Amnesia: Justine Discussion Topic

[Diz]

1. & 13: I think you've hit a pretty interesting point here. Psychopathy is more to do with personality than memory, there's no reason she should have been any less of a nutter just because she'd forgotten the previous week or two of her life. I think it's just a plot hole, to be honest.

Why doesn't Justine recognise her own voice on the recordings? The Amnesia mixture doesn't erase your entire life from birth (if the original game is anything to go by). Daniel remembers his own name after all, he even remembers his fuckin' address!

She is still waking up somewhere appearing to have no memory left, and if you wake up in a dungeon, thinking you are a prisoner, fearing for your life and witnessing scary things, I think it makes at least a little sense that she is a little quiet, if not terrified. You wake up with no recollection and have the impression of being in a dangerous game out of her own control, so she probably focuses more on surviving and defeating the unknown rather than mocking the prisoners.

Justine does not recognize her voice because she never speaks until the bitter end. Perhaps she is too terrified to speak or make a sound throughout the game, trying to be as silent as possible. When instinctively trying to flee, fearing for one's life, from a madman's game and being in the heat of the moment, there is a chance that it might be enough to push one's own personal disorders aside until things calm down a tad.

Daniel remembers his own name and address because he was very determined on remembering those very facts, repeating them over and over again until he finally fainted, something Justine might not have done, and Daniel's amnesia drink might not have been entirely successful either. Also, the Orb holds many mysterious powers, including the power of memory, which may be the reason why he had all the flashbacks to begin with. It haunted Daniel with nightmares and memories of deaths of those he made contact with, although he was asleep in his own bed while it happened. The Orb might give him his memories back over time. In fact, did you ever wonder why Daniel had flashbacks that were in no way related to him? It is said to be due to having been in contact with the Orb.

11: At the very beginning of the game you awaken in a cell with a suitor standing outside. Whether or not the suitor is supposed to have imprisoned you himself (which only raises further questions) or if he just peeked through the barred door on a whim, why doesn't he just bash the door in and kill Justine right there and then?

The suitors are more or less blind, or at least one of them is, as hinted towards in a recording, and judging by how it looks like they were all treated the same, I assume all of them are, and instead having a great sense of listening. The suitor in the dark likely hears you stumbling in the crates and whatnot (even if you actually don't), and the third one, well, there is water.

This is an interesting point, but when I think about it, I doubt any of the suitors would ever help Justine. One of them wants to eat her flesh, the other one wants to rip her head off and the final one would kill her just so she would never leave him again, thus I believe she imprisoned herself by her own. This is also why I believe the suitor did not do anything. He did not hear anything, or he did not believe it was Justine, for some reason.

12: Each suitor sounds like they're wheezing through a slit throat whilst being strangled. Why, then, are they able to speak so clearly when they want to? "Justine, my love" etc.? Are they faking vocal problems to get disability benefits?

Also an interesting and intriguing point, and I came up with something today. Something always bothered me about them talking, so my conclusion is that they do not talk at all. Why, you ask? Listen closely when they speak. It does not sound like somebody is speaking. It sounds like telepathy, just like in The Dark Descent when Alexander was speaking to you or the servants, or whenever Daniel was thinking to himself or having a flashback. Daniel is able to receive some of the telepathic communications meant for the servants. "What, he escaped? Where is he now?" I believe this is because Daniel had touched and invoked the powers of the Orb.

If you listen to the suitors speaking, they speak in a similar haunted manner, thus they may not be speaking at all. They may simply be thinking hard about finding Justine, and Justine being able to pick up on this. I am not too certain, and I will be replaying Justine today to see if I can find out more about it, but I am pretty sure there were a few references to her knowing about and possibly even having played with one of the Orbs, especially near the end, ie. "what will that perfect sphere bring?" and Daniel's note asking for expertise on Orb in case she would have any knowledge related to such. I may be going a little deep into this. Then again, Amnesia is a very deep game ... =)

15: How did Justine time everything so perfectly? That is, her amnesia wears off right at the moment she's about to be crushed to death at the very end of her obstacle course. "This was the best one yet!"

Very good question, indeed. I can only suspect that the shock and being traumatized by literally almost dying, anticipating death closing in, must have somehow awoken her memory to life. I have no idea. What we do know is that she had played with this sort of amnesia effect previous in time and was well familiar with it. It might also have been that she was out cold for an extended period of time, long enough for the amnesia effect to wear off, which could explain how the surviving prisoners caught up.

Also, did anyone notice how the tomb's graves react depending on who you save? I started feeling that these open graves were dedicated to the prisoners, and when you let a prisoner die, the skeleton of that prisoner is placed in the grave, but when you approach it, it absorbs into the ground. Really creeped me out!