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

[lpsmith@rice.edu (Lucian Paul Smith)]

Second April (dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu) wrote:
: On 7 Feb 2000, Lucian Paul Smith wrote:
: > Second April (dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu) wrote:

: > The moustache connection with Frankie is interesting, but I don't *think*
: > it means he's also your conscience.  Perhaps a play on words with his
: > name?  Your 'frankness' or some such?  That would tie into your assessment
: > of him as your introspection.  Would the fact that Frankie had the
: > sunglasses mean anything?  That you need something from him to be able to
: > see things clearly that would otherwise be overwhelming? 

: I was thinking about this--yes, but it's also important that the things
: that you can't see clearly are _outside_--outside the building, literally,
: and outside of Terry, figuratively. Getting the sunglasses from Frankie is
: a (somewhat contrived) indication that getting your mental house in order
: will also enable you to put the rest of your world back together.

: I'm still not sure how diverting the avalanche fits into all this, though.
: The grey man calls it "my avalanche," but does that mean it's coming from
: outside you--from your father, or your perception thereof? Here, and in
: the sludge, is where I start to lose my handle (my grip, even) on the
: metaphor. What on earth is the heater--what's enabling you to combat the
: tide of guilt, shame, fear that most people seem to accept as the sludge?

I can make some wild guesses here, but I really have no idea either.  Heat
as passion?  knowledge?  truth?

: And how does vaporizing it set off some other catastrophic event, in the
: form of the avalanche? 

I think this is a game design thing more than a metaphor thing.  Like
Christminster, there's nothing logically connecting the timed events, you
just need to solve one puzzle before you can go on to the next (or at
least see it happen--there's no requirement that you vaporize the sludge
before getting to the avalanche scene.)

: And when you sacrifice yourself to divert the
: avalanche, what's the RL analogue--you keep the external catastrophe from
: wiping you out entirely, but how?

I'm not so sure that outside the hall is outside you completely.  The hall
itself does seem to represent your consciousness (your ego?  super-ego?),
but I believe the landscape in general is still your mental
landscape.  Perhaps it represents your subconscious, and the avalanche the
mental turmoil brought about by your poisoned relationship with your dad. 

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?)

: 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 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.

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.

: > 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.

: > 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.

: > : 3. But the point of Grip, to my eye, is straightening out your
: > : relationship with Dad, and acknowledging the great extent to which you're
: > : responsible for the problems by (a) inventing a sort of shadow- dad and
: > : (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.

-Lucian