Part 22: Themes and Theories

OK! Sorry this took a while, I guess a text post didn't sound very fun after messing about with ghosts and murders.

Alright, I'll try to keep this as brief as I can! What I want to do with this post is list the main categories of "weirdness" and some examples/evidence of something going on underneath the surface of the plot. Those will feed into a couple of main theories about what's really going on with Nigel and Saxton.


Thematic foundations:
This game is a technological ghost story, so just keep that in mind. Some of the things seem a little farfetched, but that's pretty par for the course in these sorts of stories.

The game has been heavily influenced by M.R. James's A Warning To The Curious which is a story about... well, a guy who travels to a small town and ends up discovering a lost Anglian crown before realizing he's made a terrible mistake and tries to return it. The game is full of similarly-named characters, and places, and the essential structure of the game is very much based on the story. The story is very short however and the game adds more detail, locations, and depth. Great story though. There are some other, more minor influences. Mr. Hadden is likely a reference to reclusive techno-billionaire SR Hadden in Contact.

Ongoing themes which may factor in:
Crows
They don't show up too often, but you see them enough to notice.
- "Ager" (a name and role taken from A Warning to the Curious) is a word for crow.
- Crows have a strong presence in the Northfield churchyard, except where Mr. Russett has smoked them out. Possibly because the strongest presence there was an Ager, whereas at Ulcombe church it was the Brewers?
- Nicholas Gurney's supernatural painting was of a tree burdened with crows. Not sure if there's symbolism.
- Crows appeared in the opening video, as well as reference to a character named Mr. Crow.
- Although you never saw it, on the loading screen there are crows flying in a circle.

There is a ton of mythology and folklore about crows, though given the game probably ones from Britain (the older the better) would be most relevant. According to my non-extensive research, they're seen fairly negatively there as omens of bad luck (especially in curchyards), imminent death, as servants of the devil, and so on. Regardless of the mythology, they are observant and intelligent birds and perhaps that is why Nigel felt like he was always being watched...?


The Lingering Dead
Just how many of the characters in the game fall into this category isn't clear, but some likely ones:
- The Agers
- All the ghosts Nigel can 'free' - Emily Travers, the Molinas, Nicholas Gurney, etc.
- One or more others he can't or doesn't 'free' (maybe they don't want freeing?) - Verity Church, the crypt spirits, the train tracks spooks maybe?
- The Vicar - who gave you his own death announcement
- Hardacre, who showed up as a ghost after he was dead... and possibly before he was dead, on a dark night, to warn Nigel away from his task?
- You might also say the town cats fall into this category, we hear a lot of disembodied meows in places they couldn't be, plus the rattling chest on the first night.
- Do all the bodies washing out into the harbour with the spring tides count?

Generally 'lingering' dead might be sticking around because of some unfinished business. This next batch of characters MAY be lingering dead, but it's not clear because of the time inconsistency, anachronisms, and their acknowledgement by other characters:

- The Karswells - Ghosts in a ghost house, or a time pocket, or what?
- Station Master - He doesn't think anything is odd about his old-fashioned uniform, steam train, etc. I also dont't think anyone in the game ever acknowledges his existence.
- Possible other side-characters like Mr. Russett that mainly only seem to exist in reference to Nigel (though at one point I think Bob Tawney refers to Mr Russett).

Some people have suggested that all these dead folks are hanging around because of the lost crown- either as good guardians (as seen in the Legend of Grindle and Ganwulf), bad guardians, or just caught in the area of power. I think something like that might be pretty likely. Saxton has a lot of spirits. Also, the crown had that crazy energy vortex thing above it... but maybe that could be a link to Hadden instead, as it looked like the 'chasm' photos.


Inconsistent Time
This is where a lot of things get mixed up. Paying attention to dates in the game will reveal (or obscure) a number of strange things. I can't list them all here, but I'll point out some obvious ones:

The game seems to take place mainly in a modern year.
- People have cell phones (well, only Alex/Lucy) and digital cameras (only Nigel and the little boy). However, Hadden seemed to be very techy (all the devices in the game were theirs) and it's possible that they were ahead of the game on some of that- have you heard of a digital camera that instantly prints its own photos?
- Lucy's student card is valid 2007-2010. At the end of the game, we see she was recruited in 2008 (not clear though whether she was recruited before the game or during, but during seems most likely)
- The newspapers we see don't give a year, but if we look up "Sunday, April 30th" (as seen on the newspaper stand outside the museum) then we get possible years as 1978, 1989, 1995, 2000, 2006 and 2017. However, Nigel makes off with stuff printed on dot-matrix paper. If you watch the beginning movie, you'll see that he was recruited in 1978. And on the crate he received from Hadden, it says "April 1978." He tells the vicar he is 30. (Also, he's mentioned as a university student in Dark Fall, which takes place in 2002.)
- Also with the newspapers, they're peppered with very old-fashioned ads (manual washers, corsets, stuff) and have things like "radio listings."


