people have made connections to a car a torch a death to the whole dema storyline, ones that feel way too close to be coincidences. yet they still don't make any sense.
the one with the torch, which would be torchbearer in this case is a demon whom the speaker needs to keep away from a person, obviously signaling this demon is bad. which I don't need to explain how that doesn't make sense because tb is a guiding light for clancy and pretty explicitly a Good Guy.
then that makes either the speaker (who is leaving the person who needs protecting) or the woman being referenced (who is being attacked by the demon with a torch aka tb) as clancy or tyler. which you can squint and make sense at both of them but with tb being evil in this song still wrecks everything.
so here's my wild idea. the narrator in this song is Keons, and the woman is Clancy/Tyler with the demon still being TB.
Keons a bishop, views TB a evil. as someone who is preying on Tyler in the middle of the night. someone tyler needs protecting from. but that's only what HE thinks.
the narrator could also very easily be interpreted as seizing someone at the whole "breath I saw was not my own" bit, but here's the kicker: Keons is unsure and regretting his actions BECAUSE of Tyler.
he doesn't want to seize because he knows "my skin that wraps my frame wasn't made to play this game" he doesn't like seizing. and when he thinks of tyler, the one who he gave his heart to he begins to understand why God died. Keons loves tyler, probably in a father son way/mentor to mentee way, and that's why he sets tyler free because of him his whole worldview changed.
Keons waa hopeless before, a reluctant follower of vialism (the first verse a cry of escape) but he found someone worth living for, worth DYING for. and it was Tyler.
(I guess that may make Keons Tyler's bishop? or maybe he just connected with him during his capture???? idk)
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Ned is supposed to be a symbol for Tyler's creativity, right? So, in Chlorine Tyler and Josh are purifying and refining a creative concept to the point that concept is then crafted and readied into a weapon. Which is shown with the antlers. In the Outside, that refined thing, Ned, is complete, its story is coming to an end, and thus sheds its antlers for the creator to use. Right? The Bishop, Keons, having used them is meant to show the opposite side of creativity, in that when not used carefully, it can be destructive and harmful.
Ned disappears after giving its antlers to Tyler, again, because that idea, or weapon is fully developed. Story complete. Just as he has been telling us this next album will complete the DEMA story.
Tyler showing us all of the other Neds was him assuring us that there is more to come. You can endlessly create, endlessly fight.
I know many of us have been questioning and theorizing who Clancy is. Recently a clique member on the TOP reddit has given a whole new perspective on who(or what) Clancy may be.
(THIS IS NOT MY THEORY. WHAT IS SHOWN BELOW IS THE TEXT PROVIDED IN THE REDDIT POST I LINKED ABOVE FOR THOSE WHO DON'T WANT TO USE THE LINK. Everything in the post is copied below):
Maybe Clancy isn't a Who, but a what?
Okay, So I just wanted to get this out there because I feel like some new lore is gonna drop here soon in the next few months.
So, everyone is always talking about how Tyler is playing Clancy, and until SAI I disagreed. I felt that in Trench that Josh played the Role of Clancy.
The Clancy letters talk about how Clancy's bishop is Keons, and describes Keons as being kind. Later on, Clancy talks about the scene in Jumpsuit where Nico arrives and hunts down Tyler, but his POV isn't told from Tyler's point of view. It is told from someone watching the interaction happen, he even makes a note to mention that he has never encountered or seen a bishop that aggressive before. but in the MV there is one specific bandito standing over watching this interaction, Josh. Now, to be fair, in the Clancy letters, immediately after seeing the interaction with Tyler and Nico, he talks about discovering the existence of Banditos and being surprised that there were others out in the wilderness. But after all "This is a story about Cycles" it could simply be that when Clancy wrote that letter, he had not yet become a bandito.
I think, that at this time, Clancy was Josh. but I think as the cycle continued, and Tyler escaped Dema time and time again and spent time with the Banditos in between that time and Clancy would become friends. But what if after a while, they devised a plan to switch places, then having Tyler play the role of Clancy?
Later in Trench, there is the song Morph. Lyrics such as "I'll Morph into someone else" and "Defense Mechanism Mode." This is a very lore heavy song referencing Nico directly. It also talks about kind of strategizing on what to do "I am surrounded..... There's no 'above, ' or 'under, ' or 'around' it.... If I keep moving, they won't know...I'll morph to someone else " and you could argue that even ending the Song with a "Josh Dun" could imply that he is either Morphing into Josh, or that Clancy's new name that he has morphed into is Josh.
