It might seem out of place for the Sephirot symbols to appear on Gregor's base E.G.O, as so far the Sinners and the Sephirot seem to have nothing to do with each other - until you remember a few things: the Sephirot bear their names and symbolism from Jewish Kabbalah, and the original Gregor Samsa was essentially an Author Avatar for Jewish-German author Franz Kafka. The symbols have nothing to do with the characters of the Sephirot, they're a callback to his literary and ethnical background.
Outis seems to love to praise the clock-headed Dante whenever the situation calls for it. So what's her symbol? A watch.
Notably, the music that played when fighting against the Golden Apple is also played again when fighting against K Corp's agents. The Golden Apple is notable for its self-heal. So are K Corp's agents.
How did Saude manage to kill Guido with a shot to the head? It's likely it pierced the tubes with healing fluid behind the mask, cutting off his source of regeneration!
The game's main theme, "In Hell We Live, Lament" the singer asks several questions which all seem relate to a different character that are split in half, separated by another verse in-between:
"If you wanted me to speak (Why'd you make my voice stutter?)
"If you wanted me to think (Why do truths never matter?)
"If you wanted me to carry on our dreams (Why'd you curse me with "you're a natural born genius"?)
"If you wanted me to live (Why do deaths end my torture?)
"If you want me to forgive (Why can't anyone feel my hurt?)
"If you want us to pretend like we're civilized humans (Why'd you crown the most violent to be champions?)
Yi Sang's tendency to speak in metaphors and symbolism to the point where Ryoshu calls him a "poetaster", or bad poet, makes sense when you remember the struggles that the real world Yi Sang went through when publishing his poetry series Crow's Eye View, which he stopped writing halfway through due to getting too many complaints from readers about how the poetry was too hard to understand.
The choice to have the Identities' rarities marked by one to three dots seems unusual compared to other gacha games until you look at the Kabbalah's Key Scale; above the Tree of Life are three Negative Veils, called Ein (or Ayin), Ein Sof, and Ohr Ein Sof, with each layer represented by one to three dots.
The interesting but subtle design of Hong Lu having heterochromia, with one black iris and one blue iris, becomes genius when you learn that in Dream of the Red Chamber, the name of the main character Jia Baoyu's true love, Lin Daiyu, means "blue-black jade".
The prologue, Selva Oscura, is one massive reference to the beginning of Dante's Inferno. In the original poem, Dante Alighieri finds himself lost in a dark wood (or "selva oscura") and tries to climb up a mountain before being blocked by three beasts - a leopard, a lion, and a wolf. He's chased back down into the forest, where he's rescued by the poet Virgil at the behest of Beatrice, Dante's late lover, and taken to the doorway into Hell so that he can begin his pilgrimage to Heaven.
The connection to Lion, Wolf, and Panther gets stronger when you look at what they represent. Lion represents violence, and is a Blood Knight who wants to take her time to relish killing Dante; Wolf represents incontinence or impatience and instead wants them to get it over with quickly; Panther - the leopard - represents fraud, and is called a "false lion" by Vergilius.
In Crime and Punishment, Sofya encourages Rodion to save his soul by confessing his sins to her, putting him on the path to redemption. In the basement of Chapter 2, Sonya does the same thing, asking Rodya to reveal and confront her murder of the tax collector and responsibility for the massacre of her neighbors.
In Canto I and III, their respective protagonists, Gregor and Sinclair, each get an ID that seems to reflect the worst possible outcome they could have had: Gregor remains a soldier for G-corp, and Sinclair gives in to Kromer and joins her. Rodion, however, has not received a corresponding ID. Why? Working at Limbus Company, a recently founded firm that no one's barely heard of, is already the worst outcome for an egoist like Rodion.
Though a Yurodivy ID for a world where Rodion joins Sonya might appear when we meet him again.
Looking at the ending cards for each Canto, one can notice that Heathcliff and Ryoshu sit at the back of the bus with double seats to themselves, a privilege that only Vergilius shares. This makes sense when you realize they're the only two Sinners who've killed any of the others unprovoked; they both get a row to themselves to avoid the hassle of them killing their seatmate out of annoyance.
If you pay close attention, you can notice that during the cutscene that plays when max Uptying Faust's "The One Who Grips" Identity, it plays a lyricless version of the second half of "Between Two Worlds" - Kromer's Battle Theme Music.
The lack of perpetual E.G.O, the kind that can be kept up in perpetuity, such as Gebura's, Tali's, or Xiao's, amongst Limbus Company's lineup in favor of the "borrowed" E.G.O. in the vein of E.G.O. pages from Library of Ruina makes sense considering that such people who manifest those tend to have ironclad wills and strong sense-of-self, enough to deny the whims of Carmen' Breaking Speech, something that the Sinners don't have (but Dongrang, the Canto IV chapter boss, explicitly does).
Another factor is that the Sinners in general lack crucial elements for manifesting a perpetual E.G.O; resolve and a desire to move forward. Even when facing their pasts during their respective Golden Bough dungeons, the Sinners so far have shown that they're not ready/able to fully confront and resolve their traumas yet, and all of them seem completely content with staying with the Limbus Company for the foreseeable future without any kind of plan for advancing what they truly want. Until they can fully do so, they'll be stuck with being able to only temporarily manifest their E.G.O. using Sin.
There's a grim hilarity when you realize that Gregor, The Face of the old G Corp's army, has a first name that starts with G in a world where initials are incredibly important to a Wing's branding. It's made somewhat less amusing when you realize that if Hermann really is Gregor's mother, she likely named him that way intentionally.
