The Secrets of Psychonauts: Easter Eggs and Hidden References
Note: This is a deep discussion of YouTube video The Secrets of Psychonauts. If you would prefer a more concise, and cinematic, rundown of this article’s findings then please click the above link.
Psychonauts was developed during the early 2000s, when platform games were still somewhat fashionable. Popular titles of the day include Jak and Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, and Sly Cooper. These are games set in fun fantasy lands containing all sorts of shiny trinkets to collect and strange enemies to defeat. Their characters are a playful bunch, none of whom would seem out of place in a Saturday morning cartoon. Psychonauts is similar in some respects. It too is fun and whimsical with a colourful cast of characters. But the differences become apparent when you peek beneath the surface. While Psychonauts has the look and feel of a platform game, it’s an adventure game at heart. It was created by Tim Schafer, who was mostly known for his work on point-and-click adventures such as Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, and The Secret of Monkey Island. He also worked with LucasArts, a company renowned for its detailed craftsmanship and impressive attention to detail. So it’s no surprise that the world of Psychonauts is filled with so many little secrets. It’s a world rich in history, and character, and Easter eggs. It’s a strange and curious world that invites a great deal of exploration.
The game begins in Whispering Rock Summer Camp, a highly-classified, remote government training facility. Here young children with psychic abilities are trained to become international secret agents or Psychonauts. The camp is a wide, sprawling area, made up of the kids’ cabins, main campgrounds, forested wilderness, reception area, and beach. It’s the central hub you return to between missions. Other than that, it’s just a fun place to hang out. There’s children to talk to, trees to climb, caves to explore, squirrels to roast.
The environment welcomes many kinds of interaction. And it’s this high level of interactivity that separates Psychonauts from the regular platformer. Raz can interact with almost everyone and everything. Show any object to any character and Raz will receive a unique response. On top of that, each child in the camp has their own three-act story, which occurs on the fringes of the main story. Most of these interactions are very easy to miss. They are not, after all, essential to the plot. However, they add colour to the camp, and sometimes reveal hidden truths.
Psychonauts proudly borrows from the adventure game genre. Those who grew up playing point-and-click puzzlers will find themselves in familiar territory. Especially if one chooses to interact with the tree stump at the beginning of the game. Upon inspecting the stump, Raz makes a remark about it opening up into ‘a system of catacombs’. This not only serves as foreshadowing, but also refers to classic LucasArts adventure The Secret of Monkey Island. In that game, attempting to enter a tree stump would result in the same remarks, followed by a series of pop-up messages, stating the player needed to insert disc 22, then 36, then 114 in order to continue. This joke resulted in numerous calls to the LucasArts hotline, and was subsequently scrapped from later editions. Much of the dialogue in Psychonauts is written in the same humorous vein as these old-school adventure games.
The first mission introduces Raz intimately to the character of the Coach. From the outside, Coach Oleander is a short, stocky, shouty camp leader. His military dress and paraphernalia hint at his tough and aggressive attitude of mind. Most significant of all is his helmet, modelled after the spiked helmet of Otto von Bismarck. Oleander’s character draws inspiration from Bismarck, an aggressive leader who believed in a strong military and a single powerful ruler. Bismarck was the master strategist who seized control over all Germany, and arguably masterminded the creation of a unified Germany. The similarities between Oleander and Bismarck become more pronounced as the game progresses.
Raz enters Oleander’s psyche through a literal door into the mind, known as a Psycho-Portal. The scene is reminiscent of the opening to The Twilight Zone. Even the music shares an uncanny resemblance. It consists of a pattern of eight notes that serves as the theme for Psychonauts. The music can be heard at various points in the game. It’s usually a sign that something is not quite right in the mind.
The first mission, Basic Braining, prepares Raz for what lies ahead. It also sets up the pattern of nearly every mental level. There is the outer surface of the mind, which represents how the character wishes to be seen. This is the conscious mind that projects outwards. Then there is the basement level of the mind, the subconscious. This is where the mind hides its secrets like buried treasure. Sometimes the secrets show on the surface. There will be things that seem out of place. They will seem strange at first. But their origins can be discovered through deep exploration.
Oleander’s mind bears all the trappings of military life. There are ammunition belts, grainy projections, barbed-wire walls, anti-tank barricades, flamethrowers, dog tags, five-pointed stars, helmets, skulls, tires, flaming barrels, gutted planes, bowie knives, cannons, camp nets, mines, more cannons, military flags, wooden spikes, spinning death traps, and dimly lit corridors. Then there are the alien objects that just don’t belong. Growing alone in a small field is a strange plant made out of meat. This is the first hint of Oleander’s dark past peeking through the surface. Another strange detail can be found on a snow-blanketed field in front of an armed bunker. Scattered across the field are dozens of white rabbits, each one sporting a military helmet. They don’t seem to care about the machine gun firing across the field. They are quite happy to hop about, even directly into the line of fire. This scene can be linked back to a murderous memory from the Coach’s past. Using Clairvoyance on the bunnies reveals that they see Raz as a bloodied butcher. So now we have three clues. There’s the strange-looking meat, the scene of bunny homicide, and the vision of the bloody butcher. Reversing the order of these clues tells a story. It’s also worth noting that the bunker bunnies are being slaughtered. Really it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to piece together the clues.
And there’s more. At the end of the level, Raz comes across a long white corridor. The white walls have a decorative trim with a pattern of rabbits and carrots. At the end of the corridor is something hidden behind red curtains. The Coach evicts Raz before he has the chance to see what it is. The room is locked should Raz ever return. This room is a forbidden room, much like the one in the story of Bluebeard. With murder in mind, the room gains a sinister edge. The curtains look like bloody aprons. And the curved ends of the curtain rod look like a couple of meat hooks.
The white room is soon forgotten about. Raz returns to the real world. Agent Sasha Nein, impressed by his performance on the battlefield, offers him the chance to take part in some advanced training. However, first Raz must locate his secret lab. Sasha floats over a large red four-hole button. The button is a key, as well as a clue.
