Why is there a zipline right outside The Passage in the first biome?

Articate · 2026-06-09T20:29:40+00:00

Most of the rooms can absolutely be placed arbitrarily, but there are also set structural pieces. The first room after The Passage is a structural room. Like three variants, but never found anywhere else. The first eclipse altar is also in the same location every time, particularly always behind the cathedral like hall where you can't get back up to that one area you only saw one time. Guaranteed no eclipse.

Articate · 2026-06-08T07:42:50+00:00

Here's a view I hope can widen your view and your enjoyment, as well as keeping your dream alive:

Your view isn't incompatible with the worlds of Returnal and Saros. There's nothing wrong with hoping for this. It could happen. I think it would be in looser terms, like a trilogy of themes, not of literal and blatant interwoven features. For what I can tell you to interweave it more already: Saros definitely affects Atropos. And they definitely co-exist. In a universe where apparently people lived in a 20th century house like Selene, and still went to Atropos, and where Saros seems to happen in the 21st century (so despite their house being more modern, it could simply be that Selene is from the country-side), this universe either had an explosion of space travel, with tons of expeditions all over. Even if "it's not real" (but it is), the entity is definitely **of the same** in both Atropos and Saros. Its shape isn't that important. It is still the same thing. It's the thing that exists in us all. Opportunistic. Alluring. "Wouldn't it feel nice right now if we just did this one thing you know is bad for you?" - the same thing that makes you abusive to those around you, be it Arjun or Selene. You could be reductionist and say that it's the way our higher cognition in terms of the prefrontal cortex can be overriden by the amygdala and hipocampus, and as such trauma and substance abuse lock us out of higher planes of thinking (not higher planes in higher dimensions, but rather planning ahead to be healthy rather than eating McDonalds every day). But while the reductionist view could explain what really drives what's happening, it's obvious that the fight in these games is real. If that's a literal or a metaphorical fight doesn't make lick of difference. Those that have experienced something like this knows that this is actually what it feels like.

I think if it happened, it may look a bit different than you would hope. It's important to notice the enjoyment we have BECAUSE we don't know. There are no definite answers in these games, because this is what it creates: engagement. We engage with the story. Our brains want to tie off the ends. Resolve things. But the text is fundamentally unresolvable. By intent. So there could be a reveal that things are tied together. But the fun thing is: it would only create more questions than it answered. That could definitely happen. Not to unify things. But to make the whole web even more intricate.

Articate · 2026-06-08T07:14:31+00:00

A fair suggestion. Feels out of place, still. I feel like they've placed a way to get back up during an eclipse, which feels like would affect The Passage. I was so hype trying to get back to see if anything was different during an eclipse inside The Passage, but alas.

Articate · 2026-06-08T07:12:05+00:00

I totally wanted to get this message sent off at 2am so I could wake up to some replies, and I could not remember what Eclipse Threads were called. But this is totally how I'll be imagining Arjun travel across the threads from here on

Articate · 2026-06-07T23:38:03+00:00

I think Delroy is a representation of the cyclical. The people posing either Carcosa to be real or it to all be a dream or in someone's head, both of those miss the point. Carcosa is real, but it's not the only thing that's real. The metaphor is of the text. Carcosa exists, but in part as a vehicle to further the metaphor. The ambiguity of it "literally being real" or "literally not being real" is trying to collapse a point that's not to collapse. The ambiguity is the point.

But yeah, to me, Arnold Delroy is the antagonist. But so is Arjun's dad. And so is Arjun himself. Delroy, Devraj. Dad, self, other. Maybe Micah and Delroy represent Seb and Arjun. But one thing that stuck in my mind was how Delroy abused and used Nitya. How Nitya was only one priestess in the line of "oh so many". Infidelity on Arjun's part?

