Why Red?

[TheDovahkiinPro]

I've just finished the game and i've one question of the story: in all this...why the camerada attacked Red? Why her? Why she's so special? Can sameone, please, explain this to me? i'm not so sure about this!

[TheRealRws]

her singing was really influential to the people. A bit to much influential for the camerada so they tried to off her but they only took her voice.

[TheDovahkiinPro]

i got it now :)
thanks a lot :)

[TheRealRws]

Np

[ThatGuyCDude]

I disagree. While the Camerata saw her as an instigator, their goal was to gather perspectives from various backgrounds to flesh out the database of the Transistor. Reading the trace files reveals some of this, and it is later confirmed by Bracket. So they didn't so much want to silence her as much as they wanted to leash her voice to their cause.

Considering the transistor's actual purpose (to control the Process), I suspect the Camerata were collecting as many artistic people as they could in an effort to give the device the data it needed (to conduct mass-scale city redesigns... the artistic know-how to craft a beautiful city was something that couldn't be calculated by Bracket's formulae, as evidenced by the white-out effect of the Process WITHOUT the transitor versus the Cloudbank style once the thing had been nested).

Specifically, all of the victims of the Camerata absorbed into the Transitor (save triangle jacket--or Boxer if you prefer--who was collateral damage) were notable enough to have the public's attention but not so notable they wouldn't be missed if removed.
Red being protected and only scratched by the transistor is a direct result of the "collateral damage" 's interference, and because she and he were able to flee before he perished they were able to keep the Transistor (thereby destroying Cloudbank with their love, as without it the Process could not be controlled)

That was my takeaway, at least.

[TheDovahkiinPro]

all this actually make sense! i LOVE how much different can be an interpretation of this game's lore! this is just amazing!

[Agenta]

The other thing that most people haven't mentioned as far as I can tell is Sybil. Sybil Reisz (the "People" person of the Camerta) had a not-so-secret affection for Red. Sybil also was kinda jealous about Red being in love with Blue/Boxer/The Transistor (As far as I can tell) so thought a good way to get rid of him would be to lie to the Camerata about Red and convince them to target her while she was "alone" scheduling it so that Boxer/Blue would take the hit and be absorbed into it, leaving Red alone for Sybil. It may not be right, but it is a theory based on Sybil's dialouge during the boss fight, the song "In Circles", as well as the enviornment in the Sandbox (A Camerata umbrella, a Red's jacked themed hammock-thing, a Fetch Dog (which Sybil's function spawns), and Red's music playing on the player).

[AnkhWarrior]

I dont think that the first post said is true.... Red was a singer, and she frequently sang about boring life in Cloudbank had become, exactly what the Camerata wanted. Listen to Signels. That is ultimately her greatest song about the topic, next to We All Become being an angrier variant.

Well, Sybil noticed her. And had a crush. Like, in love-level. Well, so that she could be closer to her, Sybil convinced the rest of the Camerata that she would be a worthy addition to their group. And so, all four members came to her after one of her preformances. Before so, Grant specifically asked if he could borrow the Transistor from Royce, for reasons that I honestly dont know myself.

And so, all four of them met her, Grant wielding the Transistor. When they went to offer her an invitation though, Red's husband appears (Note the rings. They both wear a ring.) They had not assumed another person would come, and paniced. With Grant makeing an attempt to attack Red with the Transistor. Her husband blocks the attack, becomeing atacked instead and ultimately 'dying'. This act led to the reset of the Transistor. Once Red removes the Transistor from her husband's body, she is made the new owner of it, and without the Transistor in the hands of a member of the Camerata, the Process cannot be controlled.

Kinda lengthy, but there's the best of what i could give of a proper answar. Transistor is a game that loves it's missing details and question-based plot.

[ThatGuyCDude]

Hmm... I interpreted Sybil's dialogue as jealousy, like she was envious of Red's singing career. That she [Sybil] was found on the stage--next to the microphone--being processed also implies that perhaps she tried to implant Red's voice into herself? And failed, of course, since the transistor was gone.

I wasn't paying much attention to her, though... most of my focus was on Royce (since you actually get to have a conversation with him... Asher's notes don't really count). I suppose each member of the Camerata had their own motivation for being there that night.


