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[timetokill]

Also pretty blunt that the police had reason to suspect they were twins in order to ask the question. And yet somehow they never felt the need to bluntly ask her about her identity issues...

Yup. Plus the fact that they ask the same questions to try and differentiate between them, and use various techniques to bring about their differences.

This was the perfect experience to play with my SO. We were firmly on the twins side of the fence.

Any recommendations for games you can play together that are good in the way this was? I don't mean co-op... I mean where you can discuss, digest, debate and not exclude the party not in control.

The Walking Dead or The Wolf Among Us? Doesn't have a ton of mystery but you can take turns making decisions or something. Worked well for me with the women in my life.

 

[SmiteOfHand]

It doesn't fit. Eve doesn't lie about wearing a wig to perform. Why would she lie about the tattoo? She said she got it 8 years ago, and Simon was able to guess her name by her tattoo. It isn't a part of her 'act'.

Nope. She has very good reason to lie about the murder. She has no reason whatsoever to lie about her tattoo.

But she does lie about the wig. When she is Hannah she acts as she has no idea what possible wig there could be, which is plausible. When she is Eve she even suggests it was something that came through the cat flap. The same interview session where she supposedly is 100% truthful about her tattoo. search: wig cat flap

"This other person doesn't exist. I don't know what the blonde wig is but it could be anything. Have you looked at the cat flap?"

It isn't until the final interview when she admits she is Eve and details the murder that she also admits she wore a wig.

 

[denshuu]

But she does lie about the wig. When she is Hannah she acts as she has no idea what possible wig there could be, which is plausible.

Because on 7/1 she's pretending to be Hannah, who knows nothing about the wig. This also isn't relevant, because we know she's telling the truth about her identity by 7/3, which is when she tells us that Simon recognized her by the tattoo.

Edit: Unless you're talking about 6/30. That's Hannah, not Eve.

 

[Shining Sunshine]

I'm on #teamtwins.

They were both pretty messed up in childhood, wanting to be a reflection of each other.

I guess some day they snapped and killed Simon so they can be a reflection again. Using swap tricks against the police to confuse them, and the killer would escape while the innocent twin, with the Glasgow alibi, would reveal their secret.

The only ambiguous thing is if the police still arrested her. SB doesn't really reveal that. SB just says "Now you understand why your mother did what she did?" Doesn't really draw a conclusion.

 

[denshuu]

I'm on #teamtwins.

They were both pretty messed up in childhood, wanting to be a reflection of each other.

I guess some day they snapped and killed Simon so they can be a reflection again. Using swap tricks against the police to confuse them, and the killer would escape while the innocent twin, with the Glasgow alibi, would reveal their secret.

The only ambiguous thing is if the police still arrested her. SB doesn't really reveal that. SB just says "Now you understand why your mother did what she did?" Doesn't really draw a conclusion.

Hannah sliced Simon's throat, but it was out of anger for him cheating on her (He got Eve pregnant, and when Hannah dressed up as Eve and confronted him, he gave her the same present he gave Hannah earlier that year - the antique mirror that's only good for "people who don't like their reflection"). Eve was still in the hospital from hitting the taxi with her car at that time. When she came back, they hid the body together and rehearsed their alibi. Then sometime in July, probably 7/1, Hannah disappears. Eve stops pretending to be Hannah, taunts that the police can't arrest someone who doesn't exist, and says that "her sister is never coming back."

I'm not entirely sure what SB is talking about either, but I think it might be in reference to Eve killing Hannah. In the very last clip, Eve says "You have no murder weapon. You have nothing." But she can't be talking about Simon, because they have that murder weapon. Florence was pushed down the steps and Hannah and Eve's parents were poisoned with death caps. The only other missing character is Hannah.

 

[Ophelion]

So, I cheated and watched all the clips together from beginning to end. It's definitely twins. The narrative is very clear when you see it straight through. They never once switch mid-interview. The only time Hannah mentions Eve is the slip up on her first day in. She tells the police about it because they ask if she's ever wanted to hurt or kill someone. She says yes, her friend Eve.

The only time Eve talks about Hannah is during her confession. It's very clear who is who when you see the interviews end to end. I actually don't think it would have seemed such a magic trick if it hadn't been in the format it was.

Seeing it all run together, it seems like Eve was probably charged with Hannah's murder and aiding and abetting/obstruction of justice on the part of Simon's murder. That's why Sarah is wondering what happened to her mother. Sarah was what Hannah wanted to call her baby. A strangely touching tribute to her sister. It's like Eve brought Hannah's baby back to life. I'm sure that's how she would've thought of it. Like a fairy tale, no?

I fully believe Eve's confession at the end. It was like she was vomiting up the secrets that had kept her so sick all those years. She seemed relieved to be telling someone.

If I wasn't sure before, I am now. Team twins for life. The narrative doesn't support anything else.

 

[danm999]

Man, I'm sort of leading towards twins because whilst it's unlikely a twin could be concealed like that, I feel the "making it all up" and MPD theories require a bit too much physical evidence to be thrown away, or would have the police be looking into things they wouldn't bother with.

This was the perfect experience to play with my SO. We were firmly on the twins side of the fence.

Any recommendations for games you can play together that are good in the way this was? I don't mean co-op... I mean where you can discuss, digest, debate and not exclude the party not in control.

I know a few couples who like playing, as people have already mentioned, Telltale games together, which might be more of a known quantity for you, but stuff like Dreamfall Chapters, Kentucky Route Zero and Life is Strange might be worth a look too.

You make decisions about how to react to various situations that you guys can really get stuck into.

 

[ANDS]

I love how this game is basically Twin Magic: The Game (WWE reference).

In any case, the great thing is both theories hold water.

 

[Kamion]

This was the perfect experience to play with my SO. We were firmly on the twins side of the fence.

Any recommendations for games you can play together that are good in the way this was? I don't mean co-op... I mean where you can discuss, digest, debate and not exclude the party not in control.

Life is Strange! It's better than Telltale games in that you can take back decisions after making them for a while. I played this with my SO and at every point we argued "what consequences could this have" "I want to do this" "but I think this is better" And every time a new episode comes out we see where our consensus has taken us.

Heck, we debated for like 45 minutes on the final decision of Episode 2 before making it.

