Braid Forum

I didn't see any threads on Braid's themes yet and was hoping to spur some sort of discussion on the subject. While I'm not going to pretend to have a sold story down, there are some themes that are definitely pushed into your face over the course of the game.

The title of the game, Braid, is mentioned at least twice in the game, both times attached to some sort of violence. Once, early in the game, "the princess' braid" lashes at Tim. Also, if you read the hidden texts (those that only appear in the epilogue cloud world when 1. a red book is open and 2. Tim is standing on a spot that emotes an angelic note) at the end of the game, the candy shop story talks of Tim pulling violently at his mother's braid in an effort to get the forbidden candy/scientific tools. You could probably infer some mommy issues in this linkage, but I haven't really thought about that too much.

What got me more curious about the name Braid is that there's a professor Donald Braid from Butler who wrote an article, "Doing Good Physics": Narrative and Innovation in Research which is apparently about learning from past successes and failures in physics. In particular, from what I've found (I've not read the article, I just finished Braid and googled some of my ideas about the game) there's mention of avoiding danger and embarrassment by learning through others' past experiences. There are repeated themes of learning from mistakes throughout Braid. It's the bulk of the story leading into level 2, in fact.

Now, I've gone from the name Braid to this professor's article from 2006, and that kind of ties back into some of the more in your face themes that the game offers. Donald Braid was writing about physics. The game pretty clearly depicts the Manhattan project by the epilogue. The whole "now we're all sons of bitches" line and depiction of a bomb being tested in the desert. Also, the narrative mentions Manhattan as a setting of what I assume is Tim's adult life. When he's running through the city with a girl not called "the princess."

Finally, "the princess" is depicted as (abstractly) some sort of glimmering hope that will bring peace and happiness to not just Tim, but the entire world. In the epilogue, "the princess" is the atomic bomb. It's pretty clear when you read the hidden text (that you need the angelic voices to read) on the screen that quotes Oppenheimer.

Anyhow, I just wanted to touch on that one train of circular thought. The game is a story and a warning about a fictional man behind the atomic bomb. He works his whole life, socially awkward, looking for this one unattainable goal of the princess. Whether this goal changes over time and eventually becomes world peace via the bomb, or is world peace via some avenue for Tim's entire life, or is just this ever changing goal of doing something great or finding something better, it seems clear by the end that Tim is looking for world peace. What's interesting about this is the epilogue of world 1 (the final world). This would lead me to believe that the entire game that you played prior to world 1 (worlds 2-6) are actually David Lynch-ish pseudo-realities constructed in the protangonist's own mind to cope with the horror he unleashed via his quest for something noble and great (assuming peace was Tim's goal and the bomb was his means). This also makes sense in that the memories are cloudy and vague. They're sometimes idealistic. They're almost certainly metaphors. Tim needs to piece together the puzzles that are his memories.

On an absolute final note, I suppose the last scene of gameplay makes sense in this light. Tim enters a cave and sees this villain with a woman in his arms. She runs away looking for help as this villain demands that she return and throws a tantrum shaking the earth he stands on. Tim runs towards this damsel in distress with the goal of saving her. I believe she represents humanity. She's not the princess at all. the princess is only an idea. He runs through the cave, trying to rescue her as she helps him along from above ground. The entire time, this massive explosion of flames chases our hero Tim. But when we get the end and realize that Tim was actually the threat, the woman (humanity) runs from Tim, the real villain, into the waiting arms of her white knight. She drops all the traps she can at the villian Tim en route to her waiting hero. This scene, would then be the realization that Tim isn't bringing the princess to the world, he's not making it a better place, he's the monster bringing upon destruction. That's world 1. That's how it all begins. That's what happens prior to Tim walking across a flaming city into his house, trying to piece his mind back together (as the game started when you first turned it on).

So, that's my 10 minutes of spewing my brains onto the forum sans spellcheck or a re-read. If I did that, this little blip would grow ten times in size. Any thoughts? Am I nuts? Is this a viable idea as to what the game is really about? Did I miss the story thread (I was shocked to not find one)?

EDIT: That really was a brain-spew. Spell-checked.....

Great post.......makes me look at the story in a whole different light.  The whole nuclear bomb vibe had not even entered my head, will go through the story again with an even more open mind!!

