Fridge / Stampy's Lovely World

Spoilers are off for this page.

Fridge Brilliance

General

• At first, the fact that Stampy is still fighting Hit The Target and Veeva Dash may seem like a case of Fridge Logic — for all its oddities, the SLW is still a Minecraft world, so why doesn't Stampy just ban them? But after rewatching certain episodes such as "Revelation", "Helpless", and "Uninvited Guests", it starts to make more sense as to why — for all his antagonism with the two of them, he's still incredibly supportive whenever it appears they've made a Heel–Face Turn, whether it's his joy at having HTT back as a friend again, him offering to let Veeva join him and the other Helpers, or accepting what he believes to be a Christmas truce without a second thought. Connecting that back to his tolerance of them staying in his world, and it becomes clear that he's not letting them stay out of idiocy, he's letting them stay because he hopes they'll make a legitimate Heel–Face Turn and become Helpers again, and if he banned them, that would never happen.
  • Moreover, in Episode 711, "My New Pet", Stampy points out that he doesn't want HitTheTarget dead because the last time he killed HitTheTarget was in Episode 42, "Unexpected Drama"... after which HTT returned as a Vengeful Ghost to haunt Stampy and eventually came back to life anyway.
• After Veeva Dash joined forces with HitTheTarget, attacks seem to have increased in frequency, with the average of a 30-episode gap going down to about 20 episodes, and the shortest gap being about 11 episodes (the villain-bots plan being an extension of the Polly-Bot plan). But the reasoning behind this increase in frequency makes perfect sense: HitTheTarget now has double the manpower and brainpower on his side; of course they would be able to churn out evil schemes at a higher frequency.

Episode-Specific

• After dying in Episode 184, "Clone Calamity", the deceased Stampy Cat Clone has never returned, thus surmising that he had been permanently killed, even though there is a respawn mechanism in the World; but on second thought, the clone of a player wouldn't classify as a player in-universe (as there would be no external force controlling them) but an NPC who looks like the player, i.e. a mob, which — other than the Ender Dragon — cannot be respawned and will die for good if/when they are killed.
• After being kidnapped for ~18 episodes (almost 2 months in real time), Barnaby starts sleeping in Stampy's bedroom instead of the Doghouse, an abrupt shift in behavioural patterns from usual that lasts until the present day. Then the Fridge Brilliance kicks in with the fact that canine PTSD symptoms can include sleep disturbances and the fear of being alone — it can be theoretically concluded that Barnaby has developed PTSD from the experience. Stampy seems to even acknowledge this in Episode 340, "Big Banana", though he wrote it off as a temporary arrangement at the time.^note He only first realizes the full change in Episode 343, "iC", and offers to let Barnaby spend the night in his room as a more permanent arrangement.
  Stampy: Barnaby didn't want t-to leave my room– (laughs) Seeing as, uh– I guess he's still a little bit... uh, scared about what happened with uh, You-Know-Who, uh, recently. Uh, yeah, I guess he wanted to spend the night in my bedroom and I had no problem with that whatsoever...
• In Episode 686, "Santa's Surprise", i.e. the 2020 Christmas Episode, Santa only gave Stampy a cookie as his present — a far less grandiose gift than previous years. Why? In previous years, Stampy had been relying on annual Christmas presents to get items which cannot spawn naturally in the Lovely World since it was so old, e.g. jungle, acacia and dark oak wood, as well as End-related materials. After switching over to Bedrock edition after the hiatus, the Lovely World received an extension to become an infinite-sized world rather than a world of limited size on the Legacy Console, meaning Stampy could just go and get all the building materials himself and no longer needs to rely on Santa. While it doesn't explain why he got a cookie, specifically, it does explain why he didn't get any far-biome building materials like he usually did during previous years.
• In Episode 719, "I Won", practically all of Stampy's memories get triggered back when he eats a single slice of cake; he then says that the cake brought back all his memories. While this could just be Stampy's love for cake Played for Laughs, there's possibly a more serious explanation for this — Stampy has cake for breakfast almost every single episode outside of his earliest episodes. Of course he'd remember everything.
• Of course Stampy wouldn't have noticed HTT and Veeva Dash's minecart track plan for Episode 749, "Ten Years Later...", he's spent the episodes between the last attack and this one building either in the Funland, in or near his house, or in the Town's extension. He'd have no reason to go near the main part of the Town.
  • Moreover, even though the minecart track itself existed by Episode 737 ("Slush Rush") at the latest (and that's where the plan borders on Fridge Horror), it's only just within his render distance from Mittens' balcony, i.e. barely visible, and even blends in with the horizon. Even without Stampy's own obliviousness to his surroundings, the track is still quite difficult to spot without actively looking for it.^note See for yourself. You see the line in the distance in Episode 737, Episode 740, and Episode 745? The grey line on the blue horizon? Yeah, that's the track.
• In Episode 624 "Helpless" Stampy offers Veeva a chance to join them, but she turns it down. Years later, in the finale, it's revealed Veeva had been sending Stampy letters warning him of the attacks since "Mirror World"... which was the Hit the Target attack directly after "Helpless." Turns out, Stampy did actually get through to her.