In a world where emotions are as powerful and important as they are in the City, of course Los Mariachis, who are very in-tune with their emotions due to their dancing and general outlook on life, would be some of the most surprisingly powerful Syndicate members encountered. And considering it's almost impossible to break their morale in combat due to their fighting style, they're also naturally resistant to many of the tricks used by most other City inhabitants.
The game puts a lot of emphasis on the various Identities of the Sinners as explorations of their alternate selves, so it's only fitting that a good deal of Abnormalities encountered seem to be Aberrations of previously seen ones, AKA they are also alternate selves of their original counterparts.
Given that N Corp is a Wing that heavily values human experience, there is no wonder why they would ban photography in their District and act disproportionately violent in such a situation. Photography and filming devalues their Canned Experience products and ideology of having people actually experience things.
Rodya's N Corp Identity fasting to prove her devotion to The One Who Grips is more than just a show of how different she is from base Rodion's Big Eater habits - she's also proving that she no longer needs the brainwashing drugs that are put in the Inquisitors' food to still be fervently loyal to the group.
In the end, it ended up being to the group's benefit that Effie and Saude's plan to use Wishpower to win the poker game went awry. Even if Dante had gotten to the table smoothly and gotten in the game, the fact that a Wishpower sticker was so easily sniffed out by another party at the table means they would've been forcibly removed from the table the moment it was discovered. Even if Dante has no face to make a poker face to speak of, they're hardly the calmest individual when under pressure. Their body language may have given them away even more outright. So in the end it was for the best that Rodion and her boundless confidence stepped up to the table, rather than Dante with the power of luck.
In a bit of brilliance, both teams in the Hell's Chicken event symbolize the phrase "too many cooks spoil the broth" perfectly.
Team Gregor is in absolute chaos, with Gregor throwing together canned foods, Yi Sang getting obsessed with spoiled foods, and Don Quixote sabotaging the recipe with her own personal food preferences (like replacing potatoes with oranges and randomly adding chocolate), while Hong Lu and Meursault sit off to the side and Heathcliff gets angry at everything, with it literally being a case of too many conflicting personalities and opinions causing chaos in the kitchen.
Team Ryoshu is almost the exact opposite with everyone crowding around and giving conflicting advice to Sinclair, who is forced to balance the varying and conflicting opinions they all give, with it being a metaphorical case where all of Sinclair's teammates are trying to give their own opinions on the matter but the chaos of it all results in a jumbled mess that's completely unhelpful to him.
Knowing about the literature of Don Quixote explains why Limbus' Don can rise to the ranks of a Director in at least two of her alternate selves: the original inspiration, Alonso Quijano, was both a hunter of wild game and an estate administrator with extensive amounts of literacy for all of his excess spare time, which is ultimately what got him into his entire series of events to begin with. Our Don is implied to have previous work in the Fixer field even before joining Limbus Company, and a likely encyclopedic fascination with all the big Fixers in the city, meaning there's a strong likelihood that she's incredibly well-learned and actually highly intelligent; it's mostly that her delusions of grandeur and knightly honor take priority and make her come off as a thoughtless Idiot Hero.
The Concept Incinerator actually explains what exactly happened to the Smoke War-era L Corp, and why Smoke War veterans like Roland and Salvador who actually saw the source of the smoke can't remember it. L Corp's old singularity was likely burned in the aftermath, both to prevent anyone from using it again, and also to keep all the veterans of the war from going insane. The fact the Incinerator has a limited range also explains why Roland is able to eventually recall it somewhat when he distorts as Ruina'sClimax Boss.
N Corp. Sinclair's kit being focused around losing Sanity makes sense in three different ways; not only does it allow him to synergism perfectly with N Corp. Faust's Passives, allowing him to consistently get Fanatic for a massive power boost, but it also makes sense in that N Corp. Faust's Passive is based on Kromer's whistling, which is specifically shown to heavily affect Sinclair even more than any of her followers. In addition, it also creates a major increase in the potential for Sinclair to Corrode, which the Nagel und Hammer members are shown intentionally doing to become more powerful, becoming the Canto 3 dungeon's special "abnormality" fights.
Sinclair's kit doesn't seem to belong among the N Corp members at all - while the other N Corp members focus around Bleed and all of them have Nail-stacking skills, Sinclair doesn't use any Nails and replaces Bleed for Burn. He's less brainwashed than he joined voluntarily for a vendetta against the businesses that deprived him of his family life.
Mixed with Fridge Horror: In Lobotomy Corporation, Angela at one point mentions that one of Lobotomy Corp's market competitor draws energy directly from Hell. Since this is never brought up again at any point, it might be considered an off-hand reference or a case of Early-Installment Weirdness...At least, untill Dante see what seems to be a literal gate to Hell when turning back the clock to revive the Sinners, which if taken literally mean that Hell is real in the Project Moon verse - and considering how awful most people in the City are, it's probably quite full.
Why would K Corp allow Calw, their so-called 'capital of prosthetics', be razed so easily? Because not only did that fuel their Singularity, which is their main source of profit, but they also likely don't even care about prosthesii in the first place. After all, what's the point of replacing your arm with a metallic one when you can just restore it with a healing bullet?
Doubles as Fridge Horror: Calw was known for its tradition to replace one's body parts or even entire bodies with prosthesii - something that specifically does not require or even allow the healing bullets in order to repair. This ought to get in the way of K Corp's profits; razing Calw might've been deliberately approved in order to advance the Wing's monopoly...
