Deadly Perspective | A Return of the Obra Dinn Essay
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- A CZcams video with minimal colour.
00:00 Introduction
00:47 Part 1: An Insurance Adventure with Minimal Colour
05:43 Part 2: Insure, Jan
11:20 Part 3: Deadly Perspective
15:38 Part 4: Injustice at Sea
21:07 Part 5: A Shell of a Time
28:07 Epilogue: All Fates Solved
The game's official website: obradinn.com/ - Hry
Lucas Pope is amazing when it comes to writing weirdly captivating paperwork simulators
Obra Dinn story in a nutshell:
"DAMMIT NICHOLS THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT"
also for the record the image at 22:46 is such an amazing sh!tpost
I don't agree - I think snatching mermaids was the original mission of the Obra
Dinn. There are already purpose built mermaid tanks in the hold, so the ship was always heading to abduct them on behalf of the Formosians. Nicholas was trying to ensure they would become the property of the crew, not the passengers.
@@oldschooloverlord I disagree with your disagreement - The lazarette is actually not an uncommon feature of ships, and is useful for holding live fish as cargo or supplies, from what I know. The main point being that it is not actually strange, unusual or notable that the Obra Dinn has a lazarette, and we can't make any solid conclusions with just that information.
Add this to the fact that the captain was very clearly not well informed of the situation, along with most of the people on the boat except for the Formosans, and I believe we can safely conclude the opposite - The Formosans were operating independently, and did not see fit to inform anyone of their purpose or their goods.
I can say, though, that at least several of the deaths were not Nichol's fault, so it's only like 85-95% his fault.
Very interesting points you bring up about the character of the inspector. During your video I thought about another potentially symbolic nod in the game: the ferryman. In most literature throughout history the ferryman symbolizes death because it is linked to Kharon, the ferryman from greek mythology that ferries the souls of the deceased to the underworld. The Obra Dinn, through that line of thought, might even be considered a symbolic extension of an underworld because you sure ain’t gonna find life there anymore. Great video btw!
That's a really interesting connection. I hadn't thought of that, but now that you've pointed it out, it very clearly is relevant to the game (I mean, there's a character whose sole purpose is to ferry you to and from the Obra Dinn... lol). I bet there's a bunch more nautical lit references peppered throughout the game as well that I didn't think of. Thanks for the comment!
Alternatively, in the Egyptian afterlife Thoth (after observing whether your heart is as light as a feather) records your life & death in a book, and then sends your soul to heaven appropriate.
Excellent video!
I would also add that Hok Seng Lau's execution is counted as a "murder" by Brennan in the final insurance report.
Not only does the EIC not acknowledge the injustice towards Hok Seng Lau by not offering any compensation to his estate, but it washes its hands of the responsibility of his death by passing it as just another murder among all of the killing that took place on the boat.
Actually, Hok Seng Lau's death isn't considered a murder in the final report. If you fill out all the paperwork accurately, Brennan is only credited with 1 murder: that of the 4th mate.
If you know anything about the East India Company (and just the British Empire in general at the time), none of that should come as a surprise.
Two key things about this game. Only three deaths weren’t Nichols fault, and Brennan was an absolute beast.
4, actually. The unknown stowaway wasn't his fault, as well as the other 3 in the chapters before Murder.
18:21
The thought occurs that it may also be a subtle bit of early character development in relation to the fate of Davies and the player having to identify him. In the drawing, he's stoic. The diorama shows him cowering at the sight of death, which would certainly be in character for him abandoning ship with the other survivors before the mutiny was even fully underway.
When I played, I tried to describe the merfolk as a foreign enemy. But it wouldn't accept it. They needed to be called beasts
Yeah I tried this too.
Foreign enemy sort of implies they are soldiers from a foreign country. As far as anyone knows, these merfolk are beasts, not bound by any nation
@tear4442 not bound by any nation that we know, sure. But they could have their own nation and language, meaning they would be foreign soldiers. They act like it well enough.
