A Deep Dive into Tyler, The Creator's Disturbing "WOLF TRILOGY" 

Love or hate these albums, you gotta admit Tyler has crazy talent of telling a story through songs

Bonus mention: Doctor TC= Tyler's Conscience= Tron Cat. Tyler is a genius

Something that I noticed… At the end of Yonkers, Dr. TC says “fuck everything man” and Tyler said “that’s what my conscious said”, which also foreshadows the ending of the trilogy

it’s wild that all these alter egos showcased separate parts of himself. The Wolf trilogy showcased his anger, sorrow, trauma, and sickness. Cherry Bomb showed his curiosity and daring creativity. Flowerboy and Igor showed his true feelings and desires. Call Me If You Get Lost shows his confidence. And SORRY NOT SORRY is him killing off these separate entities after becoming himself, as the exploration of his inner mind is in the past.

I think something you should have brought up was the color thing on goblin. On the deluxe version of the album the text is purple which is a combination of red and blue, mashing both personalities of Wolf and Ace. Anyways, this is a really good video

His growth from Bastard to Wolf is absolutely amazing. Especially his musicality.

Tyler is honestly a genius. I literally love when artists do this, it makes the albums even better!!

Many people think that this Tyler is “bad,” but I honestly think this stuff is as essential to his personality as the lighter subject matter on CMIYGL. Everyone has a light side and a dark side, and Tyler has shown that his talent resides in both.

Something I LOVE about the whole “Today, Tomorrow, The Next Day” Concept is how we can still see it in Tyler’s later albums. I like how Tyler doesn’t immediately become a good guy, who only does good deeds and is untouched by his past because that would be unrealistic. Even though.. the trilogy isn’t exactly down to Earth🧍. Anyways, for the sake of this comment, I’m just gonna focus on the motif of love in Tyler’s music. TL;DR: Tyler’s journey continues even after flowerboy, he’s still growing as a person and that’s okay I’m bad at getting to the point idk Flowerboy is how Tyler comes out to his audience, and explores relationships, queerness, loneliness.. honestly just life. This is such a big step for Tyler, especially when compared to his earlier albums and the confusion between lust and brutality. Tyler is coping, BUT we still see that he is not perfect. He’s moved on from fantasizing about murder, but he still obsesses over the men who lead him on in IGOR. In New Magic Wand, he shows anger and possession that’s similar to IFHY. He cares for the man he’s chasing, but only because he wants the outcome to be them together. In What’s Good, we see him more pressed and deeming himself as irreplaceable, similar to the feelings in Wolf. And I Don’t Love You Anymore can be a sad statement on giving up as Igor attempts to find self worth again. In both I Think and Boyfriend, Tyler’s feelings are parallel to the ones shown in Awkward. But the relationship isn’t pursued because of a mutual feeling. Instead it is because the nature of feeling is new. It isn’t from the want to rebel or deviate(like in Bastard), or because he doesn’t care, or because he confused the two together. The feeling seems new, but it’s still just an infatuation. He was told there was a connection(by the man) and, to Igor, it was something pure. But because he is still flawed-and because of being used in a vulnerable state- his self destructive habits resurface. So he obsesses, begs, gets angry and continues the cycle until something new comes along. That new would be CMIYGL. By now, Tyler is successful, but still with many regrets. He meets new people, some of it brief and some of it genuine but at the wrong moment. By now, Tyler expected to have healed from the immature and damaging views he had on love. He doesn’t expect anything serious, until there is. This comment is already long as hell so I’m only gonna use one song as an example, and I think Wilshire is perfect for it. The relationship we hear about in this song feels real, pulls the listener in- because it IS real and is told by Tyler himself without any alter-ego in the frontlines. A few important lines to note: “I thought I was bulletproof She proved me wrong, man I felt 200 percent with her It was beautiful I was able to feel But it was, it was bad timing” Obviously, his love life would seem like a story to me. But even with just a bit of the realness in this album, we can tell Tyler is working to be genuine and plans on only doing so. Though Tyler couldn’t keep the happiness he found, he was still able to have it without any malice. We’ve moved on from his ulterior egos, and now with CMIYGL:Estate Sale we’re just getting Tyler as he shows more passion in his works and pursues his own aspirations, encouraging us to do the same. I wanted to mention Cherry Bomb, but atp I should just make my own video lol If you read all of this, thanks

