I posted this on Reddit a few days ago, was told to bring it here. My theory *updated
Conspiracy Theory from the beginning: Faith has been prostituting herself for quite some time. Having the same dilemma as Beauty and Beast, she was used to having lavish lifestyle with prince Laurence. But that has been striped away since the invasion of the Homelands and moving to the mundane world. In the beginning she did her best to go to Snow about help, but was constantly turned down for the more important (wealthy) fables. She learned of a man who did get out of the homelands with his riches intact and just so happened to be giving out loans. As her loans increased with no way to take pay them back, the Crooked Man gave her an ultimatum. She works for him or he kills Prince Laurence. Faith is still in love with Laurence so she has no choice but to accept the Crooked Mans proposition, and reluctantly does the job.
The toll starts to take affect, she quickly finds out that not only is she doing prostitution, but slave labor for blackmarket glamours. Prince Laurence is falling into a depression after finding out and shunning Faith over her line of work, which in turn causes Faith to move out. Her world is crumbling because both The Crooked Man and the Fables Office have failed her.
One fateful night, Lily asks Faith if she would be willing to cover a shift for her. Faith does this, but ends up getting beat by the client over payment. Which is where she finally meets the fable that doesn't abide by either system, Bigby Wolf. She knows right off the bat that if their is anyone to trust in Fabletown, it's him. Despite whether or not she has the money, she goes back to the Puddin' n Pie (safe under the keg will have your 57 dollars if you paid her). Bruised and feeling betrayed by Lily for sending her into that bear trap. Georgie can't have a girl looking beat to shit working so he decides to send her home. Escorted by Vivianne.
As she is going back, she asks if she could go check in on Prince Laurence. Vivianne allows this. As they walk into the apartment, shock and horror befalls Faith as she sees Laurence with a gunshot wound, lying "dead" in his chair. "The Crooked Man killed him" is what she thinks and knowing that Vivianne works with the Crooked Man, Faith grabs her magical dagger and stabs Vivianne. Killing her.
After her momentary insanity, Faith sees that Prince Laurence is in fact still alive. She realizes now just what she has done. She knows that the Crooked Man will kill both her and Prince Laurence for this. So she comes up with a plan. Faith makes Laurence swallow more sleeping pills, which will make his memory "fuzzy". Then, she goes through her purse and grabs a picture of all the girls at the Puddin n Pie and some Glamours that she stole while doing her labor work. She Glamours herself to look like Vivianne, and Glamours Vivianne to look like her. After this, she takes off the ribbon which cuts off the now Glamoured Viviannes head. She knows that if the body is found, so will the Glamour and the stab wound since the glamour does not conceal wounds (as shown by Lily), so she hides the body. However, she wants to get back at the Crooked Man for everything that he has put her, Prince Laurence, and the girls at the Puddin' n Pie through. She needs help however, so as she goes back glamoured as Vivianne she pulls Nerissa aside and explains everything that has happened. Nerissa helps Faith hide the body, and it is Nerissa that puts the head in front of the apartments. As she climbs over the fence, a part of her dress gets ripped off.
The snowball effect has begun. The head is found, The Crooked Man has lost an employee and money, and his underground operation will be revealed. So he sends the Tweedles to find out who is responsible for the murder of Faith. They search the last place she was known to be (Woodys), and the most likely place Faith would go (Laurence). So when Tweedle Dee tells Bigby they are looking for the same thing, he wasn't lying.
The Crooked Man knows that war is brewing and that he will be found out. So instead of hiding, he decides to tighten his grip. Ichabod has been embezzling from Fabletown for years because of his lust for Snow. Crooked Man takes advantage of this, and tries to put the spotlight on Crane for a while. Having Bloody Mary take pictures through the mirror while Crane has his way with a Glamoured Lily who is likely under a sleep spell for Cranes fantasy. After this is done and Crane leaves, Mary easily kills a sleeping Lily. The murder of Lily was a means to lure Bigby away, and frame Crane for the murders of Faith and Lily. So Mary and perhaps one of the tweedles wait until they see one of the toads swimming in the pond. They want the body to be discovered so they dump it in there, Mary gets quite a laugh out of this.
The Crooked Man then holds Crane captive so that the case will remained solved but the suspect will have gone missing, but Crane doesn't want to be indicted on murder. So he escapes their custody and desperately finds a way to reveal his innocence. It wasn't until Crane was captured by Bigby and Snow that Crooked Man was forced to reveal himself. Crane knew to much of the Crooked Mans operation and how it ran. He couldn't let him spill the beans.
