Fridge / Scott Pilgrim

As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Fridge Brilliance:

• Wallace is gay and gives Scott info/advice on which ex he's fighting next. He's literally an Exposition Fairy!
• Scott is terrible at comebacks; the only time we ever see him make a snappy comeback is when saving Kim from Simon Lee. You might think this is because Kim is supposed to be Scott's true love, but it's actually because Gideon "spiced up" Scott's memories.
• Along the same lines, Simon Lee's resemblance to Gideon can probably be explained by the same reasoning. The Animated Adaptation takes the similarity to the next level by having Gideon's film actor, Jason Schwartzmann, voice Lee.
• Lucas Lee is the most affably evil of Ramona's evil exes, and shows kindness toward Scott. Why wouldn't he? They both got left for the same guy!

• Stephen Stills:
  • After reading Book 6, re-read the series and and pay close attention to Stephen Stills and Joseph from the moment Stephen discovers Joseph's recording studio in Volume 4, to the end of Volume 6 when he comes out to Scott. They start growing closer together and Joseph even becomes a de facto member of the core group and, by the middle of Volume 5, they're always either sitting or standing right next to one another. Young Neil even backhandedly outs Stephen by calling him "Captain Homo" at Julie's Halloween Party at the beginning of Volume 5.
  • Knives' hysterical laughter when Scott accuses her of being in love with Stephen Stills in early Volume 6 gains additional context, as she would obviously have known that he was dating Joseph, since she had spent a lot of time hanging out with Stephen Stills in Volume 5.
  • There's also Stephen Stills' uneasy reaction to Julie remarking that she shouldn't be worried about Stephen falling for Knives towards the end of Volume 4 and Stephen Stills's uneasiness in the aforementioned "She's obsessed with Captain Homo now" panel — upon first seeing them, it looks as if Stephen Stills actually is interested in Knives & is later worried about being at Julie's party with his new underage girlfriend, but it all takes on another meaning when rereading the books after the release of Volume 6.
  • There's also the scene in Volume 4 where Scott and Lisa stop by to find Kim that only has extra meaning if you've read Book 6; Stephen and Joseph are "working on the album" in Joseph's room, and we only see Stephen from the waist up as he leans out the door. Joseph, unseen, expresses annoyance that the door wasn't locked, and instructs Stephen to tell their visitors that they're "busy making magic." Bonus points for noticing they spend a good few months creating a 20 minute album, and they're spending hours every day over said time period in a recording studio that just so happens to contain a bed. Do the math.
  • Also potential foreshadowing in Book 3, when Wallace mentions Scott wearing his shirt, the shirt in question looked a lot like the shirts that Stephen Stills usually wears. Who's to say Wallace hasn't exercised his amazing powers on Stephen and Stephen left his shirt behind, which would definitely cause Stephen to question his sexuality even before meeting Joseph.
• Triforce:
  • The recurring Triforce in Volume 6 isn't just for show; Scott, Ramona, and Gideon each have an aspect of it. Gideon is 'Power' because he wants to control Ramona's life to the point of having her cryogenically frozen along with his other 6 exes. Ramona is 'Courage' because she finally stopped running away and is now standing up to Gideon. Scott of all people becomes 'Wisdom' when he realized all the mistakes that he's made over the years, and that he and Gideon are not so different.
  • And much as Link often ends up representing all three aspects of the Triforce, Scott does as well by the end of the series. Wisdom has already been mentioned, though his discussion with Ramona in the elevator about "getting unstuck together" also qualifies. Power is shown in his obtaining the Power of Understanding, which gives him the strength needed to defeat Gideon. Finally, he exemplifies Courage in absorbing the Nega-Scott and owning up to his mistakes, admitting that he's not that different from Gideon, and just going back to fight at all.
  • The cryogenically frozen exes are like the Seven Maidens from A Link to the Past (Ramona would have been the 7th — Princess Zelda).
• Ramona tells Scott he has a subspace highway through his head that is three miles in fifteen seconds, followed by a guess that they don't teach that (subspace) in Canadian schools. But the schools don't teach imperial measurements either.
• Why would the other exes besides Gideon even bother going through with the League anyway? For a lot of them, it's been years since they last saw Ramona, and even though old wounds are hard to overcome, they all seemed to have their own lives to live. Some are even successful, such as the Twins being award-winning roboticists. However, in Volume 6, we discover that Gideon's secret weapon, the Glow, causes people to become trapped in their own minds and their negative emotions, unable to move on. It is unclear how he uses it, but he seems to generate it from himself. It is then revealed that Gideon's been using Subspace to travel through Scott's head to witness the events of all the volumes. This could explain why Scott's head was glowing right before his final battle with Negascott, despite never having met Gideon in the real world: because by traveling through his head, Gideon infected him, making his already troublesome personality even worse. Heck, this is probably why Negascott even exists, Scott's repressed negative traits were likely given form by The Glow. This also changes the meaning of Todd's Superpower Meltdown in Volume 3. That image of Gideon isn't a flashback. He is there inside Todd's head, commanding him to do his bidding. And that is how he got all the exes to form the League, by meeting with them and infecting them so that they couldn't move on past Ramona.
