Batman

One theory I’ve heard pertaining to Batman called the “Batman in Silent Hill” Theory. It states that none of Batman’s rogues actually exist, and each one is a representation of a part of his fractured mind that he must (repeatedly) do battle with and conquer.

The Joker represents encroaching insanity. The subconscious revulsion to reason and logic that Batman has as a result of the random, senseless and undeserved death of his parents.

Two-Face represents his dichotomy between Bruce Wayne the business man and Batman the dark avenger. Poison Ivy represents his sexuality.

Penguin represents his wealth and class.

Mr. Freeze represents his inability to have lasting relationships with people, including friends, women and his parents.

Digimon

Kari’s constant sickness since early childhood caused her to be delusional and create the Digimon universe. The only character besides her that is real is Tai. Every other character is created from parts within her.

Matt was created from her constant rivalry with her brother, which is why Matt fights with Tai so often.

Sora is created from her desire to not be so sickly and to be able to play sports, which is why Sora is so tomboyish.

Due to the fact that she is sick so much, she doesn’t go to school, Izzy is her desire to gain knowledge.

Mimi is her desire to be pretty and the simple “every girl” much like a Barbie doll.

Joe is the constantly worried part of her. It should also be notable that he has lots of allergies which is mirroring her constant sickness.

T.K. is her mind’s response to the desire to find love. She is constantly sick and knows she will die soon, so she creates T.K. to create a love interest for herself.

Davis is her desire to be a strong, courageous leader like her brother.

Cody and Yolei are respective personality copies of Izzy and Sora.

Ken and Gatomon are Kari’s desire to overcome any darkness in her heart.

Ed, Edd and Eddy

There’s a theory that interprets Ed, Edd and Eddy’s entire cast of kids as all being dead and living in a purgatory of an eternal childhood cycle (originally an eternal summer, but then they started going to school), thusly the complete lack of any adult agents in the purgatory.

There are a number of explanations for their deaths, ranging from an explosion due to a gas-leak in the neighborhood to apocalyptic ones such as nuclear explosion or the spread of a deadly disease that killed most of middle-America. Another theory suggests that the kids in the cul-de-sac are dead children from the neighborhood, each from different times (Johnny and Rolf from the 40’s, Kevin from the 90’s, Naz from the 60’s, Jimmy from the 00’s, and so on).

We hadn’t always been here. But the neighborhood has. Even before it was a neighborhood on earth this one had been here. Here for those that would be lost on those cursed grounds, here for those who would die long before their real life ever truly began, here for those who never really wanted to grow up. We come from different times and we come from different lives, but one thing remains true of all of us. We lived on the earthly realm of the neighborhood at some point in our lives and died long before our time was supposed to come. We don’t remember much of our lives in the cul-de-sac since the last member of our group joined us and certainly we won’t remember now when the next spirit comes, but here is what we do know:

Rolf was the first to come here. Unlike most of us he was born in far off lands and even in the afterlife hasn’t lost the touch of his old world upbringing. He lived in the neighborhood before it was developed. The son of a shepherd, he and the rest of his family came to start a farm on the lands that would soon turn into the place we would all eventually reside in. He died in 1903. While tending to the family’s animals, the bull broke loose from its pen and in Rolf’s efforts to stop the beast he was trampled to death. That is why even though he brought many of his family’s livestock with him in spirit he chose not to bring the cattle along. He continues to go about the farms business on a daily basis, but is more than happy to occasionally neglect them to play with the other children of the neighborhood.

Jonny was always the lonely child. In fact Rolf actually became his first human friend ever when he came to the cul-de-sac after his death. His parents moved onto the grounds of Rolf’s former farm not long after his death. With no other children around and no fieldwork to take up his time as it did Rolf’s Jonny drew into his own mind to a great extent. From the Plank was born. Together they wandered about the country side climbing trees and getting themselves in trouble. Sadly this didn’t last forever as a few years later Jonny became bedridden with illness. In 1922 he died after a long battle with tuberculosis. He saw his imaginary friend plank standing by him to his last breath. Even now in the afterlife without the countryside to play in Jonny still wastes much of his time frolicking through the backyards and streets.

Eddy was the next to come. Eddy was born in New York City but moved to the neighborhood in 1932, just as the Great Depression was hitting full swing. The neighborhood while still different was beginning to take form from the fields of its past as families moved in and split up the lands that had once belonged to Rolf’s family. Always a schemer, Eddy looked to do anything to bring some comfort to his very bare family life even if it cost him the friendship of others. Eddy died in 1939 after one of his grand plans to swindle a sap backfired. He drowned trying to cross the local river after trying to run away from the angry kids that he had tried to deceive. Even in the afterlife he keeps chasing after the almighty dollar.

