Hey, quick update regarding some of the comments here: I will make a video on The Quarry. I've started scripting it, and am getting ready to replay the game a few times during my days off next week. Hopefully it'll be out sometime in July, so make sure to turn on notifications to know when it's out. Thanks for all the support, and see you next time!
I think this, Until Dawn, would work better as a single run series, like The Haunting of Hill House or Midnight Mass, with the same director, Mike Flanagan.
Just remembering your comments about a remaster, but a remaster will do what you asked at the end of the video, giving you the game again, it is not a remake.
Rami Malek is over 40 years old now. He's way too old for the role. He was already older than the character he voiced when the game came out, I *really* don't think he'd fit in as a live action version of the same character nearly a decade later.
Playing Until Dawn until dawn on a Halloween game night with friends was a very surreal experience, but one of my favourite. Everyone picks a different character and plays when the PoV shifts. Start around 10 PM and you will finish by sunrise, right in sync with the game.
Omg that sounds amazing. There is also the motion detection in the controller when you have to hold still. With friends, those moments would be straight up HELL
First time I played: Several days and only 3 made it out. Second time: 4 hour binge, "everyone" alive. I would love to play with friends on this one night. I would run polls on who would make it out alive.(Friends never played before).....And, probably set up back up characters so when someone dies, they can join that character's team until they inevitably die off.
i think one of the reasons josh chooses to target and torment ashley over the others who had a larger part in the prank against his sisters is Because of ashley's inaction. josh blames himself for his own inaction and not stopping what happened to hannah and beth, and he's projection his own guilt onto ashley who acted similarly. she didn't orchestrate the prank, but she didnt attempt to stop it either
@@lorettabes4553Sam definitely knew the prank was happening. At the beginning of the game, they are talking about it and she ask them don’t they think that this is a little bit cruel. She didn’t participate but she knew it was gonna happen.
I wonder if there's a jealousy aspect too. Josh wants Chris to be happy, but his dating Ashley means less time for Josh and Chris to spend together. I wonder if there's a little bit of that too. And if Chris chooses to save Ashley twice, it's like a confirmation of Josh's biggest fear about their friendship. I was always curious why the people Josh targeted were the ones least involved in the plot. While I think this essay delves into it in a way that makes sense, I still feel like there's a piece missing.
It’s actually the reason I purchased the game. I was so mad about all the UA-camrs who played it, completely missed the nuances in the character writing, and would not shut up about how creepy or horrible this poor kid with a horrific disease and unbelievable amounts of trauma and a nigh nonexistent support system was. I needed to play it so I could be nice to him
That's actually such a great detail you pointed out. I really don't like it when media portrays mental illness like that. Things like the movie Split are so fucking damaging for those people. It portrays them as dangerous people when they're just trying to get by. I think everyone felt for Josh in the game. Everyone understood how broken he must've felt not just because of his sisters, but his long life time battle with depression and schizophrenia. They did an amazing job, indeed.
As much as I’m not a mega Ashley fan, I’m glad you acknowledged that the scene is supposed to be her freezing up and panicking(like she’s shown to be very prone to). Telling Chris to shoot her (leaving physical action in the hands of another person) but then not having the willpower to do that physical breaking through of panic unless she has a strong feeling of owing him makes sense for her character, I just think the devs did a terrible job of making it actually look like she was freezing rather than making a deliberate, malicious choice
@@RatatTalksHere’s a fun fact about her: according to the devs, Ashley was originally going to be a stoner. It got cut obviously, but you can still see pieces of it like her design
@@ireallyneedtherapy1126 I did know that, wish they'd kept it in. The script notes on the original draft were as quoted here: "(Ashley is) a drug addict who would go around the house pretending she was in an Agatha Christie novel" They left an easter egg in, where Matt comments that maybe she has a 'weird smoking habit' when you find the cigar stubs that the stranger leaves around.
The developers also stated that Ashley has some form of PTSD which can cause her trauma responses to differ depending on your choices. So it makes sense.
An interesting fact about Ashley is that if you choose to be remorseful with Chris and apologise for the prank, in her character traits her honesty goes down, which I think adds to her character a lot and makes her more interesting to analyse
while this is true, its most likely a bug. there is a bug where some dialogue choices will make every characters traits drop slightly without being marked and thats what happens in that scene
@@TheTrickyShow1 While it could be a bug, I think it would make perfect sense for it not to be in this case. Because if you pick the OTHER option where she doesn't show remorse Ashley's honesty SPIKES up. From a logical standpoint it makes sense that two contrasting answers would raise/drop a specific trait. And in this case it seems to indicate Ashley's true feelings regarding what happened no matter how the player chooses to go.
I remember reading a theory forever ago that put forth the idea that Josh choses to torture Sam and Chris specifically because he's close with them. Like hurting them is just a way of hurting himself also. I always found that idea to be really interesting.
That makes sense for two reasons too - the first being him punishing himself for his own inaction through them as many in these comments have pointed out, and also the fact that he's intentionally doing his self-destructive cry for help to the people he's closest with
I saw a theory saying the reason he put chris threw so much, is because maybe chris convinced josh to drink with him and relax till they passed out and josh wasnt able to be there for his sister's because of that
Literally teared up at the mention of Chris bc after everything he still went to go save Josh. And what does he get for his empathy and sympathy? Dies :(
What I really liked about The Stranger/Jack is that once he shows up, it feels like you can finally breathe, like you're safer. You're in the presence of someone who knows what they're talking about, who has a gun and who's dealt with Wendigos before. But then he gets his head violently and unexpectedly slashed off by a Wendigo, leaving you completely alone in the forest, and there's nothing you can do to prevent it. To me, it really strengthens the feeling of danger and despair in a way. Having that feeling of safety pulled so violently and suddenly away from me had me feeling helpless man T_T
This totally sums up how it feel when this happens in the story , that’s why I feel like Jack is an under appreciated character because although he doesn’t really do much from a base standpoint, he does give the player that sense of safety and acknowledgment that they are in safer hands than before, and then that all comes crumbling down when he’s killed off so quickly as if he is the least equipped for the situation which is wrong because he is by far the most experienced and equipped and that makes the player feel so vulnerable you described that feeling of helplessness so well my friend 👏
It's also great because unlike many horror movies killing off the experienced badass for shock value, his death makes sense. He's used to the old miner wendigos, but Handigo is much stronger and faster than he expects.
Yeah, true, but he killed 6! of them before. For me it was just a plot moving mechanic nothing else, it made non sense from the point of hes "arc".@@matman000000
I'm glad you like Emily so much, even if it's mostly because of how hilariously awful she can be, with some truly iconic moments and lines. But as others have mentioned she's also SUPER resourceful and competent. This shows mostly when she's alone in the mines, but something I haven't seen anyone else bring up yet is that when she and Matt meet up with Chris and Ashley, she WANTS to go investigate Josh's body. This is something the others convince her not to do (because Chris and Ash are so horrified and just want to get away, and Matt thinks some things "can't be unseen"), but if she HAD gotten her way? Josh's whole plot would have fallen apart immediately. Because they would have either found a suspiciously headless body (with a place to PUT your head like you're taking one of those goofy pictures), or no body at all if Josh had already cleaned it up. And EITHER is something worth questioning. Emily EARNS those "intelligent" and "resourceful" traits, for sure. "Persuasive" is more up for debate and player input though.
I mean she was able to convince 5 people, including her boyfriend, to trick Hannah and film her undressing, which is pretty unsavory and mean-spirited at best, so I'd say she must be pretty persuasive.
Yeah, in ONE scene. She never used any of that to help her friends, and even pushed Ashley down when the Wendigoes were chasing them. I don't know how people keep missing these details. 😂
I can't get over how Beth's opening lines are so transparently exposition, "Josh....my brother. Ah, what has our sister Hannah gotten into now? We are all siblings, the three of us."
@@RatatTalks A truly wooden performance. Overall, I really enjoyed your analysis! I've never really liked the characters much but your readings of them improved their appeal to me - especially Chris.
@@monsterhanna6691 It's not a matter of cliché it's just bad dialogue. I'm not saying it's worst thing ever or that it makes the game unplayable. I'm just picking at a flaw because I think it's a funny one.
I honestly love Ashley cause she is inactive in the story. It is very realistic for a teenager to go with the flow, to freeze up during stress, and so on and so forth. Narratively she reflects what the majority of people would do in this situation, which is why a lot of people find her frustrating lmao. I find that her remorseful route traits and her actions pair well together to create a realistic and interesting character. She’s at least an A-tier for me.
I always felt the most connection to her. I’m not a strong rock climber badass like Sam. I’m not a bitch like Emily and I’m not pretty and confident like Jess. I’m Ashley. I’m not the prettiest girl or most confident in the group and when I like a guy I REALLY like him. I’m Ashley. I’m plagued with doubts and fears. Emily getting bitten? I’m team shoot her! Like yes we have the book and yes we should read that first, but if we didn’t?? SHOOT. HER. She could kill us all! Like gah! I’m pragmatic and she’s pragmatic. I also can see myself saying shoot me to Chris but then if he does being deeply hurt because I secretly hoped he’d like/love me enough to sacrifice himself. Idk I think she’s pretty relatable and people just don’t want to admit it!
I always felt the most connection to her. I’m not a strong rock climber badass like Sam. I’m not a bitch like Emily and I’m not pretty and confident like Jess. I’m Ashley. I’m not the prettiest girl or most confident in the group and when I like a guy I REALLY like him. I’m Ashley. I’m plagued with doubts and fears. Emily getting bitten? I’m team shoot her! Like yes we have the book and yes we should read that first, but if we didn’t?? SHOOT. HER. She could kill us all! Like gah! I’m pragmatic and she’s pragmatic. I also can see myself saying shoot me to Chris but then if he does being deeply hurt because I secretly hoped he’d like/love me enough to sacrifice himself. Idk I think she’s pretty relatable and people just don’t want to admit it!
I always felt the most connection to her. I’m not a strong rock climber badass like Sam. I’m not a bitch like Emily and I’m not pretty and confident like Jess. I’m Ashley. I’m not the prettiest girl or most confident in the group and when I like a guy I REALLY like him. I’m Ashley. I’m plagued with doubts and fears. Emily getting bitten? I’m team shoot her! Like yes we have the book and yes we should read that first, but if we didn’t?? SHOOT. HER. She could kill us all! Like gah! I’m pragmatic and she’s pragmatic. I also can see myself saying shoot me to Chris but then if he does being deeply hurt because I secretly hoped he’d like/love me enough to sacrifice himself. Idk I think she’s pretty relatable and people just don’t want to admit it!
I always felt the most connection to her. I’m not a strong rock climber badass like Sam. I’m not a bitch like Emily and I’m not pretty and confident like Jess. I’m Ashley. I’m not the prettiest girl or most confident in the group and when I like a guy I REALLY like him. I’m Ashley. I’m plagued with doubts and fears. Emily getting bitten? I’m team shøót her! Like yes we have the book and yes we should read that first, but if we didn’t?? SH@@T. HER. She could kǐll us all! Like gah! I’m pragmatic and she’s pragmatic. I also can see myself saying shoot me to Chris but then if he does being deeply hurt because I secretly hoped he’d like/love me enough to sacrifice himself. Idk I think she’s pretty relatable and people just don’t want to admit it!
One thing about Emily: she mentions she has a 4.0 GPA. That's HIGH. Like, pretty sure that's the highest you can go. She's also shown to have some amazing survival instincts. So she does have some hidden depths to her, in that she's actually REALLY smart. Shown very well in the sequence where she makes her way through the mines alone; she makes several decisions without the player's input (such as using clothing to create a torch when her phone dies so she can actually see, despite the fact it's designer clothing she'd rather not destroy), showing she also has a fair bit of common sense. She's TERRIBLE and I hate her, but Emily is actually my favorite of the female characters, so I also...kinda love her, lol. I'm glad she's S tier.
Until Dawn is like a case study of a very important question: yes, this person is an asshole, but _do they deserve to die?_ Of course misogyny plays a major part, most people who still hate Emily by the end warmed up to Mike in an instant despite them going through identical character arcs, but it’s worth talking about from a horror genre perspective in general. Is being horny or an asshole really a reason why strangers should relish in your death?
It’s not the highest if the school does weighted gpas (aka giving extra points for honors or AP classes), I was classmates with someone who had a 4.2 in high school
It is a true testament to the game that I can write entire essays on EACH INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER on top of the overall plot and STILL have things to talk about. Until Dawn is truly special and I firmly believe none of the other games from the studio measure up.
The quarry was a close second, but imo they need to innovate the gameplay style. I remember reading they had a lot of internal issues at the studio until recently though.
Something else that could be considered as to why Josh does what he does to Ashley and Chris is that he is trying to get validation in his relationship with Chris and proving that Chris cares about him a lot in this twisted way. This is why he takes Chris choosing him to die in the "prank" hard even though his death gets faked no matter what. It also accounts for why Ashley is involved as Josh is making Chris choose between him and someone else he knows Chris cares a lot about would solidify his importance and worth in Chris's life and their friendship.
Yeah, I think that’s true as well. Josh clearly has a lot of insecurity around relationships in general given his attitude towards Mike, so losing his best friend to one probably scares him.
Beyond this, I think it adds a new spin to the "prank" that like 90% of it is targeting Chris who is the one person who was passed out with Josh when Hannah and Beth died
It's still pretty fucked up considering the whole "revenge" plot. Chris was still completely innocent, and Josh can still "die" in the first "test", even if Chris chooses to save him.
RE: Josh's diagnosis The medication Josh took had a side-effect for withdrawls include hallucinations and slurred speech and one of the text message from Dr. Hill said "It's very dangerous to stop taking your drugs mid course Josh." I think it's more likely he quit cold turkey. Nice vid though. Agree Emily is S-tier.
That was implied in the messages yeah, but both medications were to boost serotonin, which would have either no effect or actually make any kind of schizophrenic episode potentially worse. At least that’s what I read, I’m not a doctor.
@@RatatTalksThe drug he's on is an MAOI, which is a much much more effective antidepressant than an SSRI or SNRI. You're right about serotonin and schizophrenia, but the antidepressant effect is also true for bipolar disorder. Antidepressants will send someone with bipolar into a manic state that can include full blows psychosis. I don't rule out schizophrenia for Josh, but given his history of self-medication, impulsive behavior, attachment issues, etc, it's much more likely to me that he's bipolar and misdiagnosed, so by the time of the game, he's a) totally manic and experiencing psychosis, and b) experiencing withdrawal from an MAOI.
I just want to say thank you for putting Emily into S tier and for acknowledging how important she is to the plot of the story. As a day one Emily defender, I feel like she’s so misunderstood and gets so much unnecessary backlash. She’s one of the more realistic, resourceful, and well-rounded characters who provides much in the way of drama, plot and character development/progression, comedy, action, etc. Without her initiative, the entire cast of characters would have been done for.
I honestly feel some misogyny in the Emily hate, its like an immediately response to her "mean girl" persona. I love her character, she is very flawed and toxic, something she might still grow out of, but she is very capable and smart. And I just relate so much to the conversation she has when she tries to make Matt remember where she got her bag- I would go on a similar "remember when..?" rant to my bf
She's also a bitch for NO reason, is clearly insecure, orders Matt around, starts a fight with Jess for NO reason, AND is only resourceful in ONE fucking scene. Which doesn't even include her helping her friends one bit. She's not "misunderstood", she's just insufferable and needs some help.
@Owain9797 There's nothing to understand at all. Would you wanna be friends with someone like Emily who bitches and moans about everything, NEVER does anything to help her friends, is completely ungrateful, even WHEN you try to save her life, starts fights for NO reason, treats you like a servant, AND is more concerned with being right than a decent human being. She's not great AT ALL.
One thing that you said about Josh and the ‘I don’t take orders from you’ as well as the fact that Hannah could’ve been calling him to the mines, is that she could have been messing with his head since she became the creature (I’m ojibwe and we do not say the name so I’m calling it creature lol) it was established that Josh had been spending a lot of time alone in the mountains and from the beginning that has always struck me as weird, sure he could’ve only been out during the day time but that just doesn’t feel realistic to me. Why didn’t he get attacked? Why didn’t Hannah call him/drag him down sooner? And looking at Hannah’s transformation as a revenge plot, that could also imply that she manipulated Josh to bring them all back, to section them all off (like Josh telling Mike about cabin before they go to the trip) so she can get at the ones who had hurt her the most. And when everything has been done/set in motion she decides to finally ‘bring him home to family’ In a lot of Algonquian tribes that have this creature’s story, the creature is usually portrayed as being quite intelligent, normally they rely on luring their prey outside their homes which implies they have more intelligence then I think most give them credit for, and the creatures also symbolize greed, what can happen due to greed. And I think you can see that with Hannah and that the spirit only highlighted her worse traits. Nothing could make the prank ‘justified’ but it’s quite messed up to long for a guy who is quite clearly in what has been described as a ‘power couple’ also the way she jumped at the chance to get with a man despite knowing that he is with someone else who is her friend is icky. There has been hints that Hannah wasn’t as socially developed and so she acts somewhat immature but I can also see it as the early foreshadowing of greed that will impact her in a major way later
Thanks for the comment, I enjoyed writing the Hannah analysis for this, and this adds even more layers to it, instead of her coming back a year later, she’s had a year to plan. I do like the idea of the creature being intelligent, I also like the idea of it being family oriented though. I think it was the case of Swift Runner, who I believe was Cree, who attacked his family as he claimed a wendigo spirit told him to. Real world basis for the spirit having a concept of family, and knowing to target specific people.
I have a question. At the end of the game, if Josh survives, he becomes/was becoming the creature... is there any way to reverse that in native culture? Any sort of ceremony or some type of exorcism? (I know, my western mindset is showing.) If so, would it be a full cure or only partially (would Josh still by affected by cravings)? Asking because I wanted to write a fanfic where specifically Josh and the others try to heal and come to terms with what happened, and also I want to write that the Washingtons give the mountain back to the native people (unsure of which tribe that would be). I only wanted to briefly mention him being cured, if possible, and kinda leave it at that (because native culture is *wayyy* out of my wheelhouse), as well as have Josh tell the other characters not to say the creature's name because "it's not ours to say." I realize these are probably very ignorant questions, and I won't write the fanfic if Josh can't be cured because it kinda revolves around him. I don't want to be disrespectful or appropriate a legend/belief that isn't mine, of a culture that I don't belong to.
I would love to learn more about your culture. I love learning about other cultures. Also helps that (I found out after she died) my great grandma George was half native American.
I really love the character analysis of Hannah that you brought up about her liking certain people less and that leads to who she attacks most. Never thought about it like that.
I think Chris highlights something important. He didnt have anything to do with what happened to the sisters. But where was he while Josh was breaking down into a maniac? They were inseperatable. Chris should have seen signs. Im not putting it on him all the way. Josh didnt reach out. And the distance could have been experienced as repsectful mourning time to Chris. I think Chris is there to tell us cherish the people you love. Be there for each other. You dont know what your best buddy might be going through. Check in. From Joshs perspective his best friend sort of dropped off after his sisters died to pursue a person he holds accountable for it. That is why torture Chris.
This is really true and a great point, it’s not on him to see the signs, but he should’ve checked in. We don’t know what happened in the year between, but in the game Chris could try and make more of an effort to reach out.
Chris is my favourite character because hes just a normal dude, he's not a dick, he's chill pretty much the whole game even when he's angry and he's just an all round good dude
I think the reason why he more or less targets Chris is because of Ashley's tiny involvement in the story when I think more or less she was just kind of roped into it along with Matt. Or based on some of the things Josh says before the stuff happens and after his reveal as the psycho, I think it was his way of trying to bring Ashley and Chris together and basically spilled their feelings out to each other.
I think a main selling point is that its a horror game movie. Being able to control the fate of each character with mildly confusing dialogue/action choices while able to hold a lot of tension and suspense scene to scene. The following games each miss the mark for a different reason and thats why they werent received well. The second game falls off pretty quickly if you realize theyre just seeing illusions early for example. Its basically like outlast meet tell tale games and its a blast.
Yeah I definitely think the casts chemistry is what endeared me to it. I just couldn’t get into any subsequent games as much, although I admittedly did quite like the quarry
It's an amazing concept with great characters but good lord is this game bad... It's so poorly acted, written and plays poorly too I've enjoyed the quarry though and I'm very hopeful for this series future
I believe this series is alright. I enjoyed it beyond the zeitgeist but similar to FMV games of the past, it requires a cast with synergy. Not every game is perfect. The issue is the endings. Sometime the arcs of characters become flat or unsignificant. Most games share this issue, especially in Little Hope. Although the point of the games is to ensure the characters survive to see their development. I think to avoid a similar fading irrelevance to those FMVs is to make them arcade-like. I would refer to replays being more significant. When each attempt fails, the new game+ content don't feel meaningful. Of course, I feel pedantic about that for a Movie game but some games in the series don't have the effort placed to make further purchases worth it.
