Story ending explained [spoilers]

[Amenophys]

The story is simple:

Fred was known to be able to climb mountains at the age of 52. You can see a newspaper on a wall in the epilogue stating that exploit.

Fred died during a climbing accident. He probably felt into a crevice or similar. His body has never been found (hence the memorial).

The story is the story the kid made up in his head to imagine how his uncle could have survived, he viewed him as a genius (he was expert in quantum physics as a wall says), and imagined that in his ice tomb he survived with a mystical travel device, that he was living with happy and nice creatures in a small paradise inside the mountains... He imagined himself traveling in that world. just like his uncle did, to find him again, but, in the end, lose him forever (admit his death).

That's why you don't get to open the locker in the end, and there is no launch pad. That story never happened.

That's also why the glowing message in the final ice room before you quit your uncle is translated "Acceptance".

Other secret words, once translated say "Denial" (portal) and in caverns "Anger". These are the common steps when you are in mourning (in psychology: shock -> denial -> culpability -> anger -> sadness -> acceptance and other blablabla http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model)

[Crimsaara]

Barnerges a écrit :

Random a écrit :

What bugs me about the ending is, that there is a bottle of Anti Depressings in Fred's house.

That plus the fact that there is such a strong focus on crystals and frogs made me think of the following:

We have this Uncle who is always fun and interesting and very nice and creative and what not. Just like the frog people in the first world. Than he starts using some crystals that grant him super powers and make him feel like he can fly. The frog people think those crystals are dangerous and should be handled with care, but the Stray use lots of crystals. Crystals make their world go round and everything is just flying and colorful. But that doesn't last very long. The last world is dark and cold and depressing. The theme is isolation: Your friends stay behind, never to be seen again. The world starts falling apart (cubes and stalactites). In the end, we find Fred alone in a dark cave that is full of crystals. It literally looks like a vortex! He helps you escape, thus allowing your story to go on. But Fred won't escape this world. He is lost to the crystal vortex.

TLDR: Fred died of drugs!

I find this interpretation interesting, mostly because at one point in the Ice Caves Nephew mentions how it seems that everything was flash frozen. I find that this could indeed be a parallel to some sort of tolerance to anti depressants? Maybe?

Furthermore, another thing that I thought SUPER interesting was this one part in the Ice Cave where there is a giant whale frozen in the ice! I was hoping that the Narrator would say something about it, but nope!

Finally, what about some of the postnotes at the beginning of the game? It seems that Fred had some sort of romance going on with this "Mara?" Also seems that he has some notes about getting together with some buds. (These are all found in the entry above the desk at the beginning of the game.) Seems odd that he would just leave these people behind because "Hey! Portal to frog-people land!"

Hmmm.... I did find it odd that the whale wasn't even mentioned :|

[JainaEgo]

Random a écrit :

What bugs me about the ending is, that there is a bottle of Anti Depressings in Fred's house.

That plus the fact that there is such a strong focus on crystals and frogs made me think of the following:

We have this Uncle who is always fun and interesting and very nice and creative and what not. Just like the frog people in the first world. Than he starts using some crystals that grant him super powers and make him feel like he can fly. The frog people think those crystals are dangerous and should be handled with care, but the Stray use lots of crystals. Crystals make their world go round and everything is just flying and colorful. But that doesn't last very long. The last world is dark and cold and depressing. The theme is isolation: Your friends stay behind, never to be seen again. The world starts falling apart (cubes and stalactites). In the end, we find Fred alone in a dark cave that is full of crystals. It literally looks like a vortex! He helps you escape, thus allowing your story to go on. But Fred won't escape this world. He is lost to the crystal vortex.

TLDR: Fred died of drugs!

Nothing about a bottle of antidepressants by itself indicates death by drugs. Antidepressants are a fairly safe treatment for depression, not something like cocaine. It's much more likely to indicate that Fred was depressed and ended his life.

