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Gray MatterSPOILERS! Various story-related questions(11 posts)(11 posts)
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Posted January 16, 2015
Just completed Gray Matter! A very nice little game, but I have a small handful of story-related questions I hope y'all wouldn't mind helping me answer.

1. When Angela runs out, Sam gets to see Dr. Styles without his mask. "Your face..." she comments. Seeing his face, it looks to be completely healed, not burnt at all. Why was his face healed? Was it permanent?

2. Sam found a box under Helena's bed containing some syringes, and concluded that she was using drugs. This makes Sam more suspicious of her, but as far as I recall it doesn't come up again. Was Helena actually on drugs? What kind?

3. So Angela had been born with extraordinary powers, like her father who was a renowned magician. She could not control her powers, and ended up accidentally killing her own father. She starts at Oxford to seek out Dr. Styles, knowing he is interested in paranormal research and hoping he might be able to help her. When she approaches him, she is rejected. Angry, she ends up killing two people later the same night, one of whom is his wife Laura. May or may not have been an accident. She has a breakdown, and starts to believe that she is Laura, making appearances for Dr. Styles.

Did I get everything right?

4. What was the ghostly image in the background of the photograph? Presumably it was Angela (or her spirit) who was following them?

5. Linkweller had nothing to do with anything, and was just a red herring?
Posted January 16, 2015
1. It was never explained, I always thought the mask was due to a psychological problem rather than physical, i.e he want to hide himself from the world after his wife death - that sort of thing.

2. Again, it wasn't explained at all.

3. I don't understand it like that, I think it was her way to get revenge by tormenting Styles rather than actually believing that she is Laura.
Posted January 16, 2015
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evileivind: Just completed Gray Matter! A very nice little game, but I have a small handful of story-related questions I hope y'all wouldn't mind helping me answer.

1. When Angela runs out, Sam gets to see Dr. Styles without his mask. "Your face..." she comments. Seeing his face, it looks to be completely healed, not burnt at all. Why was his face healed? Was it permanent?

2. Sam found a box under Helena's bed containing some syringes, and concluded that she was using drugs. This makes Sam more suspicious of her, but as far as I recall it doesn't come up again. Was Helena actually on drugs? What kind?

3. So Angela had been born with extraordinary powers, like her father who was a renowned magician. She could not control her powers, and ended up accidentally killing her own father. She starts at Oxford to seek out Dr. Styles, knowing he is interested in paranormal research and hoping he might be able to help her. When she approaches him, she is rejected. Angry, she ends up killing two people later the same night, one of whom is his wife Laura. May or may not have been an accident. She has a breakdown, and starts to believe that she is Laura, making appearances for Dr. Styles.

Did I get everything right?

4. What was the ghostly image in the background of the photograph? Presumably it was Angela (or her spirit) who was following them?

5. Linkweller had nothing to do with anything, and was just a red herring?
(1) I don’t really know, the animation was too blurry. I suspected that she saw his scarred face, although at the time I didn’t understand why she would have reacted like that (knowing fully well that he was injured by the fire and likely wearing the mask to cover his facial scars). It might be possible that he wore the mask for psychological reasons (e.g. guilty conscience) indeed, but again, I couldn’t see it clearly.

(2) If you think about it, Sam was searching for clues that would incriminate one of her peers. Instead she found clues against each one and started conjecturing. Helena’s apparent addiction could have led to bribery, Angela’s obsession could have made her do crazy things to grab Styles’ attention, Malik was working for Linkweller and could have wanted to sabotage the experiments, Harvey could have done this for a better film script and with Charles there was the suspicion of impersonation/fraud. Although Malik, Harvey and Charles were eventually exonerated, Sam believed that it was Helena who was to blame, at which the point the whole writing was directed at Helena and Mephistopheles. I think it was nothing but a ruse to throw us off, to keep Angela away from the spotlight.

(3) Difficult to say. She does seem a bit delusional towards the end, but it is never revealed. Maybe she does have some form of schizophrenia. Personally, I think that is the likely explanation, although I could see how she would impersonate her out of malice, after driving Styles mad.

