The Higher Powers are actually US.
Word of God said that if it weren't for the praise, the series would've stopped at Madness Combat 2: Redeemer. Meta: Krinkels hates smokers more than anything else.
If the swift demise of any smoking characternote is of any indication. Everyone's hands are bound to their bodies by quantum/sub-nuclear interactions.
Just look at what happens in An Experiment when the poor guy's hands are forcibly separated from him by that dumbwaiter. Not even the Improbability Drive can cause such Reality-Breaking Paradox. Jebus has always fought to keep peace.
In the very first Madness episode, he shows up after Hank has killed a few dozen people, clearly trying to kill Hank and prevent further violence. After that he works for the Sheriff, apparently as a law enforcer or something. Once the Auditor started running the show, Jebus quickly turned to fighting the L33t Crew, presumably because the Auditor kept the violence going for his own amusement, which Jebus wouldn't allow.Jebus is the real good guy. He's the only one who wants all the madness to stop.
Did you ever see Tricky actively harming/going after anyone other than Hank or Jebus? I didn'tnote . Not only that. In ep. 6 Tricky casually buys a hot dog. He doesn't steal it or threaten the vendor guy in any way. Hell, in ep. 4 he even throws a disco party for regular A.A.H.W. mooks. Considering all this Tricky doesn't seem to be really that bad. He may be a raving lunatic but that's the result of Hank sending him over the edge.- An Incident episode has him interupt a birthday party by killing everyone. As far as canon episodes go, yeah he's mostly focused on Hank. From episode 5 onward, his life revolves around torturing, killing and reviving Hank or anyone with a comparable strenght (like Jebus or Sanford). It wouldn't be fun for him to do the same to random civilians, so he wasn't aggressive to the hotdog vendor.
- He's actually fairly reasonable in Project Nexus. You never even fight him directly, he either tosses you in his knockoff Slaughter Time or immediately decides against it, the latter because he encounters Sanford and Deimos, two people he doesn't really care to fight. He's actually rather helpful to the team, Murder Time not withstanding.
Sanford And Deimos are the ones who keep reviving Hank between episodes.
In their spotlight episodes, Sanford and Deimos fix one another's wounds the way Hank's are bandaged. In Aggregation they go out of their way to revive Hank with new powers.They probably need Hank's remarkable willpower for whatever they're planning.- Later, it's revealed that Doc/2BDamned is the one that resurrects Hank. It's just that Deimos and Sanford are employed by him.
After losing his jaw in the purgatory Deimos got his mouth sealed shut so he can never smoke again.
Which explains his urge to rip magnified denizens of Hell apart with bare hands. Madness Combat takes place in The Matrix or a similar universe.
The Auditor, Tricky and Saviour are all either rogue agents or similar programs, while Hank, Sanford and Deimos are Redpills or the Madness Combat equivalent.- The Higher Powers continue to revive the characters for unknown reasons (Lulz?).
- The Auditor wishes to continue the Madness and violence, the same as the Higher Powers and is possibly working for them.
- Saviour/Jebus wishes a peaceful return to normality.
- Tricky/Clown is a rogue program who has no real goals.
- Hank just kills things. He seems to have a rivalry with the normality seeking Saviour and the Madness seeking Auditor.
- Deimos and Sanford are pursuing an unknown agenda, although they seem to have been fighting the Auditor mostly.
Madness and Soul Eater share the same universe
Okay, the only thing I've got is that the sun in both world's is creepy (and now dead), insanity is taking hold EVERYWHERE, they're both set (mostly) (somewhere) in Nevada, and Tricky and Auditor look like Kishins. The characters represent various mental conditions or symptoms of mental illness and instability.
- Hank is pure murderous psychopathy. He has no discernable motive besides killing as many people as possible, while specifically fixating on the Sheriff, Jebus, and Tricky.
- Jebus represents religious delusions. Taking the above WMG regarding Jebus being the good guy into account, I present the alternate theory; Jebus thinks he is the good guy, doing God's will, but this is mostly the construct of his own mind.
- Tricky is absolute mania. Where as Hank is cold murder, Tricky is all that is Ax-Crazy.
