History WMG / TheWall

* The fascist sequence we see isn’t really happening in-universe. Instead, it’s a symbolic scene exploring what Pink’s problems could eventually lead to if he doesn’t get help. His pain and isolation are turning into irrational hatred of everything. He stands a chance of someday becoming similar to the Nazis who killed his father. In fact the scene is also a metaphor for self-hate. Pink hates the Nazis, so when he falls into exteme self-hatred he imagines himself as a nazi or fears that he might become one. But fundamentally he still ‘’wants’’ to be a good person. “The Trial” involves him confronting his problems, finding some respite and perspective so that he never becomes an all-hating Nazi-style monster like he feared.

[[WMG: Pink never actually turned to fascism]

This may need some fine-tuning, but it's not hard to imagine Pink's present-day self as something akin to ''Film/ThisIsSpinalTap,'' with him as the OnlySaneMan touring with a pack of self-satisfied dunderheads. They have a number of hits on the radio and a couple of albums, and make decent bank on tour, but they're forever openers and never headliners. The ban reinventing themselves as fascist punks was Pink's gimmick for [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity a bid at notoriety,]] which his fellows understandably objected to.

*** Would this include [[Music/{{Quadrophenia}} Jimmy Cooper]] and the protagonist of ''[[Music/{{Rush}} 2112]]''?

When he's in the car on the way to the show, all three numbers are his ImagineSpot as he thinks about how he's going to give his fans hell. When he actually gets there... ''he can't do it.'' Temper aside, his basic humanity suddenly overrides everything else in a sudden moment of panic. Support: Watch the "Stop" scene carefully. Though it's difficult to make out, he's wearing the same shirt the roadies dragged onto him in "Comfortably Numb." Also, there's a faint snippet of what's labeled "MC: Atmos" on the ''Is There Anybody Out There?'' album, as if Pink is supposed to be backstage waiting for his cue.

When he's in the car on the way to the show, all three numbers are his ImagineSpot as he thinks about how he's going to give his fans hell. When he actually gets there... ''he can't do it.'' Temper aside, his basic humanity suddenly overrides everything else in a sudden moment of panic.

The rally staged by Pink in "Waiting for the Worms" resulted in a full-scale riot. Pink gets arrested and tried for what happened, and his mother, (ex?)-wife and former teacher are all called in as character witnesses. The recurring "crazy... I am crazy" represents him undergoing psychiatric examinations to determine whether he's mentally ill, and to what extent.

[[WMG: Pink does not run into the bathroom and hide during ''Stop''. He actually has a seizure onstage.]]During the song ''In The Flesh'', Pink yells abuse at his audience. He then falls into a seizure as a result of the drugs the doctor gave him in ''Comfortably Numb''. What appears to be days roll by (''Run Like Hell'', ''Waiting For The Worms''), when really, only a few minutes pass. Pink hears the door to the concert hall open vaguely, which is paramedics coming to help him. He then goes through ''The Trial'', at which point the Wall collapses and Pink is set free. He returns to a psychiatrist later on, however, lamenting how he didn't kill himself (The eponymous track on ''The Final Cut'').

[[WMG: Pink's Band wanted to do a Nazi Motif]]
This is my reasoning. We go through the entire album, and there is no references to Nazism in it what so ever. Yes, there are references to the war, but none to Nazism or Fascism. Then all of a sudden, in basically the 3rd act, "BOOM! Nazis OMG!" But to me that came from no where! Pink didn't talk about Dictatorships or any belief in Racial Superiority. Before the 3rd act, he was basically in a deep depression, even hating the idea of war. So where did Nazism come from? Why, his Band, of course...

The Band was tired of the same ol' shtick, the shtick that Pink loved and what made the band famous to begin with. Much like Music/TheBeatles, they decided to do something really creative, something no one had ever done before? And what had never been done before? Why, a Concept Album about the Nazis! Pink, starting to go into his depressive state, hates the idea, but he caves in to his band mates pressure due to his worsening state. Pink is fighting back as much as he can, even re-working one of the bands ideas ("In The Flesh") into a song more relevant to their past ("In The Flesh?"). The Band mates strike it down, insisting it stays the way it is, and that it's almost finished anyways. Then Pink learns his wife is cheating on him and he goes away...

... But while he's away, the band is able to book a very important gig, that will basically show off the album (The Album would probably release the night of the Concert). They expect it to be their Magnum Opus; so big, that it would rival Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand. They hire people to be in the audience and play parts of their very important tour. But they realize Pink has been in seclusion for an unknown amount of time. They figure out where he is, and get a Doctor to clean him up and they prepare for the show.

