🧿 ANALYSIS
Here's some analysis and THEORIES! WHOA!!
🥩 COLOR MEANINGS
Each character has their own text color to represent who's talking. It's so pervasive that even fanart and writing about the game will match this by coloring their names or dialogue! I love this detail as stated before, and it matches real well with each character personality-wise.
Jimmy's is green, which might seem a bit odd at first, considering he doesn't have any green on his design. Character-wise, though, it makes perfect sense; on first glance, we associate green with goodness, like, hey, that's the good guy color! Perfect for setting him up as a seeming hero (or at least NOT A MONSTER) before revealing his true nature. The green actually represents his envy, which is a major part of his relationship with Curly and character as a whole. Dude's obsessed with him, he wants to be him but he just can't, and it's gnawed away at his soul for years. Green as a color can also be associated with sickness, whether it be puke green or a radioactive neon, and I feel that matches him as the dude is a lot like a virus; he starts off by abusing Anya, his Patient 0 as it were, then one by one, everyone dies by his hand while Curly then becomes his primary victim post-crash.
Anya's is blue, matching her blue jumpsuit. Blue is a color associated with health, with cleanliness, and it's a color often used for healing items in video games, which is just perfect for the one nurse on board! It's a calm color, but its also associated with sadness. Anya was abused by far the most by Jimmy pre-crash and post-crash, she's still treated horribly. She dies by suicide, unable to withstand any more as she was pregnant and trapped with her rapist for god knows how much longer. Her story is a tragedy.
Swansea's is yellow, matching his yellow uniform shirt. A bit surprising for a guy as grumpy as he is, but yellow is associated with "Warning!", like a warning sign! Or like how wasps are yellow. He's not out and out aggressive, but he's ready to defend himself and is the one person who (seemingly) was gonna actually try to physically take Jimmy down. He tries to keep everyone away from the vents, because it's dangerous. I feel it also matches him once you realize he's not the villain...Useless goddamn ray of sunshine, anyone?
Daisuke's is pink, which is not only adorable, it matches his Hawaiian shirt. He's bubbly, he's sweet, and he's very open about it, matching pink's connotations with sweetness and affection. Pink is also a youthful color, associated with children and that matches him as the youngest and most naive on the Tulpar. Interestingly, while Daisuke is male, his color being pink combined with his more androgynous appearance makes him being coerced by Jimmy and taken advantage of feel all the more sickening. Poor guy.
Curly's is white, symbolizing purity, innocence (he didn't crash the ship!) but also, symbolizing his inaction. He didn't protect Anya, he has only reacted, not acted on his own independently. In video games, white text is the default, especially for NPCs. Also, it foreshadows how Curly will be basically unable to act post-crash, due to being horrifically maimed.
The color of the eponymous mouthwash is turquoise, and is seen only post-crash. To get this color, you have to mix green (which is Jimmy's color) and blue (which is Anya's color). Now, what did the green fella do to the blue woman?
Yikes.
Shitpost note: Wanna know what else has green text? I'm rewatching K-On for the first time in years, and the opening and ending English lyrics are subbed with green text! He's speaking in Ho-kage Tea Time OHHH SHIIIIIIIIIIIII-!!
🥩 NAME MEANINGS
Jimmy was, as stated by developers, named after the Lana Del Rey song, A&W, which is a dark, dark song that starts off as yearning for her innocent childhood before descending into the depths of her traumatic adulthood, involving a man named Jimmy. In the song proper, Jimmy is clearly an abusive figure, being a man who loves her "only when he wanna get high", being the one who raped her and started her descent into sex addiction. In the song, Lana sings that no one would believe that she wasn't "asking for it", as an "American Whore"...Doesn't any of this sound familiar to the game this mini site's about?
This isn't the only time Lana Del Rey has problems with a Jim.
