The Crows, the Scarecrows, and the Boy in White
Hey everyone,
I’ve been rewatching the show while waiting for the new Season 4 episodes to drop, expanding on some theories from this sub and this video.
I always thought the crows had a deeper significance, but tonight, I finally started connecting the dots. It all ties back to the Boy in White (BiW), the Man in Yellow (MiY), and a huge clue that has been there since the very first episode.
Here is how it breaks down:
First I rewatched Jim’s funeral. When the crows appeared, Sophia looked visibly distressed. At first glance, it seems like the crows are mocking the townsfolk and celebrating Jim’s death. But if they work for the evil entities, why would Sophia react that way?
I blieve the crows were actually mocking Sophia. It's widely agreed that the BiW and MiY are rival deities. The crows showing up at the funeral was the BiW signaling that he has gained an advantage of some sort.
- The Scarecrows
In the Episode 5 trailer, we see murderous scarecrows. What is a scarecrow? The literal opposite of a crow. Their purpose is to ward them off.
I believe the MiY built the scarecrows as an anti-surveillance system to blind the BiW's crows, specifically keeping them away from the settlement and the lake. Keep in mind that there are also scarecrow figures at the entrance of the settlement.
But what are they guarding at the bottom of the lake? I think it's either
A. The Original Bodies: We saw Fatima give birth to Smiley, proving his current body is just a vessel. An immortal entity that can only be permanently killed by destroying its original body is a common horror trope.
B. The Sacrificed Children: The lake could be the anchor point holding the remains of the original sacrificed children.
Either way, there must be something extremely valuable at the bottom.
- The show's intro scene.
The scriptwriters have explicitly stated that the answers are right in front of us from the beginning. I paused the Season 1 intro, and the sequence of drawings supports this theory:
First, a drawing of the Boy in White.
Transitions immediately to a drawing of a Crow
Transitions to a Real Crow
Multiplies into a Murder of Crows
The intro literally shows the Boy in White's connection to the crows. They are his eyes!
Not to mention that in another post on this sub, another user noticed that the mouth of the BiW resembles a crow.
To pull this all together: As it was previously mentioned many times in this sub, in Norse mythology, Odin had two crows that served as his messengers: Huginn ("Thought") and Muninn ("Memory").
Whenever a crow lands near a resident or points something out (like the one that landed near Victor when he discovered the MiY's jacket), it serves a specific purpose: to stir their memory. The BiW is using the crows to make the townsfolk remember the past so they can solve the mystery.
In other words, every time a crow appears, it is literally telling the residents: "Remember." In other words: "Anghkooey."