< Scott Pilgrim

Scott Pilgrim/WMG


Scott Pilgrim takes place in the same world as No More Heroes.

Really, they're almost identical in a lot of ways (a slacker has to kill a numbered series of opponents to try to date a manipulative woman in a world that runs on videogame rules), except Scott is portrayed as a plucky slacker and Travis as an insane sociopath.

  • The difference being Scott and Ramona realize their shortcomings.
  • So that's why Scott had to pee so much!

Scott Pilgrim takes place in the same universe, if not in the past of, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

Both run on Rule of Cool, and both feature a well documented personal growth arc hidden in a bad-ass action story, as well as both having very good supporting characters.

  • Also, there is a picture of Gideon (when they're in subspace) in volume 6 that looks quite a bit like Lordgenome.

Wallace seduced Stephen during Volume 3.

When Wallace mentions that Scott is wearing his shirt during the scene at Pizza Pizza, the shirt resembles the style of shirt that Stephen Stills usually wears. The line has no apparent significance. However, had Stephen left his shirt at the apartment after, then Scott could have picked it up, not recognizing it as Wallace's. We already know that Wallace is extremely talented at seducing otherwise straight men. We basically get to see the entire aftermath of one of Wallace's straight man seductions after he is through with them.

Scott Pilgrim is the aftermath of Arrested Development.

Think about it -- after the disintegration of the Bluth Family, George Michael and Maybe move to Canada and start their lives over again. After the requisite name changes, George Michael becomes a slacker while Maybe catches a big break in the music business. Eventually, things between our new SP and Envy turn sour...and the rest is history.

  • Also, it seems Ann Veal became a lesbian half ninja who changed her name as well and gets a little Bi-Furious.

Both are vaguely South Asian. Both are musicians of questionable talent. Both are unintentionally hilarious. As an added bonus, Edgar Wright (director of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) and Peter Serafinowicz (creator of Look Around You) are friends, and Edgar even appeared in Look Around You!

  • But is he friends with Bryan Lee O'Malley who CREATED Patel?

Scott Pilgrim is set in the same universe as Look Around You

See the previous WMG. As well, Look Around You as a whole is ridiculous enough to take place in the same universe as Scott Pilgrim, except with less video games due to it being the 70s and 80s, and many of the video game tropes used in Scott Pilgrim didn't come to exist until the late 80s/early 90s.

Scott Pilgrim takes place in the same universe as FLCL

The laws of physical reality seem to be the same, bound only by the Rule of Cool and Rule of Funny. Additionally, Haruko Haruhara resembles Ramona Flowers in more ways than one, raising the possibility they could be related.

Scott Pilgrim is Joe's and Silvia's son.

Though he's more of a slacker than a fanboy like his father, his universe could arguably just be like what movies was to Viewtiful Joe.

The series is set in the cyberpunk future of Toon Town.

Toons and animated characters are long gone since the Golden Age of the 1940's, and instead Video Game Characters and Video Game Physics are today's cultural norm. Instead of falling anvils, cartoon explosions, and portable black holes, we've got Boss Battles and Pinata Enemies, Giant killer Robots, Frickin Laser beams, and Subspace Mallets. But it's okay! Just like there was no clear way to kill a toon (except for the infamous Dip), 1-Ups are a common commodity for players. All that's missing are video game cameos from the moustached brothers themselves!

  • But in Roger Rabbit, there was a clear distinction between Toons and "real" people. By contrast, all the characters in the Scott Pilgrim franchise are somewhere between being Toons and being "normal" people. Plus, there are no anthropomorphic animals to be seen in Scott Pilgrim, and Scott Pilgrim takes place in Toronto, not California where Toon Town is supposed to be located.
    • In the future, interbreeding makes it very difficult to tell the difference. It's more a genetic trait that pops up.

Gideon IS the cat.

That's his special videogame superpower. He's a Cat Boy.

  • Volume 6: Gideon tells Scott that he is not the cat.
  • The cat is also adopted by Scott after Gideon explodes.
    • It's his emergency Soul Jar. Ironically, Gideon didn't even plan on this, but it being given his name made it possible.

There is a point to the Running Gag about Knives being 17 years old

At some point during the final volume, Knives will have her eighteenth birthday. This event will not be shown - she will appear up to a point and disappear, then return during the inevitable final boss battle to lend Scott her support, at which point she will be introduced "Knives Chau: 18 years old". There is a point to it, and that point is a crowning moment of awesome. Let's face it, she deserves something

  • Simple, Gideon will try to kill her with a death prime spell (Kills all enemies whose Age (Level) is a prime number, it won't work, Gideon will wonder wtf, and then, Surprise! "Knives Chau: 18 Years Old!"
    • Isn't Kim the only character with a prime numbered age? Kind of a useless spell.
      • It would have worked fine on Scott for most of the comic's timeframe.
  • She turned 18 off-camera in vol. 6, but it only served to mature her somewhat and show the passage of time.

Scott will die in the fight between him & Gideon in the climax of the last book...

But gets resurrected by using an extra life he gained, defeat Gideon, and win Ramona forever.

  • Confirmed: Both the comic and the movie use both meanings. Not only did Scott come Back From the Dead, he also "got a life" and started being a functional person.

The code from Scott's dreams is The Konami Code, and will prove crucial after Gideon kills him and forces him to use his extra life

Gideon has been in Scott's life before he met Ramona

If you see a picture of Gideon Gordon Graves and look at that guy Simon from the opening flashback of SP volume 2, quite a coincidence in appearances and MO isn't it? Looks like Simon/Gideon may have had a grudge against Scott since his defeat on the Benvie Tech School roof in the fight for Kim Pine all those years ago (Scott somewhat foreshadowed this by saying "You'll Never Change" after his defeat) and tracked him down and watched/manipulated his life unfold from the sidelines. The short term memory loss? The closing of the Tex Mex restaurant where Scott worked for just one week? All Simon/Gideon's doing. Ramona was probably just another notch on his belt relationship-wise, but when he got wind of Scott dating her, he rounded up people which tragic histories with Ramona and warped them into killing Scott. But since they have all failed, he set out to do it himself. Now that I think about it, he could've been the one to turn Scott's old girlfriend, Envy Adams, to the dark side by offering the band she was in fame and fortune as long as she dumped Scott.

