I Was Really Interested In This Perspective On The Final Duet And Wanted To Talk About It A Little. I

I was really interested in this perspective on the Final Duet and wanted to talk about it a little. I haven't seen a lot of critical takes on this scene, since I (like many people) were too busy crying to critique it, but I think this is well-written.

I agree with some things, but I also have some criticisms of your criticisms (lol). Hopefully my points come together in a way that makes sense to everyone.

While I agree the visuals are relatively bland and non-sequential, leaving gaps in our understanding of the formation of friendship group (which is frankly pathetic and absolutely should've been explored at least in the game's Headspace), I also don't think it's appropriate to dissociate and analyse these slides without talking about the significance of the Final Duet piece. The PowerPoint slides are not and should not be made the focus of this portion of the game, even though many people in the fanbase do ostensibly shower said slides in gold stars.

Music sheets have been a symbol in this game since the barn in Cattail Field. I do think that the duet itself has its criticisms (although its simplicity is hopefully intentional?), and the way that music as a symbol is handled in Omori is very abrupt and not well intertwined with the narrative; but I can't agree with the choice to criticise only the visuals of the game without mentioning the audio. It not only doesn't properly capture the scene, but also limits your ability to analyse it.

With regards to your discussions of Sunny being a "blank slate"- we have to recognise that a lot of this game is designed for audience projection. Inherently speaking, the audience isn't going to forgive Sunny if they don't project onto him to some extent, so like a lot of recent media protagonists, Sunny acts as a player stand-in. Omocat takes this way too far, and Sunny's character does become entirely inferential, forcing us to understand him from Headspace and the way characters speak around him. While the idea of exploring personality from a character's dreams can be done very interestingly (Yume Nikki and subsequent fangames are a good example), this idea clashes with Omori itself - Omori, to some extent, cannot be an exploration of friendships and relationships when one character is a void waiting for player insertion.

Mari is absolutely nothing but a blank slate, and now the fandom also thinks she's Jesus. She's criminally underexplored in, like, a physically painful way.

I believe you've misinterpreted the images of Mari and Sunny hugging, and the change to Sunny alone (although I recognise that I could entirely be looking into it too much). These scenes aren't supposed to contrast when Mari was dead and when Mari was alive, rather, to contrast the act of Mari saving Sunny's life and him ending hers. This juxtaposition is not highlighted enough in the game (merely referenced in the Lost Library), but it's a contrast that I think should be at the forefront of the game's Truth sequence, instead of floating vaguely in the background. For some godforsaken reason, references to the Phobias and the day of their creation are basically absent from the ending of the game, which means major themes of guilt and regret are wasted. It makes the Phobias feel so irrelevant, which is frustrating.

Omori isn't really a representation of severe depression, he's moreso a manifestation of the idea that repression is the only solution. I actually don't think the ending of the game suggests Sunny is cured at all, but he's realised that he does deserve to live, despite everything he's done. It's not a representation of healing from trauma, it's like taking a feeble first step back from the ledge.

I really do give Omocat a lot of slack, here - personally I think a lot of the game's complexity is inferred entirely by the fanbase, an accident on the team's part. I definitely fall into that rabbithole when I write about it, because I want to believe things have meaning. So does everyone, I think.

this got waayyyy too long i'm sorry

I'm gonna be honest - along with OMORI pressuring the player into choosing the good ending lest Sunny kills himself, the whole DUET cutscene doesn't strike me as anything but very blatant emotional manipulation either. Every mention of it I saw was followed by fans talking at length about how thoroughly devastated they were left by that moment, but if you look past the Feels and focus on the Reals, what is there to be devastated about, really?

The (supposed) purpose of the cutscene is to show Sunny placating his depression by recalling the good times he had with Mari and his friends... except that is exactly what he's been doing via Basil's photo album throughout the entire game. That's what Memory Lane, which you have to go through right before the final boss, was there for. And just like the aforementioned two, the good times showcased in DUET are glurgy, meaningless fluff. They don't tell you anything new about the characters and they don't show them helping each other through thick and thin as people you could call "real" friends are supposed to. The fact that the cutscene itself looks like a PowerPoint slideshow or something you could theoretically cook up in Windows Movie Maker doesn't help, especially if you remove the music track altogether.