Plus, not sure if you know this but David Lynch gets a thanks in Braid's credits. ;) 

I did not know that. Awesome director. Serves me right for not viewing them (which I'm about to).

As for the bomb theory, the Oppenheimer quote was what hit me in the nose and sent me down that path. I'm curious to read other interpretations if anyone out there has them.

nutter said:

"I did not know that. Awesome director. Serves me right for not viewing them (which I'm about to).

As for the bomb theory, the Oppenheimer quote was what hit me in the nose and sent me down that path. I'm curious to read other interpretations if anyone out there has them."

i heard the angelic tone in the epilogue but didn't catch the writing.....gonna check it next time I'm on it....thnx for that one!

PS Mullholland Drive, one of my Fav Movies. ;)

i did wonder what that lift was all about at the end.....i need to take another SERIOUS look at the epilogue.....thanks bro

Yeah, consider the scene with the knight and the girl the part in Mulholland drive where Betty realizes that things aren't as she believed them to be (after returning from the performance at the club). The epilogue is then likened to the rest of Mulholland drive where reality crashes into the storybook world.

It's weird, trying to explain your take on something abstract by using Mulholland Drive.

To answer your last question in the first post: Yes you did miss the thread, it is here: http://www.giantbomb.com/braid/61-20716/so-what-is-this-game-about-anyway-spoiltastic/35-9941/#3 But maybe the title was misleading and there is nothing going on in there, so we can use this thread I guess, I'll just repost what I wrote in there:

"So, I played through the game in one go. Haven't done a speed-run yet and have not collected any stars, but I'm not sure if this will add anything to the story any way. After I had read the books in the Epilogue last night, I couldn't stop thinking about what this game actually means to say. It's just like the dude from Eurogamer said, you keep thinking about it, even dreaming about it.
I have basically found to interpretations: 

• Tim is a psycho-maniac who stalks this poor girl and justifies this by his weird princess story, all of this probably because his Mom was mean to him and he could never get what he wanted (the candy store thing). Most of the game is just in his mind and actually only the last scene before the Epilogue is "real".

• Tim is some sort of scientist who manipulates time to find his princess, but he is not even sure if she exists, he might also be crazy like above.

My interpretation while playing the game was a less psycho, more desperate Tim. One book said that even if he found his princess, the world would not allow him to have her, it would actually break the world, because you can't have the perfect "special someone". This is mirrored by her running away and Tim trying to (desperately) fight for his dream of the princess, but she runs away with another man (who might also just symbolize the cruel reality). The core message would be something like: There is no perfect princess. That's why leaving his girl for the search for some princess was the biggest mistake Tim ever made.

Upon reading the other opinions though (which all make just as much sense, I think), I am just even more excited about the game and want to play it again as soon as possible. This is the first game I have ever seen a discussion about interpretations of its story. This is frackin art. Yes it's weird and maybe it doesn't really make any sense, but maybe that's what it's supposed to be. It reminds me of the stream of consciousness ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_consciousness_writing) technique found in literature, especially Finnegan's Wake ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_Wake_(novel) ) by James Joyce or Naked Lunch ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch ) by William S. Burroughs. It's just this crazy mess, shifting perspective, flowing back and forth through time, making no sense at times and than clicking together. Just like the actual gameplay. I would dare to say, this is the first stream of consciousness game, at least a modernist game. It's even less traditional than stream of consciousness in its free flowing narrative and gameplay. It makes even more sense that the game actually has no beginning or end. The Epilogue could be the Prologue, you start in World 2 and end up in World 1 (in which you actually go backwards in time (the flower image) and then find yourself at what you thought was the beginning). It doesn't matter where you start, you always come back to where you were, which is just like Finnigan's Wake works, I think. It also fits the theme of "This is the world, or snapshots of it, go and do what you can with it"

So, my final interpretation would be, that this game is supposed to just get you to make your own interpretation. Find what you think is meaningful, create your own story. Don't listen to what others say, each bit you take and put together is just there because it is significant to you. The strongest story part of the entire game and something that has already really had an impact on me is the last screen of the Epilogue. The castle built from the icons of the levels you passed through. What the books on this screen say is just so true and brilliant. This is also a moment where Blow breaks the foruth wall, the way I see it, "he does not understand" (or something like that), this is not Tim. It's you, the player. This is what you should take away from this. Now go. Build your own castle.

