6:09
. After countless updates, this ARG has released a completely new one that finally reveals what's been going on, who these characters really are, and what Home has been planning all this time. Hello, Internet. Welcome to Game Theory, the show that has a gift for you. Wow, Game of Subs and 10% off any purchase using the code Game Theory. I hope you like it. Now, I know what you might be thinking. It's too early to be celebrating Valentine's Day. Or too late, depending on your perspective, I suppose. But I simply can't help it. I'm in the mood for a little love and affection thanks to the return of, genuinely, one of my favorite horror ARGs, Welcome Home. The website about an old television program that holds many dark secrets. The
puppets that live in this neighborhood might not be all joy and happiness. There is discord among friends, scandalous secrets, and a house with a conscience that is behind it all. Home has been causing neighborhood members to have psychological breakdowns by making them feel discontented, broken, and alone in order to bring them under her control. Now, the website has a new Valentine's Day update, but along with the new look, there are new secrets to find, videos to watch, a juicy story waiting to be uncovered, and of course, a new character in Home's sights, Eddie Dear. And let me tell you, theorists, this new update not only tells us more about Eddie, but also reveals
something we've overlooked about this franchise from the very beginning. Something that completely changes everything we understand about these characters and this world. So, let's respond to the cool neighbor while we uncover the secrets hidden in the new Welcome Home updates. Like all the other holidays in Welcome Home, this one has a slightly different name, Mail Times Day. A day dedicated to sending love cards to each other. Therefore, it's no surprise that our central character for this update is our resident postman, Eddie Dear. He is sitting in the center, but he has this strange mark next to him. So, naturally, we're going to click on it. And as we do so, a tear appears
, leading us to a secret website. It seems that today we will delve fully into this. Then a card appears on the screen, and when you click on it, a phone pops up. Postal call, do you understand? I've been thinking about what this is. What we have together. But there is something I have learned. Connection is something unknown and linked together. But what unites them? At first, I thought it was the physical rope. Or plastic. Or is it something more than that? Help, anger, need.
Once again, it's Wally on the other end of the line, just like in all the previous updates. But this time, he talks about the connection that unites everyone. Hope, anger, and need. Previously, we noted that Wally and his friend and homeowner need the neighbors to be unhappy, discontented, and lonely so they can control them and do whatever they want. So, Wally now seems to be confirming that way of thinking. However, he also goes on to say that these connections are being severed, which, from our previous encounters with Wally, seems to be what this version of him wants now. This Wally is no longer controlled by Home. He wants to prevent
Home from tormenting his friends and repeats it here by saying that Home doesn't need to be here. This leads to Wally asking us to play another game with him, a game called Mends. You'll do it like I do. Find a blind spot. Find a weak point. Open it by tearing it. Tear it apart from the inside. And mend the line. Return what you mend to where it belongs. As if nothing had happened. Now the ARG really begins. It's time to find some blind spots. And based on how Wally tells us to tear it apart, it will be just like when we found this secret page. There will be a crease in the webpage that tears. The next page we need to look at is the "
about us" page and right at the bottom there is a large blank space. Pretty suspicious if you ask me. Indeed, that takes us to a new page, whose URL is titled " orange letter". And when you click on the envelope, a letter comes out. The recipient and sender are crossed out, but the content is about someone who used an old design for a story that made others uncomfortable. Clearly, it's a letter between members of the Welcome Home TV show team. But right now, the letter itself isn't really important. The important thing is the crossed-out sections that can be clicked on. When you do that, a message appears: "Fix it, then take it to the mailbox." This is what Wally wanted us to find.
A jumble of letters appears, and you have to rearrange them to write the word "perspective". And when you do it, nothing happens. Wow, this word must be important. Wally said to take it to the mailbox, so I guess I'll write it down in my handy notebook for when we find a mailbox. If we go to the home page, we can find two other weak points. One right next to Barnaby and another downstairs at Eddie Dear. Barnaby's is a yellow letter with someone contacting a estranged friend. He doesn't know his number and just hopes this letter will find him. The sender's name may be missing, but I think something else reveals who it is. The flower at the
bottom. We've seen this before in a letter. In the letter to Julie from Frank. Frank is the one who sent this letter. However, the letter is about making puppets and working in the studio, which sounds more like Frank the puppeteer than the character himself. And he's contacting someone who's also part of the production of Welcome Home. With this comment about the person joking about their earless puppet and that this letter was found next to Barnaby, it seems likely that Barnaby's puppeteer is the one who receives the letter. Which is very interesting, but the letter does not contain any secret links. Well, besides a T that has been surrounded by a heart. And in an ARG like this, that's no coincidence.
