Chzo Mythos/Headscratchers

""Trilby in 5 Days is a total Mary Sue. Which should be fairly obvious: he's a world-famous master thief who makes the female reporter moist with excitement at meeting him, he's highly intelligent, well-dressed, polite, highly skilled, a wisecracker, and the only one level-headed enough to sort everything out. At the end of the game he walks away from the events completely unconcerned and rides off into the sunset."
 * In 6 days a sacrifice, why the excuse to having Trilby clones is so lame? I mean they guard the place, because John DeFoe is afraid of Trilby? WTF!?!? John DeFoe lived in cellar, locked up. In 5 days, they even say, that he is so retared, that he cannot identify people. So why is he afraid of Trilby, if he cannot identify him?!
 * Trilby managed to inflict pain on him, which was a very traumatic experience. John might be retarded, but he is not blind nor deaf, so it is not that much of a stretch for him to be able to identify the person who killed him all over again.
 * And remember, Trilby forced John back into his own body. According to the caretaker being forced back into your own body, especially when it's just bones, is rather painful. And follow that up by having his body burned by a fire, while he can feel both his bones and the house burn down, and you can see why Defoe would be freaked out by Trilby's presence.
 * Except even if, wasn't it
 * In 5 Days a Stranger, why does it never occur to the characters to just break a window? Just because they've all "jammed shut" doesn't mean they're unbreakable. Normally I'd forgive something like this, but it kind of bothers me when the main character is a cat burglar by profession.
 * They are unbreakable. On one of the days the TV mentions that the police have made multiple attempts to break in and failed. The people are trapped there by a supernatural force. Thin, I'll admit, but it is what it is.
 * Also, cat burglars don't break windows. It's what sets them apart from regular burglars.
 * Even so, the fact that they don't even try is kind of annoying.
 * Why is it, that everywhere in this site, where the Arc Words "It hurts" is mentioned, there's some additional "It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts" but spoiler'd? I just can't understand how there's the need to spoiler-tag (or even mention, for that matter), a bunch of additional repetitions of the original words.
 * If you'd played it, you'd understand. Whenever the hotel in Trilby's Notes is about to switch over to the demonic dark version of itself, the game responds to a command to open a door with 'it hurts' - then, when that message is dismissed, with a whole boxful of 'it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts'. It's extremely disturbing.
 * Don't get snippy, that's not even a little true. One thing you are intended to check out even though it isn't required is the plot-unimportant but setting-establishing corpse in the stairwell and his notes. After a long time of being trapped in the hotel, the Tall Man finally comes for him and his final blood-splattered diary entry is simply 'it hurts'. The phrase DOES NOT pop as a signal that you're about to hear sirens and see everything turn to rusty grating (^_^), it is actually one of the game's several hallucinations that the pills cause. After you take a pill, and this is explained by Yahtzee's commentary, there is a chance that two screens later (although in my experience it doesn't seem to be two screens later sometimes), you will undergo a 'hallucination,' like walking around as other characters, walking around places from other games (or maybe just from 7 Days), and the 'it hurts' hallucination, which will take over your command interface: the first time you issue a command, or if you issue a command during another hallucination, you get the message 'it hurts,' same for the second, and then the third time you get 'it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts etc.' and then that hallucination is over. Definitely one of the best hallucinations since it takes you off your guard more effectively than the others. All that said, I still don't have any idea why they became associated with John De Foe or Chzo in the 6 Days setting, where they didn't seem to have as much relevance, but they still managed to be pretty damn chilling when you see them crop up unexpectedly.
 * To add, it is implied that the Arc Words were the same notable, creepy Arc Words from EarthBound originally. Giving further detail on how such and when they are said would just lead to major spoilers for THAT game.
 * My question is, are these really Arc Words? They only show up in episodes 3 and 4.
 * I seem to remember them appearing exactly once in 5days.
 * And then there's the little issue that the escape pods take 24 hours to get ready to launch. Not especially efficient, as Yahtzee eventually realized.