  • Jossed, sadly, as I hoped that this was true.

Gideon is evil because he found his girlfriend's exes, brainwashed them all into being evil, then unleashed them on the best fighter in Ontario.

That's why Scott's evil side is manifesting itself. He doesn't realize that he's killing nice guys, but his subconscious realizes it.

  • Gideon was only being half-truthful regarding the drunken rant on Craiglist. He did find the exes via online, but upon discovering people with inner grudges, he magnified them beyond obsession using The Glow.
  • Likewise, he fixed each of them with a chip like Ramona's in the movie, which would explain why Roxy insists that Ramona belongs to him.

Everyone can get extra lives

  • That's why no one cares if someone dies; they just assume whoever died had an extra life to come back after a few hours, and the reason the Evil Exes don't attack Scott again is because he already defeated them and they know it would be useless to go against him again.

Everything is because of Kim Pine

Kim moved back into town not long before Ramona showed up. She joined the band with Scott, who she still had feelings for, but couldn't talk to him because of how intimidated she is by him. She inadvertantly creates a fantasy world based upon the things they loved growing up, like kung-fu, video games, and music.

Ramona is the heroine that she wished she could be so that she could be with Scott, and the Evil-Exes were the adventure she wished for. The Exes are based upon Kim's past relationships, Gideon being the most powerful, being based on Scott. She doesn't have good control over it, though, and as a result, the fantasies start to go out of control. One item of note is in Volume 4, when Kim kisses Knives, and the next Ex Scott must face happens to be a girl. After she got drunk, the Twins became independent and kidnapped her to try to snap her out of it. More importantly, when Kim left, there was nothing left to maintain the illusion, so Ramona left too.

  • I'd agree with most of that except for the fact that Ramona left before Kim did. I do believe, however, that...

The series will end with Scott getting together with Kim Pine.

Note how the recaps always make sure to point out that Kim dated Scott in high school and is trying to forget it. The Katayanagi twins kidnapped Kim instead of Ramona, and Kim very obviously still has feelings towards Scott. Ramona's function as Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and in fact, Gideon's end goal is more or less to get Scott to realize how he feels about Kim:

Scott: I'm sorry about me!
Kim: Apology accepted.

  • Might be that for the movie too.
  • It's also noted by the twins during their fight in volume 5 that Scott's fighting for the wrong girl.
    • Jossed, he starts over with Ramona; Kim and him are still good friends though.

Ramona and Gideon's last names are an example of Theme Naming and hint at the eventual resolution of the series

Think about it. Ramona FLOWERS and Gideon GRAVES. Ominous, ain't it?

  • Death and Rebirth.

Gideon's plot will involve a combined fight with all the Exes

This occured to me in volume 2, where Lucas Lee says if Scott paid him, he'd tell Gideon Scott beat him up. Makes it sound like they're not as dead as they seem, they could be all in some secret lair of the Chaos Theatre waiting for Gideon to make the final plans.

  • Of course, this whole shebang is video game based, and what happens towards the end of 50% of games? BOSS RUSH!
    • Sadly jossed.
      • Semi-Jossed, the video game boss fight 2nd form has Gideon in a One-Winged Angel form.
        • We do know there is a Boss Rush mode. Perhaps it has a storyline? After all, the ending of the video game does show that not only is Gideon alive but "lost in the Void", he's about to find a Door out.

Ramona is right. Scott IS an evil ex waiting to happen.

And the signs show up sooner than one would think. In volume 3, there's still no real good reason why Scott can't remember much for about a year after he broke up with Natalie V. Adams (it's because he wasn't quite himself). In volume 4, after Scott finds out that Roxanne, one of Ramona's evil exes, had been staying over at her place, he gets the same glow around his head that Ramona usually does, then stumbles around the street, confused (as if in a haze, which is what Scott claimed to be in for a majority of the year after the Natalie break-up). Then of course, right after that, he stumbles to the ground in front of a very malevolent and dark looking version of Scott, who's grinning down at him triumphantly. What Scott says to him next implies that he's seen/knows him from before ("I don't need you!"). Then in volume 5, the dark Scott makes a small appearance after Ramona leaves, and Scott is staying at Stephen Stills' place. After he's done brushing his teeth, his reflection in the mirror is split into two halves: the normal, tired-looking Scott, and then a darker Scott who is very much awake and... smiling.

    • Half-right. After learning of their break-up Gideon offers Scott a position as an evil ex, implying that the two of them are Not So Different after all - however Scott, as part of and thanks to his Character Development, chooses the path of goodness and fights for Ramona and for himself.

Roxanne's still alive.

Those bunnies and pigs that pop out right after she gets cut? It's just a diversion so she could escape. And by the time Scott and Ramona have a son ready to carry on his dad's legacy, Roxanne will have healed up enough to form her own evil legion of half-ninjas.

  • And note how she turned into animals instead of coins like every other Ex.
    • Page 190, after Roxanne is defeated, Mr. Chau is seen picking up a rabbit from the aftermath. Probably decided to take care of her, teach her, or keep her as a pet for his daughter.

Scott Pilgrim is a reincarnation of Cerebus the Aardvark

Both Scott and Cerebus are the protagonists of Canadian-created independent comic books that chronicle the lives of their title characters. The last issue of Cerebus (which ended with Cerebus dying and receiving an unseen fate) was published in 2004, the same year the first Scott Pilgrim graphic novel came out. Cerebus (and his creator Dave Sim) had some serious issues with women, Scott has issues with women too, but managed to sort them out in the end. So, in a sense, Cerebus evolved (or shall we say, leveled up) into Scott Pilgrim.

Video Game Scott is still trapped in Subspace in his ending.

He kills Nega-Scott (bad, bad thing to do in the graphic novel) and never gains the power of Understanding and getting Ramona back; and is somehow dating Knives, Kim, and Envy at the same time? Three words. Lotus Eater Machine.

