Adding on to your Otto Mentallis post, because I’m still in Psychonauts hype mode and can’t resist chiming in:
1: A real-world Polaroid camera has a rainbow on it (the visible colour spectrum). I figure Otto’s colours are probably meant to be the invisible spectrum, from infrared to ultraviolet. Not theory stuff, I thought it was neat, but it is sort of another connection between Otto and things you can’t see even when they’re right there.
2: I can confirm, Otto is not present at Bob’s version of the wedding: there are 3 tables, one with Lucrecia and Ford, one with Cassie and Compton, and a third with a large teddy bear instead of Otto. Helmut also has a version of the wedding in figments, but that one does include Otto. At the very least, we can be sure even from Dr. Touch and Audie arguing that Bob is not actually that fond of Otto (neither is Cassie, whose paper memory of Otto outright says that he’s full of himself, or Compton, who feels judged by him).
3: Most suspiciously in terms of something more going on, Loboto was able to break Sasha’s construct. This is something Oleander tells us never happens and requires some sort of outside help, but we learn that his employer is non-psychic and, let’s be real, most likely incapable of anything this involved by himself.
Either way, I think Otto is really fascinating. He’s right in the center of everything (bringing in Lucrecia, recovering Helmut, opening the Motherlobe), but so much about him is left unknown or vague (what’s with the pendant??) that it almost feels at times like they just scrapped his level. I also imagine it might be brilliantly subtle set-up for later.
****Above by @captainquestionart , below by pyrajanison****
These are some very good points. The last one especially, as we remember in the Rhombus of Ruin that Loboto was going to get a bonus if he ‘delivered Raz’s brain in one piece,’ which if he were talking about Gristol wouldn’t make any sense, as he has no reason to take Raz’s brain and in fact needs him ambulatory for his plan. But were we to implicate Otto, the man who is collecting a great many psychic brains, this makes a bit more sense, as Raz’s mind is that of a rather powerful psychic. The only other character we know that would want a powerful psychic brain like Raz’s is Oleander, a character whom Otto seems to have been conversing with in regards to psychic machines, like a mech with water capabilities.
One the subject of Helmut’s perception of Otto, I read one person mention that PSI-King refered to Dr. Touch as handsy, and that in Bob’s mind Otto says that the Seven (or Otto in this case) always imagined Helmut with someone taller, seemingly suggesting that perhaps Otto may have had some feelings toward Helmut before Bob and Helmut got together, and I think they may be right on that.
There is one thing I forgot to mention about Otto in my analysis that I do think is very important to his story. And that is the fact that, according to context clues, Otto may have accidentally killed someone.
In Otto’s Lab, in the list of brains that still have to be sorted, we can find a brain for a Jane Doe, who’s cause of death is listed as Brain Tumbler Malfunction: All that was left after the accident. Later in the game, once we get to Green Needle Gulch, we can find near Bob’s Green house Otto’s old lab. The lab appears to have experienced a violent explosion. Caused by what? Well when we look at where the epicenter of the explosion and scorch marks, what do we find.
An old destroyed brain tumbler. It is the only other one in the game besides the one in Sasha’s Lab and the one in the Heptadome. If we put those two details together, we can come to the conclusion that this is where that poor individual died. But who were they? And if this was where the accident took place, in Otto’s old lab, why are they listed as an unknown woman, especially if we infer that they died in an experiment preformed by Otto in his own lab? Why would he hide their identity or not know who they are? The mystery deepens. (I love that this game has such story building through details such as this)
