History WMG / ReturnOfTheObraDinn

When one of them is destroyed by fire, there's no trace of a body or even a skeleton left behind, suggesting it was reduced entirely to potash. They also prove invulnerable to normal rifle fire. This isn't consistent with them having a set physical shape or vital internal organs. It is, however, what one would expect if they were masses of algal fibers, shaped into vaguely-humanoid forms and animated by the mermaids' shells. The "riders" have visible eyespots, but only so the two shell-bearing mermaids can remote-view their constructs' surroundings as they pilot them like drones. They have apparent arms and legs, but only to wield spears with the former and to enter the cramped lazarette, where their crab steeds can't fit, with the latter. There are only two riders, because the third mermaid doesn't have a shell on her person, so can't call up and control a "soldier of the sea".

None of the four people who escape in the last lifeboat is a trained sailor, and there's no reason to expect a teenage serving-man, a surgeon, or two civilian women to know how to navigate at sea. Even with no further threat from the Kraken, their chances of making it safely to the African coast in demonstrably-rough seas don't seem good. However, Paul Moss and Davey James had both heard the dying Martin Perrott bargain with the mermaid to bring the ''Obra Dinn'' safely to port. In exchange for some additional favor - e.g. returning one of the barbed coral spears to her so she can defend herself on her journey to Falmouth more easily - they asked that she also bring the lifeboat safely to shore, before they tipped her over the side.

* But wouldn't the Memento Mortem have been able to lock onto them, too, if they were indeed animated corpses?

None of the four people who escape in the last lifeboat is a trained sailor, and there's no reason to expect a teenage serving-man, a surgeon, or two civilian women to know how to navigate at sea. Even with no further threat from the Kraken, their chances of making it safely to the African coast in demonstrably-rough seas don't seem good. However, Paul Moss and Davey James had both heard the dying Martin Perrott bargain with the mermaid to bring the ''Obra Dinn'' safely to port. In exchange for some additional favor - e.g. returning one of the barbed coral spears to her so she can defend herself on her journey more easily - they asked that she also bring the lifeboat safely to shore, before they tipped her over the side.

* Beyond that: the captain of a ship is automatically responsible for any tragedy that occurs on it, as it comes with the job description. So, if the chief inspector really didn't want to catalogue what happened on what is essentially a ghost ship, all they'd have to do is blame the captain. The Company wouldn't question them either -- it doesn't affect the company's profits, after all.

* This does raise a further question, though; at what point <i>did</i> Henry Evans realize the power of the Memento Mortem? It had to have happened after Pasqua's body had been tossed overboard, but before Evans visited the lazarette in The Bargain. If the shells had somehow granted the Memento Mortem its power, then this realization would have had to have happened in a relatively short timeframe, as Chapter 5 is when the mermaids are brought onboard, and Chapters 6-9 are implied to all take place that very night. With such a compressed timeframe (and a <i>very</i> busy night), Henry Evans would not have had much time or opportunity to figure out the capabilities of the Memento Mortem, with his best chance being in the space between Chapters 5 and 6.

! Part of the "mermaids curse" was disturbing the mental stability of those aboard the Obra Dinn.

This Troper loves Return of the Obra Dinn and finds it overall very tightly plotted and well put together. But one character's actions left this tropper scratching his head. Fillip Dahl's actions felt inconsistent. Why did he attack John? What was he looking to accomplish? If he really was trying to warn the others about the mermaid's curse, how was attacking John meant to send this message? And why was he so certain of the mermaid's curse in the first place, what exactly gave him these convictions? It cannot just be explained with him being superstitious: in Scandinavian folklore, mermaids are seen as benevolent. Later in the lazarette, why was a man who was suspicious of the mermaids not suspicious about the contents of the chest? Why did he impulsively touch the contents and get himself killed? Attacking John and touching the contents were both very impulsive actions, but this is inconsistent with the captain's dialogue saying he never doubted Fillip's sanity after twenty years his steward. Why was a man who showed no signs of instability for twenty years suddenly so impulsive?

So I came up with what is the only explanation that I can think of to answer these questions. The "mermaid's curse", in addition to bringing the crab riders and the kraken, also somehow effected the mental stability of those aboard the Obra Dinn. For unexplained reasons the effects of this curse are inconsistent. Fillip's {{Sanity Slippage}} is quick and severe, while other characters manage to keep their heads on straight for the rest of their time alive. Perhaps the curse only worked on people with some level of existing mental instability to exploit. Or perhaps the mermaids were able to direct the sanity slippage towards specific targets in order to maximize damage. Or perhaps the effects of the curse were simply random and unpredictable.

While it was Fillip's actions that inspired the creation of this WMG, and only his actions don't make sense to this troper without the explanation of the curse, his actions are far from the only example of actions that can be explained by a curse of sanity slippage. Other examples include:
# Thomas Sefton's dumbass behavior around the mermaid which got him killed, which would make him the only other character to be noticeably effected by the curse immediately

Of course any of these actions could also simply be the individual character's own impulsivity, stupidity, paranoia, greed, or so on. Only Fillip's behavior lacks a good explanation without the explanation of the curse, but it would not make sense for only Fillip to be effected by a sanity slippage curse. This troper can think of no better explanation behind Fillip's behavior, and therefore is presenting this WMG to fill that gap.

