As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Fridge Brilliance
- The word "sunshine", while having happy connotations, doesn't actually mean "happiness". In-game, the drug Sunshine makes you appear as if you're on Joy, but doesn't actually cause the forced happiness that Joy brings.
- In addition to that, light exposure usually causes someone's pupils to constrict. Sunshine makes you look like you're on Joy by making your pupils tiny.
- At the end of his story, Arthur is given a Last-Second Ending Choice: take a Joy pill and return to Wellington Wells as a Wellie, or refuse the pill and escape the town. His story is also the only one where you're given this final choice. This makes sense if you consider each character's motivations for leaving the city: Sally because her daughter Gwen is at risk as long as she stays there, and Ollie because after broadcasting Uncle Jack's "final episode", he's wanted by the entire town. Arthur, by contrast, has little motivation for leaving (because Percy is most probably dead) and plenty for staying and forgetting (specifically, forgetting that he was responsible for Percy's deportation and probable death).
- How does Sally realize immediately that Arthur is off his Joy? In her field of work, she's seen plenty of Downers come to her door.
- In addition, as a chemist, she's likely more familiar with the visible symptoms of being on Joy, and can more easily identify their absence.
- Cutscenes involving Arthur and Sally interacting are very different, depending on which character you're playing as at that moment. However, Arthur has quit Joy only recently, and the drug is still affecting him - as evidenced by how he doesn't remember critical details about Percy. It's entirely possible that his cutscenes have been "edulcorated" by the residual Joy in his system. The fact that Sally tells him about Gwen in her story, yet nothing like that happens in his has been specifically described as Joy messing with his memory according to Word of God.
- Joy comes in multiple "Flavors" (Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry, Blackberry), and a note seen on an unfortunate (dead) wastrel basically states that she's waiting for a new Coconut-Flavored Joy so that she can finally take Joy and forget The Very Bad Thing, which implies that each flavor of Joy has different chemical builds so that more people can take it. For example, Arthur's flavor is Strawberry, whereas say, Clive's flavor would be, maybe, Chocolate. Once you consider this, it makes perfect sense that Arthur would have a negative reaction to Coconut Joy. Not only is it experimental, but it isn't his flavor!
- Although as the game goes the explanation for bad batch of Joy seems to be simpler: it's not the flavor that's the issue, it's that Haworth Laboratories' Joy production line is a mess and Verloc is tampering with new formulas of Joy all the time. Sally's blackberry Joy aren't working better because of the flavor—it's because she keeps her lab clean and follows the same recipe instead of running a place half on fire releasing toxic fumes.
- There is a cover of So Mod magazine featuring Sally Boyle posing in a dress that is so round, stiff and large it almost looks like she is wearing a giant lampshade.
The latest style in fashion, or something bulky enough to hide her pregnancy? - Near the end of Act 3, Margaret Worthing gradually starts to speak in a Scottish accent much like Ollie Starkey as she tells him that "having an imaginary friend is a wee bit babyish for a man who's been to war." Ollie is coming to terms that she is only a figment of his imagination, so she is starting to sound more like an inner monologue.
- You're given days by numbers, like Day 1, Day 2, and so on, or "Come back in two days.". But you can't find the day's current date — the newspaper (though it seems you only have one issue of the newspaper for each character) or a desk calendar will always say the same day as it did yesterday. Given that a recurring theme of the story is that the overconsumption (and perhaps underconsumption, since these characters go off of it) of Joy and other drugs causes the side effect of unreliable perception, it makes sense that time seems out of wack.
- This also explains why you can spend as much time on one character while you breeze through another character before they cross roads, even though time logic says that there's no way they could have met in that span of time... unless their perception of the passage of time is messed up.
- The Lightbearer DLC doesn't seem to make sense, at the end, Nick swears off drugs, and yet when you meet him as Arthur, he's being stupid in a bathtub, as if he's on drugs. Makes no sense, until you remember the "Look Like Nick" contest. Who's to say the "Nick" Arthur met wasn't just someone dressed AS NICK, and not actually Nick?
- And if it really was Nick, who's to say he wasn't suffering from withdrawal symptoms? Or that he took Joy without realizing it? The food and water is spiked with the stuff, after all...
- Also, it's not clear how long passed between the end of Arthur's story and the others. Much of Ollie's story takes place after Arthur's ends (due to the plague in the parade). He forcibly detoxed Victoria for at least a day, and side-chat in We All Fall Down indicates that Foggy Jack was caught only a day or two before Victoria's story starts.
