Ariel only ever wants vegetarian dishes for gifts. This seems like an odd specification until you remember her movie. The main objection both her father and Sebastian have to her wanting to associate with the surface world is that they eat fish. Therefore, Ariel, a mermaid would likely be revolted at eating the fish she probably personally knows. Since the only meat-based dishes in the game (before A Rift in Time added land animal meats) are specifically fish, she has to eat vegetarian to avoid eating someone she may know. This is also likely why she can't be assigned the fishing role for hangouts.
Similarly, Scar only wants fish-based dishes for gifts. Considering he's a lion, an obligate carnivore—as he points out a couple times—and the lack of any other meat in the game (again, until A Rift in Time), fish-based dishes are the only thing he can actually eat.
Also, both Woody and Buzz only want gems and flowers for gifts. Woody mentions in his first friendship quest that toys don't have taste buds, so it makes sense that they don't want anything edible.
The December 2022 update added Woody and Buzz Lightyear as villagers. What do kids historically get on Christmas?
For Buzz' main side quests, you are supposed to buy a space ranger uniform from Scrooge. When you get it, instead of the more realistic-looking outfits that are typical of the game, you have something made from a cardboard box that looks like a little kid made it. The Fridge Brilliance kicks in once you realize that, here, you're not dealing with Buzz Lightyear the space commander, who is looking for an actual space ranger, but Buzz Lightyear the sapient toy, who needs a kid to pretend with.
Once Stitch crashes his ship into Skull Rock’s island, notice that he stops when he reaches the shallow water separating it from the shore. Remember, Stitch can’t swim, so it’s not too surprising that he wouldn’t want to cross it, regardless of it being shallow.
Not only does Woody's lack of taste buds would make him unable to help Remy, his only experience with cooking was likely how children play-cook: Bashing toy foods together or purely imaginary motions, no wonder his attempts turned out so badly: He not only can't taste things, he doesn't even know how cooking or baking actually works.
There’s also a limit to how much he’d be physically capable of doing. Anything involving a stove or oven set to a high temperature probably isn’t the safest when your body is made of fabric and plastic, and prep work like chopping veggies when you’re his size would be like the equivalent of a human slicing whole tree trunks in half with a claymore. Basically, the only way Woody would be able to cook anything actually edible is if someone gets him an Easy-Bake Oven.
Many of the continuity and fridge logic questions are solved with the reveal that these are not actually the characters from the movies, but ascended imaginary friends created by the Ruler via Dreamlight Magic, and the Realms that some are trapped in are similarly made up places for the villagers to hide from The Forgetting. It also explains why characters who are dead are inexplicably alive in this game.
When the players meet Mother Gothel, she is found inside of an old tree that's been sealed shut in the Glade of Trust. They learn that she was using dark magic to create a curse that would keep Rapunzel inside her tower, and when the previous ruler of Dreamlight Valley found out about this they used her own curse against her and sealed her shut inside. Coming off the big reveal that the former ruler who vanished all those years ago was in fact a much younger version of The Player themselves this raises several potentially horrifying questions.
Merlin implies that The Forgetting has been eating away at the land for YEARS, and Gothel was sealed up before the thorns came. If we The Player haven't been to Dreamlight Valley since we were children, how long was Gothel in there all by herself? Assuming Dreamlight Valley doesn't have a different time flow, Gothel was stuck in there for at least ten years all by herself with no one to talk to, especially when the thorns overtook The Glade and sealed the way in shut.
On that note, did The Player have any intention of letting Gothel out at some point? Were we just going to vindictively keep her in there forever? Clearly leaving Dreamlight Valley wasn't something we intended to do, but we did so while leaving Gothel trapped in her tree. It's no wonder she's so petty towards The Player when they reunite years later.
And unlike almost every other character, she did not lose her memory, she had to sit stuck inside her house without any food or anything to at least pass the time and didn't have the benefit of slowly forgetting, unlike all the other inhabitants of the Valley. It really veers into Fate Worse than Death.