It's interesting to me, with the Jess and Mike thing especially, that we don't really know much about the year between the prologue and the game itself. There's a lot of space there for speculation and alternate character readings as a result of that gap. Like for me, I read the thing with Emily and Mike having broken up/Jess and Mike hooking up less as a matter of Jess stealing her supposed best friend's guy and more as the sort of fall out from the lot of them having to deal with having been the core actors in the prank. If Hannah had just broken down crying or had run out of the house but been found and brought back safely, then the relationships between those three might not have changed much. If it was just a cruel, stupid prank and no one died they might've even wound up sticking closer to each other because of digging in their heels about it being just a prank in the face of Sam and the Washington siblings judging them. It's interesting to think about.
I just want to add that in fact Emily is very resourceful and complex, (sort of a second final girl next to Sam) her escaping the caves is one of the darkest and most tense moments of the game, and also she shows empathy for certain characters in the credits too. Even in the mines, she's the only one who finds out that Hannah eat her own sister, and she felt terrible when she found out, that this is where the twins sorta die. Which proves that even when she's a bitch she can feel empathy and she's more complex than what is shows at the beginning. I would consider her the most complex character of the game (complicated feelings in the triangle between Matt x Emily X Mike, and also between her instic for survival and her approach of stick together). And, as you stated, the character who does the most to being rescued, so I think she needs to be credited when she needs to be credited and she's amazing
Emily is great, I do think she’s highly resourceful and intelligent. As stated, she’s just a huge catalyst for developments in the plot both positive and negative, and it’s hard not to love her for it.
I like how she's like one of the hardest to keept alive, she's a bitch and she gets tested but I liked her more at the end because of this. I loved how they made me hate her and then changed into one of my favorites.
I think she would have just been so much better received if she didn't have such unhinged ending rants. Her tearful concerns about Matt kinda ring hollow when she can also just wish horrible things to happen to him in another route, and it takes a superhuman amount of will and courage from Matt to not get Emily's crazy unhinged hate rant. A lot of her other negativity feels pretty justified. Especially slapping Ashley for suggesting killing her.
@@thomaswood8405I also think that it makes sense that she’s so bitchy. Jess made the plan to teach Hannah a lesson resulting in everyone’s lives being changed forever (even tho that wasn’t intended) just for her to turn around and basically do the same thing. I can see why Emily is so argumentative towards Jessica and Mike and I think she takes her anger out on poor Matt
@@nicsongerson4583 Oh she is 100% realistic, and a very strongly written character. It just happens to make her quite hateable. I just wish they could have sanded off the edges just a bit.
man its actually so impressive that if this is a revenge plot for josh, then he is literally hurting everyone who had had the *least* part in hurting his sisters. he's lashing out at those who are close to him like chris and sam as his call for help because they are probably people he trusts the most, but his self destructive ways keep him from seeing that
Emily is my favourite honestly. She has iconic lines, she’s a super bitch and catty as hell. But she’s also extremely loyal and she cares about her friends, she constantly throws herself into harms way early on in order to get her friends help, and she’s horrified Josh is dead. She also becomes by far the most resourceful Non-Mike character once she falls into the mines. Ashley, Jess and maybe even Sam definitely wouldn’t have escaped the mines like Emily did, and she’s also the one to discover the true fates of Hannah and Beth, she’s the one who calls for help, she’s just great.
So far I would not call her loyal as she was willing to lie to the police about Matt leaving her to die and her reasoning to lie was that she disliked Matt despite Matt willing to save her.
@@RatatTalks I like Emily but I feel like people overlook her flaws like other toxic characters. In my opinion she never actually shown character development as she is willing to mistreat someone who don't suck up to her even though it is reasonable or understandable aka Matt. I feel like the writers should have gave her moments of her acting nice to people she has a bad relationship with to show that she changed rather than just say sorry or anything similar to that. Sorry for the long opinion, I am an Emily fan but I feel people give her too much of a pass.
@@patrickmarquez8307 it's because of those toxic behaviors that make her a fan favorite. She doesn't have a goody goody turn around, she's consistently a bitch and it makes her both simple to become a fan of and complex to analyze
@@patrickmarquez8307I disagree. For one, while subtle and kind of in the background, Emily is pretty nice to most of the group. She never has a bad word to say to or about Sam, Josh, and Chris and she’s cool with Mike and Ash up until they directly threaten her life and safety. The other stuff she does you’d just have to pay attention to her in the background because her actions and lines aren’t really lingered or focused on. There’s even a whole sweet section that was cut from the base game between her and Matt that is this bonus dlc segment taking place between when they leave to find the bad to when they meet up with Ash and Chris after Josh’s “death”. She shows a lot of concern for all her friends and is always thankful for their safety. All accept Jess whom she never sees or talks about again after their fight at the beginning of the game. Jess is actually the only character who Emily can’t and on good terms with by the end because of this fact. And lastly, Emily does go through two arcs or I guess mini-arcs if you will. Her first is simply just growing independent once she’s separated from Matt. While she’s driving things forward for all of their time together, Matt is the one doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Very much the brawn to her brains. Then she falls into the mines and she’s forced to do things all on her own which is where her resourcefulness comes into play. The second is acknowledging how she wasn’t the best to Matt and she ends up being very repentant about her actions and declares to be better to him. This one is determinant on choices made by Matt however. But she does develop as a character. She isn’t static, at least not totally so.
I once saw someone say that Josh punishes Chris and Sam a lot because he sees himself in them so this is his weird way of punishing himself by association, while I think this could very well be true, there are a lot of other theories that make sense about Josh’s motives for punishing his best friends. Josh has been my favorite character since my first gameplay given that he is so multidimensional, complex and quite tragic if you really think about it and every time I replay it my love for his character only increases, he is so well written and Rami Mallek was the perfect cast for him
@@RatatTalks same! I’m so curious to see who they are going to cast for the new movie and how they made the extra josh scenes they added in the trailer of the remastered
@@RatatTalks same! I’m so curious to see who they are going to cast for the new movie and how they made the extra josh scenes they added in the trailer of the remastered
@@annageorge8406 that's kind of a hard question to answer because the show is a lot of different things. I'd recommend the most insane ones like the scooby doo crossover scoobynatural, but it's so deep into the show that it might not make any sense. Supernatural as a series is something like: one season of pretty fun quirky monster hunting tv, one season of family trauma, one season of the writers becoming really self aware, and then a load of bible fanfiction, and then they just kind of realised they should've been taken off the air by now but are still going so just started making all sorts of crazy shit. It's been many different shows over time. I'd say to just watch it in order, but skip episodes if the premise strikes you as boring on the more monster of the week ones.
In my original script I had a bit where I wanted to say even if he died first in the movie it would be a lazy trope so no matter what he's poorly written. Like I said he's frustrating, I wish they gave him more to do
Exactly 💯 I feel like he and Emily both POC characters got done dirty. The black male character gets forgotten, ignored, and not taken seriously. The Asian female character faces the most life threatening situations ( and thus is tortured). I really love the game and what the creators did with it. But obviously those "old" prejudices show up. I don't think it was consciously done by the creators. More of a systemic issue that leads to these tropes showing up again and again.
Ok i kinda disagree with this. i just play through the game for the first time and while i agree matt didn’t have as much of a role as i would have liked he still survived for me with minimal effort and for me emily would have survived had i not fucking failed the QTEs on the conveyor belt. i do agree they didn’t have a very big part in the game but i think you may have made some poor choices to lead to the deaths of those characters so soon
@@Stigmatix666 Jessica didn't die first . You find out later she survived . Or I guess she can die first if you aren't fast enough . But it seems like people are missing the point here
I think the reason why Until Dawn works so much better than anything the devs have done since (outside of the characters just being better), is because of the rug pull the game pulls on you in its final third. The entire game is making a point of playing with various horror tropes, and throws EVERYTHING at you. Death traps where Chris has to make choices like Saw, the Psycho being a stand-in for any slasher icon, the Ashley segments are basically a love letter to haunted house movies, the Mike segments that take place in an abandoned Sanatorium, and hell, the entire setting with a bunch of young adults in an abandoned lodge in the wilderness. Not to mention a bunch of jump scares that the game is perfectly aware are cheap, and actively calls attention to it. It throws practically every kind of horror at you, embracing all of those cliches. Even the characters play off these tropes: the clown (Chris), the cool one (Mike), the jock (Matt), the weirdo (Josh), the girl next door (Ashley), the bitch (Emily), the party girl (Jess), and the final girl (Sam). And in doing that, it draws your attention away from the REAL star of the show that was lurking in the background the entire time: the Wendigos. Taking a scenario where everything that was happening until then had a twist or a reason behind it, and dropping a supernatural bomb in the middle of it all. And the Wendigo was a perfect choice for the monster; obscure enough that the game could tweak things here and there to make it more suitable for a traditional movie/game (to my knowledge, their weakness to fire and only being able to see movement are things completely original to the game), but well known enough that plenty of people will hear the name drop and go "Oh SHIT." And now that you know the characters are now in VERY REAL danger, the game also becomes a LOT scarier. The problem that comes afterwards, is this: it's a spectacular trick, but it's a trick you can only pull ONCE. From then onwards, every time Supermassive does a new game, the first question people have is "Okay, but what's REALLY going on?" And in almost every single case, the answer just isn't satisfying to learn (ESPECIALLY Man of Medan and Little Hope, holy shit). The Quarry came the closest, but the game didn't do a good job at tricking the player at all. It's VERY easy to figure out what you're dealing with pretty early one. Until Dawn felt like a love letter to the very concept of horror, while everything from Dark Pictures to The Quarry just feel like... any other entry in the genre.
That part where Jess was snatched out of the cabin was probably one of my favorites, especially after her monologue about her and Josh, saying "Give me a break!" only to hear the snapping sound of the hand as it grabbed her too, it just felt like such a good mix between horror and humor.
I will never forgive this game for having the extra chapter with Emily and Matt as a preorder exclusive DLC. It should've been in the game and it gives way more insight into both Emily and Matt and gives us way more insight into their relationship as well. It elevates their characters in small and important ways and I'll never forgive its exclusion outside of being a preorder exclusive DLC.
My least favourite character in this game has always been Hannah. I know she's the catalyst to get the story going, but I find the way she behaves before she turns into the Handigo insufferable. The prank was definitely not okay in any way, and having a crush on a guy who's in a relationship doesn't make one a bad person, but acting on it does. Emily and Hannah are friends! There is a picture to be found around the house that shows Hannah and Emily together. When Hannah finds the fake letter from Mike, she willing goes to him and starts to undress herself while he's the boyfriend of her good friend! Being infatuated or not, being naive or not, that's a no-go. Running out into the woods during a snowstorm in the middle of the night is also a no-go and absolutely an overreaction. Lock yourself up in the bathroom, but this? Also, it's her "incompetence" that in the end kills Beth. She's the one stumbling on their flight, she's the one falling down the cliff and dragging her sister with her, she's the one just hanging there like a wet sack, not trying anything to help herself or her sister. Then in the mines... The other teens are running in and out the mine several times that night and Hannah simply... Doesn't. It's said that her leg was broken, but we find all the clues surrounding Hannah in the mines literally *scattered* around the mines. We know where she and Beth fell down, yet Beth's grave is in a completely different part of the mines, otherwise Emily would have stumbled over the grave and not just the removed cross. I feel sorry for Hannah and the horror she went through, but to me she comes across as a passive, inactive and resourceless person who simply expects everyone around her to jump into action to save her (as is shown in the game when Beth says to passed out Josh that their naive sister got herself into trouble again and then jumps into action to find her). I know I'll get a lot of heat for my pov, but I can't help it. I really don't like Hannah - even before the prank occured.
That's totally fair and I get where you're coming from, however as another comment pointed out it's pretty heavily implied based on her behaviour that Hannah suffers from some kind of developmental issue, which might explain why she does some of the stuff she does.
@@RatatTalks yeah, I've read that comment. And I don't agree with it. We don't know enough about Hannah to diagnose her with some kind of "developmental disability". People being naive and liking cute things doesn't mean they have a developmental disability.
Whilst the prank was harsh, Hannah isn't a good friend. If we're going by the prom picture, then Hannah and Emily were close. Hannah knew Mike was in a relationship with Emily yet she still tried to make a move. It's a complete destruction of trust from both sides. Despite that, she still tried to get Mike's attention by running off. She's not a good friend and a manipulative person with 'main character syndrome.' As someone has already pointed out, where she and Beth fell, it's not where the grave is. From what we know, Beth died on impact and Hannah had a broken leg. Then how did she manage to move Beth's body to bury her? Everyone who went into the mine a year later, easily navigated it within hours yet she got lost and someone wasn't killed by a wendigo in two weeks? She's a good villain disguised as a tragic character.
I don't understand the last couple of sentences. What do you mean when you say "someone wasn't killed by a wendigo in 2 weeks"? I apologise for my poor reading comprehesion in advance.
I think you missed out on how good a character Mike is. Mike is my favorite character in the game so maybe I'm biased, but I see his story as someone who's been redeemed. What Josh does to him mirrors what he did to Hannah. Mike taking part in the prank wasn't something he thought of, he thought it'd be funny or at least inconsequential. Josh thought the same when he sent Mike off into a cabin in the woods, leaving the main cabin to Sam, Chris, and Sam. Yet both have drastic consequences, with Jess and Hannah respectively being taken away, though neither dies. Mike has always been passive up until the moment where he attempts to shoot Emily. He was passive in the prank and passive when Jess wanted to go to the cabin. Him going after Jess was a proactive move, but done more instinctively than with thought. Same thing with killing Emily, though that's done with fear. Whether or not he shoots Emily, he's being actively egged on to shoot her by Ashley, once again taking a passive role and listening to someone else. If he shoots her, then he once again makes a mistake by not taking action and realizes this when they find out the bite is harmless. If he doesn't, then it's the first time he's disagreed with something he was being pressured into and he's rewarded for it. From then on, his character arc is complete. In the mines, he's making active decisions. He chooses to leave the bunker, chooses to cut his fingers off, to befriend the wolf, to help Chris with Josh, to break the lightbulb in the final scene of the game. He finally takes action not because he was told to do that, but based on what he thinks is right, and I think that makes him such a cool character
Mike cuts off fingers and befriends dog before the shooting-Emily choice. And i don’t understand how being Hannah-bait is comparable to being sent to another cabin for alone time with his girlfriend. I think mike is great, but not for these reasons you said. He has some petty fights at the beginning, and is possibly cheating with Emily. But when it came time for action it turns out he’s a remarkably solid ally and did everything he could to look out for the whole group.
@@-JaggedGrace- It’s been a while since I’ve seen the game so I forgot the timeline of events, that’s on me. But the Hannah-bait and being sent to the cabin thing is comparable because Mike was told to do both of those things by someone planning to do a prank (with Emily pranking Hannah and Josh pranking. Everyone I guess). And in both cases, Mike goes along with it. It’s moreso reinforcing the fact that Mike doesn’t really make choices himself, he acts along what others tell him to do As for the timeline mix up, I think it still works tbh. In cutting his fingers off and befriending the dog, he’s learned to make actions for himself, and the moment with Emily can be seen as a test to that. If he shoots Emily, resorting to his own ways by listening to someone, then he’s punished for it and encouraged to keep making his own choices. If he doesn’t shoot Emily, then he’s encouraged to keep making choices for himself The petty fights and maybe-cheating (I don’t think he’s cheating personally, since he has good chemistry with Jess, I think that’s moreso Emily trying to get back with him) just adds to his character and makes him more well-rounded imo. He’s not perfect, he’s very flawed, but the extreme situations that happen in the game helps him grow from at least one of those flaws
I know this is a months old conversation but as a fellow Mike enjoyer (he’s my favorite character) I never thought about it that way but it makes so much sense! Mike being a passive character is a direct flaw that he clearly has (which is fascinating due to the fact that he was Class President, a role where the person makes active choices like planning for events) you can even contextualize his passivity with his relationship with Emily (Emily who clearly makes active choices throughout the game, being the one who decides to go to the Radio Tower) and Jessica (who organized the prank, making active choices) of course this doesn’t mean that Mike doesn’t make choices of his own (he absolutely does and is listed as having an ego I believe) but for a huge portion of the game he is relatively passive (as you mentioned) Amazing analysis of a character that I love!
I’m conflicted about whether or not I want to see the original cast of the game return for the film. On the one hand, it’s been a decade and seeing a new cast’s take on the characters would be cool. But on the other, they already have a super talented literally identical cast of actors they could use in the film 👀
Honestly, I'm more worried about it being a movie. Cause, while I'm sure a movie could go quicker than the game, the game does take like 6 hours or so. So, I'd be worried about what they might have to cut or move past more quickly. Of course, I could just be worrying over nothing, but adaptations not getting enough time is always my biggest pet peeve.
@@katierasburn9571exactly I feel like the only way they'll be able to do the movie without getting a lot of hate for certain characters dying is if they either have all of them live or none
I think the thing is too we learn most of the characters have teenage, jerk issues that are what causes a lot of the underlying issues. For example, the prank while over the top and hurtful comes from the place of Hannah actively choosing to make direct moves on her friend's boyfriend while knowing he is dating someone else. Hannah never was truly innocent, and this type of behavior I think shapes other aspects that becomes interesting as despite being cruel it doesn't seem like to a level this isn't the first time others have warned Hannah to chill with her crush. Jess likely sets up the prank because she also likes Mike to some level, just able to keep those feelings secretive known there is something going on romantically with Emily and so when they get together it makes sense Emily could see it as being back stab to some level after everything that happened last winter. She does treat Matt terrible which isn't fair [and yet makes perfect sense as Mike's biggest comment in the prank was a lack of commitment to dating but Matt is deeply committed to Emily as almost an over correction on her end] but to everyone else, I'd say her jerk and spiteful commentary makes sense of not wanting to be around most of these people at a place that they all have likely unresolved trauma from the death of the twins. It's through these types of connections that are set up but not necessarily explained that makes it so Emily becomes a lot more of an understandable character to be enjoyable rather than just looking at her personality head on and why she's one of my favorites.
Hannah had a crush on Mike, but it's never shown he was making moves on her. The thing I really hated about this game was the gaslighting. Yeah, no one meant for those two girls to die from that prank, but not a single person who was in on it showed any remorse or even shame from what happened that night. The psychologist called it "A stupid little mistake." On the anniversary of their deaths, Mike and Jessica were throwing snowballs at each other, having a jolly old time. And somehow, the game wants you to see them as the heros while their brother is the villain? These people are garbage, and they all had it coming. What goes around comes around. I laughed when Jessica told Mike about how insecure she is😂😂 As if the viscious prank she set up didn't make that obvious enough.
I really appreciate that you took the time to specify which tribes have the wendigo as part of their folklore as well as not treating them as a monolith when it comes to beliefs. The part about wendigo economics was also really interesting as it got me thinking on a bit of a different tangent. In folklore and fairytales, it's not uncommon for children to suffer as a consequence for their parents' misdeeds. So, in a way this story follows that trend with the Washington children all suffering death or becoming wendigo because of their parents' construction on the mountain. With Chris, I can't help but wonder if part of his "it's us" is a similar bit of self blame that Josh has? Like I could see him also feeling really bad for being so drunk and for encouraging Josh to get so drunk that neither of them could help his sisters. Or maybe he had heard some whispers of the prank and didn't say anything cuz he assumed it wouldn't be too bad? I just feel like him only saying it to comfort Ashley isn't the whole reason. I also feel that he as well as Sam both realize that Josh is lashing out and calling for help, and that's why he doesn't stay as mad at him and still tries to keep him safe. Personally I never felt that the reveal that Jack is a good guy was meant to be a twist to the audience. Even from the beginning I could tell he was just trying to help. I personally don't think the game was trying to sell the twist to US but to make us see how the characters could mistake him for a bad guy.
Thanks for the takes on Jack and Chris, both make sense. I really like the grimms fairy tales take and how it ties into the wendigo mythology put forward by the game.
The fact that Matt is my favorite character mostly because he had the tragedy of being forgotten by the writers half the time and him just kinda being there. Also he was very considerate to Jess when they’re both running from Hannah in the mines
I love how much attention you gave to Josh, especially why he involved Chris and Sam. I always had this headcanon/theory that the reason Josh also "blames" Chris for his sisters' death is that Chris, also being involved in the prank, convinced Josh to drink so much so that he would pass out and not be awake for the prank being planned and carried out by the group. The group knew Josh would try to butt in on the prank and prevent Hannah for falling for it, so a good way to prevent that would be his best friend to pass out with him with some alcohol, what a betrayal that would be, am I right? And the whole thing of Josh calling out for help knowing Sam would understand him is spot on. People suffering from depression a lot of times do irrational actions to show their suffering, most of the time unaware of said intention, exactly like our dear Josh. Great video! I like how you point out a lot of hidden connections between characters and their actions or role in the game, like Jess' relationship/connections with Mike and Hannah and even how Josh worships Mike to a degree, never really picked up on those, was great hearing new stuff about the game and its characters, amazing job!
Thanks for the comment, love the pfp. In earlier builds Chris was more explicitly involved in the prank, and some of his older dialogue leaked into the released game, which may be why he says 'we' when discussing the prank. However, removing any metatextual explanations like this, headcanons such as yours do make sense, especially given how Chris is characterised as having an interest in pranking people.
@RatatTalks Thanks! True! I forgot about that, I remember hearing stuff about that in the UD iceberg video someone made I think. I wonder why they changed it
Another point to mention, the ways how Handigo kills either Emily or Jess are always by removing their eyes and their mouth respectively, Emily is always shown as someone judgy by their eyes and how they treat people behind their back and only actually shows her personality through their eyes. Jessica is always a loud mouth who is always being loud and talking to her always, like the scene where she says shes gonna get with Mike. its a nice addition to a really well developed game.
One of my favorite things about this game is the method behind the choice based aspect and why I think it succeeded where the games that came after it fell short. When you struggle to parse which choice to make to have a good ending, it’s always the MORAL one(decisions that fall outside of this are covered by the totems). If I remember correctly the proverbial trick to it first really becomes apparent during the shooting section where you can decide not to shoot the small animal(squirrel? bird?), but it goes into affect as early as not snooping through Chris’s bag. As opposed to in the Quarry where you’re faced with a similar choice, but the game wants you to do the more immoral thing and snoop to get answers. Until Dawn uses it’s theme of keeping the balance to guide you in which choices to make; it’s not about meta gaming, it’s about being a good person. (An idea which is reflected in many of the character journeys as well)
2 Minutes in and you’re paying more attention to the origin and culture of Native Tribes that the game incorporates. You’re a real one who actually does research instead of just reacting to things in a vacuum!
One interesting thing I've noticed about Mike: Mike's honesty goes DOWN when you decide to reassure Jessica about her insecurities about herself, but when Matt interrogates him about meeting back up with Emily and Mike says that they were just making up and talking, his honesty goes UP. I find that very interesting.
@@Stigmatix666 Usually I apply Death of the Author in situations like that for the simple fact that the director/writer isn't there to tell you whether something's intentional/a mistake or not. Plus, I think it makes character analysis a bit more interesting that way. There's more that's up for the player to infer on their own about what things like that say about a character. Granted, Mike's humour goes up if you choose to shoot Emily, which I think is kinda strange and I'm not entirely sure what to think of it since the end credits with Mike don't seem to imply that he took any kind of joy in killing Emily or thought it was funny or anything. He's more concerned about himself and if he'll go to prison. That one still puzzles me a bit, so my best guess is that given the stress of everything that's been happening and the fact that Mike's already been through the sanitorium and saw the creatures for himself and saw Jessica die (or thinks he did, depending on how you played the game), for now I'm going with that being an indicator of his sanity slipping a bit.
Worth noting that if you choose not to reassure Jessica and instead try to seduce her... Mike uses literally the EXACT SAME line he used on Hannah in the prologue. So he's either seemingly telling her what she wants to hear to get into her pants, or just a sleaze with a single awful pickup line to his name. I appreciate that he cares enough to try to save Jess, but it was hard for me personally to like him at all after that no-win choice. Doesn't help that he makes so many terrible decisions as the night goes on but is constantly saved by plot armor EVEN IF you screw up the QTEs. Way too much of a designated hero for my tastes.
@@AlyssaJ14 That's entirely fair. Him being kind of a sleaze who's really good in crisis situations is what makes him interesting. That's why I like the whole cast - they're all deeply flawed and messed up, but very layered as well as being...y'know, dumb teens. The specific flavours of messed up each character is is what makes them so interesting to analyze. Emily in-particular I've grown fond of over the years after I've spent more time analyzing her.
I really hope the remaster of the game adds in the scenes from the pre-orders bc it answers a very important question regarding Emily and Matt: *Why on earth would these two be together?*
To be honest Matt's section with Jess is probably one of my favorites. In their short time together they have a good chemistry, and him being there for her and helping her escape the Wendigo I think is pretty awesome. I also don't consider him a coward as he with the Flare probably has one of my favorite escapes from a Wendigo and he's one of the first to do it. Easy to miss but if you search around it really benefits the game. Matt's the character that does some of the cool things if you're smart enough to keep him alive early. I wish he was given more to do, but I think Matt helping Jess is one the saving graces of his character, in all honesty I think if you rescued Jess with Matt, he should have been the person Jess talked about in her post-game interview more so than Mike whom to her knowledge ran after her but was unsuccessful in stopping her from being trapped in the mine. Emily shows her true feelings for Matt when it means most at the end of the game, if you did the right things she'll be heartbroken that he didn't survive if he died, and she hopes he still wants to be with her if he survived and says she's dedicated to him. Emily may seem one dimensional but she's got a bit more beneath the surface than she shows. It's when she shows it and the mask slips slightly that I find her most interesting, along with her fantastic one-liners.
The thing I really hated about this game was the gaslighting. Yeah, no one meant for those two girls to die from that prank, but not a single person who was in on it showed any remorse or even shame from what happened that night. The psychologist called it "A stupid little mistake." On the anniversary of their deaths, Mike and Jessica were throwing snowballs at each other, having a jolly old time. And somehow, the game wants you to see them as the heros while their brother is the villain? These people are garbage, and they all had it coming. What goes around comes around. I laughed when Jessica told Mike about how insecure she is😂😂 As if the viscious prank she set up didn't make that obvious enough. Imo Emily in particular deserved all the deaths she got, since after everyone of them you can tell her "It's just prank, Emily." 😆
@@KingSlayer_. Yeah pretty much. Josh's prank was nothing compared to theirs. Glad he's more sympathetic in the remake, although I already saw him as sympathetic.
I was SOOO excited when this game first came out. I played alone, in total darkness, headphones on and truly lost myself in the story. It was, and still is, incredible.
Near the beginning of the game, there is a quick time event to hit a bird with a snowball. Players might do it on purpose or reflexively, but you can also let the event time out and miss it on purpose. The UI pop-up after says "Sometimes nothing is the right thing to do" which I think is so interesting in the context of the larger game. When I played we ended up basically reciting that as a mantra (though we still stuck Mike's hand into an obvious trap 😅) as a way to remember not to rush more than we had to through decisions. But also at times doing nothing was absolutely the wrong choice. The key to getting the best ending was identifying when to act and when to do nothing...which is also the heart of all of the conflicts between the characters - they mostly make the wrong call when left to their own devices.
Emily and Jessica are my favorite characters of 2015. They're the whole reason why the story even started, because for one, Jessica instigated the prank, but she did it "to look after Emily" which is even more ironic because Mike simply dumped Emily for Jessica. I think they're the best characters of the game. Emily starts out as this character that nobody can stand, and everyone wants to kill, but her sequence in the mines and the buildup/atmosphere with her discovering clues about the twins while slightly figuring out how to survive is so amazing. Only for the buildup to give you the Wendigo chase, which is also my favorite action scene of 2015. I can't describe how much I went from disliking Emily to absolutely adoring her as a character. Her acting by Nichole Bloom is also amazing and she has a lot of really funny dialogue. I felt so awful for her when she gets threatened by Mike because she had to crawl out of that hell and nearly escape death only for her to get betrayed by her friends in such a dire situation when the answer was right under their noses. I didn't think much of Jessica at first, but as I kept re-playing, I noticed how amazing her acting is. Firstly she has really good dialogue, and I love the fact you can discover her insecurities and how she keeps up the "hot girl act" is simply because of those. What I do hate is how Mike can only respond like a dismissive fuck, which in my opinion they truly robbed him of a great and wholesome bonding moment where he could actually comfort her over this. The way he "comforts her" is abysmal. But then again, Jessica got absolutely robbed in this game. Not only does she wake up in Chapter 9, but her sequence is extremely short. But I absolutely LOVE the fact she gets completely injured and nearly senile. It's the perfect punishment for her instigating the prank and the whole story. And not only that, but it ruins her dreams to become a model, and it doubles down on all of her insecurities. It's tragic, and perfect. Her sequence in Chapter 10 may be short, but I loved the entire sequence. For one, she meets up with Matt (which Jessica is conveniently his 2nd highest relationship) and I love their duo. Matt is a caring meathead and Jessica is broken and senile, they're just such an unexpected duo that works so well, I loved their acting together. And last but not least, Meaghan Martin's acting. She was able to play a joyful loudmouth and a broken husk of a person simultaneously, and she did it amazingly. Her intreview sections are short, but they're so great. I love how uncanny and mysterious they are, especially Sole Survivor Jessica, which is an amazing dark ending. I feel like it could even be considered canon with how oddly symbolic it is. I don't have too much to say about Chris and Matt, but I really liked them. Sadly Matt gets shoved aside later on, but I liked what time these two had on screen. I'd consider them good characters. I really, really don't know what to think of Sam and Ashley. Let me start with Sam. I love her acting, she's really sweet and she has the whole "innocent/main character" vibe to her, and I absolutely love her scenes with the Psycho because it's such a good example of "the innocents suffer" (also included the scene where Chris kills the squirrel) and it's a pretty good action scene that works nicely as a red herring, but it still has the dark implications of Josh recording her and drugging her, which means that they still work even if you know the twist. But my issue with Sam is, she is TOO flawless. She doesn't do a single mistake, and the game will always use her as a scapegoat character to "go fetch Mike/the indestructible main character in a dangerous situation" which made her even more shallow in my eyes. They really should have explored the whole "innocents suffer/Josh's obsession" plotlines more, or made Sam's kindness screw up the group at some point. I also didn't like how she "went insane" at the interviews (DESPITE THE ACTING being super amazing) because...idk, it came outta nowhere? She didn't show a single sign of insanity before this, and I feel like all of her sections at the mines with Mike felt super edgy and rushed. About Ashley...I keep changing my opinion on her, but I guess she's an okay character. Her multi-layered personality of nice girl to absolute murderous psychopath is actually pretty cool. Her acting is very realistic as well. My only real problem is how her "LET ME CHOOSE TO SAVE YOU" line is something that can screw up a new player, when they should have added another way for Chris to survive if he shot Ashley (have Emily open the door for him to return the favor because he opened the door for her, and in the basement if she is bit, maybe Chris can defend her and we can have a nice little moment between the two) but anyways. I also SERIOUSLY doubt Ashley "froze" at the door. I'm pretty sure the developers also said she did not freeze, and it was purely out of revenge and anger. I feel like there's nothing wrong with that. Chris literally just shot her. The game ZOOMS IN ON HER FACE TO DEMONSTRATE THE FLASHBACK and I don't see how anyone can say she "froze" there. She touches the glass with rancor, she looks at him like she's about to admire his death and slowly backs away. That's not freezing. But I guess you could say she froze out of anger/revenge which is okay too. Also she literally acts like nothing happened down in the basement because when Sam/Emily comfort her, she just goes. "Okay. I'M FINE, SAM." in a clearly remorseful tone, to show that she didn't give a fuck about Chris's death, so yeah she literally doesn't care and it was ALL intentional. I wish Ashley could get a spot in the game's finale or a small fight scene with Josh, because the fact she never has to fight for her own survival or do anything aside not inspecting the trap door made me not interested in her character. Even Jessica in her catatonic state has to escape a life-or-death situation. But I think Ashley is an okay character and if she dies after killing Chris (or going insane) it's an even more symbolic thing. Sole Survivor Ash is also an interesting ending somewhat. She's a pretty complex character and she does her role well. I just particularly don't like her as much. And now we have Mike. I really wanted to like this character, and I did like him initially before he had to chase Jessica. But after that, the game pulls him into this "badass main character survivor" role that I personally never saw him taking. His plot armor in Chapter 9 infuriates me because him surviving all of these events made no sense, included the fact he teleports to the entrance even if he gets tackled at the beginning. It also made him a very boring character in my eyes. He always makes it to the finale, and his death is never "pathetic or in vain" because it's always a sacrifice. He never re-unites with Jessica despite her being his whole plot device and reason for his character to be so active. Overall I think he's way too overrated and he's actually not that deep of a character despite everything else. His acting and lines are good and funny sometimes, but I don't rank him that high. I think his darkest/best moment is murdering Emily. Sorry Mike fans. About Beth, Hannah and Josh? I like all of them. Josh is pretty complex and well-acted, and the game clearly sidelined him for a lot of the game. It's never really clear what he had planned for Emily/Matt and Jessica/Mike because you only find the severed pig head as Emily and the trashed cable car station, but nothing more. The only thing you find as Mike is that freaky mask in the car window, and that's about it. Hannah (human and Wendigo) has to be my favorite. The way she selfishly accepts Mike's request despite knowing he's together with Emily makes her a very deep character imo. The clues you find about her are very interesting, especially how you can find that one magazine that confirms she got the tattoo for Mike's sake, and she RAN AWAY to get Mike's attention. The whole game being her revenge is perfect, as well. Beth is one of my favorites, her acting is a little robotic sometimes, but I loved her final scenes with Hannah, they felt very sisterly and tragic. The scene where Emily finds Beth's head was so good too.
Based on your explanation of why Josh makes the game work, I wonder if that’s why the Quarry didn’t reach the same story telling level (aside from the subpar writing/dialogue). The cast of the Quarry just experience things happen to them because of happenstance, while Josh and the Until Dawn cast are deeply intertwined.
I think an issue with The Quarry's storyline is from its development. Supermassive tried *hard* to make the game branch off into as many endings as possible, and it ultimately meant that there couldn't be a linear storyline that they can rely on playing out in every playthrough. So, we got 100+ variations that naturally can not be as in-depth as the story of Until Dawn. There is a trade-off that happens between having that deeper storyline and having a game that is unpredictable in its story. For example, Until Dawn is coded and scripted to always end with Sam and Mike in the lodge. That gives the developers the ability to flesh out a developed storyline and character arc for at least those two people. Also, the majority of possible deaths are in the final chapters. In The Quarry, many characters can die much earlier into the game, and for the story to make sense regardless of who's alive, that means less time to build character arcs. You can't script Emma and Jacob to reconnect with each other or another person in chapter nine when any combination of them could be dead by chapter four.
What is my favorite little moments from the game is when Chris is treated as some unexperienced apprentice by that flame thrower hunter guy when they’re walking in snow.
I've rewatched Until Dawn game playthroughs several times, but I feel like now is the first time I fully understand the story, the characters, motivations, everything. This cleared up so mamy things for me and now I just love the game even more. Thank you gor this! ❤
Yeah, which is funny to me because I always remember my first introduction to him was in Night at The Museum where he plays a pretty straight up nice guy
53:35 Hi! Clinical Psychology student here, you actually made a point before about him being in a "manic state" and according to the DSM V someone on a manic episode can also present psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delirium, so most likely he was suffering from Bipolar Disorder, which is very easily misdiagnosed as depression when the patient comes to consult while in a depression episode and in these cases prescribing antidepressants can even induce such manic episodes, so that just adds even more to his depth as a character:)
I completely agree with you--Josh is the core of Until Dawn, and the game is successful because of how many different ways his actions can be interpreted [alongside the well-rounded cast]. You could read Josh as someone who was strictly depressed with a tendency towards self-destructive behavior, who was taken advantage of by the Wendigo's Curse. You could also read him as someone who escaped the system and ended up misdiagnosed, displaying both the butterfly effect, but also the failure of the medical system, which is also critiqued in the sanatorium. I personally see him as both, as I tend to view things in an intersectional lens. I read him as depressed but also as a person with schizophrenia who comes from a family prone to mental illness and self-destructive behavior who was then manipulated by the Wendigo's Curse, whose effects may have even caused him to come up with the "Psycho Prank." Another angle that wasn't really touched on in the video was reading Josh's character through a queer lens. As you pointed out, Josh makes a number of disparaging comments towards Ashley, and stole Sam's clothes to force her to move around naked; however, he also places Mike as the pinnacle of manliness and sexuality. While these actions and comments could be read as Josh wanting to help out Chris, or Josh taking advantage of Sam as a way to express his feelings, or Josh inheriting Hannah's view of Mike, I more so see these actions as Josh expressing jealousy, as Ashley is stealing away the attention of his best friend when Josh needs him most, or even stealing him away leaving Josh with unrequited feelings. I also always viewed Josh forcing Chris to choose between himself and Ashley to be more than a test of loyalty. I could see Josh's actions towards Sam to be done either in an actual misguided attraction or done in compulsion as Josh is recreating a 90s-esque horror film, where the expression of female sexuality followed by evil is not uncommon. Furthermore, as you stated Josh tends to pair himself with Sam due to her understanding nature, and he may have taken that concept of pairing further in an act of compulsory heterosexuality. Finally, Josh's comments about Mike could reveal not only his own insecurities about his own manliness and sexuality, which is a common queer experience, but could also reveal an underlying attraction that seems to be shared with most of the cast. This reading, while I believe it to be unintentional by the writers, allows Josh to take on an even more tragic character because it places all of his actions, once again in a new perspective. Perhaps one of the reasons Josh drank so much is because of his struggle with sexuality, perhaps his own sexuality is another reason why he is estranged from his father, perhaps the fear of not being accepted is why he never seems to reach out for help unless it is in the extreme. Anyways, I went on a bit of a tangent, but needless to say this video is very well done and has me returning to Until Dawn once again. I haven't had a chance to view your other content, but I'll be sure to sift through it! On the flipside, this video essay leaves me pondering with why other games by the creators don't have the same following, such as the Quarry. Great analysis!
I love that Until Dawn has become a game that people both remember fondly and love in retrospective, but most people feel like they can't fully explain WHY they liked it so much. Has anyone else noticed that? How so many people seem to have gone, "this was great! Why was it so great, though?" in recent years, or is it just me?
I'm kind fascinated by Josh. The schizophrenic killer trope is many things, and none of them good. But Josh feels so authentic and vulnerable. I think it helps that he doesn't actually kill anyone, but also his problems feel so real and complex and not a shallow excuse for his character to be cruel. I think it's easy to see he had long-term issues before the game that were severely exasterbated by losing his sisters so violently and being misdiagnosed and mistreated. His behavior before the reveal read as attention seeking to me, making crude and inappropriate jokes for any reaction. It's like he's fighting to keep attention on him or else he night disappear. It also makes his 'prank' look even more in-character.
The thing with Ashley scene that can make it hard for people to get she froze was that she in fact backed away from the door, which made it seem like she purposely left the door closed
Yeah, but that might have been out of fear of the wendigo, as it is a glass door. I have no clue why it DOESN'T just come through the door to be honest.
I've been emotionally frozen in situations while backing away, it's possible. But yeah, they didn't do a good job of showing that Ashley was having a PTSD trigger, so everyone hates her and thinks she intentionally left Chris outside. I thought the same thing for a long time, but the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced she was triggered and too overwhelmed to respond. That girl *loves* Chris, there's no way she'd purposely leave him like that.
In the groups defence for the begining of the game, some of the characters actually express disbelief in the moment that Hannah jumps straight to getting her clothes off when alone with Mike (suggesting that revenge porn was not on the agenda when filming the prank) and also, like, if my best friend decided to jump my boyfriend/my friends' boyfriend at the first opportunity, then yeah, i'd probably prank her too. None fo them expected it to end in two DEATHS.
What bugs me about Matt is the three characteristics they give him. "Motivated", "Ambitious", and "Active" are basically synonyms that all imply he's going to be a driving force in the story, or at least that he'll be pushing to figure things out, but that's just not him at all. I think more accurate descriptors would be something like "observant ", "sensitive" and "cautious". Observant cause like the first thing he does is observe the interaction between Emily and Mike, sensitive because he takes it pretty poorly and then decides that the best time to bring it up is when Emily is in a POTENTIALLY LIFE THREATENING SITUATION, and cautious because I think that just feels more accurate? Idk, I just feel like he's the only character where you can pretty definitively say that his three descriptors are inaccurate. Loved the video!
Just wanted to add there is one more thing that Hannah's butterfly tattoo can be tied to though not from Creol myth instead Greek. Thanatos the God of death was often associated with butterflies which can also foreshadow her becoming the incarnation of death for the rest of the group
Honestly, I'd like everyone to survive in the film, even The Stranger. It would be a good take that for once everyone is smart and resourceful enough to survive. Sure, have tension but having played the game several times, the ending of having everyone live is so satisfying.
A few things, Emily has more to her than you put out if in Dr. Hills session where you choose Emily to be the worst. He states that her bitchiness is to cover her insecurities. I actually like Ashley, she's very emotional and it's clear she has issues in intense situations and was willing to sacrifice herself when first given a chance (she believes it to be real, no chance that there was any hard manipulation in that) and if you've played the extended cut, you learn from Matt that she had gotten into drugs within the year. She's wrecked with guilt and stress and has lost all control.
I mentioned the Emily thing when talking about Josh, I played up how simple she was in her own section though I'll admit. I get the Ashley thing, like I said she makes sense and is consistent, I just find her to be frustrating from a purely gameplay and narrative perspective.
@RatatTalks I must've missed it in Josh's section. Sorry if I did, I listened to the whole video while working, so I might've missed it. And yeah, I totally get why she's not liked, but I still like her character because she feels realistic.
Until Dawn plays with the classic cabin in the woods masked slasher film trope (Friday the 13th, Halloween) and then takes a twist into the female monster revenge stories, (Carrie, Jennifer's Body) and I LOVE that. It's so interesting.
