Questions about the journey in the afterlife *mild spoilers may occur*

[Tine]

*spoiler warning before starting this piece* I was just wondering about how exactly this journey of the dead works. They say it takes 4 years but does that mean that after 4 years of living (or dying) they immediatly transport to heaven or hell or does it just take 4 years of straight walking to get there? I also want to know about this idea of working off your time as just before Manny is about to put the foam on the grumpy guy in the coffin his boss comes in and says that if he doesn't get a primum client he'll fire him and "then how will you work off your time?" does this mean 4 years of working or some equivilent like he has to do a certain amount of work before he'll be allowed to be judged or something? Another thing is the flowering guns used later in the game. When people are flowered and "die" do their soles disappear or something or do they get transported to heaven or hell? and finally, what do they do with the bodies of these flowered dead people? We don't see any showing of a breakage in the skeletal body so are they indistructible to make sure people can complete their journey and if so where do all the flowered dead bodies end up.

Any answers are apriciated and I have finished the game so don't worry about spoiling anythign for me. Thank you for any help.

[Gravy]

Ok get comfortable & brace for overthinking.

Question 1: "Does it just take 4 years of straight walking to get there?"

I'm pretty sure thats it yeah, as Manny says to Celso in the intro movie "Upgraded travel packages you can buy from us!" and they're all a vehicle of some kind: a sports car, a cruise ship, or the Number Nine train. Something I find very interesting is that you get the impression that technology and style HAS advanced somewhat in the land of the dead, what with the statue of the "old boss" in the lobby, compared to the vehicles and style of the current land of the dead(and land of the living) inhabitants

Question 2: "He has to do a certain amount of work before he'll be allowed to be judged or something?"

Manny, Eva & everyone who works for the "Powers that be"/ Government are definitely special cases. Whether its punishment for something terrible they did whilst alive, or just random chance like a sort of sadistic jury duty its never explained. You can ask Eva what she did to get stuck there, and she reveals that nobody really remembers their time alive, and she says "If he sells enough premium packages our hero will be free to leave the Land of the Dead."
So no explanation really :P

Question 3: "When people are flowered and "die" do their soles disappear or something or do they get transported to heaven or hell?"

They dissapear i think. The flowers 'sprout' in the victim and spread throughout the pourus bone using them as a type of living/dead fertilizer, seperating the body complete and transforming it into flowers, (a symbol of death in this world and several religions) The beaver dam seems to convey that being completely dismembered results in a "death within death".(although salvador's actions in the late game would seem to contradict this) Grim stuff indeed. Eventaully when nothing is left, its simply a bouquet lying on the ground like Lola in the lighthouse getting blown away :(.
Apparently in the commentary Tim states that the "sprouted get reincarnated back into the land of the living... but i dont buy it, sounds like something he tells himself so he can sleep at night :p

One thing thats always puzzled me is the lines about "Taking that money you were buried with and buying a better travel package" and Celso having to 'buy' his ticket from Hector towards the end. Is there money in this world? theres gambling for sure. We're led to believe that a persons good deeds in their life are their 'wealth' that qualifies them for a smoother ride through the land of the dead, what with Meche's past full of low income and good deeds guaranteeing her a ticket on the Number Nine, and that Domino getting a Nun was seen as a big prize. Is it a Metaphor or a contradiction?

Just dont think about it too hard i guess :P

[Tine]

Thanks for the information. I guess it's a shame we don't know about the reason why they're stuck doing their jobs. On another note does your answer to question 1 mean the you could eternally stay in the land of the dead if you just never bothered to even try doing/completing the journey? I guess it would explain how such large structures could be built if they didn't have to ocmpletly renew the workforce and leadership every four years.

Large amout of speculation from here on in, I am far from an expert (also sorry for any spelling I am not the best at english)

As for the money I don't think it's ever truely explained either. One thing I did notice was that the richest people in the gamberling areas looked and gave off a feeling that they had been rich for a while (as in they were rich in life too). I think the actual spending money does come from the wealth you had in life from the houses you owned to your offshore bank accounts. I think the other type of curency is your good deads and is more of a metaphor which can only be used to buy goods for making your journey easier. However I also think that the "real" money can be used to barter with the good deeds ( because people themselves can make agreements to these things rather than an actual sytem to do so ) to make trades for whatever reason the trades would be needed.The people of this world can also apprently have their good deeds (or at least the products of them like the train tickets for the number 9) stolen from them to be used by someone else like "real" money can.

