Hello everyone! Some people have pointed out how my voice audio is a bit low sometimes compared to the music. What I originally did was switch the volume of each audio clip in post, but ultimately the whole audio mixing process is still pretty messy. I’ll try and improve it for next time! (I did not expect this video to get so many views lol. Thanks for still watching!)
From my personal experience, the BGM should always be set lower than what I expect. "50% seems low? No, lower. 30%? No, even lower." adjust until it's just audible enough.
@@ak_nora Yeah you're definitely right. I got sorta confused since in some of my voice clips I spoke louder compared to other voice clips, so I manually went to each section and like reduced the decibels. So some music clips were -35 db compared to my voice, others where my voice was already louder I didn't reduce as much. I feel like it needs to be standardized, so I'll look into it more.
Thank you for noting/mentioning it. I'm at the 30 minute mark, and the music is so much louder than the voiceover, it's actually hard for me to understand what's being said :/
Maybe I'm reaching, but something I find crazy is how Jimmy uses techniques used by rapists to bend ALL THE CREW to his whims. He doesn't do what he did to Anya to anyone else, of course, but the patterns are still there. He prays on Curly's inability to respond after the crash to mistreat him, further stealing his agency because he *cant say no*. He literally ROOFIES Swansea, rather than fighting him, to *shut down his ability to say no*. He coherses Daisuke to do something he doesn't want to do, breaking him down and apealing to him until he caves in and *can't say no*. Jimmy likes power, or rather he needs it to counteract his inferiority complex. And if he can't have it for himself, he settles with making everyone else feel powerless, taking away their agency, breaching their boundaries, ignoring their wants and focusing on his own needs. Like he did with Anya. Because a predator will bite any animal that crosses it.
I'd actually rephrase your first point--it's not his sexually abusive status, it's his sociopathic wiring. He flips the coin between 'Hey, I understand, I'm on YOUR side' and 'Oh, so now I have to fix YOUR mess, like I ALWAYS do' far too easily. But just knowing how to manipulate the crew, and more importantly, the man who got him the job that he can't stand and resents now, isn't the whole issue. With the possible exception of Curly, who could easily have already been locked in pattern, see fig. A, his thinking that if he just gets Jimmy and Anya to the mediation table, why, everyone will be friends again--this is a story of five people dealing with horrors small to vast. Anya's shattered, for good reason; Swansea's bitter and angry, and weirdly only seems to return to himself post "Dragonfire Fresh" intoxication; Jimmy's actively hallucinating, and may have been for months, as the stew of rage and resentment he carries on the daily starts hitting against what few fibers of guilt he has left; Daisuke's maybe the only one with clean hands, and an intact ability to trust. And he gets peritonitis. I don't think Mouthwashing hates us. I do think it wants to draw our focus to the problems represented, by placing us directly in the shoes of, and even the mind of (or at least the fever-dream waking nightmares of) the worst person on the ship. Because we largely play as Jimmy, a thoroughly reprehensible soul, making every situation worse merely by participating in it. (I will say the ponypede will haunt my dreams for a while, however. Just...gyaaah. Too many twiggy little legs and round little bellies. Noooo thank you.)
@@EmillyOrr its not "sociopathic wiring" it's the end result of privileged and power over others. A very big important part of the story is the comparison between Jimmy and Curly, how Curly had the power to help Anya and her situation but *chose* to throw her back to her abuser without a second thought, in a similar way to how jimmy never had to think about the consequences of his actions because they'd never have to effect him personally due to his status, curly was never compelled to actually help anya because his status means he doesn't have to. In an equitable society, treating other people like garbage means you have to deal with people having the power to also treat you like garbage, but in a society where power is not balanced, you can get away with being the worst person imaginable, and your bad decisions will get reinforced indefinitely by people who are too afraid to speak up against you.
@@EmillyOrr Curly always stands out to me. I think he was blind to it because Jimmy had already been mentally and verbally abusive in their friendship. You can see this from the birthday party and the way Curly just takes it instead of fighting back to get the truth out like one would expect him to do. I’ll continue this point tomorrow but I have a bad headache loo Edit: okay as I was saying, Jimmy is blatantly abusive toward Curly even before the crash. He uses private details of their conversation where Curly trusted and opened up to him in order to twist it, make it out like he’s happy about the company going bankrupt and flipping it to try and make everyone hate him. Daisuke shuts down, intimidated of an older adult above him and Curly largely does the same. That’s not what you would expect the confident and headstrong captain to do. Why wouldn’t he push back against something so blatantly untrue? Especially when it’s meant to defame his character? He sits there and he takes it. Sure, he fights a little, but he’s mostly trying to soothe Jimmy rather than defend himself. And it really put things into perspective for me. They’ve been friends for a long time and Curly’s become blind to this behavior because he’s gotten so used to it. He *tries* to placate Jimmy and he *tries* to figure out Anya’s problem, but he just can’t see it because his perspective of normalcy has been warped. It’s such a good showcase of how male abusers don’t just happen out of nowhere. They’re abusive to those around them. Even other men. And Curly’s a great example of how a victim can become unintentionally complacent and disrupt everything for everyone.
Curly is the epitome of "the road to hell is paced with good intentions". His friend didnt have a job, he gets his friend a job. His friend assaults a crewmate, he thinks if he plays mediator and peacemaker things will work out. He learns everyone is going to get laid off, and he tells them because thats what friends do. Hes a people pleaser. He needed tonlearn that sometimes you cant stick your neck out for your friends, sometimes you need to pick a side, and sometimes its better to follow orders. Too bad he learned those lessons on the worst day possible
I don't think he's a "people pleasure" he's just a captain who choose the crew over one person, like said in the video, he choose to keep the Jimmy thing quiet for the sake of the crew because objectively, if you're going to be stuck with a bunch of people for eight months, it's better to not start problems, granted he should've been more stern with Jimmy because of what he did Edit: i thought about it, and Curly isn't a captain choosing the crew over one person, while that maybe have his motive, i moreso thinks he was just trying to be a friend to everyone despite Jimmy's repeated offenses, and his attempt at being a friend of all resulting in his inaction ultimately resulted in his downfall
id also say that its possible he didnt want his reputation at work sullied due to the whole collective punishment thing that certainly CAN go on from other corporates similar to pony express. whats more... odd if one reads into his interactions with jimmy prior to him crashing the cockpit is that he specifically says 'we can take this. you and me, one day at a time.' i'm unsure if anyone can understand this, but what if jimmy had sa'd women before? he wouldn't have the greatest of track records frankly and pony express would not have liked people like him aboard considering curly put a good word in for him because he's his friend, and that he would've turned the other eye. possibly
A few notes about some of the great details in this game. When Curly is made helpless by his injuries, he becomes the "child" in Jimmy and Anya's relationship. One that Anya must work tirelessly to keep alive, while Jimmy belittles and resents her, while doing the bare minimum and claiming to do everything. When Curly talks to Anya about the dead pixel, she talks about watching the night screen. Which means me probably doesn't get a lot of sleep. Most likely due to being scares of what Jimmy will do to her if she does. In the same vein, she doesn't drink the mouthwash, even though she's tempted. She never wants to make herself vulnerable. Curly's condition after the crash, makes him become a reflection of Jimmy, in a similar way to the portrait of Dorian Grey. He bears the physical scars of Jimmy's actions. This is also Curly's punishment for how he did nothing to help Anya before the crash. He did nothing then, he does nothing now. If he hadn't been disabled by the crash would things be any different?
@@catharsis.catharsis Right?? Curly represents Jimmy's actions in every way. Its really strange to me that some people deny the SA of it all. If anything thats what the story is about. Its an exploration of accountability, responsibility and abuse of power through the eyes of the abusers. Not done in a way that absolves them, but in a way that allows us to see how they view their actions and how they attempt to justify them and how twisted their world view becomes. Through the eyes of Jimmy, he is the hero. No matter what he does. Even when he's literally rearranging curly's insides to feed him his own flesh(one of many invasions of others bodies, without their consent Jimmy commits) he believes himself to be the hero. Daisuke is the character I am least sure of in their place in the story. Other than as a potential avatar of those who just don't see whats really happening (like many people who play it.) He takes Jimmy's word at all times, even helping him spike Swansea. He drinks the mouthwash alongside Swansea and gets sick. When Anya locks herself in with Curly he goes right to Jimmy. And ultimately, going along with everything Jimmy tells him to do, he dies helping Jimmy invade Anya's privacy one last time. A moment thats odd to me about the whole situation is when Swansea kills Daisuke. It doesnt seem like something Swansea would do and Jimmy makes no meaningful attempt to stop him. Is it just a slightly clumsy attempt by the game to keep us on Jimmy's side a little onger or is there more to it than that? When we see Swansea again he's hunting Jimmy with the axe and then suddenly he's tied to a chair for Jimmy to execute. In my headcanon, which is reaching a bit I know, its Jimmy that finishes off Daisuke and Swansea is still passed out until he wakes up in the chair. Jimmy needs to justify everything to himself, so he imagines a whole scenario where Swansea chases him around with an axe (to the point that they are even in a spooky graveyard for a while) like a serial killer. I just realised how long this comment is so I'll leave it there lol. Amazing video though, it really got me thinking.
I was thinking lately that thematically (not literally), Curly's state is like a punishment for his inaction. His failure to step in properly and protect Anya. It's almost as if the story is saying to Curly "Hey, it's not like you were doing anything before."
@@jackalackb17i think part of why swansea offs daisuke is an intentional misdirection on game's side, but i think that in the bigger context of the narrative it can be logically explained. swansea is a realist, he doesn't delude himself thinking their situation can be fixed, unlike jimmy. he knows they're completely screwed, with two mortally wounded people on deck, no painkillers, no bandages and no desinfectant. daisuke has no chance of recovery, the crew has no chance of being saved and at this point daisuke is doomed to spend the short rest of his life in agony, much like curly. swansea has paternal feelings towards daisuke, he really cares for him, and he doesn't want him to suffer unnecessarily, because he already figured all of them are going to die there. jimmy calls him a monster, obviously projecting and redirecting blame as always, but him doing nothing serves to show how bad of a leader he is, because one of the game's themes is inaction and its consequences, and it shows, once again, jimmy's unwillingness to take responsibility. he doesn't want to be responsible for the decision to keep daisuke alive and in pain, but he also doesn't want to be responsible for the decision to kill him, so he puts it into swansea's hands. daisuke's role in the narrative is to serve as a naive person, like you've already said, the one who doesn't understand what's happening and trusts the person who sounds confident but is ultimately underserving. but he also symbolises the hope of the crew. he was the one swansea likely intended to place in the cryopod, the youngest and the most cheerful of the crew, he had his whole life ahead of him, and if he had survived it would at least be something. once he's dead, there is no hope for any of them left.
Wow, honestly nothing would have changed because he's an naive enabler. I unfortunately had a kid with an alcoholic Jimmy , deal with his resentful belittling whilst having to do everything. This game hit home for many because everyone has dealt with these life complexities
I do find it funny that daisuke was the youngest yet he was willing to learn and be a help. Also, he took Swanseas warning about the vent seriously until he was manipulated into going into the vent. Unlike Jimmy who doesn't care about his job or the people around him.
At first, I thought it was typical that Anya was the only woman onboard Tulpar, but it adds so much to her story. She lacks any solidary to what happened to her, seeking support from Curly, who's Jimmy's friend. Her arc, although tragic, is so well written between the lines
It's shows who most men don't care about women if the crew were women with only one man the women would've already done something about it but unfortunately the game showcases the reality of sexism and misogyny
I love, and hate the fact, that after I learned about what Jimmy did to Anya thru the story telling, her being unable to force pills down Curly's throat makes so much sense. She's happy and competent in the flashbacks when she's talking to Curly, but cut to anytime she's interacting with Jimmy, she's timid and uneasy. She's a great medic, because she was able to save Curly's life, despite at what state he was at the start of the game. And it's even more damning that Jimmy had no problem doing it to Curly. Huge foreshadowing.
That's a great analysis! My first thought was that she simply didn't want to give pain relief to someone who didn't do anything to help her pain before...
Foreshadowing or hindsight? I interpret Jimmy taking control of the ship as overpowering Curly even if it was via more subtle manipulation. He effectively coerces everyone on board
"Empathy without boundaries isn't kindness, its a weakness that people [like Jimmy] will exploit without a second thought." Wow, you cooked. Also I feel called out- and a little sick. All in all a fantastic video. \o/
Right? I got chills when she refused to cut Curly any slack for his sickening "bros before hoes" attitude. This game hit too close to home for many personal reasons, and seeing Curly get criticized like this felt so cathartic for that reason! And I do not mean that as a pun for the channel, it's just the best word for seeing the "good boy" get labeled an enabler--which he is.
Y'know it's funny, Initially I turned off from this game when I heard there was gonna be no alien monster. Someone spoiled it. But human evil is way more despicable and hard to swallow for me that an alien eldritch horror. At least with something as grand as an alien god there's a dignity behind it. A majesty to be near an alien giant. There's nothing dignifying about being with Jimmy. He's a small man who has to make you feel smaller to get off, and even then it's never enough. Horrifying.
Oh that’s interesting, I was the complete opposite. I almost stopped watching a playthrough within the first couple minutes because I thought it was one of those horror games where you’re just chased by a monster mascot when I saw Polly. I checked the comments and realized there was more to it, which is why I kept watching.
wait i think this comment hit the nail on the head for me why most horrors that involve an inhuman monster dont hit for me, like, dont get me wrong, i still enjoy the stories but im usually not scared or really take away anything from it. like maybe it's just like "ok if im gonna die at least it's by some cool otherworldly being" for me, and a lot of times im able to rationalize and maybe even sympathize with the monster if they are just going on instinct and not outright 'evil.' but horror stories where it's just humans showing the worst side of themselves (like this one) always stick in my brain for far longer
The first time i played i barely noticed anya, which i think was the point. Once i finished and played again, she was all i could think about. I think this game really sets you up to sympathise with jimmy, as a man who needs to climb higher down a falling ladder, until you realize what he truly was. Although anya talked about how she had to believe Jimmy wasnt a monster to get by, I feel like she truly felt that way about curly. Despite her believing he crashed the ship, she dedicated herself to caring for him. She didnt kill curly, she killed herself to protect herself from jimmy. I also believe the nausea tied to morning sickness too, seeing as she was very capable but between the smell of flesh, the noise, and the trauma, she was probably sick all the time.
Holy fuck, i forgot she probably had morning sickness for quite a long time and WAS STILL doing her job. Even though it was already hell having to be around Jimmy AND having to take care of Curly, she did so entirely while having what was likely morning sickness. Oh that's absolutely miserable :(
Yeah, I immediately thought the vomiting was due to morning sickness. Probably mixed with the mental stress of having to force Curly over and over again to take painkillers in a way that was likely very triggering to her.
Yeah I also thought the same thing when we see the flashback where she mentions the pregnancy. But I hadn't considered the whole triggering aspect of forcing something on Curly, and I think both things just fed into each other and made it so much worse.
Honestly, I don’t know about the sympathy part. Even during the first playthrough Jimmy constantly made me think “What the fuck is wrong with this guy?” on numerous occasions. I can “get” the dehumanizing grind of climbing the ladder to nowhere but there’s a certain point where it stops being sympathetic and instead becomes loathsome and Jimmy just crosses that point all the goddamn time. He is, even when you’re playing him, the definition of a manipulative asshole crash out.
I remember genuinely thinking Swansea was a selfish antagonist up until Jimmy accused him of trying to keep the cryopod for himself, and then he goes “no idiot I was doing it for the literal kid”, and then he even OFFERS it to you, but Jimmy just couldn’t handle that, could he? He couldn’t just take that victory and feel hollow inside. So he gets the gun. I also very clearly remember the card hallway, because once I noticed that the walls had all the cards of the people on them I started looking for Anya’s. And I kept looking, and I could see it buried, and it really hit me how little he cared about her. I remember seeing her corpse and glancing over it initially, and then looking back down and just, staring. Everyone is a victim here besides Jimmy, but between Curly’s wretched fate of living as this corpse-thing for god knows how long and the abuse and neglect Anya had to endure until it drove her to offing herself by possibly one of the worst methods possible, it’s hard to say which one is worse.
@@baneofbanes Even though he was partially responsible for his fate, it doesn't make it any less bad. I'd say he left that ship with a fate worse than death.
I think jimmy fundamentally changed me because now daily I have moments where I suddenly realize I'm acting better then jimmy and I get very happy for a couple of seconds Why is this my one comment that got too much attention?
There is some media that isn't that deep but this isn't one of them sometimes it's nice to eat popcorn and just watch a dumb movie but other times it's nice to sit down and think about a compelling story that's deeper than the surface of its parts
@@ImmaLittlePip I sincerely disagree with this. If someone took time and brainpower to make a thing, it probably is just a little bit deeper than...the thing.
I rlly appreciate finding more women who talk about this game as it often just brings a whole different perspective. I watched one essay were a man talked about jimmy and anya like they were fine and both happy till the pregnancy. If it was all an okay relationship her first instincts wouldnt have been that he'd kill her and yet for so many it seems to go straight over their head which ironically is the whole point of Curlys arc. He ignored it and that passive enabling was the reason everyone ended up suffering.
Fr. I'm sick of only seeing guys playing this game and not understanding anything. Even someone like Jacksepticeye completely missed the point of the game, and thought J*mmy's biggest sin is that he crashed the ship, and that's it. Not even acknowledging the SA, agreeing with J*mmy when he yelled at her, calling her incompetent. His playthrough made me sick honestly, and that's the guy who's supposed to be very kind and progressive. I don't hate men, but when I click on a video about Mouthwashing, if I hear a man's voice, I immediately click off because I can't trust anything they say about this game.
@@Kalitayy Actually jacksepticeye did acknowledge it, but he like everyone first assumes about the crash, thought it was Curly’s fault, as they continued talking he even mentioned thats why she talked about not having locks on the quarters. Eventually realizing in the end that yes, everything was because of Jimmy, Jimmy was the monster all along.
I’m so glad you point out the stereotypes cuz omg the way EVERYONE fell for it! I was like there is no was you all see Anya and believe Jimmy. Anya recognizes how creepy Jimmy is and notices how Curly keeps enabling and trying to appease or calm the situation. She at that point tries to use her strength to somehow go against the two, even if it means her getting in trouble with Curly. And now that she was stuck with him in the ship post crash, that girl is scared and trying so hard to survive. Meanwhile Curly is stuck depending on her which is ironic cuz she depended on him and he failed. She has no choice but to fail him twice. And the crazy part is Jimmy has the audacity to try and have a normal conversation with Anya. He doesn’t care or realize how badly he traumatized her and it shows when he goes straight to the gun and doesn’t acknowledge her.
i am so mad about this, in his visions we see manifestations of his guilt for curly's condition and daisuke's death and his fear of being a father but anya doesn't show up ONCE! even on the walls with id cards her face is covered, he doesn't even see her as a person worth thinking about!
Swansea’s confession about how much he loved being drunk all those nights even more so than his family hit hard. Plus it’s the most genuine look into one of these people. It reminds me of a documentary Russell Brand watched of himself where it showed him homeless and on the streets so strung out. His first words to the reporter was, “You gonna think I’m crazy, but watching that makes me kinda jealous. And it’s true. Absolutely.
as one movie review once put it, "he's the main protagonist, the chief antagonist, the main instigator of the plot and the direct source of conflict." (it was about "the world's end" but admittedly even gary king seems like a decent guy next to jimmy)
@@pasharighton Gary King, of the humans seemed like a man who was led to believe that life would be great, a grand adventure - only to fall through the cracks and despise himself for not being able to climb back up while putting on an act to fool himself in between attempts at ending his own existence. He is far more sympathetic even while getting others in trouble by his stupidity, because at least I think you can say he's trying to relieve happier memories with his mates, 'bad head space' to put it mildly. For all his many flaws he went through some growth and stood up to a existential threat that was already present - despite how lopsided the conflict would be. Jimmy started the plot off out of spite, blames those around him for everything, has little self-awareness, actively preys on others while perching himself at the top, and even at the end still thinks he's the hero while refusing accountability. I definitely agree with you; Garry, King of the humans was much more decent.
I think he’s both, honestly. The story focuses on his perspective, making him the protagonist, but he’s absolutely the source of conflict in the story and provides opposition to everyone around him and himself, which makes him an antagonist as well.
