like yeah of course tom thinks shiv is a scorpion because he doesn't know she compromised her position and sacrificed her brother so he wouldn't go to prison. he doesn't know she refused to divulge any information about cruises to gil in season 1 before she was certain tom would walk away unscathed. he doesn't know she shut down her brothers' offer to fire him, doesn't know she ensured he'd have a place in the company post-acquisition, doesn't know that the first time she indelicately interrogated matsson about whether she'd have any power and influence at waystar gojo was literally immediately after matsson brought up the idea of firing tom. and it's her fault he doesn't know that she's protected him at nearly every turn because she won't tell him. and it's looking more likely with every passing episode that he'll never know 😔🔫

Batim Chapter 5: Theories, Observations, and Questions

OKAY. So there’s a lot to unpack with the new chapter and my brain feels a little bit like exploding. I don’t think the ending we got was bad, but I do think there’s a lot to unpack. People smarter than me will probably make better theories, I just really need to get these thoughts out. Questions in bold. Answers I could come up with bolded and italisized. Observations normal font. Be warned: There are spoilers everywhere. 

Firstly, the largest question. What the frick frack snack was that ending?

I don’t believe that the game is a dream or a time loop. The dream is a tired cliche, and the time loop kind of just raises more questions than it answers. I think the ending scene with Joey is either an encounter Henry is remembering, or some sort of dream. Yes, I know I tossed out the dream thing earlier, stick with me.

The last thing we see before Henry appears in Joey’s house is white screen. If we’re going by trope logic, Henry is probably experiencing a vision of some sort, or he passed out. The scene in the house plays like a planned meet up between Joey and Henry, with the last line basically being the last line from the letter we see in the beginning. I don’t see why both the letter and the meeting would exist. I can only see one of them being the thing that prompted Henry to return to the studio. So which is real, the letter or the meeting? I have no idea, but I’m thinking the letter is more likely. If the letter is the only thing that’s real, then that scene could be some sort of dream that Henry’s mind created, basing it on the letter he received and filling in the cracks. Or maybe Joey has some sort of connection to the studio, and is trying to communicate a message to Henry as our protagonist lies unconscious. The dream/memory ends with Henry remembering the beginning. (And probably waking up right after.) Bottom line, the ending scene where Joey speaks to Henry in the house is either Henry remembering an event, Henry having a dream about why Joey would have sent him to the studio with the letter, or a mixture of both. After it is over, Henry will wake up in the studio and be able to return home, having freed the souls trapped there by defeating the ink demon. 

On to the next several questions, which are smaller. Who is writing the hidden messages? 

Anyone can guess. I read another post suggesting that Joey wrote them. Considering the drawings we see and the idea that Joey has some connection to how the studio is now, that theory has some merit. All we know for sure is that whoever it is has some sort of knowledge of the future, based on the message that knew Good!Alice would leave you for dead and the fact that the messages are instructions on what to do. We know that Good!Alice has been reading them, but does not understand their meaning. If you’re a fan of the timeloop idea, you could guess that Henry himself is writing them. The writer could be anyone, but Joey is who I instinctively blame, given his connection to the studio. 

Why did Henry leave the studio?

Thanks to Henry’s podium in the archives and the picture we see framed in the house, we have at least a little information. Henry left the studio for unknown reasons at some point, before the studio shut down. My first thought was that he left because Joey took credit for making Bendy, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. The picture signed by Henry says “Your success”, implying that he already left. But it is signed, “your best pal”, meaning they were probably on good terms. So why did Henry leave if they were on good terms with each other. We can only speculate, seeing as Joey and Henry seemed to be on good terms based on the picture we see framed in the house. (Or maybe Henry is a super sarcastic person who decided to send a back handed message by saying “your best pal” when they clearly weren’t. But then why would Joey have it framed?)

What did Wally do?

