Clancy as seen in the music video for “Paladin Strait” (2024)
Welcome back to Trench. As I continue exploring the characters of Twenty Øne Piløts’ mythos, this penultimate installment turns to Clancy — the escapee, the leader, and the tragic hero at the story’s heart.
Who is Clancy?
Through lyrics, live shows, music videos, and even secret websites of Twenty-Øne Piløts, listeners were introduced to a storyline revolving around a dystopian city called Dema and a group of rebels who try to escape. Dema is ruled by nine bishops practicing a “hijacked religion” known as Vialism, which preaches to its followers that the only way to paradise is by taking their own lives. Fighting against this death cult are the Banditos, a group of rebels living in the mountains who help people escape and eventually storm Dema themselves, intending to take it down for good.
At the center of the story is someone named Clancy. Now, Clancy is not the name of an individual, but rather the mantle or title taken by an escapee of Dema. Over the course of the story, the audience follows two individuals going by “Clancy”-- one communicates through letters posted to a secret website, undergoes multiple escape attempts, and is brought back to Dema by the bishop Keons, where he ultimately commits to Vialism. The second Clancy also escapes multiple times, is brought back by the bishop Nico, and is forced to write propaganda for Dema at some point after the death of the first Clancy. This plan by the bishops is thwarted, however, when the second Clancy is aided in an escape by the now-reformed Keons.
The second Clancy’s story ends in tragedy as well– after defeating the eight remaining bishops, he to take on the mantle of the new head bishop and convert eight of his Bandito followers to the new nine. But in the events leading up to this turn, Clancy accomplished a lot of good things, so this essay will celebrate that as well as look forward with a glimmer of hope. After all, we must give credit where credit is due.
If you like, you can follow along with this playlist.
First Escape Attempt
In the music video for “Heavydirtysoul”, a shadowy figure is seen driving Tyler (not yet having taken on the mantle of Clancy) down a road while the Torchbearer, played by drummer Josh Dun, plays drums in the middle of the street. The car breaks down more and more each time it passes the Torchbearer, finally exploding at the end.
In the “I Am Clancy” lore recap video released in early 2024, Tyler narrates that he had tricked Nico into driving him outside the city, thus revealing Dema’s head bishop as the shadowy figure in that music video. It’s unclear how Tyler was able to convince a bishop to take him out of Dema, so this could hint at him having some degree of influence within the city, a talent he would later wield as a member of the Banditos.
The Trench Trilogy
“Jumpsuit”
The music video for “Jumpsuit” picks up right where “Heavydirtysoul” left off, though the video itself is out of order. The end of the video shows Tyler walking up to the burning car and taking out a jacket with the Banditos’ signature yellow tape on it. He then walks into Trench.
The bulk of the video takes place after this and follows Tyler as he has been wandering in Trench. He is found by Nico, who chases him with his horse. After running for some time, Tyler stands still, seemingly so as to confront Nico. Nico dismounts and “smears” him, staining his neck with black paint. The smearing has a hypnotic effect, with Tyler starting to follow Nico back to Dema without any resistance. However, this is interrupted when Tyler catches sight of a yellow flower and looks up to see Banditos, including the Torchbearer, throwing its petals into the air. The color yellow, representing hope, cannot be seen by the bishops, and so Nico’s horse starts to spook and the spell of smearing is broken. Tyler makes one last run for it, but ends up getting dragged back, a yellow flower clutched in his hands as a symbol of resistance.
All this is narrated by the first Clancy in a letter, as the latter had been watching these events take place from a cliff. The first Clancy admits that Tyler “seemed unaffected by the fear of the unknown– the fear that tends to cripple me.” Even though he was dragged back to Dema by Nico, Tyler exhibits great courage throughout this event, a quality that would serve him well when he would come to lead the Banditos.
“Nico and the Niners”
In the music video for “Nico and the Niners”, Tyler has been dragged back to Dema. He now carries ____ yellow flowers in a drawer, each one representing an escape attempt. In this video, we also see an Annual Assemblage of the Glorified, a ghastly ceremony during which the Bishops make neon gravestones for those who are about to take their lives in service of Vialism. Both Tyler and the Banditos use the ceremony as an opportunity to escape, with the latter group arriving just as Tyler begins to walk the streets of the city. Tyler hesitates to go with the Banditos at first, but changes his mind after seeing the Torchbearer among them. They play a concert, disrupting the ceremony, and escape into tunnels underneath Dema. While in the tunnels, the Banditos place their signature yellow tape on Tyler as a symbol of their solidarity and protection.