It's awesome. It's been a month since Episode 3 and we still discuss it sometimes.

 

[SmiteOfHand]

Because on 7/1 she's pretending to be Hannah, who knows nothing about the wig. This also isn't relevant, because we know she's telling the truth about her identity by 7/3, which is when she tells us that Simon recognized her by the tattoo.

Edit: Unless you're talking about 6/30. That's Hannah, not Eve.

My point was that we have evidence she is not being truthful at all times about her appearance.

The notion that the final day she is coming clean and we can take most if not all that info at face value is a strong argument, I'll grant that. However that starts to get into some of my bigger problems with the twin theory. The final day Eve lays out this incredible list of achievements for the twin theory to hold up

-Still birth that nobody cares about a body
-Florence
-Florence's death
-Living in an attic through childhood into adulthood
-Being overlooked by a forensics team when parent's died
-Getting a job, apartment, and driving while not being a legally documented citizen

And then caps it all off by saying everything she said was just stories. Granted some of those are more plausible than others but taken as one big origin story that leaps off plausible into hilarious compared to her doing some trickery with makeup and long sleeves to conceal aspects of her DID.

I admit I like the twin theory more as far as a story, but I wish the origin story was better as it pushes me to DID (or even mastermind theory) just because plausibility.

 

[cilonen]

I'll have to watch it again, but I'm sure there's an interview before the red suit / morning sickness event where 'Hannah' talks about the worst year of her life, losing the baby and being infertile then kind of gases into middle distance and says under her breath something along the lines of "at least I thought I was".

Doesn't SB's chat question at the end give it away though? If Eve is Sarah's mother (and Hannah is indeed both Eve's twin and Simon's murderer) then why ask Sarah if she understand's Eve's motives? That kinda renders the whole 'murder' plot incidental to the Eve / Sarah story.

 

[SmiteOfHand]

There is a sub-theory going that Eve killed Hannah (or something happening to Hannah), figuratively if you lean DID, literally if you lean twin, since Hannah stops showing up and the last few days are all Eve. So some interpret the what your mother did question about being between Eve and Hannah, not Hannah and Simon.

e: you could also interpret that question as "why did your mother help a murderer and [likely] end up in prison?" it is an intentionally devilishly vague question.

 

[AkuMifune]

There is a sub-theory going that Eve killed Hannah (or something happening to Hannah), figuratively if you lean DID, literally if you lean twin, since Hannah stops showing up and the last few days are all Eve. So some interpret the what your mother did question about being between Eve and Hannah, not Hannah and Simon.

e: you could also interpret that question as "why did your mother help a murderer and [likely] end up in prison?" it is an intentionally devilishly vague question.

Well, Hannah does seem to be gone by the end. But did she (Twin) Escape, (Twin) Was murdered by Eve, (Twin) Suicide, (MPD) "Murdered" by Eve if Eve "took over", or the whole thing was a lie within a lie within a lie for no good reason.

One thing is for sure, NO ONE has any idea "Why her mother did what she did" by the time SB sends that IM.

 

[SmiteOfHand]

One thing is for sure, NO ONE has any idea "Why her mother did what she did" by the time SB sends that IM.

That is totally fair point, for sure.

My only beef with the Hannah disappearance thing is there is so little to go off. The facts, or as close as we have with what we are working with, are essentially..

-Hannah attributes disappear after the 30/06/94 interrogation.*
-The bye Hannah knock code.
* Curiously in the angry short interrogation on 02/07/94 what appears to be Eve asks for coffee with sugar.

Please add if I forgot or missed anything. Based on that small bit of info there are a whole bunch of possibilities.

e: ok, found one more. video D769, after Eve dumps all the info she says: "My sister is gone and she is never coming back." and then the line about arresting someone who doesn't exist.

 

[paradox121]

Finished earlier today. Really fantastic storytelling, beautifully unique game. Can only imagine how much of a nightmare it must've been to put together.

Here's why I'm more sure it's twins over split personality: if it was split personality that would make Simon incredibly fucked up too. Him cheating on his wife with her twin is weird, sure, but it's feasible. Him discovering his wife has a second personality and then having an 'affair' with her would be insane.

You could pass it off as him thinking they're both playing some game but then why give her a second mirror as a present? Or, ya know, why not go to a doctor and tell them that his wife is clearly not well. Plus Glasgow, the bruise and the tattoo don't add up otherwise.

Though it is weird that Eve, someone seemingly so secretive and determined to keep up an act, would get something that clearly differentiates her from her sister. One of those cases where I can't tell what was added to help the player and what is actually part of the narrative

 

[Noaloha]

The more I think about the game, the more I'm moving away from thinking of it as a real-world-applicable tale. I'm decreasingly considering it as a solvable mystery that leads somewhere if you apply critical evidential analysis to it.

I think the game wants you to just go along with it, let its themes and landmarks provide a journey, with a specific destination less important, if at all reachable. Unless Barlow outright states that there is a true canon solution to the case and the game has enough watertight clues to direct you to it, I think I feel better viewing it with the same implicit acceptance and suspension of disbelief as I would with an allegory, a parable, a fairy tale. I think the game is more a playful (in the literal sense) meta-meta-story than a puzzle to 'solve'.

 

[Moobabe]

In that final interview Eve must have been asked about something else other than Simon's murder. It's clear she has been arrested but at one point says "you have nothing, you have no murder weapon" (Or something along those lines)

They do have the murder weapon for Simon's murder, the mirror, in which case she is either being asked about Florence's death, Hannah's parents' death or Hannah's death.

I love this game.

 

[hamchan]

Finished earlier today. Really fantastic storytelling, beautifully unique game. Can only imagine how much of a nightmare it must've been to put together.

Here's why I'm more sure it's twins over split personality: if it was split personality that would make Simon incredibly fucked up too. Him cheating on his wife with her twin is weird, sure, but it's feasible. Him discovering his wife has a second personality and then having an 'affair' with her would be insane.

You could pass it off as him thinking they're both playing some game but then why give her a second mirror as a present? Or, ya know, why not go to a doctor and tell them that his wife is clearly not well. Plus Glasgow, the bruise and the tattoo don't add up otherwise.

