Machine's Body?

[Tommyboypsp]

So at the very ending of AAMFP, you see someone's body, which seems to be attached to the machine with wires and whatnot.
Whose body is this? Is it the professor's?

[i3670]

I'd say that it could be Mandus' other half. It has been speculated that the last part with the massive temple and what not might be an hallucination which would mean that the man lying the iron-lung might be Mandus.

[Daemian]

Wish I knew, amfp story it's all messed up.
It's like three persons trying to tell a different story each. Isn't it?

And those stories disagree with each other on many facts, dates, evidence.
Moreover, the ending was like shortened down to only one forced ending.
Probably canceling with it some game-ending explanations.

There's also many unused files, like voice acting audio, sounds, models.
The dates on the journals don't match, or the facts mentioned on them -are the kids alive or not? when did they die?-, evidence like the corpse you mention -and many others- opens more questions than close.

Anyone agrees?

[Tommyboypsp]

No, I don't agree entirely. The more I play (my 6th, 7thish playthrough now), the more I understand.
The boys were killed by mandus, not long before, to save them from the upcoming century.
To whom are you refering by three people telling the story? Obviously Mandus, but who else? The machine/engineer? The professor? The children?
Notes from others (the children, the truck driver, etc.) are valuable to either the story or solving the puzzles, but I don't think they're contradictory.

I don't know about the unused files, I might look into that, sounds interesting

[Romulator]

There's a wikia page on it on the fansite (contains spoilers) with some speculation on it... if this is what you're talking about

http://amnesia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Engineer_(Character)

[Tommyboypsp]

Okay, that's interesting, but I don't see how it could be Mandus, because in the end his heart gets pulled out in the Aztec way by the machine.. so it wouldn't make any sense if the heart you see at the center of the machine is also his.

[Daemian]

I mean it's like it was written by different persons because the story has flaws.

[Alardem]

The story is weird and distorted, but I enjoy it for that. Just because things are left vague does not mean it's poorly written.

The last level is more representational than an actual segment of the Machine - recall that you transition into it by electrocuting the human heart powering the Tesla Tower and then having your vision fade white, indicating a hallucination. The body in the iron lung represents Mandus' ill condition, but judging from the Compound X canisters linked to it and his note about 'drowning being the kindest of suicides', I assume it meant he'd immersed himself in the compound and rendered himself semi-invincible.

When he sacrifices himself, Mandus perceives the action as having his heart ripped out. Again, I think this is more a memory than a literal representation. The way I see it, he'd ripped his heart out and used it to power the Machine and keep himself going. However, Mandus ends up reactivating the tesla coils and then delivering a terminal shock to the heart.

So the ending is really Mandus' memories going haywire as his heart is being destroyed, and the last thing he recalls is the process he went through in order to remove his heart in the first place.

[Daemian]

Of course it's a good written story, it's a great game. But it's not well explained.
That's all.

[Alardem]

Of course it's a good written story, it's a great game. But it's not well explained.
That's all.

All that's been written about the story is stuff that the fans figured out, not what the author said outside it. Which is what should be the case.