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I'll apologise to the moderators for starting a story thread myself, I did not realise that was staff contolled so my poor conduct :S - anyway I'll move my comment here :)

 

I was pretty satisfied with how the game ended, but I do wish they had done a few more things along the journey. I particualrly felt like the Chesire Cat got the raw end of the deal in this game compared to the previous one, his role is kindof minimalised and he barely appaers at all towards the end of the game. At the very least I exepected him to turn up in chapter 6 with a speech and was kind of disappointed when he didn't. I also wish Rabbit and Griffion had been included as charecters with actual roles in the story as well.

 

Overall though I think the plot and the storytelling in this game was definetely well done and I enjoyed trying to figure out exactly how the events in wonderland were tranlating to the real world and vise versa The villianious exposision was fairly obvious even early on but it definetely went alot darker then I thought it would, much darker then the orignal game.

 

I'd be interested in what other people thought of the story for this game and particualarly if they were satisifed with the final conclusion.

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I'm not exactly clear why the doctor killed lizzie and burned the house.

 

The most that i think i got from it was that he was selling/pimping children. Is that right?

 

 

The dialogue and narration dealing with this stuff is somewhat discursive and therefore whatever conclusions that are drawn can only be interpretations based on implications; but, yes, he was prostituting children (and the further implication is that Alice was actually - though not knowingly and willingly - aiding and abetting him). And Lizzie: the implication is that he raped Lizzie in her bedroom that night, then killed her and burned the house down in order to conceal the crime and destroy evidence.

 

 

 

I'd be interested in what other people thought of the story for this game and particularly if they were satisifed with the final conclusion.

 

 

In a weird way there are 3 conclusions: a gameplay conclusion, a narrative conclusion, and a - shall we say - metaphysical conclusion; and, of the 3, I really only found the metaphysical conclusion somewhat satisfying.

 

Let's deal with the gameplay conclusion: it's a boss fight; lame. And there's a reason that it's lame: with what is obviously at stake in terms of the game's narrative - the sanity of a young woman that has been exploited and abused (possibly sexually) and has almost certainly been made use of as a procurer and accomplice in the exploitation and abuse of other children - a boss fight just doesn't carry the weight of implication that the game has set up; to quote Bumby at the beginning of the game: it just doesn't signify. It's hard to say what would actually be satisfying (a weird word to use in this context) with regards to a gameplay ending, but something both more tortuously and torturously psychological than a boss fight was certainly called for.

 

The narrative conclusion: just like the boss fight, this winds up being pretty standard, conservative stuff: the victim "finds" herself psychologically, and musters up the wherewithal to kill her (and others') tormentor; the interesting wrinkle here comes from Alice summoning her Wonderland "uniform" to do the deed, thus infecting reality with imagination; but it still remains an essentially conservative and platitudinous action: "the strength of her fantasy enables her to alter her reality" - the taking of refuge by an abused mind in fantasy - seen as madness by those around her - provides the strength and comfort necessary to act in her "real life": it's a very common trope and feels way too easy here; it seems to me that somehow the derogate Wonderland and noxious London needed to be more thoroughly intermingled than they were in the game for this ending to seem more hard won than it did.

 

The metaphysical conclusion: brief and succinct, with a great cat-narrated line: Only the savage regard the endurance of pain as the measure of worth. This was an interesting little bit of business: Wonderland has taken over London, with the cat further narrating: And our Wonderland, though damaged, is safe in memory...for now. Again, a conservative and rather platitudinous thought: despite the horrors of the world, the safe harbour of the mind (even in madness) will always be there; but this time the platitude is redeemed by the realization that, like I said, the fantastical constructs of Wonderland are seen as covering the wretched London of the narrative - as if, in order for a world that ugly to ever be able to be seen as a place of mere habitation (never mind refuge), it would have to be seen with the eyes of a mad-woman, it would have to be seen as a fantastical and impossible place. In this case, the world is not redeemed by fantasy; it's condemned as being altogether unlivable - fantasy (madness) is the only thing that makes it bearable, and that's actually a fairly remarkable attitude to take (and one that is only very subtly hinted at in the game).

