#kel character analysis | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hero-deserves-to-be-happy · 1 month

Text

Let Kel Be Sad: An Analysis on Kel’s struggles to express his negative emotions

Like Hero, Kel is also a “fixer”—he would bend over backwards to solve his friends' problems and stop the world if it would make them happy again, and both him and his brother are such big hearted and generous people who would much rather be the emotional support for others rather than talk about their own problems and make a situation about themselves and their feelings. For Hero, this often involves burying his own feelings and faking happiness, but I don’t think it necessarily means this for Kel, even if he struggles to express his negative emotions.

To me, Kel’s happiness and positivity is genuine, but he dismisses, discounts, and often runs from his sadness when he does experience it.

Let's discuss under the cut.

[Mod Sprinkles made the joke that in another universe I (mod Acacia) would also run a blog called "Let Kel Be Sad" so here are some Kel thoughts. Thanks for indulging my ramblings! 🧡]

Disclaimer: These are just my personal opinions, perceptions, and headcanons about Kel (and Hero). There are a lot of ways his character can be interpreted, and one of the great things about fandom is getting to see different points of view and differing interpretations of characters we all know and love. I know I speak for both Sprinkles and myself when I say we have a lot of respect for that, and for that reason, I want to be upfront that, while I do genuinely believe Kel struggles expressing negative emotions (thus the "Let Kel Be Sad" title), I don't personally view Kel as someone whose happiness is "fake" in the same way as Hero's. I can see the appeal of this interpretation and can understand why people interpret his character in this way, but it personally does not vibe with my personal interpretations, perceptions, and headcanons of Kel and his character, so if you perceive/headcanon Kel in that way, this post probably won't be your cup of tea. Please keep that in mind.

Warnings: OMORI Spoilers and discussion of game-relevant heavier topics such death, trauma, and grief.

Kel wears his heart on his sleeve, but this doesn't mean that he is shallow. He is a big-hearted, deeply empathetic, and incredibly loyal friend, and it cannot be stated enough that one of Kel’s biggest strengths is his ability to use his natural positivity and resilience to lift up those around him. He’s really the hero of the game because none of the healing would have been possible if he hadn’t continued to believe in his friends even after all of this time, hadn’t encouraged them, and hadn’t built them up just by being Kel.

And while I do think Kel does struggle to express vulnerabilities and negative emotions, I don't personally think of Kel's unwavering optimism as a mask. In my mind, Kel is not an emotional repressor or burier in the same way as Hero. In fact, because he wears his heart on his sleeve, he would probably really struggle to fake an emotion he wasn’t feeling (even if it was something positive like happiness). If Kel doesn’t want to express an emotion, I imagine he runs from it and avoids it, since it’s not natural or easy for him to “replace” or “bury” it with a fake one. Whereas Hero is much more reserved and private about his feelings, no matter what they are, so it’s much easier for him to convincingly mask pain and suffering under layers and layers of fake happiness. I just don’t think Kel would be able to hold back those emotions for very long. His negative feelings would eventually just kind of explode out of him without thinking and/or they’d become so apparent from his expressions and/or actions (since he does wear his heart on his sleeve) and everyone (including the player of the game) would know that he had so much negativity under the surface.

This isn't to say that Kel is perfectly fine. He isn't. He has suffered a terrible loss just like everyone else, but I think the game makes it clear that Kel has the most acceptance surrounding Mari's death and that he has made peace with what happened more so than the other main characters. Please keep in mind that this is only relative to the other main cast. Kel may seem "well-adjusted" in comparison to his brother and his friends who are, quite frankly, barely keeping it together, but he would not necessarily be considered well-adjusted in comparison to the non-traumatized townies. I genuinely believe that Kel is still in the process of healing, but relative to the other main cast members, he is farther along in that journey than they are.

And in that way, the game doesn't really give us a moment where Kel is overwhelmed by grief in the same way as the rest of the characters. Yes, there is the scene (one of my personal favorites) where Kel shares about his fight with Hero, and it is incredibly vulnerable and gives a lot of subtly and nuance to his character, but I don't think it's necessarily evidence that the player can't accept Kel as he presents himself to us at face value in the way that we can't accept Hero as he presents himself to us at face value. As I recently discussed in this post, the scene where Sunny finds Hero crying alone at Mari’s piano on the night of "Two Days Left" tells the player that Hero's attempts to appear well-adjusted and "fine" are, at least to a certain extent, all for show. There isn’t a Kel equivalent of this scene which, I personally think, is meant to tell the player of the game that Kel is the most well-adjusted member of his friend group (key words here being "of his friend group") and the one who has the most acceptance surrounding Mari’s death. Additionally, Mod Sprinkles actually made the point that Sunny is extremely perceptive and sensitive to his friends’ feelings and emotions. If Kel was still harboring a lot of negativity surrounding Mari’s death, Sunny likely would have picked up on that and been more hesitant to go outside with him in the first place.

This isn’t to say that Kel doesn’t ever have any negative feelings and that he doesn’t struggle to express those sometimes, but I think this struggle to express “the bad stuff” doesn’t stem from a pressure he feels to be happy all the time. That said, I do wonder sometimes if he is a little scared of feeling sad. He wants to be happy and wants everyone around him to be happy, and I think there is this certain helplessness that he feels when he can’t cheer other people up. We see a little glimpse of that in his account of his & Hero’s fight after Mari’s death. I think watching someone he loved so much go through such a deep and debilitating depression at such a young age probably permanently affected him, and he might have some worries about getting “stuck” like his brother, wallowing in that sadness and grief if he allows himself to feel it.

However, this is an unwarranted fear because Kel and Hero are very different. Even though Kel might feel sad, and his feelings are absolutely valid, I don’t think he’s prone to that level of despair and depression that we see in Hero. Understanding that his experiences and emotional responses are different than his brother’s is a big part of growing up so it might take him a while to realize this, and in the meantime, I could see it possibly manifesting itself as a sort of avoidance of sadness.

Everyone grieves differently. This is a difficult concept for even adults to understand, so I can't imagine how hard it would be for a 12-year-old like Kel. Because Kel didn't grieve Mari in the same way as Hero or his friends and didn’t spiral into the same level of despair and depression as the others, I think he struggles with invalidating his own feelings to himself sometimes--writing them off as shallow and dismissing them to himself as "just not deep enough." Again, I think this goes back to the one (1) fight that Kel and Hero had. We don’t know exactly what they said to each other in that fight, but it’s my personal headcanon that Hero lashed out at Kel for “not understanding” for he felt. From then on, I think Kel really does struggle with this fear that he just doesn’t understand emotions and because of that, any attempts to help his hurting loved ones will only make everything worse.

I’d really like to see him reach a place in which he can accept that even if his feelings and his grief are different and perhaps not as lingeringly overwhelming as the others', that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have them and that doesn’t mean he didn’t care about Mari or his friends. In my mind, Kel’s hesitation and worry at expressing his negative feelings and his happy-go-lucky personality can both exist at the same time. I don't think they are mutually exclusive, and I tend to think of Kel as someone who naturally looks on the bright side of things and is genuinely optimistic and uplifting. To deny this feels like a disservice to (my personal perception of) Kel, but I think it is also a disservice to pretend he never feels sadness or any negative feelings at all. There has to be a balance.

Let Kel feel sad when he needs to but recognize that he doesn’t actually need to feel sad all that often.

#kel omori #omori kel #omori hero #hero omori #omori #omori meta #omori analysis #kel character analysis #hero character analysis #(at least a little bit)#omori spoilers #thanks for reading #hero loves his brother so we can talk about him here too i think

56 notes · View notes

lilac-gold · 6 months

Text

thinking about how one of kel's first lines is "man, aubrey always gets what she wants". thinking about how aubrey wanted to go see sweetheart's show for hearts, so hero took them all to sweetheart's show for hearts. thinking about how aubrey told molly not to touch omori, and she didn't again.

thinking about how all aubrey wanted was to keep her friend group together. thinking about how aubrey's clothes are too big in headspace, she only has one toy and in the real world, her house is a tip with her room almost bare. thinking about how aubrey wanted to keep the photos of mari and throw the rest in the bin, and how she put them back in the album after kel picked it out of the trash.

thinking about how sunny viewed her as a protector of his as a kid, someone who'd look for for him, and how the hooligans trust her to lead and look out for them, and how hero and mari were like older siblings to her when she was younger, and how aubrey's parents didn't look out for her. thinking about how aubrey is angry and insulted and violent and vengeful, and how she wants the girl she knew as a sister to come back. thinking about how she believes she wasn't enough for her old friends, for anyone. thinking about how little possessions she has, how she pushes away people who care about her, how she's viewed as a "bad kid" by the residents of faraway.

want is such a big theme with aubrey. in headspace, every one of hers is fulfilled. in the real world, we see almost none being.

#yeah so i have auby thoughts today #aubrey omori #kel omori #sunny omori #hero omori #mari omori #basil omori #omori analysis #omori real world #omori basil #omori game #omori headspace #omori sweetheart #omori hero #omori kel #omori #omori mari #omori sunny #omori character

764 notes · View notes

crowbasils · 9 months

Text

BASIL (OMORI) — A complete (for now) analysis

spoilers under the cut !! ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶

BASIL is actually more nuanced than the game makes him out to be, and has hid his emotions far before KEL has, and is as tragic, if not more tragic, as AUBREY is.

HIS CHILDHOOD （＾_＾）

Let’s start off before he met the friend group. As POLLY says in-game, his parents left him when he was a toddler, with his grandmother being the only one there for him. She also does note that she’s only ever seen them once.

…This is obviously something that affected BASIL’s life a lot. Being left with only one person—an old one at that. She cares, yes, but the thing is, we don’t know how she was like. All we get is old art, old concepts, but even then, it’s how SUNNY sees her. Maybe she was pretty strict, maybe she was someone that was lax but when upset, her punishments would be severe, traumatizing, even. Even then, despite the fact that he’s left with someone that cares for him, it’s still pretty bad. Why? Because he would realize that she isn’t his parent. That his grandmother isn’t his parent. And that realization hurts. He’s left to wonder why his parents left him. Why his parents abandoned, and neglected him. Why he seemed unwanted compared to others. Was it because they found him to be weak? Was it because they hated him? Was it because they had no time for him? We never know, and he really never did, either. It does not help that canon implies that there was no communication from him to his parents either.

This can actually cause children to feel like an alien. To feel like they are abnormal in comparison to others. To feel like they aren’t human. To feel that they can’t “connect” with society. They don’t know how to interact “properly” with people, because they can’t relate to other’s experiences. Because they have not experienced interacting much with people. Because they don’t know how to relate, they don’t interact much easily. Because they don’t know how to relate, their speech and manner of expression may not be up to standard. They don't know what a “parent’s love” is, a “mother’s love”, or what “love” is in general, because they weren’t exposed to that. This is, most probably, the case with BASIL. Even though he has a grandmother, it’s not really enough. It’s not enough, because it’s not his parents, it’s not the ones who gave birth to him. It’s not the ones who others would say “would love you unconditionally”. It’s not the ones who others would say “would love you the most”.

Considering that it’s his grandmother, BASIL might’ve actually had to tend to himself and mature faster than anyone did. His grandmother is old, and old people do have quite a lot of complications to deal with. Even if they’re healthy, they’re a bit fragile. He might’ve had to run errands for her, do house chores for her, and stuff like that. A grandmother isn’t the most reliable parental figure, because they could fall ill at any moment, they could die at any moment. He probably knows this, actually. If you take the hunter thing as canon, this does kind of add to the… y’know since he does have to see carcasses. We also don’t know if she’s actually nice. We don’t know if she was a good grandmother, we don’t know if she was a bad one either.

… Anyways. All that combined probably makes you think that BASIL would turn out to be a really sad and depressed kid. As in, something like post-incident SUNNY. But… surprisingly, he’s not. He’s happy, smiling, and if you look at the pre-incident art, more than SUNNY (although, SUNNY states that he doesn’t really like to smile in the traditional sense. BASIL sees right through him though, and knows if he’s smiling or not.). He’s smiling more than SUNNY, which admittedly, makes no sense if you take it as something that indicates “Oh!!! BASIL is happier than SUNNY and SUNNY pre-incident is traumatized!!!!” when you consider both of their childhoods. Which brings us to the next point…

THE INSIDE (PRE-INCIDENT) ( T_T)＼(^-^ )

While not specifically expressed in canon (SUNNY and OMORI aren’t reliable narrators and their views won’t always be accurate), it is pretty implied that he hides feelings. Probably the most obvious indicators of that would be the fact that he vents to SUNNY, and the existence of STRANGER (who is implied to be the parts of BASIL that Sunny finds “unpleasant” while also being a positive figure and guide to him. Not to say that he dislikes BASIL, but he pretty much has this black and white view when it comes to the world because yeah, he’s young and has experienced a lot less pre-incident) and some parts of BLACKSPACE.

He probably has hid more feelings than the game lets on. Maybe he thinks of himself as “inhuman” and feels “strange” compared to everyone because he can’t relate that well to their experiences with their parents and peers, and uses smiling and laughing as a way to cope and/or cover that. Maybe he thinks of himself as “less”, that sometimes, he feels empty, sad, and even angry, and that’s why he acts the way he does. He involves himself in the activities of the friend group, because he’s so scared of being left alone again. To avoid being forgotten and abandoned, he helps everyone and tries to be the reliable friend everyone needs. Maybe because he’s never been able to make a lot of human interaction, he is the way he is. Maybe, he even exaggerated some of his emotions, for a lack of a better word. He wants to get “in” to the moment, truly feel it for what it is, which leads to his emotions being a mix of genuine and a mix of a slight exaggeration. He feels joy and does feel genuinely happy, but he exaggerates it at times. To him, it will all be but a fleeting moment, and when time comes, the friend group will collapse. He values his relationships with the friend group more than anyone, because to him, they are his true family. He takes photos of them, because he’s afraid to lose them.

