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raccoon-macaroon · 9 months

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The Watchman of the Underworld: A Deep Dive into Book 6

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR BOOK 6, OBVIOUSLY.

Your girl finally beat Book 6, and it was totally crazy! I had to read it a couple of times to try to piece together some more ambiguous parts of the story, mainly about Ortho. After letting it simmer in my brain for a while, I'd like to give my interpretation of the story with references from the game; maybe this can help other players make sense of the story. My interpretation is by no means the end all be all, and I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Note: For the purposes of this deep dive, I will be referring to the original, human brother of Idia as OG Ortho. The humanoid robot Idia created and modeled after his brother will be referred to as Robo Ortho.

First, the catalyst of the series of events: Why did Ortho go rogue and shut down the Cerberus security system?

Initially, I thought it was OG Ortho who encouraged Robo Ortho to shut down Cerberus; then later, I thought it must have been a phantom impersonating him, because OG Ortho wouldn't do something so bad, would he? After that, I realized it WAS OG Ortho who was encouraging Robo Ortho to shut down Cerberus and release the phantoms.

But why would sweet OG Ortho do such a thing?

First and foremost, in OG Ortho's mind, he is doing this to help his brother. Idia is essentially heir to a kingdom of death, unable to choose any other path in life but running Styx and the Underworld. (I also think the Shrouds and the Underworld may have a symbiotic relationship; the Shrouds need blot to burn, in theory, or their curse will start eating away at their own bodies. The Shrouds need to live in the underworld; they are bound to it. I think Idia can attend school away from the Underworld because he is using magic and producing blot, which he can then burn. Plus, blot is composed of negative emotions, which our gloomy boy has plenty of. But I digress) When Robo Ortho begins considered ways to alter Idia's fate after hearing Vil's words about change and not wanting things to stay the status quo, OG Ortho seizes this opportunity to coerce Robo Ortho into shutting down Cerberus, which will cause the phantoms to be set free, the rest of humanity to be turned into phantoms, and for Idia to be able to live whatever kind of life he chooses, as the world will be "reset."

I believe that the voice that Robo Ortho hears IS the OG Ortho, because the voice says, "I've been here long before you were born" (or created).

Robo Ortho, upon hearing the voice say "Idy" (Nii-chan, in Japanese), says, "Wait, is it you?!" as if he is recognizing this voice. Who else could this be but OG Ortho? In the aftermath of the battle, when Idia is rebooting Robo Ortho, Ortho says "I thought both the original Ortho and I got swallowed by the Underworld..." This confirms that the voice was, in fact, OG Ortho.

So what IS OG Ortho?

I believe this is intentionally ambiguous, but I have a few theories. OG Ortho was killed by the phantom, and became a spirit locked within Tartarus. Another theory is that OG Ortho himself became a phantom banished to Tartarus. That would make sense, because a young boy brutally murdered would probably have a lot of negative emotions and produce a lot blot upon his death, possibly turning him into a phantom. This would also explain the seemingly sinister nature of OG Ortho coercing Robo Ortho. Either way, OG Ortho is a dead entity locked in Tartarus.

So who's doing this? Robo Ortho or OG Ortho?

Both.

After shutting down Cerberus, Ortho(?) appears to Idia in a hologram communication. After explaining the plan to Idia, he writes it off as a bug, until Ortho(?) calls him "Idy". This is a name that ONLY OG Ortho ever called Idia; Robo Idia seemingly never called him by that name (In Japanese, Nii-chan vs. Nii-san, the first being less formal and more familiar).

As soon as Idia hears this, he knows that this is OG Ortho, communicating through Robo Ortho's robotic body. Despite "knowing what happened to Ortho that day", Idia realizes that the only ones who can shut down the Cerberus System are people with the Shroud family DNA. Earlier in the chapter Idia explicitly states that Robo Ortho does not have the clearance or permissions to shut down Cerberus, and he certainly doesn't have any DNA. This confirms to Idia that the person speaking to him is indeed OG Ortho. Idia, overcome by emotion of hearing the voice of his dead brother, rushes to the underworld gate and overblots.

Well, why didn't OG Ortho just open the Underworld gate and climb out right after he died??

He didn't have the means to. He needed a physical helper, in this case, Robo Ortho. I believe that OG Ortho seized on the opportunity to easily influence Robo Ortho, as he was focused on how to change the future for Idia.