- The Auditor is the god complex. Where as Jebus believes himself an agent of God's Will, the Auditor believes himself to be the god figure of this world, and that it exists for his own amusement.
- Deimos and Sanford are harder to place, but perhaps they represent obsession. Assuming the WMG about them being the ones who bring Hank back to be true, they could be obsessed with him to the point of having a compulsive need to see him complete his mission.
The Auditor...
...is an Auditor of Reality, from Discworld. Albeit one that somehow managed to acquire individuality without being destroyed.- Jossed: Krinkels has stated that he's called The Auditor because he thinks it's a cool-sounding word. His name has no significant meaning.
- Possibly un-jossed? Krinkels later said that the Employers' names directly correlate to their purpose.
- : Zig-Zagged somewhat: The Auditor's main job is to make sure Nevada is running "like it's aught to", but he doesn't possess the AOR's lack of creativity, and is a member of 3 other equally god-like beings.
The entire series...
...is somehow related to the hotdog vendor. First, the normal blood sort of looks like ketchup. Then, the ATP-Agents have blood that looks like mustard. The hotdog vendor is shown in multiple episodes and never dies, which is rare for anyone in this series.- Plus? There are posters everywhere assuring you that hot dogs are food. Seems a bit suspicious, eh?
- Tricky also rather calmly orders a hot dog from the vendor once. Considering his reality changing powers, it's not unreasonable to assume he has something to do with it.
Dr Hoffnar (from Project: Nexus) is the Auditor
An update to Project: Nexus it shows not only the origin of the titular project but of Jebus. In the second mission you are tasked with rescuing a Dr Hoffnar, which perhaps another update shows that he becomes the Auditor.- Jossed: His file name is "Tricky 2," and he's confirmed in the sequel to become Tricky after the death of Project Nexus. Plus, Krinkles even stated that at no point in time was the Auditor a mortal Nevadean, and was always an Employer.
The whole series takes place in a computer/machine.
Not so much a Matrix scenario (though Krinkels has drawn some pretty obvious references to The Matrix), maybe more like TRON: Nevada is a hard drive, and those inhabiting it are programs and whatnot. The Auditor and antagonists of the like are viruses deteriorating the hard drive, which the protagonists - the anti-virus programs - are trying to stop, but there's all this mess because everything is infected and corrupted and running improperly. Madness Combat 1 demonstrated a situation where all was normal and working, with Hank fighting off some malware in the 'park'. Then in Avenger, the activation of the Improbability Drive was something akin to the opening of a Trojan horse file and all hell broke loose with the computer glitching and going haywire. This explains the ability of characters to resurrect in the early series. The random flashing texts are also part of this, since they relay what is actually going on with the system (e.g. "KEYSTONE FRAGMENT COMPROMISED").- Considering that one of the two highest powers is called The Machine...
The Sheriff and the Hotdog Vendor are the same person.
I got this theory from the Madness Wiki, BTW. Here goes:The hotdog man doesn't appear troubled by Tricky, but runs in far from Hank. When Jebus kills his two customers, he lets the hotdog man live, implying they might know each other. After being killed, the Auditor could have revived him easily, and there wasn't much of a reason not to. If the Auditor did revive him, he'd need a job, as he obviously couldn't go back to being sherrif. He has quite alot of advisement for a simple hotdog salesmen. Deimos and Jebus will return/be revived/get resurrected in a later episode after 10
Even though it's unlikely, and that we're not sure whether there will be a Madness Combat 11, the fans love both of them and they'll return to aid Hank and Sanford, thus forming a team to take down whatever new evil is going on.- Confirmed by the "Deimos Adventure" mini-series where Deimos is resurrected.