I don’t think people realize this yet but, within the first few scenes of the game, you can suspect Jimmy was the one behind the crash. In the first scene that’s right before the crash, you have to interact with the left-side ship console, not the right-side. Because Curly pilots in the right seat while Jimmy sits in the left seat as you can see in the scene where the two are talking into the cockpit. It’s just a show of great attention to detail. Such an amazing game.
yeah, i notice this in my first time playing the game and i was like, this mother fucking lying rat son of bish. i love the game bc rarely you play as the bad guy. fuck jimmy
lots of good foreshadowing. my favorite is when Swansea gives jimmy the axe, he does it by embedding it in the LCD landscape that, at the time was showing a sunset. "a useless ray of god damned sunshine" the next time he swung that axe, well..
Before you turn off the autopilot you can check the protection kit "Use in case of emergency". Despite the obvious sabotage going on it was rather curious that the character couldn't pick up and use the protection kit to still ensure their own well being, but it's contents can only be accessed by the captain. If you try the door, you get the message of "I can't let anyone in". Why not? Who are they expecting will show up? The captain perhaps? Quite a few signs point to the real culprit early on.
I love that you acknowledge Anya's mischaracterization. So many analysis videos, mostly made by men, have labeled her as incompetent and timid. She is trapped on a ship with someone who can do whatever he wants to her. That is a nightmare. Unless you have been in a situation where you are being taken advantage of I guess it is hard to understand? It is subtle in the game because the perspective is from two complicit characters I'm supposing, but I'm surprised especially that some analysis videos would suspect that Anya and Jimmy have any kind of romantic relationship. Thanks for making this!
these traits come from belittlement of the person's ability to do thier job(which Jimmy does alot to her in the game ) doubting her nursing school education and ability to give Jimmy medicine (I think the reason why he doesn't let her do it when she told him she can is because in his mind ,he thinks he can do her job better than her ,she is clearly competent from the days before the crash ,but since the only person who trust her job as a nurse (curly) is now in a very bad state ,she's gonna feel doubt and scared for her live bc the person entrusting her to take care of curly is the abuser she's scared of ,and if she doesn't do well under this intense amount of pressure, she's gonna fail curly (a person she trusts )and Jimmy (a person that has a power over her )
I was confused by the fact that a lot of guys didn't pick up on it. I was never assaulted like that but I was getting bullied in school a lot but stronger guys, so I somewhat (bis emphasis on the SOMEWHAT) know the feeling when your tormentor is in the same building and can show up any minute.
@jakobjansen9541 I am glad but also sad that you can relate. When you have been assaulted, that person becomes a looming presence in your life especially if you are likely to see them again. Especially if you work with them. But bullying is related as your baseline sense of safety is non-existent, physically or mentally. You know that they shouldn't have power over you but you can't help but be terrified to run into them unexpectedly.
@@Coniophanes exactly what I mean. My saving grace was, that my brother found out I was beeing bullied and scared them off. Years later I found out the guys that bullied me all gone to jail or are unemployed so that's great!
@@dontpreorder2783 no, the photographer was one Alfred Eisenstadt who was randomly snapping photos since the war had ended. He didn't know the two either
I got the basic subtext when playing the first time, but oh god realising that it was specifically Curly's gagging sounds that Anya couldn't bear to listen to actually made me feel physically sick for a while.
I think it's really interesting how divisive the opinions on Curly are, because like. A lot of people say he's a completely innocent victim, or in some cases, I've seen people claim he's just as bad as Jimmy, and that his seemingly nice demeanor was all an act. Which like...no, it's not that black and white. Curly FUCKED UP, there's no mistaking that, he could've stopped Jimmy from doing a lot of bad shit. But him not stopping that wasn't because he's some dastardly mustache-twirling evildoer, it's because he's naive and misguided. You don't have to have malicious intent to do bad things, and I certainly don't think Curly did. But he still made mistakes, and those had huge consequences that hurt other people. He's not "the REAL villain", but he's also not an innocent wittle baby. He's just a guy who screwed up, despite seemingly wanting to do the right thing. And whether or not you think he should be condemned for that is ultimately up to your own interpretation. Personally, my interpretation is that I think Curly was subconsciously scared of Jimmy in some regard, too afraid to stand up to him, and as a result, stood by and let him hurt other people. I saw that moment of him asking Anya if Jimmy was mad not as "I hope my pal's feelings aren't hurt", but "oh god, please don't be mad at us", which isn't to say other interpretations aren't valid, it's just how I saw that scene. Curly is a complicated character. He's not two-dimensional(though he is low-poly, haha get it becau-). I feel bad for him(especially for all the stuff that happens to him after the crash, because jesus christ, that's fucked up), but he's not innocent in any sense, and should be held accountable for his mistakes, even if he was well-meaning. I think you tackled the topic really well, personally. Even though you outright admitted you don't like Curly, you acknowledged his mistakes without outright demonizing him. You handled not only this topic, but the entire analysis with very precise nuance, and I have a lot of respect for that.
Thanks for leaving your thoughts. And yeah, what’s interesting about Curly is how he’s not a one-dimensional “innocent” character, but also not a completely stereotypical “evil” character. It’s not like he didn’t care at all about Anya or didn’t care about how disgusting Jimmy’s actions are. I feel like he just didn’t understand the severity or refused to confront how terrible a person his friend was, so I was seeing it as a depiction of the “guy protects guy friends no matter how abhorrent they are” social construct. But honestly I keep seeing the theory that Curly was scared of Jimmy, and your comment especially reminded me of the second pill scene where Jimmy gets visibly annoyed beforehand and you can hear how he’s more forceful with Curly who seems to be in extreme pain (maybe Jimmy physically beat him or smth to vent his frustrations). I thought it was simply another tally for Jimmy’s immorality, but now I think it would be another angle from which to view Curly’s enabling tendencies as one stemming from fear rather than naivete.
Curly is the kind of idiot who goes 'that can't be it, not Jimmy, I know him, he wouldn't do that' for god knows how many other situations. Jimmy's eff ups finally affected his life, and THEN he gets it.
this! curly reminds me personally of some people i've met with who are just too kind to even bad people until it affects them in the long run mentally and physically, and they're either scared or being taken advantage of that they can't stand up
I think curly is best summarized by anya pointing out the dead pixel. For her, that one pixel (representing a bad or traumatic thing, or red flags) is always in the back of her mind, and curly never notices it cause he's too focused on the bigger picture being shown to him. Curly did this exact same thing with jimmy: he doesn't see the red flags in jimmys behaviors just his friend who's made some mistakes, or whatever else jimmy wanted to manipulate him into seeing really. The fear angle I think is a strong possibility too, even if he wasn't afraid of what Jimmy would do to him he could've been afraid of what Jimmy would do to the other crew members or Anya if he was set off any more
I love this!! I’ve seen a couple people argue that Anya’s SA is just a head-canon a lot of people have so it was very satisfying to listen to you lay out everything that points to that being the case and everything that wouldn’t make sense if it wasn’t. Like, when the story and characters’ actions don’t make sense without that element, can you really call it a head-canon instead of subtext?? And I love that you pointed out Curly could’ve put Jimmy in a cryopod! I hadn’t thought of that so that made it hard for me to fully condemn Curly because I couldn’t think of a “right” thing to do in that situation, but that definitely would’ve been the right call. It’s a bit barbaric to essentially put someone in a coma for eight months so that you don’t have to deal with them, but letting Jimmy be free to continue to hurt people is much more barbaric
It is a bit barbaric to just throw Jimmy in the cryopod, but the other options would be to: put him in the cargo hold, the med bay or shoot/space him. Since there are no other doors with locks and there is no brig.
I find it interesting that Jimmy doesn't see that one dead pixel and just moves past that point, while Swansea takes the axe and breaks the whole thing so that no one can just ignore it. Like it's not just one small thing that made everything fall down, but many small things and a hard push. Swansea was given the axe as a responsibility from the captain, and it should have been the captain's responsibility to see the dead pixel (which can be read as some sort of problem at Tulsar), but it all ends with cracked screen and hundreds of dead pixels. But I don't know, I only have strong feelings, as I love this game so much, even when others seem to have missed points (especially Curly's culpability) in the story.
TW! SA Also another, I feel like Curly reflects most men, they're terrified of disappointing other men and don't like to think of other men to do such horrible things since it makes "all men" look bad, hence why through-out media and society, it gets ignored or at the least pushed to the side, and victims, tend to get ignored as the focus gets put more on the abusers (usually men). where as if roles are reversed, like a woman does that to a man, yes the focus is on the man, but for the wrong reasons. All i can say is, Curly is like most men in society with these things, they don't take things as seriously as they should or just don't do what they need to do. I have had experiences with this with a family member. Nobody ever held him accountable, despite everyone knowing what he did to me and many others. So yes as the video said Curly is an enabler and reflects a greater issue in society. This game is so fricken good! and i do commend that they tackle this. EDIT- (was editing and deleted my text :c ) I apologize for not being clear. anyone can become an enabler, even if they have good intentions, such as what we see with curly. Being an enabler, victim or abuser is not a gender exclusive experience. I would know, with my own situation and people I've known, we have had abusers and enablers of different identities. Yes, you need to acknowledge gender CAN play a role into things, due to both social, environment and biological aspects, however these are not excuses, or cause and effect, just merely a factor in a broad sea of other factors, such as own personal upbringing and personality. Gender is Social and I do wish we could live in a world were it wasn't such a big problem as many terrible things happen to people, but unfortunately that's not a world we live in currently, all we can do is be kind to one another and be the best versions of ourselves. However, it shouldn't be ignored that gender (both physical and identity) can and may possibly play an impact into people. Not to be used as an excuse, but as a way to understand as it is merely just a drop in the concoction that makes us human. Anyone can become an enabler, whether you have good intentions or not, likewise anyone can become an abuser, these situations would be up to you to reflect on your own behaviour as well as get others to understand you, just. remember any human is capable of harm, whether they mean it or not, it is important to recognise this to better ourselves. Any person is able to change, but only if they want to. So if people aren't. DO NOT waste anymore time on them, letting go is difficult, but trust me it's way better than what could happen. On a personal note to any victims: And to anyone else who is a victim of SA, Abuse or any kind of mistreatment, as someone who's lived after experiencing it as a young child, things will get better, things will be ok and please know you aren't alone. as tough as it gets.. which may be after whatever has happened to you has.. like it was for me, you will make it through this.. and please know, it was never your fault, you aren't to blame.
I agree with you, i like the realistic portraial of the situation, despite it being extremely terrible. But i have to say that on the other side of the spectrum you have Swansea, who when he found out about the things jimmy had done, he was going to kill him
The irony of it all is ignoring it because they feel like I'd make all men look bad and their friends cannot be is what in the end makes men who technically haven't done anything wrong themselves look bad bc even tho they might not have done it they knew and turned a blind eye. A indirect approval of the behavior.
It's actually vey well-known and not pushed aside in media that men can be abusive??? In fact, according to several studies, people, in general, are more likely to assume that men are the abuser. Men are the abuser in media by default. Also I don't know what you meant by "the focus is on the man but for the wrong reasons" if a woman does abuse to a man, didn't you say people should focus on the victim more than the abuser? Also when men are abused it's usually assumed it's the man's fault somehow and it's assumed woman can't be abusers, which is probably why it looks like men are mostly abusers, because women are less likely to be seen as capable of abuser
@@diepvrieskoe1335 Ironically, in other videos discussing Mouthwashing, I’ve seen men in the comments doing similar by claiming because it wasn’t outright stated by the game, Anya wasn’t sexually assaulted. It’s genuinely horrifying.
I feel like what always strikes me about Curly, especially his behaviour, is that while playing the game, I was constantly reminded of how I felt while I was still suicidal. Curly comes off to me as someone who is depressed and can't bring himself to care about others as much as he used to. A lot of his dialogue points to an existentialism about the point of his life and feeling like he's already peaked. I feel like, at least in my interpretation, he didn't do anything maliciously, but rather out of wanting to leave this world easy. He wanted the least amount of enemies and the least amount of resistance. Anya didn't do anything to make him react that way. The timing of everything just lined up with a man who's starting to give up. Jimmy, unintentionally, encourages Curly's concealment of a lot of this, and even encourages Curly's worst thoughts. None of this was intentional on anyone's parts, at least I don't think so. Only by the time that his thoughys are realised does he regret everything and trying to end it all, and by then it's too late. An underdiscussed part of surviving suicide and depression is coping with all of the people you hurt while you were sick. There was no malice, there was emptiness; yet, it still hurt everyone involved. It's too late. I feel like it's why hallucination Curly is so adamant about being willing to be the bad guy. Jimmy is coming to terms with the fact his enabler, his support, was only enabling him because he didn't plan on being alive for the consequences. And it changed how Jimmy sees him.
Would also make sense if you see it as a reflection of curly/Jimmy vs swansea/Daisuke. Swansea doesn't want Daisuke to be on this path as he himself is unhappy with it, while Curly trying to give Jimmy his path because it's all he knows, and if he did plan to off himself, then Jimmy could get to be captain in the future. Irony being he didn't need to be dead for that to happen.
I always found it weird how people treat Curly in the fandom and in other analysis pieces, completely ignoring his failure to do anything to help and treating him as just another victim of Jimmy, and like while he is his victim he was also someone who had the authority to actually stop things, but he did nothing despite being given ample warning signs and requests for help from Anya's accounts. He is not as bad as Jimmy but he is like you said an enabler who failed to do anything to stop his so called friend. All he did was watch things unfold and in the end thats the fate he was resigned to, unable to say anything or do anything but watch as the monster he allowed onto the ship destroyed everyone. And yet some people treat him as if hes on the same level of innocence as Daisuke, just a good guy who just got into a bad position but it had nothing to do with him. Though unlike Jimmy I think at least by the end when it was too late, he understood his mistake. His laugh when Jimmy gets the gun confirms it to me. He is the better man compared to Jimmy, he was actually able to understand his responsibility in things, while Jimmy ran from it to his death. Just find it annoying when people treat him in art like just some silly fun guy while Jimmy is the evil stinky guy as if Jimmys stink isnt all over Curly too. Anyways, I really appreciate your analysis especially for that, really insightful in all the right places.
Thanks for leaving your thoughts, I completely agree that the fandom’s reaction to Curly’s character goes in very opposite directions. The ironic realization that he’s partly to blame for everything due to his inaction is definitely why I think the laugh was extremely creepy.
finally someone who points it out. curly isnt innocent by any means considering he was also in a toxic friendship w jimmy; but to say curly is fully without blame when his former position as the actual captain means he had the actual authority to fucking boot out jimmy and keep anya safe? it is just frankly disappointing. i feel like the whole thing curly does within the latter half of the game -- him going 'we can fix this' when talking to jimmy (and also where anya tells him that jimmy DID sexually assault her) -- is another way of him trying to cover up / defend / not want to deal with jimmy in a way that has actual consequences. its only until its too late where everyone else died that he laughs at how terrible the situation had gotten, that it was too late, that everything sets in for him
It feels like a bit of a broken stair thing. Like... Maybe part of the problem is _because_ Curly knew Jimmy so long. He got so inured to how shitty Jimmy was that he sorta.... forgot how to do anything about Jimmy. "Oh, that's Jimmy, I guess, he's the shithead I gotta bail out."
I think part of the issue is that Curly’s suffering is astronomical compared to his crime of inaction. The sad part is I genuinely think when Curly fully realized what a piece of human filth Jimmy was, it was too late. He could no longer do anything, he could no longer talk, and was powerless to do anything while Jimmy took leadership and killed the crew slowly like a cancer, suffering in agony. I feel sympathy for Curly, and I think a detail people miss is that Jimmy might not have seen Jimmy much since he became a captain at Pony Express. Right out the gate, we know this is a job that takes year for each trip, not even counting returns. So Jimmy probably changed for the worst since Curly knew him. Which he has, the disgusting delusional parasite
I'm so glad to see some good analysis of the game! Media literacy is to the point where I saw a reddit thread with multiple people arguing that Jimmy actually had a sexual attraction to cartoon horses 😭
@@LaLaLoopsyCutie it's a form of s*xual harassment to make jokes like that to someone who is uncomfortable - it also has the added layer that shows jimmy doesn't take what anya does seriously. He would rather make gross "jokes" and make anya's job harder than treat her like a person.
@@LaLaLoopsyCutieI might be wrong butttt whenever we see the horse in jimmy’s mind I think it represents Anya. Except the horse centipede fetus and when polle calls him “old man” for example see when they’re all sleeping in the lounge and Jimmy breaks the polle statue that sings when you approach that Anya sleeps next to. And even before the crash the polle horse is behind Anya during curlys birthday It’s like he’s dehumanized Anya so much he can’t even see her as a person.
@@ope366woah I thought he might be but I never noticed some of those details! he really did just completely dehumanize her;; now all the persistent horse imagery makes so much more sense... it was the 'anya' problem he refused to face.... 💀
Swansea was my unexpected favourite too. I love how you get the impression early on that he's gonna be the guy who snaps and kills everyone, but once you've built up the full context it's actually completely reasonable for him to be chasing Jimmy around with an axe. And to be keeping the intact cryo-pod a secret - not because he was going to use it himself, but because he didn't trust Jimmy with that information. It's frustrating to me how many people don't seem to pick up on the SA subtext. Can it even be called subtext when it's needed to understand the actual text? It just seems glaringly obvious... wait, is the reason why so many stories depict SA on-screen for shock value because they know their audience won't recognize a subtler approach?
Something I immediately thought of when I finished watching the gameplay was how the only functioning limb left on Curly was his single blue eye. It automatically reminded me of the poem The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, about a man that was obsessed with then driven crazy by his neighbors single blue eye which leads to him murdering the old man. I reread the poem and noticed: 1. He dident even hate the man (even said he kinda loved him) 2. He claims all throughout the poem that he isent crazy and that ANYONE would have done what he did And 3. For the rest of the poem he’s haunted by the old man’s heartbeat which leads to him being caught and arrested for the murder. All of these actions feel INCREDIBLY similar to Jimmys storyline but that could just be me.
I see the vision, maybe despite Jimmy's delusions that he did it, that *he* was the hero, were muddled by the piercing blue of Curly's eye and he anguished gasps wheezed. A haunting reminder of everything he'd done, following him into the void he deserves to rot in.
Curly isn't a hero, Curly is responsible for Anya's death too. Anya was terrified, frozen by her fear. Curly could've helped... but he decided his "friend" was worth more than the suffering of a traumatized woman.
That's normally what friends do. I always find it funny that we look at these things with a moral highground but are no different from curly most times.
@@KN-hg2nv no. I ment in general not just SA we allow our friends to do whatever "steal, be racist, etc. Egging on bad behavior taking their side even when wrong.
As a person who was at one point partially in a situation similar to curly I feel I am able to understand the game at a better level than if I played it before the situation I was in happened. I had a person voice acting for something I wanted to make, and I had become friends with him over time. Later I learned that he sa'd someone, and I cut him off. There was still part of me that wanted to trust him, but I knew I couldn't be his friend anymore. Playing through mouthwashing it reminded me of the whole thing. It made me glad I had handled the whole thing with that former friend the way I did, and playing mouthwashing, it helpedme in a way peering into if i had let it slide (brought to the extreme of course but still). I believe this is the reason I love and connect with mouthwashing so much. Forgive me for the yap session.
I don't often get caught off guard by twists in media, especially video games. They often feel either shoehorned in or clichèd. But Mouthwash set it up perfectly, testing just how far you're going to suspend your disbelief even as Jimmy's abusive, spiteful and self-centered personality keeps emerging before finally realizing you are playing as the villain of the story. The final line is especially poignant. Jimmy starts saying "We fixed it", then corrects himself to "I fixed it". Despite admitting at least part of his mistakes, he sees himself as the hero of the story up to his last breath.
Thank you for talking about how Jimmy doesn't really acknoldge Anya in any way. Even his action towards her. You could say he's being actively mean to her but it's more like he's just acting without much regard if that's the right way to say it. I really realized that when I saw someone else point out that Jimmy doesn't have a dialogue AT ALL for Anya when she dies. The very vent Diasuke came out of gets a prompt, but her body doesn't. I really liked this video :D 💕 Swansea is my fav too
I saw a theory that apparently Polly’s speech at the end is supposed to be like some omnipotent being judging Jimmy on behalf of Anya since their text colors are sorta similar
@@catharsis.catharsis my theory is that the Polle at the end was Jimmy's perception of the baby judging him (from it calling him "old man"), especially after the sequence of the horse...thing... chasing you through the vents after the ultrasound section. I truly don't think Jimmy even saw Anya as a person beyond carrying living evidence of his crime, and he acknowledged that fetus more than he ever thought about Anya herself. Even in the more surreal sections at the end (delusion or metaphor, either or): Curly haunts him, watching him always; Swansea tries to kill him in the graveyard, Daisuke walks into the dark and leaves glowing flowers, the unborn child rages and chases him, and Anya simply disappears. In the initial aftermath of her overdose, she literally disappears - Jimmy refuses to even see her corpse until he is searching for the gun.
we need more people like u fully acknowledging the full extent of Anya's SA and Jimmy/Curly dynamics bcus goodness gracious the other essayists genuinely misinterpret it so badly I feel so frustrated lol, someone even interpreted it as jimmy being scared of fatherhood LOL and called their relationship with Anya a consensual one
i dont understand how people can understand this game as a horror one without acknowledging one of jimmy’s most evil doings. sure, body horror sure is scary but the scariest thing is what jimmy did to anya.
While I don't hate Curly, like, at all, I do completely agree with ALL if your points and your analysis was STUNNING✨✨. My only (mild) critique is that I wish Daisuke had a little more screen time but that's pretty much just me being biased bc he's my second favourite character lol. But anyway I also just absolutely ADORE how you focused so much on Anya and Jimmy's relationship AND that you pointed out the comparisons between Swansea and Jimmy???? Like, I didn't notice that (very much) and I haven't seen anyone else take the comparison beyond that one line during Swansea's speech so MAJOR MAJOR kudos!!!!!
AAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE KIND WORDS I reallyyyyy wanted to make another section analyzing Diasuke & Swansea’s dynamic but i was already at like 40 mins (this was originally supposed to be a quick 15 min video 😭)
@@catharsis.catharsis You're the only person I've seen so far to accurately label them as foils. I've been turning it over in my head since I played this game, it just makes sense with the speech Swansea gave before dying, and still just blows me back. He has all the stereotypical markers of success in society, can admit it never made him truly happy, and tells this envious monster that, "I'm telling, YOU" that the delusion he's chasing would never had made him happy either. It's so well done and so was this analysis. Thank you!
The Devs have said that anya already tried to study medicine 8 times, but it was never accepted, they didn't say why though, but I can guess that not even before getting a job in pony express was taken seriously.
The scene where Swansea talks about his accomplishments as a father and worker kinda killed me. I feel like its such a good way to break Jimmy down to his barest essentials. Jimmy doesn't feel he was given the things he feels men are probably entitled to. A good job, a good social standing, a family to provide for, friends who look up to him rather than pity him, etc. And these expectations often drive real life men, especially younger men, to be violent to prove they deserve manhood. Jimmy's whole character reminds me of this one movie I watched called 'Super Dark Times' where a group of older USAmerican middle schoolers (all boys) are picked on and one day get a hold of a katana. They end up accidentally killing one of their friends and pretty much getting away with it. The whole group falls apart because of this, but the one holding the sword starts to power trip. He was a nerd, bullied, didn't live up to masculine expectations. But, now he had killed someone and that made him feel closer to obtaining the same masculinity his brother in the military had. This led to him doing more violent things until eventually he was killed by a neighbor after he got caught trying to kill one of his living friends. I want to bring that up because obtaining "manhood" is also a theme in evangelion, which is directly referenced multiple times in game. Especially End of Evangelion, where Shinji ends up killing the only other living person after the impact. At so many turns Shinji fails to live up to expectations of his father and even of the people around him who want him to prove his masculinity.
There's only 1 thing in this incredible analysis that I disagree with and it's that Jimmy had no prominent hallucinations related to Anya, because he sees what he did to her as insignificant. I believe he was in fact suppressing those thoughts because they're significant. He crashed the ship because he was a afraid to take responsibility for what he did. He let Curly enable him because Curly knew he was afraid to take responsibility for what he did. Swansea becomes more hostile to Jimmy after the talk with Anya, because he knew Jimmy was avoiding taking responsibility for what he did. Jimmy was able to pressure Daisuke to go through the vent to save Curly, instead of going himself, because Daisuke had no idea what Jimmy was responsible for doing to Anya that pushed her to ending it. All of this ultimately happened because Jimmy was too much of a coward to take responsibility for his worst action. The talking mascot figure even mocks him about this. When Jimmy declares his resolve to do the right thing and "fix it" the mascot responded "Wait...if everything you said is true, then why are you still concerned about him[Curly]?" The mascot was mocking him because he knew Jimmy was still trying to avoid the bigger issue, by distracting himself with Curly, instead of facing what he did to Anya. In the end, Jimmy just ended up offing himself, never taking any real responsibility.
I think a lot of the horse imagery was supposed to represent Anya. So whenever he sees it asides from the horse centipede thingy in the womb and the polle that calls him an “old man”
@@ope366 exactly, the ultrasound with the horse fetuses and the freaky horse centipede chase were his anya hallucinations, but he refuses to even acknowledge what he did to her so she herself doesnt show up. just like in the id card hallway where anyas cards are all covered by the others
it's so refreshing to see you actually hold curly accountable for all his awful decisions and his people pleasing mentality, it seems as if everyone sees him as a good soul and simply a victim in this charade but he had the biggest hand to play here. he's incompetent as a leader, he couldn't make hard and tough decisions, and he went around trying to please everyone. that's not a quality of a good leader. i really do love his character and the game portrayed his flaws incredibly well, but he's the enabler that doomed them all. also i didnt even notice the detail of anya commenting on how it'd take 8 months [the span of her pregnancy] for the tulpar to get back to earth until you pointed it out!! incredibly well done video, you tackled the nuance of the story so well and it's so refreshing to see someone see each character for what they are
This is a fantastic analysis, and i really really love the nuance you approached Curly with in particular. His relationship with Anya is maybe one of the most interesting and thouroughly tragic of the whole game to me. My interpretation was that Curly represented the greater structures in society that ultimately enable abusers. It didn't seem like he actually really understood what Jimmy did. Most people are taught about abusers as mustache-twirling villains who only seek to hurt other people and are obvious in their vile intentions. Well, my buddy doesn't fit that description, so he can't be an abuser, right? Anya also probably only spoke about the abuse vaguely, given that it would be extremely painful to talk about, especially when her abuser was in the vicinity. When you put it all together you get a woman crying out for help who has had her ability to communicate restrained by social structures beyond her control, and a man in power who wants to help, but lacks the knowledge to accurately put together the pieces in front of him, blinded both by ignorance and misplaced loyalty to someone he still believes is redeemable. And the social structures in place only reinforce this dynamic over and over again, so Curly becomes an accomplice without even realizing it. And Anya does realize it, but she also sees the structures that Curly has the privilege of being blind to. Jimmy is responsible for his actions and that will never change. But Curly is responsible for his own negligence. And in the end Anya couldn't even turn to the people who wanted to help her. And just... Man. This game...
so damb true,. REAL WHEN i see fanart of anya being all buddy buddy w curly it dont feel right but at the time like his intentions werent bad and its just so complicated. no i get it. LLOOLLLLL YOU got The QUINTUPLE TABS LISTEN LSITEN KLSITENENENEN hey. I remember thgis ! should we hit reply we would look actually schizophrenic i think
Empathy without boundaries is self destruction. Though Curly is part-way responsible for what happeneds by allowing Jimmy to just keep doing what he wants, I felt so bad for him. He realized Jimmy’s true nature way too late and, at that point, he couldn’t do anything about it. Curly was probably Jimmy’s only friend. And Jimmy permanently disfigured and disabled him. I definitely don’t think Curly deserved his fate but, obviously, he isn’t innocent.
I dont understand why ALL the other analysis's videos I see, people always brush over the fact that Jimmy LITTERALY RAPED Anya, and got her pregnant. Im glad you acknowledged that.
From my observation, it's because most people who played and "analyzed" this game happen to be men. And you know how awful men are when it comes to empathy and understanding what women have to go through. They're just not built for this.
Couple things I've pointed out to my lady that has taken up analyzing this game: •The final scene with Swansea hits me as an ex-addict reaching out to another addict. Swansea is trying to relate to Jimmy and tell him that he understands the delusions he's letting himself be consumed by. And after all that he said, after realizing Jimmy wasn't listening, he just simply tells him "fuck you". I think this is why this game is named after the Mouthwash. It's analogous to alcoholism, and the effects addiction has on people and social situations. •The final encounter with the monster in Jimmy's mind cries like his unborn rape baby, but why does it look like that? I think its supposed to look like a string of DNA that's crawling. The constant display of "I hope it hurts" upon being caught by it, its as if he's finally trying to comprehend the gravity of what he did to Anya. That his own DNA and spawn is crawling around and ramming into him over and over again, being scorned and told to suffer, until he finally realizes he's not worthy of surviving. Jimmy may not have expressed verbally his regret for his raping of Anya, but he has internalized it and suffers for it. Not because of Anya, but because Curly acted as an avenue of comprehending it. •The game takes place within a 9 month time frame, echoing the birth of Jimmy's actions. I believe that is important because I don't believe the constant reminder of taking responsibility is just about being punished for his crime, but also the fact that he doesn’t deserve or earn the responsibility of fatherhood. We only ever see the masculine perspective. A man having been thrust into fatherhood by his own failings and intent is a common problem. I believe Jimmy regrets killing his own child more than killing Anya. His own flesh and blood haunts him more than the woman he raped, and in the end its reinforced by everything that not only is he a manipulative rapist, he's less of a man than the almost literal child on the ship. Every other male character reflects a trait Jimmy lacks. Daisuke represents innocence and trust. Swansea represents maturity and willpower. Curly represents kindness and guidance. All of them together represent a masculine duty and dignity that Jimmy lacks. If he had an ounce of it, he wouldn't have hurt Anya. He would've earned fatherhood.
I have to admit I’m a bit too much like curly. I actually initially didn’t believe she was SA’d but rather was merely in an abusive relationship with Jimmy. I’ve seen a few analysis videos but it was this one that actually fully brought to light how I fell for the unreliable narration. Wonderful video!
I think the fact that Jimmy is so horribly, awfully reprehensible, it takes so much of our attention that we are less critical of Curly. Curly's a bit of a bad egg, but Jimmy is a whole fucking landfill of poultry runoff. It makes that one bad egg infinitely preferable by comparison.
He is a typical avoidant leader. He doesn't want to rock the boat, have the hard conversations or enforce accountability. He reminds me of my previous boss, I was being harassed at work and confided in him, and he did nothing because it would mean doing real work and having uncomfortable but necessary conversations. Someone should have been fired, but instead I was forced to leave to preserve my wellbeing.
Both Jimmy and Curly are realistically well written but ig what makes Curly more interesting is the "morally grey" part. Both are def ppl you'd likely saw irl but Jimmy is someone you'd only expect to see on the news while Curly is a man you're likely to meet in front of you. But yeah i agree the amount of ppl unironically babying him is really weird
@nasrinnski Yes I think as a baseline Curly is kind and that also becomes a flaw in the situations he is presented with. Jimmy has become more frightening with every analysis I watch especially how he takes his private conversation with Curly and flips it on him during the cake scene. That was sinister and cruel.
While I totally agree that Curly screwed up and should have done more to apprehend Jimmy, I thought maybe another reason for his inaction was because the pony express would probably punish not only him, but the whole crew as they would all lose money for anything bad happening inside the ship.
You also have to take into account that they are 8 months away from the next habitable planet. He likely believed that he couldn’t risk bringing tension to the crew if he picked a side or risk one of the crew members (Anya and Jimmy in this case) to not cooperate with the rest of the group, which would be a problem because every job on the crew is important to the safety and survival of the crew. In other words, he was at a dilemma. Unfortunately, not having Jimmy take responsibility led to his disfigurement.
And it's very possible that Jimmy was aware of how his actions could negatively reflect on Curly and took advantage of it. He might have chosen to do what he did to Anya because he knew that Curly would try to downplay or ignore it for the rest of the trip
@@ICantRecognizeCelebrities considering what jimmy says to curly before crashing the ship, jimmy KNEW curly would hesitate reporting either. curly has a history of "off the record" stuff like willing to hide the fact anya stole the gun case and wont put it in their notes to the company or his psych eval talk with jimbo
i saw a positive post on tiktok about this video and wanted to give it a watch. i really like your perspective on this, as some creators either portray jimmy and anya as consensual, or miss such important details or subtext ^^
Good analysis and editing. Thank you for focusing on Curly and Jimmy's final pre-crash conversation, as comments I read always seem to gloss over it when trying to pass judgement on Curly's culpability. Jimmy laid his dark plan out, left no room for misinterpretation, and Curly just... stands there? What did he think would happen afterwards? Surely that silence grants Jimmy's plan his tacit approval, yes? No doubt Jimmy saw it as so. Curly's blank stare after Jimmy walks away is such a moment full of ambiguous implications and no doubt mixed emotions that I hope more people try to dig into.
I think he was struggling to process it tbh. I've thought before that the first hallucination sequence may have been representative of Curly rather than Jimmy, considering the ladders and how long it takes for the reality of the emergency warnings to finally break him back into what was happening. I don't know how to explain it, but it feels very reminiscent of how it feels to hear something and space out, and struggle to come back to reality I guess? It's a weird feeling but it def evoked that for me
An idea I've seen floating around that I really like is the "dead pixel" in the lounge being symbolic of Jimmy's true nature. Curly's never acknowledged it because he likes to take in the big picture, whereas it's always weighing down on Anya's mind. Curly ignores Jimmy's glaring red flags because all he sees is the "big picture" of his friend. But Anya quite literally can't ignore it.
I have been scoping out the Mouthwashing search tag just waiting for all the juicy video essays because this game is living in my brain rent free! Your analysis is beautiful and my favorite exploration of the subtext in this game, because hell ya you cant actually understand anything substantial from this game without subtext! Curly is exactly that kind of man where he thinks his best buds aren't sexist assholes because "he might have a gross sense of humor but he wouldnt actually SA someone and if he did SA someone it doesnt represent who his friend is". That kind of enabler that sees his best friend being shitty and creepy and does nothing to call him out. So Jimmy gets only green lights to make worse and worse decisions hurting others. I agree about Swansea too, his speech was the most poignant and beautiful part to me. I could rant about this game endlessly and just will end my wall of text by saying thanks again for this beautiful video essay!
Love how much you talked about Anya. Generally, I've seen a lot of fandom support for her character. Streamer support tho... yikes it sucks. She's the best character in the game and deserves a lot of love.
Honestly the best analysis of this game so far on YT. Everyone else missed out so many things about this game it was honestly super sad to watch those. Thank you for pointing out Anya's story. Most of the other ones I watched completly ignored it or failed to see all the subtle details and out right implied things, unfortunately those were all men. Swansea and Jimmy were amazing and you did a really good job at pointing out the similarities and the contrast of those characters. It's so funny because Swansea practically just went "I could've been just like you", but ppl still missed it.
I love that the actual horror of this game is somthing we never actually see on screen. When I finished it for the first time I had to get up and take a walk, because that shit broke me... Also I watched this video like four times now (mostly because I got very high and kinda kept drifting off) and I also want to applaud your editing. The music accompanied by certain relevations was just *chefs kiss*. Bravo!
This game is literally a wish came true for me because I've always wanted a game where at first you believe you are the hero but near the end you realised just how evil you are.
Thank you for thinking so deeply and using your beautiful brain! Men can be so stupid and there are so many analysis videos about this game that completely disregard Anya and the fact that she is a victim. Thank you for your service. 🙏🏻🙌🏻
I often find videos that discuss it dont talk about how her assault was what set the story in motion. It is critical to understand her story in order to have a rounded picture of the game, arguably more than any other character. She is the dead pixel in the screen.
That’s so interesting, I never thought of it like that. The screen definitely had more symbolism; there was another comment explaining how each character acted differently towards the screen based on how they reacted to a bad action (Swansea confronted and broke it, Curly can’t find the pixel, etc.)
@@trulybarr5341 thats good then, maybe that means people are learning or the oblivious people are being drowned out lol. i first tried to find analyses of the game soon after it came out and gave up after stopping like 3 different videos by dudes who didnt realize it was SA
3:00 On the idea of subverting stereotypes -- It feels like the initial perspectives are a bit of *Jimmy's* perception of the crew, especially regarding himself.
It might be because of my own experiences with emotional abuse, but I have a hard time blaming Curly for letting Jimmy do what he did because their dynamic in game closely resembles emotional/mental abuse. Jimmy constantly gaslights, manipulates, and shames Curly at every opportunity. Anyone else would stop being friends with Jimmy, especially after his outburst at the party. But Curly keeps trying to appease Jimmy, as if Curly is in a fawn response state around Jimmy as well. Too afraid of Jimmy to do anything to stop him, which enabled Jimmy to enact harm onto others. Tbh, I think it's a great nuanced view of abuse victims: A victim staying silent/appeasing their abuser can lead to said abuser doing more harm. And just because you're a victim doesn’t mean you can’t contribute to harm.
I think this is such an interesting angle to look at his character from, I’ve seen a couple of comments bringing it up. I see what you mean regarding the fawn response, and it would re-contextualize Curly’s behavior as being caused by fear rather than a naive kindness.
I don't think this works well as Curly at that point was severly guilt-ridden. He's the guy who gave Jimmy a job and also told him that he'd be great at it only for Jimmy (and the rest of the crew) to be let go even before he finished his first job. Most people in Curly's position would rationalized Jimmy's outburst as they think they are causing it.
Personally, I have no empathy for Curly tbh, even if people agreed that he's a victim or whatever. He's a man, he had all the power to be an ally and take action. Oh he got gaslit and manipulated? Well, Anya got her body autonomy taken from her, Curly better suck it up and take responsibility. J*mmy never took Anya and her work seriously, that's why Curly took the paper from her and helped her with it. But when it comes holding his friend accountable, it's somehow too much for him? He's as much of a coward as J*mmy.
@@Kalitayycurly showed cowardice in not wanting to report and condemn his horrible friend Jimmy showed cowardice through ultimately ending or ruining the lives of 4 people because he couldn't take punished Please do not compare the two
On the part of you saying Anya is a pretty good nurse it reminded me of the fact that she failed getting into med school 8 times and she's only doing this job to get money to try again, so the reason why she doesn't have any savings is because she's using the money to try and try again to get into medical school. Honestly the only thing I think about when I think of this fact is the reason why Anya keeps failing to get in because honestly Jimmy's view of her and Curly's limited interactions with her don't paint me the with the brightest painting
Also you’re so real for not being able to play the game but still wanting to analyze it (I’m the exact same way). I really love you analysis and editing style :) also, something about mouth washing reminded me of another game named signalis you should definitely check it out!!
DUDE ANYTHING THAT HAS NEON GENESIS EVANGELION REFERENCES IM ALREADY ON IT LOL (its a cool show, you should check it out since you like these two psychological games)
@@catharsis.catharsis i watched the og series and the end of evangelion movie in 2021 or 2022 and I loved it! I haven’t watched the remakes or death(true)2 cause idk how important or significant they are😭
Oooo def check out the rebuilds, they take a different approach to the og plot, but the last rebuild movie (thrice upon a time) has the best ending in the franchise imo. it kinda acknowledges the og plot in some weird alternative universe thing but it has such a positive final message.
this has to be the best analysis of mouthwashing ive watched so far.. no 30 minutes of summary out of a 45 minute video, and an insightful dive into the characters and themes without tiptoeing around it or superficially touching on it. and im happy to find another real swansea appreciator, i damn near cried at his portion of the video. this was so amazing to watch, thank you so much !
It made me incredibly upset seeing so many people misunderstanding Anya or just glancing over her. So seeing you talk about her so in depth made me so happy
I've been watching a ton of essays for this game because of the story, but like others, I'm grateful to come across one that really did Anya a service in recognizing her SA and not brushing it aside. Thank you
this is genuienly such a good review, i watched a lot of reviews about mouthwashing to see if someone thinks like me, and this video was unironically the best one i watched. its crazy how ur video is so underrated and it definently deserves more views ans likes, since you did a better job telling the narrative than a lot of popular videos
this video is awesome, I love that you (unlike many other creators) do not skip over what happened to Anya, I've seen many Mouthwashing analyses but almost all of them just skip over it like it is not one of the most important things.