Not only that, but the secret that Sinclair lets slip to his classmates is that his family is in the process of striking a business deal with P Corp. And the presence of a defunct Lobotomy Corporation branch carries the implication that the Sinclair family may have been doing with them sometime in the past. Which would also mean that they have a history of dealing with a now fallen Wing, something which has been made clear can be devastating to one's status. With how influential the Sinclair family was over Calw, K Corp. may have seen the destruction of Calw as punishment for daring to make deals with other Wings under their noses.
Chapter 4 makes a very obvious parallel between K Corp's healing technology and Dante's reversal power. Both work via reversing the original subject and are seemingly miraculous in how it's done, and both reverse grievous wounds. K Corp is extremely unfeeling by setting a bar as from how severe the wound must be before an ampule can be used, and Dante heavily dislikes rewinding because it causes them the same pain as the Sinners suffer. However, it is extremely telling that when Ishmael is hit by a decay ampule and starts to melt, Dante rewinds the clock immediately, without any regard for the pain they are about to experience themselves despite being very well aware of it.
Each of the members of the League of Nine that we actually meet in Canto 4 has a theme to their E.G.O. that relates to the other two; Dongbaek is a plant, Dongrang is a farmer, and Yi Sang is a crow. This creates a sort of rock-paper-scissors scenario, where the plants feed the farmer, the farmer scares off the crow, and the crow eats the plants. Irony comes in when their deaths in the chapter are all caused by the one they should beat; Dongbaek kills Yi Sang, Dongrang kills Dongbaek, and Yi Sang kills Dongrang.
Dongbaek and Dongrang wind up being rather similar - Dongbaek wants to destroy the future to return to a comfortable past, and Dongrang wants to destroy the past to create a comfortable future. This is reflected in their battle mechanics, as both have special debuffs that, if stacked too high, allow them to trap the Sinners within plants.
In Canto IV, the flashback that shows a K Corp executive caving another executive's skull for the crime of pissing her off, while the rest of the board casually watches and does nothing, is not only a reminder that the City is still filled with meaningless, random acts of violence even at the upper echelons of society, but a further edulcoration why Rank Scales with Asskicking: if you're an executive member of a Wing, you have both the means and motivations to get extensive augmentations and combat training - not to protect yourself from random thugs or other Wings, but from your very own peers, who are just as capable to get the same level of augmentations and training you can.
Turns out there is a Singularity that instantly devolve Abnormalities back to eggs. It makes a lot more sense that the Head can stop the mass Abnormality rampage in Ending C; there's no need for them to unleash all their Arbiters and Claws when they can just end the rampage in one use of the Abnormality devolving Singularity, reducing all the Abnormalities back to their dormant states and confiscating/sealing them away regardless of how powerful they are.
Sinclair's identities are inconsistent damage dealers, or swing between states, ranging from Red Sheet's talisman juggling, The One Who Shall Grip's pogoing negative sanity (when played well), Salsu's and Cinq's split personality, Jefe's critical hit dependency (he's either tearing through the enemies or just lightly bonking them with his S1 and S2) and trigger phrase, up to his Molar Boatworks' extreme self-Tremor dependence. This is also visible with some of his E.G.O., like how most of his E.G.O. have a higher Awakening roll on tails, and his base E.G.O. inflicting an additional -10 SP when rolling heads, and vice versa on tails. This leans into Sinclair's general Duality Motif, and in the beginning of Demian, he describes himself as flowing in and out of two worlds.
Book Sinclair also describes himself as at times almost getting trapped in one never to get out. Limbus Sinclair often rewards you for keeping a balancing act, but failing and going too far is often worse then not going in.
Part of Canto 4's dungeon is pretty much a Citified version of The Wings. In fact one illustration of the poem is transplanted as the dungeon map of a floor!
K Corp has some very symbolic similiarities with the Emerald City that may or may not exist and where many Abnormalities originate from - such as the overall building structure and the green and black aesthetic. Alfonso can also be read as a parallel to the Adult Who Tells Lies, as a black-and-green haired cruel woman in a position of power that usurped a benevolent ruler, and Dongrang can be read as a parallel of the Scarecrow Searching for Wisdom due to his hunger for intellectual achievement and his scarecrow aesthetic when he awakens his EGO.
A question that would naturally come up in Canto III is how, exactly, did the Nagel und Hammer Inquisitors manage to Corrode themselves considering no actual Abnormalities appear in the Dungeon other than the corroded Inquisitors themselves. Canto IV provides the most likely answer: they found a stash of those missing Abnormalities' E.G.O gear, wore them, and then willingly gave themselves up to it to cause Corrosion.
Intervallo 4.5 is the first chapter since the prologue to not have any Story Dungeons. Why so? Because there are no Abnormalities or Distortions involved! The only enemies you face throughout the chapter are the District 21's Backstreets' local wildlife!
Canto I, The Outcast: A double-fold meaning, in how the members of the Old G Corp are ostracized, as well as Gregor himself being an outcast to Old G Corp.
Canto II, The Unloving: Rodya hides a colder, or unloving side of herself that only shows up in the presence of things she'd prefer to avoid, and Sonya brings one such thing before her when questioning whether she really murdered the corrupt pawnbroker out of selflessness, or in other words, out of love.
Canto III, The Unconfronting: Sinclair has trouble confronting his traumatic past, and Canto III serves as his moment to finally subvert that and put it to rest, as well as finally stop the monstrous Kromer that haunts his life.