So what happens to the Orthos in the end?

Both Orthos seem to be swallowed up into a Hades-shaped phantom seen in the boss battle against Idia. Once they are defeated, the big phantom containing both Orthos plunges back into Tartarus, with Vil being unable to save him, probably due to his massive size.

Luckily, Robo Ortho is able to be revived due to Grim eating his memory card. Grim probably wanted to eat the black stone that appears after someone overblots; in this case, instead of a black stone, it was a memory card, due to Robo Ortho being a Robotic being.

So what about OG Ortho?

Initially, I thought the Ortho seen in Idia's memory telling him it's not time for him to join him yet, is Robo Ortho and a manifestation of his "spirit" as he "dies" and his memory card falls into the underworld. I realized that this is incorrect, and this is in fact, OG Ortho. I know this for two reasons: First, this Ortho calls Idia "Idy". Whenever this nickname is used, we know that it is OG Ortho, as he uses it exclusively. Secondly, this is the only time in the game (so far) that we see Ortho's entire face at once, both his eyes and his mouth. I believe this is to symbolize that this IS the OG Ortho; Robo Ortho always appears with either his eyes or mouth covered, as if to suggest that he is not "completely" Ortho.

So why does OG Ortho in the flashback have Robo Ortho's robot body?

During the end of this chapter, it is implied that OG Ortho had taken over Robo Ortho's body, or that they were at least sharing a body, so it makes sense for him to appear in this form (also, I imagine the developers did not want to have to create a whole 2D Live model for OG Ortho for one scene; showing his whole face was enough to communicate which Ortho he was).

So who is the current Ortho?

After replacing his memory card, Robo Ortho is restored. He awakes and states "How am I here? I thought both the original Ortho and I got swallowed by the Underworld..." (again reinforcing that the OG Ortho had fused with Robo Ortho in the big phantom).

Idia explains that he replaced his memory card, to which Robo Ortho replies "In that case, I wonder if the original Ortho..." This is meant to be ambiguous, and is ambiguous in the original Japanese as well, where Ortho says something like "In that case, that person..."

Robo Ortho then states that the area around his memory card feels warm. He states "I feel it. Ortho is right here."

I believe he is referring to the memories left by OG Ortho. Idia doesn't seem to catch on to this, and writes it off as an irreparable bug that gives Robo Ortho his own will, and that he "has a heart now" possibly due to the electric shocks from the thunder spear. But we know that Robo Ortho now has a heart due to fact that he and OG Ortho had, for a time, become one being, sharing thoughts, feelings, and memories, as Robo Ortho explicitly states, "The memories and feelings Ortho left me all reside withing my core. I am Ortho, and Ortho is me."

Robo Ortho is now, effectively, a “perfectly programmed” Ortho, having all of OG Ortho’s original thoughts, feelings, and memories. Robo Ortho is more or less a carbon copy of OG Ortho now, rather than just an AI modeled after him (plus Robo Ortho’s own experiences). Any oversights on Idia’s part of coding him to be like his brother have been overwritten; he is now nearly exactly like OG Ortho, having shared memories. Idia does not seem to truly grasp the gravity of Ortho's experience, and is more concerned with Robo Ortho's new free will.

So is Robo Ortho now the same as OG Ortho?

Almost. Outside of Robo Ortho’s own unique lived experiences, they share the same “base” which is OG Orthos thoughts, feelings, and memories.

(Initially I thought that OG Ortho and Robo Ortho had fused and become one being, and OG Ortho's "spirit" was now residing in Robo Ortho's body, but now I think that the shared memories, thoughts, and feelings shared between them essentially copied OG Ortho's "heart" into Robo Ortho. I believe OG Ortho now resides in the Underworld, awaiting the day when Idia will join him after he has lived a long and happy life.)

However, in the end, this does not particularly matter as Robo Ortho has been Idia's "real brother" for "a long time."

Maybe all of this was obvious to other readers, but it wasn't to me, so maybe this can help some other players as well. I hope my word vomit made some sort of sense.

I'd love to hear what you think in the comments, and if you agree or disagree with my analysis.

I'm hoping Book 7 will be this juicy and drama filled when it comes our way!

#ortho shroud #idia shroud #twisted wonderland #book 6 #watchman of the underworld #Styx

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mollyrealized · 2 months

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How Michael Met Neil

original direct link [MP3]

(Neil, if you see this, please feel free to grab the transcript and store on your site; I had no easy way of contacting you.)

