Echoes...(Dont spoil yourself)

[yahwehorhighway]

sorry if i'm missing some big detail; I'm at college and the game isn't.
But why did we assume that the echoes are real when even main characters are Cheryl's constructs? I mean, all the echoes inform the mood of the story, even if they dont seem to relate to her directly. They could be abstracted parts of Cheryl's identity, twisted beyond recognition, possibly built from outside information that she internalizes cuz it's relevant to her own life.
Like the autoaphyxiation guy was talking about his mom before he died, and that could be Cheryl feeling like she deserves punishment for her own Electra complex. The messages also get less and less tangential as the story goes on (from 'could that be Cheryl?' to 'yeah that's Cheryl'), and that might correspond to the fact that she cant disguise the truth anymore.
Even discarding that, I dont see how some of the pictures of Cheryl could be 'real'- she obviously didn't drown, and the whole paparazzi thing still happens, even if she answers that she was *ahem* a virgin in high school. So Cheryl's either a total tease or it cant be taken on a literal level.

[AuraTwilight]

It's the same voice but is it the same person?

Yes it is. Harry never speaks in that tone of voice or speak with such overly sugary, rehearsed dotingness, and it matches the tone the customer uses when he's apologizing to the brothel girl.

If you listen to the three conversations, all of them sound like a father speaking to a child on their first day of school.

I know; it's what the guy gets off on.

I think the guy in the brothel thought Cheryl was actually a 15 year old which is why he sounds so surprised/disgusted when the wig comes off. He sounds more like a customer who is there for a quick screw and then move on whose unsatisfied with what he thought he was getting.

Impossible. In almost all versions of the brothel Echo, he apologizes for hitting her because she looks like his daughter. This is a grown ass man with some sick fetish for dressing up women like little girls, playing with them, and then hitting them. And that's the sort of sick person Cheryl goes for.

It is unrealistic to think that he would then be in a car with her near the school and playing out a scene where he is giving her lunch and telling her she will be the envy of all the boys. There's also the point that he mentions her being old enough to be his wife. I think that Cheryl was probably 22-23 at the time of the brothel scene, so she would not be in the high school anymore to be taken back there.

It really isn't that unrealistic. There are people who actually do that; it's kind of a common fetish. Even if she wasn't in high school at the time, the guy could still just be driving her to the nearest school to act out a scene before they romp (notice the car kind of bumps up when the echo is acquired?) I personally think she was in High School, considering that the two are linked together by the symbolism of the Wonderland Burger.

I believe the car scene is actually Harry talking to Cheryl, possibly when she is 4 or 5. Harry does not look like an old man, in fact I would say he is probably in his late twenties. If Cherylw as 4-5 when she heard that conversation in the car, that would make Harry around 25, pretty much the same age as the guy abusing her in the brothel.
What doesn't add up is the fact that car is outside the high school, when it would be a scene where she is going to an infant school or nursery. But then that is why its an echo message, its just from a school era, not necesasrily something that occured in that very place.

The echo locations match up to where the events actually took place. If we got the Echo outside of the school, it means the event happened at Midwich High. The voice is also the same as the brothel customer. Come on, man, it's a simple connection.

As for the photographs. The person in them isn't dead, and I'm pretty sure it's Cerhyl. If you look at the one that starts 'Crazy s*** man', then you can see that it is Cheryl clearly enough. The other 3 pictures are hard to tell but it is definately the same girl. She looks about 15-16.

She's not dead in all of them, but on the one that closes up on her fallen face, her head is half-buried in ice, mouth open with ice in there, meaning the body's sat there for a while, too. Now, clearly, it didn't actually happen, so it's possible that either Cheryl fabricated it, or she's projecting her own face onto some other dead girl.

Whichever one you get it talks about something going to far, and three of them mention spiking a drink or taking drugs. The one you're referring to speaks of her swimming. Her head is in the water and not ice, and she is pale, because she nearly drowned, but I don't believe she died, though the message heavily implies it.

