As a Wild Mass Guessing subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- More or less confirmed with the mind of Helmut Fullbear in Psychonauts 2, as his isolation ends up feeling like centuries despite being only 2 decades in real life.
- As well, some of the inmates have psychic skills "in their heads", albeit buried away somewhere like a fridge or corner of the city. Being able to see what everyone thought of you without being able to control it would definitely turn you into a paranoid conspiracy freak, and we've seen what effects confusion bombs have on wrestlers. And while it doesn't make sense for Fred to be driven mad by something as mild as losing a board game, it's quite possible that Crispen's own psychic abilities drained his sanity somehow. Gloria, of course, was probably one of the normal patients there to cover up the fact that it was mostly for containing psychics.
- Fred seems to confirm this if you try to use pyrokenesis on the assorted toys he pushes around. He says something to the effect of "Don't bother, everything here is fireproof. We had alot of firestarters back in the old days."
- Actually, they could have just housed pyromaniacs.
- Fred seems to confirm this if you try to use pyrokenesis on the assorted toys he pushes around. He says something to the effect of "Don't bother, everything here is fireproof. We had alot of firestarters back in the old days."
- The in-game timeline in the parking lot states that the asylum was built to house the people from the original mining town who went crazy as a result of living too close to the psitanium deposit. Eventually, everyone in the town had either moved away or gone crazy, leaving the area abandoned, save for the asylum, which gradually faded into disuse. The psitanium also warped the local flora and fauna.
- Yes, but how did it warp that fauna? By giving them psychic powers! It's fully possible that some of the in-mates were psychic.
- Or, more likely, became psychic because of the Psytanium. It could be that what everyone in the old town percieved as madness was a symptom of non-psychic people developing psychic powers, which they couldn't control or understand. That would explain why some of them were able to "teach" you psychic powers. This is supported by the fact that, when Raz asks Nils to teach him Clairvoyance earlier in the game, he says that he would have to find a Clairvoyance master to teach him. As it's unlikely that Boyd was clairvoyant from the start (as he would've found learned about Oleander's plans from the start otherwise), which suggests that his power was a result to the Psytanium exposure, furthering his paranoia.
- Yes, but how did it warp that fauna? By giving them psychic powers! It's fully possible that some of the in-mates were psychic.
- And on that note, his many different incarnations are actually his regenerations!
So if there's no natural deposit, he needs an alternative. Well, there are two: first, there's a place where a large amount of psitanium arrow heads were buried for whatever reason, but they aren't concentrated enough to do the job, hence when Ford's just wandering around the grounds he's off with the fairies. Second, people with psychic abilities can enter other people's minds and break down things like censors into raw psychic energy, and absorb that psychic energy in the form of psitanium (or mental health, or aggression).
Thus Ford starts up a camp for psychic kids, and in that camp he has a store — run by himself — where he accepts psitanium as currency. The kids are encouraged to gather arrow heads, or to create psitanium out of psychic energy in the course of their training, and then give the psitanium to Ford in exchange for handy psychic gadgets. Presumably once a large enough yield of psitanium has collected in the cash register, it allows Ford just enough clarity to take it down and add it to the giant slab he's got down in his sanctuary.
Fortunately the camp is good for the kids as well, so this doesn't fall under the description of "evil scheme".
- Where would all those Psitanium arrowheads have come from if there hadn't originally been a Psitanium deposit around to dig the original material up from?
- Ford tells you in the game that the Psitanium load came from a meteorite that crashed there long ago.
- Breakdown from a Precursors Spaceship that crashed and dissipated in the region long, long ago. Psitanium built up in the local animals, though, and were used by Native Americans for arrow heads. When it was revealed this accelerated the process and the animals got more magic powers if they survived the shot, they buried them.
The Psitanium deposit may have given the lungfish of the Oblongata region some extra mental stamina and even a few psychic powers that helped them survive while all other lungfish in that area died off. For instance, we see that Linda is able to create "bubbles" of breathable air underwater, meaning she does not have to surface for air as often.
- Evidence pointing to this, if Raz look through Ford's eyes through telepathy, he views Raz as a Psychonaut already.
- But what about Loboto? A man died for recruitment purposes? And there's the disturbed inmates to consider. The Milkman was hypnotised by Oleander after all. Violation of human rights doesn't exactly weigh up to hiring recruits.
- Ford could have caught Loboto? Perhaps Loboto was an imate and so the Pschonauts kept him in the loop as it were. Ford maybe taught Loboto the de/rebraining process and Sheegor is Sasha's assistant, keeping an eye on him. I'll admit the Lungfish scenario was cruel and I have no way of justifying that. So yeah. Oh also- memories can be planted, modified and perceived differently. Milla's good at reading people- so Sasha shows emotion in her memories; Fred's arms are ginormous in his memories, etc. Since the Milkman Conspiracy provided a new psychic power, (as did Black Velvetopia) one could assume the 'inmates' are Psychonauts (let's ignore Gloria- she's actually crazy).
