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@tustin2121 You expressed that very well, nice work. I had the same feelings at the end of the game; I tried to piece together a timeline of clues in an attempt to find some sort of meaning behind the death of the Ethan character. In the end, I settled on your bleak (but poignant) interpretation - it being a tragic/heartwrenching story about lonliness, isolation, and abuse.
In some ways, it reminded me a little bit of Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth; Similar in that the director explored the monsters of Ofelia's real life through her nightmarish fantasy world.
Both that movie, and this game, ends leaving the audience to come to terms with tragedy and loss.
In the same way that the ending of Pan's Labyrinth contained a "heaven" based on Ofelia's last visions before she died (equally bleak). I think that the whole "ascention" scene at the end of this game is closure for Ethan, a vision where he is finally accepted by his family who are desperately trying to save him. Based on the story up to that point, there is no real reason to believe that they would attempt to rescue him at all.
I think this is a pretty good explanation for the patent letter. The letter if I remember right was addressed to Ethan's father, and a nearby note was from Ethan's mother ridiculing his father for his lifetime of failures. Part of the reason why Ethan's father is so reluctant in many of the scenes to let Ethan suffer from his other relatives may be because of Ethan feeling that his father was the closest to him in creativity and being an outsider as well understood him best.
The fact that Ethan dreams of the deaths of his family as he is fighting for his life I think is his way of trying to reconcile that he knew he was dying and it was his way of killing his attachment for them off so he could rest peacefully.
A couple of people have else mentioned the elevator in the mine, wondering where it goes when Missy intended to go up in it.
Has anyone attempted to get on top of it? When it is all the way down in the water, after pressing the up button, there is a window of time for the player to possibly run on top of it before it rises above the floor.
Or perhaps the elevator is there just to tease one's imagination. :)
Here are some indices:
Analogously, the future self of Ethan Carter (the author Paul Prospero) may forgive his family for neglecting and abusing him. It may be an autobiographical story based on the stories about his family he wrote as child. The ending could be made up or really have happend (or something else).
What do you think about it?
I needed to check this out after I read your comment: You can't.
The cabin is closed and the game won't let you get on top of the elevator. So I think it's the latter one :)
Then, I've read all the comments, there are some interesting theories, I don't have a new one, but I noticed something that I'd like to share with you.
On the ending scene, while the camera fly away from the burning house, you can see some writings on the house walls. To me they doesn't seem from the early '80, and one of them reads something like "ALBAN 2005".
So the house didn't burn in the late '70?
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=762312644
Some figured out some parallels to the movie Pan's Labyrinth. I also find some similarities to Jacob's Ladder. Spoiler for this movie ahead. It's about a vietnam soldier, who gets deathly injured during the war. While fighting in agony, he dreams about his life after the war. He is followed and tortured by deamons, which won't let him die in the real world.
So is Ethan fighting. "The sleeper must not sleep" the mother says, although it's tempting.
In Jacob's Ladder one character says: "But if you accept your fait and let go, the deamons are actually angels". Letting go like when Prospero finally arrives, telling him it's okay to let go. There are other similarities between Jacob's Ladder and this game, which I won't mention here. :)
Another thought about the traps in the beginning: At first, the kid don't want the detective to suceed, because he is struggling to stay awake. Also the sign at the beginning of the maze in the mine says something like "if the ritual didn't work out, don't go any further". The obstacles, the player has to overcome are the source of Ethan's will to live.
I am really thankful for such a great game experiences. Like a good movie or a good book, the game's story will be stuck in my head for weeks.
I'll admit I have not actually completed the game, I bought it, played about 1/2 way through, met Commander Zombie and since my tolerance for jumpscares is somewhere around "jumps at someone suddenly turning the hoover on... irl", I gave up and watched a let's play instead. But hey, I've read all the posts, know what happens and I've given it some thought, so here's my fifty cents:
Prospero in the prequel comics is death. He's come to collect Ethan's soul while he slowly dies. The urgency from the letter is in fact him feeling Ethan's time has come. However, death in this case is not the cold hearted, cowled reaper we usually see, but a kindly fellow. One who has seen too many saddened souls - people who have had unfair, unpleasant lives who die before their time - before they see happiness. He decides that as one last treat before he takes Ethan to the afterlife, he will give Ethan a detective story, specially tailored to him, where he is the protaganist, and has to rescue a lost little boy (himself).
