Line #53 YMMV/ReturnOfTheObraDinn


1	'''Beware of unmarked spoilers!'''
2	----
3	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: The limited information available to the player leads to a lot of these.
4	** In The End chapter, why was First Mate William Hoscut trying to recover the shells from the captain? Was it to accomplish a mutiny and have something that could be traded for gold and supplies like the gunner's mate's plan? Or was it to toss them overboard in an attempt to placate the beasts? Were the shells his only motive, or were there others that he didn't bring up with Brennan and Walker, such as the fact that his sister Abigail was killed on the voyage? Did he know she was dead, did he simply assume it because of the violence on the ship, and in either case, did he blame Robert for it?
5	** Fourth Mate John Davies -- was he planning on committing mutiny? When the gunner's mate brings the idea up, he only asks if Wiater has a plan and doesn't actually agree to anything. He also attempts to stop Wiater from killing Lanke, and the insurance report fines Wiater for attempted mutiny (despite briefly discussing it), but not Davies.
6	** Are the terrible beasts really as evil and monstrous as they seem or the aggrieved party trying to get their property and imprisoned companions back? In addition, how smart is the Kraken? It acts much more cunning than your average animal: Stealthily killing Spratt, taking the time to knock the rowboat with Duncan, Nathan, and Alexander into the sea, and it's smart enough to knock over the rigging and the cannons. Is this an intelligent move, or is it merely being directed by the mermaids?
7	** The Memento Mortem. It's definitely a magic trinket, but is revealing the scene of death for a corpse (even a corpse that only can be found within a scene shown by the Mortem) its only power? How did Henry get this trinket in the first place? He's clearly aware of its power, but did he ever use it in his field?
8	** The Investigator hears a variety of languages over the course of the investigation, including, but not limited to: Russian, Swedish, Hindi, Hokkien, and Mandarin. Is the Investigator an {{Omniglot}}, or is this a power granted by the Memento Mortem?
9	** The corpses remaining on the Obra Dinn are in much better shape than four years at sea would indicate, especially corpses such as Edward Spratt's (who is just a few loose bones on the bow of the ship, but the fact that they are even there at all is a miracle). Was it pure chance? Did the sea creatures ensure the bones remained so that other humans would understand? Was it part of the promise made to the Captain? Or did the magic of the Memento Mortem ensure they remained?
10	** Lars Linde tried to join Alexander Booth, Nathan Peters, and Duncan [=McKay=] as they tried to abandon ship, but in his death scene he's holding a knife in his left hand, raising many questions about his character. Did he intend to use it to threaten the other escapees, or did he pull it out in self-defense when Nathan attacked him? Whatever the case, that Linde is holding the knife raises the possibility that he might not be a good guy. On a related note, was the death of Samuel Peters really an accident, as Linde and Booth insist, or did Linde [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident sabotage the ropes and make the cargo fall on Samuel]], meaning that Nathan was telling the truth all along? And if it was intentional, then what could his motivation for doing so have been?
11	* ArcFatigue: The moment you find a human leg near the chest and activate the Memento Mortem, you discover the fate of one dead crewmember after another or two, all spanning throughout all the parts of Chapters IV and V in reverse order, specifically. Some bodies even needed to be accessed during flashbacks (in Chapter IV, Parts 2-4, respectively), making it a death flashback within a death flashback! Many players are wondering how long the two-chapter arc would go on with all the holograms of dead bodies around.
12	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GadL-6wpp3U Soldiers of the Sea]]", which plays during the chapter of the same name, is a jaunty sea shanty tune [[SoundtrackDissonance which doesn't match the horrific events at all]].
13	* BaseBreakingCharacter: Leonid Volkov. While some praise him for being heroic during the beast attacks (including helping coordinate the other topmen during the crabriders' attack, and taking part in trying to fend off the kraken), others note that his unprovoked assault on the crew while they were trying to flee was crossing the line.
14	* EnsembleDarkhorse:
15	** Winston Smith, the ship's carpenter, is much loved for his DyingMomentOfAwesome, where he manages to take out the last of the crab riders despite sustaining major injuries from the struggle. Even the ''game'' uniquely calls him "brave" in its description before he's identified.
16	** The three midshipmen (Peter Milroy, Thomas Lanke, and Charles Hershtik) get a lot of love due to their heroism, despite their young age, and camaraderie with each other.
17	** Third mate Martin Perrott is considered by most to be one of the better people on the Obra Dinn. His acts of bravery and his constant presence in dramatic events, such as the Kraken attack and his death at the hands of a beast he was trying to free, have earned the favor of many players. This even is shown in-universe, in that the East India Company gives Martin Perrott's estate the most money.
18	** Maba is well-remembered by players due to his gruesome death scene, which shows up early into the game, and his cool tattoos.
19	** Soloman Syed has earned some fans because players will have to watch his death scene several times due to "A Bitter Cold, part 1" containing a lot of hints that help identify the seamen and topmen of the crew. This has led to players [[https://www.reddit.com/r/ObraDinn/comments/l425d7/pour_one_out_for_the_true_mvp_soloman_syed/ thanking him]] for dying at such an opportune moment.
