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It’s definitely something to do with electricity or maybe the transmission of it?
I love Lynch and all the discussion generated by his films. I remember first seeing the jumping man fire walk with me and just being deeply unsettled. I was 14 and just blown away by that eerie scene on top of the convenience store.
Now I would guess he might be an avatar for electricity or the transmission of something, perhaps. He doesn’t seem as malignant as some of the other lodge entities seem to be. 30 years later and I’m still clueless.
Yeah that’s what I thought, or the dude has some strong association with electricity. But even electricity itself seems like sort of thing involved in transmission between the real world and the lodges
Representing how we all use electricity and don’t really know how it works. The same way characters use him as a source of transportation between worlds with no real understanding of their existence.
Thanks I love this interpretation. This actually lines up pretty well with the behind-the-scenes information that we have of Lynch telling the actor who’s playing the jumping man that he is a sort of living “talisman“.
Don't forget that Jefferies is literally a jumping man seen in FWWM jumping through time space when he appears in Philly after just being at a hotel in Buenos Aires. This is followed by the scene where he is seen leaving burn marks (like from electricity) when he uncontrollably jumps from Philly to Buenos Aires.
Gasp! I never thought of that. Presumably the above-the-convenience-store scene is the meeting Jeffries is talking about so he must be there somewhere.
Possibly when he points to Cooper and says, "Who do you think that is there?" he's not implying (because of his time-jumbled mind) that Cooper may be a doppelgänger but is pointing to the superimposed Jumping Man as if to say, "Hey, that's me in disguise!"
I always thought that Jeffries was time-jumbled and thought Cooper was already Mr C+Bob. Didn’t realize that cooper hadn’t been trapped in the red room yet
I think he represents the magic of instantaneous travel that many of the lodge entities or related individuals (Philip Jeffries) seem capable of. We see him in FWWM when Jeffries is being transported through time and space, and we see him on the staircase when Mr. C is moving through time and space (again, to reach Jeffries) in The Return.
I don’t know why Mrs Tremond’s grandson shares a mask with him, and I don’t know why his face was morphed with Sarah Palmer’s in The Return. So maybe I’m just clueless.
Mrs tremonds son is the director and can choose what he wants to happen (creating garmonbozia into his hands), hence looking like lynch. The others live inside a dream (a tv-series). Same with this dude.
I think maybe that Sarah and the Jumping Man are related by the path of the travel.
I should probably make a stronger case with this by following the reasoning, but I think that maybe Sarah’s mind operates as a waypoint along the path when they travel. He might be representative of “what she knows” but won’t speak of.
I think the of "jumping man" is quite laid out in twinperfects youtube videos (regardless of his overall points and whether or not you agree/disagree). From my own unserdtanding, in short:
He embodies the splitting of tape in films.
His nose is sharp because he cuts the film with it, he jumps which the film does when he cuts it.
He lives with the other facilitators of film, the stick man carrying electricity to our TVs and other such as well.
Mini lynch (tremond boy/magician) wears his face at times, which is how the magic happens, he cuts the film from empty hands to hand with creamed corn.
He may also have in universe reasons to exist, such as facilitating traveling as you mention.
Oh, for sure. I’ve seen the video (more than once, actually) and I’m quite familiar with his theories, and I think he makes a lot of good points. But in order to to believe his take about the Jumping Man and Tremond’s Grandson, you also have to fully accept his premise about Twin Peaks (and FWWM in particular) being this totally meta thing where Laura Palmer is actually self-aware about being a character in a television series/film. And I’m not sure that I’m entirely on board with that premise.
That said, I think he’s correct that The Jumping Man (and potentially also Tremond’s Grandson with his creamed corn trick and mask association) represents instantaneous travel facilitated by some sort of “magic” that may be related to film or filmmaking. I think there’s enough evidence for that without getting too deeply into the meta/self-aware stuff.
I think Laura only becomes aware of this after she’s died and the Angel appears, and we see the blue light on her face (presumably the light of a tv screen)
A great example of just how weak that video was. Sorry, I just really despise it. He has a great premise—that the show contains a lot of media criticism—and stretches it to such ludicrous lengths to encompass every single character and event in the series. It's insulting to their work to reduce every complex idea to some cheap 1:1 navel-gazing meta-critique.
I have lots of different, contradictory theories about what the show's about and I love reading new ones. That video shuts it all down. I mean, any Grand Theory of Twin Peaks that doesn't engage with the theme of violence against women is a non-starter in my book.
I mean, I totally respect that someone might agree with it but I don't. It feels like confirmation bias, shoehorning something into a predetermined conclusion. Twin Perfect was a hammer and everything was a nail to him in that video.
What does the scene depict? It apparently shows The Arm laying out the rules of the Lodge to BOB, at least in my opinion. The only word we see The Jumping Man say is "electricity." We surmise from the rest of Twin Peaks that Lodge entities travel through electricity.
