Amnesty Cover Art Theory



The Amnesty Cover Art Theory was a fan theory, since disproven, that the hands on the Amnesty cover art represented each of the five abominations the Pine Guard faced/would face.

Details
In the Amnesty cover art, the Pine Guard is shown, alongside Barclay and the Amnesty Lodge. Reaching out towards them are eight different appendages, with five distinct origins. The theory held that each of these, left to right represented the abominations that the Pine Guard had faced or would face in chronological order over the course of Amnesty. It held the following representations:


 * The bear hand: The Beast
 * The octopus tentacles: The Water
 * The branch: The Tree
 * The zombie hands: Some form of zombie abomination (later The Countenance)
 * The dinosaur foot: Some form of dinosaur (never realized)

Though the octopus tentacles were by far the weakest link of the theory, as the Water had no such physical form, the rest seemed to hold a lot of water (no pun intended), as the amount of coincidence it took for the rest to match up seemed quite high.

Alternate theory
A slightly modified version of this theory takes on the speculation that the Amnesty cover art represented Griffin's original plans for abominations, and that though he had to make adjustments to them over time he kept them thematically relevant.

In TTAZZ, Griffin stated that the abominations were designed to gradually increase in not just linear difficulty (more health and stronger attacks), but conceptual difficulty. While The Beast was a simple monster, The Water was an abomination that one could not attack physically. The Tree was an abomination that did not itself attack physically, and had to be found by the Pine Guard in order to kill it. The Countenance was an abomination that was difficult to find due to its shapeshifting.

The alternate cover art theory holds that Griffin's original plans for abominations would have been, in chronological order, the Beast, an octopus, an ent, zombies, and a dinosaur, but they had to later be changed after Griffin came up with the constantly evolving challenge idea.

Trivia

 * The Countenance initially seemed to disprove this theory, but it was revived after it began deteriorating due to Ned's interference, and began looking similar to a zombie.
 * This also gained the theory more traction, as beforehand the chance of coincidence was quite decent.
 * Had The Ape been some form of lizard or dinosaur, this theory wouldn't have become impossible. We were so close, Griffin. How could you do this to us?