Twenty One Pilots Universe + Trench analysis
So I wanted to write a post analyzing everything in the TOP universe and how it’s all related. It’s just my own thoughts and what I think everything means, it could also explain a lot if you’re still confused. I’ll also be analyzing Trench track by track, so sit back and enjoy!
Let’s start off with the hiatus.
On July 2017, twenty one pilots announced their hiatus by posting some cryptic pictures on twitter. They were lyrics with a closing eye.
Around April 2018 they decided to update their Vessel merch store page. They posted a gif that had a link to a website at the end. http://dmaorg.info this site contains the text ‘you are in violation. thEy mustn't know you were here. no one should ever find out About this. you can never tell anyone about thiS -- for The sake of the others' survIval, you muSt keep this silent. we mUst keeP silent. no one can know. no one can know. no o ne c an kn ow_’. When you read only the capital letters, it spells ‘East Is Up’ which will become an important motto in this story. Till July this site was updated frequently, with a lot of cryptic pictures and messages. http://dmaorg.info/found/15398642_14/clancy.html. This site contained letters from a character named Clancy. At this time we had no idea who this was. ‘The perplexities of the Dema horizon didn't occur to me until my ninth year. It was upon my ninth year that I learned that Dema wasn't my home. This village, after all of this time, was my trap. Before I became realized, I had deep affection for Dema. There was a wonderful structure to the city that put my cares to rest. Streets and locations were dependable, and the responsibilites of the day seemed to be accomplished with minimal effort. Of Dema's nine bishops, Keos was reserved as unwavering and forthright, possessing the ability to achieve focus that was rare for most in our region.’ This was written in one of Clancy’s letters. We now know of a city called Dema and it having 9 bishops, Keos being one of those. It says that it didn’t occur to Clancy until the 9th year. Twenty one pilots was formed in 2009, and it being 2018 has been 9 years. This makes us believe that Tyler could be Clancy. It could be that Tyler now realizes that Dema is his trap and tries to escape. But what is Dema?
A map is posted on this site with the text
‘gEt out. the compAss lies. they don't control you. get out. the compaSs lies. They don't control you. get out. the compass lIeS. they don't control yoU.get out. the comPass lies. they don't control you.’ :
The text spells out ‘East Is Up’ again. This is very important in this picture. The circles in the middle represent the 9 bishops. If you turn the circles around so ‘East Is Up’ and not North, you get this:
The circles represent the circles in the blurryface album. Every song is related to a bishop. The names of the bishops come from parts of the correlated songs. Like ‘sheS A CARVER’ from Tear In My Heart spells out the name of the bishop ‘Sacarver’. And this goes for all the circles, except Nico. Nico represents the Stressed Out song. In this song we meet a character called Blurryface. With this we can assume that Blurryface is Nico. We now know that blurryface is definitely connected to this new album. There are a lot more cryptic pictures and letters on the site that you can check out for yourself, but I’ll be continuing to explaining this all.
So what is Dema? Dema is a city that is founded by 9 bishops. These bishops are personified anxieties and demons. The bishops are trying to keep everyone in Dema by trying to control and manipulate them. Dema can be seen as the deepest, darkest part of someones mental illness. They are battling the demons they can’t escape. But you can’t fight your demons alone, you have to work together. This is where the banditos come in. The banditos are a group that try to get Tyler out of Dema. They represent every support system in your life, like friends and family. The people in Dema are afraid of getting helped because the bishops make them believe they don’t need it. Just how someone dealing with mental illness may not want help in the beginning. Tyler needs Clancy to get out of the Trench (which I will explain later). Tyler is not Clancy but simply the protagonist in this story. But of what story?
The Trench Story: Track by Track
I will start of by explaining the songs that have music videos, so you can understand the story better.
