I see people, not gender

In the beginning, I want to warn you about spoilers from the games BATDR, BATDS, and the books Dreams come to Life, The Illusion of Living, and The lost Ones.

And without further ado, let's dive in.

After playing BATDR several times and reading all available books from the Bendy universe, I still have so many questions.

Most of them are circling around Joey and his appearance in BATDR. It just doesn't fit. Nothing of it does.

Let's start with the things we know about Joey Drew from his memoirs, "The Illusion of Living,"

He was born as Joseph Drew, son of a shoe maker. With a loving mother, who encouraged him with everything and a father who was absent most of the time because of his job.

Nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary.

And that's almost all we know about his childhood and his teenage days.

He's also known as a visionary, founder of Joey Drew studios, creator of Bendy, a decent, humble and honest guy, who hates lies, who has a pretty unique view about the world he's living in since he was a kid, outstanding in almost everything he does, trusted and appreciated from everyone who has the pleasure to meet him, and successful in forming his life as he wants it to be, in one word 'perfect'.

The perfect boss, the perfect man, who has anything under control.

Sounds dreamlike, don't you think?

Yeah~ and that's all what I believe it is. A Dream. A version of him, he wants to be.. the version of how others should see him. We can almost call it an illusion, which I think doesn't complies with the truth.

Why do I think so? Well~ where should I start?

First of all, no human is perfect, and after all the information from BATIM, he's very far away from being the man he describes himself in his book.

He repeated several times that HE is the creator of Bendy, not Henry.

But all he had was 'just' a very vague idea, and Henry was the one who let them come to life.

His old "pal" Nathan Arch, who published 'The Illusion of Living' again after Joeys death, speaks very highly of him, although Nathan's memory's seem always to be different from the things Joey said. At least all the things that involved Nathan.

I know memories can become muddy over time, but that's just the tip of the iceberg, and we don't get any input from other people involved in Joeys stories.

So no one can say for sure if they are just 'polished' to be more interesting or entirely made up.

From his employees, we know for sure that the studio later on has a hard time staying over water. (or better 'over ink' *dadush* *caugh* Sorry...)

Joey denies this more than once, publicly and towards his staff.

That's pretty odd. He always says that he hates liar, so why is he lying?

Of course, I understand that you don't want the public to know about all the struggles, but why continue to lie towards your employees? Who KNOW about all of this?

Or does he really believe that everything's fine?

Definitely not, at least at some point. From BATDS, we know that Joey asked his good old pal Nathan for money, which Nathan simply ignored.

Intension unclear.

And then the biggest question mark of all, of course, the Ink Machine.

So, what do we know about the Ink Machine?

We know that Thomas Connor was the one who built the machine, we know that the machine has ink in it, that turns people into madman with the slightest contact, and turns them into Ink creatures, and we know that the ink corrupts the memorys of everyone who's 'infected' with it.

But, at least at my knowledge, no one knows where the Ink is coming from.

The original machine is described as massive in "The lost Ones", than here is the slightly smaller machine from the loop, and we know that Joey has a small version of it in his apartment.

Bendy was Joeys whole world, and after Bendy Land failed completely, it's not so hard to tell what he would do with magic ink and a massive printer. He wanted Bendy to live.

So he did and probably created the Ink Demon in the process.

We have several notes and audio logs, where people stated that they see 'something lurk in the shadows', they hear growling noises, and the whole studio was permanently flooded with ink.

So, the Ink Demon was, in fact, in the real world, and Joey gave a damn about that.

Everything's fine, he has everything under control... as usual.

Now comes the tricky part.

It seems that Joey came to the conclusion that "real toons" need a soul, as we know that the Ink Demon is soulless.

In 'Dreams Come to Live', the Ink Demon teared Buddy apart, which led to his dead.

It's not described how the process exactly worked, but he somehow managed to transfer buddy's soul into a perfect Boris.

And, oh boy, was he proud of archiving HIS dream. His dream came to life. An Illusion, his Illusion, came finally to life. No sign of remorse, so sign of reflecting how his actions put everyone in mortal danger and destroyed the lives of everyone he worked with.

So we can assume that all toons in the loop are possessing a soul that was printed in an artificial body and that their real bodies are dead. As a lost one (and Sammy), you seemingly don't have to be dead. The ink is turning and twisting their bodies into the ink world, making them a part of it.

But they are souls nonetheless who suffer from memory loss. Sammy is the best example for that.

I think we all can agree at this point that Joey Drew and Joseph Drew are two entirely different personas.

In my opinion, Joseph played a role in achieving his dreams. To be in a position where he can do whatever he wants to do.

