History WMG / Jumanji

Akihiko shrugged, went home, and blew the dust off the box, illustrated in the style of a 1950s American Jungle Adventure Novel like Tarzan, plugged the suspiciously-clean UsefulNotes/PlayStation One Console it into his room’s television, and shouted “I’ll be right down!” in response to being called for dinner...

“I beat you, old friend. I finally beat you” he bitterly chuckled at the ancient UsefulNotes/PlayStation One console, from which the drums still mysterious beat as he shouted “Link Start.”

God help us if this ever happens with [[TabletopGame/VillainousRavensburger]]...

When Alan first hears the drums the game is located in a busy building site, yet no one can hear the drums but him. Later, both Judy and Peter can hear the drums coming through the ceiling, but their aunt can't. This could go with the WMG below that the game was created to train the youth into brave warriors; since only they could play, it'd stop them from getting adult help and thus make them independent and strong. (Obviously Alan and Sarah are adults during most of the film, but that's probably a loophole that the game didn't expect - it assumes people will continue to play as fast as possible to make it all go away.)
* Jumanji can be played by teens. Alan, Sarah and Judy were all between 11 and 13 when they started playing.
* The drums may sound in a frequency that is audible to children and adolescents but not adults. These exist, and some have tried to use them as "security" in places where teenagers congregate.

Over and over again... The game senses potential players, and lures them with drum sounds only they can hear. Taking out the pieces 'starts' a game automatically. An accidental drop of the dice 'makes' a move. The game demands on being played fairly too - Van Pelt won't kill the innocent, even those who are players, and the game doesn't appreciate being cheated on.
* I just realised another thing. Alan picks up two pieces and then drops them on the board, several hours before Sarah arrives. The game has designated him as a player, but a game needs two players, and that's why it dragged both pieces onto the board. Once Sarah came along, the drums summoned her. The game ''really'' wants to be played.
** This opens up another point - you CANNOT play alone, maybe not even "with less than four". Which is another thing to remember with people potentially dying.
* In the movie's sequel, ''Jumanji: Welcome the Jungle'', the boardgame is found again by a man who shows it to his teenager son. Said son rejects the game because he prefers playing videogames and thinks boardgames are old fashioned. Jumanji reacts by ''transforming'' into a videogame, seemingly to take a form that would convince the boy to play it.

The game plays against the human players under the pretence of a board game for up to four. The game takes a 'turn' in the form of releasing incredibly dangerous jungle things. The game wins if it manages to kill the human players, or if it takes over the environment and turns it into a real jungle. Every time the game is disposed of, it uses its drums to lure in new players.

* Note that in the originally manga, literally any game or competition can be made into a Shadow Game with the application of magic.

* The cover of the game lends support to this. The name "Jumanji" is crossed by an African-looking spear, giving it a protagonic presence, but no WackyWaysideTribe is ever summoned nor is there evidence that it exist in the game, even though it would be the first and most recurrent enemy in any DarkestAfrica written by Victorian whites. And who are the enemies depicted in the four corners? A monkey, an elephant, a rhino and, yep, the white man. Who we know is a challenge summoned by the game, and [[{{pun}} one]] of [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame the most dangerous ones]]. And then there is the fact that it uses drums to summon new players. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_drum Drums are communication devices in Africa.]]

Zathura and Jumanji unleash their horrors, not by unleashing animals from another words, but by inducing the players into a magical Matrix VR. All the players involved experience the same hyper-realistic Matrix. The game can predict the future, and so can depict the AlternateFuture of what would happen if the game was played, but left unfinished (such as that guy getting fired and people freaking out over Alan's mysterious disappearance).

Evidence for this theory: the complete ResetButton when the game ends. It would create a major TemporalParadox if everything in the game was real; but a magical Matrix can handle it fine.

** I think what they were getting at was that if everything which happened took place in the real world, how could it then all be undone by winning the game without also undoing the rest of history? As in, the lives of every person in Bradford were affected by Alan's disappearance and his father's factory going bankrupt, so wouldn't their actions in turn affect the actions and lives of people elsewhere in America...but now all of that would be undone too? The answer, it seems, is InSpiteOfANail: while it's true that the lives of everyone in town, and everyone they interacted with in those 26 years, would be changed by the ResetButton, we can assume the rest of the country/world stays the same, generally unaffected by it. The same events happen internationally, the same Presidents are elected, and so on, because the actions of the townspeople and those they affected aren't widespread enough to have that much influence. Hopefully.
** That's still not a temporal paradox. That's a large change. A temporal paradox would be if something is its own cause or both happens and doesn't happens.