They say, “opposites attract”, correct? Then perhaps the reason why BASIL hangs out more with SUNNY, is because he is the very opposite to him, by technicality. SUNNY isn’t physically expressive with his emotions. SUNNY doesn’t smile, neither does he laugh a lot, but unlike him, But at the same time, SUNNY isn’t empty. SUNNY is so full of life. He is full of dreams, imagination, often good and fantastical. SUNNY has been around people who love and trust him his entire childhood, while BASIL hasn’t. SUNNY has been loved and cherished by everyone his entire childhood, but BASIL hasn’t. BASIL wasn’t as loved and cherished by everyone as SUNNY was. SUNNY had many people care for him before the friend group, while BASIL didn’t. SUNNY experienced parental love, but BASIL didn’t, and will never experience it. In his eyes, SUNNY is perfect, because he experienced what he cannot. Because he is loved by everyone. Because he is cherished, and treasured. He is what BASIL cannot be, and will not ever be. He is the “good person” he wishes to be, yet cannot be.

With that being said, BASIL probably does have trust and abandonment issues that he hid as well. His photo album can be a sign of that. Abandonment issues, caused by his parents leaving and the fact that his grandmother can fall ill / die at any moment, and trust issues caused by the abandonment issues. The photo album is also described as a collection of “things he is afraid to lose”.

He is also implied to be depressed and/or suicidal in a certain incident which will be addressed in the next section

“THE INCIDENT” ∑(ﾟДﾟ)

The incident is a major part of the OMORI story. It is the very thing that serves as the catalyst for all the events ingame. As for this section of the analysis, it will attempt to give a reason—but not excuse—as to why BASIL did what, and what it may imply when it comes to his character. As well as clearing common misconceptions on why a character did certain things and why the misconception is incorrect.

The question “Why did BASIL hang MARI?” is a question asked by a lot of people. The answer to that is… quite simple, and that is because he didn’t want SUNNY to get in trouble, and hated by everyone. “But he could’ve called the ambulance!!! Or even his parents!!!” That is true, but consider, he was in a stressful situation, and he didn’t even know what to do, as witnessing a death of a friend caused by another friend is a hard thing to take. This and the fact that the police and medical services in OMORI FARAWAY seem quite incompetent and/or lacking, considering how AUBREY was able to get away scot-free while having a bat with nails on it. Also, him hanging MARI does also implies that he knows how to tie a noose. While that can be excused as something that comes from gardening, the thing is that. he knows that it’s for suicide, which also in turn, implies that he knows how to commit it. Which is concerning, especially when you take into consideration that he’s a 12 year old, and that it’s pretty rare for a 12 year old to know that back in the time OMORI is implied to have taken place in. The internet also didn’t exist back then, which makes it pretty impossible for Basil to know what suicide is and how to do it unless he planned to do it himself.

A common yet popular misconception in the fandom is that he is the one who scribbled up the photo album, and to that I say, “No, he wasn’t.” It was SUNNY. SUNNY was the one who scribbled up the photos, and BASIL just took the blame so that he wouldn’t get in trouble and be hated by everyone. BASIL actually says that it was SUNNY in an earlier version of the dialogue before the BASIL fight. (SUNNY even takes a step back when the rest of the gang (minus BASIL) hugs AUBREY! Which is an indicator of at least something.

Another common yet popular misconception is that this is the only reason why BASIL is depressed/sad and that after the game, he’ll go back to being happy again, and to that I say, nope. Absolutely not. It’s not the only reason why BASIL is like that. Even if he healed from the trauma the incident has caused, a lot of his issues are still left unaddressed. The feelings from his grandmother dying, the worsened abandonment and trust issues, the strong yet not acknowledged and repressed feelings from AUBREY bullying him, the feelings from SUNNY leaving him, the feelings from… pretty much everyone leaving him are still there. Him also being suicidal and scared yet again to reunite, because he feels like it will dissolve even faster than before. He’s also still scared that they hate him, and even if they say they don’t, he feels like they’re lying and inside, they hate him and want him to die.

…Also, the incident is not completely BASIL’s fault. He wasn’t the reason why SUNNY shut himself in his room and became a shut-in / hikikomori. And while yes, his SOMETHING is in the shape of hanged MARI, SUNNY became a shut-in / hikikomori due to the guilt of killing Mari, and not because of BASIL hanging her. It’s not BASIL’s fault that SUNNY became a shut-in and that the group fell apart, because the group would’ve fallen apart anyway. It’s just that it’s no longer only SUNNY’s fault that the group did. And even if the hanging didn’t happen, the majority of the group wouldn’t be mature enough to understand the situation fully. We, as the players/readers understand it, because we have almost all of the pieces of the puzzle, but they won’t.

POST-INCIDENT, FARAWAY SECTION (¬_¬)

Before I’d like to start off this segment, what the fandom fails to acknowledge most of the time is that BASIL is 16. He’s not a crybaby. He’s not scared of everything. He’s not a scaredy-cat. Most of those assumptions come from the fandom’s inability to recognize that BASIL has suffered as much as SUNNY and AUBREY have. He is as pained and hurt as them. He was hurt and in pain because of them, too.

The first time we see BASIL, we see him asking for his photo album, but getting bullied and getting told “no” instead. This makes a pretty bad first impression to younger fans and illiterate fans, and because of that, he is often watered down into this “uwu coward soft boy who cries a lot”, which he isn’t. He may seem like it, but he isn’t. The second time we see BASIL, he is at the old hangout spot, and calling for help. This… actually does imply a lot of things, one of them being suicide. He might’ve came there to die in a place where he missed, to look at the place one last time before he would commit suicide, but he was stopped by the hooligans. which most likely bullied him (even though they say they didn’t). And the last time, the sleepover, he either kills himself, or stabs SUNNY in the eye due to hallucinations and stress.

The BASIL we see here, in Faraway, is a more broken version of BASIL. He still acts and hides feelings—or at least tries. It’s not as effective as before. One thing I’d like to point out is the fact that we never really actually see BASIL do anything connected to his past interests. While yes, his photo album being missing may be a part of it, he doesn’t really take photos anymore. We don’t see him taking care of his flowers, either. Maybe he could’ve lost interest in it, as a result of the incident. One POLLY line actually does say that he stopped taking care of his flowers completely at some point before the game.

BASIL probably doesn’t eat much. We don’t see BASIL eat the food in the time SUNNY and KEL were in his house. POLLY does state that he’s been going to the bathroom a lot, too.

That aside, let’s get deeper into it. BASIL, in faraway, is most likely at the lowest point of his life. He had to see his friends leave him one by one (even KEL! even HERO!), and have one bullying him. He no longer has an outlet for his extremely bottled up emotions. He doesn’t have anyone, and his grandmother fell ill as well. POLLY is also paid to be there for him too, which means she doesn’t really count as someone he has. She isn’t close to him, either. She isn’t as close to him as the fandom makes her out to be. She cares, yes. But she isn’t close to BASIL at all. She does say it as well

The reason behind why BASIL stabbed SUNNY’s eye was because he was hallucinating, and not because he actually wanted to stab SUNNY. He stabbed SUNNY’s eye because he thought his eye was a part of SOMETHING (that… he is implied to hallucinate heavier for whatever reason), and not SUNNY. Although, it’s not completely all because of that, it’s a key part of it. His repressed anger and hatred, him being genuinely upset, as well as his desire to protect SUNNY from SOMETHING—a thing that he genuinely and wholeheartedly believes is real and something that exists in reality—is also a part of it too. This part does not mean that BASIL put his selfish desires first, this does not mean that BASIL puts his desire to keep his best friend above SUNNY’s safety. This doesn’t mean that he’s only concerned with what SUNNY can do for him and not concerned with what is best for him. BASIL was going through a breakdown, so a lot of the things he says are in this confused state where he doesn’t know what he’s feeling, what is really happening, and isn’t thinking clearly. BASIL is not doing all this with a clear head and mind. Both the safety of SUNNY and not wanting SUNNY to leave are both on the forefront of his mind, it’s just that, because of the overwhelming stress and the fact that his thoughts aren’t that clear, his method and way of protecting SUNNY is a bit “confusing”. He cares, he cares for SUNNY’s safety, but in this context, the “normal” way of caring doesn’t apply, because the situation isn’t really normal to begin with. The part where he states that he’ll end both of their pains (by murder-suicide) is most likely out of stress, because his situation is extremely stressful, and it’s sad that nobody recognizes it.

He also does use toxic positivity, saying “Everything will be okay…” even if it won’t. It’s just… less recognized.

POST-INCIDENT RELATIONSHIPS & WHAT LIES BEYOND (・・?)

BASIL, post-incident, probably also does have a lot of hidden feelings as well. This time, feelings like anger and even hatred towards his friends, an intense and deeper emptiness, and a lot more worsened negative feelings are added to it.

BASIL still thinks of himself as “weird” compared to everyone else in the friend group, especially after the incident. He feels inhuman, even worse now because if people knew what he did, he knows that they would think of him as a monster and someone unforgivable. He knows now that what he did could be considered inhuman, and feels regret for it. His problems have been intensified, his mental health took a nosedive, and so much more.

With that being said, deep down, maybe he did resent SUNNY. For leaving him when they promised that they would be there for each other. For leaving for 4 years and making him bear the brunt of the judgment. For leaving him when he needed help the most. For leaving him and letting him take fault for something he did (blacking out the photos). But he can’t help but still love him through all of that, whether you take it platonically or romantically. They are tied by a string of fate, they will find each other no matter what, and will try to forgive themselves and each other. The path to recovery is laid with hardships, and complicated feelings. BASIL and SUNNY are each other’s weakness, but each other’s reasons for going on. SUNNY’s desire to save HEADSPACE BASIL that carried on to the FARAWAY BASIL, and BASIL’s desire to see SUNNY again, if only for a while. It is not only KEL who helped SUNNY stay alive, but BASIL as well. Even if BASIL thinks that he’s too far gone to be found, if he’s someone who cannot be helped anymore, SUNNY still tries to help him. SUNNY wants to help him. It is not BASIL that forces him to, but SUNNY’s own desire. BASIL doesn’t force him to, he asks him to, but not force him. SUNNY is doing it on his own accord, because he wants to help BASIL. BASIL understands SUNNY, and SUNNY understands BASIL, both on a much deeper level than anyone else. They have hurt each other, yes, but everyone in the group has hurt each other at some point. They are each other’s triggers, but they are also each other’s sources of comfort. They are why they were able to face and accept the truth of the accident and incident. It is because of each other that SUNNY was able to accept that MARI died, and that SUNNY was the one who was at fault when it comes to MARI’s death and the accident. Even if SUNNY lost his eye because of BASIL, it is also because of BASIL that he was able to remember and face the truth of the accident and incident.

Now, to AUBREY, deep down, he probably resents her too, possibly much more than SUNNY. One thing that I’d like to mention is that bullying is, in fact, a form of abuse. I’m not calling AUBREY an abuser, but she did do fucked up things. She was a horrible person, but she wasn’t evil. He’s not calm because he understands, he’s calm because he thinks the one at fault. He thinks he deserves it. He understands, yes, but that’s not why he’s calm. He’s calm because he genuinely thinks there’s something wrong with him, and that he’s the one who needs to adjust. People who get bullied tend to think that there’s something wrong with them, that they have to be the one to adjust, especially if said person was close to you before it. Some don’t realize it’s bullying either until they reflect and think more about it, especially if they were once a friend, or a family member. Technically, what she did Is abuse, since bullying is considered abuse. It doesn’t matter if it was verbal abuse at first, it still counts as it. Verbal bullying is STILL bullying, and it is also still abuse. It’s a pretty gray area when it comes to AUBREY, because I don’t want to be too harsh and call her an abuser, but yeah. In terms of forgiveness, words and feelings don’t matter without actions, much like how actions don’t matter much without the words, which is why AUBREY does need to be treated a bit harsher by the fandom, since the bullying isn’t something you should brush off when it comes to analyzing BASIL’s character. Forgiveness from BASIL will take a long time, it’s going to be a rocky road for them to be even comfortable with each other, for BASIL to not flinch every time AUBREY tries to get close. To not feel uncomfortable whenever she even gets close. Which is not a thing that is acknowledged when it comes to BASIL.

Onto KEL. I think it’s pretty clear that KEL and BASIL haven’t interacted much before the 3 days left. KEL even acts surprised about BASIL being there, with this line.

While there isn’t much to say about them, BASIL might’ve resented him too, just not as much as SUNNY and especially AUBREY. KEL left him too, even if KEL mentioned that they wouldn’t really respond, it doesn’t stop BASIL from feeling that way. Maybe he would’ve resented the fact that he seemed to prioritize SUNNY over him, maybe he would’ve felt like he was less important to the eyes of KEL. And while yes, this may not make sense to us players/viewers because we know why KEL is knocking, BASIL doesn’t know. The mind is both rational and irrational, after all. Even if another person feels something, it does not stop someone from feeling, well, another thing. BASIL most likely doesn’t know if he should resent him or not, he knows that it might be because SUNNY’s house is marked “for sale”, but he wishes the same effort was spent for him, as well. He might’ve felt like KEL prioritized him the least, he might of thought that KEL sees him as “less”. Keep in mind, his feelings and thoughts are not necessarily true, so these aren’t facts. KEL does care, but it doesn’t stop BASIL from feeling like that. (Just thought I had to make that clear because some people might take this wrongly)

BASIL and HERO… There isn’t much to say about this segment. While it’s understandable that HERO left because of college, sometimes he does resent him for leaving like everyone else. He resents all of them for leaving, some even more because of certain factors or actions. But…

BASIL still loves all his friends. He does. He cherishes them all, but he can’t help but feel that way towards all of them. He can’t help it. He feels disgusted for feeling that way towards all of them, he feels disgusted for feeling negatively, but he can’t help but still feel it. No matter how much he tries to tell himself he doesn’t deserve to feel like that towards his friends, to think negatively of them, he will always feel these things deep down.

POST-TRUTH REVEAL FEELINGS AND POST-GAME SPECULATIONS (´ｰ｀)

Post game, a lot of BASIL’s problems go unsolved. He isn’t exactly portrayed to have reconciled with the rest. While yes, you can take the “Let’s make new memories together, okay?” line as BASIL wanting to make new memories with his friends, it’s DREAM BASIL that says that, and he, despite looking like FARAWAY BASIL, isn’t BASIL himself, so that isn’t reliable. His grandmother, his only source of comfort for those 4 years also dies, leaving him with someone who he isn’t sure he can trust due to her being there because of a job, and obligation. All that combined does just feel like instead of getting better, his problems will just fester into something worse. He’s basically alone as well. Even more so due to the reactions to the truth. SUNNY left yet again, he took the brunt of the reactions, he isn’t close to the friend group, he is still suicidal. POLLY isn’t someone who is a mother figure to BASIL. She isn’t even close to him. He doesn’t even feel comfortable with her.

