Archived Discussion Main / EpilepticTrees

• All the regular theories for Sailor Moon must have run out since it first premiered in 1992. Now we have "the senshi are goddesses" and "Guardian Cosmos is Chaos". Don't forget the madness back in the day about Haruka being a hermaphrodite because of Michiru's unfortunate metaphor ("Haruka has both male and female qualities") in the Infinity manga. Oh, and the infamous "Prince Uranus."
  • The tree of "Crystal Tokyo as a Knight Templar dystopia engineered by Sailor Pluto" is a big FanFic topic recently.
• One minor line in the Pokemon musical about Ash's mother and Giovanni once dating has led to a practically impossible but popular assumption that Giovanni is Ash's father.
  • "Ash, I am your father!"
  • We also have all the theories as to what really made Brock run away from Professor Ivy's laboratory. From abuse to rape to mere heartbreak to being a Ditto-based clone.
  • Not to mention that since the Pokemon canon has not only hundreds of different legends and mythology cycles, but several interpretations/retellings of each (mainly due to the anime contradicting the games and manga at every turn), some pretty wacky theories have cropped up...
• There's also the "Bloodline of the Tengu" theory in Naruto which states that the Uchiha bloodline was born when a Hyuuga woman slept with an actual Tengu. This theory is rabidly defended by some despite the fact that Tengus only exist as decorative statues in the series.
  • There's another theory the Uchia bloodline comes from the Kyuubi, as in folktales kitsune often transform into women and sometimes bare human children.
  • Naruto is (or better has been) a garden of E Ts, concerning questions as 'Who is narutos father?', 'Who is the leader of Akatsuki?' 'How evil is Itachi?', 'Who is Tobi/Madara Uchiha/the Fourth Hokage...?' and so on.
• Several characters in Welcome To The NHK muse Epileptic Trees, most notably, the protagonist' theory that the NHK channel, alongside the Japanese media, are conspiring to keep him and people like him as unemployed, uneducated hikikomori. Why? That's not the point, it's a conspiracy, has to be!
• One Word: Osaka. Not the place. The character. More specifically, her theories revolving around Chiyo-chan, especially when it comes to the pigtails.
• Suzumiya Haruhi has three different groups with competing theories on who or what Haruhi is. Don't even get started on fan theories on what Kyon is, who is supposed to be a Muggle but seems... off.
• The Nasuverse. If you do not understand the implications of that, go here, and look around at the past 1,500+ topics/50,000+ posts debating its specificities.
• Mahou Sensei Negima has it's fair share of these, most revolving around the identity of Negi's mother. Asuna's past, and the future disaster that Chao tries to prevent are also breeding grounds for Epileptic Trees. The most well known theory is that the Magical World is Mars (based on the map being based on an upside down version of Mars). See the Wild Mass Guessing page for details.
  • There is also a theory out there, started by prominent Negima blogger Astro Nerd Boy, that Negi isn't Nagi's son, but rather Nagi himself, changed similar how Fate became smaller.
• Although it does not spark flame wars, there still remains the issue of explaining Gemini Saga's evil side in Saint Seiya. The manga slightly implies he had been possessed by Hades due to the eye and hair colors of his and Shun's evil sides, while the anime hinted that Ares, a god that otherwise went unmentioned was to blame. Lastly, some feel he had split-personality disorder, or simply committed amoral acts out of fear Athena would not prepare the Saints for battle against Hades.
• Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou has a butt-load of questions with almost no answers. Though most fans prefer to leave the mysteries alone, there's a small part of the fandom who apparently thought what they really were reading was Neon Genesis Evangelion crossed with Lost.
• And speaking of Neon Genesis Evangelion, this pretty much is to anime as to what Lost is to live-action.
• There were many people convinced that Zeon, the Evil Twin character of Zatch Bell, was actually Zatch's hatred personified and given form, since he couldn't possibly be that good. The anime's inconclusive ending didn't help matters, but the manga eventually settled the issue: Zeon is literally Zatch's evil twin.
  • Not hard to understand, considering their power is both lightning, but split into positive and negative voltage/personality.
• Several theories have sprung up about the various mysteries surrounding Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds, specifically who has Ruka's Ancient Fairy Dragon, who the fifth Signer is, what the deal is with Godwin's metallic arm, exactly how far into the future the show is, and how Ushio (a character from the first part of the original series' manga) could be in the show.
  • Ushio doesn't really matter, considering the original manga and most of the 1st anime is non-canon to the main anime(s).
• Hellsing has inspired a grove of these, with everything from "Captain is secretly Jonathan Harker" to "SHE is really Lilith." Some have been jossed but others remain Canon Fodder thanks to Hirano's troubled relationship with backstory.
• HaibaneRenmei really invites these, as seen in this forum: http://cff.ssw.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=2
• A rather interesting one comes from Axis Powers Hetalia. All of the countries have two names: their country name, and a human name. In canon, only the country names (America, Germany, etc.) are used. Some people say that the human names have no purpose, and others say that they use their human names all the time but they're replaced with the country names so the readers know who they're talking about. And then there's some people who say that they use their country names around each other, but when they're around people who aren't countries they use their human names so that nobody knows they're actually countries.
  • Not to mention the various theories that pop up about what the countries are, why they're around, etc. Though it takes a more rare serious discussion for them to pop up, but still...
• Detective Conan: A particular fan theory is that Eri's cat, Goro, is the Boss of the Black Organization.