 

Anyways, the game works extraordinarily well; but the problem is that it raises too much darkness and ugliness for its own good - there really is no satisfying (there's that inappropriate word again) way to deal with things like this in a video game. And, interestingly enough, a game - this game - that comes closer to art than most, does more than ever to convince me that video games are not and can never be art: anything that relies wholly upon either immersion or catharsis for its effects is already straining at the possibility that it might contain a measure of art within it; anything that relies wholly upon both immersion and catharsis for its effects can simply never measure up to what is required of art - the medium is inherently superficial and, despite there being some interesting strategies to try and combat that superficiality, those strategies just create more problems than can adequately be solved.

 

 

I particularly felt like the Cheshire Cat got the raw end of the deal in this game compared to the previous one, his role is kind of minimalised and he barely appears at all towards the end of the game. At the very least I expected him to turn up in chapter 6 with a speech and was kind of disappointed when he didn't.

 

 

I actually thought this was an excellent strategy on the part of the game; whether the developers realized it or not, it actually gives a somewhat innovative aspect to the impetus behind the game: abused and exploited by psychology, Alice picks her own way through her own madness in order to arrive at her own version of truth and sanity; a story like this pretty much always makes the victim rely on a guide through his/her own mind; the fact that Alice deals with the cat very brusquely when he appears actually makes her journey a lot more moving because of how self-sufficient she decides to be; it is, after all, her own madness, and there's no reason why she shouldn't try to traverse it on her own.

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Well said and detailed, Mitsuru Kirijo. This game decided to delve upon relatively dark and dant topics that are the more certianly on the negative balance of civilisation/independant humanity. When Alice is in the real world, she is typically thrust into a more than questionable situation that most "decent" folk would not have the awareness of comprehension. This game would have been far more... breaching of the surreal and meta-psychology had it been literature.

 

It is a shame as the ending did leave a few questions. My perspective is that madness and reality became merged to Alice's mind. She had become strong in her mind, and with the judgment inflicted upon Bumby (stopping the train and destroying he who holds the strings), so too had she become strong in reality. This is obviously no notion of a cure for madness, but it is what Alice decided it to be in order for continuum.

 

Solid work in story writing, this game was a total success in gameplay, writing, and overall atmosphere/art (or whatever, I do not use/know/pretend artistical phrasing).

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I enjoyed the game, but i was curious if those that have finished madness returns could help me out in trying to piece together some of the narrative that seems lost to me. Over the course of the game, is time jumping around of has alice just been wondering about the streets of london. cause this is what i've come up with.

 

In the beginning i'm sent of to fetch medicine and meet up with the nurse who turns into a creature and then i fall back into wonderland.

 

then wake up having almost drown and meet the nanny/prostitute who gets beatup and then alice is knocked unconscious.

 

wake in jail and am told by the nanny that my rabbit is being held by radcliffe the lawyer. who i visit and then spaz out to find his house abandonned.

 

then i wake up in the asylum supposedly having gone there myself and am remembering that they used leeches and tried to put screws in my brain.

 

what happened with the old nurse and the lawyer? cause the nanny took off if i remember correctly.

 

love the game, but a bit confused. please help !!

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Alice picks her own way through her own madness in order to arrive at her own version of truth and sanity; a story like this pretty much always makes the victim rely on a guide through his/her own mind; the fact that Alice deals with the cat very brusquely when he appears actually makes her journey a lot more moving because of how self-sufficient she decides to be; it is, after all, her own madness, and there's no reason why she shouldn't try to traverse it on her own.

 

While I think I understand where your coming from I still feel like the Chesire was rather wasted as a charecter - self relience doesn't really seem to be the issue when he is both a product of alices mind and not really inclined to do much to help beyond his cryptic narrtive. In the end it seems like they forgot about him completely and stripped him of his context in the game. Prehaps as you say this is a happy accident and had they remembered they would have made a mess of it, but it still seems a waste to me.

 

Only the savage regard the endurance of pain as the measure of worth.