For a different perspective, if you analyze the whole of Transistor as a program (more specifically, as a self-referencing or rather Recursive function), it seems more clear why Red is the focus.

Red text in the log notifies of a Crash(); an unexpected exception caused the program to terminate. In order to terminate, the Bracketed loop has to Break() and a Help() file triggers explaining the error and that there will be a Void() return.
But Cloudbank(Cloudbank(Cloudbank(...))) becomes Cloudbank(Cloudbank(Cloudbank(Void()))), an unexpected input causing a Crash() on the next level of the function and calling for another Break().
So let's parse this: BlueTriangleBoxer is the first person IN the Transistor... his function is called to exit the loop and move on to the next process {aptly named}. As a result, others systematically submit their returns and input THEIR functions into the Transistor. Red, the unhandled exception, is the last to respond and move up to the next 'level' of the recursion. So she stands out because she's the Crash() that causes the break in the loop, erasing Cloudbank(). The real question, then, becomes how many recursions will crash in this fashion before the program terminates?

That probably didn't make a lot of sense, but hopefully it was at least somewhat coherent. Transistor's plot has a lot of layers, and there isn't one definitively 'correct' interpretation.

[BearWulf]

becuz as ashens said, red is special. why? red as a very popular singer cought the hearts of many peoples in the cloudbank, the camerata wanted to capture those singularities, well there data. and improve the ever changing cloudbank city for the good of the people even if they didnt vote on that change. i remember in one of the songs red sayed she will not become "zeros and ones not me not me".

[Sorin]

anubisdragon i think ur post is the most insightful i've read here.
how the functions all synergize with one another, complementing the gameplay analogy

[AnkhWarrior]

Heya Anubian, was your second post a response to my own? If it was I apologize for the absurd delay, I'd never noticed.

Yeah I'm convinced what Sybil had was in fact a crush. She was jealous, but not to at Red. She was jealous of the fact she was taken already, by Blue. I think when she asked the group to come to her concert, she knew that Blue would be there, and that it may result in his death. It is for this reason she is branded a traitor of the Camerata, and killed. Yes, have you ever noticed that at the corner of the stage, there is a processed wall, and an area labeled a crime scene? I think the Camerata killed her, and the Process had inhabited her corpse...

As for the ()'s I think it's a really reasonable theory. The origin of Cloudbank though has never been something I think about, though. It's something that a lot of what we could come up with for it is almost exclusively guesses, with a handful of details pushing specific ideas. I'm on mobile at the moment and have plans within a few minutes, so if you wanna hear some of my ideas behind Cloudbank just say so. It hasn't been a focus for my thought, but that dosnt mean I've had none at all.

[Sorin]

@ankhwarrior
haven't we already established cloudbank as a virtual world? or at least something of the sort?
i think it would be fruitless speculating on its origins, but nonetheless like to hear your ideas if u don't mind

[AnkhWarrior]

Sorry for never responding for some time. Every time I remembered this post existed I was already heading to sleep... :P

That out of the way, yes the amount of Codeing-references in the game leads to a really common idea that the world is computor-generated and while it is more then likely, I personally don't like it. That would mean any of te characters in the game may not even be real, just variations of people we've never seen. Plus...why would it end in the Country? What would a farm have to do with a computor software? A software inside a software? If what they did allowed then to exit the software, why would it be in an area like that, without a single computor or lab in sight? I think it's a pretty reasonable idea for the Country to actually be heaven, but...that would mean that Red genuinely did kill herself, which is a saddening note. As I said this isn't a concept I think about heavily, and because of that I don't have any possible alternatives to the ending, of it either being a program, or the real deal. I feel like there's a missing little piece that would help set something straight, but we haven't found it yet... Be it in a part of the map, one of the songs, a hidden symbolism... The only theory I have is that it has something to do with not just the Transistor itself, but the Cradle and where it takes you, specifically. That's probably the part of the game with the most questions about it...

[AnkhWarrior]

Oh a random note by the way. For some reason the Process really like Red's singing... Could that be a little remnant of Sybil, or something else entirely? Wait...not just her singing Red period... Remember the part where a ton of them are just standing there, stateing at one of her posters? When they 'dance' along to her humming on the stage? Is it because she wield the Transistor? Maybe there's an underlying meaning behind Red we don't know about?