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justadivinestan · 2 years

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OMORI Color Symbolism

Some of this will be obvious. Some other stuff won’t be. Enjoy! (TW: Suicide, depression, OMORI spoilers)

White: Purity/ Sterility/ Dissociation

White is the color of OMORI. The game and the character. An oppressive white that banishes all impurities. White space is a place to become nothing. White is not good. At least not until later. White is simple like a tulip, and that’s probably why its Sunny’s favorite color, but Sunny has taken simplicity to a toxic new level. We also find another white flower, the Orchid Egret, a white flower that connects the dream world to the real one. Almost acting as an anchor, grounding the real world to Whitespace. At the end of the game, white and sterility is given a new meaning: redemption. It’s the sign of a clean slate. Sunny has come to terms with Mari’s death, his part in it, and has confessed. He can move on with his life.

Beige: The Past/ Dullness/ Decay

Beige is Sunny’s main color. Maybe even more than white. It’s the color that differentiates him from Omori. Unlike his evil doppelganger, Sunny is a person with memories. At the end of the game when the real Sunny explores his childhood home, all of his memories are cloaked in a sepia beige. It’s the color of old photos and old times. Towards the end, we seen the plant life surrounding basil’s forest die and decay into a sullen beige. Showing how his attachment to the past is stalling and killing his growth as a person. In the real world, Sunny wears beige cargo shorts, in a empty house with beige walls and floors. Lacking in color, the inside of Sunny’s house feels muted and dull in comparison to the vivid blues and greens just outside his front door.

Orange & Yellow: Joy/ Excitement/ Agitation

Orange is almost exclusively Kel’s color. Serving as a more fashionable alternative to yellow, it’s a bright, happy color that conveys the same positivity. Its warm and welcoming. It’s also the main color of the titular “Orange Oasis” an area of Headspace that’s easy going. But even in such an area, there is a truth teller, Mr. Outback, draped in orange. Poking holes in the fantasy and stirring up the waters. Orange is a loud, aggressive color, similar to red. It annoys and aggravates people. Just like Kel. But in doing so it can generate much needed disruption to break stagnation. Kel instigates the whole plot of the game, and in the end everyone is much happier for it.

Yellow is the game’s designated color for happiness, though sometimes it blends green into the happy symbolism as well. A core example is the sunflower, a yellow and green plant that Basil admires for its ability to see the bright side of things. There’s also Kel and Hero’s parents. In their family photo the parents wear yellow and green, subtly showing that the core value of the household is the happiness of the family above all else. Finally, there’s the Big Yellow Cat. The centerpiece of Sunny’s dream world, serving almost as an unofficial ruler of Headspace. Protecting the very precious thing Sunny treasures most, the happy memory of his old friends. It’s interesting to note that all three of Sunny’s childhood imaginary friends are babylike pastel primary colors. The cat is yellow, representing Sunny’s happiness in the dream world. Abbi’s tenacle is red, the arm of the wisest who was discontent with that world. And then we find Humphrey is a baby blue, the starving sadness that Sunny keeps tucked away at the bottom of it.

Blue: Sadness/ Truth

Blue is the color associated with sadness, and more importantly, the truth. All the horrific real world nighttime scenes are portrayed in blue on black. Meanwhile, the final hospital scene when Sunny confesses the truth is shown in blue on white. Visually showing the importance of truth in the story, as well as the suffocating sadness of the situation.

Hero is blue. A color that accentuates his masculinity and dependability reflected in his manly can-do attitude, though his conventional masculinity is often subverted by him wearing a feminine pink apron while cooking. However, the main reason he’s dressed in blue is because as mentioned before, it portrays his sadness. Hero is a character that is perpetually depressed. His intelligent mind over thinks things and blames himself. Mari’s death was no exception, so like Sunny, Hero seals himself away in a cocoon of sadness. Consider Humphrey, the big blue whale (the final boss of Headspace) that eats Sunny over and over again. Swallowing him deeper in a devouring cycle of depression. By escaping Humphrey, Sunny gets a chance to escape his depression and fantasy, just like Hero did before. Rejecting his fantasy, Sunny can start reintegrating into the real world outside.

Blue is one of the two main colors associated with the Real World, along with Green. We see it most prominently in the cloudy sky, showing the status of Sunny in the real world on the final title screen. Unlike the oppressive purple sky of dream world, the real sky is blue, wide and filled with many possibilities. It’s reflected in the blue picnic basket at the secret lake, its blue and white like the sky. Sunny describes it as “not as good as Mari’s” but it’s a real picnic in the true world. The only world where Sunny can learn and grow.

