unforum

[Kilo]

Resurrecting this topic with the sort of closing of act 2!

So, I still stand by the fact that the Operator and TTA are two separate entities working against each other (not that it's particularly mind-blowing or anything). I still stand by the idea that the Operator is interested in using Alex for whatever reason, and TTA is obviously interested in Jay. So there's two distinct camps. The Operator/Alex fall in one, and TTA/Jay falls in the other. Jessica falls into her own distinct group for the time being.

I still think the Operator is some sort of entity of sight, or something similar to that. There are just way too many allusions to sight when people are talking about it. There's also the element property too- some sort of association with wood/earth. I can't let that go. It's also got the capacity to "touch" people. What this does is leave some sort of imprint on them and removes their "higher" functions (More on this later). Except for Alex, and if I had to wager a guess, Jessica as well.

The relationship between the Operator and Alex seems pretty obvious. The Operator needs Alex to provide bodies for something to him, and Alex also seems scared shitless of the Operator. I don't think that Alex really needs anything from the Operator, except to not be killed. I think this goes back a long way, to entry 37. I'm imagining some sort of Paranormal Activity 3 deal here, where a demon/some equivalent starts talking to a child and the child treats it as an imaginary friend, and at some point some sort of deal was cut between the two.

I don't really buy the fact that Alex is possessed. I think that, for the most part, he has full control of himself still. He just shows way too much forethought in what he does. And, besides, the Operator is a teleporting, supernatural being. Does he really have to possess Alex to do his dirty work? I just think that Alex is a scared and/or bad person who's been doing bad things for years now, to appease the Operator so he can keep on living. Though it seems like he's not able to do much of that, but hey, them's the breaks.

As for Alex himself, like I stated above, I think he's fully in control. I think the Operator has him by the short hairs, to be sure, and has ways to make him comply with what it is the Operator wants, but Alex is in full control. I don't know when the stalking started, but 3 years ago (I guess we're technically at like 5 years ago now, right?) it seems pretty clear he led Tim, Brian, and Seth to the burned out building. I'm still torn on his interactions with Jay, though. With 52 posted, it seems like Alex lured Jay out into the woods to kill him, but then realized he would need to take care of Jessica as well so let Jay go. Granted, it was Jay who stalled and said "It's getting dark", etc. so I don't know if that was Alex's original plan or he was just trying to think quickly. It's hard for me to figure out if Alex was actually planning on sharing something with Jay, and his trust broke when he realized that the tape was missing from his apartment, or if he was planning on killing him all along.

Jessica is a neutral party still. I think she's been touched in a similar manner as Alex- I say this very minimal evidence, mostly that when she gets emotional, she produces the same sort of distortion. She's also complaining of having dreams of someone following her as a kid. I imagine that Alex may have a similar problem, though we have no evidence to prove it. I don't think she's been tapped in the same way Alex was, in that there's direct interaction going on there, but she has the same "potential" as Alex, whatever drew the Operator towards Alex in the first place. I think that's why Jay brought the Operator down on him in entry 52, because of Jessica. Jessica started screaming first, Jay banged on the door and interrupted something, the Operator popped in his room and handled it.

And, of course, Jessica did the disappearing act as well, probably with the Operator's help.

So, I'd like to take the time to point out that I don't truly believe that TTA is a benevolent entity, as a whole. I think that TTA is a group of people, all of whom wear masks. And I don't think that they like Jay as much as they hate Alex and maybe the Operator, and are using Jay as a means to an end. I'm willing to settle on the idea that's there's only 3, since we've only seen 3 masks. I think that all 3, again, have been "touched" by the Operator in some capacity. They lack something special that Alex and Jessica have, so they lose their higher functions and put on masks, but if one is cause and the other effect, I have no idea. They basically become shadows of themselves, animal-like or children-like. They're fascinated by certain things, and have certain roles in the scheme of things.

-Mask seems to be the hunter, I think. He seems to be the most vicious, and admittedly, most clever. He's pretty adept at sneaking up on people. And, apparently, he has no problem cutting a motherfucker (Or, at the very least, trying). If I had to take a guess, I would say that the most confrontational videos were probably his doing.

-Hoody (Right? Black mask) is probably the primary observer of Jay. Hoody strikes me as the only member of the 3 shown that would consider the video camera to be important to get back to Jay. The recording of water is a callback to one of the primary themes in the beginning, and something that still sort of crops up (but not nearly as often nowadays). And probably the only one to hang around when the Operator pops up. Mask and Hoody both just go "We out" when the Operator comes around.

-Woodsy (The third one) I really have nothing on. Honestly, going off of nothing but the one entry, Woodsy strikes me as being vaguely female. But that's pretty much it. Woodsy pretty much was a distractor so Mask could get his hit on Alex in, but I don't know if that's because Woodsy won't directly get involved or if this was revenge for Mask. While I know there are no rules at all, I would guess that this one would be the one obsessed with phones/radios/maybe audio in general?

Was the figure in Classified the same as Woodsy? I think it was but I never did any sort of in-depth analysis. I'm gonna go ahead and stick to only 3 for now, though, unless someone knows something I don't.

