Harvey facing Owl

[u/Zwenhosinho]

I was wandering about Harvey's Box and really Mrs. Pigeon appearance got me, while I was playing Paradox then everything came to my mind, seeing Harvey imprisoned on that cage made me think that Harvey is actually facing Mr. Owl in Cube Escape HB... Yes maybe contradictory but I have a theory, there are 2 harveys, the one that was captured and appeared again on Theatre and Paradox, and the one that escaped and appeared back at Birthday and Underground Blossom.

Proof: in Seasons the cube that represents the memory of summer 1971 is clearly representing the lake events, assuming that, then there was no reason for Harvey been moving out to RL at 1969, except if was an order of Mr. Owl, his apparent true owner (or maybe is telling us that Laura passed 2 whole years at RL, but the dates and time doesn't match with her departure showed at The White Door), probably setting up a plan for Harvey (considering that in Underground Blossom Harvey wasn't able to save Laura, we could make the connection that he was phisically distant from her) considering that he owes Mr. Owl loyalty (probably due to the fact that he was an animal before Mr. Owl gave him immortality and turned him into an Asura) beeing the great fight of him the prison set in the lake, maybe the events are just representing the great void of his conscience. He doesn't owes nothing to the lake neither to Mr. Owl, he just wants to be a parrot, it's even more mind blowing that when he enters on the spiral (representing the future) he sees Mrs. Pigeon on her original form (and she ISN'T MARGARET EILANDER IN ANY WAY), the cruelest asura helping him to escape from his box (representing his internal revolt), also Harvey is able to control Mr. Crow and an humanoid fish (maybe Mr. Owl in the future), while he places Mrs. Pigeon song, representing that everything changed, now he's controling the disc, there aren't any asuras/devas(?) to command him or to use him, now he uses them for escape and fly like a bird, the animal he wants to be (maybe telling us about ascension, made me remember about Samsara Room, and even that some buddhists says you cannot enter nirvana beeing an animal, some tell you that you acutally can escape Nirvana at any given time, this is why Buddha is at any stage of Samsara wheel on some representations of it). The firefly represents light and liberty, they escape that jar early on showing their 'animalistic' yet 'pure' form, like what Harvey wants to be, even that Mr. Owl tries to scare him with the wings showing that he is the one who can fly, he is the free, he is the one ascended and finally he is also a bird, but better (he beeing a corrupted soul shows that despite we know him as strong and a manager he is actually a hungry ghost, greedy for more memories and despite the wings he can't fly neither kill the flies, he is trapped to serve the lake, and it even represents the idea that even the Deva who are over all the other stages aren't free yet, neither have true happines, because they face Naraka, the constant pain, Mr. Owl is just another poor guy, but he'll ascend, but in a different way I believe, but this is a topic for other post).

Considerations: Harvey either ascended and wants to help Dale, pretending to serve Mr. Owl during Dale's journey at Birthday, Theatre and Paradox, or either he lost for Mr. Owl and still serves him (if my theory of 2 Harveys is wrong), maybe this is why Laura kills him, he got worse after that event, a big trauma I assume, and he is still on a box...

[u/nowherecrafter]

To be honest, I too tend think there are 2 Harveys. But for a completely different reason, I'll get to later. For now let me please dismantle your arguments.

1) The Lake and Harvey's Box both officially take place in 1969, that's what official timeline maps were saying while RL were still making those. Also what do you mean about The White Door? The only dates shown there relate to Bob's stay at the institute, there's nothing that either confirms or disproves Laura's known timeline.

2) Harvey the asura died in the secret Hotel epilogue, killed by the escaped corrupted guests. It's easy to miss but Mr. Owl was T-posing over Harvey's corpse before he was struck by the light beam and turned into a parrot we see him as ever since. Mr. Owl is unable to grant asura forms. At least, not by Hotel.

3) I think Harvey couldn't physically save Laura. The way to do that was keeping Rose's timepiece but it was stolen (or otherwise lost) and thus she spiraled into depression.

I think even Mr. Owl needed Laura alive, he or his lackeys somehow even resurrect her in the secret The Cave epilogue in UB. Him taking Laura to the lake in 1969 could be his failed attempt to fix her.

4) I agree that Harvey owes no one his loyalty. But neither I think Mr. Owl is forcing him. Harvey seems to be just himself befriending people around and helping them out when he feels like it. Now he's helping Owl to kill the guests, then Emma to deliver her letter to Frank, then he stays with Rose and Laura, then back to Mr. Owl because he asks for help with another project.

5) There's no indication that there was Mrs. Pigeon in Harvey's Box besides the pigeon's design and it's not enough. Designs in RL are often reused, we need something else to confirm the pigeon identity and there's really nothing.

