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A complete theory on the history and intentions of the lake entity in It Lives Beneath

(This information has been updated as of Chapter 10. The first part of this theory involves the history of The Power and the Cult in Westchester)

TL;DR: The ghost in the lake is MC’s grandmother

Beginnings of Pine Springs

In the year 1970, the AMC Gremlin car was produced and popularized. This was the vehicle which the journal author drove upon moving to a cabin in the woods near the river, which we can safely assume to be located in present-day Pine Springs. At that time, The Power was a “curious and playful” entity that encompassed the woods and waters in the neighboring towns of Westchester and Pine Springs. Within months after arrival, the journal author unintentionally established a connection with The Power, was compelled towards the house ruins in Westchester, saw Redfield, and met Cora.

Also in 1970, exactly fifty years prior to the Lake Day celebration in ILB, the town of Pine Springs was founded. According to Astrid, The Society– which is a cult that claims to be protectors of The Power in Pine Springs– was formed shortly after. Meanwhile, a development company attempted to buy the land which the journal author occupied. The author refused, and made a decision to protect The Power absolutely.

Eventually, the development company succeeded. Pine Springs became urbanized. A dam was built for water storage, irrigation, power generation, flood control, and other industrial uses. The flow of the river near the journal author’s home was restricted to create the dam– also known as a reservoir or an artificial lake. Later on, the water level in the lake was drained to make way for more mansions in the Lakefront Neighborhood.

Negative environmental impacts of dams

Now to make it clear, dams are highly beneficial to human civilizations. Dams do not pollute the water or air, and they are efficient substitutes to the more destructive fossil fuel consumption. However, constructing dams can also harm nature in numerous ways.

Dams take up a huge area of land for them to work. Entire forests need to be cut down.

The rivers which provide the water source for the dams need to have their flows obstructed, or reversed on opposite ends of the dam. Hydroelectric power plants also change the temperature of the water. These changes may disrupt the balance of ecological systems in the river and the surrounding land.

Migratory fish species are affected. In the Columbia River along the border of Oregon, salmon must swim upstream to their spawning grounds to reproduce but the series of dams gets in their way. Fish and other organisms can also be injured or killed by the turbine blades.

Due to sedimentation, reservoirs will have higher amounts of nutrients which cultivate an excess of algae and other weeds. These weeds consume large amounts of oxygen as they decompose, creating oxygen-starved dead zones incapable of supporting river life of any kind.

If too much water is stored in dams, downstream rivers can dry up.

Methane and carbon dioxide, strong greenhouse gasses, may also form in some reservoirs and be emitted to the atmosphere.

The town founders and the first members of The Society

At this point, it is clear why The Power would have been against the dam’s construction. However, Astrid, who is the current leader of The Society that claims to be protectors of The Power, is also a real estate company owner. Her husband Vincent, another cultist, is a corporate lawyer– a profession that protects capitalism and industrialization. In Chapter 10, Chief Kelley, also a cultist, confirmed that the town founders were the ones who dammed the river and cut down the forests. He also mentions that they would have been proud of him now for his services to the town.

Therefore, it is my theory that the cultists today are heirs of the town founders, who were also the first members of The Society. Those same people exploited The Power against its own interest of preserving nature. They harnessed power to gain wealth and influence, and to put themselves on top of the economic pyramid.

What happened to the first cultists?

Chief Kelley angrily asserted that the founders had to make a huge sacrifice for the town. What could have been this sacrifice?

In ILITW, the MC discovers that there were “two mass murders in Westchester, in the same woods, within 100 years of one another.” The first one happened on October 31, 1871. The fourteen members of The Arcane Society of Westchester communed to perform a ritual but Redfield attempted to hog The Power for himself, got consumed, and was turned into the monster in the woods. The second instance happened on August 22, 1976.

It is highly probable that the victims of that incident were the cultists/ town founders. As of writing, we have no way of confirming if it was indeed a massacre or a mass suicide– if they were murdered by The Power or if they sacrificed themselves. However, we do know two other instances of group deaths. One was in 1871 when Redfield became the monster. The ritual went wrong when Redfield hogged The Power. The cultists were massacred, then Cora and the few other survivors worked to bind Redfield later on. The second was in September of 2017 if you did not gain enough nerve points for your friends in ILITW. In that instance, Jane murdered the “cult members” in order to free herself. Both of those massacres resulted in someone becoming a new monster who is fused with The Power.

I theorize that the author of the journal, after getting the idea from Cora’s story about Redfield, desperately resorted to joining The Society. She also attempted to hog The Power for herself so she can stop her fellow cultists from using it for the wrong reasons. In the process, she became the ghost entity in the lake. But who is she?

The identity of the ghost in the lake

At first, we are led to believe that the journal author is male, because he was able to fix the house all by himself. Some popular theories claim that Grandpa Arthur is the journal author after all and the house he lives in is the same cabin in the woods. But if this is the case, then why would the journal entries present themselves to MC in the form of ghostly bottles? If Grandpa intended for MC to know about his history, he could have just told MC directly. Furthermore, Grandpa mentioned that he has been paying mortgage in the last 30 years, but the journal author owned the cabin and had no landlord.

Another hint that the journal author could have been female is when she wrote: “That development group has found a cunning new tactic: they sent a handsome man in a little bowtie to knock on my door. He had a nice smile and he was quick with the witty chit-chat.” (Of course, this could also be an evidence to the author being a male homosexual, but how could the development company have known that?)

