Where Red wound up at the end (Spoilers)

[piedol]

So I just finished the game. I had that WTF moment when she killed herself with the Transistor. Wanting to figure out exactly why she did so, and what her fate was, I took to the internet, and the consensus seems to be that she couldn't bear to live without her lover and committed suicide so that she could live inside the Transistor with him. There's a problem with this theory that stands out to me though.

Several times throughout the story, the "place" people go to when they die is referred to as "The Country". The first two members of the Camerata that you hear about commit suicide, with one of them seeing that they'll see you there. Right after this happens however, Red uses the Transistor to absorb their traces like she has for a few people before this. These traces have access to the memories of the people regardless of what their living counterparts would have been willing to express, implying that the traces are digital representations of humans. This also means that "The Country" as an afterlife is a place that the Transistor does not interact with (and really, it wouldn't make sense if it were able to as a non-supernatural object).

So at the ending, when Red kills herself, and afterwards when we see her with her lover in the Country, the evidence that I've observed tells me that both of them are actually dead, and in the real world, she's just left a thinking, feeling copy of her lover forever trapped in her corpse, in a now unfinished world. You can see why I'd be more than a little dissatisfied if this were actually the case, and so I want to know if I'm reading between the lines correctly, or if the supposedly sad ending scene really did get a happy conclusion (in which case the act feels cheapened somewhat).

Any response that can help me make sense of this story would be appreciated.

[ThatGuyCDude]

Taking all of the assumptions (logical constructs) you've laid out in your discussion as true (thereby forming an axiom of your interpretation of the game), I have the following remark:

Even if there's a different "Country" than the one exhibited in the Transitior (where you have your final battle), we know that the Transitor downloads traces anyway when it strikes someone down. That's how Triangle Jacket got in there in the first place. So, with your declaration that a copy is trapped inside the transitor, a copy of Red would likewise be created and stored there.

In fact, this is confirmed by the game's leveling mechanic: Crash() is Red's Trace.

That said, I had hoped the recursion ending would be a little different, like maybe she puts Triangle Jacket back using the Transistor and the Process. Red's actions are incredibly selfish in the end, leaving what's left of Cloudbreak in shambles. It is both sweet and horrible what she does, so perhaps your disdain is justified.

[Iron_Gears]

What you might have to first consider is that Red's "Suicide" and the locations of the game are more like metaphors or representations of things in the story. If you favor Occam's Razor, this explanation is the most simple, (and sometimes that can be unsatisfying) because anything which is confusing or un-explainable can just be summed up to "It's just part of the story". Not a particularly satisfying explanation for what happens but it is something we must consider. That what happens is more of a representation than a physical(or digital) event.

Now the theory you've come to is one of the more complete (and not quite as sad as you might think) theories. That Red did actually kill herself and either The Country is a synonym for the after-life(meaning that both she and her lover are dead), or that she "killed" herself and is also absorbed into the Transistor with her lover and that both of their being's are stored in a reality within the transistor which resembles our real life idea of a country landscape, or that they are just one's and zeroes and that the scene with the country is more metaphorical.

Now I use the term "being", because its pretty clear that they aren't in their physical bodies (or are they?...Is Cloudbank just a fabricated reality from computers? Thats another fantastic topic of conversation) anymore. Being is just a loose term for their consciousness (meaning brain waves and synaptic patterns and all those beautiful neurological terms; Or their spirit's, soul's, trace's, whatever, something more metaphysical( and therefore more supernatural) and beyond the physical existence of brain patterns. Which is their actual state of existence? No effin clue...well I have some clues but lets get back to the topic at hand.

Now the reason that I say that this isn't quite as sad as you think is because Red and The Boxer (I've just gotten use to calling him that, we know from dialouge that he's been in underground fighting rings and in his arm's at the end have hand wraps) are now together again. And this isn't like a nice thought that maybe they met again beyond life, and like a commentary about Heaven. It's right there in the game! Wherever their being's exists, no matter what reality that is, they are together in that reality, which was partly the goal from the beginning of the game. Trying to find a way to get The Boxer out of the Transistor so that he and Red can be together again. Sure, their being's don't exist in the reality we call Cloudbank anymore, so that kinda suck's, but wherever they are, they are together. How else can you have a face-to-face conversation with someone if you aren't on the same level of reality?

I mention this because you think that Red is "dead" (for lack of a better word in confusing realities and the definition of death, lets juts say that her body isn't fuctioning anymore), while The Boxer's being is still stored inside the Transistor. Now I've already mentioned my theory before and my main problem with this conclusion because this suggests that the ending scene, where Red and The Boxer are able to interact with eachother, is somehow a hallucination or is just false. Like, Dude, that's almost as depressing as the ending for "The Road". And another thing would be, why would the Transistor, which has absorbed everything beforehand which was corroded by the process, and has even absorbed people's being's without The Process( The Boxer is absorbed by being stabbed with the Transistor through the gut, like Red did), Now suddenly that doesn't work on Red. It just doesn't absorb her. As far as I can tell, it absorbed her voice by merely scratching her side( and she has her voice back again in that end scene, maybe it was reconnected with her once she entered the Transistor?) , and was able to create a funtion with that Trace data. This however all suggests that both of their being's are stored in the Transistor. There are other clues as to why her just being dead might not be the case, but this is the biggest and most reliable one.

The problem with trying to figure out the "truth" behind the ending is that it makes us question about what reality even in. Because with that end scene, we have confirmation that in this world there are at least two different realities. At least, I personally believe that is what is the case and truth for the story; If you don't think that, then that's perfectly understandable. After all, SuperGiant Game's has been pretty open about wanting their games to be open to interpretation. So we've got free rein to theorize whatever we want.

I'm sorry for such a long message, but this game is one of my favorite's and I love the Lore soooooo much. I didn't wanna swamp you any more cause this is already an essay, but there's sooo much more theory about this that I can talk about. I'm just giving maybe a too detailed explanation about my personal theory, rather than going too much into all the other theories out there.

[Iron_Gears]

Originally posted by anubiandragon:

Taking all of the assumptions (logical constructs) you've laid out in your discussion as true (thereby forming an axiom of your interpretation of the game), I have the following remark:

Even if there's a different "Country" than the one exhibited in the Transitior (where you have your final battle), we know that the Transitor downloads traces anyway when it strikes someone down. That's how Triangle Jacket got in there in the first place. So, with your declaration that a copy is trapped inside the transitor, a copy of Red would likewise be created and stored there.

In fact, this is confirmed by the game's leveling mechanic: Crash() is Red's Trace.

That said, I had hoped the recursion ending would be a little different, like maybe she puts Triangle Jacket back using the Transistor and the Process. Red's actions are incredibly selfish in the end, leaving what's left of Cloudbreak in shambles. It is both sweet and horrible what she does, so perhaps your disdain is justified.

There's nobody left alive to be selfish to! They are all converted by the Process. I mean, Royce Bracket, who found the Transistor and The Process in the first place, doesn't even understand them well enough to know how they function, or how they might be able to put someone's Trace back into their bodies, or if it's even possible. We can't just assume that Red would be able to play God and rebuild all those people from scratch, that she was either capable fo doing that in the first place, or that the Transistor was capable of that in the first place.

[piedol]

Originally posted by Iron_Gears:

It just doesn't absorb her. As far as I can tell, it absorbed her voice by merely scratching her side( and she has her voice back again in that end scene, maybe it was reconnected with her once she entered the Transistor?) , and was able to create a funtion with that Trace data. This however all suggests that both of their being's are stored in the Transistor. There are other clues as to why her just being dead might not be the case, but this is the biggest and most reliable one.

I didn't even make the connection between her voice being back and it being taken by the Transistor. That does lend credibility to the theory of her being absorbed by it. As a counterpoint though, one of the main reasons for me being skeptical of the absorption outcome when I first saw the ending was the post-credit scene. When we leave the reality we've been playing in all along, "Boxer" is panicked, calling out her name and saying "No, no" over and over. In the aftercredits where they're reunited, his only reaction is "Hi", and she responds in kind. Considering the traumatic sendoff she had (traumatic for him, because she made the choice), realistic responses to her arrival in his prison could have been anything ranging from relief to anger. The complete lack of emotional inflection after something so drastic taking place though led me to believe that the man we see with her in the end and the trace held within the Transistor are two separate entities.

Furthermore, the traces absorbed by the Transistor seemed more akin to shells containing memories than living beings, considering their complete cooperation with the Transistor's demands for information. It's not made clear how complete traces are, but all we can be certain of is that the one representing the Transistor throughout, Boxer, is the only one that we can confirm as having retained a personality. Applying Occam's Razor would lead to the conclusion that his trace is the only one with a consciousness of its own, as it's the only one ever represented to us. Everyone else absorbed was only represented through their robotic responses to his questions. This would by extension make the prospect of Red's trace being his company meaningless to him, if the same limitations applied.

All that said, the Transistor only absorbed traces from already expired bodies throughout the game, and only delivered the killing blow to Boxer prior to Red using it on herself, so it's possible that its level of involvement/contact with a body would affect the degree to which it could copy a person's consciousness. That much can only be speculated though, and the discrepancy between his pre and post-credit reactions to her death still casts uncertainty on the theory of what we're showing being within the Transistory.

[Iron_Gears]

Originally posted by piedol:

Originally posted by Iron_Gears:

It just doesn't absorb her. As far as I can tell, it absorbed her voice by merely scratching her side( and she has her voice back again in that end scene, maybe it was reconnected with her once she entered the Transistor?) , and was able to create a funtion with that Trace data. This however all suggests that both of their being's are stored in the Transistor. There are other clues as to why her just being dead might not be the case, but this is the biggest and most reliable one.

I didn't even make the connection between her voice being back and it being taken by the Transistor. That does lend credibility to the theory of her being absorbed by it. As a counterpoint though, one of the main reasons for me being skeptical of the absorption outcome when I first saw the ending was the post-credit scene. When we leave the reality we've been playing in all along, "Boxer" is panicked, calling out her name and saying "No, no" over and over. In the aftercredits where they're reunited, his only reaction is "Hi", and she responds in kind. Considering the traumatic sendoff she had (traumatic for him, because she made the choice), realistic responses to her arrival in his prison could have been anything ranging from relief to anger. The complete lack of emotional inflection after something so drastic taking place though led me to believe that the man we see with her in the end and the trace held within the Transistor are two separate entities.

Furthermore, the traces absorbed by the Transistor seemed more akin to shells containing memories than living beings, considering their complete cooperation with the Transistor's demands for information. It's not made clear how complete traces are, but all we can be certain of is that the one representing the Transistor throughout, Boxer, is the only one that we can confirm as having retained a personality. Applying Occam's Razor would lead to the conclusion that his trace is the only one with a consciousness of its own, as it's the only one ever represented to us. Everyone else absorbed was only represented through their robotic responses to his questions. This would by extension make the prospect of Red's trace being his company meaningless to him, if the same limitations applied.

All that said, the Transistor only absorbed traces from already expired bodies throughout the game, and only delivered the killing blow to Boxer prior to Red using it on herself, so it's possible that its level of involvement/contact with a body would affect the degree to which it could copy a person's consciousness. That much can only be speculated though, and the discrepancy between his pre and post-credit reactions to her death still casts uncertainty on the theory of what we're showing being within the Transistory.

This is why I need to replay Transistor again and complete it on the PC, because for now I'm going off of memory and Youtube. But at the end, when The Boxer kept asking her "please don't do this..." To me he seemed pretty depressed about the prospect of Red dying to the Transistor, but I don't remember panic in his voice at the thought of being left alone. To me, it seems like his concern was having to see Red "die" in order to make this transition which I believe happened; But again, that's mostly opinion. That's about all I can comment on that because I'm afraid I would have to replay it again and reach the end in order to convince myself but thats what I remember at least.

As for the presence of other people in the Transistor, I'm mainly considering Royce Bracket's word on this; Which is that one can hear the voices of others who are contained in the Transistor, IF they knew them beforehand. So I just assumed that because Red and The Boxer were lovers, she was able to hear his voice the clearest because she had the strongest bodn with him. And after all, you can "kinda" hear the "voices" of the other people's Traces when you come across their bodies, so maybe the amount of knowledge or the strength of the relationship that you have on the person beforehand matters? Maybe its just that way because they have been processed, but who knows? Is this why we don't really see a personality outside of The Boxer?And why the otehr bodies we found only anwser questions(which I don't think is that strong of an indicator as to them being hollow shells. Imagine the robots which have always kept to themselves and built your city suddenly went ahead and killed you, but you weren't dead, and you just sit there as a glowing ball thing. I'd probably be in shock and emotionless too.)

