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The Path: Difference between revisions
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[[File:ThePath-boxart.jpg|frame]]
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Six sisters are tasked with delivering a basket of bread and wine to their bedridden grandmother who lives in the middle of the forest at the end of a dirt path. One at a time, each girl is sent with only two instructions: go to Grandmother's house and stay on the path. [[Little Red Riding Hood|Sound familiar?]]
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{{tropelist}}
* [[Abandoned Playground]]
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* [[Badass Longcoat]]: {{spoiler|Scarlet's wolf}}
* [[Bald of Evil]]: {{spoiler|Carmen's wolf}}
* [[Be a Whore
* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]: Grandma puts it best: "Wolves lurk in every guise... the sweetest tongue has the sharpest tooth."
* [[Blond Guys Are Evil]]: {{spoiler|Ruby's wolf}}
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* [[Character Blog]]: [http://sternred.livejournal.com/ Every] [http://sexyred13.livejournal.com/ one] [http://innocentred.livejournal.com/ of] [http://kidred13.livejournal.com/ the] [http://gothred.livejournal.com/ sisters] [http://tomboyred.livejournal.com/ has] their own livejournal that they updated regularly until the release of the game. Even Grandmother had her own journal; although she never posted anything, she did comment sometimes. Every journal also had rather cryptic comments from someone who sounded like a wolf.
* [[Character Focus]]: As far as the sisters go, Ruby is the one on all of the merchandise, was the first character designed and made playable in the game, gets the most fan art and cosplayers, and was featured in the trailer.
* [[Character Select Forcing]]: The piano appears on the map for Ruby. However, she cannot interact with it, and must defer it to Scarlet.
* [[Children Are Innocent]]: Robin, Rose, and Ginger, the younger of the six.
* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: Rose seems to be this: lost in her own thoughts, drifting through her own world, and always has her thoughts on flying.
* [[
* [[Colourful Theme Naming]]: The names of all six girls are associated with the color red.
* [[Coming of Age Story]]: The creators have stated that this is the general theme. You have no real control over the girls. You can either watch them stray from the path and make their own mistakes, or do nothing. {{spoiler|Them blacking out at the sight of the wolf}} is a moment of realization for them, and them entering Grandma's house is them growing as a person.
* [[Curiosity Killed the Cast]]
* [[Darkness Equals Death]]: Subverted. Grandmother's house has limited lighting (and is associated with darkness) but is safe. After the wolf encounter, the rooms are more brightly lit even if they are a bit more hazy or blurred. The only exception is standing still after the wolf encounter, which darkens the view but isn't otherwise dangerous.
* [[Dark Reprise]]: In {{spoiler|Rose's version of Grandma's house}}, you can hear her nervously singing to herself the safe song that plays when you're on the path.
* [[Death
** {{spoiler|This is almost certainly true. [[Word of God]] says that each wolf represents temptation as much as it does death.}}
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Ruby seems to be this. “A scarecrow. And no birds. Efficient! Wish I had one to keep the idiots away.”
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* [[Downer Ending]]: {{spoiler|Maybe so, maybe not.}}
* [[Drugs Are Bad]]: Ruby seems to have a drug problem, and says she wants to start smoking so she can be that much closer to dying.
* [[Eldritch Location]]: Grandma's house, if you unlock the secret rooms. In case of Ginger's version, you see Grandma's room through blinds, but somehow double-back while moving in the same direction.
* [[Endless Corridor]]: Rose's first secret room first appears to be a line of toilets when she enters a door. Ruby has a line of lockers preceding a gym for the Wolves sports team. Both eventually stop, but the corridor itself extends suddenly from what appears to be an empty room.
* [[Environmental Symbolism]]
* [[Evil Counterpart]]: Ginger's wolf, the Girl in Red, is the counterpart to the Girl in White. Her foreground overlay is even rendered upside down.
* [[Expy]]: Several. Ginger is modeled after a young [[Natalie Portman]], Rose's hair is a variant on [[Serial Experiments Lain|Lain's hair]], and Ruby bears a striking resemblance to ''[[
** Not to mention that the Girl in White is explicitly based on the deaf-mute princess from a previous video game project they worked on.
*** Also note her resemblance to designer Auriea Harvey at age 8, shown [http://grandmothers-house.net/rose.html here] (scroll down).