During the Sai Era, everyone was tipped off that the bishops had creative control over the band due to the changing in positions in the promo pictures. For those who don't know, or need a refresher, Tyler is traditionally on the Right and Josh is traditionally on the left. That is the way it has been since the Vessel Era for all album promos. Maybe the switch wasn't to convey simply that something was wrong, but that as far as the bishops knew, they were in their right spots, with Clancy on the left and Tyler on the right. Would the bishops know them by name? This switch could be further confirmed by when Tyler dyed his hair pink. In the past that was always something Josh did. Red for Blurryface, yellow for trench and a few colors in between.
Then another Clancy letter would be released. In this letter the events of the Outside MV and the SAI Livestreamed were discussed and the very real change of POVs take place. It is unmistakably told from Tyler's perspective as he speaks about writing the livestream and performing it. He goes on to talk about arriving to the island of Voldsoy and in this, he clearly references Josh as the "Torchbearer". But why is this the first time he is referenced? He was there in Dema during Nico and the Niners MV, he was there in Levitate MV after the rescue. In the following Clancy letter he mentions that the Torchbearer has a plan, is this the same plan discussed in Morph?
Is Clancy not so much of a person, but a name passed between two Bandito's trying to end the Cycle of Dema and the Bishops who reign?
I literally just copied and pasted the notes I took so I'm sorry if they make no sense.
Chronological notes:
-livestream starts by showing a birds-eye view of Dema and playing Good Day
-Tyler looks really depressed
-bishops (Sally/Sacarver and Dan/Lisden) introduce TOP as “the popular band, Twenty One Pilots” - trying to portray them as popular and likable to get more people to listen
-Sacarver says the dragon (Trash) is “kinda dark” - implies that Trash is good
-Tyler’s hair is “number 16 cotton candy” - further shows how Dema controls/catalogs everything
-“there’s not twenty one pilots, there’s only two guys!” - maybe it doesn’t mean anything but that phrase is *the* phrase that will piss off almost any clikkie
-bishops ask where Josh is and if he’s hiding, Sacarver says “come here, you little moron” - Josh isn’t with Dema because they don’t know where he is, plus they wouldn’t call him a moron if he was on their side
-Sacarver wants Tyler to play Stressed Out because she’s always stressed (due to working with Lisden) and because “it’s my favorite” - Stressed Out is the song that made TOP popular, she may be stressed due to working with Lisden because she’s the one that seems to want to escape Dema more, while he seems to buy into the message/concept of Dema more
-Tyler tunes out bishops and then starts singing Choker
-Bishops grab Tyler after Choker and force him onto another set, where Stressed Out plays. Bishops stay onstage during Stressed Out - again, Stressed Out made TOP popular, which is what the bishops want
(okay i know the bishops are bad but that last image would make a badass computer wallpaper)
-Stressed Out fades into Migraine
-“thank God it’s Friday/because Fridays will always be better than Sundays” - probably doesn’t mean anything, but the livestream was on a Friday
-Josh counted for Tyler on “depressssssing”, but not verbally like in the studio version
-Migraine background has the psi symbol
-Migraine transitions into Morph, with a video of a crowd from the Trench era (Tyler interacts with the ‘crowd’ with a call and answer)
-Tyler doesn’t say “Josh Dun” in Morph
-Morph turns into Holding on to You (“entertain my faith” part) with a rain/lightning effect
-right before “lean with it rock with it”, there’s static and it cuts to the bishops who advertise SAI on the second set (blue/pink/yellow rainbow)
-“they just don’t play hits like this on the radio these days” - “this song will never be played on the radio” from Fairly Local
-after, a ‘commercial’ plays
-the first commercial has the black slipcase on the right and the blue slipcase on the left. In the back, from left to right: cassette, three cd’s stacked on top of each other (white on top, pink in the middle, blue on the bottom), blue box (limited edition box set sold on their website), lyric booklet
-“Dema is bringing you this music collection that is vibrant with saturation” - the Twitter banner was slowly desaturated while in the process of announcing the album, ads for SAI said “feel the saturation!”