The crystals and frogs were probably just a fantasy tool for the narrator. The frogs were clearly based on the story about the uncle bringing home eggs that turned out to be mosquitoes (ignoring the fact that mosquito eggs hatch into things that are clearly not tadpoles and take a while to enter the airborne state) and crystals serve as a source of 'magic', a fantasy element that fills a lot of potential logical holes in the story - the rapid development of the tadpoles into sentients and the floating islands and the fact that the grappling crystal drain them don't really point all that strongly to drugs.

Leaving friends behind is very much a death thing - I mean, you're dead, your friends are left behind and they will never see you again (nor will you see anything, which is beside the point). The various styles of the areas match up fairly well with the stages of grief that are posted around the areas so there's no need for them to somehow also be a drug metaphor. Don't get me wrong, I can see what you're going for but as far as I know it doesn't really fit with how normal antidepressants work and would make more sense for something like meth/cocaine or even narcotics - things for which there is no real evidence.

[Random]

Good point. I like your interpretation a lot more than mine :)

[jake-hanson]

I don't know if this varies between languages, or possibly patches (some here have mentioned it as being "my boy") but Fred's final words are "Take care, son!". "Son" is almost completely faded out, but it appears in the subtitles.

I guess this could just be a term of endearment, or a result of translation, but my first thought was that Fred was actually the character's semi-estranged father. The kid gets to go on lots of cool "holidays" with his "uncle", but outside of these visits Fred has lots of other things and issues in his life (work, adventures, friends, romances, mental health), and can't be a committed father. The kid idolises Fred viewed through the lens of his paternal visits, but when he tries to spend more time with his father, he's sent away, effectively ending their relationship. It may even be that Fred had a second and similarly neglected family, who he does decide to commit to.

I imagine the "real" event as the boy running away from home to see Fred, who his mother allows him to see, but has strong reservations about. As he arrives unannounced, Fred is not home, but another child (Maddie), who's "known Fred (her) whole life", is. Meanwhile, when asked what an uncle is, the boy is unable to explain his relationship to Fred. The boy remarks on how bizarrely similar, yet different, he and Maddie are.

Maddie is also missing Fred, so the two of them decide to go looking for him and the first place they go is the Village. In this metaphor I think that the Village is a foster home. Maddie doesn’t seem to have a mother or other family, but is cared for by the Village, and spends periods with Fred. In the Village are more of Fred’s parentless creations and some children can be found sitting by themselves looking unhappy. Attempts have been made to spruce things up, but it’s generally run down, living is cramped and it’s strewn with the things that Fred has attempted to get rid of without consequence. Maddie goes to the Village leader (Samuel), who is the analogical care worker with whom she clashes. Samuel is now faced with Maddie, whose father has failed his duty of care, and another lost child. Samuel wants Fred to reform and fulfil his role as father, but has to keep Maddie at the home, away from the “danger” of her father’s rejection. Meanwhile he passes the boy onto social services, helping to reunite him with his legal guardian, though exposing him to the same emotional perils Samuel is protecting Maddie from.

On leaving the home the kid is feeling a bit scared, and a bit down. Things aren’t really going to plan, and he’s being passed around by the authorities. Following her argument with Samuel, Maddie runs away from the home, and the two of them have to keep their heads down in front of the watchful eye of authority figures who intimidate the boy, and will send Maddie back to the home.

Things brighten up again when they reach Star Haven and the Strays. What is Star Haven and who are the Strays? If the foster home Maddie was living in was the entry into the social care system, dealing with troubled kids and families, then Star Haven is where kids (Strays) go when they’ve completely entered the system. They’re separated from their families, but can consequently be offered much more security and a better level of care. Maddie feels safe here and can fit in with other children who’ve moved on from their past lives, until Maddie herself stops fighting to be with the father she only imagines. Meanwhile social services continue attempting to reunite the boy with his guardian.

As the boy leaves the sanctuary of Star Haven on the final leg of his journey to find Fred, things begin to look bleak again. The boy had set out expecting another adventure like the ones he always had with Fred, but now he discovers that those adventures are buried under metaphorical ice in the vast parts of Fred’s life in which he does not feature. Fred’s armour, in which he wrapped himself, begins to fail as the boy’s disillusionment sets in. The boy’s final encounter with Fred is brief and somewhat anticlimactic. Fred is happy to see the boy, but too absorbed in his work to spend time with him. As an adult the boy seems to recognise and accept Fred’s eccentricities and scattered personality, and given the lack of conflict when leaving, he seemed to have accepted it then already. Meanwhile this parting perhaps prompts Fred to reform as Maddie’s father. Neither child begrudges the other their relationship with Fred, and between them display how the stages of grief alluded to throughout the game don’t just apply to death.

