Six Feet Under's Puzzle Discuss Thread

[Guest]

And for it not to be the playground of bored children.

 

Especially THIS kind of child:

 

 

Soooooooo........ who wants Maxwell's suit? I CALL DIBS!!!!

[Morgan17]

Especially THIS kind of child:

 

Why do you critisize me?

[Guest]

Why do you critisize me?

Lol it was just a joke, chill

[Morgan17]

Lol it was just a joke, chill

 

Ok.

[Cynical Cynicist]

I just don't like when people call her "just the beginner character". I mean, I haven't seen anything about Wilson either, and nothing specific about say, WX, Wickerbottom...

 

Well, I was just as dismissive about those characters as well. I'm interested to see future developments and how they might be introduced (aside from the "Strange New Powers" update trailer).

 

Wilson was tricked into creating Maxwell's door, which either entrapped him in the alternate realm or somehow freed Maxwell...not too sure actually.

[Coolcat600]

 

I know some people are reading it as voices, but to me on the right it looks like noces which is french for nuptials (wedding).  You have to zoom in to see the "N" instead of the V, but there seems to be a slight N instead of a V (to me).

 

Which is pretty interesting given its proximity to the word "charlie", that it is written as though there is obsession (it is repeated instead of simply said once) and we have a french mime locked up in the adventure mode that will end up leading to maxwell.

 

Just thinking out loud.

[Amkar]

Soooooooo........ who wants Maxwell's suit? I CALL DIBS!!!!

 

I WANT IT!

[Battal]

You probably already saw this, but there is a symbol next to every foreign word.  This is a translator...we need to look back on past puzzles and decode them.

[Seyph]

You probably already saw this, but there is a symbol next to every foreign word.  This is a translator...we need to look back on past puzzles and decode them.

It's already been translated/decoded

OK, so the scribbles look vaguely Latin to me, and according to the dictionary

Pretiositas means "gem",

Alucinatio - "prattle" or "the dreams that will never come true",

Tenebris - something like"dark",

Devinctio - "binding".

 

Devinctionibus: incantation

Tenebris: darkness

Pretiositas: precious, costly gem

Alucinatio: hallucination, illusion

Voces: voices

Insaniam: watching

Magicae: magic

 

And it was quite tasty food at that, good sir. However, I don't think the symbols on the pages tell us anything particularly interesting.

 

glyphs.png

decrypt.png

 

Edit: Misread a word, resulting in translation error. "Insanium," meaning crazy or insane. Not "insomniam," meaning watching. My bad.

[Morgan17]

It's already been translated/decoded

 

 

 

In the spoiler, basically it's just gems and things relating to insanity?

[Morgan17]

So, who's ready  for the next update trailer?

[The_Cookiebeast]

I just thought of something interesting, i remember someone asking on one of these puzzle forums a question as to why 'they', the shadowy backstage workers of the DS world would want to capture Maxwell in the first place. Now assuming what people have been saying about the nightmare creatures being attracted to those who are insane then what i'm thinking is that they can only influence people through the book, the book which i believe contains the don't starve world, hence the two dimensional art style within the game and trailers. They need someone on the nightmare throne to be able to bring people into the world without use of the book, so Maxwell goes about gathering people so that the nightmare creatures may become real within their world, for a hallucination is nothing without someone to make it real within their minds. I still cant think of a reason as to why they would want to have people around to torture, it seems like a lot of effort to go through, but maybe they are bored and wish to be entertained by the deranged minds being lured into their world, for all of them are. Maybe the 'nightmare fuel' which they are made of is produced through people's fear/insanity and that is how they were created. by Maxwell's insane imaginings and they seek to sustain themselves and multiply by gathering more people. Anyways that is just something i thought about after reading some of these and i thought i might pitch in some ideas.

[Delta/V]

I realize i'm late to the party, but have you guys tried plugging in the various wall-writings to bit.ly yet? 

[Sarcosuchus]

I realize i'm late to the party, but have you guys tried plugging in the various wall-writings to bit.ly yet? 

I gave it a shot, but no dice. I was also hoping the old clippings would form a combination of letters that would open something up, but again, nothing.

I'm still really suspicious of the fact that they're referencing symbols that have been in the updates for a long time. Why would they throw the definitions at us for no reason? Hmm.

Suspicions aside, I think at this point we've probably found all there is to find. Last time we thought we were finished with a puzzle but had missed something, the devs gave us a heads up by having Maxwell leave us a few hints (post/picture editing, etc) . That hasn't really happened much since the rise of the bit.ly link puzzle era, though.

 

 

Totally irrelevant to the topic at hand, but...if you've really never considered writing, this is proof you should. xD)b

I feel like I'm threadjacking with all of my responses (sorry everybody D:), but jeezum how can I not thank people for saying stuff like this

I'd love to write this into a full story, but I'm concerned about it all being irrelevant when we find out the actual ending. Unless it could be one of those "what if" stories? I will be the first to admit that I don't know diddly crap about how you would justify a thing like that. Mostly I've resorted to whinging to people in my art thread about it until they get sick of me.

