SO ANYWAY
@AquaTheLita
The first thing I want to talk about is the ending. At first glance, this would just appear to be the cycle starting all over again. Everything has reset and we've gone back to DHMIS 1, so that everything can happen just like it did before.
But, take a close look at the colors that all of the characters changed into. I've seen some theorists point out that these aren't just random color swaps -- they all turned into the colors that they said were their
favorite colors way back in the first DHMIS. And not only did the colors of the characters change, but so did the color of the walls and door of the room, which are all
green, the same color that the
old universe would've shunned for being "uncreative". And, lastly, the calendar finally changes from June 19th to June 20th. It's possible that this represents the shift from one generation to the next, and the media improving and changing its ways so that this next generation can have a more positive media experience than the last, with these kids
truly being encouraged to be themselves.
Of course, that raises the question of why the notebook came back. Well, I have two theories about this:
- This notebook will behave completely differently than the last, and actually encourage real creativity. We didn't hear more than the first line of her song, so it's possible that things could play out differently this time. That being said, if this notebook is supposed to be different, then it would be strange for her to start out her song exactly the same as the last one, which brings me to the second possibility:
- This notebook is still essentially the same as the old one, and represents the threat of the media returning to what it once was. Even when media improves, it will never be perfect, and you'll still have some shows echoing the same brainwashing as that of the last generation. But, notice how this notebook is cross-eyed -- I think this suggests that her influence isn't as strong as it used to be, and it's possible she won't be taken quite as seriously and won't be able to corrupt the puppets this time.
I also want to talk about the Red Guy -- and this other world that he's in after he escapes the world of the teachers. I think this represents him -- and any kid, really -- growing up, but then wanting to be a kid again. Red Guy always seemed to be the oldest and most mature of the three, and always the least willing to hop on board with the teachers' shenanigans -- perhaps because he didn't have the same child-like innocence as the other two -- and, in the 4th episode, he was fed up from the very beginning, and eventually left the show completely, thus
outgrowing the sorts of shows that he grew up with and that he used to tolerate.
So then he's in the normal adult world. Everyone around him is bland, boring, and essentially exactly the same. They turned out exactly how these shows conditioned them to be. But the Red Guy -- er,
our Red Guy doesn't like this. He talks about how funny it would be if the file came to life and started singing -- he's reminiscing about the whimsy of his childhood and wanting to go back to it. He doesn't like this boring world. And then we hear the other Red Guy say "that sounds really boring" -- the same line that our Red Guy originally said in the 1st episode. I think this represents Red Guy wanting to grow up too quickly in the past, and now regretting it. He used to think that the kids' stuff from his past was 'boring'. He wanted to get away from it all. And now he
has, but he doesn't like it. And I think the other Red Guy echoing that line back to him is when he fully realizes his mistake -- he was in a hurry to grow up, and he regrets not appreciating his childhood.
So then we have the bar scene, when our Red Guy gets on stage and sings the song from the 1st episode. He's trying to re-live his childhood and share that with others, but the adult world just isn't having it. Perhaps this is commentary on how adults enjoying kid things is often seen as weird at best and just plain sad at worst. It's like adults aren't allowed to have fun the way they did as kids.
So then Red Guy finds the machine that controls what the Yellow Guy is seeing. I think this represents the Red Guy getting involved in the world of media as an adult. He wants to create children's media. I think the biggest piece of evidence for this is when one of the teachers becomes a file, just like the Red Guy was talking about before. The problem is, he doesn't know
how to create good media. He does a lot of cycling through old teachers, because he isn't able to create much of anything new -- he's just repeating what he already knows.
And then there's Roy. Now, having seen this episode and heard a few other people's thoughts on it, I actually don't think Roy's a bad guy. First of all, look at how slowly he approached Red Guy after grabbing his shoulder. If he
really wanted to stop Red Guy from messing with the machine, wouldn't he have moved faster? Now, you could argue that his slow approach was merely for dramatic effect, but, the point remains, Roy didn't seem to make
any attempt at stopping Red Guy from doing what he was doing. He didn't even try to stop Red Guy from pulling the plug on the machine, which I'll get back to later.
