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Atleast when she escaped Atropos and made it back to earth in that cutscene, she doesn't squander her life again, doesn't live a depressed full of guilt life, instead she starts a new life which she cherishes, gets married, has kids and dies peacefully. So, it was kinda like a necessary punishment to change her, but unfortunately she's bound to keep returning and escaping.
I definitely have a hard time taking playable Selene's accounts at face value. It's easy to feel for her, but we never really get to know her beyond her grief, her callousness and her suffering.
According to the medical report in the Sisyphus tower, the mother aggravated her spinal cord injuries trying to save her son, so at least she tried. At the point of suffocation the human body reacts on its own and Theia was an excellent swimmer according to the local newspapers.
This leads us to two possible scenarios: Selene is a Theia construct of the perfect daughter who finally made it to space like she always dreamed of or actually exists as a sister to Helios traumatized by her mother's cold treatment and her brother's death.
The first being more possible given the technology that is presented to us during the traffic accident and at the house. That would lead us to a scenario where Theia escapes in her fantasy to this alien world but continues to be tormented by the abandonment of Helios.
The way I see it, the game is about psychological guilt and not lettin go.
My theory is that selene beat up her son and her mother before trying to kill her by burning the house so... She kinda deserves it.
But I could be wrong considering we'll never get real answers.
Sometimes I wish the devs would release a video explaining the lore a few years after releasing the game.
Or maybe they just used the good old trick of "let's give them scraps and they'll make up the rest".
Who knows.
Thanks to you I have to revise my whole theory.
I hate this game...
I feel like I've been ripped off
That being said and to answerd the op question, as a mother, Helios had a good room with nice toys, I think at least she cared about him. Many people have distant and absent relatives and reach adulthood as (mostly) functional adults.
For her, her frustrated dream of being an astronaut was very important and it haunted her (to the point to be distracted at the wheel about it) until she realized Helios was more dear to her only when he died. She refused physiotherapy at the hospital and locked herself in her own fantasy world. Its a sad story if you think about it.
A wise man once said that life has nothing to do with what we deserve.
I like your theory as well but I just have a hard time thinking about it, I just feel like the alien lore is way too complex and detailed and cool to be all fake and made up in Selene's head. It takes away all the mystery of Atropos by saying 'it was all in her head'.
Personally, I think Atropos is real and Selene did actually go there and get trapped in a loop. There's a whole alien lore of how there was a sentient hivemind, a giant alien in the abyss started luring some sentients and made them 'severed' by showing them nightmarish visions, how the sentients made robots to fight against the severed, an all out war, there's a lot of stuff. I think Selene crashed on atropos, the abyss alien trapped her in a loop and started trolling selene with constructs from her memories and her past and changing it each time.
Also, Theia is Selene's mom and Helios is Selene's son. Two accidents happened on the same bridge. The 1st one was Theia and child Selene in which both survived but Theia had a spinal injury, Theia had aspirations to become an astronaut but now cant. Selene becomes one leading to theia hating her for that which is why Selene burns down the house as its full of memories of Theia. The 2nd accident is Selene and Helios in which helios died but selene survived. This leads to even more hate between Theia and selene. Theia finally gets admitted into the hospital where she passes away. Selene faces immense guilt and just wants to leave earth and these memories.
This is just my interpretation of the story but its really cool to hear different theories and thats the thing with this game, it has so much contradicting info leading us to come up with our own theories. Basically, Selene is an unreliable narrator and not everything that we see in the game necessarily happened.
She also has more that one potential sin:
- her son dying due to her not being careful.
- burnt house and her mom on a wheelchair probably murdered.
There is a lot of info suggesting she killed her own mom. She burnt her alive trapped in the house.
She didnt died, that feels more like a poem to herself, she went to the hospital in the tower lore anyway. I dont think the planet is real but again open to interpretation, the technology they have in the flashbacks its older than we have now (looks 80's, maybe 90's how they go from that to interplanetary travel?) and the lore of the planet is quite vague actually and strikinly similar to the novels she is reading at the house and her own life memories. I know it being not real its a hard pill to swallow if you really into the game but these novels have amazing lore too, thats the whole point of science fiction writing.
Its important to note than Helios is mytologhy is the god of the sun, Selene of the moon, and her sister was Eos, the goddess of the dawn. Without Helios Selene could not be seen at all. Which supports my theory that it's a construct of her mother after their tragic accident. Also Selene looks too much like their mother but blonde and with heterochromia. Another detail that I am sure is loaded with symbology.
