Film Theory: Dora is CURSED! (Dora The Explorer) 

I always felt Swiper was just a kleptomaniac and Dora and friends were just helping him calm his addiction. "His Aw man" is just him getting upset that he nearly gave in. Swiper even goes to the future and sees his older self, now no longer able to be stopped, and looks horrified.

Everybody: We want Don't Hug Me I'm Scared theories! MatPat: *Have you considered Dora the Explorer is haunted by a Demon?*

Matpat: Swiper is a demon who traps children in old video games. Amanda the Adventurer: (Takes notes)

Hey, you know, I've got a theory. Before Dora was the protagonist in her game, Boots used to be the protagonist. The game seemed to be a normal game before, until Swiper was corrupted by a spirit. Before Dora got sucked into the game, she was a normal human, always playing the game Boots the Explorer (I call it that because I believe Boots used to be the protagonist.) But then the spirit that corrupted Swiper sucked Dora into the game, turned her into a protagonist, and renamed the game to Dora the Explorer. Boots has now became a companion to Dora. And that, I think, was the dark origins of Dora the Explorer. But hey, that's just a theory, my Film Theory!

MatPat is the type of guy to look at a kids show, ask “is anyone gonna make a traumatizing theory about that?” And not wait for an answer

Let me guess little Ollie watched an episode so Matpat just had to make a dark theory. I love it

Kinda funny how he did a theory on Dora, then 8 months later, He does a theory on Amanda, which is literally just Dora but a horror game

Can you imagine making a completely innocent show about a game and then Matpat comes along and starts theorizing that you included demons to torture characters and it actually makes a ton of sense. Then you just watch it and are like- OMG I did this 😮

A blind man can locate a waterfall, whereas Dora take one eternity to even find a mountain.

I just love how Mat can turn any kids show into a literal creepypasta and always has the evidence to back him up.

I only have one question about this theory that I'd like MatPat to further look into, If Dora was NOT programmed to be in the game, but she's there and somehow the main character.... Who was the ORIGINAL main character, and what did she do to them to take their role? This has been nagging me all day long, so I hope someone will answer my question.

I think I have an idea. What if it's not just Dora who is stuck inside the game? What if Swiper, Boots, and the others are also stuck inside the video game, or more specifically, were used as souls to create the show in the first place? We know for a fact that Swiper has proven to be an occasional ally, and Dora is comfortable with having him as a friend as well despite his tendency to swipe her stuff. My guess is that just like Rebecca would later be used as a sacrifice for the Amanda The Adventurer in-universe tv show, Dora and her friends were also made into the game. I believe the reason Swiper is as he is to be coming from being purposefully programmed into being an antagonist with the express purpose of silencing him, which combined with Dora's religious upbringing would only make him more unreliable in the long-run. Dora breaking the fourth wall and referencing the audience was programed into the game, but Swiper breaking free to be somewhat of an ally wasn't. I figure the reason we rarely see him doing good is because the devs in charge figured out a way to 'rewrite' the characters in a way that made sure they always stayed in compliance. Now, who are these mysterious devs? I don't know, but I doubt it's Swiper or Boots at all..

Honestly when I was a kid I always thought Dora jumped in the game from the theme song, but her being sucked in makes a lot more sense. Maybe the theme song is the demons enticing Dora

The way matpat can go from just a normal show to the fact that swiper is a bloody demon is amazing

MatPat s never been the same ever since he started theorising preschool shows

The intro sounded REAL AND FREAKED ME OUT.

you can tell what shows Ollie is obsesed with, and how long hes been obsessed, by the fact that matpat makes these kinds of videos. i love these.

I love the fact that Matpat ruthlessly shoots down another part of my childhood

As someone who watched Dora as a little child and is obsessed with the paranormal in the present, this was a real treat.

I thought Matpat’s theories would become calmer once he had a kid and I’m happy to say that haven’t

You should TOTALLY do a theory on Clifford: like figuring out his exact size and weight and other such measurements to figure out exactly what it takes to feed him and take care of him, and also researching the family’s living accommodations across all the books, TV shows, and movies to figure out if they could actually afford to keep him!

