Milton also goes missing the same year “The Unfinished Swan” was released

The storm that moved the furniture actually happened. you can see chairs hanging from the trees in the beach. I can't believe people keep missing this. gus got killed by something being carried by the wind.

I think Milton creating the door is him finding the secret passages throughout the house, and I think he may have gotten trapped in one and suffocated, that would provide pretty good reasoning for why dawn sealed the doors a few months after his death because she didn't want Edith or lewis to suffer the same fate.

After playing the game I immediately thought that the “family curse” represented mental illness. It makes a lot of sense because of the nature of all of the deaths, and the fact that the “curse” is carried throughout so many generations- mental illness is hereditary. God this game is genius.

Omg, or the sand castle is symbolic for their old house that was washed away, and that’s why he hates the ocean

I think when Edith says Edie was "already gone" when the nursing home people showed up, she means she was dead, not that she'd disappeared.

Some of the family members definitely had a few screws loose. But schizophrenia does not just mean "dissociating from reality," it's one of many mental conditions that can have that effect. It's kinda ignorant to throw around the term schizophrenic for anyone who has delusions.

The main issue I have with this argument is that you seem to misunderstand how schizophrenia actually works. Yes, people with schizophrenia cannot tell reality from fantasy, but the worse the schizophrenia becomes, the more the person ceases to normally function. Anyone can instantly tell that something is off as they talk about things that don't make sense, stop to physically take care of themselves etc. The most common type of schizophrenia is also paranoid schizophrenia, and in all of the cases you presented, the only characters that could even possibly have paranoid schizophrenia are Odin and Edie. Even then, if their paranoia was in fact paranoia, they would do anything to counter the source of the fear i.e. the curse. And while this could perhaps be seen in Odin, no such thing is seen in Edie. On the contrary, she seems to embrace the idea and attempts to even perpetuate it. Regardless, the curse does not seem to bother her in the least. Your weakest argument however, is Lewis. This foregoes the fact that there are more mental health disorders that cause the person to want to ignore lived reality over fantasy, and the strongest argument against Lewis having schizophrenia is that he is actually aware of the fact that his fantasy world *is* fantasy. Schizophrenics cannot tell reality from fantasy, but a claim "my imagination is as real as my body" still suggests that he understands it's just his imagination. He however defies the fact that it's not felt as real i.e. has less meaning/impact than what's happening in the real world. There's another much more fitting diagnosis for Lewis, which is maladaptive daydreaming. An excerpt with a summary below: A person who is purported to have maladaptive daydreaming may have one or more symptoms of the disorder, but not necessarily all of them. Common symptoms include: extremely vivid daydreams with their own characters, settings, plots, and other detailed, story-like features daydreams triggered by real-life events difficulty completing everyday tasks difficulty sleeping at night an overwhelming desire to continue daydreaming performing repetitive movements while daydreaming making facial expressions while daydreaming whispering and talking while daydreaming daydreaming for lengthy periods (many minutes to hours) These all perfectly describe Lewis' condition, especially as Lewis does not fit any clear criterion for schizophrenia i.e. hallucinations. I think you are here mistaking dissociative acts with outright hallucinations. The defining aspect of a hallucination is the inability to distinguish it from reality. All of the storytelling you see in the game are dissociative, but they are not hallucinations. What they do fall into are extremely vivid and complex daydreams. A great example of schizophrenia accurately portrayed in fiction is the movie a Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe. I'd recommend that you watch it so you'll understand the difference, especially as it portrays paranoid schizophrenia. I absolutely agree with that the Finch family suffers from mental health issues, but I don't think it's schizophrenia being the cause. Furthermore, it's officially stated by the studio that the two games are connected and what happens in The Unfinished Swan is actually real. He really did find a magic brush and entered a different dinension.

i think the reason behind edie's way she tells things is she tries to make them sound more sugar coated i guess.

so.... what youre saying is... milton went turbo.....

I liked your arguments presented here, very well done. I would probably throw in, a bit of the fantastical nature of some of the "stories" grandma edie told was probably in some part a justification of sorts for the absolute carelessness or neglect that is sometimes presented in that game that causes or at least contributes to the deaths of her kids. Believing in a "curse" is probably easier for her than admitting locking her daughter up without dinner sent her looking for nourishment that was poisoned, or that setting up a swing overlooking a fricken cliff was perhaps a bad idea...

