No, not for me. Though I did not know that what Lobotomy even remotely was. I thought her aunt hired a hitman to kill her parents, so that she could be the new guardian for Fran, so that she'll be able to have the doctor perform his experiments on her, without any annoying outsiders.
Ahh yeah I knew that sorry if I never doubled back to explain properly. Yeah I figured they were sewn together, died, and thrown in a well but Oswal. I still don’t get why we saw a real picture of them being grown up
@UriClarke personally, I felt it was supposed to tie into what we learn about Fran's aunt and mother later on. That Oswal had been experimenting on different sets of twins for a long time.
@@UriClarke happy to help ^.^ it confused me too at first. I personally love how they leave a lot of things like this up to the player to figure out. It really forces you to invest yourself into the world of the game.
The little girl with the crayons in the asylum is actually an SA victim and survivor, and she was suspected to be blamed for this event. when you take the pill you can see handprints on her body, presumably where her assailant touched her. The little boy with the cane who calls himself king was also touched inappropriately by a religious figure, probably a local priest. No one believed him and he was sent to the asylum.
@@MurrayJones-od2gdyeah they don’t let us touch on sensitive topics, no matter how nice and careful we’re about it, and yet at the same time they let in the people who cause these horrible problems into the platforms. Sometimes it lowkey makes me wonder if something that was coded in the algorithm is truly siding on the bad people here, and silencing the ones who are exposing them
@@UriClarke that's because they secretly LOVE that topic, but just try to make it seem like their morals are In the right place, never thought we'd have to protect the predators feelings instead of the victims. That's messed up.
@@LillianGraceFullofficial FOR SURE! Recently I watched a video of Nick Crowely's about fake animal resues. It baffles me how there so many people getting paid for straight up animal abuse. Like they'll put a baby kitten in the grass with snakes then save the cat, re-nurture it then rinse and repeat
@@UriClarke its late but it's still perfect for its time!! it's been years since i heard of this game and is so cool to someone analyzing it nowadays, and seeing it all again with different views than the first time when i was younger, great vid❤️❤️
I've said it before and I'll say it again- Philmore probably tried to protect Fran or at least warn her. He knew about Remor, he knew about the lobotomies, he just tried to warn Fran. Everything he said would happen did happen. So he probably had good intentions, but the execution was shitty. I'm a Phil apologist since the first time I played this game.
He probably didn't know how to tell her, i mean how do you tell soemone about that stuff? Expecally a child like fran is how do you explain that to a child
Finally i see someone else mention the Finnish bits! I've always felt that it was too good to be a coincidence, though tbf i haven't searched for any discussion on it before.
From my memory, the guy who sewed up the twins is based off an actual Nazi guy who experimented on twins. I figured the twins we talk to was the one "success" the guy had, but they died later (the letter saying the weaker one would die, but the thing about conjoined twins is: If one dies and the other is still connected then the other one would died not much later. So my opinion about the multiple babies: They were the "failures" and the sisters see that as their superiority, hence why they keep the babies around. To make them feel better than the rest. Since they do act like they are better than Fran and a few other characters in the game
mom and aunt grace are also twin sisters. i dont remember if its confirmed but it is at least hinted at the fact that they were experiment on too. hence why aunt grace was so close with the one guy.
@@chocolate_flora yup it was definitely confirmed with that picture we find with Oswald relatively younger and the girls looking identical also now that I think about it we never seen Fran’s mom outside of the cutscenes
With this and Little Misfortune being in the same universe, we really start to get a good picture of the larger thesis. In LM, there’s the masks of smiling faces on the adults, depicting this idea of how people are told that they should just fake it and never reach out. We can see, though, through her parents being addicts, abusive, neglectful, etc. that it will come out in other ways and that’s why everything Misfortune goes through happens. In Fran Bow, we see multiple ways the field of psychology has failed people in the past. Unethical twin studies, lobotomy, crazy drug experiments, locking people away indefinitely. I am so interested in seeing what else will come our way in this series.
I haven't gotten around to playing LM, hoping to one day really talk about the bigger story/world at hand (Two weeks later I’ve finished the game and am working on the vid now! 7 mins in so far)
I think that Fran didn't have her first psychosis episode out of nowhere. I once heard the theory that aunt who took care of Fran gave her the medicines she was told to take later in the game, then she killed Fran's parents putting the blame on this kid so she ended up in a mental hospital. I believe she had some connections with... Ekhm... "Doctors" in this facility.
i would like to add that fran's eyes are commonly shown to be bleeding. many lobotomies were performed by inserting an icepick through the eye socket to reach the frontal lobe. her eyes bleeding when she cries may be hinting at fran having undergone this method of surgery.
The frame size, the not super hd but not too grainy quality, the outfit, makes you look like an 90's-2000's icon about to commit a scandal but everyone thinks you're so nice and cool that they still love you lmao
@@UriClarke Seriously bro I love the quality of your camera lol Gives me the nostalgic feeling of youtube when it's still good Needless to say, I love the video, look forward watching more of your contents :) Btw mental hospitals or wards still suck, unfortunately went there twice as a patient when I was a teen and worked there as a nurse for a while, I felt like shit when I was admitted there bc no one wanted to help, they just got angry with everyone for the slightest trouble they caused due to their illnesses, and I feel so bad for the patients when I worked there after I grow up, the meds can only numb their mind and can't completely heal them, they also need a therapist that can talk their mind out of their mental maze but most hospitals only have doctors that seemed so cold about their patients
As someone with a mental disability and who has episodes of paranoia, I honestly sometimes forget how mentally disabled people were treated back then and it’s terrifying to hear about. This whole game feels comforting in a weird way, but also shows the horrors of the times back then. (also great video! I love your voice, it’s very comforting to listen do and your jokes are funny)
Yeah, but it’s still pretty bad from what I hear obviously, I don’t suffer from any disabilities but hospitals in general can differ with the environment, so I’m glad that your experience was great but later down the road I wanna focus on modern day hospitals and how things can improve
@@UriClarke Oh yeah, still very true. I’ve had friends who deliberately didn’t go to hospitals because of the conditions. I can’t wait to see more from you!
@@FloatyyBrain My sister's in the same boat. We can hardly support her here, but Mum keeps saying if we can't keep our heads above the water she'll be put in a room with a TV and a bed and basically nothing else, which would obviously only exacerbate _anyone's_ issues.
I’m a survivor of institutionalization as a young person in my early teens there was so much going on with me no one not even myself knew just what was going on with us, until that one visit they diagnosed us with Major depressive disorder at 14, left the hospital went back to the psyche ward a year later then got rediagnosed with bipolar disorder, left, came back at 16 diagnosed again but as schizoaffectie disorder which is schizophrenia and a mood disorder like drepression or bipolar or both which I was, and then two years later went back gout out in outpatient rehab only to find out at the age of 18 that we have polyfragmented complex dissociative identity disorder. Yeah so, all my life growing up was just one big journey to figure who the fuck I am and that I’ve got like 93 people in here and still counting all because of severe serious and ongoing life threatening child abuse growing up. I immediately gravitated to this game when it’s was first announced and yeah it’s true they really look down on the mentally I’ll and the disabled like us so yeah a lot o it feels like you’re just a caged animal trying to escape. I am very fucking thankful we don’t come from anywhere before the 1980s cause we would have been sterilized and killed at a hospital
Yesss! hello! This game was fascinating to me as a kid bc i suffered from paranoia due to emmence stress that i didn't consciously process bc i was so young. I was terrified of the supernatural, but Fran Bow was being so brave in the face of horrifying stuff that i was just addicted to watching playthroughs
This game was scary in a really mental way. Vacillating between one reality and another terrifying one, trying to connect the two to survive. It was creepy and in retrospect reminds me of the Kennedy sister that was lobotomized. For no reason. Great insight.
holy- you're so right. I remember that story. She was slow of learning but getting better, then they lobotomized her and hid her away from the public eye.. insane stuff
@@paigemarcum5586 whats even worse to me is that they had all the money in the world! They could have sent her with a caregiver (not that she needed one but just as a support system) to a lovely home in a nice location of her choice. She could have made new friends and worked whatever job she wanted and had a fulfilling life away from those psychos, and they would have gotten what they wanted which was to keep people from seeing her. They could have changed her name too ffs. Apparently a lobotomy and a locked room was cheaper though. rich people who do horrible things to save money are literally among the crappiest people on earth.
@@UriClarkeapparently her intellectual disability, her stubbornness, as well as that she liked to go out and be a party girl all contributed to her lobotomization. It's so messed up
@@CBrown86they actually did do that at first. During WW2 I think she had to leave her caregiver and friends. I’m pretty sure it really negatively affected her and then she was lobotomized:(
in regards to the twins, it seems pretty obvious that they were born separate (the picture of them as babies separately), then sewn together (the infants sewn together with visible stitches + thread), then grew up (what you refer to as the "real picture of them grown up", it looks like theyre younger in there than how fran meets them in person. also they dont look naturally conjoined, as you can see stitches going down the middle).
I see what you mean, I think I got confused because the infant version's heads look like they were alone sewn while the others seemed to be sewn, but below the head
Oh, I 100% this game on Steam and was very confused about what the message of the game was. I understood the raw idea, but couldn't tell exactly what. I just finished the game and moved on with my life. Nice to see someone making a review of it. But still, I have a friend with a mild case of schizophrenia or some other untreatable mental illness, I've never ever asked what exactly because it's awkward. Most of the time he's an absolutely normal guy, but from time to time, like once a month or two, he can call me in the middle of the night, start messaging me, or just "snap" when we are together in person and start rambling something about the meaning of the universe and that structure of Slavic languages somehow influence the laws of thermodynamics, and other things similar to that, and what he tells usually makes absolutely no logical sense, even if you actively try to understand, it's a pure stream of thoughts. I had known him for years, but this trait of his annoyed me a lot, and I didn't really do a good job hiding it from him, and he really got upset every time I showed my frustration. Not in a way "what a bad friend you are", but more in a way "Why don't you understand, it is so obvious, why don't you even try to listen". So, after playing this game, the insanity of what happens there made me think, that maybe that's something similar to what he experiences during these episodes, and it made me feel so... gross? Thinking about that made me feel like a really bad friend, and made me re-think how I treat him. After that, when he did this, I stopped showing my frustration, and instead just started to listen. Yes, it still makes no sense, but come on, the guy feels like he opened a third eye and sees the essence of the universe, anybody would freak out, so why not make him feel at least a little bit more comfortable. And, it kind of worked, when I listen he no longer gets upset, and even though he never remembers that it happened, our relationship in his "normal state" became more warm too. And these episodes started to happen less. I'm not a psychiatrist, and maybe by enabling it I only make it worse in some way or another, but it just makes me feel like a good friend, I no longer want him to wander in the nightmare alone like Fran Bow does.
at first when I saw all this was like "jeez that's a lot" but then reading it I teared up xD I'm so glad that Fran Bow helped you strengthened your bond with your friend. No one should be alienated for what they believe even if it's total ramblings. indulge, it'll make a world of difference, especially if what they're saying isn't hurting anyone.
@@UriClarke I mean, he doesn't really believe that, there's nothing to believe, it is just a product of his brain glitching once in a while, I even wrote it down once and showed to "normal" him and he agreed it makes no sense at all. But what I understood by playing this game, it doesn't really matter if that makes sense or not to me, during the episodes down there for him he's still a normal rational human experiencing some batshit insane things which to him are too very rational and real at the moment, and having a friend who gets annoyed when he actively asks for some emotional support might suck a lot. And the game gave me an opportunity to see the sutiation from this perspective, which I didn't even imagine before playing it.
You are absolutely doing the right thing. You might not feel like you're abor to do much, but sometimes just being there and present is enough. You may never understand what he sees or goes through, but just know that it's a lot less difficult to go through that alone
The autopsy of the parents said they were perfectly sliced as if there wasn’t a struggle also a fully grown and healthy adult can take down three children at once I think Fran witnessed or at least saw the aftermath of Aunt Grace killing her parents this traumatized her so much she made two separate characters to represent aunt Grace Itward calls Fran dear like how aunt Grace does when she’s putting on a mask for Fran also calls her dear While Remor calls Fran darling just like how aunt Grace does when she drops her mask she starts calling Fran darling
That's actually a very good reading. Thanks for sharing! I haven't played the game in a while now, but I feel like the interpretation that Fran killed her parents is flawed - because of the complete lack of motive, and the fact that generally the game represents mental health issues fairly straightforwardly (in the most gruesome way of course) and the idea of a random psychosis or "split personality" (not actually representative of how the real-life disorder that is Dissociative Identity Disorder functions at all - especially with no reason to depict DID patients as perpetrators of crimes, it would not only be inaccurate but also be mismatching with the narrative of the game) isn't strongly backed up. Aunt Grace's responsibility is more than hinted at. That Fran created two images in her mind, one of the comforting Aunt who took care of her, and the other of the Aunt who killed her parents, because she can't comprehend that both people are one and the same, is a very interesting perspective.