So then Red Guy stops and looks at the screen, and sees Yellow Guy being tormented. Perhaps Roy was just trying to show Red Guy what he was doing. After all, I sincerely doubt Red Guy
wanted to torture his old friend. I think he was just trying his best, and didn't realize the damage he was doing until he really took a close look at what was happening.
And then Red Guy goes and pulls the plug. Like I said, not only did Roy not try to stop him from doing this, but, perhaps, in making him pause and see what he was doing, he was actually
encouraging Red Guy to do it. And I think pulling the plug represents putting an end to the old media and, as we see in the final clip, creating a new generation of media -- a
better generation.
Of course, all this raises the question of who the hell Roy was supposed to be, if not a bad guy. Well, maybe he was in a similar position as Red Guy -- he wanted to make media better, but didn't know how. Perhaps he was scarred by this bad media as a kid, and could only repeat what he already knew, thus passing these teachers on to the next generation. Maybe he sincerely wanted to do better for his son (and the other puppets), but didn't know how.
A few other miscellaneous things to point out:
I've noticed that, the more the puppets try to resist during a given episode, the quicker things turn bad. In the first three episodes, the puppets didn't really question what they were being told (although, in the 3rd one in particular, I think that largely had to do with the fact that it revolved around the Yellow Guy, who was always the most naive of the three), and so, aside from a few small details here and there, things didn't really start to get bad until towards the end. In the 4th one, however, the Red Guy seemed pretty fed up with everything from the beginning, and his resisting made things worse. In particular, the part where he told the computer to shut up and then smacked the keyboard resulted in a
real quick transition from relative mundaneness to 'holy shit' territory. Then in the 5th one, we saw both the Bird Guy questioning things and the Red Guy trying to contact him through the phone, and, in both cases, it was always when one of those two things interrupted the song that things got weirder. And then finally, in the last one, the Yellow Guy wants nothing to do with the newest teacher right from the beginning, which is why the song pretty much
immediately turns into a nightmare (both literally and figuratively). I've also noticed that the songs seemed to become less coherent, less enjoyable, and more repetitive towards the end of the series. The 4th one, in my opinion, was the last good song of the series, and even that one did admittedly get very repetitive towards the end. The 5th one not only had the repetitive "X turns your teeth gray" thing going on but it also kept contradicting itself in terms of which foods were 'good' or 'bad' for you. And then the last one had that droning, repetitive, "You can have a dream about XYZ, and you can have a dream about..." etc. And with the constant interruptions with the scene-switching, the 6th had the least of any song to speak of. Perhaps this also has to do with the way the puppets are resisting faster and faster.
Also, we see the Yellow Guy drowning in oil twice in this episode (both in the cartoon segment and in his bed), and perhaps this is a callback to his painting being destroyed with oil in the 1st episode. Maybe this implies that he's drowning in the media's brainwashing -- unable to be himself and constantly bogged down with what he's being conditioned to be.
I also found it really interesting how the Yellow Guy spoke up with "you made me die" when we see Tony return. If you remember how the song from the 2nd one goes, you'll realize that Yellow Guy says this precisely at the point where he originally said "an old man died" in that episode. I'd seen a lot of theories point out that the old man was actually supposed to be an older version of Yellow Guy, and perhaps this line confirms it. Still, I find it really interesting that the Yellow Guy himself would notice this and point it out. Perhaps this represents him becoming less innocent and more aware of what's going on -- while he previously didn't think much about the old man's death, now he's realizing who that old man was and what that all represents.
Lastly, the cartoon segment -- the animation style really stood out to me as being very...
familiar for some reason. The first thing that came to mind when I thought about where I'd seen that style of animation before was Family Guy, but, now that I think about it, the animation reminds me of a
lot of other things, actually. Not only does it look a lot like every cartoon that's trying to be Family Guy -- whether or not it's an official spin-off of it -- but it also sort of reminds me of Sanjay & Craig, and even looks vaguely like Adventure Time or even a poor man's Gravity Falls. It just sort of reflects a very common animation style in this day and age. Perhaps it's a comment on how homogenized a lot of things in the media are and how a lot of content creators just want to produce more of the same, instead of trying new things.
And, uh... I think that's everything. O_O