Sarah and Ed came together not too long after that. By the late 40’s the cul-de-sac had already nearly taken its final form as one of the preplanned developments that became popular in the post war era. As brother and sister growing up in the chaos of World War II, they both had various ways of escaping their lives as children of a dead GI and a working mother. Sarah became enraged and controlling as she sought to make sure that everyone around her knew that she was in charge, all in an attempt to copy off of her view of the hustle and bustle of her often working mother. Ed on the other hand went about it in a different way. He just shut it out entirely, in fact he shut out nearly everyone and everything in the world entirely becoming what appeared to be a complete idiot. Ed chose instead to become completely involved in the monster movies and comic books that began to pop up after the war had ended. It wasn’t too long after this that, in 1953, Ed and Sarah died in a car wreck as their mother was taking them to visit their grandparents.

Nazz came a time after the brother and sister. Nazz was a flower child, born to a pair of hippies turned establishment in the late 60’s. She was a naturally beautiful girl that had always had a way with boys and men alike. She lived life on a whim and would often go about flirting and playing without any intentions. She died in possibly the most horrible way of any children in the neighborhood. In the summer of ’79 a serial killer, who had broken out of a local asylum, had slipped into her house in the dead of night and raped and killed her along with her entire family. In the trauma of these events she in a way similar to Ed shut out the world entirely and forgot of her parents and siblings, which is why in the afterlife she doesn’t ever receive demands from the non-existent parents unlike many of the others. This gives her much more time to lounge around and party as she often does.

It didn’t take too long before Edd joined the rest of the neighborhood. He was the child of two highly controlling professionals in the age of greed that, despite their constant absence, dominated his life. As such Edd became quite the intellectual and a rather meek and shy figure. Always the curious type, he loved to experiment when given the time away from school and the constant chores of his parents. This would lead to his untimely demise in 1986, as a gas leak combined with a Bunsen burner from one of his experiments tore him and his house to pieces. Being the timid and subservient type, between various misadventures, Edd continued to follow the written orders of his parents long after his death.

Kevin was the next to join the group. He was born to the day of Edd’s death and is in many ways his polar opposite. Kevin came from a broken home and developed a bold personality. In life he was the cynical and angry and took it out on many of the other children. His abusive father would rarely pay him any attention in life and would end up bringing about the end of it. In a drunken rage his father beat him after Kevin attempted to stand up to him. He died on the way to the hospital in the winter of 1999. His father spent the rest of his life in prison. In the afterlife Kevin changed his perception to the opposite of what his life really was, with a distant father who would shower him with gifts, however he continued to maintain his bullying even in death.

Jimmy was the last to come to the cul-de-sac. He died in 2000 not long after moving into the house that Kevin’s father had once lived in. He had had leukemia since he was barely old enough to walk. As such, he was always a very sickly child and due to his over protective parents he never really got to be around other children. He lived his days out in a small bedroom completely neglected by the outside world. Jimmy lingered for quite some time in a state of near death, but in the end finally caved into the suffering of his life long illness.

The Kanker sisters were different from any other denizens of the cul-de-sac. They were never of the earthly plane of existence. Instead they are the children of demons not too dissimilar from the succubae of human lore. They seem to possess abilities impossible by the standards of the others, such as the ability to appear nearly anywhere instantly. They were sent from hell to torment the already tortured souls of the neighborhood. Surprisingly they are attracted to the Eds for unknown reasons, although it is speculated that they are the weakest willed members of the neighborhood and are seen as easy targets by them. Despite that they are universally loathed and often feared by everyone including the Eds.

Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends

The Fox and the Hound

After a young boy is orphaned a woman known as Big Mama (a large black woman in charge of an orphanage), Boomer (another employee), and Dinky (and another employee) arrange for him to be adopted by the Widow Tweed. Tweed names him Tod since he has no name and he is a toddler (original, right?). Tod grows up and years later in the 5th grade, a new neighbor moves in named Amos Slade, also without a spouse who has two sons, Copper, the youngest, and an older boy who goes by Chief. Tod and Copper become playmates, and vow to remain “friends forever.” They have meaningful conversations (as far as 11 year olds go) and end up talking about how they don’t really like girls much and end up exploring their homosexual side. Slade grows frustrated at Copper for constantly sneaking out of the house for unknown reasons and grounds him. Tod sneaks into Coppers room one night and they have sex with eachother. Their moans of pleasure are much too loud within the thin walls of the house and this wakes up Chief who in turn wakes up his dad to investigate what’s going on in Copper’s room. They barge into the room only to find Copper and Tod embraced in a homoerotic fashion. The two rednecks Slade and Chief chase Tod out of the house until they are stopped by Tweed. After an argument about taboo, Slade says that he intends to kill Tod at his first opportunity. Slade forces his boys to move away from Tod because he doesn’t want his son to become gay. Meanwhile, Big Mama explains to Tod that his relationship with Copper cannot continue, as what they are doing is considered unnatural, but Tod refuses to believe her.