It’s interesting that such a button should be chosen. Videogames often use buttons as a means of activation. But they are push-buttons. And their history is not important. They are there simply to be pushed. Psychonauts subverts the trope by using a flat rather than mechanical button. The button is used to reveal a secret entrance. In spy and detective fiction it is quite common for a secret door to be activated by something seemingly mundane. In sixties spy series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., it was a coat hook inside a tailor shop. The button in Psychonauts needs to be slotted into just the right place to activate the door. And so the question is not just ‘What does this button do?’ but ‘Where does this button belong?’ Psychonauts doesn’t want the player to just push buttons. Instead it invites the player to investigate the world. The emphasis is on exploration rather than progression.
The summer camp, and its surrounding area, is steeped in history and legend. Buried underground are thousands of arrowheads. These arrowheads can be collected and used as a form of currency. However, unlike most platform games, the collectibles also serve the story. As explained by Franke, before crossing the bridge, the camp is said to be built on an Indian burial ground. But only because the Indians buried their arrowheads there. More information can be found past the bridge. Inscribed on a large log, in the middle of the parking lot, is the history of Whispering Rock. It informs the reader that these arrowheads are actually pieces of Psitanium, a rare psychoreactive mineral that originates from a meteorite. The meteorite struck earth over five hundred years ago, the impact crater forming the valley that later became Whispering Rock Summer Camp. The strange properties of the meteorite gave rise to the name of ‘Whispering Rock’.
The arrowheads are not the only items of historical significance. In the reception area are seven wooden stakes, arranged in a semi-circle around a stage. Carved on each stake is a name and a face, except for one stake which is broken and missing a name. The placement of the posts suggests these people are of great importance. The globe icon above each name indicates they belong to a global organisation. The fact that this globe icon is the same as the one used in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. suggests the top secret nature of their work.
These old and famous Psychonauts are probably the original founders of the organisation. This is further suggested by one stake with the name of Bob Zanatto. The last name is likely a misspelling of Zanotto, the same surname of gifted psychic Lili, and, more importantly, her father Truman, the Grand Head of the Psychonauts. Also of interest is Compton Boole, who shares his surname with Dogen Boole, a small boy with an immensely powerful brain. The portrait on the broken stake bears a striking resemblance to Ford Cruller. It could be that of his much younger self, and the missing name a reference to him being ‘written off’ by the organisation. The other faces are less familiar. But the names could hold clues about each character. All the names seem to involve wordplay of one sort or another. Helmut Fullbear literally wears a helmet. His surname could be a reference to his bearish figure. The name ‘Helmut’ derives from the Germanic words for ‘mind’ and ‘protection’. It is possible that his helmet protects his mind from psychic interference, similar to Dr. Loboto’s shower cap, and maybe even Raz’s helmet. Cassie O’Pia is a homophone of Cassiopeia, a vain and boastful queen from Greek mythology. However, a closer reading reveals more relevant associations. Cassie is short for Cassandra, a prophetess who could see into the future. And Pia is Latin for ‘pious’ or ‘tender’, words which fit her portrait. The names Lucrecia and Otto derive from the Latin and Germanic words for ‘wealth’. This strengthens the theory that these are powerful people. It’s also worth noting that Lucrecia Mux shares a similar name and appearance to Lucretia Mott, a famous feminist leader. The names seem to be inspired by important figures, both mythological and historical. However, their true significance will remain a mystery, at least until the next chapter.
At the bottom of Sasha’s lab is the Brain Tumbler, a device that allows someone to enter their own mind. The idea of entering your own mind to solve puzzles was the original premise of Psychonauts. Tim Schafer changed it after a colleague misunderstood the main concept of the game. They thought the game was about entering other people’s heads, rather than your own. In the end, Schafer decided to use their idea, as he considered it a much better one than his own. Therefore, the game only offers a sneak peek into Raz’s psyche. Much of his backstory is left a mystery.
The first thing Raz sees upon entering his mind is a caravan enshrouded with fog. This represents his earliest memory. But beyond this, and a memory vault, there are very few traces of his past. On the contrary, the objects within his mind mostly point to his future.
A main source of inspiration for Raz’s level was offbeat LucasArts adventure game Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders. The game opens with a dream sequence in which the main character comes across a confusing series of surreal objects. What initially seems random starts to make sense as the story unfolds, and the objects from the dream world start appearing in the real world.
Psychonauts never shows us an unadulterated view of Raz’s mind. From the moment he steps inside his own mind, there are signs of interference. At first it seems as if the Brain Tumbler is at fault for Raz’s lopsided visions. But, in reality, the weirdness stems from elsewhere. The caravan is filled with TV static. Raz steps into it and the static solidifies. After punching his way out, he emerges from an egg. This transformation calls to mind the work of surreal painter Dali who was particularly fond of eggs. One of Dali’s techniques involved connecting two images with no rational connection. This surrealist method is seen at play here. Raz comes across plants made of rib-cages, monster plants with many eyes, rattlesnake bushes, steak punching bags, and literal skullcap mushrooms, all the while chasing a white rabbit up a rocky slope. There are further signs of interference in the form of misty clouds, mini tornadoes, and a creepy shadow monster. Raz’s mental landscape has clearly been disturbed.
Raz’s mind has become a repository for psychic dream material. The entire story is mirrored within this dreamland. This is not immediately apparent because the events are represented in symbolic form. The shadow monster that spits out the diving helmet and the bathtub with the words ‘S.S. Oblongata’ foreshadow the descent into Lake Oblongata with the bathysphere. The thorny tower that stands in the middle of the clearing represents the Thorney Tower insane asylum, as do all the prickly plants. The giant straitjacket that wraps around the lower portion of the tower represents the lower floors of the asylum where the inmates reside. Figments for the four inmates — Edgar, Napoleon, Gloria, and Boyd — can be found in the area circling the tower. The tendril that spirals upwards around the tower mirrors the twisted ascent up the asylum, at the top of which is the laboratory of Dr. Loboto. There are brain figments to collect when climbing the tendril, just as there are jarred brains to collect when climbing the tower. The real world and the dream world even share a similar night sky. Both skies are lit by a crescent-shaped moon. And both skies have clouds shaped like screaming faces.
The reason for these disturbances is not laid out until the end of the level. However, there are signs beforehand. In the real world, Coach Oleander has fallen asleep in front of the camp radio. If you climb the radio tower beside the main lodge, you can hear his sleep-talk through the loudspeakers. These messages are being broadcast to the entire camp, which explains why Raz and the rest of the campers have been having such weird dreams.