- "Don't bother, the whole place is fireproof, we had a lot of firestarters back in the day" Hang on a minute- didn't the asylum get set on fire with exploding milk? Unless the entire thing was staged and only parts of it fall off when needed to. Heck if the entire scenario was staged how difficult would it be to write "Oh yeah the white settlers all went crazy so we built the asylum. It's definitely not an obstacle course. Ha ha. Yeah" on a history log?
- The asylum caught on fire because Edgar broke a gas line, spilled turpentine and acentone nearby, and Gloria reactivated the gas before Boyd threw his milk bomb. It was a rapid-fire (heh) bunch of coincidences.
All this makes this troper think that perhaps Sasha isn't as much of The Stoic as we've been lead to believe. He's very obviously an intellectual, based both on the fact that he has a lab and the fact that both the game itself and concept art depict him as working hard on lots of experiments. Plus, he's a lot more disorganized in his lab than you'd expect from someone with such a proper, tidy personality. Intellectuals tend to have a reputation for being somewhat out of it, possibly since many of them may or may not have Asperger's. Perhaps Sasha, like many who've come before him, isn't so much unwilling to express his emotions as he is just painfully shy. Milla's memory reels seem to indicate that he's more willing to open up around her, which would make sense—he gets along with her, and even shy people will open up to people if they get to know them and get comfortable around them. But around people he doesn't know, he clams right up. The scenes in Sasha's mind seem to show him opening up to Raz. And since he was really in control of what was happening the whole time, I doubt he would have even let see his private memories unless he was starting to trust the kid... or if he were even half as stoic as he seems.
Not to mention, all the Ship Teaseing that goes on between him and Milla would be a little weird otherwise. Opposites Attract aside, what would they see in each other? Sasha hates over-bright, "tacky" things, and Milla needs someone she can party and go crazy with. But if Milla's memories are to be believed, Sasha does like having fun, which would suggest a softer core for him. And it's implied that Milla is very good at understanding emotions, and that she loves making people feel comfortable—and for the chronically shy, that kind of person you can open up to is a godsend.
- Given the revelation that Sasha believes in the idea of aliens while under the effects of Psylirium in Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin, Sasha being a reserved Cloud Cuckoolander is more than feasible.
To top it all off... He works at a summer camp full of children. It seems like the sheer chaos kids generate would drive him batty.
- The Devil's Advocate in me would like to point out that we didn't see any of Sasha's memories with Milla in Sasha's head, and it's easy enough for a person to alter the facts to what they'd rather see... so Milla's memories might just be her view of things. Sasha may just be working at the camp because Ford 'drafted' Milla and Sasha, and whether or not he's happy with it Sasha would follow Ford's orders because he still seems to respect the senior agent. And judging by the way that he's happy to experiment on the campers, Sasha doesn't exactly seem to have a soft spot for kids. However, the Sasha x Milla shipper in me refuses to give up hope, so I'm going to pretend your theory is canon.
- Then again, other than in Oleander's mind, we're not given evidence that anyone doctors their memory reels or that they're unfaithful to the truth, or even tinted with either rose or Jade-Colored Glasses. The only other tampering we've seen was "The World Shall Taste My Eggs!," but given how messed up that was...
- There is one other set of memory reels that shows they can be tinted by an idealized version of the truth; check out Fred's arms in his.
- I think that was Oleander's fantasy and he just left it in a convinent place so that you could find it and he could pretend it was true. As for Sasha I think your right, he's painfully shy, however I think he is "trying" to be a stotic as a defense mechinism against pain and suffering.
- Also, don't forget, 1. According to this WMG he's shy, and 2. We don't see everyone's memories of everything, or we'd be swamped with memory vaults.
- I'll just leave this here.
- Chalk it up to symbolism, as well. There's also a popular theory that Sasha is supposed to represent the left side of the brain (logic), and Milla is supposed to represent the right (creativity). They literally need each other to function.
- The Devil's Advocate in me would like to point out that we didn't see any of Sasha's memories with Milla in Sasha's head, and it's easy enough for a person to alter the facts to what they'd rather see... so Milla's memories might just be her view of things. Sasha may just be working at the camp because Ford 'drafted' Milla and Sasha, and whether or not he's happy with it Sasha would follow Ford's orders because he still seems to respect the senior agent. And judging by the way that he's happy to experiment on the campers, Sasha doesn't exactly seem to have a soft spot for kids. However, the Sasha x Milla shipper in me refuses to give up hope, so I'm going to pretend your theory is canon.