In my ancestors legandarium, we didnt have Wendigo. We had basically Nessie but incm the Great Lakes. And giant disembodied heads that would haunt battlefields and eat naughty children out after dark. I would like to see a game about the Giant Heads.
It’s crazy how common Nessie type monsters are across cultures, I remember reading loads about it when I used to go up to Loch Ness with my family every year or so. If you can find a source on the giant heads I’d love to read something about them, that sounds really interesting!
Very nice! Some pedantic points: -Mike gets a wolf pet, not a dog. -Hannah can kill Mike in the cabin by shoving him, but its probably a mistake on her part. So its more correct that she never intentionally kills him. -Jessicas trait being confident is blatently incorrect and she even tells Mike this. -Mike and Jessica being geniunly in love is something I disagree with. Its a shallow lust based relationship. COuld be more but true love? Nah. -You think Matt is cowardly? I dont really see it. Matt leads the way against (implied to be possesed by angry spirits due to their eyes) the deer while Em cowers in fear. Hes mostly unable to do anything and his reluctance to want to confront a serial killer is pretty understandable. Even if you chose to abandon Jess, thats more egotistical than cowardly. Its not like he could have stood and fought. -I think you oversell Hannahs humanity a bit. Mostly she simply attacks whoever she finds so thats why Chris gets in her crosshairs. Her only real human limiting is not attacking Mike or Josh, if Josh recognizes her. Its like 95% Wendigo, 5% Hannah. -One of the main reasons the game is so good is that Mike gets to play this cool action hero. Yeah, hes pretty damn dumb but the game never truly faults him for it. Contrast that to the Quarry where his counterpart Jacob gets endlessly mocked, rejected and made fun of. Sometimes its nice to have a classic action hero doing heroic things.....even if he should have just stayed in the damned basement!
Thanks for the comment, I appreciate people giving disagreements because part of what I enjoy about art is how subjective it is. The wolf/dog thing I was aware of, I just use dog because it's an endearing term common in gaming circles (you can pet the dog in ______ being a common meme about any new release) Mike doesn't get KILLED by Hannah, but he does get his back broken, his death is only ever TECHNICALLY caused by himself or Sam, but yeah she does still attack him. Hannah is still, yknow, a big monster. Even when trying to frame it as a revenge narrative as I attempted, you can't really ignore the fact that she is still a wendigo. You're spot on there. Mike and Jess is more than lust, as evidenced by a few conversations they can have about insecurities, but this is player determinant, so it's more of a 'they MIGHT actually have deeper feelings', entirely down to both player choice and player interpretation. True love maybe not, but for kids in their late teenage years it's as close as you're gonna get imo. Building on this: Jess' confidence is feigned, yeah you're right there, but she loses the ability to even present as such at the end. I do think Mike is cool, but I also like Jacob for the reason you mentioned,:he's goofy. Mike is a classic survivial horror protag/action hero as I've said, and I love all those tropes. I actually really like how they subvert him being a generic frat boy and make him genuinely heroic. Matt having a series of decisions to abandon people, as well as the option to completely shy away from confrontation if the player chooses to do so, does paint him as cowardly, he also has a really low 'brave' stat iirc. That said, that's also player determinant. There are so many possible interpretations based on player input and how peoples playthroughs go that I knew I wasn't going to be on the same page as everyone, but that's also what makes the game awesome.
@@RatatTalks Mhm. I guess I feel "love" should be primarily used on the best couple, Chris and Ashley. Who actually know eachother on a deeper level. Jessica being "confident" is probably the only direct lie in all of these games for an character introduction. Its so goofy. Player input is defintly a strange thing in these games. House of Ashes has an even better example: No matter what, Eric wants to get back with his wife Rachel. This gives him a strong characteristic while the player gets to decide how he tries to go about it. But what Rachel wants is entirely dependant on player choice. Thus making her character weaker. Matt is the same: Brave hero boyfriend doormat or scared jock who is super over Emily? Choices can be good but it can also be wierd.
Jacob had such an amazing setup. They just let him get killed way too early so they couldn't wring any proper character development out of him. It would be like if Josh died before the big reveal.
@@RatatTalksI definitely agree that Hannah is 95% Wendio, but I also think your “revenge” narrative still holds. Even if Hannah is not consciously aware of it, it’s like the universe is helping get revenge for her. When it’s revealed that the Wendigo is Hannah, it adds so much weight to the story, like it’s the ultimate karma. The victim of the group’s cruel prank has now come back to kill them. I think the writers definitely intended it to be like a “revenge” story in some way.
When Mike is attacked in the finale for the second time he’s not only thrown he has his stomach cut open and thrown against a pillar getting his back broken as well. I only mentioned this because it seemed like no one noticed
When I played the game I really didn’t understand Chris and found him annoying in a “nice guy” kind of way but now with your analysis I see him in a totally different light.
I’ve seen quite a few people think like that about Chris and I totally get it, like I said everyone has pretty different views on the cast, that’s part of why it works.
Agreed with Sam. Definitely one of my favorites of the bunch. I was a bit too immature when the game initially released to fully grasp most of the character nuance, so I appreciate this video. I love the fact that Emily has explicit regret for hurting Matt in certain endings, the fact that Ashley channels terror so effectively while both enabling and despising a lot of the petty cruelty around her, that both Sam, Chris, and Mike show different forms of bravery in good and bad ways. The new interpretations on Hannah and Josh are a great addition. Never considered those before. I do think there's something interesting, at least vaguely, about Jessica. Not only is she left in the dark for the entire story, she's also very divorced from the gameplay. She arguably had the most to do with the prank as she had the most to gain. Yet one year later, she's barely a footnote in the butterfly effect she caused. It could just easily be her role in the story was effectively done, besides Mike trying to look for her. I think there's something to be said about consequences and how despite her attitude, she could effectively have an innocent heart. Obviously, she did something terrible. Unfortunately, Hannah is the one who ran out into the snow on a precarious, treacherous mountain of her own accord and Jessica could not reasonably predict what horrors would befall her. Could be a good case for her confidence in spite of her insecurities. Not a very substantial claim, since she does effectively nothing, but a thought that amused me. To give a little more credence to the revenge angle, the second case where Jessica can die is right before dawn, right next to an exit of the mines. She would get denied exactly the salvation Hannah needed herself. TL;DR: Gud vid. K thnx by.
I'm not the biggest fan of Emily, but the more I watch videos about Until Dawn, I get why people like her. Emily's lines are definitely iconic but she does remind me of someone toxic in my own life. I do enjoy that she's smart and resourceful, I just can't unsee who they remind me of. I was also weirdly a fan of Josh but I'm also a bit of a Rami Malek fan as well.
About once a year, I end up watching another playthrough on Until Dawn. As I've done so, I've often wondered why I'm not pulled to the other stuff SuperMassive has done like it. Recently saw a playthroigh of Devil in Me by Jacksepticeye, and he mentioned not gettinh enough time to get to know the characters before the horror really starts, and after seeing your video as well, I agree. Until Dawn did a beautiful job showing who the characters were before anything crazy happened, and then what we see from them is either subtle or hidden things being revealed or obvious traits coming out even stronger. I'd say the Quarry does a decent job, but I still come back to the characters of Until Dawn. I totally agree with your description, "lightninb in a bottle." To catch it again may not feel the exact same, but it can be neat.
Yeah, the game seems to have aged better. To my knowledge supermassive had issues internally that only cleared up around the time of the quarry, and a rocky relationship with Sony. Hopefully renewed interest in until Dawn with the remaster and the movie will encourage them to try innovate instead of copying, hopefully with a more coherent development cycle.
My interpretation was always that Josh didn't start acting this over the top or sexuality aggressive until the accident, and his friends let him because it was easier to wince and move on than to get him to open up. I guess why I find Josh frustrating despite this is because we have no "before" Josh in the story. He's not a part of the prologue, so we don't get to see him as a person anyone there actually likes (not pities). Everyone in-game only talks about how hard the accident was on him, not even mentioning how he's changed. Just that he never talks about it. I find it frustrating because his behavior is never commented on by anyone except for "huh that was kinda weird". He's treated as a chekov's gun at worst and "a pitiable person not to be addressed" at best. It's so dehumanizing for someone I view as the main character of the game, but who isn't the protagonist. Also Jack is a lame character that brings down the horror and plot who was only added to acknowledge tropes lol
I love this analysis so much, Emily is my favorite character in the whole game not just because she’s iconic (which she is) but because she is the most intelligent and resourceful character, she survives the Handigo without any information and uses her quick thinking to get out, I also have some things that I think should have been talked about tho, specifically with Ashley, Ashley doesn’t ACTUALLY show remorse for the prank or Hannah, if you choose to her honesty goes down, she doesn’t care about Hannah and only cares about appearing as nice, and this can also put her killing Chris in a different light, even though canonly she froze and panicked, it would make sense for her character with this context to not let someone in, also Hannah is very heavily implied to have some sort of developmental disability as she’s described and naive by pretty much all of the cast, and her room shows her being very child like even though she’s around the same age as the rest of the cast
Adding on to this (because this is my favorite game and I love talking about it) I think a huge part is they’re all still teenagers, they’re 18-19 with the only 20 year old being Mike I’m pretty sure, they’re just becoming adults and none of their brains are even fully developed yet, it’s especially important in the cases of Jess and Em, both girls are seen as these scapegoats of the cast, and a lot of the fandom either hate or love them, with some people going as far as saying they “deserve to die” and while nobody deserves to die in general I think it’s especially interesting that the two mean girls are condemned to death by fans because they are mean, they both get their own redemptions/rebirths by the end (with both coming out of a cave, which I saw the comment that in some cultures represents a womb) but still some people think they deserve to die just for mistakes or personalities that they both have very solid reasons for making/having
@@katiemadsen5325 yes it’s actually very sad! As someone with autism myself I always related to Hannah and how she was seen as naive and kindve picked on by the group! Hannah becomes even more tragic and her revenge even more potent with the context
Interestingly when drafting this I had a section speculating on Hannah, I initially believed she might share symptoms with Josh because of the hereditary nature of his illness and how disconnected from reality she seems, but couldn’t find enough evidence for it. The developmental issue theory makes a lot of sense and I thank you for sharing it, alongside the insights into Ashley.
I know exactly why it worked, because it was a real story and my real I mean, the characters in it were entirely relatable in every facet of the imaginable stereotype.
We all know at least one person like this irl with the characters' traits. The attention seeking Hannah doing stupid thing, the you know shes smart but u still dislike her Emily, the Peace n Chill Sam, the Jokester hides insecurities Chris, the GF doormat Matt, the complicated Josh, the ok-friend but not so ok action Ashley.
I think what also adds to the saddness of Josh's character arc, his choices and treatment of other character, and the cautionary tale of the Wendigo is that it makes Josh a tragic character. Josh's symtoms of depression and most likely schizophrenia that got ignored during his toughest times when he needed help most. The complete blame of himself for what happened to his sisters despite not being involved in any way. And even his ending(s) to this story. No matter what you do and no matter what choices you make, you can't save Josh. It's almost as if he was doomed from the start.
Until Dawn is an absolute masterpiece. It is funny how I absolutelly hated Mike, Emily and Jessica and in my attempt to get rid of them early, I saved all characters. They all started to grow on me after chapter 6 and I did my best to save them. Everyone was alive in the end, but Emily was bitten. It was a blind playthrough, only knowing the final part of the game a bit since I got a spoiler years ago. I absolutely did everything I could to protect Matt, Chris, Ashley and Sam. They felt like the best characters. Looking back at it, I totally agree with what you said. Also, Josh was a bit weird but fine. I was neutral until it was revealed he was the psycho. Then I felt bad when I found out he had a mental illness. I also love how the game rewards you for paying attention. After playing the game, I researched alternate paths and I was glad I paid attention to the game. It prevented me for falling in the trap that can kill Ashley and Chris.
48:36 filming Sam in the bath could purely be because of the horror movie trope, Josh is using his knowledge of horror movies to scare them after all. But it is still weird.
Yeah, his entire plan is just super tropey, so there's every chance he's just leaning into it, but he makes comments about wanting to 'help' her in the bath prior to starting the prank, so there was at least a mild amount of intent there - as is shown consistently, Josh tells us a lot about himself through semi-ironic jokes
It could also be that while Sam didn't take part in the prank she knew about it alluding to how she just "watched" as it all went down and didn't do anything, probably a reach but still something to think about
He wanted her to feel the violation filming his sister undress equals to. Definitely the more you think it feels like josh is treating sam like surrogate sister and putting shit on her is his way of crying for help
I always just thought, “Man, Mike really redeemed himself and him & Sam make such a good team that it’s almost like the games loves them as much as I do and makes it hard to kill them.” I never connected the dots that there’s a story reason for Han-digo not dragging them away or mauling them easily and they’re her 2 favorite people besides Josh & Beth, so she would try to save them, but in a different way than Josh. I knew she was conscious enough to recognize Josh, but I assumed it was because he’s her own blood
That was part of why I still liked Mike following my learning that he just can't die, it recontextualised him rather than making the games obsession with keeping him alive feel cheap
@@RatatTalks While watching the play through of someone who didn’t like Mike, I actually got more appreciation for Mike because Dr. Hill defends the person you say you hate the most. Dr. Hill says something about Mike being afraid to be left alone”. This explains why he’s in some ways a leader and so is class president, and why he can make major decisions that can be very sweet, like petting Wolfie or, very voilent like kicking him, because he has people he wants to protect & he takes that job very seriously so he doesn’t end up alone. He quickly accepts Jessica as his girlfriend so he won’t be alone as well. He doesn’t sound cold when he’s about to shoot Emily, he sounds threatened & like he’s trying to be resolute that this is what’s good for the group It makes me wonder what his background and family is like if he’s so terrified to not have a girlfriend and his own pack. But what makes me really appreciate him is when he teams up with Sam because although sometimes he freaks and starts yelling & swing his pistol around, he’ll cooperate as a team & she’ll snap him back to reality and force him to think. He lets her lead and at times, she goes first and you see him carefully following her. After she tells him to split, he’s very understanding of Josh and leads him as best he can, before Handigo kidnaps Josh. Mike has drive to lead & protect & even work as a team, but he just needs firm direction and a snap to get him to think things through and that’s why so many hoped we would get a sequel with Sam and Mike surviving some other horror, especially with the added element that Sam’s caring nature is broken and she’s so spent at the end. She for the first time, knowingly sends people to their death. Seeing Sam so disconnected with life will definitely force Mike to think things through carefully on his own for the the two of them because Sam isn’t capable of hope anymore
One thing I do really like about Until dawn that i wished more people talked about is the artwork for the cover of the game. It seemed weird to me why in a game where the Butterfly was such an important symbol, that they didn't use it for the art cover, the art however is heavily inspired by an art tradition behind the term Momento mori. Mostly the term is associated with the inevitability of death but it can also be interpreted as not to get greedy living. It might just be coincidence but I'd like to think that the artist behind the cover drew connection between the curse of the wendigo being associated with greed as well as death and gave the it a very fitting multiplied meaning. This props wasn't the case but always fun to speculate :)
Chris and Sam are my favorite characters! When the game first came out I was consuming ALL the fan content, and if I remember correctly, people called Chris and Josh's ship "Climbing Class" and I always thought it was so cute.
omg me too i love chris sam and josh so much they're such a good trio in contrast to the drama-filled other characters. btw can you tell me where do you search for fan content of until dawn? i want to know the ships so bad
I was obsessed with this game's story when I was a kid, and years later I had forgotten how fucking awesome Until Dawn is. Thank you for making this video.
I really appreciate you delving into the topic of wendigo psychosis and the criticism of colonialism altering the actual mythology as well as the discussion of wendigo economics. It is essential that you’ve mentioned this, great work
And now it’s being remastered for its 10th anniversary. Improved lighting, remaster musical scores, fixed plot holes involving Jessica, Matt, and Ashley, updated character models, and new ambient sounds… what a time to be alive
I watched this on the treadmill and was physically nodding at your takes on Jess, then when you got started on Emily I paused and subscribed. Thanks for helping me take care of my health!
![One Step Forward, Two Steps Back - Analysing The Quarry [SPOILERS]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1BTvGRBnT8E/mqdefault.jpg)
![One Step Forward, Two Steps Back - Analysing The Quarry [SPOILERS]](/img/tr.png)
Hey, quick update regarding some of the comments here: I will make a video on The Quarry.
I've started scripting it, and am getting ready to replay the game a few times during my days off next week. Hopefully it'll be out sometime in July, so make sure to turn on notifications to know when it's out.
Thanks for all the support, and see you next time!
Will you be doing a video for The Dark Pictures Anthology?
Yes please! I loved the Quarry characters as well
I think this, Until Dawn, would work better as a single run series, like The Haunting of Hill House or Midnight Mass, with the same director, Mike Flanagan.
Then I need to play through the rest of it this week.
You def have a new subscriber here. You’re fantastic.
Just remembering your comments about a remaster, but a remaster will do what you asked at the end of the video, giving you the game again, it is not a remake.
i can't picture a remake without Rami as Josh, he simply made that character
He’s a great actor, I think he did a good job playing a similarly disturbed character in Mr. Robot.
He made the character with his quirks. Another actor will feel like hes playing Rami Malek not Josh get what i mean
"Treat. Her. Right!"
Rami Malek is over 40 years old now. He's way too old for the role. He was already older than the character he voiced when the game came out, I *really* don't think he'd fit in as a live action version of the same character nearly a decade later.
@@theslakemothrami looks like he's still in his early 30s lol. Dude doesn't age
Playing Until Dawn until dawn on a Halloween game night with friends was a very surreal experience, but one of my favourite.
Everyone picks a different character and plays when the PoV shifts. Start around 10 PM and you will finish by sunrise, right in sync with the game.
I like how the quarry added this as a dedicated feature for online play, hope they add it to Until Dawn in the remaster
Omg that sounds amazing. There is also the motion detection in the controller when you have to hold still.
With friends, those moments would be straight up HELL
Did this in college, and that night still remains one of my favorite memories. 10/10, would recommend
First time I played: Several days and only 3 made it out.
Second time: 4 hour binge, "everyone" alive.
I would love to play with friends on this one night. I would run polls on who would make it out alive.(Friends never played before).....And, probably set up back up characters so when someone dies, they can join that character's team until they inevitably die off.
That sounds so fun. I wish my friends were in to story games as much as I am.
i think one of the reasons josh chooses to target and torment ashley over the others who had a larger part in the prank against his sisters is Because of ashley's inaction. josh blames himself for his own inaction and not stopping what happened to hannah and beth, and he's projection his own guilt onto ashley who acted similarly. she didn't orchestrate the prank, but she didnt attempt to stop it either
Makes sense! Her and Chris are closest to him in their complacency, admittely so is Sam who doesn't do THAT much to stop it.
@@RatatTalksSam didn't even know the prank was gonna happen. She calls everyone jerks.
@@lorettabes4553Sam definitely knew the prank was happening. At the beginning of the game, they are talking about it and she ask them don’t they think that this is a little bit cruel. She didn’t participate but she knew it was gonna happen.
From what I remember, Sam went up the stairs of the lodge calling out for Hannah. I always interpreted it as Sam trying to stop her from seeing Mike.
I wonder if there's a jealousy aspect too. Josh wants Chris to be happy, but his dating Ashley means less time for Josh and Chris to spend together. I wonder if there's a little bit of that too. And if Chris chooses to save Ashley twice, it's like a confirmation of Josh's biggest fear about their friendship.
I was always curious why the people Josh targeted were the ones least involved in the plot. While I think this essay delves into it in a way that makes sense, I still feel like there's a piece missing.
I like that Josh was antagonistic, but it doesn't feel like mental illness was villainized. That's rare in horror.
No, it's actually done gracefully
Yeah it's very graceful with it, it's clear he isn't in his right mind and it's a sad situation
I think what helps that the most is the reveal that the Dr. Hill segments were Josh's subconscious trying to fight with him.
It’s actually the reason I purchased the game. I was so mad about all the UA-camrs who played it, completely missed the nuances in the character writing, and would not shut up about how creepy or horrible this poor kid with a horrific disease and unbelievable amounts of trauma and a nigh nonexistent support system was. I needed to play it so I could be nice to him
That's actually such a great detail you pointed out. I really don't like it when media portrays mental illness like that. Things like the movie Split are so fucking damaging for those people. It portrays them as dangerous people when they're just trying to get by. I think everyone felt for Josh in the game. Everyone understood how broken he must've felt not just because of his sisters, but his long life time battle with depression and schizophrenia. They did an amazing job, indeed.
As much as I’m not a mega Ashley fan, I’m glad you acknowledged that the scene is supposed to be her freezing up and panicking(like she’s shown to be very prone to). Telling Chris to shoot her (leaving physical action in the hands of another person) but then not having the willpower to do that physical breaking through of panic unless she has a strong feeling of owing him makes sense for her character, I just think the devs did a terrible job of making it actually look like she was freezing rather than making a deliberate, malicious choice
I think most of that is due to Ashley being highly determinant on player choices, so she can flip flop between personalities pretty easily
@@RatatTalksHere’s a fun fact about her: according to the devs, Ashley was originally going to be a stoner. It got cut obviously, but you can still see pieces of it like her design
@@ireallyneedtherapy1126justice for stoner ashley
@@ireallyneedtherapy1126 I did know that, wish they'd kept it in.