On a side note: If you want to know who the quote (the one marked with the footnote 1 in the epilogue) is from, watch the credits. That was another piece of brilliance in this game, just a subtle, but brilliant touch. Oh and yould you also please post the name, I can't watch the credits right now and forgot who it was and I'd really like to know exactly where the quote is from. Thanks ;)"

There was also a blogpost linked in that thread, that also supports the interpretation of Tim being part of the Manhattan Project: http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/MaSuTa/what-i-think-braid-is-about/30-7261/

One thing I wanted to add is how much I love the fact, that this game even starts such thoughts and discussions. More games should be like that.

Incase you haven't played them, DerBonk, I suggest checking out Bioshock (for it's passive story-telling/social commentary using the environment) and Silent Hill 2. SH2 has one of the best stories and soundtracks in the history of gaming, IMO. It'll also leave you going back and playing over and over trying to get more and more meaning and clairity out of things.

Ultimately, my time "analyzing" the game was spent thinking about the work as a means of discussion about the medium. What I saw in the game was a world purposely drawn and designed in metaphor and hallucination with a much more simplistic goal: to illustrate a life spent in pursuit of....well, anything. The princess could be true love or adventure, or-and this is the one I really like- just human experience.  Tim's desire to take a life time of experiences-of different worlds and different times- and turn them into a castle, a strong foundation- ultimately stuck me as a powerful metaphor for growing up, of learning, understanding, and, inevitably, fearing time.
All the different portraits that the player has to rebuild- the child underneath the covers, the sullen teen isolated from friends, the silent young man on the streets: all of those pictures struck me as a young man disillusioned with the way his life has turned out. The princess he is searching for: I took it to mean his childhood, his beloved years as a youth(from that candy store metaphor in the epilogue) were ripped away by time, despite his efforts to maintain and pursue it, his childhood was taken away. Despite his greater, more nuanced knowedge of time, Tim will never be able to reclaim that lost time. But he'll(and I know I) will keep looking for that lost time as well. It's not here right now, but maybe its in another castle.
Hope that wasn't too.....crazy. These are really excellent interpretations of the game, and it got my brains working.

DerBonk:
So, my final interpretation would be, that this game is supposed to just get you to make your own interpretation. Find what you think is meaningful, create your own story. Don't listen to what others say, each bit you take and put together is just there because it is significant to you. The strongest story part of the entire game and something that has already really had an impact on me is the last screen of the Epilogue. The castle built from the icons of the levels you passed through. What the books on this screen say is just so true and brilliant. This is also a moment where Blow breaks the foruth wall, the way I see it, "he does not understand" (or something like that), this is not Tim. It's you, the player. This is what you should take away from this. Now go. Build your own castle.

DerBonk, I think your interpretation-Braid as a game that is meant for the player to design their own interpretation- is dead on.
Try this:go to the very last "page" of the Epilogue. Replace every instance of a pronoun(all the "his" and such) and replace it, in your mind, with the word "You".
If that doesn't validate your theory, I don't know what does.

Tim could be a schizophrenic, thoughts in a jumble, paranoid delusions that are never what he had thought. As the game progresses, it seems that each piece of it's puzzle becomes less discernable, and more abstract. We begin thinking Tim is a sane man searching for a princess, but then time is manipulated, things aren't what they seem, the existence of the princess and everything is doubted. In the the 'Braid' level, we see Tim chase after the princess, though the whole level is an illusion, it turns out, she was running from him.  With the epilogue, we see further in to the situation, wiht allusions to various other events, such as the manhattan project, possibly delusions. Group all the story elements with the atmosphere of the levels, the broken landscapes, and odd characters, it is all simply a trick of the schizophernic mind.
Of course, that whole idea may be way off.
I like the whole idea of making your own interpretation. I read that last book again, with Matt's suggestion, and it does work.
On the surface, one can interpret that Tim was simply chasing this princess all along, but as the Eurogamer review stated, it only turns out that "Our princess is always in another castle." Once we think we have found her, it is too good to be true, and all the time we thought we were in pursuit of our princess, it only turns out we were chasing her away.
Underneath, we see the many interpretations we have already discussed, with more to come.

I've come up with a bunch of theories about the game. When reading the stories, I only assume "the princess" to be "the princess" (whatever it is) when the words "the princess" are actually used. If you treat most occurances of "she" as meaning "the princess," you get an entirely different reading of the worlds 2-6 stories. Whatever "the princess" is (I still think it's something along the lines of world piece and that the atom bomb is the means by which to obtain it in Tim's mind) constantly takes Tim away from any happiness he finds.