Screw Milton or even the possibility that the Finches are prone to suffer from mental health disorders. I want to know what Edie wanted to show to Edith. I wanna know what Edie experienced that one night when the tides turned, what she found in that house and why she wanted Edith to know about it.

I havent finished this video yet but I did read that the creator came out and said that yes Milton, after finding a maguc paintbrush, created the flip book and went into the door he painted in his room and well became the king in the Unfinished Swan.

*refers to self as doctor knuckles in project for class* Best part is when he gets interrupted by what I assume is his parents lol

Edith had a kid at 17, and was engaging in high physical exertion at 22 weeks pregnant. I think that her son was born premature. That's probably why she died. Also, that Milton and Edith both had children is a sign of hope that the Finch family curse is wearing thin.

Even Gregory could have it. It can start in a very young age. His father was concerned about how detached he was.

Watching the painting of the house from the Unfinished Swan I came up with a theroy: if you remember, quite at the beginning of the exploration of the house, Edith talks about the fireplace. She says Edie knows a story about it but never told us. Later in the game, Edith asks herself what her mother and greatgrandmother had found in the house... well, I think Milton wandered around the house walls, in the secret passages... maybe there's one that involves the cimney of the fireplace. When you pass through the house walls, you can see Milton had been there and painted his mark. I think Milton died in the house, they say no one had aver gone very far, stuck in between the walls. Maybe years later Edie and Dawn found his body but never reported it. It does also explain the "entering the painted black door" symbolism in his story, that can be a realistic explanation! (excuse my english there may be errors :p)

Where Edie embellished stories, Milton created his own and escaped the “curse” that way. I’d prefer to think of it that way, though it is nonsensical. It’s happier.

has anyone noticed in the secret passages Milton has drawn symbols that represent the stories of Molly #1(cat), Calvin #2(swing), #3 Barbara (pumpkin) iv'e looked everywhere and no one has pointed it out. I think Milton has at least read about all those 3 stories. SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME THEY HAVE POINTED IT OUT TOOO its driving me crazy lmao

This game is reverse Hereditary for me. I love it. It wasnt some helpless curse. It was mental health issues, neglect, isolation. Real curses we face growing up. Sad af but kinda eye opening

I think Milton got killed at the sea. Think about it. In the ending of The Unfinished Swan, you go to a king-shaped tower, and that tower is almost certainly his perception of the distant broken building out at sea, visible from his room. A red light flashes on both scenes, and it was the final area in his perception of events. From the whole ending of that game, it was from a scary forest (likely the outside woods infront of the house) leading to that tower by boat, and then when you get there it collapses, which makes sense since it should be old and broken down. Maybe that's how he got killed.

I had been considering several similar things, I thought about schizophrenia affecting the family, but one small thing i felt compelled to mention. Is yes its a realistic game but when Edith was reading the stories it was just storytelling, I do believe schizophrenia was apart of this story, but not with Edith. I believe it was simply storytelling by the authors.

Schizophrenia was definitely a theory of mine, but I don't think it applies to all or even MOST of the Fitch family. More than likely, it was just the stories themselves that were the real "curse" of the family. As Edith herself said, they believed in it so much that they made it real, and that's not something that is exclusive to schizophrenics, or even mentally ill people. Our minds are hardwired to recognize patterns, so when we see a bunch of things, we sometimes connect them, even though there's connection to be had. Not to mention this "family curse" story has been fed into each Fitches' head since they were a child, it is EXTREMELY easy for them to believe.

It also says when they leave the house that when the van from the nursing home arrived “She (Edie) was already gone...” possibly she died after consuming alcohol with her pills ?

KnucklesUp: "We need to know is who is milton? Drax: "I'll do you one better. Why is Milton?"

It always seemed like Lewis had some sort of dissociative disorder to me.

Another thing related to Edie is Edith mentioning that she told a story to newspapers of a “mole man” living under the house...and Edie was also the one sneaking things down to the basement to give to Walter.

I loved this game, but I have to say that if they hadn't been killed the way they had, those buggers would've all died because that house was a god-damned deathtrap. One slip, trip or stumble and splat!

I think lewis is suffering from maladaptive daydreaming. He states over and over he knows they're not real.

