#sindec analysis

[atrophiedentropy]

hey, what are your favorite soundtracks in the game?

A lot of my favorite soundtracks are the boss themes, but there are some that aren't. I'll get the boss themes out of the way first. Though be warned, I like a lot of the music in SinDec to such an extent I can't choose only a couple favorites.

•Evil Returns

Malachi's battle theme. I'm not very good with discerning instruments, but I like what was used for that song. It feels comforting and cozy but also a bit dark and foreboding. The song itself feels like its name, which I really like.

•Evil Returns (Boss Rush edit)

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This song has a heartbreaking melancholy feel. It's slow and feels like a mix of a lullaby and a dirge. Back when I didn't really care about Malachi this had no impact on me, but now that I really like him, it makes it difficult for me to fight Daedalus in the Boss Rush because the song accompanied by what's become of Malachi— the transformation from what he used to be— makes my heart ache. It is beautiful, yet painful.

•Devious Monster

The Jester Spectre's theme. I think what plays at the start and throughout it is a music box? I generally really like the music box-sounding ones. A lot of why I like this song also has to do with the atmosphere of the fight being shrouded in darkness. It's like a blanket of comfort turned sinister.

•The Puppet Lord

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Jadon's first phase battle theme. I LOVE songs like this. When I first heard it in my first run of SinDec I was floored by how good this track was and thought surely it wasn't in Find Me because if it was I would've remembered such an amazing song, but no, it apparently was in Find Me 3.2 all the way back in 2018 and apparently it didn't stand out to me given I had zero memory of it. Though the version of it I like is the game edit since the base mp3 file is slower than the game version.

I love the energy of it and how emphatic it is. I love the usage of the sound of creaking like a stage's curtains being drawn back to reveal to all what is about to commence. I love the instrument used in the beginning of it (I don't know what it is?). I like how it gets rather sinister part way through then kind of tones down, laughter occurring at multiple points that make the song more mad but also conveying a sense of power over the audience. I love how it steadily becomes more sorrowful and fades to what tricks people into believing is the end of the song only for the energy to SPIKE back. Like sike! You thought the show was over? No! There is yet one final spectacle for you to see! And then it finally, truly winds down to that same sorrowful end for good this time.

This kind of song when I thought on it, reminded me of a song I'd listened to a long time ago that I loved and still do that is a remix of "The Ultimate Show" from Super Paper Mario, which is very fitting given whose theme that is.

(I am sorry to say though that I don't like Cantankerous Puppet)

•Machines

Asterion's battle theme is SO fucking good. Literally feel like this whenever I listen to it:

And then I become extremely upset when I end up killing him too fast because I'm a moron who sleeps at the inn and boosts my stats as soon as I enter the Industry District instead of waiting until after.

•From Lands Beyond the Everfree

Gaius' battle theme. This song actually brought me close to crying when I heard it. Having seen and learned much about what Gaius has done in pursuit of a cure-all that would save everyone, what he's done to try to rectify mistakes where said efforts just make things exponentially worse and things keep cascading and he's barely staying sane through the sheer grief, anger, and hatred of both gods who got him into this position, but first and foremost, himself for being why everything fell apart to begin with. If only he knew Zaphkiel's intentions, none of this would've happened, he'd believe.

But who knows? Who knows if the End truly was inevitable. We never see the outcome of such a hypothetical. Everything he's sacrificed were all in vain. He lost everyone he held dear by his own hands.

Do you like hurting others?

Having people walk to their deaths in a machine plastered with a notice to not mix ectoplasm and sugar unless otherwise stated. With spectres having slowed to a quantity infeasible in usage as a power source, and using spectres seems to be a highly potent or at least, useful enough energy source to warrant continued usage of them even in the wake of the Third Eye experiment's failure and subsequent banning of that science and its associated technology, well, he's got to bridge the gap in their low numbers somehow.

The end justifies the means.

The lives of the few for that of the many.

Collecting people like cattle to use as an energy source.

...For as much as he tries distancing himself from him, it is interesting how similar they are. Practically a mockery to his efforts in estranging himself from him.

The extents they're willing to go to in their desperation.

Of course, that machine was created by Gaius and is merely utilized by Adam, but the results are still the same regardless of that nuance. If anything, it just compounds how horrific Gaius once was.

...Oh right. This is meant to be about his battle theme.

Hm... To me much of its emotional power is backed by the sheer amount of lore you learn about Gaius and the City. His efforts and what he's lost. It's very mournful when you know the full context, it made my heart ache a bit when I heard it in my first run.

One thing I really like is how while much of the music in the Industry District is metal and very mechanical and harsh sounding and Gaius' theme is no different, the title of the song makes me think of a forest (though that's perhaps because it makes me think of the Everfree forest from mlp...). Despite the song still having more mechanical elements, its very name denotes nature.

Just like him.

I also personally find it interesting that the way the song ends has it rise back up in pitch as though it's about to undergo another beat drop or something, which is fitting given how the song loops in the game. Most themes taper off into a calm before clearly starting back at the beginning, but From Lands Beyond the Everfree pointedly does not do this such that when the song loops it flows surprisingly well into the passionate start.

Fitting, given for all his efforts, he's basically just going in circles. Just when he thought he's finally escaped the Corruption or found what will finally lead to manifestation of the philosopher's stone, he finds he's back where he started— if not worse than that.

•Wicker

The Luminous Spectre's theme. I don't really have much to say except I really like this one and am rather disappointed it's so short. If I could actually tell what instruments play I could offer more, but I generally just cannot tell what instrument plays in any given piece by sound.

•Torn Tether

Adam's normal boss theme. I actually didn't care for this song at first but it grew on me and now I consider it a certified banger. I really like just how chaotic and unconventional it is. It's kind of like Jadon's in that regard, but his is more "out of place" while Adam's is "uncanny feeling", if that makes sense? I love the part where it sounds like it's playing in reverse while also repeating like a broken record.

•War of the Pianos

Rien's theme. Very whimsical and carefree-sounding. Refreshing in a game like this— especially if you just came from Red Zone 0, though in that case it may just give you tonal whiplash from having come from something incredibly depressing to then be quickly met with something so joyful.

•War of the Pianos (50% speed)

Corrupt Judge's and Corrupt Rien's themes. It's somber and feels like a farewell. A lot of what I feel about it I unfortunately can't put into words, but I do find it fascinating how such a whimsical song can become like this just from being slowed down. It also feels akin to a lullaby. It has far more impact in The Judge's battle than Rien's since Rien is just Some Guy in the Nothingness and doesn't have the emotional connection to the player like they do to The Judge. It feels like you're putting The Judge to rest, yet also like an apology. That things didn't have to go this way, but since they have, this is the least you can do for him.

•Blood Legacy

While a slower version plays as Lugosi's theme in the post-Prison Church cutscene and his battle, I prefer the normal speed version. The youtube upload of this song claims it's The Body's theme but I checked both 1.1.2 and 1.1.3 and this isn't true? So unless I'm missing something somewhere, this is false. Still I like how it's a music box-type song. What's more is that my liking for it is bolstered by a seeming pattern of associating Abram with music box songs. Like a dark echo of Hugo (not dark as in evil but as in depressing and bereft of that childlike innocence). While Hearse Song Music Box also plays in Zaphkiel's side of the Arbela Island flashback, Blood Legacy being connected to Abram through Lugosi, Hearse Song Music Box playing for his side of the Layer 3 flashback— and while retconned I'm still counting it, Bittersweet— are all music box-esque songs that have a commonality of not being comforting like one would typically assume of such.

Blood Legacy is powerful and foreboding. It feels like "temptation", if that makes sense. Like beckoning. And I don't know if that's what it is 1:30 into the song, but it sounds to me like a child's laughter. The way the laugh sounds is uncanny and feels evocative of like a spooky ghost child you'd see in a horror movie. It also makes me think of Pepper Steak where there's a sound in it that sounds to me like a weird laugh from something trying to imitate laughter but not getting it quite right. Given the song Pepper Steak is sampled from, I know it to be a sax, but from how it sounds as changed for Pepper Steak, I like the interpretation it's a spectre laughing. Thus, Blood Legacy parallels Pepper Steak in that way.

(This is going against what I said about doing the boss themes first, but since I mentioned it, I might as well say it now, but I associate Bittersweet specifically with Abram and overall the more "OFF creepypasta" feel of Find Me than I do it with Zaphkiel given he's the "normalcy" and purity to Abram's corruptive recursion. The edit of the song that plays in-game (as again, the base file sounds different) gives the feeling of a haunted dollhouse. Paired with the hazy, "rusted" look of OFF's X and the characters trying to follow their programming while their world is falling apart almost as though because such an anomaly is outside the definitions of said programming, they aren't equipped to react to it and instead just continue on as if everything's fine (except for those who have been Corrupted and their code no longer works right)— it perfectly encapsulates the atmosphere of the game. A game that feels like a tape that's been rewound too many times and is suffering quality loss.

Further, when paired with Abram's characterization back then, Bittersweet carries this undertone of being beckoning in an enigmatic yet knowing way that incites a feel of apprehension— in contrast to Blood Legacy's threatening feeling of beckoning. Bittersweet for Find Me literally feels like a request to "Come find me 🙂" while True False doesn't feel as though someone is calling to you. Such a song could only apply to Abram through the effects of what his Corruption has wrought. Though it's interesting that to me, Blood Legacy feels more... mature? Refined? It feels emotionally like silver, but also a dark moonless night (reference unintended but sure), while Bittersweet feels like a dusty old dollhouse or mansion. It feels more childlike, but not strictly immature, per se. It's hard to explain.)

•God Shattering Star

Abram's battle theme in the Sincere Intentions ending route. I love the build up to it preceding the actual battle and the song itself is so powerful and fitting for him in a way I can't put into words. It feels like a reward for suffering through the hell of all those horrors: that this is the song you get to listen to while you battle against the one who brought the world to its knees. That through what you learn of Abram and his friends if you bother to care, makes the emotional impact of God Shattering Star more potent— much in the same way of Gaius' lore to From Lands Beyond the Everfree.

•Hour of Reckoning

The battle themes of the Blue Zone Guardians as well as Zaphkiel in the Blue Reset ending. I don't have much to say about this except that I just like church organ songs like this in general. Songs like this that have organs and a heavenly choir are pretty much guaranteed to be songs I end up liking. An example of such is The Radiance's theme from Hollow Knight.

•Mysteries That Are Unsolved

The theme of Macey's second battle. I like it for a similar reason why I like Bittersweet even if it isn't a music box-type song. The song itself also evokes a mystical sense of enigma. It is curious, to me.

•Endless Hallway (Laughing Gaius battle ver.)

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Yes, specifically this version of it. I just like how it sounds.

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That's the boss themes done. When it comes to non-boss soundtracks there aren't many that stand out to me, but I will go through them nonetheless.

•Spool

A classic and perfectly fits and sets the tone of what to expect of this game. It doesn't get old and doesn't lean into "oooh scary ominous battle song in a corrupted game". It's tense and spooky but in an atmospheric way rather than a "setting up for a jumpscare" sort of way which would be exhausting having to experience in every battle barring the bosses and special fights.

•Eyes of a Calmed Storm

The outside theme of the Residential District. Very cozy and sleepy feeling. I never get tired of listening to it.

•Wasted Wonderland (piano ver.)

A profound sort of whimsy. It isn't playful, but more clinical and contained until it temporarily does actually shift into something somewhat playful before becoming almost meek and then smoothly returning to that clinical expression. It then ends in an abrupt and forceful manner that intrigues me.

•Movement in Cargo (Battle)

The slaughter house's battle theme. Verdict:

•Black Waters

Red Zone 0's theme. It's calming but carries an undertone of tension due to the context of the area. A tension compounded upon with the music not changing upon entering a battle until you get to Corrupt Judge. The song itself feels like an echo of what once was.

•Hex_3.1 Reversed

I just like the way it sounds. I even listen to it casually and it doesn't cause me any fear when wandering through Sheol.

•Fatal Error (Sheol Torso Chase 2)

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The version of this song that plays in that labyrinth is at 50% speed and I just like it. I was only able to actually listen to it at length thanks to noclipping out of the reach of the Corpse because otherwise you can only listen to it for as long as it takes you to get to the end of the labyrinth and this song is almost 7 minutes. It's not like Hopeless, the song that plays during Gaius' death, that is bizarrely long for a cutscene that most players would get through within a minute since you can just wait on one of the dialogue boxes to listen to it at your leisure. With this version of Fatal Error, unless you chose to talk to one of the inmates so that you're impervious to the insta-crash of the Corpse, you are not going to be listening to this song in full.

•Home

I love this song and the ending it plays in. It's hard to listen to without wanting to cry.

[atrophiedentropy]

This isn't going to be a super in-depth analysis of Layer 3 of the Tower since I'm exhausted in trying to nail down my feelings and thoughts on SinDec into understandable words, so while I can elaborate on the analog that Layer 3 of the Tower appears to be, the actual story of what goes on there and how each of the Guardians factor into it won't be discussed much if at all.

With that said,

Let us begin. Let us begin.

Layer 3 of the Tower bears resemblance to Purgatory, though it's minimal all things considered. It's still worth mentioning in case it is intentional— and because from what I analyzed of Sheol, is a parallel to it.

Something something "as above, so below".

Purgatory (Latin: purgatorium, borrowed into English via Anglo-Norman and Old French) is a belief in Catholic theology. It is a passing intermediate state after physical death for purifying or purging a soul before entering Heaven.