… That’s not saying that the friend group won’t try to get closer to him again, because yeah, they do have a chance to try to get closer to him, it’s just that BASIL’s issues and problems go unresolved because he probably won’t open up to them for a while, or even open up to them at all. His problems still aren’t solved, either. Yeah, sure, he might admit some things, but they won’t be the closest anymore. It’ll probably take a very long time for BASIL to even warm up to them again. Might even take 2 years. Maybe he even tries to be more like himself pre-incident because he perceives it as a way for him to be redeemed in their eyes, but because of that, he hurts himself even more. He wants to be himself around everyone, but maybe he feels that “himself” isn’t who they want.

This part is mostly just speculation, although it is something that should be acknowledged more. His problems are still there, and even if you give him therapy, his problems will still be there, therapy is not something that solves your problems, it helps you until you can deal with it. It is not something that will magically make you emotionally intelligent, but more of something that helps you identify emotions better.

CONCLUSION ☆彡

Overall, I think BASIL is the character least talked about in this much depth, and often mischaracterized along with HERO and MARI. Many people fail to recognize that he’s also as tragic as SUNNY AND AUBREY are. Many people fail to recognize that his issues go far beyond the incident as well. Not a lot of people recognize that SUNNY’s issues and trauma isn’t worse than BASIL

310 notes · View notes

clegfly · 4 months

Text

OMORI and colour- an analysis

hey, so this is a post I’ve been wanting to make for a while and never got round to doing, but here I am.

Something I noticed in OMORI and have continued to notice throughout the game is the symbolism between colours and characters, and what they say about their relationships or their mannerisms, because there’s actually a LOT there, more than I expected.

keep in mind this is a pretty basic analysis and I’m sure there’s much more to be discovered, but I haven’t fully learned everything there is to know about colour theory and so this isn’t really my field of knowledge, I just wanted to share my findings.

also, spoilers ahead, so beware!

Filling in the wheel

This is a basic colour wheel, and the model I will be referring to throughout this analysis.

in OMORI, and even in external items outside of the game like merchandise each of the main cast are associated with a specific colour.

for example, SUNNY is associated commonly with yellow throughout the game. Here’s a small chart I made to keep track of my references…

I’m sure there’s more but here’s what I’ve got.

so now we know where sunny stands on the colour wheel, in the yellow region.

the rest of the cast can be easily identified on the wheel- KEL clearly falls into orange, HERO clearly falls into blue, MARI clearly falls into purple, BASIL clearly falls into green and AUBREY clearly falls into pink.

But wait, that’s not the complete wheel.

you’ll notice AUBREY’s positioning differs from the rest of the group, and that’s because I’ve specifically put HEADSPACE AUBREY in that section. Where REAL WORLD AUBREY actually falls is on the red segment of the wheel as that colour is better associated with her emotional state and also slots her better into place on the wheel.

So that means the rest of these midtones represent the rest of the HEADSPACE counterparts, right?

You’ll notice one more blank space, but let’s put that one aside for now. We’ll fill it in later. For now let’s begin to focus on the relationships between these segments on the wheel.

Complementary colours

Complementary colours are defined as “pairs of colours which, when combined or mixed, cancel each other out (lose hue) by producing a grayscale color like white or black. When placed next to each other, they create the strongest contrast for those two colors. Complementary colours may also be called "opposite colours"”.

in other words, these colours complement each other, and are paired together as they are the most striking next to one another. They are opposites, but belong together.

so, who do we have complementing on our OMORI wheel?

Now, this is quite complicated to look at but I’m going to use what I think is probably the most important relationship in the game and use it as an example.

MARI is commonly associated with purple throughout the game, so much so that it’s constantly in our faces. The main colour for SUNNY’s headspace where he escapes the tragedy of what happened to her is purple, AUBREY laments about a lost promise of dying their hair purple and pink together, MARI gets a grape flavoured (purple) popsicle in one of the photos in BASIL’s album, etc. she’s very clearly shown to be “purple”symbolically throughout the game, no question there.

and as for SUNNY, as we’ve gone over earlier, he is represented by yellow.

so when we reference our colour wheel once having placed these two in their respective spots, what do we see?

MARI and SUNNY complement one another.

And we see this consistently for other key or contrasting relationships through the game. HERO and KEL complement both in the REAL WORLD and HEADSPACE, and so do AUBREY AND BASIL.

They are shown to complement each other, when placed with their associated colours on the wheel.

so, what about STRANGER? Who does he complement with? After all the segment opposing him is empty.

I feel as though there’s only one answer which makes sense for the game.

OMORI complements STRANGER and STRANGER complements OMORI.

but, for OMORI, this seems out of character. The character itself is typically associated with black to represent the repression of the truth and also the darkness behind his actions to keep SUNNY guarded from the truth, so this warm colour feels out of place.

but looking deeper into the symbolism, I disagree. Orange itself represents liveliness, optimism, and enthusiasm, which I think represents HEADSPACE. However red, while associated with anger for AUBREY, is more commonly associated with danger and most importantly sacrifice.

As well as this, this specific hue shows to carry more of a red pigment than an orange.

so I believe this can represent this distracting and overwhelming joy of HEADSPACE whilst having great sinister undertones just Millimeters beneath the surface, something very fitting for OMORI as he’s portrayed in the game. (Side note: I don’t think OMORI is evil, by the way. I’m talking about his actions and portrayal in contrast to HEADSPACE, nor his intentions. I view OMORI more as a robotic kind of character than anything but that’s an analysis for another day.)

so, in conclusion, there’s a lot to be told from this wheel. Here’s a finished polished version for anyone who wants to use it, including some extra notes I didn’t discuss here. If there is anything at all you want me to elaborate on or go more in depth into, or just neglected to discuss at all, please let me know! Thank you for reading!

(PS also open for criticism on the wheel- especially if you know more about colour theory than me! I don’t go into much detail about what each colour association represents within the characters themselves here so that may be for another post)

#omori #omori analysis #omori mari #omori sunny #omori basil #omori hero #omori kel #omori aubrey #omori game #colour theory #omori stranger #omori character

96 notes · View notes

pizzaapplecheese · 2 years

Text

Sunny's mom in OMORI

This post was made months ago and I realized I never shared this on Tumblr, so here you guys go.

This was originally posted on reddit, but I thought I should share here as well. It was made in response to my parent tier list and the hate I have gotten on it.

Anyways, I see Sunny's mom as a good mom, so I decided to go on a whole rant on why I believe this. We all see things differently and this is not me telling you that you are wrong. We are all people who sees things differently, even if we are behind a screen. Keep this in mind before commenting anything.

The most common thing I see when people talk about Sunny's mom is about the fridge. When Sunny opens the fridge and eats the steak, the game points out that it is now empty. People tend to use this as evidence of Sunny being neglected. However, when moving houses, which is what Sunny is doing, it is common sense to remove all the food in the fridge. Unless you want to make a mess, it is a good idea to take everything out. Plus it isn't like his mom left him with nothing to eat at all, a note in Sunny's room written by his mom mentions that she left Sunny a steak in the fridge, which Sunny ate. If you look at your menu, Sunny has 30 dollars, meaning even if he hated the steak, he could have bought pizza from Gino's or if it is the hikikomori route, then he could have ordered in a call.

Speaking of Sunny, many people ask why haven't she put Sunny in therapy, after all Mari "committed suicide", so why isn't he? This is because the game is set between the 1990s-2000s, ignoring the stigma, therapy at that time was extremely expensive. Unless you are extremely rich and want to get therapy, it would be almost impossible to get therapy. It is accessible now, so what changed? In 2014, President Obama passed an Act which allowed people to be able to afford Healthcare, therapy was included. Sunny's mother would not be able to afford Sunny proper therapy at all. Sunny not going to therapy does not mean she does not care for him.

Sunny's mom cares for Sunny and wants his happiness. In her calls, she tells Sunny that "a change of scenery will be positive for the both of us", she says "us" indicating that she isn't focusing on herself on the move, she is focusing on both of them. She wants Sunny to feel better as seen with the word "positive" showing that she wants Sunny to be happy. Later she tells Sunny "I hope you're pacing your chores... I don't think even I could finish everything in one day!" She uses herself as an example to show Sunny that it is okay to not do all of the tasks at once. It also could be her making sure Sunny doesn't overwork himself, or harm himself by exhaustion from all of the work done. Even in her sticky note about the steak, she points out that it is his favorite. If she did not care for Sunny, then she would not do any of these things whatsoever. Especially moving houses for his sake, the amount of money and effort needed is a lot, yet she still does it to get him to be happy.

Honestly, my favorite trait about Sunny's mom is that she knows when she messes up and takes full responsibility. On the first night, she mentions that she forgot to tell the electric company that she needs more time for the move, so the lights stopped working early on. When she realizes she did that she tells Sunny this "Also, sorry! MOMMY messed up! I forgot to tell the electric company that we need a few extra days before we're ready to move, so the lights might cut out sometime tonight." She first apologises to Sunny, admitting she messed up, and explains what she did wrong to him. She doesn't even ask him to forgive her at all. She knows that Sunny should be angry at her, so she does not even bother.

Now let's go on with the contradictions it will have if Sunny's mom is abusive/neglectful/does not care about Sunny. When we enter Basil's memories to find out the truth, we get a small cutscene with the mom where she says "My only daughter... is gone. And you... you are my only son. I can't... lose you as well." the word "can't" clearly shows that Sunny's mom is unable to let Sunny leave her like Mari did, she is unable to lose Sunny at all. That word choice would be strange to use if she doesn't care about Sunny at all. Another thing to point out is that Sunny subconsciously sees his mother as overprotective of him, in headspace we see Statue of his mother. No matter where Sunny turns, she is always watching him, making sure he doesn't leave her sight. That is until he goes behind her, then her face distorts. There is 2 implications for the face thing, one could be her hiding her pain from Sunny (who sees it anyways) or Sunny believes the second he leaves her she will fall apart. Both implications show her care for Sunny, the first one she hides her pain for Sunny's sake to let him be happy and relax and in the second she is unable to handle the thought of Sunny dying or leaving her in any way.

Malnourishment is a big thing the fandom points Sunny's mom at, however there is no evidence in the game that Sunny is malnourished at all. People can be short, that is a thing. Sunny looked tall when he was young, so what is it to say he didn't hit puberty early? It is common for early bloomers to be short after all. Another thing is, the only indicator we get of it is coming from Kel's mom, who is implied to be Mexican with the ofrenda in the house. Speaking from experience, but Mexican parents say that regardless if you put on or lost weight from when you last visited them. It isn't shocking that she calls Sunny skinny.

Lastly, Sunny is 16. He is almost an adult now, so why are we treating him like he is 5? He is able to handle himself and make his own decisions at this point. We can't just pretend that everything Sunny does and does not do is his mom's fault. Sunny's mom cannot spend her time watching Sunny 24/7 and hold his hand all the time either.

#omori #omori sunny #omori game #omori aubrey #omori kel #omori basil #omori hero #omori mari #basil omori #omori discussion #omori spoilers #aubrey omori #Omori headspace #omori blackspace #omori omori #omori mom #Omori Sunny's mom #omori analysis #omori character

123 notes · View notes

zerotheclasspector · 1 year

Text

Omori Classpecting (Spoilers for Omori!)

Sunny/Omori, Bard of Light: A Bard is one who allows their aspect to be destroyed, or allows destruction using their aspect. A Bard also has their aspect destroyed within themselves. Now, why did I put two different characters into the same classpect? I believe that Sunny and Omori are the two separate definitions of the Bard. However, it wasn’t like this at first. After the incident, Sunny destroyed the Light (Truth) within himself. This led to him living life within headspace, creating Omori. Omori would continue to passively destroy the Light within Sunny. However, as Sunny searches for the Light, he becomes the other definition, one who destroys with his aspect. The truth of the incident, is inherently a destructive one, meaning that as Sunny remembers more and more of it, he damages headspace. This all culminates in two different ways. In the Omori ending, Omori succeeds in destroying the Light within Sunny, and he takes control. However, in the Sunny ending, Sunny defeats Omori, and tells the truth to his friends. Despite the destruction caused by the truth (Sunny destroyed what they thought happened to Mari, and their opinions of Sunny and Basil), it was required for them to truly heal.

Basil, Maid of Void: A Maid is believed to be one who creates their aspect. While Sunny destroys the truth within himself, Basil is the one who comes up with the lie to help him. Secrets, and by extension lies, are covered by Void. Basil created and continues to uphold the lie the Mari killed herself. However, along with creating lies through Void, he also creates a Void of loneliness. Because of the guilt of hanging Mari, he becomes a shut in. He essentially covers himself in a Void because of his guilt.

Kel, Sylph of Blood: A Sylph is believed to heal or repair their aspect. Kel, throughout Omori, is trying to help the friend group come back together. He’s trying to heal their blood. He especially helps Sunny with coming back into society. He gets him out of his house, and encourages him to talk to other people and help them. Blood encompasses society, so as Sunny meets new people, his Blood is being healed.

Hero, Page of Life: A Page is one who has to grow into their aspect, and suffers from a lack of their aspect. Now, Hero doesn’t really seem to be a textbook Page. He has great grades in college and is very mature. However, I believe his Page journey happened before the game began. After the death of Mari, he went through a depression for about a year. He lost his Life (Mari) and suffered. However, after the event where he yelled at Kel for trying to help him, he started to heal. He started to accept his new Life, even if he wasn’t the same afterwards. He was able to grow back into Life, and became stronger for it, as he was able to stop the older Kel and Aubrey from fighting.

