u/db1000c

The smilers. Why do they look like that in the day time while they sleep in the caves only to take on human form come nighttime when they are terrorising the town? Besides the visuals and the intrigue it creates for us as viewers, there is no logic to it based on the rules of the town.

Where the logic of the town does come into play to explain why they are the way they are is through the now confirmed theory of nightmares coming to life after a person’s death. What if Eloise did die, and her fear was of monsters that come out at night? What if she, as a young girl, was afraid of strangers and of being tricked by them just as parents tend to warn their children of stranger danger? She may have found the figures from the game Old Maid, which has shown up a few times in the show, as a juxtaposition so stark to the monsters - friendly drawing of normal people - that this became part of her nightmare and the fear fuelling it.

Victor did not seem phased at all when Ethan told him about the doll monsters, meaning he is aware that other monsters can exist to terrorise the townsfolk. Perhaps before the massacre that took place when he was a child, which killed Eloise, the monsters terrorising the town were different to those we see now. Maybe it is only since her death that the current monsters came to be?

The sacrifice of the original children granted their parents immortality. But this is clearly a Faustian bargain. Rather than getting to live forever as themselves, they could have been granted immortality in the sense that they are consigned to an eternity of inhabiting the nightmares of those from previous cycles, and transferring to new vessels as each new cycle begins.

This could mean that Victor and/or Henry may remember how they used to comfort Eloise when she was frightened at the thought of these monsters. If this technique is applied to the smilers in Fromville, then it could render them useless.