Post by Ulrica.storyteller in Bitter/Sweet Blythe comments

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SPOILERS!!

SPOILERS!

Random opinions after I finished all the endings and listened to your words in the extras.

Great voice acting, specially in the feminine voice route!

So, while some parts make sense as them Blythe being metaphors for antidepressants. I can't fit them when it comes to the bad endings, including the devoured ending and the one where Bunny assaults passerby's.

What do each Blythe symbolize?

I can tell there's a symbolism of addiction.

Honestly, without the antidepressant metaphor and with orange Blythe route, I assume this:

Bunny is the player surrogate. A person who's not loved and other problems. And Blythe gives them unconditional love. Tells them what they want and acts all cutesy. Almost like an ideal partner with supernatural powers. Some of what she says is so sweet and charming. But in the end, it's an horror/psychological. All is sweet, but once you get to see all the story, it's bitter. Because, it's assumed that all of it is an illusion and it will only last that day.

Blythe is not real. There's no partner that loves Bunny. There's no one they are celebrating their birthdays with. It's all made up by them.

They will wake up empty. No one beside them. Yesterday, all but a dream. Heart broken.

That's for Bunny.

Now, what about the player?

What if the player falls for Blythe? What if they become like some kind of Monika after story? An imaginary girlfriend in the player's brain? A favorite character to comfort them? Basically, Blythe becomes the player's addiction. But Blythe is only a character, not a person with feelings, wants and needs, etc.

orange Blythe takes over your heart. You can't escape her. She's a part of your psyche. You need someone who loves your unconditionally. Who finds you beautiful, who can see beyond your flaws, etc. You dream of her awake and in your dreams. She has become an idea in your brain. You need her. You can't cope with life without her.

That's more or less what I thought after all those 4th wall breaks I got in the game. You have become "addicted" to her sweet and lovely words. But she's only a fictional character. Just a character.

That's more or less the theory I made. That's the true horror of this story.

Melancholy Marionette2 years ago

Thanks so much for playing! So glad you enjoyed the voice acting ^-^ it's always one of my main motivators for making games because I love it so much, haha.

I guess I'll say the rest under spoilers :D

SPOILERS

To be honest, when it comes to stuff like this, I try to get some symbolism in there that aligns with my personal experiences with certain things, but at the same time, I like to attempt to leave it as ambiguous as possible so that people can make their own interpretations as well, especially with something like this where people's experiences of taking different sorts of antidepressant medication can be so vastly different. Like I said in my rambling in the extras, a friend of mine only ever really had a brilliant experience with them and they helped him a lot, while I have had mostly awful experiences with them x3 So I wanted to try and represent a few different sort of effects that they can have in partly direct, and partly abstract ways.

So I was really intrigued reading your thoughts and interpretations :D I'm glad that there was enough room in the concepts for you to have your own theories and they were interesting to think about :3

You're right that there is absolutely symbolism of addiction, since regardless of whether medication like this helps you or not, you can still fall victim to being addicted to it >.< They never really helped me, but I was definitely addicted to a couple of them even though they only ever gave me negative side effects >.<

Even though both Blythe's are technically the same entity, I was kind of leaning towards the orange version of Blythe resenting the more positive effects of the medication that are somewhat helpful, despite still having drawbacks, while blue Blythe was supposed to be more representative of the negative, more unwanted side effects x3

So the Devoured ending was meant to be a kind of abstract way of representing the fact that antidepressants can actually make feelings of anxiety and suicidal thoughts worse. Blue Blythe still wants what's best for Bunnie, but mistakenly thinks that death, or coming close to it, is the solution. At the same time, they don't want Bunnie to truly die, at least not yet, and so it's more of a metaphorical death so that they can begin again rather than an actual literal death.

And there's a bit of a (not so) funny story attached to the Oblivious ending x3 I once took an antidepressant called Fluoxetine, and it had some really awful side effects to it. It didn't exactly make me fully hallucinate, but it did really alter my state of mind when I was out and about in the real world. It sort of had this weird way of making things feel like they weren't real, as though I was just floating through the space, and everyone around me was just part of a simulation or something.

During an appointment I had with my therapist at that time who had prescribed that particular antidepressant after looking over the ones I'd tried in the past, she asked me if I had any concerns about the medication. I told her that I was having some intrusive thoughts that bothered me when I went to crowded areas. Basically, I would start to see everyone as being NPCs in a video game, and envision what would happen if I were to go around murdering all of them >.< like it was part of some quest and I would get a reward the more I vanquished. Quite horrifyingly, she told me that was nothing to worry about, and that thoughts like that were fairly normal on the medication o.O So that was partly where the inspiration for that ending came from xD

But yeah, regardless of the connections with antidepressants, as you say, Blythe is an illusion for Bunnie, but one that could be perpetually maintained if the medication continues to be taken. Even maintained to an extent when the meds are stopped since it takes time to get it out of your system. And Bunnie is so depressed that they kind of need something like that to survive. But yeah, it's definitely bitter because l, at the end of the day, Bunnie is still stuck and in need of real help of some sort >.<

I absolutely love your theory regarding the player as well :3 It definitely works! That's why it's so fun to leave things a little ambiguous, because then you can make all sorts of interpretations. I know some folks aren't a fan of vagueness in films and games, and while I agree that it can sometimes be a bit disappointing if there's not that much of an explanation at the end, most of time, I much prefer ambiguity! It kinda means that characters can take on more of a life of their own when they can be seen in all sorts of different lights :3

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