Chilling theory claims that Thomas the Tank Engine is actually set in a bleak totalitarian dystopia
The kids' stories are not as wholesome as they first appear, the theory claims, with liberal use of propaganda, brutality and fear-mongering
READERS of Thomas the Tank engine have cooked up a grim theory that the popular stories are set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
The theory goes that the island of Sodor is the steam egines' only "safe zone" on the scorched Earth where trains are cannibalised and sold off for scrap if they dare resist their all-powerful master, The Fat Controller.
In one of the Thomas books, called Stepney the 'Bluebell' Engine, a train called Percy says: "Engines on the Other Railway aren’t safe now.
"Their controllers are cruel. They don’t like engines any more. They put them on cold damp sidings, and then, they… they c-c-cut them up."
And an illustration from the books fleshes out this sinister theory with an image of a train whose face has been removed as a punishment for its disobedience.
Meanwhile, the portly Fat Controller sits at the top of this brutal society, forcing the trains to work to the bone for him, threatened with the scrapheap if they defy his rule.
In the TV show, when one stubborn engine, Henry, refuses to slave away any longer, the Fat controller exacts his revenge by effectively sentencing him to death.
The Fat Controller tells the terrified train: "We shall take away your rails and leave you here for always and always and always."
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A brick wall is built up to entomb Henry in his dark tunnel, as the narrator gloats: "I think he deserved his punishment, don’t you?”
A supplementary theory on the Tumblr thread is that, far from being a safe haven, Sodor is itself the totalitarian state, pumping the poor engines with propaganda and controlling them by fear.
The engines are constantly told that life on other railway routes is awful, so no matter how bad things get for them on Sodor, they will always put up with for fear of being sent away to a life of misery or - worse still - scrapped.
