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beepboop358 · 3 years

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Victor Creel Theories

(also includes ST movie DNA series: Star Wars)

Victor Creel is described as "a disturbed and intimidating man who is imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital for a gruesome murder in the 1950s." We know he will be institutionalized at Penthurst mental hospital, where Peter Ballard works, based on leaked on set pics.

There a few possibilities regarding his character:

He could be a former test subject with some kind of powers and a connection to the upside down (which would also follow the even/odd season pattern of a main character being directly involved with the upside down creatures) I think it's highly likely that Victor Creel will be involved with the mystery/danger in Hawkins in some way, and have a connection to the upside down. He could also be disturbed on top of this, and he could be involved in Eleven's storyline this season.

That he is not a test subject and is ONLY mentally disturbed.

He may be related to one of the already established characters. Most likely Joyce, and maybe Terry but it's a stretch.

Before I go any further into that last possibility, I just want to preface that this idea of an "evil father/grandfather with powers" could be a purposeful Star Wars parallel. The Duffer brothers have already paralleled and used Star Wars references a few times in the show:

In Star Wars, Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father, and Palpatine is Rey's grandfather (aka the literal worst guy in the universe). A common theme in ST is abusive/bad fathers - that post here. Interesting...

Palpatine is also Anakin Skywalker's father, so Luke and Leia are both the grandkids of Palpatine as well as Rey is, but it's unclear if they are just force midichlorian related or actually dna related as well but I won't get into that here!

Luke and Rey are both force sensitive (have powers), so are Darth Vader and Palpatine; their descendants (kid/grandkid) have powers, and so do they (father/grandfather) The descendants use their powers for good, while the ancestors use their power for evil. Who has powers in ST? Eleven and Will - and they both already have this idea of abusive/bad/evil fathers: Will has an abusive father Lonnie, and Eleven has an abusive father figure Dr. Brenner "Papa".

So... Victor Creel being the evil/bad grandfather to either Eleven or Will and the evil/bad father to Joyce or Terry, would make a FULL Star Wars parallel to people who are morally good and have powers (Will and El - Luke and Rey), discovering they are the descendant of an evil male figure who also has powers (Victor Creel - Darth Vader and Palpatine)

If Victor Creel turns out to be the father of anyone in the show my bets are it's either Joyce Byers or maybeee Terry Ives.

If he was a test subject, its likely he went "crazy" with some of his powers and the government couldn't cover it up so they declare him mentally insane to get him committed, and he probably goes insane being locked away as well. Personally, I think he may be 001 or an early test subject, when they were still working out the kinks of the program, and I think he does have a big connection to the upside down.

The Duffer Brother's on s4: "In Hawkins a new horror is beginning to surface, something long buried, something that connects everything"....

Now let's get into the possibilities for Creel's storyline/who he could be related to (split into 3 parts).

Part 1: Creel could be Joyce's father

Based on Victor Creel's description as "disturbed" and that he is "in a psychiatric hospital", it could connect him to Joyce's bloodline.

There are several comments in the show hinting to this idea of mental instability in Joyce's family:

s1 ep.5: When Lonnie comes to visit in s1 after Will goes missing, Joyce says to Lonnie "No, don't look at me like that, like how everyone is looking at me, like I'm out of my damn mind" He responds saying "I think you need to consider the possibility that this is all in your head. Remember your Aunt Darlene?" Joyce quickly replies, "No, this is not that."

That conversation, although quick, is very telling. Lonnie is implying that Joyce had an aunt who was mentally unstable - and Joyce clearly knows about her aunt being unstable because she responds to his comment by saying what's she's experiencing is not that (the mental instability of her aunt)

s2 ep.2: Joyce says to Bob, "this is not a normal family", when he suggest moving out of Hawkins.

I used to think Joyce was always was referring to the whole 'my son got stuck in an alternate dimension with supernatural monsters and is now traumatized, and we were sworn to secrecy by the government' thing but maybe she is also referring to her biological family.

s1 ep.2: When they are searching for Will, one of the other police officers, says "Joyce is one step from the edge" and the other officer responds "She has been several steps for quite a while now".

