#“you have to keep up with your body to keep it thin” <- (ref Moony why she wasnt different in PoP)

[ezzybel]

The only thing I have to add to this analysis is to pose the question:

If Series ENA is a different instance of ENA in each episode. How does this interact with Moony & Ena's friendship?

Does Moony simply hang out or challenge multiple Ena?

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Chapter 2 of Dream Barbeque can't be released soon enough

Recently in trying to come to a logical comprehension of the abstractness and esoteric narrative of ENA, I eventually came to speculate that all episodes' Enas are different ones. I even mention this in the tags of this post that I chose to not add and instead screenshotted them to preserve them.

The reason I came to speculate this is simply because I'm the sort of person who tries to make the incomprehensible, comprehensible. If something appears to have at least enough sense and continuity to it to not be complete 'nonsense', then I will persistently attempt to break it down into something that makes logical sense and unearth a "true/concrete understanding" (much to my own chagrin and annoyance. Motifs and patterns and connections-making brain is too used to doing this that I can't really "turn it off"). I am also aware that that's not what ENA is about— at least not initially, given the hourglass dog unlockables in DBBQ make mention of "lore" within the ENA universe (but even I'm skeptical as to how the word "lore" is being used, because I'm doubtful it's used to mean 'a canon' of sorts).

But ENA as a narrative is more akin to Hylics than something like your standard JRPG: there's a world and a relatively understood comprehension of how the laws of it work (to an extent) and things like entities and recurring people, but there's no real overarching plot to them— though Hylics doesn't exactly fit 1:1 with this description as both games do have a sort of plot, but the first game's is a lot more mere happenstance and not something like a "god-given quest".

Or in short, things really happen just to happen. DBBQ is to ENA what Hylics 2 is to Hylics.

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Anyway, why exactly I speculated that all the episodes' Ena's are different ones has to do with my having attempted to understand when Power of Potluck takes place.

I've already theorized how PoP possibly fits chronologically into the ENA series as a whole in two instances, but temporarily gave up out of acquiescing to the highly probable case that ENA just isn't something that a comprehensive timeline is necessary for or was even considered in the making of it.

To summarize my tags in the first link, based on a post someone made about how Ena in PoP is missing the middle strap of her suspenders which matches how she looked in Auction Day (where for Extinction Party and Temptation Stairway she has the middle strap), the op theorized that PoP chronologically occurs before Auction Day. I misremembered when they said PoP possibly chronologically occurs as before Extinction Party.

This time placement still matches up if PoP is placed in the gap between the two since Ena only has the middle strap in her design from specifically Extinction Party forward, so reasonably, any time before then she could have not had it yet.

(And as an aside, due to the possible achronological nature of Ena, it's also reasonable to speculate that the episodes in the order they were released also didn't chronologically occur in that order.)

But that's not my point of discussing this, just that I misremembered and that in my tags, were Auction Day to be put in place of my mention of Extinction Party, my point would still stand.

As you can see, I tried to come to a logical understanding of how PoP fits in with the rest of the series— not just because of that post pointing out the possible timeline placement— but because it doesn't make sense what with the ending of Temptation Stairway.

Sure, maybe one could offer the argument that the Great Runas' wish fulfillment wouldn't be permanent for one reason or another (ala "you can't just wish away your sadness; as an emotion, it will inevitably come back and this wish will only offer temporary solace at best"), but Ulysses literally tells Ena that she's trapped within the Divine Door until it next opens, which won't be for a long time, so how is she in Power of Potluck?

Maybe she really did just wait out the whole time and is still alive (how one would even figure out a life expectancy for a functionally immortal and achronological entity like Ena, I don't know), but this feels like a stretch.

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That was then that I considered "what if it's not just PoP Ena that is a different Ena, and Auction Day; Extinction Party; and Temptation Stairway are all one Ena, and DBBQ is yet another Ena, but that all of the episodes have different Enas?"

This is actually implied within the series itself with Rubik in Extinction Party and Shepherd in Temptation Stairway addressing Ena as though there existed multiple of her.

