[SPOILER] Plot Discussion Thread *Spoiler Alert*

[Integria]

I just realized something. Isn't it downright impossible for someone to have managed the initial sabotage while they descended downwards?

Intriguing. The gates are far too heavy for a man to lift and are
instead hoisted aloft by a chain coiled about a tube that appears to be
spun by motors connected to these electrical switches. Whilst the fuse
is blown, the motor cannot be spun, and the gates will remain an
impenetrable barrier to progress.


Indeed, I remember that part. You fix each fusebox in turn, and each opens up the path onwards. If one were to break each in sequence, it'd have to be while backtracking through the complex. Consequently I'd make the assumption that the saboteur had to be coming from below.

Hm, perhaps he was already hooked up to the machine, and broke free, sabotaging it along the way.

I never thought the chair he sat in at the end actually made sense as a heart-removal device. The end of the arms had what looked like pronged connectors that you would see in electrical equipment. Also, wasn't his heart already assumed to have been removed and held in the South Tower, connected to, you guessed it, similar looking arms with pronged connectors on the end?

Perhaps the machine needs him hooked up in that chair in order to run, or maybe he can only truly destroy the machine by re-interfacing with it.

Regardless, I am now at least certain (in my opinion) that the chair with the arms at the end was not some funky heart-removal device, but was in face an interface to the machine itself.

Likewise, and in all honesty I don't think their purpose IS to remove the heart. I'd hazard a guess and say they're electric prods - their appearences at the tips look exactly like cattle prods. Also, they are the same things holding the heart just before you arrive there, giving it an electric shock. The electric shock is administered after you activate four glass objects containing an electrical charge (these are refered to as 'glass harmonicas'). All this sounds similar, doesn't it?

[...] build an electrical charge, which is contained within glass vacuum canisters at the sides of the stunning arm machanisms and delivered along the stun arms via copper cabling.

I'm increasingly of the belief that Mandus' heart isn't ripped out at the end. He's simply subdued, and I have no clue where he goes. Back up again perhaps, to start all over?

A lot of the instruments we repaired after the initial sabotage, we sabotage again. The fuses might merely have been blown by the sudden release of the energy sustained (sounds flimsy, though).

Also, still toying with the idea that Mandus is already in an insane asylum, the manpigs are other patients or orderlies. Can't seem to find much to support it though, aside from the fact that our character is dellusional, suffers illusions of grandior and most assuredly is paranoid schizophrenic.

Also, the sabotage did certainly start at the heart of his machine, and he must've worked his way BACK up from there. Consider:

The bastard has been here too! This is the epicentre of his meddlings - this is where it began, and this is where it will end. I will seek the source of this obstruction and then I will render this sabotage impotent once and for all!

[grrrz]

Phew, have been reading through the 50 pages for the last 2 hours and now I will add my own thoughts to the story.

----------------------

Mandus went to Mexico in February 1899, returning in March. The game takes place December 31st 1899. Am I the only one wondering how this really huge machine could've been built in such a short period of time? It's simply impossible imho. I mean ok, the artifact might have helped with the plans, but the actual work had to be done, and judged by the limited possibilitys in that age -> no way! Even today it would take way more time to complete such a complex.

So he went on the journey with the kids, already in a weakend state of mind according to some of the notes (money problems etc). He finds an artefact and the artefact drives him even more crazy.
If Orb or not doesn't play a vital role in this I believe, maybe it was an Orb to link the story to be set in the same universe as TDD, but no more. He has visions of the future. He returns with his two sons still alive, but is more weak than ever and becomes bedridden (there are notes from Jeremiah about this). The visions about his dead wife and the future of his sons are driving him even more into madness. So in his mind the machine is building up, a manifestiation of the madness in it's fortress.

So anytime later he actually kills/or try to kill his sons. The "machine" (aka his crazy side) takes over for a second and he kills/tries to kill them. I say try/tries because I am not sure if they are really dead if my understanding of the events is in any form true.
Understanding what he has done leaves him in an state of hibernation. In his mind, the "machines" rage continues and his darkest fantasies driven by his neverending guilt and disgust of himself reflected on all of humanity (->manpig) come true. In my opionion he is sitting somewhere in a sanatorium or even at home in bed. But we never see the true reality in this game.

