The Disturbing Peter Pan Theory That Totally Changes How You View The Story
"Peter Pan" is an odd story full of strange phenomena. From immature airborne heroes to one-handed villains named after their own prosthetics to jealous, misunderstood fairies, the fictional childhood story doesn't compute on so many levels. In 2014, the Reddit community decided to tackle the rabbit hole question of what exactly is going on, and one fan theory in particular has dominated the conversation ever since.
The original post, shared by u/CZbwoi in the subreddit r/FanTheories, consists entirely of a two-panel meme with Peter (Bobby Driscoll) himself and the words "Peter Pan was an angel that held kid's [sic] hands when on their way to heaven (Neverland). That's why they never grew up. All those kids were dead" in the top image. The bottom image is a shot of Vinny (Don Novello) from "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" holding a stick of dynamite. The caption reads, "Boom. Childhood ruined." Of course, arguing that a popular childhood story is about premature death is an explosive take (hence Vinny's dynamite mic-drop statement), and it prompted a slew of responses.
One Redditor (whose account has since been deleted) chimed in in support of the bold claim, saying, "Actually, the author of the original story, J. M. Barrie, would likely agree with this sentiment, though metaphorically. When he was a boy, his older brother died and his mother took it very harshly. He would often try to gain his mother's attention by dressing in his brother's clothing and acting like him. According to the biography of his mother he wrote, she took solace in the fact that David died a boy and therefore would remain a boy."
The Reddit thread gets darker
While there is the occasional endorsement, many of the highest upvoted responses dissect and debunk the theory, with the most popular of all suggesting that the original story is even darker. This anonymous Redditor posited that Peter Pan regularly kills off the Lost Boys as they age, concluding, "Peter basically culls the boys ... in order to keep the group composed of only kids." Redditor u/alexxerth presented a rebuttal to this very dark take, however, saying, "I really would love to see where this so[-]called 'original story' came from though, because it seems you're basing it entirely on the word 'thin' which doesn't suggest he kills them, just that he got rid of them somehow, which is later expanded on to be sent back home."
Speaking of the Lost Boys being sent back home, one of the most logical arguments against the theory comes from Redditor u/TheMightyBarbarian, who shot down the whole ordeal, saying, "This ... ignores the ending of the movie. ... They go back home so they didn't die." The counterpoint is echoed by u/3zekiel, who added, "It gets really annoying to see all these theories that blatantly ignore the important scenes that debunk this s**t." In the movie, things do end happily ever after — with the children very much alive in the real world. As is so often the case with fan theories, this one makes a strong initial case, but when you take the whole body of evidence into consideration, it doesn't stick the landing.