Over the Garden Wall and Existentialism

Background

Over the Garden Wall, created by Adventure Time writer, creative director, and storyboard artist Patrick McHale is a short cartoon series about two young brothers and their adventures through a mysterious forest. We initially know nothing about where they came from but the older of the two, Wirt, is distressed when he realizes he doesn’t know where they are. They were just walking home and now they’re lost. The ten-chapter series shows who and what they run into in this forest called “The Unknown.”

Wirt

Wirt, the more pessimistic of the two brothers, already had a rather dismal view of existence before they end up in the Unknown. He thinks his crush will never return his feelings, he thinks he’s the outlier or outcast, and he thinks his poetry and clarinet are cringey. Overall, he’s almost overly self-aware of his own awkwardness and thinks it makes him unlikeable when in reality, his crush does like him and his friends enjoy his company.

When he and Greg get lost in the Unknown, he pretty quickly starts to panic and spiral. All that keeps him going is the prospect of getting home until they wander for too long and he doubts if they will.

For Wirt, existence is a constant struggle to get somewhere, but you can never quite make it. For him existence is torture.

Greg

Greg seems pretty content wherever he is at any given time. He doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that they are lost and only really shows interest in getting home after Wirt gives up. And even then he wants to get Wirt home, not necessarily himself. He treats everything as though it’s a game. Everything is new and fascinating to him which makes it hard to stay on the same page as Wirt, who either doesn’t care about what Greg finds interesting, or is terrified by it. Greg runs to the Unknown; Wirt fears it.

For Greg, existence is never needing a destination, but finding joy in the journey. For him existence is wonderment.

Their Perceptions of Existence

One popular interpretation of the Unknown is that it’s a kind of purgatory. I think the way Greg and Wirt perceive the world also says something about how they view death. They don’t know they’re in purgatory (if we’re going with this theory) because they can’t remember what they were doing before they got here, but I think the prospect of death becomes clear to both of them near the climax of the show. Greg seems willing and ready to die if it means saving Wirt.

Wirt is afraid to die but too exhausted to do anything about it. His anxiety about everything else has caught up to him and he realizes he may never make it home. He gives up when he realizes he has no control and no way home.

Greg, I think simultaneously knows he has no control, and that he can make choices that affect his environment. He is very much a “go with the flow” kind of character. He crosses one bridge at a time.

The Two Together

These characters being opposites but also brothers stuck together, lost in the Unknown, says something about our perception of existence. We know death is the only certainty in life, but we also live as though it doesn’t exist. When we are younger there was always something new to be amazed by. When we get older anxiety about the future and what could be out there, consumes us. Sometimes though, anxiety is there from the start. We never learn to lean into the Unknown.

I feel aspects of both Greg and Wirt in my perception of existence. Since we all die in the end, nothing matters. There are parts of me that then say, if nothing matters, then everything matters. Live your life to the fullest, meet people, and experience things. Another part of me says that if nothing matters, why do anything? If nothing matters then why try to get ahead of the game, ahead of the competition for survival? Why not just lay here in the cold with the dying autumn leaves? But some part of me needs to keep going just to see what’s out there, to see if it’s any good.

These two opposing perceptions can also be friends, like Wirt and Greg at the end of the show. Greg throughout the whole show considers Wirt and who he is. He tells him he should join the marching band at their school with Greg because then he could hang out with his crush more. He recognizes that Wirt really wants to show his crush a tape he made of poetry and clarinet for her, so he takes it to be given to her. He also wants to do things he enjoys with Wirt, like frog hunting. He seems to know who Wirt is as a person. Wirt takes longer to get to that point, but by the end, he does appreciate Greg for who he is.

So...

Wirt and Greg through their adventures in the Unknown portray the ways we perceive our own existence. Wirt certainly grows a lot and has a different outlook after realizing life is delicate and maybe it’s worth pushing through the anxiety. Maybe nothing matters, but maybe that means everything matters a little more than we thought.