If you pay close attention, you will notice that there are many significant parallels in the plot and timeframe of the events in ILITW and the ones in ILB. Because of this pattern, it would make sense that the journal author ended up becoming the female lake entity, just as Redfield– the letter writer– ended up becoming the monster in the woods.

Finally, the most compelling evidence I have that the journal author is the same person as the female lake entity is this: Noah/ILITW MC (the monster) knew that the way to communicate with the lake entity is written in a book found in Cora’s house. Since Cora is also a cultist who met the journal author, she would have known how to talk her.

Having established that, I will now leap into my theory that the lake entity is MC’s grandmother. (By the way, the ghost can’t possibly be MC’s mom because she died only 2 weeks before MC came to Pine Springs and her body can’t possibly be reduced to bones already. Plus MC and Elliot obviously would have buried their parents.)

The following are the evidences for my claim:

The lake entity had been drowning people in the lake for 20 years [acc. to Ned], and yet in Chapter 9, she somehow recognized MC who has only been in Pine Springs for a week. The only possible explanation for this recognition is if they share the same blood, or if the ghost can see a resemblance of her own daughter (MC’s mom) in MC.

It is the only plausible explanation of why Grandpa would choose to be associated to the cult. Perhaps he is looking for a way to free his wife or avenge her by infiltrating the cult. Note that he is the only one among them who is poor. As to his speech that he wanted to harness The Power to live longer, it seems hard to believe that an old man who has no family or riches would want to live longer in this world.

It has been repeatedly emphasized that the lake entity is angry about something that had hurt her. The ghost of the grandmother behaves similarly to MC and Elliot in this way:

MC is at least 18 years old because he/she is of legal age and is in college. When MC was seven years old, his/her biological father left his/her mom who ended up with Todd and gave birth to Elliot. Therefore, MC is at least seven years older than Elliot and Elliot is a pubescent teenager who is likely between ages 13-16. This puts MC’s age closer to 20 years or above. Now remember MC mentioned that they never met Grandpa Arthur. This means that their mom left Pine Springs at least 20 years ago. Perhaps she left Pine Springs to protect her unborn baby from the danger of knowing about the cult.

Now, I have no evidence for this, but I also think that a cult member needs an heir to pass his/her rank onto (or maybe to sacrifice later on). Astrid and Vincent Wescott have Imogen. Richard Sutcliffe has Robbie. Grandpa had MC’s mom. Perhaps Chief Kelley adopted Parker so he can be his heir. If this is true, it can explain why MC’s mom left Pine Springs: because she did not want her child to eventually be associated with the cult.

So why did the cult kill MC’s mother? Why did they save MC and Elliot from the lake entity? If the lake entity is their grandmother, why did she attempt to drown MC and Elliot?

Why the lake entity is drowning people

The ghost in the lake has been drowning people by luring them towards the water. According to Ned, his wife was the third victim that year, Kyle was the second this month, and it has been happening more frequently of late.

“The Power’s true strength comes from its connection with its followers. [Cora]” The more cult members there are and the more frequently they interact with The Power, the stronger both parties get. By trapping Dan in the clearing, Jane lured the ILITW gang into the woods so she can establish a connection with them and become stronger. When Goddard asked a member of The Arcane Society of Westchester if he could join them, the member was delighted and immediately agreed. Similarly, the cult in Pine Springs has been benefiting from recruiting more members, which is exactly how a pyramid scheme works.

In ILITW, a doctor took note of the pattern of an epidemic in Westchester which is characterized by an influx of coma patients, closely followed by the death of one or more people, and then a period of quiet. Cora revealed that when The Power grows too strong just as Jane did, it tends to feed on the life force of human beings who could fall into a coma or eventually die.

Perhaps The Power needs to feed on more people just as the The Society recruits more members. However, It does not make sense why the cult would want to put the ghost to rest because then, it would sever their connection and consequentially, their powers too.

What the ghost in the lake wants

It could be merely coincidental, but the drownings began 20 years ago, at the same time that MC’s mom left Pine Springs. This is a bold leap of intuition, but I think that the key to putting the soul of the grandmother to rest lies in her own blood or DNA. (Grandpa Arthur said this kind of power requires blood and sacrifice, and Imogen had to offer a drop of blood during the initiation.)

The only three people with whom the lake entity shares her blood are MC, Elliot, and their mother. When Vincent drove MC and Elliot home, he made sure to check if they have any other relatives, and MC confirmed that they do not.

Perhaps the cultists who betrayed the rest of The Society killed MC’s mom so that her blood could no longer be used to put the ghost to rest.

I do not have an explanation as to why Astrid saved MC and Elliot from the ghost and what the cult intends to do with them, but it is worth noting that the ghost tried to get her hands on MC five separate times, and on Elliot two separate times. Perhaps she recognizes them as her kin and perhaps she understands that their blood is the key to freeing her soul. Nevertheless, I strongly believe that she hasn’t killed Elliot yet.

Finally, we know that the lake entity and the cultists hate each other because of the massacre that happened in 1976, and when she repeatedly says “Kill them all”, she could be telling MC to kill all the cultists.

As the story progresses, we will see which cultists have good and bad intentions.

(Further theory: Proof that Vincent and Kelley are lying)

#Choices #Choices Stories You Play #playchoices #it lives beneath #ilb #it lives in the woods #it lives series #ilitw

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