Aubrey, Thief of Rage: A Thief is one who steals their aspect for themselves. After Mari’s death, Aubrey believed that all of her friends moved on quickly and abandoned her. She thought that she took the Rage (Grief) of all of her friends and that she had to deal with it all on her own. She became a very angry and aggressive person in the years that came after. While she didn’t actually take her friends’s grief from them, she still felt extra Rage at the idea of being the only one grieving.

Mari, Muse of Hope: A Muse is believed to be one who inspires with their aspect. While I normally avoid using the Masterclasses, I feel like it’s appropriate here. Mari, even after her death, inspires her friends to live their lives to the fullest. The most important thing she does during Omori is inspiring Sunny to confront the truth. She gives him Hope that he can handle the truth. Mari also the inspires the others with Hope too, allowing them to move on from her death (At least, when they thought it was a suicide.

That’ll do it for Omori! I’m not sure the next time I’ll do one of these, but if anyone has any ideas, feel free to request it!

#classpect #classpect analysis #character analysis #homestuck #omori omori #omori mari #omori sunny #omori basil #omori kel #omori hero #omori spoilers

24 notes · View notes

fried-manto · 2 years

Note

i don’t know if you where asked this yet- but opinions on each character?

If you meant each character, theres only really like, *counts fingers*-9 characters I care about in the OMORI game-

So I'll just give you a run down of my opinions for these 9 lucky peons starting from my least favourite to my favourite I guess.

.. its complicated.

My feelings about Sunny is so turbulent that I honestly don't really know how to feel about him most of the time. This is the best I could describe it.

He's cute, and his flower crown is so fun to draw and colour.

But I hate him. And love him at the same time. Most of all, I genuinely pity him for living.

She's just too... she hits way too close to home.

Aubrey, like me, is a hypocrite who does things impulsively. I hate how I'd probably do the same thing if I was in her shoes.

And Headspace Aubrey just has this pretentious tone of speaking that I definitely have (no matter how sincere I try to sound), so I can't even tell if she's kinning me or I'm kinning her anymore

Also fanfic writers, except for the few exceptions, cant for their lives write her right. Like do you guys just write Aubrey in there for the Sunburn????

Now on to my top 3

I draw her so much... way too much... 大姐我爱你。。。

TOP 2 is tied between

SLAY. QUEEN. SLAY.

Even tho she got her heart sweeped #heartsweep she's the queen in my heart 🎇

I'm probably like the #2 Sweetheart fan, right behind @lesleyn lmao

EUGH, IM CURRENTLY IN A HERO OBSESSION AND I LOVE HIM SO MUCHHHHHHHH AJSBWUJSNDNSKDJEH.

OH HERO YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH. YOU DESERVE TO GO BATSHIT AND YOU DESERVE TO GO INTO A YBM PHASE, BECAUSE I WILL STILL LOVE YOU AND SUPPORT YOU. 💔💔

Oh Hero... someone please feed me some Hero content PLEASE.

NOW ONTO THE TOP 1 WHICH TIED BETWEEN THESE THREE.

So I didnt really care about him all that much in the begining BUT THEN

Hikikomori route.

S P A C E - E X H U S B A N D

And then there was this Spaceboy centric fic that's about him stumbling into blackspace and realising the truth and i-

AND I FELL, HEAD OVER HEELS- COMPLETELY IN LOVE, LIKE MARRY ME PLEASE TYPE OF LOVE.

You are too good for SWEETHEART, my queen is mine and you are mine as well.

K E L

Just Kel.

The core of The Gang (sorry Mari, you got outshoned here)

Reblog if you agree.

And then there was one. The king of headspace and my heart 🖤🤍

I actually dont know why I love him so much, maybe he really is just the better version of Sunny (IN MY OPINION) he just gives off this empty, empty, depressing feeling that I love oh so much

and maybe one part of me is just super bitter with the fact that A03 writers always write Omori as this villain.

51 notes · View notes

majestydeerakuma · 2 years

Text

There’s a best OMORI character poll happening on Twitter and one of the matchups before the final is Basil vs Kel

I wanna cry! I really don’t want Kel to win!

It’s really gonna say a lot about the OMORI fandom and I’m gonna be disappointed

I just want Basil or Sunny to win the whole thing...they’re both really amazing and relatable characters. While Kel is a relatable character, Sunny and Basil hit harder for me personally

I don’t hate or dislike any of the OMORI characters...it’s just...gonna be painful if Kel wins in my eyes

(And no, I do not kin any characters! That is not why I don’t want Kel to win)

I would prefer Basil or Sunny to win because I feel like no one even sees Kel for his character and are just voting him because of memes rather than how amazing of a character he is

Like...he didn’t understand or completely grasp the reality of Mari’s death. He was probably in a lot of shock which is why he didn’t fully grasp it or show any sadness on the outside. He tried making new friends to distract himself from how painful life was at the moment, so he can actually be stable, happy and continue to be himself. What also makes Kel a relatable character is the fact that his parents (subconsciously or not) pretty much choose favorites and go to Hero’s aid instead of Kel’s. They see Hero as this amazing person and Kel...he’s just some athletic boy to them. Hero always cared for Kel and Kel even cares for Hero, it’s just painful to see the parents help one child and not the other in both of their time in need. Kel is a very humorous guy as shown in game and is an amazing friend to all of the characters in game...it just saddens me that I feel like people are overlooking how much depth Kel has and are only really voting him because memes and fnuuy man...

It really is odd to go through the main cast of OMORI characters because to me, it really does feel like people only like Kel for the memes rather then who he actually is as a character, a cool, helpful, caring dude with a great sense of humor and a positive outlook on life

It honestly saddens me in general for people to misunderstand characters or for parts of a character to be completely overshadowed by something else about them that has been over-saturated by the fandom to death. A great example of this is Mr. Resetti from Animal Crossing. His character is misunderstood by a good portion of the Animal Crossing fandom and the fandom overdid his anger and made it his only personality trait, completely overshadowing his actual character and what bits of his background there is.

...damn...I didn’t expect to go on a rant where I talk about Kel’s character and then give an example of how people misunderstand a character (Basil is also a misunderstood character where his character flies right over people’s heads)

I apologize for this dumb rant though if you read this far, thanks for reading this

(now i’m tired...i would cry tears of joy if i had a friend like Kel in real life though, not gonna lie)

#omori #sunny omori #kel omori #basil omori #character analysis #???#rant #i’m so sorry #i’m gonna cry because i just *explodes*

12 notes · View notes

andrewwtca · 11 months

Text

the Aubrey problem (or how Omori's writing failed her)

Also available to read on Archive of our Own.

I really like video games. If the fanfiction, theory posts, and occasional essays weren’t enough, here’s me saying it—I really like video games! They’re a conversation between writing, art, music, and human interaction, between the player, the game, and the characters in them. Of course, not all games have all of that, some being only text-based, some being lifeless wastelands, but whatever they end up choosing to work with, they often do something amazing.

Sunny is one of my favorite protagonists in any realm of media—video game, movie, book—and he genuinely changed the way I view the world. Not just him, but the entire world built around him, Headspace and its charming inhabitants and the wondrous sights and music, the creative bosses that leave so much insight, the beautiful overworld that is Faraway and a nostalgic look into what we leave behind, and what we return to.

So that’s why I’m so disappointed I don’t like Aubrey.

This game blew my mind away when I first saw it—my first experience with the game wasn’t even my own playthrough, but sitting through a 20-hour longplay!—and I lost so many hours of sleep twisting and turning and trying to make peace with the grief it left me feeling. And after finishing, I realized that its flaws were plenty, but not enough to drag me out of my enjoyment. But Aubrey? Aubrey didn’t make me feel the way I knew she was supposed to.

That frustrated me, especially as I became a bigger and bigger fan of the game. I had no qualms about liking her archetype, the feminine bully with a tragic backstory, and yet I do with her.

As someone who craves literary analysis and in-depth looks into every media I consume, I just needed to know: what made me dislike Aubrey?

And after over two years of being a fan of the game, I’ve finally figured it out: it’s a good mixture of 1) lack of explanation, 2) rushed self-awareness, and 3) lackluster narrative choices. And I’ve found the words I needed to explain these concepts, so please join me on my messy journey to understanding what went wrong with Aubrey.

preface

If you’re an Aubrey apologist, this essay is not for you. I’ve heard plenty of arguments about why Aubrey was actually in the right, not limited to “Basil deserved it,” and, “Aubrey was hurting too,” so I’d like to begin by stating that Aubrey was a bully very clearly.

Rejecting the notion that she actively harmed others is rejecting a core component of understanding her character. Before we dive into her character and how the writing failed her character arc, I would like us all to be on the same page: she physically, verbally, and socially bullied Basil. It was not Basil’s fault, and it will never be a victim’s fault to get bullied. She is not the victim of her own crime, just like how Sunny is not the victim of Mari’s death, and Basil is not the victim of Mari’s hanging. We, as the player, are to recognize their responsibilities in their actions. The same must be extended to Aubrey.

Some people feel the need to deny this aspect of her character to justify her actions and/or justify liking her. Firstly, the purpose of this essay isn’t to villainize anyone for liking Aubrey. I’m simply analyzing what was attempted with her character and why it didn’t strike a chord with me and so many others. Secondly, as Kel wisely said, “Just because you did something bad, doesn't make you a bad person.” I’m not here to say that Aubrey is a bad person—no, nobody in Omori is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and labeling characters as such is taking away the nuance they possess. And I’m certainly not saying liking a character who did something bad makes you bad, either!

Liking Aubrey is in no way a problem (which makes me a tad bit sad that I need to clarify), and I’ll even go as far as to say kudos to you, but if you bend and twist to stop her from holding any responsibility for her actions, that’s when problems arise. Basil is a fictional character and won’t care if you think it was his fault he was bullied, but for the people around you who may have been in similar positions to him?

And lastly, I want to say that if you cite sexism as the reason people don’t like Aubrey… actually, this is the perfect transition into the analysis.

gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss

Femme bullies are not a new phenomenon. Perhaps it’s the break from the stereotypical sweet feminine girl that makes them so fascinating, using their femininity to not sing to animals or wish for a man, but pull down others and advance their status.

I, for one, adore the femme bully trope. Especially if they’re one who used to be extremely kind and underwent some sort of ‘fall from grace’ that led to a bastardization. But, as for all bullies, if they are left without a proper backstory and motivation, I’m turned off from them. Most humans are not mean just because they can be but rather are products of how they were raised. When these causes are ignored, the trope falls flat, and instead of being a good reconstruction, it’s a flat stereotype.

The best way to analyze this is by comparing Aubrey’s character to good examples of femme bullies in the past. Specifically, I’m picking my favorites: Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion, Nanami from Revolutionary Girl Utena, and Sophie from The School for Good and Evil. I’m going to do a quick (and a bit sarcastic) overview of their characters in their respective media, but a quick warning for suicide in Asuka’s overview, and animal cruelty in Nanami’s.

Asuka is a pilot for one of the mechas, the Evangelion, and she always thought of herself as better than everyone. Well, of course, she would: she studied hard, worked harder than everyone around her, and she’s just naturally talented. And yet, she’s still always threatened by others and how they can ruin her status. Specifically, for the course of the show, she targets Shinji—he’s this nobody from nowhere who could suddenly pilot an Eva, while she had to fight her whole life to get here! How is that fair? And what has that asshole been through anyway? Did he have to see his mother’s corpse after she committed suicide as a small child? Did he fight for his mother’s love his entire life just for her to kill herself? Does he have to fight for male attention just so he isn’t thrown aside? No, of course not! So how is any of it fair?

Nanami is the sister to the wonderful student body president Touga, and she wants nothing more than his attention. And with her being the youngest of the cast, one cannot be mad at her for not understanding the severity of violence and finality of death, so her anger as a small child with a kitten whom Touga adored is also understandable. One simply cannot be mad at her for drowning it. So, of course, you cannot blame her for wanting to punish the ever-elusive Anthy and Utena, who Touga has become fixated on. What does Anthy or Utena have that Nanami doesn’t? They’re stupid girls, not Touga’s sister. No matter what, Nanami is going to win her brother’s affection (and in her pursuit, ignore how horribly he’s been manipulating her the entire time).

And Sophie is the Witch of Woods Beyond, capable of powerful spells beyond the imagination, from a place that few know of. And she wants nothing more than for her own fairy-tale ending—why do all the princesses around her get princes and castles and beautiful dresses, and she’s doomed to being hideous and alone for the rest of her life? Who decided that for her? She’s beautiful, after all, so she should be a princess! It doesn’t matter who stands in the way of her happily ever after; especially not if it’s Agatha, her lifelong best friend. No matter what, Sophie will not end up like her mother who died all alone, with her husband forgetting her and moving on. Sophie will be loved, no matter who she has to hurt.

What do they all have in common? Firstly, they’re all girls. As stated, femme bullies are different from masc bullies, especially as they reveal aspects of femininity and womanhood in general that many people—see, a male audience—will neglect to face, and overall uncover sexism that's still present in both media and society. Secondly, they’re all bullies, and they targeted someone in particular who they saw as detrimental to their happiness. And thirdly, they all had specific upbringings that conditioned them to have their ‘falls from grace’. What is this third, unidentified thing?

Mommy issues!

(Sorry, I know Nanami technically has a brother complex, but I just wanted to say mommy issues.)

A pattern has been developed with all of these girls. They all start fairly, what one can call, ‘feminine’ or at least, per standard stereotypes. They’re gentle and sweet and shine when needed. And they all have a ‘fall from grace’—a moment, or sequence of moments, that leads them to reject traditional femininity and embrace a more vengeful version of it. And a final moment, where they are faced with their opposite, who represents all that they do not have.

Asuka was sweet and kind and bubbly until her mother killed herself. After that, she dedicated herself to her studies and getting adult male attention through means of the over-sexualization of herself. And then, she began to bully Shinji.

Sophie was sweet and kind and bright until her mother died. After that, she idolized her mother’s false display of femininity and became obsessed with becoming a princess. And then, at the School for Evil, she began to bully Agatha.

Nanami was assumedly sweet—she deviates from this pattern slightly, being built off assumptions of a good past rather than showcases—until she was brought into this family and became obsessed with her brother and was manipulated by him. After that, she became desperate for his attention, fighting any other who could take it. And then, she began to bully Utena (and Anthy.)