In her song Ultraviolence, which is about an abusive relationship and the Stockholm Syndrome that can come with it, the man is named Jim and tells her that she is "filled with poison, but blessed with beauty and rage". Lana goes onto sing the infamous line that "he hit me and it felt like a kiss" and "he hurt me and it felt like true love". On top of that, Jim "raised" her up, and had been with her since they were kids. While I don't our Jimmy Jim Jimson is really tied to this song like he is with A&W, I still think it's important to point out, considering how he locks Curly into a similar relationship (albeit a platonic one); Jimmy and Curly have clearly known each other for a long, long time and are so close despite Jimmy repeatedly treating him like fucking trash. We don't know how Anya got along with Jimmy prior to him abusing her, though I personally feel like she was just a casual friend before Jimmy did Jimmy things.
A "Jimmy" is also another term for a crowbar, which is very useful in breaking and entering. Fitting for a rapist who keeps breaking into shit he really shouldn't. Also useful is that he, like a crowbar, is a fucking tool.
On a sillier and likely unintentional note, ever heard of the phrase "rustling jimmies"?
Anya means "mother" in Hungarian...OH GOD OH NO!! The name is also a Russian diminutive of the name Anna, itself a variant of the name Hannah. Whatever exact spelling the translation's using, these names appear in the Old Testament as a woman who, ironically enough, wasn't able to have kids until Eli blessed her. I don't know how relevant the Bible is here, but it's fascinating nonetheless.
Swansea is a city in Wales! I mean, that kinda sounds about right, he does look like he'd have ancestry over there. Moreover, his name has the word "Swan" and he's got a cute little swan keychain, whose males will help build nests and incubate eggs alongside females, and are extremely protective of their young, to the point where they'll attack humans over it. According to wikipedia, a guy drowned over it. This matches his protective, subtly fatherly nature towards Daisuke. More tragically, swans will mercy-kill their chicks if they are too injured...NOOOOOOOOOO!
Speaking of Daisuke, Daisuke can be written in a variety of ways using Kanji, but it's likely his name is meant to be written as 大輔 (big, assist), because he really is trying to help! Even if he's bad at it.
Remember how Daisuke apparently gets Pokemon and Digimon confused? Well, funny his favorite "Pokemon" is a Digimon, considering he shares a name with Motomiya Daisuke (the original Japanese name of Davis Motomiya) from Digimon Adventure 02.
Coincidentally, Daisuke is the name of a song from Beatmania IIDX! Oddly fitting and very cute.
The name "Curly" very obviously matches his curly hair pre-crash, but it has a darker meaning. Laika was a soviet dog launched into space, but unfortunately, had no way to come back home and died in her spaceship. Her nickname was "Little Curly". Now, who is currently stuck in space, in a lot of pain, on the verge of death with no way to get back home to earth?
Fuck it, I'm putting in a cute puppy dog here so I can heal from remembering that.
(Put cute puppy dog image here)
On a lighter note, his name and post-crash appearance had been decided and designed since the earliest parts of the game, and I have a feeling he was named Curly as an ironic name, considering the crash burnt his hair off. Much like how Curly from the Three Stooges is called that, despite being bald.
🥩 HORSE SYMBOLISM
It's no secret the game has a thing for horses. For starters, they work for Pony Express, whose mascot is Polle the pony, in Chapter 3, you learn from Anya that he just told her he was sexually attracted to cartoon horses, and horses pop up all over the place during the hallucination scenes. There are a few things horses represent;
- You're all workhorses! On the Pony Express side of things, everyone is treated as these workhorses rather than as people, as they aren't allowed more than five hours of sleep, get their credits docked over any medical expenses or even just delivering the package late, only the captain is allowed to access Sweetener, there's no locks on bedroom doors, the ship itself is held together with spit and prayers, and they literally only get one communal birthday allowed per trip.
Fun fact: there was a real life Pony Express that delivered mail via horse.
