Gone Home: A Summary

[GIJeff]

I have been reading a few threads about the plot and I feel like a lot of people are getting it wrong. I don't know if people are missing journal entries or just misinterpreting but I feel like I can help shed some light on some stuff.

You come home and find a note from your sister telling you not to worry about the stuff thats missing. One of the first things noticeable is the fact that it looks like they just moved in to this house. After a little investigation however, it's clear they've been living there for a while now.

No one seems comfortable here. Not only is much of the household still packed in boxes, it seems that everyone spends their time in separate parts of the house. The dad spends his time in the study, or the library. He can't be a happy man, the bottle of booze in his study and the well appointed wet bar speak to that. His work is suffering. His books won't sell, and he is on the verge of being terminated from his steady work as an electronics reviewer. He's a poor writer, littering his books with cliche and generic sci-fi plot lines, not to mention the odd obsession with the Kennedy assassination. Even his own father has no faith in his work (you find a note saying as much), and terry hates him for it, as evidenced by the portrait of his father with the face completely cut out in the basement.

His wife spends her time in her art studio, the kitchen, and the greenhouse. It's pretty clear shes having an affiar, although not confirmed. After finding tickets to earth wind and fire (who she went to with a male co-worker), a trashy novel about a hunky woodsman, a note from a girlfriend which refers to her attraction to her co-worker, and finally a condom. This is not suspicious in itself necessarily, but I doubt too many couples in their mid-late forties have much use for condoms.

Lastly, they tell Sam that they're going on a vacation for their anniversary or something but in reality its a couples retreat complete with counseling. Their marriage is all but over.

Sam spends all her time in her room, the secret servants quarters, and the attic. She and Lonnie do their best to stay under the radar and away from parents who don't, or dont want, to understand her. She's desperate for someone to talk to, and misses her sister (you) even more desperately. As you find more clues and gain more journal entries, Sam is lonely, then sad, then happy to find a friend, in love, and then desperate not to lose that love. Like some others I've talked to, I expected to find her in the attic with her wrists slashed or something of the sort.

Finally there is the weird uncle they randomly inherited the place from. He inexplicably sold his pharmacy in town at one point and seemingly died a lonely recluse. When you find and open the safe in the basement, it turns out he was an opiate addict. He wrote a letter to his sister explaining he sold the pharmacy to get away from temptation (easy access to opiates) and was turning his life around. Unfortunately she simply wrote return to sender on the envelope and mailed it back. I saw one thread speculating that the father was abused by the uncle but I saw no evidence of that, and once you find the safe its clear his vice was opiates, not little boys.

Finally, when you piece most everything together and make it to the attic, the story turns from grim to hopeful. Sam hasn't killed herself. She simply stole all the $1,000 laserdisc players, vcr's and probably some other stuff, and ran off with her lover Lonnie, who skipped out on the army at the last minute and left 2 desperate messages trying to get ahold of Sam. I saw someone had a theory that they both comitted suicide which doesn't make sense to me since she sounds happy and hopeful in her final journal enty.

Let me know if I missed anything but I think that summarizes most of the important points.

[SmithDoc]

i think that it's important that terry is finishing his new novel on the typewriter in the greenhouse, where his wife is also working with plants. so it's clear that by the end of the narrative that he's stopped being distant from her and is providing her company, while writing a book with a new outlook on life. things are looking up for them.

[EnerN xd]

Pretty accurate if you ask me :) Good job!

[Broccoli Bastard]

Good job!

[olthadir]

I believe that you got it all right, GIJeff. I figured everything you said, but I missed the safe until I played it through again.
Also, I tend to believe Hadjimurad as well. I don't think this is a story of sadness, but of hope. I think things, all things, will work out in the end.

[Mawingu21]

Very good explanation/summary... I find it fascinating not how many people simply can't put the pieces together. You did point out a few things I didn't think of, though.

The one particular thing that I just can't make sense of fully is the part with them trying to contact the spirit of the uncle and having him possess someone?

With Bibles everywhere, it's rather clear where the parents stand (though it seems as a "do as I say, not as I do" circumstance). The Ouija board and pentagram are hidden away from the parents, so it could just be something as simple as Sam rebelling against her parents in yet another way. But the book on possession found next to the pentagram is what really has me feeling as though I missed something... All the talks of the uncle's ghost ends there. I'd at least imagine to find a journal entry detailing about how they got to scared and put it on the back burner, but I got nothing of the sort. Perhaps I missed something? Any thoughts?

[dajur]

The Uncle's ghost was a red herring for the player. It's there to keep the suspense up. Is this a horror game, or isn't it? Is a ghost going to jump out at me or am I safe? It just ended up being a game the teenagers played because the house is creepy, and they took it as far as they wanted to. In the end, they "released" Oscar's spirit from the house. The pentagram was just a chalk drawing on a table and the book was a prop for their game.

[The Serious Strategy Gamer]

I actually think that most of the plots have a somewhat happy upturn towards the end:

- The father's books were not selling under his first publisher, and he is nearly fired from reviewing stereos. However, it becomes clear that he has found a new publisher (or the publisher has found him), that his books are selling much better now that they re more targeted to audience and have better cover art, and that he even overcame the writer's blockade and finished his third book. He is hopeful that it will be published even though he has no confirmation. He also has withdrawn somewhat from the Kennedy obsession, as his latest book is the first not to cover that topic, but actually the life of the protagonist himself. So maybe there is even a hint that he had overcome some other event of 1963 which might be hinted at in the uncle subplot.

- The mother's affair never ~quite~ developed although there had certainly been some tension. From the mother's side the main driver was the father's depression (likely from lack of success and maybe moving into that house) as evidenced in the letters, but this seems somewhat overcome towards the end. From Rick's side we know that he has an out of town girlfriend that he is actually more interested in but with whom he seems to have problems (she does not join the concert, and is out of town). In the end we find that Rick has married two days before the story takes place (calendar in the kitchen), indicating that his interest in the mother might have declined (or indeed never existed). Moreover, the mother first planned to go to the wedding, but then cancelled it for the couples retreat, so once more an indication that things are going better. Lastly, the parents seem to be working on their issues, with the couples retreat and the advice book in their bathroom. The later is obviously somewhat kinky and would also explain the condom.

- The friend (uhm, Daniel, was it?), was first seen as a weirdo and simply exploited for video games (first in his company, then just the games), but in the end Sam reconciled with him.

- The uncle's plot is the only one I find to be tragic to the end. The contents of his safe clearly show a drug abuse problem, but the letter also contains a clear transgression that he is specifically sorry about towards his sister. His contact with the father was regular and remained until Thanksgiving 1963. The father developed a serious obsession with the Kennedy assassination just 6 days earlier, so it is rather likely that something traumatic happened there. The sorrow of the uncle would also explain the inheritance. It is never made explicit what the traumatic experience was, but the location of the height marks in some rather secluded dead-end cellar room is somewhat suspicious. The uncle sold his pharmacy for a dollar to his apprentice, which might be because he caught him abusing drugs, or because he also made some kind of transgression here. At any rate, the uncle died alone, forsaken by his family and wider society; a regretful, broken man.

I could not quite make sense of the mother's citizens stuff in the cellar or the order sheet in the dark room behind the safe corridor. Ideas?

[mousemurder]

in the commentary mode the developers talk about how the mother wrote a hand written note and spelled a word wrong because one of the writers was canadian (I think it was colour instead of color). so they just made her canadian to cover.

I think the order sheet was to establish the mansion as an underground speakeasy and the basement is very dark and isolated in case cops were to look for contraband.