#theres nothing wrong with the premise of sending them back to school for the final season. its the way theyre doing it. it feels so. empty.

[memelzebub]

the eene fans of yore who were hating on season 5 were kind of right

[little-klng]

Baldi’s Basics Theory

I’m sure everyone by now has heard of this new indie game called Baldi’s Basics due to the fact that almost every popular Youtuber has played it, including Markiplier. Markiplier, as far as I know, is the only major Youtuber to have gotten all endings and has played quite so much of the game as many like to reference in theory videos. I’ll cut to the chase, this is a theory post about something i developed in about 15 minutes. I spent a long while debating on whether or not to even post it due to the nature of the game. I wondered if people would make fun of me for making a whole theory on some silly game about a horror-filled schoolhouse that looks so thrown together, but my dear reader, strap on your seat belt and pull out your notebooks because this here is gonna be a bumpy ride

Now that you’re here, you’ve shown interest in what I have to say. Thank you for that.

On to the theory. Now, what is it that i have to go on here for any theory? Well, everything! This isn’t gonna be another ‘it was all a dream!’ theory because thats tired and worn out and completely erases all the work gone into the game (and any story for that matter), but understand it’s going to delve into a concept of that vein. Let’s lay out what we know;

-The game takes place in a bad CGI/2D schoolhouse setting from those old learning games in the 90′s. -The main antagonist is Baldi -All other characters look like horrible caricatures of what could have/should have been better modeled/rendered people/students -All characters in the game exist solely to harm or distract the player in some way -At the end of the game when you win, you’re met with a distorted voice asking you to do worse next time because they need to- That’s that. The end of the dialogue devolves into static there. But that gives us a hint of what to do next

If you just play the game as normal. you’d never really come across some pretty major points and plot. The game just dumps you in this setting of a weirdly laid out school and lets you run wild. But if you didn’t know any better, you would miss out on the fact that the only reason the player is in the school is to get your friends notebooks that he left in the school. Weird that no character, not even you, makes any mention of that. The whole premise of the game is that you collect notebooks, but you have to solve math questions for them that you always have to fail due to some questions being glitched out and unsolvable.

With the addition of update 1.3.1, the game now has a Secret Ending that you can only get by beating the game after getting 100% of all questions wrong (meaning Baldi chases you faster than ever. Go watch Markiplier do it, it took him 9 hours). But once you beat it, you’re met with the screen telling you to go to the principals office for tips on how to do better. Once there, you’re met with a long distorted Baldi in one end of the room and a mysterious character on the other. His name is Filename2 and he looks like this

Look at this dude T Posing out here. An absolute icon.

Filename2 is just what hes labelled as in the files, and his name is never actually spoken. Some theorize him to be the players friend from earlier, and honestly so do I! When you enter the room he says the following;

"Oh jeepers, you found me. Good job, I'm glad you found me, because I have something kind of important to say. *beep* It's about th-the game... Don't, *beep* Uh, Eh. Don't *beep* Don't, just, *laughter* this is.. This is probably looking pretty ridiculous *beep* Don't tell anyone about this game. You wanna.. Don't, don't bring attention to yourself. Destroy it, destroy the game. Destroy the game. Before, it's too late. *beep* What I'm saying is... is get out of this, while you still can. *beep* Just, don't.. don't know that you probably know I'm not saying that I'm trapped inside the game, no, that would be ridiculous. No I'm.. *beep* I can't... this is... I'm not... the game was... kind of...*beep* I got really corrupted. Yeah, I... *beep* I don't know what to say. Just... Just trust me. We gotta... *beep* * This isn't... This seems... I me-I mean it seems... ohh. *beep* They'd know I.. They intentionally... that's...I guess... I can't- They can't tell you, and some... stuff is classified. I can't say it. *beep* I wish I could say more. I can't talk normally. I-it's corrupted. There's...*beep*...Yeah...*beep* Just... close the program. Destroy it. Never come back. *long beep*"