 

Edit: Holy crap somehow that went in 5 times. Fixed. Yeesh. 

[Razami]

One thing that I'm wondering about this picture.

A lot of people seem to assume William was part of the circus that crashed. I'm not so sure about that. Sure, he's a magician, so it's not unlikely, but the 4th picture seems to imply he was on the train that crashed into the circus.

 

"A passenger train struck a circus wagon that had broken down along the tracks at the Old Mill crossing. Dozens of passengers were injured, and at least one man is missing. The missing man has yet to be identified, but fellow passengers described him as a tall, nervous fellow with an English accent."

 

For one, if he was part of the circus wouldn't people be able to identify him? It doesn't look like a big circus, people have said the towns it visited were/are quite small, so you'd expect them to know eachother. Yet people are describing him, but do not know his name. Sounds more like the people that happened to be sitting next to him in the train are saying this. Since they are said to be "fellow passengers" that kinda sounds like passengers on the passenger train.

At the bottom of the corresponding picture there's also a train ticket, again implying he was on the train, not with the circus.

 

So if he was not part of the circus.. why does he hang the circus poster on the wall of his room? Even if he was part of the circus, he hasn't been since the crash, which is at least a year ago. What's that poster doing there?

 

The Maxwell poster is also his first one, not the one with Charlie. Which is odd, you'd expect either his most recent poster on the wall, or all of them. Unless this is further back in time.

[TeoSS69]

 

One thing that I'm wondering about this picture.

A lot of people seem to assume William was part of the circus that crashed. I'm not so sure about that. Sure, he's a magician, so it's not unlikely, but the 4th picture seems to imply he was on the train that crashed into the circus.

 

"A passenger train struck a circus wagon that had broken down along the tracks at the Old Mill crossing. Dozens of passengers were injured, and at least one man is missing. The missing man has yet to be identified, but fellow passengers described him as a tall, nervous fellow with an English accent."

 

For one, if he was part of the circus wouldn't people be able to identify him? It doesn't look like a big circus, people have said the towns it visited were/are quite small, so you'd expect them to know eachother. Yet people are describing him, but do not know his name. Sounds more like the people that happened to be sitting next to him in the train are saying this. Since they are said to be "fellow passengers" that kinda sounds like passengers on the passenger train.

At the bottom of the corresponding picture there's also a train ticket, again implying he was on the train, not with the circus.

 

So if he was not part of the circus.. why does he hang the circus poster on the wall of his room? Even if he was part of the circus, he hasn't been since the crash, which is at least a year ago. What's that poster doing there?

 

The Maxwell poster is also his first one, not the one with Charlie. Which is odd, you'd expect either his most recent poster on the wall, or all of them. Unless this is further back in time.

 

Maybe someone in the circus had the book.

[Percival]

*An entirely well-though, plausible theory*

 

If what you're saying is true....we are going to have a really long puzzle in the final update.

 

[Rocky Springs]

The Maxwell poster is also his first one, not the one with Charlie. Which is odd, you'd expect either his most recent poster on the wall, or all of them. Unless this is further back in time.

 

 

I know I'm late for the party [2], but... maybe after the Charlie is gone, he either resumed the performances on his own to keep going somehow, while trying to bring her back, or -- simply removed all of her pictures to ease the guilty feeling just a little bit.

Or both.

As for the circus poster -- I am as confused as you are. There's been a strong belief among the DS fans (particularly on wikia) that he was WITH the circus, but reading carefully into the article shows that he not only wasn't, but he was in a different train O_o I have to admit I bought on this at first as well.

[Shoggoth]

One last thought for the evening though... 

This is actually very similar to a theory I posted on the wiki awhile back.  The difference though is I thought that while he did look for a way to bring her back, he never found one, so he decided to cast the same spell on himself that he did on her.  Since time passes differently in that world, the short time he had spent trying to find a way to bring her back had been like aeons to her.  The same forces that were twisting Maxwell had now been twisting her for much longer than any of us can imagine.

[leporad08]

here guys watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUWeQZTBEcM

it explains alot!

[Ixmore]

here guys watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUWeQZTBEcM

it explains alot!

 

If you actually taken the time to read the thread, then you would know that We already know about the translations. Also on an unrelated note, don't do you think it's a coincidence that, the symbol next to "Pretiositas" looks a lot like Wilson's hair?

[Sarcosuchus]

This is actually very similar to a theory I posted on the wiki awhile back.  The difference though is I thought that while he did look for a way to bring her back, he never found one, so he decided to cast the same spell on himself that he did on her.  Since time passes differently in that world, the short time he had spent trying to find a way to bring her back had been like aeons to her.  The same forces that were twisting Maxwell had now been twisting her for much longer than any of us can imagine.

 

Hi Shoggoth! I think I remember seeing you on the wiki when I was contemplating starting up a Lovecraft reference page, but I bailed on the wiki shortly after due to time constraints. :/ I hadn't seen your story, and so I had no intention of copying or stealing anything, I swear!  I was actually thinking something similar with the difference in chronology between the two worlds. We know Maxwell's been in the other world for approximately 20 "normal" years, but I'd like to think it was way longer than that, and that they just extended his lifetime unnaturally to play with him some more. 