  • "Emotional Warfare. Seals you in your head. Just you and your issues."
    • Anyone else beating Nega-Scott doesn't destroy it, but it does let them talk Scott into accepting his darkness.
      • Alternatively, his beating Nega-Scott makes him THINK he's dating them at the same time and they're loving it. This is delusion ala Self-Serving Memory.

Ramona's mother died or divorced Ramona's father, possibly when Ramona was very young

Mary Elizabeth learned 10 untold facts about Ramona's past from Bryan Lee O'Malley in order to prepare her for playing Ramona in the film. When asked in Wizard Magazine #227 what the facts exactly where, she replied, "I honestly don't know if they are things that Bryan would want out there, so I'll keep them quiet. But things about her family -- she's kind of a tragic figure in a way. She's been through a lot, and that's why she's so guarded and mysterious." Add in the fact that in volume 6, Ramona mentions going back to her dad's house, but makes no mention of her mom, and it's quite possible that Ramona's mother has passed on or at least is separated from Ramona's father.

  • Semi-Jossed. While this is still possible, she eventually reveals that Ramona's brother died, and that thing around her neck is his shoelace, which she wears in tribute, which is probably what she was referring to in the article.

The series is Scott's way of hiding himself from the fact that he's an insane serial killer

Stalking Ramona for a long time, he had to find a way to justify it and vilified the "evil exes". The exes are actually her close friends and they only confront Scott about his crazed obsession with their friend. He sees this as a threat to this life and, in response, kills them before they "kill" him.

  • Maybe he's suffering a type of insanity similar to the Tetris Effect to boot.
  • When enemies explode into coins, that's actually how he visualizes raiding their wallets after killing them.
    • When he gets all that money from Gideon, he's stealing his credit cards and taking his identity.
    • Even if the series is presented as is, here's a question. Did Scott turn Simon Lee (the kid dating Kim who he visualized as a video game boss) into coins?
    • This is actually a What Could Have Been in the film's case...

The Scott Pilgrim series is Scott playing a video game

The story we see is a merging of Scott's life and the video game he's playing. Wallace Wells really is his roommate, Knives is really his (seventeen-year-old) girlfriend, and he really is in a band called Sex Bob-omb with Kim Pine and Stephen Stills. Young Neil is real, too. One day, he met a cute girl at a party and became obsessed with her. He asked around, and discovered she was a delivery girl for Amazon, and decided to buy something "really cool". That "really cool" thing turned out to be an old-school video game, which we will call The World of Seven.[1] When the girl delivered it, the plan failed. One of the following situations occurred;

  • He failed to ask her out, due to shyness.
  • He asked her out, and she said no.
  • He asked her out and she said yes, but when he went to the agreed meeting place, she stood him up.
  • They did go out, but the date was horrible and she did not agree to a second date.

Scott, feeling miserable, popped in his new game. It began by introducing the protagonist, and offered the option of naming him. Scott named him Scott, as he does in all his games. (There was no option to put in a last name). In the game, The Hero has a subspace highway running through his brain, which is treated in a more serious manner than in the comic we see, and through this he meets a mysterious pink-haired girl. This girl is also nameable, and Scott names her after the delivery girl, Ramona.[2]

Scott doesn't return to the game until Sex Bob-omb totally, uh, bombed, and went back to Wallace's place (which is actually quite nice) to drink themselves into a stupor (Stephen) or just hang out (Kim and Neil). Scott ended up playing World of Seven and fought the first real boss, Matthew Patel, who he beat on the first try with minimal difficulty.

Level two is considerably harder. Lucas Lee turns out to be an Early Bird Boss for Scott, and he only manages to beat him by abusing a glitch in which Lucas uses his skateboard attack and gets stuck on a rail, allowing him to be mercilessly beaten.

After another failed show, Scott takes the band home to play Level Three. Level three, appropriately, has three bosses; Todd Ingram, Envy, and Lynette. Someone (probably Wallace) notes how much Envy looks like Scott's ex-girlfriend, Natalie, and they begin to superimpose Scott's history with her on the character. Todd's name is actually Scott, but they mentally correct it to Todd, after the guy Natalie cheated on Scott with. His powers are also never fully explained, so Wallace jokingly suggests that he gets his powers from being a vegan, and it ends up sticking. Lynette is an Optional Boss who Scott misses. Todd ends up being an even harder boss than Lucas, and Scott uses a cheat to make Todd's attacks weaker. The police arrest him at the end, and Wallace calls them the Vegan Police. Within the fandom (although unknown to Scott and his friends), Todd x Lynette are a Fan-Preferred Couple, despite having no chemistry onscreen.

Level Four is a very confusing level. Scott accidentally activates Mr. Chau, an Optional Boss who he believes to be a real boss, until he finds out that he can avoid the battle altogether, and does so. He fights Roxy, but she turns out to be somewhat challenging. At the same time, he's going through problems with Knives after his old friend Lisa moves to town and the two of them start flirting, and he stops playing the game for a while. When he finally does, he's in a bad mood and manages to beat Roxy with ease.

Scott barely pays attention to the game while he beats Level Five. At the same time, Wallace is forcing him to move out, and he's taken a job which is taking up a lot of his time. He does, however, manage to beat both the twins with one attack, which gives him the achievement for beating them at the same time (it's also possible to beat them one at a time, by depleting the health of one and then the other). There's also another Optional Boss Fight, this time as Ramona, vs. Knives, a ninja. After defeating her, you unlock the character to play as in two-player. Knives Chau (whose real name is not Knives, and she was never even referred to as such) likes the character and always plays as her.

In the last level (based more on the movie than the comic, with elements from the comic), Scott goes up against Gideon, but loses to his first form. He looks up cheats, and finds out that by selecting "I'm fighting for myself" in response to Gideon's question, instead of "Because I'm in love with her" (which seemed like the obvious answer), you unlock a more powerful weapon and get a better chance of beating the boss. Knives joins him to fight Gideon, and together they defeat the boss. As for Envy, she is an unnamed woman who sings in the background of the battle against First Gideon, and who Gideon draws his sword from. Because she resembles Natalie even more closely than Envy from Level Three, Scott surmises that it's the same character. After defeating Gideon's three forms, Scott must defeat Nega-Scott as well, finally beating the game and winning the girl.