He mentions eggs, bunnies, and holders, which are the same objects that appear within Raz’s mind. Eggs appear in the memory titled ‘The World Shall Taste My Eggs!’, found in a vault in the second half of the level. This memory outlines Oleander’s plan to take over the world by way of metaphor. It shows a brain hatching from an egg, instead of a bird. The brain hatches in a sort of breeding ground, which is really the campground. It represents the brain of one of the children at the summer camp. It walks to the edge of a shore, presumably the shore of Lake Oblongata, and is carried across the lake by a fish, which represents the lungfish Linda. It arrives at the insane asylum which looks like an amusement park, foreshadowing the Meat Circus. Here it jumps into a teacup, which acts like a tank, and starts blasting people with psychic energy. The teacup is a psychic death tank. The level ends with a battle against such a tank. The music that plays during the boss battle uses the same theme from Oleander’s mission, Basic Braining. This makes it clear that Oleander is responsible for the mental disturbances.
The next mind Raz enters seems calm from the outset, but hides a great many secrets. Sasha Nein is the stereotypical man of science. He is the cool and aloof pragmatist. He speaks with a strong monotonous German accent. He is so stoic that he barely reacts when tickled with a feather. His surname Nein, meaning ‘No’ in German, provides a clue to the inner workings of his mind. His is a mind of restraint, in which everything exists in a state of equilibrium.
This is reflected in his mental landscape in a number of ways. First, the landscape takes the shape of a cube, a shape of perfect symmetry. Then there are the shapes that cover the surface of the cube. Many resemble symbols that you can find in the fields of maths, science, and technology. There are wire symbols from circuit diagrams, square grids like those found on graph paper, symbols for tape cassettes, and the same striped black-and-white border seen on TV test cards. The music for this level, titled ‘Sasha’s Cube’, is an electronic piece written in an unusually technical style, known as twelve-tone music. It’s a style of music that treats all notes as equal, and thus avoids being in any key. The music seems inspired by Herbert Eimert, one of the German pioneers of early electronic music. Static sounds combine with static pictures. Everything is precisely arranged. Everything mirrors the well-ordered complexity of Sasha’s mind.
It doesn’t take long for that order to be overturned. Nein’s mental belongings are locked away in neatly shaped compartments within the cube. Soon the censors start leaking and objects start popping up like jacks-in-the-box. These are items from Sasha’s past, blown up to a larger-than-life size. Most can be linked to traumatic memories, hidden in memory vaults. The crib and alphabet blocks from Nein’s babyhood become climbable obstacles in his mind. The giant shoeboxes and measuring tape are from Nein’s time working as a cobbler for his dad. The large fire-breathing building is actually a lamp factory, according to the concept art. It can be assumed that Sasha used to work in the factory, prior to the events of the game, which would explain his particular aversion to Tiffany lamps. The design of the lamp factory is based on the man-eating temple of Moloch from German expressionist film Metropolis. Sasha clearly didn’t like his job. Also of note are the figments. There are cockroaches scattered all over the place. This suggests Sasha has a touch of the obsessive-compulsive in him. He clearly keeps a lot under wraps, which is why his level contains the largest censor of all, the Mega Censor. The slovenly appearance of the Mega Censor reflects everything Sasha hates. Not only is he hideous to look at. But his legs are not symmetric, with one leg thicker than the other.
Outside of Sasha’s mind and his Bauhaus-inspired lab, Raz will find his partner Milla Vodello chilling by the lake. Milla offers a nice counterbalance to Sasha. Both have experienced great tragedy in their lives and both deal with the pain in different ways. Milla’s level takes place in a sixties psychedelic wonderland. It’s the opposite of monochrome. Here everything is flashing disco floor and lava lamps and ostentatious monkey statue. The land is filled with partygoers, decked out in sixties mod fashion, dancing non-stop. In case anyone should want to relax, there are pillows strewn all over the art-deco floor. All is laid back and groovy.
Except for one room on the outskirts of a dance hall. It is a room buried in shadow, a moonlit window providing the only source of light. The room is straight out of a horror film. The figments of ghostly children surround a solitary patch of moonlight. In the middle of the room are a tiny crib and a few small rocking horses. And in the corner sits an unusually large toy chest. It’s a nursery room.
An unlocked memory reveals Milla used to work in an orphanage, until it burnt down with the children still inside. The shadowed room represents this dark corner of her past. The toy chest is where she stores her personal demons. It is locked when you enter the room. Hit it and the lid flings open. Then Raz can jump inside.
The inside of the chest is much larger than it looks from the outside. Raz is dropped inside a large fiery cage. Strange oily creatures writhe around the outside of it. These creatures, known as Nightmares, can usually be found hiding underground. They are the dark mental demons that lurk in the recesses of the mind. For Milla they adopt the voices of the children who burned alive in the orphanage. Originally they were supposed to escape and drag down the young campers, but this was deemed inappropriate for her level. It doesn’t fit with Milla’s character. Milla is overly protective of children and would likely do whatever she could to stop her Nightmares from escaping. This is demonstrated by the fact her psychic cage is protected by a door with a lock. In addition, using Clairvoyance on her person reveals that she sees Raz as a baby. The cage is her coping mechanism. As you explore other minds, it becomes clear that mental precautions such as this are all that separate the sane from the not so sane.
If there’s anything this game teaches, it’s that appearances can be deceiving. The happiest person can hide the darkest secret. And the most monstrous characters can sometimes turn out to be the sweetest. Consider Linda, the Hideous Hulking Lungfish of Lake Oblongata. She has a huge bulbous head, crazy yellow eyes, a too wide mouth, and stakes for teeth. She used to be a regular lungfish until she was hideously mutated by Dr. Loboto in a scene resembling the birth of Frankenstein’s monster. Similar to The Monster, Linda is a misunderstood creature. She is not evil in nature. So she kidnaps children and carries them to a mad scientist so he can harvest their brains. But it’s not her fault. She’s just following orders. The truth can be found beneath her blotchy skin.