It just goes to show you how much time he took to organize this whole trilogy, so clever and one of the best ever to do it

in IFHY when tyler, as samuel says that he “even considered picking up smoking” could be a reference to when he is teased for not smoking any of the weed, which he wouldn’t do for the people encouraging him to, but he really loves salem and that he is willing to destroy himself for salem, and that all he wanted was the best, but he has no idea how to handle a healthy and normal relationship, he only knows to destroy. whether it’s himself or if it’s wolf haley, he will do whatever it takes, just not in a healthy way.

One little crazy thing about this trilogy is , is when Earl was killed in WOLF . He never did a song with Tyler again irl . Man these albums weighed heavy on me for years

I feel like the songs in between the trilogy are like a commercial break, like Tamale, Parking Lot and Slater are like an ad to take your mind off the situation for a second, but that’s what I think 😭

that fucking shocked me, as a tyler fan who didn’t really follow up with the story (except in igor) that was fucking crazy. this video was great, thanks for making this video. it’s well cut down and displayed

42:03 - Tyler doesn't actually hate Yonkers. He hated how everyone only cared about Yonkers when he made other great songs too.

This was so nostalgic for me. Took me back to nights in seventh grade researching everything on genius to make sense of Tyler’s storytelling. Man this video would’ve been great to have back then 😂. I can’t believe it’s been almost ten years since goblin. Man was I an angry ass 13 year old lmaoo

In my opinion, I think Cowboy is more centered around Samuel. At the end of the song it mentions how Samuel's girlfriend, Salem is introduced, which Wolf doesn't know until now. The song also implies how Samuel is more of a loner, someone that doesn't really have care for anyone out of his mind, a cowboy. It also says "You know how weird it is knowing I make a bunch of cheese" which connects to how Samuel makes money by drug dealing in 48. We also don't know clearly who Wolf's friends are & his occupation other than making music which I can predict isn't so famous if you exclude Colossus since nobody verbally calls out "Oh, that's Wolf Haley, he makes music." or something similar to that. (I also think Wolf and Tyler aren't the same person, and that Colossus is more of just a Tyler experience and not related to the Wolf-Storyline.) So in my visual, I mainly see Samuel expressing himself in Cowboy more than Wolf. I also think that when the song says "I am the cowboy of my own trip" is how Samuel feels traveling and visiting people to make drug deals, but this is still a very amazing review !

This was by far the best video covering the trilogy, they are great albums with a story and message that most people skip over because of lyrical content. Something maybe you could have slipped in the end is that in the song ‘sam(is dead) of the of tape vol 2, Tyler kills off all his alter egos, therefore going into the next day. The music video also shows this. Maybe I can see why you left it out tho because it’s not part of the official trilogy but it’s a decent story piece to include. Also there is the analog part 2 which is just another flashback to wolf with Salem

This was literally one of the best youtube videos i have ever watched especially as a Tyler fan. You could deadass make a movie based on the narratives and messages within this trilogy alone. I will definitely have a different perspective listening to these albums in the future, and never realized how much depth Tyler’s earlier projects had to begin with.

I just want to take a moment to appreciate the editing of this video. The visuals are very satisfying for me.

Great video! I’m not sure if you missed this or purposely left this out, but there’s a hint towards Sarah and Salem’s connection in the song Bastard. Near the end of the song when Tyler mentions Sarah, he notes that its not her real name. Of course, you don’t figure out Sarah’s real name until later in the story, but I think it’s interesting how early Tyler hints towards his split personalities. Anyways this video was amazing and I hope to see more like it!