 

But in terms of what happened to Charlie, I was imagining it as less of a result of the timeskip than the ritual Maxwell used to bring her back; that's probably because my idea hinged on the fact that they needed to find a way to break him emotionally before getting him on the throne.

 

Here's how I was thinking of what happened to Charlie. I'll spoiler my explanation, since it's a little long.

 

There are three planes of reality. They can move between all three, but physical beings cannot access their plane. They can move people between "our world" and "the void", which they created to contain Maxwell and Charlie, and which was eventually filled with the wilderness by Maxwell's power. The problem is, the means they use to move people between the two physical realities are designed for one way trips only. Since they are immaterial, they can move through without penalty, but it's different for physical people. 

 

In order to exist in the "void" reality where the islands are, you are essentially disassembled magically, and reassembled identically on the other side, the idea being that "real" things can become "void" things, as that's how they designed the magic. Matter in the "real" is not the same as matter in the "void" but they appear more or less the same. The thing is, the process is only intended to work one way, and trying to send something through the system in reverse is a really, really bad idea. 

 

But that's kind of hard to articulate properly. Think of it this way. The physical body is an instrument. The notes to a song are the basic code that makes up your essence, the tune itself. Your "friends" want to hear your song. But you can’t send them the cello that plays it, so you put the song onto a record, and send it through the mail. But in order to do this, you have to shatter the original cello: the song is unique, and cannot exist in two places at once.Maxwell can change the essence of a person to a form of matter that can be sent to them, but only by (unintentionally) destroying their original body, and capacity to exist in the real world. In doing so, it creates an exact duplicate of the person’s original form out of the void matter.

 

Your friends get the record you sent, they play it on their gramophone, and they love the song. Even when the song ends, they can play the record as many times as they like, because it has preserved and recorded the song in its original form. Hence, why Wilson, Willow, Wendy, etc can be reincarnated indefinitely, because that original "blueprint" of themselves has been magically archived, and there is an infinite supply of matter in the void. 

 

Here’s the problem, though.What if you want to hear the song again? You can steal the record back, but it's useless without the gramophone that only your friends know how to build and use (i.e. the magical capacity to create matter compatible with a dimension from essence). Additionally, there’s no way to bring back your original cello to play the song as you did before.

 

If you’re desperate enough, you could try to make a gramophone yourself, out of needles and gears and what your friends tell you about the way gramophones should be built. You place the needle on the record…but the song is garbled and warped and nothing that could have ever come from the strings of an instrument. And as you listen in horror to all that’s left of your original tune, the needle squeals its way across the vinyl, damaging your record permanently. Even if your send it back to your friends, who laugh at the damage you’ve done in your ignorance, playing it on the real gramophone will still play that squalling, skipping parody of what was once a beautiful melody.

 

In short, Maxwell tries to bring her back, but does not have the means or the power to do so properly. He cobbles together bits of things the shadows whisper to him, and symbols from his book to jury-rig a reversal for the disappearance spell, one that will bring her back in exchange for surrendering ownership of his body and soul to them. 

 

He sacrifices himself to drag Charlie back out of the void and damages her essence, turning her into a monster in the process, both in "reality" and when she is returned with William to the void. Which, of course, is exactly what they want, because it cripples William with self-hatred and regret. They could have changed her easily, but the emotional damage inflicted on William from having done it himself is far more useful.

 

They might own him now, but he could have fought the changes on the nightmare throne and resisted their influence to a degree, if his will was strong enough. Having access is different than having leverage, and they still needed an opening to have the amount of influence over him that they wanted. But his emotional weakness allows them to get inside his head and change him from the inside out. Rewriting someone’s personality is so much easier when they can’t stand who they are or what they’ve done.

 

 

[Shoggoth]

Didn't mean to suggest you copied it or anything, I just figured we thought alike.  I remembered you planning on doing the Lovecraft reference thing and thought "hey, here's another way we think alike" when I read your theory.

[Cynical Cynicist]

The devs are panicking right about now since their entire plot has been predicted perfectly.

[Sarcosuchus]

Didn't mean to suggest you copied it or anything, I just figured we thought alike.  I remembered you planning on doing the Lovecraft reference thing and thought "hey, here's another way we think alike" when I read your theory.

Always good to find another person who shares my particular flavor of insanity...or maybe we're just both aspects of Yog-Sothoth and don't know it yet? Anyways, it's satisfying to know that I can shout "Holy crap you guys William's last name is CARTER: this guy could not be more of a Lovecraftian protagonist if he tried!" and someone will get what I'm saying. :3 

 

The devs are panicking right about now since their entire plot has been predicted perfectly.

That would be...interesting to say the least. It's nice of you to say, but it's far more likely that they'll release the actual story and I'll wind up with tallbird egg all over my face. Ah, such is life :\... but thanks for the compliment all the same. 

I'm still really excited to find out the canon, even if I am totally off base. This is because I am a huge nerd who likes stories and plot and DS protagonists (shh tell no one)  :0