@@Ктоя-ь1м if only they realised anya wasnt always as timid like it seems she is. she was just on survival mode and fearful of what might happen to her. yes she could've had her girlboss revenge right then and there but not all victims are gon toughen up and just become warriors. some just feel helpless and like they have no power..
Glazing comment ahead viewers discretion advised Omfg you ate that shit up. You summed all your points so well. Nothing felt repetitive. It actually felt like a REAL analysis. Not just someone who was repeating the play through. I loved every second of the video and the editing was super funny and just low key a vibe. Please make more content 🫡.
@@catharsis.catharsis 👊😈 KEEP MAKING VIDEOS. Anyone can tell that you’re very talented just by the way you organize your thoughts and execute the videos. (Ik im low key glazing but it was a really really good video 😼)
This is an excellent analysis video, you did a great job! Also I like how you pointed out the ID hallway scene. It was weird to me how Jimmy had more sympathy/guilt over Swansea (a man that tried to killed him) over Anya (the victim of his abuse. I think this has to do with Jimmy being able to relate to the men on the crew. Yet the exclusion and treatment of Anya led me to believe that Jimmy was a sexist. That her struggles she endured after the crash doesn’t come close to what he experienced as being the new captain. Despite the role of being a captain in the current state of the ship is stagnant as they can’t pilot it. Compared his job to Anya’s who constantly monitored Curley’s health despite only having a first aid kit. Anyone can tell that Anya had the hardest job on the ship post-crash. I also like to point out how he SA Anya as SA is used by the abuser to show their victim how much power they have over them. Not once have we seen Jimmy tried to intimidate Daisuke or Swansea. With Swansea, Jimmy avoided direct confrontation and decided to render him unconscious It was just Anya who had to deal with Jimmy’s abuse directly which makes me even more sad for her.
Because men like Jimmy actually deeply hate women. They don't see women as people, so they don't care about them at all in any shape or form, other than what they can get from them. These men are so pathetically cowardly, that they almost always decide to take out their frustrations on the weaker ones. Because they themselves would never dare to challenge a greater man
Because men like Jimmy actually deeply hate women. They don't consider us as people, they wouldn't give a damn about us unless it somehow affected them directly
absolutely wonderful analysis. put this on while making dinner and was snapping my fingers throughout the entire first half talking about how GENUINELY deranged jimmy was to decide crashing the ship was better than to face incarceration for what he did to anya, like i came to that realization a couple days ago and it was actl fucking harrowing he's so well written i need to put him in a blender. the section you dedicated to curly's radical hope/love rather than framing it as naivety was also so important to me as someone who lives around ppl like him constantly (naive or not) and has been hurt due to inaction, like just. YUP. such a real story with real, real characters. you did them justice. swansea best character i also highly agree thanks for making my night!
I feel like a lot of fem people immediately pick up on what’s being put down by the time the “why do you think they didn’t put locks on the sleeping quarters?” line. But a lot of guys just don’t really pick up on it at least not initially and usually even then they don’t pick up on the fucked up implications that he forced himself onto her. They usually think it was consensual and he probably just didn’t want to take care of the baby (side note: it’s pretty messed up J*mmy had a sequence with a strange unborn pony baby rather than anything with Anya.) Like ngl I was kinda disappointed that some guys just didn’t see it. Like I’ve seen several videos on Mouthwashing and how well it does horror and how Jommy is decidedly not a good person and Curly as someone tragic when I’m sitting there like no he’s also complicit. He effectively defended the perpetrator rather than the victim. He didn’t do all that much to separate the two from what we see. I think Curly represents a lot of guys. Men who don’t fully understand the implications of Curly’s inaction and words. I think a lot of people would be incredibly conflicted learning about something monstrous an old friend did but I think a lot of fem people can look at someone they’ve known and be capable of putting their feelings aside. It’s been strange seeing discussions and such because as someone that has started to unpack the whole idea that the legal system and the justice system aren’t really good it feels weird to be like “J*mmy is a bad person *but* “ the systems in place aren’t truly effective and can retraumatize victims of sa due to the barrage of questions and accusations and recounting of events. Prisoners usually suffer longer than their sentences and even if they want to become better people when they try to renter society they are continuously punished and that usually moves people down into the same patterns like how strict parenting lead to sneaky children. I don’t think all things can be talked out but there should be ways other than locking someone up for an extended period of time. Sometimes a true punishment is living with the truth that you’ve hurt someone deeply in a way that will leave scars. Something you can’t undo or take back. In some cases prison reinforces the idea that the perpetrator is the victim, not that they are suffering from the consequences of their crimes but they were justified in committing them. I also believe in what Anya says. “Our worst moments don’t define us” because they really shouldn’t. We should be able to live and grow but for J*mmy it just seems impossible. He’s someone who refuses to face reality. There’s not much you can do to better someone if they don’t want to better themselves. You can’t help someone that doesn’t want to be helped. Uh Mouthwashing good 👍✨
Eh I agreed with what you had to say until the last part. Our actions are what defines us. Words can be used to say anything to the point that they have no meaning, but actions are always themselves. A lot of rapists don’t even think they’ve committed rape, doesn’t change the fact that the are rapists. I can tell myself in a good person all I want, just like Jimmy does, but if all I do is hurt people, just like Jimmy does, than I am a bad person. I mean hell Hitler passed laws protecting the Weald are of animals and the environment and banned smoking in public buildings, yet none of that changes the fact that he was an evil man who killed a lot of people. Our actions do define us. And our worst actions especially so.
Glad this video showed up in my feed. Good analysis of a great game. Mouthwashing was one of the rare games I felt the tagline "psychological horror" was well earned. The game does alot at first to trick you to expect the horror to be about monsteror the crew going mad or some external threat, but the only madness is Jimmy's lack of self accountability, and the only monster is Jimmy who in the end is left only with himself. Even at the end the game got me. When curly was first put into the pod, the delay on the cryogenic process made me think jimmy was so obsessed with his own "redemption" he forgot to even activate the sequence. This analysis also seems to touch on tiny nuances and details other videos of the game I've watched have missed so again very well done on the video
I also agree jimmy feels absolutely no guilt over anya. The weird baby sequence I agree also seems to suggest that if anything, he feels only regret or fear over the fact she got pregnant and there's undeniable evidence of his actions, no plausible deniability (assuming theres no kind of sa kits on the ship to gather evidence or bedroom cameras, which why would there be they don't even have bedroom locks). Kind of telling then that the only "monsters" he faces are monsters representing the consequences of his actions
Great Analysis! The one part I'll argue on is I'm not sure Anya kept Curly alive as a mercy. She was leaving him with Jimmy, and she knew that. I'm stuck on whether she expected Swansea to kill him after she passed, not being able to bring herself to kill a patient she'd worked so hard to keep alive, or if she was angry at Curly from leaving her alone with Jimmy and left him with the same fate. Sometimes I think she left Jimmy with the gun just to see if he'd do the right thing and kill him.
i was alone at work. slaving away over my tasks, plagued by a NEED to listen to an essay. every single mouthwash essay and play through was done by a man with a terrible lisp/a weird accent/ a deplorable timbre/ obnoxious views - and here i stumble upon this masterpiece. an immediate follow. incredible video🙏
10:30 when I replayed the game after learning about Anya's pregnancy, her nausea made more sense to me as morning sickness than nausea at Curly's condition. I'm absolutely not arguing that the sound of his choking wouldn't make her queasy, but at the very least I think that her being pregnant made her much more prone to nausea than usual. It also lines up with the fact that Jimmy thinks she's weak for it. Of course he'd misinterpret her nausea as weakness as a nurse rather than the consequences of his actions other than that tho i literally couldn't have said any of this better myself. I hadn't even considered the fact that curly performing jimmy's psych eval meant he could write off jimmy's behavior, either. incredible video
A phase you said in this is my entire feelings towards this story; "could have been avoided" It's less horror to me and more just a sad avoidable tragedy.
the first 2 minutes of the video explaining subtext and essentially dismantling/deconstructing that frustrating "the curtains are just blue" take had me subbing & liking the vid immediately like GOD i love when a person is media literate & can do literary analysis instead of just mindlessly consuming media at a superficial surface level 🤤
i absolutely love that curly is portrayed as a realistic and three dimensional man who always tries to do what he thinks is kind and "good", and is perceived that way by the rest of the characters as well, because it shows the reality of situations like this where men who are bystanders to abuse that other men are committing really can be any kind of person, and good intentions dont really mean much when they are allowing other men to comtinue their abuse.
I am only 16, however thorought the whole game (I played with friends) I kept noticing how bad Jimmy and Curly were. My friends, who played it before me, were shocked at how I noticed that anya was SA'd (THEY DIDNT NOTICE UNTIL I POINTED IT OUT??) and they also didnt realise that it was partially Curly's fault (he didnt help her and kept trying to be buddy buddy with Jimmy). They also were shocked at how I figured the story before the game ended, they were like "YOU'RE CORRECT, WHAT?" when I was likw "Its Jimmy who crushed the ship, isnt it?" during first 10 minutes of playtbrough. And other times. I was shocked to see, how people blame Anya, or ignore Anya, when the game literally says THAT JIMMY SA'D HER, HOW COME SOME PEOPLE NOT REALISE THAT?
I like this analysis but one thing I disagree with is 36:25. I think by the time she ended things, Anya had figured out that the crash wasn't Curly's fault. Even Jimmy acknowledges that the other crew members suspect it was him ("I know what they're all thinking")
Wonderful analysis, its really important to acknowledge that Curly did wrong by Anya, and that while he is also a victim, it doesnt redeem his contribution in what what went wrong with the ship
i LOVE this video and analysis. feels like it’s saying everything that a lot of other analysis videos don’t. it feels really important just how absent anya feels from jimmy’s guilt-driven nightmare sequences, and not enough people talk enough about how truly little he valued her. it’s so important to the games message imo. amazing work :)
I really enjoyed your video! I've been so fascinated by this game ever since I saw ManlyBadassHero play the demo earlier this year. The demo was already so compelling even with hardly anything being revealed yet. Seeing the full game was amazing because I thought I kind of knew the characters and understood why this is a horror game, and then everything got flipped upside down. That moment when Anya asks why the sleeping quarters weren't locked and you realize -- oh man, this game just got so much darker.
the way you explained curly's character as a whole was so insightful and interesting to listen to... this whole video was great other than a few audio/mixing hiccups you already seem to be aware about, keep it up!!
When anya says she has to believe people's worst moments dont make them monsters, it's the way she copes, especially when she says "even in thos case". It's the only way she can stomach playing fawn -- by convincing herself this man isn't a monster. Then she locks herself in the medbay and did what she did is ger refusal to play by Jimmy's rules no more.
Jimmy and Curly are pretty damn good role models, not to aspire to be, but the opposite. You should strive to be better than Jimmy, but not be "good" to the point that you'll end up like Curly. I also like how the phrase "Too much of everything is always bad" could be applied to Curly because he was too focused on being a "good"/"kind" person to the extent that his supposed kindness caused more harm than good.
Little anecdote, I first found out about the game because of some streamers I watch playing it. Put it off for a while, but eventually caved in and played after seeing lots of fanart on Twitter. I thought Anya was cute and wanted to see what the hype was about. My first impressions were poisoned by Jimmy's point of view, and you basically bar for bar explained how I thought of everyone at a first glance. Jimmy was the hero, Curly the maniac captain. I was even self-inserting a little bit onto Jimmy because his hair kinda looks like mine. It was only really until halfway through when the realizations started to dawn on me, and I felt sick to my stomach when I learned he had violated Anya. Made me feel terrible that I was unintentionally putting myself in the shoes of the perpetrator, when the victim was what got me interested in the game. I think it's honestly a testament to how well the game makes you view everyone through Jimmy's point of view even if it's to the detriment of some people never realizing the truth. I ended up relating a lot more to Daisuke by the end of the story, having felt similar thoughts of inadequacy and trying to be positive and please others as a result. Also, I'd like to mention that Anya is still present in Jimmy's mind after her death, albeit indirectly. When he talks 1 on 1 with Polle at the end, he's essentially talking to his unborn child. I didn't catch this on my first playthrough, but looking at discussion online and noticing the moon behind him (the moon is always associated with Anya in this game) made me realize this. Goes to show that he feels remorse only for the consequences of his actions, not the action itself, with the child being an example of this. Jimmy can't even fathom Anya's situation because if he truly starts to think about it, his hero fantasy shatters because of his irredeemable actions, so instead he just completely blocks her out of his mind. The crew deserved better, and it's incredible how each character feels extremely human, even the psycho.
Also one thing that i saw someone mention early and that I think it is important to mention is that Jimmy doesn't know that Anya has the gun hidden, so when curly meets him outside the cockpit is bc Jimmy went looking, and with Swansea holding the only other weapon able to get rid of Anya(the axe), he switches to the idea of getting rid of everyone all together, so even tho Curly tries to talk to Anya like Jimmy wouldn't grab the gun the minute he knows shes pregnant, he just misses the gun bc Anya knew exactly what would happen and was prepared for it.
To be honest, up until now I never thought people could hate curly, in my eyes he was an optimist who fell victim to jimmy’s manipulation, with him leeching off curly’s trust However after watching your vid and reading through some comments and seeing different perspectives, I still think that what I thought is a big contributor, but I also see some other points, and while thinking about all of it I had a thought. What if it’s not just one thing but a mixture of a bunch What I mean is curly is both a victim of jimmy, and a naive optimist. He clearly shows signs of not wanting to confront jimmy, seeing as how during the party he can barely speak up for himself, and he falls for jimmy’s words a lot. But he is also just sadly too optimistic, wanting to make sure everyone is happy somehow, not wanting to see the dead pixel but rather the full picture. I think that curly is still leaning towards victim, but he’s definitely a lot more middle than I thought. He had opportunities to stop jimmy, but with fear, cloudy judgment, and the stress of his crisis he mentioned during the evaluation and also bearing the knowledge of everyone losing their job but him, I find it hard for me to blame him for his inaction
Forgot to mention as well, but as for the bro code theory, while we don’t know how he was raised and his mentality on that, I personally don’t see him as the type of man that would do that
i think its also implied that jimmy was verbally/mentally abusive to curly before, you can tell because whenever jimmy talks down on curly (like for example, whenever jimmy was like "all I ever hear is how great of a leader you are. honestly, its annoying") curly doesn't react negatively, as if he's used to jimmy acting this way.
@@okeydesuka3167 EXACTLY. Plus Jimmy's clearly comfortable being physically abusive to him as well so who knows what the hell their friendship was like. But I like this because it adds layers to both their characters and helps one understand the various reasons he gave himself to avoid "rocking the boat" so to speak. Anya needed him, and he failed her. And there's multiple reasons to that, just like in real life.
Yea the victim blaming is wild, he did make a mistake but he also didnt have much options. They were all trapped with him for 8 months. Curly is responsible of the crew. They were already scheduled to lose their job, but Curly also acknowledged their payment could be affected if anything bad happened to Jimmy. "ANY DISRUPTION OR ISSUES WOULD RESULT IN HIS CREW PAYMENT BEING DOCKED" So imagine reports of SA, Hurting, killing or even trapping Jimmy inside the pad would have made shit even worse. As he could have an argument to report the crewship actions on ER. So the company would most likely penalize everyone. Now his crew would have no job and maybe no payment on top of that. Also Jimmy was the co-pilot so getting rid of him probably wasnt a good idea. The company should be the one to blame for overlooking their employees records. Curly was naive yes, but I wouldnt say it was really his fault. He was trying to look for the best outcome for everyone, at the big picture. He should've kept a low profile and monitor Jimmy through the rest of the journey until they arrived safely.
Hello everyone! Some people have pointed out how my voice audio is a bit low sometimes compared to the music. What I originally did was switch the volume of each audio clip in post, but ultimately the whole audio mixing process is still pretty messy. I’ll try and improve it for next time! (I did not expect this video to get so many views lol. Thanks for still watching!)
From my personal experience, the BGM should always be set lower than what I expect.
"50% seems low? No, lower. 30%? No, even lower." adjust until it's just audible enough.
@@ak_nora Yeah you're definitely right. I got sorta confused since in some of my voice clips I spoke louder compared to other voice clips, so I manually went to each section and like reduced the decibels. So some music clips were -35 db compared to my voice, others where my voice was already louder I didn't reduce as much. I feel like it needs to be standardized, so I'll look into it more.
its a good video and im glad the audio problem has been noted looking forward to the next upload
Thank you for noting/mentioning it. I'm at the 30 minute mark, and the music is so much louder than the voiceover, it's actually hard for me to understand what's being said :/
Ppp😊😊😊😊😊pppp😊pppppp
Maybe I'm reaching, but something I find crazy is how Jimmy uses techniques used by rapists to bend ALL THE CREW to his whims. He doesn't do what he did to Anya to anyone else, of course, but the patterns are still there. He prays on Curly's inability to respond after the crash to mistreat him, further stealing his agency because he *cant say no*. He literally ROOFIES Swansea, rather than fighting him, to *shut down his ability to say no*. He coherses Daisuke to do something he doesn't want to do, breaking him down and apealing to him until he caves in and *can't say no*.
Jimmy likes power, or rather he needs it to counteract his inferiority complex. And if he can't have it for himself, he settles with making everyone else feel powerless, taking away their agency, breaching their boundaries, ignoring their wants and focusing on his own needs. Like he did with Anya. Because a predator will bite any animal that crosses it.
I never noticed this. I hate Jail
I'd actually rephrase your first point--it's not his sexually abusive status, it's his sociopathic wiring. He flips the coin between 'Hey, I understand, I'm on YOUR side' and 'Oh, so now I have to fix YOUR mess, like I ALWAYS do' far too easily. But just knowing how to manipulate the crew, and more importantly, the man who got him the job that he can't stand and resents now, isn't the whole issue. With the possible exception of Curly, who could easily have already been locked in pattern, see fig. A, his thinking that if he just gets Jimmy and Anya to the mediation table, why, everyone will be friends again--this is a story of five people dealing with horrors small to vast. Anya's shattered, for good reason; Swansea's bitter and angry, and weirdly only seems to return to himself post "Dragonfire Fresh" intoxication; Jimmy's actively hallucinating, and may have been for months, as the stew of rage and resentment he carries on the daily starts hitting against what few fibers of guilt he has left; Daisuke's maybe the only one with clean hands, and an intact ability to trust. And he gets peritonitis.
I don't think Mouthwashing hates us. I do think it wants to draw our focus to the problems represented, by placing us directly in the shoes of, and even the mind of (or at least the fever-dream waking nightmares of) the worst person on the ship. Because we largely play as Jimmy, a thoroughly reprehensible soul, making every situation worse merely by participating in it.
(I will say the ponypede will haunt my dreams for a while, however. Just...gyaaah. Too many twiggy little legs and round little bellies. Noooo thank you.)
@@EmillyOrr its not "sociopathic wiring" it's the end result of privileged and power over others. A very big important part of the story is the comparison between Jimmy and Curly, how Curly had the power to help Anya and her situation but *chose* to throw her back to her abuser without a second thought, in a similar way to how jimmy never had to think about the consequences of his actions because they'd never have to effect him personally due to his status, curly was never compelled to actually help anya because his status means he doesn't have to. In an equitable society, treating other people like garbage means you have to deal with people having the power to also treat you like garbage, but in a society where power is not balanced, you can get away with being the worst person imaginable, and your bad decisions will get reinforced indefinitely by people who are too afraid to speak up against you.
@@EmillyOrr Curly always stands out to me. I think he was blind to it because Jimmy had already been mentally and verbally abusive in their friendship. You can see this from the birthday party and the way Curly just takes it instead of fighting back to get the truth out like one would expect him to do.
I’ll continue this point tomorrow but I have a bad headache loo
Edit: okay as I was saying, Jimmy is blatantly abusive toward Curly even before the crash. He uses private details of their conversation where Curly trusted and opened up to him in order to twist it, make it out like he’s happy about the company going bankrupt and flipping it to try and make everyone hate him.