The transitions through each song in this video is ABSOLUTELY amazing

If we take the Wolf trilogy a bit literally with the whole "alter ego" stuff and interpret this as a story about a man with DID, it makes a very interesting story: -There's 4 alters: Tyler, Wolf, Ace and TronCat/Dr TC -The main story of the trilogy is TC doing an intervention on the system, focusing on Tyler, the host, so that they can better manage their music career. -In Bastard, it's all about TC getting Tyler to understand Ace's behaviours and why he thinks all those horrible things. Tyler at the end manages to get some control over Ace and gets him to be in the background for now. -Wolf is, well, about wolf taking the lead in his social life while Tyler either takes a break or focuses on his music. The album is a dramatization of both Wolf's life at the moment and Tyler's fear of Ace getting out of control again and how this could get them killed, representing Ace as Sam in the album. This stablishes Tyler's fear and hatred of Ace, meaning he didnt learn the intended lesson TC was trying to teach him. After some chaos in Wolf's life, the system goes back to intervention time. -Goblin is the conclussion of everything. After whatever issues Wolf went through, he and Ace begin to fight. This is where a core concept of dissociation comes to play: Identity Alteration and Confusion. They're kinda self explanatory so i wont explain them in detail. The fight between Wolf and Ace over control over the body begin to affect Tyler, no longer being able to differentiate between his selves (this could explain TC's discrepancies in attitude, maybe Tyler confused Ace with TC) and getting those violent fantasies again, with the "killing his friends" fantasy being the breaking point. This is where TC puts a stop to everything and finally tells Tyler, Ace and Wolf the truth: at the end of the day, everybody on the system is just the same person, a fragment of the whole that, despite their differences, are just a part of the big picture and it doesnt make sense to fight eachother or deny this fact. The ending is left a bit open, and we really dont get to know if TC's statement worked. But considering the mood of the future albums by Tyler, i wanna belive that at least everybody made peace with that fact.

Earl dying on wolf fits the storyline of why he is missing on goblin. Dr. TC is also rapping with him on some parts on Yonkers. First line of the song says it all. The end of domo23 where he calls his dad "Thurnis Haley", correlates with the commercials he had for the goblin rollout where he played as Thurnis. If you go back and watch them, (which all of them are hilarious), you'll see that Thurnis loves golfing so much that he doesn't care about his kids.

Great Video!! I think Dr. TC stands for Tyler’s conscience because he’s trying to stop the thoughts that Tyler is having.

I never found such a detailed video on this. Nice job

Great video man! But just a quick correction… Jamba is Wolf’s song, and Cowboy is Samuel’s song. If you look at the credits of the video for IFHY/Jamba, it says “Wolf performs Sam’s song/ Sam performs Wolf’s song”

Bonus easter egg i noticed: the only person we know in wolf to be wearing the camp badge with the cat(tron cat) is sam, who is a direct copy of ace, which is the version of tyler controlled by tron cat.

I think Cowboy is both wolf and sam because tyler saying "I just wanna fly some kites grab salem and slater and go around riding bikes".Thats only something sam would say, maybe they trade verses idk

Bro, this was a great video. Really detailed and the animations were really good. Keep it up, you're really good at this. Ps: When Tyler said "Sarah, that's not her fuckin name but i think that shit is clever" i always thought it's because "Sarah" backwards is spelled "Haras(s)" he's harassing her. I think that's why he called her that.

Maaaan, I’d love to see this done with the rest of Tyler’s discography, this was incredible!