@@jadziajan yeah and more realistic since they have clear knife wounds not gun wounds because the only weapon Fran could use to actually kill her parents is a gun if it was her that killed them but not a knife since she would be easily overpowered and disarmed But Grace who is the same age as Frans mother due to being twins and probably knows about where the hidden key is and would have a better chance at attacking the parents with a knife than a child like Fran
Rosemary Kennedy is alway the first lobotomy example that comes to mind. She was related to JFK but due to a shitty midwife when she was born, she had her own mental issues that got worse as she got into her 20s. So her dad took her to get a lobotomy, and then abandoned her either at a hospital or a church. Her family didn’t know where she went until about 20 years later, when all of her siblings and mother visited her every now and then, as she lived in a cottage close to a hospital so nurses could visit her and take care of her. Her dad never visited her, she watched her brother’s assassination on the tv, and died around 2003-2005
It wasn't just mental issues, she had intellectual disability due to the lack of oxygen. It wasn't solely because of her intellectual disability, but she was also headstrong and a bit of a party girl, and the Kennedys hated that about her. They didn't like that she was a disabled woman who didn't act like a child I guess.
Yeah, when I was doing lobotomies research on them, I came across that many subjects were either gay men, women, or people with slight illnesses, varying in severity. This game was tough because I didn’t want to focus on parts of history that wasn’t translated within the game but trust me I’ve come across many horrid depictions history regarding lobotomies
@@UriClarkewhat were your sources for this? as in like. Where’d you find the information about lobotomies/research? Did you frequent any specific places? Askin’ because this is. Part of a thing I’m doing
True, JFK and RFK’s sister was lobotomized all because she wasn’t acting like all the other high society women. She was a free thinker and had free will. Her parents and doctors practically murdered her for being herself.
this is a brilliant video, as someone who suffers with a lot of the same mental disorders that fran is implied to have, the perspective that she was really just a sick girl being taken advantage of hits so close to home. i know a lot of other people stick to the supernatural route of possibility in the plot, but the concept of her being forced into undergoing horrific "treatments" and having to learn to cope feels so much more real. thank you for discussing this in such a respectful manner
I'm glad I could hit it somewhere in the ball park, Fran Bow's longest chapter was the hospital and it surprised me at how many people went with the supernatural route exclusively; the hospital was filled with all kinds of disgusting characters. So I reallllly wanted to capitalize on that part
As a person with diagnosed ADHD and autism, including depression and anxiety (both general and public anxiety), I can really relate to Fran. I’ve been on medications for a while, and sure, they help me, but I often feel ashamed. And I often need them just to function, as Fran does.
For me I'm content to see it as a mix. Mental illness deterioration and messed up experiments, but then demonic forces also taking advantage of it and making it even worse... Idk
The fact that the twins were experimented on and sewed together reminds me of the twin experiments from WWii I think your perspective is really interesting too.
@@UriClarkewith my understanding, it’s this doctor in world war 2 who would conduct experiments on jewish twins instead of executing them. Really horrific.
@UriClarke there was this nazi doctor who would experiment on children and little kids and they were really interested in twins, look up Dr.Mengele if you wanna know more about it
There's a book called "My Lobotomy" and it's an autobiography from a guy who went through the procedure as a child or young teenager and he was actually okay and "normal" afterwards. His stepmom didn't like him and convinced his father to make him go through it. It's a pretty good read.
@@anyoneatall3488 (if someone finds anything wrong with this comment due to not going into this story a lot and going off what I heard, please correct me) I haven’t read the book but I’ve heard of the guy, his name is/was Howard Dully and he was lobotomized around 12-13 because he was aggressive towards his stepmother, apparently so much so she feared for her life. He didn’t have any side effects or complications afterwards that I know of.
i've been waiting for someone to do an-depth analysis on Fran Bow for years now, this game has stuck with me since and i could never forget how messed up it was and loved seeing people's interpretations on it. Can't believe you only have 1.57k subscribers when this is some high-quality incredible analyzing. So glad I wasn't the only one extremely confused by the Vegetative State chapter, she just randomly turns into a tree and you just have to accept that with no questions. Really appreciated how you considered multiple perspectives and different interpretations of parts of the game rather than just going with what you assumed. This game is one of the only 2D horror games to have ever genuinely terrified and disturbed me as someone who loves delving into psychological horror and I really liked the dark comedic elements whenever Fran Bow just giggles at mutilated infants and Satanic rituals. Thank you for this.
Heyy if you want to see more fran bow reviews try searching on Russian youtube and translating the videos! It was pretty popular at some point so you will find loads of content
I remember watching play through of this game as a kid and being absolutely terrified. You kind of have a gross fascination with horror games as a kid and this game just made me so curious, but I would be scared to go to sleep at night after watching videos on it. I’ve avoided content around this game for a while because of that, but then this video popped up. I’m much older now and with your analysis, I think I can appreciate this game a lot more. Sure it’s still scary, but it’s much more grounded in reality and metaphorical than real “monsters”. Thanks for this vid!
@@UriClarkeyour literally me dude😭 i watched elfen lied multiple times and im only 14, same with fran bow, sally face and other things. I was so scared yet intrigued
16:04 I have a different theory for the “My Sober Day” title; I’ve heard sober used also to refer to clarity, not just literal sobriety. It could mean she sees the asylum for what it is, discovering that those medications and procedures are darkening their lives further and making them less aware of their surroundings, and her understanding of this is her sober awakening to her own situation
the voices r on point! i remember watching play throughs of this as a kid & being terrified. the way you describe it seems far more bittersweet compared to what i remember TT
really?? I tried not watching any other theory videos on fran bow because I wanted to really stand out with my own thought process, what did you think of the ending when you were younger?
@@UriClarke I'm still watching the video, but I remember thinking she died when I watched lets plays of it in highschool when it came out. I'm a big wuss tho so I usually don't ruminate on scary games too much. I think I've only ever watched 1 or 2 explanation videos of this game (yours included).
In the hospital basement, there's a box which explains duotine. I forgot what it says but you can find it There's a note under the yellow variant of duotine and the red one which Fran uses in the box The yellow one is an extremely much more mild version of the red pills and the twins have been confirmed to use it. The red one is basically the yellow one but on MAX.
I think the most upsetting thing about the beginning of the game is that the awful thing Fran is seeing in the psych hospital is all happening in a *children’s* hospital not that it’s not fucked up to do that stuff to adults but it’s so much worse to do to *children*
@@UriClarke your commentary is so incredible I was tuned in the entire video, people underestimate how incredible the game detention is and I would absolutely be waiting ❤
@@UriClarkeid love to see you delve into sally face!!!! a lot of these kinds of games came out a while ago before deep dives were as common and before they were taken seriously past shock/horror factors. i absolutely love what you went into in this video and the playthrough reaction clips made me laugh!!!!
That guy that you tried spiking with a sleeping pill in the game there's some diolog that makes just about everyone hate the guy eve more. The guy will say he might or will give the kid if fran gives him a kiss. I believe this is a hint as to even more torment patients suffer through where employees take advantage of the patients. Granted I myself never experienced it but I have friends who experienced being in the nut house before and some of them were ether subjected to this, forced drug intake, and when they try reporting issues to staff and doctors they are absurd dismissive. This specifically happens to children from friends that told me so it's extremely disheartening to know these things happen. Btw I love how deep this video goes into this game and how it carefully breaks down and theorizes of what's really happening. This game is one hell of a mind-fuck and there have been a lot of times I questioned what's real and what isn't. What is real picture we are supposed to see. So this video helps shed a lot of light onto what can be he reality or give us hints with some solid pointers into the right direction.
Every time I hear about "Labotomy" I remember what my mum once told me about when the doctors found out about my learning dissability when I was 2 years old could have doing a lobotomy on me if my mum wanted it; because back in the early 90´s they thought that a learning dissability was a mental disorder to and called my learning dissability a low developmental disorder. thank Jesus my mum never wanted that to happen.
That's honestly terrifying. I was born in the 2000's and have autism, and I know several other people my age who are neurodivergent, some showing more obvious signs than others, sooner than others, and to know that doctors would've wanted to destroy our brains if we were born just a little bit sooner is horrific. I'm glad your mom didn't let them do that to you
I love how Fran Bow takes place decades ago but has so many parallels to modern day psychiatrist and wards, for example as soon as she gets there the Dr is shoving duotine down her throat, I think this is relatable to many people who experience neurdivergency. although this story is a very intense and crazy example of the neurodivergent experience it has many similarities to real life. love the video ur vibe is so chill :3
Also Fran is only 10 which can feel unrealistic to players considering all that she does but I've noticed a commonality in those who suffer from neurodivergencies and that is intelligence. Intelligence brings lots of pain especially when you examine the world and people around you
@@isthiscereallife well obviously not everyone who is neurodivergent is smarter than the average person 😭 thats why i specified its a commonality not a guaranteed trait...
same thing here everything on my recommended is really long video essays and I'm all for it. specifically this video, it /knows/ I haven't touched on fran bow in a while
I don't know if you have yet, but you should play Little Miss Fortune which takes place in the same universe and imo helps clear up the "is fran hallucinating or are there actually multiple worlds at play here" question. It's also just amazing in its own right. Edit to add: I always saw the medication as forcing her to see the other world (i forgot all the names for the different worlds sorry) and not hallucinating, but that's just me.
I HAVE NOT!! I bought it but when I heard this came before I knew I'd have to make a video on fran this LM. but maybe i'll simply connect the two in the future
also sorry if it wasn't clear, my final stance on the game was that both was real. Fran indeed went to these other worlds, she just wasn't physically there; but the five realities indeed exist
I think it’s interesting in the newspaper that was showed to Fran about her death, both the mother and Aunt are twins themselves. It also states earlier that though the twin sisters were (forcefully) conjoined they hated each other and always would. Maybe this is hinting at the mother and aunts relationship? How the mother died but Aunt Grace hasn’t yet, but with conjoined bodies the other sister would die soon after. When Remor (?) phased the doctor out. It was Aunt Grace literally taking him out of the equation so she could have Fran.? Just a fun theory!
What do you mean "with conjoined bodies the other would die soon after?" Grace and the mom were never conjoined, but were involved in different (unspecified as far as I can tell) experiments, and even are in a picture with the conjoined twins pre conjoining. Maybe I misunderstood, which is likely.
Some interesting things (to me) that I noted during the end segment: The institute Fran is in is called Center of Brain Research and Pineal Gland Phenomenon. If there was ever doubt Fran has powers, the pineal gland is colloquially called the third eye. It's function includes 'letting in light and darkness'. The pineal gland also produces melatonin when exposed to darkness. This lead me to wonder if it could be related to narcolepsy, and low and behold, there's speculation that the pineal gland has something to do with that disorder. Perhaps Fran isn't passing out, per se. Perhaps she's suffering sleep attacks when the (figurative) "darkness" overwhelms. Anyhow, thanks for the fun watch. It's been a hot second since I thought about Fran Bow, but your way of explaining was engaging and drew me in. I also appreciate your respectful demeanor toward the subject matter and parting suggestion. Subscribed for sure.
dont quote me on this, but about the sisters, weren't twins experimented on a lot by the nazis during the second world war? since this game takes place in 1944...
Explains the names of German origin and how the light are people who saw this unfortune maybe spirits ancestors. The dark represent the evil spirited intentions curiosities to achieve more medicine. "Find scientific achievement " I think this game does represent reality as it had a pink asethetic in the twins, chambers showing the shiny idea that everything's ok and perfect when, in reality there's a lot of trauma and not a lot of improvement with mental health. POOR Fran :(( I'm glad she got to go to the light. With the doctor and Mr. Midnight.
As someone who watched Fran Bow playthroughs as a kid and was unable to fully understand what was actually going on, I want to personally thank you for your service in analysing the game and allowing me to truly appreciate it in all of its depressing horror
This video game was so important to me as a child, I really felt seen. Seeing such a fresh take on the game that makes complete sense and gives more understanding of the games themes makes me fall in love with the game all over again 💕
Finally, a gamer video essay that also can't do puzzles. You like me for real. Awesome video by the wau!! You have a good voice for this, and I appreciate how coherant everything was.