I apologize for the length of this article, but I felt that it was important to let you know the backstory. I am missing plenty of details. I would be happy to answer questions or comments to the best of my ability. Thank you for sticking around and reading my post.
Comments
A Very good theory however we know for a fact that the tweedles were sent to find the missing photo and that crane wanted it back badly, you can see this if you go to the tweedles office by looking at the files.
Also at the end of episode 4 if you wait outside the door before entering the room to meet the crooked man you will hear Georgie say " what did I tell you? Stop laughing at me" after jersey laughs at him so this surely means they must have been involved in deposing the body because TJ said he heard someone say this exact sentence when the body was being dumped.
Thank you for posting Gavin34. I appreciate you bringing up some good points. Dialogue between Jersey and Georgie isn't quite proof, but definitely sparks interest, into whether they were the ones that dumped the body. And it quite could have been them, Mary doesn't seem like the kind of person that would really dispose of bodies anyway.
And you're right, I completely forgot about the files in the Tweedles office. After racking my brain, I think I know why they looked for the photo of Snow. They had already heard of Faiths murder, and set into motion how they could get themselves out of it. As I said in my post, they needed Snows photo for the glamour along with a piece of her hair. They needed a scapegoat, and who better than scumbag, embezzling Crane. So all they needed to do was frame the poor bastard for the murders, hide him away, and let the case go unresolved while continuing their underground work.
There's just no way the first head found by the Woodlands' doorstep isn't Faith's, as it had the very same bruises left by the Woodsman beating her that night. And what indication the Vivian we met ever gave that she is actually Faith glamoured as her? And how would Faith get glamours for her and a dead Vivian made in no time?
I liked though, the suggestion that Crane's pictures of Snow with Bigby and the incriminating one of him and a sleeping prostitute (supposedly Lily) glamoured as her were taken through the Magic Mirror. That thought never came into my mind.
Hi RafaelioOlazerai! Thank you for commenting. Unfortunately, I'm trying to solve A + B = C without fully knowing what B is. I'll tell you what I do know. Faith was a labor worker for the Blackmarket in the Butcher shop. Bigby opens a box which is full of Glamours while at the butcher shop, and we know from Tweedle Dee that Faith is a thief. So that right there tells you that she does have opportunities to snag some Glamours. Plus, completely conjecture, but I think the Puddin' n Pie supplies glamours for the girls for when they get customers with certain... tastes. And from the glamour that was left on Lily, all that's needed to make a glamour of someone is a photo and some hair. Faith most likely had a photo of all the girls from the Puddin' n Pie in her purse, and the hair is pretty easy to get from a dead girl. And the indication that Faith is glamoured as Vivianne? Well it's pretty lousy one, but it's about as much as I got. Telltale is following suit with the graphic novels. So any characters that star in the graphic novel likely wouldn't be involved in this murder. Vivianne, Faith, Crooked Man, Mary, etc. are not in the graphic novel, so Telltale can write them off any way they want. Vivianne is the only character that Faith could be glamoured as, considering Vivianne also wears a ribbon. This is all conjecture, but in fairness. Everyone's theory here is.
Ok, but I absolutely doubt glamours work that way. There's just no way opening up a glamour and stuffing someone other people's hair and a photo in it would make a new working glamour. At least a whole new ritual or something big involving magic would be needed to make it work.
I believe the ritual and the magic come from the tree the glamour tubes are made from. The one that Snow demands you to burn down. And I believe that it does work that way and is that simple. The witch glamoured herself up to look like her daughter at the knock of the door.
She had the glamour for the young version of her daughter. She just used it.
Unlocking the glamour box as we have seen with Lily and Greenleaf breaks the enchantment. I doubt that it can even be reused, having the "ingredients" simply substituted sounds really stupid. Magic simply can't be "that simple".
Agree to disagree? I'm not stating I am correct, however I will not bend knee to your thinking. Glamours are made to be simple for the people/creatures that use them that may not have any sense of magic. I do agree to the notion that once you break open these certain type of glamour tubes, it's done and gone. But I'm simply going off what I see, and neither of us have seen someone use the glamour to change themselves into someone, we've only seen the glamour broken to change back into who they are.
