#off theory

[comikbook]

ur part of the reason I just played OFF and after finishing it, I thought you might have an interesting opinion of the game's narrative. I guess I'm asking to hear it or any other thoughts you have about it?

oh boy !! my favorite fun game for cute children !!!! this will be a long post but i have tried my best to condense everything as much as possible. i will say this is a wild, images connected by string on a corkboard type analysis but hey, thats what makes it fun !

so what do i think is the story being told here ? (under the cut)

off is such an interesting game to me, because of the mystery surrounding its story. theres no clear answer, mortis ghost himself has said the game itself is up to interpretation. however there are many many theories some deep some not, and at the end of the day it may just be a game meant to be vague and weird and thats it ! but this is the theory i think fits the best from my experience playing the game.

one thing that i believe is pretty straightforward about the story is the allegory for the effects of extreme illness and its effects on the lives of people, specifically our most important character- Hugo, the sickly child who we know as the creator of the world of off (which includes the queen and the batter himself)

I will get this out of the way now, i think the overall theme of off deals with the idea of eugenics as well as religion.

we know that hugo created this world, we know he is extremely ill, we know he is lonely and most likely using the creation of the zones as a coping mechanism to escape his reality. we can see that hugos mother is most likely his primary guardian but is not often around (as the queen has duties to attend to) and his father is not present up until the start of the game- meaning he has just only now started to have relevance in hugo’s life.

now where does religion come in ? its simple, the batter is here to purify the world (the world=hugo) and he will do do by force. with this we can assume that hugo’s real life father is a religious man, even further with the idea of the three rings, three zones, etc being a reference to the holy trinity.

so back to hugo, i believe he is a sick child, terminally ill. his mother might be working all the time to cover the medical bills and his father, a religious man refused to take care of a child who is destined to die. perhaps at the start of game hugo is quite literally on his deathbed, being kept alive by machines and pumped full of medication, causing his father to have to come into the picture for them to make a choice: pull the plug (or switch the world “off”) and let hugo rest, or continue to keep him alive.

i will also agree with the idea that each of the guardians of the zones represent some level of illness or disability as well, but i will not go into tje specifics of each as this is already going to be a long post.

anyways back to the batter. he needs to rid the world of “imperfections” (catch the implication ?) and bring about an era of holiness. i believe hugo’s father did not want him as the parents knew hugo was going to be born ill, and that is why he left. God damned his soul and hugo’s father believes that hugo is in some way paying for his sins. the mother has the child, wanting to give him a chance to survive, but now hugo is reaching the end of his life. his father wants to pull the plug, to rid the world of his “impure” son, the mother wants to keep him alive and give him a chance- but most likely for selfish purposes as i believe hugo’s brain is mostly gone already, what’s left is his mind’s attempt to cope with the pain by creating this world.

the elsen are also extremely sickly, working to death mindlessly, so while i am mostly talking about the story in relation to hugo himself, it can also be assumed that perhaps some type of epidemic is going on on a larger scale. of we consider that and branch out our view, we can see this:

there are people who are sick, and there are people who are using religion to push an idea of eradicating them. some may say this is an allegory for a genocide of sorts.

but back to the small scale with hugo. what is it that caused him to be sickly ? i believe he was born this way yes but with his environment it worsened. now we get into the elements in the world of off. smoke could be the reason for his terrible cough. ive seen people say metal could refer to the chrome sterile hard surfaces of a hospital. plastic which associates the toys we see him playing with as a distraction. and meat os essential to him to keep on living. with these things in mind i also assume that perhaps while born ill hugo’s condition is worsened by living in poverty- specifically in reference to the meat- as it flows thruout the world of off in abundance, the importance of being able to access food being something very important to hugo.

and then theres the secret element: sugar.

sugar to me is representative of drugs, medical or otherwise. the sugar is there to lessen the pain of living and is extremely addictive. these drugs could be im reference to the use of substances to escape the horrid reality of poverty by the working class as well as the medication being used to keep hugo alive in the hospital, or at the very least suppressing his symptoms.

so what is it i think off is about ? i believe off is a sickly child’s perception of illness in both himself and his community, worsened by the effects of poverty amidst a complicated relationship with his parents. his mother is active but neglectful, his father wants him dead, they are fighting bacl and forth on the decision of hugo’s life. on a larger scale i feel it has to do with how religion is often a big element of eugenics and the idea of a “pure” human being, and that is often a stance taken to defend mass destruction such as genocide, and hugo happens to be a victim of that.

now this could all be the ramblings of something that has no deep meaning by a person who likes to think too hard about media, as i said none of this is really confirmed, but out of all the theories ive read and playing the game myself this is the story i assign to off, and the complexities of it is why this is my absolute favorite game !

[dndspellgifs]

look, I know I've talked about this essay (?) before but like,

If you ever needed a good demonstration of the quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", have I got an exercise for you.

