Line #167 Headscratchers/Psychonauts


1	%%
2	%%
3	%%
4	%%
5	%%
6	%% PSA before editing this page: Try to avoid natter, going too off-topic and/or first person language. If a bullet has something you feel is incorrect, just fix it.
7	%%
8	%%
9	%%
10	%%
11	%%
12
13	'''As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
14
15	* Why do some of the characters like Lili have four fingers while others such as Raz have five fingers?
16	** The same reason they have [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation multicolored skin despite all supposedly being human;]] each character is designed in a unique way that matches their character and makes them stand out.
17
18
19	* Why do the Censors fight alongside the Personal Demons? You'd think their job would entail destroying them, unless they are used as some kind of suicide-attack-captured-animal thing.
20	Maybe and move forward on rather than just suppress?
21	** Censors were there to get rid of foreign thoughts--that is things not created by the psyche of the person they were in. Personal Demons are as necessary as the Censors to a healthy psyche, something that the person must address properly; Raz is a foreign object.
22
23
24	* What is a brain operated laser doing inside Doctor Loboto's lab? It's painfully clear that a psychic can lob their own brain using telekinesis, and even if he was using the thing to test potential brain tank drivers, why would he have it so close to the man who removes the brains?
25	** Eh. He was crazy. It doesn't have to make sense.
26	** Remember that, when you go inside Milla and Sasha's minds after they've been debrained, they aren't aware of what's been happening and that they've been debrained. It's probable that Loboto's Sneezing Powder Dispensor also included some sort of sedative to prevent the psychic brains from bothering him or doing this exact thing. Of course, the powder that Sheegor used on Mr. Pokeylope, Ford used on Oleander and the tanks spat at Raz didn't have this sedative, so the brains were still active and able to act (in as much as they could anyway). Of course, keeping the laser there because the brains were probably dormant still isn't a good idea, but can be attributed to hubris, rather than stupidity.
27	*** It's also possible that the fluid in the jar is the sedative and that shock of suddenly being outside of the body gives the doctor a few seconds to shove it in a jar or psychic death tank.
28
29
30	* The Brain Tank final battle. It worked in the Blueprint and was jarringly difficult; it worked for Mr Pokeylope disposing of a Big Bad; it even works in the cutscene before its climactic battle. But come the battle, it just... sits there. It can't be that Coach Oleander doesn't have a strong enough mind to operate the Tank because he used it very destructively in isolating Raz from the others only moments earlier.
31	** It's just not finished. It may have worked well on blueprints, but many things do. In the real world it's shown no capability beyond shooting straight forward and telekinesis.
32
33
34	* How do the elevators work? Crispin acts like he and Loboto usually go up together. Loboto is already in the lab, so why is Crispin still downstairs? Did he take the outside elevator up? If he did, why is it there and not drawn up to the lab? Why is there an elevator in the courtyard, anyway? Does Loboto like to go up and play with the rats from time to time?
35	** Keep in mind the asylum was around well before Loboto used it for a hideout. They're working it as the best defenses while still letting in people. First keep in mind they have to get the children that Linda's kidnapping upstairs somehow. Having Crispin stand watch and go up and alert the "doctor" may be the best safety measure. Having the quick access elevator always up is best so no one can sneak in fast, while the slower middle ground elevator "politely" deters more peaceful intruders and aggressively stops hostile intruders with the platforming and exploding rats.
36
37
38	* What exactly would have happened if bull!Edgar had been killed by the matador? It seems implied that he would've dropped dead outside his mind, yet that would just be really... out of place, since he seemed to just be carrying on with whatever he was doing while Raz was in there. With no sign of property damage or anything to imply that some reflection of what was going on inside was taking place.
39	** You can let this happen to find out yourself. It doesn't kill him, it just shatters his dreamstate or whatever the terminology, which has the function of taking away one of your mental projections (read: lives). Presumably that means that it's a scenario that plays out all the time, and without Raz's intervention, bull-Edgar just dies -- but it's just a mental metaphor, so in the real world it just means he's trapped in an asylum.
40	*** Maybe, but you can also presume that without Raz's intervention, Edgar never finds the Queens, can't complete the tower (not to mention El Odio plowing through it regularly), and the endgame of that scenario never plays out. Huh. When I put it like that, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Raz sure seems to break a lot in other people's minds]] before he cleans (most of) it up...
41	*** Hey, at least Edgar is now free. Raz may have screwed it up temporarily, but there didn't seem to be much other choice in the matter.
42
43
44	* What's with the inconsistent pronunciation within Milla Vodello's name? The first double L is pronounced as it ought to be considering her Brazilian heritage, but the second one is pronounced with /l/.
