[SPOILER] Plot Discussion Thread *Spoiler Alert*

[charuchii]

If we assume Mandus' great-uncle is Daniel, would that make the normal ending of TDD the official one? The one where Daniel kills Alexander is the only one where he gets to escape Brennenburg unharmed, and his ambiguous monologue would suggest that he hasn't learned anything from his lesson - he continues to be a self-righteous, blameless coward, willing to shift the responsibility for his evil deeds onto someone else.

Didn't Daniel's sister (he had a sister, right?) died like.. in her teens?

She was really sick, but it is never explicitly said she died. In fact, there is a loading screen that says when Daniel went off to Algeria, she had already lived two years longer than expected.

[Kein]

I got to page 33 of this thread and suddenly it hit me. (Forgive me if this has been mentioned since then)
Oswald Mandus
Ozzy Mandus
Ozymandias

yet again a bit slow here, people figured it out when the name was just revealed in the premise during development.

Alright, first post here...
I have a theory on who Mandus' great-uncle is. I am kind of curious what people think of it and I'd like to discuss this theory with people. I typed this before on a personal blog of mine (I'm gonna directly copy and paste it) but I didn't get any proper response to this. If anyone would be willing to read it and give their thought on it, I would much appreciate it, it's a bit TL;DR tho. And if there are any grammar errors, I'm sorry, I hope it'll still be understandable.

Spoiler below!

During the game there are a few notes mentioning or referencing the previous game:





Both of these talk about a “Brennenburg” Mixture, which seems to be Agrippa’s tonic. This is all very interesting, but not what I want to talk about. This is the note I think is important:



If you read through it, it reveals some information about how Mandus got the idea of creating the pig monster, going to Brennenburg and getting a Grunt. He mentions his great uncle experimented on people.

Well this obviously refers to Alexander, right?

Wrong. Here’s the thing, Alexander did not seem to care much for humans. He wanted to return to his own dimension because there was nothing left for him in the dimension he was trapped in (let’s call this our own dimension to make it a bit easier). He did not seem to have a very intimate relationship with humans. It wasn’t that he did not care for humans, he seemed to care for Daniel and he seemed to be friends with Herbert, but it always felt like he looked down on humans, maybe thinking of them as we do for our pets. And he had “his love” to return to, which he seemed very faithful to. So being married to a human seems out of the question (I am going to assume Alexander did not have siblings that could have had children living in our dimension) .

Daniel, on the other hand, had a sister. We know she was very sick, but there are clues she might have gotten better and lived. She could have gotten married and had children. Or Daniel himself might have gotten married with a woman who had siblings. Either way, it seems much more likely for Daniel to have a nephew or niece that got children of their own.

Also, remember where the game takes place: London, England. The same city Daniel came from. This makes his relation to Daniel even more likely.

But the thing that makes me convinced this is the connection between the two games is this: How would Mandus know about the Grunts and Brennenburg if no one told him?

Despite that I feel Alexander is very good in keeping his true identity safe, seeing as he probably arrived in our dimension in the 16th century and there was little suspicion on him until the 19th century, he also had to be there to tell his tales.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent has three different endings you can get in four different ways. The first time you can get an ending, is when Daniel is captured in prison. If he does not escape in time, the Shadow comes and kills him. The other three times is in the final battle against Alexander. Depending on how the battle goes, you can:

- Fail stopping Alexander, which results in Daniel dying and Alexander going back to his dimension

- Stop Alexander by throwing Agrippa’s head in the portal, which results in Alexander evaporating and Daniel… Dying? Going to another dimension? I don’t know, it’s kind of vague.

- Stop Alexander by pushing over the pillars used to open the portal, resulting in Alexander dying and Daniel walking out of the castle as a new man.

Only in the last ending, there is someone to tell the tale. Daniel. In the other endings, either Daniel or Alexander die and the other one goes… somewhere. Most likely never returning to our dimension. And even if they were able to return, it would most likely be Daniel to do this, seeing as he HAS a reason to return: His old life, his sister whom he cared for. So again, it is the most likely Daniel would be the one to tell the story.

I doubt Daniel would just go around and spread his tale everywhere. I don’t think people would like you very much if you claimed you tortured and killed hundreds of innocent people for your own selfish reasons. No, it is very possible Daniel never spoke a word about what happened in Brennenburg. However, Daniel is a frequent writer. He started keeping a journal in Algeria, which he continued in Brennenburg. It is possible he continued writing after he returned. Or maybe he did stop writing, because he wrote all that he could and perhaps never got rid of all of the notes he found in Brennenburg. Perhaps he was too scared to throw those away, in fear of repercussions in case they were found. Perhaps he did destroy all those notes, but was there one thing he just couldn’t: If he did not throw Agrippa’s head into the portal, then what happen to it (besides it talking to Daniel in a never ending eternal torture)?

I don’t think Daniel and Mandus ever met each other. The way Mandus writes about his great uncle is not in a way one would talk about someone they know, it’s too distant. But I do think Mandus found something Daniel left behind, be it a new journal where he wrote his stories, his old notes, Agrippa’s head or a combination of the three, Mandus discovered Daniel’s story. Perhaps he found them when he was young and started reading them, being raised with Daniel’s journey. Or perhaps he started reading them after his wife passed away, to try and relief his grief. He might have read or heard the story about a man going through a horrible, frightening experience, fighting for his life, taking matters in own hand and surviving, despite what terrifying things life threw at him. A man who’s life changed after his expedition in Algeria.