-Shy Away, Choker, and Mulberry Street are mentioned during the first ad - two out of three singles released before the album dropped and the most propaganda-like song
-After commercial, Tyler plays Mulberry Street - Lisden said it was his favorite (likely b/c it’s propaganda)
-Mulberry Street starts inside but Tyler goes outside to a street (Mulberry St.) with extras that are ‘frozen’ in place
-Mulberry Street was the whole song (or almost the whole song), while most songs played were only a small segment - again, it’s Dema’s propaganda, so they want it to go on longer than older songs
-after Mulberry Street, the intro to Lane Boy plays (“why do I kneel to these concepts? Tempted by control, controlled by temptation. Stay low, they say, stay low”)
-Lane Boy has people with gas masks in the background
-“Don’t trust a perfect person and don’t trust a song that’s flawless” is repeated several times - later, Sacarver calls the album “perfect”
-Lane Boy transitions into Redecorate
-Chlorine plays next, background has barrels like in music video
-“Running for my…” (Tyler himself doesn’t say the word “life”)
-After Chlorine, Shy Away plays with obviously fake snow/mountainous background. Chandeliers are hanging and a fancy dining table is set
-Bishop commercial after Shy Away (“break the cycle in half”) plays, bishops have nosebleeds
-Sacarver says “nothing is missing from this collection”, yet SAI has 11 tracks while past albums have 14
-cd’s in front are swapped (black on left and blue on right), and the three cd’s are in a different order (pink on top, blue in the middle, white on the bottom)
-“But remember, you should-” *static* - bishops are likely being controlled by someone else, as it’s unlikely that the Banditos would have the power to cut them off
-Cuts to Mulberry St. set but darker (dusk/nighttime)
-The Outside plays next with Josh wearing skeleton hoodie - The Outside was mentioned in the commercial
-when water is poured on the street after The Outside, it forms a footprint
-Tyler sits in a boat named “Oh” with a lamp and an artificial night sky
-Plays Heathens with a ukulele (no frog croaks)
-transitions into Trees, which is normally the last song
-during Trees, the stars start to blur together (it looks like a timelapse of the North Star)
-Josh in Bandito clothing with a torch is shown (torch looks slightly different than in music vids), then it cuts to Jumpsuit
-Jumpsuit background is a valley like in the music video but it looks greener and more manufactured
-After, Heavydirtysoul plays with a flaming car on set (kinda like in the mv)
-Tyler looks upwards during “can you save my heavydirtysoul?”, looks like he’s pleading (sorry the last pic is so blurry(face))
-background is a road similar to the one in the music video
-Josh keeps crossing his drumsticks during HDS
-Commercial break with hosts (bloody and Sacarver has overexaggerated makeup, plus they have yellow eyes)
-“Now that you’ve heard some of this collection, you must be just like us”
-”Sometimes I close my eyes to try to escape, I just can’t believe how unbelievably perfect this collection is!” “You know you can’t escape, Sally.” “Yes, I know.”
-”We’ve come for you”, “We got people on the way, no chances” - “We come for you, no chances”, “We got people on the way” (lyrics from No Chances (which they didn’t play))
-Commercial zooms out to show that it’s on a TV with Tyler, Josh, and others watching - we don’t believe what’s on TV
-Saturday plays, during Jenna dialogue, Jenna has a pink streak in her hair and her top is half-blue, half-white
-Jenna has a yellow phone (Trench) while Tyler has a red one (Dema)
-stutter/pause between “might get” and “loud” happened twice, not just once
-after, they dance onto another set and play Level of Concern
-LOC background looked kind of like Josh’s in the music video (glow in the dark stars against a dark background)
-“In a world where this is as good as it gets, and we miss you, we really do”
-Fades into Ride, background is pink scales and what looks like sideways palm trees?
