i mean the Clog isn't 'protecting' swirly D since the Clog is essentially preventing Swirly D from escaping the Toilet realm and Suckerpunch maybe wants to free Swirly by defeating the Clog but failed due to not using the plunger, since the plunger is the only thing that can significantly damage the Clog hence why he called the plungers 'tools of war'
Viewing post in Theory of Juice Galaxy time!
But why would he want to free Swirly D? If Plungers are tools of war, that means that swirling people is easier (because the toilet wouldn't be clogged); so, I can see why you would think the Sgt. would be connected to Swirly D-- but why would such a man as he be wanting to free Swirly D? I feel like he must of been either lied to by a commander higher than him, or nobody had any knowledge of a Swirly D and just wanted the toilet to be unclogged for their own use.
If it is the first one with an upper commander lying to him, what a sad story, I hope it is expanded on and you can defeat the upper Sgt.(s)
If it is the second one. how? If you are invading or warring you would think you would know what the other side had, unless Swirly D is super ancient and people forgot about him (unless it's some sort of magic the "Master" put on Swirly D so people forgot about him so they wouldn't try to get him out? It maybe could happen like that, so when he got out the magic was broken and people remembered him again, unless it was just Swirly D swirling everyone into remembering him)
It's really just a hypothesis that Suckerpunch wanted to free Swirly but encounters the Clog, which he tried to defeat but failed because Suckerpunch didn't use a plunger at the time. Suckerpunch eventually declares "war" and battles the clog many times. After many attempts, he lost his limbs but learns of the Clog's weakness which are plungers, so using the help of someone, something, or magic, he eventually replaces his limbs with plungers to fight the Clog. However, he still fails due to not being used to using plungers as limbs. So, he trains in the room before the Clog encounter and becomes quite adapt to having plungers as limbs, eventually he encountered the player and decides to give a plunger to the player just to see if the player can defeat the Clog. Which the player did, and Swirly D escapes pressumeably with Suckerpunch.
I look forward to a second encounter with Suckerpunch.
Something that I find interesting in all of this Swirly D / Suckerpunch business is that it's initially ambiguous who is speaking after the Clog is defeated, since the voice actor for Sergeant Suckerpunch is the same as the one for Swirly D. Given how there have been other voice actors for other characters it seems that this decision to have the same person voice both Swirly D and Suckerpunch while giving a similar vocal delivery was deliberate. Maybe it wasn't, but I've seen enough people get confused about who is initially speaking in the cutscene after the Clog fight that the similarity between the two voices probably wasn't a developer oversight. After all, Suckerpunch and/or Swirly D could have been voiced by a TTS instead, but they both have the same human actor, with a fairly similar delivery (minus Swirly D sounding more mischievous and nasally - the delivery is most different just before he disappears saying "time to go swirly some nerds").
All in all, even when not considering the plot, it seems like there are some connections between Swirly D and Suckerpunch that Fishlicka put in that are, at least from my point of view, intentional.