@@UriClarke Broski any sort of puzzle game- I HAVE to follow a guide or else I sit there like [: maybe if I keep staring at the screen somethings gonna happen.
i never thought about this when i was a kid (since the game came out when i was in middle school i think?). And holy shit. this like, makes so much sense. I always thought it was just a super natural lil story with demons and creatures. i never once considered the fact this could be a story through the eyes of a young girl suffering from all sorts of things. and the way you phrased everything and described was really easy to understand. :) enjoyed greatly
One thing that’s good about the timeline we’re living in as that Little Misfortune is in the same universe as Fran Bow, but is a lot more clear. And what we do know about Little Misfortune is that (to an extent) everything is real. Misfortune really is being hunted by a monster. There are some things in Fran Bow that we end up seeing in Little Misfortune. The pigbeedle, little cone things, the hair face moth things, the heart symbolism, Itward, foxes (there’s a dead fox on Fran’s bed in the beginning of the game), and most notably…Morgo. Technically, Morgo is not the same monster we see in Fran Bow. But he’s OBVIOUSLY the same species. And I say he’s not the same person for 2…obvious reasons. Different name. Different build. One of them is named Remor. One of them is named Morgo. “But what if he changed his name?” I’m sure nobody asked. Well… One of them is buff and has legs. The other is not buff and has no legs. So…same species, different people. So what do we do with this info? Well…here’s one detail that I feel we NEED to acknowledge. … Misfortune is dead. Throughout the entire game (or at the very least the end of the first chapter onward), Misfortune is a dead child being haunted by Morgo. And it’s stated that she sees things the way she would prefer them because…she’s dead. That’s just how wandering souls work I guess. So if Misfortune is a wandering soul who sees things that aren’t technically there but for the most part everything is real… … Something you said is that people tend to die not long after lobotomies before the ice pick method was developed, right? … I think that’s what happened. I think she got lobotomized, and died in the process. “If you leave the house of madness, I will find you, and return you back to insanity.” One thing I’ve noticed while rewatching playthroughs of both Fran Bow and Little Misfortune is just how different Morgo and Remor are, but…still similar. Both of them are parasitic Both of them manipulate their hosts/victims Both of them go after multiple children at a time (I think). But they do so in different ways. Morgo, all things considered, is very childish. He plays games with his victims, and when they refuse…he throws a huge ass temper tantrum. Morgo engages in the childish aspects of his victims. Remor seems to attach onto the madness. Remor has a running theme of insanity, of craziness, blah blah blah. Now…I…you COULD infer that these monsters both have the same methods, and that they’re basing their strategies on how their victims died. Misfortune might’ve died playing a game, and I genuinely think Fran died getting lobotomized just…based on how she acts (ALSO! When Remor makes her pass out she really looks like the ghost kids Misfortune sees. Just a thought) But…that’s all speculation so who knows. Another thing you could speculate is that Remor just…likes going after crazy kids. He’s not nearly as childish as Morgo, so it makes sense that he wouldn’t wanna play games the way he does. Maybe “leaving” the asylum = “dying” in his eyes. So what he’s really saying is: “When you die, I will torment your wandering soul, and force you to endure madness throughout your afterlife.” Pretty wild. But anyway- My bet is that Fran died during or after a lobotomy, and the rest of it is Fran’s soul wandering around being tormented by Remor, and then all the stuff she sees is like…the reality stuff, yeah, but also just her head messing with her. So the giant ant guy might’ve not actually been a giant ant, but the beedlepig might be real because it makes an appearance in Little Misfortune? It’s… It’s not much less confusing, but it makes a the game make a LITTLE more sense? God praise Little Misfortune for adding to the lore of this wonderland of a universe.
I always thought the remor and morgo were older / younger version of the same kind of spirit. I'm not sure if maybe remor is older and morgo younger or maybe it's the other way around. I do agree that they are not the same person/being, but the same type of spirit. I think maybe remor is older and that kind of spirt just changes form as it gets older and stronger. Morgo might be the younger version of this kind of spirit
@@ellier.4273 Remor would HAVE to be younger because Fran Bow takes place in the 40s, whereas Little Misfortune is more modern. And there’s no evidence that suggests that Remor can like…time travel. So it can’t be that. There’s also the thing with the drastically different personalities. Morgo is childish to the point where he throws full on temper tantrums. Remor is cold and calculating. Remor is also supposedly powerful enough to kill the fox that might’ve been sent to help Fran, whereas Morgo wasn’t. It’s small but important differences that tell me that they’re two different beings. Same species, just different beings.
When learning history of medicine you at first think that the grossest part would be medieval doctors, or war time surgeons... and then you read about Rosemary Kennedy.
I remember watching Franbow gameplay when I was young, extremely young, and it used to terrify me. I loved the art style and how it plays out it's stories, but being so young, still terrifying. Now that I'm older and know more, it still terrifies me but in a different way. Having trouble with mental health and troubling topics of my own, this game and many others, highlight the darkness and troubles in our world. I will always be in awe with game makers and how they may express real-world problems through fiction or historical-fiction-based games. (We Happy Few, Binding of Issac, Little Misfortune, games with a story taken place during WWII, and so much more)
Never thought that much of Fran Bow as a representation of the medication horror like lobotomy. I always liked to to interpret things about a cult and the whole fantasy stuff. Nice video, can’t wait for Fran Bow 2 to come out!!
I just checked Killmonday Games' channel, and there isnt a 2nd part of the game coming. they just made trailers for it being released on different platforms, not a part 2. while a part 2 world be cool, Idk what would happen in it.
my theory is that it‘s about Fran follow her destiny of having / being the key (don’t remember well) how Mother Mabuka told us. I hope Dr Deern is going to be there too but probably not. Btw there’s a theory that the skeleton with green eyes appearing at the end of Little Misfortune is Fran and we maybee will see Fran doing tasks like greeting souls or something like that. It’s probably going to be explaining unexplained mysteries from Fran Bow 1 and telling us more about Itward, León Castillo and other characters we don’t know much about. So Fran Bow 2 has a big amount of content possibilities
Oh no! I’m sorry, haven’t checked Fran Bow news for long and forgot some things. I just checked and there’s nothing but a concept art of how Fran and Itward would look in Fran Bow 2. Sorry for giving disinformation 🙏
there is no "split personality disorder", the correct term is Dissociative Identity Disorder. personally i think there are a mix of supernatural and real elements! or, that a lot of it happens within Fran's "headspace" aka, where the alters of the system live while they aren't fronting!
I think you're right about Remor but your vocab is once again off and unintentionally ableist, unfortunately. i know that wasn't your intent because you are very careful around the rest of this video and actually take these seriously which is really appreciated! I would say that Remor is an alter of Fran's, and that he takes the role of a persecutor. a persecutor is someone who wishes to do harm to the body either mentally, physically, or even socially. However, they are still useful members of a system. This comes out when Remor attacks the security guard and pushes away bad things from Fran, even if its for his selfish gain of wanting to make her suffer more.
@@UriClarkeSplit personality disorder or multiple personality disorder are not used anymore do to the stigma of the words. DID or dissociative identity disorder, is the correct term. I am a plural and I personally don't care but fun facts.
@@UriClarke exactly what ronin said! essentially, parts of a system are most often called “alters” and thats what Remor would be, not a “split personality” since after research that was deemed incorrect ^_^ I suggest doing a bit of research on DID if you want, its a really interesting disorder and since I have it I enjoy talking about it :>
Honestly, I always had an inkling that Fran Bow had something that I was missing. The phrases they chose, the amount of dead children and babies, the systemic corruption, it felt so purposeful that it wasn’t just a plot, it had to reference something. I never would’ve put it together that it was from 1944, let alone that it was about wartime experimentation. I dunno why, but I never really thought about when it was set, but now that you’ve pointed this out, and with the rest of your points, it makes a lot more sense. Plus another commenter’s saying that Kamala and valoka was Finnish, it just answered so many questions I had when playing Fran Bow. My mind is positively blown, cause I feel I had all this info, but didn’t have a cinch pin. This video is that cinch pin, so thank you for making it. :) plus, it just reminded me of one of my favorite horror games.
Before even watching the video I saw the title and just went OH. I hadn't made the connection at all, wondering what was going on, but it seems so obvious in retrospect. Great video
For me, the third chapter was in Fran's mind. Because she fell off a cliff, she past out on the ground and starded "dreaming" Her main wish in her mind is to be normal, and have the possibility to come back to society. In this world, she had the chance to get out all of the "bad things in her body" and helps the other creatures. In the end, she knows that deep inside of her, she stills evil (with the visions of her doing horrible things), so she leave the "goood world"
The reality and fantasy and delusion stuff is really tricky, reminds me of Pan's Labyrinth. Some stuff is definetly real no matter the fantasy, especially since Miss Fortune is another game in this universe, but how much of that might be Fran's mind is not clear.
48:21 The Thalamus is a part of what is called the “Primitive Brain” and is responsible for things like: - sleep/wake cycle - consciousness - Sensory perception - relaying motor (physical movement) information - controlling attention span - cognitive memory - regulating emotions -formation of memories - sexual arousal - learning It’s an integral component in allowing all this information to get to the correct part of your brain so that it can be stored and used for later. So disconnecting it from your frontal cortex in any compacity would be bad. As the cortex is needed for the thalamus to communicate. Damage to the Thalamus can cause the following: -Apathy - Amnesia - Aphasia (the loss or inability to speak/understand language) - troubles with attention and alertness - trouble processing sensory information - impaired movement - sleepiness (hypersomnia) or inability to sleep (insomnia) - chronic pain - Thalamic Aphasia (jumbled or meaningless speech) - movement disorders - pain syndromes - thalamic pain response (tingling or burning pain) - vision problems -strokes - tremors So in the end if you’re thalamus isn’t working you’re up shits creek without a paddle. Luckily there is treatments out there to help people with these issues. Some including but not limited to medication.
i absolutely adore this game. It left a massive impact on me as a kid and now as a young adult. Thanks for letting me revisit such an important part of my childhood
Gotta say canonically Itward is seemingly a real entity, as he shows up again in their other game: Little Misfortune. I dont want to spoil the events of LM if you haven't seen it but hes seen in a moment, breifly, that has a genuinely different context than Franbow. The head hair creature also briefly appears in the game.
I discovered Fran Bow like 5 years ago through a youtuber who was doing a playthrough of it. I've always been afraid of anything scary or horror but this game was just so cool to me that i needed to have it, even after watching two full playthroughs. I was about 12 or 13 years old at the time and I played this game over and over again (I was not even a gamer, this was the first game I ever played). I also spent so much time watching lore videos and hyperfixating on it. To this day, it is still one of my favorite games. I haven't played it two years or so and dude when I saw this video on my feed I HAD TO click on it. All the sounds, songs and visuals from this game give me so much comfort and I'm so happy someone is talking about Fran Bow rn because I feel like nobody ever brings it up anymore. Also, great video ❤
this is such a needed revisit to a game forgotten to time. you deserve so much recognition man, keep up the good work, this was phenomenal! you brought light to topics that haven’t really been talked about, and i thought i knew everything about this game!!
My theory about the twins is that they weren't conjoined at birth but maybe the doctor had conjoined twins and wanted to recreate that and used the twins as an experiment. Or were the twins were conjoined at birth and had multiple tests on them and they (the twins) were experimenting on a baby. Or, option number 3, the baby was an experiment alongside the twins?
LOOVE the whole analysis dude, and I love this theory! I never saw it that way back when I played the game for the first time, but it makes just so much sense.
Minor Tw btw. I watched people play this game when I was 10, right when it came out. As a 10 year old I should NOT have been exposed to it.. or should I? I had already developed a strange obsession with death and darker things before internet access. My drawings depicted this and my parents had lectured me seeing this gore ish art. Stole my art from me, questioned me thousands of times, yelled at me, etc. to this day I don’t understand my strange interest in death or dark things, but I understand a part of it. I am autistic and have gone through severe neglect, SA trauma, severe bullying, general abuse, etc. and never got treatment. I was gaslit constantly and fully believed I had made it up. This game honestly saved me in a way I can’t describe. Yes, it’s dark, it’s fucked up, it’s nothing a 10 year old should see. However, in my mind, I had already seen all of these things. My mind had already turned my trauma into night terrors and sleep paralysis and depicted what happened to me into something easier to handle; gore in an art form. This game and many other “dark” games showed me how to cope, in a way. And now, I’m in college to be a mortician and put people to rest. I’ll never regret being exposed to Fran bow.
Keep in mind, I thought I’d share this to connect with others who watched Fran bow as a kid or young teen. I don’t want sympathy or anything, I simply want to connect with others.
It does give a sort of resonance to be told that other children also experience these terrors. When you fixate on dark subjects, it doesn't necessarily mean you thrive off of the misery induced from the tragedies but it can often mean that you find peace in knowing you're not alone in seeing and acknowledging the darker sides of our lives, that you're also normal for struggling with such.
I'm sorry you've gone thru that. I hope you're doing better now. I was exposed to unsupervised internet since I was 4 (just entered the teenage years of my life) so I came across stuff, both good and bad. Take care :3
Fran bow has been my hyperfixation since it came out. I’ve kept it other back burner in recent years due to lack of content about it. This, is glorious
Wow this video made me emotional. I watched a gameplay of Fran Bow when I was younger on Jacksepticeye's channel and though I loved it I never fully understood what the game was about. Your explanation makes so much sense. It made me realise that it wasn't just a cool horror game, it was based on experiences of real people which is truly sickening. The brain is such an interesting organ, it's frightening how a seemingly small damage done to it can completely alter your perception of reality.
The sound thing you pointed out made me think that perhaps fran was already being experimented on by aunt grace unknowingly which explains her seeing those visions. And about the fran killing her parents theory: i think they were already dead prior to her arrival just like she says but instead of running away she must've gone into a state of insanity and took the knife and started plunging it into her dad's back just like in the vision the demon shows her. Her dress and everything is too tidy compared to the room and there's also a pentagram drawn on ground as if her parents were sacrificed. Everything of the story can be explained besides her parents death which is very odd to me, considering how fran (a child) wouldn't be capable of dismembering her parents with just a knife, the bones are extremely hard to be cut through with just a knife. And her parents could've easily stopped her. But the odd thing is that how her parents bodies in the grave are perfectly put together, as if they were never dismembered in the first place. It could be that they were sewn back together but her mother's neck is perfectly attached to her body even though she was decapitated. Plus their bodies seem to be in the stage of active decay which means that it has probably been more than few months since they passed. Its just extremely odd when i analyse it idk 😭
It’s an interesting theory for sure and maybe when this little is misfortune video comes out you it’ll but am I opinion. I’m leaning more towards it being completely fake or completely but I did find the sound of be a really interesting component.
Damn UA-cam thanks for telling me this video released … slash sarcasm … I saw the community post just now. Stupid bell. Fran Bow is one of those games I wish I could forget so I could play it again for the first time.
