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[lucky-dreamfisher]

Excellently put!

Joey's redemption feels like a youtuber apology video: "I'm sorry I got caught, but being called out has really negatively affected my mental health, so I've decided to step away from the internet animation for a while and focus on my family. So, we good now?"

What are your thoughts on joeys character in batdr and his redemption? If you ask me I like what they did with him. They gave him redemption without excusing some of the bad stuff he did. And I think memory joey could grow to be somewhat of his own character. But the redemption isn’t perfect though. Even though I said the it didn’t excuse some of the stuff he did it felt like they swept the bad stuff under the rug. But who knows. Maybe they’ll fix this in future.

But enough about what I think, what don you think?

I’ve talked about this before – the TL;DR of that post is that I think this is, conceptually, a promising way to portray Joey moving forward to be better for someone new, but in actual execution it fails to do that.

TBH I’d love to stop categorising this as “redemption”… I've grown to dislike this framing, debating whether it’s a Good Redemption or a Bad Redemption or whether Joey is Really Redeemed or Not, because it assumes that Redemption™ is even what’s happening in this story. BatDR is a story where we’re given reason to believe that Joey may have had a change of heart. That’s it! We can question and analyse his supposed change of heart, but it doesn’t have to REDEEM HIM to be real, and I think measuring things on the scale of REDEEMED VS NOT REDEEMED is not only gliding over some pretty complex ideas of What Does Redeemed Mean In The Context Of Fiction (it is the sort of concept that it is so, so easy for people to have vastly different unspoken definitions for, making discussions of “he was redeemed” “no he wasn’t” especially futile), but also not really useful here.

For one thing, this isn’t a story about Joey's change of heart. Tbh, he barely features – Memory Joey can have a change of heart and work to be better if you believe/headcanon that he has OG Joey’s attitude, worldview, and personality flaws (which I do), but he has no crimes to acknowledge or repent for other than MAYBE reluctance to get involved. You might as well ask a person to repent for the crimes of their kins!! We hear about the choices original Joey made, and we can judge those choices postmortem, but he’s not here to redeem himself through this story; he’s dead.

As to the actual spirit of your question: The big thing. The really really big thing. Is that the CYCLE IS STILL GOING. It’s still going and it’s still bad and everyone in it is still miserable!! He didn’t fix that!!! The only evidence we have of ANY attempt to make it nicer in there is that he added Allison Angel, which like, “i’ve created a new life to keep you company in the torture dimension, so it’s less bad” is NOT ACTUALLY BETTER.

It’s important because it’s the only thing Joey could still try to do. He clearly doesn’t have any money to give restitution to his victims or their families, and I’m not gonna be a cop about demanding that he return the ink machine to the corporation that’s even more evil than he was. There’s not a lot of tangible steps he could take to perform penance for what he’s done, beyond fessing up publicly to his crimes and turning himself in and definitely going to jail, and like, maybe that would be a good thing for him to do, but if we’re going to hold Joey to that standard we really should be making the same demands of, say, Thomas Connor, or Sammy Lawrence in every Escape AU.

He can’t go back and un-ruin the lives he ruined years ago. But he didn’t do anything about the cycle, and that’s something that’s still happening NOW.

That was his responsibility, sapient life that he created to suffer and should have felt a huge obligation to – yet, we have no evidence that Joey was like, trying to fix it (in fact, he seemed PRETTY FOCUSED on spending his limited time creating and then raising Audrey), so every assertion that he was a changed man falls a bit flat, because being a sweet, loving person to your family and friends while running an endlessly looping torture dimension in your basement is actually quite sinister! Even Memory Joey asserts that the only reason he can’t fix the cycle now is because he’s not really the OG Joey who made it – does that mean the OG Joey could? Audrey says she wants to make the cycle kinder; could Joey have done that? Why didn’t he? We know from Allison's appearance in the original BatIM that the hellish experience of the first game IS the version that came from Joey’s change of heart, and it’s not great for literally anyone!!