Besides, Occam's Razor states that the simpilest explanation is often the most likely; However I guess is't a form of opinion that only having The Boxer's personality be the only personality existing in the Transistor as more complicated. Because why would he be different from all the other people absorbed? What about him was different than all the others? Well I can think of a big one to start with.

The reason the Transistor went on the fritz beforehand and was unable to control The Process anymore was because it absorbed...whatever from The Boxer. But the problem is that The Boxer has never participated in any vote on the OVC ever. Not once. Never participated in the grand Cloudbank Direct Democracy. There is not record of him anywhere for the Transistor to establish a connection with his trace or Consciousness anywhere. He is the Unknown Subject. So is the reason that he has a personality is because he refused to participate in all of the polls and become a number on the screen? It this more of a metaphorical commentary? Maybe. It's a crazy idea, but it fits. And if thats the case, then I've got something to suggest that Red is a little bit like that as well.

She is the first person to ever choose two nontraditional degrees from Traverson Hall. The college in the world of Transistor. She was reluctant to talk about her motivations for her music, (which I believe to mainly be The Boxer) And after the incident at one of her shows, where a fight broke out for the first time in a few years, she receded into privacy and tried to shy away from the spotlight. All of this is in her Function files. Now what kind of songs did she play at her shows?

They are songs like Signals, We All Become, The Spine, In Circles. All of which, (save for The Spine) are songs about being agaisnt the system of categorization, logarithms, and data in which eveyone is interconnected together through the OVC terminals. Thats pretty dangerous to a direct democracy government system, where it depends upon eveyone interacting on the same predictable playing field. Everyone is a number, and each number has a vote. That's why there was so much controversy around her music and why people considered her to be provocator. She was emulating and learning from The Boxer. Fighting the system of normality.

In short, that's my reasoning as to why even froma metaphorical sense, Red isn't that much different from The Boxer, and as such wouldn't interact with the Transistor in a different way. As for a physical explanation as to why The Transistor wouldn't affect her the same way? No clue. Physically they were killed in the exact same way so I still cant see any logistical reason as to why they would react differently to the Transistor. My whole metaphorical disscusion was mainly to say that even in the metaphysical, Red and The Boxer aren't that much different. I can't think of anything other than us having different interpretations over The Boxer's pleading with Red for her to not commit suicide.

As for your idea about the possibility that there is one version of The Boxer present inside the Transistor, and another separate entity in the after-life after is death. Is this turning into SOMA now? That theory is totally nuts, (which is why I love it oh my god thats legitimately is really cool) but it still seems like a complicated way of trying to figure out a way for The Boxer to be abandoned or left with a dead Red is some form or another. If we are trying to keep to Occam's Razor(and we don't have to honestly, its just something to ensure we dont just make stuff up randomly), then that seems like a pretty complicated way of explaining it. And personally I'd want to see more evidence of this being possible other than this emotional state of The Boxer which we don't agree upon in the first place. I know that's me being a jerk for putting you on the spot and dissagreeing with that crucial piece of evidence that you are using for your theories. But I just interpret it in a different way.

[Karyk]

nice spoiler i was just going to play it:/

[BearWulf]

oh hm so a big theory says that "the country" is actually the real word and our lil city "cloudbank" is a social experement about a soceity that have complete power over there lifes , even the sky and seasons are bound to the pips, i think our ashens and grant are in the real world (tnx god my babies are safe i love them so) while red and her lover are stuck in the transistor , but they are stuck there togheter :). any who when in the game pips say "see you in the country" they prob mean that hey see u in the real life

[BearWulf]

Originally posted by Iron_Gears:

What you might have to first consider is that Red's "Suicide" and the locations of the game are more like metaphors or representations of things in the story. If you favor Occam's Razor, this explanation is the most simple, (and sometimes that can be unsatisfying) because anything which is confusing or un-explainable can just be summed up to "It's just part of the story". Not a particularly satisfying explanation for what happens but it is something we must consider. That what happens is more of a representation than a physical(or digital) event.