This is not even just a Fran Bow video but a documentary type video talking about Lobotomy, I learned this in my psychological class in high school and it was unnerving to me. And Fran Bow was by far one of my favorite horror type games to watch others play and explain. I don't doubt anyone else talked about the history on what this game was about, though a lot loved to talk about the lore of the story, so at least this video is different from those. I don't remember people relating this game to the lobotomy cases back in the day. Edit: And how did i just find you?? Sub-!
Great stuff man, I came across your channel as youtube recommended it to me! I will definitely be binge-watching more as I love video essays! I just wanted to point out a few things that I noticed while playing the game a few times over and my own theories about it: 1. Remor as a name is very similar to the word Remorse. I truly believe Fran Bow did murder her parents in a moment of mental instability, and later her cat died in those woods, and it is her Remorse that terrorizers her during her moments of lucidity, taking the form of a demon in her mind. I also believe that Fran Bow's brain tries to protect her from remembering her trauma and therefore causes her to fall unconscious whenever something reminds her of her trauma (hence the fainting every time Remor shows up). 2. I think her aunt Grace was the one to announce to the papers that Fran Bow was dead too as she was close to Dr. Oswald and knew they couldn't experiment on her if the public was looking for her. 3. The meds she was taking was also definitely worsening her mental state and causing the lines of reality and her subconscious to blur (the conjoined twins scene applies here, I think she hallucinated the whole thing after seeing the bodies in the well and photos of the twins in the asylum), hence the emotional detachment to all the gore and that it was Dr. Oswald who switched the medicine in order to justify the need for surgery. 4. The Estrella segment was her dreams when she was under anesthetic undergoing her lobotomy by Dr. Oswald and that Itward was a nurse who told her stories and cared for her during her recovery from the surgery. 5. Dr. Dern tried to save her by showing her the papers about her death and her parent's graves as I don't believe he was a bad man and didn't known Fran Bow was wrongfully declared dead or that her meds were switched but was silenced by Dr. Oswald. 6. In the end, the lobotomy deeply worsened her mental state as well as her physical health, blending the normal reality and her unstable mental state into one, as she aimlessly wandered around the ward interacting with doctors that look like weird creatures as her mind has replaced their image with what Fran Bow's subconscious believes them to truly be. I think at the end she did actually die as her brain never truly healed from the surgery hence why Dr. Oswald kills her in that scene, as he technically did from performing the lobotomy on her. It's truly a tragic tale but an incredibly interesting one. I'm looking forward to seeing what you cover next!
Great video, I first played this game almost 10 years ago and I'm still discovering new theories and things about it. There are some things I'd like to add: Dr Deern tells Fran that Duotine (I love how the name of the medicine is similar to "duality") opens a door to the subconscious mind, so her hallucinations would be pretty much like nightmares, that's why they all have to do with her trauma (blood, dead bodies). And from the beginning of the game she never shows fear in front of those hallucinations, instead she calmly reflects on them or even laughs at them. I remember that at the beginning of the game, just after talking with Dr Deern and passing out, Fran is told that she slept for several days straight. Could it be possible that she was lobotomized right then, instead of after she escaped? And at the end of the game her two realities merge due to the amount of medicine she has taken at that point (the door to her subconscious mind ended up permanently opened). Also, as other comments said, Dr Oswald is clearly inspired by Dr Mengele, and if you take into account that the game takes place during WW2, it's very possible that Oswald is actually Mengele and they changed his name so we could see everything through the eyes of a little girl who doesn't know what's happening. I'll copy paste some fragments of a theory I found on Reddit: "[Dr Mengele] showed a lot of interest in identical twins. He would perform some experiments on one twin and use the second one as reference. He even once tried to create Siamese twins by sowing two identical twin girls together. [...] Could the asylum be part of a concentration camp? [...] [Mengele] set up a kindergarten for his victims, where they would have better food and housing than other prisoners in the camps, as well as a playground to play in. Oswald asylum would be a direct parallel of such a kindergarten. The evidence for this is that Fran can see a watchtower with search light from the windows of the asylum (as well as a playground). Why would an institution that already had a guard, several nurses, a lot of locked doors and a surrounding fence also need a watchtower with a searchlight to prevent drugged-up children from escaping? It wouldn’t. Not unless that institution was just one building on the grounds of a concentration camp." "[Duotine] influences the pineal gland, a part of the brain shaped like a pinecone. The function of this gland is to produce a hormone called melatonin. This hormone is tied to a person’s sleep pattern and internal clock. The fact that the pineal gland regulates the internal clock is rather intriguing, as an ability to affect the pineal gland would give Fran the ability to influence her internal clock, much like she does in Ithersta." "Fran uses her imagined and/or drugged state to achieve real-world feats that should otherwise have been impossible, such as opening the door of her room and placing the key in place in the nurse’s office without the nurse seeing her in chapter 1, and opening the locks that tie her to her bed at the beginning of chapter 5. The explanation to this ‘power’ can be found in the pineal gland, the part of the brain I mentioned earlier. This part of the brain was also called ‘the seat of the soul’ by French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes, and it is tied to the soul and the ‘third eye’ in multiple spiritual philosophies. The definition of what the ‘third eye’ does differs from one philosophy to the next, but it consistently seems tied to some mystical power, so that’s the way I’ll keep it. If Oswald’s experiments and drugs did give Fran control over her pineal gland, then this would allow her to open her third eye and use this ‘mystical power’ to control the physical world, as well as to read Dr. Deern’s mind." The theory goes on about how the objective of the experiments on Fran was to create a Nazi super soldier (here's the link if someone's interested www.reddit.com/r/GameTheorists/s/NX4HQrpcqV ), which is kind of a stretch in my opinion but has some interesting points. I agree with other comments that Aunt Grace had a connection with Dr Oswald and one of them possibly hired a hitman to kill Fran's parents and then triggered her psychosis with medicine. And the lobotomy theory explains a lot of things too. This game is complex as hell, I love it.
oh maaaan i never expected to see a fran bow video in 2024. the other thing i didnt expect is to hear something NEW about the game. i never thought the game was about lobotomy. thank you for making me look at the game from this perspective. thank you for the video! best of luck
I think that after chapter one when she got "sedated" or passed out, thats when the doctors actually performed the lobotomy in chapter two (with fran killing the pig and the twins probably being a topic of conversation with the doctors when she was sedated or such(when people are in comas, they can sometimes hear people talk, or her memories of finding the twins in the well could be replaying in her head)) and maybe then something went wrong during the procedure because shes paralyzed in chapter three when she wakes up, then after the lobotomy she slowly regains her strength to walk and solving puzzles(to test her ability to function after?) and communicating with the strange people(which she at first couldn't understand, which could be a side effect of the "failed" lobotomy) she begins to understand the people through a new perspective (the axolotl doctor being good and the tree people could maybe be patients??) And then the rest goes as you said(her being bipolar and psychotic and so on)
The security guard asking for a kiss and telling her to sit on his knees was honestly absolutely disturbing. I saw version of thr game where this didn't happen
Bro, my psychiatrist told me not to stay there anymore ( I was there for like 20 min to talk with her) because it is bad for my mental health. Like I can understand, having so many crazy people in one place is not a good thing, but really? Tbh, I only had anxiety, so she was righ to not stay there 💀I had a panic attack there bcs I got scared from a schizophrenic lady screaming mean things to me, a dude telling me how the voices are killing him and mental breakdown from another woman screaming like we were in a exorcism movie. Yeah, I would rather die than be there 💀
For those in the replies I had a “doctor” or manager first thing she said is we are politically correct bc I am trans and she got annoyed with me the whole time just for existing and having one of the worst days of my life, I start crying again and then she calls in like 7 people to hold me down and sedate me after I’m done crying. I still get ptsd attacks from that and nightmares
not gonna lie this is the first time ive ever invested in Fran Bow, but your video makes it so amazingly worth it!! im a video essay lover and this i think i love the most too
I dont usually comment, but I love your video style. It's got the feel of a well-made ARG where the main character has a diary of new and more disturbing discoveries. I love how we find these things out together (its been so long since I've seen a playthrough of fran bow). Keep it up!
Ive loved fran bow, Ive watched many videos, but this is honestly one of my favorite videos ive seen about it. You did a great job :') I dont know why lobotomies never really crossed my mind all that much, at least not to the depth you explained it. And you brought up a lot of things that I didnt pick up on or havent heard before Good job dude, Im glad this made it to my reccommended and Im excited to watch your other videos and see what else you make and come up with
Wasn't that obvious?
👁👄👁
No, not for me. Though I did not know that what Lobotomy even remotely was. I thought her aunt hired a hitman to kill her parents, so that she could be the new guardian for Fran, so that she'll be able to have the doctor perform his experiments on her, without any annoying outsiders.
@@Schwupsdupsbeepboop that… actually makes a lot of sense in its own right 💀💀
If you took a millisecond to look at the comments on this video it obviously wasn't 👍
when i first watched the gameplay, i didn't think about lobotomy at all so no it wasn't
I think the twins weren't conjoined by birth but sewn together as infants, and that they wanted to be separated again after growing up.
Ahh yeah I knew that sorry if I never doubled back to explain properly. Yeah I figured they were sewn together, died, and thrown in a well but Oswal. I still don’t get why we saw a real picture of them being grown up
@UriClarke personally, I felt it was supposed to tie into what we learn about Fran's aunt and mother later on. That Oswal had been experimenting on different sets of twins for a long time.
@@StonedHunter HOLY- UR RIGHT!!!! Everything just clicked ur so freaking right 😭
@@UriClarke happy to help ^.^ it confused me too at first. I personally love how they leave a lot of things like this up to the player to figure out. It really forces you to invest yourself into the world of the game.
Okay not to be rude, but in the game, there are images of them separate I'm pretty sure???
The little girl with the crayons in the asylum is actually an SA victim and survivor, and she was suspected to be blamed for this event. when you take the pill you can see handprints on her body, presumably where her assailant touched her. The little boy with the cane who calls himself king was also touched inappropriately by a religious figure, probably a local priest. No one believed him and he was sent to the asylum.
Yeeeeeah ik I just didn’t want to say it explicitly UA-cam doesn’t like that sorta topic
The censorship on YT these days is wild 😔
@@MurrayJones-od2gdyeah they don’t let us touch on sensitive topics, no matter how nice and careful we’re about it, and yet at the same time they let in the people who cause these horrible problems into the platforms. Sometimes it lowkey makes me wonder if something that was coded in the algorithm is truly siding on the bad people here, and silencing the ones who are exposing them
@@UriClarke that's because they secretly LOVE that topic, but just try to make it seem like their morals are In the right place, never thought we'd have to protect the predators feelings instead of the victims. That's messed up.
@@LillianGraceFullofficial FOR SURE! Recently I watched a video of Nick Crowely's about fake animal resues. It baffles me how there so many people getting paid for straight up animal abuse. Like they'll put a baby kitten in the grass with snakes then save the cat, re-nurture it then rinse and repeat
FRAN BOW?? ON MY FYP??? IN OUR YEAR 2024???? *AND AN ALMOST 1 HOUR LONG VIDEO AT THAT???? SIT ME THE FUCK DOWN*
HAHAHAHAH someone said I was a bit late to the party. better late than never
HONESTLY
@@UriClarke its late but it's still perfect for its time!!
it's been years since i heard of this game and is so cool to someone analyzing it nowadays, and seeing it all again with different views than the first time when i was younger, great vid❤️❤️
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT AAAAAAAAA I'M SO HAPPY
RIGHT?? 😃
I've said it before and I'll say it again- Philmore probably tried to protect Fran or at least warn her. He knew about Remor, he knew about the lobotomies, he just tried to warn Fran. Everything he said would happen did happen. So he probably had good intentions, but the execution was shitty.
I'm a Phil apologist since the first time I played this game.
no same I never had bad vibes from the kid, that's why I wasn't going to the jump to "BETRAYAL"
true phil-anthropy
phil supremacy 🗣️
He probably didn't know how to tell her, i mean how do you tell soemone about that stuff?
Expecally a child like fran is how do you explain that to a child
Fun fact! The words "kamala" and "valokas" are also words in finnish, respectively meaning horrible and bright/light
Finally i see someone else mention the Finnish bits! I've always felt that it was too good to be a coincidence, though tbf i haven't searched for any discussion on it before.
Considering that Killmonday Games is swedish, its most likely intentional!
DAMN! I totally missed that I wish I could roll back time, that's such a neat easter egg
Don’t mention that crook liberal
söit etkä jättänyt murusia
From my memory, the guy who sewed up the twins is based off an actual Nazi guy who experimented on twins. I figured the twins we talk to was the one "success" the guy had, but they died later (the letter saying the weaker one would die, but the thing about conjoined twins is: If one dies and the other is still connected then the other one would died not much later. So my opinion about the multiple babies: They were the "failures" and the sisters see that as their superiority, hence why they keep the babies around. To make them feel better than the rest. Since they do act like they are better than Fran and a few other characters in the game
dr mengele aka the angel of death
@@lucialinh356 the angel of death huh...? I was thinking what kind of videos could I take my channel next, and evil historical figures could be next
mom and aunt grace are also twin sisters. i dont remember if its confirmed but it is at least hinted at the fact that they were experiment on too. hence why aunt grace was so close with the one guy.