Joey was a better person to Audrey, his daughter, and I do believe he genuinely loved her. If it were just that, it would be pretty good – Joey disappears from public life and stops obsessing over Bendy and instead of barging into his past victims’ lives to demand forgiveness, he just wants to be a better man and a good father to this daughter he created. That’s a compelling story, and I think it’s probably the best direction that “Joey wants to be better” could go. But once we realise he was actively ignoring suffering that he both caused and was responsible for fixing, it’s hard to take that love in good faith anymore. Joey being good exclusively to people that he likes who are doing what he wants isn’t anything new; Joey’s delight in The One Who Came Out Right feels less like a change of heart when we see Memory Joey echo his complete lack of sympathy for The One Who Came Out Wrong.

The reason it feels like Joey’s wrongdoing was glossed over isn’t because Joey needed to record an audiolog saying “I acknowledge that my actions were without excuse, and I’m deeply sorry for the harm I’ve caused” or whatever… it’s because there was something he could’ve changed, or could’ve at least TRIED to change, and he didn’t do it -- and it feels like we, the audience, were not supposed to notice that, because the story didn’t notice, either. It'd be possible to address it; like, what if Joey's change of heart instead involved him trying to fix things for the people in the cycle, and Audrey was created accidentally in that process -- then his love for Audrey would also be a picture of how far he'd come, taking responsibility for this person he'd brought into being and seeing her as a beloved daughter instead of a mistake. Or even just an audiolog where Joey says some kind of “oh god I can’t end it, it’s just going to repeat forever, what have i done, what can i do,” and it might actually feel possible to believe in his change of heart, to believe that he really tried as hard as he could and just never succeeded. But this huge thing is barely acknowledged. It's fine. He put Allison in there, so now it's fine! Don't dwell on the past!!

Anyway, like I said in my first post, if all this were intentional, I would LOVE it, conceptually. The idea of Joey Drew being a good father to Audrey who really genuinely loved her, but also was not actually a better person in a lot of ways, was still the same guy who was uncomfortable with guilt and glossed over his wrongdoing in order to prematurely Move On from the things that made him feel like a failure and focus on the relationship with his daughter that made him feel like a success, is a compelling, difficult character! The way so many people fell in love with Memory Joey just seems like, how everyone in original Joey’s life must’ve felt about him, the way they all kept believing in him despite everything, the way they wanted so badly to believe him. Impose this lens upon the whole game, and it all fits in. But since there’s no sign it’s intentional – and, with the archive, actually some signs that it wasn’t – it sort of sits weirdly. Memory Joey isn’t framed as an unreliable narrator. The tone of his final scene clearly isn’t MEANT to be dissonant.

---

So, uh, that’s what I think. I think the concept of Joey having a genuine change of heart and being better for his daughter could be good; I think the concept of Joey presenting himself as a changed man when really he is Just The Same, He Just Likes You This Time, could also be good. But he was handled clumsily enough that I think we didn’t quite get either thing, and, as usual, you have to fill in the blanks with headcanons and inferences to get one of these stories -- so which story you get kinda depends on which way you decide to interpret everything. Nothing tells us for sure that Joey didn't try his hardest to fix everything, so if you want that story, you can simply headcanon that he tried his hardest. But my personal preference is definitely for the reading where Joey believes himself a changed man because he really does love his daughter, and that's genuinely sweet!! but he remained the same man he always was, dodging guilt and responsibility in favour of a narrative that made him feel good about himself. I'm still quite proud of the frustrated little indictment Memory Joey gives him in that one creationship comic I made:

[lucky-dreamfisher]

I just wanna tell you that you're my favourite bendy blog ever. You never have bad takes and I appreciate that dearly and truly. Keep up the crown, royalty

That's so sweet of you!

[lucky-dreamfisher]

HOLY SHIT GUYSSSSSSSS!!!

This is the studio behind Jumanji! It's gonna be a high quality production for sure!

I imagine the plot will be closer to DTCL than BATIM, BATIM would be hard to translate into movie format. But that's great news!