In the last recording we hear form Wally, he explains that he found a chocolate cake while cleaning. Based on his language, he probably ate it. Then he says “I hope no one finds out what I did.” This could be referring to the cake, but it seems odd to word it that way. Could the cake be a metaphor for something else? Or maybe there was a cake, but Wally is talking about something else in the same recording. There aren’t many recordings in the last chapter, so the fact that it’s there means it must be important. Based on his recording, Wally must have done something that made him afraid he would get in trouble. We don’t know what it is yet, but it was definitely something. How related it is to a cake is also unknown. 

Where is everyone else?

It doesn’t look good. We know that Tom is the Boris we work with near the end, and we can assume that Good!Alice is Allison. But what about everyone else? We haven’t been able to see many images of the secret messages in other chapter, but we do have some clear screenshots of the coffins (credit to @procrastinatorat), and you know what’s on them? NAMES. 

Things aren’t looking so good for the employees of Joey Drew Studios. There is a very strong implication that they are dead. (Or worse, as in the cases of Susie, Bertie, and Norman.) Side note, we don’t actually know that much about the fates of Tom, Allison, and Wally. The letters in the Joey house sequence suggest a happy ending, but if that scene is a construct of Henry’s own mind, that might be him hoping for a happy ending that didn’t actually happen. Also, the fact that Wally is mentioned continues to point at him being extremely important story wise.

Is the ink demon evil? 

This is a matter of speculation. When the ink demon in early chapters touches you, you die. However, this may not be intentional. We don’t honestly know enough about it’s nature to determine decisively. In the final chapter, the ink demon back hands you across the room after reaching his final form, but doesn’t actively attack you after that. You only die if you stand in his way, at which point he tramples you. When you insert the “the end” tape, you turn and see him reaching for you, but his intentions are unclear. It’s kind of hard to tell what a persons intentions are when they don’t have most of their face. The reaching could be interpreted as an intent to hurt or mere curiosity. The answer remains to be determined. 

What was that whole part where you had the ink demon break some glass pillars full of ink? 

Heck if I know. It was clearly important, but why, I have no idea. Bendy immediately showed up when you switched it on, so it may have been a summoning spell of some sort? Really, I have no idea.  

(EDIT: Forgot this question, whoops.) What is Henry?

Sorry to be from the department of redundancy department, but there’s not really a way to say for sure. We never see Henry, not even so much as a shadow or a hand. The most we can gather about him is that he’s short. But based on interactions, we can guess at a few things. I believe that when Henry entered the studio, he was human. However, we know that the ink changes things. Pretty obvious examples are given in the form of Sammy, both Alices, etc. Henry has died like a billion times by the end, and is constantly walking through ink showers. I’m not sure how, but he has definitely changed him. This is further supported by Good!Alice saying, “We don’t know what you are.” Not who you are, what. Henry may have started out human, but I’m pretty sure he’s not anymore. What exactly he is remains to be seen.  

That’s all for now. Whoo, that took awhile to type. This is disorganized word soup, but I hope it was somewhat helpful in getting brain juices flowing. I have a lot a feelings about the game, and most of them are good. Thank you so much to TheMeatly and all of the amazing people responsible for this game. I’m not going to forget about it in a hurry, I love it to bits, and I know it was an enormous labor of love for all of you. Stay amazing, all of you! Might come back and edit this later, not sure. You all have a good night! 

(One more tiny thing. I have a niggling thought in the back of mind that while the studio and all that happened there is not a dream, it is somehow a construct of Henry’s mind. There was a screenshot I wasn’t able to get with a secret message on Henry’s desk saying “he was born here”. This could mean that the studio, at least the one Henry is in, is all in Henry’s head. As in, the version of Henry we play as was born there. There seems to be a lot of evidence pointing to this. Like, he defeats the ink demon by showing it “the end”. Maybe it’s a metaphor for how he is trying to let go of Bendy, let go of some anger or issue he has been hanging on to, to end it. This could also be the reason that no one can come with him into the machine. He has to let go of this himself. I’m not sure I particularly like this theory, but I can’t get it out of my head. So if someone wants to either prove me wrong or spin it in a way that isn’t as much of a cliche, feel free! It just now occurred to me that “he” could mean Bendy. Eh, I don’t feel like rewriting that whole paragraph. Cheers everyone!)