Since someone asked the fuller theory breakdown we had: When you look at the opening title, Greg is always blacked out because everything else is imaginary. He’s the only one that’s real, and not in the dream world he’s creating. Everyone else is in his imagination. Greg’s the only human that eats, and the only person that needs to eat is someone that’s alive. For example, in the tavern, Greg gorges himself and not one other person is eating a single thing. Also in the Tome of the Unknown, he is the only one eating (eating an apple). In the song Potatoes and Molasses, Greg’s the only human that eats. See below on “eating dirt.” At the end, the bell is ringing in Jason Funderberker’s belly, and while some people think that means they brought something back from the unknown, we think that it’s Greg creating another fantasy where his brother gets to be the hero and gets the girl. We see Quincy Endicott’s name in the graveyard, and a grave next to his, which we’re going to assume is Margueritte Grey’s, so they are buried next to each other, which is why in Greg’s imagination, they are “sharing a house.” The rest of the characters in the unknown could also be from the graveyard, since they all fit into an American story of people that would be buried there. For example, Beatrice seems like she’s an Irish immigrant that came over during the potato famine in Ireland. Eating potatoes and molasses was common among the poor at the time. People also commonly resorted to eating dirt, and her family says “Eat your dirt.” She talks about sewng money into her clothes. During the famine, families would scrape together all their money to send a family member to America, and it was usually one of the girls, who was expected to either marry or get a job to help bring money to the family. What if Beatrice actually died and was buried in the cemetery, which ended up killing her family because there was no one to work or send back money? She is dressed very nicely, while her family seem to be dressed more like people who were peasants. In Pottsfield, Enoch is only addressing Wirt when he says, “You’ll join us some day.” A potter’s field traditionally was a graveyard with mass graves of unknown bodies, and also empty graves for bodies that were never found, so that implies that Wirt’s drowned body was never found. In the tavern, a lot of the characters look similar to Greg when he was a kid. In our theory, the reason for this is that Greg at first was pretending to be these characters, and then became a skilled craftsman to tell his story that way. The tavern was Greg’s safe imaginary space where he was surrounded by people who were keeping their lanterns lit to keep him company. We see the master and apprentice are tied together. In our theory, Greg is drowning, but pulls Wirt under. Wirt in his final moments manages to cut himself free of Greg, but is trapped or gets washed away and drowns, and Greg washes ashore. The toymaker has a toy horse in his pocket right before we see Fred the horse for the first time, almost as if he’s creating him. Also the toymaker’s mannerisms, outfit, the way he sings and dances, and his character design all resemble Greg. If you pay attention, Wirt frowns at the toymaker the same way he frowns at Greg when he is being annoying. The toymaker’s hat looks like Wirt’s hat, but wilted, aged, faded, and stretched onto a larger adult head, as if Greg found or was given his hat and wore it in his memory. We never see Greg and the toymaker together next to each other. They’re briefly in the same scene through the window when Greg is talking to Beatrice, but they are far away from each other and never interact. In the 10th anniversary short, Greg says, “An elephant never forgets.” We believe Greg is the elephant, never forgetting his dead brother. It could just be it’s just a reference to Max Fleischer’s cartoon of the same name from 1934, which is referenced very heavily in Schooltown Follies, but we personally think it is connected to Greg. The elephant’s costume in the cartoon is very similar to Greg’s, and Greg mentions he is dressed as an elephant for Halloween. See if you can spot the Easter egg in our short related to this. There are also many other Easter eggs hidden throughout if anyone’s feeling eagle-eyed. And to finish out our theory, we believe the beast is grief, and Greg believes that only his brother could save him from Grief, but because Wirt is not there, Greg remains in a grieving state his whole life. The beautiful thing is, as Pat McHale said, “Any interpretation that feels right to people is a perfectly valid interpretation to me.”
Great theory! You definitely pointed out many things I had never noticed before. One thing I do wonder about is why the Toymaker in the show and your Toymaker have such different dispositions. In the show we never see him without a smile, and he is shown laughing several times. Seems pretty happy for being a self insert of a kid who's brother died. I also wonder if Greg is mature enough to imagine Wirts whole character arc. If this is all his imagination, why is Wirt a bad older brother? Could Greg have caught on? Maybe he portrays himself as more innocent than he is, but it is still worth thinking about. Also, what would the Unknown be in this theory? Just an imagined world they went to? Yeesh, sorry for writing an essay 😁. You really got me thinking. Thanks for the amazing animation! This will be added to my quarter-annual viewing!
@@natethegreat505in the series he is exactly like Greg. For our theory he is imagining himself as he was before his brothers death. In his day to day grief was taking him over but in his mind he was happy and his brother was with him. The worlds we shape in our head and hearts are not always reflective of our reality. Ie- If dreams can’t come true then why not pretend? All just theory though.