Perhaps Mandus figured, he too, should undertake a life changing expedition…

I think we all agreed before it was Daniel? Many people seems to came to the same conclusion.

[Ghieri]

I think we all agreed before it was Daniel? Many people seems to came to the same conclusion.

But Daniel didn't make the grunts. Also, someone else pointed out that you do not have to have blood relation to be an uncle, so I think Alexander was the uncle.

[Alardem]

I think it was left deliberately vague whether Mandus is related to Alexander or Daniel, because both men have their own problems - why would Daniel take responsibility for Alexander's experiments? Why would Alexander be related to any humans?

I personally lean towards Alexander being Oswald's ancestor, simply because they're both evil aristocrats. Maybe Daniel, after some time in recuperation, returned to salvage whatever he could from Brennenburg? Or perhaps by 'experiments', Mandus was referring to the extraction of Vitae?

[VaeVictis]

I think it was left deliberately vague whether Mandus is related to Alexander or Daniel, because both men have their own problems - why would Daniel take responsibility for Alexander's experiments? Why would Alexander be related to any humans?

Maybe Daniel, after some time in recuperation, returned to salvage whatever he could from Brennenburg? Or perhaps by 'experiments', Mandus was referring to the extraction of Vitae?

That's how I read it. I mean, no matter what ending from the TDD you go with, it seems to be a stretch of speculation to name either Daniel or Alexander as 'uncle.'

[Kein]

I think we all agreed before it was Daniel? Many people seems to came to the same conclusion.

But Daniel didn't make the grunts. Also, someone else pointed out that you do not have to have blood relation to be an uncle, so I think Alexander was the uncle.

Alexander wasn't from this world, he couldn't have any of the relatives. Besides, Oswalddidn't knew in details what Daniel was up to. He knew that he spent quite some time in Brennenburg doing some shady stuff with baron, like extracting Vitae. He knew about orb Daniel found. So he may as well thinking that Daniel participated in the golems (Grunt/Brute) creations along with Alexander.

There is even less reasons for Mandus be related to Alexander than to Daniel, I think this is obvious.

[Potato]

If we assume Mandus' great-uncle is Daniel, would that make the normal ending of TDD the official one? The one where Daniel kills Alexander is the only one where he gets to escape Brennenburg unharmed, and his ambiguous monologue would suggest that he hasn't learned anything from his lesson - he continues to be a self-righteous, blameless coward, willing to shift the responsibility for his evil deeds onto someone else.

Didn't Daniel's sister (he had a sister, right?) died like.. in her teens?

She was really sick, but it is never explicitly said she died. In fact, there is a loading screen that says when Daniel went off to Algeria, she had already lived two years longer than expected.

It all depends on how the player 'played the game'. There's either a loading screen that implied Hazel died, or one that says she lived longer than expected and bid Daniel a safe trip to Algeria.

[VaeVictis]

If we assume Mandus' great-uncle is Daniel, would that make the normal ending of TDD the official one? The one where Daniel kills Alexander is the only one where he gets to escape Brennenburg unharmed, and his ambiguous monologue would suggest that he hasn't learned anything from his lesson - he continues to be a self-righteous, blameless coward, willing to shift the responsibility for his evil deeds onto someone else.

Didn't Daniel's sister (he had a sister, right?) died like.. in her teens?

She was really sick, but it is never explicitly said she died. In fact, there is a loading screen that says when Daniel went off to Algeria, she had already lived two years longer than expected.

It all depends on how the player 'played the game'. There's either a loading screen that implied Hazel died, or one that says she lived longer than expected and bid Daniel a safe trip to Algeria.

That was taken out of the official game, though. Hazel lived to see Daniel off to Algeria.

[ReadingNotAllowed]

If we assume Mandus' great-uncle is Daniel, would that make the normal ending of TDD the official one? The one where Daniel kills Alexander is the only one where he gets to escape Brennenburg unharmed, and his ambiguous monologue would suggest that he hasn't learned anything from his lesson - he continues to be a self-righteous, blameless coward, willing to shift the responsibility for his evil deeds onto someone else.

Didn't Daniel's sister (he had a sister, right?) died like.. in her teens?

She was really sick, but it is never explicitly said she died. In fact, there is a loading screen that says when Daniel went off to Algeria, she had already lived two years longer than expected.

It all depends on how the player 'played the game'. There's either a loading screen that implied Hazel died, or one that says she lived longer than expected and bid Daniel a safe trip to Algeria.

That was taken out of the official game, though. Hazel lived to see Daniel off to Algeria.

No it wasn't. In the developer commentary you hear them talk about it being in the game. :L

[VaeVictis]

Didn't Daniel's sister (he had a sister, right?) died like.. in her teens?

She was really sick, but it is never explicitly said she died. In fact, there is a loading screen that says when Daniel went off to Algeria, she had already lived two years longer than expected.

It all depends on how the player 'played the game'. There's either a loading screen that implied Hazel died, or one that says she lived longer than expected and bid Daniel a safe trip to Algeria.

That was taken out of the official game, though. Hazel lived to see Daniel off to Algeria.

No it wasn't. In the developer commentary you hear them talk about it being in the game. :L

Really? I've played through several times with all endings and never had it implied otherwise...