While Nanami does deviate from this pattern, they all have clear origins. They were not bullies from the start. As aforementioned, in the face of an adversary, the majority of people do not turn to hurting one another. Something in their pasts, their ‘falls from grace’, was the foundation of their actions, what led them to believe what they were doing was okay. It’s not justification—it's a much-needed explanation. After all, if you do not understand, how can you empathize?

Still, you may fail to see my point. The game has lots of hints of Aubrey’s troubled upbringing. And that’s exactly what the problem is. These girls have clear origins while Aubrey’s is muddled.

Of course, I don’t expect Omori to have spoon-fed me details of her past. You can put the pieces together by walking through her home and seeing bottles laid on the ground. But, even in a game dependent on nuance and having the player put certain things together, it’s better to leave things out directly rather than to work a way around.

To build up a good femme bully, we need a good origin story. What happened to her that made her turn to violence? Why should we care? We know Aubrey probably had a troubled childhood. But the game doesn’t supply enough. It leaves too much to fill in the blanks. I know that Asuka saw her mother’s corpse, I know that Sophie was forced into a misogynistic viewpoint upon her mother’s death, and I know that Nanami was manipulated to hell and back. I know what these girls have been through so I know why they ended up walking their paths.

But the game simply doesn’t reveal enough about Aubrey. Fan speculation is not enough. Canon interpretation should not be confused with fan interpretation—according to the fans, Aubrey’s father is a deadbeat, and her mother is an abusive, neglectful alcoholic. According to the game? Aubrey’s dad is “strict”, and her house is an absolute disaster. The house is one of the biggest clues as to Aubrey’s childhood, and while some may praise this as ‘showing and not telling’, the game never tries to make workarounds for the other characters (which I will dig deeper into later). I can assume what happened in her house but it’s not my job to find ways to empathize with the character; that is the story’s job.

This is the first of Omori’s three sins and we haven’t even scratched the surface.

actions speak more than words, or something like that

I recently saw a post that I thought would make a good intro for this section. It’s an apologist post for Aubrey, discussing how the game did treat her with just enough harshness—that because she’s been beating herself up, because she’s suffered a public breakdown, because it took kindness to help her heal, it’s proof of her regret. There’s some good Basil blaming in there too, with a strange turn saying that she refused to leave Basil’s house because of her willingness to turn over a new leaf. And it ends with a weird claim that she was a “good person all along,” (implying an argument otherwise), but I’m not here to rat on that post.

Despite how frustrated the post made me, I am inclined to agree. It’s black-and-white to state that Aubrey didn’t change at all. If you compare her first Faraway appearance to her final scenes, she’s a completely different person. Which would've been nice if the change didn’t take two scenes.

Much like how I compared Aubrey’s backstory to that of other femme bullies, I’m going to compare Aubrey’s redemption to that of my favorite redemption story in all of media: Riku from Kingdom Hearts (the fact that I’m so in touch with his story may also explain some of my disappointment with Aubrey’s).

Riku starts off his journey on Destiny Islands. He’s always wondered what lies beyond his small home and dreamed of taking a sailboat with his best friends, Sora and Kairi. However, jealousy is an awful thing—Sora and Kairi are close. And it seems that Riku has been hearing about how they’re thinking of leaving him behind. So, he does what any teenager dealing with larger-than-life feelings does: he gives in to the magical Darkness and effectively kills everyone on the islands, separating him, Sora, and Kairi (don’t worry—everyone comes back.)

By the end of the game, he’s come to his senses, but it takes a lot of time. He fights with Sora a lot because he just knows, deep down, that he’s right and Sora is wrong, and if Sora would just listen…but no. Sora keeps abandoning him. So he has to work through that and all the feelings that accompany those abandonment issues, he has to work through the question of “What is even making me want to kill my best friend, anyway?”, and he has to work through “Wait…can I kill my best friend?” So, it takes a lot of time for him to get to his senses.

And then, he goes through hell. Literally and metaphorically. He dedicates himself wholly to making up for what he did. How? Well, he first identifies what he did wrong—he separated from his friends, he gave in to his jealousy, and he submerged his home in Darkness. He apologizes for it directly—although he doesn’t have a chance to speak with Sora right away, he's constantly apologizing for the fact that he gave in to the Darkness, so much that it became a running gag to some fans. He put up distance—he didn’t feel like he was owed forgiveness right away (or at all, but that’s a different matter) and didn’t stick at Sora’s side to wait for his best friend to forgive him. He worked hard to show that he’s changed—it would be a much longer essay if I attempted to explain the lengths he went through, but it’s not limited to allowing himself to be possessed, going to literal Hell, forcing himself into isolation, and enduring multiple handicapping injuries.

Long story short? He really, really tries to make it up to Sora. And when he and Sora finally talk (it took three years in real life, took perhaps a year in the game), Sora doesn’t even hesitate to forgive his friend…though it may be in part to Sora just being Sora. Nevertheless, Riku had earned that forgiveness.

And then, after that, Riku continues to give himself hell! He never stops to sweep what he did under the rug. It’s a part of him, after all, an ugly past but his past nonetheless. It does not define him but it cannot be forgotten, otherwise, he hasn't learned anything at all.

Deep breath. We talked a lot about Kingdom Hearts in an Omori essay. But it’s important to understand the sheer depth put into his redemption: identification, distance, and work.

What’s most frustrating about Aubrey’s arc is that fragments of this good writing exist, but that’s what they are: fragments. I would like it to be stated for the record that everything I explained for Riku’s arc wasn’t me creating speculation based on what the games said. It’s what the games literally came out and said. Aubrey however…

Identification—she apologizes to Sunny, Kel, and Hero by saying “I’m sorry, guys… I’ve been acting like such a jerk.” While I may give her grief for the usage of the word ‘jerk’ when perhaps a stronger, more evocative term would’ve done a better job, it’s certainly better than what she said in front of Basil’s door: "I just wanted to say that… I’m sorry for the way I’ve been treating you.” Completely separating herself from the issue at hand.

Distance—none. She's immediately reintroduced to her old friend group, at a rate that ended up giving me whiplash the first time around. The question, “What about the Hooligans?” is never brought up, and things are back to how they always were, with no problems at all.

Work—Aubrey stayed the night at Basil’s house, wanting to make sure he was safe. To which, if you end up getting the neutral ending, you get the most insightful message of Aubrey’s arc (which is technically non-canon): “I'm so sorry, Basil. Please forgive me…” If getting the good or bad ending, her staying the night meant literally nothing, as Sunny’s fight took the reins.

These are fragments of a character arc. These are fragments of good characterization. While I praise Omori for how often it appears realistic, this kind of exponential growth simply isn’t. In what world, does someone who’s been bullying someone for four years, take less than two days to realize she’s been a bully and decide to change the entire course of her life?

While I could rat on Aubrey, this isn’t her problem. This is the game misreading what makes a good redemption. Redemption means work. It means effort. It is not a character simply changing their ways. Those characters feel cheap and empty—there’s a reason, after all, why the majority of fans always characterize Aubrey as the mean girl she’s shown to be when she first appeared in fan works. It’s because the ‘new’ Aubrey, the Aubrey buried under layers of hurt, hasn’t earned the right to exist.

The Riku I love in Kingdom Hearts III has earned the right to be angsty and gay and happy and his new self because he’s put in 17 years' worth of effort to become that person. It’s beautiful, it’s inspiring, it’s hopeful—you can make a mistake and go past it. It doesn’t define you. You can be forgiven. You can have hurt and have been hurt and still be worthy of love and loving.

The Aubrey at the end of Omori has not earned the right to be there, simply put. She’s the product of lazy, or ignorant writing, and it feels harsh to type out, but there’s no other way to describe it. Her self-awareness happened too quickly. She passes by Sunny’s house every day, sees Kel playing basketball every day, and could freely visit Mari’s grave whenever she wants—there were four years for her to change who she was. If Kel wasn’t able to give up his toxic positivity until the bitter end of the neutral ending, it’s quite hard to believe that a few hours of just talking made her change her ways. Especially considering that the Hooligans were characterized as her new, accepting friends, who love her and hear her out.

And again, the best fragment of an arc that could’ve been appears in the neutral ending! While it was not directly Aubrey’s actions that led Basil to take his life, it’s very impactful to see her begin to blame herself. It’s not right for her to blame herself—but that’s perhaps the only scene in the entire game where I really sympathized with her. It’s the only scene in the entire game where I truly saw that she wanted to change.

A quick note I wanted to pull out before finishing: the inclusion of the Hooligans. They were, again, fragments of an amazing arc. While they could’ve been a good way to show how kind Aubrey still is, they are thrown aside and mainly included in scenes where Aubrey is still being a bully. It’s in content outside of the game (see: Aubrey birthday comic) that they contrast Aubrey’s harsh exterior and show her sweet insides. But no, they’re underdeveloped and unutilized to make Aubrey’s arc feel doable.

There seems to be a very clear culprit to both this and the femme bully problem, and a solution that should’ve been considered more deeply.

rome wasn’t built in a day

There’s a loud rumor in the Omori fandom that Omori was originally supposed to take place over ten days rather than three days. While I’m not sure how much merit this rumor has, the fact that it exists leads me to my ultimate point:

Omori should’ve been longer.

Specifically, Omori should’ve taken place over a longer period.

EDIT: Before we continue, I just had an excellent conversation with a friend ( /ᐠ ._. ᐟ\ﾉ ). This solution only applies to if one is unwilling to change Aubrey's core character; essentially, the extent of her bullying. By making her someone who goes out of her way to torment Basil, significant screen time is going to be needed to properly unpack all that's been given. Making the base game ten days is only my opinion of the best choice, but there are other ways to solve this. However, the best course of action would be to change the extent of Aubrey's bullying on Basil—in other words, changing how Aubrey's anger presents itself.

For example, she would simply hold a grudge over what she believed was Basil destroying the photos, being extremely passive aggressive towards him. It would make a reconciliation between her and Basil, much, much more doable as well, perhaps him seeking her out in the first place in a peaceful manner to look for the photos. The lake scene could be an emotional explosion for her, perhaps finding out Basil just gave the photo album to Sunny, who is literally about to leave, and then pushes him into the lake. Then, the reflection she has next would fit what has tonally been established, seeming doable. She had, after all, been on good terms with Basil, even if for a little while.

By ‘lackluster narrative choices’, I am referring literally to the belief that Omori should not have been a game that took place in three days. I’m not here to argue about the game's mechanics—should Headspace have been that long? What is the point of a world created to serve as escapism, which should be fleeting moments of happiness, when it ends up being longer than the real world?—as much as I’m here to argue that this is a flaw of the game’s writing as opposed to a game design standpoint.

I’m not going to pretend I know how to make a video game. I’m enthusiastic about them, I follow their development and creation, and I strive to learn as much as I can about the ones that are dear to me, but I’m not going to pretend I know the first thing about making a video game. Omori’s development is one of the most infamous parts of its legacy, and the notion of extending the game would’ve only been another strain on the extended period between its announcement and its final release.

But, I know how to tell a story. Or, at the very least, I know what makes a good story. Now, the three days format of the game serves its other protagonists amazingly.

Sunny, whose arc mainly develops through the interfering ideas established in the real world and the ones previously established in Headspace, doesn’t need an extended time in the real world. His story takes place in his dreams, and the foundations of Headspace are already extremely insecure, based on the idea of covering up the truth. But when faced with a separate truth in reality, despite only a brief exposure, the lies created to protect Headspace fall apart. So Sunny’s arc does not depend on how long he spent in the real world.

Kel and Hero, on the other hand, have a very small arc. They are not flat and are very much dynamic when you compare how they started and how they ended up. However, the majority of their arc had taken place off-screen. The majority of their characterization does not occur through direct interaction with Sunny—we don’t learn about Hero’s depression because of him having a breakdown, but rather Kel discussing it. And in that same scene, we learn about Kel’s toxic positivity and the strain it’s taking on him, rather than through the game. This recontextualization is perfect for Kel and Hero. The change that occurred after Mari’s death is not easily seen by Sunny, and through it being slowly revealed instead, we learn the nature of their changes. Nonetheless, their changes occurred after Mari’s death and another change will occur most likely after the revelation of the truth—either way, their character arcs do not depend on the length of the three days. No amount of time would’ve changed them without Sunny revealing the truth (and as aforementioned, Sunny’s time was well spent in Headspace).

And finally, Basil. He's in the same boat as Kel and Hero, having an arc that occurs entirely off-screen. The difference is, however, the amount of emphasis the game puts on what happened to him as opposed to a few cutscenes with the brothers (though it is understandable, given his role as the game’s deuteragonist). His arc is a downward spiral, from an already unstable boy to an insecure mess who becomes obsessed with the sole idea of keeping his best friend safe. While it’s a progression of who he used to be, it’s development nonetheless, and it also happens off-screen. Given Basil’s fragile mindset, furthermore, the appearance of Sunny suddenly was enough to throw him off, given he was already planning on taking his own life. His rapid spiral into an even worse mess which leads to the fight between him and Sunny, therefore, is understandable. And, similarly to Kel and Hero, his real change will only occur after Sunny reveals the truth. Basil’s character development does not at all depend on how long the game would be.

The simple fact is that the other characters do not go through a drastic change on the days that Sunny comes out, and Sunny’s change was fueled by the existence of Headspace, not by the real world. The game taking place in three days does not affect the others. That is good storytelling. Using the game’s time frame to properly convey their arcs having occurred off-screen.

Aubrey, however, is not subject to that same praise. Her arc occurs on screen—while she descended to becoming a bully after Mari’s death, the arc we the viewer are supposed to acknowledge is her redemption. And three days just isn’t enough time.

The last two problems I covered, a lack of detailed backstory and a general lack of redeeming actions, lie in the same problem: the game went past those scenes far too quickly, as though Aubrey’s redemption is not essential to understanding her. It’s as though the game is trying to place importance on relationships and the joys of rekindling, rather than having to actually rekindle a relationship, having to put in the work. If the game had been slightly longer, Aubrey’s story could’ve been dealt with in a far more effective manner.

I am not Omocat, nor am I a part of the development team. I do not have the ideal solution for what could’ve been. I do, however, have a few ideas that I’d like you, my audience, to consider. How much do you think the game would’ve changed if it was ten days instead of three?

