OFF THEORIES (or are they?) I just finished the new translation of OFF and oh my god, my eyes are open and my pores are clear and my soul has been cleansed. It all makes sense now in ways that it didn’t before and i’m sure other people have put this all together since i’m a little late to the pa...
off theories? in 2020?
more likely thank you’d think.
i just recently played the v.3.0 translation of it (8-ish years after i played the original translation, god) and had some big brain moments that left my partners wondering if i had finally snapped. basically spent an hour slapping the wall and rambling.
and then i typed my ramblings out, so sorry if none of it actually makes sense or are theories other people have already said or something, its been years since i deep-dived into off theories.
i noticed while replaying OFF that the names of moloch's meat and the specter gilles de rais both have to do w/ child murder, besides all the blatant biblical references i was wondering if there were other less obvious interesting allusions like that in the names of objects / enemies that ppl have found?
Here’s a few I figured out:
Abaddon’s Meat: Abaddon has a ton of different references and meanings in different religions, used both as a place and an angel, but for this sake, we’ll use how it’s used in the Book of Revelations because that seems to be a place where a ton of things in OFF come from.
In Revelations, abaddon refers to the devil, described as, “Destroyer”, angel of the abyss, and as the king of a plague of locusts resembling horses with crowned human faces, women’s hair, lions’ teeth, wings, iron breast-plates, and a tail with a scorpion’s stinger that torments for five months anyone who does not have the seal of God on their foreheads. (All this info supplied by Wikipedia and a few other sources I looked up and cross referenced for accuracy)
Insects: But, interestingly enough, insects are mentioned when talking about abaddon. In OFF, The Batter calls Vader Eloha, “Queen of the Flies” and during the chapters of The Room, an Emperor Moth,a dragonfly, and a few other insects are shown as the chapters go backwards. (which is the gif in the header of my mobile site) It has also been speculated that the other moth is a polyphemus moth, but I believe it’s an emperor moth in chapter 1 as a direct reference to the queen as the moth is fully grown when you reach, “Chapter 1: The Queen”.
There are so many different interpretations of the symbolism of the moth, but I do believe it’s looking a little too much into it, but the continued reference to the Queen using insects is very curious and either shows blatant disrespect for her, has symbolism to her character, or references something to do with her that’s unseen and not mentioned in OFF.
The Queen: Speaking of the Queen, I’m not sure how many people know about the names of her attacks, as they flash across the screen very fast and are pretty covered up by the lines she says. They include:
Castling King
Castling Queen
Coup du Miroir (Stroke of the Mirror)
Fool’s Mate
Immortal Anderssen (A reference to Karl Ernst Adolf Anderssen a German chess master)
Scholar’s Mate (the four move checkmate involving the Queen and a bishop)
White Fianchetto (a chess move involving the bishop)
These are all obvious references to chess (except Coup du Miroir, it does no damage but invokes the line, “There is nothing but the void after me.”) But could that mean looking in the mirror, the Queen sees nothing behind her, or that The Batter is her reflection/counterpart? His skin being monochrome and his attire being the same color (except Bad Batter has a dark hat, dark pants, dark long sleeves, but his shirt being white) and her attire is monochrome and her skin being dark.
It’s also interesting that her moves only include the queen, the king, and the bishop. Could this mean her, The Batter, and Hugo?
The Legion of the Black Liches:
“And so swarming in the belly of the world seven hundred thousand Children of the Sin gnawed at the justice put in place by the Queen during her peaceful reign. They are the physical manifestation of evil deed released upon the world forever lost in their seething madness, they are unsalvageable and immortal. Only the Queen herself, at the time of the Final Confrontation, will have the power to annihilate the tainted power of the worm child.”
Chapter 2 - Of Apocalypse and Black Liches.
“All of the souls on exile for their sins will be tortured for eternity by the Legion of the Black Liches”
(I’m not sure if anyone could read that, but I have transcribed it more than once and it’s still a pain to do so.)