Comics

• A commonly held belief of Scans_Daily denizens is that the Marvel Adventures series of comics actually shows the afterlife of the 616 heroes. Nothing dark and edgy here: just a loving public, easy villains, and friendly fellow supers from here to eternity.

Film

• Ah, The Matrix... Way beyond "Neo is the new Jesus," beyond "Zion is itself a simulation", there lie such gems as "Neo is a machine captured by the rebels, in the process of being brainwashed like the one in Matriculated"... and that's not the zaniest one by far. And since the creators thankfully threw in references to just about every religion and philosophy they could think of, it sparks potential for all kinds of esoteric theories like "Neo is Parashurama" or "the Architect is Demiurge and the Oracle is Sophia, and Neo is Eon, destined to bring peace between them"...
• Star Wars: Two words: Endor Holocaust
  • This one's perhaps notable for being a scientific extrapolation, although whether such a claim is accurate is to be left to the individual to work out.
    • Considering how often Star Wars makes physics cry in the name of Rule of Cool, a scientific extrapolation is an Epileptic Tree.
  • A recent issue of WIRED claims that this was done specifically in response to the fan theories. That is, the fan theory was so compelling that the authors made the decision to incorporate it into canon. If this claim is true, then it makes the Endor Holocaust a rather unique variation of this trope.
• Pretty much any and every explanation given for anything having to do with the creature or plot of the recent film Cloverfield fits very comfortably in this category.
  • Arguably, Cloverfield's whole gimmick was its Epileptic Tree orchard.
• I've heard theories about Eraserhead that the baby represents repressed sexual desire.
  • I think that hardly registers in weirdness compared to that movie overall.

