Return to Monkey Island 🚨GAME-WIDE🚨 Spoiler Chat

[JacquesSparkyTail]

3 hours ago, LowLevel said:

 

I didn't read it that way. To me they are two different events. The ending of MI2 is something that happened to Guybrush (maybe only in his imagination, but still it happened to him) and the beginning of RtMI is a different event that happened years later to his son: a reenactment of his father's stories. As soon as the reenactment ends, the kids stop imagining the place as Big Whoop and it becomes the real place where they are playing.

 

To me, RtMI doesn't starts where or when MI2 ends, but it starts with a scene that simply evokes that event.

I think i could definitely get on board with that if not for the fact that the same “parents” are present both times. That couple are identical to the couple from mi2 and remain that way even after the kids stop playing their version of the big whoop story and move on. For what you said to hold true wouldn’t we have to accept that in both cases upon leaving the catacombs guy and boybrush not only stumble up a married couple but both married couples look exactly the same. Either that or its the same couple who stand in the same spot consistently for decades and never age. The more i think about it the more sure i am that the end of 2 and the start of return are supposed to be the same event but return retcons the specifics. 

[tmetic]

24 minutes ago, BaronGrackle said:

Right, right, and I am a known complainer on the character art, etc. etc. But I am enjoying the story experience. Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was where I first saw that type of scene (even though I caught Mary Tyler Moore on Nick at Nite, I never saw the finale).

 

And here's a fun thing: when I left the apartment my roomates and I shared at the end of college, we very intentionally turned off our lights that way. Because we both knew the reference in terms of Fresh Prince.

 

I can't recall if I ever saw the ending of Fresh Prince but 'lights out' has long been associated with death / the end. Think Shakespeare's 'Out brief candle'. Trope it may be, but only because it's such a well understood metaphor.

 

I cried buckets when it was our turn.

[TommyS]

6 minutes ago, JacquesSparkyTail said:

The more i think about it the more sure i am that the end of 2 and the start of return are supposed to be the same event but return retcons the specifics. 

 

The problem with that is that messes up the chronology. If RTMI is a direct continuation of Monkey 2, then the events of Curse and the other games hasn't happened yet, but the story doesn't imply that. It would also imply that you're not really even playing as Guybrush in Monkey 1 and 2. Feels like there are a few paradoxes (plot holes?) around. 

 

Btw, I realize that Boybrush is actually the official name of his son. After I turned on names in subtitles. 

[LowLevel]

18 minutes ago, JacquesSparkyTail said:

Either that or its the same couple who stand in the same spot consistently for decades and never age.

 

There are other possible explanations, however, if one accepts that the story uses metanarrative a lot. For example, that different couple looks identical to the one seen in the MI2 finale because if it were not, the player would not have made a connection. They had to look identical, before the player interacted with them and realized that they are not the same people.

[BaronGrackle]

I figure that we can go through every single Monkey Island game and, if we choose to see it through the just-a-story-narrative, then we can examine each scene or dialogue line to decide "this bit was what Guybrush would tell his son", or "this bit would be imagined by his son when he replays the story", etc.

 

LeChuck saying "I am your brother" or "take off my mask" would be in the playing interpretation among children, but probably other parts (like singing lewd songs about Governor Marley) would have been at some layer of the story that a Boybrush likely wouldn't have heard. Maybe.

 

Here in Return, when Guybrush and Elaine first see each other, doesn't Boybrush get him to leave out the mushier parts?

Edited September 24, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[JacquesSparkyTail]

2 hours ago, TommyS said:

 

The problem with that is that messes up the chronology. If RTMI is a direct continuation of Monkey 2, then the events of Curse and the other games hasn't happened yet, but the story doesn't imply that. It would also imply that you're not really even playing as Guybrush in Monkey 1 and 2. Feels like there are a few paradoxes (plot holes?) around. 

