The Grinch May Be From a Different Whoville and a TikTok Theory Points to His Origins

Whether you have a soft spot in your heart (that's definitely not three sizes too small, by the way) for the original Grinch movie, Jim Carrey's live-action version, or the 2018 animated feature-length film, the Grinch himself is an important holiday figure. And there's a theory on TikTok that explains why the Grinch isn't from Whoville and where was meant to land when he was a baby.

We all know that the Grinch looks different from the residents of Whoville and he hates Christmas. According to the theory, the Grinch's story could have been avoided, had he landed at a different version of Whoville when he was an orphan.

We see a small part of his origins in the 2000 live-action How the Grinch Stole Christmas movie. In it, a young Grinch arrives at Whoville in a basket and he's raised by two old Whoville women.

But according to the theory, the Grinch was never meant to land in the Whoville we know from the Grinch movies. Instead, the Grinch has specific origins that have never been explored before.

At least that's the case if the theory is true.

In Horton Hears a Who, we see a microscopic Whoville on a floating speck of dust. According to the TikTok theory, the Whoville depicted on this speck of dust is where the Grinch was meant to land as an infant.

The TikTok users who shared the theory pointed out how the colorful and furry residents of this version of Whoville actually look more like the Grinch than those who live in Whoville in the Grinch movies.

If there's more than one Whoville, then this theory actually makes a lot of sense. In the live-action Grinch movie, we see the Grinch's basket veer off course from a gust of wind and he lands in the Christmas-obsessed Whoville we know of.

The Grinch is ostracized as a kid for looking so vastly different from everyone else. And we never learn why the Grinch looks the way he does and why he never meets anyone else like him. The theory could be the answer fans have been looking for.

According to Biography.com, Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel told Redbook in 1957 that he modeled the Grinch character after himself. He felt like he'd lost some of the Christmas magic within himself, so he wrote a story about the Grinch character to see if he could come back from that.

But our beloved Dr. Seuss never revealed where the Grinch is supposed to be from or what, if any, connection he might have to Horton Hears a Who.

Thanks to TikTok and other social media platforms, fans are free to theorize about classic holiday movies and characters, and the Grinch is no exception. That doesn't mean the theory about the Grinch's Whoville origins are true, but the theory itself gives us a lot to think about.