Psychonauts/Headscratchers


 * Why do the Censors fight alongside the Personal Demons? You'd think their job would entail destroying them, unless they are used as some kind of suicide-attack-captured-animal thing.
 * Perhaps they view Raz, a totally alien thing, as a worse threat then the Personal Demons. Better the devil you know than the one you don't. Once you leave, they probably go back to beating up on the Personal Demons or vice versa.
 * They don't fight each other when you use invisibility. Maybe Personal Demons are as necessary as the Censors to a healthy psyche, something that the person must address properly and move forward on rather than just suppress?
 * They might also be tiny "chunks" of larger issues, which tend to break off and float free. The bigger demons from which they come are the ones that have to be "stopped" to break off the smaller ones.
 * The Personal Demons use suicide attacks, so maybe they just figure that they'll blow themselves up anyway. It wouldn't be worth it to waste energy on them.
 * This troper always thought it was because censors were there to get rid of foreign thoughts--that is things not created by the psyche of the person they were in. Raz is an foreign object. Personal demons are issues of the mind itself.
 * Confirmed in the game. Censors job is to suppress thoughts and things that don't belong to persons mind. For example, Rainbow Squirt don't belong to Boyd's head. So when they find where they are huge army of sensors appear to "remove" them. OF course, Milkman fucks EVERYONE up.
 * What is a brain operated laser doing inside Doctor Loboto's lab? It's painfully clear that a psychic can lob their own brain using telekenisis and even if he was using the thing to test potential brain tank drivers why would he have it so close to the man who removes the brains? I'd have a grudge if something like that happened to me.
 * Eh. He was crazy. It doesn't have to make sense.
 * Also, remember that, when you go inside Milla and Sasha's minds after they've been debrained, they aren't aware of what's been happening and that they've been debrained. It's probable that Loboto's Sneezing Powder Dispensor also included some sort of sedative to prevent the psychic brains from bothering him or doing this exact thing. Of course, the powder that  didn't have this sedative, so the brains were still active and able to act (in as much as they could anyway). Of course, keeping the laser there because the brains were probably dormant still isn't a good idea, but can be attributed to hubris, rather than stupidity.
 * It's also possible that the fluid in the jar is the sedative and that shock of suddenly being outside of the body give the doctor a few seconds to shove it in a jar or psychic death tank.
 * The  final battle. The   worked in the Blueprint and was jarringly difficult; it worked for   disposing of a Big Bad; it even works in the cutscene before its climactic battle. But come the battle, it just... sits there. It can't be that   doesn't have a strong enough mind to operate the   because he used it very destructively in isolating Raz from the others only moments earlier.
 * Well, maybe it's just not finished. It may have worked well on blueprints, but many things do. In the real world it's shown no capability beyond shooting straight forward and telekinesis.
 * Exactly, they were blueprints, how he wanted it to work, in his head. It can all be chalked up to "A work in progress"
 * How do the elevators work? Crispin acts like he and Loboto usually go up together. Loboto is already in the lab, so why is Crispin still downstairs? Did he take the outside elevator up? If he did, why is it there and not drawn up to the lab? Why is there an elevator in the courtyard, anyway? Does Loboto like to go up and play with the rats from time to time?
 * Keep in mind the asylum was around well before Loboto used it for a hideout. They're working it as the best defenses while still letting in people. First keep in mind they have to get the children that Linda's kidnapping upstairs somehow. Having Crispin stand watch and go up and alert the "doctor" may be the best safety measure. Having the quick access elevator always up is best so no one can sneak in fast, while the slower middle ground elevator "politely" deters more peaceful intruders and aggressively stops hostile intruders with the platforming and exploding rats.
 * Really, what exactly would have happened if ? It sounds implied that , yet that would just be really... out of place, since he seemed to just be carrying on with whatever he was doing while Raz was in there. With no sign of property damage or anything to imply that some reflection of what was going on inside was taking place.
 * You can let this happen. It doesn't kill him, it just shatters his dreamstate or whatever the terminology, which has the function of taking away one of your mental projections (read: lives)
 * Presumably that means that it's a scenario that plays out all the time, and without Raz's intervention, --but it's just a mental metaphor, so in the real world it just means he's trapped in an asylum.