The water is frozen, look again.

sorry if i'm missing some big detail; I'm at college and the game isn't.
But why did we assume that the echoes are real when even main characters are Cheryl's constructs? I mean, all the echoes inform the mood of the story, even if they dont seem to relate to her directly. They could be abstracted parts of Cheryl's identity, twisted beyond recognition, possibly built from outside information that she internalizes cuz it's relevant to her own life.

Although some of them seem falsified, most of them are direct accounts that contradict the lies Cheryl is trying to feed us. They're memories of the truth of what's going on, though they may be masked, censored, or disguised to try and hide it. Making the Echoes not real means we don't have a story, because we have no way of deciphering what's happening.

Like the autoaphyxiation guy was talking about his mom before he died, and that could be Cheryl feeling like she deserves punishment for her own Electra complex. The messages also get less and less tangential as the story goes on (from 'could that be Cheryl?' to 'yeah that's Cheryl'), and that might correspond to the fact that she cant disguise the truth anymore.

The guy who aphyxiated himself was the brother of another character, so that scene objectively happened. However, Cheryl may have still witnessed and remembered it for the reasons you stated.

[yahwehorhighway]

Making the Echoes not real means we don't have a story, because we have no way of deciphering what's happening.

Maybe ‘real’ wasn’t the best word for me to use, because I meant that the echoes weren’t physically existent in themselves, but rather Cheryl’s memories which as you and Venoid both mentioned, are oftentimes completely skewed, and aren’t exactly reliable as a storytelling device.

The guy who aphyxiated himself was the brother of another character, so that scene objectively happened. However, Cheryl may have still witnessed and remembered it for the reasons you stated.

There’s no way she could have ‘witnessed’ something like the hanged guy: if anyone were there to hear him talk about his mom, they would’ve also been close enough to easily save him. She more likely heard about it later, and reimagined it with embellishments informed by her own background, until it reflected an aspect of her own identity (the Electra complex thing). The other echoes are the same: not real, but rather ideas of reality that are at least very skewed towards the beginning, like the John in Michelle’s head, or, by a bigger stretch, Harry 2.0. (I know it can be argued that it’s not the same thing, but they both involve a construct built from pieces of reality)
So I don’t think the echoes represent the disguised ‘truth’ of her past in juxtaposition with her delusions of Harry. They’re more like markers of where her thoughts drift over the course of the session, during which they grow in clarity and focus in addressing the Harry delusion. That’s a pretty important role, and far from destroying the story, they’d provide something of a backbone in tracking her mental progress.

[Venoid]

I'm still not 100% convinced that the car scene is the same customer :p. Though you put forward a very strong argument, especially with the car bouncing.
I still think that the fact that he is so disturbed when the wig comes off shows that he does not know her very well. I don't see how he can have sex in the car and she can keep her wig on, yet it falls off so easily in the brothel when they are out in the pub.

I think that is one of the great things about the game though, the fact that you can interpret the scenes in different ways.

I will outright the dispute that the picture of her half drowned has her face buried in ice, simply because the message taht accompanies it says they were swimming. How can they be swimming when she is buried in ice? Okay, it could possibly be a crime scene photo of her body found a considerable time after the event when the lake had frozen over, but I still don't buy that. I think its more plausible to think that she OD'd and almost drowned.
Whichever the scene you get from that wood experience it's pretty clear that it was quite a traumatic experience for her.

There’s no way she could have ‘witnessed’ something like the hanged guy: if anyone were there to hear him talk about his mom, they would’ve also been close enough to easily save him. She more likely heard about it later, and reimagined it with embellishments informed by her own background, until it reflected an aspect of her own identity (the Electra complex thing). The other echoes are the same: not real, but rather ideas of reality that are at least very skewed towards the beginning, like the John in Michelle’s head, or, by a bigger stretch, Harry 2.0. (I know it can be argued that it’s not the same thing, but they both involve a construct built from pieces of reality)
So I don’t think the echoes represent the disguised ‘truth’ of her past in juxtaposition with her delusions of Harry. They’re more like markers of where her thoughts drift over the course of the session, during which they grow in clarity and focus in addressing the Harry delusion. That’s a pretty important role, and far from destroying the story, they’d provide something of a backbone in tracking her mental progress.

