• Update 2025-10-18: the in-line footnotes were not working on mobile so I have added a footnotes section at the bottom

spoilers ahead

Unsolvable is a meme#

If a fandom tells you their source material is unsolvable, you may make some assumptions, like that they’ve already explored every avenue and put forth hundreds of theories. Would you be surprised to find out the House of Leaves fandom doesn’t even have a comprehensive wiki?¹ The step zero of theorycrafting? Take one look at what the deltarune fandom has accomplished² and tell me House of Leaves is unsolvable, I don’t believe it, so while I don’t think I’ve solved it once and for all but I hope this revitalizes the fandom to take another look.

Glasses Theory#

“You thought you saw through your hand.“³

“Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same… Except you don’t exist? Everything functions perfectly without you… Ha, ha… The thought terrifies me⁴

When I first started solving House of Leaves I had to decide on the criteria suitable for learning about its world. I decided on a combination of evidence and narrative satisfaction. One of the rules I set was that any theory that claims any major character doesn’t exist can be dismissed. Eventually Glasses Theory, which I used to keep the existence of all characters intact became extremely convoluted involving the the editors being omnipotent beings (at least in relation to Johnny’s level of reality)⁵ who can retroactively change it by the version they write.

Ultimately I decided to keep both and leave it up to you⁶, many sections will contain a “glasses off” sub-section where you can take the glasses off and see a logical world at the expense of our beloved Johnny or put them on and let reality itself fair no better against the wind than a house of leaves.

Information Flow#

The key to understanding how characters learn about the house is on Page 27:

“I discover only a deserted corridor, or was it merely a recently deserted corridor”

This is clearly in reference the 5 and a half minute hallway, it is also a direct vision Johnny has received. In terms of layer theory it bypassed The Navidson Record and Zampanò and flowed directly from the house to Johnny.

Layers#

Obfuscation#

For this section we must assume that the minotaur is real to Zampanò, operates on a complex set of infohazard rules.

An infohazard is a piece of information that is supernaturally dangerous, it can either spread on its own, prevent itself from being remembered¹⁰, or allow a monster to track you down if you know about it.

For example, ●●|●●●●●|●●|●¹¹ is a monster that destroys all information about itself including killing anyone who knows about it, the trick in the SCP entry is that it’s safe to talk about it using picograms and images, just not text.

Using this concept we can understand many of Zampanò’s actions in a much saner light, here is a list of tricks Zampanò uses to protect himself from the infohazard:

• Treating everything about the house as if it is fictional
• Maintaining an impersonal academic distance between himself and the information
• Various level of redaction including methods Johnny can recover [and ones he cannot]
• Names and Citations
  • Names
    • names
      • names,
        • names, names, nam
          • es, names, names, names
            • a page of names why? why did he do it? why did he stop, why did Johnny copy them all down?

It’s clear that at one point Zampanò believed that having more citations between him and the information he supposedly learned from a movie (but actually through visions) would make him safer, at one point must have thought, “Hey if having more names confuses the minotaur then why bother with citations at all?” Ultimately Zampanò died with mysterious scratch marks after he stopped writing names, citations, and in general.

This is not for you#

I’ve been taking notes in the margins and i’ve been taking them kind of “in-character” like pretending that whatever’s happening is going to come for me next then someone will pick up the book after me and it will come for them, but I think the dedication means, it won’t, or at least it’s not meant to, the cycle is supposed to end with Johnny, it’s not supposed to infect us the readers it’s not for us

There are plenty of other interpretations, Johnny said the best love notes have a coded message only the intended recipient can understand¹²

Short list of things to address in future parts#

• Pelafina’s letters
• Johnny’s scars
• Delial
• 1st Edition
• Will’s copy
• the story about the baby
• Yggdrasil
• non sum qualis eram

Footnotes#