HELLO Dashboard!! Ever since i first played DBBQ i've found the entire game endlessly interesting (as have most people, LOL) But one of the most interesting, and in my opinion, most Potent things, is Ena's character and how she relates to the game's commentary on modern work culture.
So for anyone as much of a #SICKO as me 😭 Here's an embarrassingly long analysis of just that! There's SO much to talk about with this game, and even when I'm trying to focus on one specific idea with this post, I'm sure I'll still miss things, so just stick with me best you can OK? 😭 😭
My aim for this post is to allow you to understand Just how deep in the torment nexus Ena is, and to want to say "she should be at the club" Only to realize she can't even go to the club. She can't even go to the club. Because of Job. (Among other, hopefully more intelligently articulated things!)
SO, Let's just jump right in :D
First, to state the obvious—Ena's literal entire life is her job. The only moods she expresses under normal circumstance are "smooth talking salesperson where every line is about working or trying to sell something" and "Stops keeping up the veneer and gets frustrated and pissed because she hates her stupid job."
This permeates every aspect of her character—I don't think there's a single line in the game so far where she says like, Anything about herself. There's nothing about what she may want or what she may like. It's all about her fuckass job or the fuckass Boss.
And of course, even in gameplay aspects, you literally don't get a chance to choose whether you accept a job or not, like the thought of doing anything besides giving her time and energy for other people or her job's benefit doesn't even occur to her (Or, it can't occur to her—I doubt the Boss would want to allow her reprieve from anything at all, and I'm sure Ena would know this).
(^ Ena's reaction to being told to find a mythical figure that she maybe didn't even know existed cause Froggy sure as hell didn't to do a stupid job for Froggy's stupid ass. Like)
Maybe i'm reaching here, but I even find it interesting how her red hand has no fingers (besides a thumb). I feel like that represents a lack of individuality she has when she's in Salesperson mode, or at least, a lack of individuality she's been allowed. A lack of having a defined being cause it's all about this stupid job.
There's lots of avenues to go from here, but let's start with another big point of the game: Everybody hates her. Except for like, three characters, every NPC in the game either insults her, talks down to her, blatantly doesn't respect her, or Literally tells her nobody should be punished for being born except her. Typical day for Ena.
I'm not going to get into why I think this is—for me there's not enough evidence to speculate with surety right now—but I think this does tie strongly into her commitment to her job. Ena working her ass off in every aspect of her life and earning nothing but disrespect for it is very reminiscent of real life work environments.
Think of how almost every NPC claims they are "the Boss" in such a way that many of them seem to want to be the Boss, like he's some kind of well-known or respected figure. The description for the game on Steam even says as much: "Play as ENA as she searches for the Boss that everyone wants to be."
(eg: "I am the B-O-S-S!"):
People wish they were the Boss, they want to be some kind of rich capitalist with power and fame, but when looking at someone who actually works for him, and probably is the reason the Boss has profit and success in the first place, they insult her and demean her no matter how much she gives herself to them and the Boss. I'm sure you can see the real life parallels here.
It's even possible one of the reasons Ena works so hard in the first place is as an attempt to earn respect from these people, or to make up for whatever everyone thinks she did that made everyone hate her so much. Especially considering...
Our society is one that tells its people that Work is unequivocally Good. Committing yourself to work is what everyone, no matter who they are or what they face, is what you have to do to be a valuable member of society, and to have any respect from other people in the slightest. It tells its people that you only have value as a living human being at all if you give your life to work.
Even though this blatantly isn't true. If people think you're the Wrong type of worker, or if people think your work isn't valuable, helpful, or that it doesn't require skill, you can work as hard as you want but you'll still be treated like shit. But, hey, work is still your duty as a member of society, right? Stop bitching and whining and pull yourself up by your bootstraps, right?
Needless to say, it's easy to see how this whole idea is being represented in DBBQ. She even knows how much she's sold herself to this, she just... Seems to have extremely casually accepted it all LOL, which, I mean... What else does she have the power to do?
This very casual and nonchalant acknowledgement of her lack of autonomy connects to another big point: Ena doesn't value herself, nor does she even know how to exist without being in a constant state of working.