[Tine]

Although now that I think about it the idea of taking "real" money into the land of the dead may not be true. It depends on how the goodness cureny ,as I have come to name it, is distributed. For the rich billionares, them giving millions of pounds/dollars to a charity may just be poket change to them but may net them large amounts of goodness money due to the help it would give people. I guess it would depend on if the amount given for a deed scales with how easy or simple it was for the person to do said deed. If not then it may simply be that the rich people stay rich in the land of the dead because of some offhand guestures that meant little to them but helped others greatly leading to large amounts of goodness curency for the rich.

[Gravy]

Could very well be
Guess we'll all find out someday :P

I made a mistake as well in that inhabitants of the land of the dead CAN remember their past. Meche's stories about her good deeds and Carla telling Manny her life story, which makes the 'community service' for Manny & Co even more confusing.

[Tine]

As much as they aren't nessessarily a reliable source I have heard The BirGirPals talking about this and they said that Manny himslef was only doing this because had "done something really bad in his previous life" and here's a link http://youtu.be/e3YwLA5R_GE?t=7m38s so maybe there's something people are hiding or they have an agreement not to talk about the thing/event which caused them to be selected for this "community service"

[Bluebeak]

I was just wondering about how exactly this journey of the dead works. They say it takes 4 years but does that mean that after 4 years of living (or dying) they immediatly transport to heaven or hell or does it just take 4 years of straight walking to get there?

Grim Fandango is based on the Mayan and Aztec mythologies related to the "underworld" which essentially had this "journey of the soul" that would take 4 years to traverse on foot.

In Grim Fandango it's essentially stated that the Land of the Dead takes 4 years for a soul to traverse. However some souls like Salvadore and Membrillo choose to stay in the 8th underworld indefinitely. At the very end it's even revealed Salvadore was entitled to a Double N ticket all along but he just didn't receive it due to Hector.

Manny's journey throughout the game does take 4 years but it's heavily implied he's been in the Land of the Dead for much longer. He's been the oldest employee at the DoD for a really long time and it's implied he wasn't entitled to any travel package for reasons he isn't aware of.

I also want to know about this idea of working off your time as just before Manny is about to put the foam on the grumpy guy in the coffin his boss comes in and says that if he doesn't get a primum client he'll fire him and "then how will you work off your time?" does this mean 4 years of working or some equivilent like he has to do a certain amount of work before he'll be allowed to be judged or something?

This is a bit more ambiguous. Given how the game ends I always assumed "working off your time" meant working for a while and saving up enough money to book passage to the 9th underworld on your own.

Another thing is the flowering guns used later in the game. When people are flowered and "die" do their soles disappear or something or do they get transported to heaven or hell? and finally, what do they do with the bodies of these flowered dead people? We don't see any showing of a breakage in the skeletal body so are they indistructible to make sure people can complete their journey and if so where do all the flowered dead bodies end up.

It's never directly stated what happens after a character gets sprouted in Grim Fandango. It's left ambiguous. Just as it's ambiguous what happens after the skeletons are made into the Beaver dam in the Petrified forest or what happens to Domino at the end of Year 3. Tim Schafer has said in the audio commentary to Grim Fandango Remastered that he thinks becoming sprouted leads to being reincarnated in the Land of the Living but I think it's a bit of a stretch personally.

Originally posted by The mimsy borogove:

On another note does your answer to question 1 mean the you could eternally stay in the land of the dead if you just never bothered to even try doing/completing the journey? I guess it would explain how such large structures could be built if they didn't have to ocmpletly renew the workforce and leadership every four years.

Both Salvadore (iirc) and Membrillo in Grim Fandango state they're unwilling to leave the 8th underworld. And are implied to have lived there for much longer than Manny.

Originally posted by The mimsy borogove:

As for the money I don't think it's ever truely explained either. One thing I did notice was that the richest people in the gamberling areas looked and gave off a feeling that they had been rich for a while (as in they were rich in life too).

The 8th underworld is implied to have some kind of currency but it's not stated what. Nor is it stated how richer souls keep money in death (in the case of Celso Flores not qualifying for any travel packages but still having his wife keep all of his money).

Originally posted by The mimsy borogove:

The people of this world can also apprently have their good deeds (or at least the products of them like the train tickets for the number 9) stolen from them to be used by someone else like "real" money can.

Double N tickets seemingly appear for souls that earned them in life (and in death in the case of Manny in the ending). If you talk to Domino in Year 3 he states part of the scam required Domino to Reap the souls in the Land of the Living and for Don Copal to transfer the Double N ticket into another account. Then they would give them a cruise package and make sure they jumped at the Pearl so they would be sent to the Edge of the World. So that they wouldn't be wandering around the Land of the Dead telling everyone they had their Double N Tickets stolen.

[Tine]

Thank you cuddlebug I guess I wasn't paying enough attention sometimes in this game but thanks to Gray as well you have greatly helped with my understanding of the world of Grim Fandango :)