Gideon isn't dead.

They killed his body, but they were just Fighting a Shadow.

  • His shimmering in the movie meant his Digital Avatar connection was breaking up.
  • Confirmed in the Game, the ending credits state that he's "Lost in the Void." (And a picture of him finding a door...)
  • That, and he could be rich enough just to buy a continue and restart somewhere else (the money he lost is his price for respawning). In a world with Save Points, death is probably not as big an inconvenience as it is in our world.

The story is set in the future, where society has become largely enveloped into the internet, which by this point is a realistic virtual world

The visible sound effects, censoring, pee bar, music cues, hammerspace, fighting skills, points, and coinage are all facts of life on the worldnet. Defeats and deaths are of your avatar or character, and Vegan powers are an exclusive App provided by the Vegan group.

The Story takes place in The Matrix 3.0

In The Movie, Knives gave up on her chance with Scott because she was going to hook up with Nega Scott.

  • I can't be the only one who thought this. I kept waiting for her to drop a line saying as much, only it never happened.
    • As soon as she let Scott go to Ramona, I thought this exact thing.
    • As did I.
    • First thing I thought of after watching it the first time.
      • This is now Canon.

Scott is the reincarnation of Makoto

  • Or it could be Gideon, he's the one who can't let go of his ex-girlfriends after all.
    • Or, Makoto's soul split in two, the half that realized its mistakes and wished to do better became Scott, while the one that didn't learn and favored ambition over all else became Gideon.

Scott Pilgrim is set in the Marvel Universe

  • And Scott wasn't kidding when he said he went to Professor Xavier's school for Gifted Youngsters. His mutant ability is reality alteration of nearby space to be more like a videogame, and projecting a Somebody Else's Problem field so that it looks normal.
    • He also has the ability to convert living beings into currency.
      • A sub-ability of making the local universe run on video game rules, like how Cyclops and Havok can absorb their own energy blasts.

Ramona is the The Devil

  • Let's see: She has pitch black eyes, snow melts as she walks through, and terrible things happen around her. Her evil-ex's are evil because she corrupted them with her demon powers, and is using the form of a beautiful woman to seduce and corrupt Scott. Yep, it's only a matter of time before Scott really does become an evil Ex.

Ramona is the REAL protagonist of the story

  • Since parts of the story was about Scott learning that people have a life outside of his, this should seem right. Besides Scott, Ramona was the only non-villain character who's to blame for the conflict in the comics/movie. She's had a hand in most of the battles, and shared the victory when they defeated Gideon. Her plot could easily be built as "Ramona is trying to run away from her past and meets a boy who's willing to fight for her. But, when her past comes back to get her, she decided to finally fight for herself". She also happens to be the non-villain character who has what most resembles real superpowers.
    • This might explain why in the videogame, her ending is the best of the lot (same as the book's ending, different music, 'Congratulations!' text instead of 'THE END', etc.)

Gideon is one of Odio's incarnations.

  • First of all, he's the big bad of the series, and likewise, all the other Odio incarnations are the big bad of their respective chapters. His name somewhat matches the theme naming, even if his name doesn't start with an O. Gi'deo'n G'o'rdon is close enough to fit. Given the 7 theme he has going on, he'd be the 7th Odio incarnation. And lastly, his hatred over losing Ramona is what fuels the events of the comic, which fuels a lot of the other incarnation's actions.
    • My head just exploded. Thank you. Now I have to clean up my own head.

A Defictionalization of Ninja Ninja Revolution is in the works

  • OK, I admit, this is pure, naked wishful thinking.

Gideon is Satan.

  • Think about it. His full name is Gideon Gordon Graves - Each name contains six letters, making 666. The letter 'G' also closely resembles a six - Making his initials resemble 666. Then comes the part of his ultimate plot where he freezes his ex-girlfriends inside of a giant, cryogenic freezer - Or, if you prefer, 'sealing them' in it. Please tell me I'm not the only one seeing a 'seven seals' reference here.

Patel is the only one of the League of Evil Exes that's alive.

As an Indian, his Racial bonus lets him make Continues, and he made several before dying. However, this made his life cheap due to being able to die so easily, which is why he leaves such little change. If Scott took the time to get the New Game Plus, he would've unlocked Patel as a playable character after defeating him a second time.

"Survival Horror" Mode in the game takes place after Nega-Scott's Ending.

Think about it. Nega-Scott can apparently raise the dead, and in his ending he takes over the world. Also, The Dark One starts playing after a certain amount of time.

By the end of the comic, Scott is a Persona user.

  • Nega-Scott represents Scott's suppressed mistakes and memories; in other words, it's Scott's shadow. At the end of volume 6, Scott accepts his dark side as a part of himself, and Nega-Scott becomes his Persona.

Assuming the defeated exes respawn after they die, Gideon will become less of a Complete Monster post-series.

Scott Pilgrim takes place in the future of Scud the Disposable Assassin

Without Satan or the seraphim around to keep the Rapture going, the Earth eventually settled down to a state of surreal normalcy: aliens and robots slowly took on more human appearances via generations of breeding with humans and cyborg merging, until the only differences were their fantastic abilities. The exes leave coins when they die because they're converted disposable assassin units: the reason the exes progressively leave more money is that each one is a more advanced model, and thus, costs more to activate. Furthermore, death in Scott Pilgrim seems to be viewed as a mundane fact of life, similar to Scud.

Scott unlocking the Glow

In Volume 3

Gideon had Todd prepped to be both a carrier of the one-up and the reactant to Subspace that trapped Ramona. Infection occured right when Scott headbutted Todd, as Gideon was infected with it by Scott headbutting him in volume 6.

In volume 4

Scott vaulting into Ramona's head, alternately, acted as the method of infection; Scott's first Glow is right after Ramona kicks him out her head.

Other

Long time exposure to Ramona's Subspace caused him to be infected with it also.

