The Maw is a cryptic and mysterious underwater world, centered around the excesses, especially related to food. Room after room, the twisted depths of the Maw reveal in front of the eyes of Six, the main character. Each room is enriched in details, from pictures to objects, telling a story that is hidden in a fragmented puzzle. Because the plot of Little Nightmares is not directly explaining and, together with its lore, need to be discovered thought details and analysis. There is no space for dialogues in the world of Little Nightmares, everything is apparently purposeless, afflicted by the silence, except for the grunting and the growling of the inhabitants. Instead of the voices, the surroundings are telling a story, full of mystery and hidden behind ephemeral clues. Because between all the characters, the Maw is the most important and complex one.
The Maw is built around a strong hierarchy, with bizarre creatures responsible of specific tasks. The Janitor is at the bottom of the pyramid, a blind creature with long arms, taking care of the machinery and catching runaway children. When it comes to food, the Chefs are in charge of preparing the elaborate feast for the obese Guests, which will then swarm through the Maw to eat the questionable delicacies. The mysterious Lady sits at the top of the pyramid, ruling the Maw. She lives isolated, far from the decadence of the gluttony inside the Maw, but feared by everybody due to her mystic powers.
In the following article I will analyse the most mysterious and interesting rooms of the Maw, trying to use all the clues in the surrounding to understand what is happening. This is my personal interpretation of the world of Little Nightmares, including the monster in the shoes or the mysterious hanging man. Of course there will be speculations, but all based on the analysis of the surrounding, without jumping into wild theories.
- The hanging rooms
One of the first room to be explored by Six, and till now one of the most mysterious. The ant-chamber is a room with chairs and furniture hanging by ropes from the ceiling. The meaning of this room could be puzzling at the first glance, but everything will be clear after entering into the next room through an air conduct. The macabre spectacle of an incredibly thin and tall body hanging from the ceiling will welcome the player in this room. A lonely chair is in the middle of the room, providing enough information on what happened. The creature was probably an inhabitant of the Maw with a conscience, who probably committed suicide for the guilt of all the atrocities perpetuated on the imprisoned children. The purpose of the ant-chamber is now more clear. Probably he got obsessed with the dark thought of committing suicide, and started “to hang” all his furniture. Maybe he was also experimenting with the technique, before trying it on himself. But who was this man? Maybe he was the previous janitor in charge of capturing the children, judging from how tall and thin he was, and maybe his conscience forced him to suicide. Probably the actual Janitor was not tall as the previous, and to allow him access anyway to all the areas, somebody stretched his arms (more info about the Janitor in my article: Monster of the Week: the Janitor (Little Nightmares)). But this is just my theory, and there are dozens around the Web trying to explain who this character was.
- Drawings Room
A really important room, but also one of the most difficult to decode. Drawings are scattered everywhere, with a tearing eye as main subject. The same concept is painted on the wall behind an empty bed. Almost surely this was the room of a child, but probably a special one. Just outside of this room, an evil eye is working as security system, petrifying every child that enters inside its vision cone. This is probably the subject painted by the child, who was terrified by this defensive mechanism. Many questions arise from this particular. Why was it necessary to use such a complicated device to control this child? Maybe the Lady really didn’t want that he/she escapes. Probably the Maw was the unwanted home of other really special children, such as Six, gifted with suppressed powers. The Lady was probably scared of them, and she was not wrong, if you saw the ending scene of Little Nightmares. Another interesting detail of this room is the black goo coming from under the bad, which in the game is related with peculiar nasty worms. Could it be that the power of the child imprisoned here was to unwillingly generate those horrible worms? Or maybe the worm simply generated from his/her sadness, like proper parasites. This could also explain why these worms are common enemies in the first level of the game, where the children are kept caged in their sadness.
- Janitor’s Room
The Janitor’s room is a place defined by highness, where everything is thin and tall. The room is build exactly around the figure of the Janitor, which is blind but can reach everything with his long arms. Since his arms have a twisted anatomy, probably he cannot catch objects very close, for this reason everything is so high. Connecting with the theory of the Hanging Rooms, maybe since the Janitor is a recent creation, he wants to train his arms to be extremely stretched, for this reason the everyday objects are so difficult to reach.