If Joyce is related to Victor Creel biologically, and he did also happen to be a test subject, has powers, or has some other relation to the upside down, this could possibly have contributed to whatever kind of abilities Will has, because he would be a descendant of Creel. But Joyce does not seem to have any powers and neither does Jonathan. If they were related to Creel, it's odd that they both didn't get powers, but Will did. I've always thought Will was born with his powers, like El.

We know almost nothing about Joyce's past, it's never discussed in the slightest in the show, which I feel like is purposeful. We don't know Joyce's maiden name; she doesn't change it back after she and Lonnie divorce. Maybe the Duffers are saving Joyce's backstory for s4 (and possibly s5), like I think they are doing with Will and El's connection. Will, El, Hopper, and Joyce were pictured in a series of 4 tweets posted by the stranger writers, hinting to the main 4 storylines for season 4. My analyzation of this tweet here.

I think it's possible that Joyce's storyline this season could also have to do with her past- not just her searching for Hopper- but also more personal information about her. Perhaps we will see flashbacks of younger Joyce and maybe learn about her biological relatives.

Noah also said this would be the darkest season for Will, so this idea of being the grandkid of someone evil or disturbed could fit into that.

Part 2: Creel could be Terry's father/Eleven's grandfather

The only other person I could see potentially having a biological; relation to Victor Creel could be Terry Ives and Eleven, (because it would complete the Star Wars parallel mentioned earlier) but it's a stretch for several reasons, the main one being that Terry and Becky's father Bill Ives, died in a car crash (year unknown).

So for Victor Creel to be Terry's father that either has to be:

Her adoptive father OR

Her mother cheated and led Mr. Ives to believe Terry was his kid but her father is really Victor Creel, and Becky is actually Bill Ives son (which would explain why Becky has no powers)

Right of the bat it's interesting Terry's father's name is Bill. Bill is a nickname for William (Will Byers full name is William), and Billy's a nickname also for William... Hmmm....

Immediately after El is born, Terry is adamant that Brenner stole her child to use as a weapon to fight the commies BECAUSE SHE HAD SPECIAL ABILITIES - and she's completely right about everything. How does Terry know El had powers immediately after she was born? Because she knows she has developed some kind of special abilities from the experiments as well. When El goes to visit her mother in s2, THE LIGHTS FLICKER, just like they do when the upside down is near, but it's not Eleven controlling it. Her Aunt Becky says it's just the wiring, and Eleven responds: "IT'S MAMA. She wants to talk." And then we see Terry's NOSE BLEED, just like El's does when she uses her powers.

Quick side note about El's biological father is Andrew Rich: (It's revealed in the canon novel Suspicious Minds that Andrew Rich is El's father) He was a college student who got expelled from school due to protesting the Nixon address, making him eligible to be drafted in the Vietnam war, and he died in battle. Terry was involved in the Project MKUltra experiments at Hawkins National Laboratory in College, under the direction of Dr. Martin Brenner, but didn't know she was pregnant at the time. Andrew never even knew Terry was pregnant, meaning she was extremely early on in her pregancy at the time he was sent away, not even Terry was aware yet. It's also stated in this book that BRENNER HAD A HAND IN GETTING ANDREW EXPELLED SO HE COULD SEND ANDREW AWAY. The novel states that Brenner has Andrew drafted because he wants to SCARE Terry, to show her how much power he has over her life. There's definitely some history between Terry and Brenner that we don't know about yet.

If Victor Creel is in fact Joyce's father it's interesting that the powers seem to have skipped a generation with Joyce, and also one kid with the Byers, but if Victor Creel is Terry's father, no generations were skipped in passing down powers. ANYWAYS, this is all just theories and speculation since we have no actual concrete reasons to believe he will be related to Joyce or Terry.

Part 3: The possibility that Creel could be involved in Eleven's storyline this season does not rely on them being biologically related.

