WMG / Little Nightmares II

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Six abandoned Mono because she was angry at him.

• From her perspective, her existence in the Signal Tower might have been substantially more favorable than outside of it, as she was shown contentedly sitting in a room with her music box until Mono came in and tried to break it. Her reaction makes it very clear that she's enraged by this, and was probably left a little bit traumatized, and she likely saw him as a horrible person afterward. Thus, abandoning him in the Signal Tower was effectively a form of revenge.

Six released Mono not to save herself or because he'd outlived his usefulness, but because she viewed him as too powerful.

• Consider that every time she's there when his powers go off, she's a little more afraid of him. The first time, she wakes up and crawls away from him slightly, obviously afraid. The second time, she looks at him lying on the ground and then reels back when she realizes he's alive. Considering that he'd overpowered the Thin Man, managed to get through the tower, and turned her back to normal, I believe it's reasonable to think that in that moment where she had his hand, she let go because she wanted to get rid of him before he could become something more dangerous.

The Viewers gave up their children to the Maw in exchange for the Signal

• From the game's website regarding the Viewers: "The Transmission gives them all they need, and demands only one thing in return..." So they didn't get this brain-melting TV goodness for free. They had to give something up for it. And we see very few if any human children in the second game save for the protagonists (and the "bullies", but they're clearly something else entirely). Because they were all sent to the Maw by their families in exchange for the Transmission. The mass-suicide you see the Viewers going through might be a manifestation of their guilt over this act.

Little Nightmares II is a prequel to Little Nightmares, and Mono is a piece of the Thin Man stuck in a time loop and is directly responsible for Six's rise to power.