Though it is weird that Eve, someone seemingly so secretive and determined to keep up an act, would get something that clearly differentiates her from her sister. One of those cases where I can't tell what was added to help the player and what is actually part of the narrative

Sexy role playing. It's a thing. I could totally see Simon just accepting that his wife is into that sorta thing and playing along with the Eve persona, not recognizing that it's actually a serious mental condition.

 

[Moobabe]

Sexy role playing. It's a thing. I could totally see Simon just accepting that his wife is into that sorta thing and playing along with the Eve persona, not recognizing that it's actually a serious mental condition.

At that stage he must realise though? They'd been together 11 years at that point!

 

[megabadd]

So, a friend posted a link to the game's website on FB and I noticed that there's some faint text between HER and STORY (I don't see it in the game splash screen). So, the title is Her Side of the Story.

If we had two people on the videos, it should be called THEIR STORY, and if it was MPD then HER STORY works. So to me, given the extra text, it seems to indicate that all we got the whole time was Eve (although Eve would pretend to be Hannah in some of the videos). The only issue would be the tattoo, but the argument would be that she got it during the interrogation so as to make the police think Hannah was there earlier (but she's actually long gone).

 

[Jam_Sponge]

Here's why I'm more sure it's twins over split personality: if it was split personality that would make Simon incredibly fucked up too. Him cheating on his wife with her twin is weird, sure, but it's feasible. Him discovering his wife has a second personality and then having an 'affair' with her would be insane.

I dunno man, when you really love someone and things get fucked up you'd be amazed the lengths to which people will go along with stuff in the hope that things will somehow get better. Sure, it would have equally made sense for Simon to fuck off as soon as he found out that she had serious mental problems, but that's not really what love is about.

 

[SmiteOfHand]

So, a friend posted a link to the game's website on FB and I noticed that there's some faint text between HER and STORY (I don't see it in the game splash screen). So, the title is Her Side of the Story.

Gonna need a source on this. I dug all around the website and didn't find anything. I'm calling bullshit until proven otherwise.

In that final interview Eve must have been asked about something else other than Simon's murder. It's clear she has been arrested but at one point says "you have nothing, you have no murder weapon" (Or something along those lines)

They do have the murder weapon for Simon's murder, the mirror, in which case she is either being asked about Florence's death, Hannah's parents' death or Hannah's death.

There were 2 mirrors. 1 was broken. They hid the broken mirror and Hannah's clothes. One of the final Eve videos reveals that. The police have the unbroken mirror. They do not have the murder weapon.

 

[paradox121]

I dunno man, when you really love someone and things get fucked up you'd be amazed the lengths to which people will go along with stuff in the hope that things will somehow get better. Sure, it would have equally made sense for Simon to fuck off as soon as he found out that she had serious mental problems, but that's not really what love is about.

Sure, but if he was to act out of 'love' surely the right thing to do would be to get her help rather than indulge her clearly erratic split personality. This isn't just her sticking on a wig and pretending to briefly be someone else. She's apparently convinced herself that they are two separate people.

 

[megabadd]

Gonna need a source on this. I dug all around the website and didn't find anything. I'm calling bullshit until proven otherwise.

You... can confirm it yourself. Just enter http://www.herstorygame.com/about/ into an FB status message, and that's the image that comes up (you don't even have to publish the update).

 

[Hektor]

Wow, reading this thread gave me a whole new perspective about this. I didnt even once thought about her having a split personality, shiet.

Here is a link to a "diary" that i wrote to keep up with all the information i was getting in case anyone is interested.
http://pastebin.com/EdhAa7ZT

You... can confirm it yourself. Just enter http://www.herstorygame.com/about/ into an FB status message, and that's the image that comes up (you don't even have to publish the update).

I can confirm that. That makes shit even more confusing to me.

 

[thepotatoman]

The more I think about the game, the more I'm moving away from thinking of it as a real-world-applicable tale. I'm decreasingly considering it as a solvable mystery that leads somewhere if you apply critical evidential analysis to it.

I think the game wants you to just go along with it, let its themes and landmarks provide a journey, with a specific destination less important, if at all reachable. Unless Barlow outright states that there is a true canon solution to the case and the game has enough watertight clues to direct you to it, I think I feel better viewing it with the same implicit acceptance and suspension of disbelief as I would with an allegory, a parable, a fairy tale. I think the game is more a playful (in the literal sense) meta-meta-story than a puzzle to 'solve'.

Definitely. It's why I like the "Her" in "Her Story" being Sarah. Sarah's story is about finding out what the hell is up with her mother, and how Sarah interprets it is the only thing that matters, and since you're Sarah, how you interpret it is the only thing that matters. The destination is simply "are you satisfied?".

 

[Permanently A]

So, a friend posted a link to the game's website on FB and I noticed that there's some faint text between HER and STORY (I don't see it in the game splash screen). So, the title is Her Side of the Story.

If we had two people on the videos, it should be called THEIR STORY, and if it was MPD then HER STORY works. So to me, given the extra text, it seems to indicate that all we got the whole time was Eve (although Eve would pretend to be Hannah in some of the videos). The only issue would be the tattoo, but the argument would be that she got it during the interrogation so as to make the police think Hannah was there earlier (but she's actually long gone).

This is pretty wild. Maybe its the original title for the game, before the creator decided to make it more ambiguous? "Her side" definitely lends credence to the multiple personality theory.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Finished the game yesterday, 2 questions:

1) so what happened to hannah at the end? We see Eve but no Hannah?

2) If Hannah killed Simon and Eve helped her cover it up by coming into police interviews, why interchange? Why not have one of them run away?

edit: ah, I see that split personality is a theory being bounded around then, would clear up the above but I'm going to stay in the twins theory camp for now.

 

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I'M BACK, BITCHES

my brother datamined the script out of the Unity engine

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xuliusuhs93065d/herstory.csv?dl=0

each line of dialogue is attributed to either EVE or HANNAH

EVE vomits in line 70 and returns in line 71 declaring it morning sickness, no EVE/HANNAH switch

there are five pieces of metadata that SB has attached to each line of dialogue:

FLORENCE
SISTER/TWINS
ATTIC
BABY
MURDER

these are presumably the pieces of data that trigger things like the screen reflection, chit-chat window, etc. the game tallies these as you go to determine how much you "know" about the overarching plot

SB chose the names of the tags himself. this metadata is never displayed to the player. there's absolutely no reason for him to label a line of dialogue as pertaining to the "SISTER/TWINS" plot point when he SECRETLY means MPD and is being coy in his variable names

in conclusion, stop watching anime

#TeamTwins

 

[Howard Alan Treesong]

chronologically, on day 6, when they start questioning Hannah about "twins", she gets extremely angry/aggressive

HANNAH's last lines:
"Really? Go on then. Take the cup. Run your fingerprints. They'll match. Fucking idiot.
For fuck's sake. Can I leave? Are you going to arrest me? No. They'd laugh you out of the building. A lawyer would make mincemeat of you.
Are you arresting me? No. Fuck off. Open this door!"