45	** Answered in ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2'': she explains that Sasha pronounced it wrong when they first met, but she thought it was cute and didn't correct him, and now some people call her mee-la and some call her mee-ya and she's gotten used to both. If she herself doesn't mind, who are we to object?
46
47
48	* A lot of the characters are wearing jackets and sweaters. Isn't the game set at a summer camp?
49	** They never explicitly say where Whispering Rocks is, aside from somewhere where Native Americans used to live. It could be in an area with mild summers.
50
51
52	* If Cruller has been driven insane without Psitanium nearby, why can't anyone just go inside his mind and fix it up like Raz did with the asylum patients?
53	** It's not that he's been driven insane, it's that his psyche had been shattered after his psychic duel. He has trouble getting his mind to work without the concentration of Psitanium. It's also possible, him being a renowned Psychonaut, that he has great mental barriers that are stuck in place due to his battle.\
54	Besides, notice that he yells "Get that thing away from me!" when you try to do just that. He's probably had someone try it before, and it likely didn't end well, hence him not wanting to even risk trying it again.
55
56
57	* Why are half the campers so interested in making out? Aren't they all ten-year-olds (and therefore before puberty and hormones kick in)?
58	** Even kids aren't totally oblivious to romance, they just have a significantly more limited understanding of it. The game also suggests the idea that psychics mature a little faster than normal children.
59	*** Which makes sense, as psychics have the ability to read minds even unintentionally and untrained. Even if all they picked up were the occasional stray thoughts of the adults around them sometimes it would still effect their development.
60
61
62	* The whole story takes place over the course of just a day and a night. Raz manages to learn all his skills and become a Psychonaut in this short amount of time. At ten. Doesn't that seem a bit...rushed?
63	** He actually ''doesn't'' master everything in time. Most skills available to you are just a subset of what you an do (for example observe some of the other kids can talk to animals), and both Sasha and Milla say that he doesn't have the strength to go against Oleander (which he doesn't; he was just lucky Oleander wasn't at full power). The sequel demonstrates he was accepted into the Psychonauts as just a rookie/recruit and still has a long way to go.
64
65
66	* Speaking of the course of just a day, doesn't Raz and Lili's relationship seem... rushed?
67	** Psychics who can read minds probably adapt well and skip the awkward flirting that normies have to do.
68
69
70	* So, according to Maloof, the staff haven't used the GPC on kids since the 50s, but when you show Bobby the button, he reacts as if he's intimately familiar with it, and Oleander made a remark about how Bobby goes in and out of confinement all the time. Eh?
71	** Maloof is referring to its original purpose, a very abusive psychic training tool involving days or even weeks of mental isolation at a time to force certain powers to develop at the expense of mental stability or health. Now it's just used as a time out area for a few hours at a time because its existing psychic dampening properties render campers unable to take aggressive psychic actions while inside.
72	** Bobby is one of the kids who've been to the camp in the past. Maybe when he was littler he was bullied by being shoved in there himself by someone who doesn't go to the camp anymore. Or maybe Sasha choose him for "advanced training" at some point and it left him freaked out; Sasha does imply that he deliberately scares cadets off once he thinks his experiments have gotten too intense for them.
73
74
75	* Doesn't Ford's appearance into the battle against Oleander create a PlotHole? He can only retain sane when near that large Psitanium rock or he'd succumb instantly. How on Earth did he come all the way to the Asylum and pull off the battle without losing control?
76	** You missed the large rock of Psitanium attached to his back when he appeared (re-watch the cutscene). During the ending cutscene it wears off and he falls back into the way he was without it. It's implied that it's a temporary remedy and he only did it as a last resort.
77
78
79	* If Raz's family can't get close to water, how do they bathe?
80	** They are cursed to drown in water. Thus, the curse only kicks in in a place where Raz can't keep his head up without swimming; note that you can step on puddles and other shallow bodies of water (and even fake water, such as the Waterloo-o stage) with no issue.
81
82
83	* Does clairvoyance literally show you what others see as they look at you or just give you a visual analogue to how they think of you? Do Elka, Kitty, and Franke really see you as a horrible humanoid fly-thing or just regard you as an annoying pest? Does Milla think you're an actual infant or just someone vulnerable who needs to be protected?
84	** Clarivoyance is something Raz hasn't mastered yet and saw only a literal interpretation of what people think of him. Once he mastered it he'd see things a bit more clearer but that's a story for another day.
85
86
87	* On a side note, why does Sasha see/regard you as a Psychonaut yet refuse to acknowledge you as one until the end of the game?)