• The game opens on an image of the door in the signal tower, before cutting to when Mono first wakes up next to a television in the wilderness, which then turns off. The television in question has a wooden letter block next to it, which implies that it came through the television with Mono from the signal tower. After Six betrayed Mono, he walked the organic floor of the signal tower before arriving at the chair. Climbing atop the chair, the walls began to close in on him, intending to consume him completely, so he used his power to transmogrify the space into a non-threatening state; he was still trapped, but it could no longer hurt him, so he bided his time and allowed his powers to grow as he got older. The Thin man is trapped behind the door and wants his freedom, but is able to influence television sets which broadcast the signal, and the viewers feed his power. While trapped, he isn't able to use the full extent of his abilities, but he can still broadcast signals, and is capable of seeing through time, so he uses a lot of his accumulated power to separate a piece of himself and send it into the past, projecting it out of a television set into the overworld, thus creating Mono, who emerges from a television in the wilderness because the Thin Man is not able to aim very well in his detained state. This is further supported by Mono's ability to absorb the glitching remains encountered throughout the game. He has created Mono for the purpose of having someone out there who can open the door from the outside and free him from his prison, and he does so by attempting to reach out to Mono through television broadcasts at various points during the game. However, the area where Mono first emerges also leads to his meeting Six, which may have been part of the Thin Man's plan, as the two of them need to work together to survive for much of the game. Once they reach the Pale city, he begins trying to lure Mono into freeing him using the television broadcasts, so when Mono approaches the set and puts his hand on the screen, we're given the impression that he goes into the television, but physically, his body is still in the room, hence Six pulling him away when she sees him becoming entranced. This happens twice, but he successfully manages to open the door the third time, at which point the Thin Man stands up for the first time since his childhood, moving slowly due to the stiffness in his body, likely exacerbated by the injuries he sustained in chapters 4 and 5, and pursues the children into the adjacent room. He kidnaps Six, creating her glitching remains in the process, and uses her to bait Mono into moving closer to the Signal Tower, where his powers are stronger. When Mono gets close enough, the Thin Man begins pursuing him, intending to reabsorb the projected piece of himself and become whole again, thus breaking the cycle, but doesn't count on Mono's own powers being similarly amplified, and so Mono kills his creator. He then proceeds to force his way into the Signal Tower, where he searches for and ultimately finds Six, now in her distorted form. A few things to note here. Firstly, he finds six in a giant playroom, which is likely indicative that the Thin Man remembers her as the only friend he ever had as a child, and thus wants her to have some semblance of happiness, hence the toys throughout the room, the most important one being the music box that he saw her playing with when they first met, which was the only plaything she had in the room with her at the time. Secondly, her monstrously distorted form may be his revenge for her betraying him and leaving him trapped in the signal tower. Third, in the back of the room is the open suitcase where Six awakes at the beginning of the first game, suggesting that the Thin Man can see the future as well as the past and thus gave her the suitcase as it was the closest thing she ever had to a proper bed. Finally, the sledgehammer was deliberately put in the room to act as a failsafe in case the Thin Man failed to reabsorb Mono, as Mono would want to free Six from the influence of the tower and the only way to do so would be to destroy the music box that acted as the keystone of her entrapment. Because the Music Box was intrinsically bonded to Six, damaging it caused her physical pain, and so when Mono did so, she lashed out in pain, anger, and fear. When Mono finally destroyed the music box completely and returned her to normal, the Signal Tower senced that it was losing its primary power source, and so began to close in on them to prevent them from escaping, so the two of them ran for their lives. In the end, Six managed to make it to the end of the bridge before it collapsed, and instinctively reached out to stop Mono from falling, as she had done so many times before, catching him at the last second. However, once the immediate danger had passed, she realized that Mono, whom she had trusted and allowed close to her, who she had considered her friend, had hurt her. In that moment, she wasn't thinking about the reasons behind his actions, all that mattered was that she trusted him, and he had hurt her, so she let go of his hand and let him fall into the Signal Tower. In other words, Six betrayed Mono because, from her perspective, he betrayed her first. Mono picked himself up, went to the chair, the walls closed in around him, and stopped them from consuming him by transmogrifying them into a harmless form, though he was still trapped. He sat down, allowed his power to grow as he got older and more viewers consumed his signal, and the cycle repeats, each iteration of the Thin Man wanting only to be free of his prison, creating a new Mono in the vain hope that maybe this time the cycle will be broken. Six, for her part, started out as an ordinary child, however continued exposure to Mono and the televisions with which he interacted started to change her; the time she spent with him, and the fact that the Thin Man interacted with her directly instead of whatever happened with the other children is what allowed her glitching remains to exist beyond simply staying in the spot where she was taken. Furthermore, She spent an untold period of time in the Signal Tower, physically modified by its power, before being freed by Mono and escaping. Even though she was back to being a little girl, the time she spent there permanently modified her, as when she travels through the television at the end of the game, which she wasn't previously able to do, her now-sentient glitching remains, which would become Shadow Six, point her toward an advertisement for the Maw (which likely purports itself to be a destination for tourists seeking exotic food), and we hear Six's stomach growl for the first time; we will likely see a DLC in the second game that shows how Six obtained her lighter and entered the suitcase that brought her to the Maw. One of the most fundamental ways that she has been altered is that now she has a seed of power of her own; it hasn't had time to develop yet, but requires a lot of energy, and thus she finds herself hit with painful hunger pangs seemingly out of nowhere. This leads to the events of the first Little Nightmares game, where she wakes up in the suitcase, having traveled to the Maw, and begins making her way from the bowels of the Maw to the surface. Once during each chapter, she is hit with these hunger pangs, and she gorges herself on the first available food item that she finds. First is the bread/potato that the other boy gives to her, which she doesn't even stop to thank him for because the emotional wounds from when Mono hurt her were still fresh (not to mention her experience with the students at the school), and thus she no longer trusted any other child. This is further supported by the fact that she uses a cage with a child in it to escape the area where Roger has imprisoned her and makes no effort to free any of the other children or even acknowledge that they are there. Each time she eats, her glitching remains (AKA Shadow Six) appear nearby, a manifestation of her budding powers being replenished as she eats. each time she eats, the lights flicker, another indication of her powers manifesting and developing; when she eats the Nome, the lantern above her head actually explodes. Finally, she eats the lady, an adult with powers of her own that she has honed and developed over many years, and Six's developing power allowed her to absorb that of the lady in the process, turning her into an unstoppable engine of consumption, thus during the final sequence of the first game, she exits an elevator and slowly walks into the dining hall, the light bulbs above her exploding as their energy is absorbed, before killing the first guest and absorbing his energy. As she moves forward and consumes more energy, her power continues to grow, its range and effectiveness increasing exponentially, until finally she opens the door to the stairway and ascends to the outside, the nomes that she previously befriended (likely trusting them only because they were incapable of hurting her) watching her leave. at the end of the first game, a ship's horn sounds, and her journey is implied to continue.

Six took the Lady's power to save Mono.

• So this is a happy ending, and therefore unlikely (because Little Nightmares do be like that), but: Six arrives at the Maw and regrets abandoning Mono. When she steals the Lady's power and leaves, she's not going to feast on people, she's looking for the Thin Man so she can get her friend back. The Lady has the ability to drain life force, and also to transform children to nomes (see the DLC). In theory, Six could use either of these powers to save Mono: either by "draining" the Thin Man's essence and leaving only Mono behind, or by using the transformation to reconfigure the Thin Man back into Mono. She might not succeed, but she can try. He fixed her when she became a monster, so she's determined to do the same. Shadow Six could even be a manifestation of her guilt, hence why it leads her to the Maw in the secret ending. Again, seems unlikely given the series' tone and Six's general characterization, but there you go.

