Hey, Good Buddy!

OMFG!!!!!!

Lauren Lopez your vision.

Loving it.

The opening number (and Emma's presence in it) points to the entirety of TGWDLM being an in-universe musical to lure new members to the hive (in the form of us, the audience). So Emma and Paul are only being puppeted to echo their resistances, over and over and over.

Paul is distressed the whole time, but he's also a hero, he tries to save everyone (and fails, of course), while Emma is left to bleed and limp and scream. She's puppeted in a mockery of her fear and agony. Other deaths are bloodier, but hers is drawn out.

And this makes perfect sense for Pokey. What's the main thing we know about him?

He hates any voice that isn't his own.

Paul is outspoken about disliking musicals, but otherwise is a pretty passive guy. He doesn't make waves or stand out, he's too shy to even ask Emma out until the end of the world.

Emma is loud, opinionated, defiant. She has a very distinct voice.

Paul escapes Pokey for so long because he just doesn't like musicals, helping him avoid the traps that probably caught most of the townsfolk early on. If he liked musicals, or even tolerated them, he'd probably have been consumed by the goo pretty quickly.

Emma actively defies the hive. She starts the story in a job where she is literally required to sing and dance, and instead of just going with it she says fuck you and quits. She even clarifies that she could do it if she wanted, but she just doesn't want to.

I think Ragweed will return. In CC, he mentions "six sturdy dwarves", which would make a total of seven dwarves. He also mentions slaying goblins, and I definitely think making the seven dwarves a Tolkien-inspired adventuring party would be a fun, dark fantasy twist

Furthermore, on the map of The Lands That Are, we see "Rockhammer's Hut", likely Ragweed and the other six dwarves' home. The Hut is situated close by "The Witch Queen's Castle", which I believe will belong to Snow White's wicked stepmother.

I have further cause to believe the Witch Queen is the stepmother from the livestreams during the CC kickstarter campaign. One of the tier levels is Witchglass

Now forgive me for not knowing the exact stream name, I'm going off memory here. But Nick went on to explain the Witchglass is a special material created by witches to trap demons. He then hinted "think of a fairytale that has a witch talking to glass". I believe this means the magic mirror in the story will actually be a demon trapped inside glass.

Speaking of the kickstarter, we also have these fellas from the original launch video. These puppets weren't in CC, but bears a striking similarity to Ragweed. It's most likely these were just early versions of Ragweed, but they could also be other dwarf characters we haven't met yet

And my final piece, which is pure wild speculation, is the Grizzwald girls' brother. I think he may be the Huntsman. Now, I know this is a bit of a throwaway line, probably just meant as joke, but having the Huntsman be a troll/monster hunter would be exactly the kind of dark fantasy twist I can see in the Lands That Are

You must unlearn this.

You must accept that all people will be annoying at some point or another in their lives, maybe all of their lives, and that this is okay. It is okay for strangers on the bus, it is okay for children in the grocery store, it is okay for people on social media, and it is okay for you.