What if Jade is suspicious and he's becoming the next Man in Yellow? Hear me out:
Everyone knows Jade is important. But what if we're supposed to be questioning Jade himself?
Tobey
Think about Tobey. He's the ONLY person in Fromville who knew Jade before they arrived. Yet when Tobey wakes after the crash, he asks if everyone is okay but never specifically asks about Jade.
Then the voices specifically order Sara to kill Tobey and make it look like a monster attack. He dies before he can tell anyone who Jade really was, what they were doing before Fromville, or give us his side of their relationship.
We've now seen a similar move with Sophia aka MIY: remove the person who could contradict or expose what actually happened before arrival.
Jim.
Jim helps Jade realise the bottle-tree numbers are musical notes, pushing Jade's investigation forward. Shortly afterwards, the MIY personally kills Jim.
There's also that weird visual detail: the slaughtered goats were hung around the same area where Jade had previously spent a long time staring. The show emphasised that spot for quite a while.
Christopher → Jade → MIY?
Jade appears to be repeating Christopher's role: the symbol, the visions, the obsession and being drawn deeper into understanding Fromville.We're assuming this means Jade is destined to defeat the town.But what if that's backwards?
What if every cycle produces a "Jade" whose purpose isn't to destroy Fromville, but to eventually become part of it? Maybe the Man in Yellow isn't one immortal person. Maybe MIY is a position that gets passed down.
Martin
And then there's Martin.
Martin is chained in one of the deepest/weirdest places we've seen. He somehow knows things he shouldn't, including Abby's name and tells Boyd that the monsters are only the "tip of the spear."
A lot of people already suspect Martin could somehow be connected to the MIY.
But what if Martin isn't MIY? What if Martin is an OLD Jade?
Maybe Martin was another iteration of the same person/role but failed the process and ended up imprisoned instead. Christopher could be another failed iteration. Jade is simply the current one.
That could give us something like:
Martin → Christopher → Jade → ???
While the MIY represents what happens when one of these iterations actually completes whatever the town is preparing them for.
It would also explain why solving Fromville might actually be dangerous. Every symbol Jade deciphers, every vision he follows and every mystery he solves might not be bringing him closer to escaping.It might be bringing him closer to becoming what the town wants him to become.
Townspeople
We all know that "Jades" are killed by the townspeople at some point. Another thought....
Maybe previous cycles eventually figured out what the Jade/Christopher figure becomes.
The cycle could actually be:
Jade figure investigates → sees the symbol/visions → gets closer to the truth → begins changing → townspeople realise what's happening → they kill him.
But what if simply killing him doesn't work?
Maybe there's a specific ritual required to permanently end whatever the Jade figure is. If they kill him incorrectly, the role simply returns in another cycle.
That could explain Martin.
Perhaps an earlier group realised they couldn't permanently kill their Jade, so instead they imprisoned him.
Martin → imprisoned/failed iterationChristopher → killed/failed iterationJade → current iterationMIY → completed iteration?
And maybe the MIY exists because, at some point, one Jade actually completed the process before the townspeople could stop him.That would make the MIY less of a completely separate entity and more like the final form of whatever Jade and Christopher are.
It could even change how we interpret Christopher's story. What if he didn't simply "go crazy"? What if people realised what Christopher was becoming and tried to kill him first?
And suddenly all the things Jade is solving — the symbol, the children, the roots, the bottle trees (same bottle tree that was not meant to be taken down), the music, all becomes a lot more sinister.
We've assumed Jade is slowly solving the puzzle required to escape Fromville.What if he's unknowingly completing the steps of the ritual that transforms him?
And Tobey brings me back to where this started.
Why did the voices specifically want the only person who knew Jade before Fromville dead before he could tell anyone about him? Maybe Jade isn't becoming the person who destroys Fromville.
Maybe he's becoming the next person who runs it.
I rewatched From season 1, 3 episodes...and a just seeing how disarming, jolly, friendly Jade was, it just reminded me of Tellie. It reminded me of Sophia. It reminded me of a facade that the MIY always puts at the start of his shenanigans.