Years pass, and Tod and Copper reach adulthood. The two end up at the same high school, Copper with a girlfriend and both with seemingly “normal” lives. Copper explains that he is a man now and things are different between them. Tod ends up sneaking away with Copper anyways and in a fit of passion, have sex with eachother at Copper’s house. Chief awakens and alerts Slade, a chase ensues with Copper following who catches up with Tod first. Copper tells Tod to run and diverts Chief and Slade. Chief maintains his pursuit onto a railroad track where he is struck by a train and killed. Copper and Slade blame Tod for the accident and swear vengeance. Tweed, after years of a chronic disease dies, leaving Tod to his lonesome. Big Mama introduces him to a girl named Vixey who he enjoys the company of and brings him back to his house. Slade and Copper trespass into Tod’s house with guns to murder him. Vixey and Tod run off into the wilderness. The chase climaxes when Slade and Copper inadvertently provoke an attack from a bear. Slade trips and is caught in his own trap and drops his gun just out of reach. Copper fights the bear but is no match for it. Tod battles the bear until they both fall down a waterfall. Copper approaches Tod as he lies in the lake below when Slade appears, ready to fire at the boy. Copper interposes his body in front of Tod, and refuses to move away. Slade lowers his gun and leaves with Copper, but not before the two former adversaries share one last smile before parting. At home, a doctor is nursing Slade back to health while the boys are hanging out on the porch. Copper closes his eyes and smiles as he remembers the day when he became friends with Tod. On a hill Vixey joins Tod as he looks down on the homes of Copper and Tweed.

Calvin and Hobbes

Garfield

Garfield, the over-fed, pampered cat is actually a starving stray. His life of comfort and over-indulgence is the product of his simple, and aversive animal night. His body is able to survive the harsh winter nights in the open alleys because his mind denies this fact and instead tells him he’s in a warm cat-bed. He survives the crippling hunger-pains of not eating for several days because his brain tells him that they’re pains form eating too much lasagna.

Garfield in reality may even be regularly abused by humans and chased by dogs, thusly why in his delusions he’s mentally superior to both the human and the canine he knows. He’s already coping in the survival part of the brain, why not cope in the sociological one?

Anyways, theory goes that Garfield is in a family with Jon and Odie, and has interactions with all the other characters. However, this is all within his mind, as he suddenly wakes up from the nightmare one day, to find the real world a cold, desolate, and abandoned place. Where he once found food, he now finds nothing, and his warmth and shelter are completely devoid, as if the world has suddenly died.

Garfield cannot comprehend this, and begins hallucinating. Since then, all of the strips of Garfield have been created by his twisted imagination as he slowly starves to death in his abandoned house.

These theories are based on a Halloween short run in 1989.

Jim Davis is reported to have actually “laughed loudly” when informed of these rumors circulating on the Internet. In Garfield’s Twentieth Anniversary Collection, in which the strips are reprinted, Jim Davis discusses the genesis for this series of strips. His caption, in its entirety states:

“During a writing session that week, I got the idea for this decidedly different series of strips. I wanted to scare people. And what do people fear? Why, being alone of course. We carried out the concept to its logical conclusion and got a lot of responses from readers. Reaction ranged from ‘Right on!’ to ‘This isn’t a trend is it?’””

Hanna-Barbera

/co/ put this together a while ago as part of formulating a reason as to why in the Flintstone’s Christmas movie…..they could celebrate Christmas and put on a play based on a Charles Dickens novel.

Their conclusion was that the Flintstones was a neo-stone age brought about by the apocalyptic destruction of the world seen in The Jetsons. Meaning that The Jetsons was a prequel to The Flintstones. It’s all explained here.

Inspector Gadget

Okay, well. Obviously, Inspector Gadget can’t be the man’s real name. Whoever he was, he was a regular human who worked for the cops or whatever. Well I think that while on the job, something happened to him. Some terrible accident. Some explosion or collapse that left him completely destroyed. Once the cops found this, the chief (the guy in the show all of the time) decided to do something never before attempted. They used the newest and most secret technology to recreate this man with super human powers (sorta like the bionic man or whatever). They programmed this robot version of the inspector to look and sound just like him, even to think like him. He was programmed with the very best AI and all. He continued working for the company, even watched over his niece and dog, just like the real human version did. The only problem with all of this was that he didn’t die in the accident. No, the real human version survived, only he was changed. The accident deformed him, warped his brain, and made him see things differently. Once he discovered that they had replaced him with a robot doppelganger, he swore to destroy it no matter what it took. They had taken his life away and replaced it with a robot, that they now call Inspector Gadget. The human version decided to use everything he had and knew to fight against this robot version, and to do evil to the company that had ruined his life. He also changed his name. Now he is known as Dr. Claw. You never see his face because it is the face of Inspector Gadget, only deformed from the accident.

Super Mario

Mario never had any adventure…he is a delusional old Plumber (Or had something to do with him eating Shrooms/Drugs)

The Giant Turtles and Goombas are what he sees everyday while working on the sewers, Dry bones being the corpses of dead turtles kid flushes through the toilets…

And Bowser is the constant fear to those “Alligator in the sewers” urban legends

Peach is just a Pin up girl turned Princess in his own twisted mind….