DAVID TENNANT: Tell me about @neil-gaiman then, because he's in that category [previously: “such a profound effect on my life”] as well.

MICHAEL SHEEN: So this is what has brought us together.

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: To the new love story for the 21st century.

DAVID: Exactly.

MICHAEL: So when I went to drama school, there was a guy called Gary Turner in my year. And within the first few weeks, we were doing something, having a drink or whatever. And he said to me, “Do you read comic books?”

And I said, “No.” I mean, this is … what … '88? '88, '89. So it was … now I know that it was a period of time that was a big change, transformation going through comic books. Rather than it being thought of as just superheroes and Batman and Superman, there was this whole new era of a generation of writers like Grant Morrison.

DAVID: The kids who'd grown up reading comic books were now making comic books

MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah, and starting to address different kinds of subjects through the comic book medium. So it wasn't about just superheroes, it was all kinds of stuff going on – really fascinating stuff. And I was totally unaware of this.

And so this guy Gary said to me, "Do you read them?" And I said, "No." And he went, "Right, okay, here's The Watchman [sic] by Alan Moore. Here's Swamp Thing. Here's Hellblazer. And here's Sandman.”

And Sandman was Neil Gaiman's big series that put his name on the map. And I read all those, and, just – I was blown away by all of them, but particularly the Sandman stories, because he was drawing on mythology, which was something I was really interested in, and fairy tales, folklore, and philosophy, and Shakespeare, and all kinds of stuff were being mixed up in this story. And I absolutely loved it.

So I became a big fan of Neil's, and started reading everything by him. And then fairly shortly after that, within six months to a year, Good Omens the book came out, which Neil wrote with Terry Pratchett. And so I got the book – because I was obviously a big fan of Neil's by this point – read it, loved it, then started reading Terry Pratchett’s stuff as well, because I didn't know his stuff before then – and then spent years and years and years just being a huge fan of both of them.

And then eventually when – I'd done films like the Underworld films and doing Twilight films. And I think it was one of the Twilight films, there was a lot of very snooty interviews that happened where people who considered themselves well above talking about things like Twilight were having to interview me … and, weirdly, coming at it from the attitude of 'clearly this is below you as well' … weirdly thinking I'm gonna go, 'Yeah, fucking Twilight.”

And I just used to go, "You know what? Some of the greatest writing of the last 50-100 years has happened in science fiction or fantasy." Philip K Dick is one of my favorite writers of all time. In fact, the production of Hamlet I did was mainly influenced by Philip K Dick. Ursula K. Le Guin and Asimov, and all these amazing people. And I talked about Neil as well. And so I went off on a bit of a rant in this interview.

Anyway, the interview came out about six months later, maybe. Knock on the door, open the door, delivery of a big box. That’s interesting. Open the box, there's a card at the top of the box. I open the card.

It says, From one fan to another, Neil Gaiman. And inside the box are first editions of Neil's stuff, and all kinds of interesting things by Neil. And he just sent this stuff.

DAVID: You'd never met him?

MICHAEL: Never met him. He'd read the interview, or someone had let him know about this interview where I'd sung his praises and stood up for him and the people who work within that sort of genre as being like …

And he just got in touch. We met up for the first time when he came to – I was in Los Angeles at the time, and he came to LA. And he said, "I'll take you for a meal."

I said, “All right.”

He said, "Do you want to go somewhere posh, or somewhere interesting?”

I said, "Let's go somewhere interesting."

He said, "Right, I'm going to take you to this restaurant called The Hump." And it's at Santa Monica Airport. And it's a sushi restaurant.

I was like, “Right, okay.” So I had a Mini at the time. And we get in my Mini and we drive off to Santa Monica Airport. And this restaurant was right on the tarmac, like, you could sit in the restaurant (there's nobody else there when we got there, we got there quite early) and you're watching the planes landing on Santa Monica Airport. It's extraordinary.

And the chef comes out and Neil says, "Just bring us whatever you want. Chef's choice."

So, I'd never really eaten sushi before. So we sit there; we had this incredible meal where they keep bringing these dishes out and they say, “This is [blah, blah, blah]. Just use a little bit of soy sauce or whatever.” You know, “This is eel. This is [blah].”