Wallace sabotaged Lucas Lee's skateboard before handing it to him in the movie.

A definite possibility, most likely prompted from finding out that Lucas didn't do his own stunts. Wallace then proceeds to hit on Lee's doubles.

Gideon ratted Todd out to the Vegan Police.

Of all the exes, Todd was one of the strongest; and it took a Deus Ex Machina to take him down. Todd would never consider Gideon as a boss, and likely disrespected his authority. Also, getting rid of Todd meant that Envy would become available.

The show is a future version of Captain N: The Game Master

Years after the show ended, humanity learned of the existence of Videoland and set up colonies there. In time, the human populace got integrated into the world of Videoland, and soon that world was a bizarre hybrid of real life and 80's video games.

The film is a Space Whale Aesop about confusing Real Life with Video Games

Similar to the Scott the Delusional Killer theory above, this one revolves around the premise of Scott perceiving things not as they really are. The aesop being that if you take life as a game, you'll screw it over many times and that unlike in a game, real life decisions are about consequences rather than scores and that you don't get a second chance. Of course, it then merrily becomes a Broken Aesop thanks to the 1-Up, but the rest stands: only when Scott started acting responsibly did he manage to break out of the situation his previous actions got him into.

Gideon was controlling Wallace.

Gideon is famous. Very, very famous. So why couldn't Wallace find pictures of him? Simple: Gideon altered his memory. He just wanted the audience to be surprised. Or maybe it was part of some bizarre gambit.

Gideon wanted Scott and Ramona together.

The whole series is a Batman Gambit in order to get them to realize their flaws and have a good relationship.

  • This raises questions about the other half of his plot (Exes On Ice!... unless they were in on it?), but it would make an odd bit of sense if Gideon sent the other exes first so Scott wouldn't just mature, but also take out a half-dozen dangerous psychopaths while at it.
  • If he was a Jerk With A Hidden Heart Of Gold instead of an asshole, this would make sense, as the other six psychopaths would be taken care of even if the main goal of 'making them mature' didn't work.

Scott was a The Kid and Gideon was a The Guy

  • The whole series was about Scott trying to kill Gideon so Scott could become The Guy.
    • By extension, each Evil Ex was a former The Guy.

Scott's mother in Vol. 5 is not the same mother in Vol. 3

Scott's parents were divorced and then Scott's father was remarried to somebody else, which explains why Scott's brother, Lawrence West, doesn't have the same last name as Scott and it also explains why Scott's mother looked different in those books.

Gideon had a fateful encounter with The Lorax

Am I the only one who noticed "The Glow?"

  • One line in "The Lorax" said "it's just as bad up in Lake Erie". This would mean that the Lorax took place south of Canada. New York is south of Canada, so obviously, the Lorax is either Gideon or Ramona's eigth ex-boyfriend who was just a normal guy.

None of the other Evil Ex battles actually happened.

If Gideon used The Glow to alter and glorify Scott's battle with Simon Lee, what's to say the same couldn't apply to the fights with all the other exes?

In the movie (possibly other forms of it, but I haven't obsessed over them yet) everyone's cool video game powers come from Ramona's lipstick.

The only people we see with ridiculous abilities (whether they're supernatural or just being a Badass Normal) are people who have kissed Ramona, with the exception of Knives. She's explained by Scott just not having a chance to wash his face after spending the night at Ramona's. The flying-hearts effect is that person actually gaining their powers, and is shown both from Ramona -> Scott and Scott -> Knives. This theory also implies that Ramona was one of those kids who's been wearing make-up since like kindergarten.

  • Cool theory, but it's doubtful the Vegan Police kissed Ramona. And it definitely doesn't explain the books because Mr. Chau slices through a street car, Mobile is a gay psychic, Lynette can teleport, and Crash and the Boys learnt "to control pure sound waves through hard work and willpower alone."

Knives' Auntie saw her with Young Neil.

Self-explanatory: the white boy Knives auntie saw her with was Young Neil instead of Scott etc. etc.

Anime Style Martial Arts exist and Scott can use them.

Alternatively, Scott can use a branch of ASMA known as Video Game Style Martial Arts. Where else does he get the ability to beat up evil exes out of the blue? This could also explain many of the anime-style visual effects seen in the movie.

The triangle shirt Scott wears in Volume 6 was what let Gideon steal the power of love (What a dick!)

When this happened, his hand went through the triangle and then when Ramona appears the whole triangle is glowing where she comes out of.

Ramona originally goes out with Scott because she was on the rebound.

She didn't go out with him at first because she was particularly impressed with him (he was, if anything, painfully awkward and possibly even creepy), but rather because she had dependency issues from the whole relationship with Gideon, and because Scott was the first guy to hit on her. Everything else just kinda takes off from there. The fact that her evil exes began going after Scott the very next day after their first date served to give them more reason to keep hanging out (as she had to explain to him what was going on, and frankly, they had more to talk about now.)

  • This troper vaguely remembers O'Malley comparing "Ramona using Scott to get over Gideon" with "Scott using Knives to get over Envy".

Scott is more of Wallace's friend than Wallace lets on.

After reading a Just Bugs Me page of the series about Wallace taking Scott's side in the Scott/Envy breakup, I've been thinking, maybe Scott is the closest thing next to Mobile he considers his best friend? Maybe he came out of the closet to him and Envy was less than cool about it?

The reason why Scott doesn't drink is because of the "gay story" of how he and Wallace became roommates.

According to what Scott told Kim in Volume 2, the way Scott and Wallace became roommates was a "really gay story". In Volume 3, a flashback showed Scott telling Envy how he met and became roommates with Wallace. The story ended with Scott and Wallace VERY drunk, and Wallace asking if he could crash at Scott's place. What happened next must have been "really gay" and so traumatizing that Scott would never drink again.

Either that, or he's just a pussy.

  • When Knives tells Scott in Volume 1 that she's never even kissed a guy, Scott tells her "Me neither." So it would seem that is not the case.
    • Maybe Wallace just doesn't kiss on the first date. Scott kissing Wallace wouldn't be "really gay", it would just be kind of gay, maybe even only a little bi-curious.
      • Keep in mind Scott does have a tendency to supress memories...