Now the theory you've come to is one of the more complete (and not quite as sad as you might think) theories. That Red did actually kill herself and either The Country is a synonym for the after-life(meaning that both she and her lover are dead), or that she "killed" herself and is also absorbed into the Transistor with her lover and that both of their being's are stored in a reality within the transistor which resembles our real life idea of a country landscape, or that they are just one's and zeroes and that the scene with the country is more metaphorical.

Now I use the term "being", because its pretty clear that they aren't in their physical bodies (or are they?...Is Cloudbank just a fabricated reality from computers? Thats another fantastic topic of conversation) anymore. Being is just a loose term for their consciousness (meaning brain waves and synaptic patterns and all those beautiful neurological terms; Or their spirit's, soul's, trace's, whatever, something more metaphysical( and therefore more supernatural) and beyond the physical existence of brain patterns. Which is their actual state of existence? No effin clue...well I have some clues but lets get back to the topic at hand.

Now the reason that I say that this isn't quite as sad as you think is because Red and The Boxer (I've just gotten use to calling him that, we know from dialouge that he's been in underground fighting rings and in his arm's at the end have hand wraps) are now together again. And this isn't like a nice thought that maybe they met again beyond life, and like a commentary about Heaven. It's right there in the game! Wherever their being's exists, no matter what reality that is, they are together in that reality, which was partly the goal from the beginning of the game. Trying to find a way to get The Boxer out of the Transistor so that he and Red can be together again. Sure, their being's don't exist in the reality we call Cloudbank anymore, so that kinda suck's, but wherever they are, they are together. How else can you have a face-to-face conversation with someone if you aren't on the same level of reality?

I mention this because you think that Red is "dead" (for lack of a better word in confusing realities and the definition of death, lets juts say that her body isn't fuctioning anymore), while The Boxer's being is still stored inside the Transistor. Now I've already mentioned my theory before and my main problem with this conclusion because this suggests that the ending scene, where Red and The Boxer are able to interact with eachother, is somehow a hallucination or is just false. Like, Dude, that's almost as depressing as the ending for "The Road". And another thing would be, why would the Transistor, which has absorbed everything beforehand which was corroded by the process, and has even absorbed people's being's without The Process( The Boxer is absorbed by being stabbed with the Transistor through the gut, like Red did), Now suddenly that doesn't work on Red. It just doesn't absorb her. As far as I can tell, it absorbed her voice by merely scratching her side( and she has her voice back again in that end scene, maybe it was reconnected with her once she entered the Transistor?) , and was able to create a funtion with that Trace data. This however all suggests that both of their being's are stored in the Transistor. There are other clues as to why her just being dead might not be the case, but this is the biggest and most reliable one.

The problem with trying to figure out the "truth" behind the ending is that it makes us question about what reality even in. Because with that end scene, we have confirmation that in this world there are at least two different realities. At least, I personally believe that is what is the case and truth for the story; If you don't think that, then that's perfectly understandable. After all, SuperGiant Game's has been pretty open about wanting their games to be open to interpretation. So we've got free rein to theorize whatever we want.

I'm sorry for such a long message, but this game is one of my favorite's and I love the Lore soooooo much. I didn't wanna swamp you any more cause this is already an essay, but there's sooo much more theory about this that I can talk about. I'm just giving maybe a too detailed explanation about my personal theory, rather than going too much into all the other theories out there.:heyred:

Originally posted by Iron_Gears:

What you might have to first consider is that Red's "Suicide" and the locations of the game are more like metaphors or representations of things in the story. If you favor Occam's Razor, this explanation is the most simple, (and sometimes that can be unsatisfying) because anything which is confusing or un-explainable can just be summed up to "It's just part of the story". Not a particularly satisfying explanation for what happens but it is something we must consider. That what happens is more of a representation than a physical(or digital) event.

Now the theory you've come to is one of the more complete (and not quite as sad as you might think) theories. That Red did actually kill herself and either The Country is a synonym for the after-life(meaning that both she and her lover are dead), or that she "killed" herself and is also absorbed into the Transistor with her lover and that both of their being's are stored in a reality within the transistor which resembles our real life idea of a country landscape, or that they are just one's and zeroes and that the scene with the country is more metaphorical.