- Jossed. The wiki says that this isn't bottling up the nightmares but containing them to prevent them from causing problems, and that this is what every mentally healthy person does to deal with these issues.
- Furthermore, if the memories actually were repressed, the door to said room would be boarded over/camouflaged to look like the wall at the very least, instead of just out-of-the-way but open for access. Also, note that Censors/Personal Demons don't show up in that room, implying that the nightmares are under control.
- This presumably going to be the case at one point in development, which was the reason for the two nightmare battles in the Milkman Conspiracy, but was Dummied Out.
- Jossed. The wiki says that this isn't bottling up the nightmares but containing them to prevent them from causing problems, and that this is what every mentally healthy person does to deal with these issues.
AFAIK, nowhere does it say that psychics only get boosted from Psitanium and only normals go crazy from it. It just says that "weak minds" are vulnerable to it. Coach Oldeander had a rough life, both with his daddy issues and the fact that he got kicked out of every branch of the military. One would venture a guess that his mind might be slightly... vulnerable.
Normally, he could safeguard his mind well enough for Psychonauts business. However, when he took the job at Whispering Rock, he was surrounded by large quantities of Psitanium. The other counselors also had troubled pasts, but they already had safeguards: Ford's mind was so broken that Psitanium actually healed him, Milla was already a master at repressing her Nightmares and other instabilities, and Sasha was so mentally together that upsetting him would take more Psitanium than God. Oleander was a bit more weak, so being around all that Psitanium got to him. It amplified his Freudian Excuse in his mind and upset him, leading to him coming up with such a crazy plan as "steal children's brains to build death tanks." It lead him to believe that taking over the world would "cure" him.
This would explain why he was Easily Forgiven—it wasn't really "him" trying to take over the world, it was the Psitanium acting. While Raz's foray into his mind couldn't cure his issues with Psitanium, he did help "bury" his Freudian Excuse deeper, making it more difficult for the Psitanium to get to it and bring the crazy to the surface.
Here's what I think: the city was flooded by orders of the government, who also paid the asylum residents at the time to relocate to probably another mental institution. Houston Thorney's body was most likely found by the government as well and taken to be experimented on, because he was the asylum founder and, most likely, capable of other medical practices that could be useful in the future. So they rebuild his body with cybernetic implants (whatever was advanced enough at the time) and place him in dentistry with an implant in his brain. But the Houston personality is already severely damaged by his own exposure to Psitanium and he goes insane, so the government abandons him in the deserted island and he takes over when it tries to be reactivated, coercing Sheegor into working for him and trapping other residents in the premises to later experiment with their own forms of dementia.
Oleander then comes in and gives Loboto his current name and a new objective, to make the death tanks and help him extract the brains of children using his knowledge of the brain (hence the sneezing powder). I dunno, to me it could work, not to mention how Loboto dies: falling off the highest tower. I might be wrong, but, why does HE die like that? Couldn't it be an ironic echo?
When Bobby was little, watching his father go slowly insane scarred and warped him into the aggressive child he is today. When the doctor was carted off to the asylum, his family crumbled financially without his dental career to support them. Bobby's mother changed their names from Loboto back to Zilch, her maiden name, so they wouldn't be associated with a sadistic lunatic.
- Assuming that Loboto is even his real last name.
- That would explain Bobby's terrible teeth.
- If Fred's Genetic Memory of Napoleon Bonaparte lines up with the reality of the game's universe, his Great-Great-Great (etc.) Grandfather had dark blue skin, and his is a realistic Caucasian tone. But we don't know for sure, as we don't see Sasha's father in color, and we don't see Benny, Dean, or Edgar's parents at all, we only know skin color is disassociated with race and ethnicity. But if Bobby's father tried to extract his brain, wouldn't Bobby mention it, or at least be visibly pissed off (or at least, moreso than usual)?
- Bobby could also be frightened of his father and keeps it a secret. Loboto could have caused Bobby's horrible teeth by experimenting on him as a child during his budding insanity, also causing Bobby to become aggressive and hateful. Bobby is probably terrified of Loboto, and he would not want anyone else knowing he is his father in fear of rejection or being mocked. We also don't know how Bobby reacted to seeing Loboto when his brain was taken out.
- Alternatively, it's more of a memetic thing. All it takes is one KidAnova (in this case, Nils Lutefisk) in a camp full of mind-readers and before long everyone is thinking about making out.
- It's almost lucky that everyone besides Nils has Single-Target Sexuality, when its mentioned at all.
- He loves bacon. Goons love bacon.
- There's a flaw in this theory — everybody loves bacon. Does that mean Ford Cruller is everybody?
- Well... yes. He is. Not literally everybody, but he is the entire camp staff. That's more people than most people are.
