H-Virus
Hank Scorpio
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Post by H-Virus on Oct 8, 2023 6:20:52 GMT -5
For anyone who doesn't know: a coma theory or dream theory is about how a show or game or whatever isn't real and only exists in the mind of one of the characters (usually the main character) due to them being in a coma or dreaming, or alternatively because they are close to death or already in Purgatory.
Some well known examples would be:
The Rugrats Theory, where Angelica is a crack-baby and the other babies are delusions of her drug-adled mind.
Ash's Coma Theory, where Ash fell into a coma the first time Pikachu electrocuted him and everything that happened after that was a dream he had.
The Squall is Dead Theory, where Squall was fatally wounded during the first battle with Sorceress Edea and the rest of the game is a fever dream as he slowly succumbs to death.
Now, personally, I'm not a fan of theories like this, partially because they're easy to disprove (why do the babies still exist when Angelica isn't around to interact with them?), partly because there's just no basis or evidence that everything you're seeing is a dream, and most of all because turning an entire game/story into a figment of someone's imagination just cheapens the whole experience.
But I do believe that there are exceptions to everything, so I'm wondering if anyone has read a convincing theory for something that actually has some basis for how and why it's possible without sounding like something the person just pulled out of their ass.
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thechase
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Post by thechase on Oct 8, 2023 6:29:59 GMT -5
The "OMD was a bad dream Peter Parker had" theory which made it to canon in the ASM newspaper strip. Stan's last act of defiance.
Homer Simpson in a coma, decanonising all the seasons of The Simpsons nobody likes.
Jon Arbuckle only imagines having pets as part of his mental breakdown
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Post by BlackoutCreature on Oct 8, 2023 7:10:30 GMT -5
I always thought the "Squall is dead" theory worked surprisingly well in the context of the game. As opposed to the Angelica/Rugrats theory which has nothing in the show to support it and feels like an ass-pull some fourteen year old edge lord came up with.
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Post by Feyrhausen on Oct 8, 2023 7:26:51 GMT -5
The TNG movies after Generations are all Picard being in the Nexus.
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Post by Urn Anderson on Oct 8, 2023 7:33:58 GMT -5
I don’t agree with it, but the explanation of Homer Simpson still being in a coma to explain the show becoming less and less grounded in reality works. You can see him gradually lose that 5% of his brain.
I don’t recall them doing anything like that, but I’m surprised they’ve never played with that concept in a Treehouse of Horror or something. They could even reference the Simpsons’ “ability to predict the future” (which is almost entirely a bunch of bull) by saying it came from Homer seeing all of those future events during the seven weeks he was asleep.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Oct 8, 2023 8:32:05 GMT -5
I always thought the "Squall is dead" theory worked surprisingly well in the context of the game. As opposed to the Angelica/Rugrats theory which has nothing in the show to support it and feels like an ass-pull some fourteen year old edge lord came up with. I get why people might think it with Squall, but it's also one of those things where some people try to insist on it being "right" when it doesn't work. Like, he got impaled with ice, so there's no way he could have survived, except he was in a huge capital city with enormous resources and all the reason in the world to want to keep him alive and could have had him on an operating table within minutes if they wanted/needed to. Like, if Phineas Gage could survive what happened to him in 1948, having a metal rod driven entirely through his skull, I can buy that magic, much more advanced technology, etc, could keep Squall vital. It's not like with Aerith in 7 where they are in the middle of nowhere and don't have those kinds of resources to help. |
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Post by ace on Oct 8, 2023 8:48:50 GMT -5
Does Wizard of Oz count?
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H-Virus
Hank Scorpio
A Real Contagious Experience
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Post by H-Virus on Oct 8, 2023 9:01:44 GMT -5
I always thought the "Squall is dead" theory worked surprisingly well in the context of the game. As opposed to the Angelica/Rugrats theory which has nothing in the show to support it and feels like an ass-pull some fourteen year old edge lord came up with. My biggest issue with 'Squall is Dead' isn't even that it's not plausible, but rather that in trying to explain away all of the ridiculous happenings in the story by saying that 75% of the game wasn't real and didn't actually happen, it leaves the question of "Then what WAS real and what DID actually happen?" Like, we know that everything that happened in disc 1 was real, but how do you fit all of it into the 'fake' portion of the story? After Squall dies, what happens to the rest of his team? In the game, they're imprisoned and then manage to break out and escape, but that was part of the dream, so what really happened to them? Were they all killed by Edea and her army as well? Do they still make it back to Balamb Garden to save it from the missile strike (does the missile strike even happen)? Does Edea ever get saved? Is she really Cid's wife or did Squall make that up too? Does Rinoa still become a Sorceress? Was the Sorceress Adel a real person? Was Time Compression still their main goal? We know that Laguna was a real person because we learned about him in disc 1, but if he didn't really go on to become the president of a huge, futuristic city, then what became of him? Those are just a few of the dozens and dozens of questions that open up when you go by the Squall is Dead logic. Sure, it explains why moombas exist (because no Final Fantasy game has ever had weird talking creatures in them), but it also makes the entire plot feel completely irrelevant because the 'real' story ends with "Squall's dead, bad guy wins, The End.", and absolutely nothing else gets resolved. |
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schma
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Post by schma on Oct 8, 2023 11:13:34 GMT -5
The TNG movies after Generations are all Picard being in the Nexus. I haven't seen Generations since it was new, but aren't all the Nexus fantasies positive ones? Wasn't it referred to as feeling like wrapping yourself in love? He suffers some pretty brutal moments in the movies after Generations that don't seem like something the Nexus would produce given what we know about it. |
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Gunhaver
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Post by Gunhaver on Oct 8, 2023 11:21:52 GMT -5
No. For me, they're either creepypasta levels of trying to corrupt children's media (Rugrats thing), a means to explain away portions of something fans don't like (Simpsons thing), or a bad attempt to interpret surrealist imagery, like portions of Squall is Dead.
