Could the Stotch Family’s Dark Secret Explain Why Butters Has It So Bad on ‘South Park’?

What is a juvenile hall, if not a place to hold kids who were grounded by the government?

If you had to choose one family from the South Park universe to raise you, you probably wouldn’t choose the Stotch household. Despite their moderate affluence — Stephen is seen driving around a Lexus in some episodes, and they live nowhere near the shantytown the McCormicks call home on the other side of the tracks — Stephen and his wife Linda have proven themselves to be some of the absolute worst parents in Colorado time and again as they punish their poor, naive son with extreme prejudice. 

While grounding is their favorite method of discipline, the Stotchs have beaten Butters, they once attempted to sell him to Paris Hilton and they have even tried to kill him on more than one occasion. For that reason, the Stotchs probably never should have tried to raise a child — let alone two.

Over in the South Park subreddit, one fan put forth their theory that the reason Stephen and Linda Stotch are so hard on Butters is because they have a secret older son who is currently rotting in juvenile detention. 

Double hamburgers.

In the Season Four episode titled, “Cartman’s Silly Hate Crime 2000,” Cartman hurls a rock at Tolkein’s eye that causes him to catch a hate crime charge and get sent to juvenile hall. There, Cartman struggles to adjust to life on the inside and meets a number of intimidating figures, most notably his cellmate Romper Stomper who tricks Cartman into anally smuggling cigarettes into the detention facility. In the background of a couple shots, there is another inmate who appears to be a little older than Cartman and has a haircut that looks suspiciously like a certain Professor Chaos.

According to a theory from user V1k1ng1990, the trauma and challenges of raising Butters’ secret older brother of whom the younger Stotch sibling is banned from speaking could have hardened Stephen and Linda’s hearts and caused them to treat their unincarcerated son far more harshly as a result. Alternatively, the repeated beatings, human trafficking and murder attempts made by the Stotch couple inspired the bad behavior from their oldest son, and Butters’ resilience and general good-heartedness is all the more impressive considering the three psychopaths whom he calls family.

“A fun theory, in a morbid sort of way,” a South Park fan said of the conjecture. “Sadly, there’s already a (far more depressing) canonical reason why Butters’ parents treat him like they do: Grandma Stotch raised Stephen similarly. In The Fractured But Whole, Stephen, high on cat piss, has a flashback to a time in his childhood when his mother beat him for breaking a rule. So, the cycle of abuse repeats between him and Butters; Linda is weak-willed and doesn’t stand up to her husband.”

Or, alternatively, Butters just needs to behave better if he doesn’t want to get grounded, beaten, sold and murdered so often. After all, $200 million is a lot of money to be Paris Hilton’s new chihuahua.