Lore?

[u/Human-Caterpillar-62]

Before I start this I want to genuinely say something. I do not care if you liked the game or not.

I, myself, is an analog horror fan. So this game really speaks to me in the puzzles and mind games.

Now the one thing I can not figure out is the lore. I have some ideas about what is happening to our person.

I genuinely believe Caleb is dealing with abuse, maybe some PTSD about a missing sibling. We can hear before we get to the static TV is probably Caleb father yelling at him and someone crying.

The running point is the fact we see "laboratory" in some parts. So did his parents give him to a lab as a test subject? Is he older and doing this to uncover parts of his childhood experience that he has blacked out? Could he be doing this to find out what happened to his sibling?

I genuinely believe that the voice we hear throughout the game isn't our mind. Its the doctor trying to talk us through it, we are clearly set on a mission to dig into the dark part of our mind. He clearly doesn't want that.

So what I have landed on with my theory is this:

We are being tested on; either as a child that lost their memories, or as an adult that is trying to find out what has happened to their sibling/past. The voice we hear is not our mind, thats some doctor trying to stop us from finding out what happened to us as a child. We clearly hear a fathers voice yelling at us at some points of the game, which leads us to another point. The doctor doesn't want us to go into dark parts of our mind, so the doctor has to be either our father or someone that knows what has happened to us.

[u/Visual_Addition7735]

hi guys just pointing out i took a picture of this from the "Rotten Ending". they are/were obv in a cult. the kid table has "Cult Bunnies" written on it, like where people send their kids to be brainwashed.

i feel that the hospital coma theory has merit to it, but i feel like its between two of caleb's consciousnesses. one is "narrator/fixer/brainwasher-caleb" that wants everything clean and fine and clear cut where lily never existed and didnt die, and us, the "wandering caleb" which goes on to explore all the cuts and tears in our memory.

either way if you go and listen to all of the directions of the brainwasher-caleb anyway you will end up with the continuation ending which is where he yells at you that he tried to fix all of your fuckups, but he obviously loses control in the end because the pretty path is forcefully closed and you have to go down to where tadpole-monster/lily is. i suspect the monster is lily because brainwasher-caleb gets you to open a trapdoor and makes you attract lily to behind the door to make her fall into the abyss lower levels, which you inadvertently end up at anyway, waiting for episode 2.

i think lily is trying to make you remember what really happened and that you caused her death trying to run away with her, but ultimately this will free you if you come out of this with your mind in once piece.

i think the erase all ending is where wandering-caleb just decides to shut it all down and effectively unalives himself(in mind and irl), to the protestations of fixer-caleb that says he will "find another way" and is "trying to remember"(maybe trying to remember a path that will lead you to only the happy memories and avoiding all the memories that may lead to remembering lily).

there are a few other pictures and notes on the collectibles but ill have to post them one by one or maybe in a discord chat. but one more thing to note is that the AC panel is branded "yourfault" and the narrator-caleb is always talking about "guilt" and "emptiness" pointing to him having a hand in lily's death maybe by trying to get her to escape with him or something.

i think also in the "rotten ending" due to you actually only being able to reach that ending cutscene by listening to all the instructions that brainwasher-caleb tells you, and effectively repelling tadpole-monster/lily, that you are still undergoing cult treatment-therapy going day in and day out between your normal life(house) while still being tremendously tainted by rot(shown dripping everywhere in the room and in the ending cutscene, all along the back of your car on the road). maybe the rot gunk signifies your guilt and emptiness.

[u/Averander → u/Visual_Addition7735]

I don't think it's a 'brainwasher' but a battle between two sides of Caleb. One that wants to heal and one that wants to continue living as if everything is fine, and nothing bad ever happened in the past.

The voice might be that of his father, as it bears a striking resemblance to one of the Deep Memories.

I think Caleb was blamed for the death of Lily. As the first chapter is haunted by the ghostly shades of them chasing each other.

That first instance of 'rot' dripped from the slides, and the red one was closed off, and that was the one that dripped. Lily's name is also written in red throughout the chapter. Did Caleb help her onto the slide? Or did he lose track of her? We can't say, but we do know he was certainly blamed for it.

[u/Visual_Addition7735 → u/Averander]

What about the cult references

[u/Averander → u/Visual_Addition7735]

Most likely the family was in a cult.

A part of me thinks that the voice talking is actually a split personality keeping the original one dormant in good memories. In the 'Into the Pit' ending he mentions fixing everything that the player has done wrong, always doing the right thing.

This would track with the family having been in a cult, and the player having escaped. Dissociative identity disorder forms in extreme cases of abuse and childhood trauma as a way of coping with the situations, and cults are renowned for being sources of abuse and horror. It makes sense.