**One of the filming locations for this season is the Claremont House, which is RUMORED to be Creel's house and also "Vecna's lair" the new monster for s4 (unconfirmed) This is the house the Hawkins group goes into in the ST4 sneak peek, where they see the grandfather clock striking midnight. If that's true, there's a connection between Creel and the upside down and having powers, which could connect Creel to Eleven. The Duffers: "In Hawkins a new horror is beginning to surface, something long buried, something that connects everything". This thing "that connects everything", could be Creel's storyline (his possible connection to the lab/upside down/person in the show), because Creel's storyline also spans all the way back to the 1950's and before that, so there's our "long buried" part most likely.

Robert Englund recently revealed in *an interview* that his character Victor Creel gouges his eyes out, making him unable to see. Englund also mentions what it's like working with Millie Bobby Brown and talks about the first time her met her, he doesn't mention any other cast members in detail like he does Millie.

He's clearly working closely with Millie's character Eleven.

But why? I think Creel could be involved with Eleven getting her powers back, and her reliving her past. Once the government baddies realize El has no powers, they're gonna want them back. If Creel was in fact a test subject, maybe there is some kind of connection between them, Such as Eleven revisiting what happened to her in her past and how that could relate to her getting her powers back.

Another thought I had was that perhaps the gruesome murder he committed is somehow related to something that ends up impacting in Eleven's life.

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Whatever Victor Creel's storyline is, it will be an important one, and it will carry somewhat into s5, since he will be a returning character. He is not signed as a series regular, but as a recurring character, which means we don't really know to what capacity he will be in s5. It could be flashbacks mostly, or he could have just as big or small of a role.

Source: indie wire

That detail about eyes being gouged out reminds me of fear street 1666 when the townsmen who was sacrificed to the devil becomes possessed and gouges the kids eyes out. Leigh Janick, director of fear street, is married to Ross Duffer. They both direct and make horror/sci-fi themed series about kids in a small town set in the 80's, who fight supernatural evil with a heavy undertone of queer themes, that are even filmed in a lot of the same locations (the mall, the town streets, etc.) I'm not saying it's the same thing, it definitely won't be. But there's so many similarities between ST and Fear Street, I thought I would mention this as another.

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criminalmindscastandquotes · 7 years

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Criminal Minds Opening and Closing Quotes: Season 4

Season 4 Episode 1 Mayhem

Hotch: Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. – Ernest Hemingway.

Season 4 Episode 2 The Angel Maker

Hotch: “We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever. The goal is to create something that will.” Chuck Palahniuk.

Hotch: Wendell Berry said, “The past is our definition. We may strive with good reason to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it. But we will escape it only by adding something better to it.”

Season 4 Episode 3 Minimal Loss

Reid: “To follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.” Benjamin Franklin.

Prentiss: “Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it.” Ayn Rand.

Season 4 Episode 4 Paradise

Hotch: Thomas Fuller wrote, “A fool’s paradise is a wise man’s hell.”

Hotch: Roman poet Phaedrus wrote, “Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many. The intelligence of a few, perceives what has been carefully hidden.”

Season 4 Episode 5 Catching Out

Prentiss: “Plenty sits still. Hunger is a wanderer.” Zulu proverb.

Prentiss: “Beyond the East the sunrise, beyond the West the sea/ And the East and West the wander-thirst that will not let me be.” Gerald Gould.

Season 4 Episode 6 The Instincts

Hotch: “Who speaks to the instincts speaks to the deepest in mankind and finds the readiest response.” Amos Bronson Alcott.

Reid: “I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can’t touch with decay.” Bob Dylan.

Season 4 Episode 7 Memoriam

Reid: “What was silent in the father speaks in the son, and often I found in the son the unveiled secret of the father.” Friedrich Nietzsche.

Reid: “There is no refuge from memory and remorse in this world. The spirits of our foolish deeds haunt us, with or without repentance.” Gilbert Parker.

Season 4 Episode 8 Masterpiece

Rossi: “Let us consider that we are all insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles…” Mark Twain.

Rossi: “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Season 4 Episode 9 52 Pickup

Prentiss: Author Harlan Ellison wrote, “The minute people fall in love, they become liars.”

Rossi: P. J. O’Rourke wrote, “Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.”