It's also interesting that he has this conversations with the professor. I think he is in the real world, he trys to help him. But the machine kills of every voice of reason and throws them into himsef. But maybe the professor pushed through for a second and for a short glimpse his sanity pushes also through and wants to undone everything.
So the last sane part of himself goes on a journey, and that is where our game begins.

In my opinion (and that was already mentioned by others) the machine doesn't exist. It is an embodiment of Mandus mind INSIDE Mandus mind. He is on a journey into his own mind to regain conciousness. All the notes we find contain information from the real world but they are intermingled and/or rewritten with stuff the "machine" did in his mind (the slaughtering ect). I mean seriously, inside the church are two statuettes of the holy mother displayed with pigfaces and holding little pigs breastfeeding on their dugs. If you would build a church like that for real you are in big trouble as soon as someone sees that and talks to certain people. In that age people still were much more religious than these days and this is some of the highest forms of blasphemy. These are all signs for me that this is not happening in the real world.

And in the end, he encounters his dark part in the iron lung. He is about to win back the conciousness, sanity is restoring fast. The "machine" is begging, but he knows what to do. The title of the last chapter has been already discussed, it is named "Edwin, Enoch, Oswald and I".

I (Mandus) is us, the player, the sane part.
Edwin literally means "belonging friend".
Enoch is a mysterious biblic shape which is taken from the earth (disappeared) before it's dead(!).

You can read all this on Wikipedia.

The man on the phone NEVER says Oswald. We are only approached as Mandus. So the man in the iron lung is Oswald, the dark twin, his crazy side. The heart in the southern Tower is Oswald's. He didn't need it anymore, only to power his hatred and rage. Destroying it brings us right to the source of this hatred and rage. And in the end Mandus realised that he had to do the same to restore the balance.

Conclusion: The final words about a dying god and a silence never known is a mind finally at peace. Through all the madness he hears way up in the real world the bells ringing for the birth of the new century while the manpigs are drifting away to silence. And in the last cut we se again the twins (that's why I don't know if they are really dead), and maybe Oswald Mandus (now restored as a whole) has a vision of the two, walking into a future he knows he is no longer part of.

----------------------------

I know, lot of thoughts. Maybe I'm completely wrong. Maybe you can interpret yourself to madness while trying to understand everything. I enjoyed the game a lot, it still has a lasting effect on me (as we can see) and this won't change so soon. I love the machine, so I also have no problem if it is real.
Looking forward to read more of your thoughts and discussing my own!

Indeed there's so much part of the game that's completely surreal and symbolic, that the 'it's all in his head' explanation would be the most satisfactory one. The "logic" in the game can mostly be found in the symbolism. If at least all the events in the game aren't really happening (I have a strong feeling about this), then what part of the real world sunk into it, does he really have kids, did he really go to Mexico? Did he really turned people into pigs?
Again the many James Tilly Matthews reference
discussed here
http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thr...#pid260545
and the graphical depiction of the Machine (see here)
http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thr...#pid261440
suggest the whole machine is a struggle happing inside his head, and like James Tilly Matthews, he invents characters fitting his mental state (the engineer, Oswald, and maybe his children).
Again somewhere in the office he says something like "it seems like a carefully crafted factory but fake"
(and later "it seems like I'm in a big game")
There's also a troubling parrallel between Him/his double and his twins,
and the fact we hear "daddy don't kill me" at the beginning so the son could be other projections of himself. maybe too far fetched.
Also he could really be inside the iron lung, somewhere in a hospital, with a serious disease (maybe from mexico) , the iron lung becoming in his mind this convoluted machine.
In all these scenario the "Professor" seems to be real (we hear the conversations like bits of memory), and the moment he's killed would indicates he's definitely cut-off from reality.
all of this doesn't mean there couldn't be some kind of coherence inside his mental construction.

