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[woda]

Hard Times

[veebee]

erm, Woda, you may want to check back a few posts.....


Thanks for the pointers though!!
xx


Just had a bit of an OMG moment! Remember what MA said, sometime you can't see the forest for the trees?

6 STORIES, 6 CARDS......The stories themselves represent the cards! That's how we can work out the card he needs, because we know what the next story is based on, AND we know which stories have gone before. Now we just need to work out which card each story represents.

I'm in the middle of something, I'll come back to this later!

[ambien]

Contrariwise

[IngyW]

still working out the story's puzzle

[ALISDAIRPARK]

Ingy - it's already been solved, if you check back . message system?

[IngyW]

AP by message system I meant the puzzle we just solved in Hard Times. With my newly acquired ARG hat on I'm seeing the links between the stories and M-A as messages.


I just emailed Alice, asking if Dorcus might be able to help us with the information on the page. I guess plenty of other people have also done this, but a big thing for me, as this is the first ARG character I've ever emailed!

[NShen]

"contrariwise"

[veebee]

MA, in his latest contact, is being The Hierophant, who is usually pictured with a torch. We have basically been shown representations of most of the cards throughout the stories & ARG. I wish I could marry it all together, but I'm doing other stuff at the mo. I'm still convinced that the stories are the cards though. And I do also think that we should keep the mirror image aspect in mind.

Aaaarrrgghhh, Sooooo Close!

[mseckington]

My thoughts are bit jumbled up at the moment, so please bear with me if I don't make complete sense.

For starters, I think to find the Path of Passage, we only have to take those "story parts" in account that MA is using to contact us:

Week 1: The email from "Daisy"
Week 2: Pages 139-142 in Mythological Objects
Week 3: The profile page from Spinankle on librarything
Week 4: The review on Tulip Roots from Times Online
Week 5: The contrariwise Wiki
Week 6: still coming

From these 6 "messages" we should be able to figure out, which cards he has.

At the moment, I think we're supposed to discover these cards:

Week 1:

Justice - MA shows the woman a blindfold and "expected her to bind it around her own eyes". Lady Justice is almost always pictured with a blindfold. Then later they say: "Why, you're nothing but skin and bone," I said. "Not even that," she laughed softly." I think this means she's not a person, but an idea, a concept, like Justice.

? - I think there's another card hidden here with it's clues being the scorpion and the "tiny black fabric-covered box marked with three small crowns for which I had bargained so vigourously for in the souk of a thousand boys-own adventures" Or these are more clues for Justice.

Week 2:

The World - MA meets a mirage that turns into a snake biting itself, which is a lot of time a symbol for eternity, the universe and the world.

The Mage - MA does magic tricks with an assistant and at the end there's a line "pick a card, and card" Shouldn't that be "pick a card, any card"?

Week 3:

Hermit - This one was already pointed out: the hermit crab picture and everything MA says about solitude and understanding.

Week 4:

? - "The venue for finding the next card is hard to conceive. It could, after all, be anywhere. It is everywhere. But then, sometimes one can't see the forest for the trees."
Where four creatures are gathered – and I think, inexplicably, of a convent I once heard tell of, San Miguelion de los Mercados – but the creatures are not important. I am looking for a figure: not quite man, not quite woman. He-She appears."
I'm thinking Judgment, but I'm not really sure why.

Week 5:

the Sun - In the last paragraph he says: "So I send up a flare" Stretching it a bit here, but I can't find anything else.

But then we have to take the game play into account. Is MA only obtaining cards, finding them in the literary worlds? Or is he actually swapping them the whole time? There are a couple of things:

In Week 1:
Here he's swapping one card for another.
"I think you know," I said, "which card I seek from you. I believe you have it.""Ah yes," she said, "together we have made that perfectly clear." One of the cards is Justice and I think that's the card he has swapped for (as in 1 of the final).

In Week 2:
I think the mirage is telling MA that he has to obtain "the World" card. By performing with the magician he swaps his "Mage card" for "any card": the World card.

In Week 3:
MA says "the third card is a quiet one", which means that before this he only swapped 2 cards.

In Week 4:

Here's where it get tricky. Why would MA give away his highest card (the World)? There's no sense in that. Plus he never actually say's that he gave a card away, he was getting a card. So I don't think he has lost the World. Only he wanted a certain card that he needed and he's not getting.
I'm interpreting this as: "he got the Fool card, while he wanted the Judgement card"

Let's theorize for a moment, assuming the above he's got these cards:
Justice 11
The World 21
The Hermit 9
The Fool 0
The Sun 19
This adds up to 60. Now I'm not sure what he was planning but I'm assuming he wanted a high card and that's why he first went after Judgement. I think next week we'll find out he has obtained "The Moon". Why? Cause then he'll have 78, leaving him still needing 22 points.

Which card is 22 points? The card that comes after The World: The Mirror.

Here's why I think that: first off, we know the rules aren't strict, we're supposed to "cheat" somehow. I think we'll do this by having a 7th card (or swapping the 6th card The Fool for The Mirror). And I think The Mirror exists because of two lines in Mythological Objects and Week 4:

""Psst," she said, "don't forget, it's all done with smoke and the other thing.""
"None of the inhabitants of this place is supposed to say the names of the cards."

I think we're supposed to write a story about how MA obtains the Mirror.

[ambien]

Good work getting all that down mseckington,

[veebee]

The Fool is at once worth zero AND 22 in t@rot, as it is both the beginning and the end of the circle....... A possible way for him to cheat?

I like the idea of the mirror being the World though, and that being the reason they can say world but not mirror.

Hmmm, more to think about!

[NShen]

Addition to the wiki

[veebee]

That is looking good!
In week 2, as another note, MA is definitely being the Magician, and the fact that he is taking 2 cards means that he has received a swap & 1 from the deck, as happens at the end of a duel.

Oh, that means that a duel took place in MythObs, the Mirage was the magician, showed MA the World, then MA became the magician, and then the duel was over.
EDIT: Should read more thoroughly, shouldn't I?

He/She seems to me to refer to the Wheel of Fortune, which strives for the balance between male & female to complete a cycle of understanding.

Wk 5 notes. I feel this is pointing to the Hierophant, who is usually depicted holding a torch up with on hand. It represents intuition, a journey between the conscious mind, subconscious mind, back to the conscious. We are acting as MA's conscious mind, the reality, he is stuck in the subconscious, the story.

The only reason MA would receive a card from the He/She that he didn't want is if It was the dealer, and that was the last cards MA would be dealt from the pile. I still think he chose to swap the World, asked for a certain card, but received the Fool instead.

[ALISDAIRPARK]

[veebee]

Throwing out a theory..