I think it's showing my age to admit that I was thrown off by you calling this era of Tyler's music "obscure." I'm only two years older than him and was in college when "Goblin" was making so much noise. I think Odd Future in general are endearing because of how unexpected their rise of power would be. Their early work is clearly that of teenagers trying to figure out their voices and I think that it endears it in ways that I don't think newer listeners would appreciate. Most of all, it's still surreal that Tyler of all people ended up being the big hit because of how much of his personality felt driven by controversy early on (you didn't touch on it, but I do think there's an interesting case study to be had of him being very homophobic as a teen and how social expectations, especially in the late 2000s, would lead to toxic forms of denial... though yes, given other late 2000s artists controversies over the years, I reckon my generation just got by on joking about dumb things that have no greater sense of identity politics). Because of this, I am still genuinely shocked how respected he would become and felt like "Flower Boy" came out of absolute nowhere. At the time, I was 22 and found "Goblin" a (no pun intended) radical record with such an immersive story. Tyler definitely had talent that he would develop into something greater, so it's interesting that his raw nerve on early records may have been flawed but definitely was going somewhere. While I was more keen to Frank and Earl's work, that era of music was especially interesting because it did feel like they had their own ecosystem and made the most of it. Still kind of sad that OF is over, but I think it could never last. As I mentioned early on, they were kids figuring out what they wanted and at some point they would differ greatly. That's just one of the things about making it through your 20s and life in general. Anyway, I want to say great job on the video that really took me back to the old days. I love noticing how skillfully some artists assemble their music and I think you got the point across nicely. Would love to see more like it.

I love this video. I’ve been a fan of Tyler for a few years now and have always wanted to learn about all these characters but it seemed so complicated to me. You explained it so well and I just wanna thank you for that. 🙏

I never comment on RU-vid videos but this is by far one of the best ones ive seen. Im a huge fan of Tylers and knew abt the wolf trilogy for quite some time but never really dove into it. I turned this on just for something to play in the background but this video was genuinely really investing and entertaining. Does an incredible job at explaining something this complicated. Thank you for sharing this with us sir 🙏🙏

Love the vid, glad u covered wolf after bastard, it was supposed to be released before goblin and a lot of ppl don’t know that

this was such a great deep dive. i’ve been listening to tyler for so long without actually realizing most of the songs are connected

This is a beautiful video about beautiful albums. I love it I love everything about this story the beauty of the production combined with the amazing story telling it’s simply perfect, I love this video how has it not blown up

Holy hell. This deserves so much more fucking attention, please do it again

btw, wolf was supposed to be released on 2010 but tyler scrapped it and focused on goblin, thats why wolf was the correct continuation of bastard

That was awesome - we need to protect the artists that can interweave storylines and theming into their music

This is a concept I've been interested in since first hearing Goblin after hearing Bastard and theorizing about the whole concept behind Dr. TC and how well-thought out it was.

Such a well thought out, put together video. Would and did watch/ listen to multiple times. Not only did this make me discover the depth and quality of Tyler's music but also helped me with anxiety. Your voice is very calmingg ty:Dd

As a high schooler when all these albums dropped, this entire trilogy can define my personality at the time I truly feel like alot of people grew up with Tyler simply off this trilogy alone. I never seen someone detail it so perfectly and actually caught on that Wolf comes before Goblin, not the other way around. I kept telling friends that but they was like "nah" now i got video evidence 😂 Amazing deep dive into the minds of one of my all time favorite rappers

I have been wanting a video on this topic that’s this detailed for so long now. This is my favorite trilogy and my favorite albums for Tyler, So to finally have a video this detailed on it is incredible. I also like that you know what order they go in, With bastard being the first, wolf being the second, and goblin being the final one. I say this because some people believe wolf is actually the first album in the trilogy but story wise that doesn’t make sense. Especially since at the end of lone Dr. TLC asks wolf if he’s seen Samuel and wolf says “no because if it did i would’ve killed him” and then at the start of Goblin on the song “goblin” Dr. TLC says “you wouldn’t do that Tyler. Kill yourself

Bro how does this only have 1k views this deserve at least a mill

Hey man, I really just very much want to say thank you to you for making this video. I grew up a huge Tyler fan during these years. I was struggling so much with teenage angst, my identity & really fucked up thoughts. I found that the tone of these albums really hit me emotionally. What was so fascinating is how Tyler’s coming out and mine coincided too. Main thing being, I was so fascinated by trying to work out this story growing up, I used to go through all these Reddit posts talking about the order and everything… but watching this video just really brought me back through that dark yet beautiful emotive journey. For me flower boy really is about blooming and overcoming those internal struggles following on from Sam Is Dead and embracing who you are. Anyway, thank you for making this. I’m sure I’ll be watching it many times over my life. ❤

People who weren’t OFWKTA kids talk shit about Tyler but he’s so fucking creative and gives so much thought to his projects… he’s so talented

This was so well put together

This video was so good when I was done watching I didn't expect it to not be as popular as I thought it initially was, good job man.