[sailornaruto39]

The game story wise is in my opinion better than The Dark Descent. when i played ATDD the story really didn't make sense.

WHile I find TDD's story rather ambiguous, what didn't make sense or better yet, how was MFP more coherent

[Kein]

Wait a gosh-darn minute....

How is Mandus not marked by the shadow if he touched the orb?(And to some extent, abusing it's power?)

Also, how much do we know about the engineer? I can only remember one reference to him, and that's a conversation between the professor and Mandus, where the Engineer is fully on-board and "has seen the evils of society" to heavily paraphrase? I'm assuming he's the guy who designed the machine?

http://amnesia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Shadow

The Shadow is the mysterious guardian of the Orbs, hunting down and killing anyone unable to fully take control of the Orb


So, obviously, Mandus is able to fully take control.

No, he doesn't. Weyer and Alexander could, Mandus had no willpower and mental strength.
Also:

That's one of my main reasons for believing that Mandus didn't find an orb but something...else. In a note, Mandus explicitly calls the orb used in Brennenburg The Orb, and is aware of the power that orbs can possess. But he never says the word orb again. He only refers to his Stone Egg and there's never a single mention or description of the Shadow, which I take to mean that this was something other than an orb, but perhaps related to it. Justine had the Soapstone that drove her insane and gave her knowledge of the orbs, maybe Mandus came across another, different kind of stone in this array of supernatural objects.

Wait a gosh-darn minute....
How is Mandus not marked by the shadow if he touched the orb?(And to some extent, abusing it's power?)

We have no idea yet. The in-game resources hints that it is may be orb indeed, but it does not work the same way as Orb so it could be something different.

[Mechavomit]

...So is it clear who his great uncle was?

[Kein]

Phew, have been reading through the 50 pages for the last 2 hours and now I will add my own thoughts to the story.

----------------------

Mandus went to Mexico in February 1899, returning in March. The game takes place December 31st 1899. Am I the only one wondering how this really huge machine could've been built in such a short period of time? It's simply impossible imho. I mean ok, the artifact might have helped with the plans, but the actual work had to be done, and judged by the limited possibilitys in that age -> no way! Even today it would take way more time to complete such a complex.

So he went on the journey with the kids, already in a weakend state of mind according to some of the notes (money problems etc). He finds an artefact and the artefact drives him even more crazy.
If Orb or not doesn't play a vital role in this I believe, maybe it was an Orb to link the story to be set in the same universe as TDD, but no more. He has visions of the future. He returns with his two sons still alive, but is more weak than ever and becomes bedridden (there are notes from Jeremiah about this). The visions about his dead wife and the future of his sons are driving him even more into madness. So in his mind the machine is building up, a manifestiation of the madness in it's fortress.

So anytime later he actually kills/or try to kill his sons. The "machine" (aka his crazy side) takes over for a second and he kills/tries to kill them. I say try/tries because I am not sure if they are really dead if my understanding of the events is in any form true.
Understanding what he has done leaves him in an state of hibernation. In his mind, the "machines" rage continues and his darkest fantasies driven by his neverending guilt and disgust of himself reflected on all of humanity (->manpig) come true. In my opionion he is sitting somewhere in a sanatorium or even at home in bed. But we never see the true reality in this game.

It's also interesting that he has this conversations with the professor. I think he is in the real world, he trys to help him. But the machine kills of every voice of reason and throws them into himsef. But maybe the professor pushed through for a second and for a short glimpse his sanity pushes also through and wants to undone everything.
So the last sane part of himself goes on a journey, and that is where our game begins.

In my opinion (and that was already mentioned by others) the machine doesn't exist. It is an embodiment of Mandus mind INSIDE Mandus mind. He is on a journey into his own mind to regain conciousness. All the notes we find contain information from the real world but they are intermingled and/or rewritten with stuff the "machine" did in his mind (the slaughtering ect). I mean seriously, inside the church are two statuettes of the holy mother displayed with pigfaces and holding little pigs breastfeeding on their dugs. If you would build a church like that for real you are in big trouble as soon as someone sees that and talks to certain people. In that age people still were much more religious than these days and this is some of the highest forms of blasphemy. These are all signs for me that this is not happening in the real world.