A lich is, “In fantasy fiction, a lich is a type of undead creature. Often such a creature is the result of a transformation, as a powerful magician or king striving for eternal life…” and that is what is being alluded to by this book.
So, the Legion of the Black Liches is a legion of the undead. In this book found in The Great Library of Zone 2, it is telling us that these undead are torturing the souls on exile, which could allude to the specters that are running free in the zones and the reason why they started appearing is that they were being tortured for all eternity since they can’t truly die and got away. The way they were able to break through to the zones could have been when the guardians started to each lose control of themselves, their zones and the elsens, stopping the shipments to the queen and the other zones, making her justice (power?) dwindle, letting the specters into the world and why her battle is not very difficult.
All of the specters could be part of the 700,000 Children of Sin and the reason why you can kill and kill and kill them and no matter what you do they are always there, could be either that there are literally 700,000 of them or that it is because they are immortal and just keep coming back after being, “purified”. OR, only when the Batter purifies them, they go away. Meaning he couldn’t ever save any of the zones by force alone and purifying the entire zone through defeating the guardian was the only option.
Even that chapter of the book has, “apocalypse” in the name. But, there (possibly) is more to the second chapter and book, but we don’t get to see it.
I have never really seen anyone get too much into this book and what is could allude to and mean for the OFF universe. I may gotten way OFF topic and probably rambled a bit, but those are a few things I don’t see touched on much. I put two hours researching and typing this up so I think I will leave the rest up to the fandom.
Everyone, feel free to add-on to this! (so many puns, I’m sorry)
So yeah, my OFF Theory explaining a majority of everything
This is pretty long and I’m not sure if anyone else has had this theory, but yeah;
Y’all know how the Game Over theme is entitled, “Stay In Your Coma”? Well then that’s where this thought came to mind: What if Hugo was the one in a coma?
The Queen’s statement on her battle against the Batter went along the lines of, “the son who brought us into this world”
And so I thought that maybe, this line just further supports that fact that Hugo was really in a coma -- that the Batter and the Queen only sprung from Hugo’s mind. And the rest of the world of OFF just followed next.
From what I think, the Queen and the Batter were made as a sort-of parental figures for Hugo. And they indeed lived up to that--yes, even the Batter. I’ll get to that later.
It was okay for awhile, but as Hugo’s health started to deteriorate in real life, the same thing went for his mind.
The Queen then created the guardians, and in turn, made the zones. And she made these in way that it would “hopefully” keep their “son” healthy. But since the Queen was just an extension of Hugo, and Hugo was just a small child, it was a pretty messed up place.
But even so, Hugo still remained sick, and got sicker.
The Queen would oftentimes leave Hugo with the Batter in hopes of finding a cure, but of course, to no avail.
This is where the Batter’s role comes into play.
He knows about the switch -- the switch for Hugo’s coma. And so does the Queen, actually. But she has grown too attached to Hugo to let him go. Sort of a sentience or separate personality here. But the Batter knew that it was the only way. The only way to help Hugo was to turn the switch off; to turn the coma OFF.
So at first he tries to act unruly towards Hugo, hoping that he would somehow switch off himself and “leave” but Hugo became too attached to the Queen himself. This is my explanation for Hugo’s dislike towards his “papa”
And that’s where the Batter’s quest for “purification” starts. The spectres were sort of the side-effects of Hugo being prolonged to such an environment.
The add-ons? You know how in The Room, there was a scene that showed how the Add-ons and Enoch, Japhet, and Dedan were connected in some way? I believe that the add-ons were kind of like the “good” that were taken from the three. Taken by who? The Batter. Why? Because he needs all the strength he can get to fight off the “impurities” in Hugo’s mind. How was he able to do that? He’s in equal planes with the Queen, he’s just as powerful as her.
The Bad Batter? Mortis Ghost himself stated that the Bad Batter was just a shift in You, the Puppeteer’s, point of view towards him. And that goes back to the Batter’s ultimate sacrifice wherein, even though he knew that Hugo, the one whom he treated like a son, would come to dislike and hate him; even though he knew that the Queen, the one whom he dearly loved as his wife, would come to hate him and fight against him; even though he knew that they would all disappear, including him, if he flicked that switch; even though everyone would see him as a monster, he still fought for what he knew was right, and what was best.