It's particularly bad when it's forced on things that the creator has stated has no meaning, like Yumi Nikki, but I think there's something in the human brain that doesn't jive well with that.
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Post by Feyrhausen on Oct 8, 2023 11:26:24 GMT -5
The TNG movies after Generations are all Picard being in the Nexus. I haven't seen Generations since it was new, but aren't all the Nexus fantasies positive ones? Wasn't it referred to as feeling like wrapping yourself in love? He suffers some pretty brutal moments in the movies after Generations that don't seem like something the Nexus would produce given what we know about it. Everything bad that happens has a positive outcome. Kirk dies so Picard is proven the superior captain. Picard disobeys Starfleet orders but of course he is proven right in the end. Data dies but peace with the Romulans is now likely and Data will be reborn in B4 anyway. And Picard seems like the type that likes a little sadness in his happiness anyway. Personally I dont subscribe to the idea though. |
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El Pollo Guerrera
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Post by El Pollo Guerrera on Oct 8, 2023 12:45:54 GMT -5
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Post by WoodStoner1 on Oct 8, 2023 12:58:38 GMT -5
Sandy and Danny are dead, and the car flying at the end is them going back to Heaven.
There's two Muppet Babies ones that came to mind....1) the MBs are abused children who use their imagination to forget. And mine, at least I heard it from no one else, 2) since Miss Piggy first imagined the MB in Muppets Take Manhattan, the entire MB franchise is her fantasy about if her and Kermit grew up together.
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Cranjis McBasketball
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Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Oct 9, 2023 15:45:09 GMT -5
I don’t agree with it, but the explanation of Homer Simpson still being in a coma to explain the show becoming less and less grounded in reality works. You can see him gradually lose that 5% of his brain. I don’t recall them doing anything like that, but I’m surprised they’ve never played with that concept in a Treehouse of Horror or something. They could even reference the Simpsons’ “ability to predict the future” (which is almost entirely a bunch of bull) by saying it came from Homer seeing all of those future events during the seven weeks he was asleep. They have played with the concept, the episode is Lisa the Boy Scout and is quite good. |
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Post by Mighty Attack Tribble on Oct 9, 2023 16:52:04 GMT -5
Everything bad that happens has a positive outcome. Kirk dies so Picard is proven the superior captain. Picard disobeys Starfleet orders but of course he is proven right in the end. Data dies but peace with the Romulans is now likely and Data will be reborn in B4 anyway. And Picard seems like the type that likes a little sadness in his happiness anyway. Personally I dont subscribe to the idea though. The events of the first two seasons of Picard would pretty conclusively rule it out, anyway. Picard spending almost 15 years in a bitter self-exile, rotting away on his vineyard, estranged from half his old crew and waiting to die would be a pretty miserable fantasy. Not to mention Romulus' destruction effectively ending any chance of a peace with the Romulans for another few centuries. The third season could easily be a fantasy, though. |
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Post by Feyrhausen on Oct 9, 2023 17:18:59 GMT -5
Everything bad that happens has a positive outcome. Kirk dies so Picard is proven the superior captain. Picard disobeys Starfleet orders but of course he is proven right in the end. Data dies but peace with the Romulans is now likely and Data will be reborn in B4 anyway. And Picard seems like the type that likes a little sadness in his happiness anyway. Personally I dont subscribe to the idea though. The events of the first two seasons of Picard would pretty conclusively rule it out, anyway. Picard spending almost 15 years in a bitter self-exile, rotting away on his vineyard, estranged from half his old crew and waiting to die would be a pretty miserable fantasy. Not to mention Romulus' destruction effectively ending any chance of a peace with the Romulans for another few centuries. The third season could easily be a fantasy, though. I agree. The idea only worked for the TNG movies. |
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Post by Cry Me a Wiggle on Oct 9, 2023 23:09:45 GMT -5
That the penultimate episode of the X-Files Season 6, where Mulder and Scully get trapped in an enormous fungal network that causes them to hallucinate a fantasy life, opens up the possibility that everything that happened after is still part of their dying dream world. Normally I’d be dismissive of such nonsense (especially when there was a spin-off, movie, and revival after the fact), but it’s weirdly plausible. Immediately after is when the show started its second mythology arc, a messy and delirious affair that seemed to ignore, contradict, or otherwise invalidate itself through the show’s end and return. But the kicker is that in the last season of the revival, the infamous This Man was hidden in several episodes, suggesting that the events are indeed a dream. |
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CMWaters
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Post by CMWaters on Oct 9, 2023 23:18:55 GMT -5
Do we count two that actually happened in canon in the form of that one season of "Dallas" being a dream and the entirety of "Newhart"?
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Post by A Platypus Rave is Correct on Oct 10, 2023 0:31:45 GMT -5
No. For me, they're either creepypasta levels of trying to corrupt children's media (Rugrats thing), a means to explain away portions of something fans don't like (Simpsons thing), or a bad attempt to interpret surrealist imagery, like portions of Squall is Dead. It's particularly bad when it's forced on things that the creator has stated has no meaning, like Yumi Nikki, but I think there's something in the human brain that doesn't jive well with that. and people ignore the weird shit that happens in disk 1 to only go for the only strange things happen past that point... Like the president you try to kidnap that turns out to be a weird zombie creature. |
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Post by A Platypus Rave is Correct on Oct 10, 2023 0:33:20 GMT -5
I don't even think Tommy Westphall was a good theory for St. Elsewhere... let alone all of the tie ins... which is like half of Television >_> |
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