 * Playing it again I'm sure it takes 6 hours to fuel, it's just that the Doctor kept the other two waiting and was the only one with access to the escape pod. Which of course, raises even more questions then it answers, but it's even lampshaded how badly designed the ship is.
 * The end of 7 Days of Skeptic. Was there any foreshadowing or set-up at all? It was a total Ass Pull so there would be a Downer Ending. Whats worse is that a much better Downer Ending could have been made with the crew of the other starship being part of a conspiracy! At least that would have been a Sequel Hook too...
 * The whole thing was part of Chzo's Gambit Roulette, trust me. 6DAS kinda explains things a little more detail. In fact, 7DAS' opening was actually intentional foreshadowing, despite it being spoken by another person entirely.
 * Pretty much everything in the first two games was retconned starting with Notes. Originally, 7DAS's ending was the way it was because Yahtzee doesn't like happy endings.
 * "You know, some people complained that the ending for this game just came out of nowhere. SO WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT IF IT WASN'T FORESHADOWING?!" - Yahtzee's Author Commentary, after the "I'm on the wrong ship" speech that serves as the game's introduction
 * There's also the fact that the terminal in the opening sequence goes So it's not so much an asspull as Yahtzee giving players too much credit.
 * I'm pretty sure I skipped past that.
 * The creation of the Man in Red was actually independent of Chzo's goals.
 * Not completely. The Man in Red basically
 * One wonders
 * The special edition answers that by
 * The Expedition seems to imply that.
 * Nah, that was when he was becoming the Tall Man - he goes mute.
 * Also, Dr. Somerset asked Captain Chahal a few questions about his own job description early on. While it's easy to dismiss that as an excuse for a Mr. Exposition moment from the captain (this troper's friend refers to that as the "So, father, would you say we're an agriculture-based society?" speech, after such a moment in The Journeyman Project 3,) the author commentary again helpfully points out that Dr. Somerset not knowing basic details about his own job (such as that a licensed psychiatrist is required for all potential first contact scenarios) is indeed significant.
 * I remembered that being part of a general question session when you were supposed to ask everything you can, but you're probably right.
 * At the very start of 7DAYS, when Somerset logs into his computer and we aren't still introduced to him and the other characters, the computer calls him Malcolm.
 * So what you're saying is "Yes, if you paid any more than the slightest bit of attention, it did." I played it in a bunch of really short sessions and forgot bits of it. I think the only whole part I beat in one play was teleporting John DeFoe. I'll have to add replaying it to my gargantuan list of things to do.
 * The foreshadowing was still too subtle to be picked up on, and the ending added nothing to the game until the sequels, which weren't planned until Ben started working on Notes.
 * Basically, the ending originally was nothing more than a Cruel Twist Ending: "Monster dead, but wait! No happy ending for you, protagonist!". When Yahtzee decided to link it all together, it became part of Chzo's Gambit Roulette.
 * This troper personally thought that the ending was a brilliant Tomato Surprise which was (very) subtly foreshadowed by Somerset's abilities as a psychiatrist being constantly doubted and brought into question by the crew, which he is never able to thoroughly defend.
 * 7 Days a Stranger takes place in 8 days, with the justification that it is so 7 days because the first day didn't count (despite the fact this not-day still holds great importance and relevance in the day-span because . 6 Days a Sacrifice takes place in 5 days with the justification it too is 6 days, but this missing day should not count as  . Why?
 * What is up with the escape pods in 7DAS? Only one crew member can access each of them, and they take several hours to prepare for launch. Who would design pods that wouldn't save anyone if the ship suffered a sudden emergency?
 * Joke Answer: the ship was designed by the US government. Real Answer: The ship seems particularly badly designed, really. Seriously, there's no backup to move through the ship if the elevator breaks? The only communication relay is inside the captain's cabin, which can't be accessed from the outside?