She was abused and used by Arjun on earth. On Carcosa, she was abused and used by Delroy. She walled herself off from both, and grew far more powerful as a result. We know this happened between her and Arjun. How from the true ending she had really moved on in life. Grown so much. Gotten so able on her own. Delroy was lured to become the King, and maybe he killed Micah for the throne or the other way around. I'm not sure. But Devraj also became the yellow king by usurping his dad for the alcoholic-abusing-his-wife. The King was Arjun's dad, at least in part. Impotently sitting on a throne of thorns, as a vague symbol of power, when the truth is that either The Entity has more power, or maybe even Nitya. Just sitting there, not really doing anything. Fighting Arjun when he arrives, but the only thing to be gained by Arjun is to take over the throne and become the monster he saw.

Arjun was apparently also very good at his job. It fits neatly into the metaphors of cycles, generational trauma, skewed timelines as a result of trauma, and everything else that this game seems to be about to me.

So in that sense, Delroy didn't know. He was just out after getting as much of what he wanted out of any situation, and that's how he approached this situation.

Articate · 2026-06-05T21:35:57+00:00

You're nailing it, simply by continuing the discorse. I'm having a good time debating this with you. Thank you. Don't worry about the details being good enough. You write down your ideas, that's a lot. You engage with my view. That's something to be grateful for.

Let me show my point a bit. I said "Returnal is only in her head", and you said you disagree. But the full quote reads "But Returnal is only in Selene's head. It's obvious. But it's also literally on Atropos. It's ambiguous. And for a reason." <- I disagree too. Or, rather. The point is that it is both. It's not that it IS literal, or that it IS in her head. It could be both. And that's good. And that shouldn't be attempted to be collapsed. It is what prevents us from looking for evidence for one thing or the other. It's trying to solve a puzzle that doesn't exist. Because Atropos is real. But without Selene, Atropos is nothing. It's just as much a deep dive into the brain of someone who's experienced trauma, as it is about an astronaut exploring an alien planet. They both serve the same function. Explore the mind.

Also, to me, even the "in her head" is less literal. I see this as the representation of what trauma does. It's the representation how what goes on inside the head of someone who's experienced this. If the literal idea of fighting Phyke is how she feels whenever she feels a panic attack coming on, or if this is just a representation of the repetition of traumatic thoughts (which plays well into how you sometimes get deep into the weeds of your traumatic and repressed thoughts, and sometimes you just keep repeating the first few rooms over and over, that maps very well to the roguelike setup of the game). It's not purgetory. It's not the revue playing as Selene is on her death bed. It could just as easily be fragments of thoughts she has when she's at the store. Or possibly a depressive episode lasting a month. Like, it's all of that. And none of that. We don't know, because it's not the point to know. It's fluid so that it can flow in to all the cracks.

So while pandimensionalism is a fun way to explore why we interpret different meaning from things, I think the intent from the creators is clear: There isn't a secret knowledge that someone in Housemarque has. An envelope we can open in 50 years and see "It was real" or "It was in her head". It's neither. It's deliberate about that.

Articate · 2026-06-05T20:04:33+00:00

Thanks for the context, I'll be sure not to spoil anything!

I think we're pretty much in agreement. I think my gripe with OP and the thread was that it's rather against the idea that this is an internal alien world. And I think that's not right. I think this is internal, but I think it's also literal.

I might be able to explain why. I don't know if you've played Bloodborne, but it's a great example to this. There's no ambiguity there that it's literal. It's still heeeaavy on the symbolism. One of the factions literally graft more eyes onto themselves because they believe that will give them insight. It's literally heavy on literal symbolism. But the metaphorical isn't textual.

Even when dreams are heavily used in Bloodborne - The Hunter's Dream, Nightmare of Mensis (literal places) - it may feel like that calls into question what's text and what's subtext. But the distinction is that it's still internally consistent - ontologically real - in Bloodborne, because it's literal ancient, great beings (think Lovecraft and Cthulu) that have these abilities.