The reason I believe that, is that one audio log from Joey we can find in BATIM, chapter 4, on the first floor of the maintenance area.

It says:

"I believe there's something special in all of us. With true inner strength, you can conquer even your biggest challenges. You just have to believe in yourself and remain honest, motivated, and above all, who you really are.

Ok, let's stop it right there. I can only do so many takes of this trash a day. And tell the guys in writing I want more use of the word dreaming in every message. Keep railing on that, get it? Dreaming! Dreaming! Dreaming! People just eat up that kind of slop. Hmm, what? It's still on? Well, turn it off, damn it!"

In the second part his voice changed completely, he's clearly annoyed by all the bullsh*t he's talking, to keep up the appearance of the honest, friendly and hopeful Joey Drew, who always wants the best for everyone and encouraged people to make there dreams come true.

The Joey Drew all people knew and love.

And said that, I want to talk about BATDR.

We surprisingly met Joey Drew as Audrey, and he was exactly like he described himself in 'The Illusion of Living'. He tried to help Audrey, and explained the situation as good as he could. The good old pal Joey.

According to how he puts his words, he seems to suffer from memory loss too.. like the rest of the souls in the loop.

Does this mean that, despite his claim to just be a memory, his soul is IN the Ink world?

This version of him seems very sincere to me.

Or is there another reason for his state of mind?

But how would this even work?

According to our knowledge, Joeys Book of the Illusion of Living is a key to change things in the Ink world, so... did he drew (haha, drew) himself into his world before he died?

Did Joseph drew his version of Joey into the world he created?

Did he alter the memories of his ink-self, so he can't remember that he's just a role Joseph played?

But why? To help Henry? Did he suddenly feel remorse about his decision to trap his former partner in an endless loop, filled with despair and hopelessness?

Out of spite because he felt betrayed by Henry?

Like he said to Audrey, all of this is just an illusion, and nothing of it is real.

Henry is perfectly fine and lives his life in peace.

I don't think so. The whole story he's telling Audrey is so strange to me.

Nothing of it makes really sense. But I think that Ink-Joey THINKS that he's telling the truth.

That he suddenly had a change of heart that he sent Allison in the form of Alice Angel to help Henry.

And we know that you need a soul and a dead person to create a toon. Allison may not be perfect like Buddy-Boris, but I think it's the same procedure.

If this is true, he had to kill Allison and print her soul into the body of Alice.

And even IF he wanted to help Henry. Why did Joeys Ink-self never make himself known to Henry? So many questions.

Same with the part of 'I wanted to have a family'.

Neither Joey nor Joseph ever mentioned the need to have a family or to be a father.

I believe that Joseph printed Audrey, but not out of love. More likely is that he did it out of curiosity.. how far can he go to prove that all life can be an illusion?

And maybe Audrey was not the first 'experiment', I think Heidi and Porter are failed ones... not human enough to live in the real world, so he banished them into the ink world.

But I digress, back to the point.

So, how did Joey get into the loop, and what is his purpose?

Haha~ 'purpose' is the key word I waited for.

And now, buckle up. It's going to get a bit wild.

I think that Wilson is the one who put Joey in there.

Why do I think that? Well~

It's odd that Joey knows that he's dead in the real world, especially with an exact date.

And as far as we know.. time doesn't really exist down there.

Wilson is the only one who can transfer his mind into an inkbody he created of himself.

So he knows what's happening in the real world, and he can provide time within the circle.

We also know that Wilson is in possession of the Illusion of Living, so he can manipulate certain events down there, but unfortunately for him, he can't control everything.. the Ink Demon doesn't let him take control over his domain.

Plus, the ink-version of Joey matches exactly the Joey from the book.

Furthermore, Wilson is the son of Nathan Arch... Joeys good old friend, who let him sink further into his demise on purpose.

It's also odd that you can find a memory of Wilson inside Joeys memory of the studio.

And to round those 'coincidences' up.. did you realise that the drawing of Henry in Joeys' story wears exactly the same outfit he's wearing in the loop? Very strange indeed.

So why did Wilson create a version of Joey in the first place?

Simply to create a sort of trust towards Audrey. She's the ace in his sleeve to get rid of the Ink Demon for good, to control the whole world.

Joeys words were the reason why she gave Wilson a chance. To let her think that the Ink Demon is the only reason why everything down there is so miserable.

And still, there are so many questions remaining. I'm SO excited to get more information about the whole universe and can't wait for the new books.

I would also love to hear your opinion on the whole thing. Maybe I missed something?