down on the ancient instrument used to locate positions in time and space, an instrument which always revealed the all seeing eye's capability in finding the worlds beyond the threshold, primarily the human world the children originated from. In terms of the eye entity being the Nowhere itself, well....what more could we have had to confirm this than the globe in the Lady's library depicting the world and its entirety as one giant eye, the very one Noone met in chp. 6.
The eye entity has always been depicted maintaining a constant watch over everyone and everything, and while some parts of it could be encountered in the form of a fleshy mass, such as the flesh walls within the Tower and the Mall of chp. 3 of The Sounds of Nightmares, it had yet to be fully seen in the game, and now we know why...it was always hidden in a space far beyond any normal person's reach, the Threshold . The eye entity itself remains hidden within the darkness of the Threshold, along with its many eyes, eyes which can easily be mistaken for twinkling lights and constellations while in the Threshold, eyes which were also foreshadowed all throughout the world, both in the game and on the very merchandise we purchased.
Based on what we have gathered, each eye can be an entirely new location, the very Spiral we will get to journey in Little Nightmares 3, and just as we have always theorized, each eye can take on the shape of an entirely new structure, such as the Mall in chp 3 of TSON. We have always theorized structures such as the tower and the Maw were extensions of the eye entity itself, and though they act on their own, we always theorized they were all connected, like a building with different floors as Noone put it in chp. 5. But out of everything which makes up the Nowhere/eye entity, we have always theorized the most crucial piece in its ongoing survival...is humans.
Though there is still so much to learn about the Nowhere/eye entity, what we can be certain of is the place it currently resides, the Threshold, and though this endless dark abyss has thus far ensured the eye entity/Nowhere's safety, this abyss is still as empty and endless as Noone said it was, meaning there is nothing for the Nowhere to survive on, and much like any living being, in order to continue living and thriving...the Nowhere itself must feed.
We have always theorized the children were crucial for the eye entity/Nowhere's survival. However, although The Nowhere may prefer to consume the children for their youth and purity, it is not limited to just them, teens such as those in chp. 4 of TSON, as well as adults like Otto, can also be accepted, meaning one thing... all of humanity is more than suitable for the eye entity/Nowhere, its just a matter of how they are prepared.
What am I trying to say? Well, We have always theorized obtaining children and making them suitable enough for the eye entity's consumption, was not something it could do on its own, it required the aid of its Residents, like the Ferryman. While the eye entity/Nowhere's hypnotic light is capable of enchanting and controlling the minds of anyone who falls victim to it, it cannot affect the minds of those who have yet to fully grasp the full severity of their miserable situation. In order to be affected by the eye entity's hypnotic light, humans must grow desperate enough to seek an escape from the cruel reality around them, and who else is better suited to set things in motion than the Residents, many of whom were once children themselves before the Nowhere/eye entity finally changed them, like the sewer man in chp. 5 of TSON. Crazy thing is, we had always theorized humans knew about the existence of the Nowhere/eye entity, about monstrous Residents like the Ferryman ...sad to say, we were far more accurate than we had hoped.
In chp, 5 of The Sounds of Nightmares, Otto states the Ferryman had been documented in various cultures around the world... for centuries. Theorists and I had always theorized that humans had known about the eye entity/the Nowhere and its Residents for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, we also theorized the humans who knew of the Nowhere and the Residents existence, had played them off as nothing more than stories, myths, all of which held a warning many were quick to cast aside. No matter the warning, many humans refused to accept the possibility of their lives actually falling into danger at the hands of the monstrous beings they had always been told about, but refused to acknowledge were actually real, leaving them incapable of taking better action to learn how to defend themselves against the looming horrors from the other side and prevent further tragedy. Those who were willing to accept the existence of the Nowhere and the Residents, were cast aside as lunatics, such as Otto's old professor, his former colleagues, the parapsychologists over the centuries who obsessed over the Ferryman and the existence of the Nowhere...even the humpback girl from the little nightmares issue #1 comic....all of them, were ridiculed for their knowledge.
We may not yet know the full extend of the stories humans build around the existence of the eye entity/Nowhere and the Residents like the Ferryman, but what is certain is a large part of the world has always been aware of these myths and stories for all those hundreds of years....question is.... how long has the Nowhere existed? For the longest time, the mystery of the eye entity's origins remained unknown, and in a way it still is. The eye entity itself appears to have originated from the dark abyss of the threshold, but we have yet to know how its existence came to be. I, and many other theorists, had theorized humanity itself could only trace the existence of the Nowhere and the Ferryman as far back as humanity had learned to take notice of their looming presence, and if what we theorized is true, then could this potentially mean the eye entity/Nowhere itself had always existed far longer than what was recorded in human history ?....honestly who's to say....
