Severance Theory Report 3: Dieter Eagan National Forest is a Severed Space

Welcome to a new series about theories for the TV show Severance.

If you haven’t yet watched Severance yet, head over to my recommendation post Might I Tempt You With Old Man Yaoi?  Otherwise, as long as you’ve watched the show through season 2 episode 4, ‘Woe’s Hollow’ you’ll be prepared for this theory.

Theory: The ORTBO experience at Dieter Eagan National Forest takes place in a severed space, not in a natural, open environment.

After this week’s explosive episode of Severance, fans noticed quite a few oddities that have brought about some questions about Dieter Eagan National Forest.  The entire episode was bizarre, but even beyond the fact that they’ve flung out Innies into presumably the outside world, some things just don’t add up.  And when it comes to puzzle box shows, when things don’t quite add up you usually have to pay attention and figure out what it’s supposed to mean. So let’s examine the evidence supporting the theory that this forest is a severed space. 

Glasgow Block vs OTC

This week we had Severance Theory Report 1: The Helena/Helly Conspiracy proven true, but in the process the last bit of evidence for the Theory Report 2: Ms Casey’s Outie Is In a Coma, seems to have been debunked. But that’s okay. You win some, you lose some.

The way in which Helly was brought back to us is our first major clue that this isn’t a normal outdoor space. When Innies are woken up outside the severed floor, the OTC protocol is used. However, when Milchick called in over the radio to wake up Helly, he stated that they needed to remove the “Glasgow block.” 

Why would a block need to be in place if this was the normal outside world?  Wouldn’t Helena just be able to function normally? Wouldn’t Helly need to be put into an OTC protocol like she was during the season one finale? This difference in procedure is majorly notable and not easy to brush off. Surely these protocols were written with solid mythological framework behind them and wouldn’t just be used in scenes randomly as the writers see fit. 

Additionally, we saw that it was a rather complicated ordeal to put the Innies into an OTC state. It required two levers to be held down constantly, which would be difficult to do for two days straight for the MDR crew.  It just seems like it’d be easier to do this in a place where such a thing wouldn’t be necessary. A permanently severed space, ideally. 

Team Building on Petey’s Map

There are two different groups of people who believe that this is a severed space: those who believe it’s a massive underground complex and those who believe it’s an actual outdoor space.  I’m part of the latter group, and this bit of evidence is from the former.  That said, I’m still going to cover it.  It just means if you come at me in the comments to argue against it, I’m not going to defend it. That’s all. 

Petey’s map had a “team building” section on it.  Clearly team building is done within the Lumon complex.

Now personally I feel like that would be used for things like the egg drop challenge showed back in season 1, but it’s possible there could be a door that opens up into huge underground cavern that holds a large-scale outdoor setting.  I think this complicates the entrances and extractions (wouldn’t the Innies remember walking towards that room?). And Dylan did make a point to note that there didn’t seem to be a roof over their heads. But I want to give all the believers in this theory a fair shake, even if we disagree on the details like this.  It’s factual that this is noted on Petey’s map, so take it or leave it. 

Control of the environment

Lumon shows an incredible amount of control of the environment at all times.  This part of the theory works whether or not you believe it’s indoors or outdoors, but parts of it are, admittedly, better suited to the people who believe it’s an indoor space. I’m still not in your camp, but I’ll give you this one! Let’s break this down piece by piece. 

Hidden book

The hidden book in a cave was risky, though not entirely unheard of for events in our own real world. People do hide things for scavenger hunts, geocaching, and the like all the time. But these are usually somewhat temporary and not anything of great value. In order for Lumon to leave a valuable book behind like this, it shows they were incredibly confident nobody else would have stumbled upon it before the MDR crew did. 

TV, heaters, etc

The TV popping up on the cliff side and the tents with heaters near no obvious electricity outlets was odd. Granted, this is a world where outpatient brain surgery and forced consciousness splitting is possible, but they also drive cars from the ’80s and use TVs on rolling carts, so where exactly are we with technology? Is this another technological detail that’s just meant to unnerve us, or is it a clue that Lumon has much more control over this environment than it appears? 

There are no other people there.

Lumon had to be damn sure their Innies wouldn’t stumble across any random people in this forest.  This, at the very least, points to this being private Lumon land. If this is historic land to the Eagans, which plays into the familial mythos, it’s not a huge stretch to think they’d install some sort of severance technology around it to maintain control. 

The doubles.

Okay, what the heck are the doubles? I don’t know. The creators and actors have confirmed there aren’t clones in this show, so that’s out. Robots? Actors? Holograms? I don’t know. But whichever option you choose, Lumon had to have some level of control to make it happen. You can’t just make a double of someone show up in a random forest without any preparation. 

Controlled entrances and exits.

The entrances and exits of the characters are complicated no matter what path you take. I briefly touched upon how difficult it’d be for the Innies to walk to the Team Building room on the Severed Floor and not remember it.  But also, how would they convince the Outies to go out to the middle of nowhere? How would they convince Irving to walk out to the middle of the lake? It doesn’t make sense. 

I don’t have a satisfying explanation for this, and have yet to see one proposed by anyone either. But Reddit is definitely trying to work it out! However, I do feel it’d be easier to get an Innie who is under the control of one of the other override states to walk out into the middle of nowhere and simply not remember doing it than it would be to convince an Outie to walk out into the middle of a frozen lake.

Hopefully we’ll get some explanation for this. But who knows. Not everything on this show will have an explanation and this might end up being one of them. 

Likelihood: Possible

A lot of this could just be sloppy writing, but so far Severance has been incredibly tight. Dan Erickson is fairly new to the scene, however, so it’s hard to say how he’ll handle a large mythology in the long run. But there’s just enough strangeness here to make me believe something is possibly up, and I’m just hopeful enough in this series to believe that it could be true. 

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They identify as queer.

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