Twenty One Pilots: So who is Clancy?
By Sierra McCool on October 27, 2025
When people talk about the stories behind a band they are almost always talking about non-fiction, and why wouldn’t they be? Stories of doing too many drugs and partying like rockstars and how certain hit songs came to be. But what about a band with a completely fictional story that spans across multiple studio albums, music videos, websites and years of content?
Today, I, Sierra McCool, will be taking you through the lore and fictional world of Ohio’s own Twenty One Pilots. A story that all started with a music video of a burning car in Heavydirtysoul.
That song is considered to be the beginning of the twenty one pilots lore story. Our main character, Clancy escapes from a dangerous city and makes a diversion in the form of a burning car for those looking for him. Clancy is a citizen of Dema, a depressingly brutalist city on the continent of Trench. Dema is run by nine bishops each of whom run a section of the city.
In the center of the city of Dema is the tower of the Bishops, where city rituals take place and where Clancy eventually puts an end to the madness. The nine circles in the center of the city represent each of nine the bishops.
Now we don’t like the bishops, they’re the bad guys. Each of them represents a lyric from the band’s album Blurryface. The bishops practice something called Vialism, which is the belief that suicide is the only way to paradise.
Obviously, this is depressing for our hero Clancy and he tells us about it in songs like Nico and the Niners.
After Clancy has a series of attempted escapes from Dema, the bishops turn him into their little propaganda boy. Even though artistic expression is seen as a distraction in Dema, the bishops begin to use Clancy’s singing ability to control their population. This propaganda is better known as the album Scaled and Icy, which is much more upbeat.
After yet another escape attempt, Clancy meets up with his long time friend, the Torchbearer (who lives outside of Dema with a bunch of other escapees). The two make a final plan to return to Dema and takedown the bishops and their reign of terror.
The breakout hit that started this arc of the story was Overcompensate, with much higher punk energy, making you feel like you’re part of a revolution.
Overcompensate was the revolutionary charge of Clancy marching back into Dema after escaping to finish the bishops once and for all. In the final music video of the Twenty One Pilots lore, Clancy runs up to the top of the bishop’s tower and finally kills them. But wait, then he puts on the robe of the fallen bishop, stares the torchbearer in the eyes and one thing is clear. The bishops are a cycle. And now Clancy is one of them.
All images by Sierra McCool.