 

I should also like to point out that this line, along with ALOT of chersires lines in this game, was lifted virtually unedited from the original 2000 game - stripped of almost all its orignal context - It seems that the developers of this game couldn't even be bothered to think up lines for him half the time, which is yet another reason I feel he was an wasted and misused charecter in this game.

Edited by Gigacorona
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Over the course of the game, is time jumping around or has alice just been wondering about the streets of london. cause this is what i've come up with.

 

With one exception - the asylum - time only moves forward in the game, with each trip to Wonderland representing a "blackout" on the part of Alice; completing each part of Wonderland also results in Alice waking up and continuing her sojourn through London; the asylum is the one leap backward in time, and the rest of the London events could probably be said to unfold over a single (more or less) 24-hour period.

 

As for what happened to the nurse and the lawyer, it's hard to say - the way in which Alice is led to the various characters from her past is, shall we say, mystically co-incidental (she follows a random white cat); the nurse disappears with Alice's first "blackout", and the lawyer's residence is completely abandoned after Alice wakes up from another "blackout", implying that the conversation between the two of them might not have happened anywhere but her own mind.

 

 

 

I should also like to point out that this line, along with ALOT of chersires lines in this game, was lifted virtually unedited from the original 2000 game - stripped of almost all its orignal context - It seems that the developers of this game couldn't even be bothered to think up lines for him half the time, which is yet another reason I feel he was an wasted and misused charecter in this game.

 

 

Never mind a lot of Cheshire's lines being lifted from the previous game; most of his lines are lifted from the previous game. But you're wrong about them being "stripped" of their original context; the context has simply been altered; or, rather, the context of the cat himself has been altered. I'll quote you again and explain:

 

self relience doesn't really seem to be the issue when he is both a product of alices mind and not really inclined to do much to help beyond his cryptic narrtive

 

 

Self-reliance is absolutely the issue when you consider that almost nothing in Wonderland (including the cat) can any longer be said to be a product of Alice's mind, or, at least, not solely a product of Alice's mind: the plot of the game basically reduces itself to Alice making her way through a realm of her own imagining that has been corrupted by the rather pernicious psychiatrist in whose care she has been, a man who calls himself "a social architect and scientist"; Alice's Wonderland has become a place in the process of becoming destroyed, a place that threatens her rather than a place that provides her refuge; and the cat, like everything else in the current Wonderland, has been corrupted by Bumby's influence. The cat as a guide could also be said to be Bumby as a guide (given the context of this, the new game). In other words, the cat can easily be interpreted as being a guide not of the helpful variety - like, say, Virgil in Dante's Commedia -, but of the infernal variety: shepherding Alice to her doom rather than to safety.

 

"You're as randomly lethal and entirely confused as you ever were". Another sardonically funny line the cat says to Alice early on; and it's here that Alice immediately brushes the cat aside - as if something in her is rebelling against a character who once (in the previous game) was genuinely (if not cryptically) helpful, but who now could easily be interpreted as the corrupted guide of a corrupted world, that corruption being the thing that Alice must (on her own) combat.

 

 

 

Prehaps as you say this is a happy accident and had they remembered they would have made a mess of it, but it still seems a waste to me.

 

I'll just be clear here about why I said that this could have been accidental on the part of the developers: there is, still (and quite in spite of how much I really enjoyed the game), a rather conservative core at the heart of the thing, which, despite taking well-placed aim at psychiatry, still seems to have a bit too much faith in the psychological. But, really, any game that refers to Dickens and spontaneous human combustion, then shortly thereafter paraphrases Kafka ("O, there's an infinite amount of hope, but none for us"), can probably reasonably be said to be aware of not only Kafka's combative relationship with the work of Dickens, but also of Kafka's ongoing fascination with the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case from Dickens' Bleak House; in other words, at least someone working on the script of the game is possessed of enough of a literary bent to make me think they were completely in control of what they were doing, and that, really, there are just some things that didn't quite come off.