Inside Linda’s mind, Raz experiences what it’s like to be an alien. There he is Goggalor, a massive B-movie monster, in a skyscraper city populated by tiny lungfish citizens. The citizens are slaves to Kochamara, a giant superhero who resembles Ultraman. Kochamara is to Ultraman what Goggalor is to Godzilla. Kochamara’s job is to protect the citizens from monsters such as Goggalor. Really he is just there to brainwash the citizens. A memory reveals how he enslaved the city and forced the tiny lungfish into labour. This scene calls to mind the building of the great pyramids. The lungfish creatures are really Linda’s thoughts. Most of them are under the control of Kochamara and, quite naturally, fear Goggalor. However, a few of them have decided to fight back and treat Raz as an ally.
The freedom fighters keep Raz informed throughout his mission. They tell him that the citizens are being controlled by a radio tower on Kochamara Island. The radio tower symbolises a mind control device inside Linda’s head. It is being guarded by Kochamara. The true identity of Kochamara is quite obvious. He speaks like the Coach and of things only the Coach would know. His name even sounds like ‘Coach’. It is probably a combination of ‘Coach’ and ‘Gamera’, the name of a famous Japanese monster. Going deeper, Kochamara sounds like ‘cauchemar’, the French word for nightmare. And it’s interesting to note that his mask has long curly horns and big bug-like eyes, rather like the Nightmare creature. Once Linda’s nightmare is over, she can go back to thinking like her regular self. The monster becomes your friend.
Linda now acts as a personal submarine, carrying Raz across the lake to the island of the Thorney Towers insane asylum. Before Raz can enter the asylum he has to open the gate. And for that he needs the help of security guard Boyd.
Boyd is the first of four inmates Raz has to cure in order to climb the tower. From the outset, he seems to be suffering from paranoia. He is scrawling messages on the asylum walls, in spite of not actually being inside the asylum, and mumbling all sorts of strange conspiracies to himself. If you stop and listen you will find that he always has something new and interesting to say. This is because his speech patterns were created using a state machine. One word or phrase triggers a different type of word or phrase and so on. In effect you could listen to him talk all day, although this would not be recommended. Another example of recursive speech occurs in the plane in Basic Braining. Here Vernon tells a shaggy-dog story that ends only once Raz flings him out of the plane. Recursive elements can be found in the minds of all the asylum inmates. This brings to mind that endlessly used quote about madness: ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.’ It’s Raz’s job to break the pattern.
The character of Boyd is based on a mixture of real-life and fictional figures. When you enter his mind you find him contemplating one of those crazy walls seen in so many cop and detective shows. Concept art reveals this web of papers is based on the office of American mathematician John Nash from the film A Beautiful Mind. In the film, John Nash experiences delusions of paranoia while absorbing himself in a series of conspiracy theories. This is similar to the way in which Boyd views the world. An unlocked memory shows that Boyd used to work as a security guard, until he was fired by his cigar-chomping boss. This made him angry, so angry he decided to burn down his workplace with Molotov cocktails. The name of his workplace ‘Hernando’s’ has a curious story behind it. The name was spoken by a man who used to hang out in the alley of the old Double Fine offices. According to Tim Schafer, ‘He would mutter a lot to himself about how the government was out to get him, how they were tracking him with “optics” and “plastics” and how “the pelicans knew what they were up to”.’ ‘Hernando’s’ was one of the words he kept repeating, so Schafer decided to include it as part of his backstory. Boyd is hypnotised and programmed by the Coach to burn down the asylum if necessary. The Coach does this by implanting a post-hypnotic suggestion, a subconscious order that is triggered under a specific condition. This is the same sort of brainwashing used on Raymond Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate, which in turn is based on the mind control experiments performed by the CIA in the fifties and sixties. Boyd is the perfect subject for covert manipulation due to his isolated disposition and fragile state of mind. In his own words, he is ‘fully trained’ for the job.
The inner world of Boyd is fuelled by paranoia. His house sits in the middle of a twisted web of streets. Everything can be traced back to him — the prime suspect of his very own crazy wall. He lives in one of those suburban neighbourhoods, sunny on the surface but hiding a dark secret. The bins, birds, and mailboxes conceal surveillance equipment. Groups of tall men in trench coats can be seen on almost every street. Their faces are buried between upturned collars and wide-brimmed hats. But you can still see their red glowing eyes. These are the G-Men, their appearance inspired by the Spy vs Spy comics in Mad Magazine. They seem to be shady characters. But really they are there to safeguard the landscape. Similar to the rebel lungfish, the G-Men are seeking an alien mind control device. This time it’s not a radio tower but a man. More specifically, a milkman.
The Milkman is the alter ego of Boyd. He represents the subconscious order to burn down the asylum. He lies buried in a secret underground location, meaning he resides in the subconscious part of the mind. After defeating the guardian of the lair, The Milkman awakes. Boyd makes for his Molotov milk bottles, just as he was trained to. He does not, however, set fire to the asylum straight away. It seems as if he is waiting for just the right moment.
The next inmate can be found in the asylum’s garden. Through an archway inside a small domed structure stands Gloria Von Gouton. She’s a tall spindly woman with flame-red tentacles for hair. From a distance she sort of looks like a thin withered tree. In front of her, arranged in semicircular rows, are flower pots with smiling faces painted on them. Some of the pots contain the curled roots of dead plants. What was a greenhouse is now a theatre. The moon shines a spotlight on Gloria from above. The pots are her audience. The moonlight makes her a star. Gloria keeps a golden trophy close at hand, a relic from her acting past. You enter the theatre from backstage, which explains why she sometimes sees you as her acting partner. She speaks happily to you, as long as she remains in the light. But when she steps out of the light and into the shadows she turns angry and suspicious. Her thoughts turn dark in an instant. She is unstable but with good reason. As Raz is about to discover, her insecurities come from a very deep-seated place.
Gloria’s inner theatre contains a rich cast of characters. There are flower-headed actors on the main stage, the stage director Becky who stays offstage, the leading star Bonita Soleil, who has locked herself in her dressing room, and a fat critic in a balcony box called Jasper Rolls. Ironically, the principal characters are those who remain outside the spotlight. Jasper, Bonita, and Becky are the real stars of the show.
