Headscratchers / Animator vs. Animation

The series as a whole

• Where's the Animator gone? I get that he trusts the Second Coming and his friends completely, but he's been absent since Animator vs. Animation 4. It's especially egregious with the newest videos: "Note Blocks" had the stick figures playing music really, really loudly at 4 a.m., with the speakers up to 100, and "Command Blocks" would've bricked the computer (again!) if the Second Coming hadn't made it to the Restart button.
  • Presumably he's out and about doing other stuff for most of them (it'd be unreasonable to think he'd be home on his computer all day every day), and just leaves the computer open for the stick figures to play around in whenever he's gone. As for "Note Blocks", maybe the computer is in a workroom separate from his bedroom, so even at volume 100%, it was far enough away to not wake him up. Or maybe he's just a ridiculously Heavy Sleeper. Also, in "Command Blocks", the worst that seemed to be happening was an Interface Screw, not necessarily physical damage to the computer that Alan, worst-case scenario, couldn't fix with a hard reset (though the animations would have still had to explain that mess to him).
  • He must have heard you, because the latest short is Animator vs. Animation once again and he returned.
  • Perhaps the computer doesn't have to be always on and the stick figures are free to do as they please whenever the animator is AFK and the computer is turned off considering that Alan would've turned off his computer by then.
• Does "Build Battle" take place right after "Note Block Battle"? Because if not, uh... is The Second Coming okay? There's being bored, and then there's being physically unable to stay awake for more than a few seconds after a timer starts.
  • Most likely. It's possible that they were doing the contest because, after struggling to defeat Green in the music department, they decided to try defeating him in building. Even if it isn't the very next day, between the two Note Block episodes we can conclude that the fighting stick figures don't give much consideration to Orange needing to sleep, so it's entirely plausible that them keeping him awake with their antics isn't uncommon.
• On a related note, why is The Second Coming the only one of the five to actually need to sleep? I get that he and the other four have different origins but how would that affect this aspect of them?
  • The other stick figures sleeps in "Texture Pack" so they can sleep too but the situation never asked for it before.
  • SC needs to be awake during the day to help with Alan's animations. The FSF do not.
• The obvious answer is Rule of Cool, but if Flash is capable of creating stick figures that can be set to any level, run wild, destroy motherboards, escape into the internet, and wreak havoc there as well, how has the internet not imploded upon itself with people carelessly creating superpowered stick figures (or making them on purpose and giving them destructive commands with malicious intent)?
  • Humanity has adapted to it. Multiple programs have been programmed to kill a Stick Figure if it ever goes wild. Examples include Clippy and some desktop icons.
  • If making an evil destructive stick figure is that easy, then so is making a powerful good stick figure that will stop evil ones. That and most programs, including purely visual ones such as shortcut icons can spontaneously become alive and fight the stick figures. It also seems that good stick figures are stronger than evil stick figures by default because the Chosen One had the upper hand on the Dark Lord before he started to wear his dark arm band and activated the army of ViraBots.
    • It's also possible that TCO was winning against TDL because his "level" was higher than the one TDL has.
    • Possibly, but "Chosen One" could be the highest possible power level for "good" stick figure, while "Dark Lord" could be the highest level for "evil" ones since both of their names are common terms for hero and villains. Though the different power level doesn't stop other stick figures from getting stronger thanks to power boosts and objects.
  • It was shown in AvA IV and vs. YouTube that refreshing a page restores everything back to normal. Stick figures such as the Dark Lord can cause chaos as much as they like, but at the end it doesn't change anything and at best just terrifies the programs that went through it.
  • Maybe creating life in flash is a skill only a select few people have? Alan being one of them.
    • Unlikely, as stick figure creation is treated as a common thing by the human characters, the exception being Alexcrafter (who probably was surprised to see one in Minecraft, and even if not, they're implied to be young and thus are justified to not know).