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the other thing to remember is the person who we saw at the end may have been the queen of hearts. taking momentary control ,

 

or it might not have happened, maddness returns is a search fro truth in alice she is in the asylum and that facters in the later game design, her purpose is to regain her mind and hence her life the queen of hearts/ heart of darkness, hold the key to that in madness returns alice still feels her familys deaths are her fault. the memorys are as much part of the narative as the cutscenes. little clues tellign somethings wrong in london leading up to the muder of her family. the 2 time discrepincies could be her mind playing ricks or they could be a revelation in the unsure nature of her mind. radcliffe is her lawyer and he wants her remaining inheritance.hence all the memorys about better life and marble statues and such. the procurer aspect of the dollmaker is shown throught the game in the design of the enemys so its not a big surprise.

 

as to the end i personally feel that alice partially retreated to wonderland and reached a truece with her other part the queen of hearts, if she killed bumby then great if not that was in her mind a closure she knew she didnt kill her family and whatever happened would happen.

 

great idea for a story though very dark and moving

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I'll have to agree to disagree with you MK, I think your giving them way more credit then they actually deserve in this case. I think what they did in this game was often more 'clever' then 'smart' when it came to their literay refrences. And I completely disagree that the Chesires actual role has been signifgantly altered as there is no indication of that exepct as speculation. If the senario writers did intend that to be the case they have done so in a akward way that most people could not catch onto. Personally I would rather defer to Occums razor in this case and say the simplest explination is they stuffed it up because while they wanted to keep cherise in his role from the first game they ended up not working him into the new scenario very well.

 

I dare say I probably can't compete with you on interpreting the background materials but I can't help but think you might be outsmarting yourself on this one.

 

I do admire your detailed analiysis though, so there is certainly merit to your interrprtation and I'll thank you for the detailed reasoning you've shown. :)

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I haven't read none of the posts above I don't want to spoil it for myself. :)

 

I have a few questions though because I want to buy it. :D

 

1. Is it anything actually like Alice in Wonderland/What is the storyline for this?

2. What is the difficulty rating? (I usually play Assassin's Creed and I'm rubbish at games like COD.)

3. Does it have any puzzles/twists? (To make levels harder.)

4. Does it have levels and free roam or is the whole thing just story line based. Like mission after mission.

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  • 2 weeks later...

i personally loved this game. the atmosphere and storytelling was dark, sad, and disturbing. fantastic. but i can't help but think that alice didn't actually kill bumby at the end, and that was just her wonderland fantasy considering she was in her wonderland dress, and london had transformed into wonderland as well. perhaps the fact that she was able to figure everything out and relieve herself of her guilt was enough to put her mind at ease

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I thought it was worth every penny i paid for it to be honest. I liked the story but i'm somewhat disappointed that it took me so long to figure out who it was. I thought it was one of the other individuals in the memories section.....

 

As much as platformers have been changing i thought it was a bit old school...and that's a win in my book. :applause:

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There's a story in this? All I've got is that an orphan was in a fire and now she has messed up dreams which you play through her personal wonderland or something. I've been mind-fucked for the majority of the game lmao. I don't know what's going on half the time. What's up with that stupid cat that keeps going "Come Alice, don't dawddle. You've already missed the train" when you get those rose paintings?

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There's a story in this? All I've got is that an orphan was in a fire and now she has messed up dreams which you play through her personal wonderland or something. I've been mind-fucked for the majority of the game lmao. I don't know what's going on half the time. What's up with that stupid cat that keeps going "Come Alice, don't dawddle. You've already missed the train" when you get those rose paintings?

 

1. Yes, there is a story.

2. It's not a cat. It's a White Rabbit. And he's always in a hurry because he's always late.

 

Anyway. Can someone explain to me what the centaurs have to do with anything? In chapter 5, when Alice remembers who the killer is she says "There are no centaurs in Oxford". WTF?

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  • 2 weeks later...
Anyway. Can someone explain to me what the centaurs have to do with anything? In chapter 5, when Alice remembers who the killer is she says "There are no centaurs in Oxford". WTF?