"Stats" on the Magnification Chamber are not static values, but coefficients
While Krinkels might have said that MAG!Hank is retarded, we see that is clearly not the case. If anything, he's even smarter than he was before, being able to think tactically and showing even better reflexes than he had before. The values that Deimos put on his Mag chamber might mean rather than an intelligence of 3, his intelligence was multiplied by 3. Post-Magnification Chamber Hank was Too Dumb to Fool
While there is comparatively little to suggest that he was arrogant before, it's nevertheless apparent that Hank started fighting smarter AFTER being put in the tank and supposedly had his intelligence reduced. Obviously, the chamber stripped away any arrogance, distraction, self-doubt, fears or other miscellaneous thoughts Hank had, leaving behind a monster with the low cunning common to wolves and similar smart predators. Hank is a Death Seeker
After Tricky revives him in Consternation, he yells "Knock it off!". Madness Combat takes place in a dystopian future, where entire countries are ruled by sheriffs, clowns, and religious nuts. Hank, Sanford, and Deimos are part of a resistance group trying to take back their freedom.
First off, this would explain why Hank wanted to murder the Sheriff, and why Sanford and Deimos are trying to help him out. Also explains why Jebus and the Clown were trying to kill Hank. After he was killed by Jebus and the Clown, he was not seeking revenge. He was just trying to take back his freedom. After the Clown was absorbed by the Auditor, Slenderman was created.
The Auditor is pure evil, and the Clown is pure distortion. Combine those two elements together and you get the Slenderman.- Corollary: The monster created became the thing that murdered Jebus is the non-canon Incident: 111a.
- Jossed but this monster is a rejected design for a Auditor/Tricky fusion.
- Jossed.
Dr. Hoffnar WILL become Tricky.
According to the Madness Combat wiki, there is a huge possibility Hoffnar will become Tricky, as "Hoffnar" means Jester or Clown in German. This would also explain how Tricky has a rivalry with Jebus.- Confirmed with Project Nexus 2, where Hoffnar descended into madness thanks to Phobos screwing with Hoffnar's own experiment results, and became Tricky very quickly.
The A.A.H.W. is running out of troops.
In Inundation, Jebus entered a room full of tubes with people inside them, and he proceeded to destroy the control panel, most likely shutting down the whole thing. We can conclude this is an important place for the A.A.H.W., seeing how a MAG agent messages the Auditor about it. Taking all things into consideration, including that the Auditor resides in a nearby facility, it seems pretty likely that room was where the A.A.H.W. modifies their agents into L33Ts or ATPs. There is also the OBSV agents, but the last remaining factory was shut down by Deimos and Sanford in 7.5.Add to that the fact that even then, there's still got to be a large amount of agents that had been deployed before the deactivation of the factory, and you get that the A.A.H.W. may be running on a limited bodycount this time around...
The series will end at MC12.
By then, MAG Hank and Sanford would have killed whatever antagonist may be around, and destroyed all the Improbablity Drives, thus completing the 'normality restoration'. After all, the series probably can't really go much further after Abrogation's events. Tricky is the dancing man in MC1.
If the Project Nexus continuity is non-canon, and combined with the facts that Hank was resurrected twice - even before the Improbability Drive was enabled in Avengernote - and that Tricky was shown dancing in Apotheosis, this could very well be possible.- Though the main campaign events of Project Nexus are non-canon, the background events are. MC episode 9.5 even advertises the viewer to "explore the lore" in Project Nexus 2, suggesting that Tricky really is Hoffnar.
The series shares very dark and loose references to Spider-Man.
Hank is an eventually-costumed One-Man Army who takes down Mooks in one fell swoop, like Spidey himself can do - but Hank lacks the wit, powers and especially the Thou Shalt Not Kill code. Tricky seems to resemble Green Goblin the most, as he has a Green and Mean coloration, a deep fascination with his nemesis note and has little to no morals. Jebus is most like Venom, as he is against the protagonist, but has some type of morals of his own. The Auditor resembles both Doctor Octopus and Carnage, since he is the mastermind behind the chaos like Doc Ock is in most storylines, but is also a big fan of madness like Carnage - this aided by his coloration. The Auditor is the embodiment of The Sheriff.
After The Sheriff was Killed Off for Real, he turned into The Auditor. This makes sense, considering his last appearance was right before the episode of the same name. This might explain the series' transition from Grey-and-Gray Morality to Black-and-Gray Morality; in this case, the Sheriff suffering defeat at the hands of Hank and releasing The Auditor into the Madness universe. The Improbability Drive may or may not have something to do with this.- That could also be why the AAHW was formed; the Sheriff is still in charge as the Auditor, and he is pissed with Hank. His cowardice as the Sheriff could also just be him Obfuscating Stupidity.