Let's talk about the Purge: There's a LOT to get to here in terms of Ena herself LOL, but the intrigue starts before she even enters the party. Literally Froggy just saying she's about to enter an "Event" stops her in her tracks and worries her. Not to mention the next line...
This feels like an indication that despite how much she commits herself to it, Ena does "crave freedom" from her shitty job, although she can scarcely admit this anywhere else so far. Then, if you talk to this slime guy, you get some strange text.
As far as I know, the text for interacting with things doesn't look like this anywhere else in the game. And given that it looks exactly the same as how Ena's lines do in the Purge, it's seemingly the only peek we get into her internal monologue, and it is. Quite worrying! She literally can climb up a hellish freezing floating mountain and yet this is by far the most freaked out she gets in the entire game.
And then to actually get into the Purge, an Evil eye Ball tells her that she needs to give a literal arm or a leg to get in. And she just does it. Like no hesitation no further questions she just gives it away to the evil eye ball. Presumably for Good? Because the only reason she regains the arm later is because of Genie magic? Like Ena. Girl. Are we gonna talk about this at all.
But so many real life work environments expect you to give every part of yourself in order to be allowed to exist and live in society, including your physical being and critical parts of your personhood at all.
(Let me also say I find it intentional that she gave away her white arm. Whereas her red hand literally doesn't have fingers, the sharp claws she has on her white hand represent the individuality and unique identity she Does have. However, it's also the part of herself that's in conflict with her ability to be a Good Worker, that always does exactly what she's supposed to do, and never complains, and never gets in the way of her duties.)
She was already very distressed here, but it's a clear indication of how little she values herself. It was a motion to lose a part of herself just to reach the Genie, both for her stupid job, and possibly for the possibility of "freedom" from it all. And your average job these days—no matter how important you are to your cause—will drill it into you that your ability to be a good worker is infinitely more important than your existence as a person. It's easy to see how Ena may have internalized that.
And then she goes to the club one time and this happens
I won't get too deep into her dialogue with the NPCs here because I think their intention is pretty clear; Being in a place so antithetical to a work environment, and a place where she's supposed to let loose and have fun, is so distressing and impossible to even fathom for her that This Happens.
(see: "H-How can I leave this stupid event? M-my lame schedule is full,")
Like, everything at the Purge is insane, but this is a particularly heartbreaking line for me. One because of her job's shitty environment that's broken her down so much—do you think she EVER gets a break, because I sure don't—but also because of how it's conditioned her to not even believe she can "afford another minute of joy." Ena :[
Note how she's covered in these branches that started growing during Froggy's phone call, which look very similar to how she looks in this gag with the Shaman—it's literally her nervous system. In her scene with Mitu she even says she's feeling "sick," She's literally freaked out of her flipping Gourd with her goddamn Nerves On The Outside
Hell, even though Meanie's speaking (which, I mean, no shit, in another line she literally describes her job as "deplorable" 😭), these sprites in the files are actually labelled "Anxiety", suggesting that she's SO freaked out by being somewhere supposed to be so opposite to her work she's become another variant of herself, a la Drunk Ena from Season 1.
I won't get much more into this, because @cube-cumb3r has a PHENOMENAL post I'll link in the notes that goes deeper into this stuff from the Purge and the "Anxiety" thing, And also gets more into theory territory than I do here! Please please go read that post, it is so damn good.
In any case, I think the scenes with the Purge NPCs are the biggest examples in the whole game of how much she hates her fuckass job, yet she can't be allowed to be anything besides a wage slave to it. And just as she's internalized everybody in her world's dislike of her, she hates herself for it.
So:
We've established that Ena's shitty job parallels the real life work conditions that plague our world, and that these conditions have caused her to devalue herself and believe she can't have any reprieve from them... but, what even is her job?
Apparently she's a salesperson, but what is she even selling? She tries to offer a "divestment opportunity", and tells the Witches she can show them how to "grow [their] own [boss]" which definitely falls in line with the Sales thing, but besides that it's still not clear, even when she talks to Froggy.
