#scarlet hollow episode 4 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

void-writing · 1 year

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really enjoying episode 4 of Scarlet Hollow and i want to put together some miscellaneous thoughts about my experiences so far

Spoilers to follow, so I’ll put it under a cut :)

Sybil and the Cat

As much as it pains me, I do not trust Sybil. She was setting off so many alarms for me this chapter during the tea meeting. Like, she has fucking castor beans in her tea room--which if you picked the Book Smart trait are revealed to be full of ricin aka: one of the deadliest poisons ever that was used by KGB to carry out stealth assassinations because you only need a tiny dose for it to be lethal and there is no antidote. And when we see it again in the clinic’s medicine room, we recognize it but somehow we can’t remember where we saw it even though we were just at Sybil’s tea room and when we ask Dr. Kelly how she settled on using ricin to subdue Reese’s...condition...we mysteriously don’t hear who Dr. Kelly went to for it. I 100% believe that Kelly got it from Sybil because she claimed she had an “errand” to run on Main Street (aka, where the General Store is) when Reese distracted her.

Also, Sybil is definitely doing something to Kaneeka. There is something in that tea that makes her more subjective to Sybil’s influence because when we came into the General Store, Kaneeka went to her room way too easily, and there’s a scene where we manage to get Kaneeka out of her room to come with us to the clinic, but Sybil stops us and insists Kaneeka isn’t well despite her momentary insistence to the contrary. And then...she just changes her mind and we have to go alone. And if you picked the Mystical trait, you specifically note that something is encroaching on your mind and trying to make you agree with Sybil that Kaneeka should rest.

And I haven’t even touched on the tea reading itself because something I find highly suspicious is the notion of the “cat” figure, the “hidden enemy.” There’s an option to pose the question that Sybil is the cat but it’s immediately shot down. You don’t even voice it. It just tells you “there’s no way Sybil is the cat. She’s helping you. Why would she warn you about the cat if she’s the cat. Pick someone else.” Also, the time I picked Tabitha as my suspect, Sybil was strangely insistent on encouraging that conjecture. It’s like she’s trying to subtly drive a wedge between us and Tabitha, which makes me concerned because Tabitha at least seems to value Sybil’s council and got some mysterious “tea” from her in episode 3 (which I think is either for the Scarlet’s mysterious prisoner or for us, and I’m fairly sure that it’s meant to subdue whoever drinks it somehow). Plus, I think it would be a classic fake out if Sybil is this hidden enemy because even without the tea forcing us to not suspect Sybil, it’s a lot like how in murder mystery shows, sometimes the one who reports the crime is the one who committed it in order to throw suspicion off them. Because why would they raise the alarm if they were the culprit?

And honestly, her tea reading itself is kind of sus too. If you have Mystical as a trait, you can ask to see the tea leaves yourself and...it’s just kind of a mess of leaf shreds. Sybil claims that tea reading is something that takes years to learn, but I’d think that with the Mystical trait, we’d be able to pick up something. But nothing flags and we hand it back. Plus, the reading doesn’t...tell us anything new aside from this “hidden enemy.” It’s supposedly just a mess of omens of ill fortune and doom. Which we already know from the Ditchlings. And it doesn’t point us to any useful direction. Other than the clinic and seeking out more of the carvings. She says it’s to arm yourself with knowledge (and honestly, I do find that to be a kernel of sound advice) but we don’t know much about the carvings aside from 1) only Scarlets feel the pull and see visions from them, usually of some dark secret truth, 2) people keep dying near or even on them, 3) a Witch told Charles Shaw Junior to seek them out for currently unknown reasons, only to get whammied by Eddie--who seemingly was in some kind of involuntary trance--as soon as he finds it, 4) we keep passing out and having seizures when we see them for the first time, and 5) something bad happens whenever we see them the first time (the mine collapsed, Charles Junior’s whole puppet show, Reese...). It feels like we’re being...primed for something. Prepared. And it feels like we’re being prepared as a sacrificial offering somehow to strengthen whatever curse/mystic whatever that has its hold on the town.