EVE's last lines:
"My sister is gone. And she's never coming back."

>> Hannah realized the detectives were getting close to the truth, so she (together with help from Eve) has "vanished"

"Can you arrest someone who doesn't exist?"

>> Here, Eve is talking about herself. This is also why she has no ID when she goes to Glasgow - she's lived entirely off the grid her whole life. Officially, she "doesn't exist."

btw, it's pretty funny that the search string "her story" has two results: the story of Florence, and the confession of Simon's death

#TeamTwins

 

[Noaloha]

SB chose the names of the tags himself. this metadata is never displayed to the player. there's absolutely no reason for him to label a line of dialogue as pertaining to the "SISTER/TWINS" plot point when he SECRETLY means MPD and is being coy in his variable names.

Interesting info but I think you're reaching a little by stating "there's no reason" for that label. Few, if any of the clips mention or talk at length about MPD/DID. Lots and lots of clips do so for twins and sisters. It's a common topic, one obviously intended as an aah-ha angle for the player, a moment in which the plot expands from its initial state. Whether 'twins' is actually true or not isn't important if the purpose of those metalabels is simply to track an openly discussed narrative thread.

 

[AkuMifune]

"Can you arrest someone who doesn't exist?"

This line is one of the strongest cases for mpd ironically.

This isn't some crazy Prestige reveal. Teenagers don't vanish into thin air in public over and over.

 

[SmiteOfHand]

This line is one of the strongest cases for mpd ironically.

Nah, I am down with the MPD theory as a valid possibility, but in that context 'exist' comes across to me to mean a person who is not legally documented. She is confident she has won, they have no evidence for the murder, she has a solid alibi, they have no murder weapon, and it works for both theories.

Eve as a personality [falsely] believes she has no birth certificate, no license, is not a legal citizen so she 'does not exist'.
Eve as a twin knows she is not a citizen and therefore legally does not exist.

If anything that line is the strongest case against the mastermind theory.

 

[AkuMifune]

That could be true too. Agh. I give up. All the aspects are too ambiguous for any definitive answer. I've said that before and still get sucked into the discussion.

In my interpretation I'll stick with mpd for now, only because I like the idea of the attic as the mind, the symbolism of the mirrors and the fact it means she killed her husband for cheating on her with herself.

I wish there was more like this right now. As others have mentioned, also with newspapers and microfiche to sift through as part of a larger mystery.

 

[Alienous]

So I see everyone is pulling this apart.

So, I get the sense that they are actually twins, but coming into this thread there is some convenience in that idea. "I was a twin, and my mother thought I was dead at birth (look at her diary), but I wasn't!!". And there doesn't seem to be much proof of that other than the anecdotal twin sister school attire prank.

When you do think about it a child being able to hide another child from adults doesn't seem likely. Things like food, being ill, and growing up educated ... hmm.

So the split personality theory would be Eve being the promiscuous side of Hannah. And ..

uh, headache.

EDIT:
Eve really recounts the story of how Hannah accidentally killed Simon in far too detailed a manner for her to have not been there. And Hannah would have to reconcile with her sister over her dead partner. That seems unlikely.

 

[SmiteOfHand]

I think the Dissociative Identity Disorder [DID] theory is a valid interpretation of the story and one the author intended as a possibility. I also think the origin story for Eve as a twin is kind of garbage and highly implausible, however implausible and impossible are very different.

That said I've given it a, probably unreasonable, amount of thought and I think Eve is a twin and not a personality. What follows is a stupidly long post of somewhat raw transcripts on various topics and my interpretation as what I think is the strongest evidence that Eve is a real person, so grab something to eat if you are heading in...

MURDER WEAPON - 2 MIRRORS

• Hannah agrees to discuss the argument and is hesitent to get into the details. (25/06/94, D210)
• Hannah states Simon gave her the present and states 'I guess I didn't like the present' (25/06/94, D211)
• Hannah confirms the present was a mirror. (25/06/94, D212)
• Eve responds to a detective query about the mirror. States she thinks it is upstairs. (27/06/94, D350)
• Hannah picks up the mirror in an evidence bag confirms Simon made it himself as a special one off. Asks where they found it. (30/06/94, D417)
• Hannah denies silverleaf and states he silvers them properly. (30/06/94, D418)
• Hannah responds to a detective query about 'being on his clothes.' States that makes sense as he made it by hand, brushing the silver onto the glass. (30/06/94, D419)
• Hannah puts the mirror down, touches her throat and asks 'In his throat? How?' (30/06/94, D420)
• Eve states Hannah was wearing Eve's wig, pretending to be her. Stated Simon wanted to be with her. (03/07/94, D767)
• Eve states Simon pulled out 'another mirror' just like the one he'd given Hannah earlier. 'That unique present.' (03/07/94, D767)
• Eve states Hannah went crazy and smashed the mirror. (03/07/94, D767)
• Eve states Simon hit her so she grabbed a piece of the mirror and swung it around and cut his throat clean open. (03/07/94, D767)
• Eve states they bagged up the broken mirror and her clothes. 'They're gone.' (03/07/94, D768)
• Eve states they, the police, have no murder weapon. (03/07/94, D771)

The video D767.avi is the most important video of all the videos recorded. It states, in no uncertain terms, that Hannah dressed up as Eve, convinced Simon she was Eve, Simon admitted he wanted to be with Eve and gave her (Hannah dressed as Eve) a duplicate of her unique mirror. This is the reason Hannah lost it and killed Simon. It is an absolutely vital scene to explain everything else that happened.