Literature

• About half the fan speculation regarding the Harry Potter novels consists of completely insane theories: Dumbledore is the Giant Squid, Snape is a vampire, Voldemort is Harry's father, Voldemort is Harry trapped in an alternate time stream, Hedwig is Harry's mother, etc.
  • And within the series, Epileptic Trees are planted and watered by Luna Lovegood, who casually says the Minister of Magic is a vampire and suspects "nargles" when her shoes are repeatedly stolen.
  • "Ron goes back in time and becomes Dumbledore" was a popular one. "Ron goes forward in time and becomes a Time Lord" not so much.
  • In an example of Die for Our Ship, many fans of the Harry/Hermione ship believed Ginny had drugged Harry with love potion to force him to fall in love with her, a treachery which would be revealed in the final book. (It wasn't.) Rumours also abounded that the "Love Potion Theory" had begun in the early days of the fandom, but the author requested for related discussion to be removed from the internet, so as not to give the plot away. (Apparently, they've never actually tried to stop the Internet from doing something.)
• Webprose Example: In Star Harbor Nights, Claire is a frequent supplier of Epileptic Trees ("If he is a vampire, do you think he'd react if I threw a garlic bagel at him?"), which explains why she's such a frequent supplier of Cassandra Truths, as well ("He's definitely not breathing").
• For some reason, some Discworld fans seem to be fixated with the idea of some human characters not really being human. Favourite options are Vetinari as a vampire and Carrot as a Yennork (a werewolf who doesn't shapechange).
  • The most recent (2007) Discworld novel Making Money contains shout-outs to fan speculation common at newsgroups like alt.books.pratchett; for example, at some point in the novel two characters are discussing the rumours floating around the city that the patrician Vetinari might be a vampire because... well, he is thin, wears black a lot, doesn't seem to sleep, and is secretive about his past (although, as readers, we already got a glimpse of his past in the novel Night Watch, which featured 16-year old Havelock Vetinari as a student assassin). To which the other character replies: "So what? Anyone can wear black."
  • Making Money introduces the new character of Mr. Bent, banker, who really could be one of Discworld neurotic vampires on first glance, because he shows all the outward signs (and the story toys with this, never going so far as actually saying it out loud, although some of the characters are definitely speculating about Mr. Bent's mortal status); He is pale and introverted with no private life, he's almost religiously single-minded about numbers, he has many peculiarities and no sense of humour, dresses impeccably, avoids talking about his past, only leaves the Royal Bank after dark if at all, and he rents a small room at Mrs Cake's boarding house for... "special" lodgers. Of course, the truth turns out to be a lot more bizarre.
• Narnia: The Lady of the Green Kirtle and Jadis are the same person... because they're both Evil Overlord witches who dwelled at some point in the Wild Waste Lands of the North. Never mind that Jadis was Killed Off for Real over 1,378 years ago (it doesn't get any more epileptic than that). The characters themselves seem to think they're different members of the same group. ("These Northern witches are all part of the same crew...") Some editions of the books don't help; they include a character guide that conflates the two. Also, a TV adaptation made in the UK in the 80s had the same actress for these two characters (and she also played the Hag in Prince Caspian, although her face is not clear there at all).
  • In Prince Caspian, however, the Hag says that witches never really die - you can always bring them back. She suggests bringing back the White Witch.
    • The Magician's Apprentice brings up why at least the White Witch cannot die, other Witches, I'm not sure on. Though these are the books, and not the movies, so there will be differences.
• No two critics can seem to agree on whether Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire is a true work of art, two stories told side by side but are otherwise unrelated, two stories told side by side which reinforce each other and are incomplete otherwise, or the mad ramblings of one Unreliable Narrator. Which character is the Unreliable Narrator? That's not the point.
• Mark Z. Danielewski's House Of Leaves, but that's a given. Several of the Unreliable Narrators in that work have a very, very tenuous existence to the reader. Hell, there are legions of fans of the book convinced the insane mother wrote the whole story and Johnny Truant either doesn't actually exist or his mother did succeed in killing him.
• Rumors of a secret "Purple Ajah" (a hidden political faction among the sorceresses of the White Tower) persist regarding the Wheel Of Time series; exactly what it does varies from reader to reader, though it's most often described as a hidden counterpart to the evil Black Ajah. Given Robert Jordan's Claremont Coefficient, this is not much of a stretch but may never be known for sure.
• A Song Of Ice And Fire fandom is notorious for wild, off-the-wall theories; probably the most widespread and earnestly debated are theories that some character or another is really a Targaryen. Rhaegar + Lyanna = Jon is the only one likely to become canon, but fans have suggested that Tyrion might be Aerys' son, or that Dany is really Rhaegar's daughter by his own mother, Rhaella.
  • Michael Aquilo's Morlindale gives an alternative interpretation to the Lot R universe where Melkor, Sauron and the Witch-King are tragic heroes desparately trying to aid the people of Middle-Earth against the overbearing might of the Valar, and their elvish worshippers, taking cruel actions out of necessity and fear of failure.
• Whatever you believe, you have to concede The Bible gets some pretty epileptic trees thrown at it by certain sects. It's an interesting example though because all sides of the argument are liable to insist that the other side is grasping at epileptic trees. Annoyingly, the author seems remarkably reticent about Jossing the incorrect theories, although some say he may have actually released a sequel under a different name.
• Jobe is a side character in the Whateley Universe. He's a sociopathic Knight Templar who thinks he knows better than everyone else in the world. And he's only fourteen! He has a really unhealthy interest in biologically building a Drow body to be his perfect girlfriend. There's been a ton of speculation in the forums about what's going to happen as a result of his plans.