Sacred Tradition, by reference to certain texts of scripture, speaks of the process as involving a cleansing fire. According to Jacques Le Goff, in Western Europe toward the end of the twelfth century Purgatory started to be represented as a physical place, Le Goff states that the concept involves the idea of a purgatorial fire, which he suggests "is expiatory and purifying not punitive like hell fire"

Right here is the interpretation of Purgatory in that it is not strictly only hell fire and suffering, it can be other things such as the depiction below.

Image of a non-fiery purgatory (Gustave Doré: illustration for Dante's Purgatorio, Canto 24 in Divine Comedy). Right: Dante and companions observe. Middle: willing souls gather round a sweet-smelling tree with fruit they cannot eat, to be purged of residual gluttony.

This allows Layer 3 to not immediately conflict with what Purgatory is capable of appearing as.

The Catholic Church holds that "all who die in God's grace and friendship but still imperfectly purified" undergo a process of purification after death, which the church calls Purgatory, "so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven".

Though in popular imagination Purgatory is pictured as a place rather than a process of purification, the idea of Purgatory as a physical place is not part of the church's doctrine. However, the church's understanding has typically been that Purgatory has a temporal (temporary, terminating, non-eternal) component with only God being outside of time. Fire, another important element of the Purgatory of popular imagination, is also absent in the Catholic Church's doctrine.

The act of interacting with each of the District Guardians in this place whom in death have all been freed from the clutches of Corruption are all in varying states of sorrow and regret. In talking to them, you can either return to them the Supreme Items— the ultimate condensed manifestation of their most important and defining memories— or offer to do favors for them that will ease enough of their worries or sate their consciences enough for them to concede in returning to Abram (though if the latter is done he remarks on something not feeling right about them).

Doing the favors is moreso a bandaid to their pain rather than reminding them of who they used to be, how much they loved each other, what's important to them, and what lead to them becoming how they are now.

Adam refuses to leave when told Abram wants to see him again and will not give any prompt in asking to do something for him to try to change his mind. Malachi will refuse to return unless he knows Jadon is okay, and Jadon will refuse to return unless he gets his stuffed cat back.

A stuffed animal as a form of comfort during his darkest days.

Upon Jadon returning, Malachi will concede and also return. Gaius is in a state of utter despair, regret, and self-hatred. He believes he doesn't deserve to return because of what he's done.

The only reason he concedes is because he knows you won't take no for an answer, and requests his science friends be freed from the labyrinthine forest their souls have become trapped in. Putting their souls to rest brings a bit of peace to his mind, and he leaves behind an old photograph of him and Adam along with a note.

Heading back to Adam with these causes him to relent in his staunch refusal to return. He speaks of Gaius being softhearted and plainly expresses sorrow at not having been the reason he was like that; to have been treated with such passivity and kindness instead of the inhumane cruelty and callousness he was subjected to.

There is no true forgiveness to each other or to themselves, just tolerance and concession on going back because that's what they said they'd do. Giving them the Supreme Items back completely circumvents the favors and a weight is lifted from them. They remember what is most important to them that in their anguish and regret had been forgotten. It had been years, after all. Years of spiraling down and now that they're free, what now? All they could do was regret and regret and regret. But you free them. Clear their hearts of the pain they'd accrued through their lives, and they freely decide to return.

They were "purified" by The Batter in the stories of the Districts proper, but given their states within Layer 3, it was not perfect. By returning the parts of them that were lost in the wake of the slow downfall of this world, they are properly restored to their former glory.

They are his friends. No matter what they had become, he had never stopped loving them.

At the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, the Catholic Church defined, for the first time, its teaching on Purgatory[...]

1. some saved souls need to be purified after death[.]

|210. What is purgatory?|

Purgatory is the state of those who die in God's friendship, assured of their eternal salvation, but who still have need of purification to enter into the happiness of heaven.

The "happiness of heaven" can also be understood in the context of SinDec as the eternal rest of the void/Nothingness. It's not a matter of 1:1 Nothingness = heaven in terms of afterlife (like Sheol = Hell, Layer 3 = Purgatory), but what in Catholic/Christian belief would be paradise for those who suffered in life is heaven, the same relinquishment from pain is returning to the void in SinDec. Just like how a place can be "a hell" as a metaphor, the same applies to the void as "a heaven".

It's better than the Heaven that exists beneath Sheol, I'll tell you that much.

Unless "redeemed by repentance and God's forgiveness", mortal sin, whose object is grave matter and is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent, "causes exclusion from Christ's kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back."

But they had already been forgiven by Abram. Ever since the beginning. It's just that they had not forgiven themselves (and Adam having not forgiven Gaius— though he doesn't exactly forgive him even with the return of the Grand Bastille, he just freely lets go of his grudge rather than relenting out of pragmatism. A grudge is active hate; not actively hating someone does not equal forgiveness).

Venial sin, while not depriving the sinner of friendship with God or the eternal happiness of heaven, "weakens charity, manifests a disordered affection for created goods, and impedes the soul's progress in the exercise of the virtues and the practice of the moral good; it merits temporal punishment", for "every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the 'temporal punishment' of sin".

These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain.

A venial sin consists in acting as one should not, without the actual incompatibility with the state of grace that a mortal sin implies; they do not break one's friendship with God, but injure it.

I Peter 4:8. “And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.”

The word charity in this verse is agape in the Greek. It means affection, good will, love, benevolence, brotherly love.

(source)

The fervent charity may well be, in the context of this analogy, the Supreme Items.

This act of restoring them to their former glory affects and is required for some endings. It affects the endings of "Sincere Intentions" and "Lost Purpose" (the latter's post-credits cutscene only appearing if the Supreme Items have been given away and The Judge is still alive) where certain cutscenes playing out are dependent on them being returned. Them being returned is required for the "Congratulations!" ending on top of all five Grand Items remaining in your inventory until Layer 5, and the District Guardians' souls being present in the "Fulfilled Purpose" ending also requires their return.

Due to how easy it is to get through Layer 3 by returning the Supreme Items, and how roundabout it is by having to do the favors and the end result is them still being unhappy and you miss out on two endings and an ending cutscene (and "Sincere Intentions" and "Fulfilled Purpose"'s ending scenes being impacted), the game is very strongly trying to push you into going the extra mile, doing the added legwork to get the most out of it. Otherwise you'll just be disappointed.

"Do you care?"

The game is heavily weighted towards Abram's side of things— pertaining to his friends and himself if you bother to spend additional (optional) time in the Districts after felling their Guardians. If you just follow the path God has laid out for you (that being you being sent right to the red save block after completion of each District and immediately leaving for the next Zone), things remain feeling more faithful to the original OFF and its lack of extensive story. If you care enough to search for secrets and interact with everything you can instead of mindlessly doing as you're told, you learn much about the City, its Guardians, and its leader. Not just going from one boss battle to the next leads you to uncovering lore. Lore about the war, about the Guardians' attempts at protecting their people and themselves and the extents they went to, and what lead to the end of all things.

Then there's the Outside. The Outside despite its red and black Corruption is actually representative of Zaphkiel, not Abram, though the mistakes claimed, due to the color scheme, leads one to believe they apply to Abram. Or more rather, that they're exclusively talking about Abram. But they aren't; these mistakes are Zaphkiel's as well.

While the comment states these are Zaphkiel's mistakes, due to the coloration of the Outside likely leading a person to assuming the mistakes spoken are referring to Abram, and the mistakes are phrased vaguely enough so to be perceived as applicable to both Abram and Zaphkiel, I believe these mistakes are also his. Basically the game deliberately playing on your assumptions trained from the rest of the game that "red and black equals Abram" to do something like this.

Both of them share the fatal flaw of betrayal, after all.

And the Outside is representative of Zaphkiel more than this: as the Blank Burnt, implied to be a representation of Abram akin to the stick figure of him in Layer 3 of the Tower, states this after being spoken to enough times.

While I know for certain regarding the mistakes, I do not for this dialogue. Either the Outside sans the Tower is a product of Zaphkiel that became Corrupted, or the term "false god" doubly refers to Zaphkiel and Abram. On one hand, "false god" makes me think Zaphkiel, on the other, "exposed heart" makes me think Abram. There are no such developer comments that clarify this, so this remains ambiguous.

The Outside is a secret area unlocked after the Tower has risen. Much like Layer 3 of the Tower, it is easier and faster to progress if you care about the people involved within the story than merely brute-forcing your way through everything. It is faster to tell the Blank Burnt the mistakes than to fight him. Yes, the ghoul lair fight is long and difficult, but it is not mandatory: if you know what his second mistake is, you don't have to go through that.

The Blank Burnt's battle is very difficult yet yields very little experience. As though the game itself disagrees with your decision and doesn't reward you relative to the difficulty of the battle. And the eyes become contemptuous of you or become solemn.

You are rewarded with more information if you choose to seek information out. This game— and especially the Outside— is about interconnectivity. It is about community. It is about those we love.

It punishes you for not caring (or caring for the "wrong" person wrt saving Magdalene over The Judge) and rewards you greatly with swathes of knowledge should you be willing to go the extra mile. To go through hell to know; to understand.

How far are you willing to go? How much do you care?

Zaphkiel is basically an afterthought in the Red route but still feels very shunted in the Blue route, but this is deliberate. With his lack of involvement in his own route until the Tower, as I've stated, it mimics the lack of story saturation of the original OFF. Things are more ambiguous and unknown and you're left to draw your own conclusions from only the minimal base amount of lore presented to you. In the Red route this isn't the case. Things are more defined, leaving next to no room for alternate interpretations. You are told the story as it happened and exactly as it happened. It is not a case of only telling enough of the story for one to draw their own conclusions and run with them.

How apt to them.

Zaphkiel has no friends. He shunned the hand extended to him by Abram and it shows. He only has himself, while Abram and his friends build upon each other.

This story is heavily weighted towards them once you know about them, but this story was instigated in the first place by Zaphkiel and his selfish grief. A grief born from a desperate desire to make his Father happy. He loved Him and in the wake of His death could not move on. His purpose was to be His companion in His remaining days, yet yearned to do more than what he was made to do. Fixated; stuck; obsessed with the past and shunning those with the same naive, innocent aspirations he once held, for if those aspirations could've fixed things, he never would've had to do what he did to His remains.

He lost his only friend and spiraled; becoming consumed by envy, pride, and greed.

...He lost his friends and spiraled; becoming consumed by wrath as a fault of his pride.

Trapped in a past that damned them and now is destroying the present. Ruining everything they sought to fix.

The game says to you, "not caring about the plights of others, spending time to get to know them, and bonding with them will only lead to a disappointing conclusion. It may take longer to reach your destination, but the time you spent lingering around others; getting to know them, will make it more than worth the while. So much so you won't even realize how much time actually passed. So much so you see it as natural than as a burden; an obligation; a nicety."

The game asks for you to care.

This game is about community, pain, hardship, the ties and relationships that bind us to one another regardless of whether they're friendship, acquaintanceship, husband and wife, enemies, etc. It is merely a commentary— at least in some part— on interconnectivity and through that being its core narrative, serves to highlight what it is like to understand and empathize with those outside that web of connection; the isolated that would typically go forgotten or dismissed.

You learn about Zaphkiel and understand why he did what he did, but it doesn't excuse it. Understanding may make you care for him too— or at least just serve to humanize him.

While the game is weighted towards Abram and his friends, due to the equal prominence of Zaphkiel, you are made to see the negative to Abram's positive. In a photo, you typically only notice the subject of the picture and everything else in the background is just noise. Zaphkiel is that, but due to the imbalance, on a Blue route, the sheer amount of things pertaining to him and are unique to him are fully made cognizant in one's mind in how few they are. The absence becomes prominent, but it doesn't feel so prominent when you aren't comparing them, focusing on one person rather than a group.

The Blue Zones tell you a lot about the kind of person Zaphkiel truly is, but what do the Red Zones say of Abram? Nothing, really. If anything, the narratives of Layer 2's Zones is inverted from the base narrative of the Zones and Districts. For the Zones and their association with Zaphkiel, there is a lack of anything pointing to his association barring the Grand Items. For the Districts and their association with Abram, if you care to look, you will find how deeply he is ingrained into nigh every aspect of them. For the Blue Zones, they are meant to be a perfected restoration of the original Zones yet portray much of who Zaphkiel is, alongside his memories being tucked in areas that don't exist in the original OFF versions of the Zones (and two of which reside in remnants of areas that came into existence as a result of the Corruption). For the Red Zones, they are devoid of Abram in the informative way of how the Blue Zones characterize Zaphkiel or how the Districts characterize Abram; he is present due to the effects of the Corruption, sure, but it's markedly different than the Blue Zones or Districts. This lack of him for the most part is more akin to the lack of story saturation of OFF.

This is to say, Zaphkiel is equally as important as Abram despite not having a number of friends through which he is further characterized. The only other people Zaphkiel has interacted with extensively aside from Abram and Gaius were Hugo and Vader Eloha. I need not explain why they're unable to further characterize him.

The game asks you to care about the stories of not just the interconnected, but those who are isolated. It is asking you to care about the subjects of these stories. To understand them and not antagonize or favor any one person, for no character in this story is a scion of virtue or are irredeemably evil. Some characters and their stories are more relatable and palatable to some more than others, but no character is all white or all black. Gaius, Adam, Abram are perfect examples of this as their stories in their Districts and in the past involve(d) interacting with others so you get to fully see and contextualize them on an interpersonal level, whereas Malachi and Jadon had isolated themselves come the events of Sincere Deceit proper and Zaphkiel is Zaphkiel.