And in the end, he encounters his dark part in the iron lung. He is about to win back the conciousness, sanity is restoring fast. The "machine" is begging, but he knows what to do. The title of the last chapter has been already discussed, it is named "Edwin, Enoch, Oswald and I".

I (Mandus) is us, the player, the sane part.
Edwin literally means "belonging friend".
Enoch is a mysterious biblic shape which is taken from the earth (disappeared) before it's dead(!).

You can read all this on Wikipedia.

The man on the phone NEVER says Oswald. We are only approached as Mandus. So the man in the iron lung is Oswald, the dark twin, his crazy side. The heart in the southern Tower is Oswald's. He didn't need it anymore, only to power his hatred and rage. Destroying it brings us right to the source of this hatred and rage. And in the end Mandus realised that he had to do the same to restore the balance.

Conclusion: The final words about a dying god and a silence never known is a mind finally at peace. Through all the madness he hears way up in the real world the bells ringing for the birth of the new century while the manpigs are drifting away to silence. And in the last cut we se again the twins (that's why I don't know if they are really dead), and maybe Oswald Mandus (now restored as a whole) has a vision of the two, walking into a future he knows he is no longer part of.

----------------------------

I know, lot of thoughts. Maybe I'm completely wrong. Maybe you can interpret yourself to madness while trying to understand everything. I enjoyed the game a lot, it still has a lasting effect on me (as we can see) and this won't change so soon. I love the machine, so I also have no problem if it is real.
Looking forward to read more of your thoughts and discussing my own!

It seems like mind's play theories actually being a center of attention now, which I like since these are my favorites. There were few of them and they all make more sense than Dopplerganger or clones.

Besides, there is a direct references in the game to such concept, like air loom. etc.

---

...So is it clear who his great uncle was?

Daniel.

[Alardem]

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.

[VaeVictis]

Phew, have been reading through the 50 pages for the last 2 hours and now I will add my own thoughts to the story.

----------------------

Mandus went to Mexico in February 1899, returning in March. The game takes place December 31st 1899. Am I the only one wondering how this really huge machine could've been built in such a short period of time? It's simply impossible imho. I mean ok, the artifact might have helped with the plans, but the actual work had to be done, and judged by the limited possibilitys in that age -> no way! Even today it would take way more time to complete such a complex.

So he went on the journey with the kids, already in a weakend state of mind according to some of the notes (money problems etc). He finds an artefact and the artefact drives him even more crazy.
If Orb or not doesn't play a vital role in this I believe, maybe it was an Orb to link the story to be set in the same universe as TDD, but no more. He has visions of the future. He returns with his two sons still alive, but is more weak than ever and becomes bedridden (there are notes from Jeremiah about this). The visions about his dead wife and the future of his sons are driving him even more into madness. So in his mind the machine is building up, a manifestiation of the madness in it's fortress.

So anytime later he actually kills/or try to kill his sons. The "machine" (aka his crazy side) takes over for a second and he kills/tries to kill them. I say try/tries because I am not sure if they are really dead if my understanding of the events is in any form true.
Understanding what he has done leaves him in an state of hibernation. In his mind, the "machines" rage continues and his darkest fantasies driven by his neverending guilt and disgust of himself reflected on all of humanity (->manpig) come true. In my opionion he is sitting somewhere in a sanatorium or even at home in bed. But we never see the true reality in this game.

It's also interesting that he has this conversations with the professor. I think he is in the real world, he trys to help him. But the machine kills of every voice of reason and throws them into himsef. But maybe the professor pushed through for a second and for a short glimpse his sanity pushes also through and wants to undone everything.
So the last sane part of himself goes on a journey, and that is where our game begins.