Canto IV, The Unchanging: Among the surviving members of the League of Nine featured in the Canto, a common thread among all three is that none of them are willing to change: Yi Sang believes he can never recover and change from his morose and broken self in the present; Dongbaek is dead set on leading the TLA against K Corp. up until her death out of her desire to bring back the Glory Days of people inventing things for their own joy the way the Guinhoe did; and Dongrang is never able to break free from his own desire for achievement and recognition, which proves to be his undoing after doubling down and manifesting E.G.O out of his "conviction" before trying to kill Yi Sang and perishing. Yi Sang, however, subverts this commonality once he finds the will to go on and pursue happiness again, changing himself for the better in the process.
Canto V, The Evil Defining: Ishmael's obsession with killing Ahab reflects Ahab's own obsession with killing the Pallid Whale, and Ishmael's vendetta causes her to define Ahab as the evil that had caused of everything that had gone wrong in her life, just as Ahab herself does with the Whale. The events of the Canto serve to subvert this too as she realizes how her thirst for vengeance is threatening to consume and destroy her completely the way Ahab's did with the Pequod's crew, and breaking the Cycle of Revenge as a result.
Canto VI, The Heartbreaking: As a direct result of his self-loathing and insecurities, Heathcliff ends up breaking Catherine's heart when he abandons her and Wuthering Heights, mistakenly believing that she didn't love him in a tragic case of Poor Communication Kills, and Heathcliff would similarly have his own heart broken by Catherine because of this incorrect belief. Both lovers breaking each other's hearts as a result of their inability to articulate their true feelings is something that happens on a multiversal scale, to the degree that they have Alternate Selves who seek to kill themselves en masse throughout the Mirror Worlds to punish themselves for what they supposedly did to their beloveds. Heathcliff manages to subvert this, however, when he gets the courage to tell her Catherine true feelings and allows her to do the same, mending their relationship and their broken hearts at last before her Heroic Sacrifice, and replacing his self-hatred and thirst for Revenge with determination and a desire to bring her back with the Golden Boughs.
Gregor's little roach companion that's with him at all times? Judging by it's size and the position of its antennae, it's probably a German cockroach.
While weird, the placement of the four abnormalities in Yi Sang's Dungeon make sense. Fairy Gentlemen symbolizes his Spring, when he was having the time of his life, a glorious high he never wanted to come down from. Drifting Fox his Summer, when he morosely saw the incoming storm and could only offer up ragged umbrellas against it. So That No One Will Cry is Fall, when he sees his inventions being perverted to harm the poor for the sake of the rich alongside the rest of the league. Shock Centipede was his Winter. The damage is done, and only strong outside stimulation got him to do something.
As above, Brazen Bull has nothing to do with Yi Sang, but that out of place nature is actually perfect for what it symbolizes. A bout of Five-Second Foreshadowing where Dongrang is going to be your next opponent as he is an Outside-Context Problem that suddenly attacks. After all, he has cow motifs, however subtle, and like Bull in the Mirror Dungeon he constantly wants satisfaction, him accomplishment from his deeds, Bull respite from the heat through water. And both always keep getting the vehicle of their deliverance, but the deliverance dries up by the time it gets to them.
Why does Ryoshu get Red Eyes as an E.G.O? Because often bundled with the translation of her novel is The Spider Thread by the same author!
On a similar note, why does Spider Bud get two separate E.G.O. with different levels? Well, Red Eyes represents Spider Bud in its normal state, which is threatening but not too powerful. Red Eyes (Open), on the other hand, represents it when its children are killed, which if one remembers how it worked in Lobotomy Corporation, means it gets much, much stronger. At the same time, the character Ryoshu is named after in Hell Screen has a daughter whom he loses, so Ryoshu in the game most likely has a child too that she lost, and it represents her anger and distress at losing the child.
Every Sinner in their highlight Canto gets some form of E.G.O. personally related to them one way or another:
Gregor and Rodion directly get the boss Abnormality's E.G.O., which is personally reminiscent of them (Gregor with his view of being a vermin, Rodion with her coldness)
Sinclair can get the three pieces of the E.G.O. Gift "A Sign", which is connected to Demian, who, in turn, is connected to him positively (just like in the original book).
Yi Sang gets an Identity that wields the same E.G.O. one of his former friends has, which is Dongbaek's Spicebush E.G.O..
Ishmael gets an E.G.O. Gift that has a specific benefit for her and is also connected to her closest friend, and her base E.G.O.'s line changes after the Canto is completed, signifying her Character Development.
The Middle IDs we see focus on Envy Resonance. Of course, since the Middle styles itself as a family and are known to slaughter entire neighborhoods just for a relatively minor slight. Jealousy generally refers to the thoughts or feelings of insecurity, fear, and concern something and is part of envy. In their own way, Envy is the main Sin of the Middle.
Furthermore, they seem to have a disregard for anything, even if it's minor like their coupons being stolen. They seem to be able to go and do whatever they want and they'll probably have their way too, due to being so powerful. Or rather...they give everyone the middle finger.
In Hell's Chicken, even Ryoshu calls out Outis for mocking the name of the chicken restaurant when the Distorted owner reveals that he named it after his mother. If Ryoshu's past lines up even a bit with what happens to her source material, then she must be upset because she too is a mother (or has been one), and thus has personal reasons to be upset.
The two Poise artifacts that combine with each other to form a more potent Poise artifact take the form of a four-leaf clover and a horseshoe, respectively, which are both items that're stereotypically said to bring luck. Why this luck theme? Because Poise is a chance-based effect!