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* [[Friend to All Living Things]]: Rose.
* [[Gainax Ending]]: {{spoiler|The girl in white is the last one sent out. Since she doesn't have a wolf, she needs to go to grandmother's house, go through the six hazards that the daughters were killed in, and meet the grandmother. Back at the first scene, she has blood on her dress, and the daughters walk back in the room.}}
* [[Gameplay Grading]]: At the end of every run through it will give you a completely superfluous letter grade, based on items collected.
* [[Gamer Chick]]: [http://sexyred13.livejournal.com/1760.html "The cake is a lie. The cake is a lie."]
* [[Geographic Flexibility]]: The way the forest is designed, it's almost impossible to truly know where anything is. The livejournals of the girls point this out, when Robin wants to know where the abandoned playground is because she never saw it before, and Ruby comments that you can only find it if you're not looking for it.
** As [http://innocentred.livejournal.com/1044.html Rose notes in her journal], no matter how fast she tries to run, it always ends up turning into night by the time you reach Grandma's house.
** If you run towards grandma's house, it becomes night time. If you run from the house back to the paved road, it returns to daytime (even in the post-wolf portion but that takes a while).
* [[Girlish Pigtails]]: Robin, the Girl in White, and the Girl in Red have them.
* [[Goth]]: Ruby.
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* [[Granny Classic]]: If the girl's livejournals are good indicators, Grandmother is your classic old lady figure. She even gave Robin her treasured red hooded coat.
* [[Grimmification]]: [[Little Red Riding Hood]] darkened and modernized.
* [[Growing Up Sucks]]: {{spoiler|A common interpretation of the game. The [[Little Red Riding Hood|original story]] has been interpreted by some to be about puberty. In the case of each girl, they more or less are taught a "life lesson" by their wolf before they reach Grandma's house. And at the end of their "path" (or life) [[We Are
** It seems to be the general view that Ginger has, believing Scarlet to be proof that growing up makes you boring and uptight.
* [[Harmful to Minors]]: {{spoiler|Poor Robin.}}
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* [[I Coulda Been a Contender]]: It's implied that Scarlet had to give up her dreams of being a pianist to take care of her family.
* [[Idle Animation]]: Each girl has their own; you can even swivel the camera around and watch them.
* [[Ignoring
* [[I Just Want to Be Loved]]: Carmen and Scarlet, although the latter is willing to take the secret of her loneliness with her to the grave.
* [[I Just Want to Be Normal]]: Ruby
* [[Incredible Shrinking Man]]: Ginger's secret room does this.
* [[Ironic Echo]]: A popular quote in the game that gets thrown around a lot is Robin's "Wolves are just dogs."
* [[Ironic Hell]]: {{spoiler|Grandma's house.}}
* [[Jigsaw Puzzle Plot]]: Mostly delivered via poetry (what the girls are thinking), brief cutscenes, heavy symbolism and images flashing across the screen for a quarter of a second.
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* [[Les Yay]]: {{spoiler|Ginger and her wolf.}}
** In Carmen's livejournal she states that if she were a man, and if Ruby wasn't related to her, she could see herself "liking" Ruby. And in one of Scarlet's entries, Carmen leaves a comment about enjoying feeling heat on her skin and Ruby comments that Carmen has "a beautiful body that is a pleasure to look at, I'm sure".
* [[Light Is Not Good]] / [[A Light in
* [[Little Dead Riding Hood]]
* [[Looks Like She Is Enjoying It]]: In Grandmother's house for {{spoiler|Carmen}} there are the sounds of saws and chopping, as well as someone moaning. It's either the sound of Grandmother in pain or {{spoiler|Carmen mid-coitus - consensual or not.}}
* [[Love Freak]]: The creators describe Rose as a passionate believer in true love, as it's the only love she knows.
** Carmen's journal seems to indicate that she too is also a passionate believer in love and romance. Though she seems to believe the only way of finding love is through sex.
* [[Madness Mantra]]: At the end of "Forest theme". "And I will eat you! And I will eat you! And I will eat you! And I will eat you eat you eat you!"
* [[Magical Negro]]: The girl in white. Maybe even literally. If you encounter her after straying from the path, she will guide back out of the forest. If you stand still and away from objects long enough, your character will act helpless and the girl in white will be drawn to your aid.