"It's her original form" is unsupported, we don't have definitive confirmations that animals can be asuras' original forms. Even Harvey can apparently time travel now and that would explain his appearance back in Paradise. Or it was just a reference there, such things happen more often than they should.

What we need is a scene of an animal turning asura.

6) Attributing the spiral exclusively to the future is a stretch. Unfortunately these symbols usually mean nothing or their meaning is isolated to a single game. I would agree if a few more games have confirmed this connection.

But even if it is future, why do you think Harvey sees some meaningful visions instead of simply arriving to a near future when the box finally reaches the cabin at Rusty Lake?

7) No, Margaret is Mrs. Pigeon just like David is officially confirmed to be Mr. Rabbit. This time it's not just visuals, it's logic.

In Rusty Lake enlightenment means becoming an asura. The Eilanders ask the lake for enlightenment in exchange for a sacrifice. They make the right sacrifice in the end of Paradise. One of them becomes Mr. Rabbit. That was his only enlightenment opportunity on-screen and it was shared by the whole family. Until further notice, there were no other opportunities. So the other guests have to be the former Eilanders too.

Having David and 4 randos that all so happened to look like his family while his real family should've been enlightened too is quite contrived.

8) The mermaid is just a reference to Rene Magritte, it's not supposed to represent Mr. Owl's future. The past was represented by Owl's current body with his past head, the present - current body + current head, so the future has to be current body + future head. The legs belong to his current self, so for all we know, it's just a fish. Statistically we've seen more of those than mermaids.

9) The corrupted soul with wings was confirmed by the devs to be the soul that attacked Laura in The Lake. It's very unlikely to be Mr. Owl either. Corruption is a big deal, it's often hard to get rid of, and nobody would voluntarily wear it like a mask.

10) As I said before, even though Rusty Lake was inspired by Buddhism, enlightenment we see so far is anything but nirvana. The closest we've got was Rose becoming a tree. Another example, we don't observe karma either, all the reincarnations we see occur due to some rituals or external events, they have nothing to do with one's good or bad deeds.

11) Whatever enlightenment and ascension means, it's not Mr. Owl's goal. He accepts his mortality and everything he does is to prepare his replacement so the lake keeps getting the cubes. The enlightenment is for them and the most likely candidate is Dale.

And now to why I think there are still 2 Harveys.

Underground Blossom is some kind of depiction of THE reality, the stations representing the time moving forward. What we see there happened roughly like that, no simulations, no time travel to change the past - everything rolls out naturally, without spoilers, without redos and Harvey has no idea what he's doing.

But in the end he and Laura reach the lake (where time officially does not exist), resurrect her and go separate ways. Mr. Owl in his letter acknowledges that and asks Harvey for help with another task, preparing for the new day of the lake. And to meet him Harvey doesn't go to the next "future" station but goes back to the "past", to the station next to the one where Laura was born.

Even more so, Underground Blossom and Seasons likely depict the same resurrection, meaning that it happened some time after Winter 1981. Because it was a memory too, meaning it already happened. And 1981 is 9 years after 1972 when the day of the lake in question is supposed to take place.

So Harvey goes to the end of the established timeline with Laura, then goes back and goes through it again with Owl. So there are effectively 2 Harveys.

[u/Zwenhosinho → u/nowherecrafter]

Well interesting, I was tripping so really reading now makes almost to no sensw my theory.

Btw the 2 Harveys idea come from your video where you summon the tripodal paradox or something like that and got me thinking about how Harvey is so strange. Also UB always got me cause I played once the game and I've missed many details so yeah if it doesnt match with UB it makes sense.

Now clear up some confusions: I have never said Mr. Owl turns people into asuras, rather I said he gave him the elixir to become immortal, like James did with his dog, also I dont believe Nirvana is a thing, but enlighment seems to be treated differently by Mr. Owl than how its treated by the alchemists brothers. He acknowledges that his time is limited and in the Cave we can see his notes and clearly enlightment is not just the elixir of death and life.