 

Btw, I realize that Boybrush is actually the official name of his son. After I turned on names in subtitles. 

maybe I wasn’t totally clear. In my mind lechuck and guybrush are beneath dinky island, guybrush does get turned into a kid in a theme park but not the one we see in mi2. Then curse, escape and tales happen and then we get the mi2 epilogue /return prologue. It’s not very clean but it’s the only way this makes any sense at all to me. 

2 hours ago, LowLevel said:

 

There are other possible explanations, however, if one accepts that the story uses metanarrative a lot. For example, that different couple looks identical to the one seen in the MI2 finale because if it were not, the player would not have made a connection. They had to look identical, before the player interacted with them and realized that they are not the same people.

Fair enough. That’s just as good as anything i can come up with but it definitely feels like a bit of a stretch narrativly and a cheat creatively. If they’d written themselves into a corner i feel like, based on how creative the rest of the game is, they could come up with something better than “lets bung in some doppelgängers to awkwardly steer us away from this writing challange.” Granted I can’t come up with anything better but ron’s seemingly cleverer than i am and has been thinking about this for 30 years and actively working on it for 2.

Edited September 24, 2022 by JacquesSparkyTail

[BillyCheers]

Without joining the deeper discussions here, I just wanted to say that it’s SO nice to read all those many different thoughts - the plausible ones as well as the totally crazy ones. I love them all!

 

The days before the release I was a bit worried, that after everyone played ReMI it’ll be some kind of “Well, okay. That’s its. Back to normal things I guess…”

 

But I’d never thought that there would be so much deep stuff to talk and read about. I’m really glad that this whole great thing here continues even after we all finished this thing. Thanks everyone! 👌

Edited September 24, 2022 by BillyCheers

[miraculous.0]

8 hours ago, madmardi said:

I just did another quick playthrough trying to pick up some more trivia cards and achievements, but it's really the ending that's still on my mind...

 

I've now played through about 5 of the different ending options, and read the Mojo article to look at the rest, but I have to say I've been thinking about the ending to Return non-stop since I originally finished it. My goodness... I think it's going to take me a really long time to process all this!

 

 

Besides some of the items Jake mentioned above, for me the most emotional part was turning off the lights and leaving... First time I played it I don't think it really hit me as hard as my mind was so overrun with everything, but now the more I think about it I just start feeling really... emotional.

 

I guess for me it's really about realizing that it's all over (for now) and it's back to reality. When Guybrush appears surprised to be back in the alley he makes the comment, "Oh no... not yet!" and the sadness in his voice.... just gets to me. And it's exactly how I feel.

 

Personally, life's been super busy and stressful these past few years, and hearing about Return's announcement was an unexpected oasis of excitement that I didn't ever expect... and something I didn't realize I desperately needed. I've been looking forward to this game more than any game I've ever looked forward to in my life, and even though I've been swamped with both personal and work stuff these past few months, I carved out some time this week to focus on just this - escaping from reality for a few days to go on an adventure as a loveable pirate. Unfortunately, after this weekend (that's all I could allocate) it's really back to reality for me, and all those things I've been pushing off. Sure, both Guybrush and I can always return to those old adventures (and potentially even new ones?) but that has to wait until another day... as it's closing time. <Sigh>

 

I really really loved the ending, and I think it tied together so many themes for me throughout the series, not just MI1 and MI2. If there was one reservation I had as I played Return, it was that I struggled for a while trying to piece together 'when' the story took place. And more specifically, it bothered me that there wasn't clearer references to some of the events from Escape. That being said, I loved the scrapbook and the reference to the 'cushy government jobs', and I felt they did a respectful job with Herman, and by the time I neared the end of the game I was okay with how they chose to handle past cannon. And then ending came. For me it felt like it made everything okay and wrapped all 6 chapters of the series together into one nice big bundle, allowing me to understand that these are all just separate adventures stories that are just meant to be... fun. And that's it. They allow Guybrush (and all of us) to escape from our lives as flooring inspectors, and temporarily enjoying being a pirate. And I'm okay with that. 

 

And if this is our last adventure together... I will be okay with that too.