Can we pause for a minute and realise that the old house was being transported when it got trashed so why would there even be a fence lol

Huh, I thought Lewis may have had also maladaptive daydreaming disorder... Those with this disorder tend to zone out and repeat simply keep going on autopilot while their minds wander. Many writers have that issue, hell the times I near walked out in front of a car coz I was writing up a story in my head and stopped focusing on what's around me for a sec. At some point I simply described my walks and such as mechanical actions - I know which roads I take, which streetlights activate first, which next, and would often take late night walks so I can focus on making a story in my head, when I got sick to the teeth of staring at a blank document for hours. It's easier to take a take-out coffee at the local gas-station and wander around at night than sit cooped up in a room with messenger notifications going off coz all your American friends came online (I see I went on a tangent and I apologize.) And well possibly a case of major depressive disorder. His uncle he never knew just died, his brother just up and gone, and he is working a dead end job cutting fish, and smoked weed to relax and let his mind off of the latest tragedies. Eventually he keeps escaping into his mind as his job is so monotonous and mechanical that any creative person would rather quit than keep doing (Again, I know that feeling, depression plus retail is a nightmare, add creative drive and the wish to just doodle up a full notebook to skip over the day is HUGE) until - the fated scene where he walks out of his fantasy and the door slams shut behind him. He sees his reality. A dingy job he hates and will be doomed to work in (at least maximalist teens his age with depression only see the now and have a hard time seeing things CAN change) and he finds it easier to just kill himself, possibly escaping into his fantasy one last time to not be so scared doing so as the fear of death is a purely human instinct. I dunno, maybe I am a liiiiiiittle self-projecting here (or a lot, shush don't judge me) but it also fits his bill. AAAAND Regarding Edith Junior having schizophrenia - I doubt it... She is a creative and imaginative girl who probably heard descriptions of everyone's deaths at some point being discussed. Wild imagination plus reading and going off the emotions people conveyed in their writing prolly helped her imagine it that way. And - my man, she has been jumping and climbing and running through all of that while 22 weeks pregnant, I would not be surprised she at any point got sick while roaming in the cold, or strained herself while jumping - complications during childbirth were a BIG probability! Again - anecdotal example, me and mom BOTH coulda died when she gave birth to me coz of her chronically high blood-pressure, she even told the doctors to save me and focus on me surviving. Luckily grandpa got to the hospital and knew the doctor and somehow figured out together how to save my mom too.

While I do think, that "the unfinished Swan" represents Milton's dreamworld, it is not necessarily a sign for a mental disorder. I mean, he always heard those fantastical stories from his grandmother and lived in a pretty unusual "fantasic" house. We don't know to much about him, but as he liked to paint, be was probably spending most of his time alone with his hobby. He also discovered the crawl spaces and secret passages before Edith. I think, he was so fascinated by the idea of creating a door to another world and adventuring through out the house, that he might got stuck in a place, that no one knew about. So he never left the house but found himself unable to get out of the spaces between the walls/floors. If he got caught up in a pretty tight spot, it would explain, why he couldn't call for help and make his position known.

I've always thought that Milton must have fallen from his tower and either crawled to the beach and was washed away, or wandered into the woods and died from the elements. He was probably driven by delusion or imagination to wander away; he was an artist, thought he was king of his castle. Milton had grown up with Edie's fantastical stories about death, and came to view death as building his own world. The flipbook was his suicide note. Walter was allowed to live under the house, in his own world. Why shouldn't Milton?

I’m a personal fan of the “Edie” is a huge lier theory as opposed to your schizophrenia theory

-what remains of Edith finch- dumb ways to die 3

You played a game in a literature class? That's the most interesting class I've ever heard of.

The sand castle is the old finch home

Edie is the only one I have a problem with, if you watch Joseph Anderson's review of the game (which you definitely should) Edie is a storyteller and takes full advantage of the deaths of her loved ones.

Bruh why the grandmother look like that pumpkin from Barbara story 😭😭😭

I know im 2 years late but i really just found out about this game. An interesting thing you may add is that the mom of the child in the Unfinished Swan paints things that are unfinished, and Edie paints the family members who all have premature deaths. In a sense, they the family members that are painted so beautifully are unfinished, because those family members died part-way through their life and development.