All of the tiny details in this had me watching several times. A cardinal with a big crest was a perfect choice to represent Wirt. Also great to see the pen-I mean chicken from Courage still getting attention.
This is truly incredible! It's very impressive that you were able to match the art style of the show to a T. The story idea is also inspired; very tragic, though I quite like how you explored themes of death and loss so compellingly in such a short amount of time. Thank you for this tribute to the show, and the late Jack Jones.
What this is so underrated 😭. The animation and coloring are so well done, and while the theory makes me bawl it is super interesting to think about! This is absolutely beautiful!
The last line spoken in the show is "the lovelies *Lies* of them all." It would make sense if the duration of the show was all just a figment of Greg's imagination where he created a happier ending for his brother in the end. After all, Greg was looking for Wirt's approval in every episode, most times with Wirt brushing him off. So I guess the only Greg can cope is by imagining a happier ending where he was acknowledged and saved by Wirt and they both got to live happily ever after.
@@HarperTsou-pruner exactly. Also we know every rock fact is actually a lie. So the ending where greg can put the rock back right after that last line is perhaps the biggest lie.
Thank you! It’s our studio speciality to be chameleonic. :) We really wanted to do justice to the amazing artists that came up with this stunning style and put our hearts fully into it. We have been wanting to share our fan theory for a few years now, but writing it all up was harder than simply telling it in a short little story.
@ it looks great, and I can definitely relate to how much effort you put into recreating the style. I’ve recently been building an accurate stopmotion version of Greg and Wirt
Did you animate this all yourself? Super impressive work man! If possible I'd love to throw together a OTGW Lo-Fi album for next year and the scene at 0:29 would be the perfect visual art for it if youre up to collab!! do you hae a discord or email I can reach out to you at?
@@SageNineMusic 2 of us took 10 days (after/between our bread and butter jobs) to make this :) The Lo-fi album sounds awesome! Unfortunately for copyright since this is so closely based off an original idea and style it can’t be used for any other purposes than just the free art in the form it is now.
@@StartAnimation Thank you! It was 2 of us over 10 days. I would highly recommend the show! It’s only 10 11 minute episodes and can be watched in one sitting on a dreary rainy fall or winter day. Amazing story telling and beautiful art.
This is 100x better than that stop motion short they just dumped out. They got us hyped up for the 10 year anniversary and gave us that? Am I the only one disappointed???
Appreciate the compliment. The team that did the stop motion put a ton of love into their animation. They had to work around using the recordings they had from the show 10 years ago to keep Greg’s voice as it was so were more limited. Plus part of the charm is not 100% knowing what the story is so each of us can make a theory to fit what we want or need it to be. I think the show runners didn’t want to take that from anyone.
Since someone asked the fuller theory breakdown we had: When you look at the opening title, Greg is always blacked out because everything else is imaginary. He’s the only one that’s real, and not in the dream world he’s creating. Everyone else is in his imagination.
Greg’s the only human that eats, and the only person that needs to eat is someone that’s alive. For example, in the tavern, Greg gorges himself and not one other person is eating a single thing. Also in the Tome of the Unknown, he is the only one eating (eating an apple). In the song Potatoes and Molasses, Greg’s the only human that eats. See below on “eating dirt.”
At the end, the bell is ringing in Jason Funderberker’s belly, and while some people think that means they brought something back from the unknown, we think that it’s Greg creating another fantasy where his brother gets to be the hero and gets the girl.
We see Quincy Endicott’s name in the graveyard, and a grave next to his, which we’re going to assume is Margueritte Grey’s, so they are buried next to each other, which is why in Greg’s imagination, they are “sharing a house.” The rest of the characters in the unknown could also be from the graveyard, since they all fit into an American story of people that would be buried there.
For example, Beatrice seems like she’s an Irish immigrant that came over during the potato famine in Ireland. Eating potatoes and molasses was common among the poor at the time. People also commonly resorted to eating dirt, and her family says “Eat your dirt.” She talks about sewng money into her clothes. During the famine, families would scrape together all their money to send a family member to America, and it was usually one of the girls, who was expected to either marry or get a job to help bring money to the family. What if Beatrice actually died and was buried in the cemetery, which ended up killing her family because there was no one to work or send back money? She is dressed very nicely, while her family seem to be dressed more like people who were peasants.
In Pottsfield, Enoch is only addressing Wirt when he says, “You’ll join us some day.” A potter’s field traditionally was a graveyard with mass graves of unknown bodies, and also empty graves for bodies that were never found, so that implies that Wirt’s drowned body was never found.