MatPat coming in and absolutely tearing one of my childhood favourite shows and saying it's basically Amanda the Adventurer but actually just Dora is something I definitely didn't expect

DORA:*makes a life action about finding a city of gold* One peice:she went to skypeia...

Fun fact that my friend told me: Dora is in a coma Because why would she Explore alone? Another fun fact: Dora is Blind so she needs Boots to help her see the stuff

This really is MatPat at his finest. There’s not supposed to be something here to find. Unlike creepypastas, ARGs, and other baited mysteries, Matt is out here digging up fresh cadavers in a children’s show. Perfection.

Growing up learning english with Dora, I came to the conclusion that Dora was a real person stuck inside the game from how wierd she acts. It feels eerie how someone else came to the same conclusion.

I am Spanish, and sincerely, the intro was the best thing... anyways, it’s still the best Spanish I’ve heard from any American person

Actually in the Christmas movie; Dora and the Christmas Carol Adventure, they venture into the future (and past but that’s not important right now)when dora swiper, and everyone else are older. When Swiper tells older Swiper Swiper no swiping thrice, he says “That doesn’t work anymore!” as he takes the travel cape off Swipers back and runs away to his castle. Older Dora says that since Swiper got on the naughty list, he would never listen and would always swipe no matter what.

Leave it to MatPat when turning people’s childhood shows into nightmares because of his theories.

Love that MatPat completely ignores that Dora's ENTIRE family lives inside the game and she even got episodes dedicated to her mom being pregnant and giving birth to her twin siblings 😂

As a Shinto preastess, I got so excited when you talked about kitsunes.

Actually, there are times swiper is able to steal stuff from our duo, and sometimes he even helps them.

Love the "worlds of preschool shows are actually super dark" arc this channel's been going through.

Knowing spanish and listening to Matpat's attempt at speaking spanish is HILARIOUS

The creators of Amanda The Adventurer: Hey we should use this theory and bring it to life!

I love showing this to my English Learning students. It's an excellent program, and thank you for giving me another way to enjoy it. :) While I didn't come up with this theory myself, I always had suspicions in my mind that something was off about this show. the computer game quality too it, etc. I didn't realize a lot of that was intended as well.

Matpat can turn any kids show I watched at the age of five into a literal rated R murder mystery

I think the only issue I have with this theory is that Dora has family inside of the game, unless we assume that they got sucked in too which would be entirely possible.

I love how people see these theories and months later we get games similar to what he was talking about..😮‍💨😮‍💨 Amanda the Adventure 👀😂 MatPat and crew keep it up. Anyone that can make a theory and change the outcome of a box office movie (Star Wars) will always have my attention and vote. ❤🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤🥳🥳🥳🎉🎉

Well if swiper is a demon and not in the code, then HOW COME THERES A SWIPER PLUSHIE?!?!?

I love how he makes us question life and then be like “BUT THATS JUST A THEORY”

You just never know what to expect from Matpat and his theories anymore.

I think another reason of why there is no dora merch is because before dora got sucked into the game the original dora was a animal which is why there is no human dora merch. And when dora got sucked in she replaced the original dora. it also explains why human dora not in the character find. And for the logo i think original dora was there but with human dora now in the game shes there.

Once he gets his hand on any kid's show he turns into a creepy pasta. Love it!

Swiper is almost definitely based on Huehuecoyotl, and Aztec fox god of mischief, who was often depicted as being trapped by chanting of specific phrases. So it was a little weird to not see him mentioned at all... Though it's possible that Matpat just steered clear of trying to say his name 👀

The fact that you made Dora interesting, and even terrifying is truly mind blowing.

