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humornaut · 1 year

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Sunny and Home and Basil (and Sweetheart?!)

Hey all! I've been thinking a lot about how home is represented in Omori, and especially about how Sunny thinks about home and imagines it. Omori Spoilers Ahead!

So to start this off, it has been noted quite a lot that Sunny associates the concept of home with Basil. The main thing that people point out to support this is the fact that before Memory Lane and right after the fight with Basil, it's Basil that is waiting for Sunny in front of his house to welcome him home, but there is so much more to look at when it comes to this concept.

For starters, the theme music for Basil's house in both the real world and Headspace is entitled "A Home for Flowers", but there are some very specific flowers that Basil's house is a home for. Within Headspace, it is a home for tulips, which is the flower associated with Sunny, courtesy of Basil. The other two flower versions of this are Sunflower and Daisy. Sunflower plays during the Birthday Memory of Memory Lane, and Daisy plays in Basil's Meadow after the true Something battle. Finally, the Empty version of this theme is what plays at Basil's house in the real world. Basil's home is also a home for Sunny, within Sunny's head. The Empty version shows that in the present day, Basil's home doesn't really provide any respite for either Sunny or Basil, because metaphorically, neither of them have been "home" since the Incident.

However, I'd also like to put forward that there's another big thing within Headspace that tells us a lot about how Sunny views the concept of "home".

Sweetheart's Castle

Sweetheart's Castle is a very interesting area of the game that the player spends a lot of time in. In fact, it can tell us a lot about how Sunny feels about the concept of "home" if you pay attention to the little details it gives us. For now, I would like to set aside the fact that the castle is associated with Sweetheart to talk about what happens in the castle itself.

To me, the castle is very clearly based off of Basil's house, or more specifically, the things that happen during this part of the game take a lot of inspiration from the memory of Basil's birthday.

To start out, there are four tasks that the player must complete while inside the castle. The first is assisting with preparing a strawberry cake, which is a clear parallel to the Birthday Memory, since it implies that Sunny was involved with the making of Basil's cake in the first place. The castle is also filled with many other strawberry cakes that Sunny/Omori associate with different smells, and bring the player to different areas of headspace. Check out my other analysis on Sunny's relationship with food and cooking for more details!

Within Sweetheart's bedroom, the player has to destroy a statue of Spaceboy, to be replaced with a statue of Sweetheart. In addition, Sweetheart's bedroom contains a bed that the player can rest at to heal, much like a picnic. To me, this very much relates to how Basil's bed is the only one that Sunny notes is comfortable, other than his own. It also is reminiscent of how Basil's birthday party in the Photo Album appears to have ended in a sleepover. The bedroom is also filled with different kinds of snacks and sodas, and this is also the area where you can get the Teapot weapon for Hero, and learn the Teatime skill.

Next, you have to go to the Royal Library to assist with the guest list. While I don't think the group had to think too hard at all about who was invited to Basil's birthday party, since it's pretty much just the friend group, there are some interesting things about this area. Sweetheart's Castle's purpose within Headspace is to cover up the Lost Library, so the fact that a library was included at all is interesting, considering the connotations. Within this area, you can find the Interesting Book for the "Fascinating Literature" side quest, a poetry book, and the Book charm, which can increase experience gain. To me, this relates back to Basil's love of reading, which he shared with Sunny.

Finally, you go to the Royal Ballroom to assist with preparing the Sprout Mole Choir to sing at the wedding. You might be able to say that this area is reminiscent of Basil's love of listening to Sunny and Mari practice their music, after all, it was Basil and Hero that moved all of the stools into the practice room to listen to the two. This room also contains a Sprout Mole that you can slow dance with to restore the party's Health and Juice. No matter if you dance with them with Aubrey or one of the boys, they will always say, "That was so much fun... Ah... What is this feeling? My heart is racing so fast... Thanks, hehe...". Just a little interesting thing for Sunny's mind to include in this area, specifically with the small plant creature that enjoys tofu.

The associations don't end there. There is also the Royal Gallery, which contains a bunch of art. Though we don't get to see it much in the real world, Headspace Kel notes that Basil does enjoy art, along with reading, flowers, and photography. The player can even become art in this area, by standing on a podium. You can once again do this with any character selected, so this could very much reference that Basil prefers to take pictures of his friends, since he is afraid of losing them.

Then you have the Royal Theater, where there are 11 different movies that the party could watch, which absolutely could represent how Sunny and Basil would have sleepovers where they would watch movies, or more generally represent the group watching movies as part of Basil's party. The castle also has a large garden, which is something that Sunny's mind also associates with Basil.

But What About Sweetheart?

