So I’ve been thinking about Transistor’s Recursion ability
and how it makes any sense in-game. Like, okay, it's for replayability, but what's the excuse? And what exactly is going on?
Spoilers below!
Why “recursion”? I’ve mostly heard the word in the context of a recursive loop, and with all the other programming references, that's a connection they must expect us to draw.
A glitch in programming which traps you in repeating the same events. Looking for an end condition, some change in what's led you here, that will never come.
Supergiant played with this in Bastion too...
Who’s the one recursing?
“We’re not gonna get away with this, are we, Red?” The words themselves don’t change, but the speaker does – one of very few things to change between playthroughs.
But why would Royce talk about Red as a compatriot? She fought him and his plans every step of the way and ultimately left him for dead in the Transistor. He might have a motive to try the game again, if he was hoping to get the Transistor back and fix the Process problem before Red screwed it up, but it looks like the Transistor can’t go back any further than the sign-in of its last user. Once that was made clear, he’d have no reason to try again... so anything beyond the first recursion shouldn’t happen. Royce being the one to recurse makes no sense.
Red?
Red shows no signs of being aware anything’s changed at all. If we consider her an extension of the player, she is the one to “decide” to recurse (we’re the ones who press that button), but she doesn’t have any motive. She seems pretty happy with having her voice and bf back in the Country last we saw, and that doesn’t match up with the ominous orange digital corruptions that herald the recursion option.
But if we’re looking at those corruptions, they’re the same color as the triangle on the back of Swordguy’s jacket... which, coincidentally, is the last thing besides those corruptions we can see on screen.
And those corruptions are definitely digital – forming a sort of “screen” on top of the idyllic imagery of the Country, as if to lock it in digital memory.
Swordguy/the Transistor presumably has the power to recurse, being more or less omnipotent, and definitely has a motive. Sure, he sounded a lot calmer in the Country than he did when Red saw him last, but how real is any of that?
If the vision we get of the Country is a happy thought in Red’s last moments, that means Swordguy is kinda just. sitting there. He can’t even hope for someone else to pick him up, since everyone is dead. I’d want to try again, too.
The triangle on Swordguy’s jacket has always been firmly yellow/gold before this moment, whereas the eye in the Transistor’s center (like the Camerata, like the Process) is firmly red. If we accept that red + yellow = orange, it could be a sign that Swordguy isn’t fully himself here/isn’t acting alone.
Alternatively, the corruptions look like they’re about the same color as the background in the Limiter tab – the one with all of Royce’s notes on the Process. It could be a sign the Transistor is leaning more into Royce’s influence in Red’s absence. (More on that later.)
Even if Swordguy himself was willing to move on, how much of his fondness made it into the Transistor itself? We know the Process has a weird attachment to Red. It’s possible the Transistor itself decided not to let go.
If it’s Swordguy/the Transistor recursing, why does the person at the beginning sound like Royce?
Royce has a lot of influence on the Transistor, actually.
He’s the one who found it... unless, as he implies, it chose him for some reason. Either way, they’re linked.
He’s been in and out of the Transistor at least once before the events of the game
He did a bunch of other research on it, too
His Trace is the only main character’s you can get without ever seeing his body
The Transistor likes him enough to... give him a version of itself when he and Red are both trapped in there? I have no idea how to make sense of that fight tbh
(What did putting it in the cradle actually do. Why did Red end up in it. How did Red end up in it. Why and how did Royce end up in it. Why are there two Transistors. Why are there more than two Transistors [in the background]. How come Red can leave but Swordguy can’t. Is it cause Red isn’t dead? yet What is going on)
Let’s just say he’s the only other character able to use Turn(), for simplicity’s sake
He’s the one who wrote all the files on the Process (in the Limiter tab)
And there’s precedent for Swordguy sounding like Royce.
When he gets woozy the first time you meet the Spine, his speech patterns change... they start to change, a lot, actually. They change quite a bit. Until he starts sounding like someone else we know. A fun guy! Quite a cool, fun guy.
Why only at the end?
Royce says something to the extent that Swordguy is a ghost of a ghost. A particularly strong-willed ghost, clinging desperately to the last vestiges of existence through his love for Red.
Near the Spine, he says it feels like Red is “farther away” or harder to sense somehow. So when Red is more distant, he... starts talking like Royce.
Hard to get much further away than the Country.
TL;DR: Recursion is Swordguy and/or the Transistor looping his/their/its memory of the game’s events, searching futilely for a way to save Red.