I suppose the "grow their own boss" line does sound a lot like the phrasing used in MLM schemes, with how they lure people in by telling them they can "be their own boss." The Receptionist also calls Ena a scammer and a conman, so maybe she is a sort of scammer, but, I also don't exactly think the Receptionist think she has the most reliable opinions of Ena LOL
She also calls her a "pink-collar slug", pink collar meaning a job traditionally associated with women, which. ??? I don't fully know where to go with that.. like ...Nothing she does harkens to... Any kind of job expected to be done by women, imo?? Um. Yeah idk i just thought that may be significant??/ 😭😭😭😭 Listen man I can't know it all
Anyway. Maybe I'll be proven embarrassingly wrong when we receive more information in future chapters, but I think the lack of clarity on what she's supposed to be is representative of the games themes. The constant disrespect Ena receives makes her seem likely to be a low-tier worker, someone at the bottom of the ladder that people have no problems walking all over.
Because these types of jobs will treat you the same no matter who you are or what you're supposed to be doing. She's doing what the world tells her she needs to do in order to be a respected member of society, and yet she's also someone people feel comfortable treating poorly because she's at the bottom—because has no power of her own. It doesn't matter what she's supposed to be doing, it matters that she's the Wrong type of worker.
And how is she supposed to ever say anything for herself? It seems virtually baked into her Salesperson side to completely ignore past all the rude things these assholes say to her. After all, not only would that probably just make most people ruder to her (and impede her ability to complete jobs for them) isn't the customer always right?
...OK I will say her whole "Understood! Aim for the target!" line DOES seem like her overall job here is to fucking kill the Boss, but this is long enough already and the likely theme of Ena having a violent streak and whatnot is another beast entirely that I am NOT getting into here 😭😭
Besides, maybe she has no clearly defined job because we've already seen exactly what it is. To sell her life, time, and emotions to whatever all these clowns ask of her, and to receive no reward besides another goddamn job to do.
I think future chapters may delve more into Ena's true feelings on her situation, and possibly even how she'll get freedom from it. Allow me to mention the scenes with Theodora, wherein if you try to "aspire to receive a blissful life" Theodora just tells Ena "You can't aspire for more than what you are capable of." (LIKE OKAYYYY.... RUDE MUCH????)
Until, finally:
How is her mind—containing a desire for freedom—supposed to be in harmony with the letters it spits out, when she's been so conditioned that the only thing she's allowed to be is a worker?
Now, even I still have a lot of questions after this. Like: What has happened in Ena's past that made her this way? How and why did she take this job in the first place? What is up with the "Guys wait, I'm not doing what you say I'm doing" scene I literally didn't even mention that once here. Why should nobody be punished for being born except poor damn Ena, and does it relate to any of the themes I just talked about?
I... don't know. Like I actually truly have no idea. But I have confidence, even if it's in a delightfully vague and abstract Ena-typical way, that we'll find out eventually.
I did have some stuff to say about the hands because you mentioned her different hands and what they represent and I immediately thought of things i had to ADD!
I totally buy that in some sense her white hand represents her individuality and her red hand represents her lack of that. I don't think it's a coincidence that the only side that shows any trace of Ena being an individual and not a mindless worker drone, is also the side who has the hand with any sort of definition.
(disclaimer: the following part of the post may all be complete horseshit. there may be other reasons a certain hand was chosen for a certain action such as composition of a shot or pose, and this may all just be a long string of coincidences)
On that note, I figured it'd be interesting just as a fun add-on to this post to also ponder about how she uses those hands. She uses her red hands in moments when she wants to progress, to get shit done. To knock on doors (presumably to inquire), to move aside the curtain to get to the Genie.
I think it's interesting too how the hands she uses is not really tied to whichever side Ena is currently presenting as. Ena will always use the red hand to use the megaphone, which is arguably the greatest example of Getting Shit Done.
So what does she use her white hand for?
Poking things. Petting things. Things that serve no functional purpose at all, things she does for herself. Despite this presumably being her dominant hand (judging from the way she uses the Humanboard), it's interesting how we see this hand much less because the moments we most often see her hand is when she's knocking on doors, and there are many many doors you can knock.
But there is one door she interacts with using her left hand. And it's this one, in Night Hill. The one door she doesn't interact with to inquire further or to progress, but rather to linger. To long for a life she doesn't have. But then of course, when the interaction ends and you need to move on, she knocks on it with her red hand like all the other doors.
Needless to say, it's really fucking interesting that that's what she has to give up for her job isn't it?