I won't go into too much detail about what Sweetheart represents, as there is a very good post about it already, but to paraphrase what's important, Spaceboy and Sweetheart both represent aspects of Sunny, and his relationship with himself/Omori. Some people try and say it represents how Sunny really feels about how a relationship with Aubrey would go, but I think this concept is a little bit of a stretch. As far as we're concerned here, Sweetheart represents Sunny's broken idea of love following the incident, as well as his inability to even conceptualize what loving himself even means following what happened to Mari.

That being said, there is a character within Sweetheart's castle that does appear to represent someone other than Sunny...

Look at this dude, with his stupid dumb teal hair, pink hairclip and overalls. Wait

After finishing up the primary quest line in Sweetheart's Castle, you have the ability to meet a character by the name of Rococo. Rococo has some interesting similarities with Basil's story. He doesn't really have his own people due to his original planet being destroyed, in the same way that Basil doesn't really have his own family outside of his grandmother. He was taken in by Sweetheart and her family in a way that is similar to Basil being accepted into the friend group, and more specifically, how he appears to have spent a lot of time at Sunny and Mari's house. He'll paint pictures of Omori's party, in the same way that Basil in the real world would take photos of his friends, but not a lot of himself.

He sleeps on a futon with sheets made of the finest materials with a self-heating and cooling option. Seeing as Sunny recognizes Basil's bed as comfortable, this could be seen as a reference to Sunny sleeping on Basil's bed during sleepovers, while Basil himself slept on a rollout futon.

The fact that he has been sealed away from Sweetheart's castle reflects both how Headspace itself is filled with things that Basil loves while Basil is kept away from it by spending most of the game sealed away in Black Space or restricted to a picnic blanket, and how Sunny has physically shut out Basil in the real world for four years, keeping the two apart. Rococo is also depicted as being very lonely after being sealed away for so long, even growing desperate when the party tries to leave before he can tell his story, in a manner that resembles how Basil behaves during the real world segments of the game.

If you want to take the connections between Sweetheart & Rococo and Sunny & Basil literally, Rococo even says this:

Obviously, you don't have to take everything literally here if you don't believe there is any kind of romantic connection at all between Sunny and Basil, but this backstory does kind of parallel the way that the past is told in Omori. For instance, after meeting Sweetheart, Rococo has a gap in his memory of a few years leading up to he and Sweetheart falling in love and moving into the castle. Meanwhile, we know almost nothing about Sunny or Basil or anyone else in the group during the period of time between when Basil joined the friend group and when Basil started taking pictures for the photo album. Within the photo album, there are many things that imply that Sunny and Basil became closer throughout that final year than they were before, even if Basil already considered Sunny his best friend from the first picture. The falling out between Sweetheart and Rococo is more metaphorical than literal, as the thing that caused Sunny to lock Basil away both in his mind and in real life was the fact that he was a reminder of a past that Sunny desperately wanted to forget, not that Sunny was becoming more popular and receiving fan mail and requests from suitors, though you could see Rococo as representing the real Basil that was locked out and the suitors and popularity as representing the new friends that Sunny created within Headspace.

The Castle as Home

So how does this all line up with how Sunny sees "home"?

Below the castle is a little area with an NPC by the name of "The Keeper of the Castle".

The Keeper tells us that the castle takes the shape of one's deepest desires. "A place to return to. Somewhere to call home." In a way, since Sweetheart represents an aspect of Sunny, we could say that part of Sunny desires his home to be represented by this castle.

The Keeper also tells us that it knows that Sweetheart will soon leave, and it will need to look for a new owner. If you are playing the Hikikomori route, Omori will become the new owner of the castle. However, Omori/Sunny has rejected the real world in this route. He has rejected reconciling with his friends, ending the delusion, and he has rejected his special connection with Basil, with Basil's photo album no longer referring to the two as best friends, and instead referring to the friend group as a whole as Basil's best friends.

To that end, once Omori becomes the castle's new owner, all reminders of the reasons that Basil is associated with home are erased. All of the strawberry cakes, the art, the books, the garden, and Rococo himself are erased, leaving behind the "Boring Room", where all Omori/Sunny can do is sit, surrounded by pictures of a past that no longer exists, which is emblematic of how Sunny's own house must feel after those four years inside without his friends and his only family being a busy mother.

This is the hikikomori route's twisted version of Sunny "finding his way back home." No Basil, no Mewo, no Mari, and definitely no violin or Memory Lane. Only reminders of Sunny's broken family that he is confronted with every day, with all of the reminders of his friend group and especially Basil ripped away and forgotten. And this is how you get the "Welcome Home" achievement.

Hope you enjoyed!

#omori #omori analysis #sunnflower #omori sunflower #sunflower omori #kind of #i guess #sweetheart #omori sunny #omori basil #rococo #sweetheart's castle #omori spoilers #hikikomori route #keeper of the castle #rococo says he would do literally anything for sweetheart #omocat says that basil would do literally anything for sunny #thats real interesting #anyway if headspace still exists post true ending you just know that sunnys mind is moving himself and basil into that castle

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