 * Maybe, but you can also presume that without Raz's intervention, Edgar never finds the Queens, can't complete the tower (not to mention El Odio plowing through it regularly), and the endgame of that scenario never plays out. Huh. When I put it like that, Raz sure seems to break a lot in other people's minds before he cleaning (most of) it up...
 * I know it is really minor, but the inconsistent pronunciation within Milla Vodello's name has always gotten to me. The first double L is pronounced as it ought to be considering her Brazilian heritage, but the second one is pronounced with the L sound. One or the other, kids.
 * It's not just you! This drives me up the wall as well. Maybe Milla's of mixed heritage? Her father wasn't Brazillian, he was... something-else-an, and so they preserved his way of pronouncing her last name. But not with her first name. ...Best I can come up with.
 * They're kids. I can imagine they might have a bit of a harder time pronouncing foreign names than most.
 * Because "Vodeyo" sounds kind of awkward.
 * This is more related to the fandom than the actual game, but... why are there so many girls crossplaying as Raz?
 * It's the goggles, I'm certain.
 * Maybe it's easier for female fans to find the costume parts? From experience, too, some female cosplayers actually despise wearing "sexy" costumes or dresses/skirts and almost exclusively crossplay.
 * A lot of the characters are wearing jackets and sweaters. Isn't the game set at a summer camp?
 * They never explicitly say where Whispering Rocks is, aside from somewhere where Native Americans used to live. It could be in an area with mild summers.
 * If Cruller has been driven insane without Psitanium nearby, why can't anyone just go inside his mind and fix it up like Raz did with the asylum patients?
 * It's not that he's been driven insane it's that his psyche has shattered after his psychic duel. He has trouble getting his mind to work without the concentration of Psitanium. It's also possible, him being a renowned Psychonaut, that he has great mental barriers that are stuck in place due to his battle. Another possibility is that people can't manifest in a shattered psychic's mind thus no fixing.
 * Besides, notice that he yells "Get that thing away from me!" when you try to do just that. He's probably had someone try it before, and it likely didn't end well, hence him not wanting to even risk trying it again.
 * Quite likely, as one of the most powerful psychics ever, his mind is considerably more dangerous than those of random people in an asylum. Hey, maybe it'll be something for Raz to do once he gets more experience!
 * Why does the story seem to set itself up for a Luke, I Am Your Father ending?  It would seem Cliche but during Milla's stage, I got the sneaking suspicion that Raz  . Of course, that never happened.
 * It might have been possible at one point however Raz overtime makes repeated references to his father and living at the circus. One cutscene during the brain tumbler experiment even says he was born in a gypsy caravan he sees. This implies he was never at an orphanage. Also
 * Why are half the campers so interested in making out? Aren't they all ten-year-olds (and therefore prepubescent)?
 * They're also psychics. As one says "Excuse me? I've watched R-rated movies so I think I know a little bit more about this than you do." There's the idea that a few have mind reading capabilities and it's possible they get the gist of it from others, but I think the main idea is that psychics mature a little faster than normal children. And as said in the main article under fetish fuel trope, from what I assume a true story: making out is all kids think about at summer camp. I know when I was at summer camp in 4th grade all the guys did was plot how to sneak over to the girls cabin after dark.
 * Plus there is a reason there are so many entries in the Toy Ship trope. Kids aren't totally oblivious to romance.
 * So, is it possible to complete the marksman practice without turning the dial Up to Eleven but simply by earning a thousand frags?
 * Short answer: No. Long answer: It sets a limit on how many you can kill in a day regardless of what you set it to. So after killing a certain amount of censors no more will come out until you turn it Up to Eleven. It's what Sasha expects you to do anyway.
 * The whole story takes place over the course of just a day and a night. Raz  in this short amount of time. At ten. Umm....doesn't that seem a bit...well, you know... This bothers me because I really don't wanna see Raz that way.
 * That's just the thing. He doesn't. Sasha and Milla say that he doesn't have the strength to go against Oleander even when Raz disagrees. He defeats him in brain tank form but that wasn't up to the full power it should have been (only having telekinesis). This leads me to believe he was accepted into the Psychonauts as a rookie/recruit and still has a long way to go. After all Milla and Sasha are shown levitating without a psi-ball and there have to be a lot more aspects of psychic vs psychic battles that we don't get to see.