Note that this sanity curse theory has a side effect of making the mermaids more malicious, therefore committing to one side of the {{Alternate Character Interpretation}} debate about the mermaids. The effects of the sanity aspect of the curse continue after the conclusion of "The Bargain", meaning the mermaids did not lift the entire curse. They may have been exploiting a loophole since no one ever asked them to "lift the curse", Captain Robert only asked them to call off the kraken and Martin only asked them to see the Obra Dinn home, which in both cases they technically did. Another explanation, which acquits the mermaids of bad intentions after The Bargain, is that the mermaids were in fact incapable of lifting the sanity aspects of the curse once they had been set in motion. It is also possible that the mermaids were unable (or unwilling) to reverse the damage done by the curse, meaning that the minds of those effected remained damaged and that actions committed after The Bargain were due to existing damage done by the curse.

! The powers of the Memento Mortem only manifested late into the voyage.

By the time of The Bargain, Henry Evans is clearly aware of the power of the Memento Mortem, otherwise his action of shooting the monkey inside the lazarette makes no sense. However, as brought up by another troper in Headscratchers, why did he not use it to see who the true culprit behind the murder of Nunzio Pasqua was? If it was discovered at that point that Nichols was behind it, the whole tragedy could have been avoided. The only explanation I see to this is that when Pasqua was murdered, the Memento Mortem was nothing but an ordinary pocketwatch in Evans' possession. The mermaids' shells are clearly interacting with the watch, as they're the only thing that's animated in the death scenes, so it's not unreasonable to think there might be some connection. If the shells somehow granted the Memento Mortem its power, by the time Evans would have found this out Pasqua's body would have been long gone, and the only corpse that could have gotten him back to it (namely Timothy Butement's) was hanging outside the First Mate's window seemingly undiscovered until Evans was already in the process of leaving the ship.

! The two crab-riders' bodies are probably the two mutineers who were pulled overboard during Nichols' mutiny.

! The investigator took on a second case

* I mean... of course they did? It's their job. What's the alternative to this WMG, they spent the rest of their life doing nothing and proceeded to starve to death?
!! "The Captain Did it" is actually a reasonable conclusion
The achievement "The captain did it" requires inspector to blame the captain responsible for the death of everyone on the ship. This sounds silly, but if you retrace the story, it is not a baseless accusation: In fact, save for the deaths involving Second Mate, the four survivors, and the two ailing sailors, everyone else died at captain's hand one way or the other. For starter, The cargo loading problem was caused by poor rope quality killed a crew and a stowaway, Hok-Seng Lau was falsely accused and executed at the captain's order. After Edward died, Captain's decision to bring the mermaid abroad dooms everyone on the boat. Two crab-riders attacked the ship, and many crew died trying to kill them. Then a desertion lead to the death of a sailor before the Kraken arrives, drowning the deserters in the process. while the captain at the lazarette dealing with the mermaid, killed his Third Mate and Fillip Dahl in the process. By the time the Kraken were driven off, with only 13 crew remaining, another passengers escape killed 2 crews while 4 escaped. then the remaining 7 crew members had a brief mutiny, and 3 were killed in the process. Finally, captain killed the last three crews in self-defense, before shooting himself.
** If you believed that the Formosan's shell is a doom artifice that can lure the sea monsters to Obra dinn, then yes, all deaths caused by Edward Nichols can be traced back to captain for letting them onboard in the first place.

* I mean... of course they did? It's their job. What's the alternative to this WMG, they spent the rest of their life doing nothing and proceeded to starve to death?

The book about the ship is the ''second'' book on that shelf. As the ending notes, "the watch remains in your possession". It'd be quite logical to assume that the investigator got involved in a second case during the year long wait until the book was returned.

Not much to support this thought. Nichols' did toss over the other dead bodies after the fighting (minus the Formosans' bodies), but the two mutineers who were dragged overboard during the chaos were very much alive at that time. Following that, two giant crabs with one "rider" each attacked the Obra Dinn, each appearing as a corpse covered in seaweed. That said, there's no trace of the bodies after the crabs are slain, and no one makes mention of the "riders" specifically.

* The Memento Mortem having gained its powers from the shells makes sense for one more reason - the game never explains how the mermaid knew where to return the Obra Dinn to - in fact, Falmouth was not the starting point of its journey. It was however the location the first deaths occurred during the journey - one of the corpses from these events was actually still aboard. Assuming the shells have similar or, likely, stronger powers than the pocket watch, the mermaid could have used them to figure out an early point of the ship's journey and returned it there.