- Horses (and the fixation of them) are reflections of how Jimmy views women. As broodmares. While I don't doubt that Jimmy shouldn't be allowed near any horses (fictitious or otherwise), the "attraction to cartoon horses" wasn't just a deranged confession. It was sexual harassment, and reflective of how he views Anya in particular; not a human, but a pretty animal, an animal that exists solely to create children and be...Used. Also, pay attention to how Anya herself never directly appears in his hallucinations, but Polle happily shows up wherever you'd expect her to pop up, using the exact same blue text she speaks in. Jimmy isn't haunted by the guilt of hurting Anya, he barely even registers as alive, he's not haunted by the baby's presence, but more the fact that if that child is born, his ass is busted, and he's going straight to prison. And considering he knows how to drug people by memory and it's implied he might've been a criminal back on earth, his ass would not have it easy in prison.
He intentionally dehumanizes her to just a horse, but horses can still bite you. Horses can still kill you. They aren't people, but they are still living beings who deserve to be treated fairly, and so, even as he compartmentalizes her as an animal, these horses bite back. Hard. They chase him down, screaming, shrieking, making horrible noises both to represent the baby in Anya, and in my opinion, screams of a victim.
Also, take note of how he's running from Polle and terrified of him, a character who is explicitly referred to with he/him pronouns; essentially, Polle calling him out is Jimmy being forced to think of Anya the way he thinks of men as people, for five seconds, removed from the "female" trait he uses as an excuse to dehumanize and abuse her.
- Jimmy himself has a horse motif, which matches perfectly for him! Horses are symbols of pride, virility, and they are used for transportation; matches eerily well for a misogynist rapist guy who works as a space trucker and having entire psychotic episodes over having to admit fault for his actions.
🥩 TAKE RESPONSIBILITY / I HOPE THIS HURTS
The phrase "Take Responsibility" reoccurs throughout the game, and both Curly and Jimmy speak about "taking responsibility". When Jimmy is flipping out going full RAGE MOMENT at Anya in Chapter 8, he says
"Because the captain has to take fucking responsibility on this goddamn ship!"
Curly says the crew is his responsibility, before Jimmy whips around and rubs it in his face that his assault on Anya was Curly's responsibility...And how it will scar his reputation forever. In Bizarro Chapter 2, Curly (or Jimmy's hallucination of Curly) says he'll "take responsibility" and play villain for Jimmy, taking all the blame. And during Jimmy's confrontation with Polle, he cries that he's taking responsibility for what happened with Curly.
This phrase can be interpreted in so many ways. On one hand, Jimmy wanted to be Captain, but when he finally got that position he yearned for, he instantly cracked under the pressure because he wasn't ready to actually take responsibility. But the phrase "Taking responsibility" can also be more literal and forceful, as Jimmy usurps Curly by taking the role of Captain and taking that responsibility right from him. The responsibility of his crew.
There's also the phrase to go with it, "I Hope This Hurts", that sickens me to my core. There's a few interpretations of this phrase, from least disturbing to most disturbing:
- Jimmy's internal self-loathing, knowing deep down that he's a pathetic worm of a man, hoping that this will hurt him out of some masochistic need to punish himself.
- Considering the color of the text, it might be Curly's thoughts. After all of the shit Jimmy put him through, Curly is NOT a fan of this motherfucker and hopes that every, single, thing that happens to him brings him just more pain.
- Jimmy's sadism. "I hope this hurts" is not something you say unless you are a fucking maniac. Who is this even for? Well...Jimmy raped Anya. Was this something he thought (or godforbid, actually said out loud) while assaulting her? Even more disturbing, Anya is extremely uncomfortable feeding Curly his pills, citing the noises as the reason, hearing him gag. And Anya clearly remembers what happened to her. Jimmy, what on EARTH did you do to her!?
It could also reflect his true feelings for Curly. He can say he cares about Curly, that he loves him and blah blah blah but that's not what he feels when he's beating the shit out of him and forcefeeding him his own leg. Deep down, Jimmy takes Curly's devotion to him as a sign that he can take advantage of him, and relishes in the pain that poor man experiences constantly.
Jimmy, when I get my hands on you...