Six dropped Mono because her power and hunger were just awakened.

• Throughout the game Six shows no sign of her crippling hunger pangs from the original game, save for the secret ending. Her encounter with the Thin Man awakened the almost uncontrollable hunger in Six and when she was holding Mono's hand she realized she wanted to eat him. This startled her, which is why she yanks her hand back as if burned.

The kids don't belong in this world.

• In both games, we follow along and sympathize with the protagonists whether it's Six, The Runaway Kid, or Mono because they are the player characters and also because they appear the most "normal" in this dystopian world. But they're also the only ones who don't seem to fit in this world. It was easy to assume the adults were all transformed by something to explain their strange and grotesque appearance as well as their disturbing behaviors, but that doesn't fully explain why the children themselves are so much smaller than everything else around them. In the puzzle-like nature of the game, we've seen the children pushing chairs twice their size, carrying keys or items as big as they are, climbing up on or hiding under furniture that they only take up a fraction of space of, and are just overall noted to be inexplicably tiny compared to the world around them. The kids can easily fit into small places like air vents and animal holes that realistically shouldn't by any means be able to fit a human, nor would they have been intentionally designed to even if they could. A lot of the buildings had to have existed prior to whatever events made the world the way it is now. If it was just the adults who were changed from whatever happened, that doesn't explain why the environments seem more tailored to them than to the children if the children are supposed to be the "normal" ones. The adults should by all counts be the ones struggling to navigate the environment that isn't made for them, with everything being smaller and them being unable to fit or get through doors between rooms. Even if we go with the reasoning that the environment itself was changed, that doesn't explain why the children are the only ones not affected or the extent to which the environment is abnormally large for them. That also doesn't explain the situation in the Maw, which is about as far removed from the Tower as one can get yet still has the children be strangely small. From the first game, we see Six handed a piece of sausage that's half the size of her body and then later finds a rat that is bigger than she is. The beds for the children being kept hostage were huge, as were the lockers in the school. Then there's also the strange way the kids are shown to behave when facing enemies. The comics and games showed them being capable of strangely experienced scavenging, sneaking and hiding, and even ways of taking out their enemies. The comic showed one child destroying more than one of the Bullies with a lollipop and planning. One toddler in the comic was shown to be scavenging alone in the forest. The Runaway Kid took out the Granny in a way that certainly didn't seem like an accident. Six was able to use the mirror to defeat the Lady and gained terrifying power. Mono revealed outright to have powers that rivaled the Thin Man. Even if one were to argue that they were acting in self defense and had to learn to be tough to survive, most children in this position wouldn't be able to accomplish what these children are shown to do. Most wouldn't even know how, and at no point are the ones we see shown to have anyone teaching them. In fact, nearly every child we've come across is shown to be traveling alone unless they're forcibly trapped together. Almost like they don't even trust each other. Maybe they can't. Because the kids aren't all right. They are too crafty, too dangerous, and too out of place. That's because it's the kids who don't belong here. They may look normal, but they are something else. Something that doesn't fit in this world. That's why they're capable of taking down enemies bigger than they are. That's why the various enemies are so intent on targeting and eliminating them on sight. That's why they are the Little Nightmares.
  • But Mono grows into the Thin Man (or at least something greatly resembling him) which proves that the children can transform into things resembling the adults.

Six was just never a great person, and could even be a bad one.

• While Six has many good moments with Mono and, potentially, the Nomes, she has been depicted with a self-serving edge and some of her actions in this game make her seem to lack empathy or appropriate disturbance or fear, with her interactions with the Bullies, the mannequin arm, and the burning Doctor suggesting a sadistic side as well. Eating the Nome and betraying Mono, thus, are shocking but perhaps were never out-of-character for Six. It's possible the Little Nightmares games tell the story of exactly the wrong person surviving this world and triumphing and that by the end of the first game, an extremely powerful little psychopath has been unleashed upon the world. Perhaps the glitchy Six that becomes her dark version is a new manifestation of Six's darker desires that has emerged for her to communicate with and to be encouraged by into further evil.

The Signal Tower has been around for a long time and is the source of all that is wrong with the world of the games.