 

I too would like to know whats the deal with the centaur reference.

 

Overall I think the game is great. The gameplay is fun (not the best in the world but fun), the artstyle is very beautful and yet it manages to be frightening/twisted at the same time, and the story I think is very solid and well written.

 

The way Alice deals with her own madness and manages to recover her sanity (or whatever is left of it) is pretty interesting and I dont think theres ever been a game that deals with child abuse, at least not quite like this game does.

 

Im pretty sure Alice was molested herself during her hypnosis "teraphy" with the good doctor and I think that chapter 5 makes this quite explicit to the player. We see lots and lots of things that are common to a child imaginarium like dolls and toy houses deturped in a grotesque way, and the greatest "evidence" that shows the players Alice has been molested is when you open the path to one of the last sections of the chapter and such path consists of a tunel that opens up right btween the legs of a baby girl doll exactly where a real womans genitalia is, I dont think there can be a more explicit metaphore tham that. The doll has its head against the ground and you cant see its face symbolising the loss of identity that usualy follows child abuse.

 

I think this game has a certain "Inception" kind of ending, if you know what I mean. The reality and Alices wonderland merge and we cant help but think if the events we saw on London actualy happened or if Alice is still trapped in the Asylum and she only killed Bumby in her own mind. Was Bumby even real or is he just a character Alice conjured in her delusion symbolising all the abuses/mistreatments she receveid as a child and at the asylum? Is the fire real or is it her way of interpretting how her world cumbled, how she lost her inocense and her sanity ?

 

As I said I think thhe story is great, we realy need more games that take theyre storytelling as serious as this one did.

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Can someone explain to me what the centaurs have to do with anything? In chapter 5, when Alice remembers who the killer is she says "There are no centaurs in Oxford". WTF?

 

 

I too would like to know whats the deal with the centaur reference.

 

 

The actual image of the centaur is accounted for in the game's opening cinematic: Bumby is urging Alice back to Wonderland, and in her "mind's eye" we see a succession of disturbing images, one of which is a centaur pushing a female doll in a wheelchair - after a couple of seconds the doll bursts into flame, and the centaur rears back...

 

Now, when I say that the image is "accounted for" in the opening cinematic that's all I mean: when it becomes a major point later in the game it doesn't completely come out of nowhere like it seems to if you didn't notice that centaur in the opening cinematic. As for what the image itself is supposed to mean...

 

There are two easy interpretations, but neither is really supported by the game: 1) Alice obviously has a very active imagination and seems prone to obfuscating reality; one memory refers to her childhood reading habits, pointing out that she couldn't abide books without pictures - perhaps she saw a centaur in one of those books and somehow replaced Bumby with that image (this, by the way, is a completely unsatisfying and underwhelming "reading" of the centaur business, and requires the player to infer way too much that simply isn't to be found anywhere in the game); 2) the more likely interpretation is that Alice could have spied on the goings-on in her sister's bedroom (all those keyholes you pass through during the game certainly are suggestive of the practice of spying through similar smaller apertures) and mistaken one of a couple of possible sexual positions as a "centaur" (I'll leave those positions to your imagination) - intercourse being associated with "animalistic" images are very powerful and can be found as far back as in Shakespeare: "the beast with two backs" being an obvious analog.

 

This makes more sense - "monstrous" images (the mixing and matching of "confounding contraries" - like a creature that is both horse and man) are frequently used in literature as a sign of societal breakdown, of a world going topsy-turvy (and, again, Shakespeare was a particular master of these types of images - he even used the centaur image a couple of times). There's a great deal of material in the memories that suggests that Lizzie was involved with several men (undergraduates), and that her aversion to Bumby may actually have resulted from being involved in some kind of relationship with him; the final Liddell memory makes it clear that Alice played some role in her family's demise and that she, too, may have been exposed to Bumby prior to his rape and murder of Lizzie. At the very least, Alice witnessed Bumby in the hallway and heard his assault on Lizzie and did nothing about it. There is enough leading material in the memories, though, to suggest she may have actually aided Bumby in his penetration of the house that night, and that's why the confusion of a sexual act - seen in shadows through a keyhole, say - for a centaur makes some sort of satisfying sense (say that aloud 10 times quickly:p).