* If Van Pelt is indeed modelled after the player's father, it adds a layer of NightmareFuel to his character : Alan was scared of his father, which made Van Pelt scarier in his eyes and motivated Alan to evade him at all costs. But what about players who ''love'' their father ? Imagine having a good relationship with your dear daddy and, suddenly, you're chased by a blood-thirsty hunter ''who looks just like him''.

Just like how Alan got sucked in. But Van Pelt had different rules for getting out. Alan had only to wait for a five or an eight; Van Pelt is trapped until somebody else rolls the "sucked into Jumanji world" scenario, and then he must kill that person. That's why Alan was so terrified of him; they clearly met in Jumanji world, and Van Pelt wanted to kill him. That's also why, the very next time Alan rolled, it brought Van Pelt into the real world. As the only two people who've been inside Jumanji world, their destinies are intertwined. That's also why Van Pelt ''only'' wants to kill Alan, and has no desire to kill anybody else.
* A good theory, but where was his playing piece? Sarah and Alan's pieces where stuck in their places when Judy and Peter began playing.

*** Actually, this may work if you combine it with the WMG below: Van Pelt gets sucked in but nobody else from his party rolls the needed dice afterwards. To make it worse, the entire group was [[IronicPunishment killed]] over the course of the game. With no logical way to finish the whole game, Jumanji resets itself, trapping Hunter Van Pelt into it.

Similar to how in ''Zathura'', [[spoiler:Walter became an astronaut and was involved in the game even though he was already playing it,]] Alan became Van Pelt in another universe where Judy and Peter never discovered the game. He was stuck inside the game because he had no way of getting out. Eventually he went native, joined some sort of hunting party and became the Van Pelt we all know and hate.

During the events in the jungle, this side was removed from him, and molded into a form he could actively fear or hate, to push him to continue challenging it. This side of him was either destroyed, or sent back to the universe in which savage feelings belong anyway. Which couple with Fridge Brilliance/Horror when you realize that this might possibly happen to anyone...

At some point he got sucked into a world of monsters with nothing but his blanket to rely on. [[http://images.wikia.com/peanuts/images/9/9e/Blanket_Whip.jpg He's been known to use his blanket for self-defense]], so he's certainly no pushover, but after a few days of merely beating animals back, he snaps and decides he needs a more permanent solution, hence the gun. His blanket, now stained with the blood of many, many foes, becomes the cape he wears as an adult. Oh, and Linus's canonical last name? ''Van Pelt.''

* This is supported by the fact that in the real life board game based on the movie, the space for dangers that aren't defeated by the players is called the "Doomsday Grid", implying the end of the world if it's filled.

They're angry at 19th century safari dudes for ruining their unspoiled nature, so this is the punishment. It comes in the form of the kind of amusement westerners enjoy, and hits them with perils based on the Darkest Africa stereotype. Definite ironic punishment. If there's an Egyptian version to punish graverobbers, it definitely has stiff-armed living mummies and other crap they were afraid of. Zathura, by extension, is a pre-emptive one for spoiling outer space.

Someone - something - had to have created the board games in the Jumanji 'verse - something with almost Godlike power, as the games clearly have the ability to augment reality - thus this entity would have had to give them either a fragment of its own power, or be in a position to access something of such immense paranormal force. It would be easy enough to label them as creations of a fun-loving Trickster god, much like Film/TheMask, if not for the fact that these games, while seeming like harmless paranormal fun at first, are very much intended to ''kill'' people - particularly, the ''children playing the game''. The fact that the board games don't rack up a bloody death count stems less from their own canonical potential, and more from the fact that these movies aren't rated R (or 18+).

Take note that the Jumanji game must have been created in the 1800s, if Van Pelt is any judge. During the peak of the British Empire, no less. Perhaps it was a horrible punishment for what the British Empire did to a lot of African tribes.
Zathura, meanwhile, has aesthetic designs which were very similar to the perception of sci-fi in the 1950s; following this line of thought, it's plausible that the same entity created Zathura as punishment for mankind's unprecedented wars in the first half of that century.
* See below theory pertaining to the True Fae from ChangelingTheLost.