As already explained, Sunny, Kel, Hero, and Basil would not have had any significant difference if the game took place longer. Perhaps, there would’ve been a more natural awkwardness present that accompanies talking to someone for the first time in four years, but aside from that, the events of the game would’ve just taken longer.

Aubrey, however, would’ve had some actual thinking time. Her fight in the church would be her turning point, and her then isolation would feel like she had time to think things over. For a few days, Aubrey would have to be absent, and given the impression she left on the players, this absence would be heavily felt. It would be her return so much more effective, especially if she returns as someone who is unsteady due to their actions.

For the next few days, leading up to Aubrey deciding to stay the night at Basil’s house, we have the chance to know and forgive her better—perhaps, similar to Kel talking to Sunny about Hero’s depression, Aubrey can explain what it was like growing up in her household. Not as a defense, but as an explanation. She would do things with the rest of the group, and she would at a more natural rate, be integrated once again. And not just anything! She would actively help them with whatever the ten days would have to offer, and it would show that she is hurting over her actions.

And, finally, when she would decide to stay at Basil’s house, it wouldn’t feel like the game was just trying to have the cast together for one last moment, but it would feel like she’s trying to bridge the gap of all the hurt she created. When she would go to Basil’s door, it wouldn’t feel like the game was just trying to convince us to forget about her actions, but it would feel like she’s reflected and attempted a new leaf. And hopefully, the game would offer a more heartfelt apology, given more context and material to work with.

Four years of bullying can’t go away in ten days. But that’s not what the game was trying to argue in the first place—it wasn’t fully erasing Aubrey’s action, but trying to create the stepping stone for a way back. But the three days poorly argued her case, with a rushed and lacking version of redemption, and it made her ‘final character’ feel poor.

At the very least, ten days would have allowed the audience to empathize and begin to understand her. And, more importantly, it would’ve made sense that she understood the weight of her actions. And the Aubrey she became, whoever that girl would be?

She would’ve been so, so loved.

a little love in our lives

This has been on my mind for an awful lot of time. Sunny, as aforementioned, is one of my favorite characters of all time (if not my favorite), but the entire cast has a spot in my heart and is very dear to me. That includes Aubrey, but she benefits from association, which hurts me—I hate when girls in media are defined by their relationships with other guys. I wanted to get to the heart of why I couldn’t get her to stand on her own.

To summarize: Aubrey’s character was criminally mismanaged. Instead of it being a hopeful story of redemption, someone finally breaking the cycle of abuse and breaking free of her toxic household, seeking forgiveness by taking an active part in Basil’s healing, she is let off too quickly and makes all her further scenes feel twice as empty. The ideal solution would have been to have the game take place over a larger period, rather than a rushed three days, to allow the audience to empathize and relate to her.

Aubrey apologists truly astound me. I find so many flaws in her writing, and yet other people manage to see those flaws as perfections. I see people making very absurd, ableist arguments, and it makes me question the humanity of many fans, but I’ve always been intrigued by how many different perspectives there are surrounding her. I’ve seen some who relate to her because they were bullies or because they’ve been abandoned by others; so some valid reasons, and others very concerning. But it’s telling how our own experiences make us relate to different characters and help us understand why someone stands in the places they do.

…do you see what I did there? I started talking about relating backgrounds and how that benefits our understanding and— yeah, I suppose you understand, if you got this far (almost 6k words, you should be proud of yourself). If you’re still unfazed and believe that Aubrey’s writing was splendid, all the power to your fannish behaviors. But if I’ve opened your eyes a bit as to the flaws in her writing or if I’ve been able to explain your dislike of her, then I’m glad. It’s important to discuss things that didn’t stick the way they were meant to so that we can do better and we can learn.

Omori’s writing failed Aubrey. Some fans took that as a challenge. I’ve said before that canon interpretation should be separate from fanon interpretation, but I’d have to be heartless (Kingdom Hearts pun intended) to say that many fan’s interpretations didn’t get me to feel with her. I think Aubrey could’ve been brilliant, and while Omori didn’t fully capture that, a lot of fans did. So to everyone who makes art, whether it’s a drawing, a written work, a video, a song, an edit, or whatever, thank you for sharing it. Thank you for telling your stories.

I feel like writing these analysis pieces without connecting them to our own life experiences is pointless. So, to everyone else, please tell your stories. Tell your stories of redemption and love and forgiveness, because that’s what Aubrey’s story was meant to be about, and that’s what we all need in this world. Tell your stories, no matter what they are, because that is what ties us all together. We are made of stories and we return to them. We learn from them and we become better people. We become kinder—and we could all use a little more kindness in the world.

Thanks for reading!

#omori #omori meta #omori analysis #aubrey omori #media analysis #meta essay #literary analysis is my special interest #andrew's essays

177 notes · View notes

h4amarch · 11 months

Text

uh oh sisters! I’m back with more Kel Angst… but more like a Kel Character Study.

I’m sure Kel appreciators are already familiar with my analysis of how Kel thinks people value Mari’s theoretical opinions more than his real ones. But since that was at the end of a longer post which was just a “List of Fun Kel Facts :)” I think I didn’t really get to touch on the fact of why this has come to be.

Someone in the tags of that post wrote that Hero does this too, that the two brothers were raised to be people-pleasers and naturally tend to ignore their own feelings. And I absolutely 100% agree with this!!! But consider now: Kel was the little troublemaker, and Hero was the responsible one. To some degree, I think you can also make an argument as to how Hero’s role as the responsible one allowed Kel to be the troublemaker, and vice versa; whether it was by their own will or not, Kel traded positive attention for more freedom, and Hero did the opposite.

Hero is the one to handle responsibility first, and he’s older, too—so it goes that, inherently, Hero has made the better suggestions of the two of them during their childhood, from hangout ideas to problem solving. Kel is the one that makes the silly suggestions, the one that’s a little less realistic, the one that’s still filled with childish fantasies of Captain Spaceboy and renegade stories.

Until he isn’t. Until he’s grown up a little, until he’s slapped in the face by a tragic death, by a despondent, unresponsive brother—by nobody else knowing what to do any better than him.

So he tries—

“Hey Aubrey! Do you want to come to my birthday party? I know we haven’t really talked, this past year, but—”

“Helloooo, Sunny? It’s time for school, and I heard we’re gonna play basketball during gym! You don’t have to play, I can just shoot hoops and you can watch! I’m getting real good at it, I swear—”

“Morning, Basil! Did you need any help doing gardening stuff? I just wanted to see if anyone was free to hang out, but—”

“Hey Hero. Are you… feeling a bit better today? I was just wondering… if you wanted to go get Gino’s with me. Because I’m hungry, and I think it’d be fun if we went together—”

—and he fails.

“—you want to hold a birthday party? Are you- Are you serious?! Tomorrow’s the day she- and you- I- Did she mean nothing to you?!” (He wanted to distract Aubrey from it. But of course she wouldn’t forget.)

“—oh, Kel, good morning! I’m sorry, but I don’t think Sunny can come see you right now… We’re thinking of homeschooling, but… I’m sure he’ll come out to see you one day.” (School was just an excuse to ask for Sunny. Now what is he supposed to do?)

“—ah, um- I’m- I’m okay! I have to… to, um, check on the m-more delicate plants today so, um— m-maybe not today… I-I’m sorry.” (If he were better at not being clumsy, would Basil still have turned him away?)

“—I’m not hungry, Kel… Not today. It’s late anyway.” (He’s never hungry when Kel asks.)

Kel tries to handle things on his own, and it fails. He is confronted with the fact that, on his own, his ideas really are as stupid as Aubrey used to call them, and as silly as Basil and Sunny used to say they were, and as unrealistic as Hero used to tell him.

And Mari…

“—Hi, Mari. Sorry I couldn’t make it last week. But, uh… I was just wondering… if you… if you could maybe… tell me this is all a bad joke…? Because- they all said you- you did it on purpose, but… but I don’t think you would have wanted this, right…?”

(“Well, Kel! You’ve just made a very convincing point. Now I don’t know who to believe!”)

…

The only person who believed in him, the only one who bothered to indulge his ideas even a little bit, is gone.

And yet, just like when they were younger, the one time things work is—

“Mari wouldn’t have wanted to see you like this, Hero…”

—when Mari steps in.

“…what?”

And again.

“I can’t just leave here knowing that this is the person you’ve become. I mean… What would Mari think?”

“Why do you keep bringing her up?”

Granted, the reactions are always a bit rough. But it’s what makes people react, it’s what gets things to change.

So… yeah. Kel’s opinions don’t matter. They’re not supposed to—they’re supposed to make people laugh, or deadpan, or call him stupid so that he can start bantering and bickering, because it’s familiar, because it’s normal. It makes things a bit difficult if he wants to be all serious, but as always, Mari is there for him when his mind comes up blank.

Until she isn’t. Until Sunny says something, and Basil corroborates it. Until every little success he’s been able to achieve with Mari’s help dissipates like the cheap discount foamer in Sally’s bubble baths. Until Kel isn’t sure what Mari would have wanted.

Until Kel is left with only himself. Mari would have wanted—

—he wants—

—everyone to be happy. Everyone to stick together this time. Everyone to help him figure out what the hell he’s feeling right now. Everyone to help him figure out how to stay together when all he wants is to run. Everyone to come back to the room so they can talk, before they split apart again. Again. Not again. Not again.

But how will he do it without Mari?

#kel omori #omori kel #omori #omori (game)#kel angst #the box files #witness: me going wild with the colored text function #oh MAN could you imagine if this were here in 2012 #we would have all gone BUCKSHIT WILD

62 notes · View notes

cringelordofchaos · 6 months

Text

Fuck me I was going to write a "why I think kel has ADHD and how it impacts the game" ANALYSIS as in throughout ESSAY but I'm wayy too lazy for some reason?? Maybe one day but (warning for huge omori spoilers!!)

Kel. Kel who's canonically described as impulsive in the official guide through. Kel who IS pretty impulsive, both in sunnys headspace and in the real world. Kel who gets bored easily. Kel who's easy to irritate and excite. Kel who easily forgets stuff. Kel who hyperfixates on stuff he likes (capt. Spaceboy, basketball)(?).Kel who appears to be pretty hyperactive (a bit less in real world) and who's probably highest social and familial achievement is the fact that he's good at sports. Kel and him canonically doing bad in school, probably due to a bad attention span or something like that. Kel who both he and Hero had pressure put on them from early childhood to excel and to accomplish great things that could guarantee a good job (such as being a doctor) and kel probably being unable to achieve such standards and who might even get less attention from his parents due to this (or might feel like that)(I'm not saying his parents are straight up abusive just)(not explicitly an ADHD trait just). Kel who's still childish in his teenage years, who's probably been told he's simply and stupid throughout his life, and the only way to cope with it would probably be to "own" it ("smarts aren't everything!")(this isn't explicitly an ADHD trait it's just ah experience I've noticed is fairly common(?)). Kel who missed social cues. Kel who's extremely blunt. Kel who probably has low object permanence causing him to appear to be "less affected" by Mari's death. Kel who DOES care a lot about Mari but his possible ADHD and the traits that MAY come with it (such as the aforementioned bluntness, low object permanence, or the bad coping mechanisms that may come with it, etc) make him seem like to many outsiders that he "doesn't care" when he DOES. (he said he thinks about her every day.) KEL WHOS TRAUMA IS COMPLETELY DISREGARDED BY BOTH THE INGAME CHARADTERS AND THE FANBASE (THIS IS NOT AN ADHD TRAIT THIS IS JUST ME RANTING AT THIS POINT).

(you can have many of these traits WITHOUT having adhd, I'm just saying they're very apparent in his character to the point where it raises my eyebrow)

(also many of these aren't explicitly ADHD traits, moreso the experiences that may or may not come with it. I don't know, I'm no expert)

Anyway that's it I "probably" (DEFINITELY) missed something idk maybe I should've written this during my extreme omori obsession-phase to really get the FEEL of his character in my skin

#adhd headcanon #omori kel #kel omori #omori #kel #omori Kelsey #kelsey omori #kelsey #omori spoilers

26 notes · View notes

hero-deserves-to-be-happy · 6 months

Text

Thinking about how Hero and Kel are both very selfless people but in different ways that really boil down to the fact that Kel is willing to set boundaries that Hero isn't. While they would both do just about anything for their loved ones, Hero is basically "The Giving Tree"—willing to be completely destroyed in a sort of silent martyrdom without setting any boundaries because he's too conflict-avoidant and lacks a certain sense of self-preservation that his brother has. Whereas Kel is selfless, but he isn't a doormat. He doesn't struggle nearly as much to say "no" when he needs to and can prioritize his own needs and self-care when appropriate and necessary (perhaps precisely because Hero was there constantly putting Kel's needs first for most of their lives).

Ultimately, at least on some level, Kel feels his needs matter and that he matters enough to set boundaries, even when he is taking care of other people; however, no matter the situation, Hero will always consider himself last and has trouble believing he has the right to ever put himself and his own feelings and self-care first.

More ramblings under the cut (Warnings: OMORI spoilers and heavy subject matter. Mentions death, grief, trauma, and depression).

This is really showcased in their reactions after Mari's death. Kel eventually reaches this point where he decides that he can't sit in that hurt anymore and needs to carry on living even if he is heartbroken. Despite how much he wants to keep everyone together, Kel starts to worry that all of his attempts to help are just making everything worse, and because he has this sense of self-preservation, he distances himself to protect not only his loved ones who he feels might be better off without him (even though that isn't true) but also to take care of himself and to distance himself from these feelings of failure and of being too weak and too helpless to care for his suffering friends, especially his brother. He does feel guilty about that, but ultimately, he makes the best decision that he can at the time. He never gives up on his friends and on the hope that they'll eventually be reunited (he keeps knocking on Sunny's door even after all these years, after all), and he hopes that taking care of himself and carrying on with his life will give him the strength to be there for his loved ones if/when the time comes that they need him.

