Myst (series)/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

 * It took me a while to realize that the password that opens up the exit to the Mechanical Age in Myst is actually a representation of everything you had to do to make it there. The C is for the two C's you had to align to get the elevator working, then there's the icon representing the elevator buttons you had to figure out to access the rotation controls, then the third icon is three spikes and a circle, representing the three surrounding islands, two of which have round platforms that show you parts of the password while one has the round platform you put the password into. The last icon is a semicircle which I saw as representing the fact that you have to go back to the entrance where the semicircular gear is.
 * The five sounds needed in the Selenitic Age are the sounds of whistling rocks, running water, blowing wind, rumbling lava, and a broken clock. If rocks are taken to represent earth, and lava represents fire, the first four of these are the four classical elements. The clock can be seen as a fifth element of time.
 * In an interesting "close the circle" loop, consider the original Myst book that brought you into the Mystverse. Atrus said, "I've tried to speculate where it might have landed, but I must admit such conjecture is futile." In the beginning of Uru, as you're wandering around the hill in New Mexico, you find the remains of the scope that collapsed into the Star Fissure at the end of Riven laying on the ground. Assuming that the book landed anywhere near where the scope did, Atrus's Myst book landed less than a hundred yards from the cleft where he grew up and first learned of the Art of Writing, as described in The Book of Atrus.

URU: Ages Beyond Myst

 * I had been playing URU for a long time with different characters before I got to the online version. One Relto page later, I stopped, looked at what the page had added, and had to leave the computer for a few moments when I found out that Relto was a copy of Myst. Some of the things Yeesha had written made a lot more sense after that.
 * It was the mountain page, right?
 * For me it was the clock page that made me realize. I didn't catch on for quite a while.