* Especially noteworthy about the shells' animation in The Bargain is, that unlike in the scene shown by the Memento Mortem, the book shows Fillip Dahl's corpse without any of the rays emanating from the shell, because the latter is how it appeared to an onlooker - like Captain Witterel, who completely overlooked what appears to be a brightly radiating shell. So, why is the shell brightly glowing in present day? Presumably, because the mermaid activated its power as a signal to whoever investigated the ship, that the Obra Dinn did not just randomly returned home, but she kept her end of the bargain.

* The Memento Mortem having gained its powers from the shells makes sense for one more reason - the game never explains how the mermaid knew where to return the Obra Dinn to - in fact, Falmouth was not the starting point of its journey. It was however, the location the first deaths occurred during the journey - one of the corpses from these events was actually still aboard. Assuming the shells have similar or, likely, stronger powers than the pocket watch, the mermaid could have used them to figure out an early point of the ship's journey and returned it there.

By the time of The Bargain, Henry Evans is clearly aware of the power of the Memento Mortem, otherwise his action of shooting the monkey inside the lazarette makes no sense. However, as brought up by another troper in Headscratchers, why did he not use it to see who the true culprit behind the murder of Nunzio Pasqua was? If it was discovered at that point that Nichols was behind it, the whole tragedy could have been avoided. The only explanation I see to this is that when Pasqua was murdered, the Memento Mortem was nothing but an ordinary pocketwatch in Evans' possession. The mermaids' shells are clearly interacting with the watch, as they're the only thing that's animated in the death scenes, so it's not unreasonable to think there might be some connection. If the shells somehow granted the Memento Mortem its power, by the time Evans would have found this out Pasqua's body would have been long gone, and the only corpse that could have gotten him back to it (namely Timothy Butement's) was hanging outside the First Mate's window seemingly undiscovered until Evans was already in the process of leaving the ship.

Note that this sanity curse theory has a side effect of making the mermaids more malicious, therefore committing to one side of the {{Alternate Character Interpretation}} debate about the mermaids. The effects of the sanity aspect of the curse continue after the conclusion of "The Bargain", meaning the mermaids did not lift the entire curse. They may have been exploiting a loophole since no one ever asked them to "lift the curse", Captain Robert only asked them to call off the kraken and Martin only asked them to see the Obra Dinn home, which in both cases they technically did. Another explanation, which acquits the mermaids of bad intentions after The Bargain, is that the mermaids were in fact incapable of lifting the sanity aspects of the curse once they had been set in motion. It is also possible that the mermaids were unable (or unwilling) to reverse the damage done by the curse, meaning that the minds of those effected remained damaged and that actions committed after The Bargain were due to existing damage done by the curse.

This Troper loves Return of the Obra Dinn and finds it overall very tightly plotted and well put together. But one character's actions left this tropper scratching his head. Fillip Dahl's actions felt inconsistent. Why did he attack John? What was he looking to accomplish? If he really was trying to warn the others about the mermaid's curse, how was attacking John meant to send this message? And why was he so certain of the mermaid's curse in the first place, what exactly gave him these convictions? Later in the lazarette, why was a man who was suspicious of the mermaids not suspicious about the contents of the chest? Why did he impulsively touch the contents and get himself killed? Attacking John and touching the contents were both very impulsive actions, but this is inconsistent with the captain's dialogue saying he never doubted Fillip's sanity after twenty years his steward. Why was a man who showed no signs of instability for twenty years suddenly so impulsive?

Of course any of these actions could also simply be the individual character's own impulsivity, stupidity, paranoia, greed, or so on. Only Fillip's behavior lacks a good explanation without the explanation of the curse, but it would not make sense for only Fillip to be effected by a sanity slippage curse. This troper can think of no better explanation behind Fillip's behavior, and therefor is presenting this WMG to fill that gap.

Note that this sanity curse theory has a side effect of making the mermaids more malicious, therefor committing to one side of the {{Alternate Character Interpretation}} debate about the mermaids. The effects of the sanity aspect of the curse continue after the conclusion of "The Bargain", meaning the mermaids did not lift the entire curse. They may have been exploiting a loophole since noone ever asked them to "lift the curse", Captain Robert only asked them to call off the kraken and Martin only asked them to see the Obra Dinn home, which in both cases they technically did. Another explanation, which acquits the mermaids of bad intentions after The Bargain, is that the mermaids were in fact incapable of lifting the sanity aspects of the curse once they had been set in motion. It is also possible that the mermaids were unable (or unwilling) to reverse the damage done by the curse, meaning that the minds of those effected remained damaged and that actions committed after The Bargain were due to existing damage done by the curse.

So I came up with what is the only explanation that I can think of to answer these questions. The "mermaid's curse", in addition to bringing the crab riders and the kraken, also somehow effected the mental stability of those aboard the Obra Dinn. For unexplained reasons the effects of this curse are inconsistent. Fillip's {{Sanity Slippage}} is quick and severe, while other characters manage to keep their heads on straight for the rest of their time alive. Perhaps the curse only worked on people with some level of existing mental instability to exploit. Or perhaps the mermaids were able to direct the sanity slippage towards specific targets in order to maximize damage. Or perhaps the effects of the curse were simply random and unpredictable.