wasn't Milton confirmed to be the king XD

I don't need sleep, I need answers

The game is using magic realism to explore the relationship between longing, identity, mortality and the intractable, chaotic nature of the universe. The fantasy elements employed throughout aren't meant to signify literal mental disorder in the family but are rather metaphorical illustrations of the archetypal struggle to realize meaning in the midst of meaninglessness, to impose a sense of order upon disorder, often through the use of words as a tool. Notice how every character dies in the midst of great longing/yearning, how the wild deer both approachable and mysteriously beguiling yet nevertheless wild and unpredictable appears and vanishes 3 times in the story (on the trail when Edith first arrives at the house, on the cliff when Dawn's father is knocked off, and in the fog when grandma Edie arrives at her old house in the seabed), how despite the power being out in the Finch home there is still somehow a light on specifically in Edith's room casting shadows of scrambled letters upon the wall (mirroring when grandma Edie steps out into the ocean bed, there shouldn't be any electricity running to a house in the middle of the sea yet when the fog clears and the house appears whole again there is somehow one light turned on inside, most likely signifying and corresponding to Edie's room). There's a reason both grandma Edie and Edith share not only the same name but a mirrored experience, going on a journey into their respective "old family homes" to explore the past and chronicle the connections made there into a journal passed on to a younger succeeding generation. It's about trying to understand and accept reality on its own terms despite fears that there is no meaning in any of it.

Hey. I commented forever ago, but I noticed something. Edith Finch committed suicide. Listen to her speech at dinner. To quote "To our FINAL night together. And all our FINAL nights apart." This is a lady who has watched most of her family tree die. She lives in a mausoleum of her own design. Her daughter is trying to put her in a retirement home. Edith isn't going. This is her house. There's only one way you're making her leave; over her cold dead body. So she toasts them, flipping off her daughter one last time. "You caused this Dawn, and if you were smarter, if you listened, you would have seen it coming, but you're too busy thinking you know it all, that's why you became a teacher." .. not said in the game, but I think it's a reasonable speculation

I know I'm late, I just found What Remains of Edith Finch, but here is something, the developers have said that Milton is Monroe's father. Milton couldn't have died when he was still a child. Schizophrenia is an interesting argument, and could answer many questions regarding Monroe and the unfinished swan as well as Edith Finch. By extension, it also means there's two Finches left.

I knew someone with schizophrenia. He didn't like taking the medicine because it made him gain weight and be sluggish. Before he told me that, I knew something was off but not exactly what. He thought that others were calling up the places he applied to for work, and told them not to hire him. It was difficult to know whether he was lying (because he admitted that he had) or whether he truly believed the stories he told me. As far as what Edith did in response to family dying, imagine what creepieness you would feel by seeing dead children immortalized with paintings and belongings. That would have to work on you mentally. It could even cause you to feel a sense of doom. Milton does stand out because the game makes it seem like he was the only one that escaped. No morbid story but a clever disappearing act. Poor Lewis desperate to escape. I know what imagination can do. You can imagine vividly and well, so that you can experience deep feelings. You may even have to catch yourself before you relate it as something that really happened. That is why this game provokes videos such as this. It works by tantalizing you with unfinished mysteries that spark your imagination.

the soundtrack of milton "miltons tower" is almost the same as the one of the menu in the unfinished swan

I was with you up until you said Lewis was schizophrenic. He wasn’t really hallucinating, he was just daydreaming. He was completely sober at that point and in therapy, and finally coming to the realization that his life compared to the amazing lives of his family members in the stories that Edie told him made him very depressed. Remember, Dawn didn’t seal off the rooms until Milton disappeared so Lewis had plenty of time to get a house tour from Edie, and at that point who knows how embellished those stories had become. So in response he created a world for himself that he felt was owed to him because of his family name, eventually getting so engrossed in it he retreats from reality, mindlessly working at the cannery, not listening to his mother when she begs him to come home. He completely separates himself from the cannery worker Lewis and king Lewis so much that he thinks the only way to fully become his best self is to commit suicide. Disassociating from reality can be a symptom of many disorders, like maladaptive daydreaming, which is more likely to be what Lewis had. The logic that you used to define schizophrenia is very flawed if I’m being honest.

Wow, this is a lot more thought. I just thought Milton disappeared in general, that or jumped out the window and they just didn't find their body.

Does Edith Finch ever establish that Milton's mom paints? Also, I never got the impression that the fantastical nature of the vignettes was a symptom of the characters being schizophrenic, but rather the result of accounts coming from unreliable narrators. Not saying that your interpretation of schizophrenia is wrong; I'm just not sure that I buy into it wholesale.

