Ever since its first debut in 1984, Thomas the Tank engine and friends had been a big hit with kids all over the world. However in more recent times, people have been looking back at the old show and discovering dark secrets in the show which has made many people speculate what kind of world Thomas and his friends are really set in. The most popular of these theories is that Thomas and all of his friends are slaves and receive harsh punishment for disobeying orders. Now are these theories even real? Are they fake? And the biggest question of all is why in the world do people believe these theories?

The theory states that Thomas and his friends are overworked and treated like slaves on Sodor by the fat controller and if they refuse to work they are given harsh punishments. Now this theory is already wack because the first thing to take note of is the fact that most characters in the show are locomotives or different types of vehicles. They are meant to work, that’s what they’re built for. You don’t walk up to a vehicle in real life and say “it’s a slave” because that would be stupid. There is “evidence” to this theory. Let’s take a look at that now shall we. 

The article I have read claims that “In The Sad Story of Henry,” one locomotive, Henry, is too scared to go out in the rain. He hides in a tunnel and refuses to keep moving until he’s sure the rain won’t return. Outraged at his insubordination, the fat controller takes away Henry’s tracks and bricks up the tunnel just enough for him to see out of. Effectively, The Fat controller sentences Henry to an eternity in the tunnel until he rusts away or perishes. Even worse, this fate is only because the train had no interest in moving.” (cbr.com)

While this is true for the most part, there are some things that are wrong with this claim. For one reason, Henry wasn’t actually afraid of the rain, he just didn’t want his paint to get wet. While the article tries to make feel bad for Henry, in retrospect Henry deserved the punishment he got, he stops in the tunnel pulling a passenger train which cause the passengers to complain about being late but, Henry doesn’t care and yells angry at them, when his driver and firemen try to take to them he blows steam at them. There is one more thing the article forgot to mention and it’s the fact that Henry gets out of the tunnel in the VERY NEXT EPISODE. It doesn’t take a few episodes or seasons for him to get out, no it’s the very next episode which makes the article’s words “the fat controller sentences Henry to an eternity in a tunnel…” not matter because that isn’t what happens at all which makes the whole article bogus. 

Now the big question is why do people believe in stuff like this and many other conspiracy theories. One of the main reasons comes from an article I read states “We desire to feel in control, feel certain, and feel close to those similar to us, and a conspiracy theory can enable this,” “Jolley said.” (livescience.com) The article explains that people like feeling in control or feeling certain about being in the right which is what most conspiracy theorists want to do. However for Thomas conspiracy theory, it’s quite hard mostly because I wasn’t able to find the original creator of the theory. But, if I were to take a guess of what the motive was for making these absurd theories, they probably wanted to either make something funny to see if people would believe them or not because that has happened before in other conspiracy theories, or maybe they were overlooking things too much and wanted to show people that the show wasn’t what we thought it was.

In all I believe that these theories are false and just crazy. Most of the evidence is just episodes and books taken out of context to be used for this theory which is why I wholeheartedly believe that this theory is false. I also believe we shouldn’t make any more dark and sinister theories about Thomas and friends or any kids show as a matter of fact.