u/MorbidMantis

So, the only solid information we have on the carvings and the Entity that makes them up is from the seal diagrams in the estate, and Oscar’s research/carving communication.

As far as we know, the seal diagrams are accurate, but Oscar has been influenced by the Dominion seal and his conclusions should be treated with some skepticism. The carving’s certainty is promising him relief from the crushing guilt he feels all the time, and he compares it to psychedelic drugs. I feel awful for him, but for the purposes of this discussion, you have to keep his compromised state in mind. All of his judgements are going to be warped in favor of the carvings.

Okay, so if you have Mystical for the Madness conversation with Oscar, you can know that the general gist of what he’s saying about the seals is correct, but that they were forcefully split apart by Enoch and the carvings. All the carvings represent a concept, and they’re all fragments of a larger concept.

What is this larger concept? The smaller concepts are Dominion, Bounty, Spirit, Throne, Prosperity, and Vitality. What connects all these things? The first word that comes to mind for me is “Power”. All of these things are either sources of power or expressions of power.

The seal diagrams are full of abstract symbolism and allusions to a wide range of mythologies, mostly demonology and Greco-Roman influences. Seems typical for some occult obsessed rich guy in the 1900’s to combine a bunch of different symbols like that. What’s more amazing is that it worked, or at least it worked enough to draw the Witch’s attention. I recognize all the mythological figures in the diagrams, but the animal symbolism and all that is a bit outside my wheelhouse, would appreciate someone else’s thoughts.

What I find interesting is that the seals seem to hate and fear the others, even though their separation seems to be an unnatural state that Enoch created. You would think they’d want to be reunited, but no.

Wayne (Probably The Throne seal’s conduit, since Wayne speaks for the Entity), hates Reese, the conduit for the Vitality seal. He despises Reese, calls him a waste of flesh and a failed weapon. Maybe it’s because he failed that Wayne hates him, maybe it’s because he’s human and has his own will apart from the Entity’s.

The Dominion seal seems afraid of the Bounty seal, but I’m not sure why. Maybe that’s Oscar being an unreliable narrator, he might be afraid of the danger and is attributing it to the seal. But, he is willing to charge right in to deal with the ghost when it comes down to it, so I don’t think Oscar’s bravery is the problem here. I think there’s some metaphysical reason the representation of Dominion is afraid of the representation of Bounty. I’m not sure what that reason is.

What are your thoughts? What concept do you guys think the Entity as a whole represents?

Okay, so this theory pertains to the outcome where Becka and Alexis are abandoned in the Shaw Mine.

I think that at least one of them will die and/or turn into a Tommyknocker, probably both. They’ll also bring down the currently used continuous mine.

If you have the mystical trait during the Shaw mine collapse, you can see that the Tommyknockers are the ghosts of the miners that died in the 1918 collapse, being empowered by the Prosperity seal. It’s a similar situation to the Dominion seal empowering the ghost of Charles Shaw Jr. I don’t think ghosts in this world can affect anything without the power of the seals backing them up.

In the mine collapse outcome, the larger the strike, the more people would die in the collapse. If there’s a riot and everyone is striking, nobody dies. If the strike is broken, all the miners will be caught in the collapse.

There’s even some dialogue from Davis’s group that you talk to on Tuesday that might be foreshadowing. If you ask them if they’ve heard about knocking in the mines, they’ll say they can’t hear anything with all the machines running. That means they won’t be able to hear a Tommyknocker bringing the mine down.

Okay, this isn’t exactly a theory, but I’ve got a collection of thoughts, and I realized that all of them have to do with food, so I’m posting them together.

So, when you first arrive, you see a lot of jelly jars in the fridge. The narration says “Either this was purchased specifically for you, or it’s one of the few things Tabitha actually uses”

On my first playthrough, I thought “It’s gotta be the latter, right. Nobody buys that much jelly for a guest who’s only there for a week. She probably likes PB&J and saves time/money by buying in bulk“

Of course, now I know that it was the former, and the line about PB&J being your favorite takes on a more sinister meaning in that context.