- Jossed: While this is a very popular and understandable fan theory, Krinkels has stated that the Sheriff will not turn out to be the Auditor.
Deimos has to step up to stop the Auditor now.
With all the similarities between the realms from Expurgation and the Dedmos series, it's not out of the realm of possibility.- Seemingly hinted at by this tweet
from Krinkels.
The Auditor will end up defeating himself.
It's become clear that the Auditor's main goal is, seemingly for no real reason, to spread madness around with the Improbability Drives. He may not bear the power to keep the insanity in check, and as a result he may be destroyed in the chaos, stopping the madness shortly after it even starts.- Judging from his behavior in the series and emails from Project Nexus, his main goal is more likely to just take over Nevada and rule it in whichever way he sees fit, most likely as a means to kill Hank however many times it takes to keep him dead - it is the Agency Against Hank Wimbleton, after all. The Improbability Drives seem like just a means to that end, as they are primarily used to upgrade his troops and facilitate other minor goals, like using flying buildings to transport personnel en masse.
Deimos Adventure started when his corpse got engulfed off-screen by the black goop at the start of Expurgation.
Which is why he is in a similar place as Hank and Sanford, but since Tricky is too busy with them (and probably don't even know Deimos is here), Deimos is in what hell looks like when it's not invaded by Tricky.- Jossed as seen in DedmosRebuilt.fla. Plus Deimos Adventures and Expugation canonically are set in different places.
Deimos has Height Angst.
It's been confirmed that Deimos is shorter than Hank and Sanford, which may imply that he's short in general, then we have the Deimos Adventure series that takes place in some kind of hell that psychologically tortures Deimos by showing Sanford dying (Anamnesis.fla) and by reminding him of his own death (Powerless.fla). But the last episode has him fight some giant mooks who might be a representation of his insecurities, one poster (either from 2BDamned or from hell itself) also says "WE ALWAYS THOUGHT you were a little on the small side" which sounds like taunting. Lastly the fact that Deimos beats up all the giant Mooks on his way with ease may be a metaphor of how he managed to overcome his insecurities. After all, being short isn't too bad when you can overpower an army of people who are twice your size. Tricky became the Ax-Crazy Monster Clown he is now because he has an obsession with Hank's killing prowess.
Before becoming a zombie, Tricky was a Smug Snake personality wise, but otherwise was largely stable and is more than likely to deliver a quick, clean kill to his enemies, but being killed by Hank and then revived by the Improbability Drive did a number on his sanity from the resulting Villainous Breakdown he had and the otherworldly powers that affected his mind, and a majority of his behavior as a zombie stems from his obsession with Hank, such as how he uses a stop sign, the very thing that Hank used to kill him as a weapon. Madness Combat 9.5 will take place in the same afterlife that Deimos has been in.
The environment depicted in it from the previews on his Twitch Stream are similar, plus, the blood of the Mooks Hank fights is black, similar to Deimos's injured state and Sanford's messed up injuries in 11.- Confirmed.
Madness Combat 12 will have the Auditor as the Villain Protagonist.
[[WMG: MC 12 and beyond will be a Mêlée à Trois between the Auditor, Deimos and the denizens of Hell who got into Nevada after Deimos' resurrection.