We get some backstory from Sybil about both herself and our mother, but Sybil was vague about herself. She only mentioned that her family has been in the Holler for as long--if not longer--than the Scarlets. So, maybe she’s a descendant of The Witch from Charlie’s haunting. The one that likely has “ulterior motives” according to the Mystic Trait. Sybil also seems quite insistent on downplaying the extent of her power and knowledge and denying being a witch when asked. All in all, Sybil seems very insistent on pushing the “innocent old lady” image. She also dropped some Scarlet lore too. Apparently our maternal grandmother died in childbirth due to being too young to be giving birth, let alone birthing twins. All the husbands after Edwardine’s time are still unknown, Sybil writing them off as flings or just not being terribly remarkable. I’ll talk more on my thoughts about this later.

In summary, Sybil is sus. I think she knows more than she’s letting on. She’s doing something to Kaneeka (Miles also looked pissed for some reason during the scene where Sybil stops us from taking Kaneeka with us to the clinic. Whether his rage is on Kaneeka’s behalf or directed at Kaneeka, I don’t know) and was almost certainly the one supplying Dr. Kelly with castor beans. There was something in that tea that we drank that makes us less suspicious of Sybil (maybe it’s part of the “preparation” I’m theorizing is going on. After all, we were given the same tea when we first arrived in Scarlet Hollow...). I think she’s trying to throw suspicion off of herself by warning us about the “hidden enemy” herself. Tabitha trusts her but tried to subtly drive us to suspect Tabitha of being an enemy.

Reese and Doctor Kelly

First of all, Dr. Kelly definitely likes kids better than...most people. If you don’t have the Keen Eye trait, Rosalina loses a leg and when we go to visit Oscar to check in and see if he’s seen Stella, Dr. Kelly is there giving Rosalina shots and checking up on her. During this, Dr. Kelly is downright kind and gentle until she notices us and she turns into the Ice Queen Doc that we saw last episode. Oscar told Dr. Kelly everything that happened the night before and she...seems to believe him, but if we try to warn her about the carving in the clinic and ask to see it, she gets defensive rather than dismissive.

Reese might be an Anti-Christ. I mean...the biggest reason I think that is that Dr. Kelly was having “romantic” sleep paralysis dreams for months and suddenly got pregnant despite not seeing anyone romantically. There’s also the fact that Reese has a downright supernatural healing factor, which is definitely how he’s survived consuming regular doses of one of the most deadly poisons on Earth (and also getting shot by Tabitha if you call her) and why he seems...strangely fixated and enthused by the idea of human suffering and cosmic horror. Like...those on their own are fine. I get it. It’s fascinating to explore in art and media, but...Reese seemed to be talking about people experiencing it in real life during the build up to his transformation. Idk. During that, it didn’t feel like he was talking about the horror movie that was on.

Reese has encountered Wayne before. He didn’t know his name, so he didn’t make the connection to Wayne as our stalker until we name him. Wayne knows that Reese is something other and dangerous, but didn’t know what until the fight broke out. I want to talk more about Wayne, but I’ll leave that for later. Also, Reese was absolutely convinced that Wayne hated him and meant to hurt him (I mean...I don’t think he was necessarily wrong in that tbh).

Dr. Kelly has been prepping for the eventuality that Reese will no longer listen to her and take his “medicine.” There’s an outcome where Reese gets locked away in Dr. Kelly’s safe room (which is the outcome I favored most since I don’t want to kill Reese but I also don’t want to let him kill Dr. Kelly). And the ricin was actually Dr. Kelly’s second option. She switched to it when she had to stop ordering official meds because what she was ordering was poisonous and people would get suspicious. Also, what she was giving Reese wasn’t working anymore anyway. His body adapted. So I think the poison was meant to keep Reese’s powers busy. If they’re focused on healing the damage the ricin does, then he won’t have enough to spare to Hulk out. And even the ricin seemed to be losing effect too because it only took a couple hours for Reese’s powers to rebound (he did carry us from the carving, up and down several flights of stairs despite being a walking skeleton, which is sus on its own but extra sus if you have the Powerful Build trait, which makes you even heavier. I think).