The game asks you

This story is a tragedy, and by nature of being this, offers catharsis. It presents to you sorrow, asks you to care; to connect with the characters within. Even when the only outcome is oblivion despite your wishes and intentions, Sincere Intentions and Fulfilled Purpose say to you "this story mattered. Despite the pain and sorrow; the endings a farewell for the grave, this story mattered."

Their lives mattered despite how short the time they had was and how difficult the pain they endured.

The game says to you,

Goodbye.

[atrophiedentropy]

Breaking through the veil (2/3)

The only other super Corrupted entities that reach this extent of boundary breaking are Corrupt Judge, Burning Enoch, the Gluttonous Slug, the Parasite in the Outside Tower, and The Body (Enusk sort of counts? He is, strictly speaking, right there, it's just that his eye lights aren't on until you challenge him. He is there, you just can't see him, but alas, to be fair I'm not counting him).

And the only Divine entity that reaches this extent is the Glorious Crown (though one could argue this is the case because of it being representative of Enoch whom of which is so huge he forcibly shifts the game's perspective to make him appear truly giant but I don't want to dismiss this out of hand as "not counting").

But let's take a couple steps back to the boss sprites fitting within the battle time screens. As seen with the District Guardians, they all neatly* fit within the bounds of the screen— even the Basilisk for as giant as he is.

(*I already argued the reason why he's an "exception" but doesn't count.)

Then there's other giant entities that despite either being severely Corrupted or have immense Divine power, also in their entirety fit neatly within the battle time screen despite their overworld sprites or the cutscene art clearly depicting them as giant.

(The Gluttonous Slug is debatable because on one hand, he is so Corrupted he forcibly shifts the battle time screen's perspective and as a result wouldn't count by default, but on the other, unlike super Corrupted Enoch, the "whole" of his body is visible. However, given technically what we see of him at the very bottom of Red Zone 3 is just a part of the true whole of him that is embedded throughout the entirety of the Zone, "all of him being visible" in the battle time screen is also inherently untrue. Though one could argue the same point I made for Gaius Core in that it's unreasonable to expect literally all of him to be visible, but on the other, he's consumed the power of a Guardian and is so Corrupted he changed the perspective of the battle time screen, so one can't fairly compare him to what's going on with Gaius Core.)

As for those with Divine power fitting within the battle time screen despite their overworld sprite being giant, there's the Glorious Crown and God Zaphkiel.

Despite either being incredibly broken on a metaphysical level (their code) or having such a surplus of Divine power, their whole bodies are sized down to fit neatly within the battle time screen.

Then there are the ones who are so broken they break past the bounds of the game and can't "fit" completely in it anymore— as well as those whom are deities so powerful they don't fit for the same reason, as the game cannot hold the full extent of their beings.

For bosses, there is the obvious case of the Black Serpent: a Basilisk that had years for the consequences of his folly to ripen and become so potent in Corrupted Divine power the game can no longer hold his entire being.

He is so large he encroaches upon The Batter's side of the screen and some parts of him are offscreen, but for the most part, the majority of him remains onscreen.

Then there's The Body, an entity that may be an aspect of Hugo himself that Abram is derivative of that, because he's (The Body) both an aspect of God and succumbs to his own recursion and rot, the already potent power of this god's aspect representing Entropy multiplies exponentially until the game completely breaks down.

He starts out with only his right arm being offscreen, but as turns progress, a fleshy mass protrudes from his face mutates and grows until it goes offscreen and utterly breaks not just the battle time screen, but the battle itself mechanically. If anything, I'm surprised he doesn't crash the game, because it'd just be the same result as a game over. This is not to dismiss how broken he becomes, but personal confusion as to why something so expected does not occur. He Corrupts the battle time screen and the battle itself, yet the game doesn't completely break? There would have to be a reason for that, but I have yet to discern it. Regardless, this is not the analysis for that.

Back on topic, there are a couple non-boss enemies that are so broken they break the bounds of the battle time screen and they are all Red Zone enemies.

Corrupt Morris deserves special mention. As is highly evident from its appearance, it is so utterly destroyed its body is basically static in the shape of a serpent. Its face is fragmented like a corrupted image (like actual corruption and not Sincere Deceit's Corruption that just makes things black, fleshy, leaky, and spooky), black bleeds from its face in a manner like a mass of dead pixels than something that looks like blood or fluid, and chunks of its flesh have corroded; giving way to RBG+CYMK staticky "blood". Given the scale of this thing, it is clear that the majority of it is offscreen. And given its more marked connection to Abram than the serpentine Dusks as being named after one of the world's first computer worms distributed via internet and actually having a face unlike the serpentine Dusks + its normal Wide Angle description describing it as having swallowed the sun, it is the closest thing to an abstract corporeal representation of Abram himself than a mere product of his Corruption.

Then its Corrupted Wide Angle description almost seems to reference specifically the fate that befell (in the main timeline or otherwise) Adam as having swallowed a sun and it burning him from the inside out.

With Morris having a special connection to Abram, it only makes its state in not just Red Zone 2, but the game as a whole as one of the most Corrupted entities, breaks the bounds of the game to this level. It being of special significance to Abram symbolically/as a representation of him and it being so broken is telling of what's become of him as The Serpent. As we see him without his power being restored, he isn't so horrifically broken he breaks the bounds of the battle time screen, for rather than grow and grow until the game can no longer contain him, he rots. Decays. His overworld sprite as The Husk is also roughly accurate of his true height (his Corruption making him somewhat larger, but due to its effect on him being different than those he Corrupts (them being pumped full of his diseased constitution while he is progressively made bereft of it with only what's left being what Corrupts him. Due to the quantity itself being less, even with the severity (and likely his hold on remaining humanoid), he only becomes somewhat bigger. Still, the Corruption makes those infected more powerful, while with him having virtually nothing, he is pitifully weak)).

It is only when his power is restored and he relinquishes himself to the full brunt of his own Corruption that the foreshadowing of Corrupt Morris becomes evident, but let's stick a pin* in that for now.

However, I must now address what is actually the most broken entity in the game. One that bypasses the very game engine's battle UI and comes as close as possible to "breaching" the fourth wall than any other entity.

The Cat.

The Cat is so broken that upon battle initiation, his sprite is not even remotely properly representative of his overworld sprite. Typically the battle sprite aligns with what The Player expects them to look like based on the preceding cutscene, but in this instance the contrast is so jarring it's like whiplash even when you're expecting something horrific. Not only that, but the sprite is unsettlingly realistic to the more cartoony/stylistic art style of the battle sprites. It's not hyper-realistic (like the Secretaries, for example) so it doesn't cause as much uncanny valley, but the realism is noticeable enough to be unnerving. And then upon targeting The Cat in any way, it's like the game struggles to continue to run than completely break under how incompatible this entity is with it. Then The Cat starts encroaching upon reality, bypassing the bounds of what he should be capable of as an entity comprised of zeros and ones within a window of existence manufactured and defined by beings higher than him— and even what he should be aware of, as he is Valerie or some Corrupt recursive echo of Japhet that isn't the real Japhet since the real one is far below the world right at the border of the Void. And yet he pushes further and further towards The Player.

In-universe, reality freezes as it— the game that this universe is— is strained by one of its residents trying to break out of it. A hyper-realistic cat skull appears in the center of the battle time screen, uncanny semi-stylized human eyes appearing in the sockets soon after. Then the battle UI crashes as he speaks directly to The Player to let him out, and the screen melts.

The Cat is so broken the battle is forcibly aborted and his overworld sprite spasms and glitches, cycling through his character graphics uncontrollably, before he corrupts so badly he ceases existing. Momentarily, anyway, but the fact this happens at all is similar to what becomes of The Batter in Player Not Found when he makes contact with Valerie or Burning Dedan.

Code scrambled until scarcely nothing remained.

To remain watsonian, it is a miracle the game managed to not crash as a result of this, or else completing it, fulfilling The Batter's purpose, would've been impossible. Well, without cheating, that is. It's fortunate the most broken entity in the game is just below the threshold of what the engine can withstand.

Unlike a certain Glitch that isn't a native part of this world and breaks the game over knee with ease. Of course something not truly a part of this world broke it so easily despite not being as egregiously Corrupted.

For those that are not Corrupted and are merely deities so powerful the game can't hold them, both are bosses.

Rien is the hidden embodiment of the Nothingness itself; the primordial soup from which all souls are born from and return to in death, it is a given he can't be contained— and even transforms the perspective of the battle time screen's background but with respect to remaining in line with the surrounding environment the battle takes place in (something only done to this extent with super Corrupt Enoch (as for the Gluttonous Slug, only he is present while the background remains the Corrupted red of every other enemy encounter and boss in the Red Zones. The same applies to Pure Enoch just blue, though unlike the Gluttonous Slug, he is a part of the battle time screen itself, but that's because you don't attack him, you attack his Add-Ons while he just sits there. He can't be targeted and the only way to make a non-targetable enemy is for them to be part of the battle time screen— which does not apply to the sole entity of the Gluttonous Slug)). Rien and super Corrupt Enoch are the only entities in the game with battle time backgrounds that are completely different from the norm.

(It's redundant to discuss Rien's Corrupted state and accompanying battle time screens since the specialty of his appearance breaking the bounds of the game is intrinsically owed to what he is as the embodiment of the Nothingness. Him being Corrupted is just something on top of that that doesn't change anything beyond cosmetics.)

To give an idea of the sheer scale of Rien due to it not being clear because of him blending into the Nothingness background, here is what his sprite looks like on a different battle time screen.

His body is basically like a green screen or window that shows the Nothingness— which of course, he is the Nothingness. In-universe, this would look like the very environment and space surrounding The Batter shifting into an autonomous being. It's mind-boggling to think about, and I'm not good at explaining what I implicitly understand, but it's basically evocative of gazing at a being the mortal mind can barely comprehend. The majority of his body is practically invisible or "transparent" due to being the very space itself, but his body is the Nothingness. Unlike super Corrupt Enoch where the battle time screen is forced to depict the actual scene that's transpiring than transition to an abstract representation of the battle, his body is still but a part of the entire background. For Rien, because of what he is, it isn't entirely accurate to say that the sprite of him as excised from his unique background is more or less representative of his whole body just with part of it being offscreen, because he is the Nothingness. The very Nothingness background he blends into is also a part of his body, but for technical reasons, only a portion of his body is rendered as targetable.

Because of this, Rien is the only entity in the game where not only does his body surpass the bounds of the game by being offscreen, but the entire battle time screen is his body. He takes up the most space out of any battle— even moreso than the broken abominations of Corrupt Morris and the Black Serpent.

Then there's the other Divine entity that breaks the bounds of the game.

In his wrath, the face he maintained so to flaunt his newly gained true Divinity as the glorious empyreal God of all Creation falls apart. He discards this masquerade; this pompous downplaying of the true extent of his power for the sake of appearing a majestic God relatable to His children than the raw bestial power he now has. He exerts his power and perceived authority to their fullest and this pretense of being wholly contained within the bounds of the game are voided. He was never truly within the bounds, but more akin to something gargantuan curling in on itself to take up less space. In the wake of being defied, he stretches out to the fullest, no longer pretending to be small.

For Zaphkiel, this curling in on oneself to appear (or remain...) contained is more... symbolic? Non-literal— as he goes from his God form to his God Eater form.

[atrophiedentropy]

Adam

|Addendum|

Recently, I discovered there was more to the Basilisk than I initially found. Further, there's more to the philosopher's stone and Adam's analogy to it. Much of his analogy to the philosopher's stone was already covered in the previous parts of this analysis as well as in Gaius' analysis (somewhere), so I won't repeat myself (mostly because I don't want to go through the 44,000+ word hell that is Gaius' analysis. Again). But to keep things in order, the former will be addressed first.

Basilisk: Mercury in its negative aspect, it represents endless hunger and self-absorption. It is the mercurial water in its destructive aspect, which “kills” base metal, reducing it to prima materia.

(source: A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery by Lyndy Abraham. Post containing this info)

(It's the Layer 3 version but the wide angle description is identical save for the question mark)

This is the meta reason for Adam's hunger, as I speculated the in-universe reason was because of the Corruption.

The scientific community does not recognize the existence of this substance. The myth of Azoth may stem from misinterpreted observations of solvents like mercury, capable of dissolving gold.

The philosopher's stone is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold or silver; it was also known as "the tincture" and "the powder". Alchemists additionally believed that it could be used to make an elixir of life which made possible rejuvenation and immortality.

From the luster of gold, the metal that represents perfection and is integral to the creation of the philosopher's stone and through it, the elixir of life, reduced to the impure state of mercury that through its dissolution creates gold.

For the alchemist, [gold] represented the perfection of all matter on any level, including that of the mind, spirit, and soul.

He's degrading— regressing even, to the base state that made the philosopher's stone that he is possible. All this power and authority and time and all he's done is end up right back at the start.

No. Worse than that. Worse than he started. And what's he's done is irrevocable, damned to suffer eternal agony until this world rots completely with no control over his actions and unable to vocalize a desire for death.

And the snake devours its own tail and it is its own undoing. A mindless beast of consumption that consumes and consumes until nothing remains but himself. And when there is nothing but him, he consumes that. Hunger that is never sated, a fitting punishment for he who gorged himself selfishly upon the goodwill of others.