- There's a flaw in this theory — everybody loves bacon. Does that mean Ford Cruller is everybody?
- But why would he? Especially when the memories are particularly traumatic? Also plenty of people love bacon but don't love other kinds of meat.
- An instructor seems like the most obvious choice After all, why take the time to try to maintain a camp and grow trees into shapes that would allow an unusually acrobatic ten year old use them as braces when you can just do the whole thing in someone's head.
- Raz himself is a candidate too. The whole thing could be planned to not only let him come to control his psychic powers but also resolve the personal issues making him a chancy operative.
- This is practically confirmed by game mechanics. If you die inside a mind, you lose an "astral projection layer", since you're not infiltrating the mind as deeply, or something. But you still lose astral projection layers if you die in Whispering Rock. So you must be astrally projected into Whispering Rock.
- Pfft. I thought it was obvious. We are inside Tim Schafer's mind!
- He DOES believe in games as "wish-fulfillments"...
- There's something to this - the tagline of the game is "A psychic adventure from the mind of Tim Schafer.
- Combining 2 above WMGs, the scenario is staged inside a mental world inside someone's head, along with the entirety of the camp and the area around it. We see through Oleander, Sasha, and Milia that the counselors can intentionally craft elaborate worlds inside their own heads to train the campers, even making mental people that act surprisingly real. This is why the events of the game take such a short time, why Raz is able to conquer a challenge that veteran Psychonauts apparently can't, why Raz goes through so many minds and fixes their problems, etc. It's all a mental simulation designed to train him. Possibly other campers too, but they might not actually exist. Raz is kept unaware of this for accuracy through memory editing. Why bother with the time and expense of running a camp for weeks when you can train kids in a day or two in a mental world?
Also notice how Oleander only kicked kids out of his mind when they freeze up or give up. Elton asks to back out immediately, and is blown up straight out the gate. Benny freaks out when he notices Bobby isn't close by, gets kicked out. Crystal and Clem give up on the punching game, and are kicked out when somebody else finishes it for them. Dogan, on the other hand, got to stay even though he couldn't get through the mine field on his own, because he kept trying even though it meant being blown up over and over.
So, I think the Basic Braining class has very little to do with whether or not a camper can make it to the end and get their badge, and everything to do with whether they go in to begin with in spite of the horror stories about what the Coach does in there, how long they stick it out without giving up, whether or not they can push back the part of their mind that tries to keep them from doing things that would injure them if they were in their physical bodies and keep the shock of it from jolting them out on their own (I'm willing to bet that J.T,, Elka, and Chops would have been allowed to keep going on if they'd just chosen to let go of the trapeze to keep moving instead of clinging until their hands slipped; Raz certainly doesn't suffer any negative effects from doing so), and not only if they can keep going on but whether they have the patience to hold back when needed (see the rolling tunnel, where trying to run straight through will lead to Raz falling off when you reach a part that's too slanted for him to keep his footing on).
Campers who shine across the board get focused on as potential future Psychonauts regardless of whether or not they actually make it all the way to the end of the course or need to be helped out by the Coach because they just aren't yet skilled enough to make it on their own even thought they keep trying (the "good men" he mentions needing to go back for at the end of class), while the others get to go to the fun classes, like levitation, and get what training they need to control their powers, but that's it.
Of course, those who fail at it miserably can make up for it later once they've gained more confidence by either making another run of it for extra credit and managing better, or by coming back the next year and having a fresh shot at it. Nobody's going to be counted out completely on their very first day, it's just weeding out who's already mentally capable of dealing with situations that cause more strain than dance parties.
Early on in the game, Sasha explains that all sane people have censors to keep peoples' brains in order. In the minds of most of the residents, you will run into censors. If they were truly insane, there would be no censors!
- They have them, but that doesn't mean they work all that well, or that there's enough of them to provide a healthy amount of support. Perhaps being insane is a bit like being immunodeficient - people with weak immune systems still have antibodies, they're just not working at full capacity.
- The ending of the Milkman Conspiracy implies this is the case. Boyd has plenty of censors, but he's still clearly got a screw loose. This is because they cannot reach or attack the Milkman, the cause of his psychosis. Who's to say that Napoleon, El Odio and Jasper Rolls aren't also strong enough to no sell their censors?
- Or maybe it's like being autoimmune: the censors start attacking the psyche instead of protecting it.
- It’s likely that those three are seen as still being a part of their minds by the Censors on account they generated them. Jasper is Gloria’s inner critic, Napoleon was born from Fred’s broken confidence and memory of his ancestors, and El Odio spawned from Edgar’s undying hatred. The Milkman, on the other hand is an implanted personality that Boyd’s subconscious tried to find and delete through the G-Men and Censors.