I forgot Dora the Explorer was an in universe video game, and I used to watch it, well, back in my childhood that is. I gotta watch the Dora Movie. Hopefully, I’ll be able to watch it soon

Thank you for giving me nightmares it recommended this for me right when i was about to go to bed

the number of times he's gone into a show or game and pulled out a demonic thing or a child trapped inside, or both is astounding

Just a thing I want to point out (which doesn't really help the theory in any way) is that in my country, Latvia, Nickelodeon had all of their cartoons dubbed in Russian (because a big portion of latvian population consists of russian speaking people), so Dora was teaching us English instead of Spanish.

Two things: 1.- I'm mexican and I swear that I was correcting MattPat's spanish A LOT. I got to admit, you are better than my cousin' that lives in USA (MattPat if you are reading this you pronounced the "Hola" correcly but, you prunounced "Bienvenidos al la teoría de las peliculas" incoreectly. I supposed to be pronounced as "bien-ve-NI-do a la te-o-Rí-a de las pe-LI-cu-las") 2.- I love how MattPat can turn any children's show to a straight up satanic thing. He is a true legend

Something I wanna point out is that the show slowly looses its video gamey elements as it goes on. The first intro, walking into the room with the computer, is only in the first two seasons. Similarly, the character find outro, and any similar minigame outro like for the explorer stars, lasts until season 4, replaced by a generic credits sequence season 5 onwards. Also, dora used to have these minigame-like events quite often, along the lines of navigating a character from one point to another, or dodging falling acorns (the latter of which actually became a flash game at some point). They’re like any other point in the show, but styled just differently enough to raise an eyebrow. As far as I remember, these were slowly phased out as the show went on, and completely gone by season 5. And finally, there was pretty much always this blue cursor hanging around, clicking on objects, locations, etcetera. Essentially the closest thing to the audience surrogate the show consistently had. However, by around season 5, it slowly stopped showing up. Even simple small things, like clicking on dora at the end of the episode, or those pop up location squares. The last remnant of it left by the show’s end was clicking on dora after the finale song to lead into the ending. Nowadays, dora being themed about a classic video game is as good as forgotten, and most of the pop culture around her never seems to bring it up as far as I know. Though to be fair, there’s a lot of things in this show that the internet ignores. Either way, the show becoming less like a video game as it goes on… When put into context with this theory, seems rather suspicious, doesn’t it?

Matpat is slowly going insane. But we still love the theorys

I like that sometimes Mat and his crew craft intricate and well researched theories that have TONS of proof, and then there are theories like this that have very little actual proof of the theory itself and just kind of meanders for a bit. It's a fun mixed bag of "Yeah I believe it" and "Are you getting enough sleep, Mat?"

I saw a comment on one of the Game Theory Among Us videos about the various MatPat channels not existing in the same universe as each other except for here on Earth, pointing out that the screen glitches every time another channel is mentioned. And the screen glitches when Game Theory is mentioned here. Very cool.

Actually it seemed rather strange to see Swiper in the live action film, especially when no other reoccurring characters were in there Cept in that hallucination scene.

At long last, about time we got a Dora episode. The final vestige of my childhood. Really enjoying MatPat's children show copium arc, very entertaining stuff!

The live-action Dora movie was amazing, except for one thing. They never gave any explanation for Swiper! He's just there and everyone points out how weird it is that he exists at all. The fact that this theory actually gives a semi-solid explanation is honestly a relief and lets my poor mind relax and enjoy the movie more.

Matpat is the only theorist who wold go insane watching a kids show and create a theory abot swiper being a demon theory

My theory is Dora is PLAYING HERSELF as a character and if swiper keeps swiping stuff she will DIE

Whenever Matpat sees a normal show, he most probably uses proof by contradiction to prove that show is innocent, but the contradiction never occurs and the show gets darker.

Live action Dora talking to the invisible audience from the parents' perspective reminds me of those stories where kids have "imaginary friends" that they talk to, usually tied with ghosts or demons...

I wonder if Ollie will come up with darker theories than MatPat.

Nothing like MatPat turning a child’s show into a Satan ritual

It's honestly impressive how Mat can make insane concepts sound somewhat convincing

Dora was one of my childhood shows that I watched. My parents say that I learned Spanish (I am a Filipino kid) by watching it and now that I'm getting older... I kinda screamed that the thing she was looking at was there but she couldn't hear us.

