Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)
I promised to post my interpretation of _Dreamhold_, and here's
the first part, regarding some of the so-called red herrings: the harp
room, the lead door, and the apple room.
Note that I've mostly played the game in tutorial mode so my description
may not agree with your experience if you've played it with "tutorial
off".
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The harp room doesn't seem to serve any purpose in the game (except
in the trivial way of being the location of an important
object). There's a harp that doesn't do anything, a beckoning door
that there doesn't seem to be any way of opening, elusive harp music
outside the room, and a strange transformation of the entire room into
an outdoor scene.
People have - reluctantly, I suppose - concluded that the room is a
red herring.
Perhaps it is, gameplay-wise, but I'm convinced that it's not a red
herring plot-wise: in fact, it seems that the author is saying
something important here.
The following is a tentative interpretation which may turn out to be
totally off-base. I'm aware that I'm not exactly the sharpest kid in
class when it comes to interpretation of literature (lacking all the
formal lit-crit training, and much of the required reading, to start
with), so I'll make a psychological rather than a lit-crit approach.
I think that the harp represents the emotional side of the
protagonist. The harp is burned and useless; the protagonist has
suppressed his emotions to become the callous monster we see in the
two fragments of the black mask. This has clearly not been an easy
process to judge from the state of the harp - and the backstory
revealed by the masks tell how the protagonist has been burned
emotionally.
So what's on the other side of the door, that's so heavy that the door
won't budge? I think it's all the rich emotional life that the protag
has been suppressing - it shines tantalizingly through the cracks, the
protag knows it's there and wants to get at it, but the sheer weight
of those emotions is so huge that it will crush him if he lets them
in, hence he can't open the door.
Note that the door isn't locked - it just has a latch, indicating that
the protag is shutting something out voluntarily. He surely intended
to open the door some day (or he'd have locked it and thrown away the
key, like with the lead door - see below), but now he finds that he
can't.
The harp music that can be heard at certain points in the game seems
to indicate that the protagonist is regaining contact with his
emotions. One of the themes of the game is that losing his memories
also means losing parts of his assumed personality (in Jungian terms,
his persona - which is the Latin word for an actor's mask) which gives
him the ability to change (regaining that last part of the black mask
just turns him back into the person he was before the game started).
And the mysterious transforamtion of the room? I think this is what
happens when the door is finally opened, or at least it's what the
protagonist fears will happen. It's a refreshing change of scenery, of
freedom (the ocean commonly symbolizes freedom, but also the
subconscious, and, of course, peril) but the protag is in a perilous
situation, alone on a pillar with no way of reaching the mainland -
reflecting his isolation from humanity. Lost on an ocean of emotion,
perhaps? Regaining contact with his emotions doesn't solve any
problems; it's just the beginning.
I mentioned the lead door: unlike the door in the harp room, it's
locked, and there's no key, showing that the protagonist is not
supposed to enter. Perhaps he locked it himself and threw away the
key; perhaps it was locked by someone else to keep him out.
To me, lead singifies death - lead coffins, grey Hades. There's also
the alchemical association with Saturn/Chronos, god of time and decay
(and it's hardly a coincidence that the apotheosis ending involves a
tan, ringed moon which must resemble the planet Saturn). There are
parts of our psyches where we simply do not want to go, memories we'd
better leave alone. Or at least we think so.
The apple in the cage is a bit of a mystery to me, but both it and the
room seem to have something to do with the passage of time and the
irreversibility of change. The apple is in stasis; as long as it's
locked in the cage, inaccessible, it remains fresh (perhaps like a
cherished memory that's too precious to approach?); once the cage is
opened so it can be accessed, it decays, becomes worthless. The
tutorial voice makes a point of the irreversibility.
As some people have commented on r.g.i-f, the sole purpose of the
apple seems to be that the tutorial voice can teach the player about
"undo" - but perhaps it's the other way around - the irreversibility
is the true point, and the little lecture about "undo" is a
meta-comment about how a game may allow us to undo, but reality
doesn't? And undoing is of course very unrewarding in this case,
leaving the player with a sense that something important remains
undone (in both senses).
The mosaic of the birds - well, that also seems to indicate the
irreversibility of time. Every time you enter, the room is
different. You can observe the migration of the birds, but you can't
do anything about it.
So does the apple symbolize something particular? Perhaps the protag's
memories of his son, before the rebellion; idolized, preserved in
memory in an idealized state of innocence?
This leaves as many questions open as answered, and maybe my
interpretations say more about me than about the game; perhaps they're
just free associations. Feel free to pick them apart, or to use them
as starting points for your own speculations.
--
Magnus Olsson (mol@df.lth.se)
PGP Public Key available at http://www.df.lth.se/~mol
I promised to post my interpretation of _Dreamhold_, and here's
the first part, regarding some of the so-called red herrings: the harp
room, the lead door, and the apple room.