@@chocolate_flora yup it was definitely confirmed with that picture we find with Oswald relatively younger and the girls looking identical also now that I think about it we never seen Fran’s mom outside of the cutscenes
i commented before i finished the video lol my bad. i played this game a long time ago and just jumped at the opportunity to talk about it again
With this and Little Misfortune being in the same universe, we really start to get a good picture of the larger thesis. In LM, there’s the masks of smiling faces on the adults, depicting this idea of how people are told that they should just fake it and never reach out. We can see, though, through her parents being addicts, abusive, neglectful, etc. that it will come out in other ways and that’s why everything Misfortune goes through happens. In Fran Bow, we see multiple ways the field of psychology has failed people in the past. Unethical twin studies, lobotomy, crazy drug experiments, locking people away indefinitely. I am so interested in seeing what else will come our way in this series.
I haven't gotten around to playing LM, hoping to one day really talk about the bigger story/world at hand
(Two weeks later I’ve finished the game and am working on the vid now! 7 mins in so far)
@@UriClarke You should play it asap, it's really interesting
@@UriClarkeit’s such a good game play it !
@@UriClarkeit’s really good! As a hint- make sure you pay close attention to sparkles!!!
@@UriClarkeI would also love to see your gameplay of these videos and your first reactions!
I think that Fran didn't have her first psychosis episode out of nowhere. I once heard the theory that aunt who took care of Fran gave her the medicines she was told to take later in the game, then she killed Fran's parents putting the blame on this kid so she ended up in a mental hospital. I believe she had some connections with... Ekhm... "Doctors" in this facility.
OHHHHHH UR RIGHT AUNT GRACE DID COME OVER OFTEN
I’m glad someone else thinks this. I never thought Fran killed her parents. I think either Grace did it herself or manipulated Fran with drugs.
@@pnd-uc8bt
With how fran is i can't see her killing her parents randomly, something had to have happened and i know the aunt did something..m
i would like to add that fran's eyes are commonly shown to be bleeding. many lobotomies were performed by inserting an icepick through the eye socket to reach the frontal lobe. her eyes bleeding when she cries may be hinting at fran having undergone this method of surgery.
Bro let this man COOK
I COOKEDE ZACH I COOKED
@@UriClarkeYou cooked and we ate
@@UriClarkecooked fr
I thought you said cock omg
@@UriClarke HELLL YEH
The frame size, the not super hd but not too grainy quality, the outfit, makes you look like an 90's-2000's icon about to commit a scandal but everyone thinks you're so nice and cool that they still love you lmao
lmfao bro have that 2007 swag
that's one of the most backhanded compliments I've ever received xD I'll take it thanks! glad you enjoyed it
@@UriClarke Seriously bro I love the quality of your camera lol
Gives me the nostalgic feeling of youtube when it's still good
Needless to say, I love the video, look forward watching more of your contents :)
Btw mental hospitals or wards still suck, unfortunately went there twice as a patient when I was a teen and worked there as a nurse for a while, I felt like shit when I was admitted there bc no one wanted to help, they just got angry with everyone for the slightest trouble they caused due to their illnesses, and I feel so bad for the patients when I worked there after I grow up, the meds can only numb their mind and can't completely heal them, they also need a therapist that can talk their mind out of their mental maze but most hospitals only have doctors that seemed so cold about their patients
@@UriClarkeno i love it for real, having your camera give your footage a 90s era type vibe is so cool and unique, i think you should keep it!
As someone with a mental disability and who has episodes of paranoia, I honestly sometimes forget how mentally disabled people were treated back then and it’s terrifying to hear about. This whole game feels comforting in a weird way, but also shows the horrors of the times back then.
(also great video! I love your voice, it’s very comforting to listen do and your jokes are funny)
Yeah, but it’s still pretty bad from what I hear obviously, I don’t suffer from any disabilities but hospitals in general can differ with the environment, so I’m glad that your experience was great but later down the road I wanna focus on modern day hospitals and how things can improve
@@UriClarke Oh yeah, still very true. I’ve had friends who deliberately didn’t go to hospitals because of the conditions. I can’t wait to see more from you!
@@FloatyyBrain My sister's in the same boat. We can hardly support her here, but Mum keeps saying if we can't keep our heads above the water she'll be put in a room with a TV and a bed and basically nothing else, which would obviously only exacerbate _anyone's_ issues.
I’m a survivor of institutionalization as a young person in my early teens there was so much going on with me no one not even myself knew just what was going on with us, until that one visit they diagnosed us with Major depressive disorder at 14, left the hospital went back to the psyche ward a year later then got rediagnosed with bipolar disorder, left, came back at 16 diagnosed again but as schizoaffectie disorder which is schizophrenia and a mood disorder like drepression or bipolar or both which I was, and then two years later went back gout out in outpatient rehab only to find out at the age of 18 that we have polyfragmented complex dissociative identity disorder. Yeah so, all my life growing up was just one big journey to figure who the fuck I am and that I’ve got like 93 people in here and still counting all because of severe serious and ongoing life threatening child abuse growing up. I immediately gravitated to this game when it’s was first announced and yeah it’s true they really look down on the mentally I’ll and the disabled like us so yeah a lot o it feels like you’re just a caged animal trying to escape. I am very fucking thankful we don’t come from anywhere before the 1980s cause we would have been sterilized and killed at a hospital
Yesss! hello! This game was fascinating to me as a kid bc i suffered from paranoia due to emmence stress that i didn't consciously process bc i was so young. I was terrified of the supernatural, but Fran Bow was being so brave in the face of horrifying stuff that i was just addicted to watching playthroughs
This game was scary in a really mental way. Vacillating between one reality and another terrifying one, trying to connect the two to survive. It was creepy and in retrospect reminds me of the Kennedy sister that was lobotomized. For no reason. Great insight.
holy- you're so right. I remember that story. She was slow of learning but getting better, then they lobotomized her and hid her away from the public eye.. insane stuff
Rosemary Kennedy! I'll never forget her name, the poor dear... lobotomized and left to rot, forgotten even in her lifetime
@@paigemarcum5586 whats even worse to me is that they had all the money in the world! They could have sent her with a caregiver (not that she needed one but just as a support system) to a lovely home in a nice location of her choice. She could have made new friends and worked whatever job she wanted and had a fulfilling life away from those psychos, and they would have gotten what they wanted which was to keep people from seeing her. They could have changed her name too ffs. Apparently a lobotomy and a locked room was cheaper though. rich people who do horrible things to save money are literally among the crappiest people on earth.
@@UriClarkeapparently her intellectual disability, her stubbornness, as well as that she liked to go out and be a party girl all contributed to her lobotomization. It's so messed up
@@CBrown86they actually did do that at first. During WW2 I think she had to leave her caregiver and friends. I’m pretty sure it really negatively affected her and then she was lobotomized:(
in regards to the twins, it seems pretty obvious that they were born separate (the picture of them as babies separately), then sewn together (the infants sewn together with visible stitches + thread), then grew up (what you refer to as the "real picture of them grown up", it looks like theyre younger in there than how fran meets them in person. also they dont look naturally conjoined, as you can see stitches going down the middle).
I see what you mean, I think I got confused because the infant version's heads look like they were alone sewn while the others seemed to be sewn, but below the head
Oh, I 100% this game on Steam and was very confused about what the message of the game was. I understood the raw idea, but couldn't tell exactly what. I just finished the game and moved on with my life. Nice to see someone making a review of it.
But still, I have a friend with a mild case of schizophrenia or some other untreatable mental illness, I've never ever asked what exactly because it's awkward. Most of the time he's an absolutely normal guy, but from time to time, like once a month or two, he can call me in the middle of the night, start messaging me, or just "snap" when we are together in person and start rambling something about the meaning of the universe and that structure of Slavic languages somehow influence the laws of thermodynamics, and other things similar to that, and what he tells usually makes absolutely no logical sense, even if you actively try to understand, it's a pure stream of thoughts. I had known him for years, but this trait of his annoyed me a lot, and I didn't really do a good job hiding it from him, and he really got upset every time I showed my frustration. Not in a way "what a bad friend you are", but more in a way "Why don't you understand, it is so obvious, why don't you even try to listen".
So, after playing this game, the insanity of what happens there made me think, that maybe that's something similar to what he experiences during these episodes, and it made me feel so... gross? Thinking about that made me feel like a really bad friend, and made me re-think how I treat him. After that, when he did this, I stopped showing my frustration, and instead just started to listen. Yes, it still makes no sense, but come on, the guy feels like he opened a third eye and sees the essence of the universe, anybody would freak out, so why not make him feel at least a little bit more comfortable. And, it kind of worked, when I listen he no longer gets upset, and even though he never remembers that it happened, our relationship in his "normal state" became more warm too. And these episodes started to happen less. I'm not a psychiatrist, and maybe by enabling it I only make it worse in some way or another, but it just makes me feel like a good friend, I no longer want him to wander in the nightmare alone like Fran Bow does.
at first when I saw all this was like "jeez that's a lot" but then reading it I teared up xD I'm so glad that Fran Bow helped you strengthened your bond with your friend. No one should be alienated for what they believe even if it's total ramblings. indulge, it'll make a world of difference, especially if what they're saying isn't hurting anyone.
@@UriClarke I mean, he doesn't really believe that, there's nothing to believe, it is just a product of his brain glitching once in a while, I even wrote it down once and showed to "normal" him and he agreed it makes no sense at all.
But what I understood by playing this game, it doesn't really matter if that makes sense or not to me, during the episodes down there for him he's still a normal rational human experiencing some batshit insane things which to him are too very rational and real at the moment, and having a friend who gets annoyed when he actively asks for some emotional support might suck a lot. And the game gave me an opportunity to see the sutiation from this perspective, which I didn't even imagine before playing it.
You are absolutely doing the right thing. You might not feel like you're abor to do much, but sometimes just being there and present is enough. You may never understand what he sees or goes through, but just know that it's a lot less difficult to go through that alone
This was intimidatingly long but very well written, thank you for sharing this warm moment of humanity with us :)
really interesting realisation, thank you for sharing
man your voice is so comforting, it sounds like someone telling a sweet bedroom story but the story is the original grimm brothers fairytales
INSANE!!! thank you I honestly hate my voice sometimes
@@UriClarkeITS SO NICE
The autopsy of the parents said they were perfectly sliced as if there wasn’t a struggle also a fully grown and healthy adult can take down three children at once
I think Fran witnessed or at least saw the aftermath of Aunt Grace killing her parents this traumatized her so much she made two separate characters to represent aunt Grace
Itward calls Fran dear like how aunt Grace does when she’s putting on a mask for Fran also calls her dear
While Remor calls Fran darling just like how aunt Grace does when she drops her mask she starts calling Fran darling
Hol up ur kinda spitting I didn’t even realize but ur definitely right
@@UriClarkeye
yes this us what I always thought too!!
That's actually a very good reading. Thanks for sharing! I haven't played the game in a while now, but I feel like the interpretation that Fran killed her parents is flawed - because of the complete lack of motive, and the fact that generally the game represents mental health issues fairly straightforwardly (in the most gruesome way of course) and the idea of a random psychosis or "split personality" (not actually representative of how the real-life disorder that is Dissociative Identity Disorder functions at all - especially with no reason to depict DID patients as perpetrators of crimes, it would not only be inaccurate but also be mismatching with the narrative of the game) isn't strongly backed up. Aunt Grace's responsibility is more than hinted at. That Fran created two images in her mind, one of the comforting Aunt who took care of her, and the other of the Aunt who killed her parents, because she can't comprehend that both people are one and the same, is a very interesting perspective.
@@jadziajan yeah and more realistic since they have clear knife wounds not gun wounds because the only weapon Fran could use to actually kill her parents is a gun if it was her that killed them but not a knife since she would be easily overpowered and disarmed
But Grace who is the same age as Frans mother due to being twins and probably knows about where the hidden key is and would have a better chance at attacking the parents with a knife than a child like Fran
Rosemary Kennedy is alway the first lobotomy example that comes to mind. She was related to JFK but due to a shitty midwife when she was born, she had her own mental issues that got worse as she got into her 20s. So her dad took her to get a lobotomy, and then abandoned her either at a hospital or a church. Her family didn’t know where she went until about 20 years later, when all of her siblings and mother visited her every now and then, as she lived in a cottage close to a hospital so nurses could visit her and take care of her. Her dad never visited her, she watched her brother’s assassination on the tv, and died around 2003-2005
It wasn't just mental issues, she had intellectual disability due to the lack of oxygen. It wasn't solely because of her intellectual disability, but she was also headstrong and a bit of a party girl, and the Kennedys hated that about her. They didn't like that she was a disabled woman who didn't act like a child I guess.
Just as a heads up: Male victims (yes, victims) of lobotomies weren't as common as women, but the most lobotomized men were gay men.
Yeah, when I was doing lobotomies research on them, I came across that many subjects were either gay men, women, or people with slight illnesses, varying in severity. This game was tough because I didn’t want to focus on parts of history that wasn’t translated within the game but trust me I’ve come across many horrid depictions history regarding lobotomies
I think migraine-sufferers as well. Most of which, iirc, suffered far worse ones most time afterwards 🥲@@UriClarke
@@UriClarkewhat were your sources for this? as in like. Where’d you find the information about lobotomies/research? Did you frequent any specific places? Askin’ because this is. Part of a thing I’m doing
True, JFK and RFK’s sister was lobotomized all because she wasn’t acting like all the other high society women. She was a free thinker and had free will. Her parents and doctors practically murdered her for being herself.