I think all the echoes are brought from an experience, but I don't believe they are all necessarily the truth.
If you think back in your own life to a traumatic experience (I'm sure we all have one right?). Think about the conversations that occured around those events. You're not going to get them word for word correct, you may not even get the correct context of how they were being said, but you will have this image of what was being said and how you thought it was meant.
This is the beauty of this game, the fact that the voiceovers and text messages change is based on Cheryls continually evolving personality and mind set. You get different ones based on how she is fefeling at the time, some are nastier than others, but they are all telling the same story.

You could quite likely argue that some of the voicemails and text messages are not real, but I don't think you can say the same about the ghosts. I think that she witnessed every ghost and each one is a very traumatic event for her which is why its so powerfully imprinted in her mind.
In the case of the person who hung himself, it is completely feasable that she was there to witness it. The posters even state that people are playing 'the choking game'. Maybe this is the schools way of passing off the hanging as a game for the benefit of the kids, but it is quite possible that it is a real game.
I don't think he intended to kill himself, he was probably just trying to be like a cool kid or trying to get high without drugs. You can believe that Cheryl is there with him, laughing and joking and egging him on until he suddenly falls limp and its too late to help him.
You can only argue that if she was there he would not have died if you believe that he was actually intending to commit suicide. Most of his voiceovers don't give him the voice of someone who is trying to die, but someone who is trying to take the pain. In fact his disturbing choke at the end almost has a sense of despair and shock in it.

[Venoid]

Another thing to note about the car outside the school.

It's a family saloon. It doesn't come across as the sort of car a young single guy would be driving around to pick up hookers dressed as schoolgirls in.
Though that also opens up the point that it isn't Harry's car either I guess.

[AuraTwilight]

There’s no way she could have ‘witnessed’ something like the hanged guy: if anyone were there to hear him talk about his mom, they would’ve also been close enough to easily save him.

Not necessarily. Remember, it was part of the Choking Game lots of kids played,and suffocating temporarily was to make them high for a few seconds. I can imagine a few kids standing there going, "Dude, yea, ride the high! ....dude?"

I still think that the fact that he is so disturbed when the wig comes off shows that he does not know her very well. I don't see how he can have sex in the car and she can keep her wig on, yet it falls off so easily in the brothel when they are out in the pub.

As I said in the other thread, he's not necessarily angry because the wig came off. If he was, he wouldn't be so okay so soon, and then ask her to put it back on so they can continue. More likely, he smacked her around for something else, and the wig came off incidentally. Or maybe hitting girls who look like his daughter is how he gets off.

I will outright the dispute that the picture of her half drowned has her face buried in ice, simply because the message taht accompanies it says they were swimming. How can they be swimming when she is buried in ice? Okay, it could possibly be a crime scene photo of her body found a considerable time after the event when the lake had frozen over, but I still don't buy that. I think its more plausible to think that she OD'd and almost drowned.
Whichever the scene you get from that wood experience it's pretty clear that it was quite a traumatic experience for her.

The water IS frozen in the photo, though, so take of that what you will.



"We thought it would be fun to spike the new girl’s drink. Didn’t know it would end up like this. We thought she was still swimming, but… she wasn’t moving."

It's a family saloon. It doesn't come across as the sort of car a young single guy would be driving around to pick up hookers dressed as schoolgirls in.
Though that also opens up the point that it isn't Harry's car either I guess.

As you concede, the car isn't Harry's. Furthermore, the customer has a daughter, which means he probably also has a wife, and perhaps other children. The customer is a family man, so he has a family car. No one ever said that the customer was a "young single guy" except you.

[Venoid]

I think its just a poor quality picture. It's a shame that I don't have it on my current game to take a closer look, but isn't that a reed floating in it just below her mouth?
Either way, ice or not, it's Cheryl, and she didn't die, so if it is ice then it's likely a delusional belief on her part.