Season 4 Episode 10 Brothers in Arms

Morgan: “We are all brothers under the skin, and I, for one, would be willing to skin humanity to prove it.” Ayn Rand.

Morgan: “… For he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.” William Shakespeare.

Season 4 Episode 11 Normal

Hotchner: “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.” H. L. Mencken.

Rossi: “There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.” President Dwight Eisenhower.

Season 4 Episode 12 Soul Mates

Reid: “No mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.” Sigmund Freud.

Morgan: British historian C. Northcote Parkinson said, “Delay is the deadliest form of denial.”

Season 4 Episode 13 Bloodline

Prentiss: Winston Churchill said, “There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created, strengthened and maintained.”

Hotchner: Mario Puzo wrote, “The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.”

Season 4 Episode 14 Cold Comfort

JJ: “And so, all the night-tide, I lay down by the side/ Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride. In the sepulchre there by the sea. In her tomb by the sounding sea.” Edgar Allan Poe.

Rossi: “For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.” Stuart Chase.

Season 4 Episode 15 Zoe’s Reprise

Rossi: “I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” Albert Einstein.

Rossi: Austrian novelist Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach wrote, “In youth we learn; in age we understand.”

Season 4 Episode 16 Pleasure is my Business

Hotchner: “The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men, but rather their conqueror, an outlaw, who controls the sexual channels between nature and culture.” Camille Paglia.

Season 4 Episode 17 Demonology

Prentiss: “He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done.” Leonardo da Vinci.

Rossi: “There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.” James Joyce.

Season 4 Episode 18 Omnivore

Hotchner: “Fate is not satisfied with inflicting one calamity.” Roman author Publilius Syrus.

Hotchner: “Men heap together the mistakes of their lives, and create a monster they call destiny.” John Hobbes.

Season 4 Episode 19 House On Fire

Hotchner: “We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out.” Tennessee Williams.

Hotchner: “I have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness, That which to me, is the only sensible way to love.” Françoise Sagan.

Season 4 Episode 20 Conflicted

Reid: “Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” Terry Pratchett.

Reid: “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” Stephen King.

Season 4 Episode 21 A Shade of Gray

Rossi: Dr. Burton Grebin once said, “To lose a child is to lose a piece of yourself.”

Rossi: “Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.” Andre Maurois.

Season 4 Episode 22 The Big Wheel

Hotchner: “In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.” Francis Bacon.

Morgan: “No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible.” George Chakiris.

Season 4 Episode 23 Roadkill

Hotchner: “I’m not sure about automobiles. With all their speed forward, they may be a step backward in civilization.” Booth Tarkington.

JJ: “The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still, small voice of conscience.” Mahatma Gandhi.

Season 4 Episode 24 Amplification

Reid: “It will become fine dust over all the land of Egypt and it will become boils breaking out with sores on man and beast through all the land of Egypt.” Exodus 9:9.

Reid: “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.” Helen Keller.

Season 4 Episode 25 – 26 To Hell…And Back

Hotchner: “If there were no hell, we would be like the animals. No hell, no dignity.” Flannery O’Connor.

Hotchner: Sometimes there are no words, no clever quotes to neatly sum up what’s happened that day. Sometimes you do everything right, everything exactly right, and still you feel like you failed. Did it need to end that way? Could something have been done to prevent the tragedy in the first place? Eighty-nine murders at the pig farm, the deaths of Mason and Lucas Turner make 91 lives snuffed out. Kelly Shane will go home and try to recover, to reconnect with her family but she’ll never be a child again. William Hightower, who gave his leg for his country, gave the rest of himself to avenge his sister’s murder. That makes 93 lives forever altered, not counting family and friends in a small town in Sarnia, Ontario, who thought monsters didn’t exist until they learned that they spent their lives with one. And what about my team? How many more times will they be able to look into the abyss? How many more times before they won’t ever recover the pieces of themselves that this job takes? Like I said, sometimes there are no words or clever quotes to neatly sum up what’s happened that day. The Reaper: You should have made a deal. Hotchner: Sometimes, the day just… (Fade to black. A gunshot is heard) Hotchner: … ends.