Not even surprised smh
this is a brilliant video, as someone who suffers with a lot of the same mental disorders that fran is implied to have, the perspective that she was really just a sick girl being taken advantage of hits so close to home. i know a lot of other people stick to the supernatural route of possibility in the plot, but the concept of her being forced into undergoing horrific "treatments" and having to learn to cope feels so much more real. thank you for discussing this in such a respectful manner
I'm glad I could hit it somewhere in the ball park, Fran Bow's longest chapter was the hospital and it surprised me at how many people went with the supernatural route exclusively; the hospital was filled with all kinds of disgusting characters. So I reallllly wanted to capitalize on that part
As a person with diagnosed ADHD and autism, including depression and anxiety (both general and public anxiety), I can really relate to Fran. I’ve been on medications for a while, and sure, they help me, but I often feel ashamed. And I often need them just to function, as Fran does.
For me I'm content to see it as a mix. Mental illness deterioration and messed up experiments, but then demonic forces also taking advantage of it and making it even worse... Idk
This is so true, I seriously agree with this and feel this comment on a personal level man
"why wont he take my spiked cinnamon bun." - uri 2024
I shit you not 30 MINUTES was spent talking to that dude over and over again
The fact that the twins were experimented on and sewed together reminds me of the twin experiments from WWii I think your perspective is really interesting too.
I am unfamiliar with wat ur talking about but I’m interested share more so I can like make a video on this sometime down the road
@@UriClarkewith my understanding, it’s this doctor in world war 2 who would conduct experiments on jewish twins instead of executing them. Really horrific.
@@UriClarkethey mean world war 2 as far as I know.
@UriClarke there was this nazi doctor who would experiment on children and little kids and they were really interested in twins, look up Dr.Mengele if you wanna know more about it
@UriClarke Dr. Mengele. Biggest content warnings imaginable.
There's a book called "My Lobotomy" and it's an autobiography from a guy who went through the procedure as a child or young teenager and he was actually okay and "normal" afterwards. His stepmom didn't like him and convinced his father to make him go through it. It's a pretty good read.
He got lobotomized because some woman didn't like him???? AND HIS FATHER TOOK HER SIDE????
Did it affect him in any way?
@@anyoneatall3488 (if someone finds anything wrong with this comment due to not going into this story a lot and going off what I heard, please correct me) I haven’t read the book but I’ve heard of the guy, his name is/was Howard Dully and he was lobotomized around 12-13 because he was aggressive towards his stepmother, apparently so much so she feared for her life. He didn’t have any side effects or complications afterwards that I know of.
i've been waiting for someone to do an-depth analysis on Fran Bow for years now, this game has stuck with me since and i could never forget how messed up it was and loved seeing people's interpretations on it. Can't believe you only have 1.57k subscribers when this is some high-quality incredible analyzing. So glad I wasn't the only one extremely confused by the Vegetative State chapter, she just randomly turns into a tree and you just have to accept that with no questions. Really appreciated how you considered multiple perspectives and different interpretations of parts of the game rather than just going with what you assumed. This game is one of the only 2D horror games to have ever genuinely terrified and disturbed me as someone who loves delving into psychological horror and I really liked the dark comedic elements whenever Fran Bow just giggles at mutilated infants and Satanic rituals. Thank you for this.
glad you enjoyed it, Little Misfortune is next on my list ^^
Heyy if you want to see more fran bow reviews try searching on Russian youtube and translating the videos! It was pretty popular at some point so you will find loads of content
i absolutely agree
I remember watching play through of this game as a kid and being absolutely terrified. You kind of have a gross fascination with horror games as a kid and this game just made me so curious, but I would be scared to go to sleep at night after watching videos on it. I’ve avoided content around this game for a while because of that, but then this video popped up. I’m much older now and with your analysis, I think I can appreciate this game a lot more. Sure it’s still scary, but it’s much more grounded in reality and metaphorical than real “monsters”. Thanks for this vid!
You're so right. the first anime I ever watched was Elfen Lied; why? NO CLUE!! kid's just like scary but also hate it
I mean with little miss fortune it was kinda confirmed that the big majority of what Fran experienced is real and not something happening in her mind
@@UriClarkeyour literally me dude😭 i watched elfen lied multiple times and im only 14, same with fran bow, sally face and other things. I was so scared yet intrigued
This actually makes so much more sense as to why she was stuck in an Alice-In-Wonderland type world
16:04 I have a different theory for the “My Sober Day” title; I’ve heard sober used also to refer to clarity, not just literal sobriety. It could mean she sees the asylum for what it is, discovering that those medications and procedures are darkening their lives further and making them less aware of their surroundings, and her understanding of this is her sober awakening to her own situation
the voices r on point! i remember watching play throughs of this as a kid & being terrified. the way you describe it seems far more bittersweet compared to what i remember TT
really?? I tried not watching any other theory videos on fran bow because I wanted to really stand out with my own thought process, what did you think of the ending when you were younger?
@@UriClarke I'm still watching the video, but I remember thinking she died when I watched lets plays of it in highschool when it came out. I'm a big wuss tho so I usually don't ruminate on scary games too much. I think I've only ever watched 1 or 2 explanation videos of this game (yours included).
In the hospital basement, there's a box which explains duotine. I forgot what it says but you can find it
There's a note under the yellow variant of duotine and the red one which Fran uses in the box
The yellow one is an extremely much more mild version of the red pills and the twins have been confirmed to use it. The red one is basically the yellow one but on MAX.
"what the fuck am i playing" iconic
It was the first chapter too they came out swinging
I think the most upsetting thing about the beginning of the game is that the awful thing Fran is seeing in the psych hospital is all happening in a *children’s* hospital not that it’s not fucked up to do that stuff to adults but it’s so much worse to do to *children*
it's been a hot second since I've seen fran bow being talked about! Though it's more than welcome. This video seems sick!!
soooo many games are on my list, detention, sally face, lisa: the painful. stay tuned and hopefully I'm able to deep dive on all of them
@@UriClarke your commentary is so incredible I was tuned in the entire video, people underestimate how incredible the game detention is and I would absolutely be waiting ❤
@@UriClarkeid love to see you delve into sally face!!!! a lot of these kinds of games came out a while ago before deep dives were as common and before they were taken seriously past shock/horror factors. i absolutely love what you went into in this video and the playthrough reaction clips made me laugh!!!!
@@UriClarkeomggg the lisa trilogy is AWESOME and so, so disturbing
That guy that you tried spiking with a sleeping pill in the game there's some diolog that makes just about everyone hate the guy eve more. The guy will say he might or will give the kid if fran gives him a kiss. I believe this is a hint as to even more torment patients suffer through where employees take advantage of the patients. Granted I myself never experienced it but I have friends who experienced being in the nut house before and some of them were ether subjected to this, forced drug intake, and when they try reporting issues to staff and doctors they are absurd dismissive. This specifically happens to children from friends that told me so it's extremely disheartening to know these things happen. Btw I love how deep this video goes into this game and how it carefully breaks down and theorizes of what's really happening. This game is one hell of a mind-fuck and there have been a lot of times I questioned what's real and what isn't. What is real picture we are supposed to see. So this video helps shed a lot of light onto what can be he reality or give us hints with some solid pointers into the right direction.
Thanks ^^ yeah I didn’t want to mention it due to fears of demonization but yeah so many patients were sexually abused
@@UriClarke I don't blame ya, unfortunately UA-cam sometimes does it's job a little too well
Every time I hear about "Labotomy" I remember what my mum once told me about when the doctors found out about my learning dissability when I was 2 years old could have doing a lobotomy on me if my mum wanted it; because back in the early 90´s they thought that a learning dissability was a mental disorder to and called my learning dissability a low developmental disorder. thank Jesus my mum never wanted that to happen.
the last lobotomy was performed in the 60s.... why would they even suggest that in the 90s, i'm pretty sure it would've been illegal by that point
That's honestly terrifying. I was born in the 2000's and have autism, and I know several other people my age who are neurodivergent, some showing more obvious signs than others, sooner than others, and to know that doctors would've wanted to destroy our brains if we were born just a little bit sooner is horrific. I'm glad your mom didn't let them do that to you
I love how Fran Bow takes place decades ago but has so many parallels to modern day psychiatrist and wards, for example as soon as she gets there the Dr is shoving duotine down her throat, I think this is relatable to many people who experience neurdivergency. although this story is a very intense and crazy example of the neurodivergent experience it has many similarities to real life. love the video ur vibe is so chill :3
Also Fran is only 10 which can feel unrealistic to players considering all that she does but I've noticed a commonality in those who suffer from neurodivergencies and that is intelligence. Intelligence brings lots of pain especially when you examine the world and people around you
@@number1sealfan except that intellectual disability is a neurodivergency that is a known possible comorbidity with autism...
@@isthiscereallife well obviously not everyone who is neurodivergent is smarter than the average person 😭 thats why i specified its a commonality not a guaranteed trait...
@@number1sealfanfran is 10 years old btw
Dude discovering this game in middle school forever changed my brain chemistry lmao
Sameee something about these traumatic games with kid protagonists just stick with you lmaosh
I discovered it in elementary lol
youtube is recommending ne all these 1 hour long video essays and i absolutely love it
dude same xD nothing but random topics and I'm all for them
same thing here everything on my recommended is really long video essays and I'm all for it. specifically this video, it /knows/ I haven't touched on fran bow in a while
Eyyy same
I don't know if you have yet, but you should play Little Miss Fortune which takes place in the same universe and imo helps clear up the "is fran hallucinating or are there actually multiple worlds at play here" question. It's also just amazing in its own right.
Edit to add: I always saw the medication as forcing her to see the other world (i forgot all the names for the different worlds sorry) and not hallucinating, but that's just me.
I HAVE NOT!! I bought it but when I heard this came before I knew I'd have to make a video on fran this LM. but maybe i'll simply connect the two in the future
also sorry if it wasn't clear, my final stance on the game was that both was real. Fran indeed went to these other worlds, she just wasn't physically there; but the five realities indeed exist
@UriClarke nah you're fine you presented your thoughts very well. ^.^
I think it’s interesting in the newspaper that was showed to Fran about her death, both the mother and Aunt are twins themselves. It also states earlier that though the twin sisters were (forcefully) conjoined they hated each other and always would. Maybe this is hinting at the mother and aunts relationship? How the mother died but Aunt Grace hasn’t yet, but with conjoined bodies the other sister would die soon after. When Remor (?) phased the doctor out. It was Aunt Grace literally taking him out of the equation so she could have Fran.?
Just a fun theory!
What do you mean "with conjoined bodies the other would die soon after?" Grace and the mom were never conjoined, but were involved in different (unspecified as far as I can tell) experiments, and even are in a picture with the conjoined twins pre conjoining. Maybe I misunderstood, which is likely.
Some interesting things (to me) that I noted during the end segment:
The institute Fran is in is called Center of Brain Research and Pineal Gland Phenomenon. If there was ever doubt Fran has powers, the pineal gland is colloquially called the third eye. It's function includes 'letting in light and darkness'. The pineal gland also produces melatonin when exposed to darkness. This lead me to wonder if it could be related to narcolepsy, and low and behold, there's speculation that the pineal gland has something to do with that disorder. Perhaps Fran isn't passing out, per se. Perhaps she's suffering sleep attacks when the (figurative) "darkness" overwhelms.
Anyhow, thanks for the fun watch. It's been a hot second since I thought about Fran Bow, but your way of explaining was engaging and drew me in. I also appreciate your respectful demeanor toward the subject matter and parting suggestion. Subscribed for sure.
dont quote me on this, but about the sisters, weren't twins experimented on a lot by the nazis during the second world war? since this game takes place in 1944...
Explains the names of German origin and how the light are people who saw this unfortune maybe spirits ancestors. The dark represent the evil spirited intentions curiosities to achieve more medicine. "Find scientific achievement "
I think this game does represent reality as it had a pink asethetic in the twins, chambers showing the shiny idea that everything's ok and perfect when, in reality there's a lot of trauma and not a lot of improvement with mental health. POOR Fran :(( I'm glad she got to go to the light. With the doctor and Mr. Midnight.
Yes. Dr. Mengele conducted horrific experiments on twins.
As someone who watched Fran Bow playthroughs as a kid and was unable to fully understand what was actually going on, I want to personally thank you for your service in analysing the game and allowing me to truly appreciate it in all of its depressing horror
This video game was so important to me as a child, I really felt seen. Seeing such a fresh take on the game that makes complete sense and gives more understanding of the games themes makes me fall in love with the game all over again 💕
we see you ^^ and thank you for watching
Finally, a gamer video essay that also can't do puzzles. You like me for real. Awesome video by the wau!! You have a good voice for this, and I appreciate how coherant everything was.
dude I just played soma. a game that's supposed to be 10 hours long. why'd it take me 12 hours xD
@@UriClarke Broski any sort of puzzle game- I HAVE to follow a guide or else I sit there like [: maybe if I keep staring at the screen somethings gonna happen.
i never thought about this when i was a kid (since the game came out when i was in middle school i think?). And holy shit. this like, makes so much sense. I always thought it was just a super natural lil story with demons and creatures. i never once considered the fact this could be a story through the eyes of a young girl suffering from all sorts of things. and the way you phrased everything and described was really easy to understand. :) enjoyed greatly
heheheh just my interpterion; really it's anyone's guess
Was i supposed to do some homework? Yeah. Did i watch a 56 min essay on franbow? Yeah.