Just replayed the game 4 years later and it´s incredible how many new things I discovered. For example I realized that in Edie´s story, when she is approaching the old house from afar, you see its ruins and that it is visibly destroyed. But after opening the gate, when you look up, it looks intact. (Maybe it´s just me, but I didnt catch onto that at first)

holy shit the game theory part scared me *so* bad

- Doctor, my shoulder is in pain, what should I do? - The diagnosis is schizophrenia Jokes aside, i think just claiming everyone in the family has schizophrenia is taking it too far. I think the story the game tells you is about an old lady too obsessed with stories and fantasy. She is so obsessed with this that she influences the rest of the family, many of them children with vivid imagination. This, added to an unpleasent reality that they want to escape, plus (as someone said in another comment) neglect and lack of therapy, led to kids having terrible accidents because they were too absorbed in their own imagination. These tragedies were in part responsible for the unpleasent reality mentioned before, which makes everything kind of a vicious cycle. Walter even believed in the story of a monster living in the house and was so scared of it that he prefered living completely isolated just to be safe. Dawn even says at the end of the game "My children are dead because of your stories". I do however like the theory that Milton wandered off to the woods as he imagined being the king and creating his castle and house, before drowning. We can see at the end of The unfinished Swan that the whole level where the king is sleeping gets flooded, so that could mean he drowned.

It was told from “the perspective” of Edith finch. It was seen through the eyes of her son. That’s why edith’s door is locked with a peep hole, the son read her book as all the doors were locked with a peep hole. It wouldn’t make sense but that’s the son’s point of few.

Good theory but I'ma believe was so batshit crazy he crossed into another dimension with his magic paint brush. The swan on the top, the symbology and artistry from the unfinished swan, the name, the flip book showing him walk through the painted door, and the painted door itself with footprints leading into it and none coming out. No body, the mom actually put forth a effort even though Edith states she never put forth effort into much means she didn't find a body or Milton and eventually gave up. So.. he did disappear and if everyone dies it would suck ass. I came to the same conclusion about them being scitzo but it erked me that there was no solid resolution to Miltons disappearance nor the curse. Want to get Edith the 1sts journal and finish the read...

Great video, put together well and great theory!! This needs more views!! c:

Lewis was unhappy with himself. Could "Milton" be a young, alter ego of Lewis? Maybe he created "Milton" when he was young, but grew out of it after a while. Milton disappears behind a door which could be a metaphor for Lewis locking him away or repressing his illness. It would explain why he went away without a logical explanation. If the entire family was sick, they may have entertained the idea of Milton and fed into Lewis's schizophrenia. Detaching him and themselves even further from reality. Maybe that's why the family held on to the hope that Milton was just "missing," but not dead. He can't die because he isn't real. He was able to do everything Lewis couldn't. He will forever be unfinished. The family couldn't cope with the reality of Lewis's death. Lewis couldn't cope with the reality that was his life. Just a thought.

Dude this is barely a theory this is practically fact. This is so well written and puts so much context in this game I just played, and I love this so much man. Very VERY well done

My theories on how they all died: Odin: Drowned Calvin: Suicide Barbara: Murdered (By her boyfriend Rick) Gregory: Drowned Walter: Hit by a train Eddie: Not quite sure..maybe old age??? Sam: Fell off a clif Edith: Childbirth (Just moments after) Lewis: Suicide Molly: Maybe poison (from the berries?or she died in her sleep? Gus: Crushed by the totem Milton: Ran away from home because he wanted to get away from it all.

This is the most fascinating analysis of the game I've heard.... Although, lets not forget all the books in the house and throughout all the passageways traversing the game. Let's also not forget Ediths grave... Random letters floating about. The lady was but a storyteller, as are most elders. Nuff said.

Glad it was free for ps plus. Brilliant game.

I don't think that Edie has it, the fact that the fence is not affected by the water its just a symbol, a way to make the experience more entertaining and meaningful, it didint matter if it was realistic. Plus, in my opinion she sees the light in the window just because it's actually Edith that's reading the story and the mother interrupts her turning on the light.

Well done and sure as hell great research you used. Good job.

The drawing of the Kings first house wouldn’t have been of the finch house. It would have been of the house Sanjay and dawn lived in before Sanjays death. After Sanjay died, dawn took her kids and moved back in to the finch house. Milton was around 7 or 8 when this happened.