How do you know that Faith was working at the black market magic lab? Nothing we've seen so far suggests it. And it wouldn't make sense since she's already working at the Pudding and Pie. Why would a prostitute have to work at such a place and risk ruining her good looks by some accident with the chemicals?
The tweedles were sent by CRANE to find the photo. There's no mention of whether or not they had a job from the Crooked Man and if so what that might have been.
I understand that Crane sent them for the photo. That ended up being perfect for all parties involved. Tweedles already knew of Faiths death, and during their job for Crane were contacted by Crooked man for the ulterior motives for the photo.
Your theory is quite complex and smart, almost Telltale smart. I thought it was strange that the Crooked Man would kill any of the people who were on his palm, he would lose his money but maybe that's why he kills prostitutes because they don't need much money since they don't have much power.
Maybe Faith killed herself by taking off her ribbon.
You're probably right about Bloody Mary taking the photos of Crane through the Magic Mirror, mainly with her mirror-related powers and the fact that there is a sort of hair or crack on the photo/
Unfortunately, I'm just going off of what I see and hear. So of course this is all speculation, but if you choose to go to the butcher shop first you'll see all the names written on the blackboard. From Faith to Georgie to Nerissa. All of the people the Crooked Man has employed. And besides their names are labels like W/R/KK or J/DD. Then if you look on the shelf you'll see containers and jars of ingredients with the same kind of letterings. My thought is that all the fables under Crooked Mans thumb are given a shift to use whatever labels are set next to their name, and are responsible to make certain kinds of potions and spells with those ingredients. And if you have a problem with the job, they have a means to keep you there and do it.
Thank you very much for the kind words. Obviously I can't say for certain that this is correct, but I feel like this covers the most bases, gives clear motives that would make sense, stays true to the graphic novels, and can explain 95% of whats happened so far. Telltale does have a tendency of pulling fast ones, I just hope that they don't introduce a new character that ends up being the one behind the murders. It would be very anti-climatic if some random fable came in the last episode and revealed that he/she was behind it all. It would definitely leave a bad taste in my mouth.
I think Bigby and Johann made it pretty clear that the names on the board were the ones of the Fables who had ordered magic, and the different labels could refer to what each of them needed. The names listed there were not just Fables who the Crooked Man had employed, but many others too. Although you're probably right about some of them being the ones forced to work there. I just find it illogical that the Crooked Man would have the prostitutes, who already are beneficial to him, working in the lab. Also you'd think that making magic would require certain expertise, so I believe TCM has people who are well acquainted with that kind of stuff enslaved there, like witches, who know how to process the ingredients into something useful.
It's very difficult to fully ascertain what truly went on in that room. The main thing that bothers me is why they would hurt any witch or magically inclined fable? The blood on the floor is extremely ambiguous, which is why I brought up the slave labor and the chance that they have some of the girls from the puddin' n pie work there. It just seems more logical to me that they would be more willing to beat on a prostitute than a gifted potions/spells maker. As for the chains, well the one person I thought of was Lily. I wouldn't want to be in a room with lily while she's handling potions/spells, which is why I would have her chained up while she was doing it. But like I said, this is all speculation.
I also don't want a new character to just show up and be the killer and the boss behind this all, that would be lame (unless it's a character from the comic books but even then). Your theory may not be wrong 100% but I don't think it was Faith behind everything. I do think it was something not as big as we think and maybe just an accident since the title for the final episode is 'Cry Wolf' which may mean false alarm. And also, glamours and specially black market glamours vanish (like we saw with both Toad and Lily) and although they only have Faith's head, if it was Vivian glamoured then they woul have known because the spell would have vanished.
One thing you left out though, was the ginger cab driver who some people think is the boy who cried wolf,No way he's not involved, and a side note there's money in the safe at the puddin and pie regardless if you give faith money or not.
I apologize for my confusing punctuation. I meant to say that Faith goes to the Puddin' n Pie regardless of whether you give her the money or not. But if you do give her the money, you can tell she went back because the money was secured in the safe. And I can't seem to get a grasp on the ginger dude. I know he was waiting in line at the fables office, I know he has been your cab driver the whole game, he was at the apartment you chased Tweedle Dee through, and he perhaps is a resident at the Woodlands (his brief exchange with snow happened in the Woodlands). To be honest, he is my missing link. Only one interaction with him throughout the entire game, and not even a name. How I look at it, he either has everything to do with this... Or nothing at all. But it's a tossup. Thank you for bringing that up.