I didn't notice this til my billionth playthrough, but both the text that appears when you interact with this Amoeba Guy, and the ellipses that follow any interaction with any of the NPC's in this room is in Meanie's dialogue text color. Girl is freaked out of her flipping marble
On my first Purge Route run I was wondering what that cracking sound was. This I happen to know now after poking around in the game files some days ago
The file names for this sound effect are "POFF_S_PanicSnap"
The "Girl is freaked out of her flipping marble" THEORY
I want to share some observations with you.
I think the most interesting part of the purge event is that in it Ena is a form that is not quite Meanie, but more some sort of variant, like series Ena's drunk or sadder form, with the inverted eyes and the blacked out side of the face. And the branches.
Firstly, the branches are interesting. @eshithepetty pointed out on a previous post of mine that some liken the branches to nerves, as if they're manifesting physically. There's much more to this. During the first interaction with the Shaman when Ena tries to inquire about the Geni- Bathroom and gets interrupted, afterward she looks like this.
Which one, looks similar to the branches seen in the Purge Event, and two also coincidentally looks a bit similar to a nervous system. But also, in the release trailer for the game, there's an animated shot of Ena at the purge event and I was initially pondered why you can't see that branch, I noticed what looks like it must be the tip of it in the hole in her chest. But then as soon as I saw that I couldn't help but think that the whole thing combined bore a striking resemblance to a nerve cell. So I think this whole motif of the nervous system has a lot more merit than I initially assumed. Girl is neurotic as fuck.
There's another interesting aspect of this form of Ena though. What I didn't notice until someone pointed it out in the ena wiki discord server that her face is actually a different off-white here than regular "Meanie", it's a sort of blueish-gray as opposed to her regular cream white. Which I didn't think much of. But then they pointed out that the Meanie side of her body always has this shade present, on the top of her face and on some faces of her polygon limbs. Which I still didn't think much of, it's just shading, isn't it? And Ena's sadder side has a white face instead of a blue one, I'm not sure the color is supposed to mean anything.
Until I on a playthrough noticed this portrait of Ena during the phone call before the Purge Event, where you can see Ena actively shifting between her regular "Meanie" form, and the form we see on the dancefloor. And, you can also see the "shading" on her face creep downwards. Meaning, it's deliberate, it MEANS something. Sorry Jordan from ena wiki discord server for ever doubting you.
These sets of sprites of this in-between form happen to be labeled "Anxiety" in the files coincidentally.
So what does it mean?
According to Froggy in his secret phonecall, she's a disaster when she drinks, but as seen in the clip at the top of this post clearly she's already beginning to freak out before she even drinks the strange concoction the eye counter gives her. So it's not as simple as a "drunk" form.
Given her dialogue on the dance floor itself later, we can already probably assume there's something about the prospect of a party that makes Ena feel extremely out of her element. I wouldn't say Ena is socially anxious given how easily she's able to talk to a vast number of people often quite charismatically with little problem, even when they're very hostile to her. So, it's probably not the being-surrounded-by-people part alone that makes her uncomfortable.
So what is it instead? Is it because she can't stand the idea of not being able to work? Is it because she doesn't know how to relax and have fun, and being surrounded by people doing just that makes her panic? Perhaps it's both of those, or perhaps they are even the same.
This is why it's interesting that this aspect of Ena that is tied her anxiety at the prospect of leisure, her inability to have fun and to focus on anything but her job, is also ever-present on her body. It's not surprising that her Salesperson side, the side that is completely immersed in her work role is laser-focused on the task at hand is also not interested in anything but work. But the other side which constantly expresses her dislike of her job and just wants it to be over with, the side that wants to be free, she's also equally committed to her work. And when presented with an opportunity to do something else, she panics. It seems there's not a single part of her that allows her to have fun or do anything but work, even if she hates it. And this anxious aspect of her is constant in Meanie.
I guess the final question is why? There's probably two broad answers, either that it's self-inflicted or inflicted on her externally, the latter seeming more interesting. Maybe she is just a freak workaholic who won't allow herself to relax, but given that she hates her job it seems more likely that it's against her will. There might be something that depends on her doing her job that she cannot afford to do anything but that.
