SPOILERS BELOW — SPOILERS BELOW — SPOILERS BELOW — SPOILERS BELOW — SPOILERS BELOW
Go on a walk with me before you go to the TLDR. I spent a lot of time on my phone last night. Pulling up old threads, scrolling miles down Exiled's Instagram, Googling "How to insert a hyperlink on a forum." (The answer = pray.) At a certain point, I just threw my phone down and went to bed. There are so many details that it's easy to talk yourself out of things.
Before I dove into those details, my first taste of this story was "The Story So Far" page. (How'd I do?) It starts simply:
- GIF 1: "Exiled haunted house has been a fixture in Bonner Springs, KS, for nearly a decade."
- GIF 2: "But everything changed when Kansas City filmmaker Darren Lynn Bousman attended and partnered with the haunt for the 2024 season."
- GIF 3: "The familiar faces that ran the haunt were swiftly pushed aside."
The previous owners were ZipKC. Going forward, I'll refer to their group as "ZipKCers" or "former Exiled employees."
The timeline continues: The town was quickly overrun by the Elites. It eventually "became clear" that the Elites planned to restore the land to the Redcurves, who lost it decades earlier "to the relentless march of industrialization." Months after arriving, the Elites made contact with the Redcurves and offered them a deal:
- GIF 12: "The Redcurves would reclaim their land, but under one nefarious condition: They must adhere to the Old Ways."
The Old Ways, we've found out since, are probably the blood rituals and initiations. The calling upon "forces best left undisturbed." The Old Gods, maybe.
GIF 12 never sat right with me. I could never say why. Then, this morning, Sgt. Polaris (another Exiled fan) brought something up. I'll quote him:
"Ya know, I just thought of something. The 'story so far' page says something like the elites helped the Redcurves get the land back but that the Redcurves have to follow 'the old ways'. But it really seems like the Redcurves were already doing so and would continue to do so. Seems like a weird thing to specify since it makes it sound, at least to me, like the elites were the instigators of the ritual which we know to not be the case. Maybe it's just a red herring for newcomers?"
That's why it didn’t sit right. Dorothea has told many people his story, and in it, he and his family are the ones who found the Old Gods, tapped into powers with blood rituals, and took the land back by force. Something's wrong.
Sgt. Polaris's observation helped me type out the theory I'd been trying to put together since last night.
TLDR: The Elites did initiate the rituals—and they performed them on former Exiled employees. They thought they'd turn them into obedient hillbillies and goons to run off the stragglers, but what they got were the Redcurves. Somewhere deep down, the Redcurves remember.
I’ll try to explain. Let's leave the "Story So Far" page and tap into all of the information made available by brave ARGers, other Exiled followers, and Exiled's Instagram page.
Exhibit A: Even before the Redcurves and the Elites met, the Elites hated the ZipKCers. Many of those that remain aren't allowed on the property today.
From the beginning, the people from ZipKC were treated like shit. By the Elites, who told them they're not good enough here and here; and who held them back as the Redcurves took back the land. Even by Darren: the 6/26 entry to the timeline describes him chastising ZipKC Dan for posting something cheesy on Instagram. The account soon apologized and promised better quality.
Even today, the police officer and his dog run old employees off the property. Former ZipKCers Dan, Brad, and Bodhi—who must have escaped the rituals but are bound by something else—have apparently been seen helping run them off.
Exhibit B: We know several Redcurves weren't always Redcurves.
In an anxious rant, Morgan told Cammie that he knew Dorothea before he was Dorothea and the Handlers before they were Handlers. Dorothea confirmed his change to Cammie—he told her "the person he was before this had all their molecules blended in and mixed with his current self."
He might not have a clear idea of his previous life (or lives, if he was multiple people), but he seems aware of a change. Maybe he had a choice in the matter.
We know Maddy Redcurve didn't have a choice. She was Madelyn, a previous employee of Exiled who, when she publicly disapproved of the haunt's new direction, was forcibly initiated into the Redcurves and forgot her previous life.
Sometime after Dorothea became Dorothea, Madelyn started speaking out—she even leaked scripts. This led to her forced Redcurve initiation on 9/9. The Elites were there and, in my opinion, ensured it happened.
Lazarus (a.k.a. our boy Dairy King) brought Cammie to the initiation. In the photo posted the next day, Maximillian is right there in the tent. And in the leaked script, the Elites are observing an initiation.
Exhibit C: There's power in a name.
We've talked a lot about how names are powerful. Lazarus said they were and blondie analyzed several. Well, have we looked at Dorothea?
In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy was thrown from her Kansas home by a a tornado. She thought the only way to get home was to meet the all-powerful wizard. But in the end, she had the power all along. She didn't need to see the Wizard to get back to home.
I think whoever Dorothea was before made it to the wizard: the Elites, with their Old Ways. And he thought it was the only way to back to his Kansas land.
Cammie asked Dorothea why he became Dorothea—which likely included rituals—and he said it himself. "To get the land back."
Exhibit D: The Redcurve and ZipKC stories are quite similar.
I'll leave it to Lex for this:
Okay so… the story of bow redcurves got gimmied from their land and how ZipKC got gimmied from their land are strikingly similar
- Both went through financial hardship
- Both got pushed off their land (in ZipKc’s case… for something better)
So, are the Redcurves' memories fake?
Sgt. Polaris again:
So by this logic, the whole thing about the ritual being given to [Dorothea] by the old gods either didn't happen, and is some kind of implanted memory, or it happened to someone else and then that memory was transferred to Big D?
I don't think it was an implanted memory. The Elites would never want the Redcurves to feel empowered. I think it's a bit like this beautifully written opulens quote from blondie:
“Imagine for a second pouring a beer into a cider. Don't imagine the taste, but just go with me here.
What you may see is now one drink, fully mixed.
But look closer, and you will see the particles of each drink are still alone.
Drifting in a universe of particles like they always were.
Is the beer the total group of particles?
Or is each particle still fairly classed as beer?
While we may become scattered, our components lost in a mist, it is, or was, still us.“
Dorothea got shook up. His particles, whirled by the tornado of the Old Ways, were all blended and mixed. So when he sits us down on a bucket and tells us his story, he is sharing a memory—a distorted memory, and maybe a collective memory, but one that's too strong not to fizz to the surface.