Live-Action TV

• Many of the theories about Lost, naturally. Jack is pregnant and will give birth to a polar bear, a shark with a tattoo, or a baby with four toes. Lostpedia
• Many of Mulder's theories in The X Files are seeming examples of Epileptic Trees - except that there often are epileptic trees, or whatever seemingly outlandish explanation he comes up with.
• The X Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen was also full of these theories.
• Much of the fan speculation about Heroes is off-the-wall, but this early in the show's run it's hard to say how bizarre is too bizarre. However, Mr. Muggles is the mastermind behind anything and everything, including waffles.
• In the revival of Doctor Who, some fans jokingly proposed the theory that time-travelling Captain Jack Harkness was the alien Face of Boe in the future, based only on the fact that Jack was effectively immortal and the Face of Boe was billions of years old. In the Season 3 finale, this theory was remarkably affirmed in an offhand comment by Jack that "the Face of Boe" used to be his nickname, as he was the only famous person who ever came out of the Boeshane Peninsula.
  • Many theories were expounded during series 1 about how Adam Mitchell would turn out to be Davros, creator of the Daleks, despite the fact that Adam is a human and Davros is a Kaled. "Adam is Davros" is now a common fan response to similar speculation.
  • Around the time of Series 3 of the revived show, some fans speculated that the Master's wife Lucy Saxon was Rose in disguise, or that Rose had become a Time Lord and "regenerated" into Lucy (see The Nth Doctor). The show's producers have stated in interviews that Lucy was intended to be an older, upper-class parallel to Rose.
  • The Master is the Meddling Monk. Or the War Chief. Or both. In any case, he's also the Doctor's brother. This last one was explicitly raised in a recent episode of the series, and the Doctor mocked it for being implausible - but didn't actually say it wasn't true.
    • Planet of Fire was supposed to end with the Master saying "How could you do this to your own brother?" Dun-duh-DUNNNN! But the producers left the line unfinished after realizing how hackneyed and cliched it would be.
  • All sorts of stories surrounded the Series 4 episode "The Doctor's Daughter". Fans speculated that the title character was created through male pregnacy, was the mother of the First Doctor's granddaughter Susan Foreman, or was the Doctor's child with Rose Tyler.
• There has been some debate over whether the guests and topics on The Jerry Springer Show are genuine or an elaborate Kayfabe, despite Springer's exhortations of veracity.
• Spoofed in the KateModern episode "Who Killed Kate?":
  Sophie: Maybe Dr. Griffin isn't really dead, and he blamed Kate for Dudley's murder, and it's all a revenge-thing.
  Alice: Yeah, it's a bit far-fetched, isn't it?
• One fun mental exercise is to attempt to tie fictional characters/universes together via Epileptic Trees based on the actors who portray them. (For example, Forrest Gump's Lieutenant Dan is obviously the Quirky Uncle who inspired CSI: NY's Mac Taylor to become a police officer; Alfred of Batman Begins once worked in the FBI, as evidenced by Miss Congeniality; Tropic Thunder's Tugg Speedman is an alternate universe Expy of Zoolander and so on and so forth.)
  • Iron Man and Spider-Man will eventually have sex as Terry Crabtree and James Leer did in Wonder Boys, and as Kirk Lazarus's and Tobey Maguire's characters in "Satan's Alley" wanted to. Considering the prominent love/hate relationship they've had in the comics lately, this one is uncomfortably plausible.
• The Prisoner.
• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer's musical episode ("Once More With Feeling"), the characters sang various ridiculous theories (including IT WAS BUNNIES). The first theory was right:
  GILES: I've got a theory
  That it's a demon
  A dancing demon!
  No, something isn't right there.

Music

• Everybody seems to have an idea what Bohemian Rhapsody's about, despite the maker saying it doesn't really mean anything.

Professional Wrestling

• Whenever the WWE engages in the Three Month Rule, fan speculation erupts trying to "explain" the new status quo.
• Whenever a wrestler disappears for a while, and comes back with a different look, some fan who's entirely too clever for their own good starts spouting about how the original wrestler must have died or left the business, and this is "obviously" someone else doing the same gimmick. To this editor's knowledge, this is rarely actually true. If any of you are reading this, yes, that means that there was only one Undertaker and one Ultimate Warrior and one Kane ever. Seriously. You're making yourselves look ridiculous by insisting otherwise. Okay, so there were two Max Moons, two Demolition Smashes, and at least four Doinks, but those are the exceptions, not the rule (and, in each of those cases, the originals surfaced elsewhere).
  • There was a second person playing the Undertaker very briefly (Brian Lee) in the run-up to the "Two Undertakers" angle but he was explicitly stated as an imposter.