Somebody made a small article explaining the basics of atomic theory but it's written in Anglish. Anglish is basically a made-up version of English where they remove any elements (words, prefixes, etc) that were originally borrowed from romance languages like french and latin, as well as greek and other foreign loanwords, keeping only those of germanic origin.

What happens is an english which is for the most part intelligible, but since a lot everyday english, and especially the scientific vocabulary, has has heavy latin and greek influence, they have to make up new words from the existing germanic-english vocabulary. For me it kind of reads super viking-ey.

Anyway when you read this article on atomic theory, in Anglish called Uncleftish Beholding, you get this text which kind of reads like a fantasy novel. Like in my mind it feels like it recontextualizes advanced scientific concepts to explain it to a viking audience from ancient times.

Even though you're familiar with the scientific ideas, because it bypasses the normal language we use for these concepts, you get a chance to examine these ideas as if you were a visitor from another civilization - and guess what, it does feel like it's about magic. It has a mythical quality to it, like it feels like a book about magic written during viking times. For me this has the same vibe as reading deep magic lore from a Robert Jordan book.

[egophiliac]

can't believe that skeleman has turned on us, and Halloween Prom is tomorrow.

(what a top-tier UM...we are about to be just totally obliterated in the absolute silliest way. what possible use could this power have outside of bringing us to the brink of utter holiday disaster.)

[tadfools]

You guys are commenting on the fics you read right? You’re at least leaving kudos on the Astarion smut and the pairs that have less than 20 fics for them too? You’re bookmarking stories you really like that are still being updated and ones that haven’t been touched in over a year right?

You know that even the smallest interactions are like cocaine to fic writers right? You understand how important a string of emoji hearts left behind on a chapter at three am is right?? Right????

You’re treating AO3 like a community and not a content factory….right?

[chloesimaginationthings]

Vanny can’t explain everything in the FNAF pizzaplex..

[acetier]

i'm So Normal about him

((close ups under cut bc idk he's pretty asdsfksdf))

[agendercryptidlev]

[ID: Meme that reads "I bring a sort of "The Patriarchy was defined by Cis Feminists and the Definition Should be Updated To Better Represent the Lived Experiences of Trans and Intersex People" Vibe to Transfeminist Theory that Radfems don't really like" the background is a photo of a man with a backwards baseball cap looking into the distance while standing outside /end ID]

[viquipo]

To be loved is to be changed

[medicalunprofessional]

ohhh hell yes

[umblrspectrum]

hi heres art so you pay attention to me now go read the tags

[screwpinecaprice]

I still find it funny that Steven isn't immune to nasal congestion. (Or something like that.) Guessing it has something to do with Gems being solar powered, some sort of connection with Vitamin D to immune system in there...?🤷🏽‍♀️ Would that be the opposite when it comes to sun-related negative effects then? 🤔 Like, he can't get a sunburn or get affected by full cosmic rays?

[getoutofmytardis]

drew these many moons ago in a frenzy. figured i’d fix them up at some point. did not get round to that lol. maybe one day! in the mean time behold my beloved ghosts<3

[hinamie]

i loved the colours in this scene too much not to do a redraw

[egophiliac]

:) hello! :D hope you have a nice day and absolutely do not think of the possibility of one of the last story cards being of silver! and that his groovy will very probably be crying!!! THERE'S SO MANY CRYING PEOPLE IN STORY CARDS LATELY!!! SPECIALLY LIGHT USERS!! I AM!!! SCARED!!!! bc so far we got Lilia and Sebek in the beginning book 7.... so at the end.... so we're missing story Silver... and Malleus is the one with less cards, so they might add one for him... but... the tears... ego.... THE TEARS!!!! EGOOOO!! (LOVE YOUR ART BTW EVERYTIME I GET A NOTIF FROM YOUR BLOG I RUN HERE TO SEE!)

(thank you! 💚💜💚)

YES I am ALSO like...90-95% convinced that we're going to be getting a story card for Silver once we wrap around back to diasomnia. 👀 especially because the way things are going, Silver will be the only character whose dream we haven't seen -- yet???? -- and that just. y'know. makes me wonder!

although I do think it would be VERY funny if he got a story card and the groovy was just "regular Silver except with one beautiful single crystal tear". this is actually a lot coming from him.

(he used up all his emotion yelling at a baby that one time, there's none left for a proper groovy-level cry.)

[metha-winifred]

This may or may not be connected to the plot of NOWHERE...

Ok i know im

Really late to the off fandom but uhm

Theory thing cuz uh i saw a thing about how the batter being hugos father was debunked due to a translation error apparently so idk 

OFF SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

Continua a leggere

[strawlessandbraless]

lol, ya… (just noticed how they’re boardered by blue and green 💙 💚)