This car is really bugging me btw :p. You're really adamant and I am trying so hard to see it. I'm actually playing the two things side by side and I just can't see them being the same person. There is a vague (and I emphasize vague) similarity in the voice which may well be a result of them cheaping on the voiceactors, but the whole tones of the two events are completely different.

I just can't see a customer going to a cat house for a quicky with her would then drop her off back at the school. All three of those voiceovers hint that this is the first time he sees her, and all three are about him revealing her wig while he is cuddling up to her.
The guy in the cat house gives me the impression that he is looking for a fresh school girl, 16-18ish.

Now if you listen to the car scene. Just listen to the sincerity of the voice. No matter how twisted some peoples fetishes are, I can't see a guy attacking her ina cat house for wearing a wig and then screwing her and taking her in his car to the school to let her out :p.
Listen to the end of 'you looked good with pigtails'. He says "okay honey, you have a nice day."
In the 'quite as perfect as you' one, the voiceover says "I doubt there is any little girl in the world, quite as perfect as you."
In the last one he asks if she's ready for school, and calls her "Daddy's little princess."
No matter how I look at any of those voiceovers, they sound like a dad talking to his 5 year old :p.
That's just gotta be some weird ass fetish to go and bang someone who you want to be a late teenager and then drop them off at a school and treat them like they are 5.

[AuraTwilight]

I think its just a poor quality picture. It's a shame that I don't have it on my current game to take a closer look, but isn't that a reed floating in it just below her mouth?
Either way, ice or not, it's Cheryl, and she didn't die, so if it is ice then it's likely a delusional belief on her part.

I've been entertaining the idea that it's not Cheryl, but someone Cheryl's putting her face on. The Jackie girl could be the one who met such a grisly fate (Either that, or she's the girl with the pink jacket and wallet who got killed, one of the two).

This car is really bugging me btw :p. You're really adamant and I am trying so hard to see it. I'm actually playing the two things side by side and I just can't see them being the same person. There is a vague (and I emphasize vague) similarity in the voice which may well be a result of them cheaping on the voiceactors, but the whole tones of the two events are completely different.

The voices sound EXACTLY alike to me, and they're also the only characters with any association with liking pigtails. The voice is also clearly not Harry, and since Harry's voice has been in other Echoes, this can't be used as an excuse. There's no way to spin this so that it's Harry and a young Cheryl.

I just can't see a customer going to a cat house for a quicky with her would then drop her off back at the school. All three of those voiceovers hint that this is the first time he sees her, and all three are about him revealing her wig while he is cuddling up to her.
The guy in the cat house gives me the impression that he is looking for a fresh school girl, 16-18ish.

I'm not saying that he was dropping her off at school. Sure, that could be possible, but for all we know, it was, say, a Saturday morning, and he drove her there for roleplay and then they fucked in the car.

None of the voiceovers imply that he didn't know she was wearing a wig. Since he likes pigtails, he's probably the one who gave her the wig to wear. I imagine it might've fallen off while he was hitting her.

And, of course, plenty of guys fuck college girls and have them roleplay high schoolers, then when they get mad, call them "old bags."

Now if you listen to the car scene. Just listen to the sincerity of the voice. No matter how twisted some peoples fetishes are, I can't see a guy attacking her ina cat house for wearing a wig and then screwing her and taking her in his car to the school to let her out :p. [/quuote]

That sounds sincere to you? That sounds unbelievably sugary and false to me. It's plasticine affection. That, and the car scene may have happened first.

Listen to the end of 'you looked good with pigtails'. He says "okay honey, you have a nice day."
In the 'quite as perfect as you' one, the voiceover says "I doubt there is any little girl in the world, quite as perfect as you."
In the last one he asks if she's ready for school, and calls her "Daddy's little princess."
No matter how I look at any of those voiceovers, they sound like a dad talking to his 5 year old :p.

Because they're roleplaying, dude.

That's just gotta be some weird ass fetish to go and bang someone who you want to be a late teenager and then drop them off at a school and treat them like they are 5.

