An Analysis of the Unknown

The Unknown

Hello! If you haven't watched the cartoon series Over the Garden Wall, then 1. I highly reccomend you do (it's even on YouTube now. Theres only 10 episodes and they're all 10-15 minutes long) and 2. This will make little to no sense at all to you. So yeah, if you have watched it and want to hear what I believe about the Unknown, welcome to this analysis and personal explaination!

So as we know, Wirt and Greg are lost in the Unknown and are trying to find their way home. They dont remember exactly how they got there, but they remember the events that led to it, as in them falling into the lake with Jason Funderburker (I will only refer to the frog as this because it's the perfect name) and waking up there. They need to find a way to get home, but neither of them know the way and they just get lost further and further in the Unknown, and meet many people and creatures on their travels, and having Beatrice join them.

In the 10th and final episode, Wirt, Greg, Beatrice, the Woodsman, and a bunch of other acquaintances they met on their journey are shown at home, happy, and out of the Unknown. But do we know why or how they really got home?

I have two theories. My first one is that the Unknown is a placeholder, a place where you go when you are in between life and death. If you get out of the Unknown, then your soul is brought back to your body and you will continue your life. If you do not escape and are turned into an Adelwood tree, you are officially dead. The Unknown is a place that has no real time, what goes on during their time in the Unknown takes no time in real life.

The Unknown's time is complicated. All of the people there are from different time periods. This could mean that the people have been in limbo for 100s of Unknown years, taking no time away in their real life in the past. I dont quite know how to explain it other than this.

The Beast is most likely Death or Lucifer, he tries to take souls to feed his lantern so he may live on.

The Unknown is most definitely referencing a lot of death. For example, Pottsfield is taken after Potters Field, where poor, unnamed, or unidentified bodies were buried from around 1850 to 1960. Sometimes bodies were buried there by the thousands. Another example is the 8th episode, Babes in the Wood (this is also my favourite episode I dont know why dont ask). Babes in the Wood is also an old folk tale about two children who start to travel in the woods and die. They are covered in leaves by robins after their death. In the OTGW episode, Greg and Wirt fall asleep under a tree and they are using leaves that Greg gathered as blankets.

So, obviously, there are a lot more references to death in this children's cartoon.

My second theory has more evidence to it. This theory is that the Unknown is a type of afterlife. It is the point between life and nothing, or heaven, depending on what you want to believe. The reason that the people are there is because they have a sort of unfinished buisness, or they are restless souls.

Only when they finish the buisness or resolve the inner turmoil may they leave the Unknown. This 'unfinished buisness' and 'everyone here has their torch to burn' is mentioned by the Woodsman in episode one.

First, in episode 9, it is shown that Wirt is always heavily annoyed by Greg. When they are on the other side of the Garden Wall, Wirt tells him that "Once again, you ruin my life. You and your stupid dad!"  Greg mentions that Wirt should be in marching band so he could hang out with Sara more, and Wirt replies, "That ship has sailed, Greg, thanks to you messing that up, too."

This shows that Wirt doesnt have the best feelings for Greg, and that he blames Greg a lot for their predicament. So, this is Wirts unfinished buisness. He has to fix his relationship with Greg because, deep down, he knows he himself is guilty too.

Another thing I would like to mention is in the end of episode 9, when Wirt is in the tree with Beatrices family, he says, "I was never any good to him alive, either." This is past tense. This could be him admitting that in life, he was never any good to Greg, and he knows that he and Greg are dead.