Small question about Pentiment: Was the character of Vácslav and the metaphysical theories he can explain if you ask him nicely enough in any way a reference to Menocchio, the 16th Italian miller that was the subject of Carlo Ginzburg's 1976 The Cheese and the Worms?
Yes. Some players have identified Vácslav's beliefs as Gnosticism. While many of the things he says are consonant with Gnostic thought, others are not. It's really his own blend of absorbed traditions mixed with his own theories. Like Menocchio, Vácslav has taken a lot of ideas from different places and has formulated his own particular cosmology.
Another source of inspiration came from the Fournier Register, records of the inquisitorial process applied to southern French Cathar credentes, Catholics, and non-believers. Many of the people whom Jacques Fournier interrogated had syncretized their own beliefs that could best be understood as a blend of Catharism or Catholicism, local folk beliefs, and their own personal ideas.
While people like Menocchio or the character Vácslav represent an extreme level of cosmological development, I wanted to push back against the idea that common people lacked the curiosity or drive to formulate their own ideas about the world around them (and beyond).
Also like Menocchio, Vácslav cannot shut up about his beliefs. Menocchio was not condemned only as a heretic, but as a heresiarch, the founder of a heretical movement. His drive to constantly talk with his neighbors about his beliefs was seen as proselytizing.