88	** Sasha doesn't see you as a generic psychonaut, he sees you as a younger version of himself. Note the glasses and the hairstyle. FORD sees you as a psychonaut.
89
90
91	* A memory reel implies Oleander was the one to give Raz the Whispering Rock pamphlet before the game started, then why does he make observations or guesses that he should already know about/know the answer to? Notably, being surprised Raz showed up and then getting his name wrong.
92	** [[Videogame/Psychonauts2 The sequel]] explains who gave Raz the pamphlet and why. (Spoiler: It wasn't actually him.)
93
94
95	* Cruller says at the start of the game that the challenge markers are placed around camp by the staff to test the campers. So why are there challenge markers in the abandoned asylum?
96	** It's mentioned at the same time he says some of them have been damaged that some have also been blown away by storms.
97
98
99	* How exactly did Boyd get fired? He was just smiling and doing his job.
100	** A lot of people feel like they did nothing wrong prior to being fired; Boyd probably felt the same way. It's possible that Boyd did screw up something, but it isn't seen on the reel because he thought that he did nothing wrong and therefore fired without a reason. There are other alternatives though, like layoffs.
101	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdF4ecmkAMo&t=1056s&ab_channel=GamingUniversity as explained here,]] [[WordOfGod statements from the creators on their notes]] and unused content reveal that Boyd's paranoia started long before his incarceration; he was fired from his security position for interrogating countless normal customers for no good reason.
102
103
104	* If Cruller forgets who he is every time he goes up above, how does he keep getting back to his sanctuary? On top of that how does he keep getting around the camp so quickly?
105	** There's indication that all of his personalities remember the transport system, and when they're done with whatever job they're working on they head to it to move onto a different area (or get back to wherever they think they live) and once they're down there it puts him close enough to the psitanium deposit to pull himself together. This is supported by the Transport AI when you decide to go to the lake. The AI starts referring to you as Admiral instead of Agent, implying that all of Cruller's personalities know about the transport system.
106
107
108	* Why did they build a ''children's summer camp'' on top of a deposit of dangerous psitanium, anyway?
109	** Who said it was dangerous? We know psychics are unaffected and we don't know how it influences non-psychics, but we have to assume it's either harmless or a reasonable risk, or there's not really any excuse for keeping campers near a motherlode of something known to encourage insanity and suicide.
110	*** Psychics aren't unaffected; the psitanium boosts their powers. We also know how it influences non-psychics--it drives them to madness. It's beneficial for psychics and harmful to non-psychics. So for psychic kids, it's fine.
111	** The real question is whose bright idea was it to build the insane asylum on a psitanium deposit? This could be put down to the Muggles not knowing about it, but who builds a summer camp full of kids that can read minds on the same lake as a mental institution?
112	*** According to the timeline in the parking lot, the asylum was built when the miners who settled the area started to go insane, and was abandoned decades before the camp's founding.
113
114
115	* If Loboto's in the tower, then why doesn't Crispin realize you're an imposter?? Did he just conveniently forget he took up the doctor already and never brought him down??
116	** There's more than one elevator. He could have taken the fast one down from the top of the tower. Also Crispin is supposed to be in a mental institution for a reason.
117
118
119	* Is the summer camp seriously staffed entirely by Ford Cruller in his alternate personalities? Are they reliable and capable enough to get all the required services done, or are these services not really needed and Ford just ''thinks'' he's working when he's in an alternate personality? He never seems to do anything as an admiral or forest ranger, and he never finishes cooking those burgers, either.
120
121
122	* Whose brain is Loboto poking when you reach the top of Thorny Towers? By that point, you're able to collect all but...one or two of the campers' brains, and Sasha's and Milla's are right there...
123	** There are only three inmates in the asylum (not including Crispin). You figure it out...
124
125
126	* Fred is a psychiatrist or something, and he was trying to help the asylum's patients. So, he brought a board game based on the battle of Waterloo, and played it with the near-catatonic Crispin. Crispin won, which bothered Fred, so they played again, and Crispin kept winning. As he won, he recovered from being catatonic, while Fred, slowly losing it from losing repeatedly, had his GeneticMemory take over, giving him split personality. The memory of Napoleon tried to make him someone who loved to win in a mental game of Waterloo-o. But that doesn't make any sense! He should logically already love winning if he goes insane from losing.
127	** Fred is almost completely apathetic by the time you meet him, and Napoleon is clearly fed up with it. Napoleon wasn't trying to make Fred love winning, he was trying to make Fred start ''trying'' again, instead of just assuming he'd lose and never trying. The Napoleon memory is thus attempting to make Fred into someone who is capable of winning, rather than just one who wants to win.
