Is someone torturing the Butcher Gang?



As the recent Game Theory video pointed out - the Butcher Gang has obviously been tortured. Body parts replaced by random objects, and the “Liar” on Fisher’s belly cannot be an accident.



What’s more, they’ve been tortured in a very specific pattern: their design evokes the imagery of the “three wise monkeys” - Fisher lacks ears, Piper has no eyes, and Striker has his mouth sewn shut. They embody the proverb “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”. Whoever is torturing them seems to be punishing them for their transgressions.

But that’s not all - the hatred for the Butcher Gang goes beyond the dislike for the human souls inside them. There are strong hints that someone hates even the cartoon Butcher Gang!



Take a close look at the merchandise present around the studio - we find tons of toys, cutouts, park rides. How come none of it is related to the Butcher Gang?



The characters have been around since 1935 - at least 9 years before the studio’s closure. The description for the “Tasty Trio Trouble” refers to the cartoon as a “beloved classic”, so they were not unpopular. Surely, merchandise and Bendyland attractions based on them had to be produced at some point. What happened to it all?

The answer is obvious - it’s all been destroyed. Someone found the sight of the Butcher Gang so distasteful, they erased anything that reminded them of these characters. Even the posters weren’t safe - despite every wall being plastered in posters depicting Bendy, Alice, and Boris, there are only two posters depicting the Butcher Gang in the entire game - one on Level K, and one in the R&D area in Chapter 4.



Five chapters, dozens of areas, hundreds upon hundreds of posters - and only 2 of them depict the Butcher Gang. In comparison, Sheep Songs alone appears in 29 places in the game. This massive discrepancy is too strange to be a mere coincidence.

What is the motive for such a fierce hostility?



It’s possible that the burning hatred for these characters is driven by the hatred towards their creator.



Bendy and Boris were created by Henry, and it’s possible that Joey got the idea for Alice Angel thanks to the picture Henry sent him. But Henry had no hand in the creation of the Butcher Gang. The same goes for Joey - the notice board in the administration reveals that he took character pitches from the employees.



Another possible explanation is that someone hates the characters, because they hate anything that reminds them of the living Butcher Gang.

In that case, the source of the hatred may be coming from their seeming allegiance with the Ink Demon.

The ending screen in Chapter 3 shows them looking up at the Ink Demon. As per the code in Chapter 3, the killing of a Butcher Gang member activates Bendy’s tracker, which may imply that Bendy’s keeping tabs on them.



The Butcher Gang can often be seen working closely with the Searchers and Sammy’s cult. In Chapter 3, they attack Alice’s lair together with the Searchers. In Chapter 5, we can see several “Not Monsters” handprints in the area they’re patrolling. Killing them with the scythe prompts Sammy to spawn in his searcher form and attack us.



However, if the hatred for the Butcher Gang is merely an extension of the hatred for the Ink Demon, then how come Bendy posters and merchandise haven’t been destroyed as well? There are 2 explanations:

It could be that whoever is reponsible doesn’t consider the Ink Demon to be a worthy embodiment of the character. With the sole exception of Sammy, no one in the game ever refers to the Ink Demon as “Bendy”. Sammy seems to be on the same side as the Butcher Gang, which would put him at odds with their tormentor.

We’ve seen Bendy spawn in order to hunt us down as punishment for destroying his cutouts. It could be that any damage done to the Bendy merch risks incurring his wrath. The Butcher Gang is therefore an easier target.



Who is responsible?



Now that we’ve analysed the reasons why the Butcher Gang may be hated, let’s ask ourselves, who is subjecting them to all this suffering?



There’s a lot of people who hate them - Susie and Norman seem particularly intent on killing every Butcher Gang member they come across. However, there is yet another person, who’s strongly associated with them - the author of the “Who’s Laughing Now?” message.



The Butcher Gang’s theme is named “Who’s Laughing Now?”, yet we never find this message in any area they can be found in. This would imply that they didn’t make these messages. And yet, there is definitely a connection between them and the author of the message. Perhaps it was left by the person responsible for their grotesque appearance?



This is the same person, who sabotaged the ink machine, and may also be the one, who left the footprints in Chapter 1.



How do we know this? It’s simple - we can find 3 messages inside the workshop, and we can finds signs of 3 individuals who have been inside it:



“Dreams Come True”, which can often be found in places associated with Susie, and the dead Boris as well as the golden text imply that she’s visited the workshop in the past. “He Will Set Us Free”, which can be found in places associated with Sammy, and there’s a room inside the workshop that looks like he was there - it’s even named “Sammy’s Room” in the game’s code. And finally, the “Who’s Laughing Now?” message, which implies that a third creature was inside the workshop. Excluding the possibility of there being a fourth such creature, that message could only have been left by the one, which left behind the footprints at the end of Chapter 1.



Back in Chapter 1, they seemed determined to prevent us from turning the ink machine back on, by scaring us away with moving cutouts and other traps. Suffice to say, they are not a big fan of the ink machine.



Furthermore, we’ve learned that this creature has humanoid feet, they can travel inside the pipes, and they’re resistant to ink. Then, in Chapter 5, we find out that one of the creatures escaped the ink machine, by crawling up the pipe. They had to be resistant to ink, in order to escape their prison. They also had humanoid hands, so they may possess humanoid feet as well.



That’s a lot of clues connecting the escaped ink creature with the one from Chapter 1.

In addition, there is another place where we can find a humanoid handprint - Level P, the same one where we can find the Piper lying on the table, obviously being experimented on.

And if you look closely, you’ll notice it’s the same handprint.

Could this be the Unknown from the 414 audio log?