 

Now, having said all that, this is obviously a serious weakness in the game - the fact that the centaur image is simply not worked into the game in a thorough enough manner to make any of this anything other than supposition. Either it's a very weird oversight on the part of the developers, or they were trying to be subtle to such an absurd degree that they under-delivered on what was going to be one of their most important visual tropes, or (what I think is actually a likely scenario) they had some kind of shadowy sex-act-as-centaur image in the game and didn't include it because of some fear they might have had (or the publisher might have had) regarding the potential harm such an image might have for the game, and they never got around to replacing it with something else.

 

Like I said, though, that's pure speculation; if anyone really wants me to (and I kind of doubt anyone does:p) I can actually present a very convincing case about a relationship between Lizzie and Bumby and even (possibly) Alice, herself, prior to the rape/murder/fire. Anyways, the centaur image is there in the game; yes, its use towards the end of the game does seem completely out of left field; but there is, I think, enough material to be found in the memories and visuals of the game to support a certain reading such as I've offered of the image (though, just to be absolutely clear, the failure to realize the image within the game in such a way that it felt vital to story is, obviously, a massive failure).

Edited by Mitsuru Kirijo
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2) the more likely interpretation is that Alice could have spied on the goings-on in her sister's bedroom (all those keyholes you pass through during the game certainly are suggestive of the practice of spying through similar smaller apertures) and mistaken one of a couple of possible sexual positions as a "centaur" (I'll leave those positions to your imagination) - intercourse being associated with "animalistic" images are very powerful and can be found as far back as in Shakespeare: "the beast with two backs" being an obvious analog.

 

 

That was actually my first thought too but I discarded it very quickly as it was rather disturbing. But you've presented some very good arguments, so now I think that this might as well be the case.

Thanks for the insight, very interesting read, as usual.

 

Like I said, though, that's pure speculation; if anyone really wants me to (and I kind of doubt anyone does:p) I can actually present a very convincing case about a relationship between Lizzie and Bumby and even (possibly) Alice, herself, prior to the rape/murder/fire.

 

Please do!

Edited by purifico
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Whoops! - shouldn't have opened my big mouth and made such an offer: now I have an essay to write:p...And an essay it really is...I exceeded the character limit and will have to break it into two posts; also, I'll have to post another time about the Alice/Bumby angle...

 

First, just let me say that nothing I'm about to write can actually be said to be supported by anything in the game, and it's really nothing more than an example of I how I tend to be prompted into near perpetual thought by just about anything, and particularly by things that "echo". And I'll use that notion of an "echo" as a starting off point:

 

Here are two memories:

 

A Creature's Purpose (Bumby): The proofs are legion! Every creature has a purpose. It is my sacred duty to fit every young person to a calling, be it for ornament or use. Read your history! Read your mythology.

 

Aesthetic Opinion (Radcliffe): Whoever said true art serves neither ornament nor use is ignorant of the aesthetic of the east.

 

Notice the echo I marked in the two quotes; the effect of the echo can be suggestive of a few things, but the most interesting of those things would be the strange feeling that the two men are in league together, that they are part of a conspiracy (remember that Bumby had designs on Lizzie and perhaps even Alice, herself, and that Radcliffe had designs on the family inheritance) - let's say they didn't know each other (there's no proof they did): that actually strengthens the weird sense of conspiracy: as if the notion of "ornament or use" is simply in the air, and just waiting for each (adult) person (male) to twist its meaning to his own purpose and then rationalize the effects or reasoning after the (quite possibly catastrophic) events. That's just an example for me to introduce the Lizzie/Bumby relationship, but keep that notion of "what's in the air" in mind...

 

Now consider these two memories:

 

No Key to My Heart (Lizzie): My heart is open, Alice. Never closed, never locked. It needs no key.

 

A Precioius Lock (Bumby): Lovers often exchange a lock of hair to symbolize their vows. The human heart is opened by a vast assortment of keys.