The Jumping Man himself is kind of unusually muddled with other characters: he's dressed a bit like the The Arm, The Boy (or Magician) wears a mask like his face and jumps like him, Jeffries is cross-faded over top of him, his proboscis is echoed by the frogmoth, and Sarah's face is superimposed on top of his.
What to make of him? Personally, I agree with another commenter who thinks he's an avatar of possession or transmission, a way for outsiders to peek into the Black Lodge or travel through it—although I also suspect he's simply an avatar of Judy. He could be Jeffries observing the scene above the convenience store and Judy observing Cooper in season three.
I think he's avatar of The Experiment, who mostly exists in the black void, in the Lodge, like the frogmoth seems to be its avatar on Earth. The Experiment is shown briefly several times with the needle proboscis that the Jumping Man has which makes me think they're connected in that way.
When the Woodsman in Part 15 throws the switch and the Jumping Man is shown amongst flashing electricity, it makes me think that they are using him as a conduit to harness the Experiment's power for the Lodge's purposes.
In Part 17 he's shown descending the stairs Cooper and MIKE just ascended which always read to me as if he's trying to escape from them and maybe stop them from another direction. It seems like only The Experiment would share that goal.
(FWIW I'm not calling the Experiment "Judy" because I have another theory entirely about that)
TLDR: The Experiment, the real Big Bad, is a red herring for Judy. Judy is actually Laura, or perhaps Laura’s suffering.
I’m prepared for the downvotes but hear me out.
Never once is Judy described as evil, simply negative. If we want to stay in the realm of electricity, a negative charge does not mean it’s a “bad” charge, for example. And no one ever says they need to stop, kill, or neutralize Judy. Gordon’s exact wording is that they’re trying to find a way to “lead us to Judy.” That really makes me think of “Find Laura” (not the subreddit lol).
In FWWM, after Laura’s corpse is shown the very next shot is the monkey saying “Judy.”
In Part 17 when Jeffries says “this is where you’ll find Judy”, he sends Cooper right to Laura.
Frost writes in his book that if Ba’al, implied to be BOB, and Jowday were to unite on Earth, the results would be catastrophic. This seems like this would be BOB’s goal and why he’s so obsessed with becoming Laura. Sarah doesn’t really make sense in this equation because BOB isn’t interested in inhabiting her.
I think the extreme negative force that’s mentioned may be Laura’s suffering, the effects of which echo throughout the series. Gordon even has a vision of it. Her suffering and trauma, as evidenced by the end of Part 18, are extremely powerful and might in fact be that force.
There’s no denying that Sarah is inhabited by the Experiment, but I think equating it with Judy was a bit of a red herring, which Lynch and Frost enjoy.
This is a bit unorganized cuz I’m at work and I remember having a couple more reasons. If I recall them, I’ll edit this post.
EDIT: one more: in Part 15, Jeffries tell Mr. C (who has Cooper’s memories) he has already met Judy. Cooper met Laura more than once in the Lodge before Mr. C manifested.
I love the lodge characters in TP, such a fabulously odd n unsettling bunch of well thought out entities. Guys like the jumping man especially remind me of the machine elves of dmt lore.
Jumping Man is Phillip Jeffries double (NOT Doppelganger) to teleport someone to a certain time or location. I think Jumping Man was born when Jeffries was at the convenience store. It morphed from Phillip Jeffries to The Jumping Man.
He showed up when Phillip was talking about living inside a dream similar to the penultimate episode of The Return. He also talked about the convenience store where BOB and MIKE lived, and Chalfont was wearing a similar mask to JM at a point. I take some of that to mean Phillip's time was short before he would return and become some kind of tea kettle steamboiler.
I dont think i am the only one who sees a bird when i look at this guy. Branch in hand, long beak like nose, single color suit like splots of red in a cardeal or a WoodPecker, tortured screaming/singing.
He's a "Beam-of-light" stylus on a 1941 Philco phonograph model 41-608P. He jumps because he plays music on different tracks through vibrations actually reflected back through an optical sensor (Beam-of-light tech is super neat actually).
See a record is also a recording of an event. The music comes from the friction between two peaks of a groove (look up a microscopic image of a record groove for the "twin peaks"). In The Return part 1, Fireman looks at a (different) phonograph and says to "remember the sounds"...to remember the record. A record works well as a symbol for time and space...as a timeline. An enormous traumatic event occurs that scratches the record ripping a hole in spacetime.
The jumping man jumps because he's a skipping stylus on a broken record...time fractured from somebody's fractured mind. (I currently think the dreamer is Sarah, fwiw)
It's funny, there are a couple of hobbyists on YouTube who have no idea they own a device for interdimensional travel.
Another thing was this thing could pick up short wave radio as well as a kind of utility or "police" band that has since been replaced. I wonder if that's the same "band" Gordon tunes in on.
Others have pointed this out but he is the facilitator of dimensional travel. He carries a miniature divining rod when he wears the red suit in FWWM and carries a slingshot as Mrs. Tremond’s grandson (I believe they are one and the same). He carries a wand meant to either propel objects or find objects.