Also, Teddy seemed to eat “Calf’s Brain Aspic” while in the cell. I wonder if that was his favorite food or the Entity’s. I can’t imagine a human being actually thinking that is appealing. Did that recipe even exist in the period before the collapse? It looks like one of those horrifying concoctions invented by a bored 50’s housewife, and gelatin was extremely hard to make before the 50’s. Used to be a way for rich people to show off during dinner parties, that’s how annoying it was to make.

That got me thinking, Tabitha also has an incredibly restricted diet. All we see her eat is Mac and Cheese, Banana chocolate chunk ice cream, and peanut butter out of the jar. That’s literally everything (edible) in the kitchen.

Was she preparing to go in the cell one day? I have a theory that Pearlanne tried to put her in there after multiple failed attempts to have kids, but nothing’s proven.

It might also be a thematic choice, not a conscious character decision. During Toxic Yuri, Tabitha says “Neither one of us is getting out of this with our freedom intact, know that”. The fact that her diet is almost as restricted as the prisoner’s might be part of that.

There’s also Avery’s dialogue during their Tuesday hangout. If you ask them “If you were trapped on a desert island and could only eat one thing, what would you pick”. Avery says they’d just eat glass and get it over with, since only eating one thing sounds like torture. Avery’s got a lot of thematic ties to the Entity, especially with the ghost casting them as the Entity. They’re both outsiders, they aren’t particularly close to anyone, they’re a bit morbid, and they crave novelty.

Finally, what’s the deal with the diner biscuit? It’s apparently so good that a Mystical character calls it “divinity given buttery form”, but as far as I know, it’s just a well-made biscuit.

So, an interesting complication of the events of chapter 5 is that you’re no longer guaranteed a place to stay. Or, at least, not a safe place to stay.

If you didn’t do the office confrontation or got a bad outcome, Tabitha is probably going to actively look for you and attempt to kidnap you for the ritual. Going back to the Estate would be suicide. I could see the game giving you the option if you didn’t do the confrontation, but it wouldn’t end well.

Ironically, I think having a closer relationship with her in that situation would just make it easier for her to find you.

You could probably stay with a friend or love interest, but some places would definitely be safer than others.

Stella would probably be the worst option. Even if Toxic Yuri didn’t happen, Tabitha would probably check her house first. Honestly, I’m just imagining that one poor player who didn’t do the office confrontation when Toxic Yuri happened, and tries to stay at Stella’s.

Avery is probably your best bet. Tabitha doesn’t even know they exist, let alone where they live, so she’s unlikely to ever find you there unless someone rats you out.

I think the “fail safe” option for players with no close relationships or love interest is the Old Maxwell Place. Idk if that’d be a good option, but it does exist.

Okay, I can’t be the only one who thinks the Status Quo ending is doomed to failure no matter what happens, right? I think some situations would break down the status quo ending faster than others, but there’s no way that lasts forever.

I think if you tell Stella about the clinic, if you don’t tell Research Oscar about the clinic, or if there’s a riot, Reese will be broken out during the timeline of the game.

Reese is shown to be able to resist tranquilizers after being dosed multiple times with them, it’s only a matter of time before he becomes resistant to the elephant tranquilizers, and then there’s not really anything stronger, I don’t think. I’d give it a few weeks at most.

Even if he doesn’t get resistant to the tranquilizers, there’s also the problem of Dr Kelly’s age and mental state. She’s much older than Reese and will probably die before he does. I don’t think she’d be willing to share this with anybody else. She might also go nuts. She’s alone, and is not getting sleep, and spends all her time paranoid about Reese.

Okay, so in this game, there are three major sources of power in the town. There’s Tabitha/The Scarlets, there’s the Entity, and there’s the Witch.

Tabitha either wants to kidnap you, hasn’t decided, or wants to destroy her whole family legacy, depending on what happened in the confrontation.

The Entity is a bit of a mystery at this point, but we know it wants to be free, and I’m pretty sure it also wants to possess you, or any healthy body, really.

The Witch, she wants to consume the Entity and use all that power to fix all the world’s problems.

I doubt this is going to end well. For one, a “perfect ending” would go against the point of this game, and second, no good ever came of trying to overpower malevolent otherwordly beings. Third, she’s not the kind of person I would trust with phenomenal cosmic power.

