To be corrected the next day to:
“That fourth finger was a thumb”
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I’ve paid little attention to the ending discourse, but I don’t see at all how these statements are contradictions
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Ron knew what the secret was before or during MI1
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they came up with the ending of MI2 much later
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the ending of MI2 connects to the secret
That is not a contradiction. He knew the secret and then much later they came up with an idea that could be tied into the secret that they already knew. That makes perfect sense.
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You’re right. It just felt so unlikely that one day you think of a secret about an island and then two year laters you connect it with a story about an amusement park in another dimension/world. So unlikely that it seemed to me impossible at first.
If the secret is “there’s a portal to other worlds”, then the idea you get two years later is that one of these other worlds is a theme park.
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I have always thought that the idea of a theme park was already in Ron’s mind when he decided to put in MI1 an “Employees only” sign on a door of Melee, later used by Guybrush in the last chapter of MI2.
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Same here. Although that sign can be explained in other ways (for example, we can assume that the sign is on the back door of a shop in Mêlée Town), it is very likely that the idea of the world of Monkey Island as a theme park was already buzzing around in Ron Gilbert’s head during the production of The Secret of Monkey Island and so I presume that this idea is the best explanation for that detail.
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I think this is the best theory so far. But I seem to recall in Mi1 or Mi2 some character actually said “a gate to other worlds” or something like that?
Voodoo Lady says Big Whoop is, yep.
And you get there from one of those strange corridors that look like those crew only rooms. It makes perfect sense 
hmmm… something’s wrong with the theory then. If the secret was that “the island is a gate to other worlds”, they wouldn’t have said that something else is a gate to other worlds…
What we know so far: Big Whoop is the E Ticket. Voodoo Lady calls it a way to different worlds or stuff like that.
The E Ticket was a coupon that granted access to the best and most popular rides at Disneyland.
But the most interesting thing I read on wikipedia is that the ticket system stopped existing in 1982. No kid in 1990 would know what that is.
This means… Guybrush represents someone who has been a kid to Disneyland while the ticket system was in place, maybe born in, I don’t know, 1964, just to say a random number?
Also remember that Ron said:
Here is the problem with me writing down the secret: You’d read it and go “Is that all?” or “That’s stupid.” because it needs all the story telling behind it to make it matter. …Jotting down a note about what the secret is would be a let down.
So it has to be something that is underwhelming when written down… I think “portal to other worlds” is pretty solid, so I don’t think it fits that. I don’t think anyone would say “is that all?” or “that’s stupid” to that idea.
I get the impression it’ll be something like “Herman Toothrot is a monkey”, because that makes me go “is that all” and “that’s stupid”.
Yes, but nobody said that “the secret” hadn’t been revealed yet.
Don’t forget that the real secret is that Guybrush is a banana.
Wasn’t Big Whoop the theme park?
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Maybe the real secret is that the secret has already been revealed!
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Do you think it’s a coincidence that we have a new Monkey Island this year, and suddenly there’s Monkeypox?
Maybe the Secret is monkeypox.
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Ron won’t tell us the secret for the most logical and obvious reason: it’s a secret.
Theme parks are also full of that type of employees-only doors, usually disguised to blend in with the style of the surroundings. Those entrances lead to employees facilities, offices and maintenance rooms, just like in MI2.
That’s not the only park-themed hint in MI1. For example, when Guybrush wins a game, the prize is a t-shirt, as it sometimes happens when you win an amusement park game.
The Voodoo Lady is also known as a “fortune teller”, which is a character that can be found in an amusement park, either as a real person or, more often, as an animatronic.
One of the fortune teller arcades in Disneyland is Fortune Red (source of the photo and article about it):
What about the grog machine outside Stan’s cabin?
Here it is (source of the photo and article about it):
My impression is that Disneyland and the Pirates of the Caribbean ride have inspired Ron Gilbert in more than one way, leading not just to a game about pirates but also to a game about theme parks and rides.
The metaphor holds even after thirty years, motivating Ron to say, recently:
Return to Monkey Island is an incredible rollercoaster. Get on and have some fun or stomp out of the amusement park because it’s not exactly the rollercoaster you wanted.
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Very cool, i love the vintage Disney stuff. I had no idea there was a real life grog machine at one point.
Please don’t rely on wikipedia’s Ron information. He wasn’t even born on January 1st. Don’t know Ron’s year of birth, though.
In MI2 you can ask LeChuck several things, and he responds with jokes. You can also ask “what’s the secret of monkey island” and he responds “you’ll find out soon enough”. The interesting thing is: this answer doesn’t seem like a joke. Then why did they write it? Maybe the question itself was the joke? Ok, but why provide such a dull answer? Surely they could have come up with something better. Unless… it’s actually true that we saw the secret in the ending of MI2? Only in this case, that answer would have a reason to be there…
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Ron Gilbert interview at The World on Monkey Island (c. 2007)
Q: If you never get the opportunity to make your own version of Monkey Island 3, will we ever learn the real story of what happened to Guybrush, LeChuck, and Elaine?
Ron: Yes, oh yes! And it will…blow…you…away.
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