10:06 I didn't notice the inspector characterization besides their dry wit with the boat dude. But I was actually cheering here when I saw Martin's family get the MASSIVE PAYOUT he deserved. I just love these kinds of small result screens. And how they change with your alternatives (like the cannon kill)
11:49 I think that speaks more about Surgeon Evans. He used it to get Memoria, Verdad y Justicia, or at least the 1805 version of it for his shipmates. The inspector used it as a convenient tool, yes, but only by Evans' request
17:08 I was so awed that I fsiled to notice the artistic license until much later. It's like hearing Phone Guy talk in FNaF1 if you haven't looked qt Videogame VA. I am still amazed at his realistic diction, how he doesn't stutter or delay when reading the company greeting, etc. I loved this drawing. Certified Lucas Pope moment
20:37 And Brennan is charged with murder of crewmate. Which is innaccurate
What complicates the case to argue in the merfolks favor to me, is the indiscriminate killing of all these random crew members, stewards, even a totally uninvolved passenger like Abigail. In the end, both sides are warring and kill each other over a shiny shell, it's hard to really say anyone was justified.
I mean, is not like the merpeople are privy to this info. From their point of view everybody in the ship hurt them in one or another.
@@toumabyakuya sure, but usually we dont consider killing first and asking questions later to be "justice" u kno? theyre not unjustified entirely, but its pretty gray in my eyes is all.
@@solidpython4964 You must also remember that merpeople, like most creatures in fiction, might operate under a different moral compass to ours.
@@toumabyakuya definitely possible, even humans don't just have one moral compass. but thats just another maybe, among a lot of maybes.
@@solidpython4964they cleary already have cultural narratives for ship people, this may also be a fundamentalist loser group as they gave no cultural adornments or even well made spears
An often unremarked upon aspect of the Obra Dinn story is its historical context. A large part of what leads to the doom is the colonial aspect of the whole operation. East India Company was an evil organisation, responsible for the ruination of a whole subcontinent. The current journey is to the Orient, the far East, where the Brits also had colonial ambitions and just a few decades later they’d start the opium wars. The first stop is supposed to be yet another infamous colony - Cape Town in South Africa.
The sailors who bring disease onboard the ship are lascars - Indian indentured servants, with little choice in their occupation.
The whole tragedy is kicked off by a plot to steal Taiwanese treasure. The plot goes ahead, because the officers are eager to blame an Asian man, with whom they don’t share a language, rather than one of their own.
The whole crew is full of representatives of all nations Britain colonised or tried to colonise- from Ireland to China. Yet the leadership is three Englishmen and a Scott.
Regarding the second to last point, it's not like the officers just decided to accuse the first non-crew foreigner they found. There were no witnesses, he was the man supposed to be standing guard in the area, and one of Nichols's co-conspirators deliberately mistranslated his words into a confession.
The only ones who would've known the whole truth are Nichols, his conspirators, and Evan if he used the clock (which he most likely did); and Evan had no means of making the truth known without painting a target on his back.
I think you are the first youtuber to GET the story, in the way I think the dev intended. I always wondered why the crab things attacked at all. The attacks seemed unrelated, but your reasons make perfect sense. They were summoned by the mermaids trapped in the Lazarette! And oh my god, the idea that we are an INSURANCE AUDITOR of all things, and how that plays into the ending where the depth and complexity of the events are flattened into a ledger of simply who murdered who. And how so many of the events have fates that don't fit the check boxes the insurance book has given us. It is just beautiful. Thank you for opening my eyes to the story I didn't see!
I would never refer to Obra Dinn as a walking sim - it's a puzzle game. A walking sim is something like Firewatch or Gone Home, something where you just walk around and interact with the world, either just to experience the world or as some kind of interactive narrative experience. Obra Dinn is explicitly a puzzle/mystery game - the purpose of the game is to uncover the mystery by solving the puzzle of each character's fate. It's like saying The Sexy Brutale, The Talos Principle or Outer Wilds are walking simulators. Just because it's a 3D game with no combat or HUD doesn't mean it's a walking simluator.