Escaped from his cage and bonded with others like him, all to take everything for himself and lie that he has no more than the others. They aren't starving, because he isn't. He has no more than they do, he's equal to them.

The one who preaches the truth is sentenced to damnation.

----

Now, for the additional information for the philosopher's stone.

Rubedo is a Latin word meaning "redness" that was adopted by alchemists to define the fourth and final major stage in their magnum opus. Both gold and the philosopher's stone were associated with the color red, as rubedo signaled alchemical success, and the end of the great work.

That explains the Prison having been designed as red and synonymous order-wise with The Room in OFF than be yellow like Adam whom was specifically molded in the shape of what Gaius deemed a fitting leader for Zone 0.

Additionally, even prior to the Prison, while the District Guardians all* wear clothes that match their assigned colors, except Adam where, the only color we undoubtedly know he wears, is red.

(*Maybe??? Gaius' sweater back before Arbela was built was orange? We don't have confirmation of that though, but his sweater in the photo of him with the Science Team and as we see his clones is actually meant to be black and not as some other color but appears as black in this monochrome world unlike Malachi's coat that is actually green rather than dark grey.)

The three alchemical stages preceding rubedo were nigredo (blackness), which represented putrefaction and spiritual death; albedo (whiteness), which represented purification; and citrinitas (yellowness), the solar dawn or awakening.

His ascension; his awakening as the new Sun.

Citrinitas, or sometimes xanthosis, is a term given by alchemists to "yellowness." It is one of the four major stages of the alchemical magnum opus. In alchemical philosophy, citrinitas stood for the dawning of the "solar light" inherent in one's being, and that the reflective "lunar or soul light" was no longer necessary.

How ironic. How unfortunate, that he forsook himself and his own merit in place of trying to become or at the least, posit himself the perfection Gaius was looking for. Deep down, he wanted that approval from him, but it was also for his own ego and pride; that he is perfect and he will flaunt such. Even if that color isn't his, his donning of that color aligns himself with that perfection. Makes it synonymous with him. If anyone is to blame for this, it is Gaius. Zaphkiel of course, is to blame in part, but nothing of Zaphkiel's influence and discreet power over him would inherently have caused him to abuse his son; treating him like an animal than a person and chaining him to the wall— even blaming him indirectly or otherwise for the downfall of the world. Nothing justifies that. No one was holding him at gunpoint and telling him to do what he did, he chose to behave this way under the excuse of the ends justify the means and being lenient and compassionate won't solve the problem of the war. If anything, they're hindrances to finding a solution as quickly as possible.

But he knows this. He knows this was an excuse and that it's unforgivable.

All he does is regret.

And regret.

And regret.

The rubedo stage entails the attempt of the alchemist to integrate the psychospiritual outcomes of the process into a coherent sense of self before its re-entry to the world. The stage can take some time or years to complete due to the required synthesis and substantiation of insights and experiences.

This could apply to Adam's joining of the Rebellion, rise in power in becoming its leader by ousting Magdalene from her position; rendering her but another prisoner, and the years of him biding his time and routinely having the Rebellion kidnap people to fuel the machine he'd use to empower the Grand Chocolatier and ascend to godhood, then finally leave the Prison; heading out into the City having been born anew.

He's changed, and for the worse.

He knows this, though. Refuses to acknowledge and accept it until everything he's worked for has gone up in flames.

Feels like sunk-cost. He's too self-aware for him to only then in Layer 3 recognize the disgusting cruelty of his actions. He's come this far, he can't stop now. He can't hesitate or ruminate on the monster he's becoming. The monster he was always slated to be. He accepts that that's what he is. Better to become what they brand you as than continue being hurt by trying to change their perceptions. Their standards impossible to surpass. It won't matter once he ascends to godhood, just keep going.

Back and forth, back and forth. Both warden and prisoner. Shackled but with the key.

He would become like God. Donned in the color of the Father, residing within a red cage.

In the framework of psychological development (especially with followers of Jungian psychology), these four alchemical steps are viewed as analogous to the process of attaining individuation or the process that allows an individual to attain the integration of opposites, their transcendence, and, finally, emergence out of an undifferentiated unconscious. In an archetypal schema, rubedo represents the Self archetype, and is the culmination of the four stages, the merging of ego and Self. It is also described as a stage that gives birth to a new personality.

The integration of opposites. Beast and the Divine. That which is regarded with disgust and that which is revered.

Both feared.

"gives birth to a new personality" can be determined as what happened to Adam post-Truth.

And what is the Self but constant transformation? The Self itself is alchemy.

How divine it is to change. To utilize the gold of himself— the failed philosopher's stone that he is and reduce himself back to the base materials in order to try again. Not a philosopher's stone as manifested by his father, but created by himself.

He will be his own magnum opus.

Represented by the color of blood in alchemy, the stage indicates a process that cannot be reversed since it involves the struggle of the self towards its manifestation.

He can't try again. Not from this.

And at the Devil's Crossroads, he tempts The Player down one of two paths in particular, but regardless of which is taken, he fails in his endeavor. Either to manifest it at all, or to attain it in the way he wanted. What he thought it'd be.

Burned by flying to close to the Sun, too close to a Divinity he was already burned by once.

Too persistent to know where to draw the line that it became blind stubbornness.

There are only two paths available to him: he is either damned, or rendered as naught but a stain on the floor in a pristine white room once red.

A sick child in a cage who dies never getting to truly see the light of day.

A death manufactured by his own hand.

Shunned and unloved by all— through his own instigation of proving the contemptuous perceptions of others in his past right, by those who simply didn't care about him, by those who didn't care enough, by those who'd rather he be locked up and forgotten about; out of sight, out of mind; and by those who should have loved him.

Only one expresses kindness to him, but it's only when it's too late for it to mean anything. A prayer for the dead in this world will do them no good, but perhaps the sentiment is what counts.

All his persistence and it got him nowhere. If he couldn't be loved, he'd demand respect and rule through fear. But he couldn't even achieve that. He couldn't achieve anything. In the span of a single day, his life's work has gone up in flames.

What was the point of any of it?

He didn't have hope, all he had was spite. A refusal to submit. A desire for something better.

He didn't know there would be consequences.

And whatever pieces he could've picked up and made for himself he dashed in the pursuit of using them as stepping stones for too grand an ambition.

What a fool.

[atrophiedentropy]

The City of Arbela

Arbela, like all most other original named areas and people in the game has its name originate in Abrahamic religion— in this case, Christianity. The city was originally known as Erbil.

The Chronicle of Arbela claims to record the early history of Christianity in Arbela (modern Erbil of northern Iraq), then the capital of Adiabene, from the early second century to the mid-sixth century.

The fourth bishop, serving in the mid-second century, was Abraham I, who saved the Christians during a war in which they were attacked by Zoroastrians. By performing miracles, he pacified the Zoroastrian attackers.

I'm skeptical as to whether Abraham I is the same Abraham that Abram is named after and analogous to, as there is no wikipedia link to Abraham, nor any specific wikipedia article specifically about "Abraham I". There is no mention of Arbela or Zoroastrians in Abraham's wikipedia page, so I don't know...

Otherwise, this could be seen as analogous to the war between Arbela and Vader Eloha's spectres. Unlike the actual outcome of the war, Abram did not pacify Vader Eloha and the spectres did not cease.

The Chronicles of Arbela has little to do with describing Arbela itself— to know more about Arbela, Erbil itself must be cited.

Erbil (Arabic: أربيل, ʾarbīl; Syriac: ܐܲܪܒܹܝܠ, Arbel), also called Hawler (Kurdish: هەولێر, Hewlêr), is the capital and most populated city in the Kurdistan Region (KRG) of Iraq and the capital of the Erbil Governorate. Erbil is described as the region's cultural, economic, industrial, educational and medical hub.

While not all of these are exact 1:1's the generality of it matches with the four Districts of Arbela— one of which is explicitly an industrial district that deals with the economic side of things and giving people jobs, and another was a hospital that was repurposed into a prison. I would also highlight educational as pertaining to the Industry District, but the people who bear the most intellect are the scientists who work in the Factory specifically— this knowledge isn't freely taught to those outside and especially not to others outside the District. "Educational" pertains to things like schooling, acquiring knowledge about how the world works, sharing and teaching that knowledge. Education is more than learning things in a lab because scientist.

Erbil is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Human settlement at Erbil may be dated back to the 5th millennium BC.

It feels appropriate even though it's not strictly correct. It is technically true in that Arbela's the oldest continuously inhabited city because no other cities existed prior to its creation (there were Zones, yes, but they aren't cities).

Its populace then gradually converted from the ancient Mesopotamian religion between the first and fourth centuries to Christianity, with Pkidha traditionally becoming its first bishop around 104 AD. The ancient Mesopotamian religion did not die out entirely in the region until the tenth century AD. There also existed a Christian community thought to be converts from Judaism. The Adiabene (East Syriac ecclesiastical province) in Arbela (Syriac: ܐܪܒܝܠ Arbel) became a centre of eastern Syriac Christianity until late in the Middle Ages.

This is basically what happens to Arbela as a whole if you go through the Blue route: more and more Elsens who you've seen walking about who were normal suddenly becoming church members until they're everywhere and are even able to spread out into the Districts.

When the Mongols invaded the Near East in the 13th century, they attacked Arbil for the first time in 1237. They plundered the lower town but had to retreat before an approaching Caliphate army and had to put off the capture of the citadel. After the fall of Baghdad to Hülegü and the Mongols in 1258, the last Begtegenid ruler surrendered to the Mongols, claiming the Kurdish garrison of the city would follow suit; they refused this however, therefore the Mongols returned to Arbil and were able to capture the citadel after a siege lasting six months. Hülegü then appointed a Christian Assyrian governor to the town, and the Syriac Orthodox Church was allowed to build a church.

This also could be applicable to the war between Arbela and Vader Eloha in the sense that this war and the other cited above may've been the inspiration for why the war in Sincere Deceit even happened. Additionally, the bolded text doesn't quite align as Zaphkiel had already built the Church prior to the Tower descending (what could be analogous to the citadel being captured). And we know he'd done so because of a document in Gaius' office where Zaphkiel wrote to him about his Church requesting more of his trees. Actually, because of Zaphkiel remarking on Adam and based on context, this was not too long after Adam was born, we have an idea of how long ago the Church was even built as well as knowing that the Church was built prior to Adam even being born. Given Adam is the youngest of the District Guardians and Gaius is the oldest, one could approximate the ages of the District Guardians as Gaius being in his late 50s-early 60s, Malachi and Jadon being in their mid or late 40s, and Adam is in his early or mid twenties.

That means the Church, by the events of Sincere Deceit proper, is at least 20 years old (actually at least 25 years old since an Elsen in Arbela states it had been five years since she moved to the city. She doesn't specify if the reason is because the Zones were beginning to succumb to the Corruption or not, but I think this specification of time passing is important. For the sake of this argument, let's say five years is how long it's been since the Corruption began. Now, perhaps the Zones didn't fall quickly. After all, Dedan was still fine (on the surface) until his constant anger at The Batter pushes him over the edge into getting Corrupted. But even then, that'd just mean it took longer than five years since the Corruption began for the Zones to fall. But for the sake of sticking to what is known for certain, I am under the belief that, like Malachi, they succumbed very quickly. That means we have a concrete date for how long it's been since the Corruption began up to the events of Sincere Deceit proper, and it's five years).

Even if it's not actually 25 years, the 20 years approximate minimum is accurate.

And we know it's a time span of about 20 years since Adam was brought into existence as a toddler or at least no older than 5 (given that Adam's earliest memory was of him having just been created and presented to Zaphkiel and he was mature enough to form long-term memory, I believe that'd place him as at least a toddler and no younger. Unless he was a baby who could remember verbatim what Zaphkiel and Gaius said and then later in life derive meaning from what was said more than just a vague negativity (remembering something was hurtful to you but not recollecting the specifics), but I doubt that). (Unrelated but this also gives an approximation of Abram's and Zaphkiel's ages as being around how old Gaius is: late 50s-early 60s. Personal headcanon is that I think they're older than Gaius and thus firmly in their 60s rather than possibly in their 50s.)

During the reign of the Ilkhan Öljeitü, the Assyrian inhabitants retreated to the citadel to escape persecution. In the Spring of 1310, the Malek (governor) of the region attempted to seize it from them with the help of the Kurds. Despite the Turkic bishop Mar Yahballaha's best efforts to avert the impending doom, the citadel was at last taken after a siege by Ilkhanate troops and Kurdish tribesmen on 1 July 1310, and all the defenders were massacred, including many of the Assyrian inhabitants of the lower town.

This could be analogous to what happens in the Church in the Red route after the completion of the Prison where Lugosi becomes overwhelmed by the Corruption within him and slaughters everyone (sans Delilah, Lucretia, and one false believer) in the Church.

Erbil has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa), closely bordering a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen: BSh) with long, extremely hot summers and mild winters. Summers are arid, with little to no precipitation occurring between June and September.

There is an Elsen in the Industry District prior to Gaius' death that remarks on how hot it is.

And another Elsen mentions the Industry District either being too hot or too cold; the temperature fluctuating too rapidly.

Either the hot climate is relegated to the Industry District (much in the same manner it's always night at the top of the Apartments in the Residential District), or the whole city is that warm but this is the only person in the game who complains about it. Though, with all the machinery in the Industry District that's constantly running, it'd make sense that the District would be far warmer than the other Districts.