Scott Pilgrim vs the World takes place in a Tron universe

Notice how people burst into coins just as people burst into glowing crystal when they get derezzed. Or the fact Scott has an evil doppleganger like Kevin Flynn does with Clu. Also notice how both of them have evil club owners; Castor and Gideon. Both of them feign being nice but are bad to the bone and use cane weapons. Both these evil club owners offer a drink to the portagonist. Or the fact that they have cold blonde hot women: Gem and Envy Adams. Both have some kind of chemistry with the main characters but work with the bad guys. Notice how Knives Chau has a similar haircut to Quora and both have some skill in martial arts. Or the fact that Chau and Scott fight side by side just like Quora and Sam. But aside from being similar in story and character elements both are clearly based on video games.

Comeau is a mutant with Layla Miller's ability to "Know Stuff"

Self-Explainatory.

Julie Powers will have a Start of Darkness and become a King Mook with Sandra and Monique as her starting line-up.

Due to the possibility of Stephen Stills cheating on her with Kim's roomate Joseph during volume 4, she is definately a Woman Scorned. Add in that she was possibly expecting a "Team-Up" with the Katayanagi Twins 'till Scott killed them in volume 5 (And possibly had and still might have a crush on him). This could make her into a Jerkass Woobie sort of Big Bad or alternatively a leader of a Quirky Miniboss Squad to help a future Big Bad.

the Evil Exes represent the Seven Deadly Sins

Roxy is obviously Anger. Todd is a play on Gluttony, which, as a sin, doesn't necessarily represent overeating ,but any obssession involving the appetite, so his veganism counts. The others are harder to pin down. Gideon is probably greed, because that's how he manipulates Sex Bob-Omb. The actor could be Lust, because he inspires it in Wallace. Patel is probably Pride, which leaves Envy and Sloth for the twins unless they both represent Sloth and Envy is represented by, well, Envy.

  • Except in the Comic, Envy was not one of the seven evil exes, it seems more likely that....
    • Matthew Pattel is Envy
    • Lucas Lee is Greed
      • Since he's a sellout
    • Todd is Lust
      • Because he cheats on Envy
    • Roxy is Anger
    • The Twins are Sloth and Gluttony
      • It's hard to tell because they are the least characterized exes...
    • Gideon Gordon Graves is Pride
      • As explained on the character page, the difference between him and Scott is that Gideon is to proud to change his Bastard Boyfriend ways.
  • Nah.
    • Matthew Pattel is Envy
    • Lucas Lee is Greed
    • Todd is Gluttony - since that's what undos him
    • Roxy is Sloth - not really evil, I guess?
    • Twins - Pride and Wrath
    • Gideon - Lust: dude, how many girls does that guy want?
    • Almost all of them got a touch of Pride as well, especially the Smug Snake Todd.

The movie was Scott's first "playthrough": the comic is the second shot.

Scott ended up with the girl, but neither he nor Ramona learned the lessons they needed to in order to truly have a happy life together. Now, Scott might not have an extra life... but the ending shows he had a continue. The comics are him trying again after a Game Over: on his second time around, he got it right.

  • Alternatively, Scott didn't get 100% completion in the movie, so he didn't get the "good" ending. He did in the comic.

The entire comic book series is Wallace Well’s elaborate Batman Gambit against Gideon Graves, who stole credit for the invention of "The Glow" from him. Scott Pilgrim was simply Wallace’s unwitting pawn in the grand scheme of things.

So a bit of backdrop before going into the details.

For starters, we don’t really know what Wallace really does when he’s not at home (We see him at a computer playing solitaire, but not much else is known). He claims that he goes to all these parties and such, but we never actually see him working a real job, yet he always seems to have plenty of money to accommodate Scott and his freeloading, and judging from how easily Wallace takes Scott’s mooching in stride, we can easily assume that Wallace has some sort of job that is a) very mysterious and b) brings in a ton of money.

Gideon has mentioned that he got all his money from the invention of “The Glow”, which locks a person into their own head. Though Gideon was proficient at using “The Glow”, his characteristics tend towards someone who would steal credit for “The Glow” rather than one who was scientifically brilliant enough to create “The Glow”. Gideon’s intelligence is reminiscent of a Corrupt Corporate Executive rather than that of a Mad Scientist.

So bear with this and give it a shot.

During his High School years, Wallace Wells comes out to his family about his homosexuality, and because of this, Wallace’s family rejects him and denounces him because of it. In a sense of bitterness, or perhaps out of a sense of betrayal, Wallace begins to try and find a way to make his family accept him for who he is.

This experience and this desire to return to his folks who had shunned him slowly develops into an interest in psychology, and in particular, using psychology as a means to affect the minds of other people. Becoming interested in this field, Wallace dives into his mind with the intention of finding a way of making his family forcefully accept him again. During his university years, his efforts produce a prototype variant of “The Glow” and he figures he might try and test it out.

Out at some random party, Wallace meets another random dopey looking kid named Scott, and at first contact, Wallace springs a prototype Glow attack on him. This event is how Wallace and Scott met, and Scott would only recall his meeting with Wallace as “extremely gay”. This probably wasn’t what Wallace had intended, but he eventually befriends Scott and continues to work on perfecting his own creation.

Over time, his family came to terms with Wallace’s homosexuality, and without much use for his side project, Wallace leaves his ideas and such behind him. At this point, Wallace has no interest in continuing his work and lives his university life with ease.

...Until a certain Natalie Adams begins to date Scott...

His frequent interaction with Scott at university inevitably brings him into contact with Natalie, and mutual hatred of each other forms almost immediately. Wallace despises Natalie, and Natalie despises Wallace in return. This constant strain on Wallace’s social life of Natalie Adams pisses him off, and he tries to find a way to get rid of her forever.