- While Sasha said that all sane people have censors, he never said insane people didn't have them.
- Sasha theorizes that Raz could have been attacked by what they think are his own censors because Raz could be insane — but they'll test for that later. So insane people still have censors, they're just not working properly.
- They have them, but that doesn't mean they work all that well, or that there's enough of them to provide a healthy amount of support. Perhaps being insane is a bit like being immunodeficient - people with weak immune systems still have antibodies, they're just not working at full capacity.
Psitanium is from another planet.PSI is exclusive to Giygas' planet. This game clearly takes place somewhere between EarthBound and Mother 3, as there are plenty of psychics running around. Furthermore, Mother 1 had items that recharged PP called "PSI stones". Sound familiar? In addition,psychic abilities can be inherited in both series, so Augustus could be Ninten, Ness or a relative of one of them.
That's why it deposits him safely back on shore without doing any harm after grabbing him. He thinks it's pulling him under to kill him, but it's actually getting him back out of the water ASAP, even if he wasn't in any danger to start with. Underwater when the hands look like they're creepily hovering right at the edge of the bubble to grab him if he goes through it, they're actually positioned to shove him back into it if he accidentally falls out, and apparently do so.
The only thing that doesn't fit is when it beckons him into the water the first time we see it, but the fact that Elton didn't see it could have been a sign that it was just a figment of Raz's imagination that time, and doesn't actually show up if he's not getting dunked.
- I would like to note one thing: according to the manual, only Raz and his family can see The Hand of Galochio. Plus, if The Hand is suppose to help Raz, then why does it try to grab him when he tries to use Levitation on the water in Milla's Dance Party?
- Perhaps Raz's Censors damaged it? After all, if it was put in place by a foreign mind, wouldn't it come under fire from Censors?
- Somewhat confirmed in the sequel. The Hand of Galochio is implied to be his own hydrokinetic powers inherited from Nona.
The family that cursed the Aguatos were also psychics and the curse is more paranormal than supernatural. They used their powers to instill a psychic command in Raz's family that makes their telekinesis go haywire near water.
- The sequel heavily implies this; it's his own psychic power, it just grabs him because he thinks the Hand of Galochio will kill him. After he finds out the curse is fake, it no longer grabs him, and he instead does a circus trick on it before reappearing at the shore.
- Augustus didn't seem evil in Raz's memories, just disapproving and strict. Which fits in with what we know about him.
- But why would the real one threaten the life of Raz? Other then for training purposes, if he was training Raz like that (with water), he wouldn't be able to save Raz, he's cursed too, if he used water, chances are Raz would have fallen in at least once, and that most likely would have killed him, and Augustus, since he's- You get it.
- The real Augustus never threatened Razputin's life. He only believed his father hated him, because he was always strict and trained him hard in acrobatics. Add that he disapproved of his psychical abilities without explaining why, an impressionable child like Razputin would build up the fear that Augustus hated him to the point of wishing to kill him - simply to have an explanation why his father was so distant and didn't seem to care for him. That assumption tinted all of Razputin's perception of his father. That assumption is what is trying to kill him inside his mind by letting him drown.
- Alternatively, the truth is somewhere in between. Augustus may very well have not been as bad as Razputin remembered it, but it's very clear that he wasn't exactly without flaws in his parenting if Raz would get the impression his father despised him and wanted to kill him. You don't get to that kind of conclusion without something happening to give that impression in the first place. Being a well-meaning parent who tried to do what they thought was right doesn't make them immune to making or saying something that could seriously damage a child's psyche or impression of them.
- But why would the real one threaten the life of Raz? Other then for training purposes, if he was training Raz like that (with water), he wouldn't be able to save Raz, he's cursed too, if he used water, chances are Raz would have fallen in at least once, and that most likely would have killed him, and Augustus, since he's- You get it.
- This is very likely for the butcher. A WMG point somewhere below elaborates that Mr. Oleander was just a normal butcher who killed Mr. Bun for business, not the horrible monster we see in the Meat Circus. Mr. Oleander might have explained the rabbits were bred to be butchered and sold for their income, but little Oly was too young to understand. It's likely he wasn't aware he had traumatized his son, so he went about their life as if nothing had happened - because to his eyes, nothing out of the norm had. Maybe he even wondered why Morceau was acting strange and due further misunderstandings, little Oly came to believe he had to 'man up' so he could prove himself to his father.
- It's quite possible that the real Dean LaGrante wasn't really as much of a Jerkass as the matador character he became in Edgar's mental world.
- Well, the Collie does say he gets a bad rap, being resented for being handsome. Perhaps the real Dean never even knew about Lana and Edgar's relationship, and while Edgar was aware of this on some level, his mind was too busy being angry to really acknowledge it.