Animator vs. Animation IV

• How did the horse disappear as well when Alan deleted all of Second Coming's creations when it had been drawn after he clicked 'Select All', and it clearly hadn't been selected until right before it disappeared?
• How the hell was the Second Coming even born? Alan's wording suggests it's not the first time he made a stick figure since 2011, he didn't even name him. He literally just popped into existence while Alan was in the middle of drawing. Speaking of, why does he instantly qualify as The Chosen One's Return? Did the Chosen One pull off something off-screen during his adventures with the Dark Lord?
  • It's implied that stick figures spontaneously coming to life isn't unheard of in the AvA universe; everyone Alan talks to about it doesn't question the idea, and Purple and King had to come from somewhere (to say nothing of the Fighting Stick Figures). So it's probably just a fact of this universe that random stick figures can do that.
    • For what it's worth, later episodes confirm the "basic design" sticks like King, Purple and FSF can reproduce and birth stick figures on their own, so that's clearly not an answer nor example of how TSC could come into existence.
• How is the Second Coming "the return of the Chosen One" and not just a random stick figure like victim or Purple? Is the Chosen One somehow related to his creation? Or did the universe just flip the bird towards Alan and say "fuck you, you're dealing with your Arch-Enemy for the third time now. Good luck"?
  • The Showdown answers that question. Still hoping that SC is victim's reincarnation though.
    • As of "Wanted", he is not. Additionally, "The Showdown" doesn't answer anything besides giving more questions, so I don't know where you got that from.

Animation vs. YouTube

• Why does a "Best Videos of YouTube" playlist have so many stock footage videos on it? Even supposing that the Animator uses those for animation reference, wouldn't he at least have a separate playlist for them?
• Also, at the end of the video, Second Coming and Green are both seen running for their lives after the others refresh the page and restore YouTube, why couldn't they have just run off the screen when YouTube started attacking them in the first place?
  • Maybe they thought YouTube would still be able to attack them, or at least block them from escaping while it had them in its sights. Since the two still had a chance of not being spotted by it this time, they probably took the chance they had and got their butts out of the fight while they still could.

Animation vs. League of Legends

• This is, admittedly, coming from someone who knows nothing about the game, but Purple and his dragon(?) stop attacking the blue...crystal thing? I have no idea what it is, but they stop attacking it right before the final blow because they spot Second Coming attacking the red crystal, so they go to attack Second Coming. But wouldn't destroying the blue crystal have been an Instant-Win Condition for Purple, so it would have been better if they dealt the final blow? When I first saw it I thought the dragon acted against Purple's orders, but at the last second before Second Coming deals the final blow, Purple is pointing to direct the dragon, clearly intending to attack Second Coming. Why did he give up what would have otherwise been an easy victory?
  • If you watch closely, you can see that Purple is surprised when his creature turn around to attack The Second Coming, meaning that he don't have total control over the creature.
    • Ignoring the fact that, again, Purple is pointing at the Second Coming right before the latter destroys the red crystal, why didn't Purple just hop off and finish off the blue crystal himself then? It was like one hit away from destruction, and he'd basically turned on Godmode so I doubt the others would have been able to stop him.
    • He probably wanted to gloat his victory by beating SC down himself, since he didn't expect the other four to actually be able to damage his monster. By the time he realized that he could be late, he may already have been way closer to SC then the crystal he was supposed to destroy, and had no other options.
  • A new answer is available given the events of AvM Shorts Season 3; Purple was already working for King at the time. He went there to either get the Game Icon early and also to get revenge on the Stick Gang. When he saw the Second Coming attacking his crystal(?), he remembered the Parkour Course and realised something; If he wins, the Stick Gang will never trust him again and thus won't follow him through the portal (notice that Purple never tries to kill the Stick Gang, and only tries to beat them in a game; He was never homicidal, just petty). If he loses, he can use Crocodile Tears to get their sympathy (knowing that's what they will do), fake a Heel–Face Turn and thus make them go through the portal when they cross paths again (he uses the same tactic when he sees them going back home in "The Witch"). While he did abandon the Game Icon, it was a sacrifice he had to make for the plan to succeed. In short, Purple was just a Manipulative Bastard.
    • This one is debunked as of "Note Block Universe", as he and King Orange didn't know eachother at that time.

Animation vs. Pokémon

• When the Second Coming sneaks back into the game, Ethan has both Chikorita and Totodile, the latter being the exact same one the Second Coming swiped earlier, following behind him as he leaves the lab. He (or rather, the Animator) chose Chikorita earlier, but why was he also given Totodile after it was retrieved from the Second Coming?
• Heracross joins the team after Totodile saves it from drowning, implying it couldn't swim. Yet later on he's seen swimming across the sea no sweat.
  • He's probably holding onto Totodile's tail, since Gloom is on Totodile's back. Heracross can't learn Surf on its own, so it's a safe bet it can't swim.

