Re: [bookclub] Dad and the grey man (long)

[Second April <dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu>]

On 9 Feb 2000, Lucian Paul Smith wrote:

> Remember also this bit:
> 
> >ask him about spheres
> 
> Frankie says, "They were my project.  Well, mine and some 
> colleagues.  They'd been buried near here for years."  He gazes at the
> spheres for a minute, then at you.  "Makes you wonder why someone would go
> to all the trouble to bury them."
> 
> So these memories were ones you had intentionally supressed (buried in
> your subconscious).  Maybe unearthing them is part of what triggered the
> avalanche.  (Though they seem pretty innocuous.  A random birthday party,
> your first time driving, and a game of flashlight tag.  Why *would*
> someone go to all the trouble of burying them?)

Well, there's a whole pile of them, and those are just a few. I think the
point is that they're memories of childhood in general, which you've
"buried" because keeping them around would mean having to think about your
dad and your relationship with him. So digging them up and looking at them
sets off the turmoil, yes.

Side note: "replevin" is a form of lawsuit; it's an action to recover some
piece of property that's been wrongfully taken. (When I first started up
the game, way back in January '98, I thought, wow, I thought only my Civ
Pro class knew that word.) Here, that'd be...the spheres? Maybe (if you
take "replevin" in the looser sense of recovering something, whether or
not it's been taken as such).

Another side note: the sludge ends up touching one particular memory,
turning it black. Might this mean that you're dealing from then on with a
distorted version of that memory, and might this memory be related to your
father? It seems like a bit much to think that the dark sphere refers to
_all_ your memories of your father, but perhaps the sludge episode colors
how you see your father in some important respects. (It might, even,
explain why the grey man--your distorted vision of your father--appears
immediately afterwards.)

In fact, if you take this far enough, you could say that the father/grey
man plot--i.e., most of the game--proceeds from the dark sphere, and that
the other housekeeping stuff you're doing is only indirectly related to
that plot.

On the other hand, the game is pretty casual about the eventual fate of
the dark sphere--you dispose of it in one version of fit 4, but not in the
other, meaning that you just sort of keep it with you--which would be odd
if it were the fulcrum for the entire plot.

> : It's worth noting that the first three fits all end with some sort of
> : self-sacrifice--for the faeries in fit 3, for Buddy or the huddled shape
> : in fit 2, for, um, Frankie/the building in fit 1.
> 
> If the building is your conscious mind, sacrificing yourself to protect
> yourself seems a bit odd.  My inclination here is to say "This bit was a
> puzzle, not a metaphor," but perhaps I should cut Stephen some more slack
> ;-)

I agree that it doesn't work so well on a metaphorical level, but it does
kinda foreshadow the course of the game--part of acknowledging your part
in your emotional problems is learning to sacrifice. Perhaps it signifies
that, if you're going to solve the problems you're facing, you're going to
have to face some pain--on a general level.

> : I can't think of any puns myself. Frankie refers to Sam as "one of [his]
> : colleagues," and says, "He left mid-afternoon yesterday" or some such
> : thing. "Colleagues" might suggest that Sam is also tied into the powers of
> : introspection, since we also learn that he thought there was a connection
> : between the spheres and the sludge...perhaps, in light of that, Sam is the
> : part of Terry's mind that's been trying to look at his troubles rationally
> : and make sense of them, and the breakdown that landed Terry in the ward is
> : Sam's giving up and leaving.
> 
> The event that landed you in the ward was an experimental drug designed to
> kick your smoking habit.  The whole game is about the unintended side
> effects of said drug.

Okay. But the experimental drug _did_ something that led to those
unintended side effects--made you, I dunno, peculiarly sensitive,
set off some mental chain reaction, somehow led you to dredge up
memories--which might be translated into "Sam" leaving.

> Now, when the game actually begins is an interesting question.  Does it
> begin the second you start taking the drug, and you're simply suddenly
> privy to what's happening in your mind?  Or did the drug itself
> percipitate you current mental crisis?  I lean towards the first, myself,
> particularly in light of the timing of the events from the 
> pyramids/spheres.  (You wander around a bit, then the nurse notices you,
> you wander some more, they take you off the IV, then the avalanche comes
> and you wake up.)  So my guess is your mental crisis was already in
> progress, and the drug just let you experience it first-hand.

I guess I'd go with the first as well--the drug enables you (forces you?)
to introspect. Are you "wandering," though, when the nurse says
"something's wrong with Terry!"? Or are you on your bed in the ward,
visibly disturbed by what you're experiencing?

> : > In fact, there are three events I'd like to know about:
> : > 
> : > -kicking the head
> : > -vaporizing the sludge
> : > -freeing the fairies
> 
> : I can say that vaporizing the sludge doesn't affect the endgame, though I
> : don't know about kicking the head. I've never done anything other than
> : free the faeries--if you don't free them, you don't get the hospital scene
> : at the end (your father and the strings) though I think that's the only
> : difference. 
> 
> I thought I remembered someone saying that the voice saying "let go,
> Terry" only appeared if you had solved one of the above puzzles.  Maybe
> it, too, was the fairies bit.

I think so. I may replay one or two of these for the sake of curiosity,
but as you pointed out, that's not a small job.

> : > So what does it mean that Terry's conscience's services "were no longer
> : > needed in the hall, so [he] was turned out in this rain,"?  Certainly, it
> : > makes Terry more culpable in his relationship with his father, and makes
> : > the strings a stronger reality in the end.  I suppose the whole quest of
> : > the game could be to reinstate your conscience, in a manner of speaking.
> 
> : Where is the quote from? I don't remember it. 
> 
> >ask head about northeast
> "My services were no longer needed in the hall, so I was turned out in
> this rain," the man spits out.

Oh, I see. Hmmm. Well, it does say something about the current state of
affairs and what's led to it, though I'm not sure it has much to do with
your ensuing quest--besides that "conscience" is a shorthand for the
self-sacrifice aspect.

> : > : (b) provoking and manipulating your father rather than trying to
> : > : understand.
> : > 
> : > Are there specific examples that exist in Grip that point to the
> : > second?  I agree that that's what you're *told* you did, but I don't
> : > remember ever actually *seeing* it.  I could be mis-remembering, though,
> : > or it could be in bits I missed.
> 
> : The end, really, is the main point where you see it, with the strings--in
> : fact, I think the point is that you couldn't see it before, not until
> : you put aside your hostility toward your father and stopped blaming him
> : for everything. Though your encounter with him in fit 3 also suggests that
> : you can, and do, hurt him just as much as he hurts you.
> 
> Hmmm.  I agree that the strings bit is the first time Terry should realize
> what was happening.  But I as a player would have liked to see some actual
> *events* at times during the game, misinterpreted by Terry, but
> re-analyzable in light of the final revelation.  Perhaps that's what Fit 3
> was supposed to do.  But I don't really buy it, personally.  Sneaking out
> of the house to go have fun is just being a kid, it's not some weird
> psychologial drama you've created in order to manipulate your dad.

I was thinking of the knife episode, mainly, which I see more as metaphor
than as actual event. (Fit 3 shades back and forth between figurative and
literal.) And I didn't see it as conscious design--more that you know how
to retaliate and hurt your dad (again, metaphorically) when you think he's
trying to push you around.

Duncan Stevens
dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu

But buy me a singer to sing one song--
Song about nothing--song about sheep--
Over and over, all day long;
Patch me again my thread-bare sleep.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay