Your Current Headcanons

[demone]

So with Return to Monkey Island now out, headcanons are probably even more in-depth than ever. Return was one of the few games I played that seems to openly embrace and encourage individual interpretations and head-canons.

 

That being said, I thought it would be cool to have a thread to discuss headcanons just in general. Not just about this game and its themes and endings, but how it's framed the entire series for you. Anything from Secret to the Voodoo Lady's agenda.

 

Below is my (current) headcanon for the entire series.

 

TLDR: Not important enough, just feel free to share your own headcanons.

 

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The entire series is largely real, not fantasy, though embellished here and there by Guybrush and the reimagining of his son, which I personally view as the framing of every game in the series until Return, where Guybrush steps in as the unreliable narrator. 

 

Guybrush was an orphan, abandoned by his parents and bullied by his peers for his name and only found solace in a pirate themed amusement park/carnival. He was attracted to the pirate lifestyle as it seemed to be exciting and a way to make a name from himself. Once he was old enough, he finally decided to pursue his dream, dropped out of school, and left for Melee Island to become a pirate. Not too long ago prior to this event, LeChuck had met Elaine while he was in Melee to recruit for his expanding crew and pick up Voodoo supplies. Upon becoming obsessed with Elaine and being told to drop dead, LeChuck approached the Voodoo Lady and asked what it would take to win Elaine. She informed him the Secret of Monkey Island held many rumors of promises, enticing LeChuck to embark on a journey to find the secret.

 

A few days after setting sail, the Voodoo Lady conjured up a storm that destroyed his ship and then influenced a trio of sharks to rescue him and wash him ashore on Blood Island.  The Voodoo Lady was keen to contain the more dangerous forces of voodoo in the Caribbean and saw LeChuck as a means to absorbing them so they can be collectively neutralized by another individual, who she eventually saw in Guybrush. She was manipulating their battles to not only contain the dark forces of Voodoo, but to also compel one of them to finally unearth the Secret and lay the mystery to bed once and for all. The Caribbean had pockets of voodoo energy that converged from the Crossroads in several areas, such as Terror Island, the Rock of Gelato, the swamp on Lucre Island, but especially underneath Monkey Island, which was demonic energy and pure evil in nature.

 

In the course of his adventures, Guybrush tried to make sense of his parents leaving him, even having a disturbing dream in MI2 that was indicative of them leaving him when he needed them the most. 

 

By the end of Return, Guybrush left the secret behind him, which was nothing more than a T-Shirt. In reality, the Secret was that Monkey Island was a convergence of multiple dimensions and pockets of time, with one being the gates to hell itself (Big Whoop). Both LeChuck and Guybrush actually knew the secret the entire time since the first game, but since it wasn't clearly labeled, they didn't think it was the Secret and believed they never truly discovered it. Stan used this to his advantage to make a fake secret as part of a marketing ploy, but the true scope of his profit scheme never came to fruition due to his various legal predicaments. 

 

In the end, LeChuck lost the faith of his entire crew and was enveloped by the promise of the secret, fighting for eternity in hell over an empty promise of power and wealth. Stan used the many adventures of Guybrush as inspiration to create a new theme park based off his adventures and the various characters. Guybrush became his best customer and the two became legitimate friends, to the point that Stan trusted him to shut down the park. The park was based off each game, with the prize for Big Whoop being an E-Ticket and the Secret being a T-Shirt (as was Stan's ploy before the park as well). Guybrush, having done enough adventuring for a lifetime, semi-retired from piracy and became a flooring inspector, with him and Elaine pirating as a vice.

 

They wanted to start a family and had a son. Guybrush often told these tales (Tales of Monkey Island) to his son, embellishing here and there, with his son also taking liberties at times. Guybrush combined his tale of the Secret with Stan's carnival, finally taking his son there himself sometime later. The Voodoo Lady, having finally achieved her purpose of containing the darkest of voodoo energies and closing the door on the Secret, also retired and worked at the amusement park, perhaps even spending her time off searching for De Cava and finally reuniting with him.

 

In the end, Guybrush gained everything he wanted, but only through immense hardship that showed him what really mattered (like the Voodoo Lady once said in Tales, her guidance may very well have saved Guybrush from himself). He now has a family and became the parent he always wanted his parents to be for him. He forgave them, but vowed to always be there for his own family no matter what.

 

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Other pieces of my head canon:

 

Herman was Elaine's maternal grandfather. His real name was Haratio Torquemeda, but took Marley as his last name when he married Elaine's maternal grandmother. It would fit with Escape's narrative of Guybrush as being seen as Marley.

 

LeChuck is truly not Guybrush's brother, but his original name was Charles and nicknamed Chucky. He renamed himself to LeChuck when he became a pirate.

 

LeChuck's voodoo priest was something of a mentor to him in younger years and instilled within him a drive for power. He would later recruit him into his army years later when he became a fearsome pirate.

 

The five death tarot cards in Curse weren't just referring to Guybrush faking his death twice in that game, but also his murder at LeChuck's hands and Elaine spraying his ghost with voodoo root beer in Tales, and him being declared dead in Escape. 

 

Edited September 29, 2022 by demone

[KestrelPi]

I basically posted mine already so here it is again, with a few modifications now I've had some more time to think about it:

 

 

In the real world (or some slightly more piratey approximation of it) Guybrush visits Stan's carnival as a kid, and goes back every year, imagining himself having all kinds of adventures there. He doesn't quite grow out of it, but he does meet Elaine along the way, who used to appreciate it in the same way he did but has sort of moved on. She tolerates his fascination with the place but nowadays doesn't go out of her way to nurture it. In the park, there is a sort of treasure hunt, every year, but usually Guybrush either comes away empty handed or doesn't take away the biggest prize. His obsession with this does cause some tensions with Elaine over the years, which we see in MI2, but she comes to tolerate it.

 

Elaine and Guybrush perhaps go on various real-world treasure hunting adventures, but they never really do anything on the same big, grand scale of Guybrush's imagined adventures in Stan's park. They start a family, and this becomes a new priority in Guybrush's life. He stops visiting the park every year, but he does keep it alive through the stories that he tells his son, which are a mixture of his real adventures with Elaine, and embellishments that he tells, inspired by the times at Stan's park.

 

His son loves all the stories, and he often play acts them with his friends. Like many kids around his age, he has an idealised version of his father, which Guybrush does little to discourage. Where ReMI starts is during one such thing, and we get to see Guybrush telling his son another heavily embellished tale of his old adventures. At the end of the story, for reasons, Guybrush changes tack and reminisces about his very last visit to Stan's park, the one where he stays very late, determined to finally find the secret for himself. This, he does, or doesn't do depending on the player's choice.

At the end of the story Elaine tells Guybrush about a new little adventure he has planned, but before we cut to credits we get to see Guybrush reminisce one more time about his younger days when anything seemed possible, and feel content that he's passing some of that spirit onto his son with his stories.

 

Other bits: the LeChuck we see in the games represents an extreme version of Guybrush's worst tendencies - his obsessions, his disregard for the well being of others in pursuit of his goals.

 

Also, the ending in my head (though not the one I chose for my first play) is that guybrush takes the key, but decides not to open the chest, finally content with the not-knowing.

Edited September 29, 2022 by KestrelPi

[ThunderPeel2001]

Guybrush is a mighty flooring inspector who has always wanted to be a mighty pirate.

 

 

He loves going to Stan's Pirate Themed amusement park (and leaving his child elsewhere, apparently) and making up stories around those characters. His son grows up with a vivid imagination, and shares his Dad's love for piratey things.

 

His imagination turns this...

 

 

Into this:

 

 

The games we've played are these fantasy adventures that Guybrush is telling his son.

 

So basically: Ron is Guybrush on the bench, and we (the players) are Boybrush listening to him.

 

Or: We're Guybrush on the bench, and Boybrush are younger players (our kids, if you have any) listening to us talk about the great adventures WE used to play...

Edited September 29, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[BaronGrackle]

Game info: the Big Whoop map pieces

- Upper left is Lindy's piece (with a compass rose), which Guybrush bought at the Booty Boutique

- Upper right is Rapp's piece (with the X on it), which Guybrush received from Rapp

- Lower left is Rogers' piece (with the landing site and Rogers' arm still attached), which Guybrush found below his cabin

- Lower right is Marley's piece, which Guybrush found in Elaine's possession

 

All four pieces were last possessed by LeChuck's forces after they were seized from Wally.

 

- The piece in Guybrush's scrapbook is Lindy's piece, its compass rose still visible.

- The piece in the museum is Rapp's piece, the curator having acquired it from Wally, but the zoomed-out nature makes it unclear whether the big X is still visible.

 

HEADCANON 1: Wally reacquired Rapp's map piece because it landed near him when the Fortress exploded.

HEADCANON 2: The big X on Rapp's piece has faded away with time. It wouldn't be visible on a zoom-in.

HEADCANON 3: Guybrush saw Lindy's piece in a store recently at a very low price because it was old/obsolete, and he happily rebought it.

 

This final headcanon mirrors the handful of instances when, in adulthood, I've rebought old games or game rereleases that I had in childhood but had lost or garage-sold. I like to think that Guybrush literally purchased this map piece on two occasions, decades apart.

Edited September 29, 2022 by BaronGrackle