A certain old project comes to his mind, and Wallace picks up his abandoned project and begins to rework it with malicious intent. Wallace’s project, rather than bringing out understanding in other people as originally intended with his family (who have by this point, accepted Wallace for who he is), instead works to lock people alone with their own issues for an undefined period of time. Wallace’s hatred of Natalie drives him to create this weapon, and hopes to use it to drive Natalie away from Scott Pilgrim.

It finally becomes complete, and then, without Natalie or Scott noticing, Wallace infects Natalie with his completed Psychological Glow Weapon. It works, but it worked slowly.

Natalie, now plagued with her sudden influx of anxiety and self-esteem issues, takes an emotional dive. She starts to question whether or not Scott really cares for her, because who would legitimately care for some reclusive anime fangirl with no prior social life? Her roommate treats her with disdain, and Natalie, in an effort to manage her emotional whirlwind, tries to change her own image in order to really secure Scott’s affections. She calls herself “Envy” to distance herself from her old name. She throws away almost all her figurines and merchandise to create a persona that everyone will love. Her insecurities attack her mind and she changes drastically.

Scott Pilgrim notices this, and becomes wary, and Envy sees Scott’s wariness and becomes even more hurt. All the things she tried to do to secure his affections slowly begin to drive him away, and in her own pain, she starts taking over Scott’s band in an act of petty vengeance and cheats on him with another man. She is no longer the Natalie V. Adams who was a social and somewhat awkward recluse, but Envy Adams, aloof from the mere mortals.

The culmination of these events happens on a New Year’s Eve. Envy and Scott have a huge fight and they break up. Envy leaves, and Scott is left emotionally catatonic.

Wallace, seeing his handiwork, is mortified. He didn’t intend to hurt his friend Scott, and though he hated Envy, he had a sense that what he had done to her was too much. But he rationalizes it to himself. Envy was a bitch, he says, and he continues to fester his hate upon Envy. Envy is someone he immensely dislikes, but she also reminds him of his horrible mistake, and thus, a truly ingrained hatred of Envy Adams sets itself into Wallace’s mind.

Envy, after graduating from university, begins her music career. She is still plagued with her own insecurities, but meeting with Todd Ingram, again holds her issues at bay. Her happiness at Todd’s show of devotion by blowing up a giant crater on the Moon assures her that all will be okay, and that she finally has reached her happy ending. Her career blooms, and her band “The Clash at Demonhead” gains the attention of a certain wealthy and well-off producer named Gideon Graves.

Gideon invites this band to perform at the Chaos Theatre in New York, and Envy is a hit. She becomes instantaneously famous in the musical industry. Her success is amazing, and Gideon then talks to the band personally congratulating them on a job well done, and suddenly, he notices something.

Envy’s head had a particular glow to it that he had never seen before, and though Envy has no idea about what Gideon was talking about when he mentions her head’s glow. He keeps this in mind, and since there was a camera everywhere in the Chaos Theatre, he has recorded footage of Envy’s own head glowing and he hires some people to look at it.

Gideon hypothesizes that the head glow has something to do with Envy’s amazing talents, and hoped to utilize the glow to bring true musical talent to whoever he wants to sign a contract for, guaranteeing that all his works will be associated with artists with musical talents. With all this money, how could any girl resist him? His collection of cryogenically frozen ex-girlfriends would certainly be unable to resist his wealth.

But his hired help tells him that the glow wasn’t what he thought it was. The glow, rather than being a tool that brings out musical talent, was instead a tool to psychologically hurt people.

This wasn’t what he had hoped for, but an idea strikes. [[Spoiler:He could take the patent on this and sell it to the military for usage and win tons and TONS of money. So he does. The patent is owned by Gideon Graves and Gideon’s reputation grows. Not only does Gideon have an eye for the arts (given his huge hit with Envy and The Clash at Demonhead), but his scientific and military exploits are astounding. Gideon rides the money tidal wave and is renowned as the next modern brilliant Renaissance man. Wallace reads in some magazine about Gideon’s miraculous exploits. Suddenly, he recognizes his own handiwork. He puts two and two together. Envy was infected, Gideon backed Envy’s band, Gideon creates (i.e. steals) the credit for inventing “The Glow”. Wallace soon begins to scheme again, this time to bring about Gideon’s end, because “the Glow” is far too dangerous, and in the wrong hands, could cause untold misery.]]

Also, Wallace is pissed that Gideon stole his work, and that cannot stand.

Convinced that he has the moral high ground and armed with a vengeance, Wallace begins making his own connections to slowly bring Gideon Graves to ruin. He tells his deadbeat roommates to get a job, and he leaves every day for “work”. Wallace soon sets up a formidable information network and is poised to try and take Gideon down.

Meanwhile, Gideon, drunk on his success, goes to way too many parties celebrating his genius and intellect and how awesome he is. There, he meets a girl with long-ish hair and a look about her that intrigues him. He approaches her, and soon enough, he gets her infected with the Glow and he uses this to manipulate her, Ramona Flowers, into a relationship with him.

Eventually, Ramona leaves Gideon, using the Subspace Highway to leave Gideon behind. Her relationship with him was hell, and her realization of this entire relationship being some sort of sick experiment compels her to leave.

After Ramona leaves, Gideon posts a drunken rant on Craigslist to form a League of Ramona Flower’s evil exes and control Ramona’s love life to make her suffer. To his honest surprise, six other people responded to his rant on Craigslist ,and Gideon just sort of rolls with it.

Wallace, with his built up informational network, sees this and laughs to himself about it, but still takes this in as information he could use against Gideon Graves. He patiently waits and continues his slow bit of progress to destroy Gideon Graves.

Ramona Flowers moves to Toronto and gets a job at Amazon.ca ,using the conveniently empty Subspace Highway via Scott Pilgrim’s head to do her job there. Scott Pilgrim becomes obsessed with Ramona Flowers because of this. Ramona Flowers plagues his dreams and suddenly, at one of Julie’s parties, he sees the girl of his dreams.

Of course, at first, Wallace doesn’t really care at all about Scott’s recent infatuation over another girl. Wallace has other things to think about, like the downfall of Gideon Graves, but Scott has a show with his band and he invited Wallace along to come with him. Wallace reluctantly goes to the show as well.