I think one of my "favorite" moments is Sunny and Mari meeting Kel and Hero, which is represented by the latter two literally popping out of thin air

You'd think that as a story with the power of friendship as one of its central themes, the game would show how the characters became friends in the first place and what makes them gel together, but no. This is all you get.

It's the same thing with Aubrey and Basil. The gang meets Aubrey for the first time while she's crying on the sidewalk before the game cuts to her introducing Basil to them. Was them comforting Aubrey over her lost shoe enough for her to befriend them? How exactly did she and Basil meet? I dunno, you tell me! Think about the plot so the writer won't have to!

So emotional. So peak. Two hundred thousand dollars was spent on this.

Speaking of Sunny and Mari, the cutscene's Peakest™ moment is the smash cut from a bright shot of Mari embracing a younger Sunny to a gloomier shot of the older Sunny sitting there all alone and morose, which delivers the message with all the subtlety of a nuclear bomb explosion

she passed on The Emo to him. truely devastating. also why do they both look malnourished. what the hell is this artstyle

Yes, game. I get it. The grass was greener when Mari was alive. That's roughly her gravestone's epitaph. What is the point of this? What am I supposed to cry about?

That brings me to what I believe is the main problem with DUET, and a problem with the game itself as well - the story doesn't put in any real effort to flesh out the characters you're supposed to feel bad for, yet expects you to feel bad for them anyway. Even after playing the entire 25 hours of this game, I don't know anything about Sunny, nor can I recall anything noteworthy about him except from him calling lemons "oragnes". I don't know anything about who Mari really was except that she's treated by the narrative as if she was Jesus in the flesh. They're not characters - they're effectively cardboard cutouts, and I have no idea why the game's imploring me to shed tears over two cardboard cutouts.

The cherry on top is Omori straight-up vanishing after the cutscene ends. One could argue that Sunny's victory was temporary, but that's not indicated - Omori seems to actually vanish once and for all after the game's events, and the main menu even features Sunny himself as opposed to Omori to mark the change. Because we all know that severe depression can be treated by thinking happy thoughts, right? tfw the powerpoint slideshow was so cringe that even the depression decided to peace out

Maybe I wouldn't have been as harsh if the story had Mari kill herself instead of it being a cover-up for manslaughter. Maybe then I'd have been able to see the tragedy. But given the context of the plot twist, all I can see is a coward and a liar soothing his well-earned guilt over committing a serious crime and lying about it in the most laughably melodramatic fashion possible.

it's totally cool to reblog!!!! I appreciate literally any additions to my ideas :D

That's a good idea, actually - the lack of rationality regarding the Phobias is also my endless beef with this game, as someone who actually has a clinical specific phobia. The way he gets them, the whole "slips into deep water from a height after seeing a spider" - although I recognise that it's possible to get all three phobias from a life or death situation like that, it sounds really fucking goofy.

It seems more like the Phobias are just fears Sunny has - if that's true, I'm upset at the use of clinical language. Separate incidents would increase the rationality and perhaps link better to Sunny's status as a Hikikomori.

spiders, or how to fix half of omori's plot with one symbol

i think i can fix omori. well, some of it.

This will be an attempt to prove that a key symbol related to Mari is a spider/bug, and how making this more obvious to the player would have fixed half the narrative.

Mari is closely associated with bugs and spiders in several scenes, but I believe the photos in the real world and Headspace demonstrate this most explicitly.

This photo is one of few direct redraws from the real world in Headspace, and it identifies Mari as a character unafraid, even fascinated, by bugs, which is one of very few character traits she's actually given. This is repeated multiple times as we explore Headspace, where Mari comforts Sunny and Hero about their fear of spiders, takes the group bug-hunting in the real world, and previously put bugs in Hero's desk. It's notable that the reframing of this photo specifically puts a spider in Omori's hand, further linking the girl to bugs in his mind.

Within Headspace, spiders are shown to be far more present than the other two phobias present. We see it in Daddy Long Legs, the ominous nature of Pyrefly forest, the Spider Area, the references to the creatures from Hero, Mari and Basil, and much more - it's clear that the creators wanted this symbol to be present, but overwhelmed it with subtlety, making it impossible to actually understand, and leaving it in the dust in favour of following other threads. The narrative fails to distinguish the Arachnophobia boss, and loses its the relationship between Mari and spiders/bugs.