Eddie's paper chain on the same page reveals the purple letter. Someone writing to their mother about their new job. There's a picture of a lavender field, and last time we talked about how Eddie Dear is associated with lavender. But once again, this doesn't sound like Eddie's character, but rather Eddie's puppeteer. He also talks about his work, calling it a production, and how he can't say much about it. These letters give us a broader view not only of the show itself, but of the team, grounding us a bit and reminding us that this is a real TV show with real people. But on this page there's another letter highlighted, a G. See? I told them it wasn't a coincidence. Now we move on to the discovery subpage, which once again has another tear. This time
right on the face of the clock. Huh? With it we obtain the green card, which appears to be a love letter. You are my star, so divine because you twinkle, because you shine. A star, you say? We know someone who is literally a star, Sally Starlet. And the image at the bottom is a bird holding a poppy, which feels like another very obvious clue. It is Poppy the bird who is writing this letter. But if this is a love letter, note the affectionate wording used; that would mean that Sally and Poppy's friendship on the show could be much closer off-camera, just as we saw between Frank and Eddie in our last video. However, at this time this is just speculation. I do n't want to get ahead of myself.
In addition, there is another hidden word game in this card, and it forms the word "everything". Write that down. Switching to the radio tab, it features a new episode of the radio program "Darling Broadcast". However, unlike normal, where there is a wrinkle that we have to tear, the tear is already there. And when you click on it, it takes you to a black screen that says: "You can do it. Find the blind spot." with a creepy Wally hiding in the dark. Oh, I'll just click around to see if anything.Nope. No. Just a sudden scare. Brilliant. I love that. Thank you. This is not the only dead link we found either. There is a tear on the image of the Crispy Sweet Rice
Puff cereal. This time, he just says, "Not here." But, deep down, you'll find a twisted and creepy image of Wally. These are more than just dead ends. They are telling us a story. Both were found through tears that were already open, unlike the others where we have to physically make the tear. Both later revealed gruesome versions of Wally. At first, Wally told us to use them to get in like he does. So, these are Wally's weak points. The reason they are already open is because, as we have theorized previously, Home has control of Wally. These tears are how he does it. These versions of Wally are what he becomes under Home's control. I mean, I guess it's actually a good thing that he's trying to break free from Home's control
. Moving on quickly, we have Howdy's Christmas row album. The tear reveals the color chart " breen". And no, that's not a typo in my script because of the word " green". "Breen" is a kind of vomit-inducing brown color. Just wait, guys. The "breen" version of Home is going to be insane. Anyway, this letter is from someone writing to their mother about a family gathering and being busy with work. And just from the way it's written, I can tell it's none other than the neighborhood shopkeeper, Howdy. We know he comes from a large family, after all, which is what this album we clicked with was all about. So, it makes some sense. But, once again, one word is censored, spelling out the word "mail". And with that, we have the
word perspective, everything, and mail. And currently, there's nowhere to put these codes, besides these random letters that do nothing. Perhaps the neighborhood page will help. It's usually full of secrets, and when you go there, you can see that it doesn't disappoint. A wrinkle on Frank's face leads you to the pink card. A letter about someone moving to a new home. However, they left suddenly, and whoever the recipient is may not be happy about it. So, the clue here is the phrase "This feels like an opportunity to grow." Along with the flower picture, here is our resident flower expert, Julie Joyful. Julie left her
rainbow monster family on the show to be part of the neighborhood. So, this unites the real Julie and the puppet Julie from a story perspective. The word revolt here is devastation, which is how I feel because I still don't know where to put them. However, as usual, Welcome Home knows how to lure me back because, instead of another tear-off, they pulled a technique from our homepage that they used in the last update. The update where Julie's house was surrounded by total darkness. But now, after Frank's psychotic breakdown in the same update, Frank's house has also been shrouded in darkness. Julie's house is almost the same, except that the gift on her bed from Frank has disappeared. And the last letter is found in the