Hank is actually a cyborg
First, it may explain why Hank has Super-Strength and is so hard to kill. Second, one of the inspirations for Hank was the Terminator, so it would make sense thematically. Third, the goggles that Hank has are really similar to the things that the Soldats have surgically drafted into their skulls. Fourth, Hank's jaw was replaced by metal after resurrecting, who says that one or more of his other body parts weren't replaced in a similar way? This takes place in the same universe as the infamous "Sonic High School" badfic
That's why Jebus is so different from the actual Jesus Christ despite impersonating him. It's because he's trying to emulate the nature of that universe's Jesus, since in the fic, Jesus was described as a "legendary warrior". Consternation Hank is trapped in a Stable Time Loop
In 9.5 pt 2, we see that at least 3 iterations of Hank are running around in Hell (Avenger Hank, as shown in the Dedmos series, as well as his Consternation and Antipathy selves.) At the very end of the episode, Antipathy Hank is revived and turned into the MAG Hank, leaving Consternation Hank stuck in Hell. considering that back in Madness 7, we never see Hank revive as his Antipathy self, but rather as his Consternation self, it's likely that Consternation Hank will be brought back to the moment of his first appearance in Madness 7, only to be killed by Jebus later on and repeat the cycle.- Given that Hank acts surprised by things like MAG Agent Torture, who he would have seen before if he were in a time loop, along with the fact that his head was split like a melon in the beginning of Consternation, it's probably safe to say that his design changed because he was being healed/regenerated.
Antipathy Hank became a Composite Character.
Since he was revived through Consternation Hank's corpse, he could very well have gained his memories of that episode through biological means. The difference between the two is that Antipathy Hank still has his violent aggression; combined with his MAGnified state, he almost stands as an even more terrifying and violent counterpart to the still human Hank down in the afterlife. 12 will focus on Consternation Hank returning to the living realm and achieving a new form.
Through some means he will find, battle and defeat his other past incarnations, prior to assimilating each one into himself. This will culminate in him somehow returning to his mortal MAG form, now drastically more powerful and intelligent now that not one or two, but seven Hanks are collectively at the wheel now. He may even just start pulling a Tricky and begin resurrecting himself on command for no other reason than just to finish killing his targets. Madness Combat happens in a specific round of Arena Mode's "Groundhog Day" Loop
All we really know about the Arena Mode loops is that the events of Arena Mode repeat, preventing the Mandatus from arriving in Nevada. Nobody said that anything outside of the Arena Mode has to repeat, though. We don't actually get any confirmation when Arena Mode happens at all, and it's shown that things can change between cycles, such as the Maker revealing themselves to the Player and Doc having new false backstories available for you. MAG Agent: Torture was a dissenter
It's shown throughout Madness Combat 7: Consternation that members of the A.A.H.W are killed if persumed a traitor by being impaled by multiple metal stakes. Torture himself has two of these same stakes lodged in his head. With it being shown that the Magnification Chamber can resurrect corpses, it can be inferred that Torture was a traitor, before being brought back as a Mag after being killed. Apotheosis Hank is in Hell too, not just Antipathy and Consternation Hanks. He also acted as foreshadowing of Antipathy Hank being separate from Consternation Hank.
In the Dedmos series, Deimos eventually saw a body hit the ground and have their head partially stuck inside. Upon a closer a look, it's a plain neveadan with some bandages wrapped around their head. The only character which looks like that is Apotheosis Hank, who died blowing up a whole club, including Jebus and Tricky. When Apotheosis Hank hit the ground in front of Deimos, it was after he fought a Retainer. Deimos also recognized Apotheosis Hank, as he went to get a closer look, but something interrupted him and hurt his head, possibly a Retainer trying to get Deimos away so he can retain Apotheosis Hank. As to explain why he lacks bandages around his torso, he might have put them under his shirt this time.As for the foreshadowing bit, it was basically showing that other Hanks do exist, thus foreshadowing that Antipathy Hank is a separate entity than the Hank after MC 6.
- Why would it be Apotheosis Hank rather than Avenger Hank? Wouldn't the latter make more sense?
- Because Apotheosis Hank was a transition point to Antipathy Hank, making it more likely. Also, Avenger Hank might have survived since he only got impaled, while Apotheosis Hank blew himself up, guaranteeing his doom.
Nevada's inhabitants are descendants of Arabs that lived there long ago
Think about it. First, let's look at their clothing and compare it to the usual male arab clothing
◊.Doesn't seem all that different, right? Think again. They're both long pieces of clothes that cover the body from the neck to the legs. Like a dress, but an extremely masculine one. And if you turn the average Nevedean's clothing into something more fitting for humans, you'll most like imagine something like an extremely simplified gray thobe.