 * Not to mention the complete lack of safety on the safety pod doors. "Press here and a door opens into space if the pod is missing"? It comes with the genre, really. Supernatural monsters must have killed Captain Murphy, and defensive design never developed.
 * You can ask your captor about this, and the latter will explain that they blocked the docking clamp sensor so that the ship would think the pods were still there. Why do that part I don't know, since the only thing it changes is increasing the risk of losing  to space.
 * Ben also openly admits that he tends to choose gameplay over story structure.
 * This is lampshaded by Adam, who comments that the ship is built under the assumption that nothing will break.
 * If that's the case, the ship was a disaster waiting to happen. John DeFoe just sped it up. Particularly since Adam didn't come across as a competent engineer.
 * It's also further lampshaded by the Straw Vulcan, who comments about writing up a list of complaints.
 * In 6 Days, why does the Tall Man kill all the Trilbies and disarm the bomb? Does he know Chzo's plan and try to stop it? If so, why doesn't he just kill Theo?
 * Yes, he does know of the plan. However AFAIR Theo is being watched by Chzo so the Tall Man can't directly kill Theo without * really* pissing Chzo off. He has to be stealthy about his every action. Take notice for example that TM kills Trilbies in a relatively painless fashion - by snapping their necks, all to avoid Chzo's notice(remember, Pain God).
 * Also note how quickly he vanishes when Theo appears in the basement. Word of God states that since Chzo was watching Theo all the time he didn't want to be spotted doing anything risky.
 * I think he was doing it quick so that Chzo wouldn't notice him through his omniscience. Chzo causes pain, I've never seen any indication that he can sense it.
 * In the special edition commentary Yahtzee said the reason why he just snapped their necks was because he couldn't be arsed to do more animation (pretty much a lot of things in the series can be chalked up to Yahtzee being not being arsed to do it). He basically spent his nights going around killing all the Trilby clones, which is why the hallway keeps going back and forth from normal to dark so quickly; the death and creation of Trilby clones
 * The fact that it is painless IS important. Chzo CAN sense pain, because he FEEDS on pain. It is what he eats. It is like if your roommate presents you with a slice of cake when you TOLD him not to use the damn oven because it's the middle of the summer and the AC is busted and the oven would just heat up the whole damn apartment. If the Prince caused the Trilbies excessive pain, it would basically be presenting the Prince with the fruits of his seditious labors: nourishing, but for fuck's sake, he gave you some simple rules, and if you can't follow them, he's gonna find a new roommate who can.
 * Has anyone else gotten this semi-confused with Metroid and thought it was a misspelling of "Chozo Mythos"? This troper almost went on a spelling crusade until he thought to actually look at the article.
 * What bugs me about the Chzo Mythos?
 * What specifically bugs you about them? I thought it was a good idea, both for reintroducing Trilby as a bad guy and explaining how they could keep Defoe in check
 * I'm a little bugged by them too, even with that explanation being valid to justify them, but I'm not too sure why. I think it's because
 * On that last part [spoiler:Trilby forcing John back into his own body and then it burning to ashes was the single greatest moment of pain John had ever felt in his entire existance. From that point onwards he associated Trilby with that pain. As for John not being able to diffentiate people; that was simply something Trilby assumed but had no real way of verifying. Either he was wrong of dying again burned the image of Trilby into his mind so he'd never forget it. He might also just be killing people for no other reason than it's hte only thing he really knows.]]
 * Okay, John DeFoe murders his father and brother before dying from his injuries. So who buries the bodies and bricks up the door to the cellar, if the father and son were thought to have disappeared and John's existence was never even referred to outside of Roderick's diary? Maybe the next DeFoe in line wanted to cover the whole thing up, but the bathroom can't have looked like that in that time period, so John's body should have been found when the floor was retiled.
 * It's ghost magic.
 * So the arc number/date is 287, for July 28th, whe nall of the Tall Man's actions throughout history have happened, including the death of the DeFoes. One problem - In Five Days a Stranger, the diary entries both say JUNE 28th. Oops.