#criminal minds #aaron hotchner #david rossi #jason gideon #dr. spencer reid #emily prentiss #elle greenaway #Jennifer Jareau #Penelope Garcia #derek morgan #quotes #famous #popular #enlightening

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burlybard · 7 years

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The Living and the Dead and Undertale

I wrote this in October 2015. Four months later, my grandmother died. Six months later, my mom died. Grappling with so much tragedy has absolutely altered how I look at pop culture now, especially our culture’s relationship with death and mourning. But looking back at this piece, I don’t think I’d change a word. Only one thing has really changed: I believe, more than ever, that Undertale is perhaps the wisest and most emotionally honest game ever made about the subject of death, which is something most games are inundated with but never have the courage to address. It’s about sadness, mourning, remembrance, and love. It’s about the things we are so often afraid to confront when we experience tragedy. It is almost certainly my favorite game ever made.

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As a child, I didn’t comprehend death until a whole bunch of it hit my family all at once. When I was five years old, over a six month span aunt died at 23 of bone cancer, my grandfather died at 62 of pancreatic cancer, and my uncle died at 30 after he was struck in his car by a drunk driver. I learned then, before I knew much else about anything, that death was permanent, that death disabled entire families (some temporarily, some permanently), that death presented a wall of grief that simply has to be endured until every individual affected has the strength to move on, on their own terms.

As I grew older, the stories I consumed pretty much ignored all that.

In stories, death is typically a device. It is an obstacle for a hero to avoid. It is a convenient way of setting stakes. It is a means of taking large numbers of enemies out of the equation and assuring that they will not bother you again. It is a way of showing how much a character has changed, for the good (in how and why they face death) or for the bad (usually in inflicting it). This is not inherently a bad thing. Storytelling relies on tension. To create tension, characters need to have something to worry about. Death is hard to beat in that regard. Of the greatest TV dramas of all-time, how many didn’t rely on the possibility of death to provide impetus for the plot? Breaking Bad, The Wire, The Sopranos, Deadwood- all had death and killing around every corner. The same for Lost, The-X-Files, 24, and Game of Thrones.

Or what about films? Of the AFI’s top 50 films, by my count 35 feature death as a major plot point. Citizen Kane opens with the protagonist’s final breath. The Godfather is about a man’s descent into cold-blooded killing. Shane is about a man’s inability to escape a life of killing. Some Like it Hot is about two men who witness a murder and go on the run. Death moves stories forward. It’s natural to use to it to that effect. But sometimes, I wish more stories reflected on the aftermath. Sometimes, I wish more stories were about what happens when it feels like everything is crashing down at once, because someone you know and love has died. The way death affects the living is different for everyone. Stories are rarely about this.

That video games feature killing and death goes without saying. Ludonarrative dissonance permanently entered the gaming thinkpiece lexicon a few years ago as it became harder and harder to sympathize with a protagonist who commits mass slaughter simply to move the plot forward. I remember checking the stats while playing Uncharted 2 and seeing that I had amassed more than 900 kills and wasn’t close to finishing the game. The sheer absurdity of the number made it impossible not to imagine Nathan Drake- the game’s jovial and good-hearted protagonist- as a harbinger of death, wiping out entire bloodlines. It’s easier to make no attempt to reconcile the dissonance. It’s easier to accept it and get back to having fun.

My favorite work of literature about death is James Joyce’s short story The Dead. It’s title is up front about its theme, no? And yet the story itself meanders through a day in a man’s life, not broaching its titular subject until the very end. You’ve probably read it. If you haven’t, please do so now. It won’t take that long. The plot isn’t really about death. It’s about a man named Gabriel who builds his ego up a bit too much over a speech at a Christmas party. He hears someone singing “The Lass of Aughrim” in another room. He gives the speech. He is proud of himself. He is flushed with affection for his wife, Gretta. On the way to their hotel for the night, he asks her how she feels. Gretta reflects sadly on a boy she’d loved when she was young. He sang “The Lass of Aughrim” to her. Got caught in the rain. Died. Snow falls. Gabriel reflects on how this young man whose life was so short, who accomplished so little during it, could still so deeply affect his wife. They are all still bound together. The dead never really abandon the living. Humanity is in a perpetual state of overlap, those who knew the dead keep living, passing on their memories to others who never knew them. Joyce writes: His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

We never leave Gabriel’s point of view. Somehow, by the story’s end, we know Michael Furey. Time stopped for Gretta when he died. Sometimes, it still does.