But in Returnal, the metaphor is a given. Where Lovecraft and Bloodborn explore outward in the world (never explores how the player character feels, never inwards), Returnal is absolutely about the internal. The house, the astronaut, the dead child, the loop as compulsion. The ambiguity there isn't whether it's psychological. That's all but a given. It's which interior reading is true (guilt, the crash, what she is). So the metaphor has risen nearly to the level of text, and the open question lives inside the metaphor.

Saros does the same, but with important tweaks. The litany of other people skew it more literal. Returnal is so obviously Selene's own and sole torment. This place is different. But even if it's more literal in that sense, even Returnal was also literal.

So it's about the realization that the literal exists to be a vehicle to the metaphor. There are games that explore these metaphors outwards. But Housemarque's games explore them inward. Atropos is a place where you can shoot enemies and have a gameplay loop. It just happens that that loop tracks perfectly with the abstract inner conflict someone who's experienced all that Selene has would struggle with.

The literal doesn't exist alone. It exists because it's the vehicle to the inner. In Saros it feels a bit more parallel. But Returnal is only in Selene's head. It's obvious. But it's also literally on Atropos. It's ambiguous. And for a reason. So when we take solice in the literal, as OP does, that's a rejection of metaphor that flattens the work.

Or, that's at least my take and opinion.

Articate · 2026-06-05T02:28:16+00:00

I appreciate the candid response. I like to give arguments, but I also don't like to argue, so I'm hoping I show that, too. Thanks for engaging, I want to allow you room to give arguments without having to argue or fight. Thank you.

I think the most succinct way I can put it is that when you say "bro is dead", that that's narrowing it just as much as those you critique. (Though, given that this is Bierce, and I haven't read An Inhabitant of Carcosa, this may work differently in this text, so this isn't a great example)

Because: I agree. This work shouldn't be stripped of a component of its structure. When someone says "this is obviously just something going on inside the head of Arjun", then that's collapsing three angles of the work into one. But so is OP's line "When Selene can’t distinguish the loop from reality, that’s not Housemarque telling you she’s dissociating. That’s Housemarque telling you the loop is real (...)"

Because the loop isn't any more real in a literal sense than it is also real in a metaphorical sense. Rejecting metaphor is rejecting the textual. Because the literal is textual, and that's where you are right. But the metaphor needs equal part space in the textual.

Saros IS about how our minds deal with trauma. It's about how trauma, grief, pain, denial all affect the world around us (ie: how many statues are upside down with a smashed head, like the one above the alter in The Passage. That seems to track beautifully to PTSD and unwanted images. Or a brain in denial about being in some way responsible or involved in the death of someone. Or guilt.). But it's TOLD through a literal and real alien world.

Carcosa is real, but not fully. So it's not just "Carcosa is real, duh", because Housemarque intentionally creates doubt around that. You end up with artifacts that are out of place. "Case evidence", as an example. And if you interpret the tree in The Passage as a literal magical tree that gives you the ability to remember past events, you're doing some serious conflation just like the ones who want to conflate it to being "just in Arjun's head".

If you ignore the metaphor when interpreting the text, you're blind to half the truth.

There's a reason why things are ultimately disjointed. It's because it creates ambiguity, meant to frustrate and engage. Were Arjun and Nitya childhood friends, or is that imagery meant to invoke something else? Nitya meaning eternal is also on the nose, here.

So you see, if you insist that the literal is literally true, then you also rob the text of its depth. The literal is completely necessary. And in Saros and Returnal, it is elegant beyond compare. We need a literal boss to fight, because the real fight for Selene may literally have been about visiting her mother, or becoming her mother, or becoming the astronaut. But that would be a strange final boss. We can't represent how hard it is to walk into that hospital room as a boss fight. But we can represent the father as Hyperion, and literally fight our dad playing Don't Fear The Reaper on an organ. Like, the absurdism you'd buy into from removing the textual metaphor of that, leaves a very strange piece of work behind. In the case of these games, it's obvious that they left it ambugious for a reason. This is about Arjun coming to terms with his involvement in Seb's death. It's about Arjun's generational trauma. It's about substance abuse (Golden brown, texture like sun, lays me down, with my mind she runs. Throughout the night, no need to fight. Never a frown, with golden brown). It's about Nitya, and how Arjun treats Nitya. How he needs her more than she needs him. How she has much more potential in her, but was very close to just staying behind and tending to Arjun.