My first thought was that trying to consume the Entity would get her possessed or magically corrupt her in some way.

However, I think it’s more interesting if the bad outcome is caused by her character, so I think the more likely outcome is that it works, but she uses all that power to create a world with no danger and no free will. I can see the ending in my mind’s eye, with all the characters being depicted as puppets, the way they are in the flashback.

I love this game so much, but I’ve hit a wall. I’ve got this mental itch to pull apart a mystery, but I don’t think I‘m gonna be coming up with anything new about this game until the next update comes out.

I’m waiting with bated breath for the final chapters, but until that happens, I gotta find a different outlet for this itch before I drive myself and my family insane by being too obsessed with this game. I hope I’m not being rude by asking for recommendations for a different thing on this game’s subreddit, but I figure the people here must have good taste.

I’ve already played and interpreted Slay the Princess as much as I could. In fact, that’s how I found this game. At one point, I was one of their Discord’s more active STP chatters. I’ve also played Disco Elysium, great game.

Okay, so the creepy bus guy gives you a bag of peanuts on the first day.

If you find the goat in the greenhouse on Thursday, you have the option to feed him your peanuts.

If you tell Tabitha about this during the final confrontation, she immediately freaks out, levels her gun at you, and calls the cops. This happens regardless of her relationship with you. I did it on a Tabbymaxxing run and she still turned on me.

That, combined with the Sybil dialogue about the herbs it’s eating and the stuff in Alexandra’s workbook about the “special meal”, makes me think the goat and its diet is an essential part of the ritual. It can’t have anything in its system except the herbs. In Toxic Yuri, Stella says there’s only a finite amount of time for the deal to be reinstated. That means you just ended the deal forever.

That means, in any worldstate where Tabitha arrests/kidnaps you for the ritual, those peanuts just saved you from being possessed by the entity and locked in the cell.

Okay, guys, I recently had a flash of inspiration that may or may not be reaching too far, and I want to see the general reception before I incorporate it into my mind as a legit possibility.

This theory pertains to Research Oscar. I think he and Rosalina are going to end up in Dr Kelly’s care, and that is not going to end well. My bet is that she’s going to be super overprotective over Rosalina and give Oscar some sort of barbiturates or insulin like they did in the early to mid 1900’s. Mental health medicine back then was inhumane, and that’s the era this town is stuck in. If I’m right, I just hope that whatever happens is reversible.

In the Research Ending, he’s clearly not doing well mentally. He seems to be having a manic episode, and is neglecting his responsibilities, which is dangerous when he has an amputee child to take care of. I think it’s very possible that Alexis is going to consult Dr Kelly, and Dr Kelly is going to start taking matters into her own hands.

I doubt she’d do anything bad to Rosalina, since she doesn‘t during the house call, but Oscar is a different story. If she thinks he’s mentally unstable, she might try to “treat” him herself. She’s not going to be mentally stable after Reese, no matter the outcome, so that is going to end badly. I especially worry about the Status Quo ending, if she doesn’t want Oscar discovering Reese, or just her general paranoia In that route.

My theory is based on a few pieces of evidence.

1. It is impossible to get the Research Ending with Dr Kelly dead. If Rosalina is injured with Dr Kelly dead, Oscar tries to flee with Rosalina and they will probably die or get infected by Ditchlings. That suggests that if Rosalina is injured, their fate is tied to Dr Kelly.

2. During the house call visit and the clinic in chapter 4, they drop some lines of dialogue that come across as foreshadowing for this outcome. If you tell Dr Kelly that Reese needs therapy, she’ll say something like:

“I don’t trust psychiatrists and I trust therapists even less, since they aren’t doctors. Just a bunch of damaged people trying to help other damaged people”

This line has the primary role of showing that Dr Kelly doesn’t want Reese reaching out about his situation and getting her caught, but its just vague enough that I think it’s foreshadowing for something else, too.

If you try to tell Reese to bring his story to the authorities without written evidence of the poison, he says something like:

”I don’t want them thinking I’m crazy, and I wouldn’t put it past her to have me committed to keep me under her control”

This doesn’t end up happening to Reese, but it might happen to Oscar. He also says that she might poison other people, which might be foreshadowing, but could also be a baseless accusation from Reese done out of spite.