- Hidden Torture Room
A shovel, an abandoned bathtub, and a bloody guillotine, this room definitively is a peculiar combination of things. But the guillotine is for sure the most cryptic item. Even if it is now abandoned in a messy room, the guillotine once was used, as you can judge by the blood. The Maw is a place of imprisonment, more than of execution, so what is the necessity of this instrument? Judging by the size it was not used on children. Maybe in the past the Maw was a different kind of prison, which was also executing the inmates. Another explanation is instead that the Lady was not always supported by all the subordinates in the Maw, and she needed a way to shut up the opposition, making them an example. So maybe this was the necessity of the guillotine, to execute the enemies of the Lady. Either way, the instrument is now abandoned and forgotten. Maybe the Lady suppressed the opposition, or maybe the Maw simply evolved in a food-oriented system.
- The creature and the Shoes
Another really creepy and mysterious place. The sea of shoes is probably a reminder of the silent massacre happening inside the Maw. Judging from the size of the shoes, the victims are probably adult Guests, and not the children. The general image of this room has a strong connection with genocide, remembering a real image of a room in Auschwitz. The creature lurking below the shoes is more difficult to define. Something is clearly living there, something that is swimming in the shoes like a crocodile. The creature is maybe missing a general physiology, and is more like a death energy, similar to the North Wind in Little Nightmares comic. The entity probably born from the fear and sufferance of this place and, like a vulture, is cleaning the place from every living thing.
- Toys Room
A big room full of toys and small mannequins. Colorful cubes, automated monkeys and small wooden figure are shattered everywhere, but in a delicate order, like a small community. This sort of secret hideout is one of the favorite places of the Janitor. The wooden figures have the same size of human children, the main targets of the Janitor. Even if blind, the Janitor is clearly able to distinguish between an object and a living child, so what is the purpose of this room? One explanation, as previously theorised, is that the Janitor was somehow created to replace the old guardian. This room could be his training ground, where he exercised the unnatural long arms to capture and detain children, using this time wooden figure shaped like human children. But another theory could be instead hinting at the hidden gentle side of the Janitor. He is probably the only enemy that is not directly killing or eating the protagonist, but will only bring her away. Maybe according to his childish-like eyes, he is not doing anything harmful to the children, just bringing them to an imaginary happy place full of toys, exactly like this room.
- Chef’s Room
Double paintings and beds, everything in this room is build keeping in mind the number two. The painting on the wall is showing the owner of the room: the Chefs. Each of them has a wardrobe, and the room is almost symmetrically divided in two, like a mirror. The Chefs are practically sleeping together, with two single beds close together. A promotional image of the Chefs already partially revealed the truth hidden in this room. The Chefs were once sharing the same body, like conjoined twins. The painting on the wall is also showing exactly this: they were two half of the same being. What happened to them is a mystery, but even now, as individual beings, they miss their past body, for this reason they keep on sleeping close together.
- The Mysterious Bathroom
Something is really really off about this place. At first glance, this is only an old and dirty bathroom with 4 toilets. Judging from the position and the appearance, it is probably a public bathroom used by the Guests. Till here nothing strange, but the unexpected surprise is hidden behind the mirror. There is a small secret room with only a chair behind the walls. The creepy implicit detail is that somebody was sitting on the chair, spying the Guests in the bathroom through the mirror. A voyeur always implies a strong sexual component. Who could be the spy in the bathroom? At this point in the game and in this particular stage, there could be only two answers: the Lady or the Chefs. The Lady looks far from any low pleasure, since she also feeds on souls. So the Chefs are the most reasonable answer. Maybe they retain their sexuality, since they are almost a similar species to the Guests. Or maybe the bathroom is the main kidnapping point, since judging from the size of many bodies during the game, it is quite implicit that, after the feast, the Guests are probably killed. It is possible that a Chef is spying in the bathroom to check if a Guest is alone, probably noticing to the other Chef, who will subdue the Guest. But if you prefer the voyeur-theory, something really sick is going on in the Maw.
Surreal and Creepy 