In the tavern, a lot of the characters look similar to Greg when he was a kid. In our theory, the reason for this is that Greg at first was pretending to be these characters, and then became a skilled craftsman to tell his story that way. The tavern was Greg’s safe imaginary space where he was surrounded by people who were keeping their lanterns lit to keep him company.
We see the master and apprentice are tied together. In our theory, Greg is drowning, but pulls Wirt under. Wirt in his final moments manages to cut himself free of Greg, but is trapped or gets washed away and drowns, and Greg washes ashore.
The toymaker has a toy horse in his pocket right before we see Fred the horse for the first time, almost as if he’s creating him. Also the toymaker’s mannerisms, outfit, the way he sings and dances, and his character design all resemble Greg. If you pay attention, Wirt frowns at the toymaker the same way he frowns at Greg when he is being annoying. The toymaker’s hat looks like Wirt’s hat, but wilted, aged, faded, and stretched onto a larger adult head, as if Greg found or was given his hat and wore it in his memory. We never see Greg and the toymaker together next to each other. They’re briefly in the same scene through the window when Greg is talking to Beatrice, but they are far away from each other and never interact.
In the 10th anniversary short, Greg says, “An elephant never forgets.” We believe Greg is the elephant, never forgetting his dead brother. It could just be it’s just a reference to Max Fleischer’s cartoon of the same name from 1934, which is referenced very heavily in Schooltown Follies, but we personally think it is connected to Greg. The elephant’s costume in the cartoon is very similar to Greg’s, and Greg mentions he is dressed as an elephant for Halloween. See if you can spot the Easter egg in our short related to this. There are also many other Easter eggs hidden throughout if anyone’s feeling eagle-eyed. And to finish out our theory, we believe the beast is grief, and Greg believes that only his brother could save him from Grief, but because Wirt is not there, Greg remains in a grieving state his whole life.
The beautiful thing is, as Pat McHale said, “Any interpretation that feels right to people is a perfectly valid interpretation to me.”
Great theory! You definitely pointed out many things I had never noticed before. One thing I do wonder about is why the Toymaker in the show and your Toymaker have such different dispositions. In the show we never see him without a smile, and he is shown laughing several times. Seems pretty happy for being a self insert of a kid who's brother died.
I also wonder if Greg is mature enough to imagine Wirts whole character arc. If this is all his imagination, why is Wirt a bad older brother? Could Greg have caught on? Maybe he portrays himself as more innocent than he is, but it is still worth thinking about.
Also, what would the Unknown be in this theory? Just an imagined world they went to?
Yeesh, sorry for writing an essay 😁. You really got me thinking. Thanks for the amazing animation! This will be added to my quarter-annual viewing!
@@natethegreat505in the series he is exactly like Greg. For our theory he is imagining himself as he was before his brothers death. In his day to day grief was taking him over but in his mind he was happy and his brother was with him. The worlds we shape in our head and hearts are not always reflective of our reality. Ie- If dreams can’t come true then why not pretend? All just theory though.
All of the tiny details in this had me watching several times. A cardinal with a big crest was a perfect choice to represent Wirt. Also great to see the pen-I mean chicken from Courage still getting attention.
The chicken is the pen- chicken from Wallace and grommit as a nod to the 10th anniversary special. :) did you find the nod to anything else.
The loveliest *lies* of all...
Expected to see a fun little animation, so an incredible tribute packed full of references
@@Cardinalmos thank you! 🙏 Love that people are spotting the references and Easter eggs:)
This animation is great, high quality fanart for sure! However this theory makes me super depressed so I will elect to ignore it LOL
😁 it is a sad theory.
Wow this is BLEAK! Such an interesting interpretation. The attention to detail is astounding. Amazing work.
@@maxwellclark2345 when family asks when you are going to grow out of your dark goth phase …. Never! 🤣 thank you for noticing all the details❤️
This is truly incredible! It's very impressive that you were able to match the art style of the show to a T. The story idea is also inspired; very tragic, though I quite like how you explored themes of death and loss so compellingly in such a short amount of time. Thank you for this tribute to the show, and the late Jack Jones.
Thank you for watching and letting us know it moved you. Appreciate you. ❤
Wow this is a dark way of interpreting the story, amazing animation!
@@tendyboys8344 goth girl forever! 🖤Thank you!
This was incredible! You matched the animation style perfectly :))
Thank you so much!😊
This is stellar work-thanks so much for sharing!!
@@Oatmeal_Queen 🐸
Art that inspires never dies
This just hit me like punch in the gut. Absolutely superb. 💔
❤️🩹
What this is so underrated 😭. The animation and coloring are so well done, and while the theory makes me bawl it is super interesting to think about! This is absolutely beautiful!
@@LilacLily17 awww thank you so much. ☺️🥰
Holy crap, this is great!
