Nightmare Fuel / Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

As light-hearted and fun as this show can be, some surprisingly dark moments pop up throughout the series.

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General

• The state of the world itself. Humanity has mostly been hiding out in underground bunkers for around 200 years, because the Mutes on the surface usually want to kill them all. Worse, it's made clear as early as the first episode that the Mutes know about the burrows and often go looking for them, treating it as a kind of jackpot to find so many humans clustered in one place to kill or eat.
• Overall, the surface is a Death World between the Kaiju-like Mega-Mutes and mutated plants like Death Ivy that kills on contact. And as Benson and Wolf's appearances show, there are humans who have been living up there for just as long as in the burrows, barely surviving in that nightmare world.
• The Status of being Half-Mute. Sure you gain all sorts of helpful powers and enhanced strength but there's a pretty horrible catch. Half-Mutes like Kipo, Song, and later Emilia risk completely losing their personality to the Mute Beast inside them once their powers develop, which will overtake them and keep them as Mute Beasts forever if they lose an anchor which connects to their humanity. Once a Mute Beast, they are effectively mindless and uncontrollable while still having enough degrading human awareness to be trapped inside their own bodies until they die, as Song described while having spent over a decade as the Mega-Mute Monkey. Even creepier is that Song bestowed this horrible fate upon her own daughter and herself through her own experiments, which could have caused Kipo to turn into a Komodo Dragon, Monkey, or something much worse.
• Dr. Emilia in general. She's a no-nonsense Mad Scientist whose goal is to make a so-called "cure" for Mutes that will devolve them into regular animals, even willing to kill if it means getting her way.

Season 1

Episode 1 Burrow Girl

• Kipo nearly dies in the first episode, narrowly getting caught in a mute spider's web large enough to house a giant spider capable of eating her. Only Wolf intervening out of pity kept Kipo alive.
• Kipo almost walks into a bush of Death Ivy. As its name implies touching it will instantly kill you. Some mute corpses can be visibly seen in the bushes, signifying how close Kipo was to killing herself simply by not watching where she steps.

Episode 2 Explosion Berries

• While it's played for comedy, Benson goes searching for supplies in a truck smashed on top of a tower which gets casually knocked off said tower by a passing Mega-Mute. Only Benson's quick acrobatic skills stop him from dying before he ever met the girls.
• The Mod Frogs spell it out for Kipo: they or Scarlemagne (who they plan on selling her to) will kill everyone from her burrow.

Episode 6 Ratland

• The mind controlled state of the humans enslaved by Scarlemagne. Not only are they forced to perform for his amusement but they are at least somewhat aware of what is happening to them. Every human we see has a look of stress and terror combined with the smiles forced onto their faces. They are also clearly exhausted after Scarlemagne stops them from dancing. It is downright chilling to see.

Episode 9 Mute Eat Mute World

• We get to know where the wolf pelt that Wolf is wearing comes from. Compare the ears and shudder at every one of the implications.
  • Radford Sechrist revealed that the wolf pelt Wolf wears is the alpha mother's skin, whom she'd killed. Wolf is essentially constantly wearing the skin of her adopted mother, something that other Wolves point out in disgust when they see her.
• At the end of the episode, one Scarlemagne’s human slaves is seen with a stream of tears on his face while having an exaggerated smile, which shows just how uncomfortable he is being forced to obey this maniacal monkey.

Season 2

Episode 5- 6 Fun Gus

• Imagine a temperamental Enfant Terrible; now imagine its body covering the surface of a large radius, and it can attack at different location via creating a variety of Combat Tentacles and will keep you trapped forever till you die. That's what Kipo and her friends faced with Fun Gus.
• The fact that there are a few mute skeletons seen in the Science Burrow strongly implies Fun Gus either tore his former friends apart or let them suffocate in his mass.

Episode 9 All that Glitters

• Scarlamagne putting three Mod Frogs into molten gold for bothering Kipo. AS A GIFT FOR KIPO.
  • Worse still, he plans to do this to anyone who OPPOSES his new world order.
  • He than asks Kipo to show her allegiance to him by GILDING HER OWN FATHER. Even though Lio had already apologized to Scarlemagne beforehand, he still wants Lio out of his life.
  • Scarlamagne thinks the only way to show dedicated love for one person is to murder another, showing he's completely unhinged, and seems genuinely surprised Kipo doesn't find the request reasonable.

