11 Theory: Kreacher Survived

So, that means Freddy, Emily, and Emma are all likely dead. Now it’s time to talk about Kreacher.

The muffled noises we hear coming from Emma’s trunk could be from Kreacher, but remember, as I’ve explained before, she has imagined the scarecrow talking due to her own hallucinations before Kreacher even pretended to be the scarecrow during his diary. There’s a chance that’s all this is too. We are likely seeing the more dangerous side of Emma in this last section of the diary. For all we know, these noises could be due to her imagining what the scarecrow or Leo might say if she really had tied them up, stuffed them in a trunk, and later intended to burn it.

And after she sees Leo, her mental breakdown can also give an explanation as to why the scarecrow is limp and lifeless later. Yes, maybe Kreacher is in it and pretending not to move. Maybe he passed out from lack of oxygen. But again, her world has been shattered by reality. She’s had a mental breakdown. She’s decided to give up on her father and get rid of the scarecrow, who she imagines to be her father, and her past self. As she’s decided this, this could also mean the hallucinations where she imagines the scarecrow to be her dad and talking to her are at an end. With her attachments (to her dad) gone, she may also have removed her obsession with the scarecrow, and thus all life it used to have has disappeared, dried up. It’s possible she’s replaced this obsession/complex over the scarecrow and her dad with Emily, since if she’s really gone mental I don’t know if you could say her condition could disappear, but maybe it did. I can’t quite say but it (if her obsession changed to Emily instead) doesn’t matter too much. The focus I have right now is on the scarecrow and why it doesn’t move.

Whether or not Kreacher is in the scarecrow we don’t know. It’s possible both my explanation (about hallucinating about Leo) as well as the fact Kreacher may be in there are true. But for my next discussion, it doesn’t matter too much.

I’d like to add in a bit of my own bias and talk about the possibility Kreacher escaped. Whether or not Kreacher was in the scarecrow, escape is possible in both cases. Let’s see if I can dig up enough evidence for this belief. This is going to be a hard job to pull off, as there is nothing conclusive and officials won’t say one way or the other, but bear with me. I’m going to try.

To start, let’s take a small step back to the clown’s scarecrow costume. It never says anything about a body. All it says is that he found it on fire and thought it could be salvaged. But this doesn’t seem quite right if Kreacher were in there (doesn’t mention seeing or removing a body or part of one). Either he could be saying it was just a normal scarecrow and he managed to salvage enough to still wear the costume, or Kreacher had already managed to get out of the scarecrow and escape. Yes, I know it’s also possible he could be implying he was still in there and/or the skin description is purposefully made not clear enough for us to tell. But just try to amuse me on this and imagine otherwise.

To take a little bigger step back, if Kreacher were in the scarecrow, there is the chance he managed to escape it before Emma set it on fire. I say this because there was a chance for it to happen without Emma seeing. After escaping from Leo during the game, before she goes into the factory, she leaves her trunk outside while she looks for Emily and the Freddy. Once she finishes looking around, only then does she return to it. It’s possible during this span of time Kreacher escaped the trunk. I’m merely presenting possibilities, I’m not saying which one is more correct. This idea may not exactly be possible if he’s wearing the scarecrow clothes, since he has no way to replenish the straw in time after he gets out.

One last possible piece of evidence are his worn clothes themselves. Yes, him and his clothes appear to be burned, but this could also prove the fact he survived. The fact he was burned and has burns also means he wasn’t totally turned to ashes. If he had been completely burned alive, there would either be way more burns, way less clothes remaining, and/or the scarecrow itself probably wouldn’t have been salvageable at all by the clown (there wouldn’t have been much of anything left). Also, if he had been unconscious, it’s possible the pain from being burned would wake him up, at which point he could escape. If Kreacher is in the scarecrow, that means he had to take out the straw to get in (which we saw him do the one time he did dress up as the scarecrow in the manor). And without the straw, that likely means the resulting fire wouldn’t be as huge as it could’ve been. If the fire isn’t too big, that means it would take longer for Kreacher to burn to death, which would give him more time to wake up, take notice, escape, or whatever.

(At which point, there are a couple options. One I will describe next. The other is that they are right next to the exit gate, it would just be a matter of getting it open. As a note, if the hunter were to approach, Kreacher’s already told us in his deductions that he’s good at stealth, so it’d probably be easy enough for him to get away and/or hide. Also, Leo isn’t exactly the smartest, so it’s also possible he’d focus on the burning remains of the scarecrow than him, which are way more noticeable due to said bright fire, and/or would take more notice of the person in front of the burning scarecrow, aka Emma, who isn’t trying to hide at all. And Leo from what we saw in the game wasn’t that far away from where Emma was. )

The next idea I have is little iffy, but I find it interesting nonetheless. It has to do with the possibility of a secret exit. Just to use as a base, in the game, when all but 1 survivor is downed, a dungeon opens up that the last survivor can use to escape when found. I know this normally requires at least 2 ciphers to have been decoded, and dungeons haven’t been confirmed to be a thing in the diary, but that’s why I said just a base. I’m simply trying to get across the idea that another means of escaping the manor may exist.

To attempt to do so, I’d like to bring up the existence of a few suspicious items. First: the frog’s gold ball. This thing is mentioned frequently in all the diaries. Kreacher notices it and likely takes it due to the fact he asks if it’s “all gold”. It’s found in Murro’s room after it disappears. It disappears randomly in the diaries as well, and the other 3 notice when it does.

Then there’s the 2 missing strings from the statue’s harp.

“A drawer with no handle or keyhole”.

Then there’s this weird focus on the scepter of Calliope that Freddy stares at.

All of these things look a lot like pieces to a puzzle. And we know from Burke’s deductions that he did indeed create secret rooms and secret passages. This likely includes the game area as well. Simply put: maybe Kreacher discovered one of these secret passages, one that may let him escape, or he solved the puzzle (at which point it might reveal the secret exit then).