Dear Insane Children,
Our back and forth on the recent discussions around Self Murder led to a thought last night. I quickly sent it off to Alex and we’ll continue to develop the idea but I thought I’d share with you quickly because I think you’ll appreciate it…
!!!SPOILER WARNINGS!!!
Here’s the note I sent Alex:
Alex,
hit me last night…
the opening scene where Alice attempts “self murder” can contain a background of voices overlaying the scene… telling her why she should/n’t kill herself. these can be echoes of her own voice, of the voices of her family, nurses, children from the asylum, etc. but it’ll be a confusing array of reasons why she deserves to die, doesn’t deserve to die, etc.
AND… we rip some of the lines directly from all the comments we’ve collected on Patreon. so these are literally the voices of the Insane Children sitting on her shoulders trying to convince her one way or another.
contained in there can be lots of the strong reasoning and concerns – albeit in small snippets – for and against the notion.
at the end of the scene, she’ll silence the voices with a resounding “enough!” as the closes the flue on the stove and awaits her fate… which then leads to the transition into wonderland.
when in wonderland I was thinking we could find that there’s a sort of illegal message system in place that allows the subconscious (or elements of Alice’s psyche trapped within the snowglobe) to communicate to the higher-level aspects of her mind. these voices we heard are a part of this system.
restoring function to or getting messages through this system can be one of young alice’s goals. it’s how she establishes communication with adult alice.
also thinking on the chess realm… since they are locked in rules and prescribed rules, it would make sense that they give alice knowledge of “rules” while also sending her to find the “new rule” which will help to solve the overall challenge. it would make sense that, since they are all about “rules” they would have simulated to all the possible ways young alice might save the day… and found that it’s impossible unless she finds a “new rule” to change how the game is played. more on that later.
We’ll see where this takes us… but I like the idea that we represent the ongoing struggle in Alice’s mind around this topic. And how she makes a final and decisive move to end the confusion and pain once and for all.
It’s Sunday morning here and I’ve got warehouse/packing duties to attend to but thought I would share that quickly while it was fresh in my mind.
From Shanghai with Packing Tape,
-American