I always adored the Wolf album and the trilogy always fascinated me and I’m glad I found this video as I wanted to learn more about the theory. So much of the songs like the verses in Answer, the Rusty to Tamale flow, and so much. Thank you for this video!

Definitely the best video on this trilogy been waiting for a good explanation on it. Great edited video

THIS VIDEO IS SO GOOD U DID SUCH A GOOD JOB

Really good video. This trilogy is probably my favorite of all time bc its so interesting and i think you explained the storyline so well.:}

As someone who just got into some of ttc's music recently this video was really helpful and entertaining! Would love to see your take on more lore behind popular albums, whether it is TTC's or even somebody else's!

This seriously might be one of the best youtube videos I have ever seen. You deserve to get big

This is so well done. Thanks man 💞

i have been waiting for a doc on this TRILOGY cause not to lie these albums are a great introduction to Tyler....i love how u dig dep into the darkness of his messed up lyrics

great video! i don’t listen to tyler’s old music as much, i have but not regularly. this was a good video to help me give purpose to those albums instead of seeing them as just shock value. nice to see tyler wasn’t just being insane to be insane and then here was a certain purpose

this video is so high quality, i expected you to have more followers, please do more dives on tylers (and others) albums!!

Thank you for explaining it in more detail and also giving your own interpretation. Great stuff!

this video made my day, i can see you going super far wt videos like this man, especially music based

This video is amazing. Holy sh*t it’s just incredible. I’m not native english speaker and most of this WOLF stories are goes over my head and i didn’t notice them. Even when i’ve listened to Tyler albums a lot,got all official vinyls. Thank you.

Thank you for this Thom! You just blessed me with the breakdown of these masterpieces. 🙏🏾 CG

Need more deep dives on rap albums!! This and the damn ones are so well edited and carried out I need more !

Great essay about those 3 albums, i have watched many videos explaining the trilogy, but i found yours to be the best, in many ways, good editing, good comedy bits and great storytelling, thanks for explaining the only part that got me confused when i watched videos about the trilogy (Tamale), and another thing, back in 2012, in the OF Tape Vol. 2, there's a song called Sam Is Dead, that got a music video, in which Tyler kills his older alter egos (and a bunch of other people i guess) I do wonder one thing tho, WOLF was supposed to release after Bastard, but Tyler's computer crashed and he lost almost all of the songs in it (some songs remained like early Fish and early Tron Cat) so i wonder how the story would go if WOLF was released after Bastard and before Goblin, given that WOLF was apparently supposed to release in 2010 (also, Goblin was way darker and probably wasn't even planned and came off as a fast idea due to him losing WOLF 2010's songs, and the label not accepting some of those violent and unreleased songs from early Goblin) Sorry if i got anything wrong, i stopped researching this era of Tyler in late 2022, i was getting into his music and discovered many many things that confused my mind (his WOLF 2010 and other unreleased projects) so it's been a while and my memory is a bit foggy

I LOVE THIS VIDEO SM. IT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING I didn't know shit but now that i watched that it all makes sense and its just crazy

Good video, you did a really good job. I enjoyed the breakdown and laying everything out.

fucking beautiful video man glad I took the time to watch the full thing and definitely inspires me to relisten to the albums and think about them much differently. Keep up the good content man.

These albums came out during a pivotal time in my life I when I was becoming a teenager and definitely influenced me into being myself no matter what, also this album helped me find my friends who I am still very close with because we could relate over our fandom of OFWGKTA

i didnt think an hour long video about something ive already looked into would hook me so hard but it rly did this is awesome ur awesome mwah mwah

I’m definitely sticking around, the animations and animatics are very well made!

Beautiful video man! Kept me intrigued the whole watch.