In the post credits the house that we see remains a metaphor for memories, and the boy grown up writes a rare letter to his estranged father with news of his granddaughter.

[ZeroUnderscoreOu]

That' an unexpected view on the story, I'd say. Pretty interesting.

[Random]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing. :)

[ZeroZaga]

I fisnished the game today and after reading the discussion. I like to complement the theory answering some questions with my own theories. Beforehand sorry for my bad english, not my native languaje.

What influence have the uncle and this story in the adventure of the narrator that everyone including me concludes is the parenthood?

In the last dialoge with the uncle the narrator said: "I don want to get back, I want to stay here with you and Maddeline" The uncle use to be like a father to him, we can assume he doesn't have a father because he never mentions one. Loosing his uncle was like loosing his father and during his depresion he doesn't want to live anymore without him. But his uncle stops him. Staying in ths "fantasy world" means dead and that in the future he would not have the joy to be father, his own big adventure. I thing the anti-depressives belongs to the narrator and he leaves them in the uncle's house as part of his mind process because he doesn't need them anymore.

Why Maddeline, the frog people and a more advance device that fits perfectly to him?

The entire "fantasy" is constructed basen on the experiences with the uncle, his hobby and his work. One of those experiences, when they found some "frog" eggs is an experience that the narrator always have in mind. I think this memory give birth the frog people.

The device is something that the uncle was working with before he dies, this works just as a tool to found his uncle, we know the device the uncle is wearing seems a lot primitive than the one we found in the begining, meaning he does not finish it before he "leaves".

And Madeline in my opinion is a reflexion of the narrator, in the end the uncle regrets he abandons her, reflecting the abandon of the nephew. This can explain a lot of thoughts that the narrator have about her.

Why he never tell the story to his mother, fearing she would not believe him?

Some times during the psycological process to deal with a trauma of loosing a beloved person we tend to create some fiction around it, sometimes we decide to believe this fiction and keep it personal. Telling this fiction to his mother could lead to a desacreditation of the necesary step. He decide to go further with this "fantasy" pretending was a real experience and works for him and there is no need to make someone else believe it.

That's all. Again sorry for the bad english. I try to do my best. If someone can correct my mistakes I would be very gratefull.

[Sujeto_117]

I support ZeroZaga version the most (spanish: "se entiende perfectamente, ¡gracias!").

In fact, I think is like an extension to the one of the original thread creator, Amenophys.

FATHER

One thing I want to clarify is what ZeroZaga says: "we can assume he doesn't have a father because he never mentions one".

If I'm not wrong, in the final dialog with her daughter, the narrator says this:

Daughter: “Maddie didn’t have a real father right, if she was born from an egg?”
Narrator: “That’s another thing we had in common.”

I guess he is not referring to be born from an egg... xDDD

So we can 100% assure that he had no father.

ANTIDEPRESSANTS

For me, it would be strange that someone as vitalist as his uncle, needed antidepressants.

One guy that
- do quantum physics, that implies some kind of craving for knowledge, or motivation for research
- and is able to climb mountains at the age of 52
doesn't seems to be the profile for antidepressants.

But one guy that loses to his beloved uncle (that he see as a father) at a difficult age (maybe when he was a child?) match a lot more.

Developers could have added a tag in the pills' bottle with the narrator's name (do we know it? Don't remember right now, sorry) and everything would have been clearer.

[Sujeto_117]

I have done some research, just to see if any of the developers had talked ever about the history behind ASAMU, and I've come to this interview[www.xp4t.com] where one of the creators, Sebastian Zethraeus, talk about the game.

He tells that "the main part of the story was written by our artist and writer, Elin".

So I followed the trail, to see who Elin was, and I ended up finding her Facebook[www.facebook.com], Tumbler[elin-draws.tumblr.com], Portfolio[www.hamberg.pp.se] and Deviant Art[khaerii.deviantart.com] profiles.

