A Serious Analysis of 'The Nightman Cometh'
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- Опубліковано 21 вер 2024
- The Nightman Cometh is one of the most famous episodes of 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia', and it's one that I find myself thinking back on from time to time. So here I am, doing a serious analysis/retrospective for an episode of a depraved, wicked sitcom.
Lord have mercy.
Also, even though it's mentioned in the video, remember to check out Ryan Hollinger's video on The Nightman Cometh too. It's really interest and informative.
Music Used:
- Glitterati Party
- Mr. Monokuma's Lesson - Danganronpa
- Class Trial (Odd Edition) - Danganronpa 2
- Okay - 13ounce.
while this theory intrigues me and i think it can add another layer to the interpretation of the musical, it can by no means replace the original analysis of the nightman as a metaphor for charlies childhood sexual abuse. i think "the nightman cometh" is an interesting (and sometimes uncomfortable, re: "tiny boy little boy baby boy i need you") blend of charlies childhood and adult life. one thing youre absolutely dead on with is the significance of the fact that each role was written with a particular member of the gang in mind: dennis as the nightman, sweet dee as the princess, frank as the troll, and, crucially, mac as the baby boy/dayman. sweet dee is easy enough to explain, she's blonde like the waitress and also the only girl member of the group, and, as we see in "the gang misses the boat", she and charlie have a non insignificant amount of romantic chemistry. frank too, just makes sense as the troll ("who ELSE would play the troll") if we look at it from the perspective of charlie telling a narrative about his childhood sexual abuse for a moment, he would also make sense as the troll if the troll was meant to be a representation of bonnie. while their genders dont match, frank is the man charlie believes to be his father for a majority of the show, and as his other parental figure he is the member of the gang most suited to play the role that metaphorically represents his mother.
if i may take a step back for a second, while i do agree with the assessment that it is unlikely bonnie would "pimp charlie out" so to speak, and while i absolutely dont think there was a 1:1 exchange of money for sex, i think youre taking it too... literally? bonnie lets jack into her house, and, as we see in "the great recession", he pays her rent to stay there. although we dont see a ton of bonnie and charlie interacting in the show, their relationship is visibly strained on his end. i think that as a child his brain interpreted jack's rent payment as not only payment for access to their house but to his body (and in a way, yeah, that was how jack was able to abuse him) and he holds her responsible for letting him into their house and facilitating his sexual abuse, even indirectly.
ANYWAYS back to the gang and their character assignments. i do think youre right that dennis is assigned the nightman because of his behaviour towards women, although i dont think that it was him who directly inspired the character of the nightman. i think its much more likely that charlie sees his manipulative and coercive behaviour and draws parallels between that and uncle jack's tactics of abuse. this is supported by references charlie makes to "the nightman" outside the episode in question, particularly in "the gang goes on family fight". when asked about things that people are afraid of, charlie says "the nightman", and while hes demonstrably afraid of uncle jack, he's not afraid of dennis at all as far as the audience can see.
furthermore, i completely disagree with the idea that charlie "becoming the nightman" means that uncle jack cant be the nightman and therefore it must be dennis, because charlie doesnt molest children. again, i think youre taking it too literally. i think what he means when he says that is that his abuse makes him feel alienated from other children (and, as an adult, other adults), he has "become" the nightman in the sense that he has become someone other people (especially other children) find strange and offputting due to his stunted emotional and psychological development. he also, does, arguably "become" the nightman in the sense that he develops harmful ideas and behaviour surrounding sex and romance, seemingly independent of dennis, as we see in the way he stalks and harasses the waitress. (although i wouldnt necessarily count that towards his motivation for writing that line, seeing as he doesnt seem to be aware that his behaviour is harmful.)
onto mac, who i think creates the biggest plothole in this theory. charlie writes the role of the boy/dayman to represent himself, but he writes it *for mac to play*, and gets visibly upset when mac says he doesnt want to. if the nightman is meant to be dennis, given the context of mac and dennis' relationship in seasons 1-4, this doesnt make a lot of sense. in later seasons it actually would make a lot of sense, ill give you that. dennis leverages mac's feelings for him in order to manipulate and control him, and mac absorbs dennis' toxic ideas about sex and romance and reflects them back into the way he treats dennis himself ("dennis is always telling me i should never take 'no' for an answer"/dennis pulling away from mac emotionally and in terms of physical affection and mac pushing back on it and continuing to pursue dennis in seasons 13-14 despite being rejected countless times) right up until the season 14 finale "waiting for big mo", which functions as an analogy for dennis' need for control over the group dynamic as well as a metaphor for the show itself. when they agree to end the game, mac and dennis also seem to end the game that was their relationship for the past two seasons, and in season 15 (and presumably 16, if mac having a new boyfriend is anything to go by) mac begins to pull away from depending on dennis and dennis is less manipulative and aggressive towards mac. but this is season four, and none of that has happened yet so it's irrelevant and i'm very sorry for spending so much time on it.
instead, i believe the reason its important to charlie that mac plays the main character is because of the boy's second identity as the dayman. if you recall, the dayman's three main attributes are: being the fighter of the nightman, a champion of the sun, and being a "master of karate and friendship". and once the boy becomes the day man, he kills the nightman once and for all. i believe that mac, as charlies childhood best friend, was the original dayman, and through him charlie "became" the dayman as well, much in the same way that he "became" the nightman through uncle jack. mac is (and was), again, charlies best friend with a childish obsession with karate, and he may have "fought the nightman" not in a physical sense, but in that having another friend would have given charlie a place to go that wasn't home, especially for long stretches of time wherein jack would have otherwise been abusing him, think sleepovers. through this, he could have given charlie an "out" that he started using by himself, asking to come over to macs house or hang out rather than being invited. he would know better than anyone if there was a pattern to the abuse and, now having somewhere else to go, would now be able to stop it before it happened, thereby defeating the nightman once and for all. the naming convention also makes a lot of sense in this context, where uncle jack primarily abuses charlie during the night, and charlie would be seeing and interacting with mac during the day most of the time, especially at school.
