Who is Thimbleweed Park resident #81?

I’ve had this question ever since I played the game for the first time.

At the introduction of the game, we see various atmospheric scenes: the ARC lamp on top of the radio tower going on and off, the wind blowing on the grass and shaking the lock and chain on the Pillow Factory gate, and an ominous gun shot through the highway sign that changes the population count from 81 to 80 residents.

Who got shot there? Who is resident #81?

It can’t be Boris, the dead body of the story, because by his own admission he flew “half-way across the world” just to meet someone, so he is obviously a foreigner and not counted as a resident in the population of the town.

Then again, Boris was the last one to die, and the introduction of the game suggests that the entire thing (other than the flashbacks) happened in one single night. If indeed Boris is resident #81, then he is not a foreigner at all! :astonished:

It could also be Franklin, although it may not be obvious to the townfolks that he is dead – he just has been missing for several weeks and nobody knows what happened to him. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Chuck is another candidate. It is obvious he is dead, and it is made clear by everyone’s comments that it happened just a few short days ago, so it could very well be him.

However, this would mean that Chuck was shot! This has never been mentioned or suggested in the game. (Actually, come to think of it, I don’t recall if a cause of death was mentioned at all – you would expect that murder would have come up at some point if that’s how he died.) Hmm… :thinking:

So… is it Boris, Franklin, or Chuck? Who got shot by that bullet? Who is the resident, whom when shot, reduces the population count of Thimbleweed Park by one?

dZ.

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That 81 going down to 80 has been there since the Kickstarter it probably just wasn´t changed after Boris was conceived as a german from outside.

This answer was presented to you by the Ministry for Boring Answers(MBA)™.

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Boo. I know that. I was just trying to fuel more crazy fan theories. People have obsessed over more mundane stuff, so why not try to seek meaning on this one? :slight_smile:

dZ.

Because the MBA™ take their business very seriously. Lack of humour and imagination are their prime profession.

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Gotcha. Now go away before you scare off the rest. :stuck_out_tongue:

You´re attributing great power and influence to me, I feel flattered and watch in great anticipation for the fringe theories.

The shooter is the programmer from the Outside World.
The victim could be one of the “freed” characters, we never met him during the game.

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You people really drown in a glass of water as we say in Italy.
Should I always explain everything? Of course I should, since I’m invested by the Wise-Ass Kid Department™ of the MBA.

Well, the devs simply wanted to show us the Iconic Thimbleweed Park City Limit Sign™ in the intro, when, as a pure coincidence, a teen (who, earlier that night, found the key of his father’s armory) exploded a gunshot at the sign to show off with his friends. Another extraordinary coincidence was that in that very moment, the Oldest Man In Thimbleweed Park™ was serenely breathing his last, laying in is own bed, while sorrounded by the love of his closest relatives.

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He used to be the KSCUMM Radio DJ before the hostile takeover!

Insert here Larry-King-elderly-joke that is as tired and old as he himself is.

I have no idea what you are rambling about.

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That’s the spirit!

Uh?

Chuck died of heart attack. That’s what at least one character says.

I don’t know who the 81st resident was. I’m more puzzled about how the city limits sign contents changed on the fly.

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Hehe, that’s easy: it’s not a normal sign – it’s powered by the SignTron 3000™ :laughing:

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Well, Ray makes it clear that the gunshot in the title sequence has nothing to do with the dead body.

And… to kill someone, a bullet should hit someone, not a sign. So, the gunshot is just there for a coincidence, and I second @Ema’s view: “a teen exploded a gunshot at the sign to show off with his friends”. This is actually pretty common in the inner part of Sardinia (I don’t know whether it is so also in other southern italian villages), where almost 100% of the road signs have bullet holes in it. Don’t ask me why, I come from the city.

As for the resident #81, I might say he’s Chuck. Franklin is still not officially dead. Or… it could be the dead body whose toes we see in the coroner’s office.

But the real question is: who are the other 80 people?

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Yeah most certainly it was some kids.

Easy. They are the Mother People!

I was thinking about the very same thing. I don’t know in other regions of Italy, but in Corse (France) that’s very common, too. When I visited those islands I thought about some particular territorial “message”… but I might be wrong.

Those are two different questions.

Ok, yes, there’s literally a total of two questions in the quote, but that’s not what I mean. First, I’ll answer the easy one.

Who is resident #81? Simple, that’s Delores. She’s clearly the most recent arrival to the town, having returned because of Uncle Chuck’s death. She has a room at the Edmund Mansion mansion that she moved back into, so clearly she’s a resident of Thimbleweed Park at the moment, bringing the listed population up from 80 to 81.

As for the first question, now that I think of it, that’s pretty simple, too. We know that Thimbleweed Park is a mere shadow of its past prosperity and that many people have left town. We also know that it’s generally very difficult to hit a sign with a bullet if it’s fired into a person first. This means the bullet must have been fired directly at the sign. So unless the sign was a living resident of Thimbleweed Park (maybe it was!), the bullet could not have been used to kill anyone. So why did the population decrement at that same moment? Well, that’s quite clearly because the most recent person to move out of Thimbleweed Park in favor of better opportunities elsewhere was so displeased with the state of the town that the individual in question decided to shoot the sign on as they were leaving the city. They shoot just as they were about to cross city limits, causing their residency to end almost exactly at the moment the bullet impacted the sign.

So there you go. Two mysteries solved for you, and I’ll only charge you for three.

I like this theory. That town is sure creepy.

I think it’s Boris. Just as the sign changes automatically, so does the population the second someone comes to stay.