Green: Growth/ Change/ Basil’s Envy

The color of growth. Plants are the keystone metaphor the story. In the duet sequence we see the plants growing, and the children alongside them. OMORI at its core is a coming-of-age story. One that homes in on the worst part of growing up: facing traumatic catastrophe. And being able to grow in spite of it. One of the kids hit hardest by this trauma is Basil. The gardener. A boy with a green thumb and green eyes (not literally, figuratively.) Note that Basil’s envy is never a malicious thing. But its made clear that he was always questioning his place in Sunny’s friend group. Taking photos but never feeling apart of them. Basil wants to be someone else. Someone loved. He wants to change. Lacking options, he turns to gardening, so he can make something beautiful to add to the world. Hoping that maybe he can change along the way.

As mentioned before, Green is portrayed as a happy color too. And is almost always portrayed in a positively light, being the second main color of the Real World. Though it also has a place in the dream world as well. It’s the color of the Vast Forest. The one that reminds Sunny of the tree that changed everything. It’s even the color of Space Ex-boyfriend’s hair, where its made abundantly clear that green is the inverted color of pink. If green is the color of growth and change. Pink is quite the opposite.

Pink: Innocence/ Childishness

Aubrey’s color. Her punk pink hair, originally meant to be a testament of her girly innocence, has since become a symbol of defiance. But this is only one instance where innocence is defiled by the toxicity of their shared catastrophe. Pink is the color worn by Sally the baby, the most innocent character in the story. But most pink characters appear as obstacles. Aubrey is the most obvious example, but pink is also featured on all three of the major Headspace bosses. Spaceboy’s pink hair. Sweetheart’s strict adherence to pink attire. And Humphrey’s monstrous parasite form is a sea of pink. Each character once had innocent origins but are all lashing out from an unwillingness to move on. For Aubrey, its from Mari. For Spaceboy, its Sweetheart. Sweetheart can’t move past her heartbreak to love anyone. And Humphrey fights to maintain the “blissful ignorance” of Whitespace itself, refusing to let Sunny wake up from his childish dreaming. After all, the very floor of the Neighbor Room is pink. Pink almost appears as an antagonistic unnatural color. Or rather, pink is the childishness Sunny and Aubrey need to overcome to mature and grow.

Though for Aubrey’s case, there’s a second meaning. Pink and purple are considered a feminine color, though purple is decidedly more mature of the two. Growing up, Aubrey didn’t have many feminine role models. Since Aubrey’s mother is emotionally unavailable, Mari is the only other girl Aubrey has to relate to. So they planned to style their hair to celebrate this connection. By asking Mari to dye their hair pink and purple, it appears that Aubrey is seeking to share her feminine experience with Mari.

Purple: Lavishness/ Love

Mari’s color. Purple is a color that exalts femininity and abundance. Traditionally associated with royalty and luxury, purple provokes a feeling of richness. Although in Mari’s case, this richness is not material wealth but rather takes the form of doting and indulgence. Representing how Mari goes out of her way to express her love to others in the form of gifts. This is also the main color of Headspace, since the color black is missing from that world replaced by infinite purple indulgence of an escapist fantasy.

Black: Mystery/ Repression/ Fear

Black is not evil in this game. It’s simply darkness. Hiding something important from sight. Something, the ghost, is black. All of them are. And of course there’s Black Space itself. All of it hidden, all of it pushed down. Black is also the exclusive color of fear, and is tied explicitly to the Truth. In earlier versions of the game, Fear was going to be just another emotion. In fact, super early concept material even indicates that somethings and black space were just going to be a haunted level. Not so in the final game. Black stands out as a special nightmare, that not only encroaches on the dream world, but even the Real World. All colors are swallowed by a darkness that torments Sunny and hides something awful.

Red: Anger/ Guilt/ Trauma

The color of blood. Of her blood. The color of guilt. Of being caught red handed. The color of unbridled fury for doing something awful to someone who loved you dearly. Across the game, we see Sunny being lured into the red lights. Red is the destructive impulse to seek revenge for Mari’s sake. Take from himself what he took from her. In Red Space, Sunny fights Omori. He faces his own self-hatred and overcomes his darkest impulses.

Anyway, I think that’s all the main colors. Happy Birthday Sunny! I try to make time for lore posts like these whenever I find time.

Thanks for reading.

#omori #omori spoilers

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