🥩 ANYA'S PREGNANCY
Anya shows no signs of pregnancy physically in the game, and while this can easily just be to make the reveal of her pregnancy an actual surprise, but this can sometimes happen in real life; cryptic pregnancies happen where people don't realize they're pregnant for months, sometimes even up until labor happens! And to be fair, she wears baggy clothes that could obscure her belly, especially if she doesn't want the others to know after Curly failed her.
Jimmy could be mentally blocking out her pregnancy, he is an unreliable narrator who 100% would not wanna think about it if he can help it. So for all we know, she could be walking around with her stomach sticking right out of her jumpsuit and Daisuke is like "Damnnnnn how much is she eating?".
We also don't know how long she's been pregnant; she could've been pregnant for weeks or even months if Jimmy had been assaulting her multiple times.
Interestingly, Bizarro Chapter 3's scene with the scary horse fetuses show two of them. Did she have twins?
🥩 The Symbolic Assaults
Jimmy canonically raped Anya, we know this. But pay attention to what he does to the other crewmembers and you'll notice an eerie pattern.
First off, with Curly, he is constantly forcefeeding him pills and making him gag and generally causing him a lot of pain and discomfort. Curly tries to resist, and Jimmy beats him, forcing him to take the pills. He's stifling his sobs as Jimmy keeps forcefeeding him. Then, when Jimmy's completely lost it, he forcefeeds him a piece of his own leg, over and over and over, until he finally swallows it. Not to mention, Jimmy straight up bridal carries the dude from the bed to the table, and then to the cryopod. The forcefeeding and Jimmy generally touching him all the time, holding his mouth open is unnerving as hell when you remember that Anya straight up can't handle hearing Curly gag...Likely because of what Jimmy did to her.
Next, Daisuke. When Anya locks the Medbay, Jimmy manipulates Daisuke into being apart of his scheme to drug Swansea, then proceeds to coerce him into doing something dangerous that ultimately maims the shit out of him. The manipulation and coercion in particular are what I want to draw attention to; this young, naive person is being pushed into something they'd normally never, ever consent to doing! It doesn't help that Daisuke is on the androgynous side and here's Jimmy, a massive misogynist, trying to push him into this shit. And if you headcanon him as transmasc, this starts feeling straight up corrective rape-y.
Oh and Swansea being drugged! Swansea is literally drugged with a cocktail! And what does Jimmy say about this to Daisuke? "He might not even realize we did anything after the fact.". He insists it's safe. Clearly, uncaring of the obvious violation of one's body it is to be drugged against your will, dismissing Daisuke's discomfort.
On top of that, Jimmy trying to break into the Medbay has an extra disturbing subtext because of it; he's literally assaulted Anya, able to do so because of unlocked doors. Here he is, yelling at his victim, demanding she open it. Granted, this is because WHAT ABOUT CURLY, but still, ough. Don't like.
🥩 Curly Represents Anya and Jimmy's Baby
Post-crash, Curly is basically unable to care for himself. He makes noise when he is in pain and needs something (usually in the form of pitiful crying), he can't move, he can't walk or talk, and he's fully dependent on Anya (and Jimmy). Anya wants to care for him, but she can't due to becoming nauseous (even more fitting for this metaphor, is it's likely from her pregnancy) and generally being stressed the fuck out. When it's Jimmy's turn to care for this helpless human being, he takes his anger out on him and beats him. And when Jimmy's done with torturing the poor man, after everyone's died, he shoves Curly into the cryopod, into an unknown, perilous future, leaving Curly to fend for himself, uncaring of how or even if he could.
The parallels are right there, and it helps that technically, they are parents now. Or well, they would've became parents had they lived to see the child born. Anya, a mother, is trying to care for someone but struggles due to her mental health and the general hell she's trapped in, while Jimmy, a father, just beats him when he cries and forcefeeds him without any care for his wellbeing, then throws him out to take responsibility for everything he's done.