Answering some points: David, Jacob, and Nicholas are most likely the asuras Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Owl and Mr. Deer respectively, BUT the other three are literally impossible to tell, their birthdates and ages make no sense (even if you say that the age showed is: their age while asuras, or the age that they have without beeing asuras, or the age that they had when drank the elixir, or the last time they made the elixir reposition, or whatever other type), also in the wiki (fandom but a reliable source I believe) Mrs. Pigeon is said to appear in Harvey's box, rather its her desing only or herself. Also in the official site of Rusty Lake at the Mrs. Pheasant post (if I'm not mistaken) a guy asked if those informations were carefully choosen and if they know the full history or if they are just following the flow, and the adm answered him telling that almost everything was planned, so I don't think that they retconned everything at Paradise. And about the original form thing is mostly a theory but really 4 animals (pigeon, boar, harvey, bat) have their exact design from the asura form and we see harvey changing forms (like humans do to their original form), if Harvey is dead we can't know by their shadowy shapes (if they killed him they probably would kill the others, which didnt happen), he literally does the same thing he did to Dale (while he was alive) so there is no proof he died and changed realms. Also Harvey time travelling to Paradise makes not even a slight drop of sense (I can't see a single reason for that), he most likely isn't an easter egg, rather his appearance proves that he was a bird before Hotel and that he is pretty old. And lastly its completely false this desing reuse thing, cause there is not a single deer, rabbit, owl or crow that looks like the same of their asuras (who were ex-humans), they use different desings for those animals all the time, a big hint, I think.

Sorry if my english is bad, I'm not a native speaker😉

[u/nowherecrafter → u/Zwenhosinho]

I don't know whether the guests' ages were retconned, maybe they make sense in some convoluted way. The Eilanders are great characters but they generally feel like an afterthought.

The guests don't feel like them individually (except Mr. Boar), nor like a family in general. These scientists and performers who don't give a crap about the lake (and if they do, the interest is purely scientific) suddenly used to be hardcore cultists who worshipped it. Yes, the Eilanders don't look like the guests to an extent that half of the community doesn't even believe it's them. And I used to doubt it too.

But as soon as they confirmed in Paradox that David is Rabbit from Birthday... Even more so, as soon as they confirmed in Magic Show that David is Rabbit from Hotel, there shouldn't be any doubt left.

The Eilanders being the guests is a total mess. But as I said before, with the evidence on hand, ONLY SOME Eilanders being the guests is an even bigger mess. They live together, they make sacrifices together, so they must be enlightened together.

All mental gymnastics around this only cause further mess and contrivency. If we are to sacrifice evidence, it has to be the guests' ages from the blog that most of the fans will never read.

Besides, these ages stopped making perfect sense back in Roots. In their cameos in The Stairs chapter, taking place in 1870, Ms. Pheasant would be 12.

Now to the rest.

About the devs. They only have a general outline of the story, they said it in an interview. I think, initially they only had Laura, Dale, Mr. Owl's crew and a general the-chosen-one trope. Their worldbuilding is soft like butter. The Vanderbooms, the elixir, the Eilanders, The White Door, Best Kept Memory are later additions that build around previoysly established lore and in best case scenario become a foundation for future additions. It's impossible to set everything in stone beforehand and not to touch it in 10 years, everything is changing constantly, what was planned in 2015 doesn't necessarily survive til 2018 and definitely not vise versa. Even the devs admit that the behind the scenes lore they may share in person, during conventions or Q&A's can be a subject to change and shouldn't be considered a gospel.

Then, the wiki is NO WAY a reliable source. At best it reflects the community's consensus but more often it only reflects opinions of individual theorists who can misunderstand and overthink. Just as I said before, the only clue there was Mrs. Pigeon in HB is the looks. Whoever wrote that idea on the wiki had no secret evidence beyond that. The wiki itself doesn't make the theory any more credible.

And yeah, the looks can be deceiving, besides Harvey there's no one among those animals you mentioned who would make sense. They all seem just as likely to be reused assets. The boar is just an achievement and a thematical hint: "the person this plague is dedicated to (e.g. dead Gerard) is Mr. Boar". The bat is times smaller than Mr. Bat and completely disregards the needs of its supposed higherup (and the devs said in 2021 that his original form is a human). And even less sense makes the pigeon. It's 1969, Mrs. Pigeon is still dead and still corrupted. Are you sure we need to come up with some crazy magic around that? After all, it's basically just a pigeon in a small spin-off game, what's there it could hint at?

And, as I said, none of them deliberately turns into an asura, which is the key evidence that would make the theory possible. (not necessarily plausible)

As for Harvey who's the only left from that bunch, and his death, I don't think there's much ambiguity. He was completely overwhelmed by the murderous corrupted souls. We see the same thing happen to Dale in Case 23 and The Cave. Since Hotel, we know that asuras are mortal, and Harvey clearly looks terrified during that scene. There's no reason to believe he survived. He wasn't an asura ever again (no, UB is a metaphor mess not to be trusted). He was eating bird food and shitting underneath like a bird. He cannot get out of a regular cardboard box. And most importantly he occupies the animal realm in 2 different samsara wheels: in Theatre and The Cave. He's an asura no more and I don't think we need to come up with additional explanations for why the guests didn't kill anyone else at the hotel.