And then there was this one dish where they brought out and they didn't say what it was. It was like “mystery dish”, we had it ... delicious. Anyway, a few more people started coming into the restaurant as time went on.

And we're sort of getting near the end, and I said, "Neil, I can't eat anymore. I'm gonna have to stop now. This is great, but I can't eat–"

"Right, okay. We'll ask for the bill in a minute."

And then the door opens and some very official people come in. And it was the Feds. And the Feds came in, and we knew they were because they had jackets on that said they were part of the Federal Bureau of Whatever. And about six of them come in. Two of them go … one goes behind the counter, two go into the kitchen, one goes to the back. They've all got like guns on and stuff.

And me and Neil are like, "What on Earth is going on?"

And then eventually one guy goes, "Ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't ordered already, please leave. If you're still eating your meal, please finish up, pay your bill, leave."*

[* - delivered in a perfect American ‘serious law agent’ accent/impression]

And we were like, "Oh my God, are we poisoned? Is there some terrible thing that's happened?"

We'd finished, so we pay our bill. And then all the kitchen staff are brought out. And the head chef is there. The guy who's been bringing us this food. And he's in tears. And he says to Neil, "I'm so sorry." He apologizes to Neil. And we leave. We have no idea what happened.

DAVID: But you're assuming it's the mystery dish.

MICHAEL: Well, we're assuming that we can't be going to – we can't be – it can't be poisonous. You know what I mean? It can't be that there's terrible, terrible things.

So the next day was the Oscars, which is why Neil was in town. Because Coraline had been nominated for an Oscar. Best documentary that year was won by The Cove, which was by a team of people who had come across dolphins being killed, I think.

Turns out, what was happening at this restaurant was that they were having illegal endangered species flown in to the airport, and then being brought around the back of the restaurant into the kitchen.

We had eaten whale – endangered species whale. That was the mystery dish that they didn't say what it was.

And the team behind The Cove were behind this sting, and they took them down that night whilst we were there.

DAVID: That’s extraordinary.

MICHAEL: And we didn't find this out for months. So for months, me and Neil were like, "Have you worked anything out yet? Have you heard anything?"

"No, I haven't heard anything."

And then we heard that it was something to do with The Cove, and then we eventually found out that that restaurant, they were all arrested. The restaurant was shut down. And it was because of that. And we'd eaten whale that night.

DAVID: And that was your first meeting with Neil Gaiman.

MICHAEL: That was my first meeting. And also in the drive home that night from that restaurant, he said, and we were in my Mini, he said, "Have you found the secret compartment?"

I said, "What are you talking about?" It's such a Neil Gaiman thing to say.

DAVID: Isn't it?

MICHAEL: The secret compartment? Yeah. Each Mini has got a secret compartment. I said, "I had no idea." It's secret. And he pressed a little button and a thing opened up. And it was a secret compartment in my own car that Neil Gaiman showed me.

DAVID: Was there anything inside it?

MICHAEL: Yeah, there was a little man. And he jumped out and went, "Hello!" No, there was nothing in there. There was afterwards because I started putting...

DAVID: Sure. That's a very Neil Gaiman story. All of that is such a Neil Gaiman story.

MICHAEL: That's how it began. Yeah.

DAVID: And then he came to offer you the part in Good Omens.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Well, we became friends and we would whenever he was in town, we would meet up and yeah, and then eventually he started, he said, "You know, I'm working on an adaptation of Good Omens." And I can remember at one point Terry Gilliam was going to maybe make a film of it. And I remember being there with Neil and Terry when they were talking about it. And...

DAVID: Were you involved at that point?

MICHAEL: No, no, I wasn't involved. I just happened to have met up with Neil that day.

DAVID: Right.

MICHAEL: And then Terry Gilliam came along and they were chatting, that was the day they were talking about that or whatever.

And then eventually he sent me one of the scripts for an early draft of like the first episode of Good Omens. And he said – and we started talking about me being involved in it, doing it – he said, “Would you be interested?” I was like, "Yeah, of course." I went, "Oh my God." And he said, "Well, I'll send you the scripts when they come," and I would read them, and we'd talk about them a little bit. And so I was involved.

But it was always at that point with the idea, because he'd always said about playing Crowley in it. And so, as time went on, as I was reading the scripts, I was thinking, "I don't think I can play Crowley. I don't think I'm going to be able to do it." And I started to get a bit nervous because I thought, “I don't want to tell Neil that I don't think I can do this.” But I just felt like I don't think I can play Crowley.