Daisuke shuts down, intimidated of an older adult above him and Curly largely does the same. That’s not what you would expect the confident and headstrong captain to do. Why wouldn’t he push back against something so blatantly untrue? Especially when it’s meant to defame his character?
He sits there and he takes it. Sure, he fights a little, but he’s mostly trying to soothe Jimmy rather than defend himself. And it really put things into perspective for me.
They’ve been friends for a long time and Curly’s become blind to this behavior because he’s gotten so used to it. He *tries* to placate Jimmy and he *tries* to figure out Anya’s problem, but he just can’t see it because his perspective of normalcy has been warped.
It’s such a good showcase of how male abusers don’t just happen out of nowhere. They’re abusive to those around them. Even other men. And Curly’s a great example of how a victim can become unintentionally complacent and disrupt everything for everyone.
you are such a genius, i’ve never thought about it like that
Curly is the epitome of "the road to hell is paced with good intentions". His friend didnt have a job, he gets his friend a job. His friend assaults a crewmate, he thinks if he plays mediator and peacemaker things will work out. He learns everyone is going to get laid off, and he tells them because thats what friends do. Hes a people pleaser. He needed tonlearn that sometimes you cant stick your neck out for your friends, sometimes you need to pick a side, and sometimes its better to follow orders. Too bad he learned those lessons on the worst day possible
Perfect use of that idiom omg
I think if Curly managed to save the ship and didnt get injured. He woulda thrown Jimmy into space Among us style
I don't think he's a "people pleasure" he's just a captain who choose the crew over one person, like said in the video, he choose to keep the Jimmy thing quiet for the sake of the crew because objectively, if you're going to be stuck with a bunch of people for eight months, it's better to not start problems, granted he should've been more stern with Jimmy because of what he did
Edit: i thought about it, and Curly isn't a captain choosing the crew over one person, while that maybe have his motive, i moreso thinks he was just trying to be a friend to everyone despite Jimmy's repeated offenses, and his attempt at being a friend of all resulting in his inaction ultimately resulted in his downfall
@@JustMat_04 “a friend to all is a friend to none”
id also say that its possible he didnt want his reputation at work sullied due to the whole collective punishment thing that certainly CAN go on from other corporates similar to pony express. whats more... odd if one reads into his interactions with jimmy prior to him crashing the cockpit is that he specifically says 'we can take this. you and me, one day at a time.'
i'm unsure if anyone can understand this, but what if jimmy had sa'd women before? he wouldn't have the greatest of track records frankly and pony express would not have liked people like him aboard considering curly put a good word in for him because he's his friend, and that he would've turned the other eye. possibly
A few notes about some of the great details in this game.
When Curly is made helpless by his injuries, he becomes the "child" in Jimmy and Anya's relationship. One that Anya must work tirelessly to keep alive, while Jimmy belittles and resents her, while doing the bare minimum and claiming to do everything.
When Curly talks to Anya about the dead pixel, she talks about watching the night screen. Which means me probably doesn't get a lot of sleep. Most likely due to being scares of what Jimmy will do to her if she does. In the same vein, she doesn't drink the mouthwash, even though she's tempted. She never wants to make herself vulnerable.
Curly's condition after the crash, makes him become a reflection of Jimmy, in a similar way to the portrait of Dorian Grey. He bears the physical scars of Jimmy's actions. This is also Curly's punishment for how he did nothing to help Anya before the crash. He did nothing then, he does nothing now. If he hadn't been disabled by the crash would things be any different?
THIS IS SO INTERESTING DUDE, the whole child allegory blew my mind
@@catharsis.catharsis Right?? Curly represents Jimmy's actions in every way. Its really strange to me that some people deny the SA of it all. If anything thats what the story is about. Its an exploration of accountability, responsibility and abuse of power through the eyes of the abusers. Not done in a way that absolves them, but in a way that allows us to see how they view their actions and how they attempt to justify them and how twisted their world view becomes. Through the eyes of Jimmy, he is the hero. No matter what he does. Even when he's literally rearranging curly's insides to feed him his own flesh(one of many invasions of others bodies, without their consent Jimmy commits) he believes himself to be the hero.
Daisuke is the character I am least sure of in their place in the story. Other than as a potential avatar of those who just don't see whats really happening (like many people who play it.) He takes Jimmy's word at all times, even helping him spike Swansea. He drinks the mouthwash alongside Swansea and gets sick. When Anya locks herself in with Curly he goes right to Jimmy. And ultimately, going along with everything Jimmy tells him to do, he dies helping Jimmy invade Anya's privacy one last time.
A moment thats odd to me about the whole situation is when Swansea kills Daisuke. It doesnt seem like something Swansea would do and Jimmy makes no meaningful attempt to stop him. Is it just a slightly clumsy attempt by the game to keep us on Jimmy's side a little onger or is there more to it than that? When we see Swansea again he's hunting Jimmy with the axe and then suddenly he's tied to a chair for Jimmy to execute. In my headcanon, which is reaching a bit I know, its Jimmy that finishes off Daisuke and Swansea is still passed out until he wakes up in the chair. Jimmy needs to justify everything to himself, so he imagines a whole scenario where Swansea chases him around with an axe (to the point that they are even in a spooky graveyard for a while) like a serial killer.
I just realised how long this comment is so I'll leave it there lol. Amazing video though, it really got me thinking.
I was thinking lately that thematically (not literally), Curly's state is like a punishment for his inaction. His failure to step in properly and protect Anya. It's almost as if the story is saying to Curly "Hey, it's not like you were doing anything before."
@@jackalackb17i think part of why swansea offs daisuke is an intentional misdirection on game's side, but i think that in the bigger context of the narrative it can be logically explained. swansea is a realist, he doesn't delude himself thinking their situation can be fixed, unlike jimmy. he knows they're completely screwed, with two mortally wounded people on deck, no painkillers, no bandages and no desinfectant. daisuke has no chance of recovery, the crew has no chance of being saved and at this point daisuke is doomed to spend the short rest of his life in agony, much like curly. swansea has paternal feelings towards daisuke, he really cares for him, and he doesn't want him to suffer unnecessarily, because he already figured all of them are going to die there. jimmy calls him a monster, obviously projecting and redirecting blame as always, but him doing nothing serves to show how bad of a leader he is, because one of the game's themes is inaction and its consequences, and it shows, once again, jimmy's unwillingness to take responsibility. he doesn't want to be responsible for the decision to keep daisuke alive and in pain, but he also doesn't want to be responsible for the decision to kill him, so he puts it into swansea's hands.
daisuke's role in the narrative is to serve as a naive person, like you've already said, the one who doesn't understand what's happening and trusts the person who sounds confident but is ultimately underserving. but he also symbolises the hope of the crew. he was the one swansea likely intended to place in the cryopod, the youngest and the most cheerful of the crew, he had his whole life ahead of him, and if he had survived it would at least be something. once he's dead, there is no hope for any of them left.
Wow, honestly nothing would have changed because he's an naive enabler. I unfortunately had a kid with an alcoholic Jimmy , deal with his resentful belittling whilst having to do everything. This game hit home for many because everyone has dealt with these life complexities
I do find it funny that daisuke was the youngest yet he was willing to learn and be a help. Also, he took Swanseas warning about the vent seriously until he was manipulated into going into the vent. Unlike Jimmy who doesn't care about his job or the people around him.
Yeah, Diasuke was genuinely a good person, but he ended up having such a tragic ending. I hate Jermy.
@@catharsis.catharsis jermy
@@catharsis.catharsisall my homies hate Jermy
@@littledog3553 *Jermy
@@miyamoto8733 okay jermy
At first, I thought it was typical that Anya was the only woman onboard Tulpar, but it adds so much to her story. She lacks any solidary to what happened to her, seeking support from Curly, who's Jimmy's friend.
Her arc, although tragic, is so well written between the lines
right like there are so many things that on the surface seem like typical woman erasure but they all end up serving a big purpose to the story
It's shows who most men don't care about women if the crew were women with only one man the women would've already done something about it but unfortunately the game showcases the reality of sexism and misogyny
YOOOO HI I LOVE YOUR ART!!!
Extremely accurate, I would say. Don't see many women who would enjoy going on those nightmarish "space truck jobs".
@@strawberrymagpie OH HI THANK YOU
I love, and hate the fact, that after I learned about what Jimmy did to Anya thru the story telling, her being unable to force pills down Curly's throat makes so much sense. She's happy and competent in the flashbacks when she's talking to Curly, but cut to anytime she's interacting with Jimmy, she's timid and uneasy. She's a great medic, because she was able to save Curly's life, despite at what state he was at the start of the game. And it's even more damning that Jimmy had no problem doing it to Curly. Huge foreshadowing.
That's a great analysis! My first thought was that she simply didn't want to give pain relief to someone who didn't do anything to help her pain before...
Foreshadowing or hindsight? I interpret Jimmy taking control of the ship as overpowering Curly even if it was via more subtle manipulation. He effectively coerces everyone on board
What's this? A small creator thought they could post a nuanced and compelling analysis of Mouthwashing and I wouldn't notice?? Not on my watch!
LMAO thank you so much for watching!
nah jimmy is sigma he just like patrick bateman fr
@@Syco600eww…
@@Syco600you’re an actual freak seek help💀😬
@@Syco600 mods throw tomatoes at this man
"Empathy without boundaries isn't kindness, its a weakness that people [like Jimmy] will exploit without a second thought." Wow, you cooked. Also I feel called out- and a little sick. All in all a fantastic video. \o/
Thanks!
Right? I got chills when she refused to cut Curly any slack for his sickening "bros before hoes" attitude. This game hit too close to home for many personal reasons, and seeing Curly get criticized like this felt so cathartic for that reason! And I do not mean that as a pun for the channel, it's just the best word for seeing the "good boy" get labeled an enabler--which he is.
It's what people call Pathological Empathy of People inviting Migrants in that are destroying the West.
Y'know it's funny, Initially I turned off from this game when I heard there was gonna be no alien monster. Someone spoiled it. But human evil is way more despicable and hard to swallow for me that an alien eldritch horror. At least with something as grand as an alien god there's a dignity behind it. A majesty to be near an alien giant. There's nothing dignifying about being with Jimmy. He's a small man who has to make you feel smaller to get off, and even then it's never enough. Horrifying.
Oh that’s interesting, I was the complete opposite. I almost stopped watching a playthrough within the first couple minutes because I thought it was one of those horror games where you’re just chased by a monster mascot when I saw Polly. I checked the comments and realized there was more to it, which is why I kept watching.
wait i think this comment hit the nail on the head for me why most horrors that involve an inhuman monster dont hit for me, like, dont get me wrong, i still enjoy the stories but im usually not scared or really take away anything from it. like maybe it's just like "ok if im gonna die at least it's by some cool otherworldly being" for me, and a lot of times im able to rationalize and maybe even sympathize with the monster if they are just going on instinct and not outright 'evil.' but horror stories where it's just humans showing the worst side of themselves (like this one) always stick in my brain for far longer
The first time i played i barely noticed anya, which i think was the point. Once i finished and played again, she was all i could think about. I think this game really sets you up to sympathise with jimmy, as a man who needs to climb higher down a falling ladder, until you realize what he truly was.
Although anya talked about how she had to believe Jimmy wasnt a monster to get by, I feel like she truly felt that way about curly. Despite her believing he crashed the ship, she dedicated herself to caring for him. She didnt kill curly, she killed herself to protect herself from jimmy. I also believe the nausea tied to morning sickness too, seeing as she was very capable but between the smell of flesh, the noise, and the trauma, she was probably sick all the time.
Holy fuck, i forgot she probably had morning sickness for quite a long time and WAS STILL doing her job. Even though it was already hell having to be around Jimmy AND having to take care of Curly, she did so entirely while having what was likely morning sickness. Oh that's absolutely miserable :(
Yeah, I immediately thought the vomiting was due to morning sickness. Probably mixed with the mental stress of having to force Curly over and over again to take painkillers in a way that was likely very triggering to her.
Yeah I also thought the same thing when we see the flashback where she mentions the pregnancy. But I hadn't considered the whole triggering aspect of forcing something on Curly, and I think both things just fed into each other and made it so much worse.
I dont symphathize with Jimbo I mean dude crashed the ship on purpose on day one and the first player is on that copilot seat.
Honestly, I don’t know about the sympathy part. Even during the first playthrough Jimmy constantly made me think “What the fuck is wrong with this guy?” on numerous occasions. I can “get” the dehumanizing grind of climbing the ladder to nowhere but there’s a certain point where it stops being sympathetic and instead becomes loathsome and Jimmy just crosses that point all the goddamn time.
He is, even when you’re playing him, the definition of a manipulative asshole crash out.
I remember genuinely thinking Swansea was a selfish antagonist up until Jimmy accused him of trying to keep the cryopod for himself, and then he goes “no idiot I was doing it for the literal kid”, and then he even OFFERS it to you, but Jimmy just couldn’t handle that, could he? He couldn’t just take that victory and feel hollow inside. So he gets the gun.
I also very clearly remember the card hallway, because once I noticed that the walls had all the cards of the people on them I started looking for Anya’s. And I kept looking, and I could see it buried, and it really hit me how little he cared about her. I remember seeing her corpse and glancing over it initially, and then looking back down and just, staring.
Everyone is a victim here besides Jimmy, but between Curly’s wretched fate of living as this corpse-thing for god knows how long and the abuse and neglect Anya had to endure until it drove her to offing herself by possibly one of the worst methods possible, it’s hard to say which one is worse.
Curly ultimately bears his own responsibility in his own fate. Anya is a totally innocent victim.
@@baneofbanes Even though he was partially responsible for his fate, it doesn't make it any less bad. I'd say he left that ship with a fate worse than death.
I think jimmy fundamentally changed me because now daily I have moments where I suddenly realize I'm acting better then jimmy and I get very happy for a couple of seconds
Why is this my one comment that got too much attention?
ngl that’s hilarious (i hate Jedi)
Being a better person than Jimmy isn't exactly the hardest thing to do. He sets that bar SUPER low
ASTRONOMICALLY LOW
The devil is tripping over it daily
@@Dstryrr to the Earth's core kind of low
"It's not that deep."
I LOVE UNCRITICALLY AND MINDLESSLY CONSUMING MEDIA AND DISCOURAGING OTHERS TO ENGADGE WITH IT!!! 🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥🔥
WOOO NO THOUGHTS JUST BRAINROT 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
There is some media that isn't that deep but this isn't one of them sometimes it's nice to eat popcorn and just watch a dumb movie but other times it's nice to sit down and think about a compelling story that's deeper than the surface of its parts
LITERALLY ME 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
@@ImmaLittlePip I sincerely disagree with this. If someone took time and brainpower to make a thing, it probably is just a little bit deeper than...the thing.
BRAINROT IS ALIVE ON PEOPLE WITH THOSE MINDSET 🗣️‼️🦅
I rlly appreciate finding more women who talk about this game as it often just brings a whole different perspective. I watched one essay were a man talked about jimmy and anya like they were fine and both happy till the pregnancy. If it was all an okay relationship her first instincts wouldnt have been that he'd kill her and yet for so many it seems to go straight over their head which ironically is the whole point of Curlys arc. He ignored it and that passive enabling was the reason everyone ended up suffering.
Fr. I'm sick of only seeing guys playing this game and not understanding anything. Even someone like Jacksepticeye completely missed the point of the game, and thought J*mmy's biggest sin is that he crashed the ship, and that's it. Not even acknowledging the SA, agreeing with J*mmy when he yelled at her, calling her incompetent.
His playthrough made me sick honestly, and that's the guy who's supposed to be very kind and progressive. I don't hate men, but when I click on a video about Mouthwashing, if I hear a man's voice, I immediately click off because I can't trust anything they say about this game.
@@Kalitayy
Actually jacksepticeye did acknowledge it, but he like everyone first assumes about the crash, thought it was Curly’s fault, as they continued talking he even mentioned thats why she talked about not having locks on the quarters. Eventually realizing in the end that yes, everything was because of Jimmy, Jimmy was the monster all along.
@@Kalitayy ive watched jay kubz scouts, and he noticed and mentioned it, it was actually surprising
It's sad not a lot of guys picked up on it
@@nuages8915common jay W
I’m so glad you point out the stereotypes cuz omg the way EVERYONE fell for it! I was like there is no was you all see Anya and believe Jimmy.
Anya recognizes how creepy Jimmy is and notices how Curly keeps enabling and trying to appease or calm the situation. She at that point tries to use her strength to somehow go against the two, even if it means her getting in trouble with Curly.
And now that she was stuck with him in the ship post crash, that girl is scared and trying so hard to survive.
Meanwhile Curly is stuck depending on her which is ironic cuz she depended on him and he failed.
She has no choice but to fail him twice.
And the crazy part is Jimmy has the audacity to try and have a normal conversation with Anya. He doesn’t care or realize how badly he traumatized her and it shows when he goes straight to the gun and doesn’t acknowledge her.
The fact that he acknowledges the vent that has Diasuke’s blood but not Anya’s dead body within the same room is genuinely insane
i am so mad about this, in his visions we see manifestations of his guilt for curly's condition and daisuke's death and his fear of being a father but anya doesn't show up ONCE! even on the walls with id cards her face is covered, he doesn't even see her as a person worth thinking about!
Slimy bastard likely saw her death as a problem that solved itself.
You mean misogyny not stereotypes, curly literally acted as if anya getting r4ped is just something normal and cared more for his male friend
Swansea’s confession about how much he loved being drunk all those nights even more so than his family hit hard. Plus it’s the most genuine look into one of these people. It reminds me of a documentary Russell Brand watched of himself where it showed him homeless and on the streets so strung out. His first words to the reporter was, “You gonna think I’m crazy, but watching that makes me kinda jealous. And it’s true. Absolutely.
Bruh when I put the pieces that Anya was S.A. when playing the game it broke my mind and made me more sad.
I know, I felt sick to my stomach thinking how desperate she must have felt when she locked herself in the med bay
@@catharsis.catharsis Isn't what what happened to her actually rape though? Since rape requires insertion which is how she got pregnant.
One thing. Jimmy isn’t the antagonist, he’s the protagonist.
*That doesn’t stop him from being the villain.*
as one movie review once put it, "he's the main protagonist, the chief antagonist, the main instigator of the plot and the direct source of conflict."
(it was about "the world's end" but admittedly even gary king seems like a decent guy next to jimmy)
@@pasharighton Gary King, of the humans seemed like a man who was led to believe that life would be great, a grand adventure - only to fall through the cracks and despise himself for not being able to climb back up while putting on an act to fool himself in between attempts at ending his own existence. He is far more sympathetic even while getting others in trouble by his stupidity, because at least I think you can say he's trying to relieve happier memories with his mates, 'bad head space' to put it mildly. For all his many flaws he went through some growth and stood up to a existential threat that was already present - despite how lopsided the conflict would be.
Jimmy started the plot off out of spite, blames those around him for everything, has little self-awareness, actively preys on others while perching himself at the top, and even at the end still thinks he's the hero while refusing accountability. I definitely agree with you; Garry, King of the humans was much more decent.
I think he’s both, honestly. The story focuses on his perspective, making him the protagonist, but he’s absolutely the source of conflict in the story and provides opposition to everyone around him and himself, which makes him an antagonist as well.
Too many people fail to realize that antagonist does not always equal villain.
Jimmy in this game is like the Penguin in his own TV show.
Both are villain protagonists.
I don’t think people realize this yet but, within the first few scenes of the game, you can suspect Jimmy was the one behind the crash. In the first scene that’s right before the crash, you have to interact with the left-side ship console, not the right-side. Because Curly pilots in the right seat while Jimmy sits in the left seat as you can see in the scene where the two are talking into the cockpit. It’s just a show of great attention to detail. Such an amazing game.
yeah, i notice this in my first time playing the game and i was like, this mother fucking lying rat son of bish. i love the game bc rarely you play as the bad guy. fuck jimmy
lots of good foreshadowing. my favorite is when Swansea gives jimmy the axe, he does it by embedding it in the LCD landscape that, at the time was showing a sunset. "a useless ray of god damned sunshine" the next time he swung that axe, well..
Before you turn off the autopilot you can check the protection kit "Use in case of emergency". Despite the obvious sabotage going on it was rather curious that the character couldn't pick up and use the protection kit to still ensure their own well being, but it's contents can only be accessed by the captain.