"Goofy courage the cowardly dog ass jump scare" lmao
i knew it was all in her head but the lobotomy explains so much
Actually Little Misfortune shows that most of this is probably real (whether or not Fran had a lobotomy)
fran bow content in 2024 is like finding an old doll you loved as a kid when you move your furnitures.
also the fact that she cries red is very much like how patients would bleed out of their eyes after a lobotomy
Me when I spread misinformation on the internet:
Misinformation gaming 👍
After a quick google search this doesn't happen. However, you can cry blood while straining out constipation (Elvis Presley moment)
@@Dalek59862I will take this into consideration after eating a block of cheese
One thing that’s good about the timeline we’re living in as that Little Misfortune is in the same universe as Fran Bow, but is a lot more clear.
And what we do know about Little Misfortune is that (to an extent) everything is real.
Misfortune really is being hunted by a monster.
There are some things in Fran Bow that we end up seeing in Little Misfortune. The pigbeedle, little cone things, the hair face moth things, the heart symbolism, Itward, foxes (there’s a dead fox on Fran’s bed in the beginning of the game), and most notably…Morgo.
Technically, Morgo is not the same monster we see in Fran Bow. But he’s OBVIOUSLY the same species.
And I say he’s not the same person for 2…obvious reasons.
Different name.
Different build.
One of them is named Remor.
One of them is named Morgo.
“But what if he changed his name?” I’m sure nobody asked.
Well…
One of them is buff and has legs.
The other is not buff and has no legs.
So…same species, different people.
So what do we do with this info?
Well…here’s one detail that I feel we NEED to acknowledge.
…
Misfortune is dead.
Throughout the entire game (or at the very least the end of the first chapter onward), Misfortune is a dead child being haunted by Morgo.
And it’s stated that she sees things the way she would prefer them because…she’s dead. That’s just how wandering souls work I guess.
So if Misfortune is a wandering soul who sees things that aren’t technically there but for the most part everything is real…
…
Something you said is that people tend to die not long after lobotomies before the ice pick method was developed, right?
…
I think that’s what happened.
I think she got lobotomized, and died in the process.
“If you leave the house of madness, I will find you, and return you back to insanity.”
One thing I’ve noticed while rewatching playthroughs of both Fran Bow and Little Misfortune is just how different Morgo and Remor are, but…still similar.
Both of them are parasitic
Both of them manipulate their hosts/victims
Both of them go after multiple children at a time (I think).
But they do so in different ways.
Morgo, all things considered, is very childish. He plays games with his victims, and when they refuse…he throws a huge ass temper tantrum.
Morgo engages in the childish aspects of his victims.
Remor seems to attach onto the madness.
Remor has a running theme of insanity, of craziness, blah blah blah.
Now…I…you COULD infer that these monsters both have the same methods, and that they’re basing their strategies on how their victims died.
Misfortune might’ve died playing a game, and I genuinely think Fran died getting lobotomized just…based on how she acts (ALSO! When Remor makes her pass out she really looks like the ghost kids Misfortune sees. Just a thought)
But…that’s all speculation so who knows.
Another thing you could speculate is that Remor just…likes going after crazy kids. He’s not nearly as childish as Morgo, so it makes sense that he wouldn’t wanna play games the way he does.
Maybe “leaving” the asylum = “dying” in his eyes.
So what he’s really saying is:
“When you die, I will torment your wandering soul, and force you to endure madness throughout your afterlife.”
Pretty wild.
But anyway-
My bet is that Fran died during or after a lobotomy, and the rest of it is Fran’s soul wandering around being tormented by Remor, and then all the stuff she sees is like…the reality stuff, yeah, but also just her head messing with her.
So the giant ant guy might’ve not actually been a giant ant, but the beedlepig might be real because it makes an appearance in Little Misfortune?
It’s…
It’s not much less confusing, but it makes a the game make a LITTLE more sense?
God praise Little Misfortune for adding to the lore of this wonderland of a universe.
I always thought the remor and morgo were older / younger version of the same kind of spirit. I'm not sure if maybe remor is older and morgo younger or maybe it's the other way around. I do agree that they are not the same person/being, but the same type of spirit. I think maybe remor is older and that kind of spirt just changes form as it gets older and stronger. Morgo might be the younger version of this kind of spirit
@@ellier.4273 Remor would HAVE to be younger because Fran Bow takes place in the 40s, whereas Little Misfortune is more modern.
And there’s no evidence that suggests that Remor can like…time travel. So it can’t be that.
There’s also the thing with the drastically different personalities. Morgo is childish to the point where he throws full on temper tantrums. Remor is cold and calculating.
Remor is also supposedly powerful enough to kill the fox that might’ve been sent to help Fran, whereas Morgo wasn’t.
It’s small but important differences that tell me that they’re two different beings. Same species, just different beings.
I’m genuinely surprised at the lack of views! This is a great video
thanks man, I don't really do it for the views. I genuinely wanted to explore some the classics and love every second of it
When learning history of medicine you at first think that the grossest part would be medieval doctors, or war time surgeons... and then you read about Rosemary Kennedy.
you forgot the box in the basement that shows that the asylum experiments on their patients
There was a box?!
@@UriClarke yeah in the basement when u first drop down, if u take the pills it even says "lies in a box" on the wall ;)
I remember watching Franbow gameplay when I was young, extremely young, and it used to terrify me. I loved the art style and how it plays out it's stories, but being so young, still terrifying. Now that I'm older and know more, it still terrifies me but in a different way. Having trouble with mental health and troubling topics of my own, this game and many others, highlight the darkness and troubles in our world. I will always be in awe with game makers and how they may express real-world problems through fiction or historical-fiction-based games. (We Happy Few, Binding of Issac, Little Misfortune, games with a story taken place during WWII, and so much more)
Never thought that much of Fran Bow as a representation of the medication horror like lobotomy. I always liked to to interpret things about a cult and the whole fantasy stuff. Nice video, can’t wait for Fran Bow 2 to come out!!
Wait there’s gonna be a part????
@@SaltedRain Um yeah, there’s a teaser already don’t yk? It’s on the channel of Killmonday Games (devs) but we still don’t know much
I just checked Killmonday Games' channel, and there isnt a 2nd part of the game coming. they just made trailers for it being released on different platforms, not a part 2. while a part 2 world be cool, Idk what would happen in it.
my theory is that it‘s about Fran follow her destiny of having / being the key (don’t remember well) how Mother Mabuka told us. I hope Dr Deern is going to be there too but probably not. Btw there’s a theory that the skeleton with green eyes appearing at the end of Little Misfortune is Fran and we maybee will see Fran doing tasks like greeting souls or something like that. It’s probably going to be explaining unexplained mysteries from Fran Bow 1 and telling us more about Itward, León Castillo and other characters we don’t know much about. So Fran Bow 2 has a big amount of content possibilities
Oh no! I’m sorry, haven’t checked Fran Bow news for long and forgot some things. I just checked and there’s nothing but a concept art of how Fran and Itward would look in Fran Bow 2. Sorry for giving disinformation 🙏
there is no "split personality disorder", the correct term is Dissociative Identity Disorder. personally i think there are a mix of supernatural and real elements! or, that a lot of it happens within Fran's "headspace" aka, where the alters of the system live while they aren't fronting!
I think you're right about Remor but your vocab is once again off and unintentionally ableist, unfortunately. i know that wasn't your intent because you are very careful around the rest of this video and actually take these seriously which is really appreciated! I would say that Remor is an alter of Fran's, and that he takes the role of a persecutor. a persecutor is someone who wishes to do harm to the body either mentally, physically, or even socially. However, they are still useful members of a system. This comes out when Remor attacks the security guard and pushes away bad things from Fran, even if its for his selfish gain of wanting to make her suffer more.
@@terribleTerrestrial what vocab did I use describing Remor? So for future videos I don't unintentionally say the same thing.
@@UriClarkeSplit personality disorder or multiple personality disorder are not used anymore do to the stigma of the words.
DID or dissociative identity disorder, is the correct term.
I am a plural and I personally don't care but fun facts.
@@roninthesandwichman8768I was gonna say that it used to be a thing but not used anymore
@@UriClarke exactly what ronin said! essentially, parts of a system are most often called “alters” and thats what Remor would be, not a “split personality” since after research that was deemed incorrect ^_^ I suggest doing a bit of research on DID if you want, its a really interesting disorder and since I have it I enjoy talking about it :>
Ya know that cat looks more decayed than the parents…maybe he died first and that’s what caused Fran to snap?
or maybe they didn't embalm the cat,causing the rate of decay to appear increased?
@@peilingpey697 that is also a good point.
Honestly, I always had an inkling that Fran Bow had something that I was missing. The phrases they chose, the amount of dead children and babies, the systemic corruption, it felt so purposeful that it wasn’t just a plot, it had to reference something. I never would’ve put it together that it was from 1944, let alone that it was about wartime experimentation. I dunno why, but I never really thought about when it was set, but now that you’ve pointed this out, and with the rest of your points, it makes a lot more sense. Plus another commenter’s saying that Kamala and valoka was Finnish, it just answered so many questions I had when playing Fran Bow. My mind is positively blown, cause I feel I had all this info, but didn’t have a cinch pin. This video is that cinch pin, so thank you for making it. :) plus, it just reminded me of one of my favorite horror games.
Before even watching the video I saw the title and just went OH. I hadn't made the connection at all, wondering what was going on, but it seems so obvious in retrospect. Great video
Thanks man ^^ glad to create a new perspective
For me, the third chapter was in Fran's mind. Because she fell off a cliff, she past out on the ground and starded "dreaming"
Her main wish in her mind is to be normal, and have the possibility to come back to society. In this world, she had the chance to get out all of the "bad things in her body" and helps the other creatures.
In the end, she knows that deep inside of her, she stills evil (with the visions of her doing horrible things), so she leave the "goood world"
The reality and fantasy and delusion stuff is really tricky, reminds me of Pan's Labyrinth.
Some stuff is definetly real no matter the fantasy, especially since Miss Fortune is another game in this universe, but how much of that might be Fran's mind is not clear.
48:21
The Thalamus is a part of what is called the “Primitive Brain” and is responsible for things like:
- sleep/wake cycle
- consciousness
- Sensory perception
- relaying motor (physical movement) information
- controlling attention span
- cognitive memory
- regulating emotions
-formation of memories
- sexual arousal
- learning
It’s an integral component in allowing all this information to get to the correct part of your brain so that it can be stored and used for later. So disconnecting it from your frontal cortex in any compacity would be bad. As the cortex is needed for the thalamus to communicate.
Damage to the Thalamus can cause the following:
-Apathy
- Amnesia
- Aphasia (the loss or inability to speak/understand language)
- troubles with attention and alertness
- trouble processing sensory information
- impaired movement
- sleepiness (hypersomnia) or inability to sleep (insomnia)
- chronic pain
- Thalamic Aphasia (jumbled or meaningless speech)
- movement disorders
- pain syndromes
- thalamic pain response (tingling or burning pain)
- vision problems
-strokes
- tremors
So in the end if you’re thalamus isn’t working you’re up shits creek without a paddle. Luckily there is treatments out there to help people with these issues. Some including but not limited to medication.
i absolutely adore this game. It left a massive impact on me as a kid and now as a young adult. Thanks for letting me revisit such an important part of my childhood
Gotta say canonically Itward is seemingly a real entity, as he shows up again in their other game: Little Misfortune. I dont want to spoil the events of LM if you haven't seen it but hes seen in a moment, breifly, that has a genuinely different context than Franbow. The head hair creature also briefly appears in the game.
Oh hell yes. fran bow is one of my absolute favorite bullet points on my list of personal traumas 😂👏👏👏
It definitely surprised me I really enjoyed the story but was still a bit confused by the end
I discovered Fran Bow like 5 years ago through a youtuber who was doing a playthrough of it. I've always been afraid of anything scary or horror but this game was just so cool to me that i needed to have it, even after watching two full playthroughs. I was about 12 or 13 years old at the time and I played this game over and over again (I was not even a gamer, this was the first game I ever played). I also spent so much time watching lore videos and hyperfixating on it. To this day, it is still one of my favorite games. I haven't played it two years or so and dude when I saw this video on my feed I HAD TO click on it. All the sounds, songs and visuals from this game give me so much comfort and I'm so happy someone is talking about Fran Bow rn because I feel like nobody ever brings it up anymore. Also, great video ❤
OH MY GOD OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH FRAN BOW CONTENT 2024??? LITERALLY DOING GODS WORK
Fran crying tears of blood is also a visual for a lobotomy.
this is such a needed revisit to a game forgotten to time. you deserve so much recognition man, keep up the good work, this was phenomenal! you brought light to topics that haven’t really been talked about, and i thought i knew everything about this game!!
My theory about the twins is that they weren't conjoined at birth but maybe the doctor had conjoined twins and wanted to recreate that and used the twins as an experiment. Or were the twins were conjoined at birth and had multiple tests on them and they (the twins) were experimenting on a baby. Or, option number 3, the baby was an experiment alongside the twins?
LOOVE the whole analysis dude, and I love this theory! I never saw it that way back when I played the game for the first time, but it makes just so much sense.
I thought I was crazy for thinking this way and was totally surprised to see all the fran bow videos not mention this so I had to try my hand at it
Minor Tw btw. I watched people play this game when I was 10, right when it came out. As a 10 year old I should NOT have been exposed to it.. or should I?