Hero, on the other hand, never processes his own feelings, and his trauma and related feelings of guilt cause him to believe that he doesn't have the right to care for himself (even though that couldn't be farther from the truth). He sort of implodes after losing Mari—curling in on himself and spiraling into a deep depression, wallowing in his grief in a way that is all-consuming but understandable. He comes out of that not because he has reached a sense of closure and peace, but because he feels guilty—feels he has burdened and hurt the people closest to him with his problems. He begins to feel that putting himself first and getting the help he needs would be selfish, so he pushes his issues aside and tries to ignore them as if they will eventually just go away, which they don't.

After a year of spiraling in his own grief and misery, he swings to the completely opposite direction: living a listless life of "fake happiness" and pretending that everything is okay when it isn't. He blames himself for Mari's death and for Kel, Sunny, Basil, and Aubrey's suffering and feels like he should have been stronger and taken better care of them, but he also feels his hands are tied and there's nothing he can do. He wants to help, but he doesn't want to cross his loved ones' boundaries, pry into their business, or create conflict so he often chooses inaction and to give his friends space. Meanwhile, his own feelings of grief and guilt are, at times, too overwhelming for him to bear. He has been so beaten down by the trauma of the situation that he feels his own pain, suffering, and needs don't matter, and he can only derive a sense of self-worth from being useful and helpful to others. Caught between a desperate desire to be needed and a crippling fear of conflict, Hero never sets boundaries and feels his only chance at surviving this new life is to shove his own feelings away and take care of everyone else around him, without any consideration to how he may be hurting himself.

Hero and Kel are both incredibly kindhearted and altruistic people, but Hero's manner of “selflessness” can be unhealthy and, ultimately, harmful to him if it leads him to neglect himself and his own basic needs. The truth is he really can’t take care of anyone if he doesn’t take care of himself first. Kel understands this, but Hero does not.

#omori hero #hero omori #kel omori #omori kel #omori #hero character analysis #hero character study #hero and kel's brotherly bond #it's the brothers 💙🧡#love them both so much #just some very long and meta omori thoughts #omori spoilers

98 notes · View notes

lilac-gold · 3 months

Text

i know that this is just a part of how omori's fight system operates, but i find it very interesting that we are able to make memes like the one pictured below considering all we know about hero's character throughout omori, both in the real world and in headspace

this meme is made by using hero's "smile" skill as well as a rain cloud, sad poem or anything else that inflicts a sad emotion on him. hero's skills are primarily always either food-based healing (e.g. "cook", "fast food", "homemade jam", "snack time") or some form of charisma (e.g. "captivate", "mesmerise", "enchant", "dazzle"). it's hero's job to be the support of their team, and to use his pleasant demeanor and appearance as a distraction.

no matter which emotion hero has, he can still use every one of those skills. it is of no relevance how he feels as long as he can uphold his designated role as a charmer and a healer.

now, consider real world hero's way of dealing with things, which is that he simply doesn't. when he returns to faraway, he's there for everyone else, appearing on the surface to be completely fine and content, and simply not acknowledging his own trauma. he puts on a constant facade of normalcy and perfection. because to hero, it doesn't matter which emotion he has, he can still use every one of his skills. it is of no relevance how he feels as long as he can uphold his designated role as a charmer and a healer.

hero would bend over backwards to please others. he canonically has depression, but would much rather be someone else's shoulder to cry on than admit he's not okay. everyone puts him on a pedestal, viewing him as a sort of ideal to look up to. sunny does it. kel does it. his parents do it. even hero himself does.

i think that's part of the reason why he's so often overlooked by the fandom: hero's unrealistically perfect, but that's exactly the point. he forces those expectations on himself, forces himself to earn trophies and medals even while he struggles to even get out of bed. he smiles despite wanting to do the opposite, because he's not supposed to be depressed. he's hero.

his charm-based skills in headspace alternate between a) reducing foes' attack with a bonus happy effect and b) acting first with all foes targeting him for one turn. hero either dissolves the situation a little, acting like the mediator he always has been, or takes the blunt of the damage for his friends.

he's constantly in the spotlight, in every world.

headspace hero has done a ridiculous amount to help people, from stopping a wildfire to giving up all of his organs, has made such a profound impact on so many lives through his good deeds, and that's recognised. people in headspace adore him.

the conveyor belts at the junkyard are endeared to him. sweetheart falls in love with him. mr jawsum plans to essentially keep him trapped working at the last resort forever. medusa thinks he's "too pretty to sell". hero's worth something to so many people, even when he doesn't want to be.

and that applies to the real world too. he's the only older sibling left for his friends after mari's death. he has to be strong for them, to be that ideal, because they have no-one else to fill that role. he brings kel and aubrey together, rescues sunny and basil, says that they should have a sleepover like "old times". he's trying so hard for everyone else, he can't afford to let himself crumble.

hero's a performer. and we see canonically that he has at least some stage fright from sweetheart's quest for hearts.

sweetheart's an interesting case. i find it interesting that the image above would be found mostly in the fight against her. sweetheart is one of the bosses with a uniquely heightened emotional state, hers being that of happiness in "manic". due to the way the emotion system in battle works (explained to us, funnily enough, by hero himself), it makes sense to oppose sweetheart's mania with sadness, misery, and depression.

so that's what hero does! he has the depressed effect, he'd otherwise look incredibly morose, but as soon as time calls for it, he's got a smile back on his face. we see how uncomfortable he is about her advances, but he gives her a smile that sets into motion a whole separate stream of dialogue where sweetheart proclaims her that she would like to "make [his smile] mine".

hero's the group golden boy. the charmer, the healer, the protector, the older brother, the pillar for them to lean on when things get tough. he knows that he is, and upholds that image to the best of his ability.

that is, until mari dies.

then, he falls into a deep, serious state of depression in the real world, because he's failed. he and mari have strived for perfection their whole lives, only for her to apparently deem it all pointless and leave them behind. hero feels like he wasn't enough, like he never will be, no matter how much he's tried. the faked grins disappear alongside those which were genuine, for how is he supposed to smile when he's given up on the facade?

he stops talking to people. stops going outside. stops helping. he can't do anything but reflect on his perceived failures, and without his pillar of support, the group crumbles to pieces.

hero stays like that for a whole year, until he argues with kel and remembers the reason why he needs to stay alive. this is hurting his brother as much as it is hero, and kel's depending on him to get better. so he does, in a way.

he earns medals and trophies again, helps out again, lives up to expectations then exceeds them even more. he can't bring himself to do the things he enjoys anymore, or talk to the three kids he viewed as little siblings and he failed, but he's trying. then, he leaves, off to medical school like his parents wanted. it's a fresh start. it's a chance for him to start to move on.

he's been healing, a little, by the time he comes back to faraway. he can talk about what mari would have wanted without breaking down entirely. he can make kel and sunny breakfast. he can bring the group together like old times, and reminisce on all he used to have.

but he's still not better, and it shows. it shows in the tears he spills when alone beside mari's old piano. it shows in his refusal to visit her grave. it shows in all the little ways he can try to hide, can cover up with a smile too bright to be real. depression doesn't go away that easily, no matter how much hero tries to pretend he's fine.

all in all, i think this meme essentially sums up hero's character and arc in a single, otherwise funny image. am i overcomplicating things? oh, definitely yes. was this a blast to analyse nonetheless? absolutely! there are far too few takes on hero out there, and i hope this gave a little bit of insight as to why i adore him so much.

213 notes · View notes

crowbasils · 4 months

Text

BASIL (OMORI) — A STUDY & ANALYSIS ON HIS CHARACTER

(content warning — OMORI spoilers, mentions of death and hanging, mentions of suicidal behavior and suicide, mentions of self-harm, mentions of physical and verbal abuse (bullying), mentions of child neglect. please proceed with caution.)

( PARTS WILL BE REBLOGGED INSTEAD OF POSTED ALL AT ONCE. it’s needed because compared to the 7 photos of proof that the last analysis had, this one has 47 (48, when considering the thumbnail image). sorry for the inconvenience ! )

I. BASIL’S CHILDHOOD

Due to the nature of OMORI being mainly only in Sunny’s perspective, we do not have many solid and/or canon scenes of Basil’s childhood before he met the friend group. However, there are things in-game that do imply Basil hasn’t exactly had the best childhood. Starting off with what Polly says about Basil’s parents:

“Basil’s lived with his grandma since he was a toddler.” / “His parents don’t ever seem to be home”

Intentional or not—this does qualify as child neglect, which counts as abuse, even if unintentional. While they do care enough for Basil to leave him to his grandmother, and while they do care enough for Basil to hire a caretaker when it was evident that his grandmother wouldn’t hold out and survive for any longer, it’s not enough. This is not to say that they didn’t try—but, instead to say that they didn’t try enough.

Basil is implied to have been affected by this in some form or another, as seen by the comment he made on his photo album:

“I took photos of what I was most afraid to lose.”

This comment about the photo album confirms the existence of his fear of abandonment and losing the things he loved even before the incident. While you may argue that he’s too young to figure it out before that, children are curious. Before he met the friend group, he will, at some point, ask questions when he does see his other peers with their parents. He will ask why his grandmother looks different from the rest, and ask who that male figure is near their children (he never did get a father figure, after all.).

“I only knew what it was like to be alone.”

While this may have been said by Headspace Basil, it does confirm the fact that Basil never really had friends before, and does also imply Basil not having much of a connection to his grandmother. While yes, they do connect, they do at least love one another due to how she does care about him as a mother figure, it might have not been as deep as the connections he had for his friends. She does love him, and he loves her too—especially since she was his only family, but sometimes, bonds formed by connections go deeper than blood.

It’s also pretty clear that all he ever wished for was connections, which is seen through this!

“But what should I wish for? I have everything I could want right here!”

He mentions that the friend group he now has is everything he ever wished for, which does imply that since having a friend group is essentially connecting to others, and forming a strong bond with them through experiences with on another

Basil did most likely have to grow up a lot faster than the rest of the group—excluding Mari and Hero. This is evident by how he behaves more humble and polite than the rest of them—In a sense, he can be considered an “older brother” figure to the friend group, which is seen by how he does have a sense of wanting to protect them and take care of them. Which is seen even in the Basil fight, as seen by this:

The need to protect and care is seen here, and with how Sunny is the youngest of the group and with how they’ve experienced so much together, it’s most likely strengthened! How he likes taking care of things such as flowers and plants also does prove his need to care and protect! He’s also shown to want to help others, and shown to worry if his help just burdens other people, like here!

Basil also seems to worry if his issues would burden others—a negative side to being an “older brother” of sorts. Sometimes, if you view yourself as someone who needs to care and help others, you become afraid to show your vulnerable side in fear that you will become a burden to them, as well as in fear that you will be unreliable to them, which is seen here!

“Sometimes I feel like I’m bothering him”

He fears bothering others with his problems, he wants to make sure that they’re comfortable with him venting to them—he cares about them so much, even when he’s the one who needs reassurance.

Basil also does also serve as a peacemaker in the friend group, as shown by this:

While this is said by Headspace Basil, it also still does apply to Pre-Incident Basil, who does seem to dislike conflict as well. It’s also seen in Post-Incident Faraway Basil with how he asks, although it’s more wanting to avoid conflict plus fearing the person for reasons that will be explained in another part of this essay.

Most of these do imply that Basil has been at least a bit more mature than when compared to Kel, Aubrey, and Sunny! This does also provide a reason to why he’s often grouped with Mari, and Hero, who are like the ‘Mom and Dad’ of the group!

( Though this doesn’t have much of something that backs it up, another interesting thing is how the “Everything will be okay…” thing seems to stem from his childhood. We aren’t given much in-game, but a possible theory that someone suggested to me once is that maybe his family has a tradition to pretend that everything’s alright. Or it was drilled into him not to talk about bad experiences and stuff. But the theory is plausible, especially since it looks like there’s “nothing wrong” until you dive deeper into his character :3 )

81 notes · View notes

humornaut · 1 year

Text

Headspace Basil and Stranger: A Character Analysis

Hey everyone! I've noticed a bit that everyone seems to have different ideas on what Stranger (and Headspace Basil to a lesser extent) actually represent, so I wanted to put my own interpretation out there. This post may be a little contentious, I'm not sure. Major Omori Spoilers ahead.

"When you hid the truth, you sealed a part of me away with it. He's been waiting for someone to save him all this time. On that day... when you became nothing... I was split in half. Which one do you think was more painful?"

This line is the best thing the game gives us to actually explaining what exactly Stranger is. It's... incredibly up to interpretation, like a lot of Omori, but it gives us a place to start. It implies that Headspace Basil and Stranger are two halves of the same whole, not that that idea is farfetched without this line. I often see the idea that Stranger is the manifestation of Basil's thoughts following Sunny into his dreams, but I personally think that the white egret orchids are more of a metaphorical representation of how Basil would tell Sunny everything, and how those things about Basil are readily apparent in the foundation of Headspace. I really don't think that this line of dialogue as a whole makes all that much sense in that interpretation.

I also see the interpretation floated around that Stranger represents the darker aspects of Basil's character, or the parts that Sunny didn't like, and while I think that this gets closer to the truth, it misses the point of why Basil has been split up in Sunny's mind to begin with.

Everything about Headspace is meant to distract Sunny from his guilt. But what happened to Mari isn't the only thing that Sunny is guilty for. Sunny also holds guilt for breaking his promise to Basil and choosing to shut him out and forget himself. But he's also too attached to Basil to get rid of him completely, so his mind copes with this by attempting to cut out all the things about Basil that serve as a reminder that Basil and Sunny have a special bond, and that the real Basil has been left alone when he needed Sunny the most.

This does include some of the darker aspects of Basil's character. Things like a reference to Basil having to go to the bathroom being cut out of the Headspace photo album show this, as everywhere else in the game, Basil "going to the bathroom" serves to tell the player that he's actually excusing himself to panic in private.

However, we also don't get to find out about what Basil actually said about white tulips in regards to Sunny until it's Stranger saying it, and no Basil inside of Sunny's head ever calls Sunny/Omori his best friend until you lead Stranger to the Basil that has seen the truth in the Sunny route. In the hikikomori route especially, we see that Sunny has made it so Basil confides in all of their friends, rather than just Sunny, and in the same way, his mind makes it so the entire group knows about his phobias that came from the Lake Incident, despite implications that it was only actually Basil that knew about those in the real world.