The fact that there are 2 mirrors is one of the strongest arguments that Eve was a twin. Simon was completely convinced Eve was another person. Eve is confident in the final moments that the police have no murder weapon because they have Hannah's unbroken mirror, not the murder weapon. There being 2 mirrors is an absolutely vital component to the story. One mirror being broken and being the murder weapon, and one being intact and in the police's possession is vital to the closing scene.

FINGERPRINTS

• Hannah agrees to having her fingerprints taken. States she burnt her hand on the oven once. (25/06/94, D230)
• Hannah responds to a detective query about fingerprints. (30/06/94, D403)
• Hannah states no one has been in in the last few weeks besides a plumber. (30/06/94, D404)
• Hannah responds to a detective query about the bedroom. (30/06/94, D405)
• Hannah discusses her dusting regiment. Says she dusts weekly, maybe every few weeks. (30/06/94, D406)
• Hannah responds to a detective query that appears to be the last time she dusted or cleaned. A week or so ago. (30/06/94, D407)
• Hannah states she 'would have cleaned them too' and she changed the sheets too. Asks 'were the fingerprints in all those places?' (30/06/94, D408)
• Hannah suggests the possibility they are her parents fingerprints. (30/06/94, D409)
• Hannah responds to a detective query offering her cup saying 'run your fingerprints' and saying 'they'll match.' (02/07/94, D607)

Based on the line of questioning from the detectives and the responses to those questions it is a reasonable assumption that the police found an unaccountable set of fingerprints in the bedroom. Three total fingerprints. Simon, Hannah, and Unknown. The unknown fingerprints were Eve's.

PREGNANCY

• Hannah states she got pregnant with Simon's baby. (25/06/94, D218)
• Eve corroborates the pregnancy. (03/07/94, D744)
• Eve states she tried multiple times to get pregnant and it didn't happen. (03/07/94, D745)

This makes absolutely no sense from the DID perspective. If Hannah and Eve are the same person, when Hannah got pregnant Eve then went and had sex multiple times to also get pregnant so they could keep up their swapping lifestyle. Eve is not able to get pregnant. If they occupied the same body, she would have had sex, taken a pregnancy test, and it would have been positive. The pregnancy and miscarriage plot line does not work with the DID theory.

HAIRBRUSH

• Eve states they took Hannah's virginity using a hairbrush. (03/07/94, D743)

If Hannah and Eve occupy the same body it is kind of difficult for her to lose her virginity twice.

TICKET

• Eve confirms she is in the photo of the speeding ticket back in February. (01/07/94, D526)
• Eve states she popped out to get something and did not mark it on her timesheet. (01/07/94, D527)

GUITAR

• Hannah denies Simon plays guitar and was not very musical. (30/06/94, D445)
• Hannah confirms that it is her guitar. Video cuts off early for the first time. (30/06/94, D446)
• Eve agrees to play guitar and sings a song. (01/07/94, D536)

I think the ticket and the guitar are the strongest evidence that the police knew something was up and were working out what exactly. They bring up the discrepancy with Hannah being in two places at once by receiving a speeding ticket and also being at work.

The guitar is also very important. If you watch the final videos for Day 4 they start questioning Hannah about a guitar and the video abruptly ends. Every day prior it is clear we have the entire video. It starts with Eve or Hannah just arriving and getting a drink, and ends with her getting up and leaving. On day 4 the video just end. Maybe this has to do with the missing volume in the DB Checker.

This is purely my speculation but I think if the video were to keep going it would be clear that Hannah has no idea how to play a guitar. This would be in stark contrast to Eve picking up the guitar the following day and singing a ballad. Maybe the author took it out because it made it too obvious? Who knows, but the video absolutely cuts out early. Go watch it for yourself.

GLASGOW

• Eve details her trip to Glasgow. (27/06/94, D309-D312)
• Eve maps out her trip to Glasgow. (27/06/94, D333)
• Hannah reiterates she was in Glasgow and asks if they spoke with the hospital. (02/07/94, D603)
• Detective appears to accuse Hannah of sounding rehearsed. (02/07/94, D604)
• Detective appears to ask about twins. (02/07/94, D605)
• Hannah angrily ends the interrogation early and leaves. (02/07/94, D609)
• Eve reiterates the trip to Glasgow. (03/07/94, D764)

When Hannah challenges the detective about her alibi of being in Glasgow when the murder happened their response does not appear to be that they did not check. This was my first interpretation. Instead the detective responds by accusing her of sounding rehearsed, and asking about a twin. This line of questioning says to me that the detective did confirm Glasgow, and the speeding ticket and the guitar are part of trying to figure out if she could be in two places at once and increasingly finding evidence of things not adding up. If any character is deserving of brilliant mastermind it is the detective's ability to deduce something as radical as an undocumented twin.

BRUISE

• The first time we see Eve she has no bruise. (18/06/94, D101)
• The first time we see Hannah she has the bruise. (25/06/94, D201)
• Hannah states she got the bruise from slipping and slamming her face into a cupboard (25/06/94, D203)
• The next time we see Eve the bruise is missing again, 2 days layer. (27/06/94, D301)
• Eve touches the wrong side of her face when asked about the bruise. (27/06/94, D304)
• The next time we see Hannah, 13 days after the murder, the bruise is gone. (30/06/94, D401)
• Eve states the origin of the bruise is when she hit Hannah. (03/07/94, D763)

This has been discussed to death, but in conjunction with all the other evidence is important. Yes, if it is DID then there are plausible explanations for the bruise coming and going, but that does not change the fact that it comes and goes.

TATTOO

• The first time we see Hannah she has no tattoo. (25/06/94, D201)
• The next time we see Hannah she still has no tattoo. (30/06/94, D401)
• Eve spills coffee on herself. (01/07/94, D503)
• Revealing a tattoo of an apple and a snake she got to 'express her individuality.' (01/07/94, D505)
• Eve states she got it about 8 years back as a present to herself. (01/07/94, D506)
• Eve reiterates she got the tattoo nearly 10 years prior. (03/07/94, D752)

Same as the bruise. Too important to ignore.

..phew...

Feels nice to get that all out of my brain and if you stuck around this long then a huge high five from me. A few closing thoughts. I think the fact that the game NEVER mentions or hints at DID, MPD, split personalities or mental sickness is ultimately the point of the game. I think it was fully Sam Barlow's intention that people will see a woman in this position and naturally gravitate to "she is crazy, obviously". It didn't need to be said because we will do it automatically by constructing narrative and reading into subtext that doesn't necessarily exist.