Some people have taken this to mean that Ena is a species rather than that there are multiple of specifically her. Put another way, multiple of the same entity (as is shown in the Holy Code with multiple blue/yellow Enas frozen in place and intermittently glitching into mannequins).

If it's already established that in some form there are multiple Enas (regardless of if being a species or just multiple of one person), then why not take it a step further and speculate that the Ena in each episode is also a different one? Why assume that the Ena we watch through all the episodes is the exact same one?

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What really made me seriously consider this was that, going based on this theory, it makes what was going on with Ena in Temptation Stairway make sense.

In Temptation Stairway, the whole way through, Ena's voices don't match the side they're typically assigned to (male voice coming from sad and female voice coming from happy). Sometimes they match, others they don't. Sometimes for one sentence from sad, it's the female voice but for the immediate subsequent sentence it's the male voice, creating this weird dissonance.

In Auction Day, Extinction Party, and later Power of Potluck, this mixing of the voices never happens. For those episodes, happy is always the male voice and sad is always the female voice.

Going into Temptation Stairway with the belief that its Ena is the exact same as the Enas in the prior two episodes creates dissonance and confusion because she never had this 'issue' before, so why are her voices so mismatched now? But if one goes into Temptation Stairway with the belief that each episodes' Ena is a different one, then that clears any possible dissonance and confusion because then it'd just be this one instance of Ena in particular that's all weird.

This also in turn, makes Power of Potluck's events even happening make sense since Ena shouldn't have been able to leave the Divine Door until it next opened (is it possible for her to transfer herself to a different mannequin on command? Like, without dying first? And if she were to be transferred to a different mannequin, would the Great Runas' wish fulfillment still be in effect or would it be null since she's technically a different entity (mannequin, not Ena) than the one who made the wish?). If the Ena in Power of Potluck is a different Ena, then that could mean that Temptation Stairway's Ena could still exist simultaneously.

Though, that's if one's interpretation of "multiple of the same entity" is the straightforward "clones"-type understanding. It's possible that while there are multiple Enas, there is still actually only one of her.

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That's where the theorized achronological aspect of her comes in. Many different timelines/chonologies overlapping each other at different points to create the 'illusion' of there being multiple of her, but there is still only one of her in the strictest sense.

But then there's also the "one person can be in two places at once" thing.

To explain it as simply as I can and how I understand it, Ena basically functions like Celebi from pokemon, but like, a bit more convoluted.

This understanding of "Ena is multiple of the same entity" contradicts how Power of Potluck works— depending on when it occurs.

On one hand, if Power of Potluck chronologically occurs after Temptation Stairway, then it doesn't make sense since all Enas are actually just one entity ever but there's some timey-wimey shenanigans going on with her thus making her "multiple", and if Ena is trapped behind the Divine Door and possibly can't get out even by using a different mannequin because it'd possibly nullify her wish, then how and why does Power of Potluck occur?

Her wish was fulfilled, and while Ulysses says "desires are never fulfilled nor quenched", given the many Enas floating motionless in the Holy Code, glitching, the rest of the events of Temptation Stairway implies that this Ena actually succeeded whereas all the others failed.

(And this also makes the events of Temptation Stairway very interesting when viewed with the belief that there is only truly one Ena but there's time overlap going on. Because, as Shepherd implies, she has met Ena before. Ena has entered the Divine Door before. she has tried to make her wish to the Great Runas before— and as the many instances of her in the Holy Code show, she's tried this many times. And it was only during the events of Temptation Stairway itself that she (seemingly) succeeds.)

So if Ena is stuck within the Divine Door and wouldn't have been able to leave for a very long time and her wish was fulfilled (for a literal god, I find the idea of the Great Runas' wish fulfillment not being able to stick disappointing and portrays the genies as not all they're cracked up to be. That they don't deserve the reputation they have if their powers are naturally impermanent and there's nothing they can do about it), then why does Power of Potluck even happen? Why is Sad back?

And of course, I have to address the elephant in the room that is Moony having reverted back to her normal form than the cursed humanoid form she got as per her wish in Temptation Stairway.

Again, this is only really a snag if one views Power of Potluck occurring chronologically after Temptation Stairway, if it's viewed as having occurred prior to T.S, then there's no issue.