Not apart of the theory, but adjacent: Jimmy literally attempts a familicide, hoping to kill himself, and Anya...And the being growing inside of her. Oh, and of course, everyone else aboard. Disturbingly, this is a common thing that happens IRL, men killing their whole families and them themselves, and Jimmy 100% matches the profile of someone who'd do that.
🥩 THE PACKETS CORRELATE TO THE CHARACTERS' COLOR
Each of the character's colors (except Curly's) happen to correlate with one of the Food Packets, with the Cake representing the crew at large as managed by Curly and to some extent, the cake itself.
Anya's color matches the Water, which is necessary for people (and life in general) to live. Dehydration can be lethal, and without water, you're fucked. The human body is, on average, about 60% water, too! Matches her perfectly as the nurse. Almost every single food or food substance has at least some water, somewhere in there, whether it be a cup of water added to bread dough, or hot water poured into instant noodles, and without it, the cake would just be powder. She's the first to die, leading to a chain reaction where everyone else dies; Daisuke is stabbed and electrocuted trying to get to her, Swansea is killed by Jimmy not long after, and Jimmy commits suicide at the end of it all.
Swansea's color matches Gelatin, which gives food its structure. Swansea is the ship's sole experienced mechanic on board, being the only one who knows how to repair anything. This cake is clearly some weird 70s type thing, and without it, the cake would have no structure and just not set solidly! After his death, everything descends into madness as Jimmy and Curly are left, with the latter completely disabled and probably dying now, and the former having lost his final marble.
Daisuke's color matches Sweetener and the dude loves the stuff. He's sweet, so of course he matches the Sweetener. Sweetener is needed even if it's not necessarily healthy, as it makes the cake actually taste like cake, and he brings sweetness and joy to the Tulpar as the young intern with endless potential. When he's maimed in the vent, hope and joy is officially gone, being further buried when he's finally put out of his misery.
Jimmy's color matches the Tonic, a bitter drink matching a bitter man. But wait, Tonic isn't needed for the cake recipe, and in fact, would make the cake taste dreadful. Jimmy isn't necessary to the crew at this point, he is nothing but a danger and a detriment. He's the one who crashed the Tulpar to begin with!
Interestingly, to make the mocktail, you must combine the Sweetener and Tonic. Now, who is the one who comes up with the plan to drug Swansea and the one to make it? Jimmy, the Tonic. And who was manipulated into giving it to Swansea? Daisuke.
Now, as for the "cake representing Curly", obviously we gotta talk about the Leg Eating Scene in the room, where Curly cutting the cake and Jimmy cutting into Curly's leg are perfectly mirrored to each other. But also, think of it like this; you are who you associate yourself with. Curly gets along with everyone here, but his friendship with Jimmy fucking ruins his relationship with Anya before it ruins everyone else's life, his own included. All because he couldn't deal with Jimmy.
🥩 Criminal Pasts
Curly mentions that Jimmy had it rough back on earth, and calls it a "struggle of a life" later in Chapter 6. In the same chapter, Curly says he just doesn't want to live a life he's constantly escaping from. Sounds like these two have lived a rough life back on earth.
Post-crash, when you grab the Painkillers (Oxycodone) for Curly, he refers to it as "the good stuff". Concerning, since this is an opiod, implying that Jimmy has had history with opiods in the past. Jimmy himself is a very physically capable man, able to disarm Swansea with a whole axe, wrestle him down and tie him up without any clear sign of injury! Granted, Swansea likely wasn't intending to attack him, and could've been drug or suffering the lingering effects of the cocktail but still, that's scary to know. He instantly knows how to use a gun and doesn't have any issues with like, using it wrong or anything as far as we can tell.
It's very likely that Jimmy has a criminal past involving drugs, whether it be as a dealer, in a gang or simply robbing gas stations to get the money for his fix. And seeing how close Curly is to him, Curly might've gotten involved but managed to quit and become more a family man as judging by how he has a family he often spends time with. If Curly got addicted like Jimmy might have, then that makes his situation all the more tragic, being put right back onto his addiction and enduring horrible withdrawals all over again, this time in an even weaker state than before, all while Jimmy fucking forcefeeds him and beats him.