20	** Paul Moss has seen some recognition for his surprising heroic qualities despite being a more passive character in many scenes. He shows bravery in his duel with Volkov and helps to stop him from successfully attacking the lifeboat. Notably, he is logged in the report as performing his duties in an exceptional manner with no mention of desertion, perhaps implying he was intending to remain with the Captain. He also survives many of the beast attack scenes and appears to be helping Perrott to protect the female passengers during the Kraken attack.
21	** Henry Brennan is often well regarded as a BadassNormal deckhand. Despite his low rank, he is one of the more competent and hardened sailors. He is frequently seen battling the creatures and competently following orders (such as performing the execution with an accurate shot and quickly responding to fetch the Surgeon's kit when called). He also remains loyal to the Captain until [[DespairEventHorizon he snaps right at the end of the story.]]
22	* {{Fanon}}: Although we get no backstory for any of the characters, it is universally agreed that Winston Smith was once a slave, as he is an African-American in a time period set before the end of slavery in America.
23	* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments:
24	** The "Look sensitivity" configuration in the options menu isn't a numerical slider. It's a drop-down menu with the following options, which shows that not even adjusting the game to your tastes/needs is spared from a sense of humor: Nearly Motionless, Just Slow, Slow Side of Perfect, Perfect, Fast Side of Perfect, Reasonably Fast, Unreasonably Fast, and A Parody of Control.
25	** A gross BlackComedy example with Edward Spratt, who ends up getting crushed to death while in the process of using the toilet. The accompanying sounds are... unpleasant. What really seals it is the "WTF" expression of Moss in the adjacent room, who heard the entire thing.
26	** For more BlackComedy, there is the surgeon calmly reassuring his injured patient that he's just fine and probably been through worse... and then immediately turning around and asking someone else, "Where's the rest of his leg?"
27	** On both occasions where we hear the surgeon giving his medical opinion, he's somewhat optimistic (apart from the aforementioned leg incident, he gives another patient laudanum and says he will monitor him.[[note]]Not exactly great, but the patient sounds stable, at least.[[/note]]) In addition, his reaction to seeing someone impaled to the wall with multiple spikes is to calmly state "Don't move. I'll get you down." [[InstantlyProvenWrong When he does so, the person in question dies immediately afterwards.]] Whoops.
28	** The beginning of the "Bargain" chapter (or rather, [[BackToFront the end]]). Henry Evans is heard doing ''something''... and then the flashback starts and that "something" is ''preparing to shoot his pet monkey''. ItMakesSenseInContext.
29	* GeniusBonus:
30	** Knowing a lot about naval history and sailing ships will help immensely with determining several key fates just by dress alone--for example, the Bosun's Mate is French, and he's wearing a French navy shirt. The Bosun even calls him "my Frenchman" while dying. The game also has characters of different nationalities speak their original language, and knowing what language they speak can help even further.
31	** Those who know their history would notice that, in the final report, Captain Witterel's suicide got his estate forfeited to the Crown. During the 1800s, when the game takes place, suicide was a felony crime in England that would result in the suicide's possessions being forfeited to the Crown. On the other hand, those who realize this early on are left with a specific DrivingQuestion: "What happened that was so bad that it left Captain Witterel [[DrivenToSuicide so utterly broken that he would kill himself]], [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome regardless of the consequences]]?"
32	** Using Chinese sailors as the Formosan translators is an underrated genius work. On the one hand, most of the people living in Formosa are settlers from Minnan region (a southeastern region of China), specifically Fujian Province, hence they speak Chinese like the sailors do. On the other hand, the Formosans speak the Hokkien dialect, while the Chinese sailors are suggested to speak something akin to Cantonese, though Huang Li blends Mandarin and Taiwanese Hokkien. As a result, the Chinese sailors could understand the gist of the Formosans' speech, but they couldn't comprehend it enough to be excellent translators.
33	* MemeticMutation: "IT'S TOO HEAVY!"[[labelnote:explanation]]Near the beginning of the game, the man who ferries the Inspector to the Obra Dinn is told to hoist a box up, but shouts this instead, in order to bring the player back to the boat to retrieve the book and Memento Mortem. The thing is, if you take more time to look around the boat, he ''keeps'' shouting it until you finally go back down to the boat, after which he'll finally quiet down.[[/labelnote]]
34	* MemeticPsychopath: Thanks to the "Captain Did It" achievement, which is obtained by pinning every death in the game to Captain Robert Witterel (the deaths he does commit: Hoscut's, Brennan's and Walker's, can be correct or incorrect -- and most importantly, were done in ''[[KillingInSelfDefense self-defense]]'' -- but everyone else being incorrect), many players have made jokes about him being a mass murderer. The most common version of the joke features him as an axe murderer, as no characters ever die by axing and it's listed near the top of the "cause of death" list, but some have instead joked about him cannibalizing the crew.
