[SPOILER] Plot Discussion Thread *Spoiler Alert*

[Alardem]

Funny thing about the 'Man in the Coffin' - at first glance, I thought it was Lily. Wasn't the Machine also originally meant to resurrect Mandus' loved ones?

[LarryV]

I was listening to the soundtrack (it's on Spotify) and there's a track called We Are The Pig. And it has Mandus talking to another person (Professor), the prof wanting to the meet the engineer, Mandus putting the prof in a pitch black room, prof sounding confused, Mandus hits the prof with something blunt, and Mandus saying, "We are the pig Professor. We are all the pig."

I believe the professor just became another victim for the machine. no major role.

But I sure as hell will got to Spotify now. Thx for the tip

Some stuff that I dug from the files...



The "incubator" thing that's been mentioned here before is an iron lung, or so it's called in the files. Unfortunately the person inside is just called a male corpse, so no clarification as to who he is.

I think that's the Professor Mandus was talking to.



I was listening to the soundtrack (it's on Spotify) and there's a track called We Are The Pig. And it has Mandus talking to another person (Professor), the prof wanting to the meet the engineer, Mandus putting the prof in a pitch black room, prof sounding confused, Mandus hits the prof with something blunt, and Mandus saying, "We are the pig Professor. We are all the pig."

The professor was killed.

I am the architect. I am the saboteur. I am the man who murdered his children. I am the man who stood in the duck pond with his dead wife in his arms, wishing the water would bring her back to him. I am the voice on the telephone, I am the butcher who skinned the Professor and beat God to death against the air loom. Only one question remains now. Am I also The Machine?

Ahhh, okay. I'm going by memory here, so I've forgotten some things.

Thanks for the heads up

[Methusalem]

Some stuff that I dug from the files...

The "incubator" thing that's been mentioned here before is an iron lung, or so it's called in the files. Unfortunately the person inside is just called a male corpse, so no clarification as to who he is.

Is it possible that Mandus was terminally infected with polio or a different lung disease he caught in Mexico ?
Didn't the people outside the factory talk about him as being confined to his bed ?

please correct me if I'm wrong

---

How did he get his heart ripped out at the end of the game if it had already been ripped out beforehand? And if it was an out-of-body experience, why are the manpigs able to cause him corporeal harm?

It's symbolic, the soul tries to reinact the moment of death by entering the machine. It's like a delay. He's following the path of his physical body. I know it's weird, I'm really not sure about that.

The pigmen might be dual entities. Remember TeslaPig, it had some trouble deciding on which side of the veil it wants to be.

[Petch1984]

My favourite part was seeing all the Pig-men in their cells. It was quite a sad scene (and funny when one slips over trying to run at you). After that the game was less intense for me... I was the real monster haha.

[bluel0bster]

My favourite part was seeing all the Pig-men in their cells. It was quite a sad scene (and funny when one slips over trying to run at you). After that the game was less intense for me... I was the real monster haha.

I thought that scene was brilliant, having us sympathize on some level with the monsters.

[JPTS]

My favourite part was seeing all the Pig-men in their cells. It was quite a sad scene (and funny when one slips over trying to run at you). After that the game was less intense for me... I was the real monster haha.

I agree with you. Until that part of the game I was moving slowly and got scared even in places with no monsters. But after seeing the pigs, they were not scary anymore. However, that was the moment when the story started getting crazy. And when I was back in the surface, it was so insane that they were scary again.

[bluel0bster]

So I'm not sure if these is a reference to Brennenburg or not, feel like it might be the coat of arms. Seemed just a little too conspicuous for it's surroundings:

Spoiler below!

[LarryV]

My favourite part was seeing all the Pig-men in their cells. It was quite a sad scene (and funny when one slips over trying to run at you). After that the game was less intense for me... I was the real monster haha.

Sad indeed but powerful. They were so pathetic and damaged and it's damning to see what out protagonist did to them.

That whole level hits you hard and puts in clarity the damage of your creation and madness.

[pikmintaro]

But how is Alexander, Oswald's uncle? did he have children with a human woman? that's what I thought at first too.

think again. you don't need to have children to be an uncle.

Yeah, but that means that Mandus was the child of one of Alexander's brothers or sisters, and I don't think he had any because he got kicked out of some other dimension or something, it's all pretty confusing to me.

Does he just think Alexander is his uncle? that's the only thing I can think of.

As for the Pigs being scary, I thought they were cool looking, but they weren't really scary to me, especially when you look out the window close to the start of the game, and see one of them driving a truck! (The truck passed by quickly, so I reloaded my quicksave to see if I could see a driver, and yes there was one of the Pigs driving it!) however I really like them a lot as characters, and they are some of my favorite monsters in any game I have played, whereas in The Dark Descent, the Grunts had a lot of charm to them, but they were probably my least favorite thing about the game.

[MysteriousFawx]

Just making sure with everyone that I understood this correctly in the game. There is a note stating how if a subject is reanimated using the formula they still suffer from the wound/affliction that killed them previously. (He commented about having to shoot a subject in the skull to end its suffering)
So they state the most humane method is to drown the subjects and then revive them by flooding their lungs with the solution....correct?

So is the man in the iron lung kept alive because he was supposed to be reanimated, before this knowledge was gained? I mean surely most of the point about being able to bring the dead back is to return his wife and children, but being unable to do so because of how they died.

All I know is this game gave me a lot of information from different sides, perspectives and accounts. Also leaving me with a lot of questions.

Personally I believe the idea that Mandus himself is in the iron lung, kept alive to power the machine, leaving you to play a fractured psyche similar to how the electro pig works, trapped between worlds. Which explains the teleportation, things appearing and disappearing, the memory states and to some extent the amnesia.

I'm sure many will cast this aside but my theory is that Mandus had the trip, found the orb, returned and built his machine using orphans and workhouses under the guise of it being a giant slaughterhouse for pigs (there was no 'one' helper, that is the 'other Mandus' inside his head that was created with the orbs discovery). From here Mandus sacrifices his children and the psyche breaks, causing him to desperately try and work out how to bring them back, creating the pig men, further falling into insanity and gaining the messiah complex of wanting to purify and save everyone. Now, having gained his pig army, which is stated to be able to rise to the street and capture 'hundreds of feet' whenever required, his goal was complete, it is autonomus. At this point he removes his own heart, which is seen powering (?) the tower, alongside his two children (seen beside the sacrificial table). At this point, with his soul torn apart and unable to let go because of the evil deeds he has done, he seeks redemption. Awakens in his bed with no recollection of his past, walking through a world that is neither truth or lie, never truly able to see himself, remember that there are no mirrors as the pig men seeing themselves is the most unsettling.... What is more terrifying is that you could have played the entire game as a pig yourself and not known it.

The writing in this was fantastic, thoroughly enjoyed it.