 * Yahtzee later admitted this error: he did some research for several historical background details, but "not enough on my own game". He concluded that is should be considered a Retcon. At least, he could have relased a small update of 5DAS with the date corrected to 28/7...
 * Where did John DeFoe get a welding mask in the early 1800's? It's a rather identifiable part of his character, yet seems so out of place when you think about it.
 * You can see the three parts of the Welder's costume in the kitchen during Matthew's flashback in Trilby's Notes, each with their own description. IIRC the mask was a memento of the gardener's mining days.
 * At the end of 7 Days a Skeptic, what was the hand that came out of the box that John DeFoe was found in? It looked like John was perhaps Not Quite Dead,but it was later established that he was, in fact, Killed Off for Real. It was also established that the box had been emptied of its contents.
 * 6 Days A Sacrifice seems to imply that it is Theo who is crawling out of the coffin. But then again, it is also very unclear whether it just is Theo's imagination or not.
 * Half the shit that happens in 7 Days a Skeptic, Yahtzee has admitted in the Special Edition commentary doesn't actually make sense besides being creepy or for gameplay reasons. The hand at the end falls in the former category, as does Serena's appearance in the same room as her own dismembered corpse and the splattering of blood outside the ship where there is no gravity. Basically: Yahtzee had this at the end just to scare us, because he is a dick.
 * What on earth was the point of the healing water in Trilby's Notes? Yahtzee set it up as if it was going to be some massive plot point, but it was never even explained how it had its healing properties.
 * It's supposed to be an "oh shit" moment. You've been relying on the pills to stay sane and avoid the whispering, and then suddenly they don't work anymore.
 * The water exists in the Ethereal Realm. It is clearly imbued with magick or something.
 * How did The Tall Man,, know how to ?
 * After the Tall Man, he had  .   Mr. Gariot and the cult's top brass  .  . Of course that doesn't explain how a   knew how to.
 * Rule of Cool?
 * He's the Tall Man. He can do whatever the heck he wants. A better way of saying it- He's
 * In 7 Days, why does everyone keep putting up with the engineer's lame excuses instead of at least asking him to see why the engines aren't working? Why didn't they immediately remove the captain from the mast? After and you've stunned him, why doesn't anyone try to put him in the brig or get either of them to the infirmary? Who's (caucasian) hand and torso do you have when you spot ? Lastly, what sinister mystery lies within the ladies' unopenable cabin?
 * Basically it's because it's a horror game; if the characters actually used some logic it would lose much of it's scaryness. As for why I take it it's because they don't know how long he'll stay stunned for and don't want to risk him waking up while they're right next to him. Besides, considering the genre for all they knew he could actually teleport around the ship.
 * An interesting point: It is possible to stun  in such a manner that you can thus trap him behind the laser barrier in the brig! Not that he stays in, mind, either because of teleportation or gameplay purposes. Whether you can do this to the Welder or not is still unknown.
 * This is a sort of question that will never get an answer, but why do we see Serena walking around like a zombie after we find her corpse in the ducts, and then never see her again?
 * It is because because.
 * That doesn't make any sense, since you're already holding.
 * According to Yathzee's commentary he threw in scenes like that to screw with the player because they wouldn't make sense. I think he suggested she might be a ghost.
 * You know, there are a LOT of people saying that
 * Because his followers don't know doesn't mean Czho didn't plan it. After all, for his plan to  only three first books are really needed. It's also states(can't remember was it Yatzee or somethign else) that Chzo is not omnipotent in Real of Technology, so he needed to first wait for bridgekeeper and then bridge to appear. More like Xanatos Gambit with Xanatos Speed Chess, since he can only take a peek once in a year. Of course, to him it's like minutes...
 * Is it just me, or did Trilby undergo Badass Decay in Notes? I mean, at the end of 5 Days he's seen calmly walking away from the ruins of Defoe Manor, and even cracks a joke about punching his informat in the face. In Notes however, he's a traumatized, nervous wreck. Yes, it fits the overall mood of the series, but still...
