Dandy’s world theory/Rant.
I don’t get why everyone thinks Delilah forced Dandy into creating the ichor operation. Like, no. I don’t see her as some full-blown evil mastermind. She’s more cold and business-minded, maybe careless, but not twirling her mustache behind the scenes. Anything that went down at Gardenview? That would’ve blown back on her. Lawsuits, money gone, reputation tanked. Plus, the ichor operation literally happens after Gardenview closes, so Delilah wouldn’t have even been there. Why the toons do it is still a mystery, but most theories are that ichor powers the elevator, the train (that brings them food/supplies), and the lights. Basically survival stuff. Forcing Dandy into that wouldn’t even fit her vibe as a “villain.” But don’t get me wrong she’s probably not squeaky clean either. In game, we find a newspaper talking about some “malfunction” that lead to the closing of Gardenview. “Gardenview Educational Center™ is to shut its doors on June 29 due to recent allegations and lack of safety regulations… Little has been revealed following the case of the ‘Malfunction’ incident. When one of the creators, Arthur Walton, was questioned on the matter, he chose to remain silent.” Yeah the grammar sucks, but the message is clear: something malfunctioned, and it shut the whole place down.Then we’ve got Arthur’s note to Delilah: “Delilah, we need to talk. I know you’ve kept reassuring me that what had happened wasn’t due to anything you had done. Yet I feel as if we still need to talk about this. You had to have known this could happen to him. You had to have known that this was even a possibility. If you did, why didn’t you tell anyone? Why didn’t you tell me? Something like this doesn’t just happen.” And there’s no response from Delilah. That implies she knew something about the risk of ichor making the toons “malfunction”, and ignored it. So who’s “he”? Easiest guess is Dandy. He’s central to the lore, and the malfunction might’ve been him becoming twisted and maybe even hurting a kid. Whatever it was, it was big enough to shut everything down almost overnight (that’s an exaggeration but yk what I mean.) Think about it: the CCTV footage of Vee and Veronica is dated May 12, 2002—barely a month before Gardenview closed. Everything looked normal. They were even planning to upgrade Vee, which doesn’t make sense if they already knew Gardenview was doomed. Then there’s Shannon’s note to Shelly: “Hey Shells! … Big man Arthur said me and some of the others got to get out of here! Don’t worry though, I’m sure this will pass and we’ll all be back soon!” Spoiler: they weren’t. That note shows the handlers were rushed out fast, which tells us one of the toons (most likely Dandy) probably became a threat to the handlers and kids. Put it together: Delilah knew the consequences ichor could cause, ignored them, ichor made Dandy likely malfunction, maybe hurt someone, Gardenview closed immediately, handlers were evacuated. After that, Dandy starts the ichor operation, the toons become twisteds, survival becomes priority, blah blah. So yeah—Delilah might be partially responsible since she ignored the risks of ichor, but she’s not the mastermind of everything. Same with Dandy, he’s morally grey, not innocent, but not a flat villain either. Both are more complicated than people give them credit for and both are severely mischaracterized