 * It's outright stated that Raz's brain is "one in a million". So it's really no surprise that he can bypass the normal training period.
 * From what I saw (considering I watch playthroughs...), most of the skills he learned looked incredibly basic and not all that hard to use, meaning that these may not be advanced techniques, but only the basics, but, that's just me guessing.
 * Not to mention that the camp was bound to see at least one advanced psychic wonderkid come along at some point. You just happen to play the very one that does.
 * Speaking of the course of just a day, doesn't Raz and Lili's relationship seem... rushed?
 * Psychics who can read minds probably adapt well plus the fact that they didn't take it much more than a few kisses. Also keep in mind the emotions they're going through: realizing their love, being kidnapped, saving the day, etc. can make even the most casual of romances speed up significantly.
 * You can tell that Lili liked Raz from the very beginning. From the moment he dropped into camp and introduced himself, you could see that Lili wanted his... um... goggles.
 * Additionally most of the children seem to be trying to learn control something that Raz has from years of hiding it from his father. So Raz is learning to blow things up with his mind while Dogan is learning how to NOT blow things up with his mind which is another skill all together.
 * Not to complain about a thoroughly awesome game, but it felt a tad anticlimactic. Are we supposed to assume everything between Raz and his dad was just a gigantic misunderstanding? He seems too smart a kid to think someone hates psychics when they don't.. and all that was controlling Oleander was "personal demons"? Really?
 * Raz's father wasn't telling him everything and was working him like a dog to be an acrobat. When we finally meet the father, he's come to save his son who ran away from home to get away from him. It's entirely possible that his more friendly and fatherly demeanor was a result of him choosing to lighten up. As for Oleander, these weren't simple personal demons but serious, crippling insanity.
 * That's what I'm sayin'! But Oleander seems to claim otherwise and people aren't exactly making a big deal about it at the end.
 * Well, the group of psychics would probably give that more credence than you or I, because they've actually been in other people's heads and seen how big and nasty those demons can get. I guess.
 * At some point or another I recall someone mentioning that Raz' dad wasn't trying to kill him OR distract him with all the exercise (it was either during a cutscene, or Word of God somewhere); his actual motivation was somewhere between teaching him control (which may be why he has such a unique mind) and giving him some physical skills to fall back on in situations where being psychic is no help. The reason he's so much less of a hardass when the player finally meets him is that Raz running away makes him realize that he was so intent on preparing his son for everything life was going to throw at him, he didn't notice that he was alienating his son at the same time.
 * So, according to Maloof, the staff haven't used the GPC on kids since the 50s, but when you show Bobby the button, he reacts as if he's intimately familiar with it, and Cruller made a remark about how Bobby goes in and out of confinement all the time. Maybe they don't advertise it? Heh.
 * Bobby is one of the kids who've been to the camp in the past. Maybe when he was littler he was bullied by being shoved in there himself by someone who doesn't go to the camp anymore. Or maybe Sasha choose him for "advanced training" at some point and it left him freaked out; Sasha does imply that he deliberately scares cadets off once he thinks his experiments have gotten too intense for them.
 * Also, the game might be set in 1960. Meaning the GPC was only used the previous year. A similar theory exists in WMG.
 * Maybe it just missed my sight in subtitles when playing the game, but  crossed all the logic of his   He can only, and only, be himself when near that large Psitanium rock or he'd succumb instantly. How on Earth did he come all the way to the Asylum and pull off the battle without losing control? Well, Rule of Cool alright, but still.
 * You missed the large rock of Psitanium attached to his back when he appeared (re-watch the cutscene). During the ending cutscene it wears off and he falls back into the way he was without it. It's implied that it's a temporary remedy and he only did it as a last resort.
 * If Raz's family can't get close to water, how do they bathe?
 * They user showers?
 * If you jump into every puddle you can find, it looks like he can get into water that's around knee to waist high before the curse kicks in.
 * They are cursed to drown in water. Thus, only location where curse kicks in is a place where Raz can't keep his head up without swimming.
 * After reading through the official wiki, is this troper the only one just a little squicked out by the thought of children as young as seven making out? Or am I just a naïf?
 * This is similar to the "Why are half the campers so interested in making out?" question above. It can be answered similarly. Some are squicked and some think it's romantic.