Peanuts

All of Charlie Brown’s friends are imaginary. You know how very time he attempts to kick the football Lucy holds, she pulls it away and he trips over himself? The reason the football is always “pulled away” is because there is no football…and there is no Lucy…

Charlie Brown is a young boy in a low-income family. He has no real friends or siblings. He has his real dog Snoopy, who really isn’t friendly towards him, so his “imaginary” snoopy goes on adventures and has his own exciting life as an excuse to why he doesnt bother with him.

Ever notice how most of the holiday episodes are gloomy? It’s because that’s how it really is, but in the end they always turn out good…in his imaginary world that is. Not receiving letters on Valentines day, receiving rocks on Halloween, getting a skinny dying tree for Christmas…that’s all real…the ends of those episodes are what he makes up in his imagination.

Ever wonder why you never hear the adults speak normally? It’s because that’s what Charlie thinks of what adults say. It’s gibberish he doesn’t understand. At his age, he doesn’t know what the words “loan” or “bankrupt” or “foreclosure” means. So in his imagination all adults speak in a silly non-understandable voice.

Pokemon

Did one ever know the reason why the pacing and story development change after Ash was hit by lightning in the beginning episodes? How Ash and his world were relatively normal until after the incident? I have a theory. The accident with the bike put Ash in a coma. Days later he was found and was hurried to the hospital and treated with heavy medications. This is why Team Rocket became less menacing. The medication took effect and stabilized his coma dreams, instead of being terrifying, they became idyllic, and he’s able to live out his Pokémon master fantasies.

If one had noticed, the early episodes of Pokémon were of amazing quality. The rest of the series is just the results of his subconscious mind fulfilling his desires, as well as attempting to escape them. Should Ash realize he’s in a coma, he would wake up, but suffer brain damage. So he has to take down all his mental barriers one by one until he can come to grips with what he is and escape his coma.

The image of his gaunt, tube-fed, ten-some-year bed ridden body on the bed. His head appears bulbous from atrophy. As he utters his last words, he barely opens his eyes, seeing a silhouette of the figure at the center of his turbulent emotions, his mother, her face obstructed by her hands wiping away tears. He makes contact with her eyes and lets out one last tear before losing all strength. She breaks down in hysterics.

The worst part of all this is that Ash will die, never having experienced actual love, imagine if you will, having lived in a world like his, completely shut off from all things but yourself, and your perception of yourself, with nothing but better yourself. No other people to interact with and issues to solve with no guiding hand.

The boy will die, never having known his dream, except as naught but a dream. The second he gets out into reality for that last moment, part of him knows it was all a lie, his faithful Pikachu? His friends? All his imagination, and maybe, he could have fought and clung to life, maybe even made a full recovery. But knowing that his efforts and ambitions had all been for naught, he just gave up and let the motion carry him away, just so he could be with Pikachu, in a place where his friends were waiting.

I would like to think that he’ll realize that his mother loved him and was holding out hope that he’d recover all that time. On the flip side, though, when he sees her he knows that the hope she had is totally broken and she’d come to the crushing realization that the worst thing that can befall a parent has happened to her: outliving her only child. At once he knows he is loved and that it means that the one closest to him is utterly crushed.

This explains why he doesn’t change much physically. Also, the worldwide socialism can be explained if you once again realize that this is a dream world; he thought up a safe system of government that would run smoothly and keeps the world going allowing his adventures to work like they do. It also explains a few other things, such as how a child can go off on his own in a world full of dangerous untamed animals, and why every Pokémon center has the same exact nurse. Joy and Jenny he knew from his hometown, and they act as a safety net or anchor, allowing him to feel safe no matter where he goes. The professors, like the Joy’s and Jenny’s represent stability, and ash’s ideals. This is why Gary became a professor. It’s also the reason that every time he enters a new region, virtually no one has heard of him, despite his conquests, and why Giovanni leads Team Rocket. How could Paul, the rival of the Sinnoh area, not know of someone who has placed in at least the top 16 of all three leagues and has destroyed the Orange league and Battle Frontier?

Ash’s travelling partners are actually aspects of himself he can enjoy, but doesn’t like to associate with himself. Team Rocket are his qualities that he deems “negative”, but is coming to terms with. Jesse and James want to appease Giovanni, Ash’s Father. Meowth especially wants to appease him because he remembers the good times with Giovanni. This Places meowth in a category known as ash’s (corrupted) innocence, and another fragment of ash’s humanity. If you note that meowth can speak this quickly becomes apparrent. In fact the whole reason for meowth’s speech is so he can help Ash accept Team rocket as part of himself eventually.