Everything starts out with Jumpsuit. You can see Tyler walking in what is called ‘The Trench’. The Trench represents the part of your mind that is in between Dema, and the outside. You can come out of the deepest, darkest parts but this will not make you better. The Banditos can help Tyler to escape Dema, but the Trench is all on him. This is the reason the only thing the banditos can do for Tyler is throw petals. You can see 1 of the 9 bishops on a horse, on his way towards Tyler. I think this bishop is Nico, his face is kind of blurred which could be the reason Tyler calls him Blurryface. Nico represents Tylers biggest fears. The bishop wants Tyler to return to Dema. You can see the bishop but black on Tylers neck. Tyler gets in some kind of trance and starts following Nico. This is how Nico controls Tyler. You can see that the more Tyler follows Nico, the blacker his neck gets. But then the banditos start throwing petals. Yellow is supposed to represent happiness. You can see that Nico doesn’t like this and the horse starts freaking out. Tyler gets out of his trance and his neck turns back to normal. He realizes what’s happening and starts running away from Nico. However he trips and gets caught by Nico anyway. Nico leads him back to Dema.
The second video to come out was Nico And The Niners, which is based on the 9 bishops. In this video Tyler is back in Dema. We now see Dema and how the inside kind of looks like an insane asylum. We can see the banditos break in to save Tyler. When the banditos are walking around and people are looking at them from their window, they immediately close them not wanting to be helped. When Tyler sees the banditos, he feels the same way. He tries to turn around but the banditos are circling around him. When Josh walks up to Tyler and they give each other the famous handshake, Tyler is not afraid anymore. He joins the banditos and tries to escape. You can see them put the jumpsuit on him covered in yellow tape.
Levitate is the third and final music video following this story. In levitate you can see the banditos have escaped Dema with Tyler. They’ve set up a camp and start shaving his hair off. You can see Tyler walking through a group of people and them putting yellow tape on him. The yellow tape represents happiness, hope and freedom. This is the banditos way to make Tyler ‘feel a bit better’. But even with all the support and help from the banditos, at the end of the video you can see Tyler getting dragged back to Dema by a bishop. This represents that even when you leave Dema, the darkest part, mental illness can still catch up with you at any time. It’s a dangerous cycle that’s hard to break free from.
Now let’s talk about the other songs and their lyrics.
From the first line you can see that Tyler is singing about death. He talks about going above under or around it. I think he means with this that you could go to Heaven, Hell, or achieve immortality. The line ‘For "above" is blind belief and "under" is sword to sleeve And "around" is scientific miracle, let's pick "above" and see’ shows this. According to this song you can escape Dema by ‘morphing into someone else’. With this I think Tyler means covering yourself in yellow to get past the walls of Dema. ‘He'll always try to stop me, that Nicholas Bourbaki He's got no friends close but those who know him most know He goes by Nico, he told me I'm a copy When I'd hear him mock me that's almost stopped me’ this part is obviously about the bishop Nico. He talks about Nico mocking him and trying to stop him from ‘morphing into someone else’ aka escaping Dema.
This song has a video too. It’s not related to the plot of Dema but it’s still beautiful. In the video we see a young boy, whose mother passed away and his father becoming a drunk. In the video you see that it’s always just been him and his brother. His brother is the outgoing one. He’s breaking stuff with bats, dancing around, looking for fights, while the younger brother is more quiet and scared. They go to a field of cheerleaders and his brother starts looking for a fight with the football players. They run away and when they go out to eat, they see these football players again. The older brother is again looking for a fight and after that they go home. The older brother proposes going to a halloween party. Once they’re there the older brother goes out to dance while the younger brother just stays in the corner. They go home and the football players who were also at the party follow them home. The older brother goes out to the football players, but it’s one against four so the football players beat the older brother to the ground. The younger brother who is looking through the window scared, can’t handle seeing his older brother getting beaten up. He grabs the bat and scares the football players away. He helps his brother to stand up and they walk inside, but once inside it’s only the younger brother. This is the part where the video takes a turn. You see the younger brother as a child looking at his dying mother, and suddenly an older brother hugging him. This is meant to show us that the older brother doesn’t actually exist. You see all the things the older brother did, like breaking stuff with bats, dancing around and looking for fights except it’s the younger brother doing all of this alone. It’s always just been the younger brother, there was never an older brother. Because of his mother passing away and his father becoming a drunk at such a young age the young boy couldn’t handle it, so he created an older brother persona in his mind. This could have something to do with psychosis and him thinking there is actually an older brother with him at all times, or it could be dissosiative identity disorder where the older brother is an alter that comes out whenever he feels scared. Either way the older brother doesn’t actually exist and is made up in his mind. I thought the concept and the way they executed this was very cool.