It does exist, and it's more widespread than you think. I'd google up some websites and shit to show you, but you're better off not seeing them. Anyway, it's not even the weirdest, grossest fetish I've seen (I've seen websites for people who get a sexual thrill off of popping zits).

[yahwehorhighway]

In the case of the person who hung himself, it is completely feasable that she was there to witness it. The posters even state that people are playing 'the choking game'. Maybe this is the schools way of passing off the hanging as a game for the benefit of the kids, but it is quite possible that it is a real game.
I don't think he intended to kill himself, he was probably just trying to be like a cool kid or trying to get high without drugs. You can believe that Cheryl is there with him, laughing and joking and egging him on until he suddenly falls limp and its too late to help him.
You can only argue that if she was there he would not have died if you believe that he was actually intending to commit suicide. Most of his voiceovers don't give him the voice of someone who is trying to die, but someone who is trying to take the pain. In fact his disturbing choke at the end almost has a sense of despair and shock in it.

copied from good ol' wikipedia:
Deaths often occur when the loss of consciousness caused by partial asphyxia leads to loss of control over the means of strangulation, resulting in continued asphyxia and death. While often asphyxiophilia is incorporated into sex with a partner, others enjoy this behaviour by themselves, making it potentially more difficult to get out of dangerous situations[12]. Victims are often found to have rigged some sort of "rescue mechanism" that has not worked in the way they anticipated as they lost consciousness.

okay, so the choking game isn't the exact same thing as erotic asphyxiation, but the same idea applies. Deaths usually occur up to 10 minutes after unconsciousness because the person who loses consciousness can't remove the instrument of strangulation- in other words, because they're alone. On the rare occasion that it happens in the company of other people, it's could also be because they couldn't undo the knot in time. But this case involves a belt, not a complicated knot. Cheryl's a smart girl. If she was there, she could figure out that the guy was out cold and help him within the 10 minutes.
Other than that, I agree with you except that, beyond just misremembering the echoes, I believe that she actively distorts them as a mechanism of denial, especially towards the beginning . Even when her memories got more accurate, she still invented chunks of it, like the image of the dead dog. The message I got implied that she wasn't in the car at the time, so she couldn't have seen it in real life.

[AuraTwilight]

Alright, good rebuttal, but is it not possible that perhaps Cheryl wandered into the lost property office, witnessed the guy hanging himself, then panicked and either ran off to get help, or ditched the scene entirely? Cheryl does have a subconscious draw towards worsening any situation she seems to be in, after all.

[Venoid]

I still can't get over this car :p.
The person in the club does actually say that he didn't realize it was a wig. He says so in the second one where he says 'the wig kinda killed the moment', he also says it in the third one 'You damn whore, it's just a wig!?'
In the first one he also mentions that she looked so much like his daughter (you pointed this out earlier and it was a good call, I missed that!). This is a lot more open to interpretation, but you can imagine that his daughter would be 16-18, as even with a wig, I doubt a 23+ year old could look like a 5 year old.

The guy in the car does sound sincere to me, but then maybe thats because I have heard my brother talking to his 4 year old the same way. Also, roleplay or not, what sort of roleplay plays out the person leaving the vehicle, to then drag them back in and have sex. There's roleplay, and then there's roleplay :p. If it wasn't for the fact that he is saying goodbye to her I would be much more open to the fact that it is a potential sex scene.
2 of the 3 messages end with her leaving. One says for her to have a nice day, the other says they can run off and he will see her tonight.

I want to believe it is related to the same event, but I just can't see it at all :p. It's two seperate events that work together. And even though some of my arguments are making assumptions (like Harry had a different car back then), those assumptions are still stronger than trying to believe the guy at the cat house took her to the school, roleplayed her as a 5 year old then banged her in the back :p. In fact I would imagine if he did have a wife and daughter then he would not want to be caught dead walking or driving around the streets with a pick up girl.

The scene with the dog is a good point. She could not have seen the dog like I first suspected, as a number of the voices indicate that she is not in the car. It is also unlikely that she was actually at the pet shop with him buying the new one.
This basically opens up the interpretation. I would suspect the ghost dog was probably an oversight by the developers, but the principle is still the same. The event did occur, she was likely told about it at a later date and created this event in her mind.