• Scott has to fight Ramona's seven evil exes. What is his favorite comic book? X-Men.
• In the Scott Pilgrim game, one of Todd Ingram's attacks is to stand at one side of the screen, use his vegan powers (don't ask) to turn his arm into a mass of vegetation, and slam you with it as giant vegetables rain down upon the battlefield. If you examine his arm during this attack, you can see some weird animal-like bits between all the flora. This isn't just some strange little detail. "You are what you eat", they say. The attack reveals his betrayal to veganism and is why the vegan police come for him right after the attack.
• Nega-Scott in the game:
  • In the video game, Scott fights and successfully defeats Nega-Scott, contrary to the outcomes in both the comic and movie. His ending in the game is also the only continuity in which he doesn't end up with Ramona (not counting the movie's cut ending). Coincidence? Nope; Nega-Scott represents Scott's mistakes, so making peace with Nega-Scott represents Scott's reconciliation with the part of him that made those mistakes (an act that allows him to win back Ramona). By beating the crap out of Nega-Scott, though, Scott never learns his lesson, and therefore is never able to get back with Ramona. All those coins he beat out of people means he can harem it up with Kim, Knives, and Envy, though. Ramona's ending, on the other hand? She & Scott walk off into Subspace, because Ramona defeating Nega-Scott works in the same way as Scott defeating the Evil Exes - Looking past the mistakes & the past, to the person they are no].
  • Alternately, it could mean that Scott's Character Development wouldn't be enough for the relationship. Even if Scott did absorb Nega-Scott and accepted his faults, unless Ramona underwent Character Development of her own, she'd be repeating the same mistakes she has been and leaving. Scott at the very least would be able to be with his past girlfriends. Ramona also undergoing her Character Development has her willing to be serious on relationships and thus the true key to making it work.
• Gigadeon Graves in his subspace:
  • His One-Winged Angel form has the bodies of the 6 other evil exes merged into one giant pile underneath his torso. All of them have angry faces, except for Roxanne, who looks as if she's in a state of pleasure, which is strange considering she's a lesbian. Things make sense, though, when you remember that Gideon has an extremely large ego, and that these aren't really the other evil exes. His ego is so huge that he believes that in his presence, even those who would have no reason to be attracted to him would fall all over themselves just to be with him (but not the guys, because he doesn't swing that way).
  • It could also be a reference to how they were when defeated. Lucas looks scared, like he was before he eventually died skateboarding. Patel looks shocked, as well; when he died, he was shocked that Scott could defeat him. The twins and Todd just look angry, and Roxy looks, well... yes.
  • Gideon's One-Winged Angel form looks like something a kid would draw. Well, Gideon is a Manchild, after all.
  • Earlier, when Ramona is grilling him for details about his and Kim's relationship, Scott makes a joke about how he had to fight a seventy-foot-tall dude in a purple suit...which, of course, is more or less what Gideon looked like.
• Ramona's treatment in the movie. Comic Ramona was often moody and could be impatient and even kind of mean at times, but the movie turned all that up to eleven, turning her into very much a selfish bitch who many viewers didn't feel was worth fighting for. Why? Those who know the film's original ending will know [Scott and Knives were originally going to get back together before test audiences panned said ending. Why make Ramona unlikable? To make Scott and Knives the couple rooted for at the end. It's also possible due to the amount of time that transpires in the movie. The events of the comic take place over the course of a year or so, which gives plenty of time for Ramona to warm up to Scott. The movie, on the other hand, takes place over the span of a few weeks. Couple Ramona's considerable emotional baggage with Scott having to deal with physical manifestations of it on a regular basis compared to his comic counterpart, and it's rather understandable that she tends to come off the way she does; there isn't much time for her to warm up in the first place.
• Look at how Scott appears on the covers of each volume. It may seem to be Art Evolution at first, but, if you look a bit deeper, Scott found himself much more mature than he really was in the beginning. As the story goes on, and the comic looks more cartoony, you start to see him for the shallow man-child he is, and how he tries to change. It's as if he's come, in a way, into terms with his childishness, and now, he finally has a chance to start over and grow up.
