True Meanings Behind These Confusing Video Game Endings

Monkey Island 2

In the final battle with Guybrush Threepwood and LeChuck, you inflict some massive damage on your pirate nemesis with the help of a voodoo doll. However, LeChuck asks for his mask to be taken off which reveals Guybrush’s “creepy brother Chuckie”. Suddenly a delivery crew man shows up and says that the two brothers aren’t allowed there, in the tunnels of the amusement park.

We then see two children emerging from the tunnels and meeting their parents. Guybrush can either state his identity or inquire as to what’s going on when the parents ask. You do see Chuckie looking at the screen with crazy voodoo eyes, which is usually your cue that everything’s gone for a toss. Eventually in the credits, Elaine – Guybrush’s woman – will wonder aloud about whether LeChuck cast a spell on the hero.

What exactly happened during the climactic battle? Several theories abound especially since director Ron Gilbert would work in secret and not explain things. Here’s the thing though: it’s all a hallucination. That’s the “official” canon as per Monkey Island 3 and even if you want to theorize about parallel universes, it was officially all a bad dream. The other theories are that Guybrush hit his head at some point, thus leading to all this insanity, or that LeChuck cast a spell on him, thus the whole hallucination explanation. Who knows what Rob Gilbert was thinking though?