Season 3

Episode 2 Code Word Milkshake

• The way how Emilia manages to manipulate everyone from Kipo's burrow against her and her friends and nearly has Kipo and her friends trapped on the ship.

Episode 3 A Wolf in Wolf's Clothing

• When Wolf reluctantly agrees to help Margot save her brother, she tells her ex-sister that if she is being led into a trap, she will wear her skin next. Keep in mind Wolf was able to kill Margot’s mother when she was just a little girl. Now that Wolf is older and has just beaten Margot in a fight, Margot could very well be killed by her former sister with no struggle.
• Wolf, Benson and Dave getting captured by Emilia.

Episode 4 Don't You Forget a Meow Me

• When Kipo practices defeating Emilia in different situations with Mulholland's, she continues to fail in each simulation, either getting shot by one of Emilia's cure darts or seeing her friends blow up from a nectar bomb. While it's only happening in Kipo's mind, she sounds so defeated by the end.
• Yumyan getting cured is this because as we see later on, once a mute is cured, there is no way to bring them back.

Episode 5 Song Re Mix

• A flashback reveals Emilia telling Mega Monkey Song who is paralyzed by the collar that she has found Kipo and she is sending Song to kill her. Song tries to crush Emilia before Emilia presses a button, releasing the pheromones and rendering Song docile. The reminder that Song spent 13 years as a titanic monster with no free will is difficult to watch.
  • Made worse by Emilia's words to Song before she sends her to attack Kipo's burrow, knowing what happened later.
    Emilia: It must be so tough for you, knowing your daughter is growing up without you. But sadly, she's a monster. Go and put her out of her misery.

Episode 8 Hidden Treasures

• Kipo getting buried in an avalanche of giant acorns after digging out the float the Treasure Squirrels stole and hid. Thankfully she wasn't too badly hurt, but Hugo and Wolf were pretty worried for her there.

Episode 9 Prahmises

• The Reveal that Emilia murdered her own brother and made everyone believe that he was killed by Mutes.
  Liam: What if everything we've been taught is wrong? I'm gonna show people what Mutes are really like! This will change everything!
  Song: (voiceover) Emilia knew that if Liam made it back to the Burrow, it would undo everything she and her father had worked for.
  (Emilia aims her crossbow at Liam, who gasps in shock)
  Emilia: I can't let you do that.

Episode 10 Age of the Wonderbeasts

• After her final attempt to cure the Mutes fails, Emilia injects the DNA of a Mega-Mute into her bloodstream causing her to transform into a gigantic, four-armed, two-headed, eight-eyed Mega-Mute. It's also implied that Emilia's made mistakes in her work because rather than turn into a completely animal form like Kipo and Song, Mega-Emilia still has human arms, legs, and heads.
  • Made worse by the fact that she begins to lose herself in her mindscape when fighting Kipo because she doesn't have the anchor Kipo has to turn back. Pictured as her being dragged underwater and falling endlessly deeper, while the Mega-Mute version of her is perpetually paralyzed with fear and confusion over its own existence and the strange world it inhabits.
• Emilia repeatedly punching Kipo in her Mega Mute form. It gets so bad that Kipo is eventually too weak to fight back, and she loses consciousness after stopping Emilia from punching a fatal blow to her friends and family.
• Emilia trying to kill Kipo when Kipo attempts to offer her hand in friendship. With a sharp shard of broken glass, no less.
  • Which leads Emilia getting trapped by Fun Gus. Trapped for the rest of her life with a child who won't stop playing with her until she 'breaks'.
    • Made worse when Rad Sechrist revealed on his Twitter that they considered a scene where Fun Gus drags Emilia back to her old bedroom recognizing photos of her and her brother. Fun Gus would then take the shape of Liam, as he wanted a "forever sister", forcing Emilia to confront her past every day.

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