...Yeah

There are a few things to take from this

-Filename2 is not ‘trapped in the game’ like most horror cliches. that would be ridiculous -He needed you to fail every single math question and still beat the game just to say all this. Weird. -He REALLY wants you to just delete the game and pretend you didn’t see it -He REALLY wants you to escape the game while you can -The game is ‘corrupted’ somehow, but he can’t really get into it because its ‘classified’ and ‘they’ would know he told you

There is something/someone preventing Filename2 from telling you anything more important than ‘get out of here while you can, don’t worry about me’. Throughout the audio, theres a constant stutter and some laughing, but more prominently the sound of shuddering and heavy breathing. It sounds a bit like crying to me. (warning to anyone about to go listen to the audio themselves, the beeps are REALLY loud and the speech is REALLY quiet)

Lets put him to the side again while we analyze the rest of the school

This doesn’t really look like any school I’ve ever been to, how about you? The weird hallways made to look like the stretch on and on and the actual classrooms being so far away from each other makes it feel less like a school and more like a hellscape prison.

About the schools inhabitants, they also feel like a hellscape prison.

We already know about Baldi, so lets see the other antagonists;

Aside from Baldi, Filename2, and yourself, there are 6 other characters that roam the halls. Each one has a simple description of themselves in the Principals Office.

Gotta Sweep;

What do you do when the school opens in 7 hours and you haven't hired a janitor? Hire a broom! It sweeps everything!

As you might imagine, Gotta Sweep is a badly condensed jpg image of a green and grey broom that spends its time, once released from the broom closet, roaming the halls loudly proclaiming its need to sweep. It moves quickly, sweeping everything in its path in the same direction it is. It stops for no one and nothing.

It’s A Bully;

Here at Here School, we believe every good school needs a good bully! That's why we have this kid!

It's a Bully appears as a poorly-modeled humanoid figure with an orange ellipsoid for a torso, blue cylinders for limbs, and small, peach-colored balls for hands and feet. He has an incredibly distorted and malformed face with dots for eyes, a gaping mouth with orange lips that clips into where his neck would be, a wide asymmetrical nose and brown hair. He doesn't wear shoes, and he has a brown text floating next to his head that says "THIS IS A BULLY" in all-caps. His pose appears to be in the middle of a run cycle. He spends his time blocking hallways and demanding that, in order to pass through, he must take one of your items. He can, however, be sent to detention should the principal wander by.

Playtime;

Despite her poor eyesight, she's always looking for a playmate! "Let's play!"

This character is a poorly drawn animated little girl whos eyes and hair are animated scribbles. Her poor eyesight has nothing to do with her characters mechanics, as she spots you easily and traps you in a game of jumprope. You can cut her jumprope with safety scissors to escape the game entirely, but doing so is considered bullying and you can be sent to detention for it.

1st Prize; 

Won 1st Prize at the Science Fair! Loves hugging people, rushing towards anyone it sees. Sadly, it turns super slowly.

If you liked Gotta Sweep you’ll definitely like this character. Hes a robotic hugging machine that barrels down the hall towards you, and pushes you until the hallway ends. He, unlike Gotta Sweep, turns very slowly. He can occasionally accidentally push Baldi into you if you’re not careful, but you can use the safety scissors to cut his wires and make him spin in place for 15 seconds to buy time. Dunno why you’d do that though.

Principal of the Thing; 

If I see anyone breaking the school rules, I'll make sure justice is served! It tastes good and fills my tummy!

Now, the interesting thing here is that when you start the game, Baldi refers to Here School (the school you’re in) as ‘his’ school, even though there definitely is a principal. There are posters in the school listing off the rules, and all are pretty standard like “no running” and “no students in the faculty rooms” and being caught breaking these rules by the principal sends you to detention for increasing seconds. An interesting thing to note about this character is that his name is a play on words for the phrase ‘It’s the principle of the thing’, though I have no idea how to fit that into a theory. This guy is a mostly average looking guy, except that his face is slightly contorted and his legs are partially erased

Arts and Crafters;

Shy, and tries to be avoided. Doesn't like being looked at, and gets jealous at people with more notebooks than him.

