Catherine/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

Vincent always starts the night at the bar with one drink power-up already applied out of a maximum of three. This confused me until I realized, that in every preceding cut scene, Vincent drinks a full glass.
- Yet another for the fridge; when Vincent is drunk, he walks around in a really odd manner. Until you realize he stumbles around like a sheep.
Another for the fridge; Dumuzid's plan doesn't really make sense, He wants to increase the population, by forcing people to get married. In a world in which the global population is a massive drain on resources and the planet, his plan seems absolutely idiotic. Unless you consider the fact that his plan may be exclusively focused on the dwindling Japanese population.
- Doubtful that he's focusing on Japan, the game is set in America.
- It's probably more about survival of the fittest. Let's assume that unfaithfulness and inability to commit are inheritable. The mastermind would probably think "What good are these guys? I don't want them to produce the next generation" and so he offs them (which by the way will still drop the population count). At least that's how I see it.
- It probably has something to do with what we learn in the True Freedom ending. Namely that the series is set in a time period where not only do they have massive, futuristic starships, but space colonies that look like regular towns, raising the question of whether or not the ENTIRE GAME takes place in space. If something happened to earth and humanity was surviving on space stations, that would certainly call for ensuring survival, wouldn't it?
- Bear in mind that Dumuzid is working under Ishtar, a goddess of fertility. It probably has less to do with actually keeping the human population up; rather, suppose that in order to sustain her power or possibly even to exist, Ishtar needs humans to breed? It certainly makes more sense then, if that were the true purpose.
Consider the stages where Vincent directly interacts with other sheep, instead of them just falling to their deaths in the background. The bosses for those areas are based off of fear of commitment, which is why you never see the NPC sheep (who all have a constant, specific boss in their Nightmares). So why did he run into Steve after fighting his Shadow? Because Shadow of Vincent was also a monster to Steve, as the man who stole Catherine from him. When he realizes the sheep before him is Vincent, the Shadow appears and sheds its mask.
Why is the Karma Meter in this game leaning towards Unfortunate Implications? Consider that the Nightmare world is under the jurisdiction of a womanizing man who gained the powers of a god. Thomas Mutton/Dumuzid is either taking out his own issues on average Joes and lying about why so he looks good, or he's just incapable of changing his ways unless defeated. And in the myths, he was condemned to the Underworld because he didn't mourn his wife when she was trapped there, which is why he's working with demons. In short, it's Deliberate Values Dissonance.
One of the confessional questions is "Are you a masochist or sadist?", with "Sadist" as the "Chaos" answer and "Masochist" as the "Law" answer. The "Good Cheater" ending's credit pictures show Vincent and Catherine engaged in S&M activities, with Vincent as the Masochist. To get the "Good Cheater" ending, Vincent has to be mostly, but not fully, committed to Chaos. He craves excitement enough to live with Catherine in the Netherworld, but that little bit of Law manifests as masochistic tendencies.
- Relatedly, "Good Cheater" Vincent still partially desires stability, so he settles into a kinky, but ultimately stable, relationship with Catherine. Whereas the fully chaotic "True Cheater" Vincent grows restless just living with Catherine and takes over the whole damn place.
In both of the Bad endings, Trisha says that it could be considered a "good ending" for Vincent, as the girl he was pursuing may not have been what he really wanted from life. In the credit pictures of the "Good" endings, Vincent looks kind of unhappy, since to get those endings, he must be favoring Law or Chaos enough to win the girl back, but still have some doubts. So, in that sense, maybe the "Good" endings are actually worse than the "Bad" endings in some ways, since Vincent is in a relationship that he isn't completely sure he wants. He only looks fully happy in the "True" endings, where he is completely committed to Law or Chaos.
One of the confessional questions is "Boxers or briefs?" -- kind of an odd thing to ask Vincent, since he's clearly already made his choice, so answering "briefs" would just be hypocritical on his part. However, Astaroth, who is an avatar of Ishtar, is responsible for the questions, and Ishtar/Trisha always speaks directly to the player. So the question isn't really for Vincent anyway.
Why does it seem like when they're trading techniques, it's hinting towards "certain techniques"? The fact that they're climbing a tower doesn't help.
Casting Laura Bailey and Michelle Ruff to voice Catherine and Katherine respectively in the English version must have been deliberate. Rise and Yukari both represent the Lovers Arcana, which classically represents two paths in life and choosing the one to follow. Guess what Vincent has to deal with?
It's implied that every time Vincent has a nightmare, he's actually sleeping with Catherine. All boss battles end with a stream of white shot right at the boss's face while Vincent basks in the afterglow from the door
The reason given by Thomas Mutton/Dumuzid for the nightmares doesn't sound very real at first considering the the size of humanity. However when you get to the intro for Axis Mundi Ishtar admits that the stated reason was really just bull and its real reason was to find someone who could be her consort to replace Dumuzid.