35	* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: The final part of Chapter VI feels momentous. After losing several fellow crewmen, including his own mate, to the crab-riders, carpenter Winston Smith takes a hand-mortar from the bosun and [[TakingYouWithMe blasts off the last one's head even after sustaining multiple injuries from it]]. You actually access that moment not through Smith's corpse, but through the ''crab-rider'''s corpse. This is punctuated by the taunting one-liner that serves as the pre-death dialogue.
36	-->''"[[BringIt Is that all?!]]"''
37	* SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound: Entering a name and fate into the book, and then hearing a sudden orchestra sting as the screen cuts to black, means that you've entered three correct names and fates, putting you one more step closer to beating the game -- and meaning you can stop worrying about whether you screwed up on the three the game confirms.
38	* ScrappyMechanic:
39	** The game has a single master volume control for voices, music, and so forth. While music is muted during the voice section of a memory, it is not muted if you skip the text and let the audio play over the scene on repeat viewings. Depending on the music, this can almost completely drown out the dialog.
40	** When you find a corpse in a flashback that isn't on the ship currently, you return to the ship and release a white mist from the Memento Mortem, which floats to where the body was and takes its form so you can examine it. The problem is that you ''have'' to follow the mist to get it to the body's location, or else it won't move, and it tends to double back on itself. If the body is belowdecks and the flashback that triggered it was abovedecks, it's entirely possible to ''take the wrong staircase'' and have no idea why you can't find the new body.
41	** The first time you view a death you have to watch the scene in its entirety before the book updates and you can start entering information, which often means waiting around for the scene to end when you've already looked around.
42	* SlowPacedBeginning: It takes a solid hour to witness every memory in a slow, unskippable cutscene before you have every clue at your disposal. That being said, you can still easily take hints about who is who.
43	* {{Squick}}: The death of Edward Spratt has him be brutally strangled by one of the {{Giant Squid}}'s tendrils while emptying his bowels. His last few moments are both brutal and disgusting. It gets worse considering what else can be seen in that particular death--hidden in the scene are the clues to the identities of a good deal of the surviving crew members at that point, making it more likely to be revisited by players and thus have to be heard multiple times.
44	* TearJerker: Some of the deaths are actually quite tragic.
45	** For example, as Captain Robert Witterel speaks to his dead wife Abigail, he laments the death of her brother and his friend (and brother-in-law), First Mate William Hoscut, whom he was forced to shoot down in self-defense. He asks Abigail to forgive him before [[DrivenToSuicide he shoots himself in the chest]].
46	** There is also Thomas Lanke, the last midshipman to die. He lost a fellow midshipman, Peter Milroy, because a cartridge bag blew up in his hands as the Kraken thrashed him about. When Lanke gets stabbed in the back and lies dying, he begs First Mate William Hoscut to tell Milroy's mother that Lanke did his best to save Milroy.
47	** Overall, the sight of the derelict ship filling up with phantom corpses, a mockery of the bustling life that once filled it. Restoring them to the decks almost feels like you're forcing the Obra Dinn herself to relive her worst memories. And when you're done, there is no solace you can offer her except oblivion beneath the waves and a dry bureaucratic report.
48	** In the end, Filip Dahl's death which is the last one the Inspector views courtesy of Henry Evans. Imprisoned after attacking a crewmate during a mad fit incurred from his fear of the mermaids, he sees the Formosan chest and opens it, only for curiosity to get the better of him and melt his arm down. His final moments are of him crying to himself in despair as he's lost everything in less than an hour.
49	--->'''Dahl:''' ''[dying, his arm burned off]'' Herre, min gud!
50	* ThatOnePuzzle:
51	** Starting Chapter I: Loose Cargo tends to leave players stumped, since the existence of a dead stowaway isn't obviously deducted at first and requires activating the Memento Mortem near a pretty inconspicuous barrel that ''barely'' looks damaged. The only real clues that a dead body is present are a note in the book implying a corpse can be found ''somewhere'' in the cargo hold, and the cloud of flies, which you find on any corpses still on the ship.
52	** Identifying the four Chinese topmen, as they are background characters in most of the scenes, with no other people mentioning their names. They have three voice lines in total for the entire game, and they served only as improvised Formosan translators. We can only deduce their identity by process of elimination, or the different shoes they are wearing.
53	** Figuring out George Shirley's fate tends to throw people for a loop, as he [[KilledOffscreen doesn't even appear in the scene]] [[NeverFoundTheBody he supposedly dies in]]. Instead, the player must pay attention to the scene afterwards, which shows that Shirley was attempting to free Christian Wolff from the grip of the kraken, and was promptly shot by the loose cannon and knocked overboard.
54	* TheUntwist: As a rule, the game doesn't try to deceive you by dropping misleading hints: Any clue--even a seemingly minuscule one--that serves as a decent identifier usually also is one (which, given the sheer numbers of people you have to identify, is a blessing). People who wear similar uniforms also hold the same positions; stewards generally accompany their respective mates; the only sailors climbing along the rigging are topmen; women who are a Mrs. wear wedding rings; and so on. The problem is rather picking up those clues in the first place, since many of them are pretty inconspicuous.

Context YMMV / ReturnOfTheObraDinn