Storyline theory - Spoiler warning!

[The Stone Pilot]

Friends!

The game "Little Nightmares" along with a stunning atmosphere and pleasant gameplay gives surprisingly little clues for revealing inner world... Nevertheless, after second walkthrough, it seemed as though I had some storylines that I would like to share with all the indifferent players, as well as to find out your own opinions, guesses and theories.

What's in a name?
Let's start with the main heroine - a little girl named Sixth, who was left to fate (that means to us) in the hold of a submarine called “The Maw”. Interestingly, according to numerology, the number "six" symbolizes the victory of the body over the spirit: the game seems to illustrate this, because the Sixth is forced to go forward not because a thirst for freedom, but because a fierce famine. The constant need to saturate in the end directly determines the final itself.

The First Encounter
Judging by the encountered boarded-up doors at the beginning of the first chapter, the Sixth by some miracle already managed to escape from the oversight of the long-armed Janitor, whose duties include monitoring children, raising them and sending them to the kitchen for the Chefs. And Sixth is not the only runaway child: in the second chapter you can see many children in cages that are about to fall into the clutches of the Janitor. To stop these attempts to escape, he nailed all the entrances and exits from the "children's" territory of the submarine.

Mad World
To many players almost from the very beginning of the game it became obvious that the world of "Little Nightmares" resembles Hayao Miyazaki's animated picture "Spirited Away": this cannot be called copying, the works of the great Japanese artist and director successfully inspired the developers. To all doubters I advise to look drawings in the game section "Additional" and draw parallels with the frames from the mentioned film.
The main heroine in "Spirited Away" just like the Sixth was in the magical world: its hypertrophied inhabitants work in restaurants and baths of the witch Yubaba, whose reminds of Lady in “The Maw”. These characters are not unlike anything other than directing the work with magic, so I will repeat: Little Nightmares is unique and unique enough not to appeal to Hayao Miyazaki alone. The share of gloom was removed from the works of Tim Burton. ;)

Who are Noms?
Like in other animated scenes "Studio Ghibli" ("My Neighbor Totoro", "Princess Mononoke"), the space "Little Nightmares" is inhabited by bizarre little creatures - Nomes, fearful and at the same time very trustful. At the first appearance of the Sixth they go all the way from far and wide, but after warm embraces they do not leave her any more, and even allow themselves to be thrown. :D
Who are these adorable Noms? Let's find out. In one of the secret rooms in the third chapter of the game (the patrimony of the Chiefs), we can meet the dead Nome, leaning against a child who is wrapped in cloth fabric, the lifeless body of a child (one of those that the Janotor kills and hooks). In addition to this place, the player nowhere else will encounter a peacefully departed Nom, from which it is possible to assume the following conclusion: this Nome found himself.
That is, Noms are the essence of the dead children that appear after the death of the body and then run across the hold of the ship in a completely different, inhuman shape. This explains their fearfulness and at the same time an amazing credulity to the first comer: they behave purely like little children.

Theory itself
At first I thought that the Sixth was also Nome, since the shape of her raincoat more resembled their conical heads, but later abandoned this theory, as the storyline did not go along the path of finding the lost body.
The theory of Nom's existence can be continued even more fantastically, if we turn again to the drawings from the game section "Additional": black blood-sucking leeches have a pair of completely human legs… And if you compare Nom with Leech on growth, some of them will be completely identical. Thus, one can theoretically assume that the essence of the child in «The Maw» after the death turns into Nome, and then into the Leech, permanently becoming a part of the ship. Greetings to the "Flying Dutchman" and its: "Part of the ship - part of the crew!" :)

Thanks for your attention! And sorry for the mistakes in my English! ^_^

What are your personal thoughts about the story?

[Gabriel]

I think this theory is really interesting. It explain a lot of things that happen through the game.

[The Stone Pilot]

Originally posted by Gabriel™:

I think this theory is really interesting. It explain a lot of things that happen through the game.

Thank you for understanding! I wonder what else the developers have prepared for us. :)

[Dr.Abscondus]

It's a nightmare. Why should it mean anything?

[The Stone Pilot]

Originally posted by Dr.Abscondus:

It's a nightmare. Why should it mean anything?

Oh! The game has its own narrative designer - Dave Mervik, who's responsible for the creation this certain nightmare. And every nightmare just like every dream has a meaning and certain things under itself. The plot may be strange, as in Alice in Wonderland, but in any case it will have its own rules (or illusion of the rules) that are interesting to solve...

[AstridK]

Noone escapes the maw. Not even its 'leader' which now has been devoured by the maw
herself to be replaced by a fresh leader, for now... There's only a in. There's no out.
Your theory would confirm this even more.