If you try the door, you get the message of "I can't let anyone in". Why not? Who are they expecting will show up? The captain perhaps? Quite a few signs point to the real culprit early on.
I love that you acknowledge Anya's mischaracterization. So many analysis videos, mostly made by men, have labeled her as incompetent and timid. She is trapped on a ship with someone who can do whatever he wants to her. That is a nightmare. Unless you have been in a situation where you are being taken advantage of I guess it is hard to understand? It is subtle in the game because the perspective is from two complicit characters I'm supposing, but I'm surprised especially that some analysis videos would suspect that Anya and Jimmy have any kind of romantic relationship. Thanks for making this!
Its subtlety adds to the mischaracterization unfortunately
these traits come from belittlement of the person's ability to do thier job(which Jimmy does alot to her in the game ) doubting her nursing school education and ability to give Jimmy medicine (I think the reason why he doesn't let her do it when she told him she can is because in his mind ,he thinks he can do her job better than her ,she is clearly competent from the days before the crash ,but since the only person who trust her job as a nurse (curly) is now in a very bad state ,she's gonna feel doubt and scared for her live bc the person entrusting her to take care of curly is the abuser she's scared of ,and if she doesn't do well under this intense amount of pressure, she's gonna fail curly (a person she trusts )and Jimmy (a person that has a power over her )
I was confused by the fact that a lot of guys didn't pick up on it. I was never assaulted like that but I was getting bullied in school a lot but stronger guys, so I somewhat (bis emphasis on the SOMEWHAT) know the feeling when your tormentor is in the same building and can show up any minute.
@jakobjansen9541 I am glad but also sad that you can relate. When you have been assaulted, that person becomes a looming presence in your life especially if you are likely to see them again. Especially if you work with them. But bullying is related as your baseline sense of safety is non-existent, physically or mentally. You know that they shouldn't have power over you but you can't help but be terrified to run into them unexpectedly.
@@Coniophanes exactly what I mean. My saving grace was, that my brother found out I was beeing bullied and scared them off.
Years later I found out the guys that bullied me all gone to jail or are unemployed so that's great!
11:25 incase nobody doesnt know, the photo taken was a random man who unconsentually kissed that woman. They didnt even know each other.
Figured, but then who took the photo? one of his mates I presume?
@@dontpreorder2783 no, the photographer was one Alfred Eisenstadt who was randomly snapping photos since the war had ended.
He didn't know the two either
3 strangers on a train lol
I got the basic subtext when playing the first time, but oh god realising that it was specifically Curly's gagging sounds that Anya couldn't bear to listen to actually made me feel physically sick for a while.
I think it's really interesting how divisive the opinions on Curly are, because like. A lot of people say he's a completely innocent victim, or in some cases, I've seen people claim he's just as bad as Jimmy, and that his seemingly nice demeanor was all an act. Which like...no, it's not that black and white. Curly FUCKED UP, there's no mistaking that, he could've stopped Jimmy from doing a lot of bad shit. But him not stopping that wasn't because he's some dastardly mustache-twirling evildoer, it's because he's naive and misguided. You don't have to have malicious intent to do bad things, and I certainly don't think Curly did. But he still made mistakes, and those had huge consequences that hurt other people. He's not "the REAL villain", but he's also not an innocent wittle baby. He's just a guy who screwed up, despite seemingly wanting to do the right thing. And whether or not you think he should be condemned for that is ultimately up to your own interpretation.
Personally, my interpretation is that I think Curly was subconsciously scared of Jimmy in some regard, too afraid to stand up to him, and as a result, stood by and let him hurt other people. I saw that moment of him asking Anya if Jimmy was mad not as "I hope my pal's feelings aren't hurt", but "oh god, please don't be mad at us", which isn't to say other interpretations aren't valid, it's just how I saw that scene. Curly is a complicated character. He's not two-dimensional(though he is low-poly, haha get it becau-). I feel bad for him(especially for all the stuff that happens to him after the crash, because jesus christ, that's fucked up), but he's not innocent in any sense, and should be held accountable for his mistakes, even if he was well-meaning.
I think you tackled the topic really well, personally. Even though you outright admitted you don't like Curly, you acknowledged his mistakes without outright demonizing him. You handled not only this topic, but the entire analysis with very precise nuance, and I have a lot of respect for that.
Their dynamic in a way is abusive, at least that’s how I see it.
Thanks for leaving your thoughts. And yeah, what’s interesting about Curly is how he’s not a one-dimensional “innocent” character, but also not a completely stereotypical “evil” character. It’s not like he didn’t care at all about Anya or didn’t care about how disgusting Jimmy’s actions are. I feel like he just didn’t understand the severity or refused to confront how terrible a person his friend was, so I was seeing it as a depiction of the “guy protects guy friends no matter how abhorrent they are” social construct. But honestly I keep seeing the theory that Curly was scared of Jimmy, and your comment especially reminded me of the second pill scene where Jimmy gets visibly annoyed beforehand and you can hear how he’s more forceful with Curly who seems to be in extreme pain (maybe Jimmy physically beat him or smth to vent his frustrations). I thought it was simply another tally for Jimmy’s immorality, but now I think it would be another angle from which to view Curly’s enabling tendencies as one stemming from fear rather than naivete.
Curly is the kind of idiot who goes 'that can't be it, not Jimmy, I know him, he wouldn't do that' for god knows how many other situations. Jimmy's eff ups finally affected his life, and THEN he gets it.
this! curly reminds me personally of some people i've met with who are just too kind to even bad people until it affects them in the long run mentally and physically, and they're either scared or being taken advantage of that they can't stand up
I think curly is best summarized by anya pointing out the dead pixel. For her, that one pixel (representing a bad or traumatic thing, or red flags) is always in the back of her mind, and curly never notices it cause he's too focused on the bigger picture being shown to him. Curly did this exact same thing with jimmy: he doesn't see the red flags in jimmys behaviors just his friend who's made some mistakes, or whatever else jimmy wanted to manipulate him into seeing really. The fear angle I think is a strong possibility too, even if he wasn't afraid of what Jimmy would do to him he could've been afraid of what Jimmy would do to the other crew members or Anya if he was set off any more
I love this!! I’ve seen a couple people argue that Anya’s SA is just a head-canon a lot of people have so it was very satisfying to listen to you lay out everything that points to that being the case and everything that wouldn’t make sense if it wasn’t. Like, when the story and characters’ actions don’t make sense without that element, can you really call it a head-canon instead of subtext??
And I love that you pointed out Curly could’ve put Jimmy in a cryopod! I hadn’t thought of that so that made it hard for me to fully condemn Curly because I couldn’t think of a “right” thing to do in that situation, but that definitely would’ve been the right call. It’s a bit barbaric to essentially put someone in a coma for eight months so that you don’t have to deal with them, but letting Jimmy be free to continue to hurt people is much more barbaric
Excuse me ,HEADCANON ☠️☠️☠️☠️?!,character purifying is in all time high
@@meh4294People played this game eyes closed and brain off
I haven’t played the game but from this analysis alone the subtext of her SA is so glaringly obviously it’s basically text!
It is a bit barbaric to just throw Jimmy in the cryopod, but the other options would be to: put him in the cargo hold, the med bay or shoot/space him. Since there are no other doors with locks and there is no brig.
I find it interesting that Jimmy doesn't see that one dead pixel and just moves past that point, while Swansea takes the axe and breaks the whole thing so that no one can just ignore it. Like it's not just one small thing that made everything fall down, but many small things and a hard push. Swansea was given the axe as a responsibility from the captain, and it should have been the captain's responsibility to see the dead pixel (which can be read as some sort of problem at Tulsar), but it all ends with cracked screen and hundreds of dead pixels.
But I don't know, I only have strong feelings, as I love this game so much, even when others seem to have missed points (especially Curly's culpability) in the story.
that’s such a cool detail omg I didn’t notice how the screen can symbolize the differences between the crew
Damn, beautiful read of the screen. This makes me think of how Swansea may have been a better captain. Decisive, merciful yet direct. Intriguing stuff
TW! SA
Also another, I feel like Curly reflects most men, they're terrified of disappointing other men and don't like to think of other men to do such horrible things since it makes "all men" look bad, hence why through-out media and society, it gets ignored or at the least pushed to the side, and victims, tend to get ignored as the focus gets put more on the abusers (usually men). where as if roles are reversed, like a woman does that to a man, yes the focus is on the man, but for the wrong reasons. All i can say is, Curly is like most men in society with these things, they don't take things as seriously as they should or just don't do what they need to do. I have had experiences with this with a family member. Nobody ever held him accountable, despite everyone knowing what he did to me and many others. So yes as the video said Curly is an enabler and reflects a greater issue in society.
This game is so fricken good! and i do commend that they tackle this.
EDIT- (was editing and deleted my text :c )
I apologize for not being clear. anyone can become an enabler, even if they have good intentions, such as what we see with curly. Being an enabler, victim or abuser is not a gender exclusive experience. I would know, with my own situation and people I've known, we have had abusers and enablers of different identities.
Yes, you need to acknowledge gender CAN play a role into things, due to both social, environment and biological aspects, however these are not excuses, or cause and effect, just merely a factor in a broad sea of other factors, such as own personal upbringing and personality. Gender is Social and I do wish we could live in a world were it wasn't such a big problem as many terrible things happen to people, but unfortunately that's not a world we live in currently, all we can do is be kind to one another and be the best versions of ourselves.
However, it shouldn't be ignored that gender (both physical and identity) can and may possibly play an impact into people. Not to be used as an excuse, but as a way to understand as it is merely just a drop in the concoction that makes us human.
Anyone can become an enabler, whether you have good intentions or not, likewise anyone can become an abuser, these situations would be up to you to reflect on your own behaviour as well as get others to understand you, just. remember any human is capable of harm, whether they mean it or not, it is important to recognise this to better ourselves. Any person is able to change, but only if they want to. So if people aren't. DO NOT waste anymore time on them, letting go is difficult, but trust me it's way better than what could happen.
On a personal note to any victims:
And to anyone else who is a victim of SA, Abuse or any kind of mistreatment, as someone who's lived after experiencing it as a young child, things will get better, things will be ok and please know you aren't alone. as tough as it gets.. which may be after whatever has happened to you has.. like it was for me, you will make it through this.. and please know, it was never your fault, you aren't to blame.
I agree with you, i like the realistic portraial of the situation, despite it being extremely terrible. But i have to say that on the other side of the spectrum you have Swansea, who when he found out about the things jimmy had done, he was going to kill him
The irony of it all is ignoring it because they feel like I'd make all men look bad and their friends cannot be is what in the end makes men who technically haven't done anything wrong themselves look bad bc even tho they might not have done it they knew and turned a blind eye. A indirect approval of the behavior.
It's actually vey well-known and not pushed aside in media that men can be abusive??? In fact, according to several studies, people, in general, are more likely to assume that men are the abuser. Men are the abuser in media by default. Also I don't know what you meant by "the focus is on the man but for the wrong reasons" if a woman does abuse to a man, didn't you say people should focus on the victim more than the abuser? Also when men are abused it's usually assumed it's the man's fault somehow and it's assumed woman can't be abusers, which is probably why it looks like men are mostly abusers, because women are less likely to be seen as capable of abuser
are you being dense on purpose? @@kingchey772
@@diepvrieskoe1335 Ironically, in other videos discussing Mouthwashing, I’ve seen men in the comments doing similar by claiming because it wasn’t outright stated by the game, Anya wasn’t sexually assaulted. It’s genuinely horrifying.
I feel like what always strikes me about Curly, especially his behaviour, is that while playing the game, I was constantly reminded of how I felt while I was still suicidal. Curly comes off to me as someone who is depressed and can't bring himself to care about others as much as he used to. A lot of his dialogue points to an existentialism about the point of his life and feeling like he's already peaked. I feel like, at least in my interpretation, he didn't do anything maliciously, but rather out of wanting to leave this world easy. He wanted the least amount of enemies and the least amount of resistance.
Anya didn't do anything to make him react that way. The timing of everything just lined up with a man who's starting to give up. Jimmy, unintentionally, encourages Curly's concealment of a lot of this, and even encourages Curly's worst thoughts. None of this was intentional on anyone's parts, at least I don't think so. Only by the time that his thoughys are realised does he regret everything and trying to end it all, and by then it's too late.
An underdiscussed part of surviving suicide and depression is coping with all of the people you hurt while you were sick. There was no malice, there was emptiness; yet, it still hurt everyone involved. It's too late. I feel like it's why hallucination Curly is so adamant about being willing to be the bad guy. Jimmy is coming to terms with the fact his enabler, his support, was only enabling him because he didn't plan on being alive for the consequences. And it changed how Jimmy sees him.
Oh believe me, Jimmy encouraged that in Curly with 100% intentionality
i fuck with this theory so hard (Cuz that’s so relatable) /pos
Omg might this be why he hesitated to do anything when jimmy implied crashing the ship
Would also make sense if you see it as a reflection of curly/Jimmy vs swansea/Daisuke. Swansea doesn't want Daisuke to be on this path as he himself is unhappy with it, while Curly trying to give Jimmy his path because it's all he knows, and if he did plan to off himself, then Jimmy could get to be captain in the future. Irony being he didn't need to be dead for that to happen.
I got that feeling too he’s got the language of someone passively suicidal and you summed it up so well
I always found it weird how people treat Curly in the fandom and in other analysis pieces, completely ignoring his failure to do anything to help and treating him as just another victim of Jimmy, and like while he is his victim he was also someone who had the authority to actually stop things, but he did nothing despite being given ample warning signs and requests for help from Anya's accounts. He is not as bad as Jimmy but he is like you said an enabler who failed to do anything to stop his so called friend. All he did was watch things unfold and in the end thats the fate he was resigned to, unable to say anything or do anything but watch as the monster he allowed onto the ship destroyed everyone. And yet some people treat him as if hes on the same level of innocence as Daisuke, just a good guy who just got into a bad position but it had nothing to do with him. Though unlike Jimmy I think at least by the end when it was too late, he understood his mistake. His laugh when Jimmy gets the gun confirms it to me. He is the better man compared to Jimmy, he was actually able to understand his responsibility in things, while Jimmy ran from it to his death. Just find it annoying when people treat him in art like just some silly fun guy while Jimmy is the evil stinky guy as if Jimmys stink isnt all over Curly too.
Anyways, I really appreciate your analysis especially for that, really insightful in all the right places.
Thanks for leaving your thoughts, I completely agree that the fandom’s reaction to Curly’s character goes in very opposite directions. The ironic realization that he’s partly to blame for everything due to his inaction is definitely why I think the laugh was extremely creepy.
finally someone who points it out. curly isnt innocent by any means considering he was also in a toxic friendship w jimmy; but to say curly is fully without blame when his former position as the actual captain means he had the actual authority to fucking boot out jimmy and keep anya safe? it is just frankly disappointing. i feel like the whole thing curly does within the latter half of the game -- him going 'we can fix this' when talking to jimmy (and also where anya tells him that jimmy DID sexually assault her) -- is another way of him trying to cover up / defend / not want to deal with jimmy in a way that has actual consequences. its only until its too late where everyone else died that he laughs at how terrible the situation had gotten, that it was too late, that everything sets in for him
It feels like a bit of a broken stair thing. Like... Maybe part of the problem is _because_ Curly knew Jimmy so long. He got so inured to how shitty Jimmy was that he sorta.... forgot how to do anything about Jimmy. "Oh, that's Jimmy, I guess, he's the shithead I gotta bail out."
I think part of the issue is that Curly’s suffering is astronomical compared to his crime of inaction. The sad part is I genuinely think when Curly fully realized what a piece of human filth Jimmy was, it was too late.
He could no longer do anything, he could no longer talk, and was powerless to do anything while Jimmy took leadership and killed the crew slowly like a cancer, suffering in agony.
I feel sympathy for Curly, and I think a detail people miss is that Jimmy might not have seen Jimmy much since he became a captain at Pony Express. Right out the gate, we know this is a job that takes year for each trip, not even counting returns. So Jimmy probably changed for the worst since Curly knew him. Which he has, the disgusting delusional parasite
Curly is an victim of Jimmy too
I'm so glad to see some good analysis of the game! Media literacy is to the point where I saw a reddit thread with multiple people arguing that Jimmy actually had a sexual attraction to cartoon horses 😭
Ain’t no way 😭
what was that about? ik it’s not the horse he’s into, is it just to show he’s a pervy creep?
@@LaLaLoopsyCutie it's a form of s*xual harassment to make jokes like that to someone who is uncomfortable - it also has the added layer that shows jimmy doesn't take what anya does seriously. He would rather make gross "jokes" and make anya's job harder than treat her like a person.
@@LaLaLoopsyCutieI might be wrong butttt whenever we see the horse in jimmy’s mind I think it represents Anya. Except the horse centipede fetus and when polle calls him “old man” for example see when they’re all sleeping in the lounge and Jimmy breaks the polle statue that sings when you approach that Anya sleeps next to. And even before the crash the polle horse is behind Anya during curlys birthday
It’s like he’s dehumanized Anya so much he can’t even see her as a person.
@@ope366woah I thought he might be but I never noticed some of those details! he really did just completely dehumanize her;; now all the persistent horse imagery makes so much more sense... it was the 'anya' problem he refused to face.... 💀
Swansea was my unexpected favourite too. I love how you get the impression early on that he's gonna be the guy who snaps and kills everyone, but once you've built up the full context it's actually completely reasonable for him to be chasing Jimmy around with an axe. And to be keeping the intact cryo-pod a secret - not because he was going to use it himself, but because he didn't trust Jimmy with that information.
It's frustrating to me how many people don't seem to pick up on the SA subtext. Can it even be called subtext when it's needed to understand the actual text? It just seems glaringly obvious... wait, is the reason why so many stories depict SA on-screen for shock value because they know their audience won't recognize a subtler approach?
He wasn’t chasing him around with an axe that was Jimmy’s rewrite of what actually happened. And he saved the pod for Daisuke.
Oh buddy wait until you find out about the fact that many people, to this day, think the book "Lolita" is romantic. Yikes.
Because they know their “male” audience won’t recognize a subtler approach
Something I immediately thought of when I finished watching the gameplay was how the only functioning limb left on Curly was his single blue eye. It automatically reminded me of the poem The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, about a man that was obsessed with then driven crazy by his neighbors single blue eye which leads to him murdering the old man. I reread the poem and noticed:
1. He dident even hate the man (even said he kinda loved him)
2. He claims all throughout the poem that he isent crazy and that ANYONE would have done what he did
And 3. For the rest of the poem he’s haunted by the old man’s heartbeat which leads to him being caught and arrested for the murder.
All of these actions feel INCREDIBLY similar to Jimmys storyline but that could just be me.
I see the vision, maybe despite Jimmy's delusions that he did it, that *he* was the hero, were muddled by the piercing blue of Curly's eye and he anguished gasps wheezed. A haunting reminder of everything he'd done, following him into the void he deserves to rot in.
@ damn bro, eloquently said
@@YesDefinetlyAbsolutely Thanks! It pays to be a book worm lol
Curly isn't a hero, Curly is responsible for Anya's death too. Anya was terrified, frozen by her fear. Curly could've helped... but he decided his "friend" was worth more than the suffering of a traumatized woman.
That's normally what friends do. I always find it funny that we look at these things with a moral highground but are no different from curly most times.
@@gravemind76 talk about yourself. I would call the fcking police if I ever found out one of my friends did smt like that.
@@KN-hg2nv no. I ment in general not just SA we allow our friends to do whatever "steal, be racist, etc. Egging on bad behavior taking their side even when wrong.
@@gravemind76 i dont let my friends do that shit what the fuck lmao
@@ikeohno sure.
As a person who was at one point partially in a situation similar to curly I feel I am able to understand the game at a better level than if I played it before the situation I was in happened. I had a person voice acting for something I wanted to make, and I had become friends with him over time. Later I learned that he sa'd someone, and I cut him off. There was still part of me that wanted to trust him, but I knew I couldn't be his friend anymore. Playing through mouthwashing it reminded me of the whole thing. It made me glad I had handled the whole thing with that former friend the way I did, and playing mouthwashing, it helpedme in a way peering into if i had let it slide (brought to the extreme of course but still). I believe this is the reason I love and connect with mouthwashing so much. Forgive me for the yap session.
