The Boxtrolls are a metaphor for autistics.
- They're seen as monstrous or inferior by society because they're different, they have trouble with traditional means of communication, and they don't like breaking their routines. However, they're very intelligent (in a different way from most people), and mechanically inclined.
- This could be true, actually! The Boxtrolls are meant to be an allegory for basically any oppressed, misunderstood/mistreated group - particularly racial minorities, but also neuroatypicals, LGBT community, etc. This particular parallel to autistic individuals is a really strong observation!
Lord Portely-Rind was originally a a well-intentioned newcomer among the White Hats
- Given that the other White Hats appear to be a rich fop, a retired military officer (I assume) and a geriatric old man, Portley Rind may have come into the elite circles of the Tasting Room last and at a relatively young age. He also seems to be the only person trying to do actual administrative work, having to be pulled into cheesy distraction. Around the time Winnie was born, he may have still been a competant member of the elite, but the Snatcher-Trubshaw Conspiracy and the anti-boxtroll campaign seems to have, somehow, slowed civic progress considerably and cementing Portley-Rind into his peers procrastination-causing cheese obsession.
Boxtrolls are genderless.
Boxtrolls don't have males and females- rather, they reproduce asexually via budding, spores or something similar, implanting their young into empty boxes, who eventually grow to fit said box. The recent rise of the Red Hats has upset their natural reproductive cycle however, halting local Boxtroll population growth.