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Over the Garden Wall


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Firstly, if you ended up here and you haven't seen this animation, than you might as well watch it here (you can in a single sitting, it's pretty short) - just brace yourself for extreme quirkiness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9IHvy37xf8

 

 

I just watched OGW after only seeing the second half about a year ago. When I saw it for the first time, I could tell there was a lot of depth to be found, so this time I found some videos explaining things I might have missed and such, because I love over-analyzing. I was a bit dismayed, however, to hear that the whole thing is a metaphor for death, and that the boys were caught in a kind of limbo and only escaped by defeating the beast. This theory didn't sit quite right with me, partially because it's overused and partially because it didn't explain the whole thing - even if the tea guy's name was on a gravestone, meaning that the people they meet are dead. One of the things that bug me is this - Wurt defeated the beast by escaping with Greg, but this didn't get rid of the beast - which is what the woodcutter did, not them. It seems that the woodcutter ended up in the same limbo situation as the boys, leading to his needing to conquer the beast - but he failed, becoming the lantern bearer. But was it too late for him to return to life like the boys once he had snuffed out the beast's soul? This theory seems full of holes, or else I'm not thinking it through.

 

My first impression (the first time I saw it) was that the depth I was looking for lied in how Wurt named the frog after Jason Thunderberker. This points to him having enourmous character development, in that now Jason no longer has any hold on him - because it seemed to me that during the entire time out of the Unknown he was completely overreacting.

 

So now that I'm even more confused than before, does anyone have any ideas? Has anyone other than me even seen this animation?  :mellow:

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I've watched OtGW a few times, and its a great series. I highly recommend it.

 

That said, I honestly think you're overanalyzing it. Escaping from the limbo they were in wasn't necessarily because they "defeated the beast". Instead, they didn't DIE because they didn't SUCCUMB to the beast. At least that's the way I always saw it. All the other people essentially consitute the quintessential "lost souls" stuck in a sort of purgatory, as evidenced by most of them being more old fashioned/old timey than the time setting of OtGW.

 

The fact that succumbing to the beast = death and not defeating the beast = life is pretty apparent, i think, when you consider the lyrics to the song the beast can be heard singing in the distance throughout the series:

 

Come wayward souls,

Who wander through the darkness,

There is a light for the lost and the meek.

Sorrow and fear,

are easily forgotten,

when you submit to the soil of the earth.

 

He's beckoning the inhabitants of purgatory to come to him for their final resting place, essentially.

 

(Also, it's jason funderburker)

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