3. Kaneeka talks about how Dr Kelly only likes kids and sick people since they’re easy to control. Rosalina is both of these things, while Oscar is neither, at least not physically sick.

4. We know for a fact that Dr Kelly is being consulted directly for Rosalina’s care, it seems to stretch credulity that she wouldn’t learn about Oscar’s mental state and want to do something.

For the record, I think Madness Oscar is gonna get Sybil/Carmilla called on him instead of Dr Kelly, probably with similar results. Dr Kelly has proven that she’ll trust Sybil with magical things outside her area of expertise, and Sybil’s as much of a control freak as Kelly.

In Scarlet Hollow, all of the events and all of the magic that exists seems to be localized within Scarlet Hollow. Obviously, that’s to be expected, since the game only takes place in that town, but there’s some pieces of evidence that make me think that magic only exists there.

None of the cryptid hunters that Stella talks to have heard of Ditchlings, which is weird if they show up every time a disaster is about to happen. The only people besides Sybil who have heard of them are the old-timers at the mines. They say they heard about them from their grandmothers. That would put their first appearance around the same time as Enoch summoned the entity.

With the exception of Sybil’s whole thing with her daughters, all of the magic that exists in this town is tied to the Entity and the seals that summoned him. Thats why Wayne is capable of permanently harming Reese with that nerve, or whatever that yellow thing was. It’s also why none of Stella’s ghost hunting equipment actually works.

But, it doesn’t make much sense to me that Scarlet Hollow is the only place on Earth with real magic. There’s gotta be other witches and other arrogant rich people tampering with the occult, right? Also, it would be hilariously sad if Stella was a paranormal investigator in the only place where magic and cryptids really exist, but still spent all that time chasing wildlife.

Okay, guys. So, there’s a pretty large plot thread going on with the strike/possible riot.

What do you think the possible outcomes there are?

I think it’s a possible outcome that Tabitha could be run out of town on a rail, and you might join her if the townspeople think you’re with her. I think encouraging/discouraging the strike would affect their opinion, as well as telling them about the estate secrets. I don’t think the useless cops can handle the riot, especially if some of them are dead.

I also think that the riot is a possible way for Reese to escape the Status Quo situation. Stella specifically says “I would totally tell you if there was a riot” in chapter three, which I think is foreshadowing. I think, in the event of a riot, Stella would go try and alert Reese, and eventually find and free him. She might even die in that process, if Reese really does go crazy like Dr Kelly was afraid of.

So, I got my mom to try Scarlet Hollow, and she took Keen Eye and Book Smart in her first run just like I did.

I assumed that our playthroughs would be similar, both because of the traits and because we have similar personalities.

Getting all the updates on her playthrough was a wild experience. About the only choice we had in common was saving Rosalina in the mines and the trait saves. She saved Duke, pulled out Kaneeka, and tranquilized Reese (after flirting with him lol). To be fair, I would have saved Duke too, but my dumb ass misread the situation and assumed Duke could handle himself, and was trying not to metagame on my first run.

Also, she’s really into Victorian flower symbolism, so she was really into the ghost scenes. I didn’t realize the devs went that extra mile for environmental storytelling

She also got Toxic Yuri organically, which was pretty insane. I was visiting the house when she got it and saw her reaction in real time. She obviously didn’t agree to it, but still. I also had no idea Tabitha joined you at the farms while Toxic Yuri happens, and she acts differently to both impasse Tabitha and breakdown Tabitha.

Still, I would like to congratulate the devs on making such an organic and branching story that even similar people with the same traits can tell completely different stories.

Hey, I'm starting to learn violin, I'm on minuet 1, but every time I practice any song, my violin starts squeaking and scratching and sounding out of tune, even though it is not out of tune.

The only notes that don't do this are when I play on the open strings. Am I holding my bow wrong? My instructor says I'm holding the bow fine, but even when I'm playing in the middle of the bow, it does that.

Am I holding my violin in the wrong position? Not using enough pressure? Using too much pressure?