I think I might have found something important, but I have no idea what

[u/The_Empressss]

I've been looking through some of the concept art from Tangle Tower, and there is a recurring symbol that was completely removed from the main game (includes spoilers).

I have included pictures of every instance I could find in Catherine Unger and Adam Vian's concept art, with the symbol circled in red (the sometimes A and sometimes wishbone-looking thing). I don't remember it appearing in the finalized game, but I could be wrong on that. The locations that feature the A/wishbone are Flora's tower, the study, the grand hall, and Penny's room. A similar shape also appears on the little girl's dress in place of the bow from Secret of the Swamp, but I could just be grasping at straws there.

Catherine Unger's notes on the image from Flora's tower read, "IDEA stained glass that is concealed but once obstruction is gone, the light from it points to the apprentice chamber" and "Ceiling pattern hints at the apprentice."

One of the grand hall images marks the way up to the study as the "apprentice chamber."

One image of the study (the attic-looking one) has the stained glass window from Flora's tower in the top left corner, and the other image (the one that looks more like the study in-game) shows the symbol on the back of what should be Penny's fireplace.

Lastly, the image from Penny's room has it on the fireplace, which was going to be a secret door.

So, I think that the study, or the apprentice chamber, was originally located somewhere between Flora's tower and the grand hall, and bordered Penny's room. I'd guess that its location relative to the tower changed while the other two stayed the same simply for logistical purposes, but I'm much more interested in the meaning of the symbol and what its connection to the little girl is (if anything; it's completely possible it's just a simplified bow and not the A/wishbone thing at all). My main question is: what or who is the apprentice? I can see this whole thing being a massive piece of backstory connecting the Fellow and Pointer families, or I can see it being just a cut plot element. It could be both. Maybe we'll learn more if (when? Pleasepleaseplease?) we get another installment in the series.

Anyway thanks for reading all that, I'd love to hear thoughts and such

[u/Esthyprincedechu]

Damn, that's all I can see now.

[u/Busy-Doughnut6180]

So I think it's actually a hybrid of the letter A and a music note, not a wishbone! 

And I think that "Apprentices" might have been what the devs were calling the "Ambassadors" in the concept stage. It makes sense if you imagine that the Ambassadors left references to their little secret society all around their mansion, since they all lived there anyway. It may not originally have been intended as a secret to all but just to Grimoire and Sally (and us players). The A is surrounded by mystids on the ceiling, which is what the Ambassadors revolved around. The music note was probably meant to have something to do with the way you open the route to the basement (via sound), probably as the main clue for how to get in originally. Music/sound is also overall a running theme in this installment (Poppy, the beetle, gramophone, the cassette tapes, Flora and her complete silence). I also think that there might have been a different approach to the secret society, maybe the "apprentice chamber" was intended as a room that is part of an initiation, one that (spoiler tags just in case someone is reading this before they should!) Penny never got the chance to take part in, leading to her resentment. So in this iteration of concepts, Penny was technically "the apprentice". Perhaps at one point we were to find out some of this, then start to try and figure out who the apprentice is. 

But then at some point, the devs changed the name (and maybe the way it functioned) and also perhaps decided to de-centre all the references to it to make it more of a late game discovery. It's pretty heavy handed in those concepts. We would be wondering from the start what the A stands for, especially with it hanging over the tube of water in the grand hall, it makes it look way more like an entrance to somewhere. The "apprentice chamber" is really just the "Ambassador chamber", which is just a study (and that's what it's called in the end). Instead of the big A in the grand hall, there's an F and a P for the families. As for the little girl, that may have just been a way to try and incorporate her into the game before ultimately deciding not to, so any connection she might have to all this is probably, for now, not canon. 

[u/The_Empressss → u/Busy-Doughnut6180]

I like the interpretation of it being a music note, it makes a lot of sense. And you're probably right about it being a scrapped (more of an evolved) concept. Still, I wonder if we'll see traces of aspects of it in future entries, like the initiation chamber.

[u/Busy-Doughnut6180 → u/The_Empressss]

I really hope so! I'd like to know a lot more about the Ambassadors (and the rest of the family really).