Note that I've mostly played the game in tutorial mode so my description
may not agree with your experience if you've played it with "tutorial
off".
S
p
o
i
l
e
r
s
f
o
l
l
o
w
The harp room doesn't seem to serve any purpose in the game (except
in the trivial way of being the location of an important
object). There's a harp that doesn't do anything, a beckoning door
that there doesn't seem to be any way of opening, elusive harp music
outside the room, and a strange transformation of the entire room into
an outdoor scene.
People have - reluctantly, I suppose - concluded that the room is a
red herring.
Perhaps it is, gameplay-wise, but I'm convinced that it's not a red
herring plot-wise: in fact, it seems that the author is saying
something important here.
The following is a tentative interpretation which may turn out to be
totally off-base. I'm aware that I'm not exactly the sharpest kid in
class when it comes to interpretation of literature (lacking all the
formal lit-crit training, and much of the required reading, to start
with), so I'll make a psychological rather than a lit-crit approach.
I think that the harp represents the emotional side of the
protagonist. The harp is burned and useless; the protagonist has
suppressed his emotions to become the callous monster we see in the
two fragments of the black mask. This has clearly not been an easy
process to judge from the state of the harp - and the backstory
revealed by the masks tell how the protagonist has been burned
emotionally.
So what's on the other side of the door, that's so heavy that the door
won't budge? I think it's all the rich emotional life that the protag
has been suppressing - it shines tantalizingly through the cracks, the
protag knows it's there and wants to get at it, but the sheer weight
of those emotions is so huge that it will crush him if he lets them
in, hence he can't open the door.
Note that the door isn't locked - it just has a latch, indicating that
the protag is shutting something out voluntarily. He surely intended
to open the door some day (or he'd have locked it and thrown away the
key, like with the lead door - see below), but now he finds that he
can't.
The harp music that can be heard at certain points in the game seems
to indicate that the protagonist is regaining contact with his
emotions. One of the themes of the game is that losing his memories
also means losing parts of his assumed personality (in Jungian terms,
his persona - which is the Latin word for an actor's mask) which gives
him the ability to change (regaining that last part of the black mask
just turns him back into the person he was before the game started).
And the mysterious transforamtion of the room? I think this is what
happens when the door is finally opened, or at least it's what the
protagonist fears will happen. It's a refreshing change of scenery, of
freedom (the ocean commonly symbolizes freedom, but also the
subconscious, and, of course, peril) but the protag is in a perilous
situation, alone on a pillar with no way of reaching the mainland -
reflecting his isolation from humanity. Lost on an ocean of emotion,
perhaps? Regaining contact with his emotions doesn't solve any
problems; it's just the beginning.
I mentioned the lead door: unlike the door in the harp room, it's
locked, and there's no key, showing that the protagonist is not
supposed to enter. Perhaps he locked it himself and threw away the
key; perhaps it was locked by someone else to keep him out.
To me, lead singifies death - lead coffins, grey Hades. There's also
the alchemical association with Saturn/Chronos, god of time and decay
(and it's hardly a coincidence that the apotheosis ending involves a
tan, ringed moon which must resemble the planet Saturn). There are
parts of our psyches where we simply do not want to go, memories we'd
better leave alone. Or at least we think so.
The apple in the cage is a bit of a mystery to me, but both it and the
room seem to have something to do with the passage of time and the
irreversibility of change. The apple is in stasis; as long as it's
locked in the cage, inaccessible, it remains fresh (perhaps like a
cherished memory that's too precious to approach?); once the cage is
opened so it can be accessed, it decays, becomes worthless. The
tutorial voice makes a point of the irreversibility.
As some people have commented on r.g.i-f, the sole purpose of the
apple seems to be that the tutorial voice can teach the player about
"undo" - but perhaps it's the other way around - the irreversibility
is the true point, and the little lecture about "undo" is a
meta-comment about how a game may allow us to undo, but reality
doesn't? And undoing is of course very unrewarding in this case,
leaving the player with a sense that something important remains
undone (in both senses).
The mosaic of the birds - well, that also seems to indicate the
irreversibility of time. Every time you enter, the room is
different. You can observe the migration of the birds, but you can't
do anything about it.
So does the apple symbolize something particular? Perhaps the protag's
memories of his son, before the rebellion; idolized, preserved in
memory in an idealized state of innocence?
This leaves as many questions open as answered, and maybe my
interpretations say more about me than about the game; perhaps they're
just free associations. Feel free to pick them apart, or to use them
as starting points for your own speculations.
--
Magnus Olsson (mol@df.lth.se)
PGP Public Key available at http://www.df.lth.se/~mol
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