Zip!

OK. So lets start off with this image. I haven't watched the tordtom animatic this was inspired off of, but the color usage and body language tells me a lot too. In this, Cuphead is seemingly unerved, but not nessarily scared. He seems to be more on guard, yes, but he also seems to be more shocked. I do think there's a slight bit of concern too, but i might be delusional. But Cuphead's body language is really interesting BECAUSE of the looming image of Bendy. Bendy's body language in this image is a bit confusing, as he's only drawing with this one shade of yellow. BUT that doesn't mean its impossible to infer something. Looking at the colors, the constant use of not only yellow, but the same SHADE suggests that whatever is going on with Bendy, wether he's currently being influenced by Sinny (geeked out Bendy from the dream) or not, is more straightforward than one might believe. The reason he might be influenced by Sinny is because in the dream sequence, we see thar Sinny has the same spiral manic eyes that Bendy has in this image. Speaking of eyes, when we look at CUPHEAD's eyes, we see yellow diamonds around his pupils, which can imply that Cuphead is starting to see either A). Sinny. Or B). Bendy and who he really is both in past and present

This image is almost completely the opposite though. Looking at Bendy's body language, we see that he is in an active panic. He grips his chest like he's struggling to breathe, and partially covering his face with the other hand. Again, the rest of his face isn't detail, but we see one eye. This eye, unlike the last image, isn't the same manic spiral eyes that we saw. Instead, its his regular eye, and again, he is obviously very distressed. However, he seemingly has less reason to be, as the image of Cuphead behind him isn't manic. Instead, Cuphead is seemingly tired, as well as observant. Also! Unlike Bendy in the last pic, Cupheads image isn't just a plain shade of red. This can imply that Cuphead is more complex than Bendy gave him credit for, as opposed to Bendy being more simple than Cuphead thought, despite the very differing situations. Unlike Cuphead, Bendy has no shade of red in his eyes. This can imply that because of his fear, he cannot see Cuphead for who he really is, and instead views his concern/observations as threats, despite the fact Cuphead isn't hostile in either picture. Bendy seemingly cannot handle someone actually SEEING him for who he is and what he's going thourgh, whether that be with Sinny or just his past in general. We know through an ask with Nort that Bendy believes Boris doesn't actually know him, and that's probably because Bendy is afraid of anyone really knowing him, which is why Cuphead gaining an understanding of Bendy terrifies enough to a manic episode

Also with the first image, i strongly believe that the toon behind Cuphead isn't Bendy, but rather Sinny. As Sinny acts as a defense mechanism for Bendy, as we can see Bendy's eyes shift into spirals when he chooses to kill Dyle to keep himself safe, AND we see Sinny personified in his dreams when he kicks Astro out, as Bendy is also not comfortablw with Astro in the first place, it makes sense for Sinny to come out as his defense mechanism to keep Astro from finding out anything about Bendy, as Bendy again, is probably terrified if people know who is really is.

There was a post I saw a day or so ago talking about MOTM’s color theory, especially when it came to Bendy. I don’t remember the OP, but if I find them I’ll make sure to credit them, as they had wonderful points. Like how Bendy is portray with white light when given the option to save Dyle, and yet despite the lighting depicting him as a savior, Bendy chooses to leave Dyle for dead in favor of himself.

OP had also showed the flip-side, where Boris is depicted in red lighting, which symbols typically evil and/or danger. Yet, despite that fact, not only does Boris go back to save Shelly, both of them are completely ok (or as ok as it gets).

So that post got me thinking a lot more about color theory, and my own personal theories based on that, so I’ll apologize now for being all over the place. So I’d like to go back to Bendy, and specifically the fact of him being portrayed like a savior. You know, we got some “I loved you like a god and you betrayed me like a man” vibes going on. But that cannot possibly be the actual case, right? However, Bendy’s signature color is yellow. That’s stated time and time again through asks to both Nort and Fly. Do you know what else is yellow? The map. The SAME map that only Bendy can see. Coincidence? I think not.

Because you know what ELSE is associated with yellow in this comic? The Celestials.

So, the map is related to the Celestials, and Bendy is obviously related to the Celestials! Actually, no. I don’t think it’s that simple. While I do believe that Bendy is definitely tied to the Celestials, due to the yellow motifs and his religious background, I don’t think Bendy is solely a Celestial. The reason for that is actually because of the asks given to Fly specifically. Fly had this thing where they answered cute asks like how the main characters would (really love that btw it’s so fun). But a key thing stuck out to me. All the characters’ text colors were based on their fav color/the color assigned to them in their ref sheets. For example, Mugman is blue, Cuphead is red, Boris is green and Shelly is orange! The outlier here, however, is Bendy.

Despite being so obviously connected to yellow in the comic, and yellow being his assigned color on the ref sheets, Bendy’s text color is black. Now, this may be because yellow can be hard to see on white! Maybe I’m reading too much into this! And I’m totally betting on the fact that I am. But I’ve seen so many people sharing their cool theories and I wanted to try putting my thoughts into the pile too. And you know how I mention Bendy being portrayed in white lighting earlier? Well, the opposite of white, is black. This choice of text color might be to show Bendy’s true nature. A character who is so often associated with yellows and whites, both of which being positive and even holy colors, having their text color be black to show their true self is actually really genius. Also, that black might represent ink in its purest form, being black. Again, I could be totally wrong. But it makes so much sense to have his text be black instead of yellow. This piece also leads me to believe that whatever Bendy is, he is not, at least not fully, Celestial. While he is most definitely important and connected to the map, and I believe he is connected in a way that actually surpasses Celestial. Looking way back to the prologue, we read that the Celestials, for whatever reason, took apart the ink machine and scattered the parts amongst themselves. And just like in the game, we see almost all the parts of the ink machine. All except one.

The game of Bendy and the Ink Machine has a total of six parts you need to find in order to turn the ink machine on. In this image we see 5 of them, with the 6th one noticeably missing. The 6th one is the bendy doll. At this point, I cannot confirm 100% what this means, but I can suspect that Bendy is not just able to read the map, he’s what the ink machine physically needs to run again. To end this theory off, I want to stay at the prologue and talk about how the Ichor that the Celestials came from is actually alive. The Celestials came from Ichor, also known as God’s Blood. However, we find that the Ichor isn’t an inanimate object, but a living being. It’s unclear whether or not the Ichor meant to create the Celestials, but my final point is this. Whether or not Bendy is a Celestial or not, I believe that Bendy is created from the unfiltered ink of the Ichor itself AND that he is the one of the only intentional creations of the Ichor. I don’t have enough evidence to support this fact, but if we look at the Ichor and Bendy side by side, we see a lot of similarities.

Their shapes are similar. Both the Ichor and Bendy have a seemingly round shape. Exactly how you might imagine old cartoon characters. And when the Ichor is portrayed as evil, the resemblance is actually even more prevalent.