I don't think you can argue that she is delusional. But you can't take all the echoes at face value. Afterall, what is an echo? (good old Dictionary.com!)
: any repetition or close imitation, as of the ideas or opinions of another.
The echoes that you see happened, or she at least believes very strongly that they did. But she may not be interpretting them exactly as they were. That's one of the strong parts of the game and the point of the psychological evaluation. She has this oppinion on how the world works, and those oppinions reflect her memories and the world she has in her dead.

Take the cat house scene, as that's the one we are talking about the most. Whichever echo you get, there is one thing in common. The girl (whoever she is) has been hit, and her wig hass come off. Where Cheryls perception kicks in is the motive behind why that event occured. If she has a high Mean PI then she envisions the guy as a woman hater and very aggressive. A more family oriented PI puts him as a nice family man that just got disturbed that the woman looked like his daughter, while another PI puts the man as rather friendly and supportive of the person, almsot like their patting them on the back for the effort.
That's why with the dog scene, it can change between whether Harry is with Dahlia or a mistress. In one scene their almost like a supportive family, in another Dahlia is being rather hateful towards Harry, while the third scene puts him cheating. Cheryl was not there, but she has probably heard the story from her mother. She's then created this echo of the event in her mind of hwo she believes it occurred. It's not delusional, because it did happen, it just may not have been quite like she has interpretted it.

[AuraTwilight]

I still can't get over this car :p.
The person in the club does actually say that he didn't realize it was a wig. He says so in the second one where he says 'the wig kinda killed the moment', he also says it in the third one 'You damn whore, it's just a wig!?'

The second one is ambiguous enough, but yea, the third one there I've never gotten. Even still, the pigtails is what turns him on, and my point as a whole still stands.

The guy in the car does sound sincere to me, but then maybe thats because I have heard my brother talking to his 4 year old the same way. Also, roleplay or not, what sort of roleplay plays out the person leaving the vehicle, to then drag them back in and have sex. There's roleplay, and then there's roleplay :p. If it wasn't for the fact that he is saying goodbye to her I would be much more open to the fact that it is a potential sex scene.
2 of the 3 messages end with her leaving. One says for her to have a nice day, the other says they can run off and he will see her tonight.

Whether or not she's actually leaving the car is unknown and irrelevant. Perhaps he's dropping her off, and the school is simply where they meet even if she doesn't attend. Maybe he's having her leave the car and dancing or pretending to play infront of the windshield while he jacks it (it happens).

I want to believe it is related to the same event, but I just can't see it at all :p. It's two seperate events that work together. And even though some of my arguments are making assumptions (like Harry had a different car back then), those assumptions are still stronger than trying to believe the guy at the cat house took her to the school, roleplayed her as a 5 year old then banged her in the back :p. In fact I would imagine if he did have a wife and daughter then he would not want to be caught dead walking or driving around the streets with a pick up girl.

How are they stronger? You're assuming that some guy wouldn't do a (fairly common) sex fetish because it's "weird" for you, and you're assuming that Harry not only had a voice change, but that this person shares the same exact voice Harry did 15 or so years ago?

We don't know if the scene happened at night or not. Either he didn't think they'd be seen, he had a lie and an excuse prepared, or he simply didn't care, which is very possible if he's doing this in the first place.

The scene with the dog is a good point. She could not have seen the dog like I first suspected, as a number of the voices indicate that she is not in the car. It is also unlikely that she was actually at the pet shop with him buying the new one.
This basically opens up the interpretation. I would suspect the ghost dog was probably an oversight by the developers, but the principle is still the same. The event did occur, she was likely told about it at a later date and created this event in her mind.

Indeed, though I wouldn't wholly write off that she had some way to witness it, like she was in the backyard watching Harry hit the dog, or she found the security tape of him buying a new dog, or whatever. Irrelevant, though, we can agree the event isn't a complete fabrication.