I suppose this is why too I find the idea of series Ena and this Ena being the same in some sense really appealing. Even if it's something like an alternate timeline or something. I'm not even gonna say anything definitive about the chronology about the two but I like the idea that in some other circumstance, Dream BBQ's sides would've not been "Salesman" and "Meanie".
Because there's something really perverted about all of Ena's sides to revolving around her job. Her entire sense of self, and her only purpose and ambitions are tied to her work.
Happy and Sad are human emotions. Yes series Ena is much more unstable and sporadic in her emotions, but at least they are her own. This Ena gets to have feelings, adventures and friends that are all her own. And I like to imagine that this would've been the case for Dream BBQ Ena too, but because of whatever circumstances she's in, it's not.
Dream BBQ Ena has nothing that is hers. Not even her own self is for her. The only thing she has that is her own is her anxiety and frustration.
power is off today, so i played RDO all night in the meantime. so guess what i renamed my first horse
if that supporter edition concept isnt a shitpost and froggy can shapeshift at all then its SO over for me
put his ass to WORK. we have many successful businesses and a high kill count. if im forced to ride a cart, i'lll call him so he trails behind. my supervisor. supervising
I like how you can complete quests without actually receiving them, which implies that ena might collect and carry around these baby pets either because of her motherly instincts or because she's planning to sell them
(also ena's "O.K." in the extra dialogue you get is a work of art)
ENA thoughts & theory: on Theodora, the Bathroom, and Unforgiven Frank
[aka: historical events in uncanny streets, aka: I Think I Figured Out What Frank Did.]
Throughout most of chapter 1, it feels pretty heavily built up that the bathroom is some sort of force that works in direct opposition to “the genie”. it certainly felt malevolent to me; like it's something that’s replaced “the genie” in the minds and vernacular of the people of uncanny streets; perhaps a kind of corruption or overthrowing of its genie, and usurpation of the people’s efforts to seek it out as a sort of reprieve or authority. once you actually get to the bathroom though, it seems that this… isn’t actually the case?
The simple fact that theodora still exists in there and is perfectly fine and unharmed and surprisingly cordial if you manage to find her is proof enough there's not actually anything sinister about the bathroom, but the "angels" ena corrupts into when trying to mention a "genie" in prior conversations being the same things she transforms into when theodora begins to let her ascend [as well as seen during the icy ascension climb] ties the whole operation directly to theodora.
It seems that the bathroom is in fact actually theodora’s own design, and i posit that it exists as a front to deliberately obscure her name/presence + throw people off her trail. She’s not exactly trying to completely close herself off from everyone, but she does seem to be “in hiding” to some extent.
this of course begs the question: why would a character who’s basically a lesser deity be in hiding?
Well, part of it is I think she just kind of got tired of attending to everyone's "aspirations" and whatnot at a whim.
The presentation of the bathroom as a confessional and the surrounding talk of things like “washing clean one's sins” seems in a pretty similar vein to what i’d assume theodora’s more regular duties are, based on her interaction with ena; cleansing, reflection, forgiveness, rebirth, that whole usual god-type jazz. it's all pretty handily represented here, and the whole deal of her ‘throne’ being a wishing well pretty directly parallels how one would typically 'wish' on a genie as well. perhaps she simply wanted people to put in their own work to solve their problems rather than continually come to her for everything.
Interestingly though, she IS still quite willing to help directly if you just come straight to her. like, the bathroom serves its own purpose if you assume that’s all there is, but there also seems to be a thing of "if you still remember the genie and/or have done the work to know she still exists and/or are simply diligent enough to search around to find her, you are welcomed to her benefits”.
It’s a bit strange next to the whole ‘burying her name and presence’ thing! If all she wanted to do was make people earn their forgiveness, she could have accomplished that just by making herself really hard to reach¹. But taking those extra levels of censorship...the general populace clearly isn’t the real problem here. she’s obscuring herself because of something else. something specific. something she would not forgive.
...so the frank spec was originally going to be a separate post, but after chasing the ideas in it far enough, i found the two wound up running right back into eachother. I am joining them unceremoniously with this block of text. He has a lot of shit to get through but i promise we will eventually wrap back around to the G͊̉̀Eͦ̿̓N̵̶͠Ỉ͂̏[BATHROOM]
Frank….