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* [[Mind Screw]]: Grandma's house, especially after encountering a wolf. {{spoiler|Special mention goes to Rose's wolf.}}
* [[Nature Hero]]: Ginger, who loves the forest so much that she has no qualms abandoning her nine year old sister at Grandma's house so she can play in the forest alone.
* [[Neat Freak]]: Scarlet is heavily implied to have an obsessive need for cleanliness.
* [[Nightmare Fetishist]]: Ruby is fascinated with the darkness of the forest, and considers cold and decaying things to be beautiful.
* [[Nothing Is Scarier]]: The woods and Grandma's house.
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* [[Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette]]: All of them except for Ginger. And Ruby dyed her hair black.
* [[Parental Abandonment]]: There is no mention of parents throughout the game, with only passing references to their mother on both the website and each of the girls' LiveJournals.
* [[Parental Favoritism]]: If you are good and obedient and go straight to grandma's house she'll have a single framed picture of your character hanging over her bed. This also applies if you wander into the forest but don't meet the wolf.
* [[Playable Epilogue]]: The demo for The Path, "Prologue" looks more like it takes place after the game. All of the landmarks are dark and pillars of smoke are everywhere, with ash falling from the sky, and strange marks on the ground.
* [[Primal Fear]]: As you run faster in the woods, the screen gets blurrier, the camera tilts well downward so you can hardly see anything in front of you, and the coin flowers become invisible. This is to simulate the feeling of running blindly in panic with no idea where you're going.
* [[Promotion to Parent]]: Scarlet.
* [[Quicksand Box]]: Though relatively small, it's incredibly easy to get completely lost in the woods and find yourself wandering aimlessly for ages if you try to get back on the path.
* [[Randomly Generated Levels]]: The position of locations within the woods move from game-to-game, as well as from character-to-character.
* [[Refusal of the Call]]: At any time a character can choose to go back home instead of visiting grandma. Behind the starting point is a phone used to call for a pickup, but you can also use the menu to return. Attempting to run back to the city will simply teleport you one map-length toward the house.
* [[Reverse Psychology]]
* [[Sadistic Choice]]: {{spoiler|You spend each character's time in the forest really learning exactly who they are and what makes them tick, and when you get to the wolf, it's either waltz them into what will guarantee a miserable death, or get out of the forest and not complete their scenario.}}
* [[Scary Black Man]]: Though it's hard to tell in-game, [http://tale-of-tales.com/ThePath/blog/2010/03/23/the-making-of-woodsman-wolf/ The woodsman] is black.
* [[Sexy Walk]]: Carmen tries to pull it off.
* [[Shout
** Shares more than a little in common with ''[[The Company of Wolves]]''.
* [[Shrug of God]]: In [http://tale-of-tales.com/ThePath/blog/2010/03/27/the-making-of-cloud-wolf/ the creators discussion on Rose's wolf], they explain that they have no idea who or what he is, not even Rose. But she ''aspires'' to know.
* [[Sinister Scraping Sound]]
* [[Spirit Advisor]]: Possible interpretation of the Girl in White.
* [[Stay
* [[Surreal Horror]]: The woods, especially if it's night. And did we mention Grandma's house?
* [[The Ghost]]: The girls' mother.
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* [[Visual Innuendo]]: {{spoiler|After each girl's encounter with their wolf, they wake up with body language that suggests... ahem... [[Is That What They're Calling It Now?|rough treatment]]; they move sluggishly and limp across the bridge to Grandma's in a torrent of rain. Also, at least two of the wolf encounters seem somewhat sexualized. Carmen essentially seduces her wolf.}}
* [[Violation of Common Sense]]: The only way to proceed in the game is to do the opposite of what the game first tells you to do.
** And even then, with all the warnings that you can only complete the game by straying from the path, if you stay on the path and do what you're told multiple times, [[Anti
* [[What Could Have Been]]: Early working progress clips [http://tale-of-tales.com/ThePath/blog/2010/03/21/2-early-protoypes/ showed there was originally] going to be some kind of dancing game included involving the wolves.
** One of the early ideas was to make Rose and Ginger twins.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Miscellaneous Games]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Path, The}}
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