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[Ztakk]

[AdaMiSt]

Regarding Alex saying they didn't have a camera, has it occurred to anyone that perhaps he got rid of the camera from these events as well as the tapes, only to have TTA plant it in the closet? Seems a very TTA thing to do.

That could explain Alex's reaction. Shock and then trying to brush it off so as not to alarm Amy, or give TTA the satisfaction.

[Kraehtot]

Yes, I've thought about it. For me it makes sense.

[Lithp]

What people keep pointing out is that Amy acts like they've never had a camera. If that were what happened, you would expect Amy to say, "I thought you got rid of the camera," or "I thought we didn't have a camera anymore," or even "So when did we get a new camera?"

Also, does this Entry Thread seem unusually short to anyone else?

[Toadbert]

Entry threads have been feeling kinda short to me, yeah.

But I can believe Amy's dialogue supports the idea that she thought Alex got rid of his old camera and got a new one. Even if the dialogue wasn't as specific as your examples, I think it still works. Maybe Troy just didn't have this plan laid out when he wrote entry 26.

[Grumplestiltskin]

I wonder if the threads are getting shorter because we just aren't getting as much new information. I mean, what we learned in #70 is that Alex and Amy were an item during the summer of 2006, that Alex lied to Amy about where he was, and that Alex rushed TO when he encountered him. The rest is speculation that seems to be circling the same few theories -- Alex burned the tapes because: he was protecting Amy, and/or he was covering up an as-yet unseen misdeed, and/or he was trying not to be found.

[Lithp]

I would say that's definitely a huge part of it.

[Sha Noran]

You can't aggresively disprove and dismiss speculation and then expect for newer users to continue tossing out ideas when they fear the board veterans are going to squash them. Just sayin', I've seen that kill forum discussion/brainstorming many, many times in the past. And when the thread consistantly drifts into pissing contests with pravado or somebody, or a boner fest for Tim, it's hard to track the conversation properly and keep it going. Just pointing out a couple things I know for sure from my personal, extensive forum experience (not here obviously, post count hurr durr).

On topic, reading a lot of the threads here, I've developed myself a pet peeve. Too many of you are focused WAY too much on whether a character can be trusted, if they are lying or telling the truth, etc. I think it is just straight up foolish to ignore the much more apparent theme of memory loss, memory suppression, forgetting details, characters dismissing details they incorrectly undervalued, things like that. If Jay is being truthful (and it's been fairly pointed out that if Jay is lying it would make it kind of lame for those of us trying to play the ARG as opposed to just watching it as a show) then we KNOW as FACT that The Operator can and does cause memory loss, sometimes accounting for HUGE periods of time. I don't think Tim, or even Alex for that matter, is generally lying about much of anything, I think there's just a lot they don't remember. I think the way the characters react to and deal with this memory loss is a massive part of the driving force behind the series. Not remembering a month of time+ is a scary thought, and I think it reveals our character's strongest motivations to examine how they handle this. Tim has history as a mental patient, so he assumes his memory loss is related to that and has questioned it through his life much less than the other characters. Jay has a good heart and feels strong empathy for others, and is obviously quite a curious individual given the way he began MH in the first place was basically curiosity and as the series goes on, if he doesn't know something he seeks answers. Alex allows his fear to get the better of him and responds with a fight or flight response, either becoming violent or fleeing the situation in a big way (moving away to start his life anew). TTA seems to have found a way to avoid this memory loss, or better yet, a way to recover his memories later on with a much cleaner method than filming himself all the time.

For example, when Alex gives his little speech about have all the others are "gone", it seems to me he isn't lying. He just has no idea what the hell is going on or where they went. Forgive me for not knowing the Entry number offhand, but you guys know what I'm talking about. Just something to think about. Forget trust, truth and lying. We KNOW that TO can cause memory loss and we all seem to at least consider it a solid possibility that he can mind control people or whatever and turn them into proxies. I don't think our characters lie much, I just think they forget a lot of shit, they are scared of the situation and each other, and none of them has anything resembling a real plan to fix the situation.

[Jsor]

I don't think it's fair to dismiss anything and everything Jay, Tim, Jessica, or TTA (in his special cryptic way) says. Jay, at least, has lied before, but most of the time he has little reason to and from a metagame perspective they know that making Jay too much of an unreliable narrator damages our ability to talk about it (save a single, huge twist at the end of the series).

