The Black Parade Paradox

A theory of paranormal time travel and plot holes in a beloved piece of emo history

“Welcome to the Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance – the song that really serves as the thesis statement for the concept album The Black Parade’s story arc – opens with the scene of the main character’s father taking him into the city to see a marching band – something so consequential in his life that it’s the form death takes later in his life.

He said, "Son, when you grow up
Would you be the savior of the broken
The beaten and the damned?"
He said, "Will you defeat them?
Your demons, and all the non-believers
The plans that they have made?"
"Because one day, I'll leave you a phantom
To lead you in the summer
To join the black parade"

First off, that’s an extraordinarily weird thing to say to your kid when you take them to a parade. My dad took me to countless activities like this and didn’t ever say anything like that. Thanks, Dad.

But, the real point I want to make in this post today is that after just about two decades’ worth of listens to The Black Parade, one part sticks out as especially weird.

"Because one day, I'll leave you a phantom
To lead you in the summer
To join the black parade"

The what now?

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The concept of the album is that the main character, commonly referred to as “The Patient” on fan forums and explanations, dies at the beginning of the album (“Dead!”) from what we can assume to be cancer (“Cancer”), and death comes to him in the form of a parade, as, in vocalist Gerard Way’s explanation of the story, death comes for us in the form of something from happy or profound memories. That day at the parade with The Patient’s father left a lasting enough impression that it was the form death took to usher him into the afterlife.

So how the hell did his dad already know that would happen?

And this is where I introduce the theory of The Black Parade Paradox.

Let’s assume the Patient’s father lives his whole life after that parade and dies after a reasonable amount of time. Death comes for him in whatever form he likes, and he goes to the afterlife where he is shown every single event in the known and unknown universe, as time is no longer linear for him and he can see what eventually happens to everyone who has ever been and everyone who will ever be in every possible scenario, including for his own son.

Like time once you’ve croaked, the events of The Black Parade are nonlinear, and rely on flashbacks to tell the story of The Patient’s life, flashing before his eyes in his final moments and revisiting him as he enters the afterlife. Mostly, it allows the band in real life to sequence the album in a way that makes it good to listen to.

“The Sharpest Lives” reflects on the poor choices of The Patient while alive. Living fast without worrying about the consequences that would surely come in the future. “I Don’t Love You” allows him to clearly see his shortcomings as a partner in a romantic relationship, something that’s touched on multiple times on the album. About halfway through the album, “House of Wolves” seemingly tells the story of the Patient landing himself in Hell as a result of his decisions while living.

Essentially, the dude has fucked up a bunch in his life, leaving him with regret and, depending on your interpretation of things, eternal suffering.

So, here’s where the theory comes back into it. After dying himself, the Patient’s dad uses whatever paranormal magic afforded to the deceased in good standing to project himself back onto that day and try to impart some fatherly advice. But, fatherly advice in the mortal realm doesn’t usually sound like what he said. Instead, he delivered advice that can only come from someone who has seen beyond the veil. But, by doing so, creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Maybe in the “original” timeline, with the original versions of these two people, the Patient and his dad go to the parade, and they watch it together and go home. There’s no strange soliloquy about being any kind of savior or anything like that. Maybe they get pizza afterwards. And that’s about the highlight of it all.

But, having now seen what would happen to his son, the Patient’s dad goes back to the parade moment and delivers this message to him, accidentally (or purposefully) spilling the beans on “The Black Parade,” accidentally creating the moment that would be so pivotal. He tries to warn him about being a shithead his whole life, and in the process accidentally sets the whole thing in motion. Maybe it even set a worse timeline into motion, as now the Patient has been given enormous stakes from his dad on what was supposed to just be an afternoon in the city to watch a parade that, let’s be real, probably sucked. Most parades suck. Instead he got this weird speech from his dad, who maybe never even said that much to him during his normal life, about defeating demons and saving the broken. Dad, I am eight years old and the head of the local Elk’s Club is riding in the back of a classic convertible. What are you talking about?

So, would any of “The Black Parade” have actually happened had his dad not gone back through time and space to warn him?

The story plays out the way it does because he delivered that speech because things played out the way it does because he delivered the speech and oh no I’ve gone cross-eyed.

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Much smarter people than me can explain the nature of time, parallel realities, the realism of time travel and all of this much better than me. Most of what I understand comes from movies that I don’t fully understand, like Interstellar, which plays with the idea of affecting the past from the future, having already lived that past, etc.

What I’m getting at is that The Black Parade might actually be deeper than we even give it credit for, but maybe by accident. Sure, it’s one of the very few examples of a concept album really working, much less one that you would call a “Rock Opera.” (Thankfully they never took it to Broadway).

There are countless discussions on fan forums and Reddit and all of that about what each song means in relation to the overall plot of the album. But, I don’t think any of them bring in the possibility that the album’s keystone song, the biggest single, the one that anchors it all together with its famous intro, actually points to something involving time travel and/or paranormal astral projection into a person thanks to nonlinear time or perhaps a parallel universe or two.

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It stands to reason that, had The Patient’s dad not said any of those things to his son at the parade, his life would’ve (or at least could’ve) been different. It might have still been bad, but it would have been a different kind of bad. Maybe just some poor investments bad. Maybe an especially costly fender bender from running a stop sign bad. Not “Fucked up every relationship in my life to the point where the only person who will remember me is my ex who hates me now, so hopefully even she keeps my memory alive after I am doomed to eternal suffering” bad.

My Chem vocalist Gerard Way is no stranger to world building and fiction writing, having created comics like The Umbrella Academy, which got the Netflix treatment. He might’ve planned all of this and it’s just an Easter Egg few have caught onto. Or, maybe, there’s a plot hole in one of the most beloved songs of the emo/pop punk era of the mid-2000s.

So, if and when we ever get a film or theater adaptation of this album, I will be writing to Gerard Way to make sure that this plot hole is either fixed or, more likely, recognized. Because, let’s be honest, he’s not going to change the speech the character’s father delivers, the one we all know so well from the intro, into some legalese loophole-avoider.

"Because one day, I'll leave you a phantom
To lead you in the summer
To join the unnamed and unspecific afterlife transition committee"

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Today’s Snakes and Sparklers musical guest is L.S. Dunes. (Coincidentally featuring Frank Iero from MCR and Travis Stever from Coheed and Cambria - the premier concept album rock band of our generation).