 

Damn... I feel like I've been stabbed in the heartstrings!

Really glad to hear I'm not the only one who got emotional at the end. I flat out started crying and whenever I think back on it, I start getting teary eyed. Like, the ending just felt so profoundly beautiful to me. And that last moment with Guybrush sitting on the bench, it left me with this warm but sad feeling of finality that I've always wanted. I've always been one of the people that weirdly enough, didn't want the world to be real. I've always felt like it gave the series this sort of emotional core to it. That no matter how mundane and soul crushing the real world can be, there's an escape in this fun pirate world we're all so invested in.

[Dmnkly]

2 hours ago, TommyS said:

The problem with that is that messes up the chronology. If RTMI is a direct continuation of Monkey 2, then the events of Curse and the other games hasn't happened yet, but the story doesn't imply that. It would also imply that you're not really even playing as Guybrush in Monkey 1 and 2. Feels like there are a few paradoxes (plot holes?) around.

Not necessarily. If one is inclined to require a decipherable timeline, I like the notion that MI2 has been slightly retconned such that there's actually a massive gap WITHIN MI2 that engulfs CMI, EMI, Tales, and who knows how many other unrevealed adventures?

But while I like that, I'm personally much more in the Terry Gilliam/Baron Munchausen camp. Doesn't really matter. Free your mind and let the pieces not quite fit. That slightly disoriented feeling isn't a bug, it's a feature.

[BaronGrackle]

So I just got my Dead For Real achievement for waiting several minutes underwater. A bit chilling, in a very good way. It also trods upon any idea I might have had about straightforward linearity. Yay, my first ending!  ?

 

Make sure you look at the Horse Armor in each new location, as it also updates.

Edited September 24, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[JacquesSparkyTail]

12 minutes ago, Dmnkly said:

 and who knows how many other unrevealed adventures?

Monkey island 3aa confirmed. What does everyone suppose ron has planned? Has there been any blog posts over the years? Is there any truth to the rumours that it’s a van winslow dating sim with fps elements?

[Jake]

8 minutes ago, JacquesSparkyTail said:

van winslow dating sim with fps elements

"Never pay less than 50 bucks for a Van Winslow dating sim with FPS elements."

[BaronGrackle]

We need a good love triangle between the skin-map to Blood Island, the upper-right corner of the map to Big Whoop, and the Screaming Narwhal.

[JacquesSparkyTail]

[LuigiHann]

Took two days to read through 14 pages of this thread.

 

General thoughts replying to the thread:

- I too had a moment of "huh" when I finished the game, but by half an hour later I was quite pleased.

- I also found the last puzzle very confusing even after discovering all the clues. Guybrush moves the top of the wheel left and right using right and left motions... and I kept setting the date to 1730 because it's 4 years after 1726, rather than tapping the year 4 times. Ah well. Once I wrote down the 4 combinations it could be, I resolved it quickly.

- Did Wally have a theme song in MI2 outside of the Woodtick theme? I figured it makes sense for the map because Wally made the map.

- Makes sense that Elaine comes across as maternal in the story, since Guybrush has known her as being a mother for several years by the time he's telling it, and since he's telling it to Boybrush, he may well be referring to Elaine as "mom" in his unheard narration.

- If you told me that Ron's idea for what the MI2 ending "meant" involved the kid at the end really being Guybrush's son, I'd believe you. In any case, the segue was impossibly perfect. Maybe the first game I've played where the beginning was a bigger revelation than the ending, and I'm so very glad I got to play it unspoiled.

 

New thoughts from my brain as filtered through other media:

 

- Satoshi Kon's Millenium Actress

All of Kon's films are known for playing with the blurred lines between reality and imagination. But Millenium Actress in particular feels relevant, as an aging actress describes her career...

Spoiler

The story of her life takes place over several decades, but is told interspersed with her film roles spanning potentially hundreds of years. The listener to whom the story is being told is inserted into the visualization of the story. The story involves a key of unknown purpose, which plays into themes of the journey outweighing the destination, and the power of storytelling.

