Cause of death: Confusion...(Spoiler, Duh)

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Harrys_Girl
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Cause of death: Confusion...(Spoiler, Duh)

Post by Harrys_Girl »

Okay, I dont know if I am just abundantly being an idot or if this is a legit topic...
(oh... and I did a search but didnt find anything....unless I am really an idoit as perviously stated)


There are a total of (some amount) of picture stating deaths.
I.E. :
Cause of Death: Snake Bite in Cleaopatra's room.

My question is , well that one was easy to find relavance, but the others... not so much. Like the stabbing one, the gun shot. The only other one that made sense was the "cause of Death: Broken Heart" for Travis' father.


Does anyone have a therory or can draw some sort of damn line of relavance to major figures of history to the causes of death, like Cleaopatra and the snake bite. The stabbing could be linked to Ceaser, and the gun shot could be Curt Cobain for all I can gather.


Anyone else got something brewing...?
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Post by Video Gamer »

Suicide.
Everyone one of those pictures represents suicide.
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Post by Harrys_Girl »

well.... possibly. But there are more ways to die by way of suicide.

I thought that too, but then there was no "Cause of Death: Poision" And that is the leading cause or death in suicides of women. The use either pills, or another substance to die. And this was not represented... unless I missed one... :shock:
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Post by AuraTwilight »

Snake Bite = Poison.
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Post by Harrys_Girl »

Well, I suppose snake bite would be poison.

And what of Slitting ones wrists? Of hanging oneself?

There are literally doaens of ways to commit suicide, so why just those ways? There must be some underlying pattern in those causes.
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Post by AdjectiveRyan »

I remember coming across those pictures and thinking that it was going to lead to some type of puzzle but I was sorely mistaken. on my second playthrough I don't even think I'll bother looking at them as I cross them. oh, maybe just a peek... :roll:
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Post by TenderMercy »

I also thought that they would have a use...but they didn't. It's seemed like there was a lot of that going around in SHO, especially at the hotel.
...sounds like kittens...
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Post by Harrys_Girl »

You got a point there TenderMercy.

I assumed that since these were all ways of dying, I was preparing myself to get a bad ending and watch Travis off himself.. but instead I got the good ending the first play through, the UFO on my second playthrough and the bad ending my third. And in not one of those endings to you see Travis kill himself.

Kinda like they were trying to make a point and forgot where they were going, so they just tied it to his fathers death.
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Post by MisterGrey »

The photographs certainly add an extra element of ickiness to the motel. Consider this: The obvious reason for the peepholes would be to watch patrons shower. However, most of the peepholes are aligned with the toilets. Also consider that, presuming the photos are real and not a product of Travis' Otherworld, whoever is back in that maintenance hallway has not only apparently been watching people do their business, but has been making polaroid snuff-pictures. There's some psychological mind-fornication right there.
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Post by jthomp1286 »

Harrys_Girl wrote:Kinda like they were trying to make a point and forgot where they were going, so they just tied it to his fathers death.
Or that was the point all along.
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Post by Harrys_Girl »

Yeah, that was another thing MisterGrey. It was aligned with the toliet. It made me really uncomfotable to go to the bathroom in my downstairs bathroom cause the toilet is facing the mirror. So I only go in my upstairs bathroom, cause the mirror faces the door.

Defiantly adds more of the ick factor.
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Re: Cause of death: Confusion...(Spoiler, Duh)

Post by HeartlessBastard »

They're all pictures of women. Like, Snakebite is a reference to Cleoprata, Stabbing is a reference to Juliet, Overdose is a reference to Marlin Moonroe. But what about shotgun, does anyone knows?
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Re: Cause of death: Confusion...(Spoiler, Duh)

Post by LastGunslinger »

Is the Stabbing photo actually a picture of a woman? It's hard to tell from low-res photos online and I haven't played it recently, but I know that it's found in the Nero room, and Nero of Rome was an assisted suicide; he had one of his men stab him.

As for the meaning behind the pictures, they could be trying to draw parallels with the motivations of these historical figures for suicide--different stages or realisations that Travis' father went through in the process of deciding to kill himself.

