[SPOILER] Plot Discussion Thread *Spoiler Alert*

[Kein]

randeh
Regarding the kids - I had this theory as well that he reanimated his children, but there is a catch - one of the letters from kids who were cleaning pipes said they meet "2 gents looking kids", which refers to Mandus twins. And they didn't note anything extraordinary about them, not a single trail they were mashed u[p from different bodies.

Also:

This is hinted at when you ride the pigline at the end of the game that leads directly to the temple - you see Enoch and Edwin standing with a ManPig directly behind them, arms held out like a proud father holding his sons. This is also why you wake up in a caged bed where the ManPigs slept. This is why people run from you and slam their doors when London is burning as if they do not recognize you as the rich industrialist philanthropist who treats them all so well.

The Machine, the man in the iron lung, is Oswald Mandus' body. But you... you are Oswald Mandus' clockwork soul remade into a new body to carry out his last wishes. This is why it refers to you as Mandus, and why Mandus via the Chapter title refers to it as Oswald (leaving himself described as "I" to remain vague). In all actuality, Oswald Mandus's original personality, his original soul, was completely dead and replaced by the entity who had assumed full control of his body by the time we play the game.

Also, I mentioned this one before as well, om pages 17-18. But someone pointed out that the hand that hold lantern is perfectly human.

[Alardem]

randeh
Regarding the kids - I had this theory as well that he reanimated his children, but there is a catch - one of the letters from kids who were cleaning pipes said they meet "2 gents looking kids", which refers to Mandus twins. And they didn't note anything extraordinary about them.

I assume the 'twins' aren't always pale and bleeding. It's only when Mandus recalls their deaths when he sees them as such.

I wonder if Mandus used a couple of hapless orphans to recraft his boys...

[Kein]

That is... not what i mean at all. Of course bleeding children is part of his illusions.

[Alardem]

That is... not what i mean at all. Of course bleeding children is part of his illusions.

I think that is what you mean. :p My point is that the 'twins' wouldn't be covered with blood, and they'd probably be running around the corners, barely giving other kids enough time to notice anything off about them. The note doesn't say they actually TALKED to the 'gent-looking kids', after all.

[JPTS]

Randeh, I like your analysis. Lots of interesting ideas there.

This is hinted at when you ride the pigline at the end of the game that leads directly to the temple - you see Enoch and Edwin standing with a ManPig directly behind them, arms held out like a proud father holding his sons.

Can someone post a screenshot of that scene? Does the pig behind the boys have a human hand?

[aquilantiqua]

I was under the impression that Wretches' left hands are human and the right is a pig hoof with an opposable thumb attached. Maybe I am mistaken. But I remember being very squicked out by the sight of the pigman locked up in the cage in the pigman living quarters (you know, the one meant to be a jump scare) because I had a clear view of him and saw that he had perfectly human left arm. And all you see of Mandus is his left arm.

[Ghieri]

I did see a pig in that scene, but it was kind of just standing there, arms at his sides. I didn't see the twins in the booth with him.

Also, I have a wildly different theory than what most people apparently saw:

-So, I thought it was pretty obvious that the professor was fed to the machine and that's the voice we hear in the machine. I didn't pick up on anything where mandus put physical pieces of himself into the machine. Though if we go with the symbolism theory I have and say that everything supernatural about the machine is a hallucination, then we can totally say that those pieces in the machine were parts of mandus.

-I'm pretty sure most of the ending isn't real. Where mandus kind of just teleports to different parts of the machine. There was one part where mandus kind of went nuts when he said "These aren't my thoughts!" But I thought that was somehow either the fever or the machine causing him to go crazy. Also that pyramid. I don't think you can just keep workers quiet about big-ass freaky pyramids being constructed miles underground. If the machine were simply a combination of meat-processing equipment combined with "Compound x" to create pig monsters, you could keep most of the workers out of the loop, and have a select few of the inner circle actually make the pig-men. This makes more sense that the ending is metaphorical, rather than physical.

