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Story Theories
The Test Theory
The boy dies somewhere in the forest and is made his own personal hell, where his fears are animated and emphasised to the most horrific extent possible. He had a fear of spiders, swimming, heights, darkness, being controlled and people/socialising. These fears may also represent something about his life, for example he may have been controlled alot by other people or bullied (linked into people/socialising). Maybe darkness represents times of depression and swimming may represent struggle.
The boy is perhaps in a place he apsoloutely despises in the city. Somewhere which he would do anything to get away from. The cogs could represent the city is somewhere that changed him drastically. The gravity puzzles show his fear of heights and the spider may be of death. Perhaps the spider even is death. The traps show his need for freedom and the boys represent loneliness or rejection.
When he finally breaks out of Limbo (the place between life and death, the place where you have nowhere to go) he see's his sister burying him. According to religion, you can only escape limbo and be decided of where you shall go when you are properly buried. His sister buries him and that is when the game ends, his decided place of rest (heaven or hell) unknown. It is however, probable that he was in a test throughout limbo and he passed it, earning his place in heaven.
Fears Theory
Every obstacle in the game represents a fear of the boy. As he progresses to find his sister, he faces his fear of drowning, darkness, spiders, bullies, being powerless (Mind-control grubs), heights, and finally, death. He finds his sister burying his body. However, he overcomes it all and reunites himself with his sister, in heaven.
Journey Through Limbo Theory
Our hero, the nameless boy, wakes up in the middle of the forest, unknown of where he is or where he is going til the first achievement. As he travel through the forest, the spider represents his early-life fears of spider. As the spider dies, the boy realizes there are worse things to fear than the spider.
As the forest changes to a more urban scene, an introduction of a new enermy, the brain slugs. these slugs present the government, trying to control our hero, making him to act like a puppet.
Lunar's Theory
The boy died in the forest and awakes in Limbo (which is the world between life and death). According to many old tales, the soul can only get out of Limbo until the body is properly buried. The boy continues through Limbo until his sister found and buried his body. So in the ending scene, she is not digging but she is covering his grave. She senses him and he sees her one last time before going to heaven.
Our hero and protagonist, the nameless Boy, is killed during a car crash*. He awakes in Limbo (a.k.a Purgatory), a state of existance between life and death, with an unknown goal. As he makes his way through the world of Limbo, confronted by various creatures and traps, he realizes the world is filled with danger. At the end of his adventure, he crashes through what appears to be glass (this would also support the "car crash" death). Upon confronting his sister/female friend, he sees her preparing a sort of memorial. At this point, the Boy is at peace, and quietly dies. Years later, his sister/friend dies as well, resting both of them at peace.
The Treehouse Theory
The boy and sister fell out of a tree house as it collapsed. The boy wakes up in Limbo after dying and searches for his sister. The spider represents fear. The tribal characters represents lonelyness. The rain represents depression. Cogs represent structure and progress. (remembering the treehouse). Gravity represents falling down from the treehouse. At the end he finds his sister. She is digging to be sure if she is dead, and the boy realizes they are both ghosts. At the ending both go to heaven. The tree house at the beginning shows what had happened at the ending. When you crash, it is like he breaks through the Limbo but is still dead as he notices his sister (or female friend) is digging like she is looking for something important.
The nameless boy is infact maybe Limbo despite his appearence his eyes represent heaven, his body darkness and death.
The girl also has no eyes. And, maybe Limbo is wretched through like she lived, and on the main menu there are bodies from the end that describes that they died where they stood.
The Asylum/Insanity Theory
The boy's sister dies due to a mystery sickness. Heartbroken and feeling lost, the boy feels like he can't go on without her and hangs himself (he first wakes up near a hanging body that looks similar to him). It could also be possible that he attempted suicide but it didn't work, and now he rests inside an asylum. The natives represent the doctors trying to get him to stay still, the spider represents his growing need to be with his sister (why it follows him around), and the cogs stand for him slowly coming to terms with his sister's death. At the end, he finds his sister digging in the ground. This could represent him finally realizing that he can live on without her, and when he approaches her it is only to say goodbye.
Bjorvy's Theory
The boy dies in a car crash in the forest, and wakes up in Limbo and he desperately begins searching for his sister. The different scenarios encountered is the boy's fears. His fear of dark forests, of being alone, of large cities and factories, of spiders and strange creatures, and of other people. To find his sister and to be at peace, he has to brave his fears to find the one thing that could soothe him. In the end you fall out of a wall of glass, which is the last thing the boy saw when he was alive. Falling out of a windshield. He then wakes up in the forest, similar to how the game starts, but as he has overcome his fears, he finds his sister on a hill and can peacefully pass on.