- The absolute destruction unleashed in We All Fall Down doesn't make sense at first glance. While Victoria's actions are destructive, cutting off drugs to the one island would be easily remedied by simply having bobbies distributing pills from baskets. Even the destruction of the lab wouldn't do anything about the huge volume of Joy in circulation which could be rationed to slowly bring everyone down off their highs. Then, you can recall that the executive committee is stoned out of their minds, and the protagonists have disabled every partially sane authority figure (the general and Dr Verloc). The fact that tension and withdrawal is already high from the Uncle Jack video mere days before and the plague breaking into sections of the city. The city was a powder-keg. Victoria just lit a match.
- It's worth mentioning that while Victoria is unconscious near the ending of We All Fall Down, Uncle Jack's last broadcast can be heard. Perhaps a more likely explanation is that the Joy being cut off was roughly concurrent with Ollie broadcasting? The point of everyone in power being stoned still stands, however, which is likely why there was no effective response by the authorities to mitigate the riots.
- Of course the Wellies would like to play children's games, but why "Simon Says" in particular? It's a game about doing what an authority figure tells you, and you lose if you disobey or do something you weren't told to. The perfect game for the conformity-valuing Wellies!
- It's also a way to exorcise the Very Bad Thing, which was caused by following the orders of someone who didn't have as much power as it seems. A game where they lose if they disobey is like trying to convince themselves they did the right thing.
- You can see other Wellies wearing the same design of suit as Arthur. This makes perfect sense and fits in with his whole playstyle of being unremarkable and blending in with everyone else.
- You can find a letter in one of the Garden District mailboxes asking if the Executive Comittee could play the newest Uncle Jack shows instead of the same recordings over and over. This is actually some brilliant foreshadowing on the fact that Uncle Jack is no longer there and that all of his shows were merely recordings. Thanks to their constant Joy usage, the Wellies wouldn't remember if they've already heard an episode or not, so they would think they keep getting new shows. The Wastrels, on the other hand, are no longer on Joy, so they would realize that they're recordings.
Fridge Horror
- Sally's reason for becoming a Downer is that she's the last woman in Wellington Wells to have a child. Seeing a pregnant woman or a baby triggers the Wellies to the point of homicidal madness.
- In the introduction scene, we see how Joy affects peoples perception of food and drink, as it turns diseased, contaminated or overall raw food into a delicious delicacy or fun trick. Arthur's colleagues see a dead rat as a piñata and the treats they see inside are just its raw innards. It makes you wonder how many people have affected by undiagnosed diseases or have been infected by the food and water.
- On one hand, it's mentioned that those who take Joy regularly (Wellies) have very strong stomachs, and can sustain themselves on rotten food and similar stuff. On the other hand, if a Wellie does get ill, the cure to what ails you tends to be 'more Joy'.
- When Arthur confronts Sally about sleeping with his father, she replies that she couldn't say "No" to him. Keep in mind that Arthur's father took Sally in after her mother killed her whole family in a suicide pact when Sally was in her early teens until she was sixteen. Given her reaction, it's likely that Arthur's father either guilt tripped her or she felt like she had no choice but to sleep with him after he took her in. So basically Arthur is blaming the victim of statutory rape, and even worse, Sally blames herself.
- In Arthur's story, after Sally asks "Am I really that awful?" his response is "Because you fucked my dad?" whereas in Sally's he answers "Because you seduced my dad?" So it's entirely possible he thinks Sally talked his father into the act, not vice-versa. However, it's unclear which one he said to Sally because the Joy could be skewing his perception of things.
- This is a series of logic with a horrifying conclusion.
- The final DLC shows quite explicitly that violent outbursts are a major symptom of Joy withdrawal.
- It's consistent throughout the game that vivid hallucinations are a symptom of Joy usage. Arthur, Nick, Ollie, and Victoria all experience hallucinations, with Arthur's interpretation of events being skewed and the latter two viewing full imaginary people. Almost none of the Lightbearer DLC actually happened, and what did happen was probably completely different than what was shown on screen.
- As soon as Arthur and Victoria get off their Joy, they are immediately thrust into an endless series of situations that require violent or deadly force.
- How many of those violent situations are simply due to our characters' withdrawal symptoms?
- At its very core the base concept of the game is terrifying. Being yourself yet losing just enough of your memories to forget the things that are most important to you, or even worse, forgetting that you did something unimaginably horrible only to remember it right as you're trying to get your life back together.
- It's already hinted that the children didn't actually make it to Germany, but even if they did, Percy's odds of survival would have been slim at best. If the German Empire had the same views towards the disabled as the original Nazis, Percy would have been either experimented on or outright killed.