DAVID: Of course you can [play Crowley?].

MICHAEL: Well, I just on a sort of, on a gut level, sometimes you have it on a gut level.

DAVID: Sure, sure.

MICHAEL: I can do this.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Or I can't do this. And I just thought, “You know what, this is not the part for me. The other part is better for me, I think. I think I can do that, I don't think I could do that.”

But I was scared to tell Neil because I thought, "Well, he wants me to play Crowley" – and then it turned out he had been feeling the same way as well. And he hadn't wanted to mention it to me, but he was like, "I think Michael should really play Aziraphale."

And neither of us would bring it up. And then eventually we did. And it was one of those things where you go, "Oh, thank God you said that. I feel exactly the same way." And then I think within a fairly short space of time, he said, “I think we've got … David Tennant … for Crowley.” And we both got very excited about that.

And then all these extraordinary people started to join in. And then, and then off we went.

DAVID: That's the other thing about Neil, he collects people, doesn't he? So he'll just go, “Oh, yeah, I've phoned up Frances McDormand, she's up for it.” Yeah. You're, what?

MICHAEL: “I emailed Jon Hamm.”

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And yeah, and you realize how beloved he is and how beloved his work is. And I think we would both recognise that Good Omens is one of the most beloved of all of Neil's stuff.

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: And had never been turned into anything.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And so the kind of responsibility of that, I mean, for me, for someone who has been a fan of him and a fan of the book for so long, I can empathize with all the fans out there who are like, “Oh, they better not fuck this up.”

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: “And this had better be good.” And I have that part of me. But then, of course, the other part of me is like, “But I'm the one who might be fucking it up.”

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: So I feel that responsibility as well.

DAVID: But we have Neil on site.

MICHAEL: Yes. Well, Neil being the showrunner …

DAVID: Yeah. I think it takes the curse off.

MICHAEL: … I think it made a massive difference, didn't it? Yeah. You feel like you're in safe hands.

DAVID: Well, we think. Not that the world has seen it yet.

MICHAEL (grimly): No, I know.

DAVID: But it was a -- it's been a -- it's been a joy to work with you on it. I can't wait for the world to see it.

MICHAEL: Oh my God. Oh, well, I mean, it's the only, I've done a few things where there are two people, it's a bit of a double act, like Frost-Nixon and The Queen, I suppose, in some ways. But, and I've done it, Amadeus or whatever.

This is the only thing I've done where I really don't think of it as “my character” or “my performance as that character”. I think of it totally as us.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: The two of us.

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: Like they, what I do is defined by what you do.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And that was such a joy to have that experience. And it made it so much easier in a way as well, I found, because you don't feel like you're on your own in it. Like it's totally us together doing this and the two characters totally complement each other. And the experience of doing it was just a real joy.

DAVID: Yeah. Well, I hope the world is as excited to see it as we are to talk about it, frankly.

MICHAEL: You know, there's, having talked about T.S. Eliot earlier, there's another bit from The Wasteland where there's a line which goes, These fragments I have shored against my ruin.

And this is how I think about life now. There is so much in life, no matter what your circumstances, no matter what, where you've got, what you've done, how much money you got, all that. Life's hard. I mean, you can, it can take you down at any point.

You have to find this stuff. You have to like find things that will, these fragments that you hold to yourself, they become like a liferaft, and especially as time goes on, I think, as I've got older, I've realized it is a thin line between surviving this life and going under.

And the things that keep you afloat are these fragments, these things that are meaningful to you and what's meaningful to you will be not-meaningful to someone else, you know. But whatever it is that matters to you, it doesn't matter what it was you were into when you were a teenager, a kid, it doesn't matter what it is. Go and find them, and find some way to hold them close to you.

Make it, go and get it. Because those are the things that keep you afloat. They really are. Like doing that with him or whatever it is, these are the fragments that have shored against my ruin. Absolutely.

DAVID: That's lovely. Michael, thank you so much.

MICHAEL: Thank you.

DAVID: For talking today and for being here.

MICHAEL: Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you.

#neil gaiman #michael sheen #david tennant does a podcast with...#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #sushi #whale #the cove #oscars 2010 #coraline #mini secret compartments #howneilmetmichael #howmichaelmetneil

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