×
Cookies help us deliver our Services. By using our Services, you agree to our use of cookies. Learn More.

The Diego And Luther Theory That Makes Too Much Sense On The Umbrella Academy

Siblings can be a handful. Get two kids in the same room, and it's anyone's guess whether they'll build a blanket fort or rip each other's arms off with their little gremlin teeth. Not enough? Alright, let's add five more kids into that equation. That's not a family gathering — that's a blood bath waiting to happen. Funnily enough, Netflix's superhero series "The Umbrella Academy" is about seven adopted siblings trying to get along. They, uh, don't. Sorry for the spoilers. They actually spend most of their time arguing over nothing or otherwise verbally abusing each other with hilariously bad burns. 

Whether it's fabricated friction or the entire point of their character arcs, two of the siblings seem to be more consistently at each other's throats than the rest, and some fans are speculating that their feud has a purpose neither of them could ever have understood. Here's a fan theory about why their infighting might have saved lives. 

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

Keeping Diego and Luther preoccupied might have saved their lives

In a subreddit dedicated to "The Umbrella Academy," u/icesketball27 posted an image of a YouTube comment which said, "Someone on Tumblr: The reason why Reginald pitted the two against each other as kids was so they wouldn't come up with stupid plans that'd get them all killed." Yes, it's a Reddit post about a YouTube comment discussing a Tumblr theory, now being presented as the thesis for a popular culture article — welcome to the internet! Stay a while, it only gets weirder from here, but that's the fun of it. 

The two in question are Luther Hargreeves, aka Number One (Tom Hopper) and Diego Hargreeves, aka Number Two (David Castañeda). As anyone who has seen the Netflix series can attest, these two adopted siblings have spent the better part of three seasons disagreeing on practically everything, sometimes violently. 

Look, nothing excuses what Reginald Hargreeves put his children through. He is unambiguously a monster (which, in this case, has nothing to do with him being a literal alien). That being said, neither Luther nor Diego were particularly blessed with brain cells. They're two sides of the same himbo coin. It isn't really a stretch to say that, should they have spent more time planning than arguing, they might have caused more damage than they already did. 

That being said to the last that being said... Reginald could have just been a decent father. Just to make it abundantly clear how bad all of this is, here's a link to the CDC's recommended effective, healthy parenting style. Oh look, potentially lethal manipulation isn't on there.