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But that then leads me to what I theorized about the nature of PoP in relation to the rest of the series: Power of Potluck is an alternate timeline of Ena where she failed in having her wish granted by way of not making it to the Divine Door in time.

It can't be her having failed some time after having entered it because remember, the Door closes right after she and Moony enter it and she can't exit it until a long time later.

And as I stated in my tags above, I find Power of Potluck chronologically occurring after Temptation Stairway— just in general— rendering T.S redundant since... what was the point of all of that and Ena having her wish fulfilled in having her sadness removed if it just comes back in the next episode?

People try to logically explain it as "the Great Runas' powers probably aren't permanent or weren't permanent with the nature of Ena's wish in particular (and Moony's, I guess)", but that feels like a stretch since for all how glorified and praised the Great Runas is, I've no reason to reasonably believe that it was exaggeration— or that the nature of Ena's wish was incompatible with permanence (the Great Runas is literally "Run As". As in "run as administrator". I kind of doubt something with that level of power could be so easily undone. It's literally a metaphysical rewrite).

But if Power of Potluck is a different timeline altogether where Ena failed to even reach the Divine Door— and Moony is still a moon rather than humanoid, meaning she also failed to reach it— then PoP makes sense, as its existence doesn't conflict with Temptation Stairway.

If one ascribes to the flavor of "Ena is multiple of the same entity" theory where she's all just one entity ever but there's achonological overlap, how Power of Potluck occurs would alter the nature of this take on Ena into something even more convoluted. That being, each Ena, rather than assumably all being from one timeline and occurring in the past or future from when they're supposed to be— creating the illusion of there being multiple Enas— is actually "every 'instance' of Ena is an Ena from a different timeline".

And that with each Ena being from a different timeline but they're able to cross over to other timelines and also have the same aforementioned achronological format, then shit gets really confusing.

Basically then, only Ena would be able to "jump" timelines but not any of the other characters. That way it's still only one Ena but it's Ena from different timelines.

(Technically, this is also the same take as how I explained "each episode's Ena is a different one, which explains what was up with the voice dissonance with T.S' Ena", as each episodes' Ena actually being from a single timeline is literally just the same as the take that the Ena in all episodes is the same exact one.)

If one ascribes to there literally being multiple Enas (not a species, just multiple of the same entity ala "clones"), then Power of Potluck almost makes sense. Because, while this does account for the conflicting existences of PoP's Ena and T.S' Ena, it doesn't account for Moony still being a moon rather than humanoid— and we don't have any reason to realistically believe that there are also multiples of Moony (and possibly every other character).

So, in the end, the most sensible explanation for Power of Potluck occurring without being in conflict with Temptation Stairway is that PoP occurs in a timeline where Ena and Moony failed to reach the Divine Door (which in itself is inherent to believing that each episodes' Ena is a different one).

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Now, having established that every Ena seen is a different instance, how does Dream BBQ's Ena fit into this?

My first theory was that she too, was a different Ena but still originally was blue/yellow Ena that somehow became how she is now, and while I still think this, there's now more to it.

While I did reblog and found much of the theorizing in this post agreeable, when it came to DBBQ Ena being implied as being Temptation Stairway's Ena, that... sort of didn't register properly in my brain...

It's like "water is wet, yeah." then going "OHHHH. Water is wet!" like, ?????? it didn't??? click right??? in my brain??????

Understanding but not true understanding?

It wasn't until I started doing this theorizing completely separate from that post that I organically came to the same conclusion.

As per my tags from different DBBQ analyses:

With things from the series literally being referenced in-universe, I don't think it's meant to just be a "wink wink, nudge nudge" for the player, but is actually something that has occurred in-universe. Emphasis on "occurred", past tense.

And with Worker Ena during the end of chapter one having technical difficulties in loading into the mannequin at the hub where she blips through her "hangover form" and even blue/yellow Ena for a single frame, I think it has actual bearing in-universe. That it's not just an easter egg, it means something.