When I saw Milton's room I immediately got a Hereditary vibe

If people with limited to no experience with mental illness could maybe quit throwing around armchair diagnoses as theory fillers, I would LOVE that! Milton went missing at age 11. Schizophrenia in children under 13 is extraordinarily rare. Like, almost-nonexistent rare. But even if we were to say he is one of those rare cases just to allow your theory to go on, you have f-all in the way of actual proof. In neither game is Milton talked about as exhibiting any actual symptom of childhood onset schizophrenia. Ever. If that was it, do you not think they would've told us? They basically tell us how Molly died. You're not left to GUESS that she poisoned herself on accident, you're told she scarfed down a bunch of mistletoe berries, a decaying carrot and a tube of toothpaste on an empty stomach. You just needed something that loosely fits the bill, something to make it so Milton couldn't differentiate reality from fantasy or fiction. So I have another interesting piece of information for you: people with disorders the symptoms of which include delusions and hallucinations are actually not as terrible as telling when something isn't quite real as you think. They struggle with it. A lot. But they are not outright incapable, and therapy exists for this. Now, yes, because the villain of this game is Edith Finch the elder, and she more or less caused all these deaths through neglect, it's not unbelievable that if Milton WERE schizophrenic she simply would've seen it as An Artists' Thing and encouraged him towards behaviors that led to him coping worse, not better, but I still think we'd be better off if people stopped throwing together mental-illness-based theories with as little information as you seem to have.

Amazing Job! Just recently played this game and was wondering what happened to Milton and you did an awesome job of explaining that. Keep up the good work!!

I completely read the game in a different way. Makes both the game and your video even more interesting. Thank you.

Man, I literally wasn't "prepared" to this game!! I didn't figure how deep this game could be!! And now watching this video e discovering conections to other games (Milton)... Incredible, amazing game!! By the way, great video and analysis... really logical and profound!!

The game developers confirmed that Milton was the king

This is really interesting. Great job on the video.

Best video I’ve seen on the topic thus far.

Thanks to all of you for the great support. Check out my updated version if you haven't (where I talked with an actual psychologist!)

“I’m recording for my media studies”

I’m so surprised at many of these explanation videos of this game and their comments with the poisoning, she’s eating what looks like mistletoe which is very poisonous in and of itself, plus toothpaste which can poison you as well... otherwise they tell the story and the lore well

Amazing theory! Makes total sense. Good job!

i can MAYBE give you edie as being schizophrenic, but i think lewis had something closer to maladaptive daydreaming, it's a trauma response to feeling like you have no control in your life and alot of people do monotonous tasks like pacing, washing dishes, or in lewis' case, chopping fish. Given lewis' life with the stories of the curse and his little brother going missing, i think it's much more likely than schizophrenia Edit: after two years i had completely forgotten about this video but somehow found it again. i was projecting onto lewis. I'm surprised to not see molly involved in this theory now based on her last journal entry. I'll edit this comment again after watching the update video. Edit 2: the video did not go into Molly as i would've liked. she could've just had an over-active imagination,but i have a two theories about her. 1, she wrote down a story to try and distract herself from her real hunger and fall asleep, but it wasn't enough 2, she had a nightmare that scared her so bad she thought it was real (maybe due to mental illness) both end the same, she goes out of the window either in an attempt to get into the house and then kitchen to eat something, or out of fear to escape but she died from the fall

The Unfinished Swan is such an amazing game. I was pretty young when I first saw it so I like going back every now and then and it brings me back.

The King stands on an island in an identical position as Odin on his drowning house

This is a great video. Good job.

I *knew* that there had to be more of a connection to the two games as soon as I saw Miltons room

Also another thing that basically confirms that Milton is the king is that the ship with the 2 balloons attached is in his castle room

I remember watching this video years ago by Stampylonghead and for a long time I forgot the name of it. Luckily, I stumbled upon this video. Great content and keep it up!

I absolutely loved the unfinished swan when I was younger and have always considered it one of my favourite games. I recognised the music instantly when walking into his room!! I was so excited, I didn’t notice they were the same game company! It’s such a cool idea to merge the stories

While watching a playthrough of this game, I actually came to suspect that the finch family had some kind of hereditary dissociative disorder. I saw it in molly (though that could have been the poison?) maybe gregory (though who knows, as he was an infant), and lewis. I didn't really do research into this possibility and I don't know much about schizophrenia, but it's good to see someone else come to a similar conclusion independently.