-Car Radio plays, Josh and Tyler are wearing black masks instead of white ones
-pause after “I liked it better when my car had sound”
-right after Car Radio, an alarm sounds and red lights flash, people run around in the background as Tyler walks onto Mulberry St. set
-Never Take It plays, Tyler comes up close to the camera (almost like in LOC music vid)
-Heavydirtysoul car is on fire to the right of the set
-Trash figurine is on the ground, it looks larger than usual
-Tyler walks back to first set and sits between bishops, who are frozen, and sings “I know it’s over/I was born a choker/nobody’s coming for me” from Choker
-fades out and cuts to bird’s-eye view of the set with crew members clapping and cheering, although even that feels subdued and fake
-shows Josh and Tyler with bishops in background, then credits roll
Various observations:
-Josh’s drumsticks are yellow - furthers concept that he’s against Dema
-SAI songs were generally played longer than older songs
-Bishops call it a “collection”, not an “album”
-Guitarists/trumpet player have one of Tyler’s tattoos on shirt
-Tyler has a pink ring and a blue ring on his left ring and index fingers, respectively (Shy Away music vid)
-various easter eggs on Mulberry St. set (sorry for the quality/size of the pictures)
(says “Rosie’s lounge)
-The door numbers on the Mulberry St. set coincide with the dmaorg.info error message numbers (at the bottom of the message)
-Josh’s bandito mask looks different (has a design on it that looks like a lion?) (unless I’m dumb and it was always like that)
-FPE: the Few the Proud the Emotional (Blurryface), Failed Perimeter Escape (Trench), now Food Petrol Etc (SAI)
-Tyler looks less energetic when singing SAI songs (because it’s Dema propaganda)
-after the show, instrumental versions of The Hype, We Don’t Believe What’s on TV, and Doubt were played. WDBWOTV is obvious, The Hype has the lyric “just don’t believe the hype”, and Doubt has the lyric “gnawing on the bishops”
-in the Q&A, they said Josh would backflip off the piano, but he didn’t. They also didn’t do the deathdrop (thing where Tyler just kinda falls backwards)
-Stream was exactly one hour long (started at 8 PM EST, ended at 9 PM EST)
-The livestream ad doesn’t have a crossed O in the only of “one night only”
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So heres the post I promised. Sorry it took so long, but hopefully it’ll cover everything else on the DEMA website before tøp’s official return.
When the DEMA website first went up, they were updating it periodically over the course of a couple months with cryptic information and letters from their new character, Clancy. I made posts about these updates when they were less frequent. In this post i’m going to pick up where I left off, staring with this photo:
This photo shows 21 people standing at the top of a cliff, looking down at the camera. At the time of the release it was speculated that these were people outside of dema. We now know that these are actually edited screenshots of the Jumpsuit video, where these people outside of the Trench are looking down on Tyler, who is still in the Trench. Also, the figure 8th from the left is Josh and it’s speculated that the figure to the right of him (the one turned away from the camera) is Jenna.
The next update was this gif of a vulture:
At the time this was posted, not much sense was made of it other than the connection to a previous update with photos of vultures. However, now we know that vultures will be playing an important thematic role in the new album, with them even going as far as to put a vulture on the new album cover. Also, it’s speculated that the eye opening back up is that of a vulture (I’ll discuss that more in a different post).
The second update in that 24 hour period was this letter from Clancy:
In brief, it expresses Clancy’s desire to escape while also giving us some more information as to how the residents of Dema got there and are being controlled.
The next update, although less exciting, also contained some important information.
This photo is titled “_o__ut_”, which I believe means that it’s a photo taken by Clancy of his first look outside of Dema. The horizontal dark bar at the bottom looks like a wall that the viewer is looking over, showing mountains in the background (similar to those seen in the Jumpsuit video).
Next was another letter from Clancy, this time titled “_he_a_vy_”
This briefly chronicles Clancy’s plan escape from Dema. However, the use of the word “we” implies that Clancy is alone. He also mentions waiting for the torches, which makes sense seeing the next update:
I believe that this GIF of people carrying torches through what appears to be an underground tunnel acts as confirmation that Clancy has escaped Dema as he planned to.
This is further confirmed by this last letter by Clancy, stating that he has successfully escaped:
In summary, this note is reflecting on his escape as well as thoughts of the future and life in general. It ends with the words “Cover Me!”, which we now know is part of the chorus to jumpsuit.
The final update to the Dema website was this photo here:
As the photo is inverted, it’s hard to make out what it shows, but flipping it back to normal shows a body lying in a river:
Immediately it was pointed out that the figure looks like Tyler wearing some sort of mask, like his death drops in the blurryface era. (Example:)
It was assumed that Clancy had died while escaping Dema. However, with the release of the Jumpsuit video soon after, it was shown that he was simply lying in the river as if he had woken up there. An interesting connection as well is this post from Jenna on instagram, which says that in Iceland (where the video was filmed), water is cherished and protected, which may explain why he as laying in it.
Since this final update, the Dema website has not been updated, and I don’t suspect it will be.