If the story doesn't center around the bomb:
-Why the Oppenheimer quotes?
-Why the descriptions of great explosions in the hidden text in the epilogue (the one that you can make replace the Oppenheimer text)?
-Why the line about flirting with the end of the world (also hidden text)?
-Why the picture of Uncle Sam in the world 6 puzzle?
-Why Manhattan of all cities as the only named city in the game?
-Why the name Braid (could there be a link between Braid the game and Donald Braid)?

I'm not trying to assert that the interpretation I started this thread with is the right one, merely asking what these seemingly direct symbols (some of the only really direct symbols in the game) are there for if the story is more about the human experience, relationships, etc. What do they then represent? Are they seemingly so direct only as a way to throw off the player? Are they cryptic metaphors that mean something else?

On the other hand, if people here don't mind....poke some holes in the atom bomb theory. I'd love to question the theory that I'm getting more and more dug in on. The more I think about it on my own, though, the more I think it's the most direct sort of story that Jonathan Blow was trying to tell. So....someone shatter my Braid belief system.

The princess is that ideal we're always chasing.  That thing in the distance that we all believe will make us happy, if only we could find that one thing.  It's that shiny new car, that beautiful girl, that house by the ocean...

Tim's pursuit of that ideal, whatever it is, causes alot of hurt & regret in his life.  While at first we're led to believe that the princess is a physical person, later books (I think world 5) depict him saying "I have to go find the princess" and abandoning his lover in that pursuit.  That could be devoting hours to a job, building a bomb, pursuing some idealist dream, whatever.   Tim is always seeking that princess, and as a result, missing out on what's going on at the present time.

When the game starts Tim thinks he has lost the princess because he made a mistake.  I think, in reality, he never had the princess.  As the game states, his memories are cloud & replaced wholesale.  Maybe he has convinced himself he had the princess and lost her, to mentally create a far nobler quest to get her back, rather than having been tragically endlessly pursuing her to no end.

The game when we're playing it is Tim's moment of realization, that he has spent his whole life chasing these ideals, the princess, and has alienated people and missed opportunities the whole time.  The levels are him revisiting old regrets, wishing he could turn back time, wishing he could have been two places at once, possibly wishing he had given that girl a ring...

The end segment is him thinking he has finally caught up to the ideal, the princess.  It's as though a wall of flame had been driving him along, but we then realize that the thing pushing him towards the princess was just an illusion.  He will never have the princess, for by nature she is elusive and can never be attained.  She is a fleeting ideal of perpetual pursuit.  It will always seem like others have attained her, and we are left jealous & empty.

Perhaps the epilogue is him finally coming to grips with all of that, and using those memories as learning experiences, as blocks to build a whole new castle, in which he and a new princess can live happily ever after?

Well said, Vaxadrin. I'm just playing through again (I started over) trying to chew on all the little details that you have to account for when you drill down deeper.

One thing that I'm wondering about is the lack of heads in world 6. The castle at the end has several statues of people without heads. Some of the earlier parts of the worlds have astronauts and the like without heads and carrying their helmets. There are hats decorating the blocks that make up the levels. Are they headless people? Or, as I'm starting to think, are they empty suits, empty roles....the empty people that fill great roles. Is it saying that striving for accomplishments, or being in roles that force you to think of a greater cause, leaves you empty as a person (much as Tim's goal seemed to do to him)? I'll have to go back after work tomorrow and have a look at the characters without heads/empty suits and see if this holds water.

It's all about time, friends. Despite Tim's ability-his ultimate power- to reverse and fast forward the flow of time, he will never have true control of it. Time will forever be his master, as Tim will never be able to completely control it- indeed, in world 3, the game tells the player that Tim needs some aspect of his life to be disassociated from his time control.
The passage of time is truth: when people can begin to accept, to live with the passing of time-and, by consequence, the knowledge that everything in the world is ever changing, always shifting, and ultimately cut short by its mortality- we can finally set out to build our own foundations, and to live life to its fullest. To go out and find our princess, whatever she may be.
The whole game is about Time: even the flow of the levels, with World 2 at the outset and world 1 last, seems to be a design choice to give the player a sense that they can escape the ravages of time, to control the path and the destination of the story. But the game ends where it begins- with the realization that Tim has to stop looking backwards at the past, to stop changing and altering every decision so that it might be "perfect".  Tim needs to look forward, to build his strong foundation-his castle- out of his life's experiences.
The princess isn't in another castle: she's in the castle we ourselves must build out of the sweat and tears of life.


