Crazy Wall Post!

"I told you to track Phil Collins."

Everything is connected! It all means something! Red String! Someone has taken the time to lay out a bunch of possibly connected material on a wall using their arts and crafts skills to the fullest.

On the most recent episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, cool robot arm haver, Agent Phil Coulson, walks into a room in which a wall is covered with all sorts of events that supposedly have him at the center of it all (which is very likely for a guy who's job is to run towards the strange and dangerous). This was left by a bad guy for him to find and to point the way towards the next piece of the puzzle.

Two things occurred to me:

1. A text message (or an evite) with the directions to the location where you want to have your showdown is just more efficient and effective in 2017. And probably just more polite.
2. I will never be so cool as to drive someone batty enough to devote an entire wall to me. 

TV Tropes calls this specific kind of display: String Theory. This appears to be mainly a creation of storytellers to show a brief glimpse into the working of a character's mind. With today's technology, I don't think this kind of set up would be needed when you can just save it all to the cloud or make a nice Power Point presentation to show other crazy people. You might be hell bent on revenge or getting to the bottom of a bigger mystery, but that is not an excuse to not get organized! 

I wanted to take a moment and look at a few of my favorite String Theory maps.

5.) Memento's Memory Wall Map 

The first photo is to remind him to put the map up.

This is actually the most practical of the maps I will be talking about as it serves a an actual purpose: Leonard can't make any new memories due to a blow to his head from an attacker the night his wife was murdered. So he has to take photos and write notes on their backs every time he gets a new piece of information. This seems like a good idea in theory, but what if you can't remember why you wrote something down in the first place? I can barely remember what I walked into a grocery store for as soon as I step foot in there, let alone key information about tracking down a murderer that I keep forgetting about. Good luck Leonard, I am sure this will all work out in the end without any sad ramifications.

4.) The Flash's Dead Mom Map 

This isn't an actual map, it is the CW's weekly broadcast schedule for all their super hero shows.

Barry Allen got into forensic science so that way he could one day catch his mother's killer (I would say and he and Leonard should be friends, but I don't think that would work out) that caused his innocent father to go to jail. This map is hidden behind an ACTUAL map of Central City (as DC has a hard time with geography) that he happens to keep in his crime lab at the police station he works at. No one else is supposed to know it is there, as the case is technically closed, but a janitor could bump the map and Barry would be in hot water. Also, as Barry is a scientist, he should have a better way to store and sort through his information. And he would know that newspapers degrade. This is all supposed to point towards The Man In Yellow (sorry, this one). I don't think this map actually helps at all as the Reverse Flash finds Barry. Maybe he had a more organized map.

3.) Deadpool's Rampage Map

Two Guys, A Girl, and a Murder Place.

This one I can let slide as Deadpool as a character is chaotic and all over the place. Trying to map his thought process would be like to trying to herd cats. Props to Wade for trying to keep track of all this information when all he wants is Francis. For someone that can break the fourth wall at will, why didn't he just look at the end of the movie for Francis? Would have saved him some time but I think he would have been bummed to miss out on all the killings and the Zamboni ride.

2.) Who is Mysterion?

Still a better line up than the upcoming Justice League Movie.

Clearly Professor Chaos has been doing his homework about who the new masked vigilante is in town as you can see he a bunch of research photos to left and a wall map to the right, but I appreciate his attention to detail by keeping his main cork board free of needless clutter...

..and when to separate topics.

1.) Charlie's Conspiracy Room 

Charlie, who has always struggled with the written word, gets a mail room job. He believes he has found out some big conspiracy that is costing the company a lot of money. He tries to make it all make sense in the only way Charlie can, by not just mapping his 'facts' onto a wall, but the entire mailroom. He destroys the other entries on this list for just how passionate he is about trying to figure who PePe Silvia is. 

To his credit, his theory does go down the rabbit hole further than he would know. 

What are some of your favorite String Theory moments from pop culture? Hit me up below and I may make a wall map of the responses.