I don't often get caught off guard by twists in media, especially video games. They often feel either shoehorned in or clichèd. But Mouthwash set it up perfectly, testing just how far you're going to suspend your disbelief even as Jimmy's abusive, spiteful and self-centered personality keeps emerging before finally realizing you are playing as the villain of the story.
The final line is especially poignant. Jimmy starts saying "We fixed it", then corrects himself to "I fixed it". Despite admitting at least part of his mistakes, he sees himself as the hero of the story up to his last breath.
Exactly, his character is legit so vile
Thank you for talking about how Jimmy doesn't really acknoldge Anya in any way. Even his action towards her. You could say he's being actively mean to her but it's more like he's just acting without much regard if that's the right way to say it.
I really realized that when I saw someone else point out that Jimmy doesn't have a dialogue AT ALL for Anya when she dies. The very vent Diasuke came out of gets a prompt, but her body doesn't. I really liked this video :D 💕 Swansea is my fav too
I saw a theory that apparently Polly’s speech at the end is supposed to be like some omnipotent being judging Jimmy on behalf of Anya since their text colors are sorta similar
@@catharsis.catharsis my theory is that the Polle at the end was Jimmy's perception of the baby judging him (from it calling him "old man"), especially after the sequence of the horse...thing... chasing you through the vents after the ultrasound section. I truly don't think Jimmy even saw Anya as a person beyond carrying living evidence of his crime, and he acknowledged that fetus more than he ever thought about Anya herself.
Even in the more surreal sections at the end (delusion or metaphor, either or): Curly haunts him, watching him always; Swansea tries to kill him in the graveyard, Daisuke walks into the dark and leaves glowing flowers, the unborn child rages and chases him, and Anya simply disappears. In the initial aftermath of her overdose, she literally disappears - Jimmy refuses to even see her corpse until he is searching for the gun.
we need more people like u fully acknowledging the full extent of Anya's SA and Jimmy/Curly dynamics bcus goodness gracious the other essayists genuinely misinterpret it so badly I feel so frustrated lol, someone even interpreted it as jimmy being scared of fatherhood LOL and called their relationship with Anya a consensual one
i dont understand how people can understand this game as a horror one without acknowledging one of jimmy’s most evil doings. sure, body horror sure is scary but the scariest thing is what jimmy did to anya.
While I don't hate Curly, like, at all, I do completely agree with ALL if your points and your analysis was STUNNING✨✨. My only (mild) critique is that I wish Daisuke had a little more screen time but that's pretty much just me being biased bc he's my second favourite character lol. But anyway I also just absolutely ADORE how you focused so much on Anya and Jimmy's relationship AND that you pointed out the comparisons between Swansea and Jimmy???? Like, I didn't notice that (very much) and I haven't seen anyone else take the comparison beyond that one line during Swansea's speech so MAJOR MAJOR kudos!!!!!
AAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE KIND WORDS I reallyyyyy wanted to make another section analyzing Diasuke & Swansea’s dynamic but i was already at like 40 mins (this was originally supposed to be a quick 15 min video 😭)
@@catharsis.catharsis
You're the only person I've seen so far to accurately label them as foils.
I've been turning it over in my head since I played this game, it just makes sense with the speech Swansea gave before dying, and still just blows me back. He has all the stereotypical markers of success in society, can admit it never made him truly happy, and tells this envious monster that, "I'm telling, YOU" that the delusion he's chasing would never had made him happy either. It's so well done and so was this analysis. Thank you!
The Devs have said that anya already tried to study medicine 8 times, but it was never accepted, they didn't say why though, but I can guess that not even before getting a job in pony express was taken seriously.
Damn, now I can see why she doesn’t have any savings 😭
The scene where Swansea talks about his accomplishments as a father and worker kinda killed me. I feel like its such a good way to break Jimmy down to his barest essentials. Jimmy doesn't feel he was given the things he feels men are probably entitled to. A good job, a good social standing, a family to provide for, friends who look up to him rather than pity him, etc. And these expectations often drive real life men, especially younger men, to be violent to prove they deserve manhood. Jimmy's whole character reminds me of this one movie I watched called 'Super Dark Times' where a group of older USAmerican middle schoolers (all boys) are picked on and one day get a hold of a katana. They end up accidentally killing one of their friends and pretty much getting away with it. The whole group falls apart because of this, but the one holding the sword starts to power trip. He was a nerd, bullied, didn't live up to masculine expectations. But, now he had killed someone and that made him feel closer to obtaining the same masculinity his brother in the military had. This led to him doing more violent things until eventually he was killed by a neighbor after he got caught trying to kill one of his living friends.
I want to bring that up because obtaining "manhood" is also a theme in evangelion, which is directly referenced multiple times in game. Especially End of Evangelion, where Shinji ends up killing the only other living person after the impact. At so many turns Shinji fails to live up to expectations of his father and even of the people around him who want him to prove his masculinity.
There's only 1 thing in this incredible analysis that I disagree with and it's that Jimmy had no prominent hallucinations related to Anya, because he sees what he did to her as insignificant. I believe he was in fact suppressing those thoughts because they're significant.
He crashed the ship because he was a afraid to take responsibility for what he did. He let Curly enable him because Curly knew he was afraid to take responsibility for what he did. Swansea becomes more hostile to Jimmy after the talk with Anya, because he knew Jimmy was avoiding taking responsibility for what he did. Jimmy was able to pressure Daisuke to go through the vent to save Curly, instead of going himself, because Daisuke had no idea what Jimmy was responsible for doing to Anya that pushed her to ending it.
All of this ultimately happened because Jimmy was too much of a coward to take responsibility for his worst action. The talking mascot figure even mocks him about this. When Jimmy declares his resolve to do the right thing and "fix it" the mascot responded
"Wait...if everything you said is true, then why are you still concerned about him[Curly]?" The mascot was mocking him because he knew Jimmy was still trying to avoid the bigger issue, by distracting himself with Curly, instead of facing what he did to Anya. In the end, Jimmy just ended up offing himself, never taking any real responsibility.
I think a lot of the horse imagery was supposed to represent Anya. So whenever he sees it asides from the horse centipede thingy in the womb and the polle that calls him an “old man”
while I do agree with u, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t he encourage daisuke to go into the vent due to wanting to rescue curly
@@muramuda You're correct, I just realized I accidentally typed Anya instead of Curly
@@ope366 exactly, the ultrasound with the horse fetuses and the freaky horse centipede chase were his anya hallucinations, but he refuses to even acknowledge what he did to her so she herself doesnt show up. just like in the id card hallway where anyas cards are all covered by the others
it's so refreshing to see you actually hold curly accountable for all his awful decisions and his people pleasing mentality, it seems as if everyone sees him as a good soul and simply a victim in this charade but he had the biggest hand to play here. he's incompetent as a leader, he couldn't make hard and tough decisions, and he went around trying to please everyone. that's not a quality of a good leader. i really do love his character and the game portrayed his flaws incredibly well, but he's the enabler that doomed them all. also i didnt even notice the detail of anya commenting on how it'd take 8 months [the span of her pregnancy] for the tulpar to get back to earth until you pointed it out!! incredibly well done video, you tackled the nuance of the story so well and it's so refreshing to see someone see each character for what they are
This is a fantastic analysis, and i really really love the nuance you approached Curly with in particular. His relationship with Anya is maybe one of the most interesting and thouroughly tragic of the whole game to me. My interpretation was that Curly represented the greater structures in society that ultimately enable abusers. It didn't seem like he actually really understood what Jimmy did. Most people are taught about abusers as mustache-twirling villains who only seek to hurt other people and are obvious in their vile intentions. Well, my buddy doesn't fit that description, so he can't be an abuser, right?
Anya also probably only spoke about the abuse vaguely, given that it would be extremely painful to talk about, especially when her abuser was in the vicinity.
When you put it all together you get a woman crying out for help who has had her ability to communicate restrained by social structures beyond her control, and a man in power who wants to help, but lacks the knowledge to accurately put together the pieces in front of him, blinded both by ignorance and misplaced loyalty to someone he still believes is redeemable. And the social structures in place only reinforce this dynamic over and over again, so Curly becomes an accomplice without even realizing it. And Anya does realize it, but she also sees the structures that Curly has the privilege of being blind to. Jimmy is responsible for his actions and that will never change. But Curly is responsible for his own negligence. And in the end Anya couldn't even turn to the people who wanted to help her. And just... Man. This game...
so damb true,. REAL WHEN i see fanart of anya being all buddy buddy w curly it dont feel right but at the time like his intentions werent bad and its just so complicated. no i get it. LLOOLLLLL YOU got The QUINTUPLE TABS LISTEN LSITEN KLSITENENENEN hey. I remember thgis ! should we hit reply we would look actually schizophrenic i think
I love that curly is such a polarizing character! He's the best morally grey chracter ever!!
This is honestly such a good analysis, you covered a lot of the nuances most people have been missing in these videos
Thank you!
Empathy without boundaries is self destruction.
Though Curly is part-way responsible for what happeneds by allowing Jimmy to just keep doing what he wants, I felt so bad for him. He realized Jimmy’s true nature way too late and, at that point, he couldn’t do anything about it. Curly was probably Jimmy’s only friend. And Jimmy permanently disfigured and disabled him.
I definitely don’t think Curly deserved his fate but, obviously, he isn’t innocent.
Yeah. Curly isn’t a saint, but he isn’t the devil either. “Karma” or not, he did not deserve what he got.
I dont understand why ALL the other analysis's videos I see, people always brush over the fact that Jimmy LITTERALY RAPED Anya, and got her pregnant. Im glad you acknowledged that.
From my observation, it's because most people who played and "analyzed" this game happen to be men. And you know how awful men are when it comes to empathy and understanding what women have to go through. They're just not built for this.
They're all just like Curly fr... 😔
@Ктоя-ь1м leave my boy curly out of this
Couple things I've pointed out to my lady that has taken up analyzing this game:
•The final scene with Swansea hits me as an ex-addict reaching out to another addict. Swansea is trying to relate to Jimmy and tell him that he understands the delusions he's letting himself be consumed by. And after all that he said, after realizing Jimmy wasn't listening, he just simply tells him "fuck you".
I think this is why this game is named after the Mouthwash. It's analogous to alcoholism, and the effects addiction has on people and social situations.
•The final encounter with the monster in Jimmy's mind cries like his unborn rape baby, but why does it look like that? I think its supposed to look like a string of DNA that's crawling. The constant display of "I hope it hurts" upon being caught by it, its as if he's finally trying to comprehend the gravity of what he did to Anya. That his own DNA and spawn is crawling around and ramming into him over and over again, being scorned and told to suffer, until he finally realizes he's not worthy of surviving.
Jimmy may not have expressed verbally his regret for his raping of Anya, but he has internalized it and suffers for it. Not because of Anya, but because Curly acted as an avenue of comprehending it.
•The game takes place within a 9 month time frame, echoing the birth of Jimmy's actions. I believe that is important because I don't believe the constant reminder of taking responsibility is just about being punished for his crime, but also the fact that he doesn’t deserve or earn the responsibility of fatherhood. We only ever see the masculine perspective. A man having been thrust into fatherhood by his own failings and intent is a common problem. I believe Jimmy regrets killing his own child more than killing Anya. His own flesh and blood haunts him more than the woman he raped, and in the end its reinforced by everything that not only is he a manipulative rapist, he's less of a man than the almost literal child on the ship.
Every other male character reflects a trait Jimmy lacks. Daisuke represents innocence and trust. Swansea represents maturity and willpower. Curly represents kindness and guidance. All of them together represent a masculine duty and dignity that Jimmy lacks. If he had an ounce of it, he wouldn't have hurt Anya. He would've earned fatherhood.
I have to admit I’m a bit too much like curly.
I actually initially didn’t believe she was SA’d but rather was merely in an abusive relationship with Jimmy.
I’ve seen a few analysis videos but it was this one that actually fully brought to light how I fell for the unreliable narration. Wonderful video!
The amount of ppl I’ve seen coddle and baby curly is insane. I started to think that I was crazy for hating curly
I reallyyyyyy dislike Curly, but I obviously have a special hatred for Jambalaya
I think the fact that Jimmy is so horribly, awfully reprehensible, it takes so much of our attention that we are less critical of Curly. Curly's a bit of a bad egg, but Jimmy is a whole fucking landfill of poultry runoff. It makes that one bad egg infinitely preferable by comparison.
He is a typical avoidant leader. He doesn't want to rock the boat, have the hard conversations or enforce accountability. He reminds me of my previous boss, I was being harassed at work and confided in him, and he did nothing because it would mean doing real work and having uncomfortable but necessary conversations. Someone should have been fired, but instead I was forced to leave to preserve my wellbeing.
Both Jimmy and Curly are realistically well written but ig what makes Curly more interesting is the "morally grey" part. Both are def ppl you'd likely saw irl but Jimmy is someone you'd only expect to see on the news while Curly is a man you're likely to meet in front of you. But yeah i agree the amount of ppl unironically babying him is really weird
@nasrinnski Yes I think as a baseline Curly is kind and that also becomes a flaw in the situations he is presented with. Jimmy has become more frightening with every analysis I watch especially how he takes his private conversation with Curly and flips it on him during the cake scene. That was sinister and cruel.
While I totally agree that Curly screwed up and should have done more to apprehend Jimmy, I thought maybe another reason for his inaction was because the pony express would probably punish not only him, but the whole crew as they would all lose money for anything bad happening inside the ship.
That's a really good point.
You also have to take into account that they are 8 months away from the next habitable planet. He likely believed that he couldn’t risk bringing tension to the crew if he picked a side or risk one of the crew members (Anya and Jimmy in this case) to not cooperate with the rest of the group, which would be a problem because every job on the crew is important to the safety and survival of the crew. In other words, he was at a dilemma. Unfortunately, not having Jimmy take responsibility led to his disfigurement.
And it's very possible that Jimmy was aware of how his actions could negatively reflect on Curly and took advantage of it. He might have chosen to do what he did to Anya because he knew that Curly would try to downplay or ignore it for the rest of the trip
@@ICantRecognizeCelebrities considering what jimmy says to curly before crashing the ship, jimmy KNEW curly would hesitate reporting either. curly has a history of "off the record" stuff like willing to hide the fact anya stole the gun case and wont put it in their notes to the company or his psych eval talk with jimbo
i saw a positive post on tiktok about this video and wanted to give it a watch. i really like your perspective on this, as some creators either portray jimmy and anya as consensual, or miss such important details or subtext ^^
OMG WHATTT thank you sm for checking out the video, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
WHAT
HOW CAN THAT POSSIBLY BE UNDERSTOOD AS CONSENSUAL
@@topichu970Not me personally but I guess some people see it as more of a accidental pregnancy
@@galacticgames1812 she literally asks why the doors arent locked,
@@topichu970 yeah some people can’t read between the lines
Good analysis and editing. Thank you for focusing on Curly and Jimmy's final pre-crash conversation, as comments I read always seem to gloss over it when trying to pass judgement on Curly's culpability. Jimmy laid his dark plan out, left no room for misinterpretation, and Curly just... stands there? What did he think would happen afterwards? Surely that silence grants Jimmy's plan his tacit approval, yes? No doubt Jimmy saw it as so. Curly's blank stare after Jimmy walks away is such a moment full of ambiguous implications and no doubt mixed emotions that I hope more people try to dig into.
I think he was struggling to process it tbh. I've thought before that the first hallucination sequence may have been representative of Curly rather than Jimmy, considering the ladders and how long it takes for the reality of the emergency warnings to finally break him back into what was happening. I don't know how to explain it, but it feels very reminiscent of how it feels to hear something and space out, and struggle to come back to reality I guess? It's a weird feeling but it def evoked that for me
Using that image at around 11:36 was REALLY FUCKING CLEVER rather the context! Props to you and thank you.
YAY IM GLAD SOMEONE UNDERSTOOD THE CONTEXT
@@catharsis.catharsis OF COURSE!!!! THE VIDEO IS REALLY WELL DONE
An idea I've seen floating around that I really like is the "dead pixel" in the lounge being symbolic of Jimmy's true nature. Curly's never acknowledged it because he likes to take in the big picture, whereas it's always weighing down on Anya's mind. Curly ignores Jimmy's glaring red flags because all he sees is the "big picture" of his friend. But Anya quite literally can't ignore it.
I have been scoping out the Mouthwashing search tag just waiting for all the juicy video essays because this game is living in my brain rent free!
Your analysis is beautiful and my favorite exploration of the subtext in this game, because hell ya you cant actually understand anything substantial from this game without subtext!
Curly is exactly that kind of man where he thinks his best buds aren't sexist assholes because "he might have a gross sense of humor but he wouldnt actually SA someone and if he did SA someone it doesnt represent who his friend is". That kind of enabler that sees his best friend being shitty and creepy and does nothing to call him out. So Jimmy gets only green lights to make worse and worse decisions hurting others.
I agree about Swansea too, his speech was the most poignant and beautiful part to me. I could rant about this game endlessly and just will end my wall of text by saying thanks again for this beautiful video essay!
Love how much you talked about Anya. Generally, I've seen a lot of fandom support for her character. Streamer support tho... yikes it sucks. She's the best character in the game and deserves a lot of love.
Its not even 3 minutes in and captain already catches stray. It's gonna be good
Honestly the best analysis of this game so far on YT. Everyone else missed out so many things about this game it was honestly super sad to watch those.
Thank you for pointing out Anya's story. Most of the other ones I watched completly ignored it or failed to see all the subtle details and out right implied things, unfortunately those were all men.
Swansea and Jimmy were amazing and you did a really good job at pointing out the similarities and the contrast of those characters. It's so funny because Swansea practically just went "I could've been just like you", but ppl still missed it.
I love that the actual horror of this game is somthing we never actually see on screen. When I finished it for the first time I had to get up and take a walk, because that shit broke me...
Also I watched this video like four times now (mostly because I got very high and kinda kept drifting off) and I also want to applaud your editing. The music accompanied by certain relevations was just *chefs kiss*. Bravo!
I really appreciate how you skirt the algorithm without using childish language that diminishes the gravity of these subjects 🙏
This game is literally a wish came true for me because I've always wanted a game where at first you believe you are the hero but near the end you realised just how evil you are.
Thank you for thinking so deeply and using your beautiful brain! Men can be so stupid and there are so many analysis videos about this game that completely disregard Anya and the fact that she is a victim. Thank you for your service. 🙏🏻🙌🏻
yeahhhh the misconception about Anya’s storyline is what motivated me to make this video lol
I often find videos that discuss it dont talk about how her assault was what set the story in motion. It is critical to understand her story in order to have a rounded picture of the game, arguably more than any other character. She is the dead pixel in the screen.
That’s so interesting, I never thought of it like that. The screen definitely had more symbolism; there was another comment explaining how each character acted differently towards the screen based on how they reacted to a bad action (Swansea confronted and broke it, Curly can’t find the pixel, etc.)
I have seen more people complaining about people not getting it than people actually not understanding the situation.
@@trulybarr5341 thats good then, maybe that means people are learning or the oblivious people are being drowned out lol. i first tried to find analyses of the game soon after it came out and gave up after stopping like 3 different videos by dudes who didnt realize it was SA
3:00 On the idea of subverting stereotypes -- It feels like the initial perspectives are a bit of *Jimmy's* perception of the crew, especially regarding himself.
I agree! It's like the first impressions we get of everyone based on Jimmy's initial biased perspective of them.
It might be because of my own experiences with emotional abuse, but I have a hard time blaming Curly for letting Jimmy do what he did because their dynamic in game closely resembles emotional/mental abuse. Jimmy constantly gaslights, manipulates, and shames Curly at every opportunity. Anyone else would stop being friends with Jimmy, especially after his outburst at the party. But Curly keeps trying to appease Jimmy, as if Curly is in a fawn response state around Jimmy as well. Too afraid of Jimmy to do anything to stop him, which enabled Jimmy to enact harm onto others. Tbh, I think it's a great nuanced view of abuse victims: A victim staying silent/appeasing their abuser can lead to said abuser doing more harm. And just because you're a victim doesn’t mean you can’t contribute to harm.
I think this is such an interesting angle to look at his character from, I’ve seen a couple of comments bringing it up. I see what you mean regarding the fawn response, and it would re-contextualize Curly’s behavior as being caused by fear rather than a naive kindness.