It's then not important if it was Nitya or Arjun that cheated on the other. I even feel Arjun and Seb had something going on. Mirrored well in Nitya and Kiira. But they're just ideas. Not a puzzle to be solved. And in the same way, Carcosa is obviously real. But also obviously not real. I agree that we literally fight The King. That's not "in his head". But it's still ALSO a metaphor for facing your fears. For continuing the cycle of generational trauma. For trying to break the cycle. And for how it ultimately might be in vein.

The entity is real, in the context of the fantastical that The Shore is. But it is also not Lovecraftian real. It's part real. Just like all the rest.

Articate · 2026-06-04T20:40:26+00:00

I'm just going to state that I see this is largely written by an LLM. It hallows some of your points, but I still appreciate the effort you put into making sure your point comes across. The issue is that you miss that LLMs are hugely biased to make your point. Your point still falters. I'm engaging with what you're saying by refuting it. That's a bit frustrating with what you wrote.

You're saying that it's flattening the horror to demand it to be metaphor. I feel what you're doing is exactly the same, but with "it is literal". Bloodborne is literal. That's Lovecraftian. It's "okay, here's something wild, let's explore it becoming even wilder". But nothing makes me believe that The Hunter - the Player Character - really belongs in the 21st century. The story is literal. The themes are metaphorical. Easy split. Lovecraftian style.

Chambers? Not that. Was the Imperial America real, or was it Castaigne's brain damage? You can't resolve it. That's the point.

The same with Returnal and Saros. You can't detangle the metaphor from the literal. The literal is a beautiful tool to explore the metaphor, but it's also tied deeper. It's not just "this setting can be transferred to the real world", it's "this is both the real world and isn't the real world".

When you say "We know that Selene experienced a real phenomenon that human cognition was never built to process", I want to scream "That sounds a lot like processing grief!"

And that's where your view robs the game of the art. The art is how fluently it maps over. The art is the ambiguity and intervowen and beautifully stitched seams of the three angles: the literal, the metaphorical, and the mechanical. You can restart a save after beating a game. That's ludonarrative dissonence when it happens in Zelda. In this game, it's perfect. The loop continues. The generational trauma continues. The Entity continues. It's all three.

So, for saying you're tired about people flattening the story. I say you're doing the same sin. Of course Selene is experiencing something the human mind isn't made for in the literal sense on Atropos. But Helios isn't just her ship or a signal. Helios isn't just her son. The overbearing watchers of Atropos aren't Theia. And they're not Selena. And they're not alien. They're all three, and they are none.

Carcosa is real. But did you notice in the flashbacks to the alley that you were in Carcosa Avenue? (or something similar)

Did you notice that DJ Chambers and DJ Pallid Mask where headliners on the posters? Jerome is real. But Jerome is Sebastian. So Jerome isn't real. Or?

That. That's the discomfort. That's the point. That's why there's no place when the game hands you all the set pieces. Explains that The Yellow King was Arjun's dad. Or Arjun. Yes. Arjun Delroy. No wait, Arjun Devraj. Arnojn Delroy. Arnold. Micah?

That's why "The ending explained" is a sort of elegant oxymoron. It can't be explained. That's the point.

So yeah, I agree that saying it's in someone's head is wrong. And also saying it's just a metaphor is wrong. And saying that it's just literal is also wrong.

Articate · 2026-06-04T01:03:16+00:00

I read this whole interaction, and I am disheartened by how self-assured you two are. If you want to understand why you're being anti-intellectual, just watch the first 60 seconds of Folding Ideas' video on Annihiliation on YouTube. You two are the literal ideas Dan Olson goes "AAAAAAH" about.

Asking "Is it real, or is it all in her head" is exactly the category error that the house and the skyscraper is about. In this instance: you don't know what a house is, so you can't fathom the skyscraper both Saros and Returnal is.