Tabletop Games

• In Dungeons And Dragons, there's a long-running fan theory that Pelor, the Neutral Good sun god in the 3rd Edition core books, is secretly evil, or has a good aspect and an evil aspect. The game designers provide just enough dubious material to humor this theory, such as the Black Flame Zealot in one of their splatbooks.
  • It should be noted that the Black Flame Zealots are taken from the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, where they are followers of the neutral fire god Kossuth.
  • If not Pelor, than quite possibly the example Cleric of Pelor character Jozan, who in most of his art appearances is portrayed as acting quite dickish and even casting the Evil-Only spell Symbol of Pain.
  • Saint Cuthbert has also come in for some theories about where he came from, with some saying he's actually the Christian St. Cuthbert (Cuthbert of Lindesfarne) who was elevated to godhood. TSR and Wo TC have both played around with this idea, but have always been coy about it.
    • Given that Catholics already get enough shit from fundies about treating saints as gods, this may be simply good business sense.
• There are some Epileptic Trees concerning the relationship between Warhammer and Warhammer 40000. Some presume that the world of Warhammer is 40K's Terra in the distant past, but a more common theory is that the world of Warhammer is one of the millions of forgotten planets in the 40K Imperium, since Slaanesh has always existed in Warhammer and the "birth" of Slaanesh is documented in the history of 40K.
  • More detailed speculation has Sigmar as a lost Space Marine primarch.
  • The Warhammer world was explicitly stated as being within the 40K universe at one point (specifically within the Eye of Terror. But then they retconned it, because they realised that was just silly.
  • However, the two universes have been explicitly stated to be separate, in order to prevent the Fantasy fanboys from murdering the 40k fanboys-the sheer scale of the 40k setting is such that if Fantasy existed within the same universe, it would be one planet. In a universe of billions of worlds. Most of which have much bigger problems than the Fantasy world. In short, making Fantasy take place in 40k would render the Fantasy world meaningless-what is one fought-over world in a universe where worlds are destroyed as standard operating procedure in the event of certain emergencies?
    • Of course, though they are explicitly stated to be separate, they are also explicitly stated to be linked. A number of stories has people from Warhammer visiting 40k by magic, and various 40k weapons have made their way to Warhammer.
    • And that's just ONE of the Epileptic Trees in the fandom. Given that a lot of backstory details are only hinted at, cracked conspiracy theories are about the only way to find the truth.
• The Dark Powers of Ravenloft are subjected to this: What is their motive, what are they, and what is the purpose of the Demiplane of Dread in the scheme of the multiverse?
• Dracula of Vampire The Requiem is subject to this frequently, due to his nebulous Embrace and sketchy Discipline-spread. The best fuel for this fire is the sidebar in the Ordo Dracul supplement where the signature Gangrel character, the Unholy, is offered as a possibility for the true identity of Dracula's oldest daughter, Anoushka.
  • But, yes, he's a Gangrel. Deal.