Some of the people in Saxton don't seem to be living in the "right" time.
- Station Master. Not only his uniform, but if you look at the story about his father and the apple train, and make a couple guesses, it seems unlikely that he's as old as that story would have him be (eighty or something iirc).
- Nanny Noah? She looks modern enough, but her house is right out of the 50s. She doesn't seem 70+, but maybe. Same goes for Bob Tawney, who we know from their history must be similar in age.
-Gruel. Molina talks about a man named Gruel and his wife Jemima, back in 1952. This is probably the same Gruel. Again he doesn't seem 70+, but maybe cat murderers can keep pretty youthful. For all of the above people, It may just be that the 3d modelling etc. wasn't able to correctly portray their age.
- Mr Russett. Mainly due to his old-fashioned suitcoat and hat, and perhaps the work ethic that causes him to wear them while digging holes and fixing roofs.
- The Karswells. They seem only to be dead when we're not visiting them. Did we go there or did they come here?


So, now we've got background for a couple of theories about what's going on. There's two main ones.

1. Saxton exists but is a town out of time.
This would more or less explain all the time inconsistency. You could complicate this one up a bit- just who is it out of time for, are people aware of the crossed wires, is it messing with people's perceptions (like is Nanny Noah younger for Nigel than Lucy).

- The town's clocks all seem to be messed up (except the town bell).
- Some of the characters like the Agers seem to have been around a long time. Others seem too young (has that little kid really won the photo contest for the last 4+ years?)
- Morgan refuses to tell Nigel what year it is.
- Nigel sleeps poorly, has visions, and occasionally whites out and seems to lose time.
- He's able to have his future told accurately by the crystal ball in Celtic Corner (and in fact the themes of destiny, fate, and future show up in the game a good bit, especially related to Nigel).

Why? Because of its proximity to the crown? Because it's a mysterious place? Is it cursed? Nanny Noah says some strange things to Nigel, like "you may be the one to change it all," which may be hints to Saxton's true nature.

In arguments regarding the crown as the source of guardians and mysterious goings-on, it's worth remembering that technically the crown is much closer to Northfield... which was wiped out by the plague long ago. Maybe an evil wizard did it (see the Legend of Grindle and Ganwulf).



2. Saxton doesn't really exist.
There's a few different versions of this one.
- It was all a dream (Nigel did ride in on a steam train named The Sleepwalker).
- Nigel never left the Hadden labs and was caught in one of the "chasm spirits" experiments, which may or may not be controlled. (Maybe some kind of technological seance or something?)
- This is a deliberate construct by Hadden for some reason or another- an experiment, a ghost-hunter test, etc. Nigel is actually in the Matrix. There's different ideas about what the purpose of any experiments might be, or why Nigel needed to be tested, etc. (One interesting note is that in the prologue, Hadden's note about Nigel is that "subject has shown lack of commitment and initiative.") Maybe he's been/being time-travelled?
- The entire town is constructed somehow of photos and artifacts from the past. I think most of this stems from the photographic nature of the game design, which is striking, and fuelled a little by the strange 'tears' and rust-spots on a couple of the screens. Nigel is actually living and moving through those somehow, probably facilitated by Hadden tech.

General evidence:
- In the intro video, Hadden says that he knows where Nigel is going, and it is "nowhere."
- At the end of the game we see that Hadden can see everything Nigel is doing via CCTV or something.
- Nigel had no purpose when he arrived. He had no interest in ghost-hunting or treasure. Only when those were 'conveniently' introduced to him did he pursue them.
- Hadden has Ganwulf's helm (or a replica) in his spy-office. There's a replica of the helm in Saxton's museum.
- Nigel doesn't notice some things until they're pointed out to him, for example, the blood on the rock outside the Net Store which wasn't there before he talked to Lucy. Someone asked Boakes and he confirmed that was intentional, not a flub.
- General "adventure game" stuff like limited exploration, item discovery, etc. could be a factor in Nigel 'being in a simulation.'
-Some people seem to know who Nigel is and why he's there before he meets them, and he does seem to be a strangely central person in this town for a couple of days.
- At the end of the game Hadden instructs Lucy to "pull him back" when the time was ready.
- The wiping out of the evidence at the end of the game, the presence of modem-type noises when looking at the Hadden documents and at the end of the game sequence, the ability for Hadden to call Nigel in the cottage, etc suggest something technological is going on.


There are a few similar theories that I've seen:

- Saxton is real but has been 'planted' with Hadden people (like Lucy, Alex, Morgan maybe, who knows) to facilitate Nigel.
- Saxton is real but Nigel is experiencing a past version of it, having ended up there. This one kind of relies on some Hadden plants.
- In one place someone suggested that Nigel is an avatar or program based on the real Nigel, experiencing a simulation Saxton, which by that theory would explain his behavior and halting voice acting.
- The townspeople and Agers were set as crown guardians and have special existences. The Agers may have twisted their purpose and become evil guardians. Possibly, the 'good' guardians were hoping Nigel could set things right with the Agers, or something, which is why they were sort of helping him while discouraging his actual discovery of the crown. The only beings who provide actual location clues are spirits.



At any rate, there's most of it. There's some permutations/mixing of those theories and some other themes I didn't point out, but hopefully all that is enough to answer a couple of questions, or arm a curious person enough to review the LP and look for more evidence to support their favorite explanation. :]


Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the game, it's one of those which has stuck with me and I'm glad I was able to show it to you. If you'd like to support the developer, consider purchasing a digital copy of the game, or maybe some of his other games, at Darkling Room!