Are we being intoxinated? (lore post)

[Midnight Tea]

Something that's been on my mind since playing through most of Hot Lava and watching the GAT skits. I'm coming more and more to believe that rather than the "real world" being the one where we're playing pretend with our sister, we're actually playing Hazard as he's undergoing intoxination and brainwashing. He's being mentally regressed to a child's state of mind because that's when we're at our most pliable. (real world cults do something similar to indoctrinate convertees)  Why the lava thing? Because it's shown in the "Hazard Haze" cartoon that T.O.X.I.C. makes use of at least one lava obstacle course. It's even possible we're viewing backstory prior to Jen Forcer saving Hazard for the first time. Thus everything we know about existing in a world where GAT is a cartoon/toy line etc. is a pastiche made to downplay GAT and get you to listen to your sister.

More to the point -- the "sister" we chase is actually Lord Sludge! 

 

-- She appears at a glance, like a normal Sue Nami action figure compared to the one you picked. However she's green-on-green colored, an unobtainable shade, with some weird streaks of green in her hair. She is in general "too green". Of course in gameplay terms all things meant to be interacted with appear green as a design rule, so that's not much on its own. But it is slightly jarring and she is very intent on teaching you everything you know, much as Lord Sludge claimed to have done for Hazard.

-- Her body language is VERY grumpy in the intro while the GAT cartoon is playing and you're playing with your GAT toys. That's easy to dismiss on its own, big sister just sorta enduring her sibling's cartoon. But the real smoking gun is ANOTHER aspect of the intro...

-- When chasing your sister through the intro, you actually encounter the "Ragnaros" magma man version of Lord Sludge. Twice you actually chase him into another room and find your sister there where he should be. They don't appear at the same time, they alternate.

-- The game world is deceptively wholesome. Aside from the gross kids cereal, there isn't much in the way of spoof or parody, it feels like a very normal world. That could just be part of the magic that the team put together to better immerse the player in actual childhood. But then... you find this. This event is sponsored by Plastech? That could just be a cute Invisible Inc. nod, sure. But... well, Plastech in-universe was an expert at body modification and had the ability to upload minds into computers, which you'd find out the hard way if you knocked out one of their elite enforcers. But Plastech's presence is the one overtly sinister aspect.

 

I could just be reading way too much into the cute lava hopping game. But I didn't see anyone else proposing this theory, so eh, up it goes.

[minespatch]

3 hours ago, Midnight Tea said:

This event is sponsored by Plastech? That could just be a cute Invisible Inc. nod, sure. But... well, Plastech in-universe was an expert at body modification and had the ability to upload minds into computers, which you'd find out the hard way if you knocked out one of their elite enforcers. But Plastech's presence is the one overtly sinister aspect.

Klei universe confirmed.

[Midnight Tea]

Oh God. More Invisible Inc stuff.

[DragonMage156]

I thought maybe the kid had a nasty accident (or nightmare) and blamed it on lord sludge. And now his parents are fighting (as you can hear in basement) and may be divorcing.

Idk yet, we just need to see if Klei release another chapter.

[Midnight Tea]

Yeah, I wrote this post prior to seeing the penultimate Basement level. That definitely suggests that the whole thing is a fantasy a child is holding onto to emotionally survive something nasty. Incidentally, supporting the divorce theory is that there are posters in one of the school levels that discusses divorce and offering counseling.

Of course, Klei's writers love their mindscrews so for all we know both could still be happening. We could be playing Hazard's childhood backstory wherein he contextualizes fond memories with GAT as toys in a "Pyroland" sorta way.

 

That we may be getting playable Grossglobes suggests that I was reading too much into it, though. (i.e. the story isn't as GAT-centric as I assumed it would be from pre-release media)

[minespatch]

7 hours ago, Midnight Tea said:

We could be playing Hazard's childhood backstory wherein he contextualizes fond memories with GAT as toys in a "Pyroland" sorta way.

The Basement comic also shows the kid hiding and going further into his delusions through the Mutant Mayhem cast.

[DragonMage156]

One day... we will have Mutant Mayhem playable characters.

[Wormerine]

I must say, basement made the game make a turn from "awww, that's such a cute nostalgia fueled platformer" to "holy crap, that's dark". 

I did make a leap further, to father being abusive - if you die in the one of the final level, you get killed by "fathers expectations" or something like that. I saw the lava monster in the intro, as personification of the father.