Befitting Outis' penchant for strategizing, she's the only Cinq Association ID whose defensive skill can get stronger than its default rolls, using the same Haste-based coin power boost to boost how high her Evade can roll.
Faust's E.G.O may seem unusual compared to the clear understanding of how the other Sinners attack their opponents with their E.G.Os, but it actually links to her literary counterpart as well as her symbol of a glass flask. In the second part of Goethe's Faust, a character called the homunculus is introduced, being an artificially-created creature made of fire living in a glass flask, who asks Faust and Mephistopheles to show him the world instead of forcing him to live in a laboratory all day. Upon experiencing a Walpurgis Night festival and being taught natures laws, the homunculus shatters his own flask and throws himself into the sea to become one with nature.
Faust's E.G.O artwork is also a potential Shout-Out to the homunculus as well, with her being trapped in a laboratory with three shadows in front of her, representing the literary characters of Faust, Mephistopheles, and either the homunculus's creater Wagner, or the sea god Proteus, who helped Faust and Mephistopheles teach the homunculus about the world.
Both the Kurokumo clan and the Middle stand out within the rest of the City by the way they dress - in comparison to the rest that wears a uniform or at the very least protective gear, the Kurokumo clan and the Middle don't seem to give much to clothing standards, showing ample bare skin. What do these two also have in common? Their liberal use of Power Tattoos! They're literally a show of confidence and trust in these tattoos, and are more or less sending a message of 'I don't need all those layers of clothing to protect me, I can do that myself with the help of these tattoos!'. It also helps that the tattoos can glownote Which is not shown in the case of the Kurokumos , which serves to intimidate others. Ricardo curb-stomped our team with his abs out, for heaven's sake!
The "Proelium Fatale" warning is used sparingly, only in situations where the death of the whole party is something to expect.
It shows up against the boss Abnormalities in Canto I, given that these are the Sinners' first encounter with them, and so there's no idea how well they can tackle them yet.
It returns during Big Brother Ricardo's battle, because in-universe this is an actualHopeless Boss Fight the Sinners are absolutely expected to get wiped out in.
When the main robot wearing the Pink Shoes is suppressed, there is no 'gem' on its egg that other abnormalities have. Instead it is a glass container with the Shoes in them. You were simply removing the Shoes from the abno!
Why are the Gnomes weak to Wrath and Gluttony? Well in most child Christmas movies the villains either hate Christmas or are greedy and want all the gifts. You play as the "villains" going against the festive little bastards.
In Canto V, there is huge foreshadowing about how you target the Whale's heart instead of Ahab. Every Abnormality has or summons other targets that must be struck first, either to get through massive resistances, or to avoid a major attack.
Why is the Impending Day E.G.O given to Sinclair? Because many Cults, also those in real life, have a doomsday narrative!
Queequeg was formerly a member of the Middle, and she's struggling to remove every single mark of her allegiance to them as they're still present, even by the time of Canto V. As a result, it makes sense her playable counterpart as a Heathcliff ID can gain Envy Resonance bonuses just like the other Middle IDs.
Among Abnormalities that're weak to Gloom, some of them are fire-themed (Brazen Bull, Skin Prophet, Ardor Blossom Moth). Which makes sense when you realize Gloom's elementally tied to water (Distortion Detective already had water tied to depression), thus creating a Logical Weakness of water snuffing out fire.
Gloom can also snuff out Wrath; as Wrath is the sin of standing up against something and finally saying 'no'. It's essentially to stop being an Extreme Doormat. But Gloom is likened to a wave of depressive emotions to make you liable to think 'You know what? Nevermind, it won't change anyway.'. Pessimism can nip rebellions in the bud.
The various Sins are shown fairly evenly amongst the Sinner's base ZAYIN EGO, except Wrath - even the infamously angry Heathcliff's is Envy and the bloodthirsty Ryoshu's is Lust. And then you see what Vergilius is like - he's got enough Wrath for the entire bus.
And when Vergilius enters the battle in Canto VI, this is shown to be entirely accurate, as every single one of his attacks is Wrath.
Some of the Sinners' base EGO don't use resources that correspond to their Affinity, and here's why:
Why is Mersault's Chains of Others one with Pride Affinity when it doesn't use any Pride EGO resources?
Mersault's namesake was often pointed out - and condemned - for not being like others, such as when a judge and jury turned guilty verdicts against him for seemingly inconsequential reasons, rather than the merits of the crime, all because he was viewed outside of his own internal context. It would only make sense for his EGO to be viewed and treated differently from what resources Meursault uses to manifest it.
Regarding the affinity itself - Pride - Meursault's namesake was assumed by the masses at court that his lack of any sense of remorse and how he'd kill again should the situation arise to it is a show of prideful remorselessness, not one brought about because of an odd emotional quirk he has.
Gregor's Suddenly, One Day is a Sloth Affinity EGO when it doesn't cost any Sloth resources, which fits on how his namesake's family doesn't show him any amount of proper care and empathy for his insect transformation, and his father would berate him for not going to work (thus perceiving supposed sloth) while not checking on his condition (thus performing some sloth of his own). Thusly, Gregor's sin is overriden by what other people think his sin is.
Why is Greed, one of the most famous of the Seven Deadly Sins, replaced with Gloom? Because in a world like the City where the entire progression of society is determined by the unknowable Head in a weirdly sadomasocistic hypercapitalism, "greed" is just a way of life - you can't call someone greedy if the need to acquire things is as necessary to your survival as hunger to eat or thirst to drink, less a sin and more of an unfortunate neccessity of the human condition, that not even cybernetics can mitigate, unlike with bodily needs.