As of "The Remembering" update, we finally know the truth of what actually happened: Gothel wasn't trying to trap Rapunzel, she was trying to trap The Player themselves. Under the guise of wanting to keep them safe and how she'll be a loving mother to them. Gothel wanted another magical child to keep to herself, and The Forgotten (a fragment of The Player, specifically from their childhood) lashed out to bounce the spell back at her. Imagine how horrifying that would be from the perspective of the younger Player that they were about to be straight up kidnapped. Indeed, it's portrayed as a major step in The Forgotten's Start of Darkness.
The journal pages we gradually find throughout the game detail what our lives were like in Dreamlight Valley when we were there seemingly as children. While Merlin and the others say the disappearance of The Ruler is what caused The Forgetting, it seems like it was already starting to happen while we were still there. The more stomach-turning entries come in the form of these scribbled pages with dark pillars on them where our past selves bemoan the absolute agony of being alone. If we were truly in this realm as children, what happened to us? What brought us to such an absolutely miserable state? The darker pages read like the ramblings of someone clinically depressed.
"I feel like there's a hole inside me. No, I feel like I am mostly a hole, with just a small bit of the person I once was. I'm only enough of a person to feel alone..."
"Loneliness is sharp. It cuts me like glass in my fingers. But it's much more awful than broken glass because I cannot see it or avoid it..."
A number of updates, especially "The Remembering", all but state that the entries written with the dark pillar designs were written by The Forgotten, a fragment of The Ruler who was separated from The Player when The Player was growing up. In this context, the entries make more sense—The Forgotten is essentially a fragment of their former self, and they are suffering from the loss.
When the player levels up, they're awarded with a longer energy bar and a new item. They're all Celestial and star themed, and the full set can give both your house and your avatar a very cosmic look. Going off the reveal that The Player was the original ruler of Dreamlight Valley it's very possible this was our old "royal" clothes. However, after level 25, your item rewards suddenly go from peaceful, dream-like stars and moons to Nightmare themed items, based on the Night Thorns and The Forgetting itself, all ending with a black and purple ensemble and crown that's a dark reflection of the Celestial items. If the Celestial items are what we wore during our first visit to Dreamlight Valley, why is there an evil counterpart?
The Scar’s Kingdom update reveals that the Forgotten One wears the Nightmare-themed clothes.
If you fall asleep in the woods and wake up in the valley, what's happening in real life? Are you in a coma in the hospital? Lying in a coma in the woods? 'Cause that would really be a sad underscore.
Considering that you're back in front of your house every time you return to the game, you're presumably asleep in the valley and awake in "real life" when you're not playing the game. It's called Dreamlight Valley, after all.
"The Remembering" Update pretty much confirms that the Valley is the dream, as the Fairy Godmother points out the Forgotten's plan would not only risk destroying the Here and There and the Valley but "The Waking World" as well.
How about the fact that the game's storyline is generally supposed to follow what happened in these characters' movies? Just think about it for a second...so far we only have five villains. All of whom died in their respective films (Jafar wound up dying at the end of the sequel). However you look at it, it's kinda creepy. What kind of dark magic brought them back? And do they remember THAT part of their story or not?
Further driving this point home, when Simba and Nala both return to the Valley, one of the first things you tell them is that Scar is there. Both are appropriately surprised at the news, with Nala even mentioning that she saw Scar fall to his doom.
Further still, at the end of Ursula's Vanessa questline she admits to the player that she misses Flotsam and Jetsam, with her word choice making it quite clear that the two eels are dead and that even the magic that brought Ursula back within Dreamlight Valley didn't (or possibly couldn't) do the same for them.
During one of Scar's friendship quests, you learn that the Sunlit Plateau used to be home to a large number of wildebeests. The key words there being used to, as the plateau is now covered in their bones. The game is unclear as to what happened to them, and neither possible explanation is pleasant; either Scar alone managed to wipe them all out, or they all died as a result of the Forgetting drying up the Plateau's water source.
We all stop playing games eventually for one reason or another. It's hard not to think of the Forgetting and night thorns overrunning everything again when that happens.
Why is the "Here-and-There Fish" so ugly? Because that's how it appears once it's been removed from the water. Left underwater, however, the fish would be just as beautiful like every other fish.