I phrase it in the first post's tags that "she has been blue/yellow", but that was postulation for the sake of fitting within tag and tag character limits. It has not been proven that Worker Ena once was blue/yellow Ena, but evidence throughout DBBQ heavily implies this to be the case.

And even Worker Ena's 'bugging out' at the end of chapter one is just my interpretation of what was going on: that she was being loaded as past states (like... a computer. Save states, system restore, etc) before she was properly loaded back as Worker Ena.

I interpreted it this way based on the appearance of Hangover Ena being a completely unique state of Ena (as opposed to the emotional extremes which aren't unique states since they're just emotions from a blue/yellow or cream white+blue-grey/red Ena) and viewing the single frame appearance of blue/yellow Ena with knowledge that the events of the series have already happened (because I've seen some people speculate that DBBQ is a prequel?? No???), it lead to me thinking that the appearance of blue/yellow Ena during the 'technical difficulties' alongside Hangover Ena was that these two states of being have something in common.

She has been Hangover Ena. She has been blue/yellow Ena.

So, how does this tie into Worker Ena potentially being Temptation Stairway's Ena?

Since I have established my belief in the theory that Worker Ena isn't a completely separate "type" of Ena (along the lines of the "Ena is a species" theory) and instead formerly was blue/yellow, I can properly start explaining.

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Referring back to this analysis, this is the only analysis I've seen that makes any mention of the wish option Ena could make to Theodora about "punishing the moon".

Things like aspiring for a blissful life or eternal happiness can be understood within only the context of Worker Ena as we know her in DBBQ (completely divorced from her being series Ena) given how overworked she is and how much she hates her job and outright states she no longer has personal agency.

Aspiring for Frank's forgiveness on his behalf is also understandable— especially since he's 1. one of the few characters (as of chapter 1) that is genuinely kind to Ena with no backhanded compliments or remarks about her and 2. pronounces and spells her name correctly as ∃NA.

He is the most respectful character thus far to Worker Ena, so her aspiring for his forgiveness on his behalf being because of his genuine respect for her makes sense.

Then there's of course the aspiration to get rid of the smoke, the entire reason Ena even came to have an audience with Theodora.

But then there's the option at the bottom.

"Aspire for the punishment of the moon." The heck does that mean?

Well, as this analysis theorizes, Worker Ena isn't just any random instance of Ena, but is specifically Temptation Stairway's Ena.

To quote said analysis,

"But if Runas was in fact the murdered Genie, then there is one suspect in particular that pops into my mind. Someone who has met Runas. Someone who was... unimpressed. Dissatisfied. And found herself trapped inside his domain for a long, long time."

This aspiration only makes sense in the context of Worker Ena being the same Ena as in Temptation Stairway.

Why? Why would it specifically have to be Temptation Stairway's Ena and not a different one? Aspiring for the punishment of the moon doesn't really convey a form of specificity to the events of Temptation Stairway, theory that the Great Runas was killed and Ena was blamed for it/being punished on behalf of Moony or whoever did it or not.

Well, there's several reasons.

The first being the constant mention of God that Worker Ena has ("bless you for your business", "worry not, you're still a child of GOD", "GOD knows the rest") makes the most sense with Temptation Stairway's Ena— though this can come across as confirmation bias.

Another reason is that DBBQ Ena is overworked, stressed, and one of her sides is literally anger and anxiety, and that Worker Ena was formerly blue/yellow but Something Happened. That one of her aspirations to a GOD is to "punish the moon"; Moony would have had to have done something absolutely horrific to Ena to have led to series Ena becoming the way she is now and first chance she gets at reaching a wish-granting god is to punish Moony.

Yeah, I think the reverence of God despite Meanie remarking she "doesn't believe in anything" and upon Worker Ena meeting a wish-granting god like Runas who doesn't grant wishes without limit unlike him, is to aspire for the punishment of "the moon", I think they're connected.

Basically god/genie-based trauma about what was unfairly taken from her (after so many instances of her failed).

Also, "punishment" as a concept has only been spoken of in some form by only four characters thus far across the series and DBBQ combined.