And this does not just extend to the actual events of Braid, or the artistic intents of its design: We, as players, want to control every aspect of our games, and we want to, ideally, perform every task perfectly. We want to be in control, so we disregard our mistakes- a missed jump, a lousy shot, a  wrong decision- and try it again, because we think we have that sense of control.
Ultimately, however, that control is an illusion, created by a wise developer who knows that the real control is his alone. He-and anyone who designs a game-knows how everything will play out. If we think we have control, the developer has done their job, by making the actual act of "playing" a game seem to have no restrictions or limitations.

MAN! There is so much good, solid, genuinely interesting insight you can read into Braid and its ending. When was the last time a game made players think like that?

I agree with you Matt....re: time. But I think that's just a piece of it. It seems that whatever the literal story you get out of the game may be, time and perfection play a role. I saw on the 1up Show that Jonathan Blow seemed kinda disappointed that people hadn't picked up on certain things. I'm dying to know what those things may be. It seems like any single object in the game, from the backgrounds to the architecture you walk on, is supposed to have some meaning. Which brings me to this thought....isn't it odd that the characters, the bosses, the "goombas" the plants, the bunnies, even Tim, the girl, and the knight....they all seem to be of a completely different style than the rest of the game. They never quite fit in. They're kinda gamey. I'm sure there's a reason for this. I couldn't imagine that such amazing art throughout could be complemented by something that just....doesn't seem right.

I think I'm at the point where i'd praise flicking, a lack of AA, slowdown, and lock-ups as having some meaning deeply routed into the game. :P

Braid is turning me into one of those nuts who claimed that Metal Gear Solid needed the overhead camera for the purpose of storytelling (or whatever the excuse was).

nutter said:

"

Incase you haven't played them, DerBonk, I suggest checking out Bioshock (for it's passive story-telling/social commentary using the environment) and Silent Hill 2. SH2 has one of the best stories and soundtracks in the history of gaming, IMO. It'll also leave you going back and playing over and over trying to get more and more meaning and clairity out of things.

"

I have played Bioshock, SH2 I haven't played yet. While I agree that Bioshock is a great game with a great story, where I see the difference is what Shawn Elliot describes in his blogpost at: "Unraveling Braid: http://tinyurl.com/5lujyq "

Bioshock is still pretty straight forward, somewhat "realistic", imitating life. Braid is a metaphor through and through. I haven't seen many games, let alone commercial ones, that are like Braid. Especially concerning the stream of consciousness technique.

Regarding the atom bomb thing:

I think the only really direct references are the texts on the fourth red book. But there is another quote in there as well, the italic one, by some dude who is named in the credits, I would really like to know what that quote is about. Is it also concerning the atom bomb? In my opinion, the atom bomb is not meant that literally, but as I said, I think the core meaning is that everybody should (and actually automatically does, while playing) construct his/her own interpretation, so in my opinion your interpretation is very much correct ;)

@Matt

I also agree, time is important to what the game has to say. Shawn has something in his blog that I haven't realized yet and I love, love, love if it's true (can't test right now): Just try and keep rewinding at the start of World 2. ;) THis also ties in with your interpretation of Jonathan's view on the player <-> designer relationship, which your interpretation is very, very interesting and I think might actually be very true.

@nutter

Whoa, I haven't seen the headless part, I gotta check that out, do other worlds have similar visual metaphors? I so need to play Braid again, I'll finally be able once I get home later today.

Your explanation makes exponentially more sense than whatever the hell I had in my head before reading this....

Thanks for the good read    =]

Did anyone else notice that the collecting the puzzle pieces makes a sort of discordant, unpleasant sound?

They sound like a bunch of trombones & xylophones all playing random notes at once.  It has that "chime" sound that videogames have to let you know you collected something important, but at the same time it's not neccessarily a pleasant sound like a 1up in Mario or a ring in Sonic.  Instead it's an atonal blast, almost as though it's not neccessarily a good thing to have the puzzles put back together.