I don't think this works well as Curly at that point was severly guilt-ridden. He's the guy who gave Jimmy a job and also told him that he'd be great at it only for Jimmy (and the rest of the crew) to be let go even before he finished his first job. Most people in Curly's position would rationalized Jimmy's outburst as they think they are causing it.
Personally, I have no empathy for Curly tbh, even if people agreed that he's a victim or whatever. He's a man, he had all the power to be an ally and take action. Oh he got gaslit and manipulated? Well, Anya got her body autonomy taken from her, Curly better suck it up and take responsibility. J*mmy never took Anya and her work seriously, that's why Curly took the paper from her and helped her with it. But when it comes holding his friend accountable, it's somehow too much for him? He's as much of a coward as J*mmy.
@@Kalitayy I feel as though you pin a little too much hate on curly
@@Kalitayycurly showed cowardice in not wanting to report and condemn his horrible friend
Jimmy showed cowardice through ultimately ending or ruining the lives of 4 people because he couldn't take punished
Please do not compare the two
25:45 "You're friends with monsters. GET THE FU-- OUT OF HERE?!!!" 😂❤
On the part of you saying Anya is a pretty good nurse it reminded me of the fact that she failed getting into med school 8 times and she's only doing this job to get money to try again, so the reason why she doesn't have any savings is because she's using the money to try and try again to get into medical school. Honestly the only thing I think about when I think of this fact is the reason why Anya keeps failing to get in because honestly Jimmy's view of her and Curly's limited interactions with her don't paint me the with the brightest painting
Also you’re so real for not being able to play the game but still wanting to analyze it (I’m the exact same way). I really love you analysis and editing style :) also, something about mouth washing reminded me of another game named signalis you should definitely check it out!!
THANK YOU SO MUCH thats means a lot! I LOVE Signalis, I recently watched a summary video of it for 2 hrs
@@catharsis.catharsis ITS SO UNDERRATED I’m so happy you know what it is😭
DUDE ANYTHING THAT HAS NEON GENESIS EVANGELION REFERENCES IM ALREADY ON IT LOL (its a cool show, you should check it out since you like these two psychological games)
@@catharsis.catharsis i watched the og series and the end of evangelion movie in 2021 or 2022 and I loved it! I haven’t watched the remakes or death(true)2 cause idk how important or significant they are😭
Oooo def check out the rebuilds, they take a different approach to the og plot, but the last rebuild movie (thrice upon a time) has the best ending in the franchise imo. it kinda acknowledges the og plot in some weird alternative universe thing but it has such a positive final message.
this has to be the best analysis of mouthwashing ive watched so far.. no 30 minutes of summary out of a 45 minute video, and an insightful dive into the characters and themes without tiptoeing around it or superficially touching on it. and im happy to find another real swansea appreciator, i damn near cried at his portion of the video. this was so amazing to watch, thank you so much !
It made me incredibly upset seeing so many people misunderstanding Anya or just glancing over her. So seeing you talk about her so in depth made me so happy
I've been watching a ton of essays for this game because of the story, but like others, I'm grateful to come across one that really did Anya a service in recognizing her SA and not brushing it aside. Thank you
this is genuienly such a good review, i watched a lot of reviews about mouthwashing to see if someone thinks like me, and this video was unironically the best one i watched. its crazy how ur video is so underrated and it definently deserves more views ans likes, since you did a better job telling the narrative than a lot of popular videos
AWW THANK YOU SO MUCH
this video is awesome, I love that you (unlike many other creators) do not skip over what happened to Anya, I've seen many Mouthwashing analyses but almost all of them just skip over it like it is not one of the most important things.
How disgusting... They're ignoring her exactly how Jimmy's mind was totally and completely ignoring her in his crazed and delusioned state
@@Ктоя-ь1м if only they realised anya wasnt always as timid like it seems she is. she was just on survival mode and fearful of what might happen to her. yes she could've had her girlboss revenge right then and there but not all victims are gon toughen up and just become warriors. some just feel helpless and like they have no power..
@@beepboop2842 exactly
Glazing comment ahead viewers discretion advised
Omfg you ate that shit up. You summed all your points so well. Nothing felt repetitive. It actually felt like a REAL analysis. Not just someone who was repeating the play through. I loved every second of the video and the editing was super funny and just low key a vibe. Please make more content 🫡.
DUDE THANK YOU SM THIS IS SUCH A SWEET COMMENT
@@catharsis.catharsis 👊😈 KEEP MAKING VIDEOS. Anyone can tell that you’re very talented just by the way you organize your thoughts and execute the videos. (Ik im low key glazing but it was a really really good video 😼)
STOPPP BRO THANK YOU SO MUCH, I promise I’ll make more stuff soon!
This is an excellent analysis video, you did a great job!
Also I like how you pointed out the ID hallway scene. It was weird to me how Jimmy had more sympathy/guilt over Swansea (a man that tried to killed him) over Anya (the victim of his abuse.
I think this has to do with Jimmy being able to relate to the men on the crew. Yet the exclusion and treatment of Anya led me to believe that Jimmy was a sexist.
That her struggles she endured after the crash doesn’t come close to what he experienced as being the new captain. Despite the role of being a captain in the current state of the ship is stagnant as they can’t pilot it. Compared his job to Anya’s who constantly monitored Curley’s health despite only having a first aid kit. Anyone can tell that Anya had the hardest job on the ship post-crash.
I also like to point out how he SA Anya as SA is used by the abuser to show their victim how much power they have over them. Not once have we seen Jimmy tried to intimidate Daisuke or Swansea. With Swansea, Jimmy avoided direct confrontation and decided to render him unconscious
It was just Anya who had to deal with Jimmy’s abuse directly which makes me even more sad for her.
Because men like Jimmy actually deeply hate women.
They don't see women as people, so they don't care about them at all in any shape or form, other than what they can get from them.
These men are so pathetically cowardly, that they almost always decide to take out their frustrations on the weaker ones. Because they themselves would never dare to challenge a greater man
Because men like Jimmy actually deeply hate women.
They don't consider us as people, they wouldn't give a damn about us unless it somehow affected them directly
absolutely wonderful analysis. put this on while making dinner and was snapping my fingers throughout the entire first half talking about how GENUINELY deranged jimmy was to decide crashing the ship was better than to face incarceration for what he did to anya, like i came to that realization a couple days ago and it was actl fucking harrowing he's so well written i need to put him in a blender. the section you dedicated to curly's radical hope/love rather than framing it as naivety was also so important to me as someone who lives around ppl like him constantly (naive or not) and has been hurt due to inaction, like just. YUP. such a real story with real, real characters. you did them justice. swansea best character i also highly agree
thanks for making my night!
I feel like a lot of fem people immediately pick up on what’s being put down by the time the “why do you think they didn’t put locks on the sleeping quarters?” line.
But a lot of guys just don’t really pick up on it at least not initially and usually even then they don’t pick up on the fucked up implications that he forced himself onto her. They usually think it was consensual and he probably just didn’t want to take care of the baby (side note: it’s pretty messed up J*mmy had a sequence with a strange unborn pony baby rather than anything with Anya.)
Like ngl I was kinda disappointed that some guys just didn’t see it. Like I’ve seen several videos on Mouthwashing and how well it does horror and how Jommy is decidedly not a good person and Curly as someone tragic when I’m sitting there like no he’s also complicit. He effectively defended the perpetrator rather than the victim. He didn’t do all that much to separate the two from what we see.
I think Curly represents a lot of guys. Men who don’t fully understand the implications of Curly’s inaction and words.
I think a lot of people would be incredibly conflicted learning about something monstrous an old friend did but I think a lot of fem people can look at someone they’ve known and be capable of putting their feelings aside.
It’s been strange seeing discussions and such because as someone that has started to unpack the whole idea that the legal system and the justice system aren’t really good it feels weird to be like “J*mmy is a bad person *but* “ the systems in place aren’t truly effective and can retraumatize victims of sa due to the barrage of questions and accusations and recounting of events. Prisoners usually suffer longer than their sentences and even if they want to become better people when they try to renter society they are continuously punished and that usually moves people down into the same patterns like how strict parenting lead to sneaky children.
I don’t think all things can be talked out but there should be ways other than locking someone up for an extended period of time. Sometimes a true punishment is living with the truth that you’ve hurt someone deeply in a way that will leave scars. Something you can’t undo or take back. In some cases prison reinforces the idea that the perpetrator is the victim, not that they are suffering from the consequences of their crimes but they were justified in committing them.
I also believe in what Anya says. “Our worst moments don’t define us” because they really shouldn’t. We should be able to live and grow but for J*mmy it just seems impossible. He’s someone who refuses to face reality. There’s not much you can do to better someone if they don’t want to better themselves.
You can’t help someone that doesn’t want to be helped.
Uh Mouthwashing good 👍✨
no fr as soon as she said that my jaw Dropped
Eh I agreed with what you had to say until the last part.
Our actions are what defines us. Words can be used to say anything to the point that they have no meaning, but actions are always themselves. A lot of rapists don’t even think they’ve committed rape, doesn’t change the fact that the are rapists.
I can tell myself in a good person all I want, just like Jimmy does, but if all I do is hurt people, just like Jimmy does, than I am a bad person.
I mean hell Hitler passed laws protecting the Weald are of animals and the environment and banned smoking in public buildings, yet none of that changes the fact that he was an evil man who killed a lot of people.
Our actions do define us. And our worst actions especially so.
Glad this video showed up in my feed. Good analysis of a great game. Mouthwashing was one of the rare games I felt the tagline "psychological horror" was well earned. The game does alot at first to trick you to expect the horror to be about monsteror the crew going mad or some external threat, but the only madness is Jimmy's lack of self accountability, and the only monster is Jimmy who in the end is left only with himself. Even at the end the game got me. When curly was first put into the pod, the delay on the cryogenic process made me think jimmy was so obsessed with his own "redemption" he forgot to even activate the sequence. This analysis also seems to touch on tiny nuances and details other videos of the game I've watched have missed so again very well done on the video
I also agree jimmy feels absolutely no guilt over anya. The weird baby sequence I agree also seems to suggest that if anything, he feels only regret or fear over the fact she got pregnant and there's undeniable evidence of his actions, no plausible deniability (assuming theres no kind of sa kits on the ship to gather evidence or bedroom cameras, which why would there be they don't even have bedroom locks). Kind of telling then that the only "monsters" he faces are monsters representing the consequences of his actions
Great Analysis! The one part I'll argue on is I'm not sure Anya kept Curly alive as a mercy. She was leaving him with Jimmy, and she knew that. I'm stuck on whether she expected Swansea to kill him after she passed, not being able to bring herself to kill a patient she'd worked so hard to keep alive, or if she was angry at Curly from leaving her alone with Jimmy and left him with the same fate. Sometimes I think she left Jimmy with the gun just to see if he'd do the right thing and kill him.
i was alone at work. slaving away over my tasks, plagued by a NEED to listen to an essay.
every single mouthwash essay and play through was done by a man with a terrible lisp/a weird accent/ a deplorable timbre/ obnoxious views - and here i stumble upon this masterpiece.
an immediate follow. incredible video🙏
10:30 when I replayed the game after learning about Anya's pregnancy, her nausea made more sense to me as morning sickness than nausea at Curly's condition. I'm absolutely not arguing that the sound of his choking wouldn't make her queasy, but at the very least I think that her being pregnant made her much more prone to nausea than usual. It also lines up with the fact that Jimmy thinks she's weak for it. Of course he'd misinterpret her nausea as weakness as a nurse rather than the consequences of his actions
other than that tho i literally couldn't have said any of this better myself. I hadn't even considered the fact that curly performing jimmy's psych eval meant he could write off jimmy's behavior, either. incredible video
this video is amazing ur the first person ive seen to bring up how anya doesnt get an ending like the men do so THAAANK you for that
A phase you said in this is my entire feelings towards this story; "could have been avoided"
It's less horror to me and more just a sad avoidable tragedy.
the first 2 minutes of the video explaining subtext and essentially dismantling/deconstructing that frustrating "the curtains are just blue" take had me subbing & liking the vid immediately like GOD i love when a person is media literate & can do literary analysis instead of just mindlessly consuming media at a superficial surface level 🤤
THANK YOU OMG i hate the idea of “the curtains are just blue”
i absolutely love that curly is portrayed as a realistic and three dimensional man who always tries to do what he thinks is kind and "good", and is perceived that way by the rest of the characters as well, because it shows the reality of situations like this where men who are bystanders to abuse that other men are committing really can be any kind of person, and good intentions dont really mean much when they are allowing other men to comtinue their abuse.
I am only 16, however thorought the whole game (I played with friends) I kept noticing how bad Jimmy and Curly were. My friends, who played it before me, were shocked at how I noticed that anya was SA'd (THEY DIDNT NOTICE UNTIL I POINTED IT OUT??) and they also didnt realise that it was partially Curly's fault (he didnt help her and kept trying to be buddy buddy with Jimmy). They also were shocked at how I figured the story before the game ended, they were like "YOU'RE CORRECT, WHAT?" when I was likw "Its Jimmy who crushed the ship, isnt it?" during first 10 minutes of playtbrough. And other times. I was shocked to see, how people blame Anya, or ignore Anya, when the game literally says THAT JIMMY SA'D HER, HOW COME SOME PEOPLE NOT REALISE THAT?
Ah, the classical victim blaming. My favourite....
I like this analysis but one thing I disagree with is 36:25. I think by the time she ended things, Anya had figured out that the crash wasn't Curly's fault. Even Jimmy acknowledges that the other crew members suspect it was him ("I know what they're all thinking")
Wonderful analysis, its really important to acknowledge that Curly did wrong by Anya, and that while he is also a victim, it doesnt redeem his contribution in what what went wrong with the ship
i LOVE this video and analysis. feels like it’s saying everything that a lot of other analysis videos don’t. it feels really important just how absent anya feels from jimmy’s guilt-driven nightmare sequences, and not enough people talk enough about how truly little he valued her. it’s so important to the games message imo. amazing work :)
I really enjoyed your video! I've been so fascinated by this game ever since I saw ManlyBadassHero play the demo earlier this year. The demo was already so compelling even with hardly anything being revealed yet. Seeing the full game was amazing because I thought I kind of knew the characters and understood why this is a horror game, and then everything got flipped upside down. That moment when Anya asks why the sleeping quarters weren't locked and you realize -- oh man, this game just got so much darker.
I have been really wanting to look into Mouthwashing, and, luckily, small creators will always be my saving grace.
the way you explained curly's character as a whole was so insightful and interesting to listen to... this whole video was great other than a few audio/mixing hiccups you already seem to be aware about, keep it up!!
Thank you so much!
When anya says she has to believe people's worst moments dont make them monsters, it's the way she copes, especially when she says "even in thos case". It's the only way she can stomach playing fawn -- by convincing herself this man isn't a monster. Then she locks herself in the medbay and did what she did is ger refusal to play by Jimmy's rules no more.
Jimmy and Curly are pretty damn good role models, not to aspire to be, but the opposite. You should strive to be better than Jimmy, but not be "good" to the point that you'll end up like Curly.
I also like how the phrase "Too much of everything is always bad" could be applied to Curly because he was too focused on being a "good"/"kind" person to the extent that his supposed kindness caused more harm than good.
Little anecdote, I first found out about the game because of some streamers I watch playing it. Put it off for a while, but eventually caved in and played after seeing lots of fanart on Twitter. I thought Anya was cute and wanted to see what the hype was about. My first impressions were poisoned by Jimmy's point of view, and you basically bar for bar explained how I thought of everyone at a first glance. Jimmy was the hero, Curly the maniac captain. I was even self-inserting a little bit onto Jimmy because his hair kinda looks like mine. It was only really until halfway through when the realizations started to dawn on me, and I felt sick to my stomach when I learned he had violated Anya. Made me feel terrible that I was unintentionally putting myself in the shoes of the perpetrator, when the victim was what got me interested in the game. I think it's honestly a testament to how well the game makes you view everyone through Jimmy's point of view even if it's to the detriment of some people never realizing the truth. I ended up relating a lot more to Daisuke by the end of the story, having felt similar thoughts of inadequacy and trying to be positive and please others as a result.
Also, I'd like to mention that Anya is still present in Jimmy's mind after her death, albeit indirectly. When he talks 1 on 1 with Polle at the end, he's essentially talking to his unborn child. I didn't catch this on my first playthrough, but looking at discussion online and noticing the moon behind him (the moon is always associated with Anya in this game) made me realize this. Goes to show that he feels remorse only for the consequences of his actions, not the action itself, with the child being an example of this. Jimmy can't even fathom Anya's situation because if he truly starts to think about it, his hero fantasy shatters because of his irredeemable actions, so instead he just completely blocks her out of his mind. The crew deserved better, and it's incredible how each character feels extremely human, even the psycho.
Also one thing that i saw someone mention early and that I think it is important to mention is that Jimmy doesn't know that Anya has the gun hidden, so when curly meets him outside the cockpit is bc Jimmy went looking, and with Swansea holding the only other weapon able to get rid of Anya(the axe), he switches to the idea of getting rid of everyone all together, so even tho Curly tries to talk to Anya like Jimmy wouldn't grab the gun the minute he knows shes pregnant, he just misses the gun bc Anya knew exactly what would happen and was prepared for it.
That’s so disturbing, I didn’t even think of that as the sequence of events
To be honest, up until now I never thought people could hate curly, in my eyes he was an optimist who fell victim to jimmy’s manipulation, with him leeching off curly’s trust
However after watching your vid and reading through some comments and seeing different perspectives, I still think that what I thought is a big contributor, but I also see some other points, and while thinking about all of it I had a thought. What if it’s not just one thing but a mixture of a bunch
What I mean is curly is both a victim of jimmy, and a naive optimist. He clearly shows signs of not wanting to confront jimmy, seeing as how during the party he can barely speak up for himself, and he falls for jimmy’s words a lot. But he is also just sadly too optimistic, wanting to make sure everyone is happy somehow, not wanting to see the dead pixel but rather the full picture.
I think that curly is still leaning towards victim, but he’s definitely a lot more middle than I thought. He had opportunities to stop jimmy, but with fear, cloudy judgment, and the stress of his crisis he mentioned during the evaluation and also bearing the knowledge of everyone losing their job but him, I find it hard for me to blame him for his inaction
Forgot to mention as well, but as for the bro code theory, while we don’t know how he was raised and his mentality on that, I personally don’t see him as the type of man that would do that
i think its also implied that jimmy was verbally/mentally abusive to curly before, you can tell because whenever jimmy talks down on curly (like for example, whenever jimmy was like "all I ever hear is how great of a leader you are. honestly, its annoying") curly doesn't react negatively, as if he's used to jimmy acting this way.
@@okeydesuka3167 EXACTLY. Plus Jimmy's clearly comfortable being physically abusive to him as well so who knows what the hell their friendship was like. But I like this because it adds layers to both their characters and helps one understand the various reasons he gave himself to avoid "rocking the boat" so to speak. Anya needed him, and he failed her. And there's multiple reasons to that, just like in real life.
@@dx.feelgood5825yeah he started being physically abusive with curly the moment curly was at his most vulnerable state and couldn’t defend himself
Yea the victim blaming is wild, he did make a mistake but he also didnt have much options. They were all trapped with him for 8 months.
Curly is responsible of the crew. They were already scheduled to lose their job, but Curly also acknowledged their payment could be affected if anything bad happened to Jimmy.
"ANY DISRUPTION OR ISSUES WOULD RESULT IN HIS CREW PAYMENT BEING DOCKED"
So imagine reports of SA, Hurting, killing or even trapping Jimmy inside the pad would have made shit even worse. As he could have an argument to report the crewship actions on ER. So the company would most likely penalize everyone. Now his crew would have no job and maybe no payment on top of that.
Also Jimmy was the co-pilot so getting rid of him probably wasnt a good idea.
The company should be the one to blame for overlooking their employees records. Curly was naive yes, but I wouldnt say it was really his fault. He was trying to look for the best outcome for everyone, at the big picture. He should've kept a low profile and monitor Jimmy through the rest of the journey until they arrived safely.
Im sorry you had to edit jimmy in the video
I hate Jambalaya.
The worst pain i felt today is finding out you only have two videos, girl you're amazing❤ i need more 😂