!SPOILERS! My (probably NOT so new and very late) Theory

[nara :3]

What I am about to say I feel might already be a theory, but I wanted to put in my 2 cents on the matter. If this is already a theory, please let me know and I will delete. I would also like to mention that I am disregarding any mental illnesses as the cause of the events.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

The Theory

So as we a pretty clearly told that the player is Venus, or C'venash Vishneri, and I believe she has been kidnapped/enslaved by The Family, with the help of Mercury, or Crusnr Colven, in order for her body to be used to fuel The Family's desires, furthermore, I find myself drawn to the conclusion that her body was used to create "Earth" or its various structures and creatures. Let's delve deeper into this.

The "Earth"

The planet that the game mostly takes place on, is confusing at best, and completely unintelligible at worst, this makes it a little more difficult to digest for me, but I find the most fitting answer to be that all or most of it was created from the body of Venus; Why? The most damning evidence I find for this is in the level "Special Shower" as well as in the phone call "2639 - Body", where we are greeted to the visuals and story respectively, of who I assume to be Venus, where she is depicted as a skeletonized version of herself playing in a bath full of her removed flesh, which the phone calls describes as "gray", I find this particularly interesting as the NPC you find after the first locked door in "Home" refers to the world as having turned "gray", blaming Venus for this. The phone call also mentions how the woman is "playing in the bath with a smile" (paraphrasing), another peculiar detail that our protagonist shares. This paired with the bodily designs of the levels and enemies makes me think with the aforementioned that it's all pretty strong evidence of the "Earth" being at least made from her remains.

Mercury

Mercury is rarely spoken of, and seen even less, but we do have dialogue and visuals depicting them or their actions; at first I believed them to be the deuteragonist to Venus, and though this still may be, I have reason to believe them guilty in what happened to Venus. My evidence mostly being the "Psychopomp Song" that plays on the main menu, while it is Venus singing, I think that the lyrics are from Mercury describing his being deceived by The Family and playing part in what transpired, the songs use of "They" referring to The Family. "They told me I should cut you to pieces" and "They made the "Earth" from your bones" being the 2 lines that stand out the most to me, the first painting an image of Mercury dismantling Venus and The Family using her "remains" as the infrastructure for their world; another interesting thought I've been having is Mercury's affinity for nails, as mentioned in the conversation at the end of "home", where mercury mentions that they liked their nail as they could "create" with it, I think this has significant meaning to their abilities being utilized by the family to create "Earth" from Venus. At one point, you can find the Kind of all Dogs referring to Mercury as being a person of "business", again highlighting Mercury as being willing to help The Family. All this being said, I'm unsure if Mercury knew what they were doing or if they were being deceived, the song making me lean toward the latter.

The Family

As for The Family, I believe them to be completely evil, unlike Mercury; they enjoy creating horrific worlds and the torment they bring to their inhabitants. I say this because of the poem that can be found on the website for the games' Studio, it mentions how if they "break too many toys" and "if that makes you blue" that they'll "reunite the King and Queen" and "make the worlds anew"; I believe all this to be hinting that this has been a cycle for sometime, The Child speaks of boredom constantly, so I'm imagining when what they are doing to Venus has gone stale they simply "awaken" Venus and Mercury both and have them meet, and in doing this the world is reset in some way, I am not sure the specifics on this myself, but what little evidence I've found seems to point this way. As for The Family doing it for their amusement the poem states that with this cyclical nature that "Fun will be eternal then", I don't think it's a stretch that the "Photon-edge" left in the wake of the Caldmen Four, who I believe to be The Family, could be stars and planets having been destroyed by them, and now they have an infinite supply of victims with Venus and Mercury resetting it for them.

Venus and The Psychopomp

Our, protagonist, Venus is seemly ignorant of the world in which she resides, and I think this is The Family's or Mercury's doing, and after sometime she creates the Psychopomp that she dons during the game, which I think is pretty clearly her "awakening", allowing her to see and find things that were originally hidden from her, though I do not believe this to entirely be the case, my reasoning being that on the second section of "Home" and can find an NPC who reads off vitals for Venus, one of which being "Psychopomp efficiency currently at 0%", so as for what the Psychopomp actually does, I'm not exactly sure, though I think it is ultimately inhibiting The Family's control over Venus, one interesting scene in "The Tick" found in "Children's Hospital" where we are told by a nurse that it's being given dopamine to keep it happy, this could be a physical representation for what is happening to Venus.

In Conclusion

After all of the lore and in-game content, I find myself most drawn to the theory that Venus is being used as an endless supply of material for The Family to use to create their horrors, with Mercury being their trump card to keep Venus where she is; and if she is after able to escape, no matter, they'll have Mercury dismantle her once more and start anew.

If you made it this far, thank you so much, and I hope maybe some of the nonsense i wrote might come in useful for someone with a more correct theory down the line. If I uncover anymore evidence to support my claims I will edit accordingly, as well for any typos or errors I may have made.

[AlbomaZero]

Thats a nice theory, thank you for this!

[nara :3]

Originally posted by AlbomaZero:

Thats a nice theory, thank you for this!

Thank you so much for reading!

[Sir Zoar]

how i see it is that the "Psychopomp efficiency currently at 0%" means it's not doing what it was desighned to by Vera, witch is letting her read the minds of other people. Howeather, from what i think it does, it that it functions like a "tin foil hat" that shields her mind from some mind altering waves that were beaing used to hide the true nature of the world from Vera.

[nara :3]

Originally posted by Sir Zoar:

how i see it is that the "Psychopomp efficiency currently at 0%" means it's not doing what it was desighned to by Vera, witch is letting her read the minds of other people. Howeather, from what i think it does, it that it functions like a "tin foil hat" that shields her mind from some mind altering waves that were beaing used to hide the true nature of the world from Vera.

this makes the most sense to me aswell, I think the Tick on level 2 might be a representation of Vera's "mind alteration", but that might just be reaching on my part