Fridge Funny

• In Episode 472, "Gate Crashers", Stampy disguises himself as Veeva Dash to try to save his dogs and Helpers... and HitTheTarget somehow falls for it. Granted, the costume she was wearing isn't gender-specific and hides the wearer's face, but in-universe, he had to fake her voice as well, among other things; and HitTheTarget was dating Veeva Dash yet didn't recognize an impostor of her until she herself shows up. When taken to the logical extreme... yeah.
• Despite the direness of the situation Episode 526, "Saving the World", considering that Hit The Target was speaking through Stampy's voice the whole time, the entire "The Reason You Suck" Speech could be perceived as Stampy's take on a "Roast Yourself challenge", especially from a meta perspective.
• Given how events in the SLW seem to happen on the day the video detailing them is uploaded (as evidenced by the Helper's Twitters referencing the events of "Friends and Foes" on 14 November 2015, among other things), this seems to imply that due to the hiatus, Hit The Target and the Mirror Stampy had to wait almost a whole year to spring their trap in "Mirror World" — and given how they were already in the void between worlds when Stampy entered, they might have been in there that whole time.

Fridge Horror

HitTheTarget-related

• The basis behind HitTheTarget's plan to Take Over the World — to steal Stampy's dogs and make them into his evil dog army. The problem behind this? Minecraft wolves are known for their Undying Loyalty. What methods would HitTheTarget use to convert them to his side? And even if HTT succeeds, think about the situation from Stampy's perspective as well... and this is a show watched by kids throughout their childhoods. Even if you're on HTT's side, the implications behind his actions are pretty awful when you think about it.
  • Then it turns into dark Fridge Brilliance upon why Stampy's dogs are some sort of Living MacGuffin which HitTheTarget wants to turn against Stampy — not just for their power in a Zerg Rush, but rather, his emotional attachment to the dogs. We already know that Stampy doesn't take betrayal well, and that was from Veeva Dash, who he had only known for a month. Now think about the impact of his dogs — two of which he raised from birth, and several others which had served as his oldest and most loyal friends since the start of the series — turning against him. His hesitance to let his dogs get hurt — due to said emotional attachment — would give HitTheTarget the advantage in a fight, especially if the dogs are mind-controlled into doing a Face–Heel Turn. Case in point, his emotional attachment to Barnaby was the reason why he didn't escape from captivity in Episodes 541-542 (the "I Lost / Hero Helpers" arc), since his freedom would be at the cost of Barnaby dying, which implies that HitTheTarget might have known about this weakness for a while, and does not hesitate to use it against him.
• In various attacks, it is noted that HTT has tried to use many different mobs against Stampy — his Savage Wolves in Episode 42, "Unexpected Drama", a polar bear and her cub in Episode 472, "Gate Crashers", and a parrot in Episode 624, "Helpless". After these episodes, the animals are never seen again. While in the first instance, it is heavily implied that HTT's wolf was killed in the episode, what happened to the other animals? Especially the baby polar bear?
• In Episode 320, "Sleepy Stampy", Stampy falls victim to a drugged cake. He is then looted and dragged to HTT's fortress into an obsidian drowning trap. If you think hard enough about a food (or drink) getting drugged and what actions are associated with it... we should be lucky that the series is G-rated.
• At first glance, the nightmares in Episode 351, "Nightmares", seem pretty ordinary — apart from the one where he becomes HitTheTarget, they appear to be either Faux Horrific, such as when he dreams about there being no more cake, or downright bizarre, such as when he dreams about a gnome attacking him in the desert without provocation. However, after watching Episode 355, "Friends and Foes", the meaning of the gnome dream becomes much more obvious: Stampy fears people he considers his friends betraying him, like how the gnome starts attacking him after he assumes they're here to help him and addresses them as a friend at first. Not only does this imply that Stampy never fully got over HitTheTarget's betrayal, but also that he's most likely traumatized after Veeva Dash's, especially considering that it was only 4 episodes afterwards. And judging by his reaction to Polly (actually Polly-Bot) siding with HitTheTarget and Veeva Dash to chase him down in Episode 575, "Polly-Bot", there are canonical implications that this is indeed the case.