 

- The Lego Movie

Spoilers for that film's ending:

Spoiler

It turns out that the animated adventure we're seeing is taking place largely in the imagination of a child mixing his own toys in with his father's pristine model cities. The way the revelation plays out is as if one of the Lego characters has a break with his own reality, but he is still on some level depicted as "alive" in the "real world," before returning to his world to move on with the story. A key scene in the climax takes us out of the animation as father and son narrate the final confrontation together, but when we return to the animated world, the results of that imagined scene are just as real to them. Again, the themes of imagination and the power of stories, with an added layer of father/son bonding through the same.

 

- The dueling Myst continuities:

After the first Myst game came out, surrounding the release of the novels and the sequel Riven, a running gag emerged that the stories were adaptations based on centuries-old journals that had been uncovered, and the events of the game "really happened" in the 1800s. A couple of games were made by another company set in the same continuity as Myst and Riven, but when Cyan made Uru it was set in the present day and the "Myst is based on stuff that really happened" concept became canon. This had the benefit of making it easy to gloss over any continuity issues in the games by chalking them up to "artistic license," but it could also feel unsatisfying, so fans continue to form headcanons for what happened between games in the "game universe" separate from what happened in the "real world." 

Spoiler

Incidentally, Myst 5 did a decent job of threading the needle there, with a story that serves simultaneously as a sequel to Myst 1-4 or as a sequel to Uru, with the unseen protagonist being a different person depending on what continuity you choose to believe it takes place in.

 

 

So... yeah. My brain I guess is primed to read the ending of RtMI in an extremely generous way, where the pirate adventure story is real on one level and the theme park imagination story is equally real on another level. The setting in which Guybrush tells the story still seems to be a piratey world, so I certainly still belive Guybrush's adventures were real, in his timeline, but I easily accept that this one was colored by his storytelling flourishes, and it's equally plausible that the previous games were told that way as well. It's also easy enough to explain it all as a series of "real" things that happened, if desired, since Curse depicts a theme park built on Monkey Island, Escape expands on that, and during one of the long stretches when LeChuck was presumed dead it would make perfect sense that Stan of all people would buy it. From there it's possible to imagine that Stan really does contrive wild goose chases that end at his theme park, or just that Boybrush was familiar with the park and Guybrush incorporated it into the story to mess with him. 

 

Final final thought:

- It's interesting that the game ends with Guybrush silent on the bench, and it's fascinating that different people read different emotions into it. I definitely read it as a sort of "well, that's it, not sure what happens now" vibe, potentially nodding to The Graduate. Which seems appropriate, given that the nod to The Graduate as SoMI turned out to be so pivotal.

[Joe monsters]

4 hours ago, LowLevel said:

 

There are other possible explanations, however, if one accepts that the story uses metanarrative a lot. For example, that different couple looks identical to the one seen in the MI2 finale because if it were not, the player would not have made a connection. They had to look identical, before the player interacted with them and realized that they are not the same people.

I don’t know if someone talked about this before – sorry, I didn’t read the entire thread – but there is a dialog I love in the beginning of the game, when the old couple looks at the parrot in the amusement park.

I’m paraphrasing. Something like: “It’s so lifelike.” “Is it real?”

I think it’s symbolic.

What’s real? What‘s not real? What’s canon? When does this scene take place? And, more importantly, do we really need to care about what’s real or not?

Edited September 25, 2022 by Joe monsters

[JJ1]

New poster.  My phone news app helpfully recommended the site article "The Many Epilogues" to me and reading through this thread has been really interesting and entertaining.

