Let’s talk about the Malloy family for a second.
So first off, most of you know that I really love Fiona Malloy and wish her story was developed more. I really don’t like HAU as a game, but from my last playthrough, I have some Things we need to discuss. So in this, I’m going to talk about who the Malloys were, how they died, and what happened to Fiona.
So let’s begin.
What Kyler says here is, basically, that it is unknown for whom Brendan’s jetpack/rocket technology was going to be used--it’s entirely possible he was developing his technology for the Nazis, which is....an uncomfortable prospect to be faced with. But there is, as far as I can tell, nothing we can find in the game that indicates his true loyalties.
Both Malloy parents died in 1944 when the left side of the castle exploded. Fiona was either not present (i.e., somewhere on the grounds) or on the other side of the castle, which was unscathed. Everyone assumed Fiona died because she couldn’t be found, but there are a couple of unsettling options of what she did after the explosion:
She saw her parents’ dead bodies (or what remained of them), and, distraught, ran to go get help. Being young enough (six years old--which I’ll explain in a second) that trying to find her way to the town was probably difficult and confusing.
She tried to do something to help her parents or put them back together before going to get help somewhere else
She was traumatized and unable to articulate what she needed help with and who she was
It’s possible it was a combination of all three. In any case, Fiona ultimately found the hermit who lived in the bog. There is no indication of whether her parents knew the hermit even existed, or if Fiona did, either. But somehow an understanding was reached between the two (regardless of Fiona’s ability to vocalize her needs) and Fiona found herself under his care.
So what exactly was Brendan doing when the explosion happened? We’ve seen his lab, which wasn’t exactly the most organized place, but certainly not disorganized enough to have caused an explosion by turning the wrong way in the room. And the lab was below ground, so what was happening on the left side of the castle that caused the explosion?
Well, Caitlin (Fiona’s mom) states in her diary that Brendan set up a fake laboratory on the left side of the castle and would show it to curious locals. Here’s what’s confusing about this, though, as a reason for their death:
Caitlin makes reference to the fact that whatever Brendan was developing in the lab would have terrible consequences if discovered by the general populace/the “wrong” people. What we know is that the real lab was for the exploration of different sources of fuel for rockets. There’s nothing particularly dangerous about the development of rockets, per se--so what exactly were these consequences? Either that the Axis or Allies (whoever Brendan wasn’t actually working for) would get hold of his research, and use it to what end? It’s unclear, because since they died in 1944, the war in Europe was almost over. Using rockets for more dangerous and more accurate bombs? I’m not entirely sure.
If Brendan was giving tours of the fake lab, then he would have been foolish to have put material as dangerous as what he was working with in his actual lab in a room with clumsy strangers who definitely weren’t as educated in science as he was. But the fake lab was almost definitely the source of the explosion, so what could he have done in there that caused the damage equal to that of a bomb? More importantly, it doesn’t seem right for the explosion to be written off as an accident, given how careful Brendan was in many of the other places his work was--by this I mean I just don’t see Brendan being clumsy and accidentally causing a devastating chemical reaction, or throwing several jetpacks at each other to cause an explosion.
If the lab was truly just for show, then what was Brendan doing in there if he wasn’t showing it to townspeople? As far as we know, the only people who died in the blaze were the Malloys. The explosion could not have been caused by Fiona, because she would have instantly died. It was either Caitlin or Brendan who were in there, and they definitely didn’t have business being there if they were by themselves.
So basically, to sum all this up: the circumstances of the explosion are very suspicious and very weird. They don’t really shed light on what (or who) exactly Brendan’s experiments were for.
Now let’s talk about Fiona and the life she led before the accident.
I’ve edited this picture to include two of the other samplers in Fiona’s room to point out what an immensely sad and depressing environment her room is. Every sampler makes reference to being silent and quiet (”See not what you see and hear not what you hear”, “truth speaks even though the tongue were dead”, and “a silent mouth is sweet to hear”). She has an enormous chalkboard that says “EVIL RETURNS TO THE EVIL DOER”, which I seriously doubt Fiona ever wrote herself, even after the accident (the handwriting is too dissimilar from her handwriting on the family tree). Her toys are broken like she smashed them in a fit of rage.
And yet, she has the custom made dollhouse from her father filled with handmade dolls. She has what was once a beautiful rainbow display with gemstones on her wall. And when we see the (presumably) last birthday card her parents ever gave her, it feels so impossible to believe they would have decorated her room so poorly:
Not only that, but Caitlin’s diary indicates both her and Brendan’s deep love for Fiona:
Caitlin worked at the inn, but still spent lots of time with Fiona. Even if the jetpack made her understandably nervous, she still gets joy from watching how happy it makes Fiona. And Brendan custom made her a jetpack, and his lab has this on the wall:
So it doesn’t really make sense that parents like the Malloys, who so clearly doted on and adored their daughter, would put up samplers insisting on her silence and reminding her of how bad the world is. But incidentally, if Fiona did grow up with those constant reminders of how silence is important and evil will return to her eventually, it would make sense that she really struggled with her communication after her parents’ deaths.