• It's very likely that, given its true nature, the Tower is ancient and can adopt different forms and methods, and is currently spreading its influence through the latest technology—television. Since we see Six turned into a monster while there, it could very well be the origin of all the monsters in this world.
• The tower could be that world's version of a Great Old One.

The Janitor skin mask in the Hospital isn't the same one we see him wearing in the first game.

• It's a replacement. Portraits show the Janitor with his skin, now clarified as a mask, more pulled up, but when we see him, it's covered his eyes and made him blind. Perhaps, the only fix was determined to be that he needed a second mask that would cover his head properly, but Mono and Six locking up (and possibly incinerating) the Doctor prevented the new mask from getting in the Janitor's long, grabby hands before Six arrived and eventually killed him.

Six and Mono don't speak the same language.

• Hence why the misunderstanding about Mono chopping through Six's prison door with an axe takes a few minutes to clear up. The extent of their verbal communication really is "Pst! He-y! Hi!"

The Hunter is a Crazy Survivalist who remembers a better world.

• Living out alone in his shack, he has escaped the corrupting influence of the eyes and the signal tower, but longs for better days. He's old enough to remember a world from before the corruption, or the eyes, or whatever caused the state of the world he's in. Which is why he creates taxidermy, in an insane and desperate attempt to relive anything resembling a "normal" life and family again.

The Janitor is a Viewer

• He has the same distorted face, makes similar croaking sounds, and is also mesmerized by the TVs (though less so than the Viewers are).

In the world of Little Nightmares, all children inevitably become distorted monsters once they grow up, and the world functions on an opportunistic "survival of the fittest" mindset.

• All of the children and "adults" are part of the same species, and it's simply a case of Gigantic Adults, Tiny Babies, where the kids eventually morph into the monsters we see. The kids wandering around, like Six, Mono, and the other kids from the comics (one of which is a toddler), mobile game and DLC, all demonstrate excellent skills in quick thinking and craftiness, which implies that children being forced to survive on their own is not a new or unexpected thing. Most of the kids are expected to either be killed by the adults or by the elements of nature, and it's only the strongest that end up making it to adulthood; at which point, they become the hideous monsters that the adults are.
  • Mono and Six also both become adults so quickly due to the nature of the tower they end up trapped in; it speeds up time, so the monster Six becomes is actually her as an adult, only she hasn't emotionally matured at all due to the extreme isolation of the tower, which is why she is so attached to the music box and still wears her raincoat.
• If this is the case, then why do all of the adults tend to look so differently from one another, even if there is an overlap of traits and capabilities, if they are all the same species? Well, exactly what the kid eventually looks like is entirely due to the environment the child is exposed to; a kid who is constantly exposed to the television screens eventually morphs into a Viewer, while kids in more isolated areas, such as the woods or the Maw, become more specialized in their skills and appearance, such as the Hunter, the Geisha, etc. The more niche the environment, the more unique the adult acts to allow them to navigate the environment.
• The reason the adults try and kill the children on sight is due to a highly competitive and isolationist way of thinking. They definitely don't kill the children for food or survival; the only adults who actually try to eat the children are the Guests, and it's likely that it's a trait unique to them, as other adults seem to find the kids to be a nuisance at worst and a shiny new toy at best. Not to mention that the Guests have a plethora of food around them, so they don't actually need to eat Six to survive.
• There is also a spectrum of mental competence among the adults. For example, the very existence of the Maw means that the Geisha is capable of somehow collaborating with the Chefs and the Janitor, and she seems the smartest out of all of them, so it's likely that the most competent adults naturally assume positions of authority. It's possible that killing the kids is a way for the adults to avoid their position being challenged by new competition (which makes Six killing the Geisha make more sense, as the Maw is essentially dissolved after that). Adults who don't feel like collaborating with others end up isolating themselves, like the Hunter or the Teacher, who stay in an environment that they can easily control and are very aggressive to outsiders.

Six dropped Mono because she recognized him as the Thin Man

• If Six had been planning to drop Mono in the Signal Tower, she wouldn't have caught him in the first place. But, when she caught him, it was her first time getting a good look at his face. Before the Thin Man took her, Mono had his hats and masks the whole time. While Six was monstrous, she wasn't paying him much attention beyond keeping him from her music box, and it's quite likely her vision was distorted somehow. Then, after Mono breaks the music box, they immediately have to run. When Six catches Mono, that's the first time she sees his face clearly, and she recognizes it to be the same as the Thin Man's. In some mixture of fear, shock, anger, and vengeance, she lets him go because of how much the Thin Man hurt her.

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