There are several benefits to making this metaphor more deliberate to the player, by enhancing the relationship through jumpscares, making it important to the Truth/Final Boss segments, or even just distinguishing Arachnophobia from the other bosses. I've decided to organise them into a list since there's so many.

Cohesive narrative interactions between the Phobias and the recital day: I'm always talking about how the juxtaposition between these two events is so subtle that people miss the point. Singling out the importance of Arachnophobia would highlight these two events and bring them to the forefront, making the Final Duet more cohesive.

The Phobia bosses become relevant: If the game is able to properly integrate Arachnophobia into the truth segment, this provides so much more purpose to the Phobia bosses, who often feel like just game mechanics to teach you how fighting against hallucinations functions.

Intriguing moral exploration: I think the idea of the subtlety of conveying Mari as a bug portrays her insignificance - Sunny was able to just kill her, as though she were just a spider to be swatted. It furthers an interesting understanding of morality in the text, talking about the prioritisation of life, leaving more of an impact on the audience. Are humans really as fickle as that?

Hero's character: Connecting Mari to a spider not only allows for more theory and AU creation, but actually mimics Hero's actions in the real world. Only two characters are afraid of spiders - and only those two characters have not visited Mari's grave since it was dug, which mirrors (but fails to highlight) Sunny and Hero's character arcs. In a similar way, Mari and Basil's love for bugs could also mirror some sort of decline.

The relevance of Daddy Long Legs and spider-related Black Space areas: Spiders are regularly referenced in Headspace and Black Space, with a whole room of Black Space surrounding them, but there's never any lucid reason why they're so prominent compared to the other phobias. Making a clear connection to the truth would clear up this confusion.

Basil's Something and Headspace Basil's dialogue: Basil's Something is deliberately abstract, but it is never defined further than its presentation. Not only would it properly link the Spider Area to the reality of the truth, but it would potentially connect Basil's Something to it, too.

Just plain easy to add: Much of Omori's story, characterisation and pacing is very difficult to improve without hours of effort. Being able to cohesively connect elements of the narrative with one symbol is much more realistic.

song i listened to while writing this:

this song is literally the reason i came to this realisation, the themes of environmental preservation were essential dskjhjdsgdjhsgjhkdg shout out to me rediscovering this after years and years

through the looking glass again, or re-establishing colour theory in OMORI

WARNING: MAJOR OMORI SPOILERS.

CONTENT WARNING: REFERENCES TO SUICIDE, DEATH, LOSS, AND GRIEF.

A while ago, I wrote what I consider to be my magnum opus - an analysis discussing deliberate colour theory and windows in OMORI. This analysis is excellent, it is the fundamentals of almost all my other analyses, but it is disorganised and I don't get my point across as adequately as I need to.

The main reason for this is, well, I discover things as I write about them, so my points tend to get lost. Lmao.

So, I'm going to reframe my analysis by establishing the purpose of each colour I discuss. Hopefully this reaches a wider audience and is more digestible than my ramblings.

Saturated Blue

Saturated blue is a very deliberate colour choice - we know this from Omocat herself. Let's establish where it is used:

It is the colour of the Phobias, and Sunny's house during Phobia sequences. The use of saturation conveys intensity and fear, and there is a sense of impending failure - we cannot "beat" any of these boss fights by normal means, but instead are doomed to lose or wait until Mari consoles us.

It's prevalent in the Deeper Well, but notably absent from many Black Space rooms, who choose to use solid monochrome or other colours to convey emotion. It still exists within Black Space despite this.

In a similar way, it exists with the Basil boss fight, but more features are monochrome, which ties it more closely with the Truth.

Saturated blue is also the colour of Hellmari, but I will discuss her in depth later.

This blue is also deliberately not black - this somewhat disconnects these segments from the Truth, and considering how the Phobia bosses were formed, I propose that the ultimate purpose of this colour is to provide a comparison between Mari saving Sunny's life and Sunny ending hers.

This comparison is essential to the game, and yet absent from a lot of key moments. Highlighting this juxtaposition would have fixed these two narratives into a cohesive whole.

Red Light, streaming through windows

I am talking about red light in particular - while red is carefully used in the final boss fight, Red Space, several areas of further Black Space and in the Red Hands, red has more complex meanings in this game, where it depends entirely on the other colours around it:

Red and black represents malicious intent - this is present in several areas of Red Space and the Omori boss fight.

