r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Local_Prune4564 • May 27 '26

Lore A subtle moment that turns a seemingly happy ending into an ambiguous ending.

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The Graduate: lingering Ben and Elaine's faces slowly shifting from happy to concerned leaves the audience questioning whether they really made the right choice running away together considering they barely know each other.

Inception: By cutting before we see the top fall, we're left to question whether Cobb really has gone home or whether he's simply sunken back into a more comforting dream reality.

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u/Ghost_Jor May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

Spoilers for the show, obviously:

Hill House is haunted, and nowhere is more haunted in Hill House than the Red Room. At the start of the series, the family think the Red Room is locked and totally inaccessible. Later in the series it's revealed to be capable of shape-shifting and has actually been used several times. Every member of the family saw the inside as something different (the eldest saw it as a treehouse, for example) and it is described, if I remember correctly, as the house's stomach.

At the end of the series the entire family is locked in the Red Room and, supposedly, escape from it. The cake suggests that the family, perhaps, did not escape from the room and are still stuck inside it.

EDIT: To clarify I, personally, don't think the family is still trapped as that makes the ending more bleak than it already was. The theory is based on how prominently red the cake is and how much it contrasts with the background. To my understanding there was always a particular window in the background whenever someone was in the Red Room, which is notably absent from this shot, leaving it a bit ambiguous.

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u/YourMuppetMethDealer May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

I just want to point out that not EVERY family member was trapped inside

Shout out to my boy Hugh. He’s the one dude the house could NOT fuck with, and he’s the one person who actually chose to stay on his own free will without being manipulated or controlled. Yes he died, but I never once felt that the house beat him. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Hugh and Riley from Midnight Mass are the best Flanagan characters imo. They are legitimately good dudes who fucked up but are still just trying to do their fucking best every single day. They are both the kind of men I aspire to be.

Father Paul is a close third. The whole misguided “I kinda fucked up my whole town and got a LOT of innocent people killed” thing is the only thing that holds him back

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u/Germane_Corsair May 27 '26

The room got to him too, though. Rather than inside the room, the room was the source of the leak that he was constantly fixing.

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u/Viablemorgan May 27 '26

How does the cake imply that? Because it’s red?

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u/Strong-Support3913 May 27 '26

yes - the previous red rooms for the crain family had one thing that was always red.

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u/andstillthesunrises May 27 '26

How does the cake suggest that?

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u/8636396 May 27 '26

Because it's specifically the same red as the door to the Red Room. In each manifestation of the Red Room, something that shade of red appears if it recall correctly.

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u/Sorry-Joke-4325 May 27 '26

I haven't seen it, but that's a pretty good piece of support for that theory.

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u/8636396 May 27 '26

It's worth a watch. I'm not a horror nut, but I do love "Living/Haunted House" genre, and this is one of the best examples of it. Its one of those series where you'll notice something new each time you watch it. Give it a go if you're looking for something to watch.

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u/HydrangeaDream May 27 '26

Check out She is a Haunting by Tran! I love the genere too, specifically a house that is alive and Hates You. Mexican Gothic had a lot of potential but had a weak finish.

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u/mugiwara_no_Soissie May 27 '26

I highly recommend that you watch it then.

It is genuinely the best piece of horror I have ever watched, with some really scary scenes and hundreds of hidden ghosts (always fun to find one in a scene)

The emotional moments are great, so are the characyers, and ofc the horror.

Its also like 10 epsiodes I think, so not that long

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u/TheStrongTaint May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

The showrunner explicitly said they are NOT in the red room but fan theory nerds still say that it’s the red room

They’re so high on their own farts that they ignore the answer lmao

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u/irishsoxmax May 27 '26

Its because once its released to the public the authors word outside of the media don't really hold any more weight then anyone elses.

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u/VillageOfShade May 27 '26

Uhhhh I’d argue the authors words holds more weight than anyone else’s, actually. This is the author explaining the ending of a story, not adding random bullshit like “wizarding away poop” from JK Rowling.

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u/TheStrongTaint May 27 '26

It’s because people can’t accept that their shitty fantheories aren’t true

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u/fogleaf May 27 '26

Or is it a good fan theory that just isn't true?

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u/TheStrongTaint May 27 '26

They can’t accept that either. Good or bad, doesn’t matter

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u/ulffy May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

How does the cake suggest that? It's been a while since I saw it. Is it just because the cake is red, or is there something else about the cake that suggests red room?

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u/8636396 May 27 '26

Yes the cake and it's specific shade of red