History Headscratchers / AmnesiaTheDarkDescent

** Probably, but Brute seems to be so aggressive that it might have just accidently killed the Grunt.

** Probably not. Your body has very different chemicals running through you when you're terrified and in pain compared to when you're happy, most notably adrenaline, which is implied to be what vitae actually is. Also, it's not the screaming that's important, it's the chemicals in the blood, so getting people to laugh instead of scream would make no difference. And odds are, if that method worked, Alexander would have pursued it since it would have likely meant less hassle than torturing hundreds of people. Since Amnesia is a horror game, and not Film/MonstersInc, it almost certainly doesn't work that way.

** Probanly, but Brute seems to be so aggressive that it might have just accidently killed the Grunt.

* So what is up with the eviscerated corpse of a Grunt you find in the sewer? The game heavily implies a Brute did it, but if so why? Aren't all the gatherers on the same side being under Alexander's control? It is also implied the Shadow did it, which again begs the question why? RuleOfScary?

*** You never saw [[VideoGame/{{Half-Life}} Gordon Freeman]] give up when [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer all he had was a crowbar]].

** Most likely yes. During Daniel's flashback in the Cistern Entrance, Alexander says the sewers are only an alternate route to the Inner Sanctum but they wouldn't be using it.

* In the Cistern entrance, there's a large door that can't be opened by the player. In the Chancel, there's the exact same large door that can't be opened too. Does this mean that the levels are somewhat connected? Is there a map of all the levels aligned / in one picture to figure out?

** Probably not. Your body has very different chemicals running through you when you're terrified and in pain compared to when you're happy, most notably adrenaline, which is implied to be what vitae actually is. Also, it's not the screaming that's important, it's the chemicals in the blood, so getting people to laugh instead of scream would make no difference. And odds are, if that method worked, Alexander would have pursued it since it would have likely meant less hassle than torturing hundreds of people. Since Amnesia is a horror game, and not Film/MonstersInc, it almost certainly doesn't work that way.

** It's strongly implied that the cockroaches are hallucinations, as they only appear when Daniel's sanity is low, and they dissappear mysteriously. Daniel was an explorer and archeologist, so it's very possible that he has visited Madagascar, and had a traumatic experience with the cockroaches.

* Is it possible to get vitae from something other than torture and death? Like, for example, using laughter instead of the screams of pain and fear? Would that still work?

** It could be that Daniel, in spite of his amnesia, still senses the shadow closing in on him, and, since his past self is all he has to go on for information, and his past self is saying to go deeper into the castle and kill Alexander, he thinks it would be better to follow his own advice and try to fix the problem instead of running away. However if [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything they had thought of everything,]] they should have let you go out the door, walk a few hundred feet, hear the noises of some monster, and get dragged off into the swamp like some of the notes that you pick up hint at happening. Would have added some "My God... That was almost ME" paranoia to the game, [[SarcasmMode because God knows it needs more of it...]]

* Why the hell are all of the Cockroaches I find in this castle Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches? They're quite large for any other species and they [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin hiss]]. Did Alexander just happen to go on a trip to Madagascar, look at these and say "Aw, hell yes! I totally want a breeding pair of those!"[[note]]Apparently, this game is also set before they were even given a proper latin name.[[/note]]

** The monsters are terrifying abominations with claws and blades who are strong enough to break down a door in seconds. Even with a weapon, fighting them would be suicide for the nerdy archeologist.

** You’re making a mistake by taking Daniel’s words at face value. Daniel is an UnreliableNarrator, constantly presenting his version of the story, and the whole thing reeks of self-deception. It reminds me most of the infamous Milgram electroshock experiment. Daniel was ordered to continue torturing victims well after his conscience told him to stop. He shouldn’t have been so ready to trust Alexander, but he let himself believe the convenient lie that they were all guilty because it benefited him. He committed horrific torture on people with supposed crimes as petty as forgery. He clearly knew he was doing wrong - at one point he protests to Alexander that their victim “will die,” then covers the pang of conscience with “too quickly, I mean.” In the end, he kidnapped an obviously innocent young girl and her family, presumably for the purpose of torture, but didn’t admit any guilt until she accidentally died. Even then, he only admits his actions were wrong, but still places all the blame on Alexander for corrupting him. Essentially he uses the Nazi defense of “I was just following orders.” The different endings are summed up by Daniel’s statement that he could understand killing a villain to save an innocent, but killing an innocent to save a murderer is a different matter. The good ending is when he sacrifices himself to save Agrippa, who had been kept in a state of living death for centuries. By giving up his own life to save an innocent (though how innocent Agrippa is is up for debate, but we have no indication he’s committed the sort of crimes Alexander and Daniel did), he truly atones, and Alexander dies in that ending too. However, by pulling down the pylons, Alexander and Agrippa both die. Daniel sacrifices an innocent to save himself, a murderer. This is the bad ending, but Daniel doesn’t notice because he’s too lost in self-deception. He has become just as much a monster as Alexander, but he congratulates himself on eliminating the supposed cause of his actions. Without accepting his own responsibility, he is bound to continue committing crimes, blindly blaming others the whole time for forcing him to do it.

** They probably all just ganged up on him to knock him out or something - Malo is still only human, after all. Alois and Basile might have even helped - last time I checked, the suitors weren't exactly friends.

* Could monsters horrific body appearance be a hallucination? Hear me out, in Archives Daniel will hallucinate two of monsters. If memory serves me, Daniel in his journals and notes commented on Gatherers strange behavior but never their appearance(thanks to Alexander having them wear robes that concealed their appearance). And since real monster encounters start to happen past this point, that means that Daniel never saw any of Alexander servants before. Since we know that Daniel has fear of darkness and is bit insane and tends to have hallucination, that could mean that Gatherers in truth look different than presented in game.

** It's by the same reasoning that you "heal" yourself with painkillers in VideoGame/MaxPayne, VideoGame/DeusEx, and morphine in CryOfFear. It makes the pain bearable so you can continue.

*** Yeah, a human who can knock down giant steel doors with his bare hands while starving and who runs ridiculously fast for being half-dead. Maybe I'm just jaded after dying by his hand so many times, but it seems like even teaming up, they wouldn't be much of a match for Malo.

* Why the hell are all of the Cockroaches I find in this castle Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches? They're quite large for any other species and they [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin hiss]]. Did Alexander just happen to go on a trip to Madagascar, look at these and say "Aw, hell yes! I totally want a breeding pair of those!"[[hottip:*:Apparently, this game is also set before they were even given a proper latin name.]]

*** Also, keep in mind that the only reason this conversation took place was because ALEXANDER KIDNAPPED AGRIPPA in an attempt to get W*e*yer's assistance. It's absolutely sane that Weyer would have issues giving in to a kidnapper's demands, and want to make sure he can guarantee Agrippa's safety as a condition of help. Considering the rest of Weyer and Agrippa's portrayals, they seem relatively decent (helping Daniel after he dies even if they had no concrete incentive to after Alexander died) and might have been willing to help had Alexander not gone for kidnapping and torturous hostage keeping. Couple that with the fact that the reason Alex is on the planet at all is because he was thrown out from wherever his home was, and the fact that he remorselessly lies to Daniel and you for his own gain (something we have no evidence Weyer or Agrippa do), and you see the issues here. To put it this way: if a leader of FARC kidnapped your best friend or teacher and held him or her hostage in a cave with the mutilated remains of his previous victims around in order to force you to help him build something, would you do it?

*** No. Daniel said that he that there was no way to fight back against the Shadow. It said nothing of not being able to fight back against the monsters.