Together they play the classic Freudian trio of the id, the ego, and the superego. Jasper sits at a distance from the stage and takes great pleasure from ridiculing those on stage. Like the worst of critics, he doesn’t care about helping others. He doesn’t think before he talks and so he never has a useful thing to say. He is the id, the unconscious part of Gloria’s personality, driven purely by animal impulses. The id is like a newborn baby, crying out for attention, and only concerned with its own selfish desires. He is not accessible to the rest of the group without special intervention, which is where Raz comes in. Becky stands beyond the proscenium arch, off to the far side of the stage. As the superego, her job is to punish the ego for not following the rules learned from parents and educators. She is located just outside of conscious awareness, and just about accessible to the ego. The ego is where the conscious mind lives. Bonita Soleil is the leading star, but she has the tough job of pleasing both the superego’s orders and the id’s desires. She is not the master of her own house.
Delving into Gloria’s past shows how she came to be so conflicted. A hidden memory offers a glimpse into her cruel upbringing. Her mother, a famous actress, married a theatre manager and sent Gloria off to school. Gloria learned how to act, sing, and dance under the strict tutelage of an old whip-happy Wicked-Witch-looking headmistress. Her regimented training is based on that of children who train for the Peking Opera. The training paid off. Gloria became a big star. However, the stardom didn’t last. Gloria’s mother fell into obscurity and threw herself to her death. The news of her mother’s suicide made Gloria lose her head and, not long after, her fame. Gloria’s character is inspired by Gloria Swanson’s character in fifties film noir Sunset Boulevard, a fragile film actress who refuses to accept her fame is gone. For both characters, a rapid rise and fall in stardom has led them to a land of delusion. Von Gouton’s sadness is heightened by her harsh upbringing and the sudden suicide of her mother. Her life is like something out of a Greek tragedy. It’s no surprise she’s so unstable.
Gloria feels like she’s on stage all the time. Jasper, her inner critic, hadn’t always been so large. It was only when her mother committed suicide that he took on such a huge size. He is later revealed to be the Phantom, a ghostly figure who prowls the catwalks of the theatre to sabotage the plays being performed below. He is said to attack only when Bonita performs. But that doesn’t stop him from attacking Raz, first dropping sandbags on him from above and then shooting ink blots at him with a pair of giant pens. If Raz gets hit by an ink blot, a critical word will appear such as ‘Vulgar’, ‘Awkward’, and ‘Strained’. These words were apparently taken from a review of comedy film, and critical flop, White Chicks. The wicked critic can be defeated by shining the theatre’s spotlights on his face. When Bonita returns to the stage, the critic keeps shrinking to the size of almost nothing. Bonita becomes shining and radiant, just as Gloria was in her glory days. She is once again a star. More importantly, Gloria detaches herself from the theatre. She will no longer attack Raz if he tries to take her trophy. For the rest of the game she can be found pottering about the garden with a bright smile on her face.
Raz meets the next eccentric in the asylum courtyard, just past Gloria’s garden theatre. He is even taller than Gloria. He has the long lanky legs of a giraffe. However, his torso is surprisingly small and his arms exceedingly short given his height. This could be because he is wearing a tight-fitting straitjacket, and has been for a very long time, over half a century if the parking-lot timeline is to be believed. It is likely that his arms have shrunk over time. Fred’s most conspicuous item of clothing is a large military hat. It bears a strong resemblance to the black hat worn by Napoleon. A tiny flower pot is embedded in his hat, instead of a badge, which shows a single red rose. (This could be a reference to The Twilight Zone episode ‘Five Characters in Search of an Exit’. The episode features a clown who wears a potted flower on his head. The clown is one of five characters trapped inside a cylinder. As we are about to learn, Fred is also trapped inside a cylinder, just inside his own head.) His outfit is entirely mismatched. Instead of shoulder pads, he wears teacups, one blue and one pink. Instead of a cape, he drapes two towels across his back, one orange and one pink. And on his feet are a mismatched pair of flip-flops. His outfit is quite fitting given his character. Fred suffers from split personality disorder. One moment he is Fred, the next he is French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte. However, his is no simple Napoleon delusion. There is more to his madness than meets the eye.
Fred is playing a game with himself. Chalked on the ground beneath his feet is a hexagonal grid, which perfectly matches the shape of the tiles. A teddy bear, a garden gnome, and a unicycle wheel occupy three of the tiles. Fred will use his feet to move the items across the grid. The game he is playing only makes sense once you step inside his head.
Inside is a classically furnished room with a ticking grandfather clock, carved wooden bookcase, large ornamental globe, porcelain vases, and an elegant mantelpiece. In the middle of the room is a low round table across from which sit Fred and Napoleon Bonaparte. They are playing a board game. Fred is slumped in his high chair. It doesn’t take an expert in body language to tell that he is losing. Napoleon is a lot more confident, despite his diminutive stature. The small man sits tall while the tall man sits small. Fred’s world is full of little contradictions like this.
There’s a strange logic to the world which is not obvious from the outset. The parlour room initially seems to mark the beginning of the level. The room is furnished as realistically as anything we have seen in the real world of Psychonauts. Dive into the board game and the world becomes more abstract. People and animals are represented by statues. Houses and bridges contain little exterior detail. Besides a few spinning signs and waterwheels, the world is more or less static. But when Raz shrinks down further, the landscape becomes more detailed and dynamic. There are walking cannons, pessimistic peasants, and talking snails. The hexagonal tiling and boundary wall confirm that Raz is still in the board game.
If we were to map the world we might think of it as taking place on three levels: the top level, that of the parlour room, the middle level, that of the static board game or the overworld, and the lower level, that of the dynamic board game or the playfield. We might think of the top level as being more real, the middle level as being less real, and the lowest level as being the least real. This is because items you might find in the top level sit on the outskirts of the middle level, including a pair of gold-framed glasses, a quill pen in an ink pot, and a plate with Swiss cheese. However, this mental map of the world loses all meaning if the player finds the secret room.
Inside the board game is a palace. Around the back of the palace is a ladder that leads to a window. Climb it and the window shows a view into a room, a familiar-looking room containing familiar-looking people. It’s the same parlour room from the top level of the world. And yet here it is lower down in the world. It seems to exist in two places at once, both high-up and low-down. This doesn’t seem to make much sense. Suddenly we have to throw away our mental map of the world and construct a new one. But if we try to construct a new map we soon realise that this map might not be linear. We may even consider that no one level is realer than any other. The boundary between reality and fantasy suddenly seems very flimsy, which makes sense when you consider the world exists inside the head of Fred.