Thus far, this is the sum of what I and many other theorists have put together about the world of the Nowhere and the human/waking world. And yet...something doesn't make sense...Though the two worlds seem so very far apart, they are far closer together than they appeared to be. Otto stated the Ferryman alone was proof of the connection between the two worlds...but unlike the humans... it is the Ferryman who is ABLE to see and hear into the human/waking world, while also being UNABLE to physically cross over from the Threshold to the human world as the children are capable of doing when they journey to and from the Nowhere, but why? Well...Noone did say the Ferryman did not belong to the human world, meaning he has never been capable of physically crossing over to it...and yet...what if he was always trying to....
In chp. 6 of TSON the Ferryman reveals he could hear everything Otto was saying to him, from the Threshold. Now, what does this mean? It means throughout TSON, Otto and Noone were never alone in their sessions, the Ferryman was watching them, hearing every word, seeing every action without either Noone or Otto knowing he was there. Otto gradually realized the Ferryman was watching and listening, but wondered why he couldn't see or sense the Nowhere and the Ferryman for himself, then quickly realized there was a veil up, like a two way mirror, only it was all of humanity who was stuck on the side of the mirror where you can't see through the glass. The Ferryman was always aware of what was happening without ever being seen... then again...maybe his presence was always shown. Anytime the Ferryman was spoken of, anytime his words were repeated...something strange happened...the audio in chp. 2,3,5...it glitched, it became distorted, as if there was something else interfering with the recording... as if... someone else was trying to break through...was it the Ferryman?...maybe.... But if it truly was the Ferryman attempting to break through to the other side, which he eventually did...at least vocally anyway in chp.6, then why would he?
The Ferryman and the Nowhere/eye entity have gone on throughout the centuries, taking child after child, while remaining hidden within the darkness, looking on as all of humanity was unable to find them, their existence passed on as stories and myths, and nothing more....then again....what if this was not what they wanted... Where am I going with this? Well...parapsychologists of the human world state the stories of numerous cultures believed the Ferryman stops anyone from entering any unseen worlds, even Otto himself believed the Ferryman was determined to keep him out of the Nowhere...but if this was ever true, then....why would the Ferryman push Otto to pursue his research to find a way into Nowhere? (more here) Was the Ferryman just toying with Otto?... No, if he was, he wouldn't have given Otto the information he needed to figure out how to cross over...then again...maybe it was never about what the Ferryman wanted..maybe...it was always about what the Nowhere wanted.
In chp. 5 of The Sounds of Nightmares, Otto spoke of a weather phenomenon unique to the Counties, a swirling mist known to be followed by a downpour, a storm. But the way Otto described this "weather phenomenon", it was almost as if there really was never anything normal about it...because what if maybe...just maybe....it was never just some freak weather, so what was it?
The night the bizarre swirling mist set in, was the night Otto first used his apparatus on Noone in an attempt to see the Nowhere, and to the shock of the readers, as well as Otto himself... it worked. The night Otto tested his apparatus, was the night he caught his first glimpse of the eye entity/Nowhere within the Threshold... and all the while Otto noticed the eye entity staring back at him with its intense light growing ever more powerful, the swirling mists storm could in turn be heard outside... growing stronger and stronger.
And yet, the moment the apparatus exploded, unable to withstand the presence of the eye entity/Nowhere, something odd happens...the storm we all heard raging on outside, the very storm which grew stronger the more the apparatus worked in connecting the two worlds....dies down...but why?...maybe we always knew. While the bizarre interference within the audio of TSON could have been the Ferryman trying to break through to the other side, does this mean the bizarre swirling mist and storm within the Counties was in itself, never just some freak weather? But rather...a sign of something much bigger trying to break through?...something far more powerful than the Ferryman...something like...the Nowhere.
We have always theorized the eye entity/Nowhere was the one which commanded all the Residents of its world , as well as anyone like Noone who fell prey to its hypnotic light, meaning maybe...just maybe...it was never the Ferryman who wanted to cross over to the human world...it was the Nowhere itself... If it was, then what does this mean for the children of the game?...What does this mean for the home they all hope to return to?... I guess we'll just have to wait and see...but then again...we have always theorized The Sounds of Nightmares, was no ordinary story...it was the origin story to the start of something...catastrophic. The two worlds, the waking/human world and the world of the Nowhere, though seemingly separate from one another...may be far closer together than we might think...But hey! It's just a theory...a Little Nightmares theory.