cheerful family portrait. This is the blue letter and it brings together all the other letters we have read. Someone from Playfellow Workshop is contacting this person to ask if they would be interested in being talent for the new puppet show, Welcome Home. The only other person we know of who is part of this group is the creator of the program, Ronald Doraland. And there are a few other things that connect it because this letter is typed just like the orange letter we read earlier, which we found in the crease right next to Ronald's name. This connects both the orange letter and the blue letter with Ronald being the sender. But the other connection is with the yellow card sent by Frank. We assume that Frank was writing to Barnaby or
Barnaby's interpreter because he makes a joke. And in the blue letter written by Ronald, he calls himself the funniest guy on the production, which would surely be a title reserved for the jokester Barnaby. We have already seen how the characters in the show are inspired by their creators or performers. So it's not a big guess to think that Ronald is the inspiration and possibly the interpreter of Barnaby, which would explain why he appears in basically every story. It also means that Frank was writing to Ronald, the creator of the program, in his letter. He wanted Ian to know what was going on. That also explains Julie's abrupt departure in the pink letter. She says she left because of a sudden offer, and
Ronald's letter is for someone who uses flower arrangements as art. This clearly explains how Julie got on the show. What's strange is that these people simply left their normal lives to do the show. And when they arrived there, they barely had any contact with anyone, they weren't even allowed to talk about what they were doing. Since this is a horror ARG, we immediately thought of things like the evil cult of "Home ". But this is actually a classic Hollywood thing. People who become so absorbed by their work that they have no time for anything else. And that couldn't be truer than with someone who also had experience working with puppets: Jim Henson.
Jim Henson created the Muppets and some of the Sesame Street puppets. However, Jim was a workaholic who hardly stopped for anything. In 1990, Jim sadly passed away due to a terrible case of strep throat. Something that would have been completely treatable if it had been checked just a few days earlier. Jim was so engrossed in his work that he left it untreated and killed it. All this to say that people who work so hard on a puppet show that isolates itself are not really out of touch with reality. But it's not just the team that works hard. The secret videos we discovered in past updates show a blurred line between TV characters and more adult themes. Like Frank and Eddie's relationship, scandalous for a
children's show in the 70s. Or when Julie swears because she ca n't make a flower bloom. Julie, Julie, where are you? It's It's almost as if the characters and the people who control them were combined into one person. Once again, we could take the horror route here. To say that they are being transformed into his puppets or something like that. But again, this is something that simply happens to performers who play a role for a long time. Caroll Spinney, the puppeteer of Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird, made a statement upon retiring from the role. "Even after leaving my acting roles behind, I feel like I'll always be Big Bird and even Oscar the Grouch from time to time." It's normal for characters to be
like the actors who play them and vice versa. Nothing strange about voodoo, just years of a person and a character merging into one. But is that all there is to it? Maybe. I feel like we're missing an important piece, and it's probably behind what we use for secret words. We were told to return it to the mailbox, but we haven't managed to find one yet. Wait, there's a mailbox next to Eddie's house and it has a scratch on it. This leads us to a mailbox that says "return mail". Perfect. We just need to do what we've done in most updates and add all the words to the end of the URL to get our secret videos. In the first one, there is a chess piece
moving along a path. He arrives at a door and Wally opens it. " Do you have my email?" Wally says this in the most normal way we've ever heard it, which is very unsettling. Either way, the stock market is falling. Wally takes the mail and returns the bag. Go back to work. Revealing that the person carrying the bag is obviously Eddie Dear. Yes, I think we already figured that out. But Wally is acting really weird in this video because he's not acting weird. The symbolism is quite clear. Eddie is a pawn under the control of Wally, or rather Home. Wally has opened the blind spot and gone inside.
