I Can't Believe He Died Just Because He Hit The Griddy Too Hard

Also, "Outworld Red" (idk if that's the actual name, but it's the name of the ost) is a place i really love in ena dream bbq, everything screams "dream-like" to me.

(Well, even more than the rest of the game i mean .)

It's full of familiarity but oddness all the same. It's an infinite network of streets that are noticeably empty. Or at least, there is no one. The doors are closed, and there is nothing on the stalls. The ambiance is oppressive yet calm at the same time. You can run for as long as you want, you will get nowhere.

If you look up, you won't only see that giant dude swimming in the sky, plane looking shapes will appear at some point

They are recognizable as "plane" looking but they are also "wrong", "odd", as if they were the vague memories of what a plane is supposed to look like

I also found some little details, like the electric wires being "cut" at some points

if like me you like to walk around before "going to bed", you will notice strange shape appearing on the street

If you squint, you can try to recognize some familiar things, like eyes, coral, plants, pieces of machineries, playground.... But like the plane, they are twisted, as if they were memories of things

This whole "town" is like what you feel when you remember what you were dreaming about and try to piece things togheter to "fill" the holes of what was lost to dream-land and it's absurdity, and yet remember how strange it was

I tend to "loose time" to walk around there before taking the bed door. I love the music too (WITH sounds effects, sadly they are absent in YT uploads)

Not that i ever got the "blink and you miss it achievment" even if i keep stalling but hey

I didn't notice this til my billionth playthrough, but both the text that appears when you interact with this Amoeba Guy, and the ellipses that follow any interaction with any of the NPC's in this room is in Meanie's dialogue text color. Girl is freaked out of her flipping marble

ENA Dream BBQ Analysis

I wanna talk about ENA Dream BBQ, but it’s really hard to do so since it’s so disjointed. It’s difficult to stitch together meaning but I feel like there is meaning there. Since it’s an abstract piece of work it’s not a literal 1:1 metaphor or message, there’s some teasing you need to do to get meaning out of it.

I think ENA Dream BBQ is at its heart about the seemingly pointlessness of life and how we find meaning and ways to go through it anyway. But to explain why I think the best way to analyze this media is to just make some observations and connect a few dots near the end.

ENA’s duality.

Let’s start with ENA herself. She has two conflicting personalities express through her white and red face. A salesperson side and a mean side. Her salesperson side is trying to constantly find opportunities and ways to coax information out of people. While her Meanie side is abrasive and impatient and wants information NOW.

The “BOSS”

ENA is searching for “the boss.” She wants to find the man in charge because she has business with him, and that could literally be a metaphor for someone trying to find meaning in their own life.

In ENA’s goal to find the boss many characters claim to be the boss, but none of them actually are. If we assume that the phrase “the boss” (aka: the man in charge) is a synonym for God, then it becomes interesting who claims to be the boss and who doesn’t.

Finding Fullfilment

Dratula, a coin cat, a hands demon, a wooden horse, and a vending machine all claim to be “the boss.” And each one could represent things that people use to find meaning in their lives. For example: Dratula could represent superstition. The hands demon talks about fame and stalking celebrities. The money cat is originally a piggy bank that breaks and talks about saving up to party irresponsiblely. The wooden horse talks about babies and pets. And the vending machine offers material goods.

But none of these things will offer TRUE fulfillment. They’re more akin to distractions or obligations. They’re optional goals to aspire towards but aren’t necessary for you to be happy. You don’t need money, material goods, children, pets, fame, or a belief in the supernatural to be happy. They can offer you happiness but they aren’t necessities.

Jobs

There’s a strong emphasis on the importance of having a job. Many characters bemoan the loss of a job, are discouraged they can’t fulfill their job, are avoiding their jobs, or are very proud of their job. For example: It’s “sad” that the Taxi driver can’t do his job without his heads. Coral Glasses just wants to do her job without “anxiety.” Taski Maiden is “upset” she’s unemployed. Frog gets “angry” when you skirt your job duties.