* Something worth remembering though while in the movies they are clearly different game sets, in the Zathura book, they find the Zathura board underneath the Jumanji board when they find it's theme boring. With this in mind, it's the box itself that is either enchanted or if the box is the maker in disguise. So that being said the box would probably keep spawning game boards that cause the same game just until it finds a theme willing to entice it's players. Jumanji being the default may just be a reflection of when it was made, but it probably could give any theme it wanted to for a game.

Hear me out on this. He's so capitally hardened by his big-game hunter life, and, being from the [[UsefulNotes/VictorianBritain time period]] he looks to be from, he's being a dad the only way he knows how. Imagine the upbringing Van Pelt must've had! He keeps trying to tough Alan up, telling him to "Face me like a man" - while holding a gun - and does so because it's how ''he'' was raised. In fact, Van Pelt is probably seriously scarred to the point of [[TheStoic anhedonia]], and he probably wants to carve Alan [[NightmareFuel (not literally)]] into a version of himself. See, if he achieves this, he will finally feel the love of seeing himself in another human (and that's what love is, right?). He laughs when Alan finally does face him "like a man". This is his anhedonia [[DefrostingIceQueen melting off]], slightly. So he's all up on Alan being his [[EmptyShell warped idea of tough]] because he's trying to be a father figure. Come on, he wouldn't be the first person to go about it [[HumansAreBastards all wrong.]] The fact that he was actually going to kill Alan is because his anhedonia (complete lack of pleasure) has made him [[DrivenToSuicide suicidal.]] But a "man" wouldn't commit suicide, so he wants to kill the prodigy who's [[DidYouJustPunchOutMiniMe now willing to face him.]]

Perhaps the game doesn't try to actually kill its players at all. Under this theory the game prevents its players from actually dying but puts them in situations that cause extreme fear and distress. Perhaps it makes them confront specific fears such as the duality fear of Van Pelt representing Alan's fear of confronting his father. Furthermore, the game does this because it converts their fear into the energy it needs to perpetuate itself and its powers. Though this makes the game seem 100% sadistic, this theory also allows for the possibility that the game chooses players who can affect the future in a positive way as a result of having played the game. For instance, Alan has a better relationship with his father, saves someone's job, and is a more mature individual after the game. Also, Alan and Sarah are able to influence Judy and Peter's parents into not taking the trip that ultimately kills them and scars Judy and Peter. Under this idea, the game may itself be a living spirit or some other creature in disguise of a culturally relevant/understandable game. Perhaps it is a primal force of balance and by causing distress to players it can then cause good things to happen to them as well.

* As hinted above, in the movies yes they could have potential that multiples exist. But in the books it's more likely the game box can make whatever theme it needs to entice a player.

Surprised this one hasn't popped on here sooner. Both the Lament Configuration and the game are beautifully crafted pieces of artwork, really. Each is a gateway for their users to more than they bargained for. The box was made for adults who had become jaded to the pleasures available to them. The game was designed for a younger audience, who had grown bored of the pleasures of youth and adolescence. Solving the Lament Configuration summons the Cenobites, along with their definition of pleasure. Playing Jumanji summons the creatures of that jungle, and their definition of fun. Unlike the Lament Configuration, though, Jumanji has a sort of exit clause; if you win the game, then all the damage the game caused is reversed.

His accuracy at predicting the shoe styles of the 90's is due to his bizarre ability to see fleeting images of the world of tomorrow.

Alan Parrish is a somewhat introverted, shy kid who is easy prey for bullies like Billy Jessup, and whose father is unnecessarily strict. Since he grows up in the late '60s, ThereAreNoTherapists or other traditional means of dealing with this. Under this theory, he actually did find the Jumanji game in the construction site, but the magic it contains is AllJustADream. That is, Alan's dream begins when he gets sucked inside the game. The 1995 timeline then serves to show him who he grew up to be, what his town became, and what he could be if he faced his fears. The timeline also gives him the opportunity to do that, through the jungle dangers of Jumanji. Once he has accomplished his quest, he "wakes up." Sarah may be going through a similar trajectory. in which Jumanji helps her deal with insecurities, whatever attraction she has to Billy Jessup, and other issues.

* Perhaps it has a limited power supply? Or rather than losing power over time, it becomes weaker every time its used?

One would think that with as long as Jumanji has been around (over 100 years according to the film) more people would have played it or at least would know of its existence and therefore avoid it. Yet this doesn't happen because Jumanji chooses its players based on their needs. For example, it chooses Alan based on his need to become courageous, and to mend his relationship with his father. It chooses Judy, Peter, and Sarah to help them grow as characters while simultaneously escaping the BadFuture of the 1995 timeline.