Video Games

• In the Half Life series, some fans believe that the mysterious G-Man is actually the main character Gordon Freeman from the future. The only reasonings are that a) G-Man looks old, b) both have electric green eyes and c) it could be short for "Gordon FreeMan".
• In Resident Evil, pretty much everything having to do with Albert Wesker, including who he's working for and how he got the superhuman powers he displays in later games.
  • Attempts by Capcom to sort this out through "Wesker's Reports" failed, in large part because the explanations were so full of plot holes that they were practically Epileptic Trees themselves.
• The Super Mario Bros RPGs have a surprising amount of these, probably because they have more plot than the main series.
  • Super Paper Mario, in particular, has quite a few, from Dimentio wrote the Dark Prognosticus, to Mimi being the first Pixl, among others.
• The saner theories about Metal Gear Solid are "The White House is actually a sentient supercomputer created out of Memetic Mutation", "The Gunslinger Double Agent Revolver Ocelot is a psychic medium capable of channelling ghosts", "Vamp can come Back from the Dead when he's exposed to water", and "Raiden's girlfriend is actually a hallucination, formed by brain damage caused by using gunpowder as a narcotic during his childhood years, which he subconsciously cultivated to manipulate himself into performing necessary evils". The Epileptic Trees are really scary. Part 4 answered most questions of the earlier games and destroyed most of the Epileptic Trees.
  • Four words - Snake has no penis. It was intended as a joke, but people started taking it seriously. And then they started taking it as Fetish Fuel.
    • There's a 50/50 chance he won't need one for what the Slash Fic writers have in mind.
• Stick around any discussion of Final Fantasy VIII long enough and, inevitably, someone will insist that Ultimecia is canonically the future Rinoa, who outlived Squall due to her lifespan being greatly extended by her sorceress powers and was driven insane by the grief of losing him... in spite of the fact that Square-Enix's official material states that sorceresses do not have extended lifespans, and the theory flies directly in the face of the major theme of the game. The only problem is that the other possible explanations for Ultimecia's super-ultimate summoned monster, in time-compressed future-world, being named after Squall's necklace, from his mundane pre-absurdity life, are even weirder.
  • Don't forget the theory that Squall dies at the end and that his appearance with Rinoa after the credits was his ghost or Rinoa's own hallucinations. The reason the other main characters are partying as the credits roll, even excitedly drawing attention to and filming their sad and/or crazy friend, despite the death of their leader is usually left unexplained.
  • Of course, some of the Epileptic Trees concerning Necron in Final Fantasy IX are almost justified, as he is the final boss despite a distinct lack of relevance to ANYTHING that took place prior to his battle (or after it for that matter). Some have even been listed as "official" explanations on this Wiki. Ultimecia's role was explained better, no joke.
• Dreamfall left so many narrative threads hanging in the air that the fandom was still coming up with new original Epileptic Trees a year and a half after its release.
• Various attempts have been made to produce a timeline such that all of the Final Fantasy games could take place in a single world.
  • Ditto The Legend Of Zelda, and every other series with Non Linear Sequels, though most Zelda timelines branch.
    • Majora's Mask was a fertile ground for these theories. It had so many unexplained mysteries that it was practically begging fans to write complex theories about them.
  • The entire "Tetraforce" theory. The belief that a secret fourth Triforce piece protected by either an evil goddess or the nebulous "goddess of Time" mentioned in Majora's Mask had a single shred of "evidence:" An upside-down triangle on Link's shield. This one apparently got so out of hand that the redesigned shield in Twilight Princess is exactly like the one in Ocarina of Time, except that it now lacks the infamous upside-down triangle.
    • Not just the upside-down triangle on the shield; the whole point was that the upside-down triforce piece fit in the hole made when the three pieces of the triforce were joined, in exactly the shape of an upside-down Triforce piece. The shield just made things worse.
