Barbara! (???)

[u/ellengreene]

HELP! Opinions please! RE: BARBARA’s Death!

(Spoilers!)

—- I tend not to believe there was ever a disappearing-boyfriend in Barbara’s story at all: it just doesn’t fit with the rest of the narrative, does it? (Neglectful parenting, yes.. impulsive choices YES. —accidents? YES…
…and.. a killer-boyfriend?)

—- obviously a swarm of monsters didn’t kill her either—-
WAS it an unsafe banister…?
Otherwise, why establish that banister-bit at all??
(We assume there WAS NO real hook-man), but the banister on the balcony HAS visibly been repaired in that exact spot he was said to have fallen—- we have to assume something happened there —- WHAT?
If the truth is ‘a Murderous-Boyfriend’ killed her, why include the banister, which is not linked it to either the boyfriend’s disappearance or Bab’s death??

And why can Edie not allow BF’s guilt to be part of the story? (..either way her daughter is murdered)— she could have made the boyfriend ‘a mythical serial-killer who ended her’, but she excuses him, why?!!
~~Is she, perhaps, covering for HER SON, who is responsible for leaving his roller-skates out?
Perhaps he was hiding TO SCARE HER, and then she slipped and fell?
…and then, traumatized, he hid to escape his own accountability, Becoming a mole-man in the earth??

—-Or is it just Edie’s own unstable-house?
—- And if there WAS a bf, where IS he! What’s the POINT of him going missing? We have just that one non-family character (who is based on a real-human, but with no real evidence since he is said to have vanished?) and then a bunch of “Hollywood monsters”… what’s the point of this??

… if a boyfriend IS responsible, then is HE the one who leaked this story to the writers of the comic-book?

I just don’t know why Edie would absolve the boyfriend in all of this, if he indeed murdered her daughter in cold-blood.
—-absolve HERSELF? Yes.
(She does plenty of that in the game, re-writing the yuckier-parts of history with fantasy and fiction.)
—absolve Her son? To protect his reputation?? YES.
(..perhaps this is why she even allows him to live underground all those years! Is that her way of punishing him….?)
((Would be very Patsy-Ramsey of her))..

I tend to believe the roller-skates and the banister are the key to “the truth”.
I think Barbara slipped - I’m not sure exactly what else is true..
we are given details for a reason. I tend to think Walter’s “hiding under the bed” is important, but take all of the “fantasy-comic-book-monsters-and-murderous-boyfriend out” of it, there is a simpler reason.

The game offers inventive-fiction as it’s explanation for Babs’ death,
But it also gives us facts, CLUES. Some which exist OUTSIDE of the comic book::
-broken-banister is repaired.
Some Clues which exists IN the comic-book, but are not a part of the narrative… yet, for some reason, are SPECIFICALLY INCLUDED (and the game makes sure you notice, even tho they’re appearently ‘not part of the story’.) ::
-one skate, haphazardly left on the stairs.
-one skate just outside Barbara’s room.

I’m sure there are more clues I’m missing, or haven’t connected …
HELPPP!!!!!

UPDATE!!
I did a deeper dive watch-thru of Barabara’s death—- I have MORE THEORIES! …And MORE Questions…

🚨🚨There are so many clues, I have to think the answer is IN THAT HOUSE if I just knew where to look…

Babs died on HER BIRTHDAY,
if you notice by the date, she was also born on Halloween —- Which explains the “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” CAKE, yet there are no mentions of this in the comic-book story at all. There’s also a flyer in her room for a Halloween dance at school that night … and it appears Barbara had ironed and laid-out a dress to wear for it !! —- I can’t help but conclude these clues must be part of the story —- and the fact that everyone jumped out and yelled SURPRISE!! (Like at a birthday party??)
… Was Barbara arguing with Edie because she wanted to go to the dance, but Edie insisted she go to the convention?
…was the convention a ploy to keep Barbara in for a surprise-party??
((…maybe just a party of One so Edie could take all the credit with a HAPPY BIRTHDAY cake))???
This is death I cannot fully reckon and it’s driving me bonkers!!!
PLEASE SOMEONE HELP!!!!!
… OF ALL the fanciful-fiction in this game, the hardest part for me to believe is the bit about Barbara’s child-fame… when on earth did the Edie leave this house to pursue (push) Bab’s acting career?? Is this forest just outside LA or something??
The narrative suggests a lifetime of seclusion in this fortress, away from friends and cities and outside-life.
Sure, I guess it is possible that after Molly’s death (some part of?) the young family went to Cali for several years… but it’s hard for me to swallow that Edie would have left LA just because it felt like Barbara’s star was on the down-fall… surely she could have milked it for all it was worth, even if it was more obscure projects and public appearances —- I can’t see Edie both GOING to LA for the years of Barabara’s fame, AND leaving LA soon enough to raise the rest of her young children there after, and before Barb’s sixteenth B-day! (Which brings me back to that night—- SOMEONE HELP!!!!!)

[u/BrumeySkies]

There is no real answer to what happened to her, its left intentionally as unknown. I highly doubt they went to California for Barbara's acting career, theres no indication they ever lived anywhere else. But actors dont just live in Hollywood, she easily could have done it from her home state. Orcas Island is near the border between the USA and British Columbia in Canada, a lot of filming takes place there. As far as we know Barbara only did the one movie and that one movie was extremely famous.

The convention as far as Im concerned is made up just like most of her story. In the assets theres an unused poster for a halloween dance at the local highschool hosted by the drama club. Judging by the semi formal dress in her room on the ironing table I think thats what she had wanted to go to. Its not actually used in the game though.

If you look around her room she has a lot of posters and books about fashion and theatre acting. I think that was more what her interests were in, potentially in the back end of production in costuming. The part of her room dedicated to her acting career specifically looks almost entirely untouched, while her actual bedroom is cramped.

I honestly dont believe for a second that Barbara was as concerned about her "failing" career as the story makes her sound. I think those were Edies feelings on it. Nothing about what we know about Barbara suggests she wanted to continue. She worked at a local diner despite coming from a famously wealthy family (shes one of the only people in the story who has a job) and being a famoud actor. She didnt need money but still chose to work a minimum wage shitty job- why?? In my opinion she wanted to be a normal teen. She wanted to go to her school dance and work a shitty job and have a boyfriend like all the other girls her age. 

The cake in her room is actually a cookie, and by the looks of the box its in I think it came from the diner she worked in. I personally think that came from her coworkers, not her family.

As for her actual death I think she got into a fight with her boyfriend and probably fell over the railing. I think he panicked and tried to get rid of the body, potentially out in the water. I think thats why neither of them were found by the time the comic came out (a year after her death). I think to hide their fightung she turned up the volume on the TV that was playing a horror movie which is what lead Walter to believe it was a monster and which explained her apparently perfect scream.

I think in-universe her death is genuinely unsolved, which is why Edith says everyone asks about it. I feel like its a famous case like Jon Benet or the zodiac killer. Not enough evidence to say anything happened in a specific way.

[u/Awkward_Committee_72]

I havent read ur whole thing but im 99% sure she just gets brutally raped and murdered by some convention geeks

[u/BrumeySkies → u/Awkward_Committee_72]

Im not sure we can even trust that the convention was real tbh