Like the various things to fill your life with, having a job can give you a purpose. But again, It’s fleeting. You can lose your job at any time. It’s not really fulfilling either.

I think this is the reason why when ENA finds her way to the bathroom she’s at her lowest point and with a massive hole in her chest. She’s unfulfilled and in a zombie-like sickly trance. She’s tried to do odd jobs to find happiness and achieve her goals, but it hasn’t worked. Or she’s tried to skirt her goals and have fun, but that hasn’t worked either. She needs something to believe in.

Enter: The Bathroom

The bathroom is interesting. It is a daily ritual that everyone engages with and this could be seen as a stand in for religion. Certainly many of the ways characters talk about “going to the bathroom” sounds an awful lot like going to church. It’s also the most difficult route to take in the game, making you complete multiple odd side quests or to attempt to play Frogger to cross the river.

It’s also interesting who does or doesn’t support the bathroom. The Witches are searching for the bathroom. The Shaman Wizard wants to help you too. But Frog dislikes the bathroom because it takes time away from your “job.” Likewise many of the side characters who are kinda just running around aimlessly seem to have mixed feelings on the bathroom, which changes depending on the route you take.

It’s also interesting that ENA does not find salvation in the bathroom. She’s actually shunned from it and the Genie refuses to offer kindness for her, or her friends. The only thing the bathroom does help with is in achieving the goal of turning off the smoke.

If you take the Purge Event route, not only do many of the wayward souls you’ve met along the way go too, but you’ll be berated by Frog for ignoring your duties. ENA herself refers to going to the purge event as “craving freedom.”

Meaning Unfulfilled

And that’s where this all ties back together into trying to find meaning in your life. Everything in the game is trying to give ENA meaning as she searches for “the boss.” But none of it really works. After destroying the smoke she is adrift. It’s curious that NOW is when ENA finds herself in a nostalgic world from all her previous ENA videos. She’s in “Auction Day” again but it’s not the same. It’s just nostalgia for a simpler time. And slowly she starts to falter. Her body overcome by blocky pixels that ultimately consumer her.

The end of the game has her body revert to that of a blank mannequin and she falls into the “holy code.”

ENA Theories

And yet it’s not quite the end… because she comes back. The final post credit cut scene shows ENA resurrected by taking control of a blank mannequin that was lying lifeless at the start of the game in the hub world. This does seem to indicate that all of these blank mannequins lying around were previous forms of ENA. They’re often located around places where you as a player can die easily, like missing a jump or falling from the sky.

I actually dislike the “ENA is actually a species” theory because it feels like it’s trying to objectively explain abstract ideas. Since we see ENA cycle through a host of different forms INCLUDING her original yellow and blue form, I don’t think she’s a literal unique species but just a lost soul trying to find purpose and meaning. As a result her physical appearance and shape changes as she does.

If ENA is a species I don’t think that there are multiple ENA. But rather that ENA can jump from blank body to blank body. That could explain why her search for happiness hasn’t been successful yet and why other characters distrust her.

I also don’t like the “she’s a war criminal” theory either. I know there’s images in the game that hints at this, but I think for an ABSTRACT game that is far too LITERAL of a reading of things. Rather I think they’re suing the imagery of war as a way to show ENA’s emotional turmoil in trying to reach her goal of being fulfilled.

The settings of the game help with that interpretation. For example: The game begins with her in a desolate empty war-torn looking city of endlessly repeating houses. And at the beginning of the game she has no purpose yet. She goes to a casino, that offers cheap thrills and purpose, but it’s short lived and she eventually ventures out into a bigger world to find a purpose. This world is split, like her, into having one where purpose is given, or where you can ignore your purpose. Literally one half of the world is laying on top of the other. The bathroom is sterile and empty and nauseating to get to, but offers no fulfillment either. And finally she ends the game in a nostalgic trip to previous videos right before she “dies.”

There’s probably a lot I’ve missed or glossed over. Nothing in this game is a 1:1 metaphor and there’s likely no real meaning behind a lot of it. Curious that a game about finding meaning in your life is told through the gameplay design of an abstract seemingly random and meaningless story, no?