all in all i think presenting your theory as a replacement for the CSA metaphor theory raises more questions then it answers. like you mention in your video, what does the "troll toll" represent in this scenario? dennis certainly has access to and influence over charlie without any involvement from frank, and they were friends long before frank inserted themselves into their gang. why is it important to charlie that mac, specifically, plays the character that represents himself? why doesnt he play that character himself? he could still do his little proposal song at the end if he wanted. what would the significance of the "night" be, especially given that dennis is more associated with the sun (ie the golden god). most importantly, why, if charlie purports to have "become the day man", which in this interpretation would refer to developing healthy and respectful ideas about romantic and sexual boundaries, would he continue to stalk and harass the waitress after she rejects him at the musical?
i also think presenting the entire narrative as purposefully crafted to persuade the waitress into marrying him is a little cynical. yes, he uses it as a vehicle to propose to the waitress, but i also think that he genuinely wants to open up to her and its autobiographical beyond the obvious representation of his romantic interest in her and perception of their relationship.
I feel like this is close to what Charlie actually intended on the surface.
Whoa, was not expecting Lyle to shriek in my ear.
Charlie Dayman
what abt when charlie first sings abt nightman and it's like very clearly abt him being r-worded? in that he also describes the feeling of "being filled up and becoming him" so maybe it isn't saying he became what the nightman is but that the nightman is now a part of him
like I get that it was prob meant to be a one off joke but still something to consider I think
There is an occult meaning to the nightman dayman paradigm. It is a true masterpiece.
The passionate, passionate night man
You did good, kid. You did real good.
here before this gets viral
🥲
Same
Narrator: “And it never went viral”
"Gang gets viral"
You wanna be where you can see,
People are all the same,
"Cause I like life at Paddy's Pub.
Charlie seems to be aware that he's flawed/different, though unable to pinpoint the exact cause for this.
All of the Gang sees themself as the protagonist, except for maybe Frank, who's aware that he's a goofy side-character in the others' lives and revels in it. Dennis thinks he's a sex-god in a smut story or a machevalian schemer in a heist; Mac thinks he's a marital arts film protagonist mixed with Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress; and Dee, of course, thinks she's in the embarassed underdog stage of the Star is Born rise to fame.
Charlie, meanwhile, sees himself as the hero in a sort of a childish understanding of the Campellian hero's journey, mixed with a Disney film (see his fantasy in "The Gang Saves the Day") where he can overcome those flaws and "get the girl". Once he has her, though, the relationship can't last because the dog caught his tail, so to speak.
He originally wanted to cast Mac, not Dennis, as his self-insert hero, because Mac is his oldest friend and arguably the most in-line with his view of himself ("sports movie badass" and "Disney hero" aren't too far apart). I think the troll is both Frank and his mother; his mother for presumably enabling his abuse, and Frank for holding power over Charlie financially.
I don't know why he specifically chose the Waitress as his object of affection, but since they went to high school together, I imagine she maybe made an offhanded kind remark when he was feeling down on himself. And he latched onto her from there.
Uuuuuhhhh, hold on... To be clear I totally accept the bulk of this as a very real possibility. Def scans. But the one small point I did find disagreeable is you saying you doubt his mom would "pimp him out". Dee explicitly says in the episode (which could be interpreted as a meta statement, or just a loose insult) "you keep using that word [metaphor] but I'm not convinced you know what it means"; it's totally possible Charlie, either unintentionally being an idiot or just being creative and cutting corners to make his statement, convoluted (etc) that bit of the story. We already know that "santas" would come by and *give Charlie gifts* in order to go bang his mom. We know "payment" [placation] is already a peripheral part of s*xual experiences in his house. That alone could be convoluted to the troll toll. However, we also know his mom, what, like launders uncle Jack's relationship with Charlie. She rationalizes it all away ["snuggle bunnies"] thus preserving her functional relationship with the man who apparently traumatized Charlie. He may have even payed her rent money when they lived together. Which would be to say, effectively giving her money in order to continue to be able to be in the position to abuse Charlie, at least in the eyes of Charlie, or at least in the eyes of young Charlie, or again, at least in this presentation of this story he's telling in whatever way he's choosing to tell it to express what he's trying to express
No, that part totally scans
Again, I'm not saying therefore your point is wrong. I'm just saying the personal incredulity you expressed in that one moment of you making your larger point, doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It's totally credible. It might not be true and you might be right, but it's not fair to say that wouldn't make sense thus leaving a hole in the classic understanding of the play. It's certainly fair for you to have said it doesn't make sense _to you_, but that doesn't matter much, and again it's still fair to say everything else you said, you may totally be on to something; but your incredulity over that one point doesn't afford you any points in that context [ie the "point" of "it doesn't make sense TO YOU" doesn't read on any scoreboard except the one in your mind]
To be perfectly redundant, I do think there's a very real possibility you're right. The understanding you present makes real sense. I just don't share that one incredulity
Lmfao my mom was obsessed with Big Bang theory for awhile and I think my eyes literally rolled out of my head in the process. I'm sorry but that show is insufferable
Also remember that Charlie insists that the nightman has cat eyes, and in the episode where Dee has to stay in his apartment earlier in the show that at night time all of the cats in his neighbourhood start screaming
Mac says that
OH my gawd my favorite episode! plus I love lyle rath. you get 2 points from me
Danganronpa
🎉🎉
Not a bad take
Sub earned
Ha women ☕