“7 hrs could be solved faster if you werent as much of an idiot as i was” 7 HOURS i finished it in 11?!
lmao same
I finished in 13 😣
But I loved every hour 🤗
*clearing throat* Mine is 15
It's also interesting how self defense and crossfire get treated the same as killing "just cause"
"That shell-thirsty queen of chaos" caught me off guard lmaoooo. great video
I loved this video! It brought up a ton of stuff that I overlooked in the thrill of rushing to finish the sudoku-like mysteries of people's identities. I've watched a ton of videos on this game after finishing it in like 2 days, and none of them brought up the big picture observations about perspective you did.
Not gonna lie, I fuck with the story analysis. Most videos on the game are reviews or story summaries, so this was interesting and fun to see!
Also the seaweed monster thirst...? ICONIC.
This is so good,but I almost wish you cut the part you say at your titles like "omg why did I say it that way", you are SO funny in your delivery, and should totally own the silliness/cheesy titles. Because it perfectly balances your analysis and how you take us through the story and your thoughts. I loved listening to this after just finishing the game!
Subscribed!!
Just wanna say this was a great review that 1) addressed every thought I had while playing through the game, and 2) was the perfect length to cook pasta to
Excellent video! I never considered the inspector as a character themselves.
Also, love how the channel icon matches with the game colors 💖
I thought it was interesting that one of the men gets fined for killing the carpenter even though it's an accidental shot while trying to kill the seaweed knight.
What can I say, I love Locas Pope. He makes truly original games, masterpieces that become instant classics.
Very interesting video. Gave me a lot to think about and answered a few questions. For example, I couldn't figure out for the life of me why Evans shot the monkey. But apparently observation isn't my strong suit seeing as it took me almost 10 hours to solve it all. :P
Your video essays are amazing. I hope you make more of them in the future!
You actually can say that hom-seng lau was shot by the captain as it was his order to fire thf game accepts this
True ending everyone was killed by the captain
@@modman4842 to be fair most of it wasn't his fault it was the royal family and his ( I think) 4th mate's fault
@@brittlekneesmgee3674what did the royal family do aside from have rich people stuff
I tried this and it didn't work.
i tried to make a video of this game in 2019 but gave up, im glad other small creators can do it better then myself, loved the video
This was a very thoughtful, well put-together video, so good work and congratulations :-).
No matter how big your channel one day becomes, it's important that creative people like yourself publish their work, especially when it is so thought-provoking and delivers such a powerful moral. I really admire the fact that your analysis of the game's themes lead to a semi-call-to-action: a reminder that history is written by the wealthy & powerful, and that if we aren't careful we may wind up becoming complicit in the corrupt corporate structures looming all around us.
Admittedly, I haven't yet watched your other videos, but if they strike the same balance between humor, intelligent analysis, and defense of the othered perspective, I'm sure I'll be back for more.
This channel is a hidden gem, hope you'll make more videos in the future! (I've subscribed in the meantime)
I really appreciate your analysis!
Such a great video, absolutely can't believe you only have 64 subscribers, that's actually crazy. Have a great day!
I have a different take on the shells & the mission of the Obra Dinn. The Lazarette has pre-built mermaid prisons so the ship's mission was always to capture them. I think the the chest was used to summon the Merfolk, or shell was alreaxy there and used. The treasure Nicholls refers to is not just the shells, it's the Merfolk. In Japanese folklore, eating Mermaid flesh is a way to achieve immortality, and quicksilver also has associatations with immortality in Chinese alchemy.
One detail I can't stop thinking about is that Evans had the Memento Mortem with him on board - and presumably never examined Pasqua's body with it, assuming that Hok-Seng Lau's "confession" was accurate. I doubt he could have stopped the execution either way (who would believe him?), but the fact that he could have checked and just didn't bother is so in line with the rest of the injustices going on here.
Also, the way that the execution is quietly legitimized by the inspector by not fining Brennan for it just kills me. If anything I think Witterel or Nichols should have been to blame, but I hate knowing that Hok-Seng Lau's death has absolutely no legal ramifications.
I absolutely believe he used that watch in private whenever he had a chance. The tragedy with the wrongful execution is that even with him knowing the truth, who was going to believe him? Who would believe the doctor going "The second mate actually murdered that man"?
