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That said, I mostly had the feeling the game was illustrating our incredible tolerance for alcohol-related behaviors as a whole.
To clarify, I didn't say that courts operate to define morality. The argument I'm working with is that James is absolutely the guilty party... and guilt is quite explicitly what courts are the arbiters of.
So the way I see it is that each episode deals with some internal struggle for exampl.e
Episode 1: It seems to be a plight for himself to realize that not everything is as cozy as he remembers. His house is not fine, he is living through hell at first he is dealing with a positive view then having to face the negative dark one.
Episode 2: This one felt like James looking for a way to survive and escape. Not sure what this one means, but from some of the comments in regards to trying to frame him or manipulate his thoughts was pretty good. For example he seems to connect with the alien life form and read the life forms thoughs. But he fights it and their test goes wrong and he escapes.
Episode 3: This one is I believe a way for him to crack the code. Figure out how to find the real reason for this nightmare show he is in.
Episode 4: Basically glueing everything together. You go through all episodes and apply what you have learned for them to get a confession. Maybe he has finally found a way to put it all together or maybe he is being framed.
Even though the ending felt like a big oh it's a normal story, it's the journey that makes us wonder what is really going on.
Great game IMHO
The sessions are more about coming to terms with his responsibility, when he has never really taken responsibility before...
The cause of all the trauma being *so* mundane and everyday (drink driving) is the real horror for me. There is no twist, there is no special case, it's something common and all the more awful for it.
Also, did anyone see he's listed in the credits in parts 1 to 3 as 'Driver'? Cheeky...!
I was feeling the same, near the end I hoped the story included some otherworldly or supernatural elements/explanations but then you have to face the painful truth.
Just like Stephen King's The Dark Tower (and most SK books, actually). It's all about the joruney.
Accept it. Embrace it. Immerse yourself in it. Live it. Enjoy it as long as it lasts.
Everything comes to an end. The end is not important, nor how or what leads to it.
It's all about the journey.
I'm not sure if the writing simply didn't account for it or it was shoddy police investigation(the story isn't clear, either one is possible), but it seems to me that simply running blood alcohol tests on the drivers of both cars would have better determined who had been drinking and how much.
It's entirely possible that the police just wanted to pin the blame on James because of some band of brothers nonsense(this sort of thing happens in real life), as much as it's entirely possible James went out drunk that night and he has terrible parents and an uncomfortably oblivious sister.
But the game unfortunately doesn't comfortably indicate anything - it's intentionally vague to the point where really trying to claim a specific outcome is giving the writing more leeway than it deserves.
Yeah I liked it better when it was weird and supernatural. The events on the ice station as they were playing out I found to be particularly cool(hurr jokes). I was hoping it would all tie into something outlandish and weird - like some kind of Tales from the Dark Side or Creepshow thing - but I was actually a bit disappointed when I got to the point when I realized what is actually going on, which you'll see coming a mile away once you're in the fourth chapter.
Episode 1: It started as if he was happy to return home but then suddenly shifted to feeling guilty in the second half after a thunderclap. This could be where the programming started to make him believe that he was drunk and killed his sister and other driver.
Episode 2: It's all about a government conspiracy where he is subjected to an experiment involving a robot taking over his mind and reviewing a situation similar to the car crash. This could be a very strong hint that his mind is being programmed to take blame for the incident and the main antagonist in his mind is the spherical robot programming his mind to believe that he was responsible for the accident. The government agents trying to stop him could be his own subconcious telling him to reject the brainwashing ("You will regret this for a very long time," one of the scientists said).
Using the instruments to get to the robot could also represent breaking down James' resistance to the brainwashing.
Episode 3: It involves taking signals from a source, processing them, and sending them somewhere. This could represent the brainwashing process. The world outside suffering a plague (the brainwashing) could represent the fall of his own mind and the creature could again be his own subconcious trying to stop it.
Episode 4: The dialogue hints that the investigating officer was friends with the deceased cop. He would have a motive to clear the reputation of his friend and pinning it on the other driver. The doctor also seems interested in keeping James in the hospital. Also, the spherical robot has a large role in revealing the "truth" about the accident. In fact, the robot makes an appearance right when James starts to talk about framing the cop for drunk driving and when James make his "confession" in front of the tape.
Also, other people have mentioned that the cops did not notice that James was drunk on the scene (very unlikely). Also, the sister, parents, and the whole party did not even bat an eye at the idea of him driving, which is odd.
