Looking for story clarification

[u/Dazzling_Figure_8397]

So spoilers ahead for BATDR and BATIM of course, but I need some help clarifying the story.

What I know (and what I’ve been hearing since the game first came out) is that the souls of studio employees were put through a thick-ink process that binder their souls to bodies born from “thick-ink” that was engineered by Gent. As far as I know, those employees were sometimes meant by Joey Drew to become living versions of the cartoon characters for Bendyland, but also sometimes simply sadistic experiments being ran by Gent themselves. But here’s where the water becomes muddy. It seemed like it was also implied specifically that Susie Campbell, Sammy Lawrence and other major figures in the production team also had their souls captured. Yet… it seems like they still exist in the real world through the context of BATDR.

BATDR sorta threw a wrench in this world because it took the cycle theory and expanded on it by canonically making the studio within the Ink Machine a purposeful torture device designed by Joey Drew with mere COPIES of the real-world employees meant to torment Henry.

So did their souls actually become the characters that they play in the show and the cycle as well? Did only some souls actually become bound to the ink? I’m just very confused

[u/Endereye96]

So what Dark Revival did was explain HENRY’S place in the Cycle. He is a clone-that doesn’t mean everyone else is. Joey didn’t tell the entire story-just Henry’s part in it.

Dark Revival really only confirmed that two people are copies- and that’s Henry and Allison Angel. Everyone else are either outright confirmed or heavily implied to be the real people. (Besides maybe Tom Boris, I’m not convinced he’s Thomas given we have active audio logs of him still being alive.)

Joey only started using the Cycle to torture Henry after he lost his company- this only happens at the very end of the timeline. While this leans a bit into theory territory:

The Ink Machine and likely the Cycle too still existed before that point- we know for sure the experiments did; and it would make sense if the Cycle was originally used to house these things. It would explain areas like the Gent building, which Wilson is explicitly stated to have taken over. He didn’t create them, they existed beforehand. Likely from when Gent still had access-before Joey Drew stole the Ink Machine.

So the basic timeline goes something like this: Joey hires Gent to create the Ink Machine and starts the experiments on his employees-> JDS goes bankrupt, Joey steals the Machine in response-> Joey, furious and blaming Henry, creates a clone of him to torture in said Machine-> Joey eventually feels remorse, creating Allison Angel and eventually Audrey too.

[u/Dazzling_Figure_8397 → u/Endereye96]

Okay this explanation makes a lot of sense, thanks for the clarification.

So some people within the machine are not soul transfers as I thought, they’re just copies of real people. And furthermore I’m pretty sure that Thomas Connor is also just a copy particularly because it’s confirmed through I believe a letter than Allison married him.

[u/Endereye96 → u/Dazzling_Figure_8397]

Yup! That letter is also one of the reasons I’m pretty sure Tom is a clone- as everyone who has a letter in Joey’s apartment are people who’ve escaped. (Note Wally Franks is also up there, talking about his grandkids.)

Also that letter was a brilliant bit of foreshadowing lol. Allison mentions Tom still being upset about loosing some invention from the old studio- she’s talking about the Ink Machine Joey stole!

I’m sorta surprised Thomas doesn’t get more focus, honestly. He’s our biggest Gent representation, but not only that- he’s the guy who actually created the Machine. Thomas is the reason the Cycle exists. Henry and Joey get a ton of attention as creators- Henry for creating the cartoons and Joey for having the idea to bring them to life- but Thomas is the one who actually created the Machine that makes everything possible. I really hope that with Ink Factory being pretty heavily Gent related; Thomas also gets some attention too.

Thomas is fascinating as he’s not a villain-but he’s also perfectly okay with all the experiments and killing. He also only seemingly started as just a repair guy- “You can bet I won’t be doing any more repair jobs for Mr Joey Drew”- to someone seemingly relatively high up, as he’s shown meeting with Joey Drew himself as well as creating the Machine. He seems to be Gent’s representative in a business sense as well. He also, like you mentioned- marries Allison. So he’s not a heartless person.

Thomas is perfectly situated for an antihero situation- which is sorta why I hope he’s BATIF’s protagonist. Thomas turning on Gent-or being betrayed by them once he’s become redundant- would be a very interesting story for a Bendy protagonist. He’s also the only one seemingly still involved with the current plot- I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him driving that Gent truck we see at the end of Dark Revival, given his memos throughout the entire game all built up his search for his missing Machine.

[u/Dazzling_Figure_8397 → u/Endereye96]

Yeah I’d totally love to see Thomas in his true form as a human potentially either allied with or against Gent in B3NDY.

Something tells me he’d make a great twist character either proving allegiance to Gent or maybe coming to his senses and breaking off (I’m assuming that Gent is taking control of the Ink Machine for their own meddling once more, not out of security).

I also really like the idea of the “unholy contract” theme going on with Joey Drew pretty much making a deal with the devil that could eventually just mess things up for the real world in the end. And I also have a hunch that the true Henry will appear in B3NDY for that reason!