 * Does clairvoyance literally show you what others see as they look at you or just give you a visual analogue to how they think of you? Do Elka, Kitty, and Franke really see you as a horrible humanoid fly-thing or just regard you as an annoying pest? Does Milla think you're an actual infant or just someone vulnerable who needs to be protected? I can totally buy clairvoyance working literally for the truly insane, the censors, and the denizens of the mental worlds (it's completely plausible that schizophrenic Boyd sees you as a milk bottle with your head), but for the saner characters like Lilli, Sasha, and Milla it doesn't make much sense for it to work that way. Yeah, Rule of Funny, but still. (On a side note, why does Sasha see/regard you as a Psychonaut yet refuse to acknowledge you as one ?)
 * I always considered it something Raz hasn't mastered yet and saw only a literal interpretation of what people think of him. I figured once he mastered it he'd see things a bit more clearer but it wouldn't be possible to happen in game due to time constraints. For Sasha I think he regards you as a Psychonaut in-training and sees hope of you being a great one, but doesn't think you're quite ready for the real deal.
 * Sasha doesn't see you as a generic psychonaut, he sees you as a younger version of himself. Note the glasses and the hairstyle. FORD sees you as a psychonaut.
 * Why did it bomb? Because it wasn't some dark shooter, RPG or Nintendo game?
 * It looked like a children's game. It was marketed as a children's game (they ran ads on Cartoon Network). It also came out after a glut of Mario 64-style platformers, and looked at first glance like more of the same.
 * If  was the one to give Raz the Whispering Rock pamphlet before the game started, then why
 * It's never stated he gave the pamphlet to Raz only that he wrote the pamphlet. It's never stated who gave it to Raz and the person in his memory is fogged out so it's not clear if the person is supposed to remain anonymous or have been revealed in subsequent games.
 * It is implied that it's  in the memory reel.
 * Possibly Obfuscating Stupidity as well. If he acted like he knew too much, it might get Sasha and Milla suspicious. In addition, if he acted like he couldn't get into Raz's mind because it was so special, it would lend credence to his argument to keep him around.
 * Cruller says at the start of the game that the challenge markers are placed around camp by the staff to test the campers. So why are there challenge markers in the abandoned asylum?
 * I believe it's mentioned at the same time he says some of them have been damaged that some have also been blown away by storms. Other than that it's mainly Story and Gameplay Segregation.
 * How exactly did Boyd get fired? From what I saw in the Mental Vault, he was just smiling and doing his job.
 * A lot of people feel like they did nothing wrong prior to being fired; Boyd probably felt the same way. There are other alternatives though, like layoffs or just him being crazy and distorting the memory.
 * Remember that the Mental Vaults don't show the actual truth: They just show only the character's perspective of the story and what they think or want to believe. (For example the obvious Sasha/Milla undertones in Milla's vault, when there's no such messages in Sasha's mind, and Oleander's first mem. reel) It's possible that Boyd did screw up something, but it isn't seen on the reel because he thought that he did nothing wrong and therefore was fired without a reason.
 * In fact, it would make more sense if Boyd did nothing wrong to lose his job. Let's assume he was just an average Joe that got selected for layoffs, like the boss had to drop somebody so he drew names from a hat. Thus, when Boyd loses his job for no apparent reason from his perspective his mind snaps, starting the whole paranoia schizophrenia conspiracy theory thing. Hence the major plot gimmick in his level.
 * If Cruller forgets who he is every time he goes up above, how does he keep getting back to his sanctuary? Does he just so happen to keep falling down those hollowed out tree stumps? and on top of that how does he keep getting around the camp so quickly? At first I thought he was teleporting, but he can't do that if he doesn't know he's psychic.
 * My theory is that he's got a psychic imprint implanted in him (either by himself or his subordinates) that influences him to go where he needs to be, even if it's not strong enough for him to know why he's there.
 * I always assumed that all of his personalities remember the transport system, and when they're done with whatever job they're working on they head to it to move onto a different area (or get back to wherever they think they live) and once they're down there it puts him close enough to the psitanium deposit to pull himself together.
 * This is supported by the Transport AI when you decide to go to the lake. The AI starts referring to you as Admiral instead of Agent, implying that all of Cruller's personalities know about the transport system.