I had already developed a strange obsession with death and darker things before internet access. My drawings depicted this and my parents had lectured me seeing this gore ish art. Stole my art from me, questioned me thousands of times, yelled at me, etc. to this day I don’t understand my strange interest in death or dark things, but I understand a part of it. I am autistic and have gone through severe neglect, SA trauma, severe bullying, general abuse, etc. and never got treatment. I was gaslit constantly and fully believed I had made it up. This game honestly saved me in a way I can’t describe. Yes, it’s dark, it’s fucked up, it’s nothing a 10 year old should see. However, in my mind, I had already seen all of these things. My mind had already turned my trauma into night terrors and sleep paralysis and depicted what happened to me into something easier to handle; gore in an art form. This game and many other “dark” games showed me how to cope, in a way. And now, I’m in college to be a mortician and put people to rest. I’ll never regret being exposed to Fran bow.
Keep in mind, I thought I’d share this to connect with others who watched Fran bow as a kid or young teen. I don’t want sympathy or anything, I simply want to connect with others.
It does give a sort of resonance to be told that other children also experience these terrors. When you fixate on dark subjects, it doesn't necessarily mean you thrive off of the misery induced from the tragedies but it can often mean that you find peace in knowing you're not alone in seeing and acknowledging the darker sides of our lives, that you're also normal for struggling with such.
I'm sorry you've gone thru that. I hope you're doing better now. I was exposed to unsupervised internet since I was 4 (just entered the teenage years of my life) so I came across stuff, both good and bad. Take care :3
i like the crunchy camera, the vibes, the voice, the TAKES OH MY GOD I LOVE FRAN BOW, subscribed
Fran bow has been my hyperfixation since it came out. I’ve kept it other back burner in recent years due to lack of content about it. This, is glorious
Bless you for using N's Room in the bg
haha its scary which I like
ONLY 102 VIEWS ?????? dude this is sickk
haha thanks man, ain't about the views. Just glad you enjoyed it
glad to see views jumping from 3k to 50k in one day. keep up your good work!
No dude it’s literally been so insane. Thank you so much for the support and I hope to God that I can keep the same amount of quality for you guys.
Wow this video made me emotional. I watched a gameplay of Fran Bow when I was younger on Jacksepticeye's channel and though I loved it I never fully understood what the game was about. Your explanation makes so much sense. It made me realise that it wasn't just a cool horror game, it was based on experiences of real people which is truly sickening. The brain is such an interesting organ, it's frightening how a seemingly small damage done to it can completely alter your perception of reality.
The sound thing you pointed out made me think that perhaps fran was already being experimented on by aunt grace unknowingly which explains her seeing those visions.
And about the fran killing her parents theory: i think they were already dead prior to her arrival just like she says but instead of running away she must've gone into a state of insanity and took the knife and started plunging it into her dad's back just like in the vision the demon shows her. Her dress and everything is too tidy compared to the room and there's also a pentagram drawn on ground as if her parents were sacrificed.
Everything of the story can be explained besides her parents death which is very odd to me, considering how fran (a child) wouldn't be capable of dismembering her parents with just a knife, the bones are extremely hard to be cut through with just a knife. And her parents could've easily stopped her.
But the odd thing is that how her parents bodies in the grave are perfectly put together, as if they were never dismembered in the first place. It could be that they were sewn back together but her mother's neck is perfectly attached to her body even though she was decapitated. Plus their bodies seem to be in the stage of active decay which means that it has probably been more than few months since they passed.
Its just extremely odd when i analyse it idk 😭
It’s an interesting theory for sure and maybe when this little is misfortune video comes out you it’ll but am I opinion. I’m leaning more towards it being completely fake or completely but I did find the sound of be a really interesting component.
12:30 I've never heard someone say "I fucking hate this guy" so calmly 😂
it ends on her death
and shows you her last thought, her last imagination.
her last speck of happiness.
I’m so glad that people still talk about Fran Bow
Damn UA-cam thanks for telling me this video released … slash sarcasm … I saw the community post just now. Stupid bell. Fran Bow is one of those games I wish I could forget so I could play it again for the first time.
Awww that sucks to hear lately my videos have been getting lower views I guess UA-cam isn’t notifying people 😭
This is not even just a Fran Bow video but a documentary type video talking about Lobotomy, I learned this in my psychological class in high school and it was unnerving to me. And Fran Bow was by far one of my favorite horror type games to watch others play and explain. I don't doubt anyone else talked about the history on what this game was about, though a lot loved to talk about the lore of the story, so at least this video is different from those. I don't remember people relating this game to the lobotomy cases back in the day.
Edit: And how did i just find you?? Sub-!
born to wait for a game theory on fran bow, forced to watch literally every other youtuber's theory on it 😔
Yeeeeah me two
Great stuff man, I came across your channel as youtube recommended it to me! I will definitely be binge-watching more as I love video essays! I just wanted to point out a few things that I noticed while playing the game a few times over and my own theories about it:
1. Remor as a name is very similar to the word Remorse. I truly believe Fran Bow did murder her parents in a moment of mental instability, and later her cat died in those woods, and it is her Remorse that terrorizers her during her moments of lucidity, taking the form of a demon in her mind. I also believe that Fran Bow's brain tries to protect her from remembering her trauma and therefore causes her to fall unconscious whenever something reminds her of her trauma (hence the fainting every time Remor shows up).
2. I think her aunt Grace was the one to announce to the papers that Fran Bow was dead too as she was close to Dr. Oswald and knew they couldn't experiment on her if the public was looking for her.
3. The meds she was taking was also definitely worsening her mental state and causing the lines of reality and her subconscious to blur (the conjoined twins scene applies here, I think she hallucinated the whole thing after seeing the bodies in the well and photos of the twins in the asylum), hence the emotional detachment to all the gore and that it was Dr. Oswald who switched the medicine in order to justify the need for surgery.
4. The Estrella segment was her dreams when she was under anesthetic undergoing her lobotomy by Dr. Oswald and that Itward was a nurse who told her stories and cared for her during her recovery from the surgery.
5. Dr. Dern tried to save her by showing her the papers about her death and her parent's graves as I don't believe he was a bad man and didn't known Fran Bow was wrongfully declared dead or that her meds were switched but was silenced by Dr. Oswald.
6. In the end, the lobotomy deeply worsened her mental state as well as her physical health, blending the normal reality and her unstable mental state into one, as she aimlessly wandered around the ward interacting with doctors that look like weird creatures as her mind has replaced their image with what Fran Bow's subconscious believes them to truly be. I think at the end she did actually die as her brain never truly healed from the surgery hence why Dr. Oswald kills her in that scene, as he technically did from performing the lobotomy on her. It's truly a tragic tale but an incredibly interesting one. I'm looking forward to seeing what you cover next!
Great video, I first played this game almost 10 years ago and I'm still discovering new theories and things about it. There are some things I'd like to add:
Dr Deern tells Fran that Duotine (I love how the name of the medicine is similar to "duality") opens a door to the subconscious mind, so her hallucinations would be pretty much like nightmares, that's why they all have to do with her trauma (blood, dead bodies). And from the beginning of the game she never shows fear in front of those hallucinations, instead she calmly reflects on them or even laughs at them. I remember that at the beginning of the game, just after talking with Dr Deern and passing out, Fran is told that she slept for several days straight. Could it be possible that she was lobotomized right then, instead of after she escaped? And at the end of the game her two realities merge due to the amount of medicine she has taken at that point (the door to her subconscious mind ended up permanently opened).
Also, as other comments said, Dr Oswald is clearly inspired by Dr Mengele, and if you take into account that the game takes place during WW2, it's very possible that Oswald is actually Mengele and they changed his name so we could see everything through the eyes of a little girl who doesn't know what's happening.
I'll copy paste some fragments of a theory I found on Reddit:
"[Dr Mengele] showed a lot of interest in identical twins. He would perform some experiments on one twin and use the second one as reference. He even once tried to create Siamese twins by sowing two identical twin girls together. [...] Could the asylum be part of a concentration camp? [...] [Mengele] set up a kindergarten for his victims, where they would have better food and housing than other prisoners in the camps, as well as a playground to play in. Oswald asylum would be a direct parallel of such a kindergarten. The evidence for this is that Fran can see a watchtower with search light from the windows of the asylum (as well as a playground). Why would an institution that already had a guard, several nurses, a lot of locked doors and a surrounding fence also need a watchtower with a searchlight to prevent drugged-up children from escaping? It wouldn’t. Not unless that institution was just one building on the grounds of a concentration camp."
"[Duotine] influences the pineal gland, a part of the brain shaped like a pinecone. The function of this gland is to produce a hormone called melatonin. This hormone is tied to a person’s sleep pattern and internal clock. The fact that the pineal gland regulates the internal clock is rather intriguing, as an ability to affect the pineal gland would give Fran the ability to influence her internal clock, much like she does in Ithersta."
"Fran uses her imagined and/or drugged state to achieve real-world feats that should otherwise have been impossible, such as opening the door of her room and placing the key in place in the nurse’s office without the nurse seeing her in chapter 1, and opening the locks that tie her to her bed at the beginning of chapter 5. The explanation to this ‘power’ can be found in the pineal gland, the part of the brain I mentioned earlier. This part of the brain was also called ‘the seat of the soul’ by French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes, and it is tied to the soul and the ‘third eye’ in multiple spiritual philosophies. The definition of what the ‘third eye’ does differs from one philosophy to the next, but it consistently seems tied to some mystical power, so that’s the way I’ll keep it. If Oswald’s experiments and drugs did give Fran control over her pineal gland, then this would allow her to open her third eye and use this ‘mystical power’ to control the physical world, as well as to read Dr. Deern’s mind."
The theory goes on about how the objective of the experiments on Fran was to create a Nazi super soldier (here's the link if someone's interested www.reddit.com/r/GameTheorists/s/NX4HQrpcqV ), which is kind of a stretch in my opinion but has some interesting points. I agree with other comments that Aunt Grace had a connection with Dr Oswald and one of them possibly hired a hitman to kill Fran's parents and then triggered her psychosis with medicine. And the lobotomy theory explains a lot of things too. This game is complex as hell, I love it.
I think it’s so crazy that if I were born a mere 80 years earlier I probably would’ve been subjected to a lobotomy and it scares me
Yup- 80 years earlier I’d still have to use the “colored only” public areas
nah you ate with this genuinely one of the coolest explanations of the game in a while
oh maaaan i never expected to see a fran bow video in 2024. the other thing i didnt expect is to hear something NEW about the game. i never thought the game was about lobotomy. thank you for making me look at the game from this perspective. thank you for the video! best of luck
I think that after chapter one when she got "sedated" or passed out, thats when the doctors actually performed the lobotomy in chapter two (with fran killing the pig and the twins probably being a topic of conversation with the doctors when she was sedated or such(when people are in comas, they can sometimes hear people talk, or her memories of finding the twins in the well could be replaying in her head)) and maybe then something went wrong during the procedure because shes paralyzed in chapter three when she wakes up, then after the lobotomy she slowly regains her strength to walk and solving puzzles(to test her ability to function after?) and communicating with the strange people(which she at first couldn't understand, which could be a side effect of the "failed" lobotomy) she begins to understand the people through a new perspective (the axolotl doctor being good and the tree people could maybe be patients??) And then the rest goes as you said(her being bipolar and psychotic and so on)
I absolutely adored this video
The security guard asking for a kiss and telling her to sit on his knees was honestly absolutely disturbing. I saw version of thr game where this didn't happen
Even modern mental hospitals suck :(
Great video btw 🫶
oh no... I'm sorry.. thank you for tuning in; my gf is going to be a nurse so you best believe she'll be talking about her experience
At least they don't put ice picks in your brain anymore
Bro, my psychiatrist told me not to stay there anymore ( I was there for like 20 min to talk with her) because it is bad for my mental health. Like I can understand, having so many crazy people in one place is not a good thing, but really? Tbh, I only had anxiety, so she was righ to not stay there 💀I had a panic attack there bcs I got scared from a schizophrenic lady screaming mean things to me, a dude telling me how the voices are killing him and mental breakdown from another woman screaming like we were in a exorcism movie.
Yeah, I would rather die than be there 💀
For those in the replies I had a “doctor” or manager first thing she said is we are politically correct bc I am trans and she got annoyed with me the whole time just for existing and having one of the worst days of my life, I start crying again and then she calls in like 7 people to hold me down and sedate me after I’m done crying. I still get ptsd attacks from that and nightmares
not gonna lie this is the first time ive ever invested in Fran Bow, but your video makes it so amazingly worth it!! im a video essay lover and this i think i love the most too
I dont usually comment, but I love your video style. It's got the feel of a well-made ARG where the main character has a diary of new and more disturbing discoveries. I love how we find these things out together (its been so long since I've seen a playthrough of fran bow). Keep it up!
Aww thanks I love that’s the appeal you get it’s pretty interesting
Your voice over was perfect and soothing as well! Good job
Ive loved fran bow, Ive watched many videos, but this is honestly one of my favorite videos ive seen about it. You did a great job :') I dont know why lobotomies never really crossed my mind all that much, at least not to the depth you explained it. And you brought up a lot of things that I didnt pick up on or havent heard before
Good job dude, Im glad this made it to my reccommended and Im excited to watch your other videos and see what else you make and come up with