Animator vs. Animation V

• Where's Avast? Even if it would have been blocked by ViraBot all the same, in a series not shy about Continuity Nods, it's strange to not see it when the Animator was searching for antiviruses on his computer. I get that this is a different computer, but why wouldn't the Animator have redownloaded something that proved capable of stopping his last out-of-control creation?
  • Maybe he hadn't redownloaded it because he didn't want to alarm the Second Coming or make him relive any bad memories (that might or might not come from it.) Besides, it is shown that the Animator and the stick figures have stacked quite a high level of trust after the events of IV, and the Animator may not have expected any other threats to be more powerful than something he had named "The Chosen One".
  • Another theory on this: He hadn't redownloaded Avast because it had proved capable of stopping his last out-of-control creation. When he and his current out-of-control creations (aka the stick figures) are on friendly terms, why would he risk downloading a program that might (and probably would) detect them as viruses, when activated?
  • A third theory is that the Animator never removed Avast, but instead marked the Animations as "safe" so that Avast would ignore them in future scans with the antivirus. ViraBot was made by the Dark Lord, who was in turn made by the Animator. Since the Dark Lord was the creator of ViraBot and had Noogai as his first target, he may have tailor-made ViraBot to sneak by Avast. You can even see Avast in "The Rediscovery" as The Second Coming scrolls through the Start menu in search of Minecraft.
• How the hell does the YouTube part make sense? With Animation vs. YouTube it's at least justified since the video was from a few years ago, but here, it's a video that shows scenes from moments ago.
  • that is a Recursive Canon moment.
  • It should also be put into consideration if that there is a video of the stick gang's adventure that exists even while it is happening, and the video contains parts of the adventure that shows events that hadn't even happen yet, does that mean that the future is predetermined in the stickman world?