But the Bulldog eventually realized that there was one thing that it could do to at least keep Edgar from harming his mind yet again; the bullfight would not begin until he painted an ad for it outside of Diego's window, so as long as he manifested in a place where he couldn't possibly reach the spot he was meant to paint at, the cycle couldn't continue. Once Raz showed up and stopped the bull, the Bulldog couldn't fight the compulsion to do that job he was created to perform, but by that point, they might have suspected that Raz would be able to break the cycle completely anyway.
- If you use Clairvoyance on an NPC to view another NPC, they look EXACTLY the same as they do through Raz's eyes, so we can't be seeing them as only Raz sees them.
In Golden Sun (and/or The Lost Age) the following are demonstrated:
- Pyrokinesis (flare, pyroclasm, etc)
- Telepathy (mind read)
- Telekinesis (most psynergy, but move and lash are easy examples)
- Invisibility (cloak)
- Levitation (hover)
- Blasts in general (force, slash, etc)
- An odd variation of clairvoyance (reveal).
- There are also hints of shielding used by the elemental djinn (Granite, related djinni; there was also an unused move called "Reflect", but since there isn't any information on what it would do, we can only speculate. The name itself is telling, though) and, in an odd, rather immature way, a vague type of confusion (the Venus djinni, Mold, and I quote: "(Monster name), stop hitting yourself!" (also worth a mention are: anything that inflicts the "delude" effect, and Baffle Card; these only affect physical attacks, though))
The aforementioned purple rocks came from Mt. Aleph, when it erupted early in the original Golden Sun, and, in The Lost Age, said mountain sunk into the ground. It could be that Whispering Rock is located on top of it, and that Ford found the original source of the psitanium/psyenergy stones. This would explain some ground-related questions, but create entirely new ones (like, oh, say, geography)
He never said that the rabbits were only good for their meat, but that they were bred and raised specifically to be butchered and sold, in that order. Little Oly was simply too young to understand this, however, and his psychic powers granted him a much higher level of empathy towards the rabbits than even the average middle class child in an industrialized nation (which is, to say, a heckuva lot), which would only make the reality of their inevitable slaughter seem all the more horrible to the impressionable young Morry.
So, while what Mr. Oleander did might seem reprehensible at first glance, from his perspective it would have been no worse than a farmer sending a cow to the slaughter. It might have been a tad callous, since Little Oly almost certainly would have shown fairly obvious signs of emotional attachment to Mr. Bun and his ilk, but no one has ever said that sensitivity and sentimentality were character traits conducive to being a good butcher. My point here is that, ultimately, Mr. Oleander was just providing for his family in the only way he knew how — by cutting up animals for their precious fat and proteins, which he could then sell to the masses at a modest profit.
- This actually makes a great deal of sense. There's no evidence of other abuse in the relationship with his father, and based on the other half of the Meat Circus, it's clear that it's all too easy for a young, impressionable psychic to make dangerous assumptions.
- While I see this as perfectly valid, and given the nature of the game there's no way to tell for sure, I have a counterargument. I'm going to assume that Oleander's father lived with him throughout his entire childhood, instead of dying or something like that along the way, so even this theory isn't impenetrable. Anyway, I can completely understand Lil' Oly not understanding why his father was killing his precious bunnies when he was, say, five, but Mr. Bun couldn't have been the last animal that his father killed. He most likely continued his profession as a butcher as Oleander grew up, which should have given him time to learn and process the concept. By the time he was, say, Raz's age, the fact that his father killed animals to keep food on the table should have been able to properly sink in, assuming his father continued to properly explain it to him. And the fact that this is clearly not the case seems to indicate otherwise. Obviously, he's not the cannibalistic monster that his son sees him to be, but following this logic shows that he did a very crummy job of explaining sensitive concepts to him. Also, on a side note, we still know for a fact that he butchered Mr. Bun right in front of his son. Regardless of whether or not the bunny had sentimental significance, that is not something a small child should be exposed to.
- This would also arguably make him a sort of counterpart to Razputin's dad as well, since if this WMG had any bit of truth in it, both Little Oly's Dad and Augustus would be well-intended but unintentionally emotionally distant and negligent parents. The key difference is that Oly internalized his fears much worse than Raz did, due to a combination of being much more impressionable from his youth, AND on top of being subjecting to something MUCH more traumatizing by comparison (because let's be frank; having living animals butchered in front of you, by accident or not, is a HELL of a lot more horrifying than having an overly strict dad who appeared to overwork you too much, even if the latter is still traumatizing in it's own way.)