[lucky-dreamfisher]

YOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Some things to note:

The title is no longer "Bendy and the X". Now it's "Bendy: The Cage"

Henry mentions The Pit. it's that one place in the game that Heidi told us ghosts are trapped inside. It's also where the Last Reel was hidden by Wilson, but we never got to actually visit the place in the game. Joey's ghost went inside and then brought it to Audrey at the end. This teaser implies that Henry went in together with him and the next game is going to explore what actually happened inside

[lucky-dreamfisher]

I'm glad he acknowledged the books aren't canon. I've already suspected this after BATDR had no reference to them, but it's nice to get a confirmation. As a theorist, it's disappointing, since it means books can't be used for theorycrafting, but I can understand the reason behind this decision. People, who just want to relax with a game, don't always appreciate being forced to read multiple books in order to understand the plot of the games they're playing. I can also appreciate the honesty: he could've easily kept his mouth shut and misled us into buying the books in the hope of getting LOOOOOOORREEEEE. But now the only people who will buy the books are those who want the books for what they are: fun little stories from the world of Bendy by extremely talented authors. No one will feel disappointed.

[lucky-dreamfisher]

Something Something Doppelganger~

As I promised, I shall explain my idea of Forneus being a former vessel of the red crown!

First of, the most obvious reason, Narinder might have grown frustrated with his siblings killing off all his former vessels, so he figured, perhaps one akin to him in resemblance the most, would make them more conflicted.

It worked perfectly of course, and his siblings hesitated moreso in harming her.

The only one who didn't hesitate as much was Leshy, due to obvious reasons, sensing her primarily off on smell, he could tell that she was a different feline.

However, Narinder didn't grow fond of her solely based on her appearance alone, she was a very competent and vicious one, (before pregande that is) and managed to defeat the youngest Bishop. Although, Narinder being merely a century or few into his imprisonment, still struggled with his guilt and ordered her to spare him. (Though, Leshy definitely got mocked for being weak by his siblings later) ✌️ 🐸)

Forneus was one of the most loyal vessels. Still is, despite all that had happened. (Which is also canon, she is one of the very few NPCs aligned with him. It is specifically stated that she is the only other character who's alignment is "Worships The One Who Waits" the other one being Ratau, who himself was a vessel)

Forneus VOLUNTARILY gave up the red crown, unlike Ratau who was (technically) demoted for his insubordination. When she had her kids she realized... maybe there's more to life than just that, so she seeked penance.

Narinder was upset with her choice, but decided not to punish her. Although, he did say that she would lose all her powers and semi-immortality. She was persistent.

Forneus begrudgingly, but willingly gave up her children, once Shamura promised they'd be taken in by her god. She doesn't know all the details though, as stated in canon.

Shamura made her immortal again, and gave her ||something || to hold onto, if she ever got a chance to see her kids again, it would be returned to its rightful owner.

She did! She doesn't fully begrudge Narinder for them being kinda fucked up, but she is dissapointed. To be fair, he did go insane in there. (He does eventually apologize to her for that, as does Shamura..maybe)

_____________

And that's all I have for now! I'll need to hyperfixate more on this. :>

@17magpiesinatrenchcoat

[lucky-dreamfisher]

since I'm pretty sure you've scoured everything bendy- (games, books, etc etc-)

do you know how many physical descriptions we get of the human characters? (minus characters like joey & henry duh) like- for characters like sammy, wally, norman, etc are there any descriptions of what they look like hidden in the books somewhere or elsewhere? (trying to make character designs and don't know what canon is out there-)

if you have the time/motivation ofc, np if not

I made a post about it a while back, here

[lucky-dreamfisher]

I have to agree with this. The books feel like collectibles at this point, no more relevant to the story than any random fanfic on AO3. Which is great for people who like this stuff, I hear that the books are selling well, so there’s clearly an audience for them, but it’s not the kind of audience that my blog is directed towards. The archives have made it clear that the foreshadowing the books had for Nathan Arch Jr was eventually scrapped. And that means book lore can’t be used to understand the game lore, and thus is not relevant for theorycrafting.