AvM Shorts

• In "Piglin War", why didn't Blue just grab the master Minecraft block and spawn a ton of Nether Wart with Creative Mode?
  • Out of universe: because then we wouldn't get to see a cool adventure in the updated Nether. In-universe: Blue panicked and wasn't thinking straight. There's evidence of a growing addiction to Nether Wart (he makes a bunch of delicious food while munching on the stuff, and tosses aside his entire meal to eat more Nether Wart) and in his state of mind he just went with his first instincts. It's also worth noting that Yellow is the more technically minded stick figure who's more likely to play with stuff in the game's back end; Blue tends to be pretty conventional.
• In "Parkour", what would've happened if one of the sticks got three wins before the final stage? Would it have ruined King's entire plan, or were the stages specifically crafted so that each of the five would win the same number of them? Moreover, why didn't King not include the competition aspect and instead just have the stick figures distracted playing infinite parkour courses? That seems like it would have trapped them for far longer...
  • It could have been a Batman Gambit. Bare minimum, Purple would know from vs. League of Legends that the stick gang is very competitive (and this is something we the audience have seen in several AvM episodes; since King knows of the events of the original vs Minecraft, it's possible he also knows this fact), and therefore would be likely to jump at the idea of a parkour race between them, especially one with low stakes once Yellow demonstrates that they can't die from falling into the void. This same competitiveness is probably also why Purple and King figured the "first to three wins" was a worthy gamble; if one stick got too far behind, they'd start playing dirtier to catch up, as we see in pretty much every race after the first. This had the added benefit of giving Purple a viable alibi as to why he wanted to stagger them for the tie-breaker race. Sure, the downside was that eventually they'd figure out something was up and try to escape; they weren't gonna wait for their friends forever without worrying. But Purple and King clearly didn't anticipate any of them being smart enough to actually break through the obsidian cube and so probably deemed that a non-issue.
• Also in "Parkour", why did King even need the Game Icon in the first place? The command block on his staff can already place (and break) blocks, even blocks in certain shapes such as waterlogged, upside-down stairs or slabs, etc. Not to mention the staff can even send a mob's AI to limbo, manipulate an entity's position and amongst all other things command blocks can do.
  • The Game Icon can give you an infinite amount of Command Blocks, and as Herobrine showed, giants that mimic your movement, among many others. And the picture for King's plan shows that the Game Icon has some unknown, even larger power. A Command Block is powerful, but there's Always a Bigger Fish.
  • Not to mention the flying capabilities and raw power of their attacks heavily implies that it's beyond just the ability to control blocks, it likely changes the user into Creative Mode. And in Minecraft that's one step below omnipotence.
  • The Game Icons seem to be capable of generating a black hole (or a giant void when combined) when used with the staff, something that the Command Block almost certainly cannot do.
• In "The Warden", how does the titular Warden differentiate The Second Coming from King even if it can't see?
  • The Second Coming is riding him like a horse. Also the Second Coming is the one with the flute; if he'd gotten knocked off, he could play it to remind the Warden which one is his ally and get right back on.
• In "Note Block Universe", Purple is shown to be the child of a dark blue and pink stickman. This raises a few questions: 1. Do stickmen have gender now? 2. How do they reproduce?
  • Spontaneous generation through desire? Maybe they just drew Purple?
  • Stickmen probably have genders, but the human brain can't really tell that, except if it's a case of Pink Means Feminine.
• How many Game Icons are there? Because when they take the icon from Alexcrafter's computer, it has the same powers that the main one, suggesting that every icon on every PC hold the same power. But if that's the case, why does the Minecraft Mysteries book indicate its location as unknown and why does the King want the main one so badly if he could just go on another computer just like TSC does?
  • Perhaps the Outernet and desktops are (mostly) isolated areas, and/or that trading items found on desktops is considered black-market trading; King bought a command block in an alleyway after all, and we already know how dangerous a command block can be. Plus, it's possible it was done on purpose to discourage attempting to obtain a very dangerous and deadly weapon. If the Game Icon can be used to create a black hole (albeit when combined with King's staff or an alternative), well, you know how it will end if it goes into the wrong hands.
• In the first Animation vs. Minecraft, Herobrine needed the Game Icon to create and control the giant obsidian monster. In "The King" however he can do that and more other thing without the block. So why he needed it in the first place?
  • Unlike other instances in the original AvM, Herobrine isn't seen gesturing with the Game Icon to build the cobblestone or obsidian mechas. It's possible that's something he can do without it, it's just not something he does until it's clearly necessary.
• In "PvP" and Animation vs. Minecraft, the stick figures lose hearts when they're damaged and can be killed and respawn. Then how come, in the other shorts, they can sustain devastating amounts of damage and still keep on fighting?
  • From the looks of it, they lose hearts when hit with weapons or by mobs from Minecraft itself. Anything outside of that doesn't play by Minecraft's rules when it comes to damage.
• In "The Chef", the stick figures go to the Chef Villager so they could ask him for the cook book they need to learn how to make food. But he refuses to give them it until they traded some dishes for it. But how did the stick figures know how to make those dishes without even having a recipe for it? Did they just figure out what to do just by looking at the meals themselves? Because that is pretty impressive.
  • That was the entire point. The Chef Villager was being a Trickster Mentor by teaching them that they could learn the recipes themselves instead of him having to hand them over; Think of it as being taught how to solve an equation vs just being told the answer. The stick figures have always been very fast learners (look at how fast they figured out how Minecraft works in the original vs. Minecraft), so this is actually well within their abilities.
• If they were so hungry throughout "The Chef", why didn't the stick figures just make extras of what they were trading so they could eat some and still have enough to trade? Blue could have easily made more flour and syrup for more pancakes, and there was still plenty of tomato sauce left in the cauldron for more pizzas.
• In "The King", why does King have all those knives to throw at the Minecraft poster? Being the loving father he was he couldn't have those knives around his child, and its not like he was walking home and bought some knives just to throw at a poster.
  • Those knives are from the kitchen which he uses for cooking meals and it's not uncommon to have a few knives there.

Animator vs. Animation VI

• Since the Mercenaries are shown just waiting for the Chosen One to return after he flees to seek aid from the Second Coming despite seeing where the Chosen One was going, we can presume that their bikes can't fly that high or enter computers. Fair enough, but then why didn't the Chosen One just ask the Stick Gang if he could hide out there for a while, or help him flee to a Minecraft world, if they wouldn't be able to chase him there?
  • To be clear, the mercenaries never knew that The Chosen One went high into the sky and into Alan's computer. He obscured their view from using a giant iceberg as well as a giant storm so they'd have no idea where Chosen One went to. As to why TCO didn't hide, he clearly wasn't thinking straight. He immediately assumed that the Second Coming was as naturally capable of superpowers as he was, thinking they were both capable of taking on the mercenaries only knowing that TSC was able to defeat The Dark Lord. There's also the possibility that the Chosen One was on an important mission but his progress was stopped by the organization so he needed to deal with the mercenaries immediately which also might explain why TCO took The Second Coming without any foresight.
  • Maybe The Chosen One didn't want to spend more time in Alan's PC than he had to because he has stained memories from being tortured by him for years.
  • It's also possible they knew he would leave eventually and decided to wait him out.

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