Brock is Ash’s repressed sexuality. He fell into the coma a virgin and needed an outlet for his growing sexual frustrations. Since he can never experience sex, Brock must never succeed. Brock is a projection of his sexuality, and is constantly shot down because Ash could never “know” sex. Brock isn’t just Ash’s latent sexuality, he’s also his fatherly instincts, neither of which Ash can come to terms with. Brock leaves his siblings to “journey” with Ash. because Ash can’t cope with having that much responsibility, much as his foray with a real relationship ends on mysterious terms. Ash just cannot handle commitment at his mental level. Brock’s Stay with professor Ivy was an.attempt to outright suppress his sexuality. You’ll notice that James got much more dialogue in this part of the series, as well as getting more touchy feel-y with his pokemon and getting most of his backstory. Ash didn’t enjoy this much, hence the reasons Brock comes back all horrified, and refuses to speak about it. (ash’s subconscious was repressing him at the time, so other than a general feeling of dread he has no idea of what went on then.) This is also why brock keeps coming back to the series….Usually AFTER Ash meets a new girl aspect of himself.Misty is an image that Ash had of a girl. This is why she plays so prevalently in the series but is ultimately unattainable because he never really knew her before the coma. Likely the one that helped get him to a hospital. I have a theory in line with this: Since Misty was his initial love interest (if only subconsciously), he needed her to reach a level of womanhood. He felt that people could only have relationships when they’ve matured. But in practice, it turned out he couldn’t cope with it and just wanted the normal, pushy, arrogant Misty he knew, and wouldn’t let her keep Togepi anymore.

Misty is Ash’s first attempt at a girl he could love, however, being a girl from the real world, all he really he knew of her was her anger, as a result she ended up quite hot headed in his mind. Constantly berating his sexuality, but eventually mellowing out until she had faded into the background. This was also traumatizing to him, being attached to it. Since then, the thought of anyone around him maturing to adulthood has been blocked, and anyone who shows signs of it will quickly end up leaving for another, more naive fill-in.

Max came with May, she played the Id with great aspirations, and he played the sensible Ego that “Session”. They worked for a little while but Ash, being a teenager, eventually had his sexuality had to come back into play. He kept reinventing himself and eventually wrote new aspects, but his mind slowly brought back the old ones as a crutch to make the transition easier.

Dawn is Ash giving himself a chance to love. since he already established Misty as someone he’s not likely to go anywhere with, he created a new super female, one that was more like him, and less violent all the time. (One will note that both May and Misty had no tolerance for Brock whatsoever whereas dawn seems to try and shrug it off.) .

Tracey, The Breeder was a possible future for Ash that he discarded. It was one that he sent off to work with the Professor (the professors being Ash’s ultimate ideal of a father figure) when he disrupted the dynamic Ash had with his other possibilities. Ash’s mind is fighting the coma and since Ash viewed this one as a companion he was quickly replaced with a more threatening Rival.

Pikachu obviously represents Ash’s Humanity, hence the episodes where they get separated, and ash wants desperately to find him, even to the point of working with the rockets ( aspects of himself he woould never normally associate with) but for some reason cannot. They want to steal Pikachu (Ash’s humanity) and hand it over to his father, Giovanni. Jesse and James will always oppose ash because ash is terrified of the thought of his humanity lying in the hands of his father. However this is the same reason that he will work with those aspects of himself in order to save his humanity from just becoming flat out LOST. He couldn’t evolve his Pikachu without challenging his concept of who he was, something he wasn’t comfortable with while he was still working through his original issues.

Another thing is the narrator. The narrator is Ash’s higher mind, recapping and explaining the progress he’s made and the tribulations he will face allowing itself insight into how best to awaken him.

Ash has issues With his Father; so he put him atop the evil corporation, and demonized him. There may be an actual team rocket, and I’m positive they’re quite dastardly, but I doubt that ash’s father is their leader, in fact the head of the rockets wasn’t really identified as anyone until later on in the series. The split between ash’s parents was likely over ash’s homosexuality and some sort of incident as a catalyst, forcing his father to disown him and his mother to move out of the city and down to pallet town. This is why Giovanni runs the faceless Vile corporation, and Why he Berates Jesse, James, and Meowth as much as he does, and why they keep trying to please him. Another thing to notice is the difference in uniform, The rockets Wear Black and Red, where Team Rocket wears White….a symbol of their purity and naievete. They’re willing to please father despite his utter hatred of those parts of Ash .

Team rocket are aspects of Ash’s personality that he has deemed “bad” James implied homosexuality, and Jesse’s vanity. You’ll remember that Meowth has the potential for rehabilitation, and doesn’t want to be evil, so yet again this fits in with the conflicting personalities and demonized self theory. Team rocket started cross-dressing because ash had to come to terms with that part of himself. It was something he was able to allow his ***/vain side to experiment with (and by virtue of that himself) When he found that it wasn’t something for him, his “Free” side stopped playing with it. Further, their methods of capture become more and more ludicrous (and physically impossible) because Ash is just a kid dreaming these things up. This is the reason Team Rocket’s disguises are always believed. He knows it’s them (on some level), but chooses to ignore it, so he can better himself, in a sense the Ash who wants to escape is sabotaging the ash who wants to stay lost in his mind. So that there can be more conflict, and hopefully an eventual escape.