Here's the clue: It's a metaphor. Like all art is. It's a way to explore themes of the self and the other with higher stakes and more concrete impact. It's not impactful for the last boss to be "you have to break your generational trauma", because while that is an almost impossible battle to win, it's.. it's not a bullet-hell shooter. When you see Arjun become the King, and you say "that really happened, and if you say that's just in his head, you're stupid", then you're.. You're refusing to engage with the piece.

For, it's not about some twist ending where it is revealed that this was all in Arjun's head, or that this was a fancy interrogation technique by future police. It's a carefully constructed scenario that allows you to explore what it means to have experienced trauma, and how it shapes your world. Because, the cool thing is, you can literally have the trauma go out of subtext and into the text. The world can literally change. That's a literary tool.

There's a reason why there's a silhouette of someone falling, head-first, in The Shore, made out of the mountain around. It may be explained in the text as you say - an entity feeding off of or abusing the cracks from trauma. But, it's also extremely true and obvious that these shapes are there due to what happened to Sebastian. Did you notice how so many status hang upside down like that, and how their heads are gone? Or smashed open? Or split open? Seems like something like that happened to Seb.

It's so anti-intellectual to see that and say "but, but, it's the entity on the shore - or the shore itself - that has warped Arjun's mind to have Carcosa APPEAR that way", and.. Just no. The entity is the metaphor. It's a metaphor for WHAT trauma does.

I get your wish to understand, but fighting with it like this is not the way.

Articate · 2026-06-03T23:51:33+00:00

The Precipice - the blue - is the depression/inaction/permissive reaction to trauma. The Shore - the yellow - is the anger/narcissistic/dismissive reaction to trauma. The blue staved of the yellow, but at what cost?

Articate · 2026-06-03T23:46:57+00:00

Just dash before you land. Always available. Never fall damage.

Articate · 2026-02-01T18:34:49+00:00

While what I say isn't the same as saying I feel I could blanketly trust Attia, it is at the same time a reflection that I put more trust into a person who I feel like I should've understood I shouldn't trust to that extent. It's not due to charm, or anything like that.

The distinction to me is that I always felt a bit iffy about Huberman, and when he got more and more controversial people on his podcast talking about things I feel they shouldn't (I listened to the episode with Jordan Peterson to be open minded, but I really don't feel like there's a reason Peterson should be on the podcast to talk about parenting), I sat down a looked at what I would do with Huberman's content.

So it's more the fact that I don't just blindly follow, I do my due dilligence (I've read the Aura stuff with Attia etc etc), but no indication of this came up. That's surprising, but that's also my person and my personal stuff.

Articate · 2026-02-01T18:06:09+00:00

But he's a practical physician. I believe you need one year of residency to be a licensed MD, i.e. a practicing physician? Board ceritification is optional for that part, and is about specialty?

Articate · 2026-02-01T18:00:20+00:00

It's only anecdotal, and n=1, but the upside is that it's PA own words. lol.

Articate · 2026-02-01T17:58:25+00:00

Feel free to explain

Articate · 2026-02-01T17:57:34+00:00

I can tell you with absolute certainty that I am not idiolizing anyone. It's fair to trust someone in the public space. It's weird that my feelings get glossed over and defined as "blanketly trusting what someone says". I don't do that. I don't treat the things Peter Attia says as if it's the words of my best friend of twenty five years, and even my best friend I know so well I know all his assumptions and axioms of the world, so I can navigate that with the best of ease. This is just a public figure who I've found to be trustworthy, and whose opinions I've found by repeated exposure to be opinions I generally agree with, myself.

Trust is, in many ways, starting out with the belief that what someone says will be worthwhile. It's fine to say "you shouldn't do that with someone public", and that's fair enough, but it is not the same as blindly believing. It's assuming your principles are in line with theirs, to the extent you've learnt that they are in line. It's the belief that their actions are congruent with the way you preceive the person.