J Corp's miner slaves they keep under their casino seems kind of out-of-nowhere until you realize that with their "Jail" Singularity and the work that the slaves are forced to do, they're meant to be a parody of the Prison-Industrial Complex, where being dealt a bad hand can literally end in you toiling your life away in order to clear an unfair charge.
Of all things, why does Seven Association have a volunteer teahouse? Well, Spilling tea means to gossip, which Seven Association specializes in.
The Dieci Association's fighting style of enhancing their attacks by inflicting Laser-Guided Amnesia on themselves seems rather bizarre and out-of-place, but by its associated number of 10 and its language of Italian... it's a pretty clear jab at Dante's own amnesiac status.
The Kurokumo clan is styled after the Japanese Yakuza, and pretty much all of their members have Japanese names (Sayo, Jun, etc.). The Blade Lineage, meanwhile, only has their named members having Korean names (Kim, Aeng-du). It's a conflict between the Korean and the Japanese all over again!
The reveal of "Matthew" being a Mirror World identity of Heathcliff in disguise has a giant hint before the reveal. Though the sin affinities are different, "Matthew's" moves all share the exact same names as LCB Heathcliff!
It may seem odd that Heathcliff's Mirror counterpart never uses his Bodysack E.G.O. during his fight, not even as some kind of Desperation Attack. But it actually has a simple explanation in both story and gameplay terms.
Gameplay-wise, Bodysack requires 2 Lust resources to use. Mirror!Heathcliff, however, only has Envy, Wrath, and Gloom attacks. He simply can't generate the resources to use it all by himself.
Story-wise, personal E.G.O. is identified as something that requires an understanding of the self to use. Mirror!Heathcliff, on the other hand, is completely drenched in self-hatred, and wanders from Mirror World to Mirror World killing other Heathcliffs with no end in sight other than one of those Heathcliffs killing him instead. He literally hates himself too much to be able to manifest his E.G.O. anymore.
The Ring members battled in Canto VI are Pointillists. Pointillism is using many dots of paint to create an illusion that creates a picture from a distance. It makes perfect sense they use spear like brushes. You're the canvas and they make their art by stabbing you!
A nice detail that lets you know that the Öufi members are Ring Members faking it is that their main status effect is bleed, whereas Heathcliff's Öufi ID uses tremor instead!
Dante's improved Time Master abilities have the first ability, the power to slow enemies down, be labelled as "Hokma" in the tree it's selected from. It's only natural for Hokma, whose responsibility was managing the TimeTrack2 Protocol, to be the first Sephirah linked to time manipulation, and in addition, the ability to slow down enemies also resembles his Meltdown forcing the day to go fast and faster - essentially inflicting his Meltdown effect on enemies.
The starting amount of Shield that Cathy has in 6-48 is 404. The commonly known 'Not found' error has code 404!
There's some brilliant foreshadowing in Hell's Kitchen. The one sinner who ends up getting the head chicken stuck on them is Heathcliff, and as a result, learns what the chickens are looking for. His title while having this chicken is "Distorted Thing?". Well, who was the first sinner to distort? That's right, it's Heathcliff.
Fridge Horror
With the information given about the Middle in Chapter 2, Roland's Roaring Rampage of Revenge becomes that much more horrifying, as the Middle will retaliate against hundreds if not thousands of innocent people for an unconnected person hurting one of them... and Roland massacred half of the Middle in the City's South Sector. Their retaliation against innocents must have been on a nigh-unprecedented scale.
That being said, it's also possible Roland ended up killing so many of them because they all tried to take revenge on the Black Silence directly. Especially since his mask gives him a Perception Filter that would mean there wouldn't exactly be any one person to link the killings to other than the Black Silence themselves.
If one remembers Wonderlab and My Sweet Home, Yuri's death becomes even more horrific, because its entirely possible she was still alive when the Abnormality used her head to talk to Gregor.
When Nagel und Hammer is burning Sinclair's hometown, not a single K Corp. agent or Fixer bar Effie and Saude were there to stop them — if this were a Syndicate or even a hostile Wing that has no business breaching in, they would be exterminated very quickly. And as we all know, Nagel und Hammer is not a Syndicate but a part of the Wing itself. The implication is that K Corp. and N Corp. were in some sort of lucrative business deal and the Nagel und Hammer Inquisitors are considered legitimate employees, so K Corp will not stop this on their own in fear of breaking the partnership, or because they approved of it.
Sinclair freaking out at the sight of the Abnormality holding cell in the underground L Corp branch makes a lot more sense when you realize that he and Kromer didn't see it through the perception filter. For all we know, they could've seen things like Nothing There or CENSORED without a filter.
Multiple N Corp Inquisitors are seen Corroding on an Abberation of Nothing There, so it might very well have been that Abnormality.
Dante doesn't just see the Sinners in that mysterious Hellgate, but many other warped, agonized souls tortured on the other end. It's unknown if this is every Sinner in the city, or everyone that dies, but at the very least, Dante is privy to the torment of the damned and regularly has to reach in and grab their team out because of their casual disregard of the risks of death, something that should be all but impossible for most others in the city — but is treated as a matter of fact for Limbus Company.
The N Corp. identity stories heavily imply that at least a few members of Nagel und Hammer who help massacre Sinclair's hometown are not comfortable with what they're doing, but instead are forced to by a combination of drugs and cult brainwashing. And by the end of the chapter, they're either dead or still stuck in Nagel und Hammer's thrall.