In the following video, Eddie is asleep. He wakes up and someone is lying next to him in bed. Hands cover Eddie's face and someone kisses him. Now, the person is a silhouette and not immediately recognizable, but I think it's safe enough to say that it's supposed to be Frank. In the previous episode, we talked about how Eddie and Frank have a relationship. One that was potentially considered scandalous at the time. And that idea seems to be true because when Eddie wakes up, he panics. The sheet moves beside her and when she removes it, there is blood. She covers her eyes, looks again, and there's nothing there. Clearly, this potentially scandalous relationship is causing her a lot of fear and distress, just like it
did for Frank in the last video. But it's our next video that really puts everything into perspective. You understand? Because that's the word we used for this video. Anyway, Eddie is talking to Sally, but something is different. Eddie isn't wearing his normal postman's outfit and the conversation is much more realistic. I'll be honest with you. I don't even remember the last time I went out. Probably since my last job. Wow, I don't remember either. It could have been so long ago, the pilot for Welcome Home, as far as I know.
The conversation then shifts to Eddie teasing Sally about her and Poppy being a couple. No, I'm waiting to see. The labels might scare her. Ah, so they are a couple. I knew it. And I think the important thing here is that, although we see the characters Eddie and Sally, the conversation is about the actors who play them. We're seeing real stories of real people working on a TV show, but through the lens of these puppets, which now explains a lot more about the strange videos we found. So, with that new perspective, let's look at the last two we have left.
Eddie is at the post office talking about working too much. One more day inside, one more day outside. Where does all that time go? It's as if time flies so fast I could take my hat off. But the more he talks about working hard, the more static he hears. The static electricity becomes so strong that Eddie reacts to it. The noise increases, and when Eddie finally reacts, he sees his arm over the paper blade with his other hand ready to lower it. In the reflection, we see the blade move. Eddie growls and a tearing sound is heard. Cut to black, and Eddie stares at his hand in horror, as if he has no control over his actions.
This is Home taking control of Eddie when he starts to feel unhappy. That's their weak point. And that becomes even clearer in the following video. To find this, you need to use all the letters with hearts found in various links to form the word nothing. It starts the same as the last video, but darker. Eddie says the same phrase, but more defeated. Once again, static electricity arrives and takes control of Eddie. He falls to the ground, unable to move. But suddenly, he sees a light. Look out the window and see a star at the top of a Christmas tree. He smiles, and the video ends. The fact that it's similar to the last video is deliberately giving us something to inspect.
We know it's Home taking control, but with our new perspective that these are real people through the lens of puppets, we finally have an explanation for why Home is trying to control the neighbors. We previously theorized that Home didn't want them to act like anything other than their television counterparts, and when they did, Home took control and brought them into line. But, if it's about real people and not puppets, and their stories are told as if the real people were their puppets, then Home is the representation of the television program itself. It's an allegory about becoming so absorbed in work that you forget who you are outside of it, isolating yourself from your friends and family. Giving it their all for the show.
All these people work so hard that the program is starting to control them. It's not a religious cult, it's the cult of Hollywood. And Home is taking it a step further. Home doesn't want them to be themselves. Home wants them to always be only the characters they portray. Frank and Eddie, the artists, could have a relationship outside the show, but Home does n't want that because Frank and Eddie, the characters, don't have a relationship. Home uses anger and discontent to control them, using their weaknesses to get in and maintain that connection, forcing them to focus more on the show, more on its characters, to become its characters. That's the real story of Welcome Home, but there is
hope. In that last video, Eddie takes control again thanks to the star. It brings him joy, the opposite of what Home needs to get under his skin. But this star has more meaning than just being a star. In one of the Home Warming stories, Sally is seen on top of that Christmas tree as the star. So, when Eddie sees a star in the tree, that's what he's looking at, Sally Starlet. Despite not interacting much within the program, in this update we saw that Eddie and Sally are friends in the real world. Their real-life friendship is what prevents Eddie from being completely consumed by his work, by his character. Sally gets Eddie to go out, to not focus so much on work. He is being taken away from the control that production and Home have over him.
However, there is one more thing we still need to explore. We saw Julie's house, but we haven't been inside Frank's. Unfortunately, that will have to wait until next time. Believe me, there's so much going on in there, to the point that I think it needs its own episode. If you thought this series was dark before, you know, like with the cutting off the hand thing, just wait until you see what's hidden in there. Additionally, there is a storybook on the website called The Ballad of Amos Valentine, which is marked as still being recovered and tells us to check back on October 2nd. So, look forward to another video around those dates and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss it. But in the meantime, theorists, remember, this is just a
theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching. World premiere on Game Theory. Frank is being eliminated from Welcome Home.
