History VideoGame / NightInTheWoods

* AnAesop:
** Everything is going to come to an end at some point. However, being emotional about it isn't a bad thing; as long as you have something to hold onto at the end, there is a reason to be hopeful and know your life isn't pointless. It's okay to be frustrated and sad that something is gone, but there is '''always''' a reason to keep going and move forward.
** Mental health is vastly misunderstood, and the services that come with therapy are scarce in rural areas. Mae mentions that [[spoiler:with her breakdown, Dr. Hank's advice that she keep a journal is utterly useless to help with her disassociation. College was just as bad, where she found no resources and dropped out so as not to lose touch with reality]].

** Mae can play with a ball of yarn despite finding it "patronizing," and if she ends up going to Donut Wolf with Gregg and Angus [[spoiler:she's able to seriously scratch up a mirror with her bare hands,]] so she clearly has claws.

* AmbiguousDisorder:
** As the game goes on, it becomes more and more apparent that something has happened that messed with Mae's mental state. Bea suggests she possibly has depression or anxiety after a traumatic event in her childhood; said event matches up with a textbook description of dissociation. The near-end of the game seems to imply Mae has psychosis or derealization disorder.
** Gregg mentions having "really up up days and really down down days," and exhibits some poor impulse control, and self-destructive habits when particularly "up". Bea explicitly says he is probably bipolar.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** A sidequest has Mae introduce Saleem, a bear violinist, and Sadie, a cat saxophonist, who start playing together. Mae expresses that the two will get married one day, but Saleem is already seeing someone else and Sadie says looking after her kid leaves her with no time for a relationship.
** A family doctor, who thinks simple psychotherapy is the answer to every mental disorder, turns out to be ''very'' ill-equipped to handle [[spoiler:Mae's illness]]. Yes, there are numerous success stories, but antipsycotics tend to be more reliable for such severe cases. He should've referred her to a real psychiatrist at the very least.

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim:
** Horribly averted when [[spoiler:cult members are chasing Mae. When they fire at her, they miss, but she ends up careening into a ravine, suffering a nasty head injury as a result.]] Then discussed when [[spoiler:they apologize to Mae, since they didn't want to actually kill her.]]
** Averted; in the climax Gregg does [[spoiler:shoot the cultist that Mae was approaching with a crossbow, non fatally. Then when he threatens to do the same to Casey's murderer, the cult reveals that they are armed, and force Gregg to put down his crossbow.]]
** Again averted when the [[spoiler:cultists explain why they aren't killing Mae and her friends, especially when Mae threatens to go and tell the police; they're getting old, and they need a new generation to pick up where they left off and kill for the Black Goat, that they don't target people who would be missed to avoid drawing attention (even if the gang weren't sacrificed, their collective disappearances would cause a big stir), and that there isn't anything the gang could do to really stop the cult after leaving, due to there being no way to identify its members.]]

** [[spoiler:And, of course, Mae's search for Casey. Despite brief {{hope spot}}s, such as telling Mr. Chazokov that missing is not the same as dead and asking Angel to ask around after Casey, he's revealed to [[PosthumousCharacter be one of the victims of the cult]]. He's gone.]]

* NostalgiaFilter: Almost every middle-aged person in Possum Springs has one of these. They're still mourning the loss of the mines that used to be the lifeblood of the town, and [[spoiler:the cult's]] main motivation is to restore life to the town via the mines. Mae's dad bemoans that in the old days, bosses respected workers, workers respected the bosses, and everyone got a day's wage for a day's work. However, stop to read the non-ghost related microfiche in the library, and you'll release they are not so much rose-tinting the past as soaking it with pink paint: the mines were so dangerous that people ''above'' the ground weren't safe from their faulty structure (see: Jenny's Field, the boy who heard voices), the bosses' neglect of safety caused many fatalities, and the strike action taken to try and make working conditions less lethal resulted in the mine owners ''calling in the army''. Thus, the idea that "mines opening = wonderful perfect blue-collar world" isn't just flawed, it's ludicrous.