 * Word of God in the comentary for Notes states that Trilby would have come off as a shallow, unfeeling character if the traumatic events of 5 Days hadn't affected him at all, and that the scene of him standing at the top of the cliff was more akin to putting on a strong face.
 * One could also argue that the full impact of what he saw in defoe manor didn't quite hit him until after the end of 5 days. Call it delayed paranoia.
 * This troper once stumbled upon a short essay noting that Trilby is probably suffering from PTSD. It's here, if you want to read it.
 * Like said, full extend of events had yet not sank in. When he tried to return to his normal cat burglar life, he remembered what happened at Defoe's and... well, he just can't anymore. Later he probably fully realizes how screwed he is after . Weird ghost creature that you tought had killed isn't dead and full of revenge? Oh Crap indeed.
 * Funnily enough, Yahtzee has addressed this in a Something Awful Let's Play about his games (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3297636&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2):
 * Word of God in the comentary for Notes states that Trilby would have come off as a shallow, unfeeling character if the traumatic events of 5 Days hadn't affected him at all, and that the scene of him standing at the top of the cliff was more akin to putting on a strong face.
 * One could also argue that the full impact of what he saw in defoe manor didn't quite hit him until after the end of 5 days. Call it delayed paranoia.
 * This troper once stumbled upon a short essay noting that Trilby is probably suffering from PTSD. It's here, if you want to read it.
 * Like said, full extend of events had yet not sank in. When he tried to return to his normal cat burglar life, he remembered what happened at Defoe's and... well, he just can't anymore. Later he probably fully realizes how screwed he is after . Weird ghost creature that you tought had killed isn't dead and full of revenge? Oh Crap indeed.
 * Funnily enough, Yahtzee has addressed this in a Something Awful Let's Play about his games (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3297636&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2):

"By Trilby's Notes I'd matured enough to be as annoyed by Mary Sue-ism as anyone and dropped my instinctual protectiveness of Trilby. It's best for horror protagonists to be vulnerable, so I retconned his bravado as a facade and made him emotionally damaged, haunted by paranoia and regret, jumping at shadows and downing fistfuls of pills to stay sane. In 6 Days I made him a total X-factor. The idea there was to bring in a halfway comforting familiar face and swiftly reveal him to be something the player couldn't rely on at all.""


 * In the airlock puzzle, how the hell does John pull the lever in 7 Days when he's holding on to the OTHER lever? You don't even see him do it. It just sorta happens...
 * Maybe he kicks it?
 * The 7DAS SE commentary says that the idea was that John kicked the lever, but Yahtzee goofed up and made the gap too large.
 * At which point does the Tall Man become aware of ? The series implies he's been in the Realm of Technology since Trillby's Notes and thus for the last 200 years, but his 'sabotage' is ridiculously last-minute and could've been much better pulled off in the longer run, for example if he DIDN'T pick up Trillby's blood-stained waistcoat at the end of Notes.
 * Disregard. OP here. Self-answered in 6DAS commentary and I'm putting it here for reference. Tall Man was aware since Notes, but has to pretend to work along with Chzo and Theo Da Cabe's appearance was one of the few times when Chzo's gaze isn't focused on the Tall Man and this he can go off sabotaging the plan.
 * But it still doesn't make sense; Chzo couldn't possibly have his gaze focused on the Tall Man during all that time because the Tall Man was entirely in the Realm of Technology, and Chzo can is only capable of looking there once a year. The Tall Man would still have 364 days free from Chzo's gaze.
 * He probably didn't want to take the risk that Chzo might notice that something was not the way it was supposed to be when it came time for the convergence event. Hence why he only starts acting when Theo is around; because he's certain Chzo is only paying attention to Theo and might miss anything that Tall Man was doing.