A concept that might help us better understand the world is that of the strange loop. The strange loop was introduced by Douglas Hofstadter in his mind-bending book Gödel, Escher, Bach. In Hofstadter’s words: ‘The “Strange Loop” phenomenon occurs whenever, by moving upwards (or downwards) through the levels of some hierarchical system, we unexpectedly find ourselves right back where we started.’ The parlour room initially seems to exist at the top of the hierarchy but later seems to exist at the bottom. In a strange loop the end is the same as the start. The loop is strange because ‘what you presume are clean hierarchical levels take you by surprise and fold back in a hierarchy-violating way.’ The deeper we look the stranger the loop becomes.
Fred’s world could be constructed in a couple of ways. One is that the world swallows itself. In this case it would mean that if Raz was able to enter the board game of the room beyond the window he would drop into the exact same board game he was in before. The table acts like a circular funnel. Going inside the table leads to the outside of the table, and vice versa. The table takes the shape of a ouroboros, the symbol of a snake swallowing its own tail. In this world there is no escaping the board game. It is a completely self-contained system. Another possibility is that the world recursively appears within itself to produce a sort of Droste effect. Inside the board game is a smaller board game inside which is a smaller board game and so on. One can imagine the board games as an endless series of Russian nesting dolls. Dropping from one board game to the next would result in Raz becoming smaller and smaller. In either case there is no telling where the world begins and where it ends. Fred is trapped in a game seemingly without end.
The world functions like a push-down stack. A push-down stack is a model of memory that originated in computing and relates to short-term memory in humans. It is based on the visual image of cafeteria trays in a stack. A spring underneath the trays keeps the topmost tray at a constant height. When you push a tray onto the stack it sinks down a little, and when you remove a tray from the stack, the stack pops up a little. The terms ‘push’ and ‘pop’ are computing terms. To push means to suspend operations on the current task, without forgetting where you are, and to take up a new task. The new task is usually said to be ‘on a lower level’ than the earlier task. To pop means to close operations on the current task and go back one level higher, carrying on where you left off. The stack allows the user to keep track of each task. The more variance there is between each level, the easier it is to keep track of things.
Fred’s world exists entirely within the board game. If Raz looks out of the parlour room window and up towards the sky, he will see the edge of the gaming table. He is in the board game from the very beginning. The board game can be thought of as a stack. The parlour room is the highest level. Diving into the board game pushes down the stack, and brings Raz one level lower into the overworld. A ladder pops Raz back up one level higher to the parlour room, while interacting with a building pushes Raz down one level lower to the playfield. To return one level higher Raz has to hit a champagne cork. The cork could be an allusion to the push-pop structure of the level, as it literally pops Raz up to a higher plane.
In the wider world of Psychonauts, the stack does not begin nor end in the parlour room. There is at least one level higher, the real world of Psychonauts, which includes the asylum grounds that contain Raz and Fred. It’s clear the game enjoys blending the boundaries of reality and fantasy. So there’s a theory that the real world is not in fact real. It could be that Raz is in someone’s mind for the whole duration of the game. This would explain why he still relies on astral layer projections for survival in the ‘real’ world. The whole game could just be one massive head trip. Of course, the real world of Psychonauts is not real at all. You could extend the model one level higher to the player itself. It’s hard to deny that life is a sort of game. And there is that impossible-to-disprove theory that the universe is just a simulation. In that case, the board game inside Fred’s head is really a game within a game within a game and so on. The recursive nature of Waterloo World invites all sorts of strange possibilities.
Really though, this is just speculation. The true beating heart of the level is the battle between Fred and his dual personality. It cannot be said that Fred is completely insane. His Napoleon delusion is not so clear-cut. The stereotype of the crazy person who thinks he is Napoleon Bonaparte has been done many times in the past. It is cartoon shorthand for an insane character. This is the original reason for it being in the game. It’s a wacky stereotype full of comic potential. But what makes Fred’s delusion seem less like a delusion is that Fred truly is an ancestor of Napoleon. There is physical genetic material that links the two characters. So it doesn’t seem as absurd as it does in a Looney Tunes, although obviously the stereotype is played for laughs.
Fred’s memory shows him trying to fight off the genetic memory of his ancestor. In the mirror he sees Napoleon. Napoleon leaps from the looking glass and strangles Fred, in an image that recalls the mirror scene in Evil Dead 2. Napoleon is more boisterous than wicked. He represents Fred’s competitive impulses. After Fred defeats Napoleon, with the help of Raz, he is better able to channel those impulses. Napoleon is not simply a delusion in need of exorcism. He represents a part of Fred’s psyche that had not yet been properly integrated. After Fred is cured he adopts the same mannerisms as Napoleon. He can be seen standing proud and upright in the courtyard, and his language becomes more confident. Napoleon is still very much a part of him but it is Fred who is now in control.
Fred Bonaparte is linked to the next inmate in a rather roundabout way. Standing in his artist’s studio, a tall turretlike room crumbling into ruin, is Edgar Teglee. Edgar’s paintings clutter the room. They are all done in the same style, bright vivid colours splashed on a black background. This artistic style, known as black velvet painting, was pioneered by the American painter Edgar Leeteg. It is clear that Edgar Leeteg inspired the character of Edgar Teglee. Their names are obvious anagrams for a start. The subjects of black velvet paintings are images typical of Mexican and American culture. They include matadors and bulls, Polynesian landscapes, and kings and queens of American culture like Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. One of the most common subjects of black velvet, and one of the most kitsch, is that of dogs playing poker. This image of dogs seated around a card table, drinking, smoking, and sometimes wearing hats, has been reproduced so many times that it arguably holds a place in the American collective subconscious. This may be why they feature in Edgar’s mind as painters. The dogs in Edgar’s mind are based on those from A Friend in Need by C.M. Coolidge. Going back to Fred, one of these much-imitated paintings goes by the name of Waterloo.
