Twenty One Pilots: Every Trench reference to fire (the sun, light, etc.)

Hey Clique and whoever else happens to be reading this,
I'm The Noah. This is Noahbody Cares, the blog that critics are saying is a blog...

I really love Twenty One Pilots. The way Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun write lyrics that are 49% highly complex imagery 49% confusing metaphors and 2% glorious puns while still being catchy enough to play on Pop-Radio blows my mind.
A lot of the visual metaphors in Twenty One Pilots last two albums have been about fire (or heat or light) so I just wanted to talk about that. I wanted to figure out if the Sun, Fire, Heat represent something consistent across all of Twenty One Pilots recent music.

Fire for reference

To figure this out, I would need a way to CTR+F search all of Twenty One Pilots lyrics for keywords... So after I spent about an hour CTR+C-ing and CTR+V-ing lyrics into a word document, I could search for any word and find every instance of that word across the band's last two albums!


Okay, 

Let's start with just listing all of the
EVIDENCE (in Trench and Blurryface)

This is a lot, so feel free to passively skim; I'll talk about the important stuff at the next section:

MUSIC VIDEOS:

Levitate with destroyed car from Ride

1. The car in the Heavydirtysoul music video bursts into flames at the end; this car is shown to be still on fire one album later at the beginning of the Jumpsuit music video, and in the middle of the Bandito camp in Levitate. Most of the banditos carry flaming torches and fire is a major visual element to their ascetic in many shots across the music videos and much of the artwork for trench.

2. Ride starts with an anthropomorphic description of the sun as a source of peace: "I just wanna stay in the sun where I find, I know it's hard sometimes, Pieces of peace in the sun's peace of mind, I know it's hard sometimes". The music video jarringly cuts back and forth between a blindingly bright, sunny, overexposed scene and a pitch dark night scene. While the song starts and ends on the sunny scene, a little more time is spent in the dark, including the opening line I just quoted.

Fire:
Tear in my Heart: "I'm alive... I'm on fire"

Hometown: "You can bring the fire, I can bring the bones... You make the fire, my bones will make it grow"

Levitate: "Ever since the 7th grade I learned to fire-breathe"

Nico and the Niners: "I'm flying from a fire, from Nico and the Niners" ... "Fire, Nico and the Niners."

Bandito: "it's [neon] a heatless fire" ... "Begin with bullet, now add fire to the proof"

Leave the City: "I'm tired of tending to this fire, I've used up all I've collected, I have singed my hands, It's glowing, embers barely showing"

Cold:
Fairly Local: "The world around us is burning but we're so cold"

Doubt: "Temperature is dropping, shaking hands with the dark parts of my thoughts, no."

Levitate: "On the freezing ground I'm sleeping on"

The Hype: "Sometimes I feel cold, even paralyzed"

Light:
The Judge: "3 lights are lit, but the forth one's out, I can tell cause it's a bit darker, Than the last night's bout, I forgot about the drought, Of light bulbs in this house"

Morph: "Lights, they blink to me, transmitting things to me, 1s and 0s"

My Blood: "You're facin down a dark hall, I'll grab my light, And go with you"

Sun:
Ride: "I just wanna stay in the sun where I find, I know it's hard sometimes, Pieces of peace in the sun's peace of mind, I know it's hard sometimes"

Hometown: "Be the one, be the one, To take me home and show me the sun", "Where we're from, there's no sun, our hometown's in the dark"

Dark:
Lane Boy: "I know a thing or two about pain and darkness" 

Hometown: "Where we're from, there's no sun, our hometown's in the dark" (repeat)

The Judge: 3 lights lines above ^

Doubt: Temperature is dropping lines above ^

My blood: "You're facin' down a dark hall I'll grab my light, And go with you..."

Shadow:
Hometown: "A shadow tilts its head at me, Spirits in the dark are waiting"

Levitate: "Sleep in a well-lit room, don't let the shadow through"

Leave the City: "Proof of life in the shadows"

Burn:
Leave the City: "The burning is so low it's concerning, 'Cause they know that when it goes out, It's a glorious gone"



The Next Section:

Thank you for skimming... That was a lot more evidence than I expected, so what can we tell for sure from all of it?

1. Light good, dark bad?

Fire destroys the dark car that Tyler Joseph was trapped in the backseat of [Heavydirtysoul music video]. Fire represents love in Tear in my Heart and life (or possibly the motivation to live) in Leave the City, while the torches are a central resource in the Banditos camp (who seem to represent Tyler's friends and fans). With the Banditos he sleeps in a well-lit room [Levitate], while his room in Dema looks dark and gloomy [Nico and the Niners music video].

He refers to his negative thought and fears as "the dark parts of my thoughts" [Doubt] and mentions his "pain and darkness" [Fairly Local]. Fairly Local is clearly directed at Tyler Josephs most depressed, potentially suicidal fans (Yes that's what "The few the proud and the emotional" means, it's not a cool new name for the clique, I'm sorry you had to find out this way). He tells those depressed fans that the world them is burning but they are so cold. So coldness is negative and it's the opposite of burning in that song.

In my Blood the singer (probably God) says when "You're facin' down a dark hall I'll grab my light, And go with you..." among a long list of situations where He would go with you, including a Lion's Den.

He becomes concerned when his house runs low on light bulbs in The Judge and similarly tends to his fire in Leave the City as "The burning is so low it's concerning". 

It seems to me that fire, light, and heat represent hope on some level in most if not all the mentioned songs.

2. What's the Sun?
Two of the most important songs to my theory are Ride and Hometown. Ride is entirely constructed of statements that are immediately contradicted by the next line. 
I want to stay in the sun, but it's hard. 

I think about the end, but it's fun.

I'd die for you, that's easy to say. 

I'd live for you, that's hard to do. 

I'm falling (negative and intense), so I'm taking my time on my ride (positive and relaxed). Also the last time he says "taking my time" it is intensely screamed.

With that theme in mind let's look at the lines "I just wanna stay in the sun where I find, I know it's hard sometimes, Pieces of peace in the sun's peace of mind, I know it's hard sometimes" It's an inherently good thing to stay in the presence of the sun... even though it's hard sometimes. The sun has a mind and gives us little bits of it's peace or rest ... even though it's hard

On to Hometown: Tyler has said in interviews that the album is not literally about town he was born in, but that "Hometown" refers to a state of mind. So for his hometown to be in the dark, and for him to appeal to someone to "take him home and show him the sun", "bring the fire... my bones will make it grow" he must be appealing to God to radically change his mindset, right?

The sun is God. I rest my case.

I mean, if I went back further we could see lines like Taxi Cab's "We're  headed toward the morning sun where all your blood is washed away and all you did will be undone"

BUT, if you got me started on older albums WE'D BE HERE ALL NIGHT!

A real Twenty One Pilots album for reference

Anyway there's still more stuff, like if Neon is "a heatless fire" how does that impact the meaning of Neon Gravestones? If he sleeps in a well-lit room in Levitate, but the ground he sleeps on is freezing is he in a good place or bad? And what's the fire-breathing line about? Why is Clancy flying from a fire and from Nico and the Niners? ...
I need a girlfriend.
Thanks for reading or whatever. This was a fun one to write! Stay alive (and awake, and have faith, and think)
~ The Noah