And, God, this is a lot of words. I'll pick it back up again later.

[Tharol]

Think checks have some big theories people.

[Dumbalias]

[pravado]

woody and hoodsy are the same character. it's just that the first time they got tim to play him, and the second time they got jay, and their frames are severely different

[Kilo]

Well, if there's only 2 masks that we know of, I'd guess that Hoody is the camera operator and Masky is the hitter.

And here's a thought I had- Alex seemed to be offering people up to the Operator, as a sort of... sacrifice. He straight killed a guy, and led Brian and Tim out to the burnt out schoolhouse all those years ago.

The Operator seems interested in all these people, with the exception of Jay. Jay has had very few direct run-ins with the Operator, and each time the Operator has pretty much ignored him. I mean, Jay pretty much walked into the Operator's house. The Operator didn't do anything except stand there and let Jay walk away. When Jay broke into Alex's house and the Operator showed up, nothing happened... Jay ran. In 52, the Operator was fucking with Jessica, and completely ignored Jay until he started banging on the door.

What if Jay's claim to fame is that he's some sort of idiot savant? Like, he lacks something that draws the Operator to everyone else. I mean, he's not the brightest kid....

Just a thought. A hilarious, hilarious thought.

[ToTheArcanine]

Soo, here's my thought: what if totheark can control people? Perhaps Masky is really just Tim in a trance where he'll do whatever Hoodie tells him?

[Zarggg]

We've already put forth that theory earlier in the series, except it was the Operator's influence.

[Kilo]

It's sort of amazing how long the series has gone on for. My first foray into Marble Hornets was Entry 7, and I've been following it for the last 4 years.

It's also pretty funny how terribly wrong my initial post was (Granted, it was made like 60 entries ago). I think, after all this time, the mythology bits might still hold true, but the series has let that sort of stuff fall on the wayside, it seems. I think the post on the top of this page is pretty on point, for the most part, but I guess we'll see.

Also, I know Hoody has a very distinctive male frame, but I'm going to say that Hoody is TTA, and TTA is Amy, and Amy has been tracking the Operator and specifically got close to Alex to draw the Operator out and kill (Or banish, whatever) it, and the climax of the series will be the conclusion to decades worth of planning.

Is it likely? Probably not, but I'll get massive kudos if I'm right.

[TheJoker]

Off-Topic: It occurs to me that I feel like you're one of the only people posting here who's been here since 2009. Most longtime members seem to be from either 2012 or 2011.

[Kilo]

I pop in from time to time, but mostly to lurk and see if there's anything to dig out of the most recent video.

My guess would be that the people who were all posting back then sort of drifted away during the season 1/season 2 gap. Season 1 and the first half of season 2 seemed a lot more... game-y? I guess. There seemed like there was a lot more stuff to figure out, as opposed to just being a series with an overarching narrative that occasionally hid stuff for people to find. As the series slowly shifted to that, I would guess that people that were here in 2009 sort of stopped watching it, or just watched it, instead of analyzing it to death.

[Sha Noran]

Haha, I didn't realize for a while into reading this that it was a necro'd old thread, so I'm reading the first page like... WHAT?!

Really funny from my perspective, when I finally took note of the posting dates I was like oooohhhh! I can only imagine being there for Season 1 as it happened, almost any theory would have been considered legit, especially since they have even admitted now that they were flying by the seat of their pants and making it up as they went along.

[Kilo]

Necro-ing my thread with a crackpot theory that I don't totally buy, but the thought struck me while watching 84.

What if this whole thing is tied to Alex having some weird, like.... prophecy writing powers? What he wrote for Marble Hornets has to come true, and the Operator exists to ensure that it happens. His characters are all named after their real life counterparts, and based on what we've seen of the Marble Hornets (student film) plot, it seems like it might loosely parallel the YouTube series plot. Two of the most prominent actors within Marble Hornets (student film) held on to artifacts from the student film, Brian's hoody and Tim's sideburns, and they both ended up wearing masks much like actors. It could also explain the Operator's seemingly erratic behavior, since it only appears and interferes when the "actors" go off the script. The best example I can provide for this is the entry where Hoody/Brian has Alex tied to a chair and draws a gun on him, because only when Alex is about to die does the Operator appear, as if calling "cut".

The list of holes in this theory would be longer than this post, I'm sure, but it's a fun thought. On a more likely note, it's pretty interesting that this whole thing seems to be boiling down to some conflict between Tim and Alex. Both obviously carry some sort of baggage from their youth relating to the Operator, and I really hope we finally get some sort of resolution on Alex's birthday.

[Kilo]

So, now that the series is over, I must say I feel a little disappointed.

As someone who's been following the series since entry 7, I feel like that they just left a lot of stuff on the table. I understand that the first season wasn't particularly organized, or anything, but they introduced a lot of motifs that they never expanded on or even gave a hint at explaining. They were introduced and then- nothing. The past 5 entries or so were all solid and did a decent enough job of explaining the main story, but there were a lot of little things that were dropped.

I loved the series, but now that it's over, I feel confident saying that it feels to me like they sacrificed storytelling for the sake of suspense and video editing.