 

I find myself thinking more and more about the endings and I really appreciate what the creators did with the game.  My opinion keeps improving.  I like how the game gives substance to help with various interpretations of both the game and the series.  And I especially like how it even lets the player choose the ending scene based on what is important to them.  But the best part for me is the philosophical parts about stories, journeys, the changing perspectives of maturity, and other concepts like that that the game explores.  Some of that was experiential through the game, some was directly stated by characters.  But now I can see that it all really worked for me.  It was a satisfying continuation/possible conclusion to the franchise.  The ending of 2 was very thought-provoking and one of my favorite moments in the series.  This ending finally surpassed that one for me.

 

I was playing games when the originals came out, but never gave them a chance.  I found Maniac Mansion DIFFICULT and didn't play other LucasArts adventure games until well over a decade later.  But when I finally did play all of them, I really enjoyed the Monkey Island games.  I hadn't even heard this game was being made, but when I saw it was for sale, I bought it immediately.

 

In my first playthrough, I was a bit shocked after emerging into the back alley the final time.  I didn't immediately know what to make of the ending.  One thing I typically do after completing a game is to look at the list of achievements to see generally how close to experiencing all of the content I had gotten.  I had less than 40% of the achievements.  I hadn't even realized in my first playthrough that the reason I wasn't getting more trivia cards was because I wasn't answering them.  Reading through the achievements, I realized there was a second ending of going back up the stairs.  I thought I might have missed a lot, so I started on a second playthrough right away.  It was during that second playthrough that everything started to hit.  My opinion improved greatly as I got to see the themes and concepts much more clearly.  I appreciated the characters more, especially my favorite portrayal of Elaine in the series.  I appreciated the puzzles more, especially the Chum story one.  After a third speedrun playthrough to get to 100% achievement completion was when I saw the article that got me here.  And that blew me away because I had still missed eight of those epilogues.

 

In my first playthrough, the option I picked was that the secret was the friends we made along the way.  Looking at the fun playing the games, the great characters with great acting, and the way some of the games have caused me to really think about them, that is probably closest to the truth for me.

[Aytiel]

This story is missing one more thing to be on the ultimate meta level. The incorporation of the player and/or the knowledge that it is a game into the 'canon' instead of being just in the comedy level. It could be really creepy while still being a real story like in Undertale or Deltarune.

It can be small stuff like the voodoo lady saying: "-But don't worry you're being guided well." and then "Yeah I know you've been a great help!" only for her to say "It is not me who I was talking about" "Huh? Weird."

Or it can be more impactful stuff like what I first thought when seeing the end scene of Tales. The voodoo lady steering the possibilities, flaming up the rivalry between Guybrush and LeChuck from the shadows, putting variables into the equation so that there are always great adventures with up's and... down's for us/her/Guybrush to witness. She can be the symbolistic stand in for the writers of a story.

 

Would have been cool if a sequel to the narrative Tales established would've gone into that direction. They kinda planted the seeds with the whole diary thing.

Edited September 25, 2022 by Aytiel

[Jake]

27 minutes ago, JJ1 said:

My phone news app helpfully recommended the site article "The Many Epilogues" to me and reading through this thread has been really interesting and entertaining.

Welcome! This was a great post thank you for sharing it. 
 

Also I have to ask: what phone news app did you use that recommended a Mixnmojo article?! I mean, that app clearly has excellent taste, but I don’t expect news aggregators to know this site. 

[KestrelPi]

11 hours ago, LowLevel said:

 

I didn't read it that way. To me they are two different events. The ending of MI2 is something that happened to Guybrush (maybe only in his imagination, but still it happened to him) and the beginning of RtMI is a different event that happened years later to his son: a reenactment of his father's stories. As soon as the reenactment ends, the kids stop imagining the place as Big Whoop and it becomes the real place where they are playing.

 

To me, RtMI doesn't starts where or when MI2 ends, but it starts with a scene that simply evokes that event.

 

That's not quite how I resolve it. I'm happy with the idea that the end of MI2 is basically the start of Return but deeper in the kids' imagination (if it wasn't then its weird that the adults look the same, no? And that the lightning eyes thing happens in the same place, and that Boybrush would mention criminals and so forth, like the line we see said at the end of MI2.)