- As a counterpoint to the counterargument, trauma can often halt one's development at the point when the trauma occurred, especially if it's in childhood. We see that in Psychonauts, where Sasha's closed-off demeanor can be seen as a remnant of learning way too much about his parents as a boy or how Edgar's mindscape is constantly reliving a warped version of high school. Oleander buried his trauma with bluster rather than trying to work out the root of his Napoleonic complex, and even if he became intellectually capable of understanding that his father was a butcher and his "pet" had always been intended for slaughter, there's a huge gap between intellectually understanding something and being able to internalize it. Since he's refused to address it, part of Oleander has always been the little boy who watched his monster of a father murder his beloved bunny for being a runt. It's also very possible that his father didn't 'chop up the bunny in front of his son' but that Oly was trying to save Mr. Bun and walked in on the butchering taking place, which Oleander now interprets as his father trying to teach him a lesson about being runty/small because of the connection Oleander's drawn between the smallest rabbit and himself.
- While I see this as perfectly valid, and given the nature of the game there's no way to tell for sure, I have a counterargument. I'm going to assume that Oleander's father lived with him throughout his entire childhood, instead of dying or something like that along the way, so even this theory isn't impenetrable. Anyway, I can completely understand Lil' Oly not understanding why his father was killing his precious bunnies when he was, say, five, but Mr. Bun couldn't have been the last animal that his father killed. He most likely continued his profession as a butcher as Oleander grew up, which should have given him time to learn and process the concept. By the time he was, say, Raz's age, the fact that his father killed animals to keep food on the table should have been able to properly sink in, assuming his father continued to properly explain it to him. And the fact that this is clearly not the case seems to indicate otherwise. Obviously, he's not the cannibalistic monster that his son sees him to be, but following this logic shows that he did a very crummy job of explaining sensitive concepts to him. Also, on a side note, we still know for a fact that he butchered Mr. Bun right in front of his son. Regardless of whether or not the bunny had sentimental significance, that is not something a small child should be exposed to.
- No one else needs them, though. They're probably just to look cool (and not to mention to stop Den Mothers from plucking out his eyes).
- Raz has the least issues of all of the cadets (assuming that the ones we know less about are just undocumentedly troubled), so maybe the goggles *are* good for him.
- Granted, he is the only cadet to have visited a mind that isn't being monitored by one of the counselors. Oleander booted kids out when they got in over their heads (like Elka, JT and Chops on the trapeze), Sasha was picky about who he would start teaching, and Milla was more focused on having fun with the campers, steering them away when they got into trouble (as evidenced by the Nightmare room). The minds of Linda, Boyd, Gloria, Edgar and — of course — the Meat Circus wouldn't be quite that safe, and may have put a mental visitor at risk in this way.
- Alternatively, it might serve as a means for Raz to focus his psychic powers better by providing a specific point for him to channel his energies into.
- Gee, thanks, I really needed that. I don't want to know what that implies about his friendship with Raz, then, since using clairvoyance on good ol' Mr. Boole shows that he sees him as his hat... Maybe a fellow megalomaniac in the making... in the best case scenario.
- Dogen is probably jealous because he knows that hat doesn't limit powers. Also, you're welcome.
- The reason for Dogen seeing Raz as his hat could be because of their friendship: much like how the hat restrains his powers, he subconsciously trusts Raz to keep him from doing something potentially awful should the need arise.
- But they all say that when you show them the plunger. Hang on, they're all inside Boyd's mind ... he must be Truman Zanotto in disguise!
- Dealing with his childhood trauma may have at least reminded him what it was like to be a little kid who felt bad when things died, hence why he was so apologetic at the end of the game. (Of course, that still doesn't mean he isn't working on an evil plan that involves less violence and more taking over.)
- Not to mention, he is a high-ranking international secret agent. He may have been upset about being rejected from the military proper, but it was probably nowhere near as bad as his relationship with his father.
- Though if the wording of the curse is actually "dying in water" but they assume it just means drowning (like it seems Raz might), they could end up in a No Man of Woman Born situation where they assume they're safe any time there's no water around deep enough to drown in but rain/fire sprinklers/anything along those lines would actually leave them vulnerable to any dangers in the area.
- Alternatively it could just mean that "water will kill them" rather than "they will die in water"
- Just looked the watch up on Psychopedia and saw this exact theory... I feel really stupid, now...
- I'm sorry... which one is a hippie? Milla certainly isn't. She's a Go-Go chick, certainly, but she's anything but a hippie.
- "First question: what do you think the queen is drinking right now? Second question: what was your favourite sci-fi miniseries from the 80's?". Now a psychic could look into the future I suppose, but using your powers to watch tomorrow's TV is just silly.
- You tell me you would not use your power to look into the future for anything on TV, like say outcomes of sports events? Also I would so use that power to watch TV shows not out yet.