‘all out of formation I plan my escape from walls they confined Rebel red carnation Grows while I decay I'm runnin' for my life’ this line is related to the rebels a.k.a. the banditos and Tyler wanting to escape from Dema running for his life. Chlorine could represent many things, it could be that Tyler wants to ‘clean’ himself, like starting out with a clean slate. But it could also be that chlorine is a way to refer to suicide, Tyler thinking that the only way he can make it out of Dema is through suicide.
Smithereens doesn’t really have anything to do with the storyline, and Tyler even acknowledges this by saying ‘You know I had to do one On the record for you You know I had to do one on the record for her like this’. This song is obviously meant for his wife Jenna and that he had to put a song on the record for her. It’s just the cutest.
This is one of my favorites on the record, it’s just so good. The title comes from when a celebrity dies, commiting suicide, their name written in neon lights (which symolizes their fame and success) becomes a kind of gravestone. The song is basically about suicide, both of celebrities and people who feel like they have to do it as some form of revenge (which could be a reference to 13 reasons why and the reason people didn’t like the show). ‘Our culture can treat a loss Like it's a win and right before we turn on them We give them the highest of praise, and hang their banner from a ceiling Communicating, further engraving An earlier grave is an optional way No’ I think Tyler is talking about how when a celebrity dies, we kind of glorify them. Suddenly all the attention is on them and people talk about how they loved this person for so long even though they just found out who they were.
‘I could use the streams and extra conversations I could give up, and boost up my reputation I could go out with a bang They would know my name They would host and post a celebration’ Here Tyler talks about how suicide could benefit him as an artist. How he could commit suicide and suddenly be the talk of the year. He could ‘go out with a bang’, they would celebrate him for it.
‘Promise me this If I lose to myself You won't mourn a day And you'll move onto someone else’ in this part he talks about him losing (commiting suicide) and how he would want us to ‘move onto someone else’. I think he means another artist by this.
‘Neon gravestones try to call Neon gravestones try to call for my bones But they won't get them’ here he sings that he won’t give in, and the neon gravestones won’t get his bones.
This song is pretty straight forward. Tyler said, "I wanted to go back to when I was a bit younger, maybe even in grade school. That song particularly is kind of talking about the difference between an internal pressure and external pressure."
In cut my lip he talks about not giving up. He says in the beginning that he’ll keep on trying if you decide all is well. ‘Though I am bruised Face of contusions Know I'll keep moving’ with this he means that even if he’s broken and bruised he won’t be giving up. ‘I keep on going back Even though it's me I abuse I'll keep on going back’ here it almost sounds like he’s in an abusive relationship. Well, he is, but with himself. He keeps going back to Dema (like the endless cycle we saw in Jumpsuit, Nico and the niners & Levitate) the same thing keeps repeating itself. He keeps going back to the pain, because it’s familiar and save.
In bandito Tyler sings of Dema again. ‘This is the sound we make When in between two places Where we used to bleed And where our blood needs to be’ with this line Tyler means being stuck between Dema and the outside world. He’s stuck in the Trench, he can’t climb out. He sings of being a bandito, wanting to escape. ‘I created this world To feel some control Destroy it if I want So I sing’ I think this is Tyler breaking the fourth wall. He’s been singing about this world with Dema, but now confesses that it’s just something he created to feel some control. To personify what is happening in your brain.
‘This clique means so much to this dude It could make him afraid of his music And be scared to death he could lose it’ here Tyler confesses that the fans means so much to him he’s actually afraid to lose his music and fans. I think this song is mostly about writers block and Tyler’s creative way to show how he got out of that.
Another very sweet song. It’s about Tyler’s grandfather Robert Joseph. The song is pretty straight forward after receiving this piece of information like ‘my middle name, my goodbye’, Tyler’s middle name is Robert. Or ‘I'm sorry I did not visit Did not know how to take it When your eyes did not know me Like I know you’ probably meaning that his grandfather didn’t recognize him anymore at some point. The only other thing I would like to point out is ‘You were one of those classic ones I wish she knew you’ which is about his niece who was born after his grandfather passed away.