According to Mersault in Chapter 3 and in Dante's Notes, the Nagel und Hammer inquisitors were just a fringe group without many followers within the Wing itself, until recently where their numbers suddenly increased and their actions became way more brazen than before. Is there a massive human experiment program going on within the Company where most of its employees are used as lab rats?
Most of the Photo ID pictures of the Sinners show them in fairly normal attire and wear from their previous professions or even casual attire, through Ryōshū is covered in blood and Heathcliff in bruises. The one character that sticks out is Don Quixote, who is clad in a suit and tie — and plates of makeshift armor. Combine this with the implication that she'd been fighting alongside others previously, and there's a strong implication that Don's been trying to be a Knight in Shining Armor vigilante to follow in the steps of the Fixers on the City streets. And considering her Black-and-White Morality that gets the Limbus Company screwed over, there's a high likelihood of a sizeable body count because it's the City.
The Hell's Chicken event introduces a horrific new technology - a concept incinerator, capable of erasing all records of an invention's existence, from blueprints to recipes to even the memories that it existed. And, in true fashion for the City, it's shown being used for corporate sabotage. As horrific as that is on its own, the concept incinerator's existence raised concerns about how it could be used for something larger than a simple petty dispute between restaurants; depending on how it functions, it could possibly Ret-Gone someone out of existence if used maliciously.
In Canto II, Dante's narration notes that Sinclair in particular looks like he's getting ill looking at the crushed remains of the Tieqiu Boss's body. This might come off initially as it simply being Sinclair, unused to their line of work, having a squeamish stomach. However, by Canto III we learn that it's most likely because the Tieqiu Boss had an artificial prosthetic body. And seeing him splattered across the floor reminded him of his own parents' brutal murders.
"A Midspring Nights' Dream" brings one hell of a terrifying prospect as to what happens when you try to mess with Dante's clock head. Those visions where they see Vergilius greeting them in the style of various other gacha games happened supposedly because their prosthetic clock head started malfunctioning. Pretty bad enough, but then Vergilius tells Dante that turns out he and the Sinners basically wasted their time trying to fix that when they could've just wind up Dante's clock head back up again instead to properly fix them. This likely implies that Dante's freak gacha game opening parody visions were caused by attempts at fixing their clock head...
N Corp Don Quixote clarifies and states that N Corp's Singularity, the 'canned experiences', literally takes the form of canned food. Which...brings up some heavy doubts as to what the hell they're eating over at the N Corp Nest.
It also doubles as Fridge Brilliance: It makes sense why N Corp's Nest is known for its academies - studying becomes a lot easier when you can literally buy and consume experience and knowledge.
Papa Bongy ended up being a relatively easy Distortion to deal with, with a silly Personality Power and being relatively easy to revert, to the point of being played for laughs - however, it should be reminded that this Distortion, which happened within a Nest, still managed to kill several people due to the headchickens (if not the headchickens themselves who did the killing, then definetly when the Sinners started to mindlessly slaughter the hosts) which only goes to show how dangerous even seemingly 'weak' Distortions can be.
The reveal that Lobotomy Corporation's E.G.O. suits are able to be worn for entire days because of the Qliphoth Deterrence System retroactively causes this for Wonder Lab, as after the end of the story, many of the Agents wind up setting up their own Fixer Offices using their E.G.O. equipment. Taii should be fine since their E.G.O. equipment is also their own personal E.G.O. in line with Gebura's or Xiao's, but the other Agents using Abnormality-derived E.G.O. equipment would almost certainly Corrode eventually.
Potentially averted in the case being an Agent increases your resistance to Corrosion; the Technology Liberation Alliance members are entirely new to using E.G.O. and need the Golden Bough to resist the Corrosion, but since high-level Agents are already somewhat Ambiguously Human due to the Abnormality Gifts affecting their biology, it's possible the stat requirements you need to meet to equip an E.G.O. suit or weapon are the minimum stats necessary to completely fend off Corrosion on your own. Wonder Lab does show that unqualified Agents can put on suits they're not qualified for in the case of an emergency at the cost of slowly Corroding, so it's not that you need to have the necessary stats to even put in on, just to ignore any side effects.
Tying to the Price of Silence Abnormality's theme of sacrifice, despite possessing the incredibly versatile Time Singularity and actually averting Cut Lex Luthor a Check through using it in the most practical ways possible, the Wing's quarter itself is an Industrial British hellhole where everyone, including the Nest-Dwellers and the children, had to participate in industrial slavery, and even the wing's quarters are filtered in monochrome (and the ability to see colors in their quarters had to be brought) to make sure the people lose their identities. For the benefits of many, they sacrificed literally everything about themselves.
Related to how N Corp and K Corp's Singularities clear things up, every time we learn about a Wing's Singularity, all the insanity starts to make sense, implying that while psychotic, Wing Executives are not completely out of their minds. Of course, this can also apply to the Head. The Sweepers, the Cycle, everything serves a purpose, and Zena implies the AI Ethics Act was to keep a Gate open, which probably informs and requires the rest of their obscure laws. What the hell is behind that Gate that makes the utter hellhole the City is justifiable to the Head?
Among what Ishmael says in the Tokyo Game Show's Canto V preview, she mentions that "Many fail to endure this trial and instead choose to be sacrificed to the depths of the Lake." Her specific choice of wording, especially "sacrificed" whilst the preview shows the image of an unknown, yet intact boat with what's likely hung human corpses above it gives off the impression that she means it literally about the "sacrifice", which itself brings horrific implications of the level of horrors the Great Lake presents.