Fridge Horror

Fridge Horror: What if Katherine actually got the knife instead of Catherine on the 7th day?
- Nothing, because it was a dream.
  - The entire point of the game is that people are dying in real life because they died in a dream. And given that that cut scene happened in one of THOSE dreams...
  - That was Vincent's dream, not Katherine's. There's no indication that people can die in someone else's dream.
  - I know that was Vincent's dream, but he could have been killed and died in the real world because Katherine would have killed him if she had gotten the knife.
  - Wait, I thought Katherine was going to kill Catherine.
  - She could be planning on using the knife as a bluff. Considering that she was horrified to see that she accidentally killed Catherine.
  - Since it was just a dream Katherine was just a part of Vincent's own mind and obviously couldn't actually plan anything. Whether or not the dream had to go as shown or if it could have gone another way (possibly leading to Vincent's death or a bluff) is very unclear especially since we don't know if it really was the kind of dream where you can die or if Catherine had anything to do with it.
More Fridge Horror If Dumuzid's plan was to increase the worlds population by horrifically killing people who hindered reproduction, just imagine what he could and WOULD do if he wanted to limit or decrease the population! So many sheep so little time...

So YHVH needs prayers badly, but there's a minority who don't believe in him, and they are disrupting society to the point of Rage Against the Heavens. What does he do with the minority? Send them through this nightly endeavor by allowing angels to select a person who will obtain "True Freedom". This is implied by Astartoth and Thomas Mutton, both of whom are angels or work under them.

Let's assume Erica was having the nightmares for keeping Toby from a relationship that would produce children. How many innocent unsuspecting LGBT people could have or did die because of Dumuzid wanting grandkids?
- It seems to mainly be an issue of people leading their partners on. Toby didn't know about Erica's past at the time it was implied that she was having the nightmares. Transpeople who disclose their history to their partners probably wouldn't be affected since everyone involved would either leave the relationship or choose to stay with the full knowledge that it won't result in children.
It's implied that every time Vincent has a nightmare, he's actually sleeping with Catherine. All boss battles end with a stream of white shot right at the boss's face while Vincent basks in the afterglow from the door
In stage 3 of Catherine, Vincent is being chased by an upside-down body with a tongue protruding from the...er...behind. Each monster he faces is stated to have come from his own mind. Well, the next morning, Catherine calls him a "perv" but refuses to expand on what they did...Eww. She was probably lying to further tempt Vincent, but the implication is still there.
- Later in the game, by meeting the right conditions, Midnight Venus reveals herself as Ishtar and congratulates the player character by making you her co-deity of love with everything that goes with it. The problem? Ishtar's lovers, even the non-mortal ones, had a tendency to end up dead, as pointed out waaay back in The Epic of Gilgamesh. With that in mind, though, maybe it's better that you don't turn her down.
  - And what if the player is a woman?
  - That isn't a problem for some female players.
At various points, there are references to Erika being hurt badly in a previous relationship. Then comes the revelation that she is a male-to-female transexual, and it becomes clear that she was the victim of a hate crime. Suddenly, Vincent, Johnny, and Orlando's desire to keep Toby from dating her looks very different.
There's an easy-to-miss one in the rest area/confession booth thing, from the sixth level on. Talking to the longhaired sheep, you learn that the monster he keeps trying to outrun is his mother, a mother who tried to 'lock him away' but that he escaped and has been running ever since. On one of the landings when you talk to him he mentions that her hands were always cold and that she never let him wear clothes....

