MechaMarshmallow

@contradictionvg: This isn't usually my sort of game but you've managed to make a really cool thing! I have to ask, though, because I was wondering from pretty much the moment the game began: Did you intentionally model Jenks after an early-90s Richard O'Brien, or was that just fantastic luck that made him an even more hilarious character to me?

@eccentrix said:

It looked to be in an oval shape to me, like a hand mirror. Also, the way that it was talked about, it did not seem like the police had a compelling reason to think it was the murder weapon. Eve and/or Hannah probably disposed of the shattered mirror, because it would be an obvious murder weapon considering that his throat was slashed with a piece of it. If it was a shard, it seems strange to me that they didn't pursue its potential as a murder weapon harder than they did.

Unfortunately we know that there must be two mirrors, because the police have one of them in one interview as evidence.

@ratamero said:

I took that to be a difference between Hannah and Eve. In the twins theory, it is Hannah who taps out LOVEU correctly, and Eve who makes a mistake.

I would absolutely love to get a more definitive answer. I'm pretty solidly in the twins camp, but I can agree that there are arguments for multiple personalities. I don't think either theory is flawless, so it would be very interesting to get official word at some point on what the truth is (if there even is one.)

@planetfunksquad said:

That totally makes sense to me. Hannah and Simon living with Simon's parents made it impossible for Eve to be with her sister or with Simon (at least until later when she met him elsewhere). The mushroom thing suggests that it was either suicide, Hannah or Eve, and Eve is the one with the motive to have Hannah and Simon living by themselves.

@rethla said:

The thing with blondes, fair enough. Hannah didn't know about the twin at that point so that could have been a veeeery subtle suggestion at an affair with Helen. I assumed it was simply hinting at what was to come, the significance of the wig.

The mirror makes sense, though. I mean, she has the intact mirror as evidence in one video. In the twin theory, it's Eve answering that question, and Hannah received both of the mirrors. She wouldn't necessarily know where the intact one was, and didn't want to let on to the truth about there being two.

@rethla said:

Well, this is the part where this being a well written story is important. Usually you won't have things like a second twin or an affair without at least a good bit of hinting at them. Even if there are some pretty shaky explanations for some of the things on the 'twins' side of things, they are still explanations which gives them credence in fiction. The number of things that conflict with the crazy theory which aren't even addressed as having other explanations in-world is such that I don't believe having her being split personality was the author's intent.

Of course, 'La mort de l'autheur' and all that. We don't have to read the story with the author's intent in mind, but the lack of significant in-story explanations that any of these things were true makes it feel like a clumsy explanation to me.

Personally, as much as I think there is some interesting evidence that it could be just one person, the fact that the police found a whole lot of unknown fingerprints without any other explanation than it being the one who's prints did not get taken pretty much tells me that they are twins. I've not seen anything in the game to suggest there was any other way of them getting there.

A lot of the things that happen in the story like living in the attic for years and somehow getting out of the Bob Dylan situation without being found out are far-fetched, I will agree, but for me it comes down to this being a pretty well written story. In fiction, it's perfectly fair to have something very unlikely happen as long as you give an explanation, no matter how flaky it is. 'They never went up there' or 'I blamed it on my friend, and they believed me.' But very rarely will you have a true red herring inserted to trick the reader in to believing something to be true without eventually admitting that there was another method by which it could have got there.

Of course, given the number of odd and shaky details in both possible explanations, it could well be the case that the author wanted to make it a story where either interpretation could be equally true, and it's your choice which you want it to be. Even if that was the case, I'd probably still choose to believe the twins story. It feels like it carries a lot more emotional weight and meaning than the 'she's nutso' one.

Thinking about it, could that come from Rorcharch in Watchmen? Maybe the trope is older than that, but he is certainly the first I saw in the vein of 'dark stoic antihero who speaks in fragments'. Of course, it fit him perfectly because he was a paranoid recluse of cripplingly poor social ability. It feels a little less natural on characters like Geralt. Not that I particularly dislike Geralt's voice. It's just noticeable given the writing that everyone else gets.