View topic - Does Entry #84 confirm Hoody's identity?

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Poll

Does Entry #84 confirm Hoody's Identity?

Yes, Hoody is Brian.

77%

[ 64 ]

No, it's a misdirect.

10%

[ 9 ]

Undecided.

12%

[ 10 ]

Total Votes : 83

Forum index » Chaotic Fiction » Marble Hornets

Does Entry #84 confirm Hoody's identity?
Moderators: Giskard, JKatkina, Zarggg

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lonsumtravlr
Entrenched

Joined: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 1009
Location: The Great Continent of New England

Lithp wrote:

I've actually never believed, at any point, that Alex is malicious. I've always thought that he believes that he's doing the right thing, he's just batshit crazy.

I don't think he's intentionally malicious either. He seems to be someone who at least was for a while under the influence of some strange entity and did its bidding but then tried to break free only to get sucked back in because his friend has his own dumb-ass sense of justice. (Which it really is--it doesn't mean Jay's dumb, but he seemed to switch off logic and anything resembling genre savviness at certain points, which is really not the right way to approach some mystery you don't understand, yet is the only way to try to solve it and to actually have a storyline).

Lithp wrote:

Well, something that I didn't really specify is that I'm usually an advocate of the "wait & see" approach, but it also depends on the history of the series. In this case, there have been so many anticlimaxes already, so it doesn't seem like a stretch to say that this is just one more.

Though I'm less clear on whether or not Hoody will continue to figure into the plot.

I guess just because I'm a "writer" the craft of storytelling is so important to me, so I'm a major proponent of "wait and see." I'm more concerned with innovation, or at least innovative use of conventions (and MH is a pretty conventional serial in many ways--and I don't mean the C-word as a dirty word or anything). I don't mind a lot of anticlimaxes, because I think they add to realism. The main thing that's dragging MH down, in my mind, is the timeframe. The ARG/ARE element from the beginning was dropped early, yet they're still bound by OOG time. IG it really should still be fall 2011 or at the latest early spring 2012 (or, because that was the warmest winter that I remember--snowed maybe three times in Eastern New England, where I live, from December to April, maybe mid-winter 2011-2012). But there's too much dragging this out--even if we account for the IG characters having real lives and possibly being stalked and memory wiped a lot, even frequently, off camera, it's just too much suspension of disbelief to thing that IG this has gone on for almost five years--three makes sense. As an OOG viewer I'm willing to think this is something of a period piece, and then it totally works.

I think the first part of that came off as patronizing somehow, when it was actually intended to be a bit self-deprecating (hence the quotes around the word writer, which basically entails me sitting in coffee shops drinking London Fogs and checking email more than actually sketching out the plot of something or other).

Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 1:40 pm

Lithp
I Have No Life

Joined: 04 Mar 2012
Posts: 2058

Quote:

(Which it really is--it doesn't mean Jay's dumb, but he seemed to switch off logic and anything resembling genre savviness at certain points, which is really not the right way to approach some mystery you don't understand, yet is the only way to try to solve it and to actually have a storyline).

Now, that is just not true, Jay is incredibly logical, adept at thinking on his feet, & has highly developed powers of observ--nope, couldn't keep that up.

I wonder if Troy also makes fun of Jay?

Quote:

I see that. The extent to which I'm willing to wait shit out has more to do with time management than actual quality of the series. So it's more of, "How interested am I in what's going on versus how annoyed, & does the amount of time that I have justify continuing?"

'Course, I'm also often so critical that I'm too quick to reject things, but you can't win 'em all.

Quote:

I don't mind a lot of anticlimaxes, because I think they add to realism.

I'd say that I have less of a problem with anticlimaxes if they're still interesting somehow, but this Entry didn't interest me beyond a couple of "huh, so that's how that went" moments.

Quote:

I think the first part of that came off as patronizing somehow, when it was actually intended to be a bit self-deprecating (hence the quotes around the word writer, which basically entails me sitting in coffee shops drinking London Fogs and checking email more than actually sketching out the plot of something or other).

I got that it wasn't meant to be patronizing. I'm not really sure how to respond to the rest, seeing as I don't know much about you. Well, just judging from this conversation, I think that you really know what you're talking about.

Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 2:10 pm

lonsumtravlr
Entrenched

Joined: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 1009
Location: The Great Continent of New England

Lithp wrote:

I wonder if Troy also makes fun of Jay?

I wouldn't be surprised. The only instance I'm aware of, though, is when Troy tweeted the MH Twitter about how the release of one entry "Took long enough."

I like that Troy cast himself as someone who is pretty clumsy and bumbling, whatever his other merits may be.

[quote-"Lithp"]The extent to which I'm willing to wait shit out has more to do with time management than actual quality of the series. So it's more of, "How interested am I in what's going on versus how annoyed, & does the amount of time that I have justify continuing?"

