Forgive the perhaps naïve question, but. When Kris rips out their SOUL, is it both literal and metaphorical, or solely metaphorical? And if it's solely metaphorical, how does that affect the interpretation of the part where we crawl around in the Holiday basement?
It's very much both. The SOUL is you, and you are a part of Kris. Kris, who somehow knows exactly where you are at all times. Almost like they were following you every step of the way. Almost as if tearing you out accomplishes very little. The metaphor of the SOUL serves to soften the sheer visceral discomfort the sequences would cause otherwise.
Imagine Chapter 4's Holiday House visit without the supernatural elements. Then we have you and Kris wandering about the house in a dissociated haze after being told to fuck off and find clues. You find what you need. But the memories are too much. If you tell Susie the code, she will want to try it right away. It is not yet time for her to enter the shelter. They know that if you know they cannot stop you without hurting themself.
They shove you down. Shove you out. To the shadows, to the sunken place. Maybe they hide in the supply closet, maybe it's entirely just a box within your mind. You get lost in the dark of memories you aren't allowed to have, ringing around you like a song from far away. Suddenly you come to and you're in the kitchen, and your body is making chocolate milk. A phone call is already happening, but you can't quite make it out. You try to push closer, to better process what is happening, and you're shoved away again. Maybe you come back long enough to notice your body playing piano. It's really all Kris can manage without cooperating with themself.
Without cooperation, neither of you can fully command yourself. Who knows when, how, or how long it takes for you to stumble through the shadows in your mind into the basement, but you do eventually find yourself down there, a concrete space that sticks out amidst the delirium. And you flip the breaker switches, perhaps in half-recalled memory of doing so as a prank, once upon a time. Somehow, this is important; you aren't sure why. In the literal dark that follows you try to reach out to Susie and Noelle, but they don't recognize you. They don't realize it's you. They're saying some funny stuff about keeping you as a pet.
You follow them back-- or did they carry you back? Did the girls help you fumble your way back upstairs? Whatever. You're in the living room again. The code. The guitar. Dess's room. Upstairs. You can make your way to it from here. You remember that much. Who cares if Susie told you not to move or why. You can't comprehend directions, you're just a little mouse, or a little angel. A little light. A human thing. A red thing. A beloathed thing trapped inside Kris.
Kris. They're always there. Even when you feel like you're entirely outside them, you cannot escape them. You get close to it again and they hurt you. They hurt themself. They hide in her closet and they do it over and over every time you think of taking the guitar. In your conflict you jostle the strings, and Susie finds them. Finds the guitar. They make another call and ensure that this setback won't interfere with what is already taking place.
At that point it's useless to fight anymore. Kris gives up and retreats back into the passenger seat. You stumble out of the closet, damaged. So much more wary of the person you have to share this body with. but what can you do, except what you thought was the right thing? You go to the church and you brave the darkest dark, and you prove you have the determination to come out the other side. Whether that's got Kris changing their opinion of you, you can't know for sure. Right now it feels like this night will never end.
It genuinely would be harrowing without the abstraction of the SOUL. It would be too real for a game that is trying to get its point across to kids without alerting overly protective parents. Quite frankly, it would get people saying even more disgusting shit about Kris, because now they know that they're mentally ill and for some reason it's okay to say bad things about the mentally ill. For as much as it aggravates me that people are willfully refusing to process the SOUL as a metaphor, I'll take it for now over the alternative. There would not be empathy for Kris in this moment if it were all mundane.
But it's all there still. This is very much a literal read on what happens in that house. Kris couldn't be "Kris" anymore because to be "Kris" also means being You. And being You in that house meant betraying their principles to uphold yours. They can't bear to make that choice. But this time they can't stomach You making that choice for them. So they tried to stop it. But without you, they can't uphold anything at all. All they can do is follow directions, new and old, and hurt themself.
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