(4) Don’t know.

(5) See (2).

---

Personally, I suspected Angela much earlier. When Sam couldn’t find any clues in Styles’ manor and the tower hinted at a stalker-type, I immediately made the connection with Angela’s obsession (the clues found in her room were so overwhelming). At that point the writing was already completely focussed on Helena and Mephistopheles, however. This final part is what rubbed me up the wrong way, this forceful ignoring of Angela as a suspect and the supernatural conclusion.

I also found it odd that Styles never remembered that he met Angela before or that Angela would risk getting near Styles with the experiment. It all didn’t satisfy me.
Posted January 17, 2015
1. As far as I understood it, Styles could not live with the thought of himself being unhurt while his wife died. So he startet seeing himself differently from how others see him. When he looked in the mirror, he saw a scarred face, but as other people told Sam before (e.g. Mrs. Dalton or Styles' dean whose name I forgot), Styles was not seriously injured during the accident. Dr. Hellborn as well gives an explanation for that by telling Sam, that if a person loves another person very much, the other person becomes part of the own personality. His wife burnt to death, so Styles believes, that he must have been burned too. So since his face is not really burned (seems like it got some scratches or minor burnes though, but it is not very clear to see), he is convinced that it is and sees himself this way.

2. I think this is some sort of red herring. It is not said, what kind of drug is in that box, but it must not necessarily be something illegal. Maybe Helena is diabetic or suffers from some other sort of illnes. Or maybe an allergy.

3. What you write is pretty much how I understood it. Most paranormal things happen, while Angela is asleep. So she probably does not conciously control them, they rather happen due to thoughts or feelings she had before falling asleep. It might well be that she regretted the pain she caused when she got aware of it. She seems to be a person who does not really want to harm anyone (at least not while she's thinking sane), e.g. she wantet to study something related to medicine, something to help people. So it might be, that the guilt drove her insane. She wantet to replace what she took away, meaning replacing Laura.

4. That's what I thought. But it might as well just be some sort of shadow coming from an object in the room.

5. Yes, he's just an a**.... a very unsympathic person.

@ Eitot:
Styles said, that he can't remember anything that happened the day before the accident due to shock and trauma. It is not told that he ever had contact to Angela before, exept of that day. That would explain, why he does not remember ever meeting her before.

Sorry for my bad English. I'm trying to improve. ;-)
And of course that is all just the way I interpreted it. I could as well be wrong.
Post edited January 17, 2015 by ClusterRat
Posted January 22, 2015
Thanks a bunch for all the answers and speculation so far! Just going to add some speculation myself to my very first question:

1. It might be Angela healed him, either temporarily or permanently. When they're sort of reliving the past, how things used to be, could be that was projected through Angela's powers somehow, making his body normal again.

Also, I thought of a few more questions which you hopefully won't mind helping with. In particular the first two ones.

6. Why did the experiments lead to the odd occurences? The pattern on the running track, the colour in the pool, the weights getting stacked, and the invidible discos attack in the dining hall. Because Angela fell asleep during the experiments, and is unable to control her powers?

7. In the final experiment, why did it happen in the dining hall? Why didn't it happen at the place where the scenario was imagined, i.e. the running track?

8. Anyone know if any content was cut? I was expecting we'd get to enter Dr. Styles' office, and the other "student hall" (or whatever it's called) in Oxford which is usually guarded, and I was both surprised and disappointed when we didn't. It seems very unusual to have visible, clickable locations in an adventure game which you don't end up visiting. Then you usually don't make those locations visible or clickable.

9. I guess Laura's ghost was actually lingering around the house? As Dr. Styles sets up the machine to talk to her, and she spells out "imposter". So presumably some of the strange phenomena could have been from the actual Laura.
Posted January 22, 2015
Lots of unanswered questions indeed, you keep on rubbing it in. ;-)
Posted January 23, 2015
6. She seemed to have fallen asleep. So you're probably right.
Also in chapter 8 we learn, that all these occurences are tied to this picture of Angela's father. Maybe the experiments or the closeness to Styles bring up old memories in her that lead to the things that happen.