  • Same with Fire Emblem, under the conviction that all the continents are located on the same globe. Some believe that Ike left Tellius and became Anri, the hero of Akanea. One of the less bizarre theories in the FE fanbase is that the always hungry Illyana has a tape worm.
• Shortly after Manah's death in Drakengard, Inuart awakens the supposedly dead Furiae and tells her that there are no more gods; they are free. After having a quick A God Am I moment, the screen fades to white. After that, giant babies descend from the sky and begin to eat people. One theory says that Inuart and Furiae were consumed in an explosion and have nothing to do with the giant babies; the other says that the babies are either Inuart and Furiae's children, or are Inuart and Furiae. The sequel, following a different ending altogether, avoided having to explain this.
  • There's also the matter of the Final Boss. Either she was just late to the party, or she's Arioch, having "merged" with the Grotesqueries who ate her. It would probably help if the dialogue for the scenes influencing this theory weren't so badly written.
• Any game produced by Bungie Studios, including Halo and Marathon. Bungie delights in leaving openings and unanswered questions in their stories, prompting fans to go into rounds of Wild Mass Guessing.
  • Naturally, the most common Epileptic Tree about Bungie is that all of its games form a single continuity... Somehow.
• Many attempts have been made to link every single Castlevania game into a coherent timeline, along with attempts to draw up a plausible Belmont family tree.
• While the Ratchet And Clank fandom isn't known for its size or fanon, somehow Ratchet turned Jewish... though given the rather vague explanations that pass for canon, almost any assumptions about Ratchet and his origins involve some form or another of Wild Mass Guessing.
• Before the release of the sequel to Kingdom Hearts, many fans thought that either DiZ or Heartless!Ansem led the Organization. So close, yet so far.
  • One current Kingdom Hearts II theory is that Tifa and Sephiroth are Cloud's literal light and dark sides, the rationale being that no one seems to notice Tifa or Sephiroth besides Cloud and Sora's party, and Tifa appears during the Cloud/Sephiroth battle in a flash of light that blinds Sephiroth, barely leaving him open for Cloud to finally finish him.
    • That's not theory anymore. It was confirmed in an interview that they were, though they might also be human.
• Touhou has a number of these due to the sheer size of the cast, and the implied prior relationships between them. What exactly happened during the first Lunar War? (Did Yukari set them up to fail?) Who is Sakuya? (A vampire hunter? A Lunarian?) Is the Reimu of the pre-Windows canon the same person as the current Reimu? And so on.
• Silent Hill. Explanations range from the existence of pseudo-religious deities to the potential that every main character is in a government facility where they're testing out new and interesting hallucinogenic drugs.
• Portal. How such a simple game could cause the formation of theories concerning the existence or non-existence of cake may forever remain a mystery.
• The otherwise accused as Flat Character Selena Recital is an object to a theory that she is in fact a member of the Shadow Mirrors. Starting from the designation of her machine (AS. Short for either Assault Scouter or maybe Ash Saver), how she upgraded her mecha (assimilation with local technology, in this case the Project TD), the weapon Stealth Boomerang (product of Shadow Mirror), the intelligence of her artificial partner Elma, and her pink hair and apparently very fine body structure, which somehow mirrors the W Numbers.
• In Arcana Heart, there is a rumor on how Lieselotte Achenbach and one of the newcomers Zenia Valov are related, judging that they look alike. According to the background translated from the other Japanese Wiki, Zenia is said to be an amnesiac person... could this mean that her body once belonged to Lieselotte's sister before she put her soul into her doll?
• Mass Effect: Extended Edition. Summary: The Dragon really created the Big Bad and used said Big Bad in a ploy worthy of Gargoyles Xanatos to lead the hero on a long journey to fight a threat that does not really exist so The Dragon could plot his Xanatos Gambit to destroy humanity. Oh, and The Dragon cloned himself so he could fake his own death in the end of the game. Borders on Poison Oak Epileptic Trees, depending on your preferences.