I think it is a very plausible theory that James is, in fact, innocent and the hospital and police are conspiring to brainwash him into believing that he was drunk and is responsible for the accident.
Also as stated before a blood test of both drivers should be able to determine if either driver had been drinking. Maybe the case was open and shut with James not being resposible for the accident but the place he was sent to is just doing experiments to see if they can change his memories. Another thing is in episode 4 James has to find the keys to get out which implies that they are keeping him locked up there.
Another thing that bothers me about the accident is during episodes 2 and 4 they both state that there are vehicles surounding you with flashing lights and that it states that there is an "army" of people there. These vehicles seem to respond to the accident very quicking and when they get there only one person steps out to approach you.
There are a lot of ways to interpret this story and it is fun to theorize about it. Maybe if they do make another game in the series it will answer some questions but will probablycause more.
For I think, in order to answer the question if it really was all James' fault, we first have to ask ourselves what exactly he is accused of. As far as I can see, more or less all of you think of his crime as two-fold, the first part being the accident itself that killed his sister and the young officer, and the second part being the planting of the evidence on said officer; and from what I can gather, the general sentiment is that, well, he is partly responsible for driving drunk, but really not so much once you look at it with a critical eye, and, yes, he is definitely responsible for trying to frame the other driver for his own mistake.
The thing is, I completely agree with you guys on both points. Yes, the fact that none of the adults at the party did actually try to stop him from drinking too much and the almost satirical way his sister did not intervene when she had clearly have to see that he was severely intoxicated, does definitely take some of the blame from him, if not in a legal sense, then certainly in an ethical one (although to what degree, is very much up to debate); and yes, there can be equally no doubt that the decision to try to shift the blame on someone else and not take responsibility for his crime, was very much his own decision.
But the thing is this: while both of these statements are, in my opinion, true, they are not as relevant as it seems, neither to the original question nor to a much more important one: what of the things he did, was really the reason for James' mind to shut itself off from reality in order to avoid facing his guilt?
The obvious answer would be: having caused the accident in the first place and then tried to frame another man for his own crime; and these are exactly the two things the game itself is heavily focusing upon and giving us the most informations about. There is, however, a small detail that is provided to the player, but much more subtly - and it is probably here where the true horror lies that has consumed James' mind so utterly.
This important detail is the fact that James most likely could have saved his sister's life, but did not do so, even more: did most likely not even think about doing so. We can deduce this from two infromations the game is providing us.
First, at the very end of the game, when Jennifer, in James' mind, is directly adressing her brother and urging him to confess what he did, she sums his crimes up with the words: "...how you left me there and then planted evidence on that poor man!" (I am citing from my mind here). Both part of the sentence are important as well as the fact that they are spoken together. If Jen's statement that her brother has "left [her] there" is meant as an accusation, then it only makes sense if she was not already dead or dying while he was doing so; and indeed, during the short conversation between James' mother and the doctor, the latter states that Jennifer "passed away before we could get her to surgery" - this indicates that she did not die immediately after the accident, but either on the way to the hospital or shortly after being brought there. From the fact that the apparition of Jennifer fabricated by James' mind accuses him of not having tried to save her, we can deduce that he knows that doing so probably could have made a difference - and indeed the game tells us exactly why.
For the second piece of information is given right after the accident when James finds himself hanging upside down in his belt. The game states that from a hole in the car noxious fumes are pouring inside - and James immediately realizes that this is a mortal danger to him. Well, if it is a danger to him, then it certainly is one for his sister too, even more so, in fact, since she seems to be unconscious and entirely unable to protect herself from it.
And there it is, the root of the realization that would break James' mind: while he was outside and planting evidence on the young officer, his sister's system, already weakened by the injuries sustained during the accident, was poisoned so much by the fume that she died on the way to the hospital.
In my opinion, the very fact that the game is providing the player with all the information necessary to figure this out, but is not stressing it nearly as much as the details that led to the accident itself, is a very strong indicator that this is indeed another layer of horror deliberately hidden inside the more obvious folds of the story in order to be discovered by the player. And if you think about it, it does perfectly fit in with two other pieces of information that are given much less overtly than many other ones.
First, it is made clear by the game that James feels that his family loves him, but is not exactly proud of him. This has been pointed out several times during this discussion, and rightly so, for I think that it is a very important part of the game's narrative. As far as I can see, the player gets two pieces of information from which he can piece this fact together. First, during the new year's eve celebration, when looking at the banner, James states that he is finally "not the disappointment of the family anymore"; and later he observes that everybody had really gone out of their way to make his trip to America possible because they feel that he might need this "to get some perspective and direction in his life".