I have kindly invited her (via Tumbler) to share a word with us in this thread. Don't know if she will be so kind, but I think her words would be the most valuable of all.

I hope she is willing to share a minutes with us. If that is the case I would, at least, be very grateful.

[ZeroZaga]

Sujeto_117 a écrit :

I have done some research, just to see if any of the developers had talked ever about the history behind ASAMU, and I've come to this interview[www.xp4t.com] where one of the creators, Sebastian Zethraeus, talk about the game.

He tells that "the main part of the story was written by our artist and writer, Elin".

So I followed the trail, to see who Elin was, and I ended up finding her Facebook[www.facebook.com], Tumbler[elin-draws.tumblr.com], Portfolio[www.hamberg.pp.se] and Deviant Art[khaerii.deviantart.com] profiles.

I have kindly invited her (via Tumbler) to share a word with us in this thread. Don't know if she will be so kind, but I think her words would be the most valuable of all.

I hope she is willing to share a minutes with us. If that is the case I would, at least, be very grateful.

Hey, nice research. Thanks! :D

[sophie9709]

I interpreted the plot a little differently.

Fred really is the Narrator's uncle. He had a daughter called Maddie once upon a time, and would go on adventures with her all the time. However, many people tried to confine her and said what she was doing was dangerous. It was. Nevertheless, she felt angry at the restrictions placed upon her and she rebelled. On one of her adventures probably after a big fight with her grandfather (the Village Elder in the game), she died. Fred still continued exploring but he never really got over her death, which is why he chose to stay in the other realm and probably reunite with her. However, a reason why it might take him a little while is because he blames himself for her death and feels he cannot confront her.

In the meantime Maddie (in the Narrator's mind at the time anyway) is in a place between Heaven (represented by Star Haven) and Earth because she cannot let go of her anger just yet. This is why the Village is a mixture of what she wants (it is a dangerous place to live if you don't know what you are doing) and her life (restrictions placed by elders). She is also probably angry that she did not heed her grandfather's words. Having one last safe but thrilling adventure with the Narrator (according to him anyhow) allows her to let go of her anger and finally reach Heaven (Star Haven).

As for the Narrator, Fred really was a father figure to him; goodness knows what happened to the Narrator's real father. After the death of Real Maddie Fred felt empty. He took Fred on to help cope with his grief and that turned out better than expected. However after his disappearance (hence the lack of postcards) the Narrator took it really hard. He must have been around Maddie's age, no older than 13 years probably. He probably did some stupid things or attempted suicide. His last attempt got him a near death experience, which is what this game is. The Narrator of course covered up the suicide bit for his daughter.

Why did the Narrator end up at the Village? Because he thought he died in more or less the same condition Maddie did, still a child, with part of himself still on Earth. Which could also explain why he visited Star Haven but did not stay: he was not really ready to die yet. Why was Fred in the ice caves? Because he was depressed. As said before he never really got over her death so he imposed himself to stay in an icy Hell, amongst graves, with things falling apart, because that is what he thought he deserved. Being a scientist of course he would still explore, of course, but he could not bring himself to enjoy Star Haven. The Ice Caves could also be a visual representation of Fred's caving adventures and also his love for danger. Fred also wanted the best for the Narrator, of course, which is why he sent the Narrator back to life. He knew the Narrator was not done with his life yet, and so did the Narrator by then. With that, the Narrator accepted the fact Fred was very probably dead, and lived again.

TL;DR: the game is about a father recounting an near death experience he had after attempting suicide because of the death of his beloved uncle to his daughter to make a really cool bedtime story.

What do you guys think?

[ZeroUnderscoreOu]

sophie9709 a écrit :

What do you guys think?

I think it's an interesting theory. I also think that there are too many theories around the game and developers should give some clarification)

[em4n3m]

I did not want to pay attention to the writings on the walls - but I imagines this was the "real" sroty.
Thanks for this detailed explanation!