Randy's Theory
The end is where it all began. The ladder you can see is in fact leading to the tree house the boy was playing in with his sister (the girl) before he fell and died. Instead of going into the after life he travels through "LIMBO" in order to say one last good bye to his sister. So throughout the game the boy is actually dead. The ending portrays his sister mourning over his body at the bottom of the treehouse and as he approaches she feels his presence, thus completing the farewell.
The Coma Theory
The nameless boy and his sister fell off the tree house, driving them both near to death, and his journey in Limbo is him in a coma, struggling to let go of the life he had (the puzzles) when he was alive in order to find his sister (she could also represent acceptance).
Everything that is in Limbo each symbolize their life together: the treehouse represents their childhood, the spider represents their fears, the cogs and broken down construction represent the place they were born in, and the people represent everyone around them.
(It is possible they both lived a sad life, seeing as Limbo has a very depressing setting, and the only one who ever made them happy was each other, thus the boy's thirst to defeat his fears and rejoin with his sister.)
In the last puzzle, going through the glass wall represents his acceptance of his fears and his past, allowing him to find his sister, who was also looking for him by digging through the dirt under the treehouse. When they meet, it is both of them accepting a peaceful death, together this time.
The boy and his sister fell out of their treehouse, while being driven to the hospital the car crashes and rolls into a forest.The machinery represents how his life clicked together but never felt natural.The giant spider represented how small he felt in the world and how he never felt strong.At he end when he breaks through glass is when he remembers he is dead.He flows through the air until he drops to the ground as if his death had just been replayed in slow motion.His sister is digging a grave looking for her brother as they were separated when they died.They reunite and rebuild the ladder to the treehouse and go to heaven as they escape the limbo.The whole limbo is a test to see who deserves to go to heaven or hell.And the boy and his sister defeated It.
The Pathway Theory
The boy and the girl probably were orphans, both sad of being ignored, they escaped to the forest. ( the reason because the bodies were just forgotten to decay ). It's a fact that they have fallen from the tree house. The girl sat on the hatch, and when the boy opened it, both died. The boy never bothered about where they went after this life, but the girl, like any other, asked one time in her life about the death, so she was able to just "jump" to the place where she died, in order to leave when she wants, but she decided to wait her brother.
Despite being as ignorant as any of the children who lives there, he has a goal, and even though he does not know what is death, he wants to find his sister, that's what motivates him.
Since they do not have a goal, children confined there (mostly small boys), eventually become wild and aggressive, trying to prevent others to find the happiness. The animals therein are natives, since the traps are fruits of sick minds of those who stayed there (a fact that is observed in most of the same is done for two individuals to manipulate without risk).
When he finds his sister, both leave the LIMBO, finally forgetting their bodies for decomposing on the shade of the humid and unfeeling trees who were once their home, and letting the time erase the trails of their pointless lives.
The Dream Theory
The boy and his sister went to the forest to play. When the boy took a nap he "woke up" in limbo. Fearing for his sister's safety he goes to the tree house and fears the worst (the dead person hanging)but convinces himself that it is not her. Not seing her there he goes to look for her. He knows her fears (the spider) and he also knows that she can't swim (which is why he can't). He fears of strangers (the random kids he meets), and is confused as to what happend to his sister (the puzzles).
His want to find his sister is shown by "traveling the world for her" going through the forest, the field, and city. His fear of never finding her is shown when he sees a girl but is never able to reach her. The end when gravity starts to shift the boy realises that he is asleep allowing him to "change his dream". In the end he goes through the glass and wakes up where he started to find that his sister was just fine all along.
Crash Theory
The nameless boy in Limbo and his family were moving the day he died.(The car has his mother, sister, and him). The boy had not yet put on his seat belt when his mother nearly crashed into another car that was on the wrong lane.(Making his fear other people) They swerved and fell into the lake.(Thus his fear of water) There he finds himself in the world of Limbo and finds himself with boxes,(The moving boxes) the spider,(which he fears worst) ,and puzzles to make sure his is ready to pass on. Once he finishes all of the obstacles, he is ready to say his final goodbye to his sister, who is greiving him by the treehouse that they used to play on.
When he is only a few steps away from his sister, she senses his presence, she sits up confused... then happy.
How it should have ended
First of all, it's definetly not how it ended, it's just how I think it should have.
So, it's starts off with the boy waking up, not realizing that he is dead (from a car crash for example, as he crashes glass (a windshield) in the end), and not knowing what to do. So he just keeps, going, facing dangers, but because he has no other way to go, he keeps going forward, facing death on every corner, but he never actually dies, he's so good that he manages to do all the challenges on the first go, just barely staying alive. And in the end, when he crashes through the glass, he ends up in the same place where he had woken up before, though having a concussion and a memory loss from the crash, he starts experiencing all of it again, as if it was his first time, being bound like Sisyphus. But this time, he might not be that lucky, and he might die during his journey to nowhere.