Board 8 > I beat Night in the Woods, don't know if I feel like talking about it (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I just realized that "beat" is a really strange choice of words for a game like this. It's more like I played the game to the end.

It was really good and 100 times more depressing than I was really ready for, but I don't understand the ending.

Like, I'm totally game for a story told through a very metaphorical/psychological sort of lens, so all the stuff with Mae's depression/anxiety is totally great to me. But then there's like... literally a deathcult of dads that's killing people? And we're tackling this very literal and not metaphorical problem at the same time as Mae's depression? This is really weird and I don't get it.

I really loved the town of Possum Springs, the world-building in this game was A+ and I was totally absorbed into all of it, I love the history and legends and even stuff like this world having different constellations and all that. The world all felt very real and relatable (even though I can't really relate to Possum Springs's small town angst personally, but I get it), and then, there's just like this... almost cartoonish death cult at the center of it and it really broke my suspension of disbelief because it didn't feel like it was real at all.

I was actually on board with the theory that the spooky people in cloaks really WERE in Mae's head until Gregg shot one with a crossbow and then I was like, oh, okay, I guess they just literally exist? They're not metaphorical at all they're really just a spooky cult that's kidnapping people and they're also following Mae around for apparently no reason? I just really feel like I missed something here.

It was also really weird to be tackling this very direct threat at the same time as Mae having some kind of personal quest of her own and the two plot threads felt very disjointed in spite of the fact that Mae was acting as though they were very connected. I really didn't understand this ending at all. Again, I'm the sort of person who is very ready to buy into a story that's told entirely through metaphor, so I feel like I'm not supposed to take the cult literally, but then everything about the story tells me I'm supposed to take the cult literally. It's very weird basically.

The subplot with Casey also felt very Life is Strange-y but not in a good way because Life is Strange really felt like it was supposed to be a game with an overarching mystery where I'm supposed to find out what happened whereas this game felt very different, up to this point it was a slice of life game where I felt like they were trying to tell me that the answer to what happened to Casey is "doesn't matter, who knows, life goes on" but then no I guess he was murdered by a cult? Again, this just seems so at odds with the rest of the game's narrative! I wasn't expecting a mystery out of this at all but then in the midnight hour it turned out there was an explanation.

I realize that the newspaper clipping about underground gasses causing hallucinations is probably supposed to be the explanation for the cult but that's dumb sorry, it's like straight out of a Layton game.

Everything else about this game was totally fantastic though. Love the characters, love the setting, love the writing, love the music. Beautiful game. Incredibly melancholy. I can relate to a lot of Mae's situation (not some of the particulars, but the general gist I think would resonate with a lot of people) and I honestly don't know if this game was more healing or hurting. It's not a comfortable game to wrestle with but that's okay, I like that it's emotionally challenging.

I don't mind that the ending doesn't have a lot of resolution either, the cult thing was really strange and felt like something out of a different game. It felt like they were shoving in a concrete plot problem where there didn't need to be one. The personal and interpersonal conflicts were already good enough to drive this game right to the end.

Also why was there no band practice at the end argh

I would be really interested in a contrary opinion of the ending btw because I would like to see what I'm missing and understand it in a way other than the way I understood it

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.
---

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

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.

I felt the same way. While I was playing through the game I was worried it was going to be all in her head, and everyone ignoring the crazy kid would be right; so I was really glad she was vindicated in the end.

Also I liked Possum Springs but I don't think that by itself would be enough to drive a plot. Having a standoff with a mystery death cult is more my style.
---

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

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.

It's weird though because the cult has nothing to do with Mae's personal problems, but the game's narrative was kind of treating it like it was? Like Mae has to confront them because... ???

And like yeah I get how the cult is trying to tie into the theme of Possum Springs on the whole but I didn't really need it. It just felt a bit heavy handed

I think there should have been a different and better way to handle Mae's problems at the end of the game, which was the plot thread that I really WAS invested in and I just felt that it was a strange resolution

Drakeryn posted...

Also I liked Possum Springs but I don't think that by itself would be enough to drive a plot.

It was working for me up to that point! The first three chapters were a 10/10 game for me and I wasn't really interested in the big mystery

I mean, I agree that it would have been unsatisfying if Mae was just seeing things and everybody was right to ignore her, but I also find that this is just as silly - 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.
---

StealThisSheen posted...

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.

I tried to get every conversation I could out of this game and I read all the newspaper clippings and I don't think I have an answer to how they got over the fence

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.
---

Drakeryn posted...

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."

what? that's not an explanation, how do they do that

does supernatural stuff just exist? I was not at all primed for that in this game

StealThisSheen posted...

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.

I completely hate this being a part of the game. Like, just, completely

Drakeryn posted...

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."

They say the founding member could, so the implication is that guy's still alive from some kind of powers from whatever he found
---

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

Paratroopa1 posted...

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

It's purposely not supposed to have a specific answer

For instance, Eide (the miner who apparently goes through walls) gives credence to the supernatural.
But Mae's head really starts fucking with her from just around the point where the Mom mentions the gasses.