This is one of the most underrated videos on RU-vid rn

man this vid is fkn amazing nice montage, nice writing, very good loved it

Man I’ve watched this like 10 times the edits and details are so good!!!! Good job man keep it up!!! ❤❤❤

I love how now certain songs on different albums by Tyler reflect his old self like how on igor, it was strange that the song new magic wand was way more violent of a song compared to the rest of the album but now it seems that Tyler has moved on from the events in the wolf trilogy but still has that part of him inside his mind (obviously Tyler became more user friendly between the creation of each album but you can still see the theme of murder in new magic wand).

This video actually makes me understand old Tyler’s music more I needed this

46:27 my theory is for she, goblin isnt tyler, its sam because in WOLF by the end sam starts to go insane because of salem so he leaves/escapes out of flog gnaw and his insanity and him start to turn into one (goblin) wearing a mask he starts searching for her, then finds her in she (music video) and starts spying on salem (the girl) which makes sense because with frank ocean he says "If that's your ex, you should probably own a pistol" talking about how insane sam has gotten but after that sam trys to meet her down the lake to get back with her and also to make her think it was WOLF when it was sam

This was the best video ive ever seen amazing work dude

It's actually the most accurate and detailed video I've ever seen on Tyler! Such a great job 😮

as a Tyler fan myself, I've never really seen these albums as a trilogy, but this video really showed how the various events in these albums are made up into a storyline of sorts. Really amazing video, defo gonna subscribe!

Hearing about all the theories of the next album after cmiygl being a wolf Haley album makes sense after that whole music video shenanigan and the movie theory, now that you mention the next day thing it makes me really honestly think if it’s more then just a theory and might actually happen and that’s hype asf

Love the vid but you forgot to mention a little detail. The last song on the first bastard “Inglorious” has Dr.TC say “Do you have anything else to say before we end this?” Indicating the end of the therapy session, making the album B*stard and Goblin connect even less

That was the best description of this trilogy I’ve ever heard. This video was perfect honestly

FUN FACT: TC stands for Tron Cat note: thom saved my understanding of tyler

What a great video this only makes me appreciate the writing and work that Tyler put into these older albums since they always get overlooked for their lyrics (looking at you troncat).

LOVE THIS VIDEOOOOOOO love the Tyler lore, thanks for making a video about it!

This was an amazing video,you explained everything in great detail and your theory’s made sense unlike most thank you for making this❤

I’ve always thought wolf was meant to be a prequel and it gives reason to why tyler is put into therapy in the first place, like he talks about certain things on bastard that happen on wolf and it all makes sense at the end of the trilogy

tylers therapist needs a therapist

This is really good! I remember catching onto sone of these theories but you finished the puzzle man 👏🏿

I dont know if this means something, but in the song "Blow", the chorus is sung by Doctor TC's and Ace's voice, being the first sight of foreshadowing of the fact that they are the same person. Plus along the whole Bastard song, there are songs that Ace and Doctor TC are signing some chorus.

It’s been 6 months, and I regularly have been listening to this video. My god, I love the way this man explains these albums. I don’t even know if he will, but TennisThom, if you see, could you please look at and discuss Because The Internet, please?

This video is awesome, first video essay I've actually sat through

This was one of the best yt vids oat the amount of work you put in was just crazy keep up the good work

Think your final conclusion about "find yourself and be who you are" is only right conclusion. True conclusion on whole trilogy. Tyler always told us all the time to find yourself, your calling and be yourself. And this narrative if further in his works: "find your wings" "tell this black kids can be who they are". Great work.

I love how MF DOOM's influence can be felt here. There's a song on Bastard, Odd Toddlers, that uses a slowed down DOOM sample for it's beat. And the concept of Tyler playing different personas across his albums and songs is another clear homage. I just think it's neat.

This video was incredible man. Big ups to you

I would love to see more of these kinds of videos, I loved this video man keep it up

on 'Rusty' where he says " 'Analog' fans are getting sick of the rape, all the 'Tron Cat' fans are getting sick of the lakes" shows the clash between the two personalities of Wolf and Ace