The filler episodes that don’t focus on Ash and the gang are his mind working through, and humanizing the parts of himself that he demonized. It’s a way for him to deal with issues that Ash and crew wouldn’t touch, because it involves treading ground he himself had sworn not to go near. As I said, Team Rocket and the episodes they occupy are Ash dealing with ground he feels uncomfortable with tackling on his own. Jessie is Ash’s vanity and gullibility, she will trick Ash’s submissive homosexuality into doing her bidding so she can please father. James’ troubled childhood is his way of justifying his latent homosexuality. Now James is Ash’s latent homosexuality, hence why he is constantly punished by Pokémon and attacked by random attractive girls. I believe the split between Ash’s parents was caused by this part of Ash, maybe an incident at school, bringing shame on the family and forcing them to move to the small, country town of Pallet. Ash’s motivations for his journey were to escape mounting pressure at home.

So in a way, Ash IS Team Rocket. The rest of the whole organization Including Butch and Cassidy is symbolic of his inability to escape his father’s machinations.

Mr. Mime is actually a stand in for Ash’s father, one that can’t emotionally abuse him or his mom. He is a Pokémon, a peace loving creature that’s oddly humanoid, but that can never hurt a human. Ash’s was never really hurt by a Pokémon, so he sees them all as harmless; whereas, in the real world they may be quite feral or vicious (as seen in the early episodes). Again falling back to the theory that the only real Pokémon are the ones from the first season, and everything else is just further speculation coming from his mind on what new species would look like.

The new teams ( magma, aqua, and galactic) are Ash attempting to work out the problems he has with his father. to do that he first needs a new “bad guy” to feel good about beating, and if Giovanni isn’t leading a criminal organization he can more easily relate to him.

If one recalls, there were real animals early in the show and references to animals in the game and show. For example, a clear case to point out is the aquarium of fish in the Cerulean City Gym or that by the Pokédex that Pikachu is a “rat-like” Pokémon. But they don’t matter to Ash’s psyche so they don’t come into play much. If Ash had loved puppies, everything would be about different breeds of dogs, and a dog fighting circuit. But, as the series goes on longer, we’ve been seeing less realistic animals and more Pokémon. This could be a sign of Ash’s mind deteriorating. As he’s in this coma, he’s losing concepts of some animals and machinery and replacing them with Pokémon. It could explain things like electric Pokémon working as power generators. A sign that his memory of the old world is slipping more and more as time goes by. The Pokémon realm will be idealized continuously the longer he has no stimulus from the real world. He may or may not be mentally deteriorating , but he is becoming more accustomed to his fake world’s rules. The wild Pokémon are his rationalizations of the functioning of the world. It’s the “A wizard did it” Syndrome. If he doesn’t know how it works, his mind says Pokémon. He justifies anything he can’t explain with Pokémon, and real animals fall into the background because he has no real interest in them.

The Pokémon in Ash’s team are his issues, for example Charmander represents his sex drive (not his sexuality like Brock) at first it’s a cute easy to control thing, but eventually becomes a raging inferno of disobedience. Acquiring his team means getting at his issues, but as he trains them, he works said issues out. Other trainers are more direct forms of his issues, ones that he must either come to terms with or outright supress. Gym leaders are more primary aspects of his personality with each Pokémon being stronger than the last, to display a level of skill he could be capable of if only he gave into it. In effect, he is doing battle with a part of him that he would rather not have in control. Bulbasaur was Ash’s unwillingness to change, this is reflectedwhen it declines to evolve and how it almost decided to stay behind unless he battled it. Squirtle was his willingness to follow the lead of others, as evidenced by the gang it ran with, even though he ran the gang, they were viewed as one group, and ash’s subconscious just gave him the strongest one.

Butterfree was his crushing loneliness, which he dealt with when he released it to join a flock. His bird types are his recklessness, always willing to sacrifice something at a moment’s notice for the win. When Ash is trading Pokémon, it’s an attempt to push his own problems away on someone else; however, he realizes this and usually trades back fairly quickly. Originally ash had the battles, which evolved into team battles and contests. The explanation for this is that his issues became more and more complicated, and the means of dealing with them needed to become more complex. the fact that he uses issues that he has already dominated to win these are signs that he’s growing stronger.

Not only are Ash’s Pokémon are a manifestation of different parts of himself, so are Pokémon of other trainers as well. Koffing and Ekans were symbolic of Team Rocket’s willingness to change; hence, their evolutions. Once his mind beat that roadblock down and allowed them to change once, it gives him the chance to truly change. Pupitar is a rationalization, a Pokémon that a rival caught before he met him. Even Ash would become suspicious if everyone he met had no carry-over from pervious places he had been to.

Ash releases his Pokémon because his mind is forcing him to let go of them. The second he raises an overpowered team, a tournament comes up, and after fighting his way through it he has to go to a new land for new challenges, but with an overpowered team, there won’t be any challenges, and no way to motivate him further, part of Ash wants to stay in the coma, and keep journeying.

Ash’s travelling also never really nets him any fame, no matter what he does, or where he goes, and the answer for that is simple. Ash just can’t picture himself as famous, so he essentially adopts a new identity every few months.