Instead he spent all his time and effort constructing a crazy but plausible alternative possibility and completely lays it at the players feet in full detail, and still, with absolutely no explicit evidence we will still argue "yep, she is crazy, clearly." Call it an art game or whatever bullshit you want, but this is my interpretation of the narrative and what I believe was the fully intentional critique to how we view women who commit violent crimes in the heat of passion.

Hannah Smith caught her husband cheating on her with her twin sister, felt absolutely betrayed by the only 2 people who matter the most in her life and lost it. End of story.

 

[denshuu]

I just want to add that the background music sounds just like the chorus to Go Deep by Janet Jackson. I've been singing it all week thanks to this game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVzV7czx4m0

 

[Haunted]

I think the Dissociative Identity Disorder [DID] theory is a valid interpretation of the story and one the author intended as a possibility. I also think the origin story for Eve as a twin is kind of garbage and highly implausible, however implausible and impossible are very different.

That said I've given it a, probably unreasonable, amount of thought and I think Eve is a twin and not a personality. What follows is a stupidly long post of somewhat raw transcripts on various topics and my interpretation as what I think is the strongest evidence that Eve is a real person, so grab something to eat if you are heading in...

MURDER WEAPON - 2 MIRRORS

• Hannah agrees to discuss the argument and is hesitent to get into the details. (25/06/94, D210)
• Hannah states Simon gave her the present and states 'I guess I didn't like the present' (25/06/94, D211)
• Hannah confirms the present was a mirror. (25/06/94, D212)
• Eve responds to a detective query about the mirror. States she thinks it is upstairs. (27/06/94, D350)
• Hannah picks up the mirror in an evidence bag confirms Simon made it himself as a special one off. Asks where they found it. (30/06/94, D417)
• Hannah denies silverleaf and states he silvers them properly. (30/06/94, D418)
• Hannah responds to a detective query about 'being on his clothes.' States that makes sense as he made it by hand, brushing the silver onto the glass. (30/06/94, D419)
• Hannah puts the mirror down, touches her throat and asks 'In his throat? How?' (30/06/94, D420)
• Eve states Hannah was wearing Eve's wig, pretending to be her. Stated Simon wanted to be with her. (03/07/94, D767)
• Eve states Simon pulled out 'another mirror' just like the one he'd given Hannah earlier. 'That unique present.' (03/07/94, D767)
• Eve states Hannah went crazy and smashed the mirror. (03/07/94, D767)
• Eve states Simon hit her so she grabbed a piece of the mirror and swung it around and cut his throat clean open. (03/07/94, D767)
• Eve states they bagged up the broken mirror and her clothes. 'They're gone.' (03/07/94, D768)
• Eve states they, the police, have no murder weapon. (03/07/94, D771)

The video D767.avi is the most important video of all the videos recorded. It states, in no uncertain terms, that Hannah dressed up as Eve, convinced Simon she was Eve, Simon admitted he wanted to be with Eve and gave her (Hannah dressed as Eve) a duplicate of her unique mirror. This is the reason Hannah lost it and killed Simon. It is an absolutely vital scene to explain everything else that happened.

The fact that there are 2 mirrors is one of the strongest arguments that Eve was a twin. Simon was completely convinced Eve was another person. Eve is confident in the final moments that the police have no murder weapon because they have Hannah's unbroken mirror, not the murder weapon. There being 2 mirrors is an absolutely vital component to the story. One mirror being broken and being the murder weapon, and one being intact and in the police's possession is vital to the closing scene.

FINGERPRINTS

• Hannah agrees to having her fingerprints taken. States she burnt her hand on the oven once. (25/06/94, D230)
• Hannah responds to a detective query about fingerprints. (30/06/94, D403)
• Hannah states no one has been in in the last few weeks besides a plumber. (30/06/94, D404)
• Hannah responds to a detective query about the bedroom. (30/06/94, D405)
• Hannah discusses her dusting regiment. Says she dusts weekly, maybe every few weeks. (30/06/94, D406)
• Hannah responds to a detective query that appears to be the last time she dusted or cleaned. A week or so ago. (30/06/94, D407)
• Hannah states she 'would have cleaned them too' and she changed the sheets too. Asks 'were the fingerprints in all those places?' (30/06/94, D408)
• Hannah suggests the possibility they are her parents fingerprints. (30/06/94, D409)
• Hannah responds to a detective query offering her cup saying 'run your fingerprints' and saying 'they'll match.' (02/07/94, D607)

Based on the line of questioning from the detectives and the responses to those questions it is a reasonable assumption that the police found an unaccountable set of fingerprints in the bedroom. Three total fingerprints. Simon, Hannah, and Unknown. The unknown fingerprints were Eve's.

PREGNANCY

• Hannah states she got pregnant with Simon's baby. (25/06/94, D218)
• Eve corroborates the pregnancy. (03/07/94, D744)
• Eve states she tried multiple times to get pregnant and it didn't happen. (03/07/94, D745)

This makes absolutely no sense from the DID perspective. If Hannah and Eve are the same person, when Hannah got pregnant Eve then went and had sex multiple times to also get pregnant so they could keep up their swapping lifestyle. Eve is not able to get pregnant. If they occupied the same body, she would have had sex, taken a pregnancy test, and it would have been positive. The pregnancy and miscarriage plot line does not work with the DID theory.

HAIRBRUSH

• Eve states they took Hannah's virginity using a hairbrush. (03/07/94, D743)

If Hannah and Eve occupy the same body it is kind of difficult for her to lose her virginity twice.

TICKET

• Eve confirms she is in the photo of the speeding ticket back in February. (01/07/94, D526)
• Eve states she popped out to get something and did not mark it on her timesheet. (01/07/94, D527)

GUITAR

• Hannah denies Simon plays guitar and was not very musical. (30/06/94, D445)
• Hannah confirms that it is her guitar. Video cuts off early for the first time. (30/06/94, D446)
• Eve agrees to play guitar and sings a song. (01/07/94, D536)

I think the ticket and the guitar are the strongest evidence that the police knew something was up and were working out what exactly. They bring up the discrepancy with Hannah being in two places at once by receiving a speeding ticket and also being at work.