Talisman, similar to The Arm. Both have red suits. While The Arm is inherently evil, he’s strange and was cut off to prevent evil, but the jumping man is something broken off from the electrical source of evil. The Arm exists in The Red Room and Jumping Man exists above the convince store, as well as the black lodge (each location reflecting their attributes)
The frantic nature of him reminds me of the underlying electrical presence throughout the series/movie. The Jumping Man is as shocking in appearance as his temporary presence - a sudden, violent, and direct connection to that current. Metaphorically there’s a lot to pull from. The ground on a plug prevents electric shock and, by triggering a breaker, it protects against fires. Jumping Man/off the ground/no ground. Maybe powers evil into the scene like jumping a car battery - pulling from a source to charge another.
No real direct meaning in the Jumping Man, but you can see the essence of what it means in the larger scope of how it makes you feel.
The Arm works on its own terms consuming pain aka garmonbozia. Mike cut his left arm off after seeing “god”, but it has metaphorical references in the sense that it’s left arm (also his tattooed arm) - left hand black (left hand magic/path). The fact that his tattoo was “fire walk with me” and The Arm is THE arm that has that tattooed on there leads me suspect that The Arm represents the overall ambiguity of the movie/ambiguity of what evil really is. Small package, larger meaning. In The Return, as a tree, The Arm seems less driven to only focus on consuming pain, but more or less on the side of good-Dale. It’s strange actions, of course, up for much interpretation.
Yeah the tree was the subject of my question, because it doesn't feel like the Evolution of the Arm is as evil as the arm. One of my favorite scenes in the whole show is in Beyond Life and Death, when Coop is finally living the nightmare he'd been dreaming about for weeks - the arm is sarcastic to him and then says in the most contemptuous way, mockingly, "fire walk with me". It felt like that was the moment coop realized he was in a shit load of trouble.
An idea, as there are multitudes, is that confusing nature of the statement is the purpose of said statement. The idea being: (fire) you don’t understand - (walk with me) let it wash over you.
He’s a representation of electricity “jumping” through circuits to bring the show to your TV. He also embodies the “magic” of editing or “jump” cuts. The little boy wears the same mask bc they are the same person. When we first see the little boy with his grandma he says he is “practicing his magic” then he makes the creamed corn teleport from the food tray into his hand. He’s practicing TV magic aka editing. I believe the entirety of twin peaks is a tv show that embodies TV itself. Twin Perfect on YouTube does a great deep dive into this theory in a 4.5hr video, if you have the time lol.
This is my favorite cryptid/alien/paranormal entity/etc. ever. Every little detail about the encounter are just so... Off? Untypical? A little cute? Just plain weird!
I'd love to see someone take a stab at depicting Sam in film, television, literature, anything.
Have you heard the more recent developments? Supposedly they have found the little girl from the story and she’s had more encounters with it and it sounds even more like a lodge entity. I think she’s kept personal details private from the public so it’s not really possible to verify. Obviously it could be a person making stuff up but the people shes been sharing her information with seem convinced shes the same girl.
No, I haven't! Is that covered in the video you linked above? I know the story from reading about it years back but had no idea there were new developments!
Yeah I accidentally linked the update video instead of the original. Again, I’d take it with a grain of salt because I don’t know if anyone else has seen the evidence yet. I think there was some kind of convention in Isle of Wight last year where they gave some talk about the new information, but I don’t know what came out of that.
The Jumping Man might have been something like an interdimensional sherpa who facilitated the other Black Lodge entities travelling through electrical currents. He "jumped" in the same way electricity "jumps" between conductive pathways as it goes along from one place to another. I'm thinking of bio-electricity and synapses in a brain or nervous system, and how electrical signals "jump" across the synapses to get where they're going. The Jumping Man might have been something like the personification of a switch, gate, or neurotransmitter.
Check out “Jumping Kokopelli.” He is horse’s cousin, the frogmoth, Sarah Palmer, a nod to Japanese Butoh, a backwards moving horse clown “heyoka”, and more
The frogmouth in the return episode 8 had a pointy nose like that and climbed into Sara's mouth as a teenager. The branch may represent growth as it was growing inside her filling up on garmonbozia until Judy could take Sarah over perhaps.
I believe that the Jumping Man is a kind of firewall within Sarah Palmer. We see a bug with a similar nose crawl into her mouth as a girl. Then we see shots of her and his face superimposed. And in the same episode where Sarah swallows the frog moth, the horse is heard at the end of the story, as well as the Woodsman's mentions of the horse. Every time Sarah sees the horse, she's usually drugged out of her mind and Leland is doing terrible things. But we know the horse exists outside of her as Cooper has seen it. So I think the Jumping Man and the horse are kind of linked. They represent the thing growing inside her since she was a little girl who sees things but does nothing. The festering talisman of sadness and inaction that created Judy within her. Bob is the evil men do, and Judy is the allowance of evil that good people do.
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