The Maw in Little Nightmares Explained

Today's words of the day are "more/maw" and "essentially". Got some exciting things happening on the channel soon! Patreon will be launched in the next week or so (hopefully), I will be continuing my playthrough of Lost in Random and also it looks like we might actually be getting some DLC for Little Nightmares 2! Thank you for the continued support. It genuinely means a lot.

Plus, one way the Maw makes sense that the rest of the world doesn’t: it isn’t warped. The building aren’t bending, the people aren’t just killing themselves or wasting way, the people on the Maw work with purpose. In the pale city, the buildings are bending, the people’s faces are warped and asynchronous, it’s all chaos and discord. The Maw makes sense because it isn’t touched by the signal tower.

I have a really morbid theory that guests know they are going to die, and the Maw provides them a ritualistic, hedonistic way out. In the second game, you see people jumping from buildings, and everyone else suffering, so maybe the rich can afford a good death, while the poor have to take themselves out in more miserable way.

The way I thought of the Maw being “the only place that makes sense” is that is has a purpose and a structure. The children and fish are gathered for meat, the chefs cook the meat, the guests eat the meat, and the lady takes their life force to run the maw until someone overthrows her. Other locations like the school and hospital. Why teach children that can’t grow up and why help patients that just end up sitting in the dark all day. Comparatively the Maw makes more sense.

I always thought the maw is a living being. The guests are the food all the rooms are like organs and six is like a parasite. That's maybe why there aren't as many people as there used to be, because the maw is getting older.

It's heavily implied that the children were not always used for food. Throughout the game we see infrastructure within the Maw clearly designed for beings of small size, from levers to ladders. Since the flooded parts of the Maw appear to have once been living quarters, I theorize that the children were once raised to work as maintenance crew and helpers for the ship's staff, likely after being transformed into Nomes. (We see Six performing such tasks in the game's concept art.) The man in charge of the children's training and care was the tall fellow we see hanging near the start of the game, who couldn't live with the new "let's just eat them" policy enacted by the Lady after she removed her sisters. This explains why the Maw is in such disrepair, and why its remaining staff are stretched so thin. The Janitor now has to do all the maintenance himself AND look after the children. The Twin Chefs have grown ill as they work non-stop to prepare every meal and clean every dish themselves. The Granny (who I theorize used to be the manager of the living quarters) now lives forgotten in the flooded underbelly, her entire section of the ship abandoned with nobody to maintain it. The Nomes now wander aimlessly through old maintenance passages, having forgotten their purpose.

I feel like it's described as the only place that makes sense, because of how simple life is there for the guests. They eat. They sleep. They do it again. There's no drama, no responsibilities, and no worries about the post- apocalyptic world outside.

Considering the amount of gluttony consuming the guests, I'm not sure the Lady has to cast a spell on them. They may willingly sign away their life if you promise them enough food to finally satiate them to the point they aren't hungry.

The Maw won't die because it continually replaces the Lady. Six is the next one. There have been 5 others before, including the Lady that Six kills. That's why she's called six. I still don't think the children are consumed by the Guests. I feel they are reserved for the Lady who needs their life force to stay young (also why there are so many Nomes in the Maw). Love your theories Tericho!!!

Every time I think I know everything there is to know about little nightmares these mysteries come out and I'm back to square one, good on you for managing to put it all together 😅

The water leaking from the entrance of the Maw makes it look like it's drooling

I actually noticed the mouth of the maw looks like, one of the chefs masks mouth

I’m usually scared of big things (don’t even think about jokes you could make out of that) like huge ships or planes and the maw is one of them and it just adds to the experience. So damn cool it reminds me of the game “inside”

When it comes to the thin woman. I think her hunger is more than just power-hungry. Remember the kid after consuming her gains this power to consume the life force of everybody that comes near her. I think that was basically how the system worked. She drew The guests in The guests ate and ate until they were tired. When they went to sleep their life force would be taken from them and they die, Feeding her and then the body is chopped up to feed everybody else. And with that and the eye creature that is The source of the signal Tower. I basically assumed that little nightmares is basically Love craft horror. There’s really no happy ending. Only survival and the attempt to keep your sanity.

Maybe the hunger comes from leaving the signal. Because as we see six gets her hunger from leaving. No one in the city shows signs of hunger, but maybe if you leave you get hungry because a part of you belong to the signal. So without the signal you miss something. This can also explain why the maw is the only place that makes sense. You can escape the world, but it comes with one price. The hunger, so the circle of food have to continue in the maw to keep them safe. It also looks like they all got exposed to the tv at one point because they wear masks. Idk 😆

So if the maw "makes sense" because if it follows the rules does that mean the pale city is "chaotic" because it doesn't?

I was trying to find the meaning of the Maw like months, but you explained it better than anyone today in just 11 minutes... You are pretty smart Tericho, keep up your amazing work!🖤

does anyone else think there's some sort of twisted beauty to the Maw? I mean, the architecture and decoration always felt so terrifying yet mesmerising to me. Maybe I just really like Japanese architecture and creepy stuff.

I still think it's interesting that the beings like Six and Mono are still being referred to as children...I mean they are but they aren't human children...when playing the sequel I thought it was kind of disturbing that I kept finding child sized shoes but they were far too big for Six and Mono which leads me to an even better theory...maybe THEY are the little nightmares.

Those nets that scrape the sea floor are also used for collecting coal.