128
129
130	* What was the point of Lilli's friendship bracelet?
131	** After you learn clairvoyance but before you get all the items to ascend the tower you get a scene of Lili's situation in custody by using clairvoyance on it. The scene is optional, if not outright meant to be hidden. It's a very clever connection to make, if not for the detail becoming common knowledge; if it's ignored, Lili is absent from the game for the entire Lake Oblongata sequence.
132
133
134	* Where did the world's smallest pony go? Between Raz's excape and arrival at Whispering Rock, it disappeared.
135	** Not 100% canon, but Psychopedia suggests that the pony found its own way home. On a more believable note, Augustus might have found him/her on his way to Whispering Rock since he would have taken a similar route to Raz's.
136	** A memory reel showed Raz hitched a ride on a lumber truck after riding the pony. Perhaps he traded it to the trucker in exchange for a ride once the going got too tough?
137	** Answered in ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2''. Raz rode the pony to the train station then sent her back home to the circus.
138
139
140	* Coach Oleander became an insane military-obsessed megalomaniac all because his father butchered his beloved bunnies? But he obviously wasn't insane SINCE this childhood trauma, as he later refers to it as a "temporary insanity" and his Psychonauts colleagues treat him as if he's back to his old self. Also, in most of the other cases, Raz visibly HELPS the inmates to sort out their mental issues (piecing together scenes from Gloria's life, showing Edgar what losers Dingo and Lana are, showing Fred his battle can be won) and bring them to peace with their inner demons, whereas his cure of Oleander resorts to little more than "Kill the big dad boss". Tsk tsk, Raz.
141	** If you look at Oleander's other memories, it's clear that the biggest reason he became a military-obsessed megalomaniac is because he was never admitted to any branch of the actual military due to his height. This fed on his deep feelings of inadequacy that had originated from his traumatic relationship with his dad, and it caused him to snap. Essentially, he became a WellDoneSonGuy who wanted to show his dad/the military (these two have become intermingled in his head) that he ''can'' be a tough guy who ''can'' conquer the world. In order to cure him from this militaristic megalomania, Rasputin has to find Oleander's deep hidden peaceful and loving side, represented by kid Oleander, that's been strongly repressed by the image of the demon dad, which represents the ideal of a "tough guy" that Oleander thinks he should measure up to. In order to free kid Oleander, and show him he can live without the urge to kill and conquer, Raz has to destroy the image of the demon dad.\
142	Then recall that Sasha says if you attempt to completely suppress your negative thoughts and feelings, they'll boil over; that's probably what happened with Oleander, his childhood trauma combining with a life-long Napoleon complex. It might be notable that the bunny from Oleander's memory was the smallest in the hutch: The memory (accurate or otherwise) of his giant father picking out and killing the smallest rabbit likely sparked or aggravated Oleander's issues about his height, so "changing the ending" by defeating the mental construct of his father might have undone the worst of the damage.
143	** The psitanium definitely plays a part here. When Ford introduces the concept he says is makes psychics more psychic but it also makes the unstable less stable. It might also be worth mentioning that because these are his deepest, most primal, and repressed feelings the manifestation of his relationship with his father might be a little more exaggerated and on-the-nose than the other minds. We aren't given a lot of reasons why his father was the scariest thing in his life, but he definitely was and it shows.
144	*** The psitanium doesn't make ''psychics'' less unstable, though, otherwise Ford himself would be worse off with the psitanium rather than better.
145
146
147
148	* So, how exactly does one play Waterloo-o? From what is shown, one can surmise that there are two sides, one of which has a stronghold (which we will call the defenders); the other side (which we will call the attackers) must eliminate all the defenders and invade the stronghold in order to win. But what would the defenders have to do in order to win? From what else we see in Fred's mind, it looks like the attackers only have to make a few moves in order to win, so what else could the defenders do in order to prevent this?
149	** It appears to be a Settlers Of Catan like game where you can use different pieces and set up the board's hexagons in different ways (and make different sized playing fields) depending on how deep of a game you want to play, and Fred's mind has just given up to the point where it's made an ''incredibly'' simplistic scenario to try and get him to do at least that much. As support of this, if you sit around listening to Fred talk long enough in the Asylum he'll mention a piece you never see in the round you play: the spy.
150	*** If that's the case, then how come Fred is still losing to Crispin when the odds are (for lack of a better term) massively rigged in his favor?
151	*** Because Fred has given up. No amount of tipping the odds is going to make him win if he outright refuses to even try.