* PleaseWakeUp: A heartbreaking subversion. [[spoiler:Mae falls unconscious after getting a severe head injury in the climax. The neighbors she befriended in the game -- you can do Selmers, Lori and Mr. Chazokov-- gather. They all say they want Mae to wake up, with Mr. Chazokov bursting into tears as he recounts stargazing with her, thinking she's going to die. Fortunately, the janitor appears and Mae ''does'' wake up after he seems to heal her. The next day, after all the fracas with the cult, Mae can go to each of them and reassure her new friends that she's okay]].

** The nature of the "ghost" Mae keeps seeing around town. She is convinced that it really is a ghost that is [[spoiler:kidnapping people]], while her friends whenever they see it assume that it's a guard or a hunter. The truth is [[spoiler:none of them are right. It isn't a ghost, but it IS a cultist supposedly powered by an EldritchAbomination with the ability to walk through walls.]]

** Mae has recurring nightmares of a astral band in strange places that always end with she meeting a gigantic and bizarre creature. It's hinted at the possibility that Mae has some sort of connection to the supernatural and that those entities are some sort of CosmicHorror, [[spoiler:and the cult practicing HumanSacrifice to keep the town prosperous worships it]], or if it's just converging delusions of the involved parties. The nature of Mae's dreams are ultimately left unexplained, though there is genuinely a possibility that Mae is sick and is hallucinating in her nightmares, [[spoiler:not helped that the end of the game confirms she has some sort of psychosis, with symptoms of dissociation and sleep paralysis]] and one of the newspaper in the library reveals that there was some sort of gas leak in town that makes people hallucinate. Then again, the possibility that [[spoiler:her apparent mental illness is the result of The Black Goat reaching into her mind]] is ultimately left just as open.
** [[spoiler:Whether or not The Black Goat actually exists is never explicitly confirmed. It is left open to interpretation whether the cult's superstitions have any grounding in reality.]]

* {{NEET}}: Mae Borowski, the protagonist. She drops out of college due to [[spoiler: having such severe disassociative episodes, that she can't even function at school anymore, which [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane may or may not, have been caused by an]] EldritchAbomination known as the Black Goat]]. Mae spends most of the game running around town, talking to her friends, committing crimes, and doing womanchild things, while her parents encourage her to have some ambition.

** The musicians in Mae’s dreams [[spoiler: were the Deep Hollow Hollerers. Musicians who were active from the 1920s to the 1940s; wanting to serve as [[{{Psychopomp}}Psychopomps]] for any lost spirits]].

* AuthorAvatar: Pastor Karen seems to be partially based both on Scott Benson back when he was a speaker for a church, and the liberal pastor of said church. [[spoiler: Karen combines the pastors left-leaning interpretation of scripture with Scott's wavering faith in God and effort to help other people believe, so they won't hurt as much, even though he didn't fully believe in God himself.]]

* GoodShepherd: Pastor Karen. She's a very kind woman, is trying to open a homeless shelter, and gladly strikes up a friendship with Mae, despite Mae's religious beliefs (or lack thereof). She uses her faith as a tool to help people of all backgrounds, creeds, and lifestyles. [[spoiler: She privately admits her own faith in God is wavering, and she hopes that, by convincing other people to believe, she can convince herself, too.]]

** Pastor Karen's story is essentially this. [[spoiler:Spends the entirety of the story trying to convince the City Council to let her start a program to give the homeless somewhere to stay, starting with Bruce, a vagrant who is relatively new in town. In the end though, the Council rules against her motion and even before then, Bruce already decided to leave, not wanting to burden Kate with his presence.]] Though she is clearly unhappy about it all, she takes it in pretty good stride.

** People in town constantly taunt Mae about dropping out of college, either complaining that she has it too easy, joking about it, or sneering that a waster like her was never going to cope at college. The adult residents in particular seem to think that they're just being BrutallyHonest or dealing out tough love, but [[spoiler:Mae didn't drop out because she was a slacker -- she dropped out because her mental health issues made college a nightmare.]]