  • Another one of his fears shown in the gnome nightmare is that his entire Lovely World, as well as all the effort and passion he put into building the World, is gone and lost forever. This hits differently when you consider the fact that HitTheTarget has zero qualms about destroying the Lovely World, i.e. with his Wither and eventually laser satellite (in previous attacks, HTT seemed to be more centered on generically going on the offensive or kidnapping people/pets); and hits harder during Episode 658, "Mirror World", where Stampy gets trapped in a mirror Alternate Universe of his Lovely World. Had he reset his spawnpoint in the Mirror World by sleeping there (since he arrived there at night) or never got the idea to die to return home, he would have ended up living out one of his worst nightmares, since the Alternate Lovely World would ultimately never be the home that he built and made.
• In the episodes leading up to Episode 719, "I Won", Veeva Dash creates a type of Magic Campfire which produces fumes that induce memory loss to the point of Identity Amnesia in extreme cases. For those who watch the Dream SMP, the powers of the Campfires are arguably comparable to the Inbetween dimension from Tales From the SMP, which ultimately causes time-travellers who use it as a hub world to experience gradual memory loss and eventually Loss of Identity until they are doomed to traverse the dimension forever. What makes this scary? The Inbetween is a supernatural dimension created by a god. Veeva Dash, as far as we know, is entirely human.
  • In contrast to Tales From the SMP, where the Loss of Identity is gradual and uncontrollable, and its effects are only described, in the Lovely World, it can be recreated by human hands. With immediate effects. That occur explicitly on screen. Yeah, even if it's temporary at the end of the day, the Lovely World can surpass the Dream SMP in terms of how dark it can get... and that's saying something, since the Dream SMP covers some very heavy topics extensively (including mental health, abuse, suicide, etc.) and has a bit of a reputation of inducing the Too Bleak, Stopped Caring reaction from viewers.
    • Continuing on with the DSMP analogies, had Stampy been left without a memory trigger in the form of cake from HitTheTarget, he would have been what c!Karl would have become (if c!Karl hadn't fled the Inbetween right after learning the truth behind it).

Others

• In Sqaishey's 200,000 subscriber Milestone Celebration song, "FunBot 200,000", they place two of the eponymous robots — which then proceeded to blow everything and everyone up in the video — in Stampy's world, presumably his Lovely World. Considering that the Lovely World and Feather Adventures are connected in some way^note since Stampy appeared in several of Sqaishey's other songs, such as "Quack If You Wanna" — where Stampy and his Lovely World are directly mentioned in the song and Stampy apparently dug a hole to get to Sqaishey — and "Jungle", it means that it was entirely possible that the FunBots blew up a good chunk of the Lovely World off-screen. Thanks a lot, Sqaishey. And as mentioned before, since one of Stampy's worst fears is losing his World... yikes.
• The movies made for and shown in the Halloween Episode 564, "Scary Movies", carry some fairly disturbing implications in themselves in the context of the Lovely World proper:
  • The premise behind 'Block of the Dead', the Zombie Apocalypse movie, which took place in an After the End setting. The Lovely World had fallen into disrepair and had long been destroyed, and their current residents are never mentioned in the film. Are they dead? And if they aren't, where are they now?
  • The premise behind 'What Is This?' is that a YouTuber by the name of BrickIt is trying to track down Stampy, who has apparently become a bit of an Urban Legend. While Brick is a fictional character, that doesn't mean that there aren't curious travelers that know about the SLW due to rumors, which becomes more disturbing the more one thinks about it. What would happen if one of them stumbled into Hit The Target's lair, was attacked by a zombie or a creeper, or came across one of the many, many abandoned death traps? Or, on the opposite end of that spectrum, what would happen if a global power discovered an island with talking animals, time machines, and sentient alien life?