Fridge Logic

If the point of the Nightmare Sequence has something to do with making babies. Shouldn't it be automatically Unwinnable for Erica?
- ...Wait, what?
  - She's a transsexual, and has had the surgery as Toby would know if she hadn't. Therefore, she has no means to reproduce.
  - I know that, but the point of winning the Nightmare Sequence doesn't have something to do with making babies. Men are thrown in there to die because they are in a relationship that won't produce kids. Erica had the nightmares because she was with Toby, who wants kids but didn't know she was a transsexual.
  - It is never proven that Erica is having THE nightmares. All the talk seemed to only give her just one, unrelated nightmare.
  - Even if she was having the Nightmare, you don't have to follow Dumuzid's rules to escape. Vincent is able to win even if he takes the Cheaters or Freedom route.
If the bosses really wanted to stop Vincent, couldn't just they head for the top and destroy the door or something?
- But they are heading for the top... Shadow of Vincent seemed to be toying with Vincent, though.
- It looks like Shadow of Vincent, Thomas Mutton, and the Dumuzid are the only bosses who aren't restricted to climbing, so probably not.
- I know that, but can't the aforementioned bosses just go ahead of Vincent to the top and destroy the door instead of just watching him climb for it?
- They're probably just moving as fast upwards as they can, or they could probably just ram (heehee) right into Vincent, too.
Justin says that the series of unexplained deaths among men happens every hundred years. Later, Thomas Mutton claims that if he hadn't gotten the wrong man away from Vincent's mother, he wouldn't have been born. Wouldn't that have been much more recent than 100 years ago?
- It isn't certain that Justin's correct. For all we know this has been going on every single year. Alternatively Mutton was simply lying. Or maybe Atlus simply missed it.
- Margin of error? There's no indications that would tell us how long the nightmares last so while they could happen every hundred years, they might also last several decades.
If Vincent knew he'd be confronting Thomas Mutton in his dreams on the ninth night, why didn't he wear more clothes to bed?
- He's trying to defeat him to win his lover back, not taking him out on a date. He's not self conscious enough to give a crap about how naked he may or may not be during his dreams.
  - But why does Vincent wear boxers to bed? Speaking of which, why do men wear just underwear to bed?
  - As a women who wears just underwear to bed, I just find it more comfortable.
- More importantly, why can't he just dream himself a jetpack?
Speaking of boxers, if Thomas Mutton is anything to go by, you look like a sheep in boxers (with an afro) to all the other sheep in the dreams. So doesn't that mean a lot of the other sheep wore clothes to bed?
- Mutton is the only one to remark on Vincent's underwear, and can probably see everyone in the nightmares as they really are. To the other sheep, Vincent is just "Sheep with Afro".
So since Katherine killed Catherine in the knife struggle, did she take a level in badass?
- It was just a dream, so it's irrelevant.
- Considering the angle it looks more like it was an accident and Katherine clearly isn't at all happy with the outcome. Probably not an example of badassery.
If the whole point of these dreams is to remove men from relationships that won't result in children, then could committed, but infertile men be subjected to the dreams? and what about lesbians? One would assume that adoption wouldn't be a way out of Ishtar's scheme, for while that is child rearing, it doesn't do anything to increase the population. I guess in-vitro fertilization is still a choice, there, but would that count?
- Check the Fridge Brilliance section. Ishtar admits that the given reason is bull and she just wants a new boyfriend.