Reese can turn his paintings into minions. With the Mystical Trait, you’re able to sense in episode 3 that something dark lingers in those paintings in a much more literal sense and Reese talks about feelings building up within him that he releaves by putting them into the paintings. Guess it was a lot more literal than we thought.

Reese also got...strangely defensive of us when Wayne shows up. I haven’t done anything to support or oppose him yet, but I do find it a bit odd. I mean, he’d only met us for like an hour tops the day before. Maybe it was just because we were there and depending on how the medicine room goes (and what traits you picked), we alerted him to the Doc’s “true” intentions with him and his “medicine.” But he doesn’t seem to exhibit the same feelings towards his life-long friends. Not that they came up during the whole *gestures vaguely* but I’d think that if he was feeling so under threat that he’d mention, even off-handedly, staying with Kaneeka or Stella. I don’t quite know what to make of it yet, but it felt odd to me.

Dr. Kelly was also looking over death records of Scarlets in her office. We have the option to snoop at them (which I’ve always taken so far because I love me some lore) and we get some...interesting bits of info. That, I’ll talk more on later, but I find it interesting that she’s looking at those especially since in episode 3, Dr. Kelly mentioned that Scarlets seem to be...averse to hospital and doctor visits. I wonder what she was looking for in those.

The Carvings

There’s a chance of being able to examine the second carving (which I will be calling the Goat carving for simplicity’s sake) if Rosalina didn’t lose a leg and we placate Charlie’s spirit. If you have Book Smart, you notice that the carving’s style is Greeco-Roman, the weathering points to it being from a temple, and that the carving from the mine (which will henceforth be called the Chain carving) were made by the same artist and likely came from the same place.

They seem to lose their magnetism on us after we encounter them the first time.

The carvings also seem to be in sites of death. The Chain carving was in the depths of the condemned Shaw Mine where miner’s died due to rotted beams (and if you have the Mystic trait, you get extra scenes from these carvings. In the Chain carving, you see an argument between Charles Shaw Senior and Enoch Scarlet, where Charles Senior confronts Enoch about using subpar wood in the mines and Enoch writes him off. I don’t remember if you get an extra scene in the Goat carving, but the third one also gives us a vision of Enoch doing something dubious. So it seems that whatever’s going on in the Holler might have started with him). Charles Shaw Junior freaking died on one, murdered by a Scarlet. And the third one was in a “clean air” clinic that was turned into a proper doctor’s office after the mine collapse to treat the survivors. And I doubt all of them survived.

And the third one...I’m calling it the Chimera carving because there was...a lot going on visually in that one, we see an injured man in a hospital bed, presumably Theodore Scarlet, Enoch’s brother and our great uncle who supposedly died in the Shaw mine collapse. Enoch assures Theodore(?), who says the doctors told him he’ll never walk again, that he’s sorted this out by talking to The Witch. Theodore doesn’t seem to know who Enoch is talking about, responding with “A...witch?” rather than “The Witch” like Enoch. I’m guessing she’s the same Witch from Charles Junior’s memories, but Enoch claims that Theodore doesn’t have to worry about his legs or anything again and that he’ll be taking him home by the end of the week. If you have the Mystic trait, you get an extra scene of Enoch in the doctor’s office, telling the doctor that the man claiming to be Theodore isn’t his brother and insisting that he died in the mine collapse. I’m not sure who Enoch was lying to, but I think it was most likely that Enoch lied to the doctor and declared Theodore dead when he wasn’t and then hiding him in the estate. Though, I think it would have been just as likely that Enoch killed this guy.

