This Subtle Detail About The Haunting of Hill House Will Break Your Heart All Over Again

Tumblr user cagedbirdsong originally posted the theory (along with the perfect Friends GIF, naturally), which posits that each of the Crain siblings represent one of the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Not only that, but the order in which the Crains were born also fits with the five stages chronologically.

Steven is the oldest, and undoubtedly represents "denial." Although his brother and sisters are relatively open about the supernatural phenomena that they experienced while growing up in Hill House — as well as afterwards, well into adulthood — Steven maintains that their visions of ghosts can simply be chalked up to mental illness inherited from their late mother, Olivia. He claims he never once experienced anything freaky as a boy, and goes on to make a living writing books debunking ghost stories around the country. By the end of season one, it's clear that Steven was burying his childhood memories, especially when it came to the night of Olivia's tragic death.

Shirley is the most difficult member of the Crain family, mostly due to her impossibly high standards for the rest of her siblings (despite having a few scandalous secrets of her own). Her temper is short and she never gives her brothers or sisters a chance to explain themselves. She's a natural fit for "anger."

Assigning Theo the stage of "bargaining" is a little murkier, but it still makes sense when you take into account her unique ability to innately see and feel things — like the past, emotions, etc. — when she touches objects or people. By using her supernatural gift, you could say Theo is bargaining for a better outcome for her and her family. In the case of Nell, for example, Theo begs both Hill House and the universe to give her an answer as to why Nell died after touching her sister's dead body and feeling a hollow, suffocating emptiness.

This one should be relatively obvious. Luke's narrative throughout The Haunting of Hill House is one of the most devastating thanks to his emotional bond with his twin sister, Nell, and his gut-wrenching struggle with drug addiction. When Nell dies, his recovery is threatened in a major way and his life all but spirals out of control. Of all the Crain siblings, Luke takes Nell's death the hardest, and finds it the most difficult to cope. As he says during his speech at her funeral, he always felt like she was his "big sister" even though he was born first. He also tearfully tells Nell's ghost, "I don't know how to do this without you."

Is anything sadder than Nell's story in this show? I mean, seriously — I'm still devastated by the episode that reveals her ghostly alter-ego. In fact, it's in that same episode that we discover why Nell most embodies the stage of "acceptance" — after her husband, Arthur, dies following a run-in with the Bent Neck Lady, Nell loses her grip on reality. Her visions of the terrifying ghost become a near-constant, as do her night terrors.

By the time a full year has passed following Arthur's death, Nell has pretty much accepted that her fate will eternally be bound with Hill House. She doesn't seem scared or surprised when she sees Olivia's ghost upon returning to the cursed estate; actually she's elated, and embraces her dead mother. When her siblings later arrive at Hill House to investigate, she utters a heartbreaking, but resigned statement about her life to convince her brothers and sisters they need to move on: "I loved you completely, and you loved me the same. That's all. The rest is confetti."

So, do you buy cagedbirdsong's theory? I, for one, am completely convinced. Hill House is rife with symbolism in all forms and plenty of subtle Easter eggs, from what's behind the red door to the ghosts creeping in the background of every episode. This seems like exactly the kind of thing director Mike Flanagan would weave into the characters, and honestly, only makes me love the show that much more (nightmares aside).