- "First question: what do you think the queen is drinking right now? Second question: what was your favourite sci-fi miniseries from the 80's?". Now a psychic could look into the future I suppose, but using your powers to watch tomorrow's TV is just silly.
- Maloof mentions that the staff hasn't put campers in the GPC since "the fifties", while the tree cutting in the parking lot claims the camp is less than a decade old. Since it would make more sense for Maloof to say "for a few years" if it was something that happened in the recent past, it seems like the game is just deliberately trying to obfuscate exactly when it takes place by throwing around contradictory information.
- Not necessarily. People wouldn't generally bat an eyelid if someone said "back in the 90's" to refer to something that happened in the recent past. It could be the same here.
- Don't be silly, we know when it's set: Octember!
- Bonita also mentions selling old mementos on the internet, and the telephone operator G-Man acknowledges that mobile phones will one day make his job obsolete, which further confuses things.
- Boyd's mind is a Fifties style suburbia. Boyd knows cell phones exist, but in his mindscape they don't.
- Considering the Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin trailer making a lot of very obvious nods to 60s spy movies, particularly with the song, it seems like this is quite true. At least an alternate version of the 60s. It definitely seems intentional. The 60s art deco style aesthetic is very apparent in concept art for the first game, and even more obvious now in RoR now that tech has advanced far enough for the art style to be rendered with so much more detail and thus possible to do more justice.
- To add on to this theory, three of the inmates you meet are a conspiracy theorist who if lit on fire, makes reference to government LSD tests, a White-Dwarf Starlet note , and a black velvet painter.
- Actually, Boyd showed signs of being psychic— he lit the Molotov Milk Bottles without any ignition source, after all, and did spout lines that were relevant to the plot, which means that he might be clairvoyant, himself. Edgar was obsessive compulsive— he knew exactly what he was doing, but nothing he did ever met his expectations. Sasha made a point of explaining that mental focus was important, and didn't seem to be suppressing anything. And, while Psitanium can drive people insane, it's more of an amplifier— it makes psychics stronger and exacerbates any mental issues already present. It even helps Ford stay sane.
- The fic writing potion of the fandom has already pounced upon this.
- We only see Oleander and Loboto together in Linda's flashback; seeing as Linda is just a fish, she could easily be simplifying separate events into a single memory and remembering both of Oleander's personae at once, despite only seeing separately in reality.
- As of Rhombus of Ruin, this is jossed.
My guess is that psychics use their bodies along with their minds to work their brand of magic, using skin and fingers to release psychic energy. In the case of powerful psychics (like Sasha, Milla, Oleander, and Raz), energy can be released or transferred accidentally through skin, especially hands: a mind may be read unwillingly or a stranger may fall victim to a confusion grenade, just from a handshake or a brush of shoulders. For this reason, Psychics tend to avoid human contact unless necessary (i.e, undercover in situations where gloves would draw attention), and wear gloves and long-sleeved shirts despite the summer heat.
As for Ford? He's so experienced he's learned to control it.
- This also explains how Oleander found him. When he needed an insane person who could burn down the asylum on a whim, he found out from Milla what happened to the arsonist who burned down her orphanage, either through asking her or sneaking into her mind while she was asleep.
- And it would explain why out of every level in Psychonauts, the only minds where Nightmares show up are Milla's and Boyd's: It's hinting that their pasts are more linked than either of them realize! That and Boyd's insanity might be covering up the guilt that he feels when he realizes what he did to the orphanage.
- Alternatively, she could be a trans woman. Older trans women often have voices like that- hormones do nothing for raising voice pitch, so sometimes women have surgery to tighten their vocal chords. Perhaps one of Gloria's teachers was a trans woman, and also one of the people there who was genuinely positive to be around and helped Gloria find genuine joy in her acting- to the point where her inner muse took on her old teacher's voice.
- It works because people tell him its a Restraining Bolt via the Nocebo effect.
- It won't be for a long time, but as long Psychics continue producing the stuff in their mind, and taking it outside, it will continue accumulating. As more psychics are born and trained, this process will accelerate, either slowly driving the rest of the population insane, or alternately, it'll happen slowly enough for the rest to develop pyschic powers. Eventually the world be covered in Psitanium, either warping reality into a Nightmarish Dream Land, or allowing everybody to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence.
- The only job he was ever good at was delivering milk. Problem is, milkmen don't really exist anymore. After being laid off, he kept trying and failing at getting a new job.
- On a related note, Cruller's reduced influence has less to do with his age and mental state, and more to do with the fact that he damn near turned himself into a rogue agent in the past.
- This is...confirmed, in-game, immediately after discovering the plan. Raz comments that as soon as he broke the egg, he had the feeling that things were "off" and he then realizes it was Oleander's.