The reason he never truly becomes a master is because that would mean he’d have nothing left to dream, and would wake up from his coma. Ash’s dual personality is one that wants to maintain his fantasy world and slowly sort his thoughts out carefully. The other part wants freedom, and to return to his real life, to finally become a real Pokémon master. However if he’s allowed to keep his powerful team there’s no reason to meet and tame new Pokémon(Issues), he’ll lose interest, and the chance of becoming self-aware comes around again. So it’s not that he gives them up, it’s that he loses them, and unless he’s desperate (such as with Charizard) he can’t get them back. It’s basically his mind forcing him to deal with his issues. It would also be a good reason why Paul has shown up at this point, and Ash has been forced to work with him on at least one occasion: It’s his mind’s last ditch efforts to snap him out of this, to force Ash to actually come to terms that this perfect world is not the best option and he needs to wake up. Paul is Ash’s dark side, one that wants to push on even harder and harder, and the part of him that will stop at nothing to escape this coma world.

Ash’s rivals and the Elite four are ultimately the strongest part of this cycle. Having Pokémon that are essentially godlike, they represent both what can be attained and what is unattainable. Gary Oak is what Ash wants to be. He is wish fulfillment. He succeeded, and settled down to a normal life. Ash needs someone to succeed in his world or he won’t be able to validate it and will start questioning why he’s where he is. It’s a subconscious trap to keep him from becoming too aware of his situation. His mind must have figured out that awareness of the coma would snap him out of it, but it would cause major brain damage, so it took something the boy already loved and built a way out for him with it. However Ash is too complacent to finally fight his way out of it, and cannot escape. This is why he keeps encountering Legendary Pokémon, they’re his mind’s way of showing him he can do great things if he tries, and it’s a way to encourage him to push forwards. The Legendary Pokémon are Ash’s mind telling him that he has greatness in him and thus, can escape his happy–go–lucky reality.

Ash’s Rivals are all possible futures he envisions for himself (note that they are all older than him). This originated with Gary Oak, someone Ash knew from real life, and built up into a sort of god within his mind. Gary however progressed and changed to suit Ash’s vision of himself and ultimate desire, eventually settling down into a professor after beating the Elite Four. With Gary in retirement his mind needed a new rival for him Thus the births of Richie (the Good aspect of his rivalry) and Paul (as the darker aspect, a cut-throat Ash, willing to do anything to escape the coma world).

Richie and his Pikachu were another success story for Ash, but he wanted one he could be closer with. One nearly identical to him. One that even used a similar roster to him. Paul and his Chimchar are the polar opposite of Richie, Paul wants nothing to do with any kind of weakness, and is almost aware of his situation. He’s always pushing for something more.

The reason he discarded his original hat and the elements of japanese culture so prevalent in the first season is simple. He wanted to travel and broaden his horizons, every time he reinvented himself to do so; he lost touch with his original self. If he ever does escape the coma he’ll likely have achieved a sort of Zen state. Considering the amount of personal issues he deals with inside his head, it’s entirely likely that he was the next Buddha of the Pokémon world, and that the lightning strike and subsequent coma are a way for him to realize his true self, and destiny.

Mewtwo was a new form of treatment, done with electric impulses and a machine to knock Ash out of it, taking down every last one of his mental guards (the original Pokémon in the movie). In Ash’s mind, Mewtwo and his clones were the treatment for the mental safe guards that were protecting Ash and keeping him comatose; the Pokémon of his world. The clones were counters to Ash’s mental safeties, and so each appeared to Ash as the exact copy of his defense, intended to take it down by Force. The clones didn’t play by the rules of Ash’s world, they didn’t use any special Pokémon attacks or moves – they just beat down their counterpart by brute strength. The treatment was working, but there were side effects. The electric jolts were beginning to affect Ash’s nervous system, and if the treatment continued, he would be paralyzed. His mind realized this and manifested it to Ash by petrifying him in his dream. Were it not for the end of the treatment by Ash’s mother (knowing her son would never want to live in a world he couldn’t explore) Ash would have remained as stone in his dream. After this, Ash needed to recover from the damage of the electric therapy. Obviously it was greatly dangerous to him, and in order to reduce the danger Ash’s consciousness felt from it, Ash’s subconscious began downplaying the effects of electricity in Ash’s world, which is why Pikachu’s electric attacks -once noted for their strength by Team Rocket – no longer have any effect on Ash, other than comic relief.

Even the world Ash lives in evidences this. The sprawling forests and eco friendly cities are all his childish innocence. He never travels on a bike despite the distance due to the accident having given him a phobia of them.

As one could see, it is very likely that Ash is trapped in his world. But like every dream, everything, there is a beginning and an end. What would happen if Ash could fully recover? What would happen if he never does? There are infinite branches of possibilities that spiral upwards and intertwine towards the top at a single point, both in his “world” and the real world. In his hospital room, we see Delia, obviously distraught talking to a doctor with a grim look in his eye. He’s saying that their insurance is up, and the boy has had no change in brain activity for seven years. That a shock like this may awaken him. She tearfully agrees.

Professor Oak is there to comfort her as they take Ash off life support.