Perhaps Mandus sabotaged the machine, then simply committed suicide. This is frankly more intellectually satisfying for me than "Mandus basically built a god-machine to do basic meat-processing and assembly of pig men using science already established in brennenburg." It doesn't really make sense.

A thought just occured to me that Mandus might actually have split personalities, but not in the supernatural sense. He simply heard a voice that told him to do something in a state of amnesia, he did it and got back his memories, and then sabotaged the machine. In the end, the symbolism is that he joined his two children in death, by committing suicide and ending the voice in his head. IE The "machine".

I realize it's not perfect but I honestly don't see how mandus could be a pig. Why would the pig-men attack one of their own? Or why can't I fight back? Why did that one girl try to get my help before being killed and the door slammed shut?

[grrrz]

randeh
Regarding the kids - I had this theory as well that he reanimated his children, but there is a catch - one of the letters from kids who were cleaning pipes said they meet "2 gents looking kids", which refers to Mandus twins. And they didn't note anything extraordinary about them, not a single trail they were mashed u[p from different bodies.

Also:

This is hinted at when you ride the pigline at the end of the game that leads directly to the temple - you see Enoch and Edwin standing with a ManPig directly behind them, arms held out like a proud father holding his sons. This is also why you wake up in a caged bed where the ManPigs slept. This is why people run from you and slam their doors when London is burning as if they do not recognize you as the rich industrialist philanthropist who treats them all so well.

The Machine, the man in the iron lung, is Oswald Mandus' body. But you... you are Oswald Mandus' clockwork soul remade into a new body to carry out his last wishes. This is why it refers to you as Mandus, and why Mandus via the Chapter title refers to it as Oswald (leaving himself described as "I" to remain vague). In all actuality, Oswald Mandus's original personality, his original soul, was completely dead and replaced by the entity who had assumed full control of his body by the time we play the game.

Also, I mentioned this one before as well, om pages 17-18. But someone pointed out that the hand that hold lantern is perfectly human.

The problem with "oswald being a pigman" theory is still the fact the lantern and all the other light sources don't blink.
If there are indeed two separate entities, it means it's something else.
As for the kids it really seems they die in Mexico, and where replaced by something else or revived (and nothing indicates they were killed again).
Also in the "office" part of the factory where you hear the awesomely creepy song from the phonograph, he marks an entry along the line of "everything is carefully crafted but this still seems like fake" and later "it feels like i'm in a big game"
Could be a direct wink to the player (that's how I took it), or it could indicate it's either all a construction from his mind, as explained before, the theory of the "influencing machine" and the story of James Tilly Matthews and his Air Loom, both being directly referenced in the game. Also worth noting and pointing to this interpretation, the graphic style of the real "Air Loom" as drawn by Matthews is pastiched in the map representing the sections of the machine.
Even if it's not to be taken litteraly it's definitely a major influence on the game.
Just look at it (sorry if it has been mentionned already, very long topic)


I put back wikipedia references in case you missed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Orig...izophrenia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tilly_Matthews

[Kein]

I think that is what you mean. :p

Thanks for talking and thinking for me, but I believe I'm still capable to do so myself, unlike Mandus.

My point is that the 'twins' wouldn't be covered with blood, and they'd probably be running around the corners, barely giving other kids enough time to notice anything off about them. The note doesn't say they actually TALKED to the 'gent-looking kids', after all.

They did, Oswald's kids told them about path in the pipes, IIRC.

As for the kids it really seems they die in Mexico, and where replaced by something else or revived (and nothing indicates they were killed again).

No offense but that's too weak and too far-stretched. Too... "comfortable".

[7heDubz]

Spoiler below!

Just realized, the begining is you mandus sabotaging the machine, and the person saying "daddy please dont kill me" was the machine!

now i havent followed this thread or what its found out, BUT i just figured that out xD