Undertale. What does that title evoke? Graves, perhaps. A vague sense of the unknown. It takes place in a world of monsters. You are thrown into this world with no preparation. Early on, one monster asks you very kindly, to please have mercy when you get into a fight. This is easier said than done. You play the game as you are accustomed to doing with these games. Fight monsters, defeat them, level up. Progress through the story. But this game gives you options. You don’t have to fight. And if you do, you don’t have to fight to the death. Granted, it can be hard. But you don’t have to. You are reminded of this regularly. A character you kill might be referenced by someone else later on in the game. Characters you speak to might mention a frightening entity who has come down from above, killing innocents. But this isn’t new. You move on. You reach the end, beat the game. There’s much, much more to it than that, but I’m trying leave this experience as fresh as possible. The first playthrough of Undertale took me about six hours, and I enjoyed every minute.

After winning, the game does something that was surprising when it happened and, in hindsight, is sort of remarkable.

It asks you to play again. With absolutely no killing.

Is this a gimmick? It might look to be. It’s not. It’s where Undertale becomes something truly remarkable.

One of my favorite films about death is The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Have you seen it? There’s a good chance you haven’t. It was directed by and stars Tommy Lee Jones, and written by Guillermo Arriaga. It generated some buzz at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, where Jones won best actor and Arriaga won best screenplay. It came and went in February 2006, earned mostly strong reviews, grossed less than $10 million. I believe it’s one of the best films ever made about the living and the dead.

Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cellido) is a rancher in southern Texas. Pete Perkins (Jones) is his work partner and closest friend. Estrada (this isn’t a spoiler, look at the title) is killed senselessly by a border patrol agent (Barry Pepper) who, as men in positions of power and holding weapons that kill often do, fires without regard. The agent attempts to cover up the killing. Pete digs deep, finds out what happened, and exacts justice. A normal telling of this story would involve revenge. Eye for an eye. A killing for a killing. Death as a device. Jones and Arriaga have a better story to tell than that. Pete wants the agent to see what he has done. To honor the life he stole. Pete kidnaps the agent and takes him on a journey to Melquiades’s home town in Mexico. To say any more would be to spoil the quiet richness of this film. In refusing the easier path, it finds truth and beauty. Revenge makes for shallow stories. Pete’s method of justice accomplishes something deeper. He makes sure his friend is not forgotten. He ensures that Melquiades will survive for unforgiving march of time.

On my second playthrough of Undertale, I noticed a detail in one of the first locations. A diary. Its contents were amusing at first. Knowing their full context is impossible without beating the game once. Seeing it again, I felt my spirits lift with a sort of happy recognition, its meaning coming full circle., before falling back down with sadness, knowing its full context.

I found myself being more careful. Not just refusing to fight. Getting to know characters I hadn’t talked to before. Talking my way out of conflicts that I thought could only be resolved through violence. I found myself unlocking new relationships, new stories, and even new places in the game. I was more than happy with the novelty of this experience, of how different the game was with this approach. Then I neared the end.

A character who’d been my adversary in both playthroughs found themselves changed by my actions. They wanted to change. But time was running out for them. I hadn’t fought them. As in life, death comes to all, one way or another. I was given the chance to reach out to them, to forgive them for our differences. They reached out physically and embraced me. I don’t want to let go, they said.

They were the first character to die in this playthrough. I was moved to tears. Screw that. I was sobbing. Games are so often rife with death. Undertale, more than any I’ve ever played, is about the dead, as well as the living. It’s a game where the dead are meant to be remembered. And for the living in their wake, time stops.

#Undertale

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