Both Henry and Bendy Were Both Made From Tombstone Picnic
So a few Anons have talked about this before, and while I thought it made sense I donāt think I realized exactly how much sense it made.
You see, thereās only one thing Bendy has never known: He was there for his beginning, but heās never seenā¦ The End.
This quote always confused me. Whether you think the Ink Demon is Joey or soulless, he wouldāve been made after the Ink Machine was created - which was at the end of the studioās run, so he wasnāt āthere for his beginningā.
Tombstone Picnic was released in 1929 - the same year the studio opened, according to the official website. This means that Tombstone Picnic was one of the first if not the first Bendy cartoon.
And given that Thomas says the cartoons are made from imprinting on a reel, it is very likely that this was the reel Bendy was made from - hence Joey saying he was āthere for his beginningā - as in, he was made from one of the first shorts. And, of course, the cartoonās ending is missing, which is why āheās never seen The Endā.
(This also explains why heās immortal - Bendy is literally escaping from skeletons/death in this cartoon.)
However, it actually goes deeper than that. Tombstone Picnic ends with a human shadow being cast over Bendy. Given the context, there are really only two options that work here - Joey or Henry.
Now, hereās the thing - while itās not uncommon for entire cartoons from back then to become lost, the ending only being missing isā¦ strange. Even if something damaged the end of the film, the original cels should still exist to allow them to splice new copies. The only way I could think of that this would happenā¦ is if someone deliberately was trying to get rid of the ending.
See, Henry left the studio in 1930 - so this is the only cartoon so far weāve seen that he worked on.
So that figure at the end? That was likely him making a cameo appearance. When Henry left, Joey got upset and intentionally removed the last bit of the ending (probably keeping a copy for himself). Especially because right as the film cuts out, we seeā¦
Bendy smiling. Itās likely this was the punchline to the ājokeā - Bendy is being pursued by this scary shadow only to reveal that, surprise! Itās just your friendly creator Henry.
Moving on, there are quite a few things in the game that imply Henryās an ink creature, but the two biggest are his respawning and the invisible writing.
The only argument that could be made against the respawning would be that it isnāt canon. However, there are a few things going against this - for example, Alice repeats her ātry not to die on the way backā line when Henry respawns, and the āfeel familiar?ā Miracle Station is a nod not only to the loop but to the Chapter 3 trailer - where Bendy lunges at someone in a Miracle Station. Suffice to say, thereās no way Henry survived that.
Of course, the biggest piece of evidence is that you can literally find the respawn tunnel in the alternate beginning and walk through itā¦
Which makes everything turn black and white, like the cartoons.
The other main piece of evidence is Allison mentioning that all the ink creatures leave messagesā¦ which Henry does, just with invisible ink.
In other words, it wasnāt just Bendy that was made from the Tombstone Picnic reel - it was also Henry, hence the black-and-white filter when he respawns. His writing is invisible because he literally hasnāt been seen in the ending since the original run. (Being made out of a different type of ink is also probably why he has immunity to large amounts of it - āWeāre not like you, Henry.ā).
But you might be saying, āWait, but Tombstone Picnic obviously has an entire scene missing before the end title card would show up, but The End reel only has the card. What about the rest of it?ā
Well, following the idea that the shadow was Henry, the missing ending would be Henry approaching Bendyā¦
TL;DR: Bendy was made from Tombstone Picnic, which was one of the shorts Henry worked on before leaving. The human shadow was him, and Joey cut the scene when he left. The ink creature Henry in the gameplay was made using this reel. The ending of Chapter 5 parallels the missing ending of the short.
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