We even get all of the friends getting excited about Basil taking pictures when they least expect it and wanting to see the pictures for themselves in Headspace, when Memory Lane actually shows Aubrey (and Kel, in a more joking manner) being somewhat uncomfortable with moments of Basil doing this in the Beach and Treehouse memories respectively, and Sunny is the only one seen to ask Basil if he can look at his pictures at all, even when Aubrey actually asked him to take the picture.

For this reason, I don't think that Headspace Basil is "idealized", at least not in the same way that everyone else is. I would imagine that Sunny's mind would not cut out this closeness from his "ideal" version of Basil.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Black Space. Whenever a version of Basil remembers something from their past, what he actually says in those areas tends to downplay Sunny and Basil's bond.

In the Watermelon Area, you get Basil remembering the trip to the beach, but he only talks about Kel having watermelon seeds on his face.

In the Spider Area, you of course get the memory of Sunny telling him about the spider that landed on his shoulder during his lake incident, but Basil downplays Sunny's fear of spiders in a way that wouldn't really seem all that in character for the real world Basil to talk about the Lake Incident and Sunny's fears, but it is exactly how Basil talks about Hero's fear of spiders at the end of the hikikomori route.

In the Treehouse Area, the first thing Basil asks Omori is "Are KEL, AUBREY, and HERO here too?", and how much he's missed all of them, before talking about how hard they all worked on the treehouse.

In the Raft Area, the specific memory that Basil gets back isn't immediately apparent. However, his line about Omori acting "kind of cold" is particularly interesting. We could either take this as him remembering how Sunny used to interact with him compared to the empty shell that is Omori, or we could take this as Omori starting to get annoyed at Basil's constant recollection of things that he isn't supposed to be bringing up. However, the real meat of both this area and the previous area is that Basil tries to confide in Omori. In the Treehouse Area, he asks if he can share something with Omori with a nervous smile, while in the Raft Area, he wants to talk about something that is bothering him.

Most people assume that what Basil is trying to talk about is The Truth, but I think this is incorrect. There is only one Basil that has seen the truth, and that Basil is waiting for you in the Church of Something in the Sunny route. These Basils also aren't previous versions of Basil that have seen the truth and were banished to Black Space, as we can see that those previous Basils were killed and left in Red Space, just like the one at the end of the Sunny route. Finally, there is still dialogue in the game's code that shows that the Basils in Black Space originally were constantly trying to bring up the Truth, showing that this was specifically modified for the final release. Now, what he was actually going to bring up in either case is unknown, and I don't think it really matters all that much. Each of these Basils are reminding Sunny both of their bond and of a past that no longer exists.

Presumably, this is the original Spider Area Dialogue.

Finally, we come to the Neighbor Area. Here, Basil references Omori having to save him all the time. He remembers that his photo album should have more pictures than it does in Headspace, and he rushes ahead when he notices Hero nearby. I think the first thing is interesting, though I don't personally believe that it is implying that each Basil in Black Space is intended to be the same Basil. Instead, I think it references how Basil has just generally been turned into a bit of a "damsel in distress" figure, even outside of the main plot, as seen when he gets kidnapped by Boss in the beginning of the game.

Generally speaking, Basil in these areas is acting as if he and Omori are no closer than the rest of the group. He still looks up to Omori, but Basil in both the real world and Headspace is shown to look up to all of his friends. The way that Basil puts all of his friends on a pedestal is not something that reminds Sunny of his close bond with Basil in particular, so the Headspace version of Basil still keeps this trait.

Contrast this with how Stranger is presented throughout Black Space. Unlike Headspace Basil, he doesn't have that cheerful, if a little nervous, demeanor. He is fully aware of Headspace and Black Space. Like the real Basil, he is aware of the truth, but is unable to reference it directly, due to Sunny's mind having repressed it so deeply. He's a bit cold in the way he speaks to Sunny, unlike Headspace Basil, but when you actually read his dialogue, it's almost always comes back to how close the two are:

"The truth that you've locked away... You must find it no matter what. You have to... for the both of us."

"I miss you, SUNNY. You were always someone I could depend on to listen. My problems... my hopes... my dreams... You knew them all. So if you're still there... please let my words reach you one more time."

"Is there still hope left for us, SUNNY?"

"Back then... I wanted to save what was left. But even after everything... you left me, SUNNY... I waited so long for you to come back. Even seeing you now... It's hard to think straight. I can feel my heart hurting and I want to cover my face and hide. There are so many things I want to say to you... but the words won't come out. I just... I waited so long for you too come back, SUNNY... but... you never did."

"SUNNY... The truth is here. You've been running from this for so long. But this time, we can face it together."

Even in the hikikomori route, where we see Stranger at his most vengeful, he reminds Sunny about all the times that Basil continued to try and reach out after Sunny shut him out.

That's not to say that Stranger is the "real" Basil. Both Stranger and Headspace Basil are two halves of how Sunny sees Basil, and it's when they combine that we truly see the truth. In the same way that Headspace Basil never calls Omori his best friend until merging with Stranger, Stranger never asks for forgiveness for how Basil's actions affected Sunny until they combine, because that general personality that Headspace Basil has is still part of how Sunny sees the real Basil. Neither is truly an accurate representation of the way Sunny sees Basil.

And there are some more things to keep in mind about this. Post Hikikomori route, you have Basil giving Omori the flower crown, as well as the Basil Rush. This actually reveals a bit of a conflict within Sunny's mind. He desperately wants Basil around, and without the truth being apparent, they will naturally be drawn together for the same reasons they were so close in real life. But the flower crown and Basil Rush ultimately end up forcing Sunny to confront the memory of the truth, showing that even this was too much.

TLDR; Stranger, to me, represents the aspects of Basil that are reminders of what Sunny did the night of the accident, as well as the aspects of Basil that would remind Sunny of how close the two are, so that Sunny can try to avoid his guilt for leaving Basil alone with the burden of the truth. This explains the dichotomy between HS Basil's cheerful demeanor with less of a focus on Sunny specifically and Stranger's more cold and harsh personality that consistently provides reminders of both the existence of the truth and how close Basil and Sunny are specifically. Neither are completely accurate, resulting in neither Basil apologizing to Sunny or calling Sunny his best friend until the two merge.

#omori #omori analysis #omori spoilers #stranger #headspace #sunny #basil #character analysis #and to be fair I think a lot of this is intended to be pretty vague and up for interpretation #I can't exactly disprove that there's something paranormal going on with some of the stuff that happens in the game #but if Stranger were intended to be a representation of the real Basil I feel that his dialogue would change a bit more from route to route

93 notes · View notes

faithfromanewperspective · 7 months

Text

sugar coated brain (the fluid ain’t to blame): unraveling Conor Aurelian

I don’t know if this is me admitting to have read embarrassingly little in terms of Actual Books since I turned 18 but. Wow. I loved sword catcher, and for once I was there eating up the plot rather than only relating to the characters so much I was obsessively hoping for a happy ending for them.

I’ve said before that sword catcher was good, so good it’s almost above fandom discourse (like a Beethoven symphony perhaps, you think twice before making arrangements of a masterpiece like that) but even the best symphonies deserve, actually they’re honoured by, critical analysis of the phrasing and melodies and that which are used. And this is a Cassandra Clare book after all. The beauty comes from beautifully (read: realistic, somehow more human than real humans idk I’m blown away every time) constructed characters, and then from the plot. Which was character-driven and so, so delicious, but we’re not talking those kind of spoilers this early in the game.

While I’ll admit that Kel was the most relatable character, followed by Lin or maybe Ana, there were some things about Conor that just cut a little too close in ways I hadn’t thought about in years. Taking me back to some worldbuilding of my childhood, a ‘reluctant princess’ I came up with based on feeling trapped and overprotected and that fantasy world has long since been archived in my head and it’s entertaining to think this weird kid in western sydney who didn’t get to run quite as wild as some of the other kids (but still did get to run quite wild) felt like that when we were the furthest thing from royalty. I didn’t expect to be reminded of that in an adult fantasy book, but here we are, and I’m being entertained to see all the different takes on Conor: some driven to fascination, some to annoyance, and somehow in the 5 of us who’ve actually read sword catcher already everything in between.

But let’s be real for a second: who hasn’t heard the ‘oh you can’t be depressed you have everything you need’ and been like. Really hurt by it?? Who hasn’t sat among know it all adults in their younger years who would just judge the hell out of other young people who supposedly ‘never got to hear no’ and now they have ‘no resilience’ and ‘no wonder they’re having problems’? Referring to people you actually relate to and thought, well this definitely isn’t a safe space to be vulnerable I’ll just suffer in silence? I’ve grown up enough now to see Lin’s trauma behind the way she says this about Conor but part of me is still a little mad at her. As for Conor?? He’s everything I’d expect from someone in his position and I actually don’t think the majority of it comes from ‘never hearing no’ and ‘getting everything he wants’ but rather the things that those try to make up for: a lack of real autonomy over his life, not being allowed to feel Normal Child Feelings, having no one he can relate to and see as an equal, a heavy burden of responsibility before he was ever old enough to understand it, and the many levels of fuckery that’s all done to his parents making them not just emotionally unavailable but frivolous, trying to maintain their own autonomy and connection doing silly little rich people hobbies that just make the divide between and resentment of them vs Every Other Person greater (constant stargazing or Decoration and Control). Sugar-coated brains: how could they not be when everything revolves around you but there’s so little you can actually do but pursue the pleasure you’re told you’re entitled to?

I didn’t expect to be this mad at the royal family culture within SC but when I look back on it I’m not surprised. Not when the setting of the book is on the edge of a revolution, the unraveling of a society that feels so much like today and allows me to zoom out in a way that makes my little revolutionist heart happy. But oh, the angst and the bad decisions as the world teeters on that razorblade. The lives that are lost in the fray. I don’t know what’s happening in our world now but after Cast Long Shadows and an arc I know that she’s proud of (our dear Matthew Fairchild) I do trust Cassie. And in the meantime I’ll let her convince me of what I already know: the lives of nobility are simply pawns in a much bigger game no one (except maybe Ana) knows how to take the reins of, and the life of a pawn, no matter the luxuries, is a sorry life indeed.

This little revolutionist brain of the 2000s had one thing right, and I feel vindicated to see it in such clarity here: the relationship between social class and genuine connection. From the stark contrast of the opening with Cas and Kel, even also Mari and Lin, against the disaster that is the royal family, it couldn’t be clearer to me: when you’re nobody, when there are no expectations of you, you can be who you really are. Maybe not in the eyes of the authorities, and that’s an important distinction to make, but there’s no need to pretend around your nearest and dearest and sometimes that’s worth so much more than hypothetical safety. Because yes you can get away with things when you’re rich but you’ve also got more people trying to assassinate you for who you are specifically rather than just running the risk of getting killed because you’re unlucky and too unimportant for anyone to think you’d be missed. When you’re royalty (or just have parents with really high expectations or are a gifted kid even) you’re given a mold to grow into and no one really asks if that’s who you really are: why would they, when their worldview depends on you being exactly who they want you to be? So if you’re not it you pretend and even with those, like your children, who are close enough to see behind the ruse, you never quite show them who you really are either. You can see how that would drive one insane. You showcase that the only way to exist is to mask until you snap, or lose the ability to be yourself at all. Which leads me to the second type of sugar coat.

(And I’m quoting songs as my inspo behind this post as always, title quote is empty wallets by 5sos and I’m about to move onto sugar coat by little big town aka the band with an irl fairchild in it): this sugar coat is politeness and etiquette. There’s a quote somewhere in Kel’s narration I believe that I can’t find but basically views social etiquette and the like as you know. War strategy or something, which is another little segment of the reminder it’s cassie writing this and there’s a lot of accidental neurodivergence, or neurodivergence existing in a world so very different to ours, because that’s a very neurodivergent way of viewing it imo. And in this case, the sugar coat is like a constructed mask you spend your whole life trying to perfect, wear it as it’s handed down from your predecessors: in Conor’s case, lilibet (passed down from my mum, she wears it so well, put it on my shoulders said it’s colder out there than you think/would I recognise myself, would anybody else, if I took the damn thing off and burned it up?) who does make the frivolity and politics of being queen into her whole personality. She’s equally a pitiable and annoying character for that.

But as for Conor? He’s a Cassandra Clare Created (TM) young man. Of course he can’t quite manage this kind of sugar coat business. The politeness, the etiquette, the little social dances: he longs for real connection (and now we’re back in empty wallets territory, get you high when I’m high, so we see eye to eye: to me this sums out how he makes connections with those who are nowhere near his equals but he wants to have some sort of equal footed connection with: Kel and *[redacted minor spoiler, see below cut]). He’s snapping from the pressure of it, and that’s exactly the kind of driving force for the narrative Cassie uses excellently. We see him coming undone, and hate it (or at least I do) but hope maybe, maybe it’s the path for liberation for him from the life that’s obviously making him (more) depressed (than he otherwise might be), and as the audience we don’t care if the kingdom burns down for this, as long as it doesn’t cause too much collateral damage. And we know it’s going to be a wild ride to get there.

I don’t reckon this is obvious to everyone else but it is to me, with my experience of Christianity and life and just everything that if you’re a leader in any way, you’re a better leader for being liberated in yourself, having autonomy and appropriate boundaries and Conor has none of that and he’s coming undone and yes there’s a lot of other characters (who I will post about later) with their own arcs and A LOT going on (seriously it’s so deliciously complex and so much more so than tsc ever was with maybe the exception of tec which is kind of adult fantasy anyway). But oh. She really knows how to deliver, all through the first book and I can’t wait to see what the next one has to offer!! And to me the characterisation of Conor is just proof on how expertly the whole world of Castellane and it’s stories is being carried out.

BIG GAP CAUSE CUT ISNT WORKING

*and Lin later on, kind of

tagging: @daisymylove and feel free to mention anyone who might like it in comments/reblogs!

#sword catcher #cassandra clare #conor aurelian #I TRIED SO HARD TO MAKE IT UNSPOILERY #and genuinely don’t think it is?!?#not spoilery #I checked again #sword catcher deep dives #<-is that a new tag I see?

25 notes · View notes