Edgar is not obsessed by dogs. They play more of a supporting role. They are observers rather than participants, occupying the side alleys of his mind. It is not dogs that Edgar is obsessed with but a bull. It seems that Edgar can paint nothing but bullfights. The bull is a constant presence in his mind. It is quite hard to miss. It’s a big neon-pink monster that charges down a long narrow alleyway that serves as the central pathway in his mind. Getting hit by the bull will send Raz back down the path. He will have to retrace his steps quickly and carefully. The bull also appears to be the main cause of Edgar’s troubles. He is trying to build a house of cards to reach a lady in the sky. But the cards keep getting knocked down by the headstrong bull. On top of that he is missing the four queen cards needed to complete his deck. The bull goes by the name of El Odio, which means ‘Hatred’ in Spanish. As has been shown before, names in Psychonauts are quite significant, often pointing to the true nature of the thing. It is no different here. But if the name wasn’t a big enough clue, then the beard is a bit of a giveaway.
Just like in previous levels, secrets are dotted around the landscape. The design of this level is inspired by the Pamplona bull run. The paths are narrow, with little room to manoeuvre, and the buildings are extremely tall and narrow, just as they are in Pamplona. However, there are small details sprinkled throughout this level that don’t quite fit with the image of an old Spanish town. There are idiosyncratic details that point to a personal past. There are signs on the wall, quite literally, as striped flags dangle from poles, emblazoned with the single letter ‘M’. A memory shows that this ‘M’ belongs to the outfit of a male cheerleader from Edgar’s high school years. He is the villain who stole the affections of Edgar’s former love. Edgar is evidently still quite hung up about it. Dropping below the suit-studded alley brings Raz to the underground sewers. The sewers are lined with lockers and bench seating. Basketball stands can just about be seen. Fluorescent strip lights dangle from the ceiling. Debris takes the form of classroom chairs and tables. Edgar’s high school is the real setting for this level. No wonder everything feels so claustrophobic.
As the level progresses, it becomes apparent that the bull El Odio is not the true villain. The main alley ends near the apartment of Dingo Inflagrante, a self-obsessed matador concerned with image and popularity above all else. High school trinkets glare from a corner of his bedroom. Cheerleading megaphones line the floor emblazoned with that same letter ‘M’. Pinned to the walls are striped and coloured high school flags, like the ones seen in the alley. Posters of ‘Dingo Inflagrande’ and a massive stained-glass portrait point to Dingo’s grandiosity. They also show how Edgar has allowed his love rival to dominate his mind. Perhaps the most telling item is Dingo’s giant bed in the shape of the bull El Odio. El Odio looks like a piece of taxidermy. Dingo seeks to kill him in front of the world. The bearded bull represents Edgar himself. More specifically, it represents Edgar’s unfettered hatred against his love rival, named Dean LaGrante in the real world. Another significant item is easily missed. On either side of the large stained-glass portrait is a small portrait of a lady with a rose, the same lady in the sky, the same lady Edgar loved in high school. Dean stole Edgar’s love in a show of dominance. Edgar, the short loser wrestler was beaten by the tall macho cheerleader. It is only when Edgar lets go of his hatred, and his obsession with his past, that the bull disappears, along with Dean and his old flame Lana. From then on the mind of Edgar becomes a much calmer place. The dogs are no longer painting by the wayside but playing cards in the courtyard.
After curing the inmates, Raz can finally enter the tower. Items from the inmates can be cobbled together to form a shoddy disguise of Dr. Loboto. This overelaborate puzzle harks back to the point-and-click adventure genre. A lift shoots Raz up to the upper floors of the asylum.
Thorney Towers is a colossal structure with ravaged walls and crumbling ceilings. Having been abandoned for over half a century, the inside of the insane asylum is about as creepy as you would expect. It’s ratty in more ways than one. Chittering sounds can be heard when Raz steps out of the lift. Soon the sounds turn into frantic squeaking, and out from a stairwell crawl an army of rats. When the rats are nearby they blow up into clouds of confusion, disorientating Raz for a while. Or at least disorientating him further.
The asylum tower is a German expressionist’s dream, blending bizarro architecture with chiaroscuro shadows. The architecture becomes more fantastical with each new floor. The stairs start off straight and rectangular but later twist and spiral. The tower represents a spiralling ascent into madness, with the lab of fully crazed scientist Dr. Loboto housed on top.
Look out through a hole in a wall and the night sky appears to be full of faces. The faces are twisted and screaming, like tortured souls in hell. Except they aren’t faces, just clouds. Seeing shapes in clouds is part of a phenomenon known as pareidolia. It was once considered a symptom of human psychosis. Details like this add to the sense of tortured madness.
Climbing the tower is a puzzle in itself, as walls become floors and floors become walls. The illogical architecture calls to mind the visual illusions of M.C. Escher, in particular the print Relativity with all its strange-angled staircases. The tower portrays a world out of balance. It also serves as a prelude to the most deranged level of the game.
And the most deranged villain too. Dr. Loboto can be found in a planet-like laboratory ringed with an off-kilter walkway. Psychonauts is a game in love with wordplay. You just have to look at the bacon which Raz uses as a beacon. Or the brain tumbler that spins and whirls like a tumble dryer. Or the sobbing bags known as emotional baggage. Now we have Dr. Loboto, an insane scientist who specialises in lobotomy, of a sort. He expels the patient’s brain with the use of a super sneezing powder. He wears a shower cap instead of a surgical cap. He is literally a madcap surgeon.
His first name Caligosto is based on the title character of German silent horror The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. There are obvious parallels between the two characters. Dr. Caligari is the director of an insane asylum who uses a somnambulist to commit murders in a small strange town. Dr. Loboto is the leader of an abandoned insane asylum who uses a sleepwalking fish to kidnap the children of a small strange camp. More broadly speaking, Psychonauts borrows much of its story, setting, and visual style from this film. Consider the slanted buildings, the spiralling paths, the tall painted shadows, and twisted windows. Also, the fact that both feature a circus and insane asylum, settings which heavily inform the backstories of their characters.
The insane asylum, in particular, could be plucked straight of a Tim Burton film, which makes sense as Burton’s aesthetic has firm roots in German expressionism. Dr. Loboto somewhat resembles Dr. Finkelstein from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Both are mad scientists made of machine-like parts. Both reside in globe-shaped laboratories situated at the tops of tall slanted towers. And both are based on the character of Dr. Frankenstein.