Pink, now in a terrible state of mind, basically does not (And I mean, Does NOT!) want to do this. He simply stands on the stage as the first song begins, looking at his band mates, basically looking at them, and thinking "I Don't wanna do this..." while they look back like "You have to! Now do it!" So, he reluctantly goes with it. If you listen to "In The Flesh" compared to "In The Flesh?", you would hear that Pink is singing "In The Flesh?" With some emotion, with some power behind his voice. Listening to "In The Flesh", he sounds depressed, like he's not even there, and that even when he's trying to emote and yell at the crowd, it sounds like he's not being serious. Also, "Waiting For The Worms To Come" Sounds unemotional, at least to me.

As the show goes on, the crowd goes crazier, and the songs grow darker. In Pink's fragile state of mind, he starts confusing his life with his personas life. He can't differentiate between what he has done and what his Persona has. His mind starts breaking down; he starts thinking that the reason his life has gone to hell is because he has made everyone else's life a hell. It all comes to a breaking point as the crowd is chanting for Pink's Reich. Pink, Going insane, yells at the top of his lungs "STOP!" "Stop" isn't his mind finally snapping, it's him finally snapping; he tells the crowd he wants to go home, take off his uniform and leave the show (Another reason for this WMG), but that he needs to know if he's responsible for everything wrong in his life. He basically has a panic attack on stage and falls, being taken away to a Hospital, where his conscious scolds him ("The Trial"). He wakes up in a hospital bed, reflecting on his life ("Outside the Wall").

** That's...''good.'' No, in all seriousness, that's good. Though I myself wouldn't say he's "depressed." Worse than that, he's in a completely different place entirely. In "Brain Damage," off ''Music/TheDarkSideOfTheMoon,'' there's the line: "And when the band you're in starts playing different tunes/I'll see you on the dark side of the moon." That, in turn is based on a now-legendary gig where Syd Barrett did ''nothing'' but just stand there, hopped up on drugs. "In the Flesh" comes from that Sydtastrophe and a later story in which Roger himself had contracted hepatitis and was a lifeless dummy onstage thanks to painkillers. Add to ''that'' a rather rudely-interrupted process of self-discovery and...well, whatever it is, it's not pretty. (''Your'' idea, whoever wrote this, also has historical precedent in [[http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~alper/Bowie_and_fascism.htm David Bowie's brief sort-of flirtings with fascism]] during his "Thin White Duke" phase.) HOWEVER, there is ''also'' the possibility that ''Pink himself'' had the idea in a moment of "Hey, let's {{troll}} our fans, the critics, and dear old [[MoralGuardians Mrs. Whitehouse, who hates our guts anyway!]]"
*** Original Author: Firstly, I'd like to say thanks for the compliment. And yes, when I say "Depressed", I mean "Gone". I do indeed know of Syd Barrett and Roger Waters' own problems in the band. As for your idea that Pink was the one to suggest the Nazi Motif, it didn't make much sense to me when I first heard it. But then thinking about it further, I realized there is one way that would work: If you take into consideration "The Final Cut" album, where a lot of songs deride war, which Pink would have hated thanks to it killing his dad, decided to use the Nazi Motif to criticize his government (''"Hey, we already live in Fascist states that are trying to dominate the globe, we might as well show the world our true colors!"'') However, then I don't know where the Insanity part would fit in unless it was a gradual process that then hit a high gear and sped up when he found out his wife was cheating on him, which based on the Movie that would work, but based on the Album it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense...

He's a pop star, a lead singer who doesn't write the songs he sings. He hit the big time at a young age, and threw himself into the dream with abandon. Because his teacher ridiculed his early attempts as "absolute rubbish," Pink never gained the confidence to write socially-conscious lyrics; anyway, being a lead singer is a safer bet for the record label. Now, many years later, something is badly, badly wrong. He can't "shake off this creeping malaise" that he could be so much ''more'' than he is. Sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll have zero effect on him.

** So he's [[Music/TheLambLiesDownOnBroadway the Supernatural Anaesthetist?]]

Twenty years later would put him in his forties, and the British army didn't object to older but able-bodied veterans who wanted badly enough to serve in the Second war. ''[[DeathSeeker He,]]'' however, wasn't able-bodied enough to pass muster, and he washed out. The shame and resentment he carried in his heart poisoned his marriage and turned him into a JerkWithAHeartOfJerk who took that out on just about everyone around him. In his mind, he believed that everyone ''knew'' he didn't make the cut and judged him a coward for it. He manifested this belief as a man forever looking for (and finding) even the slightest weaknesses in others, which is why Pink gives the twisted specter of his memories a pair of magnifying spotlight glasses.

