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 Forum index » Chaotic Fiction » Marble Hornets
[SPEC] The Operator Symbol
Moderators: Giskard, JKatkina, Zarggg
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aidansean
Unfettered


Joined: 03 Mar 2012
Posts: 495

 		Personally I think it's a mental image that the operator places in the heads of his sleeping stalkees and after so many instances of seeing the same thing in their dreams they feel the need to draw it. We already know that the operator made Jessica dream about being stalked in the woods, and she also drew the symbol when she wrote down the safe combination. What does Alex draw? Trees, a tall faceless guy, and the symbol. When totheark draws it they're telling Jay they know about the symbol and where it comes from.

PostPosted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 8:40 am
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sweetgums
Decorated


Joined: 24 Jul 2011
Posts: 240

 		I think it's a symbol that's associated with the Operator; it neither repels him nor summons him, it's just something that represents him. Like DHawk said, the symbol by itself it won't do anything but if you find it in places or objects (the tower, the hospital, the papers) you know some TO business went on there.

PostPosted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 12:43 pm
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Nautilus
Greenhorn


Joined: 25 Dec 2011
Posts: 7

 		Someone a while back mentioned something about operator functions. Well, a few weeks ago, I was using the Equation Writer in Word 2010, and what do you think I noticed in the "Operator Function" options? Yep, a circle with an X through it. I'm not quite sure what the symbol does, but I was intrigued. Though it could very well be just a coincidence.

PostPosted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 2:26 pm
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DHawk314
Entrenched


Joined: 17 May 2011
Posts: 1087
Nautilus wrote:
Someone a while back mentioned something about operator functions. Well, a few weeks ago, I was using the Equation Writer in Word 2010, and what do you think I noticed in the "Operator Function" options? Yep, a circle with an X through it. I'm not quite sure what the symbol does, but I was intrigued. Though it could very well be just a coincidence.


The circle x thing is a math symbol, and in Math it's actually called an Operator Symbol. I kinda suspect that that's the real reason he's called the Operator. It could be the other way around, that they called him the Operator and that's where the symbol comes from, but I also think it comes from the lack of a face.

PostPosted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 3:21 pm
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onetruepurple
Unfettered


Joined: 07 Jan 2011
Posts: 570

 		The symbol originated"OOG"
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
on Something Awful, in one of the earliest pictures (not Victor Surge's, though) of Slenderman in that one thread.


PostPosted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 3:33 pm
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DHawk314
Entrenched


Joined: 17 May 2011
Posts: 1087

 		I don't think that's true. I've looked through that forum, and I didn't see the symbol until after it was used in Marble Hornets.

PostPosted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 4:09 pm
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SignerJ
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Joined: 08 Oct 2011
Posts: 514
Location: Earth

 		Susil wrote :
Quote:
I think the symbol is more about communication. It could be as simple indication that there is some relation to TO, or as an indication that a particular person is involved in these events. For example, when we see the symbol scratched on the tower in entry 21, it could be there as a signal to Jay that he's come to the right place. Whoever left the tape (their idenitiy is different discussion!) knew Jay would recognise the symbol as relating to his investigations.

Equally, it makes sense that it might be used to communicate with yourself. In a series where memory loss is so prevalent, it makes sense that the smarter charaters might have a rudimentary system in place to mark locations or items that they might forget the significance of. Don't forget, the first occasion we see the symbol (IIRC) is amongst Alex's scribbled drawings. I hold firmly to the theory that these drawings were (as are the recent examples) Alex's frantic attempts to get record/recall information he is scared of forgetting. It's certainly plausible that he took to using the symbol to mark things for his own future reference. For instance, in the "bathouse" entry, we see Alex uncovering a symbol - it could be that he had encountered TO here already (or had some other reason to think it significant) and had left the mark as a message to himself, of sorts...


Sorry for not coming up with any new ideas, but I really like this theory. It makes sense.

PostPosted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 7:55 pm
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aidansean
Unfettered


Joined: 03 Mar 2012
Posts: 495
sweetgums wrote:
I think it's a symbol that's associated with the Operator; it neither repels him nor summons him, it's just something that represents him. Like DHawk said, the symbol by itself it won't do anything but if you find it in places or objects (the tower, the hospital, the papers) you know some TO business went on there.


