TSPUD: Symbolism of The Pink Room
@stelar-time asked in Twitter (I refuse to call it X) post about people's headcanons about the Pink Room and I thought I'd share this here, too
CW for some religious mentions
First, I'd like you to look at the dialogues in this part.
The fact that it's the fourth figurine is not a coincidence.
The Pink Room seems to serve as a symbol of nostalgia and of how memories can change with time. They tend to be rough and down the pipe you go, they do tend to lose details or get some added parts in, for your brain to make sense of them. That's why this room doesn't come at the first or last Figley and instead in the middle, as those are more often the parts we tend to forget.
What is interesting, though, is how Narrator questions it. Because a similar situation occurs somewhere else.
At the end of the Demo, Narrator starts to do a callbacks to the journey you had. However, at some point, he starts to mention and show parts you've never seen before. In contrast to the Pink Room though, there is not a single questioning involved. So, what's so special about that room?
You could say it's only a symbol of a nostalgia and fragility of memory. That he is recalling some moments he felt halky about and due to it, puts rose-tinted glasses which show off in a form of this room. Why hadn't he done the same thing in the Demo, though?
Memory overall seems to have a bigger role in TSPUD.
Narrator overall seems to have memory issues - he tends to remember some of the previous resets (skipping parts of the Freedom run after going through it nth time in a row) and completely forgets others.
That's why he has Memory Zone. He uses it as a photo album, not knowing it's as unreliable as his own callbacks.
But then, I did wonder... Why an apple? Why does this room show it and not anything else, any pink fruit?
And then, I looked at the architecture of the place and it reminded me of something.
Big window, a statue of some sort on a pedestal before it, pointed archs, to ribbed vaulting... It seems to match a typical church architecture. And then, it hit me.
The Apple of Eden. Fruit of the forbidden knowledge. Of somebody being there, someone watching, listening. Of him not having fun control over his creation might have been bit when we were jsut skipping around, only seeing part of his struggle in the Skip Button.
You might be then asking, why doesn't it have a bite mark then?
There are two possibilities I've considered:
1) it could shows Narrator's ignorance that he shows quite often. That could be true since he just tries to accept what had changed, trying to just say 'don't focus on it, it's a silly thing, let's move on'. He brings it up though since he already learnt from the Broom Closet that things untold seem to interest the Player more.
2) It's a memory within a memory. The apple before he bit in. It's the knowledge he beholds and shows us in a non direct way.
Just like the Bucket.
Nostalgia is supposed to give a good vibe but - it doesn't always succeed.
But this room can indirectly show Narrator's progress. The fact he knows more, the fact he can tell his memories get altered, the fact that - he changed.
In ways we misremember.