Boy Swallows Universe was completely about the boy, aka Eli, and the crime syndicate run by Tytus Broz and Ivan Kroll was just a part of the background that brought out the best and worst of Eli as a human being. The entire series plays out from Eli’s perspective, so everything we know about the villains is also what Eli has told us through this series. We will be adding some speculation of our own to that and understanding the complex crime syndicate that Tytus Broz and Ivan Kroll had constructed and one that Eli Bell single-handedly brought down.
Spoiler Alert
Who was Tytus Broz?
Boy Swallows Universe was set against the underworld of Australia in the 1980s. Usually, crime operates through organized chaos. There will be a lot of free players all over the place, generated by the system or the circumstances, and they are all gathered under one umbrella, controlled by a single kingpin. Tytus Broz was that kingpin. And he was insane, in the way a psychopath is. To the entire world, Tytus Broz was a philanthropist who worked for a noble cause, which was to help people with functional disabilities have substitute body parts. He said that he had decided on this line of business because of his daughter, who had been born with a missing limb. We believe that he was telling the truth, except that he wasn’t telling the whole truth. Maybe his daughter’s problems pushed Tytus to think about this business, but it took an illegal turn because of his own greed.
In the real world, Tytus had to have been already running this business. If nothing else, it served as an excellent source of money laundering, which probably got some great tax exemptions considering the industry and Tytus’s other charities. Tytus must also have had some real clients whom he supplied with the required bionic parts, to great success. But this was all a careful front.
Our guess is that when Tytus started this business, he came across people who were willing to pay a lot for the real thing. This would just be an extension of illegal organ harvesting, and when Tytus saw the money it would bring, he jumped at the opportunity. The situation could also have been reversed. Maybe Tytus was already involved in illegal organ harvesting when he saw the benefit of creating a facade that would help his business. Nobody would question why a person working with bionic limbs was constantly ordering a large amount of medical equipment or why they needed access to scientists and laboratories. This was the most natural cover that Tytus could come up with and is proof of his genius as well as his madness.
It is natural that Tytus wouldn’t have been involved in just one illegal business. He was also involved in the distribution of drugs and a lot more things. To protect his own name, he used people who worked on his behalf and kept his name out of the muck. Bich Dang was one such person. People thought that she called the shots, but she herself was on Tytus’ payroll. Lyle was working for her, and he was stealing by mixing up her drugs with impurities and keeping the extra profits. Lyle worked with quite a few people, so someone must have ratted him out. Maybe it was Teddy, or maybe someone else. Maybe someone overdosed on the drugs and landed in one of Tytus’ hospitals (he must have one), and they traced it back to Bich, who gave up Lyle since he was the culprit. However, it happened, Tytus recovered his losses by harvesting Lyle’s body parts and organs. He threw away the leg because it had Frankie’s name on it, meaning it couldn’t be used. We did question why he kept Lyle’s head stored away. When Bich is dying, she mentions something about Tytus’ experiments. Maybe Tytus was trying to grow organs or clone them, and that is why he kept Lyle’s head to test out his ideas. Either way, Tytus was an evil man whose madness knew no bounds.
Who is Ivan Kroll?
Ivan Kroll is that person who is used to strike fear in the hearts of transgressors. Ivan had always been cruel, and someone tried to make him pay for it by disfiguring his face. Ivan got his revenge, but he just became worse. We did not see much of Ivan, but what we understood was that this man was driven by bloodlust. He did not care for rationality, care, or caution, but only about whether he managed to secure the kill he had set out for. It was this very ruthlessness that Tytus made use of when keeping his employees in check. They were all criminals, and reprimands would never work on people who needed a fearsome face to jump to take their lives from them. Tytus had told Ivan to kill Bich Dang in the way she preferred. Ivan gave her the syringe as she asked, but he couldn’t tolerate that she was dying a peaceful death of her choice, which is why he put the pillow on her face. We also questioned why Tytus killed Tim Cotton.
It was unnecessary and a risk, considering he was a police officer. Additionally, Tim was just cautioning Ivan and asking him to be careful. But the moment Ivan was displeased, he needed to see blood, and Tim became the victim. When Ivan was chasing Eli and Caitlyn, it would have been wiser for him not to go on the killing spree in the building. Eli showed people that the head of Lyle and Tytus was arrested. But he may have been able to deny it, buy people off to keep quiet, or do any number of other things, considering how extensive his influence and wealth were. But Ivan made a public spectacle of the whole thing, closing all doors of escape for Tytus. That is because Tytus was never a priority for Ivan. He loved killing, and nothing mattered in the face of an opportunity to do so, which is why he chased Eli till the very end. Tytus was just the man who gave Ivan new targets to satisfy his bloodlust. In so many ways, it is possible that Ivan Kroll was more responsible than Eli for Tytus Broz’s downfall.