 * The ship's doctor from 7 Days is implied to be Simone's descendant, but one assumes that if Simone had any kids at the time of 5 Days, she'd have mentioned it, and she's clearly living alone at the time of her death in Notes. So how does that work?
 * It could be the descendant of a sibling? Honestly, looking above this post, Yahtzee doesn't consider Fridge Logic while adding Mythology Gags here and there and making an interesting game.
 * It could simply be that she had been involved in a relationship, had a kid and perhaps suffered a divorce with the husband being granted custody.
 * That's actually incredibly likely, considering that by Notes she's become an alcoholic.
 * Why, in 6 Days, do the gaggle of clones all wear the same outfit? I understand the meta reason, as it's obviously the same sprite from Notes, but... still.
 * John Defoe is scared shitless of Trilby, so to get the most out of it they make him look as close to Trilby as they can. If they gave him a different set of clothing and a mask it's possible Defoe may not have realised it was him and killed him like he normally to intruders.
 * Then why don't they have him in the grey pinstripe suit he wore when he actually fought John?
 * Fridge Brillance: Because none of the Order know what he was wearing when he fought John, and based it off he was wearing when one of their agents encounter him).
 * Fridge Logic: Literally. When you open the fridge in 5 Days, there's nothing there and Trilby says "Evidently no one cares if I starve in this place." So... how did they eat?
 * Yahtzee handwaves this in the SE commentary, stating that
 * A less literal example is pointed out in the Special Edition commentary for the game: Where did everyone sleep when the two bedrooms don't get unlocked until Trilby arrives?
 * One for 7 Days, which Yahtzee lampshades in the "Special Edition" commentary, involves the rather flimsy excuse for keeping the three remaining crewmembers on board an extra day: having to take an entire day to refuel and prep an escape pod kind of misses the point of escape pods to begin with.
 * In the commentary on the Special Edition of 6 Days, Yahtzee claims that, while it's improbable that Theo could do most of what he does in his severely injured condition, it's necessary to the plot that he do so because . All well and good, but nowhere in any of the games is it implied that he has to go through   in any particular order. Why couldn't Theo have simply been injured late in the game to avoid the issue entirely? Agreed, most of the game would have to be retooled in one way or another to make that happen, but just letting the problem stand seems lazy, especially since Yahtzee apparently felt strongly enough about it to have the characters themselves comment on it.
 * Simple in-universe reason: Guy who pushed Theo down the elevator didn't know what he would be and only wanted to get rid of him. He didn't expect Theo to survive. So he goes trough  first.   was kinda screwed up, as Yatzee agreed. he originally planned Theo to be  . Also, half of the puzzels rely on on the fact that Theo can't do a jack without help.
 * I'm bugged by just how random Theo's ability and inability to do things can be, somewhat so especially on . One minute he can't move and relies on giving gestures to Trilby or Harty to do things for him, the next minute he's walking and he's tasked to do things here and there for Harty among other people (which I'm not even going to bother ask why a doctor lacks so much care in a heavily-crippled man, who earlier couldn't even move beyond hand-gestures, to do things like distract an armed guard fully aware Theo is bad news or go on fetch quests throughout the compound). When playing I felt similar opinions on the sex scene as Quovak when it came to
 * The New Prince is a mummy in a leather apron and welding mask because Theo was covered in bandages due to his injuries and was wearing the Welder's outfit. How come the Tall Man wears a fairly modern trenchcoat when all Cabadath wore was druid robes?
 * He probably saw the fasion of the realm of technology one day and liked it enough to copy it. Time is non-linear when it comes to Chzo, which is why he wore the same thing since when the tree was cut down.
 * It would also be that because the old one had the mind and will of his former self, the costume was something like his personal choice.
 * It may have been a gift from one of his followers. The Tall Man apparently showed himself to various people over the course of his long and horrifying life. Maybe one of them thought he'd be appeased by A Hot Topic gift card?
 * The tall man doesn't have skin. Maybe that's where he got the coat.