Abigail's Demise: A DST Lore Analysis

[MondayNight]

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

You know it's interpretation but you can find proof that Abigail drowned in Wendy's quotes e.g. pond.

 

1 hour ago, fimmatek said:

POND = "Ophelia? Are you down there?"

 

That quote is only a hint at Wendy's propensity for reading (as seen in latest video) and the Hamlet shakespearian drama she is implied to had read - as Ophelia is a character from there, who is drowning in a brook in the end, hence the pond examination.

[Rinkusan]

5 hours ago, maciu67 said:

You know it's interpretation

I'm aware that this is your interpretation; I just want to know the logic and reasoning behind the interpretation. 

[Rinkusan]

Please pardon the necro; this is just a proper tl;dr for both myself for learning how to get to the point and anyone who can't stomach the wordy essay.

Claim: Abigail died in a car accident on the Grand Boulevard belt line in the city of Corona, California some time around the hype that was the first Corona Road Race. The family moved to Lake Mathews after her death in part because Jack hates the urban crowd.

Evidence:
- The 3rd William Carter puzzle shows Jack's motive for moving westward out of New York: he doesn't like urban environments. This puzzle also establishes the zip code inconsistencies
- The 4th William Carter puzzle - the most important piece of evidence - shows that the family ended up moving to Corona, a city in California that clearly fits the "westward" criteria. Upon Google-mapping Jack's address while ignoring the zip code (see first evidence), you can see the location is - of all places - within the circle that is the Grand Boulevard, the very road that was driven on in the Corona Road Races and culturally defined the city
- Wendy's diary lamenting Abigail's death is dated April 16th, 1914, which is 5 months after the 1st Corona Road Race, indicating that the claim makes sense from a timeline perspective
- The road races were a cultural phenomenon and the city's pride. Knowing this, it makes sense Klei would reference this event; Klei has referenced significant real-world events like the San Francisco earthquake and the fire that burned down the New York library as part of the lore itself, so using the road race as a catalyst for Abigail's tragedy is something Klei would reasonably do. The claim is consistent with what Klei has done before
- During a moment within the Wendy short, a seemingly out-of-place, tire-screeching sound plays as Abigail falls "to her demise" into a bush. It's no longer out of place if the claim is accurate; it's an auditory metaphor for a car accident
- The environment displayed within the short, from the large body of water to the islands close to the coast plus the plant-dense environment uncharacteristic of a beach, suggests the family moved to a lake. Upon Google-mapping lakes within and around the city using satellite images, the best candidate that fits what's depicted in the short is Lake Mathews, specifically the southwest side of Lake Mathews where the islands are

Speculation: I wouldn't be surprised based on Klei's usage of real-world tragic events in the lore if Wendy's descent into the Constant was somehow tied to the real-life deaths and injuries of the 3rd road race 

[Rinkusan]

5 minutes ago, Portmanteau said:

Or we just take Occam's Razor (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor) to this and the so called "car screech" is just a Wendy voice clip distorted to better evoke dramatic effect in Abigail's fall, and Abigail actually died falling into the rocks as was foreshadowed in the trailer? I mean don't get me wrong, great job digging up all this evidence for this; you do make some very good connections, but at the end of the day the simplest answer is almost always the correct one, so I'll be sticking to the former stated interpretation.

That's not how you use Occam's razor, though. Even in the same article you linked: "it is not meant to be a way of choosing between hypotheses that make different predictions."

I understand that it's a common phrase, but I feel like people take "the simplest solution is almost always the right one" too literally. By that logic, I could say that the flu is caused by being a bad person instead of a viral strain possessing complicated biochemical pathways that allow it to infiltrate cells and hijack cellular transcription/translation mechanisms in order to replicate. One sounds more complicated than the other, right? But we know that the complicated explanation of how the flu works is true. 

Occam's razor is - as stated in the same article you linked - meant to encourage people to avoid ad hoc hypotheses that overcomplicate the theory-in-progress and force people into a meaninglessly endless cycle of experiments. It isn't meant to discredit complicated explanations in general.

For example, let's say I had the hypothesis that grass came from trees because you always see grass near trees. Well, you could disagree by running an experiment where you successfully grow grass in a field without trees. I could argue against the conclusion by making an ad hoc hypothesis by saying that the grass grew without trees because the trees off in the distance grew the grass, and trees have a huge grass-growing range. You can then chop down every single tree in the general area to prove your point, and I could still argue that trees have a massive grass-growing range. You can then chop down almost every single tree in the entire world, and I could then argue that there is a single tree on the planet that is responsible for all the grass that has grown.

This is an example of a time when you can use Occam's razor to cut out all the ad hoc BS in favor of the simple AND experimentally supported claim that grass comes from grass.

Other people on page 1 have also brought up the point about the supposed "Wendy voice clip". It doesn't seem at all to be a distorted voice clip; if you speed up the audio, it still sounds very much like a car tire screech. Additionally, no other voice clips are present in the short, even in cases where the characters are clearly making noises with their mouths; if the sound is a voice clip, it's inconsistent with other scenes in the short that should have voice clips. 

[Blueleaf12]

Hey, I really like your theory! I have a slight counter argument for you. 

For the licence plate trinket in SW, Wendy says "Whatever this belonged to met a bad end." This suggests that she doesn't know what a licence plate is, and therefore likely doesn't know what a vehicle is. I know this might look like a throwaway line, but other characters (mainly Wilson and Webber, for instance) know what the plate is, but others (Maxwell, Wickerbottom, Woodie) don't know. So there is some consistency and significance to this. 

Also, not exactly a counter argument, but a weird observation: anyone have any idea why Jack's address is crossed out in that one William Carter Puzzle picture? Besides being cryptic for us, I feel like it would be weird for Maxwell to cross out Jack's address like that. 

[Rinkusan]

21 minutes ago, Blueleaf12 said:

Hey, I really like your theory! I have a slight counter argument for you. 

For the licence plate trinket in SW, Wendy says "Whatever this belonged to met a bad end." This suggests that she doesn't know what a licence plate is, and therefore likely doesn't know what a vehicle is. I know this might look like a throwaway line, but other characters (mainly Wilson and Webber, for instance) know what the plate is, but others (Maxwell, Wickerbottom, Woodie) don't know. So there is some consistency and significance to this. 

Also, not exactly a counter argument, but a weird observation: anyone have any idea why Jack's address is crossed out in that one William Carter Puzzle picture? Besides being cryptic for us, I feel like it would be weird for Maxwell to cross out Jack's address like that. 

Thanks for the counter-argument. I actually interpreted that quote in the opposite direction. I think the implication isn't that Wendy doesn't know what a license plate is; she just doesn't know the identity of the vehicle it came from. How would she know that "whatever this belonged to" met a "bad end" if she didn't know what a detached license plate was?

All that being said, I do think there is some juicy lore potential within both the quotes and the license plate itself. I'm currently doing some research on that license plate, and I'll get back to you; I don't think these are throwaway lines at all.

I'm pretty sure the address is crossed out because William decided not to send the letter to Jack, which foreshadows his upcoming obsession with the Codex Umbra in the later puzzles.  

[Spaartan]

On 3/26/2020 at 10:43 PM, maciu67 said:

Yes this quote.

That's just a reference to the painting Ophelia I believe.

[Rinkusan]

@Blueleaf12 Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I finally finished the essay that the license plate you shared started if you want to take a look.