[Cartoons] Over the Garden Wall, Wishfull thinking

[deathtaker26]

**SPOILER ALERTS! DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT THE ENDING TO BE RUINED!**

So, this post was really me writing down the realization that Over the Garden Wall is heavily inspired by the Divine Comedy, also known as, Dante's Inferno.

So, it's a pretty obvious fact that "The Unknown" in this cartoon is Purgatory/Limbo. Well, in the Divine Comedy, one of the sectors of hell was a forest known as the wood of suicide. As Over The Garden Wall states, those who give up on life in the unknown become edelwood trees. This is a reference to suicide. In the devine comedy, those who cause the end of their life and suffering grew into trees within the wood of suicide. In these woods Dante met his deceased mother who ended her own life to run from the abuse of her husband. Dante was told that she died in a raid, but it was her glutton and greedy husband who drove her over the edge.

Dante reaches the first ring of hell after his lover, Beatrix (which happens to be the name of the bird in Over the Garden Wall), made a deal with Lucifer that Dante would stay faithful during the Holy War. Beatrix begins guiding Dante through the rings of hell to Lucifer's home through deception. This leads Dante to realize that Beatrix is betraying him just as he had done. In Over the Garden Wall, Beatrix was trying to deceive the boys to lead her to Adeline who she promised would return them home. Truth was, Adeline wanted to fill their head with cotton as the beast commanded her.

At one point, Dante returns to heaven as a sacrifice Beatrix had made with Lucifer. Of which Beatrix had to stay with Lucifer.

In Over the Garden Walll, Wirt's little brother, Greg has a dream where he believes in going home. In this dream he accidentally opens a gate between the good of cloud city and the bad. Which is a reference to the gate that would unleashed the war between heaven and hell. At this point Greg defeats the "North Wind" and a Angelic figure offers to allow him to go home and leave Wirt behind. At this point, Greg whispers into the Angel's ears. This was the wish that Greg wanted to make a deal with the beast to ensure that Wirt would get the answer to going home. This is the reference to Beatrix's deal with Lucifer. His dream was the representation of Heaven.

**Randomly related Facts:**
"The Beast" is a reference to Lucifer. In some religions and cultures, they often refer to Satan/Lucifer/The Devil, to "The beast". As in like "The number of the beast".

If you hadn't noticed Wirt, throughout the series was constantly contemplating everything. He was over thinking the world, wishful thinking, if you would.
His brother Greg, was a whole different side to this. His brother didn't think things through, and acted before he spoke.

I have a feeling that a lot of the characters in this story referred to the Seven Deadly sins that the rings of hell were named after.

Gluttony: The woman who devoured people under the possession of an evil spirit.
Avarice: The horse that wanted to steal from the man, who promises to get a stable job and stop stealing, or the man who invested in the school
Wrath: Possibly the anger of the beast.
Envy: Could be adaline too who wanted a child servant, much like her sister, Auntie Whisper's who had her "Niece" to live with. Adaline mentioned she was lonely
Lust: As "lust" itself is hard in a childshow, I  was referring to the love betwen Quincy and the "Ghost"
Sloth: Adaline, who pretended to be sicks and wanted children to do the work for her. Or Auntie Whispers, Adaline's sister who kept the child at work.
Pride: Beatrix, who seemed full of herself and was constantly feeding Wirt negative vibes.

Also, another thing that lead me to believe the story was about afterlife, is in the second to last episode, there's a gravestone Greg leans on that says "Quincy Endercott". This was the name of the man with the abnormally large mansion that linked into two mansions.

Potsfield, the name of the town in the second episode… Potter's Field, the name of a land mass where they would bury bodies in a war... where the boys were digging up skeletons to join the town.

**I feel like most of these random facts could be kinda pushing it like the sins. but you can't deny the Diving Comedy references.**