Well it's confirmed that he is in the game "The unfinished swan" his son appears. So edith's nephew

what i think happened is that even if Milton had schizophrenia (mind you that i dont know directly what it means) or he had hallucinations or just a strong imagination, i think that becouse the two stories are (maybe) mixed together, that in both stries there were doors that were painted and led to another world/place. Like if you look in Miltons room you see there is an unfinished painting of what looks to be a door, i think that Milton was imagining himself being like a king or something and walking through the door (his real door) and falling to his death. I think that this could be a possibility as when you first open the door to go to Miltons castle like room a strong wind flies at you. The wind is so strong that the character (Edith) her self had to hold n to not fall off. From this i think that a wind blew really hard that day and Milton not paying to his surrundings lost balance while walking through the bridge and fell to his death, and his body culdnt be found as he could of fallen to a high bushed area. With that his mother (Dawn) and the others couldnt find his body becouse he was i like some bushes or smth like that and pronounced him missing. so to sumerise this for you- Milton was imagining himself being a king of some sort and walking through a magic door that would lead him to another world. But in reality he was just walking out of his room. A strong wind picked up and Milton not paying attention to his surrundings, lost balance on the bridge and fell to his death. Becouse there was a big ammount of bushes and trees below, nobody could find his body, therefor pronoucing him as missing. His mother not wanting to believe her son was dead kept telling herself that Milton would come back home one day, becouse of this she didnt want to move out. But after lewis's death she realised that Milton was indeed never coming back and neither is Lewis. So to protect her daughter Edith more then she protected her sons decided to move away.

Thank you for making this video, Ive been trying to figure out what happened for years. Btw, love your editing too :)

I actually like this theory. It makes sense, and give a the game some weight to it.

I think it’s more their flaws than hints at schizophrenia

That was so interesting !! Please make more theory videos !

why do you have so little followers??? this video is EVERYTHING, please keep updating!!!

That’s actually a pretty solid theory. I think molly also has schizophrenia because of her little animal adventures.