He’s either having a simple partial seizure, in which you feel like you’re floating in space (“My hands felt just like two balloons”), or he’s having an absence seizure, where you blank out and feel absolutely nothing. (Obviously how he’s becoming “comfortably numb”)

He’s either having a simple partial seizure, in which you feel like you’re floating in space (“My felt just like two balloons”), or he’s having an absence seizure, where you blank out and feel absolutely nothing. (Obviously how he’s becoming “comfortably numb”)

In the film version of the song, the horns in the background sound like those used in a military funeral. This symbolises Pink finally facing the grief of losing his father at a young age.

Twenty years later would put him in his forties, and the British army didn't object to older but able-bodied veterans who wanted badly enough to serve in the Second war. ''[[DeathSeeker He,]]'' however, wasn't able-bodied enough to pass muster, and he washed out. The shame and resentment he carried in his heart poisoned his marriage and turned him into a JerkWithAHeartOfJerk who took that out on just about everyone around him. In his mind, he believed that everyone ''knew'' he didn't make the cut and judged him a coward for it. He manifested this belief as a man forever looking for (and finding) even the slightest weaknesses in others, which is why Pink gives the twisted specter of his memories a pair of magnifying spotlight glasses.

[[WMG: The wall creatures were real but their strange designs were a result of Pink's hallucinations.]]
In particular, The Judge was, in reality, an ordinary person with a cleft chin and jowls.

[[WMG: Pink's Band wanted to do a Nazi Motiff]]

[[WMG: Pink's Mom is Dead through most of the Album]]

And Pink is being judged for the crimes he committed during the neo-nazi period and possibly, the "exposed before your peers" means that he'll be exposed to his peers (criminals) in prison but in prison he starts breaking the Wall as the prisonerd (some of them) are people that went through a hard time like him that just want to help and don't judge persons.

After all, he refers to Pink like he's a different person, and his overall demeanor seems rather different from Pink's (at least to me). "Stop!" is Pink regaining control of himself.

We never really see Pink being, y'know, [[InformedAbility a rock star]], but the words "*one of* my bad days" indicate that he's done this before. It's entirely possible that Pink's own bandmates have had to bear the brunt of his rage. [[NightmareFuel Possibly several times]].

* As stated on the main page, Pink [[YouAreWhatYouHate becomes what his father died fighting against]]. Hitler was a failed artist who became a fascist leader after the events of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. He rose to power playing on the resentment and hatred that occured in Germany in the aftermath of WorldWarOne. Perhaps Hitler's [[DrivenToVillainy descent into villainy]] (or Mussolini's, or Hirohito's, or for that matter, anyone in that position of power and influence, whether in art, politics, culture, and so on) came by building a Wall similar to Pink's? Perhaps those who followed Hitler, etc. and believed in his policies and prejudices had Walls, too. Could the cycle continue with other people, from other walks of life, building Walls because of miscommunication and alienation?

* Confirmed by Roger Waters in an interview. The Thin Ice-Comfortably Numb is a flashback.

In the movie, the long guitar solo is the [[BodyHorror]] moment where we see Pink reborn as a fascist after ... imagining himself being devoured by worms or maggots.

Everything afterwards, Side 4, where Pink becomes (or doesn't become) a fascist, and is then put on trial, seems fantastic enough to be a [[Dying Dream]].

This is relying on there being some vague level of reality in these songs. The concert Pink gets driven to after "Comfortably Numb" is actually the one briefly seen during the movie's opening. While the audience expected him to preform songs from his latest album ([[MythologyGag Animals?]]), he instead performs some new songs that sound…off. He ends up breaking into hate speech, only for the audience to go along with it, since his position, both in their minds and in the show, is that of a god. This is why The Hammer already seems to have a considerable base by the start of "In The Flesh", including a skinhead escort, and his fans already know the...[[PuttingOnTheReich questionable]] [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything dance moves]].

Or, possibly, simply judged crazy.

** I like it! It fits in with my preferred reading of the end of "Mother." At the end, he heard about her death, and at her grave, he can only say, "Mother, did it need to be so high?" (Substitute whatever you feel for this: if you prefer, it might make more sense for him to see it on TV while he's on tour; he would then say this to himself, as if talking to Heaven.)

[[WMG: Pink is everything PinkFloyd isn't]]