Now, while this is not exactly much to go on, it does at least allow the conclusion that James is a person who lacks a certain determination and hence an orientation in life; and if we interpet the part about his family seeing him as a disappointment as a sign that they think that at least part of this is his fault, then we can certainly deduce that James is a comparatively weak-willed individual who is not able or willing to go out of his way in order to make things happen. And since the way this statement is given during the banner segment, hints at a certain bitterness on James' part, it is equally reasonable to assume that he knows about this trait of his and is unhappy about the way his family reacts to it.
And right there it is: the true horror of Stories Untold. During this discussion it has been said that James' behaviour right after the accident is actually quite remarkable: getting out of a car while already suffering from brain damage, whiping the bottle clean to destroy traces, then pouring some of it over the officer's face and flinging the bottle on the passenger seat before passing out in front of the policeman with perfect timing? Astounding!
And I absolutely agree with this sentiment: yes, James' behaviour after the accident is quite unlikely, yet not impossible. In any case, it is not the result of bad or overly creative writing, but rather the opposite. For James' actions right after the accident are deliberately shown this way to illustrate the two most defining traits of his character: an almost monstrous egotism paired with a pathologically weak will that enable him to perform feats of almost inhuman proportions, if only it allows him to avoid facing the consequences of his actions, but make it impossible for him to perform the one very human act most people would probably think of first: trying to save his sister whom - and this is important - he dearly loves.
This, in a nutshell, is, in my opinion, the true horror of Stories Untold: the horror of looking into the mirror and finding one's greatest fear undeniably confirmed - the fear that the others are right and that one is truly as weak and disappointing as all seem to think. And the worst thing is that James could have been something else entirely: a tragic - very tragic - hero that, after having killed an innocent man after driving drunk, at least managed to save his sister's life. In this case, he still would have made the same mistake of driving while under the influence of alcohol, but the true fear nagging at him, would have been put to rest: the fear of really being as weak and disappointing as everyone seemed to think. In my opinion it is this realization - that it was his very own flawedness that killed his sister and not the mistake of drinking and driving to which indeed many had contributed - that shatters his mind and make him retreat into a world of painful and twisted memories where once again everything else - aliens, supernatural forces etc - is responsible for everything bad that happens except himself.
As I have suggested before, there is a second observation that could strengthen this theory as well; it is, however, to be taken with a grain of salt, for it is entirely possible that I am seeing too much here.
The technical term for "being drunk" in the English language, is, as far as I am aware, "intoxicated". Like many other foreign words, this one is taken from Greek, and if you translate it literally, it means "poisoned" (from toxikon, "arrow poison"). Now if we keep that in mind and look at the scene right after the crash, then we could say that while James himself is intoxicated and tries to transfer this metaphoric poison in his veins from himself to another one who does not have it, his sister is suffering from actual poisoning that eventually will claim her life.
Now, as I said before, I completely accept that this is some stretch of the imagination; and I think that my interpretation of the reasons for James' breakdown work fine without it. Still, however, I would like to remind you of two things: first, it would not be the first play on words with a Greek word, for James' last name, Aition (Greek for "guilt"), does the very same thing; and more importantly, second: even if the assumption of the allusion to the word "intoxicated" is rejected, the interpretation of the aftermath of the crash is, in my opinion, still valid. For if you think about it, it really is a metaphor for what James is doing during the entirety of the game: desperately trying to move the responsibility for something that is literally in his blood - his own flawed character - to someone - anyone - else because he cannot live with the fact that it was this very thing that has cost him everything he held dear.
And I think it is here that we could once again pick up our original question: was it really entirely James' fault? Only now the question is much more complicated than at the beginning; for now we have to ask: can we truly blame someone for a weakness he was born with? Can we condemn the coward for being a coward? Or do we not once again have to put the blame on those that knew about this weakness and obviously did not approve of it, but in essence did act the very same way James did: by going out of their way in their effort to send him away, but not being there for him in the one moment where he truly would have needed the guidance of someone stronger tham himself?
I truly have to apologize for this immense mountain of words I have heaped upon you; i have finished the game only two hours ago and was so under its spell that I simply had to add to this discussion.
So maybe the infamous TL;DR could read something like this: a game that manages to coax half a master thesis' worth of highly speculaltive rambling out of an otherwise unassuming and innocuous individual, is certainly worthy of our admiration, our support and - last, but not least - our money.
Way to go, No Code, way to go...