Project Bullfinch

Project Bullfinch was a snuff project created by Tomas that was intended to record Thumbless being tortured on a 24/7 live stream - starting from the age of 4, till he was snuffed out at 18.

It had taken Tomas approximately five years to plan the project, preparing detailed plans on what was to occur for each day. Both he and Kristin started developing Project Bullfinch alongside planning to have their youngest - and after Thumbless was born, his existence was neither presented to the law nor was he given any name. Excluding his wife, Tomas had disclosed the details of the project only to Bo, his snuff partner. Project Bullfinch was to be executed through Tomas' snuff community and intended to make him and Bo a large sum of money. Tomas was unware that Bo was secretly against his ideas of Project Bullfinch. After the entire project was sabotaged with Bo getting Thumbless out of the Hällberg house, Tomas had Kristin birth two more children to continue his plans  - but both died early into the project.

## Details

#### **Planning**

Tomas had prepared only a singular copy of the Project Bullfinch file using a typewriter to be as cautious and discrete as possible, and initially kept it hidden in a secret closet behind the bookshelf in their living room.

**Kristin's** antisocial personality further proved to be advantageous to Tomas' plans, for she had no contact with anyone and so her pregnancy was easily kept a secret. She gave birth to **Thumbless** in their basement, and the child was never registered in the system, and instead kept hidden away from society. Tomas even eschewed giving the baby a name for he felt that naming something creates an attachment to it, and always regarded Thumbless as either "Bullfinch" or "Subject 1".

**Bo** was one of the few people Tomas discussed Project Bullfinch with, him being his trusted partner and all. The main involvement of Bo in the project, as Tomas mentioned, was to execute the "good cop, bad cop" dynamic that was carefully implemented in the plans; as Thumbless had already become attached to Bo, and that was to be taken advantage of for a key aspect in Project Bullfinch.

On multiple occasions, Tomas did notice the hints of strong affection in Bo's behaviour towards Thumbless, and often grimly warned him about getting attached to the child. Despite this, he still saw Bo as loyal and efficient and promised that he was willing to accommodate Bo's tastes by adding cannibal options in Project Bullfinch.

#### **Project Bullfinch Room**

1/7Project Bullfinch was executed in a separate, secret room in the **Hällberg house**. The existence of another room except the basement was unknown for much of the story - but during Anita and Madeleine's investigation of the house, they discovered another passage leading to the Project Bullfinch room, which was hidden under the staircase to the basement.

* The main entrance had a code lock, which Anita unlocked with "2308" - correctly guessing the password to be the date she and Tomas started dating. The next passage led to another locked door, for which the code was "2412" - Thumbless**'** birth date. The door opened up to the final room, but there was more to it than first sight.

* The Project Bullfinch room was divided into two compartments. The first chamber had the uncanny appearance of a regular kid's bedroom - while the second chamber, hidden behind curtains, was the main room where the torture sessions and livestreams were to take place. The entire compartment was covered with undecorated white tiles, and at the centre was an adjustable chair to which the Subject was meant to be strapped during the time of torture. There was also a separate showcase in which all the torture instruments and tools were kept, and a shelf on the upper wall on which the cameras were placed. The Project Bullfinch room also had a bathroom attached to it, and included a freezer room as well (though these weren't shown in the episode itself).

* The final party to the Project Bullfinch chamber was a large locker-like structure with multiple drawers, three of them having the respective labels - Subject 1, Subject 2 and Subject 3.  Each contained the records of the fates of the project initiated with three different Subjects - a brief note for all of them, and the remains of the last two in jars with the respective numbers at the bottom.

## **Outcome**

Bo had always been opposed to the execution of Project Bullfinch, for he did develop a deep fondness for the little boy and couldn't bear to take in what Thumbless' parents were planning to do to him. Bo never confronted Tomas about it, nor expressed his unwillingness to participate in the project - but secretly was planning for any way to get Thumbless out of the household before Tomas finally started on Project Bullfinch.

On the night of the fateful Christmas Eve, after the death of Uriah, Bo had arranged an agreement with Anita to bury her son's body in the holy grounds in exchange for her taking in Thumbless and to protect him from his family be isolation. Thumbless ultimately got away with Anita, while Bo was framed by Tomas for the murder of Uriah and was sentenced to life in prison.

That was the end of the initial establishment of Project Bullfinch, leaving Tomas out of his mind after the series of drastic events that had taken place - including the failure of the project and the blundering of his long years of planning. Tomas did carry out Project Bullfinch twice again, with Kristin having two more children and repeating the same pattern. However, these were far from the first calculated framework of the project as Tomas, having grown callous about the entire situation, seemingly took out his uncontrollable emotions on the Subjects rather than actually fulfilling Project Bullfinch.

## The Subjects

#### **Subject 1 (Thumbless)**

*Thumbless* was the second child of the Hällbergs after Vincent - revolving around whom the entirety of Project Bullfinch was planned. He has no legal identity or documentation due to the sick reasons mentioned earlier, and things could work out smoothly since Tomas and Kristin wouldn't even have to report the child missing. Excluding his family, Thumbless' existence was perhaps only known to Bo and Tomas' snuff community.

The livestreaming was to begin on the boy's 4th birthday onwards. Still, during his short stay at the Hällberg house, Thumbless had to face immense mistreatment from his family before fully becoming their torture pet - his only soothing exception being Bo's presence. It's also implied that Thumbless was exposed to the Project Bullfinch room before, given his feverish, trauma-induced cries to "take him back to the room" and kill him after he was reunited with Bo on the seashore in the present timeline.

Bo taking Thumbless out of the house on the Christmas Eve marked the founder of Project Bullfinch, and in Subject 1's drawer, a singular note was left mentioning that the child was with Anita, along with a withered rose.  Tomas was likely to have never gone after Thumbless or Anita later on, concerning the complications it would create, and because of his unexplainable "love" for Anita.

#### **Subject 2 ("Niklas"**)

*Subject 2* was the third child of the Hällbergs and the next subject for Project Bullfinch, and was birthed quite a while (around 4 years) after Thumbless had been taken away. The boy resembled Thumbless appearance-wise, except for having longer hair.

Though he was the first subject with whom Tomas could "successfully" execute Project Bullfinch, the child had died only within a year at the age of three when he succumbed to a severe wound in the head. The ashes of the boy were stored in a jar and kept in the respective drawer in the Project Bullfinch room. This also depicted Tomas' growing impulsivenes - using the children from a way younger age than initially intended.

Subject 2 was later named as "Niklas" by Anita.

#### **Subject 3 ("Tindra'')**

*Subject 3* was likely to be born a little after Subject 2, and the last child to be used for Project Bullfinch.

Though there has been no representation of Subject 3 in the story itself, she was the youngest and the only sister to the Hällberg children. From the promotional matter, she is shown to be the spitting image of Kristin. The little girl possibly met the same fate as her previous sibling - dying quite early into the project.

Subject 3 had been named "Tindra" by Anita.

## Trivia

The two bullfinches in the very first episode of ***Uriah*** were symbolic for the unfortunate siblings of Thumbless who were killed in Project Bullfinch - in a sense that they were still watching over him.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Episode 57 (S2)
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Episode 82 (S3)
3. ↑ Episode 105 (S3)
4. ↑ Episode 102 (S3)
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Episode 90 (S3)
6. ↑ Episode 1 (S1)