 

But the fact is we're actually never told what Guybrush's intended/'real' end to that story is supposed to be. So even with all that being the same, it's still perfectly possible that at that point in the story LeChuck takes Guybrush to a cursed carnival, so it doesn't affect CMI's interpretation of events at all.

[JJ1]

8 minutes ago, Jake said:

Also I have to ask: what phone news app did you use that recommended a Mixnmojo article?! I mean, that app clearly has excellent taste, but I don’t expect news aggregators to know this site. 

It is an Android phone and it is just Google's default news app.  It calls itself "News".  I'm guessing that it uses some combination of my activity to show news stories because it will surface great things like this as well as local news stories that I haven't seen reported elsewhere.

[Senax]

4 hours ago, Dmnkly said:

I like the notion that MI2 has been slightly retconned such that there's actually a massive gap WITHIN MI2 that engulfs CMI, EMI, Tales, and who knows how many other unrevealed adventures?

That would have been my thought, too. 

But it is not completely neat and tidy. In my mind, that new gap ought to be in the *middle* of the scene where Guybrush rips off LeChuck's leg. This scene ends with the janitor coming in and seeing the *adults*, though. Also, LeChuck calls Guybrush his brother at the *beginning* of the while tunnel sequence. 

 

Maybe the break literally happens when Guybrush's rope snaps after talking to Elaine. 

 

It would have been cool to have the end of MI2 repeated _exactly_ (maybe even with a transition from pixel art to the new style) and *then* get the explanation. 

Edited September 25, 2022 by Senax
Added another thought

[Sadbrush]

8 hours ago, BaronGrackle said:

Something something highly appropriate that Guybrush can sing her theme song while inhaling helium, in MI2.

 

I like your post about the "turning off lights" trope. I didn't quite understand the significance of shutting down the park as I was first playing. Now as I keep thinking about it, and remembering his "Oh no...not yet" realization that it's all over, it makes it all the more devastating. 

 

But damn, I had no idea he sung The Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song in MI2 (I had to verify it myself). Very interesting way of bringing it all together. (Probably unintentional, but I like making all the pieces fit.)

 

3 hours ago, LuigiHann said:

- Makes sense that Elaine comes across as maternal in the story, since Guybrush has known her as being a mother for several years by the time he's telling it, and since he's telling it to Boybrush, he may well be referring to Elaine as "mom" in his unheard narration.

 

Shit, something clicked for me as I was reading this. Maybe the reason Guybrush and Elaine's relationship seems so "passionless" compared to earlier adventures is because we're seeing this entire game through Boybrush's eyes, as Guybrush tells him the story. (Also explains why Boybrush is our initial playable character and even fleshes out the "pop-up storybook"-like art style, as seen through a child's eyes.) That might also be why he imagines Chuckie and Dee as versions of LeChuck and Lila in the story (and perhaps accounts for some other personality differences from previous games).

 

I know we all have our personal headcanon for what happens, but I'm starting to piece together a more concrete view of what Ron may have originally intended back in the '90s. Basically, The Secret of Monkey Island is that it's actually a theme park (something we always suspected from that locked employee door in the back alley). Guybrush is indeed a flooring inspector getting lost in these worlds and his own imagination. Elaine is possibly the (slightly) older woman he meets there in a higher position of authority ("governor") who initially rebuffs him. LeChuck is apparently not based on any real life character, but is actually a realistic animatronic display (this is the hardest pill for me to swallow). Stan is just the capitalist, money-hungry jerk in charge of the place (always slinging his wares). And all the characters he meets in this town are either real life denizens of the park (employees and visitors) and/or literal cardboard cutout characters. MI2's ending basically reveals this for us—and some version of this was originally meant as the ending to MI1 before it got nixed. The whole element of Chuckie's "lightning eyes" and Elaine waiting by the pit were essentially added later as a way to continue the franchise, if someone so wished.