It's worse when the translation reveals Mermaids are humans eaten and transformed by Whales... and there's a whole industry hunting and processing both in District 21. So anything made from Mermaids is really made from...
Gregor's Nice Guy behavior is likely not of his own voluntary choice, if we take into account on how sensitive his insect arm is to strong emotions.
The reveal of what exactly the Pallid Whale had done to the Lobotomy Corp branch the LCCB Preliminary Observation team were last seen at shows that Pilot was hideously lucky that he got to get out not only alive, but also as himself. Especially when a few of the levels have the Sinners be forced to fight the Pallified LCCB agents, which would really not bode well for how Pilot feels if news ever came out that the Sinners were forced to kill his teammates.
Ricardo recording Heathcliff's stereotyping in the Book of Vengeance might be a funny gag, but in that book was a law of the Middle to kill people who stole coupons from them. How low is the bar for revenge for the Middle? If anything, the Thumb looks better by comparison since while arbitrary, disrespect is an easy thing to socially gauge. This also means that the Thumb's claim of being "the most humane and cultivated of the Fingers" scarily holds actual weight, because now we're starting to see an ascending order of sheer viciousness across the Fingers with how the Middle sets such low bars for such Disproportionate Retribution.
This in turn begs the question how the Ring and the Pinky behave. The Middle has already such low bars, and yet the Pinky is stated to be more vicious than that.
While played as a gag, the shop UI for the Hell's Chicken event had an In-Universe specification that the chicken restaurant's meat was definetly not obtained through K. Corp's Singularity that stands out - why would this specification be necessary in the first place? There are two possibilities: Either the Artificial Meat produced by K. Corp is flavourless and thus Nest residents prefer genuine meat (like the real life difference between free-range chickens and factory farmed chickens) or the seemingly infinite food has nasty side effects that the Nest residents are both aware of and would rather not be involved in.
The Gnomes can give level 40 Sinners a decent fight. No wonder the Outskirts are considered horrifying, you need trained experts just to fend off minor threats!
While it's a badass Big Damn Heroes moment for the Indigo Elder, his first appearance really shows the disparity of power between regular people and Color Fixers. Ricardo - a high-ranking agent of the Middle, capable of easily curb-stomping all of the Sinners without even breaking a sweat and whose greatest injury in their battle was his sunglasses - can do nothing but make inconsequential threats to a man capable of easily throwing a massive harpoon faster than a bullet.
It also re-contextualizes Roland's rampage through the City, where he slaughtered half of the Middle in the City's southern quarter, while likely included dozens of Big Brothers and Sisters, and potentially even higher-ranked officers. It's not hard now to see why the Hana Association decided to punish his massacres of dozens of Fixer Offices with a demotion - it's likely that they literally had no other way to censure him for his actions.
Now remember that even the strongest of Color Fixers, the Red Mist, was only able to manage a Mutual Kill on a single Arbiter of the Head. Given how that same single Arbiter wiped out a Wing, it's no wonder why absolutely nobody fucks with the Head; if you do, you WILL die.
Thanks to both Leviathan and Intervallo 3.5, it's confirmed that Distortions can permanently turn into Abnormalities. There are many, MANY horrific implications of this.
It's been implied that Distorting can cause one to forget other things about their life while they're obsessed on something. Those memories may no longer be recoverable if one fully becomes an Abnormality, and not remembering things about yourself like that is an existential nightmare.
If this is the case, does that mean that L Corp was basically forcing people to fully Distort to gain energy from them?
Some Distortions seem to be aware of their distorted state. While that alone is terrifying, imagine getting to the point where you can no longer die, forever stuck like that.
How many abnormalities that we've seen in Limbus Company were actually once people who Distorted?
Wayward Passenger is nearly confirmed to be one, with how it's implied to formerly be a WARP Cleanup Crew member that left the train. If it was just simply a mutilated WARP Cleanup Crew member, it would have probably died once it left the WARP Train (unless the effects of being unable to die persist past the WARP Train and into the different dimensions it went into) due to the misshapened and mutilated body. The fact that it didn't and turns into an Egg means that that WARP Cleanup Crew member is permanently stuck like that, if it can even remember once being human.
The Distortion Detective notes that some Distortions are not violent, and instead may do things such as hiding away or going to a specific place. These ones may stay hidden and be unable to get any help, which would lead to them changing into an Abnormality.
On a less horrifying note, it does explain why Distortions get assigned Risk Classes just like Abnormalities. However, this still doesn't explain Kromer's very unique transformation that's seemed to be caused primarily by the Golden Bough resonating with her.
It's lucky that Dante is able to tell the difference between Abnormalities and Distortions, because the only way to tell for most people is if they die or turn into an egg. Distortions can be reverted and the person can return to normal, and Distortions happen due to mental breakdowns, so in that sense, you could accidentally kill a suffering person when you're fighting what you think was an Abnormality.
T. Corp's Nest is an absolute nightmare to live in compared to the other Nests in the City...So how bad must have S Corp's District been for the entire Circle of Nine to decide that it was better to migrate to T. Corp than remain in their home district?
Mirror Heathcliff is an Identity being imposed onto someone. Not only was the brutal beatdown Heathcliff gave him ultimately given to the body of someone who was likely abducted off the streets and forced into being his vessel in this world, but it also means it's entirely possible he's still out there in his own Mirror World. And not only that, all it would take to effectively resurrect him is for someone to force that identity on another poor sod.
; above the Tree of Life are three Negative Veils, called Ein (or Ayin), Ein Sof, and Ohr Ein Sof, with each layer represented by one to three dots.