Dr. Loboto created his hulking lungfish monster in a highly-charged electrical experiment, similar to how Frankenstein galvanises his monster into creation. Loboto’s hunchbacked lab assistant Sheegor is clearly modelled on Igor, a stock character who serves as assistant to Frankenstein. The tower laboratory is destroyed in a scene resembling the finale of The Bride of Frankenstein. The actress who played the Bride later went on to play a wicked scientist in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. The scientist has white streaks in her hair, a tribute to the hairdo of the Bride. In the episode titled ‘The Brain-Killer Affair’, she uses a brain-scrambling device to mentally assassinate the good-guy agents before sending them straight back to work. Loboto achieves something similar with his sneezing powder. His victims are turned into brainless TV-obsessed zombies before being carried back to camp. His first victim Dogen was already a bit airheaded to begin with. So his handiwork remains hidden for a time. But the brains quickly pile up. He gets overconfident and his plans backfire on him. Or at least Mr. Pokeylope does.
The final level takes place in a circus with a grotesque twist. Giant slabs of meat float outside the tent. Candy-cane skewers flank the entrance. The buggies are made from bacon. And the marquee clown holds a cleaver instead of a balloon. This landscape is the result of a ghastly mix-up. Raz managed to fling his own brain inside a brain tank. But the tank was already occupied by Coach Oleander’s brain. The two minds came together. Their memories mingled. And so Raz must deal with the horrors of the Coach’s childhood, as well as his own.
The young Oleander, endearingly referred to as Oly, cares only for his rabbits. His father, however, is a monstrous butcher keen on slaughtering his son’s fluffy friends. Raz has the difficult task of protecting the young Oly and his rabbit Mr. Bun from harm in the big top. And this is just the first step to curing the mind of the Coach.
This meaty carnival, or carne-val, offers a real treat for the eye sockets. Raw chunks of meat make a strange complement to the red and white stripes of the circus. Meat grinders spin out mutant bunnies and two-headed giants. The freaks constantly torment Raz. Only a fat lady offers a spot of relief.
Psychonauts is not the first work to bring these two worlds together. The nineties saw the release of French film Delicatessen, a black comedy about a butcher who plans on killing a circus clown and selling him for meat. The clown falls in love with the daughter of the butcher. But the butcher still remains set on killing him. In the mind of Oleander, his father is a stony-faced killing machine. His cleavers are his weapons. He sees Raz as nothing more than a piece of meat. By turning the butcher against the protagonist, both works emphasise his savage nature.
Psychonauts also achieves this through environmental details. The landscape is peppered with pig heads on hooks, exposed rib cages, and cleavers splattered with blood. The handles of the cleavers are decorated with tiny bunny skulls. This hints their usage. The Butcher is a callous brute. He cuts up the innocent, wears their bones as trophies, and hangs their flesh on hooks for others to see. His products are warped, like reflections in a fun-house mirror. His shop is an inner circle of hell, a twisted circus of death.
The Butcher is not, however, real. He is a mental construct, a patchwork creature of memory and imagination. He is a representation of a father, and not the father himself. This becomes increasingly apparent nearer the end of the level. During the early stages, Raz is haunted by a ghostly voice. The voice speaks only his name. It seems sinister and threatening. But, once again, appearances can be deceiving. The voice is, in fact, the voice of his father, his real father who has managed to penetrate his mind. The other father in his mind is a negative representation of Augustus. His skin is a sickly green, his hair a strange orange, and his clothes are patterned with skulls. The real Augustus looks less like a nightmare creature, and more like a regular downtrodden citizen of earth. His skin is the same shade of yellow as Raz’s skin. He has bags under his eyes and his clothes are a shabbily stitched-together mess. He looks like a well-travelled circus acrobat. He speaks like a caring father. He is a great deal different from the cartoon caricature of evil presented earlier. It is quite likely that the Butcher is no more real than the evil Augustus. His skin is an abnormal shade of blue. And he is larger than any living thing from the real world, including the indecently large lungfish. He is a one-dimensional monster. The real father of Oleander may be a hard, cruel man. But he is unlikely to be quite as simple-minded as the Butcher. Chances are there is more to him than meets the eye.
During the final battle, the two-headed dad monster can be seen cowering behind his cleavers. Such behaviour is inconsistent with the Butcher from earlier, suggesting he only exists in the mind. Raz defeats it with a little help from dad. Two birds are killed with one stone. Raz and Oleander are no longer troubled by their demon fathers. Raz is reacquainted with his father. Stability is returned to the world, at least until the next kidnapping.
Following the abduction of Truman Zanotto, the Grand Head of the Psychonauts, the next chapter is set to explore the history of the Psychonauts organisation, as well as the evil organisation responsible for all their missing persons. Dr. Loboto may be wicked but he is just a cat’s paw in the grand scheme of things. A much bigger threat is whoever hired him. Just like in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the evil guys will persist in their underhanded attempts to destroy the good guys, and the good guys will come up with more sophisticated ways to defeat their enemies. Mature agents like Sasha and Milla are prepared to take on a more active role, perhaps reliving some of the adventures, and misadventures, of their youth. Raz is set to infiltrate more minds and extract more secrets, but this time for the benefit of the organisation and not just damaged minds. The headquarters will be the main setting for the next adventure, replacing the Summer Camp. Like Whispering Rock, it is no doubt packed with secrets.
And still there are old mysteries to unravel. One such mystery is the Hand of Galochio, the inky hand that tries to drag Raz underwater. The hand is the result of a curse placed upon Razputin’s family by a rival family of circus performers. The curse itself is mentioned briefly in the original manual for Psychonauts. It states that the evil claw is ‘a phenomenon only Raz and his family can see.’ The hand is a psychic phenomenon, rather than a physical one. An outsider would not see a hand, and might in fact just see Raz flailing in the water. The rival family are referenced in the Meat Circus. Evil Augustus says, ‘They cursed our entire family to die in water!’ A poster of them can be seen near the entrance to the circus tent. It advertises a group of performers called ‘The Galacios’ with a picture of four people surrounding a crystal ball. Underneath the picture is printed the single word ‘Dead’. The Galochios seem to be a family of fortune tellers. Whether they are truly dead or not remains to be seen.
There are plenty of other mysteries left unsolved. It is unknown who Ford fought before the events of the game. The mysterious figure who invites Raz to Whispering Rock is never mentioned. And the reason why Raz can read minds is never explained. Really, these are reasons to stick around for the sequel. Psychonauts knows better than to disclose all its secrets. Like a magic act, it is the more intriguing for what it hides than for what it shows.