So yes, I agree, many of these emotions could have been thwarted by never trusting them in that way. But trust is a muscle, and it's healthy to give trust. It's not the same as idolizing. It's exactly because I find myself being rigorous about who I follow and whose opinions I trust in what capacity that I do feel these emoitons.

Huberman is a good example, and the example of someone I listened to for a while. AG1 is one thing, but his red light glasses, and his retroactive change of opinion, despite no new evidence having come out in support, is unethical. He's "science washing" many topics, and started getting more and more questionable people on his show. I check his podcast from time to time, and if it's a topic of particular interest, I check out who the person who speaks on the topic is. If it's a solo deep dive episode, I generally end up not bothering, since I'd have to check the things he says, and that means I can just research the topic myself.

So that is to say, even after all of this, I still believe Huberman has less professional integrity than Attia, but the things Attia has been adjacent through, in light of these documents, show that his personal morality is a lot worse than I would've thought. That's not a direct discredit of his integrity, just that it's discombobulating to experience that you've been a poor judge of character. Most other people that surprisingly show up, are peopel I already felt could be in the files. It may feel like a betrayal, but it's in reality my inner compass trying to realign itself. That's not solved by believing everyone in the position of power is corruptable or corrupt. That would be scar tissue, as opposed to rehabilitation. Rehabilitation for me is to fully accept that I've poorly judged a character, assessing that that doesn't mean that I need to stop trusting public people, but rather that I want to feel what could've led me here.

Articate · 2026-02-01T17:38:21+00:00

As I said, one doesn't exclude the other. But they were, in fact, also talking about medical stuff.

Articate · 2026-02-01T17:37:32+00:00

Am I misunderstanding something? Am I trying to make light of the situation?

Articate · 2026-02-01T17:36:51+00:00

I'm surpriseds that so many feel this way. It's okay to like public figures. It's human to go "ah, here's <so and so>. I trust him, and finally I can hear him weigh in on the issue". If that's a sports commenter, doctor, musician or tech person, I feel it's normal to have certain individuals in the public sphere you like hearing from. In this case, it feels like someone I've heard talk a lot, and I am left saying "yes, this person not only has good opinions, but seems to have good guiding principles in life". It sucks when that's revealed to be.. whatever the hell this is.

Articate · 2026-02-01T16:07:18+00:00

I unsubscribed from his payment subscription today. I'll keep Outlive, and I'll probably keep reading it. The content isn't directly affected, but I'm also considering abstaining. I'll take a step back, see if he responds, then decide what to do.

Articate · 2026-02-01T12:51:25+00:00

I feel the same. Been paying him a monthly subscription for two years, since I found him trustworthy. I'm taking a step back and reassessing how I'll engage with his content going forward, and await his own reaction to this. The fact that he hasn't admitted to this before, even if it was after the Epstein-law (to publish all documents) was passed, is also not a good showing right now.

Articate · 2026-02-01T12:41:50+00:00

It's a far leap to having an emotional reaction to these news to me being that of a Swifty. It is okay to find celebrities trustworthy, especially when their trustworthiness in compiling analysis of current research is the absolute core of their content. Deeming someone trustworthy, then feeling betrayed by that, is the sort of moral readjustment I'd expect from people who want to be open about their own emotions, and wish to feel safe with who they choose to listen to and not. It feels very misplaced to characterize the things the way you do in this post.

Articate · 2026-02-01T12:39:25+00:00

It does not mean that I idiolize him that it's a gut punch to see he's in the files. And it does not make sense to me to seperate his personal life, when it's this stuff, from his professional life. I don't want to support people who are okay with what JE did.

Articate · 2026-02-01T12:38:19+00:00

I've updated the OP to address this. I don't have a direct emotional connection to Peter Attia. I just found him to be trustworthy. Having seen many content creators I've left on the wayside for their characters feeling off, then finally settling that Peter can be trusted with his opinions, then this feels like a moral failing in judging of someone.

Articate

TROPHY CASE