Web Comics

• Most theories involving Miho or Largo's "Cool Thing" in the Webcomic Megatokyo fit this trope, ranging from "Miho has bulimia" to "Miho is an emotional vampire/necromancer/demon/robot" and "Largo's cool thing is just a random prop" to "It is the continuum-transfunctioner from the film Dude, Where's My Car?" (It should be noted the "Cool Thing" first appeared a few years before Dude even started production.)
  • Then again, given the highly observer-dependent way that reality is portrayed in the series, it's entirely possible that both theories are true in each case.
• Sluggy Freelance generated a lot of Epileptic Trees in its heyday, and even now its most loyal followers churn these out. Its message board has an entire topic devoted to systematically categorizing all the theories about the comic's most enigmatic character. See all those theories linking Oasis with the Moon Twin and Sun Twin? The Moon Twin was mentioned twice, in passing, in the context of mythological folk tales, and the Sun Twin was entirely thought up by fans.
• This appears to be the entire point of The Order Of The Stick official forums. (Much to the irritation of the author, who is known to dislike reading speculation about his comic just in case the fans have got it right.) They can get really scary when there hasn't been a comic posted in while (the scariest was when the comic took a three week hiatus).
  • Vaarsuvius is male, female, neither, or both.
    • Schrodinger's Elf Syndrome
    • Of course V is actually TWO ninjas who skip positions via elven ninja skills between panels...
  • Belkar is not Chaotic Evil (persisted even after Rich took pains to make it crystal clear that he was).
  • The Monster in the Darkness is virtually any monster in the book and then some. Latest tree: The Monster is part of the Snarl.
  • Therkla, a character introduced with little explanation, is just about anything you can conceivably imagine and then some (it wasn't long before she got some backstory that put the trees to bed and even that brief amount of time was enough for this tree to go absolutely hog wild).
    • Poked fun at by [1]◊
  • Redcloak is not evil and may even be a misguided good guy (especially popular with those who have read Start of Darkness).
    • Though this is more a discussion, than a tree, as any discussion on alignements.
  • A discussion was raised once proposing Miko was originally intended to be the ideal girl for main character Roy and both of them thought to be a couple. It lasted on even after the Word of God was given by Rich Burlew - who usually abstains from forum discussions, that Miko 'did, was she was supposed to do from the beginning.' One of the most lively and also quite weird branches of the tree is Haley being (at least partially) a celestial, due to e.g. the rivalry to Sabine and a questionable sentence from her 'lost speech' phase.
• Parodied on The Wotch: I'm you from the future ...
  • And again even better in this one.
• "Wild Speculation" is the third-longest thread in the Gunnerkrigg Court forum. (The longest and second-longest being the "Questions to Tom" and Fan Art threads, respectively.) For a time, fans would apologize if the theory they posted wasn't wild enough, because apparently "plausible speculation" was what the rest of the forum was for.
• There is a great deal of speculation on the Girl Genius yahoogroup as to what is coming up next in the plot, who is linked to who in what fashion, and any number of odd speculations referred to as spending Moxana points is fairly common along with Crazy Theory Friday when posters will put up completely out there theories on what is coming up on the update on Monday.
• One popular tree in Eight Bit Theater was how and if Black Belt could be revived. Brian Clevenger chopped down that tree and made himself a desk using the wood.
• In the Freefall forums, there are some who believe that Dr. Bowman (the inventor of bowman's wolves) is secretly on the planet and manipulating everything through a series of complex Xanatos Gambits
• The El Goonish Shive fan community seems, at times, to be dedicated to growing their very own orchard of Epileptic Trees. Wild Mass Guessing is not merely tolerated; it is a grand tradition.

Web Original

• This is one of the staples of Captain Gamer fandom, with most theories on the community forum (each of varying coherence) dealing with the title character's Secret Identity.
• There are a fair few of these in Survival Of The Fittest. Most concern the as-of-yet unrevealed plot (read: motivations behind Danya's actions) with such theories as the terrorists in fact being funded by the American Government. Another, more odd, yet less serious theory is that V1 Winner Adam Dodd is Danya's son.

Western Animation

• The eponymous character Martin Mystery from the French animated adaptation also has a knack for coming up with accurate Epileptic Tree-like theories. Unlike Mulder from The X Files, however, he usually has to go through several genuine Epileptic Trees before he figures out the correct explanation.
• There was a long-running rumor that the Dungeons & Dragons animated series, which never had a true ending, had a scripted final episode that revealed that the characters were all dead and in Hell. In fact, the script for a final episode does exist, and has been posted on the Internet by its author, but The Reveal was of a very different nature.
• Some of the most common recurring impossible theories in Avatar forums are: Zuko is the reincarnation of Aang's past friend Kuzon, Kuzon's still alive and will become Aang's firebending master, the acrobatic Ty Lee is descended from Airbenders, the last face that the spirit Koh the Face Stealer displayed belonged to Lu Ten, the myriad theories surrounding Azulon's (and even Lu Ten's) death/murder, Iroh is Zuko's father... Even the writers have gotten in on the act: "Cabbage merchant? Fire Lord Ozai? Same guy!"
  • One of the most infamous of these, as it is the only one ever to be shot down by the Word of God, is that Zuko's recent Heel–Face Turn subversion is part of an absurdly complicated Xanatos Roulette against his father. A disturbing amount of people still believe this.
• Pretty much Caboose's entire reality is less a series of epileptic trees and more an epileptic rainforest.
  Caboose: Time... line? Time is not made of lines. Time is made of circles. That is why clocks are round!
• In Transformers Animated, from the pilot episode onwards people were speculating that the ship the Autobots came in was really the alternate form of Omega Supreme and that Human Pet Sari was really a robot. Amazingly, both theories turned out correct.
• The Venture Bros bit where one of Dr. Quymn's twin daughters reveals she stuffs her bra (She is fifteen or so) led into a grand round of theories on how one of the identical twins is a male crossdresser.