7. As far as I remember, that is not explained in the game. Maybe Angela was just hungry and thougt about her next visit in the dining hall before she fell asleep.

8. I don't know about any content being cut. But in some scenes I had this feeling, that puzzles were missing (e.g. I expected that I had to find out myself, which part of Angela's brain was that extremely active one rather than Styles just telling which it was), maybe because running out of time or money. As far as I know it took extremely long to develope Gray Matter, because the original developers had to declare bankruptcy and others had to take over.
But I don't remember ever seeing a hotspot for Style's office. Did we see that office somewhere in the game (even if just from the outside), except during the hypnosis-session?
I'm not completely sure what you mean with "other student hall". Do you mean the part for the graduated students which could (or better: could not) be entered using those right stairs in St. Edmund Hall? We actually do enter this part of the building, just not via these stairs but from the back through the part where the undergraduates live.
Angela and Malik live in that graduate-part.

9. I think it was intentionally left open, where that rolodex-message came from, so that every player can speculate him-/herself. I think, there are three possibilities.
a) It might be Laura's spirit that couldn't leave before "the case was solved". Maybe Styles was clinging so hard to her / her memory, that she was bound to him until he starts "being healed" and going on with his life. So she gives him a warninig, that Angela (her killer) is close to him and might harm him.
b) It might be Angela, either with her special powers or simply sneaking in to make him suspicious towards Sam. Angela is obviously jealous of her living in his house and gaining his trust.
c) It might be Styles himself. Maybe he is sleepwalking or something of that kind. Or in his grief he has moments he does not remember later in which he manipulates the rolodex, because he so desperately wants to get a message from Laura.
Personally, I prefer a. :-)
The other phenomena... the ones happening on campus... were caused by Angela. We learn, that they are all connected to the picture of her father we can see in her room. The pattern on the running track is the same that's on his tie. The weights look like.. I think that is his tie-pin? And the colour of the water is again the same as the colour of his tie. So Laura probably has nothing to do with that.
Posted February 01, 2015
I give the game a new round and ask myself: Is there anywhere explained in the game what it is with Sam's Bracelet, which is like Dr. Styles' Mother ones. It's only mentioned again when Styles meats Sam in the Daedalus Club. But somewhere else too?
Posted February 01, 2015
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RPGler: I give the game a new round and ask myself: Is there anywhere explained in the game what it is with Sam's Bracelet, which is like Dr. Styles' Mother ones. It's only mentioned again when Styles meats Sam in the Daedalus Club. But somewhere else too?
I think Sam said she bought it at some market place, because she likes old things.
Maybe it was just a lucky conincidence, that it looks like the one Style*s mother owned. Or maybe it was just that special one, that was sold after she died. Or maybe it was fate, that Sam bought just that special bracelet.
I think some things are intentionally left open, so the player can decide him-/herself what he or she wants to beliefe. Was it fate or was it just a coincidence? Or maybe the spirit of Laura trying to find someone who can help her beloved husband? (As far as I remember it was just that piece of jewellery that made Styles hire Sam.) Who knows?
Post edited February 01, 2015 by ClusterRat
Posted March 22, 2015
I just finished the game myself. I was hoping it would be answered who the woman at the start of the game was, the actual new assistant before Sam replaced her, and what happened to her. Did she get kidnapped or something? Or maybe had cold feet and ran away? Or maybe it was Sam imagining a situation to get into the house? But that would be some coincidence if she knew somehow that they were looking for a new assistant.
Posted March 22, 2015
When Sam got to Style's House to ask for help, she heard that other girl practicing the speach for her application as Style's assistant. Due to all those creepy rumors about Dr. Styles the "real new asssistant" was quite nervous. When a piece of plastic hit her (I think it is not sure whether Sam threw it at her or if it was just the wind) she panicked and ran away. (Seems as if her cab had just waitet outside the mansion.) Then Sam took over.
Post edited March 22, 2015 by ClusterRat
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Gray MatterSPOILERS! Various story-related questions(11 posts)(11 posts)
(11 posts)