 

Again, we could imagine that these are sentiments that are just in the air of the time (and the game does make great hay of "what is in the air" during the era, hence - for example - the reference, which would be pretty meaningless to most people today, to "Martin Farquhar Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy"); but the similar notions and even words within the two memories do invite us to imagine some kind of correspondence, so let's imagine things a little further along than a merely atmospheric collision: Bumby, the undergraduate, one of several, visiting the Liddell home, seeking recognition from the Liddell patriarch, ignored by a present Lizzie but hanging on her every word, words about her views on hearts and locks and keys, views somewhat contrary to the received information Bumby believes regarding the sentimental qualities of mating rituals: given the opportunity, he steals a lock of Lizzie's hair and tells himself privately (a stalker with psychiatric aspirations) that it was an "exchange", that they are lovers. We could end our imagining there - a reasonable imagining, given the sociopathic quality of Bumby's character. But we could imagine things a little differently: Lizzie's contrary reaction to the received information about lovers and the heart needing a key to be opened: her attitude could be a direct reaction to Bumby's platitudes (just like the opposite could have been true): he goes on about these things, he wants an "exchange" of some sort with her in order to force her into his possession, and as she grows tired of him she rejects him, which almost necessarily means (if for no other reason than that of cruelty) a rejection of his attitudes and ideas. An interpretation like this hints at a deeper relationship between the two...And now I'll offer some quotes (all about or by Lizzie) and interpretations that build a very interesting case in that direction...

Edited by Mitsuru Kirijo
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Fun by Oneself Revealed: I'll never have more fun alone than when I rode the big slide in Hyde Park. Papa will take you soon, Alice.

 

[establishes Lizzie as having a propensity for individual enjoyments, but also as already being able to look back at her childhood with some degree of nostalgia - childish things are over for her, but not yet for her sister (age gap)];

 

Sleeping Birds Lie: Cover its cage and the canary goes to sleep, Alice. Out like a snuffed candle. Sleeps the sleep of the "just", just like Mama and Papa. After 10:00 they're unconscious.

 

[Useful information for Lizzie to have if she wants to lead a secret life; inappropriate information for her to be sharing with her much younger sister];

 

Smoking on the Sly: I've smoked a cigarette, Alice; no fun at all. One day I'll try a clay pipe.

 

[this would indicate that Lizzie is enjoying the company of men - probably young men: the "cigarette" - and that she aspires to further enjoy the company of other men - older men: the "clay pipe" (it was not terribly common for respectable women to smoke during the era, hence she would seem to be enjoying the company of men on the sly, as it were, possibly at inappropriate places and at inappropriate times); this also establishes a propensity within her for continuing to engage in behaviour she doesn't particularly enjoy];

 

Naughty Times Two: When Papa grounded me, I climbed down the trellis. The tree branch makes a bridge, and it's not much of a drop. Keep our secret, Alice, or we're not sisters.

 

[Why was she grounded? We're not told, but the previous memories give us some sense of the reason(s): did she perhaps have a male visitor in her room during the hours when her parents were supposed to be "unconscious"? - a very tangible possibility; at any rate, it's easy to imagine her engaging in what her parents would find potentially scandalous behaviour; also: notice how she is pulling Alice further into her world of "adult games" but treating them like a "childish game": keep my secret (which I shouldn't be telling a girl of your age) or we're not sisters - a serious secret, and (seriously) childish consequences for not keeping it];

 

Incident at Waterloost[sic]: ...claimed I'd stolen his heart. "Trifling with his affections"! Creepy sod. Touching me...Told papa to never invite him to tea again.

 

["Stolen his heart": remember the images of locks and keys, and Lizzie's and Bumby's differing views on those things? I assume Lizzie is talking about Bumby here; this gives strength to my imagining that they had been spending some time talking to each other about love and hearts and locks and keys; the bit about not inviting him back to tea gives strength to my imagining Lizzie "making time" with the undergraduates visiting her father, and that Bumby was, obviously, one of those undergraduates; also, again, the inappropriateness of her relating this stuff to Alice - the older sister is imposing a world of adult actions onto a child, but still treating them like childish things (the petulant revenge of not inviting him back to tea)];

 

Another Name for Prison: A locked room is little more than a cage. A prison by another name. I despise concealment of any kind.