So we have Prospero, who is actually Ethan, playing through his own detective novel. His thoughts and dreams cover the story in its own flavour - the characters are all those whom he knows well, which since he lives somewhere highly remote, seems limited to his close family. His own stories and memories litter the landscape, which itself is drawn from his own memories. When Prospero finds Ethan, the roles swap again. Ethan finds himself looking into death's eyes, and finds comfort, gentleness. Feelings he has never felt beforel; with a downtrodden father who is afraid to show love for the son whom the rest of his family treat with disdain, a distant grandfather who spends more time imagining the past than living in the present, he never really has felt true affection.
Death, however, cannot hide his nature, or his role in this story. Prospero never meets a living person - death can only deal in death. The scene is set as autumn - natures death time. The time is sunset - the day is dying. All the houses are rotton, abandoned, dying. There is almost no sounds of life anywhere.
The sleeper? A quote comes to mind here "The human body is amazing. No matter how much the mind may wish for death, the body will do all it can to keep on living." The sleeper, quite simply, is Ethan's subconcious will for life. His mind, desiring the release death is offering, keeps trying to push the idea that wakening the sleeper is the worst thing to do, and that all it wants is Ethan, that it. Must. Not. Wake. Up. Must. Not. Live.
The crows? Crows are a very common carrion bird. They crowd round where death can be found. When prequel Prospero heads off to reap Ethan, the crows gather strongly round. They can sense the death, they know what death is heading for. Where else do they appear strongly? The graveyard. The centre of death in a community is also the place where a massive *murder* of crows is seen, where sacrifices of crows are made, where a crow-like sacrificial dagger is found, where a crow statuette is used to reveal death.
EDIT: Forgot the ending.
The end shows the final end of Ethan. Before we take him off, we must check to ensure we've completed his final story, for death does not wish for this to be over too soon. Once done, Ethan wakes up, no longer Prospero, simply himself. His soul is reaped, and with Ethan gone, the fake world falls apart. Death/Prospero finds himself watching Ethan's final living minutes, just as Ethan did as Prospero through his final story. Time slows, stops, as Ethan falls unconcious and Death/Prospero loses his grip on the anchor of Ethan. The final pan, Death/Prospero returning back to the relm of the dead, visualized in the prequel comic as the cabin in the wild west.
So yeah, maybe I'm colouring this a little with my own imaginings, as I've always thought that if death exists, he's at worst apathetic to most human suffering, having seen the worst of it a thousand times over. More likely, he feels sorry for us - an immortal, invulnerable being whom has never felt loss, sorrow or pain having to look after the mortal, terror filled beings whom have just lost everything.
Thoughts appreciated, assuming anyone still cares.
I've done my best to trace what I can see and it looks like it says Alban - 1005 to me, unless ♥♥♥♥'s hidden under the ivy. http://imgur.com/aOCZMA3
No idea what it means.
You are naive to assume that nobody cares. In fact, we need people like you in games like this.
I just bought and finished the game (redux version), and just like most other players here in the forum, the story and the narrative of the game really astonished me. I think this is truly one of the best-told adventures out there, and although I currently do not have the time to play a lot, I have seen and played quite some adventures in my life: So, this is to the Astronauts: Very good job & thanks a lot!
Probably just like most of you, I came here to the forum to check my understanding of the story and to get rid of some loose ends in the plot. Indeed, many comments have helped me a lot in doing that; nonetheless, I was surprised to find that my initial understanding of the story is quite different to the approaches I have read so far, and I think it adds some new aspects to how you can understand the storyline of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. So maybe it is worthwhile to share my “reading” of the story, even more, as it is still compatible with most of the interpretations I have read above. (I have to admit that while I read most of them, I did not read all of them. So if I missed out another version of “my interpretation” – sorry for wasting your time ;) )
Note, that what I am going to outline right now is probably changing the way you see the story, and while I have to admit that there are still some loose ends in it, it will answer quite some of the questions raised in this thread before. Always remember: What you read cannot be unread, and at a certain point of my reasoning outlined below, it might be more interesting to stop reading and make your own thoughts before continuing to read all of it. Still, I do not think this is the only way to understand the story, and there will be some ambiguities left. Obviously, the authors of the game did not intend to have only one meaning in their story, as can be inferred from the following blog post, the authors published in late 2014:
http://www.theastronauts.com/2014/10/vanishing-ethan-carters-ending-extreme-spoilers/
In this blog post, the authors address a point of critique that was raised in this thread as well: The >>– Simple/cliché ending<<, which refers to the “it was all a dream”-interpretation of the story. The authors then quickly sum up three common interpretations of the story:
>>
1. Ethan is dying, and Paul Prospero is nothing but Ethan’s imagination. Ethan is the Sleeper. We don’t know if Ethan survives or dies, but it’s most likely that he dies. In either case, the camera that flies away at the end might be Ethan’s soul.