The script notes on the original draft were as quoted here: "(Ashley is) a drug addict who would go around the house pretending she was in an Agatha Christie novel"
They left an easter egg in, where Matt comments that maybe she has a 'weird smoking habit' when you find the cigar stubs that the stranger leaves around.
The developers also stated that Ashley has some form of PTSD which can cause her trauma responses to differ depending on your choices. So it makes sense.
There are cultures that view openings within the earth (caves) as “wombs”. So Hannah being transformed in the mine can also be seen as her rebirth
Didn’t know this, thanks for the insight
That can also possibly add to her connection to the butterfly, which also symbolizes transformation
This game made me start paying attention to the actor Rami Malek (Josh) and what a powerhouse he's become since.
I loved him in mr. Robot, but honestly my introduction to him was night at the museum lol
me, watching let's plays: huh, that guy sure looks a lot like rami malek! weird
me, reading the cast list later: oh
Same face and tone every time. Mid actor fr
@@AC-hj9tvi think he has a lot of similar characters
@@RatatTalks Hey! Same! I was so happy to see him in more stuff later on :p
An interesting fact about Ashley is that if you choose to be remorseful with Chris and apologise for the prank, in her character traits her honesty goes down, which I think adds to her character a lot and makes her more interesting to analyse
Yeah someone else pointed that out, really interesting bit of trivia I missed
while this is true, its most likely a bug. there is a bug where some dialogue choices will make every characters traits drop slightly without being marked and thats what happens in that scene
@@TheTrickyShow1 aww that’s sad if it is. It would’ve been a nice attention to detail from the developers
@@RatatTalks But her compassion goes up.
@@TheTrickyShow1 While it could be a bug, I think it would make perfect sense for it not to be in this case. Because if you pick the OTHER option where she doesn't show remorse Ashley's honesty SPIKES up. From a logical standpoint it makes sense that two contrasting answers would raise/drop a specific trait. And in this case it seems to indicate Ashley's true feelings regarding what happened no matter how the player chooses to go.
I remember reading a theory forever ago that put forth the idea that Josh choses to torture Sam and Chris specifically because he's close with them. Like hurting them is just a way of hurting himself also. I always found that idea to be really interesting.
That makes sense for two reasons too - the first being him punishing himself for his own inaction through them as many in these comments have pointed out, and also the fact that he's intentionally doing his self-destructive cry for help to the people he's closest with
I saw a theory saying the reason he put chris threw so much, is because maybe chris convinced josh to drink with him and relax till they passed out and josh wasnt able to be there for his sister's because of that
Literally teared up at the mention of Chris bc after everything he still went to go save Josh. And what does he get for his empathy and sympathy? Dies :(
Yeah, that one scene is my fave for a reason. Chris’ big moment.
He doesn't necessarily die..
I saved all the boys in one of my play throughs.
I accidentally got him killed too because I kept trying to kill Ashley haha
What I really liked about The Stranger/Jack is that once he shows up, it feels like you can finally breathe, like you're safer. You're in the presence of someone who knows what they're talking about, who has a gun and who's dealt with Wendigos before.
But then he gets his head violently and unexpectedly slashed off by a Wendigo, leaving you completely alone in the forest, and there's nothing you can do to prevent it.
To me, it really strengthens the feeling of danger and despair in a way. Having that feeling of safety pulled so violently and suddenly away from me had me feeling helpless man T_T
This totally sums up how it feel when this happens in the story , that’s why I feel like Jack is an under appreciated character because although he doesn’t really do much from a base standpoint, he does give the player that sense of safety and acknowledgment that they are in safer hands than before, and then that all comes crumbling down when he’s killed off so quickly as if he is the least equipped for the situation which is wrong because he is by far the most experienced and equipped and that makes the player feel so vulnerable you described that feeling of helplessness so well my friend 👏
It's also great because unlike many horror movies killing off the experienced badass for shock value, his death makes sense. He's used to the old miner wendigos, but Handigo is much stronger and faster than he expects.
Yeah, true, but he killed 6! of them before. For me it was just a plot moving mechanic nothing else, it made non sense from the point of hes "arc".@@matman000000
It’s the “too powerful to live” trope
I'm glad you like Emily so much, even if it's mostly because of how hilariously awful she can be, with some truly iconic moments and lines. But as others have mentioned she's also SUPER resourceful and competent. This shows mostly when she's alone in the mines, but something I haven't seen anyone else bring up yet is that when she and Matt meet up with Chris and Ashley, she WANTS to go investigate Josh's body. This is something the others convince her not to do (because Chris and Ash are so horrified and just want to get away, and Matt thinks some things "can't be unseen"), but if she HAD gotten her way? Josh's whole plot would have fallen apart immediately. Because they would have either found a suspiciously headless body (with a place to PUT your head like you're taking one of those goofy pictures), or no body at all if Josh had already cleaned it up. And EITHER is something worth questioning. Emily EARNS those "intelligent" and "resourceful" traits, for sure. "Persuasive" is more up for debate and player input though.
Oh wow I missed that about Josh’s body, good spot
I mean she was able to convince 5 people, including her boyfriend, to trick Hannah and film her undressing, which is pretty unsavory and mean-spirited at best, so I'd say she must be pretty persuasive.
Yeah, in ONE scene. She never used any of that to help her friends, and even pushed Ashley down when the Wendigoes were chasing them. I don't know how people keep missing these details. 😂
I can't get over how Beth's opening lines are so transparently exposition, "Josh....my brother. Ah, what has our sister Hannah gotten into now? We are all siblings, the three of us."
It’s hilariously bad, Beth’s dialogue across the board is a new level of terrible
@@RatatTalks A truly wooden performance.
Overall, I really enjoyed your analysis! I've never really liked the characters much but your readings of them improved their appeal to me - especially Chris.
The opening of the game is SUPPOSED to be corny/cliché. That goes away as the game goes on.
@@monsterhanna6691 It's not a matter of cliché it's just bad dialogue.
I'm not saying it's worst thing ever or that it makes the game unplayable. I'm just picking at a flaw because I think it's a funny one.
I honestly love Ashley cause she is inactive in the story. It is very realistic for a teenager to go with the flow, to freeze up during stress, and so on and so forth. Narratively she reflects what the majority of people would do in this situation, which is why a lot of people find her frustrating lmao.
I find that her remorseful route traits and her actions pair well together to create a realistic and interesting character. She’s at least an A-tier for me.
That’s totally fair, I did try give her credit for being well written and realistic, with understandable motives.
I just have a bias
I always felt the most connection to her. I’m not a strong rock climber badass like Sam. I’m not a bitch like Emily and I’m not pretty and confident like Jess. I’m Ashley. I’m not the prettiest girl or most confident in the group and when I like a guy I REALLY like him. I’m Ashley. I’m plagued with doubts and fears. Emily getting bitten? I’m team shoot her! Like yes we have the book and yes we should read that first, but if we didn’t?? SHOOT. HER. She could kill us all! Like gah! I’m pragmatic and she’s pragmatic. I also can see myself saying shoot me to Chris but then if he does being deeply hurt because I secretly hoped he’d like/love me enough to sacrifice himself.
Idk I think she’s pretty relatable and people just don’t want to admit it!
I always felt the most connection to her. I’m not a strong rock climber badass like Sam. I’m not a bitch like Emily and I’m not pretty and confident like Jess. I’m Ashley. I’m not the prettiest girl or most confident in the group and when I like a guy I REALLY like him. I’m Ashley. I’m plagued with doubts and fears. Emily getting bitten? I’m team shoot her! Like yes we have the book and yes we should read that first, but if we didn’t?? SHOOT. HER. She could kill us all! Like gah! I’m pragmatic and she’s pragmatic. I also can see myself saying shoot me to Chris but then if he does being deeply hurt because I secretly hoped he’d like/love me enough to sacrifice himself.
Idk I think she’s pretty relatable and people just don’t want to admit it!
I always felt the most connection to her. I’m not a strong rock climber badass like Sam. I’m not a bitch like Emily and I’m not pretty and confident like Jess. I’m Ashley. I’m not the prettiest girl or most confident in the group and when I like a guy I REALLY like him. I’m Ashley. I’m plagued with doubts and fears. Emily getting bitten? I’m team shoot her! Like yes we have the book and yes we should read that first, but if we didn’t?? SHOOT. HER. She could kill us all! Like gah! I’m pragmatic and she’s pragmatic. I also can see myself saying shoot me to Chris but then if he does being deeply hurt because I secretly hoped he’d like/love me enough to sacrifice himself.
Idk I think she’s pretty relatable and people just don’t want to admit it!
I always felt the most connection to her. I’m not a strong rock climber badass like Sam. I’m not a bitch like Emily and I’m not pretty and confident like Jess. I’m Ashley. I’m not the prettiest girl or most confident in the group and when I like a guy I REALLY like him. I’m Ashley. I’m plagued with doubts and fears. Emily getting bitten? I’m team shøót her! Like yes we have the book and yes we should read that first, but if we didn’t?? SH@@T. HER. She could kǐll us all! Like gah! I’m pragmatic and she’s pragmatic. I also can see myself saying shoot me to Chris but then if he does being deeply hurt because I secretly hoped he’d like/love me enough to sacrifice himself.
Idk I think she’s pretty relatable and people just don’t want to admit it!
One thing about Emily: she mentions she has a 4.0 GPA. That's HIGH. Like, pretty sure that's the highest you can go. She's also shown to have some amazing survival instincts. So she does have some hidden depths to her, in that she's actually REALLY smart. Shown very well in the sequence where she makes her way through the mines alone; she makes several decisions without the player's input (such as using clothing to create a torch when her phone dies so she can actually see, despite the fact it's designer clothing she'd rather not destroy), showing she also has a fair bit of common sense.
She's TERRIBLE and I hate her, but Emily is actually my favorite of the female characters, so I also...kinda love her, lol. I'm glad she's S tier.
Yeah she’s stupidly smart, as is shown not just through her grades and her intuition, but also how quickly she comes up with truly iconic dialogue.
@@RatatTalks "Understand the palm of my hand bitch" will always be my favorite line in Until Dawn
Until Dawn is like a case study of a very important question: yes, this person is an asshole, but _do they deserve to die?_
Of course misogyny plays a major part, most people who still hate Emily by the end warmed up to Mike in an instant despite them going through identical character arcs, but it’s worth talking about from a horror genre perspective in general. Is being horny or an asshole really a reason why strangers should relish in your death?
It’s not the highest if the school does weighted gpas (aka giving extra points for honors or AP classes), I was classmates with someone who had a 4.2 in high school
She's an Alpha Power B*tch. She's resourceful but I don't trust her or like her personality.
It is a true testament to the game that I can write entire essays on EACH INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER on top of the overall plot and STILL have things to talk about. Until Dawn is truly special and I firmly believe none of the other games from the studio measure up.
The quarry was a close second, but imo they need to innovate the gameplay style. I remember reading they had a lot of internal issues at the studio until recently though.
Cannot agree with you enough ngl i always say i could talk about until dawn for hours, really a well written game (not to mention its characters)
Something else that could be considered as to why Josh does what he does to Ashley and Chris is that he is trying to get validation in his relationship with Chris and proving that Chris cares about him a lot in this twisted way. This is why he takes Chris choosing him to die in the "prank" hard even though his death gets faked no matter what. It also accounts for why Ashley is involved as Josh is making Chris choose between him and someone else he knows Chris cares a lot about would solidify his importance and worth in Chris's life and their friendship.
Yeah, I think that’s true as well. Josh clearly has a lot of insecurity around relationships in general given his attitude towards Mike, so losing his best friend to one probably scares him.
Beyond this, I think it adds a new spin to the "prank" that like 90% of it is targeting Chris who is the one person who was passed out with Josh when Hannah and Beth died
It's still pretty fucked up considering the whole "revenge" plot. Chris was still completely innocent, and Josh can still "die" in the first "test", even if Chris chooses to save him.
RE: Josh's diagnosis
The medication Josh took had a side-effect for withdrawls include hallucinations and slurred speech and one of the text message from Dr. Hill said "It's very dangerous to stop taking your drugs mid course Josh." I think it's more likely he quit cold turkey.
Nice vid though. Agree Emily is S-tier.
That was implied in the messages yeah, but both medications were to boost serotonin, which would have either no effect or actually make any kind of schizophrenic episode potentially worse.
At least that’s what I read, I’m not a doctor.
@@RatatTalksThe drug he's on is an MAOI, which is a much much more effective antidepressant than an SSRI or SNRI. You're right about serotonin and schizophrenia, but the antidepressant effect is also true for bipolar disorder. Antidepressants will send someone with bipolar into a manic state that can include full blows psychosis. I don't rule out schizophrenia for Josh, but given his history of self-medication, impulsive behavior, attachment issues, etc, it's much more likely to me that he's bipolar and misdiagnosed, so by the time of the game, he's a) totally manic and experiencing psychosis, and b) experiencing withdrawal from an MAOI.
Also this was a really really great video and Emily is S-tier
@@emilyb5762I see a potential bias 😂, but fr this video gave me a newfound appreciation for her
it took my breath away when the wendigo said "you idiots, there's no way you'll get away now! I've got you traoped in here Until Dawn!" Real cinema
I think they say Until Dawn at least four times
@@RatatTalks kino alert !
And then the Wendigo said, ‘It’s Wendigoing Time!’ And proceeded to wendigo all over the place.
I will not apologize for this meme.
"i can wendi-go until dawn!" -john untildawn
peak cinema
I just want to say thank you for putting Emily into S tier and for acknowledging how important she is to the plot of the story. As a day one Emily defender, I feel like she’s so misunderstood and gets so much unnecessary backlash. She’s one of the more realistic, resourceful, and well-rounded characters who provides much in the way of drama, plot and character development/progression, comedy, action, etc. Without her initiative, the entire cast of characters would have been done for.
I honestly feel some misogyny in the Emily hate, its like an immediately response to her "mean girl" persona. I love her character, she is very flawed and toxic, something she might still grow out of, but she is very capable and smart. And I just relate so much to the conversation she has when she tries to make Matt remember where she got her bag- I would go on a similar "remember when..?" rant to my bf
People who refuse to understand her character should at least understand the palm of her hand
She's also a bitch for NO reason, is clearly insecure, orders Matt around, starts a fight with Jess for NO reason, AND is only resourceful in ONE fucking scene. Which doesn't even include her helping her friends one bit. She's not "misunderstood", she's just insufferable and needs some help.
@Owain9797 There's nothing to understand at all. Would you wanna be friends with someone like Emily who bitches and moans about everything, NEVER does anything to help her friends, is completely ungrateful, even WHEN you try to save her life, starts fights for NO reason, treats you like a servant, AND is more concerned with being right than a decent human being. She's not great AT ALL.
@@marlieshilgersom3569 She's supposed to be hated! 😂
One thing that you said about Josh and the ‘I don’t take orders from you’ as well as the fact that Hannah could’ve been calling him to the mines, is that she could have been messing with his head since she became the creature (I’m ojibwe and we do not say the name so I’m calling it creature lol) it was established that Josh had been spending a lot of time alone in the mountains and from the beginning that has always struck me as weird, sure he could’ve only been out during the day time but that just doesn’t feel realistic to me. Why didn’t he get attacked? Why didn’t Hannah call him/drag him down sooner?
And looking at Hannah’s transformation as a revenge plot, that could also imply that she manipulated Josh to bring them all back, to section them all off (like Josh telling Mike about cabin before they go to the trip) so she can get at the ones who had hurt her the most. And when everything has been done/set in motion she decides to finally ‘bring him home to family’
In a lot of Algonquian tribes that have this creature’s story, the creature is usually portrayed as being quite intelligent, normally they rely on luring their prey outside their homes which implies they have more intelligence then I think most give them credit for, and the creatures also symbolize greed, what can happen due to greed.
And I think you can see that with Hannah and that the spirit only highlighted her worse traits. Nothing could make the prank ‘justified’ but it’s quite messed up to long for a guy who is quite clearly in what has been described as a ‘power couple’ also the way she jumped at the chance to get with a man despite knowing that he is with someone else who is her friend is icky. There has been hints that Hannah wasn’t as socially developed and so she acts somewhat immature but I can also see it as the early foreshadowing of greed that will impact her in a major way later
Thanks for the comment, I enjoyed writing the Hannah analysis for this, and this adds even more layers to it, instead of her coming back a year later, she’s had a year to plan. I do like the idea of the creature being intelligent, I also like the idea of it being family oriented though.
I think it was the case of Swift Runner, who I believe was Cree, who attacked his family as he claimed a wendigo spirit told him to. Real world basis for the spirit having a concept of family, and knowing to target specific people.
I have a question. At the end of the game, if Josh survives, he becomes/was becoming the creature... is there any way to reverse that in native culture? Any sort of ceremony or some type of exorcism? (I know, my western mindset is showing.) If so, would it be a full cure or only partially (would Josh still by affected by cravings)?
Asking because I wanted to write a fanfic where specifically Josh and the others try to heal and come to terms with what happened, and also I want to write that the Washingtons give the mountain back to the native people (unsure of which tribe that would be).
I only wanted to briefly mention him being cured, if possible, and kinda leave it at that (because native culture is *wayyy* out of my wheelhouse), as well as have Josh tell the other characters not to say the creature's name because "it's not ours to say."
I realize these are probably very ignorant questions, and I won't write the fanfic if Josh can't be cured because it kinda revolves around him. I don't want to be disrespectful or appropriate a legend/belief that isn't mine, of a culture that I don't belong to.
I would love to learn more about your culture. I love learning about other cultures. Also helps that (I found out after she died) my great grandma George was half native American.
I really love the character analysis of Hannah that you brought up about her liking certain people less and that leads to who she attacks most. Never thought about it like that.
I think Chris highlights something important. He didnt have anything to do with what happened to the sisters. But where was he while Josh was breaking down into a maniac? They were inseperatable. Chris should have seen signs. Im not putting it on him all the way. Josh didnt reach out. And the distance could have been experienced as repsectful mourning time to Chris.
I think Chris is there to tell us cherish the people you love. Be there for each other. You dont know what your best buddy might be going through. Check in. From Joshs perspective his best friend sort of dropped off after his sisters died to pursue a person he holds accountable for it. That is why torture Chris.
This is really true and a great point, it’s not on him to see the signs, but he should’ve checked in. We don’t know what happened in the year between, but in the game Chris could try and make more of an effort to reach out.
Chris is my favourite character because hes just a normal dude, he's not a dick, he's chill pretty much the whole game even when he's angry and he's just an all round good dude
I think the reason why he more or less targets Chris is because of Ashley's tiny involvement in the story when I think more or less she was just kind of roped into it along with Matt.
Or based on some of the things Josh says before the stuff happens and after his reveal as the psycho, I think it was his way of trying to bring Ashley and Chris together and basically spilled their feelings out to each other.
I think a main selling point is that its a horror game movie. Being able to control the fate of each character with mildly confusing dialogue/action choices while able to hold a lot of tension and suspense scene to scene. The following games each miss the mark for a different reason and thats why they werent received well. The second game falls off pretty quickly if you realize theyre just seeing illusions early for example. Its basically like outlast meet tell tale games and its a blast.
Also the cast in this one has the best chemistry imo the only one that comes close is the third game when they're in the desert.
Yeah I definitely think the casts chemistry is what endeared me to it. I just couldn’t get into any subsequent games as much, although I admittedly did quite like the quarry
@@RatatTalks I like the quarry as well and thought it had a lot of fun alternate endings but for some reason a lot of people don't like it
It's an amazing concept with great characters but good lord is this game bad... It's so poorly acted, written and plays poorly too
I've enjoyed the quarry though and I'm very hopeful for this series future
I believe this series is alright. I enjoyed it beyond the zeitgeist but similar to FMV games of the past, it requires a cast with synergy. Not every game is perfect. The issue is the endings. Sometime the arcs of characters become flat or unsignificant. Most games share this issue, especially in Little Hope. Although the point of the games is to ensure the characters survive to see their development. I think to avoid a similar fading irrelevance to those FMVs is to make them arcade-like. I would refer to replays being more significant. When each attempt fails, the new game+ content don't feel meaningful. Of course, I feel pedantic about that for a Movie game but some games in the series don't have the effort placed to make further purchases worth it.
It's interesting to me, with the Jess and Mike thing especially, that we don't really know much about the year between the prologue and the game itself. There's a lot of space there for speculation and alternate character readings as a result of that gap.
Like for me, I read the thing with Emily and Mike having broken up/Jess and Mike hooking up less as a matter of Jess stealing her supposed best friend's guy and more as the sort of fall out from the lot of them having to deal with having been the core actors in the prank. If Hannah had just broken down crying or had run out of the house but been found and brought back safely, then the relationships between those three might not have changed much. If it was just a cruel, stupid prank and no one died they might've even wound up sticking closer to each other because of digging in their heels about it being just a prank in the face of Sam and the Washington siblings judging them. It's interesting to think about.
