It’s Monday ! ~ New Year, New Challenge
My last Monday post of 2019 had a small event / challenge, aka playing a small game or watching a play-through and asking you what you thought the story was about. Before speaking of what this month “game challenge” will be, I would like to give you my thoughts regarding the previous one (as promised.. A Month ago cough).
What Is Going On In “The Mirror Lied”
Before I begin : First of all, if you want to make your own opinion and speak about the game, you can either play it or watch the “let’s play” I linked and still share your own thoughts about it. Of course my theory is only a theory, you can be right, I can be wrong, as of today the developer didn’t address any of those theories or explained themselves what was the story about. Now that it’s said, let’s go.
One of the most common theory is based on several events happening in the game, including a moment where you can have a look on a microscope and see a common picture of the Bird Flu aka H5N1 and its evolution. You can watch a video explaining the whole theory > HERE < !
I too believe that the story is about the virus, but I am unsure that it’s related to how it spread within the world and that Leah is trying to find a medication against the virus.
I don’t know how many of you have knowledge of what is the difference between bacteria and virus and how virus works, but first thing first, a bacteria can be killed by using antibiotics while virus cannot. A virus will enter inside a cell, add the DNA they are made of to the DNA of the cell then push the corrupted cell to multiply.
When you are suffering from a virus, the only thing that can be done are taking medication to stop or lower the side effect and be vaccinated against it. The vaccination doesn’t kill the virus either, it only stimulates our natural defenses to create specific antibodies which can detect the virus and destroy the contaminated cells.
With that being said, my own theories is that the story is happening within Leah or more precisely within Leah’s immune system which is trying to fight against the H5N1 virus.
The story begins as she wakes up in a house without doors which could as well be the interior of a plasma cell which are responsible of creating antibodies, Leah would be the attempt of the body to fight the virus which is spreading through the body. The map would represent either Leah’s body functions or the cells contamination by the virus.
Another event that makes me think of the story going on inside her or her immune system is the fire. H5N1 virus can cause huge inflammation which can easily be translated by fire with Leah trying to stop what is happening.
Beside that, the plant growing to eventually break through the ceiling (or cell membrane in that hypothesis) would be either the evolution of the virus within the cell or the evolution of the protections against the virus which also explains the two different endings depending on the events to take part : Either you fly with birdie aka Leah is contaminated and will duplicate herself including H5N1 DNA or Leah kills birdie aka Leah’s antibodies reacts and sees H5N1 as a threat.
“The Mirror Lied” : The title can be explained by how the cell division works. The nucleus DNA split in two identical parts, a mirror of each other, and they eventually divide in two similar cells. In that specific case, the Mirror Lied would refer to the fact that the cell which have been contaminated aren’t identical to the other ones.
The particularities of Virus is that it cannot be detected unless antibodies already had to fight something similar. Picture the celles being blind to the difference and the immune system trying to warn the cell that something isn’t right and isn’t identical to the healthy cells’ DNA.
Leah : I don’t know if the name has been chosen randomly, but I find interesting the fact that LEAH can correspond to the Lewis Antigen System blood group in association with the H gene from the ABO blood system. Does it have any effect ? Is it just a random chance that the name correspond to something related to the basic antibodies associates with our blood group ? I HAVE NO IDEA, but it was fun to see that LEAH could actually mean something.
Once more this is just a theory, I may write it on the game forum, if I get the motivation to write something a little better (and/or someone helps me to write something that makes sense ^^”).
New Game Challenge !
Another free game to discover, Just, Bearly, which is about anxiety and awkward in society.
This time just share with us what you think about the game, if you relate to the main character and what you think of the Sun Flower Deer (the cutest Love Interest ever).
There are 9 achievements, nothing really hard to go through, as you can see it took me 23mn to go through the whole game, including the Jam achievement which takes 3 good minutes on its own.
I love the theory! I played The Mirror Lied months ago and looked up a lot of discussion about it then. I have not read up on it lately but yours really makes more sense out of it than I could make or find elsewhere!
I do believe that the theory about the bird flu is the best, but it still didn’t make much sense as in why Leah doesn’t have a face, why there is no door, etc.
I’m glad you like my own little theory ^^ !