Building on that, it was one of Doctor Wondertainment’s first products. The Doctor was still relatively inexperienced then, and disposed of it when it ended up being actually dangerous.

Jumanji is (as mentioned by a theory above) that it's a RealityWarper. But it's more than that, as parts of it's reality escapes into our own, causing havoc. That is mostly because of the exaggerated stories of Africa (killer mosquitos, Earth-breaking Earthquakes, killer quicksand, etc.) that were passed around throughout the years.

('''''Note:'''''You could make the same assumption about it's related game from long ago, '''Zathura'''.)

The Gentry(AKA the Others, the True Fae, and several names besides) from ChangelingTheLost are sadistic, god-like, magical EldritchAbomination that often kidnap humans and torment them in a variety of ways. Creating games like Jumanji and Zathura would be right up their alley, and they totally have the power to do it. Of course, this means that Alan is a Changeling whose Keeper never made him a Fetch, an Ogre to be precise, and Peter is a Beast. Sarah and Judy are ensorcorelled, and Van Pelt is either a Loyalist, Hunter, or Alan's Keeper.

[[WMG: if the game holder can create board games like Zanthura, what dangers could there be in a Disney (or Fantasy) board game?]]
posionus foods
thorns
giants/orcs
Evil witches(?)
pirates?

2009 Tokyo; a bright yet overly imaginative 14 year old boy called Kayaba Akihiko hears mysterious drumbeats coming from a dark forgotten corner in the back of vintage game console store, on the last day of its closing down sale. He nonchalantly picks a moldy paper box from the creaky old shelf, and to his surprise the grey haired owner screamed “Take it! I thought I got rid of that evil thing! Have it for free! Just get it away from me!”

Akihiko shrugged, went home and blew the dust off the box, illustrated in the style of a 1950s American Jungle Adventure Novel like Tarzan, plugs the suspiciously-clean UsefulNotes/PlayStation One Console it into his room’s television, and shouts “I’ll be right down!” in response to being called for dinner...

But moments later for Mrs Kayaba, her son lethargically stumbled to the dinner table, his once-bright and enthusiastic eyes replaced by the tired ones of man twice his age, weary with the ponderous burden of phyrtic victories, meaningless sacrifices, broken dreams and lost love. Akihiko mumbled “after all I did, I had to leave her behind, what was all that for.” Mrs Kayaba saw the tears welling in her son’s hollow eyes and hugged him, thinking he meant he was dumped by a girl at school, not knowing that the heart of the furiously weeping boy had stayed and died in the jungles of Jumanji.

Refusing to reconcile with the reality that his two deaths before being forced to sacrifice the NPC he loved and even married to return to the now meaningless “real” world was all for noting, Ahihiko took inspiration from his ordeal and voraciously delicated himself to the study of Game Creation, so he may one day re-create a world where death, loss and sacrifice actually HAS meaning, with the ONE life you have and will ever get, and graduated with Honors from Professor Shigemura’s University Course....

...on November 6 2022, The Immersive Online Game ''Literature/SwordArtOnline'' was unleashed onto the unsuspecting world.

“I beat you, old friend. I finally beat you” he bitterly chuckled at the ancient UsefulNotes/PlayStation One console, form which the drums still mysterious beat as he shouts “Link Start.”

[[WMG: [[LightNovel/SwordArtOnline Kayaba Akihiko]] was a Jumanji Survivor]]

...on November 6 2022, The Immersive Online Game LightNovel/SwordArtOnline was unleashed onto the unsuspecting world.

[[WMG: Linking to the above WMG, The Engine that ran the original LightNovel/SwordArtOnline Servers IS Jumanji]]

* Possibly, if it's a woman whom the player happens to be intimidated by, a female Van Pelt could manifest instead. The rhyme doesn't explicitly state that "the hunter from the darkest wild" has to be male, after all.

[[WMG:Jumanji was created by [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy Ego]] as a planet-reformer prototype]]

Similar to the humanoid form of the aforementioned [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy Ego]], he's just a physical extension of the GeniusLoci that is Jumanji. In other words, he's not just another threat within the game, he ''is'' the game.

[[WMG:The game is an Wiki/{{SCP|Foundation}}.]]