If that's the case then 50% of the time we'd expect tearing before filming the symbol and 50% of the time after filming the symbol. From what I remember (poorly) nearly every time we see tearing it's shortly after filming the symbol, suggesting that it's a summoning symbol. (In Entry #26 it seems to be Alex that summons the operator for someone reason. Maybe that's why the symbol appears on his face in enttry 37, because Alex's face is just as good at summoning the operator as the symbol is.)

Edit: What I meant to say is whenever we see the symbol it's usually shortly before a tear, not whenever we see a tear it's shortly after a symbol. Those two things are clearly not the same, duh!

PostPosted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 8:26 pm
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pravado
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Joined: 22 Apr 2011
Posts: 1833

 		Tearing occurs far less than 50% of the time a symbol appears and vice versa, the two are not related. Tearing reperents the operator teleporting in.

PostPosted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 10:08 pm
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DHawk314
Entrenched


Joined: 17 May 2011
Posts: 1087
pravado wrote:
Tearing occurs far less than 50% of the time a symbol appears and vice versa, the two are not related. Tearing reperents the operator teleporting in.


I don't think he's denying that, he's saying most of the times tearing appears along with operator symbols, the tearing is after the symbol is filmed, implying filming the symbol causes the Operator to teleport to you. Now I think his initial evidence is wrong, I don't really remember exactly all the times people film operator symbols. If someone else could go through that, that'd be cool.

PostPosted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 10:58 pm
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Jamocha101
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Joined: 01 Apr 2012
Posts: 465
Location: Pennsylvania
pravado wrote:
Tearing occurs far less than 50% of the time a symbol appears and vice versa, the two are not related. Tearing reperents the operator teleporting in.


It has to be the Operator teleporting?

From the very beginning, I was under the impression that it was solely the very presence of the Operator that caused malfunctions with the camera. Not necessarily him using his creepy Slenderface superpowers.
_________________
"I wish people with communication problems would just shut up."
--Tom Lehrer.

PostPosted: Sun Jul 22, 2012 5:49 pm
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DHawk314
Entrenched


Joined: 17 May 2011
Posts: 1087
Jamocha101 wrote:
pravado wrote:
Tearing occurs far less than 50% of the time a symbol appears and vice versa, the two are not related. Tearing reperents the operator teleporting in.


It has to be the Operator teleporting?

From the very beginning, I was under the impression that it was solely the very presence of the Operator that caused malfunctions with the camera. Not necessarily him using his creepy Slenderface superpowers.


Well, the distortion happens around him a lot. But the tearing (the little line thing) tends to appear when it seem he just teleported in.

PostPosted: Sun Jul 22, 2012 5:59 pm
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aidansean
Unfettered


Joined: 03 Mar 2012
Posts: 495

 		Okay, here are the tears, symbols, distortions, and operator/masky presences by entry:

Entry #1: Tear. No symbol. No audio. (Since this is the first entry, it would be before Jay would have noticed any pattern to the symbol.)

Entry #3: Tearing as Alex writes on/rips up paper.

Entry #4: Tearing. No symbol. Operator is present, possibly teleporting. No audio.

Entry #5: Tearing. No symbol. Severe audio distortion.

Entry #6: No tearing. No symbol. Operator is present. No audio. Possibly a continuation of Entry #1.

Entry #7: Tearing. No symbol. Operator is present. Audio distortion at end of video.

Entry #8: First appearance of symbol. Audio cuts out. No tearing.

Entry #10: No tearing (though hard to see, maybe I missed some). No symbol. Operator is present. Audio disabled.

Entry #11: Symbol over Alex's bed. Operator is present after symbol first seen, before symbol last seen. No tearing, but operator appears to teleport (gets into the house.)

Entry #12: No tearing. No symbol. Operator is present. Video and audio distortion.

Entry #13: No tearing (unless I missed it.) Symbol seen on the ground and on the walls. Operator is present after symbol seen. Audio cuts out.

Entry #14: No tearing, but erm, "jumping"? No symbol. Operator is present.

Entry #16: Tearing at 3:50. Symbol at 7:25. Jay's coughing suggests the operator is present.

Entry #17: No tearing. No symbol. Operator is present. Audio and video distortion at end of video.