 * Why did they build a children's summer camp on top of a deposit of dangerous psitanium, anyway?
 * Who said it was dangerous to psychics? We only know it's dangerous to non-psychics and gradually drove people insane, however it seems to be beneficial to psychics such as Agent Cruller. Makes the perfect training ground for a psychic children by keeping Muggles away.
 * The real question is who's bright idea was it to build the insane asylum on a psitanium deposit? This could be put down to the Muggles not knowing about it, but who builds a summer camp full of kids that can read minds on the same lake as a mental institution?
 * The only thing that honestly bugs me is, if Loboto's in the tower, than why doesn't Crispin realize you're an imposter?? Did e just conveniently forget he took up the doctor already and never brought him down??
 * There's more than one elevator. He could have taken the fast one down from the top of the tower. Also Crispin is supposed to be in a mental institution for a reason.
 * Why does everyone here treat Oleander being the bad guy like it's some huge spoiler? You find out pretty much right after the opening tutorial, and none of the characters even react with surprise. He's not some secret "man behind the man." He's just "the man" right from the get-go.
 * Speaking of which, what's up with the lack of screen-time for the villains? Oleander only appears at the very beginning and the very end, and Loboto only has slightly more presence than that. It just bugs me how little antagonistic force is in this game. Makes the whole thing feel a bit aimless.
 * It's a spoiler because it's not revealed until you complete the brain tumbler, which is four levels into the game. That's a bit after the opening. After that you find and fight a construct of him in Lungfishopolis and from then on the aim is to rescue Lili. Oleander's entire 'antagonistic force' is his plan to take over the world and kidnapping the kids (and Sasha and Milla).
 * Were you looking at entries referring to Oleander himself or his motivations? If someone was talking about why Oleander's the antagonist then it's justified, since we don't find much out about it until the Meat Circus which is the end.
 * What bothers me is another thing: why is Raz's father being a psychic considered a spoiler? Raz himself says it outright: "And the weird thing is, I'm pretty sure he was psychic himself".
 * Is the summer camp seriously staffed entirely by Ford Cruller in his alternate personalities? Are they reliable enough to get all the required services done, or are these services not really needed and Ford just thinks he's working when he's in an alternate personality? (Note that he never seems to do anything as an admiral or forest ranger, and he never finishes cooking those burgers, either.)
 * Whose brain is Loboto poking when you reach the top of Thorny Towers? By that point, you're able to collect all but...one or two of  brains, and   are right there... So yeah...
 * There are only three inmates in the asylum (not including Crispin). You figure it out...
 * As an avid reader, I've figured out several of the Meaningful Names and Bilingual Bonuses in the characters' names. Sasha Nein is obvious, and Morceau (French for "morsel", as in "small") Oleander (a type of poisonous flower) makes sense, but what's up with Ford Cruller? Maybe I've got the wrong definition or something, but isn't a cruller a doughnut? I haven't seen or heard anything from the source material that connects Ford to pastries... bacon, yes, and arguably burgers... but... I'm lost. Any ideas?
 * Pretty sure it's just Rule of Funny. "Boole" and "Doom" are also funny last names, and "Cruller" is comical while also connoting an old Crusty Caretaker.
 * Okay, so let me get this straight. Fred is a psychiatrist or something, and he was trying to help the asylum's patients. So, he brought a board game based on the battle of Waterloo, and played it with the near-catatonic Crispin. Crispin won, which bothered Fred, so they played again, and Crispin kept winning. As he won, he recovered from being catatonic, while Fred, slowly losing it from losing repeatedly, had his Genetic Memory take over, giving him split personality (I don't know the technical name, to be honest). The memory of Napoleon tried to make him someone who loved to win in a mental game of Waterloo-o. But that doesn't make any sense! He logically loves winning if he goes insane from losing. I guess Napoleon wants him to become a great conqueror or something, but still.
 * It makes sense if you think about Napoleon and Fred's relationship as a "Well Done, Son" Guy relationship. Fred kept losing and eventually gave up but Napoleon wouldn't let him quit. Alternatively, Napoleon assumes that Fred can't win because he doesn't want it enough.
 * What was the point of Lilli's friendship bracelet? I just completed the game, and unlike every other item, I never had to use it. Did I miss something?