Oh for sure, they all likely had a lot to process in the year that we just aren’t privy to
I just want to add that in fact Emily is very resourceful and complex, (sort of a second final girl next to Sam) her escaping the caves is one of the darkest and most tense moments of the game, and also she shows empathy for certain characters in the credits too. Even in the mines, she's the only one who finds out that Hannah eat her own sister, and she felt terrible when she found out, that this is where the twins sorta die. Which proves that even when she's a bitch she can feel empathy and she's more complex than what is shows at the beginning. I would consider her the most complex character of the game (complicated feelings in the triangle between Matt x Emily X Mike, and also between her instic for survival and her approach of stick together). And, as you stated, the character who does the most to being rescued, so I think she needs to be credited when she needs to be credited and she's amazing
Emily is great, I do think she’s highly resourceful and intelligent. As stated, she’s just a huge catalyst for developments in the plot both positive and negative, and it’s hard not to love her for it.
I like how she's like one of the hardest to keept alive, she's a bitch and she gets tested but I liked her more at the end because of this. I loved how they made me hate her and then changed into one of my favorites.
I think she would have just been so much better received if she didn't have such unhinged ending rants. Her tearful concerns about Matt kinda ring hollow when she can also just wish horrible things to happen to him in another route, and it takes a superhuman amount of will and courage from Matt to not get Emily's crazy unhinged hate rant.
A lot of her other negativity feels pretty justified. Especially slapping Ashley for suggesting killing her.
@@thomaswood8405I also think that it makes sense that she’s so bitchy. Jess made the plan to teach Hannah a lesson resulting in everyone’s lives being changed forever (even tho that wasn’t intended) just for her to turn around and basically do the same thing. I can see why Emily is so argumentative towards Jessica and Mike and I think she takes her anger out on poor Matt
@@nicsongerson4583 Oh she is 100% realistic, and a very strongly written character. It just happens to make her quite hateable. I just wish they could have sanded off the edges just a bit.
man its actually so impressive that if this is a revenge plot for josh, then he is literally hurting everyone who had had the *least* part in hurting his sisters. he's lashing out at those who are close to him like chris and sam as his call for help because they are probably people he trusts the most, but his self destructive ways keep him from seeing that
They can never make me hate you Emily
Real
I hated her
i love her she served absolute cunt 😻
Emily is an icon
REAL ASF
I was WAITING for someone to make a deep psychological analysis of all the characters. Thank you so much for sharing it with us
Glad you enjoyed!
Emily is my favourite honestly. She has iconic lines, she’s a super bitch and catty as hell. But she’s also extremely loyal and she cares about her friends, she constantly throws herself into harms way early on in order to get her friends help, and she’s horrified Josh is dead.
She also becomes by far the most resourceful Non-Mike character once she falls into the mines. Ashley, Jess and maybe even Sam definitely wouldn’t have escaped the mines like Emily did, and she’s also the one to discover the true fates of Hannah and Beth, she’s the one who calls for help, she’s just great.
So far I would not call her loyal as she was willing to lie to the police about Matt leaving her to die and her reasoning to lie was that she disliked Matt despite Matt willing to save her.
Yeah, glad to see the Emily fans out in full force in these comments
@@RatatTalks I like Emily but I feel like people overlook her flaws like other toxic characters. In my opinion she never actually shown character development as she is willing to mistreat someone who don't suck up to her even though it is reasonable or understandable aka Matt. I feel like the writers should have gave her moments of her acting nice to people she has a bad relationship with to show that she changed rather than just say sorry or anything similar to that. Sorry for the long opinion, I am an Emily fan but I feel people give her too much of a pass.
@@patrickmarquez8307 it's because of those toxic behaviors that make her a fan favorite. She doesn't have a goody goody turn around, she's consistently a bitch and it makes her both simple to become a fan of and complex to analyze
@@patrickmarquez8307I disagree. For one, while subtle and kind of in the background, Emily is pretty nice to most of the group. She never has a bad word to say to or about Sam, Josh, and Chris and she’s cool with Mike and Ash up until they directly threaten her life and safety. The other stuff she does you’d just have to pay attention to her in the background because her actions and lines aren’t really lingered or focused on. There’s even a whole sweet section that was cut from the base game between her and Matt that is this bonus dlc segment taking place between when they leave to find the bad to when they meet up with Ash and Chris after Josh’s “death”. She shows a lot of concern for all her friends and is always thankful for their safety. All accept Jess whom she never sees or talks about again after their fight at the beginning of the game. Jess is actually the only character who Emily can’t and on good terms with by the end because of this fact.
And lastly, Emily does go through two arcs or I guess mini-arcs if you will. Her first is simply just growing independent once she’s separated from Matt. While she’s driving things forward for all of their time together, Matt is the one doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Very much the brawn to her brains. Then she falls into the mines and she’s forced to do things all on her own which is where her resourcefulness comes into play. The second is acknowledging how she wasn’t the best to Matt and she ends up being very repentant about her actions and declares to be better to him. This one is determinant on choices made by Matt however. But she does develop as a character. She isn’t static, at least not totally so.
I once saw someone say that Josh punishes Chris and Sam a lot because he sees himself in them so this is his weird way of punishing himself by association, while I think this could very well be true, there are a lot of other theories that make sense about Josh’s motives for punishing his best friends. Josh has been my favorite character since my first gameplay given that he is so multidimensional, complex and quite tragic if you really think about it and every time I replay it my love for his character only increases, he is so well written and Rami Mallek was the perfect cast for him
I can’t imagine anyone else playing him
@@RatatTalks same! I’m so curious to see who they are going to cast for the new movie and how they made the extra josh scenes they added in the trailer of the remastered
@@RatatTalks same! I’m so curious to see who they are going to cast for the new movie and how they made the extra josh scenes they added in the trailer of the remastered
I will never forget how I knew there were wendigos in the game for the first or second totem, because of the second episode of supernatural.
Season one of supernatural is so good
i did the same thing omg 😭
@@RatatTalks as a kid I only saw some supernatural episodes, what episodes would you suggest?
@@annageorge8406 that's kind of a hard question to answer because the show is a lot of different things. I'd recommend the most insane ones like the scooby doo crossover scoobynatural, but it's so deep into the show that it might not make any sense.
Supernatural as a series is something like: one season of pretty fun quirky monster hunting tv, one season of family trauma, one season of the writers becoming really self aware, and then a load of bible fanfiction, and then they just kind of realised they should've been taken off the air by now but are still going so just started making all sorts of crazy shit. It's been many different shows over time.
I'd say to just watch it in order, but skip episodes if the premise strikes you as boring on the more monster of the week ones.
Matt got hit with the 'black character dies first' troupe and he deserves better 😔✊🏾
In my original script I had a bit where I wanted to say even if he died first in the movie it would be a lazy trope so no matter what he's poorly written. Like I said he's frustrating, I wish they gave him more to do
Exactly 💯 I feel like he and Emily both POC characters got done dirty. The black male character gets forgotten, ignored, and not taken seriously. The Asian female character faces the most life threatening situations ( and thus is tortured). I really love the game and what the creators did with it. But obviously those "old" prejudices show up. I don't think it was consciously done by the creators. More of a systemic issue that leads to these tropes showing up again and again.
Ok i kinda disagree with this. i just play through the game for the first time and while i agree matt didn’t have as much of a role as i would have liked he still survived for me with minimal effort and for me emily would have survived had i not fucking failed the QTEs on the conveyor belt. i do agree they didn’t have a very big part in the game but i think you may have made some poor choices to lead to the deaths of those characters so soon
Jessica died first.
@@Stigmatix666 Jessica didn't die first . You find out later she survived . Or I guess she can die first if you aren't fast enough . But it seems like people are missing the point here
Emily is even better when you know she’s also Cheyenne from Superstore
I cannot BELIEVE I never realized this, I love Superstore 😭
WHAT?
Nichole Sakura!! She's the best
Yeah I knew her from this first and when I watched Superstore very recently for the first time, I was like, ‘oh! Hey! We love Emily/ Cheyenne🤭
OMG!!
I think the reason why Until Dawn works so much better than anything the devs have done since (outside of the characters just being better), is because of the rug pull the game pulls on you in its final third.
The entire game is making a point of playing with various horror tropes, and throws EVERYTHING at you. Death traps where Chris has to make choices like Saw, the Psycho being a stand-in for any slasher icon, the Ashley segments are basically a love letter to haunted house movies, the Mike segments that take place in an abandoned Sanatorium, and hell, the entire setting with a bunch of young adults in an abandoned lodge in the wilderness. Not to mention a bunch of jump scares that the game is perfectly aware are cheap, and actively calls attention to it. It throws practically every kind of horror at you, embracing all of those cliches. Even the characters play off these tropes: the clown (Chris), the cool one (Mike), the jock (Matt), the weirdo (Josh), the girl next door (Ashley), the bitch (Emily), the party girl (Jess), and the final girl (Sam).
And in doing that, it draws your attention away from the REAL star of the show that was lurking in the background the entire time: the Wendigos. Taking a scenario where everything that was happening until then had a twist or a reason behind it, and dropping a supernatural bomb in the middle of it all. And the Wendigo was a perfect choice for the monster; obscure enough that the game could tweak things here and there to make it more suitable for a traditional movie/game (to my knowledge, their weakness to fire and only being able to see movement are things completely original to the game), but well known enough that plenty of people will hear the name drop and go "Oh SHIT." And now that you know the characters are now in VERY REAL danger, the game also becomes a LOT scarier.
The problem that comes afterwards, is this: it's a spectacular trick, but it's a trick you can only pull ONCE. From then onwards, every time Supermassive does a new game, the first question people have is "Okay, but what's REALLY going on?" And in almost every single case, the answer just isn't satisfying to learn (ESPECIALLY Man of Medan and Little Hope, holy shit). The Quarry came the closest, but the game didn't do a good job at tricking the player at all. It's VERY easy to figure out what you're dealing with pretty early one.
Until Dawn felt like a love letter to the very concept of horror, while everything from Dark Pictures to The Quarry just feel like... any other entry in the genre.
That part where Jess was snatched out of the cabin was probably one of my favorites, especially after her monologue about her and Josh, saying "Give me a break!" only to hear the snapping sound of the hand as it grabbed her too, it just felt like such a good mix between horror and humor.
BREAK ME OFF A PIECE OF THAT KITKAT BAR-
I will never forgive this game for having the extra chapter with Emily and Matt as a preorder exclusive DLC. It should've been in the game and it gives way more insight into both Emily and Matt and gives us way more insight into their relationship as well. It elevates their characters in small and important ways and I'll never forgive its exclusion outside of being a preorder exclusive DLC.
Honestly, it should’ve been basegame
I need to see this chapter again it's been so damn long
My least favourite character in this game has always been Hannah. I know she's the catalyst to get the story going, but I find the way she behaves before she turns into the Handigo insufferable.
The prank was definitely not okay in any way, and having a crush on a guy who's in a relationship doesn't make one a bad person, but acting on it does. Emily and Hannah are friends! There is a picture to be found around the house that shows Hannah and Emily together. When Hannah finds the fake letter from Mike, she willing goes to him and starts to undress herself while he's the boyfriend of her good friend! Being infatuated or not, being naive or not, that's a no-go.
Running out into the woods during a snowstorm in the middle of the night is also a no-go and absolutely an overreaction. Lock yourself up in the bathroom, but this?
Also, it's her "incompetence" that in the end kills Beth. She's the one stumbling on their flight, she's the one falling down the cliff and dragging her sister with her, she's the one just hanging there like a wet sack, not trying anything to help herself or her sister.
Then in the mines... The other teens are running in and out the mine several times that night and Hannah simply... Doesn't. It's said that her leg was broken, but we find all the clues surrounding Hannah in the mines literally *scattered* around the mines. We know where she and Beth fell down, yet Beth's grave is in a completely different part of the mines, otherwise Emily would have stumbled over the grave and not just the removed cross.
I feel sorry for Hannah and the horror she went through, but to me she comes across as a passive, inactive and resourceless person who simply expects everyone around her to jump into action to save her (as is shown in the game when Beth says to passed out Josh that their naive sister got herself into trouble again and then jumps into action to find her).
I know I'll get a lot of heat for my pov, but I can't help it. I really don't like Hannah - even before the prank occured.
That's totally fair and I get where you're coming from, however as another comment pointed out it's pretty heavily implied based on her behaviour that Hannah suffers from some kind of developmental issue, which might explain why she does some of the stuff she does.
@@RatatTalks yeah, I've read that comment. And I don't agree with it. We don't know enough about Hannah to diagnose her with some kind of "developmental disability". People being naive and liking cute things doesn't mean they have a developmental disability.
@@awsome182 fair enough
100% agreed the girl was useless
THIS, all of this EXACTLY.
if Hannah has a million haters i'm one of them, if she has zero, i'm fucking dead
Whilst the prank was harsh, Hannah isn't a good friend. If we're going by the prom picture, then Hannah and Emily were close. Hannah knew Mike was in a relationship with Emily yet she still tried to make a move. It's a complete destruction of trust from both sides. Despite that, she still tried to get Mike's attention by running off. She's not a good friend and a manipulative person with 'main character syndrome.'
As someone has already pointed out, where she and Beth fell, it's not where the grave is. From what we know, Beth died on impact and Hannah had a broken leg. Then how did she manage to move Beth's body to bury her? Everyone who went into the mine a year later, easily navigated it within hours yet she got lost and someone wasn't killed by a wendigo in two weeks? She's a good villain disguised as a tragic character.
Yeah, Hannah is far from a great person, she’s clearly shown to put herself before anything else several times
She's a TEENAGER. Your ass is not calling a fucking teenager a villain for not having clear conceptions of boundaries.
I don't understand the last couple of sentences. What do you mean when you say "someone wasn't killed by a wendigo in 2 weeks"? I apologise for my poor reading comprehesion in advance.
I think you missed out on how good a character Mike is. Mike is my favorite character in the game so maybe I'm biased, but I see his story as someone who's been redeemed.
What Josh does to him mirrors what he did to Hannah. Mike taking part in the prank wasn't something he thought of, he thought it'd be funny or at least inconsequential. Josh thought the same when he sent Mike off into a cabin in the woods, leaving the main cabin to Sam, Chris, and Sam. Yet both have drastic consequences, with Jess and Hannah respectively being taken away, though neither dies.
Mike has always been passive up until the moment where he attempts to shoot Emily. He was passive in the prank and passive when Jess wanted to go to the cabin. Him going after Jess was a proactive move, but done more instinctively than with thought. Same thing with killing Emily, though that's done with fear. Whether or not he shoots Emily, he's being actively egged on to shoot her by Ashley, once again taking a passive role and listening to someone else. If he shoots her, then he once again makes a mistake by not taking action and realizes this when they find out the bite is harmless. If he doesn't, then it's the first time he's disagreed with something he was being pressured into and he's rewarded for it.
From then on, his character arc is complete. In the mines, he's making active decisions. He chooses to leave the bunker, chooses to cut his fingers off, to befriend the wolf, to help Chris with Josh, to break the lightbulb in the final scene of the game. He finally takes action not because he was told to do that, but based on what he thinks is right, and I think that makes him such a cool character
Damn, good Mike analysis, I already liked him but this is real compelling
Mike cuts off fingers and befriends dog before the shooting-Emily choice. And i don’t understand how being Hannah-bait is comparable to being sent to another cabin for alone time with his girlfriend.
I think mike is great, but not for these reasons you said. He has some petty fights at the beginning, and is possibly cheating with Emily. But when it came time for action it turns out he’s a remarkably solid ally and did everything he could to look out for the whole group.
@@-JaggedGrace- It’s been a while since I’ve seen the game so I forgot the timeline of events, that’s on me. But the Hannah-bait and being sent to the cabin thing is comparable because Mike was told to do both of those things by someone planning to do a prank (with Emily pranking Hannah and Josh pranking. Everyone I guess). And in both cases, Mike goes along with it. It’s moreso reinforcing the fact that Mike doesn’t really make choices himself, he acts along what others tell him to do
As for the timeline mix up, I think it still works tbh. In cutting his fingers off and befriending the dog, he’s learned to make actions for himself, and the moment with Emily can be seen as a test to that. If he shoots Emily, resorting to his own ways by listening to someone, then he’s punished for it and encouraged to keep making his own choices. If he doesn’t shoot Emily, then he’s encouraged to keep making choices for himself
The petty fights and maybe-cheating (I don’t think he’s cheating personally, since he has good chemistry with Jess, I think that’s moreso Emily trying to get back with him) just adds to his character and makes him more well-rounded imo. He’s not perfect, he’s very flawed, but the extreme situations that happen in the game helps him grow from at least one of those flaws
I know this is a months old conversation but as a fellow Mike enjoyer (he’s my favorite character) I never thought about it that way but it makes so much sense!
Mike being a passive character is a direct flaw that he clearly has (which is fascinating due to the fact that he was Class President, a role where the person makes active choices like planning for events) you can even contextualize his passivity with his relationship with Emily (Emily who clearly makes active choices throughout the game, being the one who decides to go to the Radio Tower) and Jessica (who organized the prank, making active choices) of course this doesn’t mean that Mike doesn’t make choices of his own (he absolutely does and is listed as having an ego I believe) but for a huge portion of the game he is relatively passive (as you mentioned)
Amazing analysis of a character
that I love!
I’m conflicted about whether or not I want to see the original cast of the game return for the film. On the one hand, it’s been a decade and seeing a new cast’s take on the characters would be cool. But on the other, they already have a super talented literally identical cast of actors they could use in the film 👀
I think they’ve announced some of the cast as of last week, so it’s all new talent
Honestly, I'm more worried about it being a movie. Cause, while I'm sure a movie could go quicker than the game, the game does take like 6 hours or so. So, I'd be worried about what they might have to cut or move past more quickly. Of course, I could just be worrying over nothing, but adaptations not getting enough time is always my biggest pet peeve.
@@GreenestLegion theres also the fact that the pull of until dawn is that you impact which of the tropey teens lives lol
@@katierasburn9571exactly I feel like the only way they'll be able to do the movie without getting a lot of hate for certain characters dying is if they either have all of them live or none
I think the thing is too we learn most of the characters have teenage, jerk issues that are what causes a lot of the underlying issues. For example, the prank while over the top and hurtful comes from the place of Hannah actively choosing to make direct moves on her friend's boyfriend while knowing he is dating someone else. Hannah never was truly innocent, and this type of behavior I think shapes other aspects that becomes interesting as despite being cruel it doesn't seem like to a level this isn't the first time others have warned Hannah to chill with her crush. Jess likely sets up the prank because she also likes Mike to some level, just able to keep those feelings secretive known there is something going on romantically with Emily and so when they get together it makes sense Emily could see it as being back stab to some level after everything that happened last winter. She does treat Matt terrible which isn't fair [and yet makes perfect sense as Mike's biggest comment in the prank was a lack of commitment to dating but Matt is deeply committed to Emily as almost an over correction on her end] but to everyone else, I'd say her jerk and spiteful commentary makes sense of not wanting to be around most of these people at a place that they all have likely unresolved trauma from the death of the twins. It's through these types of connections that are set up but not necessarily explained that makes it so Emily becomes a lot more of an understandable character to be enjoyable rather than just looking at her personality head on and why she's one of my favorites.
Yeah, a lot of the game would work out better for the characters if everyone was just a bit more emotionally mature
Hannah had a crush on Mike, but it's never shown he was making moves on her.
The thing I really hated about this game was the gaslighting.
Yeah, no one meant for those two girls to die from that prank, but not a single person who was in on it showed any remorse or even shame from what happened that night. The psychologist called it "A stupid little mistake." On the anniversary of their deaths, Mike and Jessica were throwing snowballs at each other, having a jolly old time. And somehow, the game wants you to see them as the heros while their brother is the villain? These people are garbage, and they all had it coming. What goes around comes around.
I laughed when Jessica told Mike about how insecure she is😂😂 As if the viscious prank she set up didn't make that obvious enough.
I swear the line 'IT WAS JUST A PRANK HAN' goes through my head at least once a day. I love this game and your video is so great!
I really appreciate that you took the time to specify which tribes have the wendigo as part of their folklore as well as not treating them as a monolith when it comes to beliefs.
The part about wendigo economics was also really interesting as it got me thinking on a bit of a different tangent. In folklore and fairytales, it's not uncommon for children to suffer as a consequence for their parents' misdeeds. So, in a way this story follows that trend with the Washington children all suffering death or becoming wendigo because of their parents' construction on the mountain.
With Chris, I can't help but wonder if part of his "it's us" is a similar bit of self blame that Josh has? Like I could see him also feeling really bad for being so drunk and for encouraging Josh to get so drunk that neither of them could help his sisters. Or maybe he had heard some whispers of the prank and didn't say anything cuz he assumed it wouldn't be too bad? I just feel like him only saying it to comfort Ashley isn't the whole reason. I also feel that he as well as Sam both realize that Josh is lashing out and calling for help, and that's why he doesn't stay as mad at him and still tries to keep him safe.