 

[Why "concealment"? Is this a reference to her parents? Perhaps they're locking her away and trying to prevent her from "growing up too soon"? I don't think so. Again, I think of hers and Bumby's views on love and hearts and locks, etc. Her reaction to the notion of locks is violent, and to things concealed even more so: did she discover something about Bumby? Something that he had concealed up to this point in their relationship, and the discovery of which has led to a very severe reaction against him?];

 

A Cry for Help: Help us Alice! Save us, Alice! Don't leave us alone, Alice! Don't abandon us, Alice! Stay with us!

 

[Why the plea for Alice not to "leave us alone" or "abandon us"? The first time I heard this, the image flashed in my mind of Alice at the keyhole or in the doorway of Lizzie's room while Bumby attacked her, and Alice turning her back on or fleeing from them; a questionable interpretation? But, then, why does she cry out for Alice rather than for her mother or father? Perhaps because it's not the first time Bumby (or someone else) has visited during the night, and perhaps not the first time that Alice has been present during one of these nocturnal visits...];

 

The Ladies Washroom: Once the bounder followed me into the ladies at Waterloo Station. I had to call the attendant.

 

[Presumably about Bumby, and obviously he is becoming increasingly violent with her; why are they at Waterloo (again)? This begins to suggest that they are out together, that they are in a relationship together, and that relationship is coming apart, a sundering which Lizzie wants to happen and which Bumby does not];

 

Slimy Like an Eel: His hand was slimy, Alice; like an eel from the Isis. And his name won't help. Bumby! If he ever qualifies, his bed-side manner will require improvement.

 

[There it is: he's touched her; his bed-side manner? What would Lizzie know of that? A euphemism for... But that little bit at the end muddies things up a little: "if he qualifies, his bed-side manner will require improvement"...That's almost as if she has plans for him "if he qualifies"...Or perhaps her parents have plans for both of them "if he qualifies"? Suddenly a narrative starts to take shape: perhaps Lizzie has been running around with other "undergraduates" while Bumby has been pining for her, and perhaps her parents have decided he might be a good match for marriage...];

 

Bunch of Toadies: All those undergraduates waiting for a word from Papa. "Might I hold the tea cozy, Sir?" "Might I pour, Sir?" Bunch of toadies.

 

[All the undergraduates visiting her father are a bunch of toadies; did Bumby somehow distinguish himself in her eyes? I think not. Instead, I think this a violent reaction to her exposure to Bumby: he's done something to her, offended her in such a way that she loathes him and all the others that come to visit her father; notice that this kind of rejection contains a subtle but implicit criticism of her father: he's not worth sucking up to - she's unhappy with Papa as well];

 

Not a Toy!: I'm no toy! He wanted me to do things I didn't want to do.

 

[Chillingly succinct: assume it's about Bumby; assume she was involved with him; assume that it was a sanctioned relationship (by her parents, that is); assume that, slowly, his true inclinations have already started to reveal themselves in some of the previous episodes; assume that he has suddenly revealed the full extent of his...proclivities; could she tell her parents? That would involve telling them that she has been at least somewhat intimate with him...The problem has become toxic: she rejects Bumby, lashes out at her father and those who curry favour with him, she has a violent reaction to clichés of romantic love - hearts and keys and locks and all that nonsense...].

 

The rest kind of writes itself: a privately adventurous girl in an era and a society that certainly wasn't accommodating of such inclinations; a seemingly innocuous - even respectable - "doctor" privately inclined to the worst kind of "proclivities"; the inevitable and (inevitably violent) clash between the girl's curiosity and the man's perversion: she rejects him, he can't live with that...Alice has a role to play here that is significant, of course, but I'll maybe suss that out another time.

Edited by Mitsuru Kirijo
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