Moony in Temptation Stairway

Ulysses in Temptation Stairway

Taski Maiden in Chapter 1 of Dream BBQ

Theodora in Chapter 1 of Dream BBQ

What's interesting is that the instances of punishment being mentioned in the webseries are in Temptation Stairway.

But Moony's mention of punishment when viewed under the lens of her having done something to Ena— whether directly or indirectly— that eventually caused her to become Worker Ena is... extremely worrying.

The full context is:

"Pay the debts of the loser." "Rude entities like you get punished for the sins of others." "Aspire for the punishment of the moon." and Theodora's response.

.......

Anyway.

Postulating this to be the case, that would mean that for "Full Happiness" Ena to have become Worker Ena, then the Great Runas' wish wasn't impermanent (again, like it naturally faded over time or that it was incompatible with the nature of series Ena's wish), but was, well... more akin to the type of wish fulfillment loophole trickery that genies in other media are known for (not that I think the Great Runas tricked Ena, but that he fulfilled her wish exactly and other negative emotions eventually arising was just a consequence of lack of foresight on Ena's part in not specifying she only ever wanted to be happy).

Yes, Ena's sadness was removed, but there was nothing that specified a different emotion couldn't take its place.

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This reminds me of my analysis on someone's post about Worker Ena regarding how Meanie is specifically cream white/very pale yellow. How, with the way Anxiety is displayed on Meanie by default looks like shading and given how abstract and wacky the characters in ENA are, the shading peculiarly being completely absent on Salesperson's side isn't that odd.

It's not until the Purge Event that during the phone call with Froggy, Ena's sprite during the call visibly shows the "shading" creeping down her face, revealing that it wasn't just weird shading that only applied to the Meanie side, but was actually a whole third color.

And if Anxiety, as a third color, was cleverly disguised as being weird shading that isn't out of place for something as bizarre as ENA, then Meanie being cream white/very pale yellow rather than a stark white could be along the same lines. That Meanie being yellow-tinted isn't "just lighting", but is also something more that's cleverly disguised.

I stopped thinking this to be the case, but now upon theorizing that Worker Ena is Temptation Stairway's Ena and that the Great Runas' wish fulfillment is strictly still in effect, that perhaps there is merit after all in Meanie being comprised of formerly Happy and Sad (I'm still holding out on it out of residual skepticism, though).

Though, it wouldn't really be "Sad" since that side of Ena was removed.

Anxiety is blue-grey rather than a pure grey. It is not a pure blue like Sad was. Anxiety is not the same emotion as Sad.

Like I said, the Great Runas' wish fulfillment is still in effect: Ena is still rid of her Sad side.

But if Worker Ena really is Temptation Stairway's Ena, that informs the specificity of what T.S' Ena wished for. That it did not include her always and only being Happy, just that she wished to be rid of her sadness.

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But wait! There's more! This also ties into how Worker Ena being Temptation Stairway's Ena affects how Power of Potluck exists as it does.

Temptation Stairway was stated by Joel G. to be a "season finale". This on its own means that Power of Potluck is the first episode of the second season. Joel G. also says Temptation Stairway was "the end and the beginning of something".

There are several comments he replied to and two in particular caught my interest.

Given that Dream BBQ's trailers exist before Power of Potluck, and PoP Ena is along the lines of how she's already been depicted in season one, it's safe to say that he was referring to Worker Ena here.

And then... this.

"One of these characters will stay with the new look on [sic] the future".

Obviously this doesn't apply to Worker Ena since she looks completely different from Full Happiness Ena.

But we haven't seen Moony yet in Dream BBQ.

He said one of them will "stay with the new look", so there's little reason to believe he changed his mind— especially since we have not seen Moony yet to confirm whether that is the case or not.

Regardless, until more episodes and chapters come out, I'll still just view Worker Ena as "connected to blue/yellow Ena" but that's the extent of it. I'm not banking on this being The Singular Truth and then it warp my perception of Worker Ena into "oh poor Temptation Stairway Ena" when that hasn't been confirmed despite there being a lot that supports that theory.

It's too early to be making calls like this when there literally are only four episodes (three episodes in season one and one episode in season two thus far) and a single chapter of the game. Still think it's worth speculating on, though.