I enjoyed your video! I do want to point something out about Milton's disappearance and a few things about the possibilities of other family members being schizophrenic. I believe that his total disappearance is what brings the idea of schizophrenia into question. It doesn't rule it out, but a few things to consider. All in all, I enjoyed your video, and I think you've got a good brain on your shoulders. My comment may come across as word vomit, but take from it what you will. :) For Milton, I live in Washington State, where Orcas Island is, the location of game. I believe he made it off of the island entirely, and probably just ran away from home. His and Lewis's story are ones about escape, but the both did it in very different methods. Milton, I think, managed to succeed. I think this because it would be very difficult for a young boy to get off the island while on a schizophrenic hallucination. I mean, you actually need to use a ferry, which would be hard to do. If he never made it off of the island, well, a few hounds would be able to find him in fairly quick time. but maybe he drowned? I think it very unlikely his body wouldn't wash up on the island, or one of the many other islands surrounding Orcas. As for Milton's demeanor, I think he was acting like a normal non-extroverted artsy type kid who also has a lot of loss in his family. I've spent countless hours by myself just drawing away happily. It's been an escape for me and I suspect for Milton as well. As far as the rest of the family goes with having schizophrenia, I think the only viable option is Grandma Edie, but even then I'm not wholly convinced. Lewis is hallucinating, but not exactly. He may have delved so far into his other world that ultimately killed himself, but that doesn't make him schizophrenic. Schizophrenics cannot differentiate between reality and fiction, and believe that everything that they sense is reality. That being said, Lewis himself understands that this other world he has created is his imagination, which is something a schizophrenic couldn't do. This is my understanding because of when the psychologist quotes him saying that his "imagination is as real as his body." He fully commits to the idea that it IS his imagination, but the problem that gets him killed is that he believes his imagination holds that same validity as reality does, which is why the psychologist doesn't know how to argue with him. He doesn't believe his world is a part of the real world, rather that it is a better and completely different one. I think that Lewis's and Milton's stories are meant to be two solutions to one goal, which is escape. I believe that Milton succeeded with his life and Lewis obviously didn't. To be fair to Odin, there isn't a whole lot of information on him, and believing in curses isn't necessarily delusional. The reason is because a delusion is when you believe something even in the face of evidence that clearly disproves it, and for the family the curse is nowhere near being disproved. They are dying young or in crazy ways, which IS abnormal. They are justified, to a point, to believe in the curse. The curse would be a delusion if Odin had come up with it himself willy-nilly, but the family's belief in a curse goes back further than him. This all being said, fleeing makes sense to Odin, and If I believed in such a curse, I would probably flee too. "Something has to drastically change for the curse to be lifted, and nothing will change if I stay in Norway." is probably the mentality Odin held. As for Grandma Edie and her hallucinations, walking in the fog can easily cause you to think you see things without hallucinating. In all likely-hood, she probably got lost walking on the beach, and walked to someone's beachfront property where she had never been before, and they turned a light on because an old lady had shown up out of nowhere in their front lawn. Unfortunately, we don't get the rest of the story of her time in the fog, but its a common occurrence for people to get lost and see things. Still, her insistence on telling stories in a specific way that makes them seem mystical and as if she believes them in the same as way she tells them is something that could point toward schizophrenia. The only issue I have with that is that we are never given a reason as to why she tells her stories that way, and we are being told about them thru the lens of her granddaughter who now understands how she could have said things, but how she chose not to. All this being said, Edith's mom was right to be Angery at Grandma Edie, because the stories were most likely perpetuating the kids into a form of hysteria that caused many of the deaths that we witness in the game. As for Walt, he's scared boy that probably witnessed his sister die and developed PTSD and OCD. A strict routine everyday, scared of the "monster" that killed his sister and was after him too. He denied the outside to be let in, but he knew it existed. The outside was dangerous, but it was real, and so was the murderer. Walt was a poor boy who never got the treatment he desperately needed, but not that that would have saved him necessarily. After all, Lewis was not saved from the treatment he received. He lived in fear but his fear was justified because there WAS an actual attacker, and he didn't hallucinate that death at all. If his sister had died from falling off of the stairs with no one around, he probably wouldn't have believed in a monster. But if her boyfriend had killed her, even by accident, while wearing a literal monster mask, boy is that going to cause trauma in a young boy. Gus is just being a typically stubborn rebellious child. Cliche, but that's what he is. His dad is marrying a new mom he doesn't like, his baby brother drowned in the bathtub, and he's a little pissed off. There's not too much to go off of for Gus for me. Lastly, Edith doesn't seem show what she believes. Her story is about her asking why and finding answers that necessarily suffice. As for reliving people's deaths in that vivid of a way, I wouldn't count it as sign of abnormalness. The reason is because imagination is wild and its easy to start creating a story when given a prompt, especially if you and your entire family are a bunch of creatives. Imagination also comes to life experiences, and people who read lots tend to have very vivid imaginations. She does die young, and mother's don't die in childbirth very often, but it still does happen. For people like you and me, we don't believe in curses, but their validity is actually up for debate unfortunately. The family may very well be cursed, but maybe not... I don't think so. There are a plethora of reasons why a mother might die in birth, but I personally believe that Edith's son is supposed to symbolize that the family is finally getting a fresh start. Again, maybe not. :) Bonus! If we pull in the Unfinished Swan game, I think it further supports that Milton survived for at least a decade longer. The King is definitely Milton, but the king talks about his past, and he gives a time frame for himself for how long it is since he built his Kingdom. Its been quite sometime, and The Unfinished Swan is his life. The devs say that he literally went into his paintings, but if we throw that out as a creative liberty and place it back into the laws of our reality, then I think it comes out as a biography for the time he lived away from home. Another note is that the king is actually old in the end of the game, which indicates that he may have simply died from old age. He does say that he built his kingdom only ten years ago, but that wouldn't line up with how he had aged. Plot hole? Probably not, and I'm just reading too much into it. lol An interesting side note to me is that the main character in The Unfinished Swan is a blond haired boy that looks somewhat similar to Edith's son, which makes me think that the boy found Milton or at least attended Milton's funeral. This last idea is based purely on looks, but its fun to think about. If you've made it this far, wow! I wouldn't expect that, but I appreciate it! All in all, great video!

wait i so agree !! this adds so many layers to what is arguably one of my favorite games :)

That game theory bit near the end was a jump scare for me...nearly shit my pants. Well thought out video, I just completed the game tonight. Very tragic tale.

I'M RECORDING A PODCAST MOM

I doubt he died, the developer told us that Milton was the King, and that he has a son named Monroe. This not only suggests that Milton left and survived, but also that he had a kid, leaving three Finches remaining as it is Monroe, Milton, and Christopher.

Fantastic video, my friend.

Loved the video you got my support bro.