The Banditos’ willingness to risk everything going into Dema for Tyler reveals how much they valued him. Rather than their assistance being passive as it was in “Jumpsuit”, they are now helping to bring down Dema in a more involved, albeit still indirect, way.
“Jumpsuit”
Tyler’s induction into the Banditos’ group continues in “Levitate”, where the Banditos lead him to their camp, give him more yellow tape, shave his head, and hold a party to celebrate getting him out of Dema. This marks a turning point for Tyler as it is likely when he started to be referred to as “Clancy”. Although at the end of the video, he is dragged back to Dema by Nico, he now has the Banditos on his side and willing to help him escape at any cost.
Co-opted by Dema
“Saturday”
After the Trench trilogy, the first Clancy likely perished in Dema, while the new Clancy became celebrated for his repeated escapes. As such, the Bishops planned to use his fame to their advantage and had him write and perform an album as propaganda for Dema. Since this was successful, they also forced him to perform at the next Annual Assemblage of the Glorious Gone, which would now take place on a submarine. Like its predecessor in “Nico and the Niners”, this ceremony was also cut short by a rebel’s actions– but instead of the arrival of Banditos, this interruption took the form of the possessed body of a sea serpent crashing into the submarine and drowning everyone inside except for Clancy, who swims to shore.
This attack was actually carried out by Keons, one of the Nine who chose to betray the other Bishops and help the new Clancy escape. Keons had previously been described in the first Clancy’s letters as kind and forthright in contrast to the ruthlessness of the other Bishops, and used gentle methods when taking Clancy back to Dema after an escape. I have theorized that Keons’ change of loyalties may have come about as a result of the first Clancy fully committing to Vialism. Because he genuinely cared for his subjects, Keons may have realized that its teachings do not bring glory, only the destruction of innocent life. However, Keons’ actions were not without casualty, as everyone else on the submarine is presumed to have drowned. Hearing of Clancy’s legendary status among the Banditos, Keons may have viewed these deaths as necessary to save the Banditos’ foremost leader, even if they remain unjustified. Keons was later murdered by the rest of the Bishops for his treachery.
“The Outside”: Discovering a New Power
After the sinking of the submarine, Clancy washes up on a mysterious island, where he is guided by the Torchbearer to a group of new followers- a cave full of creatures called “Neds”, which were first seen in the music video for “Chlorine”. As it turns out, the creatures’ name is actually an acronym for “Neural Expansion Device”, and these creatures’ antlers hold a psychic power that allows one to “seize”, or control, a dead body from afar. This was the same power Keons used when rescuing Clancy from the submarine. The Neds teach Clancy how to use this power. Because Keons is now dead, Clancy controls his body and uses it to knock over a neon tube in the bishops’ chambers, setting Dema ablaze. Clancy and the Torchbearer then depart in a boat to meet up with other Banditos on the shore.
Clancy’s use of the antlers to seize Keons does present some ethical problems– it is stated later on that only the Bishops are able to do this, presumably because it is a form of necromancy and thus an evil power. However, Clancy’s daring and creativity in being willing to take this step was a crucial act of defiance, showing the remaining eight Bishops of Dema that even their own power could be used against them.
Breaching Dema
“Overcompensate”
This video is where Clancy really comes into his own. He infiltrates Dema and teaches its citizens the truth about Vialism, converting them to Banditos (or at least rebels from within) in the process. At the end of the video, it is revealed that Clancy himself did not enter Dema– he is still on the boat with the Torchbearer. Instead, he seized the body of a deceased Bandito to do this while he and the Torchbearer were traveling back to the mainland.
Clancy with his new recruits in the “Overcompensate” music video.
In this process, Clancy creates a new type of Bandito– rather than yellow, which represents the hope of escape, the members of this group wear red, a combative reclaiming of the Bishops’ own colors hinting at using more direct means to overthrow their regime. Where yellow symbolized passive hope, red marks Clancy’s turn toward active resistance — a reclamation of Dema’s own color as a weapon. The lyrics of the song also hint at a kind of hubris, or a willingness to “fly by the dangerous bend symbol” and make risky decisions when necessary.
“Navigating”
At last, Clancy and the Torchbearer meet up with the other Banditos, who take Clancy to… the Torchbearer.
Wait, what?