@@neonguy1839 thank you!
Very beautiful, the greatest homage and a message no truer.
@@none5020 ❤️
The alternative ending of the show
This is the best OTGW content (next to the show) out there 🤯
That’s a huge compliment as fans of the show. Thank you. ❤
This is incredible. Really good work.
Thank you! ❤
Is sad... Because it's so possible is canon how is not, after all that's why they call it, The Unknown...
This is outstanding. You've really caught the style of the series, both visual and narrative. Great work! 👏🏻🎉
@@studionimai thank you! 🙏
Beautiful artwork ♥
Thank you !
The style it's really good 💯🎨
@@gabisokolova6257 thank you Marceline the vampire queen. 🦇🖤
This is canon in my heart
@@Mr-Prasguerman ❤️
The last line spoken in the show is "the lovelies *Lies* of them all."
It would make sense if the duration of the show was all just a figment of Greg's imagination where he created a happier ending for his brother in the end.
After all, Greg was looking for Wirt's approval in every episode, most times with Wirt brushing him off. So I guess the only Greg can cope is by imagining a happier ending where he was acknowledged and saved by Wirt and they both got to live happily ever after.
@@HarperTsou-pruner exactly. Also we know every rock fact is actually a lie. So the ending where greg can put the rock back right after that last line is perhaps the biggest lie.
This is amazing work you’ve done here! Incredibly underrated.
@@Captain_Nox 🙏❤️
Well...this is depressing...! Great fan animation! You really matched the stlye. I'm teaching myself animation as well! I love OTGW!
Sorry and thanks:) Teaching yourself is the best way IMO!
How profound. And excruciatingly true. I wonder where the line should be drawn between missing someone or being totally immersed in the past.
Bravo this is amazing
Thank you!
Good work on the animation.
@@Hyperion-5744 thank you!
What a hidden gem. I'll cherish this morose treasure. Thank you for this.
@@defective7340 ❤️
Matching the art style was so good! Legit impressed
Thank you! It’s our studio speciality to be chameleonic. :) We really wanted to do justice to the amazing artists that came up with this stunning style and put our hearts fully into it. We have been wanting to share our fan theory for a few years now, but writing it all up was harder than simply telling it in a short little story.
@ it looks great, and I can definitely relate to how much effort you put into recreating the style. I’ve recently been building an accurate stopmotion version of Greg and Wirt
@ very cool! Are you planning a fan art as well?
@ it started off as a “wouldn’t it be cool if I made a super high quality recreation” then it turned into a hour long tutorial on making Wirt 😂
@ ain’t that just the way. 🖤
This is incredible!
Thank you!
Great message
Thank you❤
Oh…oh no.
Did you animate this all yourself? Super impressive work man!
If possible I'd love to throw together a OTGW Lo-Fi album for next year and the scene at 0:29 would be the perfect visual art for it if youre up to collab!! do you hae a discord or email I can reach out to you at?
@@SageNineMusic 2 of us took 10 days (after/between our bread and butter jobs) to make this :) The Lo-fi album sounds awesome! Unfortunately for copyright since this is so closely based off an original idea and style it can’t be used for any other purposes than just the free art in the form it is now.
@@soulproprietorstudios Thats fine! Our projects are often either for charity or non-profit. Open to discuss this further on Discord or email?
This is beautiful
@@locochavo4560 thank you! 😊
wow. WOW this was cool. MY GOD
@@PaulDubber thank you!😊
this needs more views NOW!!! so beautiful
❤
This is phenomenal!! Amazing job matching the art style too!
Thank you!!!
incredible!!!
@@JacobIsACheese ❤️
Ow. :’)
❤
beatiful
@@bydiegoandres ❤️
amazing theory story
Thanks!!!
Absolutely fantastic work, well done
@@haven_art thank you so much! 😊
Wow
❤
This is so so good....wow
Thank you!
This is amazing
Thanks man! Appreciate you! ❤
I don't know anything about this cartoon but this animation is really good. Did just one person do it? It has a good animation standard
@@StartAnimation Thank you! It was 2 of us over 10 days. I would highly recommend the show! It’s only 10 11 minute episodes and can be watched in one sitting on a dreary rainy fall or winter day. Amazing story telling and beautiful art.
This is 100x better than that stop motion short they just dumped out. They got us hyped up for the 10 year anniversary and gave us that? Am I the only one disappointed???
Appreciate the compliment. The team that did the stop motion put a ton of love into their animation. They had to work around using the recordings they had from the show 10 years ago to keep Greg’s voice as it was so were more limited. Plus part of the charm is not 100% knowing what the story is so each of us can make a theory to fit what we want or need it to be. I think the show runners didn’t want to take that from anyone.