You can argue the planet adapts to Selene memories but then again there are literally visions of her life with her song in the alien machinery that is supposed to be the alien history (again Sisyphus tower, the place is full to the brim with spoilers). What about the notes inside the Helios computer going crazy and the white shadow alien artifact always being in the cargo hold? The same accident at the same point with the same family? Doesnt make any sense. Where is the stuff about her burning her mother? And again if she did its more like a metaphorical scenario, let's not forget that in the end she herself sits in the wheelchair.
I dont believe in sin anyway.
The advanced technology is just in the game's world, don't compare it to our world, like Back to the Future had time travel car invented in 1985, we of course know its impossible in that year, so in the world of Returnal, they may have already invented deep space travel. The space program Astra has advanced technology significantly.
The sci-fi books are present yes, but wouldn't Selene remember them if they were from her books? So she made up a whole new world and lore while being in a vegetable state?
Selene is for sure real and not a construct of Theia cause in the tower dlc, we find an autopsy report clearly mentioning 'Theia Vassos' and her death. So if Theia is dead, how tf are we playing as Selene if she's a construct in Theia's mind? No, Selene is real and there's another incident report in the tower dlc about how a police officer responded to a fire distress call at a house, he found Selene outside smoking in a state of shock, unresponsive to whether there was anyone else in the house. So, Theia either died in the house fire or she died in the hospital later.
I feel like the whole mythology thing is intentionally there to throw you off, Helios is Selene's son in the game. Again, this is just my interpretation. This game has many conflicting theories. Even if Selene is Helios' brother, that would mean Theia was pregnant with Selene as the alien theia in the wheelchair, but if we were playing as child Helios in the memories, how would Selene know of his memories like the octopus, astronaut etc.,
Here, check out the official Returnal wiki:
https://returnal.fandom.com/wiki/Selene#:~:text=Selene%20Vassos%20is%20the%20protagonist,landing%20on%20the%20planet%20Atropos.
I don't think it's retrofuturist game since since it specifically mentions a 20th century astronaut suit "like the one my mother would have wore". A future wih plasma guns like the one shown in the game but they drive 90's cars doesnt add even by that logic. The only theory that makes any sense at all its Selene being a construct inside the mind of Theia, of all she really wanted to be. Call it trauma, call it guilt, call it escapism, or call it whatever you want.
In the fire it is only mentioned that she burned the house and that she was alone at the time, she mentions that it was her freedom. it makes sense that he burned down a house that only brought back memories of his son.
In addition to waking up from a corpse room in the Sisyphus tower ending, which does not rule out again that she again is Theia, metaphorically or even physically dead.
It is quite a coincidence that the novels talk about mythology and many things that happen in the game almost letter by letter, like being swallowed by ominous portals or the creatures that happen to be the bosses. Final bosses that by the way represent the 5 phases of loss.
That would explain why she hates her mother so much (she hates herself) and why she admits defeat and sits in the wheelchair in the extended ending path and has memories about the first accident at all. Even if you want to twist it figment of the imagination, a character from a made-up story would also refer to its female creator as "mother." Moreso in a poster at the hospital it is seen that specifically the accident that torments her is that of the lake. The final level is deep on the water too.
Theia created this character to escape her pain but in the end it always ended up coming back to her and there are many clues that lead to this throughout the game.
Both the Selene character and the real person intersect at various points in the story.
Selene has heterochromia which apart from being a nice tribute to David Bowie's Major Tom is a symbol that she has two souls. She looks exactly like her model but bondle. If Selene was her own person, the story of the game would not make any sense, the only occupant behind on the car accident was a male child in all flashbacks (confirmed if you watch a dub with proper gender pronouns) and he dissapeared in all acounts damaging the mother's spine while trying to save her. By the way accident that breaks your spine would also cause you to miscarry.
Last but not least the photo in the hospital next to the bed, it ONLY shows a mother and son on the beach both black haired.
- Why Selene looks different in car accident? Dark long hair and normal eyes.
- Why do we control Helios in some house scenes? Are Helios and Selene the same person? There is also a mention of another child in newspaper.
- Why her broken ship is full Helios’es toys? Octo under her bed, green robot in the cockpit.
It’s also hard to explain that it’s in the far future when she drives a rather old car and Helios plays ps5.