Fridge Sadness

• Stampy never bothered to remove the mean signs that Hit The Target left over his bed, reading "loser" with an arrow pointing down at the occupant of the bed (usually Stampy), at least, before he had to cut down the number of signs in his World for the Love Garden. Did he still remember the early days, even if they aren't mentioned?
  • And even beyond that, it can be noticed that Stampy never removed Hit The Target from his Love Garden. While it can be explained that he just couldn't be bothered to remove the signs, considering he still has hopes that Veeva Dash has some good in her all along, leaving the signs there definitely feels like a Stampy thing to do.
• Sqaishey's song "Jungle" takes place in February 2016, where they and Stampy explore the jungle near Feather Adventures, and the song itself is about confronting one's fears and facing challenges with bravery, optimism and support from friends. But when you look at the Lovely World timeline — once again, with the implications that the two series take place in a Shared Universe — the song would have taken place about a month after the HitTheTarget attack in Episode 375, "Evil Plan". Given Stampy's hesitation with charging into a horde of spiders with a wooden sword in the song... one would wonder if being teleported into a spider dungeon and going down to half a heart even when fighting with an Infinity +1 Sword left a mark on him.
  • And then possible Fridge Brilliance hits — the challenges to face can include trauma, and having a good support system is important for learning to live with trauma.
• Episode 458, "Secret Stories", is a Halloween Episode highlighting three parts of Lovely World lore that haven't been looked at before. One of these is Fred the Friendly Enderman's backstory — he used to terrorize and steal from a small village until a young woman taught him how it felt to have your most prized possesions taken from you, at which point he renounced his old ways and became a friend to all in the village. It's a sweet story... until one remembers that Stampy specifically states that the story happened long before he arrived in the SLW. Not only that, but there's no sign of the village anywhere in the main Lovely World, unless it's supposed to be the one from "Dangerous Day"^note which seems unlikely, given the visual contrasts and the amount of time between the two episodes. So either Stampy was exaggerating about how long ago the story took place and the village is somewhere off-screen/the one in "Dangerous Day", or Endermen are immortal/long-lived, the village ruins deteriorated over time, and Fred outlived the first friends he ever made.
• In Episode 526, "Saving the World", after chasing HTT away, Stampy asks his Helpers if they were happy working with him in his Lovely World. Despite his relatively upbeat tone, the fact that he felt this has to be done at all implies HTT might have hit a sore spot, and brings up the question of how much Stampy actually believed the words of his Arch-Enemy who was trying to discredit him in front of millions of people^note perhaps he was afraid of actually being the tyrant HTT speaks of? and how much he took the accusations to heart… and then that brings up the matter of his self-esteem, insecurities and other pressing matters.
  Stampy: But in all seriousness, guys: you are happy here in my Lovely World, aren't you?
  The Helpers: (nod)
  Stampy: You promise?
  The Helpers: (nod)
  Stampy: Okay, I just wanted to check after some of the things that he said.
• While the Helpers making a protective cage for Luna in Episode 703, "Stampy Fails At Redstone", is rather cute, the fact that they felt they needed such a cage is confusing, considering it was the middle of the day and the minigame didn't have any dangerous aspects (fire, great heights, etc.). When looking at their recent interactions with the dogs, though, a reason comes to mind: they might be blaming themselves for not being there to help during the battle of Episode 700, and as a result feel like it's their responsibility to make sure no more dogs get hurt.

---