The Puppeteer? You? Your role? Well, to be honest, I think that you, the Puppeteer, was actually playing as Hugo’s own subconsciousness. Whomever you sided with would be given much more power than anyone. And that explains why the Batter was practically begging for you to stay, because he knows that if you sided with the Judge, it would be all over. He would never be able to defeat the Judge. He would never be able to flick the switch. Hugo would have never woken up.
*Clears throat* Anyway, that’s it for my OFF Theory!! There’s probably some holes here and there and the ideas are pretty scattered, but I’m actually quite satisfied with this. (And I even broke my own feels while thinking up the Batter’s parts)
Anyway, just wanted to share, thanks for reading this far!!
Bonus Headcanon: I also like to think that the Batter sees the Queen with a very beautiful face. And the only reason we see her as a faceless entity was because we don’t know what to see her as.
The slaying of the Critical Burn can be seen as an indicator that the nature of The Batter's mission is indeed wrong, and you have been misled while completing this mission.
But, has anyone else seen this as a possible mercy killing? Or even that you can't blame The Batter for destroying this burnt, since every burnt he's encountered in the zones have been malicious and attacked him on sight? Though it didn't attack, he had no choice to purify it because he had no way of knowing whether this was a trap or not.
Especially in Zone 3, where all of the employees are drugged up and aren't afraid of the ghosts or you, he may have not been wrong. Was this the destruction of a nonviolent plea for help, or self preservation and a mercy killing?
It's a very popular headcanon that the batter is Hugo's father. I don't think that absolutely true; however, I do think they are related in another way. That Hugo may be a younger version of the Batter.
Let's start in the Room. we notice that as the player progresses, the "chapters" are counting down from 5 to 0 rather than the other way around. This may imply that the player is going backwards in time.
Another thing to note is that in chapter 4, the batter meets up with the three guardians(before they became mad) and afterwards finds "Mom" where a line of dialogue reads "I made three friends today" then with each friend the add ons appear on the screen rather than the guardians. this may imply that the relationship between the child and the guardians are the same as the batter's or the queen's relationship with their add ons.
Which may also be part of the reason why the batter is able to find an add on before facing off with a guardian.
In Chapter 2, there is the boxer comic which includes Ballman, the antagonist in the story. this may or may not be an influence in the batter's own childhood and an inspiration to the batter's choice of clothes and weapon.
Of course I could be reading too close into it.
Also you go through the chapters not as Hugo but as the batter.You don't observe or even see Hugo at any point in the Room until chapter 0. You go through these memories as the batter which may imply that you are reliving his memories. Of Course, This may be a detail overlooked by the developer, but at no point does the chapters specify who is telling the narrative. It is implied that a child is speaking most of it(with the exception of chapter 1 where the narrative goes into third person), And it may be Hugo doing the narration, but it's still odd that the batter is going through these memories as him for no reason.
So my best guess is that Hugo is not the batter's child but maybe himself as a child, or at least a part of himself that he deems impure. Or maybe he purifies him not because he's impure, but because he's innocent and wants to spare him whatever pain and suffering awaits him. This would be a strong motive for the batter's path for purification if the theory is true.
so I didn't notice this when I played and only realized it during Mark's playthrough but okay in the last part when Hugo is telling mama about meeting the bird and the misters
as he talks about each one, one of the add-ons appears on screen
so that means the add-ons represent the guardians in some way or another
and since they're all kinda religiously themed (if you interpret it that way anyway) maybe they represent the beliefs that led the guardians down the dark paths to being assholes??? and maybe as they each join the batter, he starts gaining those beliefs and they increasingly make him more violent???
idk maybe it has more to do with which add-ons (father, son, spirit) correspond with which guardian
idk I'm not smart enough to really get across what I'm saying