[[WMG:Jumanji and WesternAnimation/ToyStory take place in the same continuity]]

[[folder: Film]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Animated Series]]

[[WMG: Tribal Bob was once a human.]]
We know that Peter once became a Manji, though he was cured, there nothing saying it never happened before. All the other Manji have animal-like masks, but Bob's looks vaguely human-like, like Peter's did. Bob was once a player who got stuck in Jumanji, and became a Manji to survive. He probably didn't have anyone close to him to bring him back to his human form.

[[WMG: Tribal Bob was once a girl.]]
We don't even know if "he" ever gave a name to the main characters, they just went with "Tribal Bob", and if Peter's near-permanent transformation is any indication, it is likely that Tribal Bob forgot "his" name anyway, in case "he" was a human once. Bob also happens to be smaller, with bigger eyes and more delicate features than other Manjis, and with long, flowing flocks of blonde hair on each side of "his" head. In other words, if Bob didn't already exist as a character, "he" would probably be most artists's idea of how a female Manji [[TertiarySexualCharacteristics should look like]].

[[WMG: Squint was a real person in his first episode]]
While Squint was a jerk in his debut episode and lied to the main characters in order to get his revenge, it was a very personal goal and at least somewhat sympathetic. In successive episodes, he becomes an outright villain with generic goals and betrays others at the drop of a hat. Perhaps this MotiveDecay was because he really ''was'' a person trapped in Jumanji who wanted revenge against the monster that had disfigured him, but once he died taking it down, Jumanji brought him back as one of its characters.

[[WMG: The basic elements of Jumanji are regularly reset]]
The character pages mention some NegativeContinuity for villains who seem to die or locations that seem to be destroyed in early appearances, only for them to appear like nothing had happened later on. Jumanji is a game, so it's entirely possible that what's happening is simply that it respawns certain elements when they have been destroyed. Like [=NPCs=] in most games, the characters themselves may not even be aware of this, as Trader Slick and Ibsen especially seem to be concerned when their assets are threatened, despite it never sticking. Jumanji may have some exceptions or alternate methods to accomplish this, however, as it apparently let the Sorceress of Jumanji stay defeated, and it once tried to have Peter replace Van Pelt to keep him around.

[[WMG: The RunningGag of Slick having a different middle name every time isn't just a joke]]
Related to the above theory, perhaps each time Slick has a different name, it's a sign he has respawned and the game generated a new name for him, with such treatment being unique to him as part of his role as a duplicitous character.

[[WMG: The Stalker isn't 'evil']]
The Stalker is dangerous and powerful, being the physical embodiment of Jumanji, but not evil. It merely wanted the dice back, not to hurt Alan. If he'd turned over the dice it would have just walked away - it didn't want him to have the dice because they were a GameBreaker and the game couldn't be played without them. Later, when Peter threatened the game, it was not specifically angry at him, but wanted to remind him of how powerful it was - they'd thought they'd destroyed it before, but it came back.

[[/folder]]

* Jossed. Jumanji can also be played by teens as shown in the 2017 movie.
** Technically, it was also played by teens in the 1995 movie. Alan, Sarah and Judy were all between 11 and 13 when they started playing.

** This opens up another point - you CANNOT play alone. Which is another thing to remember with people potentially dying.
* Confirmed! In the movie's sequel, ''Jumanji: Welcome the Jungle'', the boardgame is found again by a man who shows it to his teenager son. Said son rejects the game because he prefers playing videogames and thinks boardgames are old fashioned. Jumanji reacts by ''transforming into a videogame, all to coax the boy to play it''.

* Variation: The game is aimed at a British audience, and Van Pelt is a Boer. As for why he has a British accent... um... maybe so he doesn't come across as a FunnyForeigner.

He wanted to help, but Sam didn't want him nearby and maybe suspected of him. So he went to the police academy to both clear his name and help uncover what happened to Alan.

[[WMG:The games run off magical [[Film/TheMatrix virtual reality;]] they don't change real reality.]]

“I beat you, old friend. I finally beat you” he bitterly chuckled at the ancient PlayStation One console, form which the drums still mysterious beat as he shouts “Link Start.”

Akihiko shrugged, went home and blew the dust off the box, illustrated in the style of a 1950s American Jungle Adventure Novel like Tarzan, plugs the suspiciously-clean PlayStation One Console it into his room’s television, and shouts “I’ll be right down!” in response to being called for dinner...