What’s the connection between Millicent Clathermont and Mr. Eaten? I’ve gathered that the woman in lilac you meet when you get St. Erzulie’s candle is not Clathermont herself but a portion of her that she left behind when she gained the power to manipulate irrigo somehow. But why is she giving away a candle in the first place?
Quite simply, Millicent isn’t giving away a candle at all, because she doesn’t exist. By her own admission, she’s a figment of the player’s imagination. The player isn’t exactly living in reality by that point in SMEN anyways, so what better place to befriend the ghost of a memory? It’s not like they ever leave the Nadir, probably, maybe.
There’s no actual connection between the real Millicent/Lilac and Mr. Eaten that I know of. The only link is that Lilac makes extraordinary tattoos, such as the Name might be. If you got a tattoo from her at the Feast of the Exceptional Rose, you may have even noticed an option to get such a tattoo. (Nothing of note happens.)
I guess this is all a matter of interpretation, but what other aspects of SMEN are figments of the player’s imagination? I guess you could interpret Winking Isle that way but the calling card seems to be an actual object.
Does Millicent appear anywhere else in Fallen London as a hallucination? I interpreted her appearance in Sunless Sea that way, at least.
Note that you can also talk with this memory ghost of Lilac before ever encountering her in the Nadir, searching for St Erzulie’s candle. This is if you sail to the Chapel of Lights and/or Southward, which you can do with only St Cerise’s candle.
Here’s a thought experiment: how about the possibility that our character never actually wakes up from the Nightmare Carnival? After all, we look into a "special" mirror there, and even in the regular (not Nightmarish) version of the carnival, those mirrors can be fatal and/or drive one insane.
Everything which follows on the Seeking Road can be a figment of the character’s imagination, possibly while they are locked up in the Royal Beth in a room adjacent to the Fidgeting Writer.
edited by dov on 4/25/2017
In my interpretation, her Sunless Sea appearance is in fact the real Lilac, hitching a ride to somewhere and using her irrigomancy to avoid awkward questions.
[quote=dov]Here’s a thought experiment: how about the possibility that our character never actually wakes up from the Nightmare Carnival? After all, we look into a "special" mirror there, and even in the regular (not Nightmarish) version of the carnival, those mirrors can be fatal and/or drive one insane.
Everything which follows on the Seeking Road can be a figment of the character’s imagination, possibly while they are locked up in the Royal Beth in a room adjacent to the Fidgeting Writer.
edited by dov on 4/25/2017[/quote]
But those who get the Knock definitely have it afterwards.
They are also definitely down one ship, which is a fairly substantial bit of equipment to go into thin air. I think that even if the player character is increasingly detached from reality, there has to have been at least one genuine Zee voyage there. Or Zee shipwreck anyway.
The one thing is, Lilac does appear to have knowledge of Eaten. With the Name tattoo option, she says “you know where to go”, as if she, too, knows where to go for Eaten.
Also, doesn’t Millicent say something like “I am the part that she left behind” and talk about how Lilac gave up part of herself to the nadir to be able to return to the surface? Is that 100% the player’s imagination, or did Lilac actually leave something in the nadir?
I think that’s just because of the way Alexis programmed it. I actually went to the chapel of lights without getting Erzulie’s first, and the voice talking to me made zero sense. Add the fact that you need Erzulie’s to actually finish getting Forthigan, and it’s pretty clear the story is that you went to the nadir before the chapel.
[quote=Teaspoon][quote=dov]Here’s a thought experiment: how about the possibility that our character never actually wakes up from the Nightmare Carnival? After all, we look into a "special" mirror there, and even in the regular (not Nightmarish) version of the carnival, those mirrors can be fatal and/or drive one insane.
Everything which follows on the Seeking Road can be a figment of the character’s imagination, possibly while they are locked up in the Royal Beth in a room adjacent to the Fidgeting Writer.[/quote]
But those who get the Knock definitely have it afterwards.
They are also definitely down one ship, which is a fairly substantial bit of equipment to go into thin air. I think that even if the player character is increasingly detached from reality, there has to have been at least one genuine Zee voyage there. Or Zee shipwreck anyway.[/quote]
Well, obviously in this scenario, that, too, is just in the character’s imagination :-)
This thread has successfully made me more confused than before I asked the question. I guess I should enjoy the rest of SMEN before I ask more questions.
edited by vahalla on 4/25/2017
>>>Is that 100% the player’s imagination, or did Lilac actually leave something in the nadir?
I believe she leave memories about Eaten behind. Because there is no way masters/Bazaar allow anybody to appear under star’s gaze with that knowledge.
She also have studied tattoo techniques of Chapel of Lights, maybe she learned about St. E candle in the same time.
edited by Waterpls on 4/25/2017
I dunno, the idea that our character is just imagining everything is unsatisfying to me. How I’ve thought about SMEN so far is that our player is being compelled somehow by supernatural forces to go through the same suffering Mr. Eaten did, but I wasn’t sure how Clathermont and the Nightmare Carnival tie into that.
The Nightmare Carnival is the place where you are asked, explicitly, whether you would like to go through the suffering Mr Eaten did.
There’s such a thing as etiquette. Even on a literally soul-wrecking quest.
Endangering a fracture on the fourth wall, since one can interact with other player characters via social actions and those actions have tangible results on non-seekers, I’d suggest that a person bearing the Knock, is truly a citizen of Fallen London and not an asylum inmate.