• When Scott asks her about Ramona, Julie immediately forbids him from hitting on her. Just a jerkass who wants to keep him from scaring off the coolest girl at the party? Partly... And partly her having been there for Scott's relationship with Envy, from start to finish, and not being sure he was actually over her (and she was right).
  • Also, having been there for the end, she knew that Scott was not as innocent as he had deluded himself into thinking he was. She definitely had reasons to not trust Scott with Ramona.
  • In volume 1, Scott dreams being part of a famous band with Knives and an unknown frontgirl that sings and plays the keyboard, while the drummer remains unseen. Rereading it after reading volume 3 reveals the frontgirl's identity: Envy back when she and Scott were dating, only with her hair not as long. An early piece of evidence that Scott was not over Envy yet.
    • The dream also shows that Stephen Stills is part of the band and they have a drummer, who remains unseen. This hides that the band is not Sex Bob-omb, as while Envy was already a hint seeing Cole in Kim's place would have been a dead giveaway.
• Envy's attitude in volume 3 seems strange, first using Todd to all but torture Scott, only to be rather sweet to him after Todd's defeat and even having a tender moment with him well before Todd is defeated. Come volume 6, and when the full story behind the break-up is revealed, it's obvious she was not over Scott yet and was using her current boyfriend to vent at him, only for her to learn Todd was cheating on her and had been playing with her feelings all along and Scott to console her.
  • Another hint that she wasn't over Scott yet is the fact she still has one of his shirts, and she's wearing it after Todd is exposed.
  • Also, when Scott asks if she's jealous, she says "I'm allowed."
• This is more of an analysis than anything, but there being ninjas in Scott Pilgrim's version of America sort of makes sense. When you were a kid and watched anime, you probably tried to become a ninja, or use chi. While you failed, these kids succeeded in their dreams.
• Mobile might have been deliberately avoiding Scott with the help of Wallace. Scott wasn't really allowed to interact with Mobile until after his fight with Gideon because Scott would mistake Mobile for Gideon (he flipped out that one time after seeing him). And if that ever got out of hand, they would have to fight. Mobile is described by Other Scott as being very intense, after all.
• Why did Roxy blow up into many cute critters instead of coins? Probably because it was a ninja clone.
• So why can The Glow be used to travel into Subspace? Well, The Glow traps a person inside their head, and since it's canon that some people have a Subspce Highway travelling through their minds...
• This may be unintentional, but the first few tones that Scott chose to strum in his Bass Battle sounds like the bass line he played of Final Fantasy.
• According to Word of God, upon defeat the Evil Exes respawned in their homes after learning their lessons. This actually explains why Envy is broke at the end of volume 3: Todd emptied the band's banking account. After all, he's a major jerk even without Ramona's involvement...
• When Ramona picks a fight with Envy she's surprised that the redhead can hold her own - and is in fact the better fighter by far, with Ramona surviving long enough for Scott to intervene only due various outside interventions and outright using Wallace as a shield. She shouldn't have really been: just like Todd is set up as being Always Someone Better to Scott only to be the worse person so is Envy, and that includes fighting.
  • Envy is set up as being apparently Always Someone Better to both Ramona and Knives, to the point where Knives is the local nice girl and Ramona is the exotic and exciting one Envy is both but better (as Natalie she's the local nice girl of the same age as Scott, after becoming Envy she becomes more exotic and exciting but more approachable, and at all times she's a musician like Scott). Had she not become obsessed with money and fame, she would have been Scott's ideal woman - hence how hard it was for him to get over her.
  • The set-up also includes Kim, who is a tomboyish redhead with a temper and shares Scott's love for music - just like Envy was when she first met Scott, only Envy became much hotter after her makeover and has sides from Ramona and Knives, Scott's two future love interests.
• Scott blames Todd for Envy's bitchy character when she appears, but it's shown she had been already becoming that before moving to Montreal and getting with Todd... Except Envy and Todd were childhood friends, and it's possible they kept in contact. Enough for Scott to blame Todd, even if he may have been biased or outright wrong.
• Todd looks similar to a buffer Scott, and Envy is a redheaded musician with a temper and used to be a tomboy like Kim. This explains why Scott and Envy caught each other's attention when they first met, they found a weirdly familiar stranger and got curious. And then they clicked.
• Scott and Envy being both such good fighters has a good explanation: they were both jerks and would get into fights, and when they were together the other would come to help, ending with them having so many fights they became the best in the province.