Frank is an interesting case to be sure. He’s so calm and cordial, even to ena, yet he speaks of “past mistakes” and having to “remain unforgiven"? He’s the only character theodora is less willing to help out than ena too; she’s fine with letting your excommunicated ne'er-do-well wipe the world bare, yet she draws the line at showing mercy to frank? what did this motherfucker DO? My answer is uhhhhhh colonization, probably!
Right. So assertion #1 i have about frank is that the ship you enter and leave uncanny streets through belonged to him*.
This seems like too deliberate a line to just mean "i walked through the door on there to get here”. he's got a history with that ship. if it belonged to him, i have to figure he was also the one who originally crashed it into uncanny streets. He does refer to both ena and himself as ‘travelers’, after all; i don’t think it’s just that the ship had always been lodged there and he just lived on it. ramming that giant ass thing in through the sands has already not got him off to a great start, but i mean that could have been an accident. You never know. maybe he’s just a bad pilot.
No, the real problem, i think, is that after doing so he proceeded to attempt to harvest uncanny streets and/or remake it according to his vision.
frank has some very very strong and very very baffling associations with the wanderers. i don't quite want to say it's anything so simple/direct as "he created them" or "they work for him", but he has most DEFINITELY had some kind of hand [or robo-foot, as the case may be] in how they currently exist and operate. to be completely real i haven’t been able to makes heads or tails [or snakes and hippos] of all the NUMEROUS scattered clues about them in any sort of sensible or satisfying way, but… the barest overall gist is that the wanderers are something frank either designed himself or sought to harness, but doing so in the form presented here in the tapestries in his room was….not viable. As you can see, it’s a bit… incomplete there, compared to what we see in the game.
This… facility? In the secret area of the gutsy maze is connected directly to frank’s room, as seen with the respective doors + same brick texture between both, and the even same music as in frank’s room will play if you approach this door. obviously this gives him a pretty big tie to the production[???] of these things!
There are a lot of individual elements to the wanderers who are up and out there flying around uncanny streets: hippo, veins, snake, diamond, eye, ribs. The thing that drives me crazy is that despite there being so many places where these elements turn up individually or in groups, none of them are exactly complete sets, or presented in consistent ways, or seem to be from the same origin. this is a bit of a ramble for making only a tangential point but bear with me.
The facility hits their 3 biggest features-hippo/snake/diamond, but don’t line up with the elements in frank’s tapestries-hippo/diamond/veins---which weirdly, the veins seem to be their own sort of free beings there???? yet seem to act as a binding agent for the hippo in the functional wanderers? There’s also the eye and the ribcage thing, which i don’t think turn up directly anywhere, but they are… let’s say, more crude and primitive structures/organs, that i might associate with, say, a fetus. those red and blue tendril veins are also notably present in that thing, and act in a similar sort of “binding” manner of ena “becoming one with [the orb]”. it's also those things binding the taxi driver’s heads but i’m gonna get too out in the weeds² if i keep going on about the wanderers' elements.
the point of all this is to say that while frank seemed to have a partial vision/plan for what he wanted the wanderers to be, it seems to me that certain resources/elements/processes vital to them actually functioning were native to/only available in uncanny streets.
And so I think he sought to take them for himself by force.
Look, the dude’s a big king head. This alone EASILY carries vibes of conquest, but on top of that apparently his mecha legs are also pretty handily lifted from the ED-209 mech in robocop. granted, i haven't actually seen robocop so i could be way off base here, but i feel like a police gunmech isn't exactly, uh, going to be a force for everyone’s civic benefit yknow. Not to mention the job listings refer to the wanderers as “enforcers”. He is a guy whose associations all reek of hostile takeover.
Thinking more on the wanderer’s purpose though…the npc’s call them wanderers in a general sense, but i wonder if they “wander” because they are searching for something. in their dialogue they report on finding various oddities:
”A SEVERE BRAIN SIGNAL CAPABLE OF PRODUCING [UNINTELLIGIBLE] WAS LOCATED.”
“A NEW PHENOMENON HAS BEEN DISCOVERED /// THE ENORMOUS EGG THAT HOLDS US ALL AS IN THE MOTHER’S WOMB”
a severe brain and an egg/womb, huh.
