Sumith Prasad
In Apple TV+’s horror series ‘The Changeling,’ William Wheeler pretends to help Apollo Kagwa to find the latter’s wife Emma “Emmy” Valentine, only to eventually reveal that he is a “Kinder Garten.” When William announces his identity, a puzzled Apollo seeks more clarity concerning the same. In the eighth and final episode of the show, it is revealed that William is only one among several Kinder Gartens, who form a secret group. Naturally, the viewers must be wondering what really is the group and what is the Kinder Gartens’ life mission. Well, here’s everything you need to know about them! SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Stalkers
According to William Wheeler, the members of the secret group call themselves “Kinder Garten.” The group includes “10,000 men with one name.” Using the same username, they are mysteriously present in the online and offline world, stalking parents such as Apollo and Emma. In the couple’s case, William is the Kinder Garten who stalks them and finally snatches Brian but only after substituting the baby with a baby-like entity or in other words, a changeling. The little child Emma kills is the monstrous entity William places in their house after stealing Brian.
Likewise, several Kinder Gartens stole babies from their mothers, who eventually became the Wise Ones. William comes across the Kagwa family after a Norwegian art collector bought a photograph Emma took during her São Paulo journey. Fascinated by her photograph, William must have searched for her online, most likely only to eventually find Apollo’s social media accounts. Apollo’s obsession with posting baby photos must have struck the Kinder Garten, leading him to steal Brian away from the Kagwas. But why do they steal babies?
The Offerings
The Kinder Gartens steal babies to offer them to the troll living in Little Norway. They are repaying the “help” received by their ancestors nearly two centuries ago. William’s Norwegian roots are essential to unravel the mystery. William speaks Norwegian when Cal imprisons him. He also sees Emma’s photograph in Norway after the same was bought by a Norwegian. The series’ first episode begins with the history of fifty-two men and women, who sailed out of Norway, seeking religious freedom from persecution in America in an undersized sloop they named Restauration in 1825. “Not just an improbable crossing, an impossible one. How in the world did they make it? They had help, that’s how,” the narrator adds about their journey.
The fifty-two Norwegian men and women eventually settled in Little Norway, the same place where the troll hides, which makes their connection evident. The help they received to reach America seemingly was from the troll, which can swim. The monstrous entity must have taken the ship to the land, making the community indebted to it. William and other Kinder Gartens are the descendants of the same Norwegians whose lives were saved by the troll. To repay the creature’s “kindness,” they must have started to steal babies to feed the entity. That’s the reason why William refers to Brian as a meal when he reveals his true identity to Apollo.
As far as William was concerned, his commitment and debt to the troll were immense enough for him to sacrifice his own daughter as an offering to the entity. He describes the same as a choice he made for his family. The troll must have been not harming the residents of Little Norway because they are properly fed by the Kinder Gartens. At one point in the past, they might have run out of babies to avoid the troll’s possible wrath, which likely led William to offer his daughter to the monstrous creature. Using substitutions AKA changelings, they must be making sure that the troll wouldn’t hunt them down. Regardless of whether the troll is a threat to them, the Kinder Gartens shower affection on the entity, which is evident in William’s final conversation with Cal.
Read More: The Changeling: Is Baby Brian Dead or Alive? Theories