If he revealed he had such a magical watch, he would immediately paint a target on his back
Elsewhere I encountered the theory that the watch had to be there to take you back to then. So as long as what you want to view is near where the watch was at the time, it'll work just fine. It's more a black box than a time machine. Making it even MORE boring and beaurocratic.
This doesn't really line up though, since the watch is taken by the doctor when he leaves the ship and there's still several chapters worth of fates recorded after that
Rowboats only move so fast. The remaining bit could have happened in the next mile or two.
I'm curious about your interpretation that the inspector is the one typesetting the text into the book. I always viewed it as the book belonging to the same magic that goverened the pocketwatch and that the text appeared on its own. I always thought the sentiments of deceased person's spirit influenced the text (hence why the American is called courageous), but Its interesting to hear other perspectives.
that's actually an interesting view
never thought about the book itself being magic and interacting with the deceased in some fashion
most i ever thought about them having influence was thinking that maybe the white trail leading to memory bodies was their souls trying to show their movements prior to death
Keep at it, bud!
The most difficult death was by far the guy that was shot through a wall in The Doom...i must have seen the whole thing more than 10 times to notice the bullet
7:05 Honestly, given the period, the desire to not contaminate the scene would be far behind the desire to not GET contaminated themselves. Pretty sure miasma theory was still prominent
Also OMG I arrived at the same idea. The game drags you, kicking and screaming, away from getting invested in the events - the bureaucracy, the mocking music, the stylized visuals - so when you start caring, you do so IN SPITE of the game.
Re: Justice at sea - It breaks my heart how trivial it is to solve the crime with the magical watch, and how no one in-game was the wiser. (Does it remind anyone else of advancements in forensic methods?) Dramatic irony at its finest
Re: shells - This whole chain of events is just so very British Empire of them, ain't it...
Re: impersonality of it all - considering Mx Bird at the end told you to not write back, the refusal to go into detail on official paperwork may have some merit: respecting the survivors' dignity and privacy. On the other hand, this doesn't fix the whole "beast" problem :(
Your observation about the inspector's character based in the gloves is interesting, meanwhile I just assumed the gloves were meant to make the inspector racially ambiguous, for even more self-insert-ability 😂
13:34 ok I played most of this game I have 1 last chapter to unlock, but I had the same exact problem. I only fully solved 15 fates so far. And I have over 5 hours in this game. And because of college I haven’t had time to go back to it.
10 months am have past, a new video is on it's way
The true villain of the story is the doctor. If he'd used his stopwatch to see Nunzio's death, an innocent man wouldn't have been executed, and Nichols wouldn't have been able to escape with the shell. Nearly every death is the doctor's fault.
What is he going to tell the crew members in 1805 though? That he has a magical time travel watch? How long would he be able to keep it in his possession from then on?
@@jujuwhite2107 I've always wanted to ask Lucas Pope what the magic level is in that world. The inspector has voice lines, so it's probably safe to assume that if the stopwatch was something worthy of comment, they'd have commented on it. Not only that, but the insurance company doesn't question why the investigator's able to know things they couldn't without magical assistance.
If I saw a shiny seashell in a nightstand, I wouldn't recognize it as something valuable enough to kill for, the cook just thinks that they're "pretty", and the purser takes all of the money with him but doesn't try to grab the shells in his failed escape, but the mates are willing to risk anything and anyone for them. (And, the 3rd mate got the mermaid to understand complex instructions.) So, if magical stopwatches and monsters are something humans know about, it might only be known by people with a college-level education: British officers and Formosan royalty (from the bosun on up), but not uneducated or skilled labor (the purser and carpenter on down).
For the midshipmen, who'd be upper-class with some education, it's hard to say, but - while the others were taken completely by surprise, by the spikes - their first instinct was to set one on fire, and immediately drag a gunpowder keg up to the deck, when the kraken attacked.
It depends on when he realized the what the watch did. By Nunzio's death it might have been too late..
@@jman5949further to this, the monkey paw set-up in the lazarette is literally the doctor testing this theory
Nicholas did it.
I'm glad everyone who plays this game can agree that Nichols is the worst person and deserved his fate.
why is blud talking so zestily
im gay