This guy is the final character, and he’s only important once you have all 7 notebooks. This guy is a sock puppet that, when looked at, will dart back behind whatever wall is closest and out of sight. However, once you have more notebooks than him (7, as he has 6), he turns hostile. He runs at you with his cardboard mouth agape and teleports both you and Baldi back to the starting position, ruining your run almost instantly. 

And that’s everyone!

The most intriguing thing about all of them is that they all share one quality; some part of them is horrifically malformed. Something about them is just... broken or stretched or erased. The only one in one piece and animated is, albeit poorly, Baldi. Everyone, however, has a function and could definitely be described as real cliques and people. All of these characters read as how you imagine a person you’ve only ever been told about, but never really met. Especially if the person telling you about them was only telling you about the newest drama going around or the latest experience the person talking has had with that person if they’ve only had bad experiences with them.

And here’s where the theory begins.

These characters are all fragmented and poorly animated because thats sort of how it works in your head when you’ve never actually seen someone in person. How many times have you heard about someone over and over only to meet them in person and realizing they look nothing like how you imagined, or that they dont act the same as you’ve been told. But that’s because often times you’re only ever told about the bad someone else has done, and very rarely the special good things someone does. 

These characters are not real people, but they are based on the real people your friend knows.

Your friend told you about the little girl in the school with bad eyesight but loves to play jumprope. Your friend told you about the bully that steals his stuff. Your friend told you about the principal and how he gets people in trouble so much. Your friend told you about his science fair project that won first place. These people are not people you know, but you’ve heard about them. You probably don’t know their names because your friend didn’t refer to them with names. Just with minor descriptions.

Why do they look like that? well I don’t imagine that, if one were to look at how your brain pieces images together based on description alone and makes them a real thing, they would look so good either. 

Every single character makes sense in this context. All but one- Baldi

Baldi, unlike every other character, is a whole animated character with lines that hint not-so-subtly that hes in charge of Here School, despite the principle. He’s an entity that is almost entirely immune to most things and hes the first thing you see as you enter the game. He’s also the last. But despite this, his weakness is the rules he follows. He tries to answer the phone, he abides by the walls of the school, he moves at a pace synonymous with the whacks of his ruler- if you’ve ever been to an old catholic school, you know that sound well and truly means power over others.

Baldi is a malicious entity that has trapped you in his Hellscape Prison constructed entirely from your subconscious memory. Personally, I think the map looks that way because the Player has been homeschooled and hasn’t actually seen much of the inside of a real school, but that’s up for interpretation. Baldi has manifested this area to fit the descriptions that your friend has fed you of this area you were already thinking about on your way to gather your friends notebooks. You were meant to be dumped in this world having forgotten your initial quest and forced to work on bare instinct. That’s why you don’t think to question the fact that, despite the fact that school is over at this time (”your friend forgot his notebooks and he needs them back before ‘eating practice’...” supposedly an after school activity Actually revolving around cooking and food prep. Maybe your friend works at a restaurant after school and Baldi doesn’t quite understand what that means due to his demonic or fae nature?) you’re still expected to finish all these math assignments just to leave. 

Now, why doesnt our brave and ultimately doomed protagonist just leave? Well, my dear reader, I’m sure you’ve heard of those old tales of Fae that trick wanderers into eat fruit or taking things that aren’t theirs to trap them for eternity? That’s right, the notebooks are what trap you in the game.

From the first moment you finish the first notebook scot-free, you are trapped, having taken a fae-world item to fulfill your own quest. Now Baldi can give you those impossible-to-solve questions and the notebooks regardless of anything else. You’re trapped and theres nothing you can do about it.

No matter how many times you get a Game Over, you’ll keep trying. And you’ll keep going. You won’t ever really escape

“But the, where does Filename2 come into play, Mona?” I hear you dejectedly cry into the night, “You didn’t forget about him, did you?” Oh you naive little thing... he’s what ties this whole thing together!

You see, Filename2 is you! Well, maybe not you but, he’s what remains of you. While you spend eternity trapped in a world built from your subconscious, your conscious self remains, though glitched out and corrupted. You aren’t fully there, and if you knew that you might be able to escape, but if Filename2 told you that, Baldi would know. Filename2 is your door to safety and salvation...  but unfortunately...

Baldi hears every door that you open.