2. Ethan is dying, and Paul Prospero is either Death or an angelic being who helps Ethan transition to the other side. If that’s the case, the camera that flies away at the end might be Paul, who’s done his job.
3. Since it’s all about, as Travis puts it at one point, “stories, stories, always with the stories”, the whole game is another Ethan’s story, his dream to finally bring this dysfunctional family together (read this on why this is important to Ethan), even if only on “paper”. If that’s the case, the camera that flies away at the end might be the story’s ending.
<<
before stating:
>>
Is there anything more?
Sure.
This “simple” game was designed for over a year. We know it looks minimalistic in a way, but it’s on purpose. We believe there’s no exploration and discovery without exploration and discovery. There are layers to the family and to the story itself hidden deeply, but in plain sight. No one has gotten to these parts yet. Maybe no one ever will, but that’s okay. We believe that somehow, subconsciously, these layers are the reason why the game resonates with so many people.
<<
Having said that, I now will present you my interpretation of the story – as said before, step by step, so that you can stop whenever you like and make your own thoughts
The player’s alter ego is Paul Prospero, “supernatural detective”, who comes to the Vandergriff estate to explore a series of events that has taken place there. By walking around, Paul discovers stories that once were told and invented by Ethan, a kid that lived there before vanishing. By looking at the story notes and other material (newspaper articles, photos, and even short snippets of conversation between Ethan and the other family members that he perceives with his “supernatural powers”) Paul reconstructs the relationships between Ethan and his family (you can find more detailed discussions in other comments above). He also finds out about the events that led to the vanishing of Ethan: It was an accident, a fire, caused by a spilled oil lamp when the other family members were searching for Ethan and found him in his secret place. They try to save him, but seem not to be successful – Ethan cannot get out of his secret room and finally is poisoned by the toxic smokes. His final thoughts are credited to the stories he wrote, and the player recognizes, that the story of Paul Prospero is only Ethan’s last story. Paul Prospero is just a part of Ethan’s imagination, and what has been revealed until this point is just what Ethan experienced before vanishing – partly influenced by his own experiences with his family, partly due to his fantasy.
So far so good – nothing new until now.
"But what happens then?"
" - Another story kid. What else?"
Let me interrupt here for a second and let me point out that this is obviously only half of the story told in the game. All in all, there are 10 scenes in the game, and 5 of them refer to Ethan’s fictional stories: The forest of traps, the spaceman, the secret room, the witch’s house in the wood, and the dead miner’s curse/underwater monster.
The other 5 scenes depict crime stories that show the death of Ethan’s family members. These stories, as they are told in the game, always consist of 5 scene points that can be brought into a correct order that tell the true series of events that has taken place in a certain scene.
Look at the scenes/story as a whole.
(If you already finished the game, you can just click on continue and continue your exploration of the island, and even more: there are portals that help you to get around more quickly. Why should you be able to do that, if there was not something else to discover?)
It becomes obvious, that the order of the crime scenes is not correct in the order that Paul encounters them on his journey. For example, in the first (railroad track) scene, Travis (the brother of Ethan) dies, but in later scenes, he is alive. How could that be? The scenes are in the wrong order.
The correct order is the following:
1. Dale and Missy kill Chad on the graveyard
2. Dale kills Missy in the mine
3. Dale kills himself at the turbine building
4. Ed kills Travis at the railroad track
5. Ed kills himself in the Vandergriff house and burns down every last bit of it.
And of course, at the very beginning:
0. Ethan dies (by accident) in the Vandergriff house
Now, the interpretation of the whole story is clear-cut, at least to me: Paul Porspero explores two stories, Ethan’s story before his accidental death, and a story of grief and hatred, leading to the full extinction of the Carter family in the end - a story that is obviously deeply connected to the Vandergriff house. Paul Prospero, being a part of Ethan’s imagination not only explores the events of the past, but also the future, as measured from the point of his death. In the end, Ed has not only lost his wife Gayle in an earlier fire, but also his whole family in the tragedies unfolding after the death of Ethan. However, this might have ended the ritual (constant grief) and ended the curse forever.