The guitar is also very important. If you watch the final videos for Day 4 they start questioning Hannah about a guitar and the video abruptly ends. Every day prior it is clear we have the entire video. It starts with Eve or Hannah just arriving and getting a drink, and ends with her getting up and leaving. On day 4 the video just end. Maybe this has to do with the missing volume in the DB Checker.

This is purely my speculation but I think if the video were to keep going it would be clear that Hannah has no idea how to play a guitar. This would be in stark contrast to Eve picking up the guitar the following day and singing a ballad. Maybe the author took it out because it made it too obvious? Who knows, but the video absolutely cuts out early. Go watch it for yourself.

GLASGOW

• Eve details her trip to Glasgow. (27/06/94, D309-D312)
• Eve maps out her trip to Glasgow. (27/06/94, D333)
• Hannah reiterates she was in Glasgow and asks if they spoke with the hospital. (02/07/94, D603)
• Detective appears to accuse Hannah of sounding rehearsed. (02/07/94, D604)
• Detective appears to ask about twins. (02/07/94, D605)
• Hannah angrily ends the interrogation early and leaves. (02/07/94, D609)
• Eve reiterates the trip to Glasgow. (03/07/94, D764)

When Hannah challenges the detective about her alibi of being in Glasgow when the murder happened their response does not appear to be that they did not check. This was my first interpretation. Instead the detective responds by accusing her of sounding rehearsed, and asking about a twin. This line of questioning says to me that the detective did confirm Glasgow, and the speeding ticket and the guitar are part of trying to figure out if she could be in two places at once and increasingly finding evidence of things not adding up. If any character is deserving of brilliant mastermind it is the detective's ability to deduce something as radical as an undocumented twin.

BRUISE

• The first time we see Eve she has no bruise. (18/06/94, D101)
• The first time we see Hannah she has the bruise. (25/06/94, D201)
• Hannah states she got the bruise from slipping and slamming her face into a cupboard (25/06/94, D203)
• The next time we see Eve the bruise is missing again, 2 days layer. (27/06/94, D301)
• Eve touches the wrong side of her face when asked about the bruise. (27/06/94, D304)
• The next time we see Hannah, 13 days after the murder, the bruise is gone. (30/06/94, D401)
• Eve states the origin of the bruise is when she hit Hannah. (03/07/94, D763)

This has been discussed to death, but in conjunction with all the other evidence is important. Yes, if it is DID then there are plausible explanations for the bruise coming and going, but that does not change the fact that it comes and goes.

TATTOO

• The first time we see Hannah she has no tattoo. (25/06/94, D201)
• The next time we see Hannah she still has no tattoo. (30/06/94, D401)
• Eve spills coffee on herself. (01/07/94, D503)
• Revealing a tattoo of an apple and a snake she got to 'express her individuality.' (01/07/94, D505)
• Eve states she got it about 8 years back as a present to herself. (01/07/94, D506)
• Eve reiterates she got the tattoo nearly 10 years prior. (03/07/94, D752)

Same as the bruise. Too important to ignore.

..phew...

Feels nice to get that all out of my brain and if you stuck around this long then a huge high five from me. A few closing thoughts. I think the fact that the game NEVER mentions or hints at DID, MPD, split personalities or mental sickness is ultimately the point of the game. I think it was fully Sam Barlow's intention that people will see a woman in this position and naturally gravitate to "she is crazy, obviously". It didn't need to be said because we will do it automatically by constructing narrative and reading into subtext that doesn't necessarily exist.

Instead he spent all his time and effort constructing a crazy but plausible alternative possibility and completely lays it at the players feet in full detail, and still, with absolutely no explicit evidence we will still argue "yep, she is crazy, clearly." Call it an art game or whatever bullshit you want, but this is my interpretation of the narrative and what I believe was the fully intentional critique to how we view women who commit violent crimes in the heat of passion.

Hannah Smith caught her husband cheating on her with her twin sister, felt absolutely betrayed by the only 2 people who matter the most in her life and lost it. End of story.

Very exhaustive writeup, well done.

I will say that most of the split personality argument rests in the plausibility of events that are not really covered in the videos themselves, while the twins argument fuels itself by looking at what the videos present (and only that) very closely and literally.

Which is a fact that, again, can be read both ways depending on your perspective.

 

[pantsmith]

Here's why I'm more sure it's twins over split personality: if it was split personality that would make Simon incredibly fucked up too. Him cheating on his wife with her twin is weird, sure, but it's feasible. Him discovering his wife has a second personality and then having an 'affair' with her would be insane.

We don't get his side of the story, so its unfair to say he was fucked up, or that her account of what happened is unbiased.

If we are to assume she has altered her story at any point, which Im sure no one will deny, we have to take everything she says with a grain of salt. Every detail we are examining is coming from an unreliable narrator.

 

[Haunted]

what if there are triplets

 

[Donuts]

The guitar is also very important. If you watch the final videos for Day 4 they start questioning Hannah about a guitar and the video abruptly ends. Every day prior it is clear we have the entire video. It starts with Eve or Hannah just arriving and getting a drink, and ends with her getting up and leaving. On day 4 the video just end. Maybe this has to do with the missing volume in the DB Checker.

About the missing volume in the DB Checker, if you check he StreamingAssets folder of the game you will see that there is actually a missing video: D716 I believe. I checked D715 and D717 and it's just her lie detector test where she simply says "No" in each one. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I think this is the missing volume and I don't think it's very important to the overall story.

 

[SmiteOfHand]

I will say that most of the split personality argument rests in the plausibility of events that are not really covered in the videos themselves, while the twins argument fuels itself by looking at what the videos present (and only that) very closely and literally.

Which is a fact that, again, can be read both ways depending on your perspective.

Agreed. The entirety of the DID theory requires the player to construct the narrative themselves, look at the bits of info and determine what was really going on by saying "When she says this, she means this" or when this happens that is because of this. I think this is the purpose of the story cards.

The important thing to keep in mind is that the DID theory is a construct that exists purely in the mind of the player and increasingly requires the player to reason "well, she is crazy and..." to explain things like taking her virginity with a hairbrush and convincing herself she wasn't pregnant. When you bring in elements like the fingerprints, the murder weapon, the speeding ticket and Glasgow that increasingly makes the "well, she is crazy and..." argument more and more hollow.