Mae's problems make her susceptible to either. Either she's susceptible to being controlled by the supernatural as well, and that's why she's drawn back to the mine, or she's susceptible to hallucinating/being messed up by the gasses. Or a mix of both. It gives you just enough info to form an opinion without saying what is actually correct.
---

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'm very fine with the notion of there not being a specific answer, except there are too many events in this game that definitely have a specific answer, like Eide actually having supernatural powers, and Casey actually being murdered by a cult. 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?" but then there's a guy who DEFINITELY WALKS THROUGH WALLS so I guess the answer is YES and there isn't really much of a way for me to entertain the "no" and this runs so completely counterintuitive to the methods of this game's storytelling in every other way and I just don't understand it

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

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.

Yeah, I kind of see what you're saying about "Mae's personal problems vs. actual problems in the world and how they are two separate things" but I still just feel like this was a weird way to tell that idea. it didn't really come through to me clearly especially since the cult just felt so disassociated from the world and the way the rest of the game works. I would have liked some more real kind of problem that doesn't have like, a clearly evil spooky bad guy. this doesn't seem like a game that needs or has a use for an evil spooky bad guy

Paratroopa1 posted...

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?"

personally, this would have bothered me

I'm fine with certain things being open-ended but I wanted the story to be definitively supernatural
---

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.
---

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???

Paratroopa1 posted...

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???

Right, but that wasn't actually the main problem of the game, even though the characters were convinced it was. So maybe the message is "there isn't an easy fix, but you should try anyways (and sometimes a mine will collapse and kill your enemies)."
---

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

I really hate that I'm harping on the cult thing btw and not talking about every other aspect of the game that I absolutely adored, although there isn't much else to say about it other than "wow, it's great"

I did the Bea storyline btw

Well, that's another open-ended thing. It could have fixed all the problems, or it could have fixed none of them at all.

The cult is implied to have been around for quite some time, possibly controlling the town behind the scenes. We don't know who was in it, who knew about it, if that was everybody, and so on. If it was supernatural, we don't know how much that mine caving in may have screwed things up for the town. If it wasn't supernatural, we don't know what may happen if there were others involved or aware of what was going on.
---

Paratroopa1 posted...

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

Well, if we assume she's hallucinating and such, we don't know how long it actually took her to get to the fence, we don't know if Eide had help, and so on. Hell, we don't actually know people like Mae's Aunt weren't in on it/know about it/and so on.
---

Paratroopa1 posted...

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???

some problems are more fixable than others. death cult? just leave them to die in a mine. mental problems, though, that's the real difficult stuff

(this sounds flippant but I think it's actually a legit message. and also not internally inconsistent. you gotta fix what you can in the world and deal with the rest.)

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
---

StealThisSheen posted...

Hell, we don't actually know people like Mae's Aunt weren't in on it/know about it/and so on.

I totally assumed that Mae's aunt was in on it. That's why she was so quick to dismiss what Mae saw. Also she threatens Mae that bad things happen to people who pry where they shouldn't, which (in retrospect) I took as willingness to have the cult dispose of her if she got too close to the truth.
---

Drakeryn posted...

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

Oh that's not what I mean about it being divorced from the rest of the game. The problem for me was that the cult broke my suspension of disbelief. Everything else in the game felt like something real, like a real problem that was being dealt with in a real way using real life concepts, and then there's just this death cult which I guess DOES have real life analogs (and obviously I see the heavy-handed analogies being made, don't get me wrong) but it just really took me out of the world because it felt like a forced plot device more than a natural, organic part of the world.

I actually think it felt fairly natural. People are going missing, people are being killed (a literal arm is found), and yet... Nobody really seems to care. It feels like stuff like that has been going on for awhile, yet Possum Springs either is part of it or is turning a blind eye to it because people don't want to know/don't care/whatever. Mae basically discovers that she DOES care, which is as much of a shock to the system as sudden death cult is. So while it's obviously less natural just to the simple fact that... Yeah, death cult, it fits with the story being told.
---

Paratroopa1 posted...

It was really good and 100 times more depressing than I was really ready for

This was my main problem with the game. Playing it made me feel very unhappy. I can understand that it has good qualities, and it isn't the worst game ever, but I'm pretty sure playing it made me feel worse than any game I've ever played, so I pretty much hated it and consider it the worst game I played last year.
---

I think if something can make you feel like that makes it remarkable, but I'm also a fan of horror and such so that's just something innate in me
---

yeah, I'm okay with the game being depressing. Although I do think it could have used a little more catharsis, I'm kind of nitpicking here though because that's a very subjective feeling that I didn't take a particularly hopeful message out of this

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.
---

looks like you felt like talking about it after all

PumpkinCoach posted...

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.

this is the first explanation that's making me kind of start to feel what it was going for by drawing a direct connection between the whole late-stage capitalism thing and mae's depression

i also recommend this hegelbon piece - https://www.no-cartridge.net/the-monster-at-the-end-of-capitalism
---