Entry #18: No tearing. No symbol. Operator is probably present. Severe audio distortion.

Entry #19: Jumping. No symbol. Severe audio distortion. Masky is present.

Entry #19.5: No tearing. Symbol seen.

Entry #20: No tearing. No symbol. Severe audio/video distortion.

Entry #21: Symbol. No tearing.

Entry #22: No symbol. No tearing. Operator is present. Severe audio/video distortion.

Entry #23: Tearing at 0:51. Symbol seen at 2:23. Jay teleports (and time travels?). Severe audio/video distortion. Operator is definitely present.

Entry #24: No tearing. No symbol. Audio/video distortion. Jay teleports. Masky is present.

Entry #25: Tearing by proxy. No symbol.

Entry #26: Controversial entry. Camera freezes. Tearing. Operator is present. Severe audio/video distortion at start of video-in-video. Symbol seen at end of video-in-video.

Entry #29: Tearing left, right and centre. No symbol. Operator is present.

Entry #30: No tearing. No symbol. Slight audio/video distortion around Jessica.

Entry #32: Audio/video distortion around Jessica. Canon tells us the operator is present. No symbol. Camera freezes twice. Tearing at end of video.

Entry #33: Symbol seen at 1:04. Tearing at 1:56. Audio/video distortion. Masky is present. Either Jay teleports, or there's a continuity error.

Entry #35: Masky is present. Audio/video distortion. Camera freezes. Tearing at 1:31. No symbol.

Entry #36: No tearing. No symbol. Severe audio/video distortion.

enttry 37: Controversial entry. Tearing. No symbol. Operator is present.

Entry #38: Tearing at 0:38. No symbol.

Entry #40: Tearing. No symbol. Operator is front row centre. Severe audio/video distortion.

Entry #43: Operator is present. Severe audio/video distortion.

Entry #44: Alex shows his face to the camera. (Suggestion of face-based summoning.) Symbol seen at 1:57. Audio distortion. Operator shadow see at 2:35. Audio/video distortion and jumping seen as operator arrives at 3:38. Masky present.

Entry #45: Alex's face seen at 2:34. Tearing at 2:37. Audio/video distortion at end of video.

Entry #46: Symbol seen at 1:36. Operator is present. No tearing. Severe audio distortion. Video distortion. Camera freezes.

Entry #48: Audio distortion and operator present around 4:30.

Entry #49: No symbol. All kinds of tearing. Severe audio/video distortion as operator is present.

Entry #50: Audio distortion at 8:20. Symbol seen at 11:59. No tearing.

Entry #51: No tearing. No symbol. Operator present. Severe audio/video distortion. Camera freezes.

Entry #52: Operator is present. Jay teleports. No tearing. No symbol. Severe audio/video distortion.

Entry #53: Small tear at 5:15. No symbol.

Entry #54: No symbol. Slight tear at end of video. Operator present. Audio/video distortion.

Entry #56: Symbol seen at 3:02. Tearing and audio/video distortion as operator teleports at 5:07.

Entry #57: No symbol. Tearing as operator teleports. Severe video distortion.

Entry #60: Symbol seen at 6:41. All kinds of tearing, teleporting and slending from 8:10 onwards. Audio/video distortion and camera freezing.

So in summary, nothing really to back up my assertion that when there is a symbol and tearing in the same video, the symbol causes the tearing (summons the operator.) But it was interesting to go through and find all the correlations between the various things. I quite like the idea that someone's face can summon the operator.

I also quite like the idea of Tim turning up on set as Masky to be behind-the-movie-guy.

PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 8:04 pm
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Drnothing1
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Joined: 24 Jul 2012
Posts: 146
aidansean wrote:
enttry 37: Controversial entry. Tearing. No symbol. Operator is present.


Operator symbol at 0:24. It appears to be edted in however.

PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 8:12 pm
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Nimblewright
Boot

Joined: 22 Jun 2012
Posts: 67

 		Using this data we can calculate that an Operator Symbol is followed by a tear 54% of the time, the symbol is followed by an Operator sighting 62% of the time, and a tear is followed by the Operator 63% of the time.

So basically, they both say pretty much nothing.

PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 9:02 pm
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