Personally I never felt that the reveal that Jack is a good guy was meant to be a twist to the audience. Even from the beginning I could tell he was just trying to help. I personally don't think the game was trying to sell the twist to US but to make us see how the characters could mistake him for a bad guy.
Thanks for the takes on Jack and Chris, both make sense. I really like the grimms fairy tales take and how it ties into the wendigo mythology put forward by the game.
The fact that Matt is my favorite character mostly because he had the tragedy of being forgotten by the writers half the time and him just kinda being there.
Also he was very considerate to Jess when they’re both running from Hannah in the mines
There's not much more to him than cute and dumb and I happen to like that in a character lmao
I love how much attention you gave to Josh, especially why he involved Chris and Sam.
I always had this headcanon/theory that the reason Josh also "blames" Chris for his sisters' death is that Chris, also being involved in the prank, convinced Josh to drink so much so that he would pass out and not be awake for the prank being planned and carried out by the group. The group knew Josh would try to butt in on the prank and prevent Hannah for falling for it, so a good way to prevent that would be his best friend to pass out with him with some alcohol, what a betrayal that would be, am I right?
And the whole thing of Josh calling out for help knowing Sam would understand him is spot on. People suffering from depression a lot of times do irrational actions to show their suffering, most of the time unaware of said intention, exactly like our dear Josh.
Great video! I like how you point out a lot of hidden connections between characters and their actions or role in the game, like Jess' relationship/connections with Mike and Hannah and even how Josh worships Mike to a degree, never really picked up on those, was great hearing new stuff about the game and its characters, amazing job!
Thanks for the comment, love the pfp.
In earlier builds Chris was more explicitly involved in the prank, and some of his older dialogue leaked into the released game, which may be why he says 'we' when discussing the prank. However, removing any metatextual explanations like this, headcanons such as yours do make sense, especially given how Chris is characterised as having an interest in pranking people.
@RatatTalks Thanks!
True! I forgot about that, I remember hearing stuff about that in the UD iceberg video someone made I think. I wonder why they changed it
Another point to mention, the ways how Handigo kills either Emily or Jess are always by removing their eyes and their mouth respectively, Emily is always shown as someone judgy by their eyes and how they treat people behind their back and only actually shows her personality through their eyes. Jessica is always a loud mouth who is always being loud and talking to her always, like the scene where she says shes gonna get with Mike. its a nice addition to a really well developed game.
One of my favorite things about this game is the method behind the choice based aspect and why I think it succeeded where the games that came after it fell short.
When you struggle to parse which choice to make to have a good ending, it’s always the MORAL one(decisions that fall outside of this are covered by the totems). If I remember correctly the proverbial trick to it first really becomes apparent during the shooting section where you can decide not to shoot the small animal(squirrel? bird?), but it goes into affect as early as not snooping through Chris’s bag. As opposed to in the Quarry where you’re faced with a similar choice, but the game wants you to do the more immoral thing and snoop to get answers. Until Dawn uses it’s theme of keeping the balance to guide you in which choices to make; it’s not about meta gaming, it’s about being a good person. (An idea which is reflected in many of the character journeys as well)
THANK YOU for not forcing a weird cringey cadence and spooky tone for this video
I'm afraid I don't have the voice to do that without sounding like a discord eboy straining his vocal chords
2 Minutes in and you’re paying more attention to the origin and culture of Native Tribes that the game incorporates. You’re a real one who actually does research instead of just reacting to things in a vacuum!
One interesting thing I've noticed about Mike:
Mike's honesty goes DOWN when you decide to reassure Jessica about her insecurities about herself, but when Matt interrogates him about meeting back up with Emily and Mike says that they were just making up and talking, his honesty goes UP. I find that very interesting.
I thought it looked like a flaw in the design
@@Stigmatix666 Usually I apply Death of the Author in situations like that for the simple fact that the director/writer isn't there to tell you whether something's intentional/a mistake or not.
Plus, I think it makes character analysis a bit more interesting that way. There's more that's up for the player to infer on their own about what things like that say about a character.
Granted, Mike's humour goes up if you choose to shoot Emily, which I think is kinda strange and I'm not entirely sure what to think of it since the end credits with Mike don't seem to imply that he took any kind of joy in killing Emily or thought it was funny or anything. He's more concerned about himself and if he'll go to prison.
That one still puzzles me a bit, so my best guess is that given the stress of everything that's been happening and the fact that Mike's already been through the sanitorium and saw the creatures for himself and saw Jessica die (or thinks he did, depending on how you played the game), for now I'm going with that being an indicator of his sanity slipping a bit.
@@XxWindpawxX Sounds plausible
Worth noting that if you choose not to reassure Jessica and instead try to seduce her... Mike uses literally the EXACT SAME line he used on Hannah in the prologue. So he's either seemingly telling her what she wants to hear to get into her pants, or just a sleaze with a single awful pickup line to his name. I appreciate that he cares enough to try to save Jess, but it was hard for me personally to like him at all after that no-win choice. Doesn't help that he makes so many terrible decisions as the night goes on but is constantly saved by plot armor EVEN IF you screw up the QTEs. Way too much of a designated hero for my tastes.
@@AlyssaJ14 That's entirely fair. Him being kind of a sleaze who's really good in crisis situations is what makes him interesting. That's why I like the whole cast - they're all deeply flawed and messed up, but very layered as well as being...y'know, dumb teens. The specific flavours of messed up each character is is what makes them so interesting to analyze.
Emily in-particular I've grown fond of over the years after I've spent more time analyzing her.
I really hope the remaster of the game adds in the scenes from the pre-orders bc it answers a very important question regarding Emily and Matt: *Why on earth would these two be together?*
honestly
That scene was already present in the game when I bought it 4-5 years ago..
To be honest Matt's section with Jess is probably one of my favorites. In their short time together they have a good chemistry, and him being there for her and helping her escape the Wendigo I think is pretty awesome. I also don't consider him a coward as he with the Flare probably has one of my favorite escapes from a Wendigo and he's one of the first to do it. Easy to miss but if you search around it really benefits the game.
Matt's the character that does some of the cool things if you're smart enough to keep him alive early. I wish he was given more to do, but I think Matt helping Jess is one the saving graces of his character, in all honesty I think if you rescued Jess with Matt, he should have been the person Jess talked about in her post-game interview more so than Mike whom to her knowledge ran after her but was unsuccessful in stopping her from being trapped in the mine.
Emily shows her true feelings for Matt when it means most at the end of the game, if you did the right things she'll be heartbroken that he didn't survive if he died, and she hopes he still wants to be with her if he survived and says she's dedicated to him. Emily may seem one dimensional but she's got a bit more beneath the surface than she shows. It's when she shows it and the mask slips slightly that I find her most interesting, along with her fantastic one-liners.
The thing I really hated about this game was the gaslighting.
Yeah, no one meant for those two girls to die from that prank, but not a single person who was in on it showed any remorse or even shame from what happened that night. The psychologist called it "A stupid little mistake." On the anniversary of their deaths, Mike and Jessica were throwing snowballs at each other, having a jolly old time. And somehow, the game wants you to see them as the heros while their brother is the villain? These people are garbage, and they all had it coming. What goes around comes around.
I laughed when Jessica told Mike about how insecure she is😂😂 As if the viscious prank she set up didn't make that obvious enough.
Imo Emily in particular deserved all the deaths she got, since after everyone of them you can tell her "It's just prank, Emily." 😆
@@KingSlayer_. Yeah pretty much. Josh's prank was nothing compared to theirs. Glad he's more sympathetic in the remake, although I already saw him as sympathetic.
I was SOOO excited when this game first came out. I played alone, in total darkness, headphones on and truly lost myself in the story. It was, and still is, incredible.
Yeah, I remember on release all the hype and how unforgettable my first experience with it was meant it was a long time favourite of mine
Near the beginning of the game, there is a quick time event to hit a bird with a snowball. Players might do it on purpose or reflexively, but you can also let the event time out and miss it on purpose. The UI pop-up after says "Sometimes nothing is the right thing to do" which I think is so interesting in the context of the larger game. When I played we ended up basically reciting that as a mantra (though we still stuck Mike's hand into an obvious trap 😅) as a way to remember not to rush more than we had to through decisions. But also at times doing nothing was absolutely the wrong choice. The key to getting the best ending was identifying when to act and when to do nothing...which is also the heart of all of the conflicts between the characters - they mostly make the wrong call when left to their own devices.
Emily and Jessica are my favorite characters of 2015. They're the whole reason why the story even started, because for one, Jessica instigated the prank, but she did it "to look after Emily" which is even more ironic because Mike simply dumped Emily for Jessica. I think they're the best characters of the game. Emily starts out as this character that nobody can stand, and everyone wants to kill, but her sequence in the mines and the buildup/atmosphere with her discovering clues about the twins while slightly figuring out how to survive is so amazing. Only for the buildup to give you the Wendigo chase, which is also my favorite action scene of 2015. I can't describe how much I went from disliking Emily to absolutely adoring her as a character. Her acting by Nichole Bloom is also amazing and she has a lot of really funny dialogue. I felt so awful for her when she gets threatened by Mike because she had to crawl out of that hell and nearly escape death only for her to get betrayed by her friends in such a dire situation when the answer was right under their noses.
I didn't think much of Jessica at first, but as I kept re-playing, I noticed how amazing her acting is. Firstly she has really good dialogue, and I love the fact you can discover her insecurities and how she keeps up the "hot girl act" is simply because of those. What I do hate is how Mike can only respond like a dismissive fuck, which in my opinion they truly robbed him of a great and wholesome bonding moment where he could actually comfort her over this. The way he "comforts her" is abysmal. But then again, Jessica got absolutely robbed in this game. Not only does she wake up in Chapter 9, but her sequence is extremely short. But I absolutely LOVE the fact she gets completely injured and nearly senile. It's the perfect punishment for her instigating the prank and the whole story. And not only that, but it ruins her dreams to become a model, and it doubles down on all of her insecurities. It's tragic, and perfect. Her sequence in Chapter 10 may be short, but I loved the entire sequence. For one, she meets up with Matt (which Jessica is conveniently his 2nd highest relationship) and I love their duo. Matt is a caring meathead and Jessica is broken and senile, they're just such an unexpected duo that works so well, I loved their acting together. And last but not least, Meaghan Martin's acting. She was able to play a joyful loudmouth and a broken husk of a person simultaneously, and she did it amazingly. Her intreview sections are short, but they're so great. I love how uncanny and mysterious they are, especially Sole Survivor Jessica, which is an amazing dark ending. I feel like it could even be considered canon with how oddly symbolic it is.
I don't have too much to say about Chris and Matt, but I really liked them. Sadly Matt gets shoved aside later on, but I liked what time these two had on screen. I'd consider them good characters.
I really, really don't know what to think of Sam and Ashley. Let me start with Sam. I love her acting, she's really sweet and she has the whole "innocent/main character" vibe to her, and I absolutely love her scenes with the Psycho because it's such a good example of "the innocents suffer" (also included the scene where Chris kills the squirrel) and it's a pretty good action scene that works nicely as a red herring, but it still has the dark implications of Josh recording her and drugging her, which means that they still work even if you know the twist. But my issue with Sam is, she is TOO flawless. She doesn't do a single mistake, and the game will always use her as a scapegoat character to "go fetch Mike/the indestructible main character in a dangerous situation" which made her even more shallow in my eyes. They really should have explored the whole "innocents suffer/Josh's obsession" plotlines more, or made Sam's kindness screw up the group at some point. I also didn't like how she "went insane" at the interviews (DESPITE THE ACTING being super amazing) because...idk, it came outta nowhere? She didn't show a single sign of insanity before this, and I feel like all of her sections at the mines with Mike felt super edgy and rushed.
About Ashley...I keep changing my opinion on her, but I guess she's an okay character. Her multi-layered personality of nice girl to absolute murderous psychopath is actually pretty cool. Her acting is very realistic as well. My only real problem is how her "LET ME CHOOSE TO SAVE YOU" line is something that can screw up a new player, when they should have added another way for Chris to survive if he shot Ashley (have Emily open the door for him to return the favor because he opened the door for her, and in the basement if she is bit, maybe Chris can defend her and we can have a nice little moment between the two) but anyways. I also SERIOUSLY doubt Ashley "froze" at the door. I'm pretty sure the developers also said she did not freeze, and it was purely out of revenge and anger. I feel like there's nothing wrong with that. Chris literally just shot her. The game ZOOMS IN ON HER FACE TO DEMONSTRATE THE FLASHBACK and I don't see how anyone can say she "froze" there. She touches the glass with rancor, she looks at him like she's about to admire his death and slowly backs away. That's not freezing. But I guess you could say she froze out of anger/revenge which is okay too. Also she literally acts like nothing happened down in the basement because when Sam/Emily comfort her, she just goes. "Okay. I'M FINE, SAM." in a clearly remorseful tone, to show that she didn't give a fuck about Chris's death, so yeah she literally doesn't care and it was ALL intentional. I wish Ashley could get a spot in the game's finale or a small fight scene with Josh, because the fact she never has to fight for her own survival or do anything aside not inspecting the trap door made me not interested in her character. Even Jessica in her catatonic state has to escape a life-or-death situation. But I think Ashley is an okay character and if she dies after killing Chris (or going insane) it's an even more symbolic thing. Sole Survivor Ash is also an interesting ending somewhat. She's a pretty complex character and she does her role well. I just particularly don't like her as much.
And now we have Mike. I really wanted to like this character, and I did like him initially before he had to chase Jessica. But after that, the game pulls him into this "badass main character survivor" role that I personally never saw him taking. His plot armor in Chapter 9 infuriates me because him surviving all of these events made no sense, included the fact he teleports to the entrance even if he gets tackled at the beginning. It also made him a very boring character in my eyes. He always makes it to the finale, and his death is never "pathetic or in vain" because it's always a sacrifice. He never re-unites with Jessica despite her being his whole plot device and reason for his character to be so active. Overall I think he's way too overrated and he's actually not that deep of a character despite everything else. His acting and lines are good and funny sometimes, but I don't rank him that high. I think his darkest/best moment is murdering Emily. Sorry Mike fans.
About Beth, Hannah and Josh? I like all of them. Josh is pretty complex and well-acted, and the game clearly sidelined him for a lot of the game. It's never really clear what he had planned for Emily/Matt and Jessica/Mike because you only find the severed pig head as Emily and the trashed cable car station, but nothing more. The only thing you find as Mike is that freaky mask in the car window, and that's about it. Hannah (human and Wendigo) has to be my favorite. The way she selfishly accepts Mike's request despite knowing he's together with Emily makes her a very deep character imo. The clues you find about her are very interesting, especially how you can find that one magazine that confirms she got the tattoo for Mike's sake, and she RAN AWAY to get Mike's attention. The whole game being her revenge is perfect, as well. Beth is one of my favorites, her acting is a little robotic sometimes, but I loved her final scenes with Hannah, they felt very sisterly and tragic. The scene where Emily finds Beth's head was so good too.
Stealing this comment as my next script, prepare to be plagiarised
@@RatatTalks lmao go ahead, glad my yapping could be of service
Based on your explanation of why Josh makes the game work, I wonder if that’s why the Quarry didn’t reach the same story telling level (aside from the subpar writing/dialogue). The cast of the Quarry just experience things happen to them because of happenstance, while Josh and the Until Dawn cast are deeply intertwined.
I’m scripting my video on the quarry and that’s a point that I’ve noticed, the characters are less overall connected to the horror
I think an issue with The Quarry's storyline is from its development. Supermassive tried *hard* to make the game branch off into as many endings as possible, and it ultimately meant that there couldn't be a linear storyline that they can rely on playing out in every playthrough. So, we got 100+ variations that naturally can not be as in-depth as the story of Until Dawn. There is a trade-off that happens between having that deeper storyline and having a game that is unpredictable in its story.
For example, Until Dawn is coded and scripted to always end with Sam and Mike in the lodge. That gives the developers the ability to flesh out a developed storyline and character arc for at least those two people. Also, the majority of possible deaths are in the final chapters. In The Quarry, many characters can die much earlier into the game, and for the story to make sense regardless of who's alive, that means less time to build character arcs. You can't script Emma and Jacob to reconnect with each other or another person in chapter nine when any combination of them could be dead by chapter four.
What is my favorite little moments from the game is when Chris is treated as some unexperienced apprentice by that flame thrower hunter guy when they’re walking in snow.
He’s interning as a monster Hunter
@@RatatTalks and then Mike comes in and takes the job anyway
I've rewatched Until Dawn game playthroughs several times, but I feel like now is the first time I fully understand the story, the characters, motivations, everything.
This cleared up so mamy things for me and now I just love the game even more. Thank you gor this! ❤
rami malek is so insanely good at portraying characters suffering from halucinations
Yeah, which is funny to me because I always remember my first introduction to him was in Night at The Museum where he plays a pretty straight up nice guy
Yassss say it louder EMILY IS ICONIC. People just can't handle evil women.
So true
Phenomenal heel work. You love to hate her
*narcissistic women..
She’s not evil she’s just trying her best to educate others on the effects of her palm hitting their face
@@theveganduolingobird7349 My point
The Wendigo yearn for the mines
They are much like children in this regard.
53:35 Hi! Clinical Psychology student here, you actually made a point before about him being in a "manic state" and according to the DSM V someone on a manic episode can also present psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delirium, so most likely he was suffering from Bipolar Disorder, which is very easily misdiagnosed as depression when the patient comes to consult while in a depression episode and in these cases prescribing antidepressants can even induce such manic episodes, so that just adds even more to his depth as a character:)
I completely agree with you--Josh is the core of Until Dawn, and the game is successful because of how many different ways his actions can be interpreted [alongside the well-rounded cast]. You could read Josh as someone who was strictly depressed with a tendency towards self-destructive behavior, who was taken advantage of by the Wendigo's Curse. You could also read him as someone who escaped the system and ended up misdiagnosed, displaying both the butterfly effect, but also the failure of the medical system, which is also critiqued in the sanatorium. I personally see him as both, as I tend to view things in an intersectional lens. I read him as depressed but also as a person with schizophrenia who comes from a family prone to mental illness and self-destructive behavior who was then manipulated by the Wendigo's Curse, whose effects may have even caused him to come up with the "Psycho Prank."
Another angle that wasn't really touched on in the video was reading Josh's character through a queer lens. As you pointed out, Josh makes a number of disparaging comments towards Ashley, and stole Sam's clothes to force her to move around naked; however, he also places Mike as the pinnacle of manliness and sexuality. While these actions and comments could be read as Josh wanting to help out Chris, or Josh taking advantage of Sam as a way to express his feelings, or Josh inheriting Hannah's view of Mike, I more so see these actions as Josh expressing jealousy, as Ashley is stealing away the attention of his best friend when Josh needs him most, or even stealing him away leaving Josh with unrequited feelings. I also always viewed Josh forcing Chris to choose between himself and Ashley to be more than a test of loyalty. I could see Josh's actions towards Sam to be done either in an actual misguided attraction or done in compulsion as Josh is recreating a 90s-esque horror film, where the expression of female sexuality followed by evil is not uncommon. Furthermore, as you stated Josh tends to pair himself with Sam due to her understanding nature, and he may have taken that concept of pairing further in an act of compulsory heterosexuality. Finally, Josh's comments about Mike could reveal not only his own insecurities about his own manliness and sexuality, which is a common queer experience, but could also reveal an underlying attraction that seems to be shared with most of the cast. This reading, while I believe it to be unintentional by the writers, allows Josh to take on an even more tragic character because it places all of his actions, once again in a new perspective. Perhaps one of the reasons Josh drank so much is because of his struggle with sexuality, perhaps his own sexuality is another reason why he is estranged from his father, perhaps the fear of not being accepted is why he never seems to reach out for help unless it is in the extreme.
Anyways, I went on a bit of a tangent, but needless to say this video is very well done and has me returning to Until Dawn once again. I haven't had a chance to view your other content, but I'll be sure to sift through it! On the flipside, this video essay leaves me pondering with why other games by the creators don't have the same following, such as the Quarry. Great analysis!
Nice to see someone did more than the 3 minute Wikipedia research on Wendigos. Excellent storytelling.
I'm subbed. I'm strapped in.
Honestly I’ve read so much about Blackwood and his changes to the myth in European/American psyche that I had to slip something in
I love that Until Dawn has become a game that people both remember fondly and love in retrospective, but most people feel like they can't fully explain WHY they liked it so much.
Has anyone else noticed that? How so many people seem to have gone, "this was great! Why was it so great, though?" in recent years, or is it just me?
I'm kind fascinated by Josh. The schizophrenic killer trope is many things, and none of them good. But Josh feels so authentic and vulnerable. I think it helps that he doesn't actually kill anyone, but also his problems feel so real and complex and not a shallow excuse for his character to be cruel. I think it's easy to see he had long-term issues before the game that were severely exasterbated by losing his sisters so violently and being misdiagnosed and mistreated. His behavior before the reveal read as attention seeking to me, making crude and inappropriate jokes for any reaction. It's like he's fighting to keep attention on him or else he night disappear. It also makes his 'prank' look even more in-character.