…I have a hunch they're looking for theodora. The brain thing seems the most indicative because there’s no other imagery or references of a brain in the game, and while the ‘egg’/’fetus’ orb thing is a good bit more nebulous, it IS the most direct connection we have to theodora currently. And boy those fuckers sure do love flocking around this "new phenomenon" leading to her.
It’s no secret that genies have massive power within and/or over the door they rule, so it would make sense for the purposes of colonization³ that he’d seek out something like that to gain access to or control, perhaps to further form the land to his liking.
Obviously, theodora isn’t going to be wild about all this. She intervened and ultimately stopped him, but not before his assault did some damage.
this “broken palace” where the shattered theodora lies… i’d like to assert it was in fact formerly HER palace. I always did find that area weirdly serene and beautiful, in an out-of-place sort of way; it’s certainly a more natural kind of aesthetic i could associate with her were the bathroom not in play. Seems a shame to abandon it rather than rebuild, but…i believe that when frank launched his attack, she feigned her own death in the process of fending him off. The wanderers, too, seem to corroborate this:
She let him believe that this attack did in fact destroy her, to set up an eternal stalemate--that, by a cruel trick of fate, in his effort to take over by force, he’d also destroyed the way to accomplish his goals. That’s why he’s trapped there in the lost village now. Trapped with the ruins of his ambition, trapped with a dead god that provides no way to change the land he sought to conquer.
It is certainly interesting, when ena talks to the shattered theodora, that she very deliberately highlights she “can only keep you from returning” despite that having no real relevance to the conversation they were having. That’s all that remnant of her exists to do, and it’s keen on letting you know it.
Meanwhile, the real and very much not actually dead theodora is far more into subterfuge and also still needs a place to live. So she simply made a new makeshift palace/hideout/base of operations, and… you guessed it. That's the bathroom babeyyyyy. That’s why you can’t speak of a “genie” in uncanny streets, and why no one there these days even knows what the genie is. she wanted something completely disconnected, unassuming, and censored so that she may evade the remaining wanderers, and so that word she’s still alive and in power and serving her people [even if more passively now] never reaches frank; forcing him to live with his guilt + the consequences of his actions, and/or just to set an example so he doesn’t try any shit again.
And that’s how we find things in chapter 1.
Going forwards, though… i do find this line interesting:
There are… certainly a number of ways to interpret this one⁴, but for the sake of this post, i think there’s a fair call that this line can mean “the pretense of theodora’s being dead” has been stripped away. It has got to be crazy to learn that you’ve been living a lie for the past however long, but at least he doesn’t seem too pissed that she’s been deceiving him all this time. Whatever happens, it’s nice that he’s not interested in going back to his old ways now that he’s free.
I accused frank of a lot of shit in this post, but i do really love the guy. it’s hard not to be endeared to a guy who’s accepted his punishment, but still commits to being better even though he knows it won’t absolve him. It’s hard not to be endeared to one of the only people who’s actually fucking nice to you. And of course, ena might also have her own history with him, given he’s a thing she thought of for her aspiration to theodora + how frank bafflingly uses the correct ‘ƎNA’ spelling of her name. There’s a lot about his past that i’ve tried to piece together here, but still quite a bit more beyond reach-at least at this this point in the game. I certainly hope we get to see more of him, and i get the suspicion there’s a good chance we will.⁵
…
Alright yes i’ll address the superscript numbers now. Because this was clipped together out of two separate posts that were Specifically About Frank and Specifically About Theodora initially, there are a few tangential points & observations that i removed from both broader topics to make it flow better as one throughline about uncanny’s history. They’re not substantial enough to merit their own posts so i’m just tacking them on down here as footnotes.
¹. i’ve seen a bit of questioning of why theodora allows the purge events to happen, and im gonna be honest chief i dont think she cares. If people are creating their own path to her that's not her problem, and by whatever metric the purge events are “illegal”, i don’t think she was the one to declare them as such. Now, the wanderers on the other hand….. VERY distinctly seem to dislike the purges. They were the ones to take the taxi driver’s head, and also seemingly what hurled that chunk of building into uncanny dark to try and prevent you from getting in [an echo of their murmurings can be heard before seeing it crash up from the below]
Which i find so so baffling with everything else i’ve posited about the wanderers in this post! I don’t get why they would care at all, let alone try to stop it.
