Fortnite’s Peely is harbouring dark secrets that’ll leave you scarred

Much to the annoyance of some of my squadmates, I’m an avid quest-completer in Fortnite. “I’m going to die. I need back-up,” and, “Hang on. I need to catch three more fish,” is a real exchange that happened. I feel no guilt. I mention this to hone in on the fact that I don’t simply play Fortnite to win, although that’s always a bonus. I also enjoy following along with the game’s storytelling which admittedly is nonsensical and farfetched, but nonetheless fun.

I’ve never particularly dove into the nitty gritty though. Peely has been kidnapped by The Society? Okay. Hope is going to take down Doctor Doom? Sure. I don’t question things. I just buckle up and go along for the ride. Or perhaps I should say that’s what I did. You see, after several hours of playing Fortnite with my usual group of clowns, delirium sets in. It’s at that point that I start questioning some of Fortnite’s weirder aspects. Is Rippley made of Slurp Juice? And if he is and you’re wearing his skin, does he feel guilty drinking Slurp Juice and Shield Potions? His ungooped brethren?

Perhaps the most baffling of all figures though is Fortnite’s Peely - one of the game’s main icons alongside Jonesy. And so, as any normal person would, I’ve spent time scouring the dark corners of the internet, seeking out the truth behind Peely - and while I can’t say I’ve found concrete answers, I’ve definitely unearthed some cursed tidbits that paired with my own brain rot thoughts make for an entertaining read, or at least that’s what I’m hoping.

Fortnite OG will soon return as a playable game mode from 6 December.

How Peely was created is pretty concrete. Essentially, Jonesy entered a rift alongside a banana and the two somehow combined. Upon leaving the rift, a segment of Jonesy had seemingly fused with the banana thus creating the very first Peely. I say ‘first’ because it’s argued that Peely (or Peeli?) is now a species more so than an individual but let’s just stick to the OG ‘nana for now.

There’s nothing all that upsetting about this creation story. Certainly, I don’t understand the logistics of Jonesy and Peely’s connection but it’s one of those things that we’re just going to have to accept. What I want to touch on is something that happened during Season Eight. I’ll admit, I wasn’t a Fortnite player at the time so this is knowledge I’ve acquired retrospectively but essentially, Jonesy blended Peely creating some kind of weaponized smoothie.

This is where I have to start questioning the cursed minds at Epic Games. The blended version of Peely dons a face so Peely maintains his sentience which raises all kinds of questions about his anatomy. The regular Peely, naturally, has a face but so too does the peeled ‘naked’ version of the skin. How did his face transfer from one layer to the other? Does the unpeeled version simply have holes in its exterior, with the facial features from the underlayer then showing through? But then how does this explain smoothie Peely retaining his face?

The same kind of conundrum could be found in Leatherface’s recent backbling. The horror villain’s backbling was basically made up of a stretched Peely skin that featured, you guessed it, a sentient face. What I’m gathering here is that this ‘nana can not be killed. Peely appears to be able to transform from one form to another at ease and it’s for this reason that I can only conclude that this is not, in fact, even a banana but some kind of fruit-shaped alien imposter.

Credit / Epic Games

This is supported by the fact that Peely is inexplicably turned from a smoothie back into a full-on fruit. Fortnite fans have tried to justify this. Some say it’s to do with time travel. Others say it’s another Peely but I don’t believe that because Peely, upon his return, isn’t thrilled about his mate Jonesy pulverising him - and you can’t blame him for feeling that way.

While Peely does seem to feel things emotionally, it doesn’t appear he’s able to experience any kind of physical feeling. After all, why would he look so nonchalant about being skinned alive by Leatherface? Maybe that explains why no one really cared when he was taken hostage by The Society. I always found that storyline a little underdeveloped but if Peely just keeps on coming back and feels no pain, then I guess the big yellow fella could take care of himself.

Of course, Peely isn’t the only banana on the island. There are plenty of normal bananas players can consume to replenish a small amount of their health. My god, I’ve just had a eureka moment. If bananas are canonically proven to heal, that explains why Peely doesn’t feel anything and how he might’ve gone from a liquid back to a solid. And yes, I hated writing that sentence just as much as you hated reading it.

Anyway, I digress. What I wanted to point out is that players donning the Peely skin can eat those bananas. It makes you wonder what Peely thinks of eating his brethren because while those bananas may lack sentience, it’s clear that the secret to imbuing a banana with sentience has been unlocked due to the sheer amount of Peely characters that exist, from Peelosopher Bananocrates to Peely Bone. Whatever happened to the original Peely has been replicated so isn’t consuming a normal banana condemning a potential Peely to death?

And I mentioned Peely Bone there, a variant which confirms Peely has a skeleton and is made up of bones - yet another disturbing thing to ponder. I can only come to the conclusion that it wasn’t simply a fragment of Jonesy’s spirit that combined with Peely. There must have been a combination on an anatomical level, otherwise, how do you end up with a bony banana?

Credit / Epic Games

I wish I could say that that is the end of this in-depth questioning into a topic no one asked for. But you see, it would be remiss if I didn’t mention baby Peely. There’s the Nanner Buddy backbling which is literally an infant Peely and so I’ll hesitantly ask the question: Where did it come from? Can Peelies … procreate? I don’t want to delve too far into the gutter but Wolverine did canonically have sex with a Fortnite character once so it’s not out of the realm of possibility if we’re looking at canon reasoning. Do little Nanner Peelies grow on trees? Is there a factory where a big mastermind Peely is sending bananas into a machine only for them to plop out as sentient babies on the other side? I NEED to know. Maybe I don’t. But it’s something to ponder, for sure.

If you’re sitting there slowly rocking to and fro quietly asking what sort of Pandora’s Box I’ve opened, don’t worry. I’m doing the same thing. Let me leave you with this comforting thought though. Chapter Six, Season One will be here very soon and with it, if rumours are to be believed, a samurai-themed season that I think we’re all here for. Am I hoping for some additional Peely lore to drop though? I’d be lying if I said no.