The symbolism of the carvings to me points to the themes of cycles and sacrifice. The arms circled in chains, each swinging some kind of improvised chain flail(?). The goat’s head, surrounded by three wolves (and the fact that the Shaws had a lot of goat symbolism during Charlie’s haunting. Possibly pointing to how the Shaws were scapegoats for the Scarlets and potentially a sacrificial goat as well). The Chimera carving involves seven (mostly) alternating figures or humanoids and animals, all bound together by a long, tangled snake. The animals are a lion, a goat, a sheep, and possibly either a cow or a pig (I can’t tell). The humanoids all have something fantastical about them. One man has a crown and long ears (kind of gives me Midas vibes with his scepter and almost donkey-like ears), the man opposite to him has horns and similarly pointed ears, and the last figure is fairly ambiguous gender-wise and has no visible ears (they actually look fairly normal, but something about their appearance feels fae-like to me for some reason) but the snake’s head is hovering over their shoulder, its tongue flicking out. The goat and pig or cow remind me of a Roman suovetaurila, a very important type of sacrifice, usually made to Mars (one of their gods of war) to bless and purify land. There’s two types, but the biggest and most important involves a goat, which we’ve seen three times in the story so far, so I’m more keen on referencing that one (...though now that I think of it, “ram” also could mean a male sheep, which is more likely considering the word “suovetaurilia is literally the Latin words for pig, sheep, and bull smushed together). I don’t know, this one is less clear symbolically, but we might not have enough info yet.

Scarlet Lore

So, we get a fairly hefty amount of Scarlet lore this chapter. And Alexandra’s doll moves! Of course, if you picked Keen Eye, you pick up on a bloody, pussy residue that we’ve come to associate with Wayne, so someone’s been rooting through the closet in our absence. Creepy.

Tabitha brought a goat into the greenhouse for some reason. Again, I’m thinking for sacrificial purposes, but even with Talk with Animals, the goat (creatively named “Goat”) doesn’t know much either. So, a mystery for another day, I guess.

Our mother, Vivian apparently was terrified over being pregnant according to Sybil (who I am still sus of and will be taking everything see says with a Dead Sea’s worth of salt from now on). Understandable fear given that we were apparently conceived out of wedlock with a still unknown father and Vivian’s mother--our grandmother--died in childbirth. But I don’t know. There’s definitely more to this. Maybe Vivian knew that we’d be destined for something horrible and left the Holler with us to try and prevent it? Not enough info yet, but I’m definitely keeping that in the back of my mind. God. What if Vivian got pregnant the same way Dr. Kelly did? I mean, we have the option to have some legit magic powers (the Talk with Animals and Mystic traits), and since Edwardine, the paternal lineage of the Scarlets has been strangely obscured and surprisingly matriarchal. If I’m remembering right, every descendant of the Scarlets since Edwardine--Enoch’s daughter--has been female, which is an interesting coincidence that--for me, at least--would be quite innocent in any other setting. Fuck. What if this is a Hell Bride situation? Like, Enoch promised a female Scarlet to some otherworldly force through the Witch in exchange for bettering Theodore’s condition (if Enoch actually cared for his brother) or to ensure that the Scarlet family continues to hold power over the Holler and everyone in it (and maybe that’s why no one seems to be able to leave. At least...not for long anyway).

We have an opportunity during our journey into the clinic’s morgue to see Pearlanne herself and...uh...she’s definitely a dead body. Though, I don’t think she’s been embalmed. I’m not an expert in funerary practices and I know embalming isn’t everyone’s preference but it does seem to be the standard and I find it...odd that it doesn’t seem like her body’s been embalmed at all with her funeral in three days. I don’t know. I’m just highly suspicious of literally everything right now.

We get to see some death records and they have some interesting tidbits in them.