². For reasons i could not even BEGIN to guess, that whole underground gutsy maze area has EXTREMELY direct parallels to EVERYTHING frank has going on. The music and doors and brick texture as mentioned above, but it’s also got the same sort of water as in the broken palace, and wouldn’t you god damn know it, those are also both the locations where the pointing spirit guys appear.
Not to mention this is also where the wanderers decided to take the taxi driver’s head, and there’s also that strange priest in the underground vignette of ena with the lantern featuring a wanderer that leads with the snake’s head rather than the hippo’s…. Sincerely. What did they mean by all this.
³. this isn’t even the first or only theme of colonization i’ve picked up in dream bbq. This is probably going to be its own post later but... Man… i dont know… i think it could mean something that she and frank both are similarly “unforgiven”, almost as if they may have similar crimes. I don’t think ena is actively malevolent per se, but she does seem…uncaring, and i could definitely call her complicit. paving the world over in homogenous grey, paving the way for “investors in real estate” and auctioneers to immediately move in once it smells “much more valuable” and to liquidate the remaining assets… her own being wrapped up in being a “salesperson”, the big fuckoff gun..... i dont know man....
⁴. the gut vibe check i had for this line is that it has something to do with that bit theodora says about "fears and hesitation will only betray [ena’s] true ambition” in claiming her aspiration. But like the “truth” of ena’s aspiration that frank sees is uncanny streets getting outworlded, and that seems…a bit needlessly sinister, that he’d call that “noble”. There is also an admittedly much simpler read in the lies and truth just refer to the directions from the green and orange pointing spirits. But like thats boring. that is simply too mundane to feel appropriate for this series.
⁵. chapter 3!!!!!
Frank ABSOLUTELY has history with piero and is apparently on pretty good terms with him, which ena very much distinctly is NOT. but ena also seems to be on good terms– dare i say even friends with frank– so i think he’s gonna come in clutch for us trying to get us in the crowd door.
Also apparently if you look at that painting in isolation it does have eyes. this isn't relevant to anything, i just wanted to share it 'cause it's neat.
This…does present an interesting case in that frank is not a guaranteed encounter in chapter 1. If you don’t meet him there, would he still be there for us later? And if not, what is there for the crowd door? Disguise? Breaking in with force??? Continuity going forward is something i think about a lot for dbbq; how each route leaves you with and without certain tools to use later. If you have the humanboard, you probably won’t see frank. If you see frank, you probably won’t have had the humanboard. Is the best option doing the quests for humanboard and then hopping in the river to meet frank? hell, you can even get out of chapter 1 with 'useless' extra inventory like the chocolates. will any of that shit be relevant later? Boggles the mind.
*For getting all the way down here i present you, finally, with an alternate offshoot version of this theory that leaves more questions than answers: The ship may have been frank’s… and theodora’s.
It’s for sure interesting the ship is where the door is, and that frank likewise may have owned a door. it really could go either way whether the door was already on there or if it was added as a way for other people to come and go more easily once the ship became a, uh, permanent fixture of uncanny, but IF that door had always been on the ship…. It could have interesting implications for theodora, depending on how long she’s been the genie of it. Particularly since there is a very fair read that the missing statue of her on the ship may be the same one that’s seen in the broken palace---they do have the same pink eyes, after all.
The only conclusion i’m willing to draw about this for now is that theodora may have also come in on the ship along with frank. Perhaps they could have been working together, at one point. This doesn’t change all that much about the rest of the theory though; frank could’ve still gotten power-hungry, and theodora could’ve clashed & broken ties with him all the same.
It could also have some interesting implications about where a door actually leads, and a genie’s powers in relation to that door and the area it’s located in, but, well, that’s more off the wall stuff that’s not really productive to think about right now. Perhaps in chapter 2 with the whole ‘inauguration of the new genie’ business…..
There also may be something to said about the ship having the same kind of stained glass as the orb; again with how the orb is a pretty direct association with theodora and how the wanderers seem to be drawn to it.
I wasn’t able to draw anything constructive out of it, but it’s… it’s there.
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