In my opinion (and that was already mentioned by others) the machine doesn't exist. It is an embodiment of Mandus mind INSIDE Mandus mind. He is on a journey into his own mind to regain conciousness. All the notes we find contain information from the real world but they are intermingled and/or rewritten with stuff the "machine" did in his mind (the slaughtering ect). I mean seriously, inside the church are two statuettes of the holy mother displayed with pigfaces and holding little pigs breastfeeding on their dugs. If you would build a church like that for real you are in big trouble as soon as someone sees that and talks to certain people. In that age people still were much more religious than these days and this is some of the highest forms of blasphemy. These are all signs for me that this is not happening in the real world.

And in the end, he encounters his dark part in the iron lung. He is about to win back the conciousness, sanity is restoring fast. The "machine" is begging, but he knows what to do. The title of the last chapter has been already discussed, it is named "Edwin, Enoch, Oswald and I".

I (Mandus) is us, the player, the sane part.
Edwin literally means "belonging friend".
Enoch is a mysterious biblic shape which is taken from the earth (disappeared) before it's dead(!).

You can read all this on Wikipedia.

The man on the phone NEVER says Oswald. We are only approached as Mandus. So the man in the iron lung is Oswald, the dark twin, his crazy side. The heart in the southern Tower is Oswald's. He didn't need it anymore, only to power his hatred and rage. Destroying it brings us right to the source of this hatred and rage. And in the end Mandus realised that he had to do the same to restore the balance.

Conclusion: The final words about a dying god and a silence never known is a mind finally at peace. Through all the madness he hears way up in the real world the bells ringing for the birth of the new century while the manpigs are drifting away to silence. And in the last cut we se again the twins (that's why I don't know if they are really dead), and maybe Oswald Mandus (now restored as a whole) has a vision of the two, walking into a future he knows he is no longer part of.

----------------------------

I know, lot of thoughts. Maybe I'm completely wrong. Maybe you can interpret yourself to madness while trying to understand everything. I enjoyed the game a lot, it still has a lasting effect on me (as we can see) and this won't change so soon. I love the machine, so I also have no problem if it is real.
Looking forward to read more of your thoughts and discussing my own!

It seems like mind's play theories actually being a center of attention now, which I like since these are my favorites. There were few of them and they all make more sense than Dopplerganger or clones.

Besides, there is a direct references in the game to such concept, like air loom. etc.

---

...So is it clear who his great uncle was?

Daniel.

So, it could be possible that Hazel lived long enough to have one child...interesting. I'm not entirely sold on that theory, nor the mind tricks one (which would be a bit disappointing, but I digress...). Mandus can relate himself to something or someone without it being literal.
Speaking of Daniel, though, playing through again, I noticed something interesting in one of the notes:
To free man, we cut the man. In order to cross that great evolutionary line, it must be first painted upon the ground.

Seems at least an homage of sorts. Thoughts?

[Ghieri]

http://amnesia.wikia.com/wiki/Oswald_Mandus

So I read that, and it sounds very cool, but it also looks like a hell of a lot of speculation:

1. Where in the game does it say that Mandus spilt his blood into the machine, giving it personality?
2. Those two objects in the pyramid are unidentifiable. They could just as easily be the children's hearts.(Seeing as there are cables upon which they are impaled.)


Although, I'm starting to waver in the "dream theory" a bit. The only reason I adapted that was because of the hallucinations, the teleports, and the improbable design of the machine, but it could just be Mandus' demented mind filling in the gaps, and him going full autopilot in those cases. (I'm thinking back to Batman: Arkham Asylum scarecrow encounters.)

So, reading that, assuming the speculation is solid, the game makes a little bit more sense to me, but I am still confused on the specific storyboard. I understand the major points of the game, but not the specific step-by step of THIS is exactly when the machine gained sentience.

[Alardem]

Not sure how meaningful these lines are if they ended up unused, but there are implications that the 'Stone Egg' would have hatched and unleashed an explosion reminiscent of a nuclear blast.

"Soon I will split the atom, my soul, and there will be a very great burning..."

Mandus heralding the twentieth century with atomic fire?