'Course, I'm also often so critical that I'm too quick to reject things, but you can't win 'em all.[/quote]

I'm often the same way, actually, but I'm one of those who's more in the "like Entry #84" camp--but I also see it as being quite flat. So self-referentially flat that something has to be coming from it or that it's a complete throw-away. I don't see it as being the latter--at least it shows how Alex may have been "infected" by whatever it is that causes TO to take (or to regain, if "enttry #37" is to be believed, which I'm not sure it is) interest in others, and then there's that mailbox number at the end (and what seems to be a curious distortion over Alex's shadow, too--I just rewatched the end of the entry, and it seems that his shadow becomes greenish and snowy, and I'm not sure what that means). I stay interested because the series overall is quite compelling. And like others, I just want to see it through to the end. Because I've watched this far.

But, still, withholding my vote till the final credits role. Sort of a wishy washy, even cowardly, viewer response, but so be it.

Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 2:46 pm

TheJoker
Entrenched

Joined: 14 May 2013
Posts: 1135
Location: Wisconsin

I wonder if the blue flare that hid Hoody's face maybe wasn't a camera effect at all? I mean, we've never really gotten a full picture of what TO can do, but clearly it was using its powers full force in 83, with all the mad teleportation, mindscrewy camera effects, etc, not to mention the Jay's corpse and "YOURFAULTYOURFAULT" stuff that I would write off as a hallucination had it not been captured on camera. Perhaps the reason Tim never addressed not remembering the events of the entry but didn't know it was Brian was that the blue flare was something that somehow actually happened, both from Tim's perspective and the camera.

Food for thought borne of hunger and sleep deprivation. Discuss the flaws in this idea.

Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 5:46 pm

lonsumtravlr
Entrenched

Joined: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 1009
Location: The Great Continent of New England

TheJoker wrote:

I'd thought about that too. It could be TO covering the face, and it could be Alex somehow projecting into that--which assumes that he somehow has gained some control or at least has some deep emotional investment in the Slendyverse. (Is that term still being used?)

Why Alex in #83? (Oh boy, what follows in response to your idea gets off the topic of Entry #84, yet I think it's still related given the conversation, so I'll enclose it in spoiler tags). Think about it:

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

if Tim's the one who somehow brought TO to plague the MH shoot, and Alex somehow figured out what was happening to his crew, then maybe Alex did come to blame Tim for everything. Maybe he pieced it together from the tape that somehow ended up in Brian/Hoody's pocket (because it likely would have been his first)? That and the hospital--maybe he somehow figured out Tim's medical history first (no proof for that, granted, but he knew Tim was associated somehow with the hospital, and he also attacked Tim first there). It doesn't preclude Alex coming under TO's thrall later, especially after TO reappeared in his life and did... whatever... to Amy and maybe others. He may have somehow made some sort of pact with it (as the end of Entry #43 seems to suggest) and gained some sort of ability to manipulate TO's dimension. He's the one who'd likely say that all that's happened was Tim's fault--except for very few episodes, TO doesn't seem to actually want anything [rather, what it wants and in what way that want can be satisfied is not at all clear]).

It does, however, mean that the earlier attempts at purging the MH crew may not have been "sacrifices" to TO. Maybe Alex snapped, saw everything and everyone as polluted, and tried to get rid of them to stop TO from spreading its influence further. Maybe there aren't even "sacrifices" (a term that presumes that TO is either a diabolically [enough] evil with a will, or some kind of god or something) but that TO's just a parasite that somehow Alex has learned to deal with or to distract with occasional killings...

TO often seems less like a parasite and more like a pest, like vermin. Not that it's a willful, conscious, intentional evil or feeder on fear, but more like some horrible quirk of nature that once unleashed attaches to a host or to hosts and just keeps reappearing. (That said, it seems highly attached to Tim and to Alex both for some reason.) In some of the entries it appears almost as if it's just darted out from beneath the floorboards or shuffled out from behind a cabinet, or something, and watching with some kind of puzzled curiosity unless it feels threatened somehow (see Entry #26). Even when it seems to move with more agency, such as in Entry #6 (? where it circles around Alex's house) and Entry #14 (where it opens the door of Alex's bedroom), it seems as much to be trying to stake out a place to nest as it is stalking someone in order to control him.

In this case, this actually makes Alex seem both tragically sympathetic and creepily bad simultaneously. Tragically sympathetic because at least in some instances he seems to not want to hurt anyone (such as the two times he had prepared to shoot Jessica and hesitated with a speech about how he "didn't want to do this" but it was someone else's fault).

I may not be writing very clearly here because I'm using Unfiction to alleviate a dreadfully boring work day that thankfully will be over soon. What I posted in spoiler tags possibly belongs on another thread, and maybe I'll try to make it more coherent and grammatical and less stream of consciousness on a more appropriate thread. Yet it strikes me as pertinent to some things mentioned above. And to bring it back to Entries #83 and #84, without knowing what comes next, which will hopefully tie some strands together, all we've got is speculation. If whatever comes next gives some sense of Alex or TO wanting to torment Tim, then the blue flare hiding the Hoody reveal is a lot less cheap (maybe).

Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 6:24 pm

JAL13
Decorated

Joined: 10 Jun 2013
Posts: 269
Location: Between Realms

lonsumtravlr wrote:

TheJoker wrote:

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 1:18 am

SilentMedusa
Entrenched

Joined: 04 Jul 2013
Posts: 904

lonsumtravlr wrote:

A really cool post

I like all of this; especially the idea about The Operator latching onto a host (or hosts). Now, if we could just work out what it's getting out of said 'hosts'...

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 2:23 am

Sha Noran
Entrenched

Joined: 29 Apr 2013
Posts: 919

I approve of this, thus.

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 6:54 am

ghaleon7
Kilroy

Joined: 22 Feb 2014
Posts: 2

Can't really agree on this. The reveal sounded way too forced. Just because he's wearing the hoodie, that means Hoody is Brian?

Of course, we have some other things that hint it along with this: Brian being taken by the Operator in Entry 51, Masky and Hoody working together like Tim and Brian were the best friends...

But all just sounds so weak. Until we have a proper reveal, I'm not buying it.

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 10:38 am

lonsumtravlr
Entrenched

Joined: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 1009
Location: The Great Continent of New England

SilentMedusa wrote:

lonsumtravlr wrote:

A really cool post

I like all of this; especially the idea about The Operator latching onto a host (or hosts). Now, if we could just work out what it's getting out of said 'hosts'...

Thanks very much, though there are holes. To be honest, it seems that in the first season Trosephim were likely going along the lines of TO being willfully malicious--at least in the earliest entries (Entries #23 and #26 are different, though--in #26, when TO appears, it's peeking out from the hallway as if it's a bug who's run across the kitchen counter and is then peeking out at you from behind the stove [if you've ever lived in an infested apartment, you know exactly what I'm talking about]). But as the series expanded, it seems TO became (and this isn't my original idea, but it's one I agree with after repeated viewings of the entries) less an overtly evil entity and more something that shows up and fucks things and people up. It seems that it's looking for a host and that it's trying to find one to settle in for awhile in, too.

So, as you say, SilentMedusa, the thing to work out is "what it's getting out of said 'hosts.'" I wish I had a good answer for that, but it does seem that Tim and Alex share one common trait: Both circa 2006, when Alex was putting together his "Marble Hornets" movie, seem to have a lot less self-certainty and self-confidence. Several entries show that about Tim (there's his whole medical history and the apparent neglect and possible abuse). Entry #84 shows Alex as introverted, even geeky. The behind the scenes shots of him waiting for someone to show up for his movie are heartstring-tugging: all he wants is someone to show up and fuckin' audition, and I don't know about any of you, but I sure get the sense that aside from Brian and I guess Jay, if Alex has any friends at all in film school, they're only classroom friends--i.e., they don't really have any substantive connection. Apparently the only person who does show up to audition is someone he's genuinely friendly, if not friends, with, and seems to be an overtly nice guy who encourages him with everything. (A lot to take out of a six-or-so-minute clip, true, but for its flaws, Entry #84 provides fuel for some speculation about Alex's own backstory. And if so, then despite however dissatisfying it may be to some as an apparent confirmation of Hoody's secret identity, the entry has value in filling out a little bit of Alex's pre-TO life.)

(I realize that might undermine my statement in my previous post about how it's not clear that TO "feeds" on anything--I just don't like that because, again, that almost humanizes or otherwise makes TO much more sentient than it's apparent that it is.)

Whatever happened thereafter, Tim and Alex seem to be the two members of the MH crew whose personalities changed the most (I'm stating this on the basis of the actual evidence from the entries: you get the former mental patient trying to have a normal life while having a masked avenger split personality, and the film student turned bad-ass serial killer fugitive with a gun). They're also the two with definite links to TO.

Not sure if I can say anymore without regurgitating what's already been said or plundering other people's theories, which I don't want to do, at least not till the final entries.

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 1:42 pm

CityMusic
Boot

Joined: 09 Apr 2014
Posts: 25
Location: In the Decaying Walls in a place Hidden in The City

Quote:

Now, that is just not true, Jay is incredibly logical, adept at thinking on his feet, & has highly developed powers of observ--nope, couldn't keep that up.

I wonder if Troy also makes fun of Jay?

I don't think all protagonists need to be smart or intelligent. I actually kinda like how Jay is a bit less smart and intelligent. If he was smart he might have not gone after Alex in the first place to see what had happened to him.

Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2014 2:08 pm

lonsumtravlr
Entrenched

Joined: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 1009
Location: The Great Continent of New England

CityMusic wrote:

Quote:

Now, that is just not true, Jay is incredibly logical, adept at thinking on his feet, & has highly developed powers of observ--nope, couldn't keep that up.

I wonder if Troy also makes fun of Jay?

I don't think Jay's dumb. I think he's naive and really cares both about the truth and about his friends. He really didn't think there could be some horrible freak of nature in any way behind Alex's bizarre disappearance, and by the time he'd decided to turn back he was too late. With his house burned down and a desperate plea from his friend for help, Jay really had no place to go and nothing else to do.

Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2014 2:47 pm

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