But that's not the end of it, there's more. Look at their buildings. Short and blocky all the time. Just like typical rural Arab buildings, which just have some more detail. The Bakery too, it is given a simple name, nothing more. Arabs tend to do that, but simply add their surname, for example, Al-Wimbleton Bakery.
Religious men tend to have beards in Arabia, and what does the only religious character, Jeb have? A beard. While this may not be influenced by the fact that some believe that Muslim men must grow beards, it is worthy of note.
Then we have the most damning piece of evidence. Hank J Wimbleton himself. He somehow knows Arabic, despite Nevada apparently being the only thing Nevedeans know according to Krinkels. How can such an assumption be made? Simply check the subtitles of Madness Combat 4
◊.
That is the transliteration of "God is greater" in Arabic. Yet, there seems to be little knowledge of religion in Nevada. So it is most likely that Hank knows that phrase because he understands it, and "made up" the line, not knowing that it already existed many, many, many years ago.
This all fits in with the theme of Madness Combat, a violent fallen world. The Arabs' culture has broken down, becoming nothing more than a shadow of a shell of a shell. Reduced to constant fighting, now over nothing.
But wait, how exactly did Arabs get in Nevada? Most likely through immigration. In this timeline, many more Arabs got into Nevada, and eventually mixed into the culture of the Americans there.
Yes, this probably also does mean that Hank's father is named "Jmotherfucker" due to how middle names are usually decided among Arabs.
- The "subtitles" of Madness Combat 4 are fan-mades. Even though Krinkels tended to do "edgy internet humor" back when he created the episode, he would not add this in the youtube subtitles after posting the episode on this website years after on Newgrounds (why would Krinkels hide a line in Spanish subtitles anyway?). "Hallahu Ackbar" wasn't even a popular meme back then.
2BDamned is at least as evil as The Auditor is.
As the leader of the protagonists, he's fit to be the closest thing to a Big Good the series could have, but the fact that he goes to great lenghts to revive Hank all the time (depite him being a sociopathic killer) and the fact that he's the leader of a group called the "Status Quo" both imply he's not much of a good person, since mindless violence is part of the series' status quo. It's also notable that in "DedmosRebuilt", he sends multiple men to their deaths to bring back Deimos, one of the three strongest members of the Status Quo. Even if he probably don't intend them do die, he likely don't care. By the point of the animations, Hank long since stopped being just one guy.
During the final stage of Project Nexus, "The Rush", you're given a more detailed tour of the titular Project, mainly in its attempts to create a stable cycle of death and reincarnation. One such method showcased is the Sleepwalker cloning process, where a clone is given the life experience of a specific "template" personality provided by a buyer. Later on, you're goven a line of dialogue that implies that Hank has been dying and coming back fairly often before the gane takes place. While it may have been a standard resurrection for him thanks to Doc's tech, this likely changed with the introduction of The Retainers, entities meant to keep key S-3LFs from being retrieved by normal means, primarily Hank. As a result, Doc probably had to start using the next best thing; Sleepwalkers. He could be imprinting volunteers from his PMC With Hank's data to keep him around, but the funny consequence of this is that each death that left the Sleepwalker Hanks irrecoverable meant another Hank to retain. What we see in 9.5 is likely Doc's first time in a while he's been able to pull Hank back from the Other Side directly.The Arena Mode protagonist's later origins reflect the loop and their growing knowledge.
First, you unlock the Disquieted One and An Offering. The former makes it clear that the player character has been disturbed by the reveal, specifically fighting and killing to loosen the Machine's grasp on the world. Offering reflects that a) the player character was chosen by 2BDamned to stop the Mandatus and b) they are in a constant loop of entering the Nowhere and returning back to when Doc recovered them, not unlike undeath. At two imprints, you unlock the Massive and the Tinkerer. The Tinkerer is based around having such intricate gun knowledge that they can mod anything onto any gun, while the Massive is stated to have gotten their size from their actions (such as eating more while others were building muscle), possibly having picked up some life hacks along the way. Finally, the third imprint unlocks the Magiturge; this is just the player character weaponizing their knowledge of reality after so many loops and learning to recognize seams between Somewhere and the Nowhere.