Not What He Seems

There’s only a few final thoughts that I wasn’t able to fit anywhere else. The more I’ve played the game, the more I’ve come to distrust Frog. He’s one of the few characters who also acknowledges that others “aren’t the boss” and yet he acts like your boss through the entire game. He’s the only character that seems to care about the smoke from the genies, as none of the others mind it at all and some even like it. And the act of destroying the smoke machines feels… wrong. He’s also black and white which is a narrative and stylistic choice that gives me pause. Even Coral Glasses has some color in her Coral. But Frog? He’s black and white. He’s binary. He acts like the boss. He wants you to do something no one else minds or cares about to proceed forward. I do not trust him.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Does my analysis hold up? Does any of this make sense? Am I completely wrong? What do you think the story of ENA Dream BBQ is about?

If we follow the theory of all Enas being able to be in two places at once, but also in one place at one time, for she would be lost in the other person's mind, and that they're all connected through the mannequins

I kept wondering what the hell she meant by "a giant bathroom, it's not enough for this many bodies" at the end. What bodies? What if she's talking about all the ENAs/mannequins

And the ending at the bottom of the river with the dead Theodora, "i choose to remind you that this place we are in is too far away from your real, physical form. I can only keep you from returning to it", as in, ENA could return to her body all of her own? Another mannequin maybe? And Theodora is the only thing keeping her down in the afterlife?

Then "However, i may make an exception for today. Touch my memories, let me show you a reality, one where you achieved your deepest desire."

First, her memories? So she's actively conscious and aware through all alternative universes?

But most importantly, right after saying that she'll hold ENA's "spirit" here, she says she'll make an exception by showing her memories of an alternative reality. Does that mean she sent this Ena's spirit/consciousness to the one in the universe she succeeded, and the "for he would be lost in the other person's mind" happened and they both "fused"?

And with that ending scene being the exact same as the temptation stairway one. With the code walls, floating mannequins and doors, even flowing bubbles showing that is indeed the same ocean code. Series!Ena glitching in the falling mannequins, and bbq!Ena dropping out of her "skin/shell"

They can't possibly be a hivemind, they'd know too much. But series!Ena glitching in the mannequin for a frame while bbq!Ena is respawning at the post-credit scene, and the other Ena in the cave. They absolutely exist in multiple places at once in some way

Other npcs might be somewhat aware of this, like, they know they can meet multiple times the same Ena, while also meeting them for the first time, because of the whole "two places at once" thing, so they just say "ENA", instead of an ENA, because you never know which one they already met, and which one they haven't met yet, despite them being the same person

And this bit from the horse guy feels way too fitting to be random nothing. Even splitting himself in half like ENAs are

Dear video essay creators. A video analysis is when you analyze a piece of media. No no look at me. A summary, no matter how thorough, is not an analysis. An analysis requires you to draw conclusions about the media such as authorial intent, real-world parallels, discussion about themes/worldbuilding/character motivation, and so much more. You have to stop summarizing something and saying that’s analysis. The Gaylors are doing more critical analysis than you. Is that who you want to lose to? The gaylors?

ena stop terrorizing the civilians

inspo:

i did this at like 4 am dont judge me

hey folks if you have an android phone: google shadow installed a "security app".

play.google.com

Android System SafetyCore - Apps on Google Play

Provides safety features for Android devices.

I had to go and delete it myself this morning.

I didn't notice this til my billionth playthrough, but both the text that appears when you interact with this Amoeba Guy, and the ellipses that follow any interaction with any of the NPC's in this room is in Meanie's dialogue text color. Girl is freaked out of her flipping marble

As Elon Musk cements his place in history as a fascist tech overlord and the rest of the world looks at us in horror, I really do want to reiterate what I feel will be lost to the history books

Nearly everyone in america has thought and continues to think that Elon is very cringe.

I didn't notice this til my billionth playthrough, but both the text that appears when you interact with this Amoeba Guy, and the ellipses that follow any interaction with any of the NPC's in this room is in Meanie's dialogue text color. Girl is freaked out of her flipping marble