Now I use the term "being", because its pretty clear that they aren't in their physical bodies (or are they?...Is Cloudbank just a fabricated reality from computers? Thats another fantastic topic of conversation) anymore. Being is just a loose term for their consciousness (meaning brain waves and synaptic patterns and all those beautiful neurological terms; Or their spirit's, soul's, trace's, whatever, something more metaphysical( and therefore more supernatural) and beyond the physical existence of brain patterns. Which is their actual state of existence? No effin clue...well I have some clues but lets get back to the topic at hand.

Now the reason that I say that this isn't quite as sad as you think is because Red and The Boxer (I've just gotten use to calling him that, we know from dialouge that he's been in underground fighting rings and in his arm's at the end have hand wraps) are now together again. And this isn't like a nice thought that maybe they met again beyond life, and like a commentary about Heaven. It's right there in the game! Wherever their being's exists, no matter what reality that is, they are together in that reality, which was partly the goal from the beginning of the game. Trying to find a way to get The Boxer out of the Transistor so that he and Red can be together again. Sure, their being's don't exist in the reality we call Cloudbank anymore, so that kinda suck's, but wherever they are, they are together. How else can you have a face-to-face conversation with someone if you aren't on the same level of reality?

I mention this because you think that Red is "dead" (for lack of a better word in confusing realities and the definition of death, lets juts say that her body isn't fuctioning anymore), while The Boxer's being is still stored inside the Transistor. Now I've already mentioned my theory before and my main problem with this conclusion because this suggests that the ending scene, where Red and The Boxer are able to interact with eachother, is somehow a hallucination or is just false. Like, Dude, that's almost as depressing as the ending for "The Road". And another thing would be, why would the Transistor, which has absorbed everything beforehand which was corroded by the process, and has even absorbed people's being's without The Process( The Boxer is absorbed by being stabbed with the Transistor through the gut, like Red did), Now suddenly that doesn't work on Red. It just doesn't absorb her. As far as I can tell, it absorbed her voice by merely scratching her side( and she has her voice back again in that end scene, maybe it was reconnected with her once she entered the Transistor?) , and was able to create a funtion with that Trace data. This however all suggests that both of their being's are stored in the Transistor. There are other clues as to why her just being dead might not be the case, but this is the biggest and most reliable one.

The problem with trying to figure out the "truth" behind the ending is that it makes us question about what reality even in. Because with that end scene, we have confirmation that in this world there are at least two different realities. At least, I personally believe that is what is the case and truth for the story; If you don't think that, then that's perfectly understandable. After all, SuperGiant Game's has been pretty open about wanting their games to be open to interpretation. So we've got free rein to theorize whatever we want.

I'm sorry for such a long message, but this game is one of my favorite's and I love the Lore soooooo much. I didn't wanna swamp you any more cause this is already an essay, but there's sooo much more theory about this that I can talk about. I'm just giving maybe a too detailed explanation about my personal theory, rather than going too much into all the other theories out there.:heyred:

couldnt noticed the scratch on red that what took her voice but it makes sence :3
but mann thats a nice analsys if i ever read one, i already commented about this but i wanted to share u my thoughts too.
i think cloudbank is a social experement in a place (or reality) called "the country" then that means that ashens and grant prob woke up to "the country" after death. but our lil red is a diffrent story, by having her voice at the end we must consider that shes in the "transistor" a reality we saw in the final battle. overall i thank you for the insigh t

[Uncle Fester]

Originally posted by ObiWanKanBloMi:

nice spoiler i was just going to play it:/

The post says "SPOILERS" in the title, dont complain

[Karyk]

yea at the end of sentence.. this is what i saw when i was just scrolling... http://imgur.com/PKRIjhJ

[piedol]

Originally posted by ObiWanKanBloMi:

yea at the end of sentence.. this is what i saw when i was just scrolling... http://imgur.com/PKRIjhJ

Oh crap, didn't account for how it would look on the community hub. Sorry about that. I'll put my tags at the front of any steam posts I make from now on.