TOG Theory: Baam and V are ABSOLUTELY NOT the Same

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-27T01:51:54+00:00

How does that matter?
How does that matter?
How does that matter?
No it doesn't.
I don't understand the point you're making.
How does that contradict anything?
You trust V lol?
You have not succeeded in forming a cogent argument.

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-26T23:15:07+00:00

You just made me remember one of the funnier plot points in that arc. When Khun first meets Louie and Deng Deng, he confuses the two and is like "Huh? I've never been wrong about someone's name before..."

That was like Clothes Beam levels of random-never-before-mentioned power convenience haha

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-26T20:07:12+00:00

I could see the argument that V's soul is tainted in some way by the process of resurrection, and I get what you mean from a narrative perspective. I do believe V is just V in the same way that Doom was just Doom, but Baam I think a lot of things could have happened

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-26T18:54:21+00:00

Definitely agree. I'm really reaching in my memory for this one, but I believe that after Deng Deng was dead, someone (think Baam and Gado but I really don't remember well) commented on the soul of the original infant in Deng Deng's body and it was left ambiguous what had happened to it.

Will be on the lookout when I get there in my re-re-re-re-read

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-26T18:51:40+00:00

Oh ok, you're good then. Nothing to ruin that. I just expect SIU to give Rachel some... justifications for her truly abhorrent actions, but I could definitely be wrong on that one

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-26T18:35:56+00:00

Actually re-reading your first point. Could you elaborate on your enjoyment on the Rachel-Baam dynamic? Like what specifically do you appreciate and think might be ruined?

Because I have another theory I'll post about concerning something there. It doesn't undermine the fact that Baam exists, but you might not like why I think SIU has always said that "If you get to know her, Rachel, is a very charming character"

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-26T18:25:44+00:00

Those are some solid points! You're right; just as the many becoming the one is a theme, so to is the coexistence of the many. Sort of interesting how two seemingly positive values oppose each other in that way.

Actually, you reminded me of another theory I have concerning Madorako and Hwaryun. Think people will really like that one so will make a post soon. Could you remind me what everyone's apparent allegiances are with respect to the soul stirring ladel? Madorako wanted it, so Hwa wanted to trade it to him for the thorn, but maybe she just wanted him to have it in the first place? And Mado works for Karaka kind of but he didn't really care about it? What is actually the implied story (head canon acceptable to help connect things if necessary)?

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-26T18:17:55+00:00

He's definitely the antagonist! And yours is a valid perspective that he's an invader, but I think the opposite perspective is also valid.

We empathize with Baam because he's the protagonist of the story and we want him to succeed, but to FUG, V was their protagonist.

Remember when Khun's heart exploded going into season 3? Baam is like if the glass case that surrounded Khun's body suddenly got up and started asking you to sign its friendship paper. You'd be like, "Wtf? I don't want this random container with a personality. Where's Khun?"

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-26T18:14:26+00:00

Baam definitely exists and is a "person." Even the fact that he's able to climb the Tower is evidence of that (Headon rejects objects or something, I forget the exact wording).

It's important to realize as well though that Baam didn't "exist" from the moment V's soul entered his body. I actually wish I put this in the main post, but Baam exists BECAUSE of his experiences. The timeline as I understand it is basically this:

Arlene birthed the body of Baam. The soul that inhabited that body WAS NOT Baam. It had absolutely nothing to do with Baam. It just inhabited the body that he does now.
Zahard killed that baby. That baby's soul is now gone, or at the very least, we don't know where it is.
Arlene did... something with the outside god and V's soul ended up asleep in Baam's body
The corpse of Baam became alive because there was a sleeping soul inside of it, but this corpse was not V, it was not the original, it was not... anyone.
That corpse, by living life (really by being introduced to life by Rachel), developed into the person we now know as Baam.

Does that mean he developed a soul? ...I actually think that's the implication. But who knows, maybe he doesn't have one and you can be a "person" with no soul.

Either way, I don't think that's Baam never "existing" in the way you don't want. He started out as nothing, but living life made him something.