 

[cilonen]

HAIRBRUSH

• Eve states they took Hannah's virginity using a hairbrush. (03/07/94, D743)

If Hannah and Eve occupy the same body it is kind of difficult for her to lose her virginity twice.

Great analysis but this could just be a lie either way. It has no bearing on twins or not.

Edit: don't buy your guitar speculation at all either. The video cuts out, sure but why happily admit to a guitar neither you or your husband can play? Your speculation makes absolutely no sense. If we're playing by the rules of strictly interpreting what is given to us and not constructing options not explicitly given in the videos all we can say is Hannah happily admitted to it being her guitar.

 

[Ophelion]

This game continues to haunt the back of my brain.

A few things I've considered lately: What if the reason Eve thinks the police have no murder weapon in the confession is because they informed Hannah about the murder weapon and Hannah chose not to inform Eve or couldn't?

Also, assuming for a moment that DID theory is the valid interpretation (which I don't, but y'know, for the sake of it) I have to think that the primary personality is actually Eve and not Hannah. Although still not completely consistent, Eve had a traumatic and semi-abusive childhood that I could see mental instability coming out of while Hannah seems to be doted on by her parents by comparison (birthday parties, giant dollhouse in an attic that was her special place, ect.) What if the life with Florence was true and Eve invented Hannah to escape to a fantasy where she is loved by biological parents who let her go outside and so on and so forth?

Eve does admit to potentially misremembering or misunderstanding what she read in Florence's journal as a kid. All the talk of fairy tales, which so commonly have evil stepmothers and magical, kind "real" parents you're trying to get to. Maybe Eve made all that shit up and when she gets pregnant after having sex with Simon as Hannah, she just decides she's going to stay Hannah forever. Miscarriage brings the happy delusion to an end "life's not a fairy tale, you do the best you can." Eve returns in reaction to reality creeping back into her made-up life. Simon chooses the real woman over her pretend one and, furious that he's participating in the deconstruction of her fantasies, Hannah kills Simon.

We assume that Eve is the alter because she ends up a hanger-on to Hannah's life in the end and because in a smaller view she provides a purpose as being "the outgoing one", but I think the purpose Hannah serves Eve is that she is supposed to be the "normal" one. Hannah is what Eve thinks she's supposed to be like. As for the house, I think that either it's actually Florence's house and that her "accident" happens later than Eve remembers it, more in line with when Hannah's parents die or it's just a house that Hannah and Simon buy together and she ascribes all this extra special meaning to it as part of her fantasy.

Assuming you believe they're all one person. Which I don't. Still, fun to apply my brain to this stuff.

 

[SmiteOfHand]

Great analysis but this could just be a lie either way. It has no bearing on twins or not.

Edit: don't buy your guitar speculation at all either. The video cuts out, sure but why happily admit to a guitar neither you or your husband can play? Your speculation makes absolutely no sense. If we're playing by the rules of strictly interpreting what is given to us and not constructing options not explicitly given in the videos all we can say is Hannah happily admitted to it being her guitar.

Agreed, it could be a lie. I made a half-hearted attempt to organize things somewhat in order of importance and would probably put the hairbrush down with the bruise and tattoo, but in combination with everything else think it is worth mentioning. (Also why I dedicated a whole sentence to it)

As far as the guitar we don't know since the video cuts off so fair enough that it is a point of interpretation. I would argue that I don't categorize Hannah's response as happy when she says it is her guitar, though. And at the very least it is clear the detective is interested in the guitar, so it is worth mentioning.

e: I would also probably add to the analysis as far as the guitar, ticket, fingerprints, and Glasgow, that The Detective is our anchor for reality and their line of questioning is just as important as what Hannah and Eve are saying.

 

[papasmurf1038]

Yeah, when taken together I feel the bruise, tattoo, two mirrors, speeding ticket, Glasgow hospital visit, and Oxford hotel stay pretty conclusively establish that Eve and Hannah are Real Actual Twins.

That said, I was really disappointed when I realized that the game was less about solving a mystery than it was exploring the laughably improbable history of these two siblings. I'm sure that the open-ended structure made proper pacing a nightmare to implement, but it really didn't feel like there were many interesting twists after the twin reveal, and I spent most of the back half of the game simply filling in backstory or confirming things I already knew. The FMV archive concept is super creative, and the attention to detail that went into making all these little pieces fit together is incredible, but I honestly think I might've preferred for that awesome structure to be employed in service of a more traditional whodunnit narrative.

 

[thepotatoman]

I'm honestly a little bit uncomfortable about the whole DID thing in general. It seems like a disorder that only psychiatrists that specialize in it understand. I worry that all these stories about two people in the same body are doing a real disservice when they portray it as an exotic thing that gets defined by what the author needs it to be in order to fit the story they're trying to tell.

So I guess I prefer to assume that Eve was able to hide in the house throughout childhood rather than make a psychoanalysis on a fictional character for a disorder I honestly know nothing about.

 

[Noray]

People actually think it's twins? People... no. It's 100% not. That's the biggest red herring and you went for it. It doesn't make any sense at all thematically. There are also logistical reasons why it's impossible. otoh, Hannah says she was living in the attic when her parents died and she came down and saw them in the bed, but in another video she says that no one was living in the house at the time, something the police surely would've investigated because they investigated the deaths. If it actually is twins then the implausibility of the entire narrative completely cuts it off at the knees for me.

 

[danm999]

I'm honestly a little bit uncomfortable about the whole DID thing in general. It seems like a disorder that only psychiatrists that specialize in it understand. I worry that all these stories about two people in the same body are doing a real disservice when they portray it as an exotic thing that gets defined by what the author needs it to be in order to fit the story they're trying to tell.

So I guess I prefer to assume that Eve was able to hide in the house throughout childhood rather than make a psychoanalysis on a fictional character for a disorder I honestly know nothing about.

Yeah this makes me a little uncomfortable too compared to the two others. Multiple personalities makes "crazy" basically the inciting incident and cause for pretty much everything in the game.

 

[Makonero]

We aren't ever going to get full conclusions to this. We all had different paths through the content and came away with differing interpretations. That alone makes this one of the most artistic games ever, and it actually used the medium to tell a story that only a game could.

What a brilliant game.