Matpat should unpack superheroes and villains next.

This dude to my favourite kids to show to another whole dark level

It’s got to the point now where when I see a new film theory video pop up, I just read the title, shrug and just go “yeah ok true” because I know that when I watch it, no matter how crazy and insane the theory is, MatPat always manages to make it sound somewhat believable. 😂

I didn't get "exorcism" from the "Swiper no swiping" thing, but the triple-repetition definitely reminded me of summoning/banishing _Beetlejuice_

0:37 reminded me of the 1, 2 buckle my shoe reverse😂

I have a theory that she's just stuck on a never ending comma

One thing I’d like to mention. I believe there was a Christmas special set in the future and Dora tried to use her typical “Swiper no swiping” phrase to ward him off to which he responded by saying “That doesn’t work anymore.” Just thought that was something worth mentioning

This feels like coming full circle. I loved this show as a rosy-cheeked, bouncy five-year-old who loved cute things, and now I'm here as a depressed, gothy teenager who loves creepypasta, watching a horror theory of the cutesy show I loved as a toddler.

I know nobody will believe me, but I heard in a video that the main title theme when it says “Dora the explorer!” If you play it reversed, it says hail satan 😅 Of course, I looked into it. I got a recording of the sound and reversed it on a website I found. It was exactly as theorized. I get this is months later but someone look into this and how it matches his theory perfectly.

THIS THEORY IS SO REMENISCENT OF AMANDA TEH ADVENTURER AND AMANDA TEH ADVENTURER IS EVEN MENT TO BE A PRODY OF DORA THE EXPLORER

you can just tell how much fun the editors were having in that opening. it's creepy, yet - _dora_

It’s amazing that Matpat can make these creepy intros. They’re so cool!

Crazy how much sense that makes. When is final Channel coming out

Bro created the plot of Amnada the Adventurer before it existed 💀💀💀💀💀

MatPat yelling the intro in Spanish with his own little character is freaking amazing!

Love the videos, MattPat

funny how I, despite watching this show nonstop in childhood and naming my pet fish swiper, have absolutely zero memory of the show being a computer game

fun fact swiper just wants his red Jordan back that boots steal from him lol

Matpat always finds a way to get more out of a game,food or a child's show. First Amanda and now Dora. Although I think Dora is blind because she can't see anything unless we yell at our TV.

Another thing about the “swiped no swiping” chant is it only works if done successfully three times. Idk how accurate to irl exorcism that is but it definitely checks out with Hollywood depictions.

7:42 okay matpat just...

My two head cannons one door is insanely visually repaired or possibly a little blind or two she’s just too lazy to look around to find them herself

The actual most cursed thing about Dora is the fact she's bilingual and can't see a map right behind her

"Swiper no swiping" is like a chant to replenish demons

All this made me realize is that Dora's full name is probably Computadora.

The fact that Matpat can say anything about any show and by the end of video make you believe it is scary

Something else to solidify MatPat's theory: The number 3 is associated with the devil and spirits; the devil knocks 3 times on a door and the 3rd hour past midnight being the demonic witching hour. Dora says her chant "Swiper no swiping" exactly 3 times for him to stop and run away.

As a kid I remember at least 2 episodes where swiper took stuff

When boots said Swiper is always stealing was adorable ❤

Matpat really likes his kid show theories

“I’ve always really wanted to make a Dora theory.” His dream came true.

I'm convinced that this film theory video is the one that inspired Amanda the adventurer

Hey! Kinda late to the party😅! Great video! I've been a great fan of Dora ever since I was little. At first, I was a little skeptical about it, thinking you were going to target Dora to be a bad guy and I'm glad that's not true. Solid video!!! This is a great video. I do want to say though that you may have some more to uncover for the theory because Dora the Explorer came out with "Dora and Friends Into the City". You don't have to, but I want to see if your theory still stands. Great video!!! Keep it up!!!!

i find it hilarious that matpat can take a show for 3 year olds and somehow make some really dark lore