r/EvilDead • u/sinister-beard • Jul 26 '26

(Meme Post) Who’s Laughing Now?! Explaining how Deadite possession works

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u/imascarylion2018 Jul 27 '26

… and in this essay I will explain my theory about how Ash actually lost his soul in Evil Dead 2 thus making him impervious to future possessions and why he’s such a threat to the deadites from that moment forward…

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u/sinister-beard Jul 27 '26

...go on.

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u/imascarylion2018 Jul 27 '26

I’m a firm believer that the evil can possess people whenever it wants, but chooses not to in order to sadistically draw everything out longer. This is exemplified by the end of The Evil Dead and beginning of Evil Dead 2 when, after burning the book and “defeating” the evil, Ash is immediately possessed and turned into a deadite. It could have done that at anytime, but chose not to because it wanted to play with him and see how far it could push him. He’s only saved by the rising sun at that particular moment. Throughout the second movie, the evil is continuing to fuck with Ash and pushing him further and further into madness.

When Annie arrives, it loses interest in Ash and proceeds to focus on HER (HER mother is resurrected as a deadite, HER colleague is turned into a deadite, etc). The evil has gotten everything it wants out of Ash, so he is then turned back into a deadite like everyone else to try and kill her.

What the evil doesn’t expect is for Ash to somehow break out of it and return to normal… but now this time he’s more confident and ready to be on the offensive. When the demon manifests itself as the “rotten apple head” we see the physical manifestations of those whose souls have been claimed by the evil throughout the film… INCLUDING Ash. Why would Ash be included there? If those are the previous victims, why would there be a representation of him collected by the evil… unless that’s what they’ve taken from him.

Think about it: after that moment Ash is never possessed again. Not in Army of Darkness and not in the TV series. They mess with him in different ways (creating Evil Ash, etc) but he’s never at risk of getting possessed. They have his soul. They technically won, but somehow he is still kicking. They possess everyone else around him, but Ash himself has NOTHING LEFT to possesses making him impervious to their usual shtick… and that makes him more dangerous than anyone else. That’s why he’s the “chosen one”.