Tommy Shelby’s rise to power in Peaky Blinders is something of a marvel, and the enduring effects of war on him support a theory that his extravagant life as a gangster is a product of his imagination. Peaky Blinders season 1 begins in the aftermath of the First World War and themes of violence, rebellion, and betrayal, illuminate the sinister reality of war that has been experienced by the show’s characters. However, the show could be interpreted as indicating that Tommy never returned from France, and his life in post-war Birmingham is a vision he  is experiencing.

Tommy’s relationship with the war is complicated: he experiences disturbing and brutal memories of his time as a tunneler, but his military service also gave him experience useful for his line of violent criminal work and granted him respect from powerful figures who also served, most notably Winston Churchill. Peaky Blinders season 1 saw Tommy helping Danny Whizz-Bang (Samuel Edward-Cook), a character particularly affected by his experiences of war, by providing him work. Tommy admits his own experiences with traumatic memories but is not always sympathetic on the topic. He tells his own brother, Arthur (Paul Anderson), “the war is done. Shut the door on it; shut the door on it like I did.”

Related: Peaky Blinders: Tommy's Season 6 Story Was Set Up In The Very First Episode

Though Tommy is distressed by his wartime memories, his mindset seems to be altered by his experiences: often emotionally detached and even feeling negative mental effects when he stops his warlike work for a period of holiday. The solemn reality of Tommy’s attitude is portrayed in his reaction to Barney (Cosmo Jarvis), a comrade in France whom Tommy helped escape an asylum so he could make use of his expert sniper skills. Tommy remarks that Barney “didn’t need all them tablets; just needed another f***ing war.” Peaky Blinders' gang-based story illuminates how the concept of war persists through supposed peacetime and explores how Tommy never came back from the war, metaphorically, but what if this concept was, in fact, a stark reality?

Tommy Shelby's Life Is Defined By The War

Peaky Blinders Tommy Shelby Episode 6 x-ray

Each of Tommy’s characteristics can be connected to his time in the war: his proclivity and penchant for violence; his frequent risk-taking; and his ruthless ambition. Tommy is not simply defined by the war in what he does, but how he lives. He cannot forget his horrific memories of war, yet the only thing that seems to keep his mind occupied is the danger of his work.

Tommy can never truly escape his memories of the war, and the violent lifestyle he maintains is as close to warfare as is possible. Tommy's attitude prior to Peaky Blinders season 6 is significantly derived from his expectation that he would die in France: he remarks that he considers his life after the war as simply “extra.” The way he describes it suggests it is a rather liberating concept, and yet it is a perspective that eternally binds him to the memory of being a soldier seemingly left for dead.

Theory: Tommy Didn't Survive His Last Mission

Tommy at a bar sitting down and looking up in Peaky Blinders

Despite the horrors and gore of Tommy’s frequent antics, it is his memories from the tunnels that haunt him. His visions frequently see him in a struggle with another soldier. Though the gore of the scene is mild compared to many of the executions carried out by gangsters in Peaky Blinders, the claustrophobic setting of the tunnel and the desperation of Tommy’s melee make the scene particularly unnerving. This is only exacerbated in Peaky Blinders season 6 when the ghosts of his past begin to encroach on his waking life with his seizures.

Related: Peaky Blinders: Why Tommy's Visions Are Back - What Illness He Has

There is also a sense of brutality in the tunnel scene. While the gang violence is a result of business between men, the combat in Tommy’s haunting memory of war seems more of a frantic bid to survive between boys. The violent scene torments Tommy, though, given his continuation in a violent occupation, it could be perceived as unusual for him to still not be desensitized to it.

Tommy is often plain-faced and dismissive as a Peaky Blinder, and perhaps this is because his life as a gangster is imagined; a glorified image of the violence he was experiencing in the war. While he brushes off the pain that happens in his life as a Peaky Blinder in Birmingham, his time in France remains visceral and real. This suggests that he could have actually died there during that more real conflict, failing in his mission as a tunneller, and everything that came after if just fantasy where the violence cannot touch him.

Tommy's Peaky Blinders' Life Is A Tragic Dying Fantasy

Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders

If Thomas Shelby did really die in the tunnels of the First World War, then the idea that Tommy’s life as a Peaky Blinder is surprisingly plausible. Throughout Peaky Blinders, Tommy’s rise to power is somewhat fantastical, even if this trajectory is considerably linear through each season. His collaboration with high-ranking government officials, and his election as a Member of Parliament himself, can feel like unrealistic ventures for a man whose prior work experience is in the yeomanry and a razor blade gang. Granted, Tommy’s status as a war hero works in his favor, but the absurdity of his ascension seems like the product of an almost childlike wish fulfillment.

Tommy himself gives insight into the effect of war on a young mind, remarking that the younger generation “didn’t fight, so they’re different, they stay kids.” It’s a powerful line that portrays the loss of innocence that came with the brutality of war. The absurd extent of Tommy’s success following the war could be an indication that it is an imagined life, and that Tommy died before Peaky Blinders, never leaving the war, and also forever “staying a kid.”

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Admittedly, amidst Tommy’s meteoric rise, he encounters setbacks, tragedies, and near-death experiences. Yet Tommy continues to survive and succeed, almost as if his troubles are simply the Reaper reminding him that his life is a lie and he cannot change his cruel fate. Tommy said that he couldn’t hear the shovels against the wall when he was with Grace (Annabelle Wallis), and her voice that so often calls him home could be his displeasure in his own illusion, and his attempt to give up the fight.

Tommy Repeatedly Hearing "In The Bleak Midwinter" Is A Reminder Of His Dying

Peaky Blinders Tommy Shelby Never Eats Explained

Though it is commonly sung as a Christmas carol, In The Bleak Midwinter was sung by the soon-to-be Peaky Blinders during their time in France, as the cavalry was late and they expected they had been left to die. The carol’s initial line is uttered many times in the show, often in recognition of ill fate or sinister circumstances. The Shelby brothers frequently recite the carol when they are anticipating their own death, however, it is also occasionally audible in more subtle circumstances during Peaky Blinders, notably at Grace and Tommy’s wedding.

The utterance of the carol acts as a form of acceptance, as it acknowledges the characters’ survival during the war, and anticipates not their death, as such, but the end of their “extra” amount of life. The comfort Tommy takes in reciting In The Bleak Midwinter, however, may not be a tolerance of death, but the reassurance that he cannot die – it is his fantasy, after all. Tommy provides a complex lead character in Peaky Blinders. The effects of the war on him are enduring, and the success that followed, unfathomable. It is plausible to suggest, therefore, that his life is imagined, and his death-wish perhaps represents desperation for control over the life that was taken from him.

Next: Peaky Blinders Season 6 Cast Guide: All New & Returning Characters