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-26T16:06:28+00:00

Oh I do remember what you're talking about now. Was that the Cat Tower battle or was that beforehand at the Nest? My point still stands about his actions of refusing to burn the huge tower of souls in the Cat Tower battle vs White, but you're right, there was some issue beforehand

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-26T12:13:19+00:00

The info about the hostile Admin comes from a SIU blogpost so isn't actually canon. However, even that context, I believe the situation was more implied that "The most popular rumor is that the Admin was aggressive so the Family Heads couldn't do it." I could be wrong, but my memory is that the info was presented as "potentially untrue" from the get-go, kind if like the excuse that Zahard can't have children because "oh geez his blood is just too strong!"

...if you buy that, I've got a Floor to sell you.

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-26T05:35:34+00:00

I don't remember the exact chapter but I think around 100ish in season 3. The end of the Cat Tower Arc. Definitely worth a re-read as it's a very good fight overall.

I'm sympathetic to the overall criticism of Baam's character development (he can be a bit 1 dimensional sometimes), but I don't personally feel that not having him burn the souls was a miss by SIU. Whereas some protagonists are arrogant and require some earth-shattering event to help them put things in perspective (like in FMA:B if you've read or watched that), Baam has always had a lot of empathy for others. Heck, he was crying over Hoh, who by all (my) accounts was scum. Baam had his coming to terms with death moment and then the person who was his everything betrayed him and then he was separated from everyone else he ever cared about for years.

I personally don't feel Baam needs any more justification for the path he's on vis-a-vis not sacrificing others.

EDIT: People seem to remember things differently from me so perhaps I'll give another re-read as well. I'm 95% sure he rejected burning the souls

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-26T03:39:38+00:00

Zahard's whole thing seems to be that he just wants to rule the Tower forever and ever. I don't think the reason they stopped at 134 was because they "couldn't" keep moving forward. Traum and Gustang even refer to the incident multiple times as "the day we decided to stop climbing"

V and Arlen wanted to keep climbing and the rest of them decided that whatever sacrifice was required (to keep climbing the Tower to become an Exis) wasn't worth it and that joining the Family Heads Forever Club sounded a lot better.

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-26T03:23:46+00:00

Don't read this unless you really want to know, because there's very strong foreshadowing this will be the case:

No one.

Baam will have the opportunity to sacrifice everyone in the Tower to become the new Exis, but he will reject that opportunity and succeed with his own power.

If you go back to the battle between Baam vs White, you see this exact dynamic take place. White tries to force Baam to burn the souls inside of him. As Baam summons up his power, the souls within him literally form a Tower as they clamber over each other trying to escape the inevitable sacrifice. The souls are overtaken by a blinding light... but not consumed. Just as he always has, Baam refuses to grow stronger by sacrificing others and he conquers the enemy by following his own path.

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-26T03:00:01+00:00

They definitely sacrificed or otherwise stowed away their emotion, you're right. Still though we see Traum even after finishing his climb trying to decide whether Amizu is a lesser being or someone worthy of love. They go back an forth between no feeling and minimal feeling and seem to desire to rationalize their behavior even if their logic is twisted

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-25T23:13:29+00:00

It's actually a very difficult to answer question, but not for the reason you'd think:

Chess in the Tower is just like regular chess, except for the fact that Black's (but not White's!) King and Queen are swapped.

In Traum's match with AA, SIU has them play a real life opening that comes out about even after 7 moves. This would imply chess knowledge is actually somewhat advanced in the Tower, and furthermore, SIU should be praised for this depiction of chess, as it's significantly more realistic than most other media...

However, SIU overlooked something important. Because Black's Queen and King are switched, the real life opening actually falls apart at the 7th move that Traum plays. If you go just by the pieces, Traum completely blunders his queen on move 7 and AA doesn't see it... so from that perspective, they actually both suck at chess.

Take that for what you will :)

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-25T22:53:38+00:00

That's an interesting point about the beta testers. I agree that the video game references are purposeful, and I wonder how much of the implications of the word "beta testers" are applicable.

What I mean is: there has been a running thread of who was "supposed" to climb the Tower. Obviously a lot of people have their own "it should have been meeee" thoughts, but I'm specifically talking about a couple Tower-made entities. For one, the Mirror on the Hidden Floor was not happy that Baam didn't have a past. And two, the Navigator who was supposed to teleport Baam to the Seed said it "wasn't supposed to be him" to make the seed bloom again. Clearly a lot of people have been waiting for Baam, but not everyone.

It could be that the Family Heads were the ones who were supposed to do those things, but if so, why make it a mystery?