I understand wanting to make a more coherent story, but that story should’ve been written before releasing media containing foreshadowing for an entirely different plot. I completely understand that in this case real world events had a strong interference in the creation process, so my only hope is that going forward the story will be planned better.

Irt you post about the archives- Have you read any of the novels? I feel like some of them, like Joey's autobiography, help give a bit more insight to these characters, at least a little.

As for Nathan, I think it's supposed to represent that, unlike Joey, he really was a self made man with good intentions, and that highlights that Wilson was trying to live up to the shadow of his father and instead of being the kind of man his father would have raised, Wilson chose to be as vile as he is.

Memory Joey on the other hand, really is just a representation of this flawed idea people had of the man, only the good parts of Joey that he chose to show. The idealized version of himself that he saw, rather than who he really is. It makes sense to have that contrast there, but he really is just a plot device rather than his own character and it's a shame.

I can't say much for the others, because they feel very lacking. They have a lot of good moments, like the "I'm beautiful." "Always were." scene for example, but outside these moments they feel somewhat empty.

It's unfortunate, because if they had the time, team, and resources, they could have had an incredible story to tell, but limitations with money and staff because of the irl studios layoffs and TheMeatly & Mike Mood making really, really bad choices with their business caused the game to fall short of what it could have been.

we must have read different books because it felt to me like batdr completely ignores book lore

honestly i just feel like the books have been made irrelevant and theyre just kind of telling us stories about these random characters? like adrienne is doing her best to describe these characters but im not gonna lie, as there was some potential to them batdr has been a huge turn off for me for reading anymore (plus that upcoming book is gonna have a yet another completely new character as the main protagonist and im just... bruh how about yall expand upon the characters you already have because this universe is just becoming very messy and full of shallow characters instead of having fewer but interesting ones?? im not against new characters being introduced but they just keep on adding then and then it feels like what we're reading doesn't even matter in the grand scheme of things, that sucks)

sure we get an insight to joey... the only character that actually HAS a lot of complexity and screentime in the games so like yea i like joey and i enjoyed his book but again it felt more like an extra rather than anything that helped expanding the story or the world, i dont really understand their strategy for these...

nathan's and wilson's relation is just uninteresting and shallows wilson's character in my opinion, like what he says to you in game makes out nathan to have been some sort of a horrible father and that'd be kinda interesting and would make wilson a morally grey character

but no he's just a spoiled brat or whatever his archetype is supposed to be and we can throw away the entire symbolism about nathan and bockswell lotsabucks (that cartoon cat from the comics) and the fact that there is supposed to be nathan arch junior and senior making it clear that they changed their minds about the plot just to surprise people (even worse, they ADMIT to doing that in the interview that recently came out... as if it was a good thing ToT) but by doing so they just contradicted clues that existed there before that we could have gotten away from the damn books! like this just makes me not wanna buy any other books anymore because its a clear message that it doesnt fucking matter if we read them, theyre just there to tell us stories about random characters that also wont even appear in the games anyways but we will get 200 more audiologs from other randos we wont care for

again i gotta be sorry for being so negative but im just SO disappointed with batdr and with what the archives had to say

like whatever they are telling their story, its not a sin to be bad and scummy at writing (scummy as in not understanding that youre baiting people into buying extra things for understanding the lore and then making sure you surprise people anyway)

so basically

there is no use for theorising because the message is that they just want to surprise us so if we guess where theyre going they will just change the story no matter how much its gonna suck and contradict what happened before

i cannot comprehend how meatly sees that as a good thing but i guess thats how he wants to tell his stories and whatever makes them happy man

but i find it incredibly shady when you advertise your game as a mystery to be solved and personally this kills my enjoyment of the franchise

[lucky-dreamfisher]

BATR Archives Highlights

BATDR was updates with extra content in the form of Archives. Most of the descriptions are related to the development of the game, but some have interesting lore implications.

“ghost of a man”... hmm.. is this implying that real!Henry is dead?

