And I actually would have been really disappointed if it was all clearly just in her head, that's just too easy and kind of lazy to me. And would almost be insulting to her in a way.
The cult thing is there to help connect the whole small town conservative theme, to me at least. They were building things up with the town committee at various points (and yes for a time I thought the town committee WAS the cult, but alas I don't think that's it now) and then there's an optional side-quest thing that ends up explaining more about the unions, particularly with Mae's dad and how he hates his job. And you gets bits of it with the newspaper clippings in the library too.
And I actually would have been really disappointed if it was all clearly just in her head, that's just too easy and kind of lazy to me. And would almost be insulting to her in a way.
Also I liked Possum Springs but I don't think that by itself would be enough to drive a plot.
like, okay, how DID the cultist get over the fence when Mae was chasing after them? why WAS there no evidence? It just doesn't feel like there was enough follow through on the mystery plot for me to buy into it
Paratroopa1 posted...
like, okay, how DID the cultist get over the fence when Mae was chasing after them? why WAS there no evidence? It just doesn't feel like there was enough follow through on the mystery plot for me to buy into it
I feel like you missed a decent bit of stuff you find out from side conversations and newspaper clippings at the library and such.
Wasn't it said at some point that the cultists had the power to, like, phase through obstacles? I don't remember the specifics but I was like "ohh that's how they did it."
It doesn't outright tell you, but it does imply there's something supernatural about him.
He apparently gets through walls atleast twice.
His coat flutters in the mines when nobody else's does
He seems semi-transparent at certain times
Popular theory is he's the guy the other miners talk about who found the "goat," especially since they mention it was said he could walk through walls. Obviously that seems ridiculous, but at that point the implication of the supernatural actually being a thing is pretty heavy in general.
Wasn't it said at some point that the cultists had the power to, like, phase through obstacles? I don't remember the specifics but I was like "ohh that's how they did it."
wait so the newspaper clipping around the underground gasses making people hallucinate was just an incorrect explanation for the supernatural thing that REALLY DOES live underground
I'm so confused
I agree that the cult was heavy-handed but I honestly liked that it felt so divorced from Mae's personal story. Theres her personal problems, and her problems with others, and there are also horrible things going on in the world in addition to that. Mae confronts them because she thinks she needs to and it's the right thing to do (and it is), but doing so doesn't even fix any of her personal shit. In the end I just didnt think it was really about fixing shit, and more about coming to terms with it.
Also I agree that the game is emotionally challenging. I felt emotionally exhausted at times, and I don't even relate very much to Mae! I think I might have been initially disappointed there wasnt some big cathartic emotional payoff at the end but I honestly don't know what could have fulfilled that. It's kind of a non-ending, which I think suits the story as just a snapshot of one moment in Mae's life.
I would be 100% okay with the notion of "who knows if there's really some kind of eldritch horror underneath the mines? maybe yes, maybe no?"
Oh also I agree with the message of "the game isn't about fixing problems, it's more about coming to terms with them" and I really like that message, except for the fact that they DID fix the cult problem, they caved in the mine and they all died. so I guess you CAN fix problems? through accidental murder???
Eh, Eide doesn't definitely have supernatural powers, since he gets hurt by Gregg's crossbow. The issue there is we don't actually know how much Mae is or isn't hallucinating, if that's having an impact on how she perceives events/the flow of time/etc., and so on.
StealThisSheen posted...
Eh, Eide doesn't definitely have supernatural powers, since he gets hurt by Gregg's crossbow. The issue there is we don't actually know how much Mae is or isn't hallucinating, if that's having an impact on how she perceives events/the flow of time/etc., and so on.
But then what's the non-supernatural explanation for what Mae saw at harfest
Oh also I agree with the message of "the game isn't about fixing problems, it's more about coming to terms with them" and I really like that message, except for the fact that they DID fix the cult problem, they caved in the mine and they all died. so I guess you CAN fix problems? through accidental murder???
Hell, we don't actually know people like Mae's Aunt weren't in on it/know about it/and so on.
I also don't think the cult is as divorced from the rest of the game as you're making out. Possum Springs is dying and everyone knows it and hates it, but nobody's really doing anything to fix it. Except the death cult. In that context I really liked Mae's stance of "no, screw you, not this way." She loves Possum Springs, but would rather see it fade and die than see it run by these people, and I really respect that
It was really good and 100 times more depressing than I was really ready for
I think to make it all in Mae's head would have been over-explaining it, and making it too neat. The thing is, the supernatural is already symptomatic of our anxieties made concrete. If it's in her head, all you end up with is a diegetic metaphor - Mae has anxiety/depression which manifests for her in this way using the aesthetics of hauntology. It tames the hauntological, and takes away its power to both mean and defy meaning. Both the world and Mae's psychological state are reduced to what is handily knowable, when horror can suggest the inexplicable and inexpressible depths of human experience. By expressing the horror as real, or at least not explaining it away entirely, it opens up the supernatural for wider interpretation that better represents the irrationality and uncanny of the real world.
As for the cult, it... doesn't feel that farfetched to me? Like, it does feel we are on the verge of reactionary atavistic death cults. Beyond that, I didn't find it disconnected from Mae's problems. Maybe its my own blind spots coupled with how I approach texts, but I wasn't thinking about mental illness at all until afterwards when I heard other people talking about it. It's absolutely there, but I just read Mae as experiencing being a subject under late capitalism, and the gnawing despair and sense of worthlessness that comes with it. The cult shows an alternative path for Mae. Both the cult and Mae are acting out of anxiety. Both are fixated on nostalgia for the past, and for lost futures, but on different levels. NITW is a ghost story, be it literal ghosts or the semiotic ghosts haunting Possum Springs. What can you do about all that anxiety? You can sublimate it by joining a death cult sacrificing children to the God of Capitalism. You can surrender to an ideology where everything is reduced to a market element to lessen your existential dilemma. Our metaphor for the market is the invisible hand, when the market is actually us - it's our alienated labour perceived as inexplicable and autonomous. There's no underlying logic between performing human sacrifice and Possum Spring's economy, but the monster pit is given totemic power to give the cult a sense of control. It's an expression of alienation, an opportunity to externalize and ritualize the anxiety. Mae, in the end, would rather feel the anxiety.
Let's look at the Casey thing. He's a lost kid from a dead-end town. He, and really all of Possum Spring, can fall off the face of the earth and it would be "doesn't matter, who knows, life goes on". This reading is present, but the death cult adds a new dimension without taking anything away from it. One of the myths of modernity is that capitalism will solve its own problems, and this is a distorted expression of that. The detritus of capitalism is re-inserted as raw material, as commodified bodies, as grist to the mill. It doesn't matter if there's a monster, the act itself is out of a desire to connect with a meta-narrative where sacrifice makes sense at all. It's out of a desire to believe that we are killing ourselves and each other at the altar of capitalism for a good reason.