What came of Fiona in the years she was with the bog hermit, who also eventually died? This little girl, with basic reading/writing skills and who likely went mute/struggled with language after her trauma, grew up, but never saw the world in any way but through the eyes of her young self.
Donal is at least 20 years younger than Fiona, who is around 70 or 80 by the time the game happens. He knows there are rumors about a hut in the bog with a woman who lived there, but no one ever checked to substantiate whether or not that was true. Obviously, we know it’s true, which means that by the time Fiona was around 20 or 30, the bog hermit was dead, and she was alone.
Fiona understands her parents are dead. She understands that her many crows have died, too, as well as much of her family. Which is weird, because I really don’t know how she would know who of her extended family was still living. But in any case, Fiona puts big stars on the family tree by those important to her who have died. She works to update the tree.
And then we come to the events of the day we meet Fiona.
Before we open the drawer in the tower, we see Fiona flying away after doing something in the tower. I think she left the key in the desk and didn’t do anything else in there. The key opened a box to reminders of the family she loved and would never find again, and a grief she literally could not articulate, even if she wanted to. That box was a literal manifestation of who Fiona was before she became the Fiona that she is. Leaving the key with her parents’ things (also locked away) kept her from torturing herself by constantly looking at the past, but still gave her the option to, if she so chose. It’s also interesting that it seems that the only area of the castle she still interacts with is her parents’ room, not her own room. And, of course, as she leaves the tower, she emits her signature wail--although this time, she may actually be crying.
This screenshot doesn’t really capture it, but Nancy addresses Fiona by name, and she is probably the first person to do so in literally forty or so years. She is probably the first person Fiona has even come physically close to in literally forty or so years. And upon hearing her name, Fiona reacts with shock and confusion. She backs away a little from Nancy. She doesn’t know what to do or understand why Nancy is in her space. And those things she locked away and hid the key for--she’s confronted with them. She becomes aware that she is Fiona Malloy, whose parents were tragically killed, and who has lost everything important to her in her life.
And just as I said before, Fiona responds the way a six year old child who feels threatened might respond: she pushes Nancy down into the tunnels leading to the lab and cackles while she does so.
It is very childish, and the only reason I think she pushed Nancy down her was to get her out of her space and because it would be funny to watch her fall. Again, Fiona is really still seeing through the eyes of her younger self.
I think Fiona fed him and stuff because she kind of understood that he needed food, similar to how her crows need food and like she needs food. I don’t know if it was benevolence or kindness that she did this--like Matt says, he’s kind of like her pet. Even if she knew a way out of the tunnels, she wouldn’t be able to tell him how to leave. And I don’t think she had any incentive to make him leave, or just couldn’t understand why he would want to leave. To her, Matt is probably just another intruder like Nancy. Castle Malloy is the only home she’s ever known, and now two people have disrupted that. She cares enough not to let them die, but I don’t know if she could reason out any other options beyond continuing to feed them.
On some level, Fiona understood part of what Matt was saying, as he claimed before. She has enough of a grasp on language that she knew enough about him to have some idea of why he was there. And this leads us to another instance of Fiona only knowing how to interact with the world as a child: she makes dolls of Matt and Nancy. She knows Matt is the groom at a wedding, and so his doll is a groom with his ring around its neck. She doesn’t know much about Nancy, but she does know enough to know that her car key is what should go around her doll’s neck. And she knows that she doesn’t have the ability to explain how to leave, or how to get Matt (and Nancy) out from the tunnels, so she tries to explain without using her words: she leaves Matt’s doll behind. Fiona knew or hoped someone would understand what she meant when they found the doll and found out about her. Lucky for her, that person was Nancy.
And that brings us to Nancy building a rocket to help her and Matt escape. What follows is probably one of the most poignant, sad moments in the games.
After the rocket explodes into the sky, Fiona sees it and falls to her knees. She stares up at the sky, bewildered, emotional, and probably unable to explain how she feels yet again. Literally in the sky above her, unavoidable and bright, is the object that inadvertently led to her father’s death. It was his research that, directly or indirectly, caused the explosion that ripped Fiona’s parents away from her. And there is his research, finally coming to fruition, right before her eyes. Nancy got closer to Fiona’s father in a way that Fiona probably was never able to: she understood his research and completed his project. And in her grief at this fact, Fiona collapses.
We know that after the events of the evening, Fiona got put into a nursing home where she worked on developing her communication and emotional skills. I don’t know if she ever was able to process or work through her intense, raw emotions about how she had lived her entire life. And I don’t know how useful she would have found language in conveying it, having not properly spoken in many years. But she does make progress, and she’s clean and well-kept for the first time in more than forty years. And that is very encouraging.
If you’ve made it this far, I hope you found this interesting. If you have any answers or theories in response to the questions I’ve posed throughout, I would love to hear them! The Malloys are a much less understated version of, say, GTH’s outer, intense family drama and emotion. And Fiona is a character who I adore, because there is just so much to her that is unbearably sad and yet utterly fascinating. The game should have given us more about her.