In this video, we see that the Torchbearer who has been accompanying Clancy since the “Saturday” music video isn’t the real Torchbearer, only a projection. Clancy feels betrayed at this realization and thinks he has been alone this whole time. This moment marks the beginning of his relationship with the Torchbearer fraying. The Torchbearer couldn’t be physically present, so he did the next best thing: he projected himself– not to deceive, but to guide. In addition, it’s a little ironic that Clancy feels betrayed at the Torchbearer’s use of illusions to project his likeness when he himself did a similar thing, seizing the deceased Bandito’s body and disguising it as himself to influence the citizens of Dema.
“Paladin Strait”
With the plans for their final battle with Dema drawn up, Clancy and the Torchbearer go over maps and sharpen weapons. Meanwhile, the Bishops use electricity and the power of mass seizing to control an army of Glorious Gone, or people who have committed suicide in furtherance of Vialism’s goals. The reanimated Glorious Gone take apart their neon gravestones to use as weapons and fight the Banditos, who counter their attacks with the light of their torches. Clancy sprints into the city and scales the tower in which the Bishops are, planning to defeat Nico himself1 Using the antlers, he topples seven of the eight, before Nico levitates from a door and grabs his neck. The Torchbearer senses that his friend is in danger and, along with some others, he runs up the tower to help.
Clancy’s Conflict
Having been smeared by Nico, Clancy’s life flashes before his eyes. He sees a vision of the Torchbearer offering him a jacket, but declines to take it.
Letters between the citizens of Dema released as part of an exhibit during the Clancy tour detail many developments among the Banditos that have gone on up to this point. One of these is from Clancy to the Torchbearer and reveals that the former has been considering embracing “absolute power” as a way to finally defeat the bishops. A response from Torchbearer pleads with Clancy not to forget the “raw fear” that moved him or “the Banditos that made [him] who [he is] today.”
At this point, Clancy may be unsure of what to do next, but one thing is clear: he didn’t come this far to only come this far. He opens his eyes with new resolve.
“City Walls”
In this music video marking the ending to the saga, Clancy fights Nico, both in the tower and in mental projections of previous (unsuccessful) escape attempts that the Bishop shows him to taunt him. At one point, Nico stabs Clancy with the latter’s own antlers, breaking them afterward for good measure. Just when it seems like all hope is lost, Clancy mimics the Twenty-Øne Piløts logo with his hands, defeating Nico for good– but also sending out shockwaves that knock back the Torchbearer, who has just arrived.
With the old Nine defeated, Clancy stands for a while, looking at the sunrise. He then dons a bishop robe and passes out eight to the other Banditos who have arrived. He offers one to the Torchbearer, who declines and leaves, heartbroken but vowing to try again, “Always.”
The Nova Bishop
Clancy’s final decision to become a Bishop is tragic and represents a repeating of the cycle he had tried for so long to break. Despite this, it is worth noting that Clancy made a lot of contributions during his time as a Bandito, contributions that are unlikely to be reversible. He not only brought many new Banditos into the fold but also led the first full-on attack on Dema in recent memory. There is also evidence that, although he is a Bishop now, Clancy is still not completely amoral: he may have tried to face Nico alone, but his almost-instant conversion of eight Banditos into new Bishops suggests that he still sought community, albeit in a twisted way. In addition, the lyrics of songs such as “The Line”, “Center Mass”, “Tally”, and Breach album closer “Intentions” point to a degree of introspection and acknowledging the tradeoffs made in this decision, with lines like
“Did I disappoint you?
[...]
Take a seat
But I’d rather you not be here for
What could be my final form
Stay your pretty eyes on course
Keep the memories of who I was before”
- “The Line”
“When I replay it in my mind,
I see your heartbreak every time
Still now, you believe in me somehow.”
-“Tally”
Clancy, like the defeated Bishops and all of us, is human– he is fallen, but also capable of making moral choices. This is represented visually by the black paint not going up pn his face as far as it did on the previous Nine. Despite his tragic decision, he still did a lot of good for the Banditos while he was one of them, and that should be celebrated.
Be sure to tune in next week, when we’re discussing the Torchbearer and how his example should be our model for friendship.
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In other words: Galvanized by gigawatts, ghostly Glorious Gones gather, glowing green, grasping gleaming gravestone glowsticks in grim gloom. Brave Banditos boldly blitz bearing blazing beacons, battering back Bishops’ bizarre battalions. Clancy clambers cobblestone castle, clambering cautiously ‘cross cracked casements, clutching carved “Chlorine” creature crown.