 * Yes, you did. After you learn clairvoyance but before you get all the items to ascend the tower you get a scene of Lili's situation in custody by using clairvoyance on it.
 * Where did the world's smallest pony go? Between Raz's excape and arrival at Whispering Rock, it disappeared.
 * Raz could've ditched it halfway, or somehow given it instructions to return to the gypsy camp; it's implied that the place Raz escaped from and Whispering Rock are not too far apart, seeing how a ride on that pony was all it took for Raz to reach the latter, and his dad later caught up to him in less than a day (and that's counting the trip to the asylum, albeit he probably had help from Linda with that last bit).
 * Raz didn't just ride the pony there, he road the pony away from the circus then hitched a ride on a lumber truck. You see him leaving it in the last slide from that memory reel.
 * Not 100% canon, but Psychopedia suggests that the pony found its own way home. On a more believable note, Augustus might have found him/her on his way to Whispering Rock since he would have taken a similar route to Raz's.
 * Perhaps he traded it to the trucker in exchange for a ride once the going got too tough?
 * Let me get this straight... Coach Oleander became an insane military-obsessed megalomaniac all because his father butchered his beloved bunnies? But he obviously wasn't insane SINCE this childhood trauma, as he later refers to it as a "temporary insanity" and his Psychonauts colleagues treat him as if he's back to his old self. I don't really see the connection. Compared to the rest of the personal demons, this one seems a little forced and not as thought out. Sasha's coldness makes sense due to his mother's death and what he saw in his father's head, Milla's protectiveness is natural with her experience with the orphans, Edgar's heartbreak in high school causes him to construct a fantasy where he literally imprisons his ex and her lover in his mind, Gloria's inner critic comes from a lifetime of being belittled by her mother for her own success to the point of being guilt-tripped by her suicide. But with Oleander, scary daddy + bunnies = world domination. Also, in most of the other cases, Raz visibly HELPS the inmates to sort out their mental issues (piecing together scenes from Gloria's life, showing Edgar what losers Dingo and Lana are, showing Fred his battle can be won) and bring them to peace with their inner demons, whereas his cure of Oleander resorts to little more than "Kill the big dad boss". I loved Meat Circus, but in this respect it was lacking.
 * If you look at Oleander's other memories, it's clear that the biggest reason he became a military-obsessed megalomaniac is because he was never admitted to any branch of the actual military due to his height. This fed on his deep feelings of inadequacy that had originated from his traumatic relationship with his dad, and it caused him to snap. Essentially, he became a "Well Done, Son" Guy who wanted to show his dad/the military (these two have become intermingled in his head) that he can be a tough guy who can conquer the world. In order to cure him from this militaristic megalomania, Rasputin has to find Oleander's deep hidden peaceful and loving side, represented by kid Oleander, that's been strongly repressed by the image of the demon dad, which represents the ideal of a "tough guy" that Oleander thinks he should measure up to. In order to free kid Oleander, and show him he can live without the urge to kill and conquer, Raz has to destroy the image of the demon dad.
 * So, how exactly does one play Waterloo-o? From what is shown, one can surmise that there are two sides (French and non-French), one of which has a stronghold (in Fred's mind it's French, but in the 'Fred vs. Crispin' memory vault Crispin, who controls the French side, is seen invading one), and the other side must eliminate all their infantry with their own and invade the stronghold with a Hearty Knight piece in order to win. But what would the side WITH the stronghold have to do in order to win? In Fred's mind, Napoleon's (French stronghold-holder) troops attempt to keep Fred away by destroying bridges on the way to the stronghold, so do all they have to do is remain uninvaded for a certain amount of time/number of turns? From what else we see in Fred's mind, however, it looks like the non-stronghold side only has to make a few moves in order to win, so what else could the other side do in order to prevent this? And even if this was because Napoleon had beaten Fred so many times he decided to play with a setup so that all Fred had to do in order to win was try, how did Fred end up losing to Crispin so many times?
 * I've been assuming it's a game where you can use different pieces and set up the board's hexagons in different ways (and make different sized playing fields) depending on how deep of a game you want to play, and Fred's mind has just given up to the point where it's made an incredibly simplistic scenario to try and get him to do at least that much. As support of this, if you sit around listening to Fred talk long enough in the Asylum he'll mention a piece you never see in the round you play; the spy.