The Erbil Green Belt Project is a large-scale macro-engineering project, launched in October 2025, designed to encircle the city with a protective green zone composed of trees and other vegetation. The project aims to combat deforestation, mitigate climate change and its impacts, improve the urban environment, and enhance residents’ quality of life, while also providing employment opportunities and economic stimulus.

While Sincere Deceit was officially released in 2021 and received updates up to 2024 (if I'm remembering correctly), the above citation is still far too recent for Dismal to have made the Industry District's narrative with this in mind. If anything, it's an astoundingly fitting coincidence. If Zaphkiel never betrayed everyone and thus lead to Abram releasing the Corruption upon the world, this is likely what Gaius' efforts in bringing back trees and plant life would have resulted in. It's sad to see something with such resemblance to what canonically could've been.

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There is another half to the analogies present with Arbela, and that's with the Entertainment District worker who falsely claims the name of the city is Bethel.

Bethel (Hebrew: בֵּית-אֵל, romanized: Bēṯ ʾĒl, "House of El" or "House of God", also transliterated Beth El, Beth-El, Beit El; Greek: Βαιθήλ; Latin: Bethel) was an ancient Israelite city and sacred space that is frequently mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.

Right off the bat, the translation of Bethel as "House of God" is identical to one of the names the tarot "The Tower" is known by in the Tarot of Marseilles. Fitting, as each layer of the Tower in Sincere Deceit corresponds to one of the major arcana, and Layer 0's is "The Tower"— the same layer that has the divide between Abram and Zaphkiel and where you meet their projected silhouettes prior to meeting them in person.

With Bethel translating to "House of God" it foreshadows and equally corresponds in and of itself to the Tower. It foreshadows the Tower's existence as well as what happened to it and the city of Arbela, as the Tower is correspondent with the major arcana of The Tower, a card when upright means misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin, and when reversed means negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, distraction, apathy, nullity, vanity.

Bethel is first referred to in the Bible as being near the place where Abram pitched his tent.

Most scholars identify Bethel with the modern-day village of Beitin, located in the West Bank, 5 kilometers (3.1 mi) northeast of Ramallah.

The ruins of the Byzantine church are known in Arabic as "al-Muqater" or "Khirbet al-Kenise" ("Ruins of the Church"). According to Röhricht, when the Crusaders arrived, they found a ruined church. They built another and placed it first under the Abbey of St. Joseph of Arimathea, later under the Canons of the Holy Sepulcher. The ruins of the church were drawn in the 1880s.

Well, there is a church in Arbela, but it's not ruined and technically doesn't get to exist in a state of ruin since it's either completely intact, or the world collapses in on itself/is turned OFF and it and everything else ceases to exist. Except in the instance of Sheol which is a part of an alternate history where The Batter we play as was never awakened by Zaphkiel and because there was no one to start culling things before the Corruption got so bad, it only festered until even Arbela itself succumbed— and the Church as it exists in Sheol can be seen as ruined rather than in ruins.

The difference is that "being ruined" suggests being damaged but not in a state of disrepair that "being in ruins" means, and Sheol's Church looks damaged on the outside but is perfectly intact inside.

Another ruin, called "al-Burj Beitin" ("the Tower of Beitin") or simply al-Burj is located in the western part of the village. They were also drawn in the 1880s. The ruins of the Burj are about 1 meter tall, and apparently built on the older ruins of a Byzantine monastery. Some have believed that it was constructed on the site where Abraham built an altar.

🤔

Bethel is mentioned several times in the Book of Genesis. It is first mentioned in Lech-Lecha (Genesis 12 and 13) as a place near the place where Abram stayed and built an altar on his way to Egypt and on his return.

Bethel was evidently already an important religious centre at this time; it was so important, in fact, that the Ark of the Covenant was kept there, under the care of Phinehas the grandson of Aaron (Judges 20:27 f). At Judges 21:19, Bethel is said to be south of Shiloh.

This feels like it could apply in some aspect to the Church and maybe the Tower, but I can't discern any connection or analogy. Specifically the importance of the Ark of the Covenant, which I don't know of anything within the Tower that could be analogous to it.

According to 2 Kings 2:1ff, the prophets Elijah and Elisha visited Bethel on a journey from Gilgal to Jericho shortly before Elijah was taken up to heaven alive (2 Kings 2:11).

Jericho is mentioned, thus making Bethel (Arbela) interconnected with its inhabitants.

The shrine is mentioned with disapproval by the prophet Amos (c. 750):

"Do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will be reduced to nothing." — Amos, 5:5

Amaziah, a priest of Bethel, expels Amos from the shrine:

"Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom."— Amos, 7:13

A few years later, the prophet Hosea (8th century BC) speaks (at least according to modern translations) of the "wickedness" of Bethel (Hosea 10:15) and Jeremiah (6th century BC) speaks of the "shame" which it brought on Israel (Jeremiah 48:13).

This could be seen as corresponding to Zaphkiel's abhorrence of Arbela and him wanting the city razed to the ground, for it was a blight upon Hugo's creation that didn't need to and shouldn't have existed.

The church fell into ruin after the Islamic Rashidun army conquered the area.

The church was rebuilt by the Crusaders in the 12th century. During the Crusader period, the village was given as fief by Baldwin V of Jerusalem to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. After the Crusaders were defeated by the Ayyubid forces of Saladin in 1187, the church was destroyed and the village was abandoned.

Same as what I said earlier regarding Arbela's Church being in ruins.

With that said, it's ironic that the name that isn't what the City's actually called is more analogous to it than its actual namesake. By Bethel not being the true name of The City, it obfuscates what would have otherwise foreshadowed the history of the City and the Tower. Hidden in plain sight. What's more is that, in Find Me, that same Entertainment District worker still exists and their dialogue in Sincere Deceit is actually directly lifted from Find Me.

What makes this so interesting is that back before Sincere Deceit was finished and it was known as Find Me, Abram's name in all instances was redacted— including in Malachi's and Jadon's memories where Abram's name was spoken.

It wasn't until Sincere Deceit where the approach to how Abram's character would be handled shifted so he and Zaphkiel aren't kept as secrets until the end of the game and you're allowed to learn of the former upfront from almost the beginning of the Residential District (the earliest point the overarching narrative involving the District Guardians and the two gods becomes relevant).

This means prior to the release of Sincere Deceit, Abram's name could be discerned from the incorrect City name of "Bethel" if a player caught onto the religious-theme naming (which was much less back then since only Malachi, Jadon, Jericho, and Gaius existed with the last being a secret character in the 3.2 build. Adam is also named, but finding the mention of his name is so obscure it's almost certain no one organically discovered it). But because Bethel is the incorrect name, players are likely to dismiss any relevancy or connection Zone ??? could have to it (especially since everything Bethel is analogous to is endgame stuff which definitely didn't exist back then since the Church literally didn't even exist yet), and thus, gloss over or dismiss the name "Abram" as possibly not being what "A's" name is since Bethel isn't the name of the City.

As I said, hidden in plain sight.

[atrophiedentropy]

Adam (2/2)

Gaius isn't the only one to blame him for the ensuing Corruption: Zaphkiel too, blames him, though unlike Gaius, is pointed in his blame.

Adam is the one to first consume the Fruit of Knowledge. Then shared it with Abram. This led to them both and the rest of mankind forever being barred from Eden.

And for all the torment Adam went through, the scapegoat and instigator of it all, he was done being oppressed. Adam as the warden of the Prison (and as I've noted in an earlier analysis,) perpetuates the cycle of abuse. From the one unfairly imprisoned to the one who unfairly imprisons others.

The one whose existence was defined from birth by subjugation— because he was made to be Zaphkiel's proxy, his mouthpiece, his "family man" so to speak, but was rejected because he wasn't "perfect".

His reason for even existing was to always be beneath that which is far more powerful than him, to always live in that shadow. And we see it clearly with Delilah, Adam's replacement. She never leaves her room, even in the Red route when Lugosi slaughters everyone in the Church. She even says herself that she is bound to the Church.

Adam was made to live in a bird cage but was rejected and so lived in another until he inadvertently broke free. Delilah was made to replace the defect and fill the reserved spot in the cage. Despite the Prison being itself, it is not a cage in the same sense as him being there against his will and he has no true liberty in leaving. Adam is the only "District" "Guardian" to be able to roam Arbela freely because there are no gates keeping him locked within his section of the city.

And he is seen/heard in three out of the four instances he traveled to the other Districts.

However, the Prison is indeed still a cage. It is not uncommon for victims of abuse to recreate— purposefully or unintentionally— the conditions of their abuse or surround themselves with things, concepts, or people that remind them of their abuse. Because it's familiar and there is safety in familiarity even if it is harmful to them physically and/or mentally. It is a coping mechanism. Part of it is that by being in these same conditions but having the autonomy and control over their situation empowers them and helps them to cope with what happened. That they're the ones in control now and they can't be hurt beyond what they allow. This isn't always a good thing, as it tends to only further perpetuate the abuse they got away from by just bringing it elsewhere; but for others it gives them stability and validates their autonomy.

This is what the Prison is. Adam, the subjugated, turning a medical ward into a place of oppression as a means of placing himself as the one with power and that no one can oppress him ever again. Adam, the subjugated, becoming a subjugator as a fault of doing unto others what was done to him, so that they feel that pain.

The Prison with all its draconian treatment, unethical experimentation of combining people with ghouls, multitudes of faces with names of no importance always always surrounding him on all sides— is the exaggerated reality that was his upbringing in Gaius' labs.

The Prison is not a cage because physically, he can leave.

The Prison is not a cage because he's the one with the most power.

The Prison is not a cage because he's the one doing the subjugating.

The Prison is a cage because all he's doing is surrounding himself with that which traumatized him to begin with.

And this is all portrayed clear as day by his appearance.

His wrists are still shackled, and so is his neck— which as seen from the Truth from Abram's side, he did not have a collar around his neck back then.

The chains attached to his wrist shackles are broken. He has a key in his breast pocket, as if to convey that he isn't a prisoner because he holds the key to his own cell, he can unlock his shackles (or at least the collar? I would assume it's a skeleton key but who knows) at any time he so chooses, he just chooses not to. But what good is it to keep these symbols of oppression? They still bear weight...

A prototype, powerless.

A warden with power.

A snake despised.

All those years and nothing's changed. A label branded upon him. One he voluntarily gave himself. Another referring to him as an animal; a beast, spat with venom and vitriol from those who hate him.

An experiment; the result; an object. A bogeyman who abuses his power and authority over others, crushing them under heel, holding their lives from a string.

A monster that should be beheaded or locked up in a cage. Someone whose death would be a relief to the people than mourned.

Never a name.

Never a name.

Never an ounce of humanity. Just a monster wearing human skin. Just like Jeska and Jericho— sapient ghouls— but humanoid unlike them. Just a humanoid ghoul.

His desperation, giving in to the disparaging views from the very people who were supposed to care for him to become the very monster he'd always been slated as— to prove them right, to show he is the monster they all hated and feared but he's stronger than them and demands respect now. He'll get the power he desires and rise above all of them who thought him worthless; a failure; something bereft of humanity that they just humored in treating like an equal (but they don't. Never a name). So tunnel-visioned by this pain it manifests a reality where he forfeits what humanity he even had.

The Basilisk.

The Black Serpent.

It can't even speak anymore.

A philosopher's stone created by another philosopher's stone.

A monster made by another monster.

The child unloved, now dead.

He should have never been born at all.

...

Not an ounce of humanity until it's too late for it to mean anything.

From a doll to a thing, the only one to wish him peace in the afterlife.

...Additionally, his outfit further differs from his pre-Corrupted state (aside from him obviously losing his boots due to his legs' anatomy changing to a lizard's) in that he wears epaulettes upon his shoulders.

Epaulette (/ˈɛpəlɛt/; also spelled epaulet) is a type of ornamental shoulder piece or decoration used as insignia of rank by armed forces and other organizations. Flexible metal epaulettes (usually made from brass) are referred to as shoulder scales.

Adam is the head of the Rebellion, Vanni answers directly to him. And ranks are a thing amongst the Rebellion as Magdalene herself mentions such.

Seeing as Adam is the only one with epaulettes, it serves as him making it visibly clear that he is the one with the most power in the Prison and everyone is beneath him. However, the rest of his clothes are torn and tattered, something one would expect from the prisoners.

He dresses fancy (albeit his dress is somewhat tattered) but has a foul mouth.

It's this back and forth of imprisoned but with the key but wearing tatters but flaunting authority. Looking respectable but not sounding it. He makes himself to be the oppressor but cannot leave his past of having been oppressed behind. He is simultaneously a cruel man holding power over others and having inhumane things done to them, and that hurt child who had the same done to him from so long ago.

And the thing is... he acknowledges it— or rather, despairingly believes himself to be the monster he was always treated as since he was a child.

And this is in response to witnessing his work, this living crime scene, go down in flames.

To backtrack a bit, I will now address the yellow asterisk from the first part of this analysis. To recite:

The early rabbinic literature contains also the traditions which portray Eve in a less positive manner. According to Genesis Rabbah 18:4 (~300-500CE), Adam quickly realizes that Eve is destined to engage in constant quarrels with him. The first woman also becomes the object of accusations ascribed to Rabbi Joshua of Siknin, according to whom Eve, despite the divine efforts, turned out to be “swelled-headed, coquette*, eavesdropper, gossip, prone to jealousy, light-fingered and gadabout” (ibid. 18:2). A similar set of charges appears in Genesis Rabbah 17:8, according to which Eve's creation from Adam's rib rather than from the earth makes her inferior to Adam and never satisfied with anything.