(Btw. look at the launch trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4sMtzeVqYc)
That’s about it in short. Thank you for your attention. I would be happy to hear about your thoughts on this interpretation. Help me to sort out remaining inconsistencies ;)
Greetings,
Purdey
i am actually leaning more and more towards Ethan being 'the figment of imagination', or a sort of catalyst, and the story being a metaphor. the family is constantly trying to kill Ethan: the uncle tries to wall him up into a weird ritualistic chamber (and is told to "hurry up" before Ethan "wakes up"); Travis is presumably looking for Ethan when he tries to axe the father, expecting Ethan to be the one emerging from the caves (after the two have the discussion in which Ethan says he knows what to do - and the first time we see Ethan with oil canisters is in the mine, the second time there is a canister on the railroad tracks where he is tied down, and the third is in the basement that he intends to burn down, which trace his whereabouts and chronology). the mother and father seem sometimes to agree that it would be best if he died/disappeared and sometimes inclined to protect him - this is rather confusing, but could be explained by the fact that (if Ethan is some sort of memory or tragedy of an actual child of theirs) they would be conflicted as to how to feel about the ordeal, instead of seemingly determined to just 'get rid of it' (like Travis and the uncle) - 'it' being the memory of the tragedy, the tragedy itself, or somesuch, in keeping with this interpretation (so the 'killings' are entirely metaphorical, and rather attempts at hiding/walling up/getting rid of s-t.).
i mean: "something" isn't supposed to wake up, and that something - if taken to be Ethan - can construe Ethan himself as some sort of shared family feeling of guilt/grief. something may have happened to Ethan, if he was ever alive/a real person (somewhat contradicted by the newspaper article in which there are only six people in the Carter family), or to someone else, symbolized by Ethan. the grandfather seems the most protective of Ethan, in actually 'saving him' from Travis (come to think of it, this is also a strangely ritualistic murder: why tie him to a train track and running him over instead of just killing him, especially if you have just been shown carrying an axe?) - but even he approaches Ethan, saying how he's "sorry" and forcing Ethan to run away from him (note how Ethan is suspicious of the grandfather as he enters the basement, eventually accepting that he is there to 'help'). the grandfather is also the only one who seems to 'die' in peace, of his own accord, after trapping Ethan inside the room (and thus succeeding in 'containing' the emotion/feeling/memory/whatever).
i realize that i keep digressing here; but we could also see the stories throughout the game as remnants of an Ethan, that is, a sense of innocence. maybe we are to interpret the story as a metaphorical story of grief (the connection of the five stages having already been made in this thread alone, as well as by one of the devs), which all takes place AFTER the family fails to save Ethan from the room into which he chooses to retreat and maintain his fantasy world. in failing to save him, the family regrets being abusive and each member tries to deal with those feelings of regret or insufficiency in their own way: the ways that they are described in the odd family photo, and in the achievement titles (which both tie back to the five stages of grief). so basically, Ethan is the memory of Ethan as a reminder of their worst selves, which they try to deal with in different ways - the uncle by ritualistic burial (denial), Travis by brute force (axe when Ethan 'emerges', tying him down when he can't keep 'track' of him running around, etc).
now this doesn't exactly 'explain' Prospero, but following the Shakespearian interpretation he could be a sort of traveller/narrator on behalf of the dead ("spirits ... such stuff that dreams are made on"), trying to walk the family through the stages of grief, hoping that they might one day find a sort of peace/acceptance (presumably as the very dead Ethan wants them to forgive themselves, which is why he 'hires' Prospero - of course, this is also metaphorical, as is Prospero having 'solved a lot of cases'). basically, Prospero is the one weaving the story, but we are presented it as a rather straight-forward detective story: it's a little bit like in Paul Auster's City of Glass, where Quinn is actually creating the story as he goes along. the story in City of Glass ends when there is nothing left to do, the story having ended (up) where it first began (at a point before the main story that we are reading actually started): the story in Ethan Carter ends when the grandfather vanquishes the spirit of Ethan to the room in which Ethan felt home (there could be a range of metaphorical interpretations of this too, of course - putting him to rest in a place that he deserves, allowing Prospero to close the book on him).
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this is incredibly long, so my apologies! :D