They could also be representative of actual suicide attempts; poison and drug overdoses aren't always guarantees of death, especially if the person is found and hospitalised immediately. Same thing with wrist-cutting, although the allusion to assisted suicide might also mean Travis' father asked someone to help him kill himself, and was refused. The fact that the last photo lists the cause as "Broken Heart" might mean that was the final truth that spurred him on to successfully kill himself, when the previous attempts were more like cries for help.
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Re: Cause of death: Confusion...(Spoiler, Duh)

Post by The Adversary »

Image

SHOTGUN, SNAKEBITE, OVERDOSE, STABBING, BROKEN HEART

These are slightly edited from the in-game version. All I did was brighten them, do a little dodging in Photoshop, and of course squared them.

I don't believe these are actually suicides. I think they're murders posed as suicides, besides Richard's Broken Heart.

What's conflicting is the locations in which they're found compared to who they represent.

The first one is the most troubling (for me, at least). Shotgun is found at the end of the maintenance walkway where the peepholes are located. This alone doesn't really mean anything as it doesn't relate to any specific room, like the others. The victim, then, could have been killed just about anywhere. Of note, though, is that Travis sees the Butcher in one of these rooms through the peephole—the one with the photographs/makeshift darkroom. This is where the Manager's Office key is found, as well, perhaps implying that the manager is the one killed by shotgun.

The second one Travis finds, Snakebite, is in the Cleopatra room. I don't think the victim here actually killed herself by snakebite, but rather was poisoned by her killer. This is an obvious allusion to Cleopatra herself.

The third, Overdose, is in the Rose Suite, where Lisa and M.K. are found post-coitus. A photo of Marilyn Monroe is found in this room, as well. Pretty obvious one here, too.

Stabbing is also a bit confusing. This photo is found in the Nero room, who was killed via assisted suicide-by-stabbing, on 9 June, 68 CE. However, I think this actually refers to Lucretia, whose room is immediately next door. Lucretia stabbed herself to death in 510 BCE after being raped. The photo definitely looks feminine.

And, finally, there's Richard; or, Broken Heart. This appears to be the only photo depicting a male, and we know that Richard hanged himself—he was not murdered. This is also the only photo where the victim is clothed.

And, to be honest, if you look at it, it sort of looks like a selfie. . . . Which is a little strange, right?

Therefore:

I believe that Richard Grady is actually the person responsible for killing these women. After his wife Helen attempted suicide, he went into a bout of serious depression, and I think he just kinda . . . snapped. Why else would he take his son to a sleazy motel to kill himself? He could have done that anywhere. I think he killed these four women and ended his own life in his motel room while Travis was playing pinball and that the Butcher is actually a representation of Travis' homicidal father, and not necessarily Travis' potential violent tendencies.
Last edited by The Adversary on 16 Dec 2022, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Cause of death: Confusion...(Spoiler, Duh)

Post by Droo »

I thought Travis was the one implicated to possibly be a serial killer. It was his dad? Or both of them?
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I can see it with eyes closed
Shadows that look like blood
Dead as far as the mind goes
Fear that comes from my head
Lives in the mirror"
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Re: Cause of death: Confusion...(Spoiler, Duh)

Post by The Adversary »

That was always the initial thought, but I never bought into it. I literally had an eye-opening, Holy shit moment after looking into the Polaroids more closely, while I was writing all that.

I do think Richard's main fear was Travis following in his mother's footsteps, and eventually his own—and in that regard, in the Bad ending maybe he does—but in the story itself, Richard is the one responsible for the deaths of the "suicide" photos in Riverside Motel, and, thus, the foundation for the Butcher that Travis sees.

I was gonna make a new topic out of this today but I didn’t out of convenience. I still very well may do so. Might be my first one that matters in a decade.

Sheesh.

To further add to this, Richard writes a letter to Helen that Travis finds in Riverside Motel. In it, he exclaims:

To my absent wife,

I have slept alone for the last two years. I've become so bitter, so sleazy! I'm no father to Travis. I can't even look at him some days.


Riverside Motel definitely has the sleazy vibe, especially considering Dr. Kaufmann takes his underage nurse trainee there to bang. I'm becoming more and more convinced that Richard, over the past two years while Helen has been institutionalized, was encountering women (possibly prostitutes) and killing them, and these photos are his murder mementos. Certainly not all at once. Hell, he might have even dumped the bodies in the trashcan behind him in the photo to dispose of them, one by one.
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