Leave the city is about Dema again. ‘It's only Time before they show me Why no one ever comes back With details from beyond’ with this Tyler means when people never talk about Dema. After recovering from mental illness no one ever talks about how it was. Tyler says he’ll soon find out why, because he’s about to leave Dema too. However it could also be the exact opposite. Tyler saying no one knows what happens when you die, and he’s about to find out. But I don’t think that would fit the rest of the song. ‘They know that it's almost over’ I think this is just Tyler saying that the banditos know he’ll escape soon, or maybe that the bishops know he’s about to leave for good and they can’t do anything.
‘In time, I will leave the city For now, I will stay alive’ This is Tyler saying he’s not able to leave the city yet but he knows it’s soon, so in the meantime he’ll stay alive.
‘In Trench I'm not alone These faces facing me’ I think with this line he’s talking about when he’s in Trench and the banditos can’t help him physically, they’re still looking at him and supporting him.
So if Tyler isn’t Clancy, then who is? Clancy is just like the bishops, a personification. Clancy is the part of your brain that stays positive and tells you you will get out and it will get better. This is why Tyler needs Clancy to leave the Trench. The banditos can only do so much, the rest is up to Tyler. Tyler needs to ‘find’ Clancy, and once he’s found Clancy he can leave to the outside. He needs to find the part of him that still has hope and truly believes it’ll be alright to leave the dark part of his brain. To leave Dema behind him for good.
So how is this tied up with Blurryface?
We have definitely gotten enough proof that Trench and Blurryface are intertwined, but how much? Like I said earlier the black around Tyler’s neck represents being in control by Dema. This black around the neck is an iconic part of Tyler in the Blurryface era. So with this in mind, what if Blurryface takes place before Trench, when the banditos couldn’t break Tyler out and he’s being controlled by Dema. Looking back at some of the lyrics this makes a lot of sense. Tyler is being controlled by Dema throughout the whole album, but you can also see Tyler resisting, like in goner. Also the song hometown could be about Dema. Around this time he’s been in Dema for so long, it just feels like his home. The lyrics add up.
Heathens takes place in-between the blurryface album and trench. You see Tyler in a prison with a lot of other people. I think this prison is a part of Dema. Maybe for when you misbehave, you get put in there. You see that in the video Tyler and Josh start a rebellion. Like in nico and the niners ‘We’ll win but not everyone will get out’ everyone gets out except for Tyler. This could be the reason everyone is trying to save Tyler, because everyone got out except for him. His orange jumpsuit changes to a yellow suit when the rebellion starts and I didn’t think much of it because it’s just an outfit change and the yellow could just be a coincidence, but what really sold me is at the end when Tyler is all alone and caught, he’s wearing a yellow jumpsuit, not suit, that changes to orange. This made me believe Trench and Heathens could be related like this, because the yellow jumpsuit wouldn’t make sense otherwise.
In HDS Tyler is in a car out of his control. I think HDS takes place after Heathens and before Jumpsuit. I think one of the bishops (most likely Keons) is driving this car trying to get the others to come back to Dema. But the banditos won’t allow that to happen, they fight back. Josh tries to get Tyler back. Eventually the car crashes and burns and Tyler is able to get out. We know for sure that HDS is connected to Jumpsuit, because you can see the car from HDS in the video at the beginning of Jumpsuit. Something must have happened between these two videos, because Josh couldn’t save him.
And that’s where I’ll stop.
Well that was a lot longer than expected, but this is just my time-line theory I’ve gathered from doing a lot of research. I think it just tells one big story of everyone escaping Dema except for Tyler and him trying to leave throughout Trench. I know there are a lot more theories out there so if you think I missed something please let me know. Also if you think there may be something entirely different going on in this story, please share that as well.
During the APMA awards TOP won for most dedicated fanbase and Josh said the reason Tyler couldn’t be there is because he’s ‘off severing ties with Dema’. And now you understand what that means.
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