Enoch and Alexandra (Edwardine’s first daughter) both died on the exact same day. Well. Enoch died for sure. Due to a supposed “hiking accident” where he fell off a cliff. Alexandra, meanwhile, just straight up vanished and was declared dead by Edwardine. While I have no idea what could have been up with Alexandra disappearing, I definitely think Edwardine murdered Enoch as retribution for whatever mystic forces he tampered with that compelled her to murder Charlie. After all, Charlie did specifically mention that whatever was going on with those carvings, Enoch was responsible.

Edwardine’s child with Charlie was supposedly stillborn. A boy, named Andrew Charles (kind of sweet of Edwardine to give the boy his father’s name for a middle name). There was no doctor and it was a home birth, so we only have Edwardine’s word to go on. I definitely think there was more to this. What, I don’t know yet.

Theodore, our great uncle who died in the Shaw mine (supposedly), was declared dead by Enoch, his younger brother, who fully took over the mines after he died. Supposedly. Is it possible Enoch murdered his brother to take the mine and estate and town for himself? I wouldn’t rule it out yet, but Enoch is hella sus.

Edwardine had two brothers who died in Normandy during WWII, each within a day of each other. We kind of already knew that from episode 3, but the confirmation of death records is interesting.

Edwardine is probably the longest living Scarlet in...a long time, and possibly ever. She lived to be almost 90. Pearlanne was second longest-living and both seem to have passed from old people illnesses (sleep apnea and heart disease).

Edwardine raised Pearlanne and Vivian in place of her daughter, Mary-Belle (the woman who’s portrait hangs in our room. Actually, I think we’re in her room, so she has her missing, probably dead sister’s doll in her closet...). And according to Sybil, our mother was something of an emotional punching bag for the rest of the family.

As far as I remember right now, only Edwardine and Pearlanne lived past thirty.

Enoch made some kind of deal, either for his own benefit or for the sake of his brother. Don’t know which yet, if these are even the only two options. Enoch seems like a very two-faced, self-serving bastard to me so far, but we’ll see.

Wayne

Oh boy...if I didn’t think he was something supernatural before, I do now. Not even counting that Wayne knew Reese was something eldritch and other, he fought Reese and managed to repeatedly find his way into places taken over by entities trying to keep him out. Also, there’s something about his yellow pus-goo that harmed Reese on contact. I want to know so badly what Wayne is. My current tentative theory is that if Reese is something demonic, what if Wayne is something angelic? If Wayne’s the one that pulls everyone out of Charlie’s haunting, Sybil hints that us bending to Charlie’s demands would “go against everything he is.” A curious phrase, for sure. Sybil seems to be convinced that Wayne is harmless, though again, I’m suspicious of Sybil, but Wayne seems to be acting as like...a musty, spooky guardian angel. So far, he’s been nothing but helpful to us, if not blatantly protective.

We actually saw quite a bit of Wayne this episode. He followed us to the Church and I saw him lurking by the clinic as we approached it. To my knowledge, this is the first time we see Wayne watching us from afar since episode 2 if we stayed at the Estate following the events of episode 1.

Most importantly, if we don’t decide to pursue the romantic subplot with Stella, Wayne walks us back to the estate and we get the opportunity to ask him some questions. Naturally, he’s vague about a lot of things, but he’s following us specifically because “[we’re] special” and when we ask why he answers “you just are.” Annoying, but mildly informative in the sense that there is something inherent to us specifically that is unique, even amongst our kin, limited though they are. Wayne also says that we’re bonded to him in some way. He doesn’t elaborate, but he does imply that he will stand by us for...whatever’s coming.

This mysterious “bond” is a bit suspect to me and I’m curious about what that exactly means (personally, I hope it’s not romantic...).

He also encourages us to snoop around the estate when Tabitha is out and busy with the strike. He might want us to find something there. Perhaps the mysterious imprisoned entity? Perhaps something else.

#screaming from the void #scarlet hollow #scarlet hollow episode 4 #scarlet hollow theories #god now im going to have to play through the whole thing again from the start to see what else i can find

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