While it is rumored among the inmates that he holds a soft spot for Magdalene or outright love (and her file specifies by order of The Warden that guards should only intervene if she is being or inciting violence and if this order is disobeyed they will be terminated and/or killed), if he does genuinely hold any affection for her, it is filtered amidst the more prominent aspect of him holding power over her. She's fiery, she's got guts, she's a rebel who gets back up no matter how many times she's knocked down, keeps pushing even with the odds being stacked against her, and he admires that.

And it is by his order or influence (directly by him or by his guards who serve under him and are doing their jobs) that she is always knocked back down to square one. Always back at the start. Like entertainment from watching a mouse scurry around in a cage, trying to solve the puzzle within to get the ever coveted reward. He makes it seem just possible enough for her to try, that she can just graze freedom with her fingertips before it is snatched away from her and she has to start all over again. And she will keep going, because all she has is hope. She refuses to submit to him.

And that damns her.

Lilith (/ˈlɪlɪθ/; Hebrew: לִילִית, romanized: Līlīṯ), also spelled Lilit, Lilitu, or Lilis, is a feminine figure in Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology. According to accounts in the Talmud she is a primordial she-demon. Lilith is cited as having been "banished" from the Garden of Eden for disobeying Adam.

In the Jewish book The Alphabet of Ben-Sira, Eve is Adam's "second wife", where Lilith is his first. In this alternate version, which entered Europe from the East in the 6th century, it suggests that Lilith was created at the same time, from the same earth (Sumerian Ki), as Adam's equal, similar to the Babylonian Lilitu, Sumerian Ninlil (consort of Enlil). Lilith refuses to sleep with or serve under Adam. When Adam tried to force her into the "inferior" position, she flew away from Eden into the air where she copulated with demons, conceiving hundreds more each day (a derivation of the Arabic djinn). God sent three angels after her, who threatened to kill her brood if she refused to return to Adam. She refuses, leaving God to make a second wife for Adam, except this time from his rib.

But why was she renamed Lilithe when her original name is Magdalene and not Eve?

A sermon attributed to Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170 – 235) refers to Mary of Bethany and her sister Martha seeking Jesus in the garden like Mary Magdalene in John 20, indicating a conflation between Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene. The sermon describes the conflated woman as a "second Eve" who compensates for the disobedience of the first Eve through her obedience. The sermon also explicitly identifies Mary Magdalene and the other women as "apostles". The first clear identification of Mary Magdalene as a redeemed sinner comes from Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306 – 373). Part of the reason for the identification of Mary Magdalene as a sinner may derive from the reputation of her birthplace, Magdala, which, by the late first century, was infamous for its inhabitants' alleged vice and licentiousness.

(wiki)

And because she turned out to be disobedient through and through, he had her punished. Because he got cornered and that made him desperate. And just like that he sentenced her to death.

Additionally, Lilithe's appearance matches one of the described appearances of the serpent who tempted Eve as looking like Eve.

During the Renaissance, artists often portrayed the serpent in the Garden as bearing a woman’s face identical to Eve’s own.

I cannot post the image here because it will cause this post to get flagged so here's the link to it.

(Adam, Eve, and a female serpent at the entrance to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. The portrayal of the image of the serpent as a mirror of Eve was common in earlier Christian iconography as a result of the identification of women as the ones responsible for the fall of man and source of the original sin.)

(wiki)

Anyway, this is what I meant by Adam becoming the biblical Adam from having been Eve. While "his" Adam never oppressed him and what caused him harm was the aspect of Abram that is analogous to god, Adam made himself Adam including this entitlement to those he deems as beneath him that Abram lacked. He is not analogous to god, try as he might to make himself be, nor does a god exist within the Prison (not a proper one anyway. Roland just takes the acting role of one in enacting punishment unto Magdalene for her rebellion. A god is more than just reenactment of their actions), but he will have the sin of disobedience by his chosen other be punished.

It's not divine will, it's a mortal using mortal tools to mimic divine will with all the self-importance that it brings.

|Arrogance (noun)|

•the quality of having an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.

•offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride.

The serpent and Lilith have a commonality in that they are both tempters. Magdalene's most grave transgression was tempting the Prison— prisoners and guards alike— with a Truth. Telling them about the unethical experimentation that happens to the prisoners who "disappear". Where they're taken. she bestows them the fruit of her labors in discovering this, and she is subsequently silenced for it.

She is the serpent and she is Eve as designated so by Adam and as Eve she must be punished. Adam is Adam but he won't be getting punished, not this time, no. He exempts himself of his self-designated role of Adam now that it's convenient. He will be the one doing the punishing. By his word, he is god, and he exiles her from his(his) paradise and to suffer. There, she is branded the name of a demon whose reason for exile— depending on the text— was desiring equality. And yet, Lilith left of her own accord, Magdalene was forced.

And all because she was forced into this song and dance that had since grown trite, and it was for the snake's amusement. Why else would this have gone on for so long before he pulled the plug?

Well, the reason is as simple as needing to buy himself time. The reason Adam had her sent to the chop shop was to divide the player's attention. He was trying to force the player's hand in either forsaking Magdalene, someone who he makes a calculated presumption of believing the player cares about enough to potentially leave him to his devices, or forsaking The Judge, someone who has no emotional connection to the player that he can discern (it is unknown if he's aware of The Judge's hauntings or if that's exclusive to The Batter's perception). By doing this the odds are weighted in his favor. He never grew bored of this whole tiresome borderline orchestrated rise and fall, he needed someone or something to divert the player's attention long enough for him to consume the powered-up Grand Chocolatier.

He never tired of this, he was desperate because he was cornered. This is also why he expresses genuine surprise if The Batter goes after him first because he thought he had the perfect thing that guaranteed his success. Even though it can be extrapolated that he thought The Batter was a sympathetic enough person to go after Magdalene, someone who he came to know well enough and having spent the majority of the Prison interacting with, he quickly dismisses this in an air of "oh well, the jig is up. Guess I've gotta do something about this now".

From this extrapolation comes the implication of him calling The Batter heartless or at least not as caring as he had banked on, as well as him understanding what The Batter's presence means given that Magdalene was not saved.

It's just like NULL & VOID states:

"But you came along, and you made him desperate. Desperation, made him stupid. In his pride, he thought he could win, but you proved him wrong."

Adam was cornered and need something, anything, that could buy him enough time, so in a desperate bid banked on the player's sympathy winning over whatever arguments The Batter may've had to going straight after Adam first and forcing him to go after Magdalene first. He knew the player and The Batter would've had some emotional connection to her and, would you look at that, she incited an uprising and as The Warden of the Prison, had the perfect, convenient excuse to exert his authority and have her sent down to be turned into a ghoul hybrid. "How unfortunate... But if you're quick you can save her! So... go do that and leave me to my work."

He likely didn't want to use her that way, but he didn't have a choice— he was going to attain the power of a god and he wouldn't sacrifice it for anything.

The ends justify the means.

They're all just fodder, anyway.

...Beyond all this, though, his genuine affection for her remains. After sifting through all the layers and lenses of authority and power he holds over her and the high of having a special inmate he can toy with, once everything is nothing but cinders in the wake of imminent oblivion, it becomes transparent.

Just like a portion of Gaius' section in Layer 3 of the Tower contains the souls of his dear friends— even Roland for as horrifically low he fell as he crashed and burned, there exists a portion of Adam's section relegated to the soul of Magdalene should she have perished.

She is someone dear to him in some form, and therefore she is here, why else would she be if not that? However this, as obvious by her dialogue here, does not mean the feeling is mutual.

[atrophiedentropy]

Abram (2/8)

John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost features Satan as its main protagonist. Milton portrays Satan as a tragic antihero destroyed by his own hubris.

To further expand upon Abram being an analogy to Adam (biblical), I will start with this.

After the loss of innocence, God curses Adam and the earth as punishment for his disobedience. Adam and humanity are cursed to die and return to the earth (or ground) from which he was formed. This "earthly" aspect is a component of Adam's identity, and Adam's curse of estrangement from the earth seems to describe humankind's divided nature of being earthly yet separated from nature.

For the first bolded section, this is a double correspondence to Abram and Adam. Adam verbatim states he was cursed,

and Abram states regardless of what your decision is at the Prison crossroads that Adam's telling him of Zaphkiel's actions was "betrayal".

While the first bolded sentence doesn't apply to Abram but does Adam, the second, "Adam and humanity are cursed to die and return to the earth (or ground) from which he was formed", does as Abram himself is not exempt from his act of Corrupting the world until it collapses in on itself and everything subsequently dies. Additionally, what became of Abram as a result of his outburst leading to the Corruption of reality can be viewed akin to the state Adam is in after having been cursed. That is, his appearance prominently warped by Corruption yet maintaining stable thought (yes, it's mentioned multiple times that Adam is unstable, but I'm talking about actually maintaining awareness and cohesive thought, which most Corrupted individuals are either borderline mindless from pain or end up like Japhet & Lugosi and end up with their minds partially overridden and they're not wholly themselves anymore. Adam, despite the potency of the Corruption within him, is still perfectly aware and exhibits no "feral" or "mindless" tendencies prior to the Corruption reaching the absolute extreme of the Black Serpent— which every single other entity in the game sans Abram himself (and Vader Eloha but she has no control over her actions despite maintaining lucidity) can't boast about).

The last bolded sentence again, refers to mankind in Sincere Deceit, having been brought back from the void into the material world.

The way this is interpreted is thus: they are living beings who are still mortal, therefore they are earthly; they are of the earth and the natural consequences of being of the earth still apply to them— that being death, bodily needs and desires, etc. However, they are divided from nature via the explicit violation of the natural order of death by Zaphkiel and Abram reviving the dead, pulling their souls from the void, and having them live anew. Except they aren't truly living anew, as they are just doomed to repeat their former programming ad infinitum.

NULL & VOID describes Hugo's world as a "storybook" and I believe that is an accurate descriptor for how the ontological (ontology actually being used as its "philosophical study of being" way and not the connotative "intrinsic metaphysical way something exists in reality" way) and chronological aspects of SinDec present themselves.

A book has a finite amount of pages. No matter what you do, you can't add new pages to the story, and no matter how you read it, you will inevitably reach the end. The ending of OFF is the end of that story. Yet Zaphkiel, at the back cover, yet to close the book, put the world in stasis. Then he went and flipped the pages of the story back to prior to the purification of the Zones. Then Abram appeared and, because there are a finite amount of pages and new pages can't be added, overwrote existing parts of the story to make something new (that being The Room becoming Arbela island (or Arbela island being built on top of it?) and then The City, the Elsen in Zones 1-3 becoming Malachi, Jadon, and Gaius, the rising of the districts (which would be a subchapter within the overwritten chapter of The Room now Arbela), etc).

Zaphkiel and Abram can therefore be described as the former lacking the creativity to make something new— or more accurate to strictly the information we're given, a purist who only wants to edit the story and make necessary touch-ups here and there to perfect it— and the latter has a lot of creativity and sees the existing story as the groundwork for something different that still fits within the world of the original story. Basically a remaster versus a remake (remake like how the FF7R trilogy uses it) or AU.

In video game terms, again, Zaphkiel effectively leaves the game at its core untouched except to add quality of life enhancements and some fixes to things he noticed, while Abram modifies things by swapping existing objects assigned as such in the code with something visually and mechanically different.

When it comes to npcs like the Elsen, a select few of the generic "npc number here" Elsen are chosen to have their appearances changed (visually different) as well as what they are (mechanically different), but everything else is primarily left unchanged except to make the preexisting code compatible with the altered code. Thus the Elsen shades from Zone 1 and Zone 2 plus an unknown Elsen in Zone 3 became Malachi, Jadon, and Gaius whom are all of an unknown species that is at least similar to Elsen in the aspect of burning.

However, every other generic "npc number here" Elsen is unaltered. Without uniquely written code to modify their behavior, they fall back on how they were originally coded and that is how they behave in OFF. There is a difference between the code still executing properly despite being in an area undefined by their code (Elsen in Arbela and the Districts, The City in its entirety having not existed in OFF) because nothing they interact with as defined by their programming causes any problems (they are nervous workers, The City is largely a place of work that is synonymous with Zones 1-3, so there arise no conflicts with their programming), and their code actually changing as a result of data rot or corruption (Zone 2 Elsen that says "goodbye" and commits suicide, Zone 3 Elsen in Area 4 that silently watches you then charges at you once you pass by them).

And then there's instances of data rot/corruption that still falls in line with their expected programming (Zone 1 Elsen in the barn fighting to prevent entry to Alma).

Without alteration of their beings at the ontological level (latter definition this time), it is equivalent to just turning back the pages and rereading the same words you've already read, or changing them just a smidge to fit the new context of Arbela (when it comes to the different behavior of the Elsen in the Impure Zones that aren't uncharacteristically hostile or just so happen to make sense with what their programming would dictate they do (such as the Zone 2 library Elsens being relatively unchanged, the Zone 3 workers being relatively unchanged, etc), that is more akin to those corrupter programs where you flip switches until something breaks enough to be noticeable. Best example I can give are Vinny Vinesauce's old real time corruptor streams where he literally would change things during the stream rather than use premade corruptions and see what random switches he flips results in what until it ends up with major graphical corruption, music corruption, or even parts of the world/levels being unloaded, loaded where they're not supposed to be, or outright game crash. Basically applying force to something until it breaks but on the metaphysical scale which results in physical changes).