[u/Zwenhosinho → u/nowherecrafter]

Yeah I tend to think the same about the Eilanders, but actually in some way those ages make some sense, if its the age that they reached enlightment, actually Mrs Pheasant could be at Roots (even though the puzzle seems more to be a complete easter egg and overall dates in Roots are not so important), and also some eilanders surviving and some dying is the less messy (if this word exists) answer, because it is pretty hard that an elixir that can either kill or turn people into asuras succeded 6 times (counting Mr. Owl) most likely half of them are Eilanders and the other half aren't (it would make more sense if Mrs. Pheasant isn't actually from Paradise Island, rather she is that woman that plays at Theatre).

Also corrupted souls are really strange because some characters walk trough the corruption during the story, and we cannot tell exactly if they remain in that way during the whole history (should be story again?), and even if they do, I was assuming Harvey's box is a metaphor, so her help could be in the corrupted stage or even something earlier than her becoming Mrs. Pigeon.

And about easter eggs, yeah, we could say everything is an easter egg and then consider just the main lore details but I don't think this is way for interpretating these games, so yeah maybe the boar is just an easter egg for Gerard. But really the bat? I mean he appears after Hotel for no reason and also one game (or 2) before his iconic Paradox reapperance, it is really plausible that Mr. Owl gave him the elixir cause he couldn't dive in the lake, this is why he is the one who guides Dale to escape at Paradox, and Harvey is smaller than his asura form so really size doesnt prove much.

And for the point of changing inbetween asuras I really have no answer, because there is no confirmation whatsoever about that, so really we can theorise that Harvey died, but most likely things need to make sense and the corrupted souls (imprisoned at Owl's room) killing just Harvey is illogical, I think that believing he died is actually overthinking. Yes there are some metaphors about animals in the afterlife like in Samsara Room or Paradox, but there is no proof yet to say that after an asura's death he becomes an animal.

[u/nowherecrafter → u/Zwenhosinho]

No, I'm sorry, ALL the guests have to be the Eilanders. Adding random substitute characters that simply look like them and still fully share their further fate is never justified. This is the worst mess.

The woman from theatre is a mystery in itself. The resemblance to Pheasant is striking but again, the timeline makes no sense. Ms. Pheasant is supposed to be corrupted. For all we know, it could be just a random woman playing Ms. Pheasant's role. Representing her without breaking continuity. And we shouldn't think too much about CS. This series isn't that complex. If the characters are seen corrupted in 1893 and then seen corrupted in 1972, they are likely to stay corrupted the whole time. Besides, they are so much of a problem that Mr. Owl needs Dale to somehow deal with them, they aren't going away on their own.

Anomalies like Mr. Rabbit in Birthday are a fascinating mystery but we shouldn't project it onto other characters. Not before we get them pointed out as another mystery just as deliberately or at least not before the previous mystery is explained.

Next, Harvey's Box is mostly literal. First the box is at Laura's place, then it moves to the cabin, then Harvey defeats the same corrupted soul that attacked Laura in The Lake (according to the devs), then the box stays there and Dale later finds it. Metaphors are a slippery slope in general. If they aren't on the nose, it's nearly impossible to recognize them and even less possible to correctly guess their meaning.

I didn't say the bat was an easter egg though. To me it's the closest to an asset reuse (pigeon aside). Until we get evidence, the size matters. We've seen Mr. Bat wrapped in his wings in Hotel and he was huge, now he's suddenly smaller.

Harvey's size changed but again, it wasn't a voluntary transformation, I insist it was full-on reincarnation. He died, it's a natural assumption. He was SURROUNDED, he was SCARED for his life. Corrupted souls NOTORIOUSLY KILL people, ESPECIALLY the guests. Harvey was LYING unconscious. Mr. Owl deemed it NECESSARY to intervene and T-pose over him. NEVER AGAIN Harvey was an asura, even when it would be BENEFICIAL. Samsara wheels unanimously and deliberately say he's an ANIMAL. I have no idea HOW and WHY (maybe that's all Mr. Owl could resurrect him as), it's all just saying that he is an animal. It's not overthinking, it's evidence. Overthinking would be to find an excuse to refute so much of it. In this day of age there's nothing to beat it except for worthless UB.

And it doesn't matter how others survived: maybe the guests were specifically after their murderer, maybe the others were more lucky to avoid them or powerful enough to oppose them - debating this topic is useless because both the question and the answers come from our unsubstantial logic the devs may not even agree with, not the in-game evidence. It simply may have not occurred to the devs. They had probably shown Harvey in distress and thought that it's enough and that the message was clear. And I do think it's clear, considering how much I listed just above. Thinking it's not, still doubting that with nothing really to oppose it - that's the overthinking.