152
153
154	* So, the asylum closed down decades ago, hence why it's in a state of decay and why there's only three patients left, but... ''why are there three patients left?'' It can be presumed, since Loboto's set Edgar on "art therapy" and Crispin is constantly taunting Fred that they're basically having fun at the inmates' expense; and Boyd admmitedly serves an actual tangible purpose for Oleander's goals, but who's been feeding them? And have they really been stuck in that dilapidated old asylum, completely nuts, for ''decades straight?'' Or did Oleander and Loboto haul them in for no particular reason? Furthermore, if they have, why do they look so young? Boyd and Gloria look legitimately like age is wearing on them, but Edgar and Fred look in their mid-thirties at the most.
155	** Probably part of the coach's plan. All of these people had some kind of psychic potential even if it only manifested in a few people, assuming there are certain traits that can indicate certain powers such as paranoia indicating a disposition to clairvoyance it wouldn't be hard to grab a few people and lock them up right near a source of Psitanium to try and encourage their powers to manifest or drive them insane.
156
157
158	* Why are there summer camp badges inside the patient's heads? They have no affiliation with the camp.
159	** The idea is that you don't actually receive a physical badge inside the mind, you simply learn the power and then demonstrate it to Ford or someone else later in order to get the actual merit badge. The badge is just a representation of your new ability.
160
161
162	* Why does Fred have such stubby arms after he is freed from his straitjacket? In the flashback, he is clearly shown with average, lanky arms while playing against Crispin, so why does he suddenly have tiny, T-Rex arms after he is freed?
163	** Likely muscle atrophy as a result of being in that straightjacket for so long.
164	** It's also possible that Fred never ''had'' normal-sized arms to begin with, since we do see that Mental Vaults can be influenced by their owners' memories and bias, subconsciously or otherwise; the normal-sized arms might have just been a metaphor of the time that Fred was normal (that is, not crazy), or even just his self-image, as opposed to how he literally appeared prior to the straitjacket.
165
166
167	* Why does Raz ''kiss'' the brains when he finds them?
168	** Heroes sometimes do that when they finally get something they fought hard for. Granted, most kiss less gross objects like swords and statues, but ... Raz is Raz, we guess.
169
170
171	* Did the inmates die in the explosion?
172	** No, you see them leaving the asylum before Raz confronts Oleander.
173
174
175	* In the end Sasha, Milla, and Oleander leave the camp with Raz and Lili to save Lili's father. So... who's running the camp now?
176	** The way Lili and Raz talk in the credits, the camp seems to be over. So either a time skip happened and the regularly scheduled camp is done or it was canceled early due the brain snatching. Presumably, everyone is being picked up by parents or guardians.
177
178
179	* How can the Critic be the Phantom in Glorias mind? He's right there when the Phantom attacks the play.
180	** Maybe he has a puppet or a double agent? This is a MentalWorld, anyways.
181	** Jasper, being Gloria's inner critic, must have existed in her mind before her stage fright and feelings of guilt came along to sabotage her. Since they were conceptualized at different times and are considered separate entities in the context in Gloria's mind, it's entirely possible they manifested as two completely separate beings until Raz came along and started working through her problems.
182
183
184	* So... What happens to a person's mental world when they die?
185	** It dies along with the person. After all, it's in the brain, and brain stops working when you die.
186
187
188	* If it's possible to confirm a person's mental health with a CT Scan (among other things), why did no-one catch on to Coach Oleander's insanity earlier? Shouldn't there be screening for this sort of thing?
189	** CT scans can't tell one's mental state (not yet, anyway); the brain is still too complex for us humans to have fully figure out. Using Psychonauts methods would require Oleander's consent. As for screening, the relative lack of psychics probably means the Psychonauts have to take whoever they can.
190
191
192	* If Boyd was supposed to burn down the asylum after Oleander released the Milkman, and then Raz accidentally set that in motion, then why did he stand there for so long holding the flaming milk bottle before Fred came along and encouraged him to proceed? Was something holding him back?
193	** The Milkman seems like he wasn't supposed to spring awake BEFORE Oleander told him so. Oleander must have put him here so that he gets into Molotov-throwing when he hears some kind of password (that Fred must have said accidentally) so that when it's pronounced before regular Boyd, the Milkman wakes up just long enough to set fire to everything and then disappears. When Raz makes the Milkman take control of Boyd, he still needs the password before he can accomplish his mission.
194
195
196	* How do the other campers put together their PSI Challenge Markers? Isn't Raz is the only camper who knows about Ford's sanctuary?

Context Headscratchers / Psychonauts