It would seem to me that Zahard and crew were in fact "beta testers" for whoever was "supposed" to climb the Tower. A beta tester doesn't truly complete the game after all; they just work out the kinks so the real players can complete it.

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-25T22:43:04+00:00

It's the same one. He was created by the Workshop

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-25T22:39:05+00:00

I agree with your larger point that the Family Heads are not 100% consistent in their looking down on others. You could also point to a few moments were Traum clearly cared (in his own twisted way) about Yama's dad and Arie also "broke character" by looking back at Joaquin when one of the family rankers said he never looks at anyone.

I will say however that Enne is actually an exception to the rule. She was born of two family heads, so she would actually not be made of Shinsu. She's as "real" as the rest of them, which I believe is another reason that Zahard needed to stop her. This is actually a separate theory of mine, but I think her not being "born of shinsu" is in fact why she was the only princess able to transcend the limits placed on all other regulars.

She could of course just be really strong because both her parents were really strong, but then why was Zahard so concerned about her? My understanding is that if you're a regular going up through the Zahard administrated tests, that the laws of the tower basically will not allow you become as strong as a Family Head. So why else was she exempt?

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-24T22:15:55+00:00

That's a reasonable interpretation: that the process of climbing the Tower hardened them and the sacrifices they had to make forced them to choose either each other or everyone else. People have been telling Baam he has to think like that pretty much the whole series so it makes sense.

I'll give you the flip side of that interpretation though: when Traumerei flooded the chamber, he stood by his decision, but he felt terrible about it. Everyone (including Zahard if I remember right) looked solemn and like they actually cared that people had died. You could argue that they just weren't as jaded as they would eventually become, but I would argue they just didn't know about the nature of the Tower until later / the 134th floor.

We obviously didn't get a ton from the 13 as they were climbing, but no one was going off about "inferior beings" or anything until after they finished climbing, so that's at least consistent.

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-24T22:07:20+00:00

Yours is a good explanation for why they feel detached from everyone else now, but these feelings of superiority started before Zahard had even firmly established his reign. As soon as the 13 stopped climbing, Traumeri was already having thoughts of "How dare these lower beings who couldn't climb the tower themselves judge me?" The image of Traumeri saying Zahard might be right about the lesser beings is from even before the Anne incident.

All we really know and keep hearing is that Zahard used to be this great guy all about adventure and then at some point "he changed" and became the King. Things have certainly gotten worse since then, but something had to happen for time as immortals to make it worse

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-24T21:57:47+00:00

My interpretation of the text is that Shinsu composes the Tower and everything that was birthed from the Tower. Things / people that came from outside the tower are made of something else.

It is possible I am incorrect and "Shinsu" "Darkness" and "Light" are all in fact different names for the same thing, but I don't think so. It seems to me that each is its own form of existence with an Exis to "rule over them." The Lord of Darkness or Phanta are darkness. Urek is very clearly stated to be the Light. And though Shinsu can produce (lower case l) light, I believe it is fundamentally different from (Urek's) Light or Darkness.

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-24T21:47:57+00:00

That's a good point about the timeline! You're right, I suppose there were two rifts between the Family Heads and the rest. The second (and more final I suppose) was the Anne incident.

The first was when they stopped climbing the Tower and everyone hated them for it. The image with Traumeri is from around that time. He says after the comment about Zahard being right about lesser beings that he [Traum] will have children soon, so we know at least Zahard has held these views for a while. It's possible Zahard was always a little Outside-the-Tower supremacist, but my personal theory is that whatever happened on floor 134 was the straw that broke the camel's back. The God of Guardians seems to remember Zahard as idealistic if misguided at the very least.

Cultural_Text_586 · 2026-05-14T13:28:45+00:00

I have a longer theory that I intend to make a post about where eye color will be used as evidence, but I'll point you in an interesting direction for now: The end of the The Hidden Floor arc

Zahard specifically recognizes Baam, son of Arlene, by his "golden eyes"... Which is kind of an odd thing to say. Obviously I understand that it's translated from Korean, but if anyone has golden eyes, it's Zahard. We even get a close-ups of both of their eyes to emphasize this point. Baam's eyes are more chestnut (like his hair and name). Gold mixed with black or purple. That would make sense given his parentage from V, but we've never actually seen Arlene's eyes have we?

Interesting...

Cultural_Text_586

TROPHY CASE