The Underworld[1] is a location that first appeared in "Catch These Hands". It is located at the inner core of the Earth. Not much is known about this location other than that entering the core transforms contestants into three-dimensional versions of themselves and giving them realistic, humanoid limbs and faces. They look identical to real life humans, but with no ears, staying with black limbs.
The Underworld seems to only be accessible through being crushed by the trash compactors used for the challenge, which explains why Book, Gelatin, Coiny, Bubble, Yellow Face, Leafy, and Woody are not seen there, as they died in other ways. However, in "Out Of The Blue", Robot Flower can briefly be seen in this dimension after her death in the previous episode, which hints that access to the dimension doesn't always require being crushed by a compactor, unless she was compacted earlier. Additionally, in Well, Look Who It Is!, Coiny obtains access to the Underworld by digging to the Earth's core and being melted, emerging in the Underworld.
It also likely happens to be related to the Dream World, since Pin communicated to Coiny that they had to go to the Underworld in order to get her limbs, face, and size back.
In "Well, Look Who It Is!", Coiny digs into The Earth's Inner Core to recover Pin's limbs, face, and size. Since he didn't die, he still looks normal. Coiny hears a voice telling him to get out, and Pin tells him that he's not welcome there due to being an "Overworlder." Coiny takes Pin and quickly gets out of The Earth's Inner Core.
Appearance[]
This place contains lava flows, a sort of lava moat, and rampant fires about where its inhabitants are, enough to cause spontaneous combustion of wood. The presence of a door and daylight beyond that suggests it is on earth.
Effects[]
Besides changing the contestant's appearances like Yellow Face's Ad Dimension, everyone in the Underworld has a text-to-speech voice. Their way of speech becomes verbose, which none of the characters notice, except for Fries, whose voice comes out normally. When Fries complains about the group talking in that weird way, Pencil is compelled to crush him with her fist, and then Pencil and the other characters agree on how Fries' normal voice is "of extreme difficulty to understand". This indicates that the dimension also subtly changes the mentality of the contestants, although the extent of these changes is unknown besides heavily increasing their verbosity and aggression toward non-verbose speech. This change, however, is not instant and increasingly will become more noticeable, as Pencil refers and speaks to Spongy as she normally would, as well as just earlier stating her happiness over Bubble in a polite and proper way. At the end of the episode, Spongy uses words like "ain't."
Recovery and after[]
Once the contestants are recovered, they appear to have no memory of their time in the Underworld. When this happens, they rise into the air, flatten, and spin uncontrollably, similar to a buzzsaw. In the real world, recovering a contestant in the Underworld apparently makes the HPRC harder to crank, though this was only observed for Ruby (who was recovering Pencil). Once, when Pencil was alive, she refers to Nickel as "American 5-cent Denomination" before correcting herself, indicating that there may be lingering side effects from their time in the Underworld. Additionally, in "Insectophobe's Nightmare 4", Pin remembers that, while in the Underworld, she had her limbs back, more evidence that contestants don't completely forget their time in the Underworld.
If someone in the Underworld tries to escape without being recovered (such as Pin in BFDIA 13), they won't be able to remain in their Underworld state and remain on the surface. Physically, they will glitch between their Underworld and normal states while being stuck at the surface. Their voice will be similarly glitched. If successfully brought to the surface, they will revert to their most recent overworld state; in the case of Pin, this means being a smaller, lifeless version of her usual self. While in their glitched state, it takes tremendous effort to be brought up onto the surface.
Effects on non-compacted individuals[]
If an "Overworlder" comes into the Underworld without being compacted, a mysterious voice will tell them to get out. Nothing is known if the Overworlder who came to the Underworld will experience consequences for disobeying the voice, as the only Overworlder, Coiny, left with Pin quickly after being told. Additionally, the Overworlder will keep their normal, non-3D design.
Visitors[]
Anyone who enters the Underworld are 3D and have human-like faces and limbs. Sometimes there are other changes too, such as Pin's face being located much higher than usual, and Robot Flower lacking a torso. Coiny still looks the same, as he didn't get compacted but dug down to the Earth's Inner Core.
Entered by being crushed by a Trash Compactor.[]
Entered through other means[]
Trivia[]
- This is the first location in BFDI to be entirely animated in 3D CGI, including the characters.
- The characters' names were changed to be more verbose.
- Pencil is named "Erasable Drawing Utensil".
- Bubble is named "Soap Bubble".
- Fries is named "Potato-Based Consumable".
- Nickel is named "American 5-cent Denomination".
- Pin is named "Pushpin".
- Spongy and Coiny are still referred to by their real names, although this might be because Pencil and Pin were not talking verbose to them.
- Golf Ball, Tennis Ball, Ice Cube, and Robot Flower are the only inhabitants whose names haven't been verbosely called yet.
- Everyone that is in the Underworld has a text-to-speech voice, except for Fries, whose voice comes out normally.
- Nickel has a British text-to-speech voice accent, despite being an "American" 5-Cent Denomination.
- As mentioned by Pencil, Nickel is named as "American 5-cent Denomination", which assumes that the United States most likely exists in the BFDI universe.
- The area is animated either with Blender or Autodesk Maya.
- Any female character sent here has eyelashes, while males do not. This is the first occurrence of feminine characteristics in the show.
- Robot Flower is the only female character to not have eyelashes, as she doesn't have a face.
- Nickel has the year 1954 on him.
- All scenes featuring the Underworld were made by CobyPal as a collaboration.[2]
- So far, Nickel and Fries are the only BFDIA debutants who have been sent here. Nickel is the only Season 2 contestant to have a verbose text-to-speech voice.
- In addition, Robot Flower is the only BFB newbie to appear here so far. She is also the first mechanical mind to enter this location.
- Despite Bubble being killed by the compactor, she was not seen anywhere in the Underworld. This is presumably due to her popping rather than being crushed.
Gallery[]
.png "Screenshot 3(1).png (757 KB)")
References[]
- ↑ Name first given by Cary Huang in his BFDIA 10 reaction video: https://youtu.be/QZr3SwtSHaM?t=240, later confirmed to be official from BFDIA 13's credits
- ↑ https://twitter.com/CobyPal/status/1753315975280373848