Red and white is more closely tied to repression - notably present in the red hands, some areas of Red Space and the Omori boss fight.

Red standing out against the Dreamworld is tied to Truth - present in the bloody footprints.

However, red light streaming through windows has its own specific meaning - it is designed to feel wrong, the same way the encroaching fog across vast forest feels wrong, and the deeper well's atmosphere feels wrong.

This gets even more important during the Truth sequence, where are introduced to red light streaming through the sliding glass door.

The sliding glass door in Omori is both a window and a door - letting in the eerie red light, but also letting the player (and Sunny) access it and understand it for the first time. Sunny never represses the sliding glass door, but will refuse to go outside until forced by his friends in Faraway visiting the Treehouse. It is opaque and cannot be seen through.

Entering the door leads to the peak combination of our colour theory.

This first looks like a fade between red and purple, but the only possible relevance purple would have is its association with Mari.

This colour scheme is actually the result of a fade between red and saturated blue. Combining the colours of the Phobias, fear, as well as Mari's support and safety, and the day of the Phobias' creation; and the Truth, repression, and the fateful day of the recital. This is the game's big (failed) comparison, and the main purpose of mentioning the creation of the Phobias at all.

These two days are designed to compare Mari and Sunny, increasing his guilt as he remembers the way his sister generously saved his life, and remembers what he did to kill her.

Monochrome

Monochrome is a key colour associated with Truth in Omori, and it does so in a relatively obvious way.

It is the colour of White Space, Black Space, Something, Stranger, and, notably, the colours of the photos that show the player the Truth. In this way, monochrome simultaneously represents repression of the Truth and the past; but also the desire to uncover it.

Areas and characters that contain more black than they do white tend to represent truth, whereas the opposite tend to represent repression, save for portions of the Final Duet and the Hospital, where white represents acceptance.

White also symbolises Sunny, shown in the pinwheels, and it has further meaning in the multiple flowers associated with it.

Spirit Mari is also associated with monochrome, her sprites existing in this colour.

Establishing the presentation of monochrome and saturated blue allow us to understand the mechanics of Headspace itself.

Despite Stranger's quote, Sunny, Basil and Mari are all split in halves, each half with different goals. Sunny, although he doesn't always know it, wants to seek the Truth; but Omori wants to repress it. Stranger wants to free the real world's Basil; but Headspace Basil is a representation of desire, the idea that everything is okay. In a similar way, Spirit Mari wants Sunny to seek forgiveness, and Hellmari is a hallucination of a Mari who would never forgive him

Pastel Blue

The final duet has a very key theme of acceptance and ascension, which is particularly present in this scene.

The whiteness of the area is highlighted with a light, pastel blue. Unlike the horror of saturation, pastel in-game represents peace and purity, being directly contrasted with each other. Pastel isn't symbolic of repression, although it is the main theme during the happier segments of Headspace. These particular colours - white and pastel blue - are also found in the Hospital, and in the final scene of the good ending. Pastel means acceptance, and it means there is no need to "saturate" the events of the recital day.

Here, the colour gradient, and Mari ascending through the window, are symbols of freedom. Sunny has accepted the Truth, and can now properly grieve his lost sister in peace. Simultaneously, you could argue Mari's spirit is finally free - she isn't tied down by Sunny's repression, and her ascending through the window is symbolic of finally entering the afterlife.

oh right i forgot i wrote a chapter 2 to this

negative focuses on more personal experiences of OCD

i think that the possibility of a Mari with OCD isn't too far-fetched. lots of people only ever write or portray her as perfect, which isn't true, but Sunny doesn't provide enough perspective on what Mari was actually like and apparently half the fandom can't look past his idea of her.

i was interested in writing an analysis exploring the way Mari is portrayed but i think i sorta explained what i wanted to say in this analysis exploring angry dead women. it's just fascinating to me that the fandom falls into the same trap that Sunny fell into, some weird desire for the perfect older sister.

I wrote something about my experiences with OCD from Mari's lens because I need that in my life apparently.

Right, now that's finished, I can finally get onto schoolwork and shit.

I wrote something about my experiences with OCD from Mari's lens because I need that in my life apparently.

Right, now that's finished, I can finally get onto schoolwork and shit.

IM SORRY CHUBBY HERO 😭😭

He is in pain. Big pain.