In Ash’s “world”. Ash has finally defeated the elite four, and one by one the people around him start disappearing. eventually everything is black. Pikachu comes dashing towards him glowing brighter and brighter in the darkness. Eventually Pikachu reaches ash and the two embrace one last time. Back in his room, as his life signs fade, Ash mutters his genuine, final words. I…Want…To…Be, The…Very…Best. The image of his gaunt, tube-fed, ten-some-year bed ridden body on the bed. His head appears bulbous from atrophy. As he utters his last words, he barely opens his eyes, seeing a silhouette of the figure at the center of his turbulent emotions, his mother, her face obstructed by her hands wiping away tears. He makes contact with her eyes and lets out one last tear before losing all strength. She breaks down in hysterics.

The worst part of all this is that Ash will die, never having experienced actual love, imagine if you will, having lived in a world like his, completely shut off from all things but yourself, and your perception of yourself, with nothing but better yourself. No other people to interact with and issues to solve with no guiding hand.

The boy will die, never having known his dream, except as naught but a dream. The second he gets out into reality for that last moment, part of him knows it was all a lie, his faithful Pikachu? His friends? All his imagination, and maybe, he could have fought and clung to life, maybe even made a full recovery. But knowing that his efforts and ambitions had all been for naught, he just gave up and let the motion carry him away, just so he could be with Pikachu, in a place where his friends were waiting.

I would like to think that he’ll realize that his mother loved him and was holding out hope that he’d recover all that time. On the flip side, though, when he sees her he knows that the hope she had is totally broken and she’d come to the crushing realization that the worst thing that can befall a parent has happened to her: outliving her only child. At once he knows he is loved and that it means that the one closest to him is utterly crushed. Still, there are other possibilities. The fountain of time flows in mysterious ways. One could not go back, against the current such as Gatsby; but, one could never see what is waiting for him downstream. Ash finally defeats Lance, only to be confronted by not Gary Oak, but a mute, mirror image of himself.

The voice of the narrator speaks to him, telling him that now he can finally escape the prison of his own mind. One by one, his friends appear and melt away into more copies of him, all cheering him on. After a long tough battle against himself with the assistance of all of his Pokémon he had ever befriended, he jolts awake.

In his hospital room he sees his parents asleep; he finds himself unable to speak.

Ash pushes forward towards his recovery. Going through physical therapy, training harder and harder with rehabilitative Pokémon, until he can walk on his own again. This time, an older and wiser ash sets out on a journey. Just like last time, he’s late getting to Professor Oak’s laboratory. And when there’s only one Pokémon left….He suddenly recalls all his memories of his “life” and realizes that all his friends are gone forever. As he sets out with his new companion, he finds the world is darker than he imagined. More “real”, Pokémon and people die; he too has aged. He vows to become the Master he dreamed he was. He vows to himself.

He vows to “them”. I WILL be the very best!

Raggedy Ann

The time is about 1917. Smallpox rears its ugly face and mass inoculation follows on its heels. It is customary, at this time, to inoculate all children in schools against the dreaded disease. Obtaining consent from the parents before inoculating the child is not customary. Children are routinely inoculated, at school, several times for the same disease without parents giving consent or being advised of the inoculations.

Marcella Gruelle is the young daughter of Johnny Gruelle; a successful writer and illustrator employed by a magazine entitled Physical Culture. Marcella has been inoculated at school. She loses her appetite, becomes feverish and fatigued. Her parents do not consent to more inoculations, yet more are given. Marcella’s health continues to decline. She loses her muscle control, becoming listless and lifeless like a rag doll. Marcella dies a slow and painful death. Seven leading physicians are called upon to opine about the cause of her death. Six consented it is the result of vaccine induced poisoning and call it malpractice. The seventh, being the head of the school board and an supporter of vaccination, declines to comment.

Soon after his daughter’s death, Johnny is asked to create an illustration to accompany an article, “Vaccines Killed My Two Sisters.” The cartoon is a clever and effective work, reflective of Johnny’s style which is familiar to the readers of the magazine. However, they are not prepared for the note which Mr. Gruelle encloses with his single drawing. It reads:

“Having recently lost our only daughter through Vaccination (in public school, without our consent) you may realize how terribly HUMOROUS the subject of vaccination appears to Mrs. Gruelle and myself. Of the seven physicians called in on the case, six pronounced it in emphatic terms MALPRACTICE. The seventh did not commit himself, being the head of the school board and a firm advocate of vaccination.”

Shortly after Marcella’s death, Johnny creates a doll much different than the more popular, rigid, clay dolls of the time. Rather than create a doll that stands up straight with a healthy and happy glow, in a fitting tribute to his only daughter, he designs a doll to represent her limp and dying body.

In 1920, midwest department store giant, Marshal Field, markets Raggedy Ann. Though most people have no knowledge of the tragic inspiration behind this beloved child’s toy, Raggedy Ann symbolizes a near century of childhood vaccine injuries and deaths.

As we cuddle our sweet dollies at bed time, we do not know that we are preparing ourselves for a time when we may hold our own, lifeless, listless, vaccine-injured child in our arms.

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