The same applies to the Guardians.

But anyway, the act of pulling the dead back into the land of the living is a violation of the natural order of things. But it's not solely that that's the violation, but the fact that those that were revived are still mortal; they will still inevitably die again. So... what happens then? Do Zaphkiel and Abram effectively incite the cycle of rebirth ad infinitum? If that's the case, unless a particular soul caught the latter's eye, that'd just result in some souls repeating the same lines in the same part of the story over and over and over.

Which... is a problem.

Recursion occurs when the definition of a concept or process depends on a simpler or previous version of itself.

(source)

It is a potential problem, anyway, for there is just as much the possibility of the increasing disorder leading to the souls breaking down and the end times as it occurs in Sincere Deceit still happening even without Zaphkiel's betrayal, or the souls don't break down but merely transform into something different.

The more something is copied, the more the finer details become blurred until it is no longer recognizable as what it once was and then could perhaps be interpreted as something else.

Because the Elsen in Sincere Deceit aren't a hivemind and from a programming standpoint are each uniquely coded (because its rpgmaker 2003 and not a game engine where there's preset object classes with a set list of actions that an npc can be checked on or off with), the rate at which their core programming blurs and the many ways the different results are interpreted are unique, they will eventually change into something or someone new at different rates from each other.

While the type of entropy Abram represents in Sincere Deceit proper is that of decay, entropy is simply a measure of disorder. Entropy can also be understood as synonymous with transformation.

Entropy is both a law and a metaphor. It explains why stars die, why order is fleeting, why your morning coffee cools and why civilizations rise and fall. But it also hints at something deeper — a pattern that weaves together destruction and creation, chaos and structure. For wherever disorder grows, pockets of order emerge in defiance. Life blossoms in the middle of decay. Galaxies spiral out of cosmic dust. Intelligence evolves in a universe that seems to prefer mindless randomness.

(source)

Entropy is not death, it is change. Life doesn't last forever, and the lack of it is also not eternal. Entropy is like a very slow-moving pendulum where the longer it stays on one side, the more it wants to move to the other.

How this translates into the copy of a copy of a copy that would likely have occurred had Abram and his friends never been betrayed is that over the many times the same souls are pulled from the void and live, they "evolve" ever so slowly, subtly, into someone and even something else. After all, Malachi isn't an Elsen in his current life, but in his previous one he was, and in his life before that he may not have been an Elsen or even anything like what he is now.

When it comes to the District Guardians, Abram artificially sped up a process that naturally would've occurred over a span of hundreds or thousands of iterations.

Eventually it would result in some people who were formerly Elsens not being Elsen or even humanoid. The same would also apply to the Zone Guardians in that The Judge (& Valerie. IK he's not a Guardian shh) and Japhet could become more humanoid.

Eventually, with so many little changes over the course of so many lifetimes, the resulting storybook would bear no resemblance to what it originally was.

The exact same number of pages between the covers, yet everything is different.

The story of Theseus.

So yes, Abram is Satan is entropy. The individual known as Abram is a force of change in his most fundamental form.

Is entropy the enemy of meaning, or the very condition that makes meaning possible?

The story of entropy is the story of resistance and surrender, of the impossible struggle to hold form in a world that forever seeks to lose it. To understand it is to see the universe as it truly is — not static, but unfolding; not decaying, but transforming. Entropy is not a symbol of death. It is the movement that allows everything to happen — the heartbeat of change itself.

(source)

And that brings me back to this: "humankind's divided nature of being earthly yet separated from nature." Even presently, they are separated from nature due to the transgression of undoing death, but as described above, there exists the extrapolation that the act of endlessly reviving the dead would occur, rather than let them rest due to no one being capable of producing biological offspring.

The only way that would be prevented would be that Gaius' technology involving creating life from almost nothing— something that only a being with near the level of power as Hugo could accomplish— became more widespread and there'd for the first time prior to the end of the world and the beginning of this story, be children among the world. More than just two. As Sincere Deceit seems to imply based on not including Adam in any instance of Malachi, Jadon, and Gaius being stated as their souls having been pulled from the void, Adam's soul is not from the void and is instead completely new. The same applies to Delilah.

On a tangential note, Adam's and Delilah's very existences are at conflict with the story, for they aren't overwrites of any previously existing information, but are new information that has been added. This is looks to be a contradiction to my statement earlier that new pages can't be added, but that remains true, they can't. Adam and Delilah are akin to a person getting their hands on a storybook and putting a sticky note or a loose leaf sheet of paper with their own original addition to the story and slotting it in. Tacking on something not bound within the finished book penned by the author is not a true part of the book. It's one thing to whiteout existing sections and rewrite them, and another to ~haphazardly~ slot in some random notebook paper or sticky note between the pages and pretend it's authentic and no different than the printed pages.

It's foreign to the book. It doesn't belong there.

Perhaps their fates, interpreting the meta as informing the in-universe, make sense then.

The former, cursed and devolved into a near-mindless beast in ceaseless unfathomable agony, incapable of articulating its desire for death. The latter, scrubbed from the world almost entirely where the only traces of her having once existed at all are mentions of a sister; lines that went overlooked and now allude of a ghost, of someone that once was.

As punishment or just passive consequence for "butting in" (for lack of figuring out a better descriptor) to a story with all its beats and characters defined and published with no room for any new pages or characters without whiting out existing passages and writing in something else, they defy this established, fixed reality and must be corrected.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Reality is not a closed system decaying into stillness, but a continuous becoming. Entropy, from this view, is not a sentence of death but a measure of participation — the way each moment dissolves into the next. The universe, like a symphony, cannot exist without the fading of its notes. The loss of structure is the condition of new creation.

How unfortunate that this was squandered. If only. But alas, nothing will remain.

From this perspective, the second law of thermodynamics becomes a universal metaphor for the condition of existence. No living being, no thought, no culture is isolated. Every act of creation increases the world’s total disorder elsewhere. Every moment of understanding consumes energy, every memory fades. Entropy, then, is not merely the degradation of energy; it is the cost of meaning. It is the price the universe pays for consciousness. Without entropy, there would be no time, no evolution, no change — only the frozen perfection of Parmenides’ Being, timeless and sterile.

Because of course, if Abram represents change and change is entropy, then Zaphkiel, in his aspiration for perfection (a blue world...), would be the lack of entropy. The lack of the world's natural inclination to disorder. The lack of endless transformation from life to death to life, to the rise and fall of civilizations, the passing of seasons. A sterile, timeless, frozen perfection.

And yet, even as entropy defines the direction of all processes, it does not dictate despair. Within its dominion, order is not forbidden; it is made possible. The very laws that lead to decay also make room for islands of structure, complexity, and life. The galaxies spin, the stars ignite, the cells divide, the minds think — all because the universe is not perfectly closed, because energy can still flow, because perfection is impossible. The failure of isolation is the triumph of existence.

[atrophiedentropy]

There's something I've ruminated on over the course of several months but never truly pinned down until recently. To start, the origin of this speculation lies in me being someone who searches for any and all information regarding Sincere Deceit and Find Me no matter how outdated or rendered non-canon. Tzalmavet's blog was of course the first place I checked given I once followed them specifically for Find Me art, so I looked through both their Sincere Deceit and Find Me tags for art and lore. In doing this, I came across this post in particular that details the anatomy and coloration of the District Guardians. Since this was back during the days of Find Me there was basically no information on Adam, but what is stated is of interest.

Back when I first read that post I thought nothing of it. It wasn't until several months later that I read it again with my more recent knowledge of SinDec (having done a lot of analysis by that point) and the statement of Adam's transformation into a snake being "unknown if it's caused by the Corruption or something else" stuck out to me.

Now as for Warden… Warden is still largely a mystery.  I can’t really show you most of the sprites for him, because they’re WIPs and also spoilery.  He’s gradually turning into a giant snake, but as of now it’s unknown if this is due to the corruption or other forces.

In hindsight, this ambiguity could've been hinting at the Machine/Grand Chocolatier that he ingests in the attempt to become a god— or even that it was a combination of the Corruption and his act of hubris. But as I thought on this statement that just struck me as odd, I concluded the phrasing of him being said to be "gradually turning into a giant snake" as something that was happening to him by default (or was planned to have been what was happening to him prior to his character being changed). This is very peculiar, because while such a thing was scrapped come Sincere Deceit, the possibility that his initial character was conceived as him slowly transforming into a snake by default than it be done in one burst like what happens in the "save Magdalene" branch of the Crossroads, caused me to place more emphasis on Tzalmavet stating it was unknown if the cause was the Corruption or other forces. Again, the latter part could've been obfuscation that it was the Corruption, or that the "other forces" was his act of hubris— or even that it was a combination of factors— but to me the stating of him gradually becoming more snake-like when in Sincere Deceit we know he's already as reptilian as he is because of the Corruption, would seem to mean that the Corruption wasn't the (sole) cause for his transforming into a "giant snake" back then.

Supposing this is the case, it made the "or other forces" part come across as less trying to obfuscate the truth while basically having it in plain sight, and more me suspecting that Tzalmavet remarking on this unknown was genuine; that it's not cheekily knowing but feigning uncertainty, but genuinely not knowing but just conveying the information they had. It is unknown if it's because of the Corruption or other forces. I'm not good at explaining it, but the way it's phrased feels more like it's suggestive that either could genuinely be the case. Building off of this interpretation, that then made me wonder what these "other forces" could've been for Adam to just... gradually transform into a snake and it not be because of the Corruption. That perplexed and intrigued me; such a concept was more interesting to think on and solving the mystery of than the obvious and simple explanation of "it was because of the Corruption". It was food for thought. Enrichment, I guess. By around that point, having seen as much Find Me Adam art as I was able to happen upon, I noticed basically all art of him back then— especially colored art— depicted his tail without the eyes. In fact, in colored art, what red was on his tail were just markings (though that could've been stylistic choice) rather than the red eyes of the Corruption (basically like this).

Given no official art of him was posted back then (or at least as far as I've found), I only had fanart to go off of in what his Find Me design was like. Consistency was key— and while colored art of him that had red on his tail was minimal, said red not being eyes had me wondering if that was his actual design or some artists were told a vague description of his coloration and that he "had red spots on his tail" and they took it literally. Most art of him back then that had color (and wasn't a silhouette) actually lacked the red spots and his tail was pure grey.

While I know basing speculation like this on the grounds of fanart is shaky at best and is obviously prone to the respective artist's interpretation of a character or their personal stylization causing them to not depict said character as they canonically are (where the red spots may have actually been eyes but incredibly simple ones that I misinterpreted as spots but I don't know), it nonetheless made me think more on what Tzalmavet said regarding Adam's gradual transforming into a giant snake. With old art of him lacking the eyes on his tail and even the proposed possibility him becoming serpentine not being because of the Corruption (and actually couldn't have been because of the Machine because back then the Machine being tainted is what caused the Corruption in the first place), then what was causing Adam's transformation would've had to have been something innate. Something going on with him just as he is, unaltered, that could've caused this transformation that the Corruption just made worse (both in intensity and manifestation).

With this thought, I then wondered how that could be the case. Sincere Deceit exists in a hypertextual relationship with Find Me, as information from the former can serve to explain or make known what may've been planned back then. Considering this, I thought on Adam's lore as he is known in Sincere Deceit and the only thing that stuck out to me that could retroactively explain this notion— that his transforming into a serpent was something caused by what he naturally is than having been Corrupted— was the claim in his log that absorption of power from a Grand Item causes physical mutations.

Taking what I was considering about the nature of Find Me Adam's transforming to be true, that would further affirm Gaius' claim about this (as we see Adam during the events of the Truth, he already has fangs and claws. Even his spirit in the Sincere Intentions ending has claws, meaning that they aren't just long nails or something caused by the Corruption because Malachi's hands no longer have claws).

That would retroactively mean that back then, the nature of Adam's birth and its resulting mutations upon him were going to be more severe and have been what caused him to become snake-like but being Corrupted exacerbated it. Come Sincere Deceit, this was dialed back to not being as severe such that the only mutations we see of him as of Sincere Intentions are just claws (and presumably fangs given his spirit looks to depict him as he was during the Truth, prior to having been Corrupted), and that his mutations are not the primary reason for his serpentine appearance, but the Corruption is.

At that point, I deemed this mystery solved and thought it neat that once upon a time his appearance as we see him in the Prison was originally not because of the Corruption but just because of what he was. I even concluded that with enough time (Sincere Deceit Adam post-Corruption but without empowerment from the Grand Chocolatier) he'd probably have turned into something like a sphinx but a skink instead of a cat. And also giant. Giant skink but his face and hair remain unchanged and he still remains cognizant and in control of his actions.

But it wasn't until I began cross-posting my analyses to my OFF fangame blog (which is basically just a Sincere Deceit blog right now) that when I was working through Abram's analysis and reread the part about the Black Serpent's side head growth resembling Jeska for some reason, it caused me to again wonder about why that is. Given the rest of the contents of that analysis regarding the Bad Batter growths and the ways the Corruption affects people in contrast to what it is, the Black Serpent is a major outlier in his side head growth not actually resembling the Bad Batter or some crocodilian thing. The closest entity it looks to resemble is Jeska, whom of which is a vulpine ghoul. Vulpines are a tribe of the subfamily caninae which is part of the family canidae aka canids; dogs.