[itawtitawapudytat]

I love all the interesting theories that have cropped up in this thread. Everything from the pretty mundane "this is the Narrator's way of dealing with the loss of his uncle" to the fantastical "It's all accurate. 100%".

I'd love to see some input from the story writer, thanks go to Sujito for looking into it!

[Elin]

Hi everyone, Elin from Gone North Games here! I was in charge of the story for A Story About My Uncle, as Sujeto concluded. Thank you for inviting me to this thread, and sorry for the delay - I completely missed the tumblr message, but my coworker Sebastian brought this thread to my attention a few days ago!

First of all, I want to sincerely thank you all for playing the game and sharing your theories - I have enjoyed reading them very much!

Second of all, I would like to state that we made the story open-ended intentionally, to allow all of you to form your own opinions on what happened or didn't happen. Which means, that however you interpreted the ending, we encourage that interpretation! I don't want to tell anyone that they missed some message or got it wrong, because your individual experience is what matters to you. With that said, I will share some of my thoughts on the story:

In short, as many of you concluded, the underlying theme of the game is the Nephew dealing with the death of his uncle Fred. He made up the journey and the other world as a coping mechanism, inspired by real events and interactions with his uncle. The fantasy world is both a metaphor for the Nephew's struggle to accept Fred's death, and a mirror of the real world and his life at the time.

All real-world characters have a mirror version in the fantasy world - except Fred who is something like in limbo between both. The village elder Samuel is a reflection of the Nephew's mother; they are both stern, rigid, do care about the well-being of their children but are not able to communicate that very well. Maddie is a reflection of the Nephew himself, and their relationships with their elders are alike. Just like the Nephew defies his mother when going to Fred's house, Maddie defies Samuel and runs away. They both yearn for freedom and adventure. Fred means the same to both of them: understanding, validation, respect and warmth. He is willing to let them try and fail, and he believes in their ability when no other grown-up does.

Maddie's journey, from being the outcast leaving to follow her dream until finding a better place where she doesn't need that dream anymore to be happy, is also similar to the Nephew's emotional journey. He is devastated by losing uncle Fred at first and feels lost and alone, but later he also learns that he can be happy without Fred; even when he has to give up the big dream of following on one of his uncle's great adventures.

When the Nephew and the uncle meet at the end, it really is where the Nephew accepts that he won't see Fred again, and agrees to return to the "land of the living" in the real world. I personally never saw this as returning from a literal near-death experience, but rather that he agreed to live life happily and not linger in denial, depression and grief.

Finally, when it comes to the epilogue, we again chose to close the closet and cover the area where the pad was intentionally - to allow you to decide whether the journey was real or imagined - but the hidden message was that it did not actually happen. The Nephew may have been so absorbed in this fantasy that he did believe it happened, when he was young, thus reflecting on not telling his mother and asking himself whether he could believe it. Additionally, the new adventure the Nephew refers to is indeed parenthood, and he dedicated it to Fred because of the relationship they had, the father-figure that Fred had been to him, and how he wanted to be that loving and encouraging and inspiring person to someone else in the next generation.

Also, time for a disclaimer: We were a lot of people who decorated the game, and we reused some objects from an older version of the game and other student projects. Thus, some details in the game (especially Fred's house) may not be coherent with the rest of the story, or of particular significance. The details of the climbing accident, for one, is a possible explanation of Fred's death, however the only canon details are that he died during en expedition, and his body was never found. The anti-depressants are something I never gave any thought, but I'll justifiy their existence for you and say that they may very well have been Fred's. I can definitely picture him fighting periods of depression. From his young nephew's point of view he always seemed happy, passionate and energetic, but we don't know what may have been going on underneath the surface, or in the empty space between one adventure and the next.

A detail that may interest you is that this symbolic theme is not something that we planned from the start! In the beginning, everything was real and we had explanations for every possible plot hole (such as the incredibly fast growth of the Stray civilisation). Much lore didn't fit in the game, and neither does it fit in this post, so please inquire further if you want to know more.

That's it for now! Again, thanks for your interest in the game, it means a lot to me, and I'm happy to answer any further questions you may have about the story or anything else. Also, if you have trouble reaching me, feel free to email me at [e-mail].

Thanks for reading!