More disturbingly, Jimmy knows how to drug people, remembering how to do so by memory, implying that he's done this often enough he's got it like, ironed out perfectly. Now, Anya likely wasn't drugged (at least, not the same way Swansea was), as she remembers it vividly, but that means he has more victims. Anya wasn't even his first victim.
🥩 ALL CLEAN
In Bizarro Chapter 3, after a big mass of...Whatever the fuck spews out of that womb...Thing, there is blue text reading the following.
"All clean."
"Really gets rid of that bad taste in your mouth, huh?"
"Through wreckage!"
"Through silence!"
"Wash it away!"
"All day fire fresh!"
This leads to the Pollepede vent scene and then right after, the confrontation with Polle where he tells Jimmy he fucking sucks.
Even after my second playthrough, I wondered what "All clean" meant.
Upon rethinking it, thinking of how absolutely far gone Jimmy is and what (to him) his biggest problem is, I just formed an absolutely horrific theory.
Jimmy cut open Anya's dead body, removed the fetus inside of her, and disposed of it to try and further wash his hands of the rape he's committed, because in his broken mind, no baby in her, no proof of what he's done. It's horrifying to think about, but it is exactly something he'd do to further run from the responsibility he so fears. In and of itself, "All clean" could represent Jimmy's belief that if Anya's dead, at least he's safe from consequence.
But the coroner would find out that she was pregnant when she died. Even if Jimmy intended to commit suicide from that point onwards, they could do a DNA test and find out that it was Jimmy who impregnated her, and even if they can't...I mean, Jimmy's the most likely suspect anyways, as stated before. His legacy in death would be tarnished by his crime, and lord knows how many other victims would come out and admit what he did to them.
And remember, this isn't just normal evil Jimmy, we're talking Jimmy right about to take a big ol' bite out of Curly's leg. He might even be thinking he's "undoing" the rape, because see, baby's gone, he's free! Never mind of all the trauma she has, it doesn't count anymore and he's now the good guy again! Ironically, it's also his final assault on Anya's body. Err, not in the necrophiliac way (I hope), more that even when in death, Jimmy's invading her body for his own personal pleasure. He can't just leave her body be, he's over here ripping her open and taking the fetus(es) out just so he can feel better.
🥩 CURLY IS DEAD THEORY
This one is just a theory, a GAME THEORY! But no, really, I read this on TVTropes of all places and it's shockingly believable.
Throughout the game, everyone speaks about Curly in the past tense and no one seems concerned for him besides Anya caring for him. Now, one can chalk this up into him being so badly maimed they're kinda expecting him to die any minute, or ableism where they stopped seeing him as a real person in that sense, especially when Anya locks herself in the Medbay and Daisuke isn't concerned for Curly much. Granted, Anya is more immediate, but still! He's there! The way Jimmy hallucinates speaking to Curly feels like he's speaking to a ghost, representing his guilt. And wait, hang on, how the fuck did Curly survive without skin for five months on a tiny little ship that barely has any supplies for such a situation?
This theory posits that Curly actually died right after the crash despite Anya's best efforts, and the Curly you see here is actually a dead body wrapped in bandages. Jimmy is already insane and hallucinates, and he has hallucinated dead people talking later in the game, so it's not out of place feeling. Anya's distress around feeding Curly is because he's fucking dead, she's being expected to care for a rotting body and pretend he's alive just so her madman rapist doesn't fly into rage! This explains why no one else is concerned with Curly like Jimmy. This makes the game even more bleak, with no one surviving, with a dead body in the cryopod. Although, it is incredibly cold comfort to think that Jimmy might've just been punching a dead guy and not a living, breathing man.
I don't think this theory is canon but it is such a fascinating theory! Bravo to whoever first thought of it and decided to share with the world!!
THE TULPAR LOGS