 

I have to look at Return as a literal return to this world, and not directly continuing the events of MI2. The kids are re-enacting Guybrush's telling of events 30 years later at the beginning of this game, and in no way is meant to be the framing device that Ron intended back in the '90s (it's something that probably came later with age, wisdom and begrudgingly accepting the other games as canon). Many things in Return are rehashing what made the originals so great, but it takes on a slightly new form (as seen through Boybrush's eyes). But what's clear is that it takes place many years later, with a father essentially telling his kid grand, tall tales of his many "adventures" at these theme parks (with some details changed either due to unreliable memory or embellishment on his end). At the end, he reflects on his life as a flooring inspector—which initially seems mundane and boring—but his "riches" in life come in the form of his wife and his kid. Kind of a cheesy ending, but I get it. Reflectively looking back on all of it, over the past 30 years, it's very touching. 

 

The things I'm still trying to reconcile are where we meet Guybrush at the beginning of MI1. If we are to assume it takes place in modern times (1990) and given his youthful appearance, I'd say he's 18 or so? I don't know what kind of certification it takes to be a flooring inspector (what the hell is a flooring inspector anyway?). And at the end of MI2, he's a literal kid (8-9?) which doesn't quite make much sense if that was intended as the defacto ending. Unless it's just meant as a memory of him playing as a kid with his adopted family, which led to his lifetime of dreaming about being a pirate and eventually working in the amusement park business. And there's also the matter of LeChuck, who could just be based on his older brother Chuckie, who was a bit of a jerk and a bully. Which also begs the question: Who is Chuckie in Return? Perhaps his nephew? (Chuckie Jr.?)

 

Sheesh, it took a few days (and restless nights of Monkey Island dreams) for me to reach a place of quiet acceptance about this ending, but I think I'm just about there. One thing is for certain: this wouldn't bother me so much if I hadn't been thinking about this for 25 or so years. It's weird to finally put this longstanding mystery to rest after all this time. I guess I'm finally in the same place as Guybrush at the end of the game; sitting on a bench, quietly reflecting on my thoughts and a lifetime of memories playing these games.

[madmardi]

16 minutes ago, Sadbrush said:

Sheesh, it took a few days (and restless nights of Monkey Island dreams) for me to reach a place of quiet acceptance about this ending, but I think I'm just about there. One thing is for certain: this wouldn't bother me so much if I hadn't been thinking about this for 25 or so years. It's weird to finally put this longstanding mystery to rest after all this time. I guess I'm finally in the same place as Guybrush at the end of the game; sitting on a bench, quietly reflecting on my thoughts and a lifetime of memories playing these games.

Definitely with you on this... I've been thinking about that ending for a few days (and nights!) now. This afternoon I was literally sitting out on the grass at the park watching my kids play, quietly reflecting on my own thoughts/memories of playing these games. Not so different from when I was a kid finishing the ending of MI2 for the umpteenth time and trying to figure out how to process it all.

 

I feel like there's been a lot tied together for me... yet still a lot of loose ends that keep me wondering. And I'm okay with that. 

[LuigiHann]

I will say this: I'm not certain if the flooring inspector line in RtMI is meant to be taken literally at all. It's just another self-aware throwback joke intended to play up the anticlimactic nature of that sequence. 

 

If I did want to read it a bit more literally, I'd assume Guybrush as a kid either overheard or just imagined the "you look like a flooring inspector" insult, then grew up to be a flooring inspector himself... talk about unsatisfying!

 

And yeah, it did occur to me that Guybrush might have really had an old friend or brother named Chuck, and that RtMI's Chuckie might be Chuck's son, for sure. Could even sketch between the lines that Guybrush and whoever Chuckie was repaired their relationship enough that their children are friends, which is a nice thought. Even then, can Chuckie the person and LeChuck the theme park animatronic coexist? Maybe the theme park pirate is unnamed, and Guybrush just calls it LeChuck? Works as well as anything, I suppose. But I do enjoy how it only really works when read on several levels at once, never entirely works on one level alone. 

Edited September 25, 2022 by LuigiHann
tweaked wording