Page 120, Volume 1, Stacey Pilgrim introduces Ramona Flowers to Wallace Wells. Wallace is utterly shocked at the coincidence, and his slow plan to bring down Gideon Graves might actually be sped up beyond Wallace’s wildest imaginations. In that instant, a plan begins to form, although he isn’t quite sure if Gideon really will act like his drunken rant on Craigslist says he would, he decides to wait patiently and see what happens.

Matthew Patel acts, confirming every single one of Wallace’s suspicions about the League of Evil Exes. Gideon has given Wallace a perfect opportunity to strike without being noticed. Wallace puts it together in his mind that if Gideon really goes through with this, he’ll be too busy focusing on Scott to notice anything that Wallace does. Scott Pilgrim wins his fight, and Wallace decides to use Scott Pilgrim to break Gideon Graves. He convinces Scott to break up with Knives in order to truly solidify Scott Pilgrim’s affections for Ramona (taking Knives out of Scott’s mind), and is the first one to tell Scott about Lucas Lee.

From here on out, it’s all history. Wallace must act has he always has, in order to not bring attention to himself. He helps Scott break through the League of Evil Exes to get closer and closer to Gideon, letting Scott do all the dirty work. His actions indicate his own personal interest at having Scott succeed in defeating all the evil exes.

Further on in the series, Wallace decides to move in with Mobile, one of his contacts, to avoid the attention of Gideon Graves, who has been using Scott’s mind for the Subspace Highway. Wallace knows that Mobile’s psychic powers will prevent Gideon from noticing him and continue his vendetta against Scott.

At the beginning of Volume 6, Scott lost all heart because Ramona left, and Wallace tries to get him out of this funk. He tells Scott that he can’t forget about Gideon Graves and that he has to fight him. Wallace tries to persuade Scott to continue his fight against Gideon. But after all his failed attempts to get Scott to continue his fight with Gideon, he eventually forces Scott to go on his Wilderness Sabbatical.

We see Wallace there at the Chaos Theatre to witness Gideon’s ultimate downfall...

...and it all went according to plan.

Gideon was the strongest of the Seven Evil Exes before Scott leveling up and maturing.

Let's face it, there's no chance in hell that most of the Evil Exes would follow Gideon. So he must have been able to defeat them all by himself to submit his will. The only reason that he and Scott were evenly matched is because the latter has gotten stronger from the previous battles, thus leveling up like the Video Game World they're in.

  • That's not really a WMG. In the comics, at least, none of the Exes would have been able to overcome the Glow and even before that, Todd is the only one with the raw power to take Gideon.

Neil Nordegren is the twin brother of Elin

You know, the Swedish model who beat up Tiger Woods and later got many millions in the divorce from him? Seems she's the Evil Twin... oh wait, his name is Nordegraf? Nevermind, but admit it would've been funny.

Including the one that got stabbed, Scott Pilgrim has had four hearts since getting the +3 Heart upgrade from The Power of Understanding.

Scott Pilgrim has three working hearts. That's two more than one! And that's awesome!

Scott is bi.

He's commented on the "hotness" of other male characters too often for it to be a coincidence. He just doesn't see it (it's not like he's the most self-aware guy in the world) or want to admit it to himself.

When you end a relationship poorly, you turn into an Evil Ex.

We all know that Ramona has her 7 evil exes, but let's look at Scott's.

  • Kim Pine: She didn't turn blatantly evil, as much as she did a cynical Deadpan Snarker. However, she's there to hold a mirror up to Scott and show him that he's a dick, causing him to do somewhat of a Heel Face Turn, but still bruising his ego and all together making him less willing to find Ramona and win her back.
  • Envy: Went from hipster to horrible famous bitch after Scott. Is pretty much the epitome of every girl you hate.
  • Knives: Went psycho and tried to kill everyone who got close to Scott romantically or was his enemy in an If I Can't Have You rage.

And now let's look at Scott:

  • After being dumped by Envy, Scott became kind of an asshole.
  • Hurts people around him even if he doesn't see it.
  • Was a complete ass to Knives

That can also explain why everyone kind of sucks in their own way. Everyone at that age in their lives has probably had a bad breakup, leading to them becoming an Evil Ex.

None of Scott Pilgrim happened the way it looks like it did.

We all know that in our heads, we're far more bad ass than we really are. Same story with Scott. In his head, he's a Badass Abnormal who fights evil exes, saves "princesses", decodes an evil plot, has a ninja for an Ex, and everyone he meets has at the very minimum the potential for super powers. And yet, everyone is a pretty normal person aside from all that. No one exhibits weird alternate super hero personalities, because Scott is just picturing everyone in his head as they are with added bonus powers.

The powers he gives to the people around him vary on who there are as people. Knives was a ninja because he thought that she was cool enough and sneaky to be one; Todd got "vegan" psychic powers because Scott begrudgingly admired him for having the sheer brain and will power for giving up basically everything good in the food world; Mr. Chau was a knife wielding samurai because Scott was genuinely afraid of him; and the Twins got sound powers because of their huge DJ status.

Scott never fought the exes. Sure, he probably met a few and had a conversation with them like the Twins, Todd, and Gideon. However, he had never met the others like Lucas and Mathew who were more than likely still in America, or just too busy with their own lives. He just made up fights in his head to justify himself as being the better person, because deep down he knows he's kind of an asshole.

  • Well, the creators have said that the movies (at least) were from Scott's perspective. Not sure if this applies to the books, however.
    • It was. The entire book series is told from Scott's point of view, which we get to see in the final novel.

Stephen Stills isn't actually gay.

He's bisexual, but can't wrap his head around it, hence the switch from dating and breaking up with Julie and getting back to gether and breaking up again ad infinitum to "I came out in volume five, but you were busy with the evil exes so you missed it".

  1. ↑ This plays into the movie's title, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and makes reference to the series' Arc Number, 7.
  2. ↑ Although the game never really got big, World of Seven has excellent gameplay and was developed by some very Genre Savvy writers, who kept the game open-ended and made both the protagonist and his love interest nameable so that geeks could live out their fantasies.
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