The Real meaning of Eleanor, Ricken, and Devon.

This is the beginning of a very wild theory, so please bear with me. This throws many many fan-loved characters under heavy suspicion and it is not backed up by more concrete evidence as of yet.

The simple question is this: what kind of name is Ricken?

Severance is a show chock full of references, metaphors, ideographs, and symbols. The names of characters have etymologies that we can infer deeper meaning. But not Ricken. It isn’t even a common name. It’s almost like a nickname.

Like the names of an innie.

When Mark first arrives at the dinnerless dinner party, he calls Ricken 'Rick' before Ricken corrects him. This heavily hints at Ricken’s previous name or given birth name being Rick. If we were to conjecture that the current Ricken is his innie persona, he could’ve gone by the name of Rick N. in the severed floor, similar to Mark S. A shot from the trailer also reveal that he is the author of another book named These Values Nine: How I Let Kier In, revealed by The Kier Chronicle.

(Going to add a photo once I get back home, reddit mobile app sucks and I can’t add a picture exactly where I want.)

The character background shared by the writers & the actor reveal that Rick’s childhood was that of neglect and disapproval. Rick didn’t find a purpose in life for a long time, until he met Devon. Which brings us to Devon. Now, her name is also interesting, with word stems alluding to devout or devine (Old French). She is a character that is in the middle of all this. Her brother’s a severed, her sister-in-law was dead in an accident but is now working in the severed floor with a possible chip in her head, and her husband is writing self-help books that could be a primer to Kier’s teachings. Devon as a character is shown to be a stoic and calm character and the voice of reason, which in a different light could be seen as a calculating person that has orchestrated Mark’s involvement with Lumon. While I dont subscribe to the theory that Devon is Carol D., I do think that there’s a possibility that she is implanted with Carol D’s chip, hence why Mark’s innie didn’t recognize Devon as someone from the inside. compiled evidence that Devon is reintergrated: https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/s/Y62cFinuaY

So what about their child, Eleanor? Eleanor was born in the Damona birthing retreat, heavily implied to be a Kier facility, and her name means shining light. Damona also has pagan symbolism, the name of a Celtic goddess of divine cows, fertility, and hot springs. So why was Elenor kidnapped, and had to be saved by Patton? I’ll go further into why down below.

Now, we need to explore another question: how much of the town is in on it? We see that there are protestors voicing their concern, but it does seem that Eagan and Lumon’s influence is far reaching and ever-present in the town. It is a place named after Kier, and local town pubs, restaurants, all follow the founders names, owned by the family. The building was always located there as far as we know, meaning that Lumon’s influence became stronger and subsumed the whole town. The indoctrination is also happening in its funded schools. If Kier, PE is really just a town full of cult followers, then we can also theorize that Mark was lured by her sister, who was already a devout follower of the religion.

Now, the cult must have a god, and a purpose or mission that drives it to recruit more followers and severed people. Its mission seems to be the resurrection of God, using the chip technology and severance. This part is piggybacking off another well-researched theory: https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/s/LivMemFJID

To add more to this theory, I think the child boss Ms. Huang is no child, but another soul, or chip, implanted on a child’s body. I predict that there is going to be a mental breakdown similar to Petey’s, with the integration process gone awry. My first instinct is to imagine her as Corbell’s chip, but it’s a bit far-fetched.

Where does Eleanor play into all this? Similar to Ari Aster’s Hereditary, the Eagan cult in Severance is trying to revive Eagan by Procuring both the vessel and the soul of Eagan. These are the two prongs of their inquiry. For the first prong, I propose that the vessel is Eleanor. The vessel has to be that of a child, similar to Hereditary, to exert maximum influence in one’s lifetime, and to deify the person (child with advanced understanding, wisdom, language, emotion, and motor skills). She could've been chosen for their parents lineage, genealogy, genetic traits, etc. we still don’t know. This could also tie in with the theory that Devon used to be a severed employee. To add to all this, Elenor’s room artwork is really strange, depicting a grotesque story of an orphan girl being adopted by rich parents, later cursed to forever dance like a puppet.

Deification of childhood in dictators (NK’s Kim family comes to mind) and religious or parateligious heads, saints, and prophets are nothing new, and is a very important part of creating a cult of personality. Considering that the viewers witness the birth of Eleanor in a special place, it has to have narrative significance, or else it wouldn’t have been part of the show with limited runtime. This also explains why Harmony, a devout follower-gone-rogue, posed as a lactation consultant for the baby and later tried to kidnap the child, showing the significance of the baby yet again, since Harmony decided that this was a more important thing than to address the urgency of company leaks.

The second prong is the procurement of the soul. The Soul, the ghost in the shell, is more important, and this i believe that this HAS to be Eagan’s bloodline. My hypothesis is that this is what the severance project is about. Here, there can be multiple theories, such as MDR trying to refinine themselves as the perfect soul to be deified, or that they are working on different chip iterations to be tested as the perfect soul. Helly is also of Eagan bloodline, so maybe she is being groomed in the severed floor to be the next savior of humankind.

We can go even further down the rabbit hole and argue that the whole revolt was preplanned. If Ricken really is an innocent innie follower, his book could have been a device to spur action to the intended severed chips. More text from the book is required to analyze its true intent, but we can see how influential it was to MDR innie children. Most importantly, Season 2’s orientation video glorifying the MDR uprising seems like another attempt to glorify the past actions of its idols - this could be the beginning of making Helena’s cult of personality.

Another related theory is that they are preparing Mark as the “soul” of Kier Eagan. Consider how Eagan’s meeting with his wife happened at a factory, a parallel to Mark and Helly, and how Eagan’s wife was a vat cleaner. It could be that the cult is trying to breed the next incarnation of perfect Eagan through the marriage between Kier Eagan (Resurrected Kier’s frozen body with Mark’s soul) and Helena Eagan, in a bizarre twist. Remember how the original Kier had congenital illness due to his parent’s “genetic closeness”? Inbreeding is another way to keep the bloodline pure, and through resurrected Kier having an offspring with Kier’s offspring, the cult is hoping for the next messiah. Yes, this is throwing a wrench in the face of the baby vessel theory, so it may have to be explored in a separate theory write-up.

Thanks for reading the long ramblings of one person. And please try to enjoy each paragraph equally.

(Will edit more when I get to my PC!)