“show a natural progression of the Ink Demon’s evolution as Wilson as held the cycle in place” this line seems to be confirming my theory that the person in charge of the ink machine influences both the ink demon’s appearance/behavior and possibly the ink world’s as well.

Interesting... so the story of BATDS takes place at the same time as the story of BATDR. There are still some unopenable mystery boxes in BATDS, so I hope that the game will be updated with some more lore tidbits.

“Among other things” sounds so creepy, given that she said he told her she resembles his mother. I hope what it actually means is that he was just treating her as a replacement parent.

Well, this confirms that they were going for a straight out redemption storyline for Joey Drew. Can’t say I like the way it was handled, but given all the problems they had to face while making the game, they gave it the best shot.

I feel like confirming that Nathan was a good dad after all kind of cheapens Wilson’s character, because it basically means that Wilson was evil for no real reason.

The last line in Wilson’s description is very interesting though. It explains how he lost his eye, and why he looks so old, despite being no older than mid-40s.

Alas, he’s still a one-note character with an over-the-top personality. Especially with the confirmation that even his monologue about having a bad childhood was a load of bull. But I do love the confirmation that our theories regarding Nathan Arch Jr were on the right track. Personally, I wish they would have left that narrative complexity in, because BATDR feels stripped of all of it. Everything is very obvious and exactly the way it looks like and there isn’t a lot of content left for theorycrafting. Imagine if they did keep Nathan Arch Jr, but made it ambiguous which “Nathan Arch” reference/tape in the game refers to which of these two characters. Would be fun to try to figure that out.

Given Carley’s size, the person inside her could only be a child.

So why are we resetting the cycle again? The ink creatures seem to be thriving when the cycle is held in place.

So Heidi is neither a child nor a failed Audrey, she’s just a deeply, deeply traumatized woman.

We lost Sammy so that we could get Lord Amok. Welp.

Glad to see an explanation for his powers though.

First canonically nonbinary character in Bendy! ;D

[lucky-dreamfisher]

https://twitter.com/archist_r/status/1638793061303218177?s=46&t=29ZDQI1f5oqFA1K8CMHOmw YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS

Looks pretty cool! Very similar to the end product, but with a more BATIM-esque atmosphere. ngl, I miss that atmosphere.

[lucky-dreamfisher]

So we just learned more about Fade to Black thanks to the author’s Twitter. I'll let you check it out for yourself but I will say that the author has confirmed that, despite Joey Drew still experimenting with Bendy in 1953, Joey Drew Studios is closed and has been since 1948. All other potential timeline issues they claim will make sense upon the book's release.

So here's the full synopsis.

My greatest hope is that this book will explain all of the stuff that hasn't been explained yet from the past books and games. BATDR felt like the next game will no longer be about JDS and will instead be about Gent, but there's still a lot to be learned about JDS' past. The mention about the 3d glasses makes me think that there might be a connection to the seeing glass tool in BATIM.

As for the studio closing in 1948, just because the studio closed it doesn't mean that Joey doesn't have rights to Bendy. I'm guessing that he gave the rights to another studio to make the cartoon.

[lucky-dreamfisher]

Has anyone tried to read what is written on the textures?

Most of it is either too blurry to read, or not very lore-relevant. Except the one drawing of Shipahoy Dudley which was obviously drawn by Wilson.

[lucky-dreamfisher]

Hey, the cover for BENDY: FADE TO BLACK dropped. Check the Bendy subreddit.

Thank for letting me know!

Hmm... it doesn't reveal much. There's no real description either yet. I wonder what it's gonna be about. I hope it's filled with juicy lore details!

[lucky-dreamfisher]

hi ive been working on this for a while and its. its something. i had fun. 

enjoy :)

[lucky-dreamfisher]

I wish this was an anime

Endou Yuu versus the cosmic unknown 

[lucky-dreamfisher]

Yes, I did it again.

I changed my tumblr handle.

No reason, just felt like it.

[lucky-dreamfisher]

This post is very cute, everyone needs to see it.

Scissor Wizard and Paper Wizard

It’s probably fine to leave them alone together.