One Reddit user, u/Tesseract618, notes the Woodsman returns home to find his daughter waiting for him, suggesting he had been missing for a long period. When Over the Garden Wall's creator, Patrick McHale, didn't reject the theory, saying in a 2020 interview, “Any interpretation that feels right to people is a perfectly valid interpretation to me." Many fans have taken his response to mean the theory is effectively canon. At the end of the miniseries, they find their way back home by going through that same lake again before being taken to the hospital. Further evidence can be found in the book The Art of Over the Garden Wall, which describes the Unknown as "the place between life and death, between dreams and reality." It wouldn't be far-fetched to believe that Greg and Wirt are "between life and death," because the penultimate episode reveals the brothers became lost in the Unknown after falling into a body of water and nearly drowning.
RELATED: Adventure Time Voice Actor Reveals His Love-Hate Relationship With the Series Is Over the Garden Wall's the Unknown 'the Place Between Life & Death'?Įarly in production, the Unknown was called "the In-Between," indicating it's not a place for the living or the dead. Many came to accept the theory as truth however, it may not exactly be correct. Sometime in the six years since Over the Garden Wall's release, a popular fan theory developed that the Unknown is actually a sort of purgatory to which Greg and Wirt are sent because they're caught between life and death. That dark fantasy setting appears to be entirely separate from Greg and Wirt’s world, connecting these characters through some form of magic.Īlthough the Unknown could be written off as simply the fantastical setting of the series, fans have long theorized it may symbolize something more. The woods are also haunted by a monster known as "the Beast," who leads weary travelers to their doom to keep himself alive.
Premiering in 2014 on Cartoon Network, Over the Garden Wallfollows brothers Greg and Wirt after they get lost in a bizarre forest called "the Unknown." Over the course of the 10-episode miniseries, the two boys meet an eccentric cast of characters, including a woman cursed to be a bluebird, sentient skeletons dressed as pumpkins and a man so wealthy he didn't even know the size of his mansion.