Fridge Horror:

• A far more literal example: Gideon collects his ex-girlfriends and keeps them locked away in a perpetually brainwashed state. What do you think he does with them?
• Video game world:
  • The series appears to be taking place in a video game world, but Scott Pilgrim is the only character to gain experience, implying that he is a PC and everyone else is an NPC. This could be read as suggesting that he is living in some kind of solipsist universe in which he is the only sentient, and all everyone else is some sort of emotionless AI faking interaction with him.
  • Or it could be Fridge Brilliance, as everyone else already had jobs, compassion, and generally a life, and Scott was the only one who hadn't — thus, he was the only one who still had to level up.
  • Considering that Gideon basically has free access to Scott's mind and personality, we have a rare case of third-person Unreliable Narrator. It's entirely possible Scott lives in a normal world filtered through implanted insanity.
  • Scott shows a lesser knack of knowledge of the world having video game physics when he needed to be told of the extra life and save spot. In a way, Scott may be more of an Audience Surrogate, since seeing a genuine Free-Man in real life would be kinda messed up and the nonchalant way the others react to it is disturbing.
    • This is further supported by the fact that Scott is Hopeless with Tech (in the sense that he seems to have not kept up with current technology such as computers besides video games). He doesn't know much about the real world physics either.
• It's implied that there's little to no police officers or law force of any kind in the Scott Pilgrim universe. Does that mean people can go around murdering people by the dozens and and get off scott free? Adding support to that implication, when Scott was murdered, his sister didn't call police or ambulance. She just called their mother to report his demise. That or it shows how messed up a lot of these people are. Scott practically looks very decent and normal in comparison.
  • The police don't do much in this universe because there is no death or murder in the comic. Only re-spawning.
  • Adding to this, Kim Pines almost casually talks about killing her roommate and watching her blood spill on the floor while considering turning into a serial killer. With a gleeful Slasher Smile on her face. At a party, with Ramona. Oh yeah, and Ramona shows no concern for her friend at ALL. While Kim could have very possibly been joking, this still adds fuel to the fire.
• Apparently, if you use Subspace in a special way, you can alter someone's memories.
• During the final fight with Gideon, he shows off the power of the Glow and blasts it at everyone, including Scott's friends. How many people are now psychologically messed up because of this?!
  • Actually, it can be assumed that the effects of The Glow went away after Gideon was defeated.
• So why did Scott bleed to death instead of spill coins like the other guys? Probably because he had no money.
  • Or, perhaps... Every fight between Scott and the exes had been a duel as, according to Roxy, Scott had to defeat- ''not'' fight, her exes. So at that point, Scott truly was fighting someone- the final boss.
  Scott: Gideon...I think I understand you, man....And now I have to kill you.
• While this isn't necessarily Fridge Horror, but I just had a realization: As Todd Ingram imploded Honest Ed's, no one else but the cast seemed to make it out alive, as people respawn when they die.
  • While people do respawn in this universe, they respawn in their homes, according to Word of God. It would be rather weird if someone respawned in Honest Ed's.
• Gideon has immense amounts of power over The Glow and Subspace, which really makes you wonder just how absolutely messed up he is to literally be able to weaponize his trauma, and how many people he may have screwed up with The Glow in his "quest" to get his exes back.

Fridge Logic:

On the headscratchers page.

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