That said, Alex is fair game in my opinion. We've been given every reason to question everything he's ever said. He has, seemingly intentionally, lured multiple people to places just to attack them. Operator influence? Sure, maybe, but he's clearly been mind-raped so hard that it really calls into question when he was just acting like he was normal. Personally I believe that when Tim brought him to the abandoned buildings for location scouting, he was normal and was only influenced (in that scenario) when he attacked Tim and led Bryan there.

Hell, I almost believe that when he called Jay and Tim in the tunnel and told them to "Leave. Now." it was a legitimate warning and not a threat.

However, I think it's fair to be dubious about pretty much everything he's ever said or done because Alex is, at this point, pretty unstable. It's legitimately questionable when he's (trying to be) nice or noble, when he's lying, and when he's just crazy. I trust the other characters to mostly not lie to us. Alex not so much.

That's not to say we must always think Jay or Tim are truthful, but we should really reserve it for when they have a damn good reason to lie (like Tim having a vested interest in forgetting about his medical history).

Also, I was here early-mid Season 2. I think people might be overcorrecting a tad. I remember there was one embarassingly large and... spirited entry thread about whether TTA or The Operator was outside Jay's car.

[Grumplestiltskin]

[Lithp]

[Sha Noran]

I didn't mean to be calling anyone out specifically, I merely suggest that if a newbie posts a theory, 1 person can refute him, it doesn't take 5. People become scared to post again if they think they're gonna get jumped on. I only mention this because the quantity of posts in the Entries thread was brought up, and I decided to chime in. Anyway, I'm dragging us off topic! It takes some balls to put your opinion out there on such a series as this, with such few clues. We're all just fans, and there are probably twice as many lurkers as posters, and twice that again that just watch the videos like a show and never come to post!

As far as the lying thing, 2 points (and I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate) but aren't we all kind of EXPECTING a twist? I am. If we could find the answers with what we have now, there are enough diehard, intelligent and slightly obsessed fans that someone would have said, "holy shit guys, I GOT IT!" and explained it, and we'd be like, holy shit, you're right!

I think the things hidden in the videos are alternate ways of percieving the events overall, and the writers prevent you from considering this by keeping you scared and confused with shifting alliances on the character's part, for the time being.

1) Alex has been called a creeper and a liar in this thread, and I argue this point. He said something like "I just don't like being this far from you". That's not that weird man, especially when SHE didn't find it weird either, not creeper status anyway. He probably just wants a hug, or, OMG CREEPER, he wants to get laid. Get real guys, Alex and Amy are adults. That really just is not that creepy. As for him lying about where he is, how would you think a little white lie to prevent his girlfriend from worrying is all that weird or nefarious? If he went and told her everything, she A)wouldn't believe him or B)panic and be scared, insisting he not go. As he is already driving there, he has already made up his mind to go. The fact that he even answered the call gives him some "legit points" in my book. He cares or he wouldn't have answered the call, wanted to hear her voice. I think this Entry paints Alex more as a victim for these reasons. You guys paint him as evil without taking the Entry in context. He still doesn't even understand The Operator, or he wouldn't have charged him as he does later on in this one.

2) Is a lie told as a proxy really a lie from the person who is the proxy, or is it really from The Operator? Maybe he's called The Operator because he's operating your mind and you as his proxy as a man might operate a machine. If The Operator made you tell a lie, did you really lie? Guns don't kill people, people kill people, right? Alex is The Operator's gun. Can you blame Alex and call him evil for doing things he did while "not himself" but rather TO's proxy? Do you blame Tim for things Masky did? Consider the parrelels. Perhaps Alex just doesn't wear a mask or hoody while he is not himself. Perhaps Masky and Hoody are thematic clues to Alex's situation, which is less visually obvious.

[Lithp]

But the point was that Alex lies a lot, not the reasoning behind it.

[Sha Noran]

Well then that's been a given since S1. It is much more interesting to wonder why a person lies than when, where, who, how a person lies or what they lie about. Why is motive. The rest is physical evidence. You have to present/prove motive (why) in court to convince a jury (we, the viewers, are the jury) of guilt. The fact that people can even make an argument for Alex's victim story is persuasion enough. Innocent until proven guilty. Proxy until proven guilty of making his own murderous decisions.

EDIT: By season 1 I spoke erroniously. I meant, MH original shooting era. Entry 51 I think it is, he blatantly lures Brian to death, or so it seems. He's been lying since then at least for sure, for an easy example. But why? None of us know why. I posit he doesn't remember any of this beyond what J is posting. He wasn't Alex. He was proxyAlex, MaskyAlex with no mask.

[Grumplestiltskin]