With the symptoms of the Corruption consistently warping people into either cursed fleshy abominations and/or into something serpentine/reptilian, the manifestation of one of the symptoms that crops up in the most severe cases of Corruption very notably not being reptilian but instead mammalian— on a being that is otherwise entirely reptilian no less— is striking. It's so dissonant from not just the entity who bears this anomalous manifestation of this symptom, but from every single other instance of this trait and the Corruption's focus on snakes/reptiles.

Sometimes a Guardians' own power can influence the way Corruption manifests. Such an example would be the hidden Dusk in Impure Zone 2's amusement park and the Obtuse burnts (I'm counting them because all Elsens in the Zones are Corrupted which inherently influences how they burn).

The Corruption is influenced by Japhet as Guardian of this Zone and thus manifests as avian-like than the usual serpentine/reptilian way. Even discounting the Obtuse burnt, the hidden Dusk is still a perfectly valid example of this.

So in the context of the Black Serpent, this would suggest his power as a Guardian or what he himself is is strong enough to influence how the Corruption manifests. Though it's peculiar that this influence only manifests in that one concentrated area out of the entire rest of him being warped by the Corruption as it usually manifests. Why only that spot? Why does that differing manifestation exist at all? That I cannot discern, but aside from that, following the logic of either Adam's power as a Guardian, or even what he is being what influenced the Corruption into manifesting what should've been a crocodilian-looking Bad Batter head growth into something more mammalian ghoul-like, has interesting implications. Because if this is the case, that serves to open speculation as to how exactly the Corruption is interacting with Adam on the metaphysical level and why his Corruption is different from basically everyone else's whom either go mad from hearing Abram in their heads and his overall influence— their bodies breaking down (rotting or literally melting)— or become mindless and hostile from the pain.

Unlike basically everyone else, he is Corrupted yet maintains perfect lucidity and self-control. Vader Eloha is basically the opposite of him in how she was Corrupted in that her autonomy was completely revoked and she's been rendered a twisted mockery of what she once was with fleshy growths coming from the gaping hole where her face once was and tendrils protruding from her body. If anything, Adam's Corruption seems to harmonize with him.

For others that have been Corrupted, their bodies are forcibly contorted with black tendrils dotted with red eyes protruding from their mouths, eyes, or outright bursting out of the afflicted's body.

It's only in the late stages of infection that the individual's body either melts (typically fusing them to other entities as horrific amalgamations), becomes overgrown with raw flesh, they become skinned, large eyes with light-colored irises manifest as mutated and conjoined, large toothy grins manifest, and/or the very Corruption within them rots.

Taking a step back, Adam was Corrupted directly by Abram via being slashed in the face. Vader Eloha too, was Corrupted directly by him, but it's possible her Corruption was more severe due to taking the brunt of Abram's original rage and desire to kill Zaphkiel which Adam avoided since he didn't end up the accidental target of unbridled vitriol at its most potent— or that her Corruption was more severe because Abram Corrupted her as much as possible to get at Zaphkiel and to specifically use her as a pawn against him, which Adam didn't have the misfortune of suffering. Or a combination of those factors could be why Vader ended up worse than Adam despite them both having been Corrupted directly by the source.

But who knows.

Regardless, Adam is still unique in that he remains perfectly in control of his actions unlike the other three District Guardians (though Jadon's Corruption is slightly different in that it does exist as a distinct entity in its own right whose presence causes its host immense stress and drives him into behavior he wouldn't do if he didn't feel like he was constantly held at gunpoint. That is to say, he isn't being "brainwashed" by Pazuzu but instead is pressured into cruel, uncharacteristic behavior— unlike Malachi being gradually absorbed by Daedalus and Gaius' Corruption being so severe it temporarily overwhelms his mind and takes control of him. However, Jadon himself as separate from any possibility of being pressured by Pazuzu does take delight in overriding people's agency and altering them into man-sized puppets. Jadon and Pazuzu are distinct, but the former's Corruption was instigated by the latter, and that Corruption itself still influences him).

If the reason for this doesn't have to do with his and Vader's Corruption types being special in a vaccum, or his Corruption being less severe than hers due to having not taken the brunt of Abram's wrath, then it would have to be because of how the Corruption interacts with him on a metaphysical level. Which would mean that metaphysically (or otherwise(?). Genetically?) he is different from everyone else and in such a way that causes the Corruption to meld with his body in a surprisingly cohesive manner than what it does to all others. Like the Corruption interacting with all other living beings is like trying to force an object into a too small space where the space, if the object is finally forced in, becomes damaged. Or trying to bend something too rigid where the pressure applied breaks it.

But for Adam, he appears to be more pliable; not be as metaphysically defined with hyper-specific parameters as other people and as a result the Corruption doesn't have to squeeze into a space that simply cannot fit it— it doesn't end up breaking him from the applied pressure and he instead bends from it.

Adam is more metaphysically fluid than other beings— malleable— and this results in the only instance of the Corruption working with a person's body than forcing it to do something that it simply cannot.

And what could be the cause of this metaphysical plasticity? I worked backwards from this, but given the Jeska-like growth coming from the Black Serpent, and given my knowledge that the Corruption manifests in the Guardians (at least) in a cruelly ironic way but also exacerbates problems they already had (Dedan becoming more stressed and angry from the encroaching Corruption which ends up being his undoing. In the event of not being getting killed by The Batter, he devolves to a mindless shambling humanoid— as is what one would consider the logical end of being so consumed by anger you cease thinking and only act. Japhet's sorrow and bitterness from being forgotten is exacerbated until he's willing to do anything to regain his former glory, including surrendering his very mind to the Corruption. Enoch doubles down on ignoring the plights of his people. Malachi ends up isolating himself further following donning the head of Daedalus. Jadon's desire to amuse and what he considers amusing become exaggerated to a disgusting level. Gaius' desire to create life becomes more selfish and unethical in execution. And Adam who was already mutating into something inhuman further mutated and was definitively no longer considered a person. The Judge... his grief is what made him susceptible to the Corruption and following it being intensely exacerbated by Adam, he completely gives up (Hence. Nothing remains)), I speculated that the manifestation of a canid head growth (specifically a canid, like the J-named ghouls— something highly peculiar) was an exaggeration of Adam's physical mutations and the kinds of mutations he was prone to experiencing.

Him experiencing mutations that make him more ghoul-like (as per Dismal's word, he was deemed a failure due to being considered more "ghoul than 'person'") may be what the Corruption ends up exaggerating come his worsening to the extent of the Black Serpent.

So while for the most part it superseded the nature of Adam's metaphysical existence and turned him into a serpent like it typically manifests as— i.e the serpentine Dusks and Morris (former being half what the Corruption is as having absorbed some of Zaphkiel's data and manifesting based on Abram as being a person (where the cracked white shell comes from) and half what the Corruption is in its base form (just a faceless entity that poisons), and the latter being a combination of the former that's more harmonized)— it would seem part of him is still strong enough to influence the way the Corruption manifests and it results in the ghoul aspect of his existence being exaggerated and twisted than completely smothered.

But if this is the case, then what does that say about the nature of Adam's mutations into something progressively ghoul-like as time goes on without having been influenced by the Corruption? Because isn't it peculiar that the head growth bears marked resemblance to Jeska? A canid ghoul like Jericho and Jabbok— ghouls and ghoul-spectre hybrids Gaius created? And the Jahdos, Jaala, and Judas created by Roland utilizing the methods Gaius used in creating Jeska and Jericho? All of them are canids, taxonomically related to canids, or resemble canids indirectly (in the case of Jaala being of the genus "mesonyx" which is described as wolf-like while a model reconstruction of it looks like a cross between a wolf and a fox). There is a running theme of the majority of ghouls Gaius created through selective breeding and experimentation being specifically dogs, dog-adjacent, or resemble dogs.

(How cruelly fitting then Adam has a collar)

Taking this into consideration, given Adam pre-Corruption having prominent fangs and claws, it's possible his mutations weren't a generic "bestial" transformation or that he was by default becoming snake-like as time went on and the Corruption exacerbated that (as one would assume given his past appearance can be taken as a more subdued form of how he looks during the events of SinDec proper), but that he was actually becoming more canid-like over time and that due to his metaphysical plasticity from being made using sugar (the ashes of the dead that are only tangentially related to what they once were much in the same way plastic is to dinosaurs), ectoplasm, and the power of a Grand Item (Divine power), the Corruption steered the direction his ghoul-like mutations would take and how they'd manifest. Perhaps he was originally going to become more canid-like but the Corruption influenced it into something snake-like. That this aspect of his existence was so free-form that the Corruption could mostly integrate itself into him without resulting in his body breaking down and instead adapted to it.

That is, until he swallowed the powered up Grand Chocolatier and completely threw off the metaphysical balance of his existence. This imbalance caused the Corruption to apply far more pressure than he could handle and faster than he could adapt to. Having grown too big for the space it resided in within the fluidity of his mutations to withstand, he broke just like the rest.

Anyway, taking this present theory, it would mean Adam's acclimation of snake-like attributes was changed from Find Me. Fundamentally so. I already said that one would probably take Find Me Adam's transformation into a snake as being because of what he innately is to this having been toned down in Sincere Deceit and made not the sole reason this was happening to him, but the possible truth of the matter was that his mutations weren't even making him snake-like at all— a complete change from Find Me. More accurately, I said his mutations were toned down, I did not specify the manner in which those mutations manifest, but a person reading would likely assume I meant SinDec's Adam's mutations as being a revision from Find Me's more severe snake-like mutations. That is still a valid interpretation, as without Word of God to clarify exactly what was going on with Adam in Find Me and how he was changed in Sincere Deceit, my extrapolation of why the Black Serpent has that one peculiarity about him is just as valid.

However, I feel it is very fitting that the manner in which Adam was becoming more ghoul-like matches the J-named ghouls— all of which are products of Gaius, or were even able to be made because of Gaius' and Margaret's efforts. Also the collar. I already compared him to a belled cat.

And I also already stated the Corruption is both cruelly ironic and exaggerative of the Guardians' qualities. How cruel to twist a man who spoke the truth into the semblance most associated with duplicity. How it exaggerates the already present growing inhumanity in him to the point that when he gives in to becoming the monster he was always viewed as, he is referred to as an animal than by name.

...How cruel yet fitting to redirect the animal his mutations would've had him resemble into one that while synonymous, bears far more negative associations.

The head growth resembles Jeska. A fox. Foxes are associated with trickery, deceit, slyness, cunning, and their vocalizations are oft confused as belonging to a human if you don't know where the source of the sound is coming from.

...They are also associated with adaptability and a symbol of transformation.

Foreshadowing.

It is possible that had Adam never been Corrupted he still would've grown a tail and the anatomical structure of his feet and legs change to a point where he could no longer wear shoes, it's just that the resulting anatomical changes would've resembled Jeska and Jericho (though given his feet also have claws, I don't think they'd turn into the weird hooves the J ghouls have— or the reptilian legs of Jaala (which are only like that because of the snake & reptile theming of the Prison which it only has because of Adam's appearance as influenced by the Corruption). Judas doesn't count since his limbs are cybernetic prostheses so it's unknown if his original limbs were also anatomically like that).

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However, there is an alternate possibility for why the Black Serpent's head growth resembles Jeska than be reptilian like it should be, and that's that, since the Corruption exaggerates preexisting aspects to the extreme, it's possible that the manifested head growth being ghoul-like and resembling that of a fox as being the exaggeration of Adam's ghoul-like mutations themselves. An exaggeration of that aspect of him in a vacuum rather than in tandem with the rest of his being. That perhaps his physical mutations weren't taken control of and redirected by the Corruption from something specifically canid/vulpine-like to serpentine, but that his mutations were more generically bestial. That with them being more generic, they could manifest in any conceivable way, and while the Corruption did indeed still take control of it, rather than redirect something predetermined, it was a funneling of that abstract into something specific. However, that metaphysical aspect of Adam persists, and while for the most part the funneling of his mutations itself was exaggerated in the form of the Basilisk and Black Serpent, the abstract of "ghoul-like transformation" was also exaggerated, thus resulting in some random fox-like growth from his body.

Following this interpretation to its logical conclusion, that would mean if his Corruption were left to fester even longer (and the world wasn't about to end in mere hours), that even more ghoul-like/animalian growths or changes would crop up.

Maybe he'd sprout random cow legs, or maybe grow wings or fish fins. A manticore, a chimera, a griffon, a cetus, a hippogriff. With enough time he'd become a hulking unrecognizable mishmash of creatures. Flesh and tissue multiplying endlessly; extensively. Limbs and feathers and gills and hooves and horns; legs from the eyes of a cow, beaks from the mouths of fish, a lion's tail from the paws of a dog protruding from the head of a horse from— An existence turned cancerous and bloated upon itself, mutations compounding upon mutations, spanning into infinity. Far, far too many mouths and an unfathomable number of eyes all existing as part of this mountain of Meat with a burning yellow sun at the center of it all. Flesh constantly melting and growing and melting and growing, endlessly stretching towards that which it seeks to be; to replace. A hydra of agony.

Whatever of him that may have existed in the Black Serpent is long gone.

Nothing remains.

Nothing remains.

Its existence alone even without Abram is enough to Corrupt the world into oblivion.

And if not that, it will consume and consume until naught is left but itself. And then it will consume even that.

And then nothing will remain.

The End is inevitable.