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.

IM SORRY CHUBBY HERO 😭😭

He is in pain. Big pain.

tossing around the idea of a heromari spiderverse au...

mostly because you could very easily make hero miles and make mari gwen and keep most things the same, lmao.

and i'm a heromari guy and i love them so much please kiss heromari.

(spiderverse and omori spoilers, under the cut, obviously)

because i'm not an artist, but rather, a nerd, i want to explore things based on what will better enhance or explore character development/arcs.

the addition of siblings would really change the spiderverse series, i think. imagine the implications of gwen's choice to leave her father in the second film if she had a younger brother who admires and loves her waiting for her at home. sunny could even be (overtly or secretly) obsessed with spiderwoman, increasing tension in the home.

in a similar way, it'd be interesting to see the conflict caused in sunny's family if sunny's mom died. we know the family becomes completely shaken after mari's death, and if we take their father's choice to abandon the family as a habit, watching him struggle to pull the strings together after the loss of their mom would pressure his character more. this could even trap him further into his "duty" to catch spiderwoman.

figuring out who gwen's peter parker would be is difficult, but i've decided on hero. in fact, it would be interesting to explore how a gwen-esque character would cope with the having miles in his position in her universe, and needing to reconcile with this idea that he is alive, but he is not the same. giving mari restraint despite the desire to see "her hero" again would also be very interesting to explore.

also MAYBE i just wanna see mari drawn in the gwen watercolour style. i wanna kiss her. leave me alone.

miles honestly feels like the kel sibling, so i'd prefer to just have him be hero with kel characteristics. however, there is more to it than just that - hero's character would inhibit the story of spiderverse at multiple points, because of his maturity, so he needs kel's immaturity to choose to take particular actions. if you need an example, miles' choice to enter the portal after gwen was an impulsive, emotional decision, which simply doesn't fit hero's character.

this scene was absolutely gorgeous btw. i can't believe people don't talk about it, the upside down scene was amazing but THIS. THIS. and sorry for awful quality

there are several aspects to miles' character that mimic hero's personality. the pining for gwen and miles' surprise when he sees her again could easily fit into hero's character. although implied in the original movie, having hero as a character could bring miles' acceptance that he might never see his friends again to the forefront. (although the desire to study physics could replace hero's desire to be a chef in the original game, to smoothen out the story.)

i'm not sure how to input kel or basil, but aubrey would make a good peni parker, i think.

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.

since people seem to really like this analysis, I wanted to add a few suggestions as to how someone would integrate this into the game

The Arachnophobia boss will be the final phobia boss, and likely replace the Something boss in the timeline. The Thalassophobia boss looks more spider-like (not sure how to change the Acrophobia boss).

As a result of this, Headspace is rearranged and the Deep Well segment is shorter. Instead of the Deeper Well, Pyrefly Forest is after Sweetheart's Castle, and this either leads to Garden's Edge (a link between SC and Black Space) or the area with Daddy Long-Legs. Either choice leads to Black Space.

Garden's Edge, a potential link between the two that could be explored.

Most, if not all, jumpscares should have spiders or spider references. Something itself could be replaced with a spider or an abstract version of one. Hand-related jumpscares are now spider legs, possibly including the red hands.

The spider area is either the final or a significant part of Black Space. Mewo in Black Space is the cat-spider found in Pyrefly forest, and that cat-spider is found much more often in Headspace and as a Real World hallucination.

During the Memory Lane sequence, two scenes are added - a scene of Sunny as a baby accidentally killing a spider, and the day of the Phobias' creation. This better integrates the morals and overall story.

More time in the Real World (obviously). Hero's character arc now revolves around getting over his fear of spiders and learning to visit Mari's grave again. Basil is much more linked to spiders, and Sunny has far more hallucinations about spiders.

Happy to hear ideas. Might add more.

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

oh right. i have literally never done va work ever but i thought this was stupid funny.

the original comic is by @rainydaysleuth, I originally found it on reddit. I DIDNT DRAW THIS I JUST DID THE FUNNY VOICE OKAY

if it does well i might do more stupid funny shit since normally i use this voice to harass people. i can do a pretty decent sweetheart.