The thing with Ashley scene that can make it hard for people to get she froze was that she in fact backed away from the door, which made it seem like she purposely left the door closed
Yeah, but that might have been out of fear of the wendigo, as it is a glass door. I have no clue why it DOESN'T just come through the door to be honest.
I've been emotionally frozen in situations while backing away, it's possible. But yeah, they didn't do a good job of showing that Ashley was having a PTSD trigger, so everyone hates her and thinks she intentionally left Chris outside.
I thought the same thing for a long time, but the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced she was triggered and too overwhelmed to respond. That girl *loves* Chris, there's no way she'd purposely leave him like that.
In the groups defence for the begining of the game, some of the characters actually express disbelief in the moment that Hannah jumps straight to getting her clothes off when alone with Mike (suggesting that revenge porn was not on the agenda when filming the prank) and also, like, if my best friend decided to jump my boyfriend/my friends' boyfriend at the first opportunity, then yeah, i'd probably prank her too. None fo them expected it to end in two DEATHS.
Not just two deaths. More.
@@asha7389 That night ended in two deaths: The Twins, which was what I was referring to but yeah. Butterfly effect and all that
What bugs me about Matt is the three characteristics they give him. "Motivated", "Ambitious", and "Active" are basically synonyms that all imply he's going to be a driving force in the story, or at least that he'll be pushing to figure things out, but that's just not him at all. I think more accurate descriptors would be something like "observant ", "sensitive" and "cautious". Observant cause like the first thing he does is observe the interaction between Emily and Mike, sensitive because he takes it pretty poorly and then decides that the best time to bring it up is when Emily is in a POTENTIALLY LIFE THREATENING SITUATION, and cautious because I think that just feels more accurate? Idk, I just feel like he's the only character where you can pretty definitively say that his three descriptors are inaccurate. Loved the video!
Just wanted to add there is one more thing that Hannah's butterfly tattoo can be tied to though not from Creol myth instead Greek. Thanatos the God of death was often associated with butterflies which can also foreshadow her becoming the incarnation of death for the rest of the group
FINALLY someone who loves emily. she’s so compelling!
So many Emily fans in this comment section haha love to see it
Honestly, I'd like everyone to survive in the film, even The Stranger. It would be a good take that for once everyone is smart and resourceful enough to survive. Sure, have tension but having played the game several times, the ending of having everyone live is so satisfying.
Honestly that would be kind of neat
It would definitely be cool for the movie to be an ending not seen in the game
A few things, Emily has more to her than you put out if in Dr. Hills session where you choose Emily to be the worst. He states that her bitchiness is to cover her insecurities.
I actually like Ashley, she's very emotional and it's clear she has issues in intense situations and was willing to sacrifice herself when first given a chance (she believes it to be real, no chance that there was any hard manipulation in that) and if you've played the extended cut, you learn from Matt that she had gotten into drugs within the year. She's wrecked with guilt and stress and has lost all control.
I mentioned the Emily thing when talking about Josh, I played up how simple she was in her own section though I'll admit.
I get the Ashley thing, like I said she makes sense and is consistent, I just find her to be frustrating from a purely gameplay and narrative perspective.
@RatatTalks I must've missed it in Josh's section. Sorry if I did, I listened to the whole video while working, so I might've missed it. And yeah, I totally get why she's not liked, but I still like her character because she feels realistic.
Until Dawn plays with the classic cabin in the woods masked slasher film trope (Friday the 13th, Halloween) and then takes a twist into the female monster revenge stories, (Carrie, Jennifer's Body) and I LOVE that. It's so interesting.
In my ancestors legandarium, we didnt have Wendigo. We had basically Nessie but incm the Great Lakes. And giant disembodied heads that would haunt battlefields and eat naughty children out after dark. I would like to see a game about the Giant Heads.
It’s crazy how common Nessie type monsters are across cultures, I remember reading loads about it when I used to go up to Loch Ness with my family every year or so. If you can find a source on the giant heads I’d love to read something about them, that sounds really interesting!
Ogopogo?
Very nice! Some pedantic points: -Mike gets a wolf pet, not a dog.
-Hannah can kill Mike in the cabin by shoving him, but its probably a mistake on her part. So its more correct that she never intentionally kills him.
-Jessicas trait being confident is blatently incorrect and she even tells Mike this.
-Mike and Jessica being geniunly in love is something I disagree with. Its a shallow lust based relationship. COuld be more but true love? Nah.
-You think Matt is cowardly? I dont really see it. Matt leads the way against (implied to be possesed by angry spirits due to their eyes) the deer while Em cowers in fear. Hes mostly unable to do anything and his reluctance to want to confront a serial killer is pretty understandable. Even if you chose to abandon Jess, thats more egotistical than cowardly. Its not like he could have stood and fought.
-I think you oversell Hannahs humanity a bit. Mostly she simply attacks whoever she finds so thats why Chris gets in her crosshairs. Her only real human limiting is not attacking Mike or Josh, if Josh recognizes her. Its like 95% Wendigo, 5% Hannah.
-One of the main reasons the game is so good is that Mike gets to play this cool action hero. Yeah, hes pretty damn dumb but the game never truly faults him for it. Contrast that to the Quarry where his counterpart Jacob gets endlessly mocked, rejected and made fun of. Sometimes its nice to have a classic action hero doing heroic things.....even if he should have just stayed in the damned basement!
Thanks for the comment, I appreciate people giving disagreements because part of what I enjoy about art is how subjective it is.
The wolf/dog thing I was aware of, I just use dog because it's an endearing term common in gaming circles (you can pet the dog in ______ being a common meme about any new release)
Mike doesn't get KILLED by Hannah, but he does get his back broken, his death is only ever TECHNICALLY caused by himself or Sam, but yeah she does still attack him. Hannah is still, yknow, a big monster. Even when trying to frame it as a revenge narrative as I attempted, you can't really ignore the fact that she is still a wendigo. You're spot on there.
Mike and Jess is more than lust, as evidenced by a few conversations they can have about insecurities, but this is player determinant, so it's more of a 'they MIGHT actually have deeper feelings', entirely down to both player choice and player interpretation. True love maybe not, but for kids in their late teenage years it's as close as you're gonna get imo.
Building on this: Jess' confidence is feigned, yeah you're right there, but she loses the ability to even present as such at the end.
I do think Mike is cool, but I also like Jacob for the reason you mentioned,:he's goofy. Mike is a classic survivial horror protag/action hero as I've said, and I love all those tropes. I actually really like how they subvert him being a generic frat boy and make him genuinely heroic.
Matt having a series of decisions to abandon people, as well as the option to completely shy away from confrontation if the player chooses to do so, does paint him as cowardly, he also has a really low 'brave' stat iirc. That said, that's also player determinant.
There are so many possible interpretations based on player input and how peoples playthroughs go that I knew I wasn't going to be on the same page as everyone, but that's also what makes the game awesome.
@@RatatTalks Mhm. I guess I feel "love" should be primarily used on the best couple, Chris and Ashley. Who actually know eachother on a deeper level.
Jessica being "confident" is probably the only direct lie in all of these games for an character introduction. Its so goofy.
Player input is defintly a strange thing in these games. House of Ashes has an even better example: No matter what, Eric wants to get back with his wife Rachel. This gives him a strong characteristic while the player gets to decide how he tries to go about it. But what Rachel wants is entirely dependant on player choice. Thus making her character weaker. Matt is the same: Brave hero boyfriend doormat or scared jock who is super over Emily? Choices can be good but it can also be wierd.
Jacob had such an amazing setup. They just let him get killed way too early so they couldn't wring any proper character development out of him.
It would be like if Josh died before the big reveal.
@@RatatTalksI definitely agree that Hannah is 95% Wendio, but I also think your “revenge” narrative still holds. Even if Hannah is not consciously aware of it, it’s like the universe is helping get revenge for her. When it’s revealed that the Wendigo is Hannah, it adds so much weight to the story, like it’s the ultimate karma. The victim of the group’s cruel prank has now come back to kill them. I think the writers definitely intended it to be like a “revenge” story in some way.
When Mike is attacked in the finale for the second time he’s not only thrown he has his stomach cut open and thrown against a pillar getting his back broken as well. I only mentioned this because it seemed like no one noticed
When I played the game I really didn’t understand Chris and found him annoying in a “nice guy” kind of way but now with your analysis I see him in a totally different light.
I’ve seen quite a few people think like that about Chris and I totally get it, like I said everyone has pretty different views on the cast, that’s part of why it works.
To me Chris is the normal one in the group, he's just a normal dude
he might give off that vibe but he seems like a very normal and chill dude
can you elaborate more on the annoying "nice guy" trope on chris because i don't understand (he's the best character to me)
Agreed with Sam. Definitely one of my favorites of the bunch. I was a bit too immature when the game initially released to fully grasp most of the character nuance, so I appreciate this video. I love the fact that Emily has explicit regret for hurting Matt in certain endings, the fact that Ashley channels terror so effectively while both enabling and despising a lot of the petty cruelty around her, that both Sam, Chris, and Mike show different forms of bravery in good and bad ways. The new interpretations on Hannah and Josh are a great addition. Never considered those before.
I do think there's something interesting, at least vaguely, about Jessica. Not only is she left in the dark for the entire story, she's also very divorced from the gameplay. She arguably had the most to do with the prank as she had the most to gain. Yet one year later, she's barely a footnote in the butterfly effect she caused. It could just easily be her role in the story was effectively done, besides Mike trying to look for her. I think there's something to be said about consequences and how despite her attitude, she could effectively have an innocent heart. Obviously, she did something terrible. Unfortunately, Hannah is the one who ran out into the snow on a precarious, treacherous mountain of her own accord and Jessica could not reasonably predict what horrors would befall her. Could be a good case for her confidence in spite of her insecurities. Not a very substantial claim, since she does effectively nothing, but a thought that amused me. To give a little more credence to the revenge angle, the second case where Jessica can die is right before dawn, right next to an exit of the mines. She would get denied exactly the salvation Hannah needed herself.
TL;DR: Gud vid. K thnx by.
I'm not the biggest fan of Emily, but the more I watch videos about Until Dawn, I get why people like her. Emily's lines are definitely iconic but she does remind me of someone toxic in my own life. I do enjoy that she's smart and resourceful, I just can't unsee who they remind me of. I was also weirdly a fan of Josh but I'm also a bit of a Rami Malek fan as well.
Emily is a person thats entertaining and interesting to watch but horrible as friend. She may not be evil but she is quite toxic
@@johans3164 I definitely agree with your take. Well put!
About once a year, I end up watching another playthrough on Until Dawn. As I've done so, I've often wondered why I'm not pulled to the other stuff SuperMassive has done like it. Recently saw a playthroigh of Devil in Me by Jacksepticeye, and he mentioned not gettinh enough time to get to know the characters before the horror really starts, and after seeing your video as well, I agree. Until Dawn did a beautiful job showing who the characters were before anything crazy happened, and then what we see from them is either subtle or hidden things being revealed or obvious traits coming out even stronger. I'd say the Quarry does a decent job, but I still come back to the characters of Until Dawn. I totally agree with your description, "lightninb in a bottle." To catch it again may not feel the exact same, but it can be neat.
Yeah, the game seems to have aged better. To my knowledge supermassive had issues internally that only cleared up around the time of the quarry, and a rocky relationship with Sony. Hopefully renewed interest in until Dawn with the remaster and the movie will encourage them to try innovate instead of copying, hopefully with a more coherent development cycle.
My interpretation was always that Josh didn't start acting this over the top or sexuality aggressive until the accident, and his friends let him because it was easier to wince and move on than to get him to open up.
I guess why I find Josh frustrating despite this is because we have no "before" Josh in the story. He's not a part of the prologue, so we don't get to see him as a person anyone there actually likes (not pities). Everyone in-game only talks about how hard the accident was on him, not even mentioning how he's changed. Just that he never talks about it. I find it frustrating because his behavior is never commented on by anyone except for "huh that was kinda weird". He's treated as a chekov's gun at worst and "a pitiable person not to be addressed" at best. It's so dehumanizing for someone I view as the main character of the game, but who isn't the protagonist.
Also Jack is a lame character that brings down the horror and plot who was only added to acknowledge tropes lol
I love this analysis so much, Emily is my favorite character in the whole game not just because she’s iconic (which she is) but because she is the most intelligent and resourceful character, she survives the Handigo without any information and uses her quick thinking to get out, I also have some things that I think should have been talked about tho, specifically with Ashley, Ashley doesn’t ACTUALLY show remorse for the prank or Hannah, if you choose to her honesty goes down, she doesn’t care about Hannah and only cares about appearing as nice, and this can also put her killing Chris in a different light, even though canonly she froze and panicked, it would make sense for her character with this context to not let someone in, also Hannah is very heavily implied to have some sort of developmental disability as she’s described and naive by pretty much all of the cast, and her room shows her being very child like even though she’s around the same age as the rest of the cast
Adding on to this (because this is my favorite game and I love talking about it) I think a huge part is they’re all still teenagers, they’re 18-19 with the only 20 year old being Mike I’m pretty sure, they’re just becoming adults and none of their brains are even fully developed yet, it’s especially important in the cases of Jess and Em, both girls are seen as these scapegoats of the cast, and a lot of the fandom either hate or love them, with some people going as far as saying they “deserve to die” and while nobody deserves to die in general I think it’s especially interesting that the two mean girls are condemned to death by fans because they are mean, they both get their own redemptions/rebirths by the end (with both coming out of a cave, which I saw the comment that in some cultures represents a womb) but still some people think they deserve to die just for mistakes or personalities that they both have very solid reasons for making/having
Wow I didn't know that was potentially implied with Hannah!!! Definitely going to look more into that as that makes the prank more upsetting
@@katiemadsen5325 yes it’s actually very sad! As someone with autism myself I always related to Hannah and how she was seen as naive and kindve picked on by the group! Hannah becomes even more tragic and her revenge even more potent with the context
Interestingly when drafting this I had a section speculating on Hannah, I initially believed she might share symptoms with Josh because of the hereditary nature of his illness and how disconnected from reality she seems, but couldn’t find enough evidence for it. The developmental issue theory makes a lot of sense and I thank you for sharing it, alongside the insights into Ashley.
No, just no. Don't "diagnose" Hannah as someone with a developmental disability simply because she's naive! This is really getting out of hand!
I know exactly why it worked, because it was a real story and my real I mean, the characters in it were entirely relatable in every facet of the imaginable stereotype.
Yeah, they were all pretty common archetypes, but with enough chemistry and personality to stand out.
We all know at least one person like this irl with the characters' traits. The attention seeking Hannah doing stupid thing, the you know shes smart but u still dislike her Emily, the Peace n Chill Sam, the Jokester hides insecurities Chris, the GF doormat Matt, the complicated Josh, the ok-friend but not so ok action Ashley.
As an Emily stan since 2015 seeing her finally appreciated in recent Until Dawn video's is sooo good. Top tier essay!
I think what also adds to the saddness of Josh's character arc, his choices and treatment of other character, and the cautionary tale of the Wendigo is that it makes Josh a tragic character. Josh's symtoms of depression and most likely schizophrenia that got ignored during his toughest times when he needed help most. The complete blame of himself for what happened to his sisters despite not being involved in any way. And even his ending(s) to this story. No matter what you do and no matter what choices you make, you can't save Josh. It's almost as if he was doomed from the start.
Until Dawn is an absolute masterpiece. It is funny how I absolutelly hated Mike, Emily and Jessica and in my attempt to get rid of them early, I saved all characters. They all started to grow on me after chapter 6 and I did my best to save them. Everyone was alive in the end, but Emily was bitten. It was a blind playthrough, only knowing the final part of the game a bit since I got a spoiler years ago. I absolutely did everything I could to protect Matt, Chris, Ashley and Sam. They felt like the best characters. Looking back at it, I totally agree with what you said. Also, Josh was a bit weird but fine. I was neutral until it was revealed he was the psycho. Then I felt bad when I found out he had a mental illness. I also love how the game rewards you for paying attention. After playing the game, I researched alternate paths and I was glad I paid attention to the game. It prevented me for falling in the trap that can kill Ashley and Chris.
This is THE best Until Dawn character analysis video currently available on UA-cam. Thank you for sharing.
48:36 filming Sam in the bath could purely be because of the horror movie trope, Josh is using his knowledge of horror movies to scare them after all. But it is still weird.
Yeah, his entire plan is just super tropey, so there's every chance he's just leaning into it, but he makes comments about wanting to 'help' her in the bath prior to starting the prank, so there was at least a mild amount of intent there - as is shown consistently, Josh tells us a lot about himself through semi-ironic jokes
It could also be that while Sam didn't take part in the prank she knew about it alluding to how she just "watched" as it all went down and didn't do anything, probably a reach but still something to think about
He wanted her to feel the violation filming his sister undress equals to. Definitely the more you think it feels like josh is treating sam like surrogate sister and putting shit on her is his way of crying for help
@@Peachu_n_Goma_Homeoh this is a good analysis
I always just thought, “Man, Mike really redeemed himself and him & Sam make such a good team that it’s almost like the games loves them as much as I do and makes it hard to kill them.” I never connected the dots that there’s a story reason for Han-digo not dragging them away or mauling them easily and they’re her 2 favorite people besides Josh & Beth, so she would try to save them, but in a different way than Josh. I knew she was conscious enough to recognize Josh, but I assumed it was because he’s her own blood
That was part of why I still liked Mike following my learning that he just can't die, it recontextualised him rather than making the games obsession with keeping him alive feel cheap
@@RatatTalks While watching the play through of someone who didn’t like Mike, I actually got more appreciation for Mike because Dr. Hill defends the person you say you hate the most. Dr. Hill says something about Mike being afraid to be left alone”. This explains why he’s in some ways a leader and so is class president, and why he can make major decisions that can be very sweet, like petting Wolfie or, very voilent like kicking him, because he has people he wants to protect & he takes that job very seriously so he doesn’t end up alone. He quickly accepts Jessica as his girlfriend so he won’t be alone as well. He doesn’t sound cold when he’s about to shoot Emily, he sounds threatened & like he’s trying to be resolute that this is what’s good for the group
It makes me wonder what his background and family is like if he’s so terrified to not have a girlfriend and his own pack. But what makes me really appreciate him is when he teams up with Sam because although sometimes he freaks and starts yelling & swing his pistol around, he’ll cooperate as a team & she’ll snap him back to reality and force him to think. He lets her lead and at times, she goes first and you see him carefully following her. After she tells him to split, he’s very understanding of Josh and leads him as best he can, before Handigo kidnaps Josh. Mike has drive to lead & protect & even work as a team, but he just needs firm direction and a snap to get him to think things through and that’s why so many hoped we would get a sequel with Sam and Mike surviving some other horror, especially with the added element that Sam’s caring nature is broken and she’s so spent at the end. She for the first time, knowingly sends people to their death. Seeing Sam so disconnected with life will definitely force Mike to think things through carefully on his own for the the two of them because Sam isn’t capable of hope anymore
"Understand the palm of my hand" followed immediately by "Emily is an S-tier character" is exactly what I was hoping for.,
All the most iconic line reads are done by Emily, 'It was just a prank Han' is burned into my brain.
@RatatTalks they should have had her turn into the wendigo, because she ate them all up 😩
One thing I do really like about Until dawn that i wished more people talked about is the artwork for the cover of the game.
It seemed weird to me why in a game where the Butterfly was such an important symbol, that they didn't use it for the art cover, the art however is heavily inspired by an art tradition behind the term Momento mori.
Mostly the term is associated with the inevitability of death but it can also be interpreted as not to get greedy living.
It might just be coincidence but I'd like to think that the artist behind the cover drew connection between the curse of the wendigo being associated with greed as well as death and gave the it a very fitting multiplied meaning.
This props wasn't the case but always fun to speculate :)
Never noticed this so thanks for the comment, I totally see what you mean
Chris and Sam are my favorite characters! When the game first came out I was consuming ALL the fan content, and if I remember correctly, people called Chris and Josh's ship "Climbing Class" and I always thought it was so cute.
Haha that’s such a cute ship name
omg me too i love chris sam and josh so much they're such a good trio in contrast to the drama-filled other characters. btw can you tell me where do you search for fan content of until dawn? i want to know the ships so bad
I was obsessed with this game's story when I was a kid, and years later I had forgotten how fucking awesome Until Dawn is. Thank you for making this video.
I really appreciate you delving into the topic of wendigo psychosis and the criticism of colonialism altering the actual mythology as well as the discussion of wendigo economics. It is essential that you’ve mentioned this, great work
And now it’s being remastered for its 10th anniversary. Improved lighting, remaster musical scores, fixed plot holes involving Jessica, Matt, and Ashley, updated character models, and new ambient sounds… what a time to be alive
The updated character models look stunning, I've been watching all the released footage with a giant smile on my face. Going to be awesome.
This game absolutely captured the zeitgeist of that era.
For sure
small channel posts a 1 hr video on a game i’ve never actually played myself (but watched lots of playthroughs of) ?? SIGN ME UP !
same. Never played the game buy loved watching walkthroughs
I watched this on the treadmill and was physically nodding at your takes on Jess, then when you got started on Emily I paused and subscribed. Thanks for helping me take care of my health!