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sh144
dendrite
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hey, guys! i just want to say it's nice to have a place on the web to discuss a very special subject that is Gray Matter. I loved the game and many of the threads here have cleared up some blank spaces left after that inspired yet rushed ending.
One thing i still don't have a clue about is what exactly Helena had in a box under her bed? Was she really a drug addict? Or was it medicine of some kind, insuline maybe?
If there were any futher clues on the subject - i must have missed them.
And on my behalf i should say the explanation that Sam gives - about Helena being a party girl and thus a drug-addict is hardly reliable. She wouldn't use heroin as a party drug, of that i'm sure!
Would be glad and grateful if you cleared that up for me.
)
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Total Posts: 4 | Joined Dec. 2010 | Posted on: 9:34 pm on Dec. 18, 2010 | Link to this post
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 Krss
admin
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Hi sh144, welcome to the board! 
I don't think that is explained. I agree it's a ridiculous explanation that Sam comes up with to incriminate Helena.
But they don't look like insulin syringes to me. Those are very thin.
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Total Posts: 2307 | Joined Aug. 2006 | Posted on: 9:44 pm on Dec. 18, 2010 | Link to this post
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sh144
dendrite
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injecting cocaine is really hardcore! i don't think Helena would do this
wonder if we'll ever know what was that box suppose to mean
%-)
thanks for the welcome!!
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Total Posts: 4 | Joined Dec. 2010 | Posted on: 11:08 pm on Dec. 18, 2010 | Link to this post
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 Simo Sakari Aaltonen
midbrain
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Does anyone have a better idea what it could have been? Cocaine occurred to me because I am used to seeing it in entertainment as a standard drug for rich addicts. But that was just my own guess. Helena's drugs may have been something "milder" or something maybe even more dangerous than cocaine. If she features in a sequel, we might learn for sure.
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The Adventure Companion
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Total Posts: 359 | Joined Sep. 2008 | Posted on: 12:05 am on Dec. 19, 2010 | Link to this post
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sh144
dendrite
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Well, thing is, people don't generally inject party drugs. The cocaine is sniffed and there are lots of pills to make your night jolly or weird... But needles are mostly used with opiates, eg heroin, and usually the drugged person just lies on the couch, hm, enjoying... You don't go dancing on heroin, like Sam suggests.
Funny how i sound like such a drug expert. But as this game is so thoroughly researched and well-written, i find it weird unlikely that Jane would insert such general and unrealistic drug reference into her game.
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Total Posts: 4 | Joined Dec. 2010 | Posted on: 12:38 am on Dec. 19, 2010 | Link to this post
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Krss
admin
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There's a lot about the magic that's unrealistic too - mainly that it works.  I can't believe Charles never realized his mom's letter disappeared from the bench while Sam was traveling on a bus around Oxford searching for a steam vent to open it.
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Total Posts: 2307 | Joined Aug. 2006 | Posted on: 4:21 am on Dec. 19, 2010 | Link to this post
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Simo Sakari Aaltonen
midbrain
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Maybe Sam's knowledge of drugs is as limited as mine? 
But of course there is quite a strong possibility that the box under Helena's box contained nothing illegal and Sam was just wrong. The reason I was left with the impression that Helena is actually addicted to drugs is that this suspicion was never explicitly dispelled - unlike with Sam's suspicions about Charles, Harvey and Malik. Angela is obviously her own case.
I wish it had been cleared up. One thing I admire about the story is precisely how most of Sam's suspicions about other people turn out baseless. It is so refreshing to see this kind of psychological realism in an adventure game. On the other hand, the world is not black and white and some rich students who may be fine persons otherwise are in fact addicted to some drug or another. But on the third hand, and in the light of this discussion, I am actually leaning towards believing it may have been a prescription drug, after all, and Sam just failed to learn that. Better to assume the best in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary.
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The Adventure Companion
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Total Posts: 359 | Joined Sep. 2008 | Posted on: 10:21 am on Dec. 19, 2010 | Link to this post
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sh144
dendrite
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i'm fine with Helena being a drug addict. adds a lot to her character. she probably is my favourite supporting person in this game, addict or not.
another tiny thing that is kind of weird about all this story is how she turns out to be such a good friend by the end of the game and Sam realises how wrong she was suspecting her. doesn't go well with the drug addict theory, scriptwise, though it is true: people may take drugs and still be sweet, friendly and loyal. nothing unusual about that.
and Simo... those crazy suspicions of Sam's are one my favourite things about the story also. i just love how impulsive and psychotic she is. really untypical for a computer game to feature a character with such deep, yet realistic, behaviour shortcomings.
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Total Posts: 4 | Joined Dec. 2010 | Posted on: 3:49 pm on Dec. 19, 2010 | Link to this post
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Simo Sakari Aaltonen
midbrain
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@sh144: Actually, I meant something a bit different. However, I also like the way you interpreted it. Sam does have problems trusting people. I think it is understandable given her background (and there may be things we have not even learned yet).
But I meant to comment on how the worldview of Gray Matter is such that practically all the characters have perfectly respectable motives and aims.* It is almost like a rejection of the typical worldview of best-selling thrillers or detective stories where many people have unsavoury agendas.
In contrast, there are no "baddies" in Gray Matter, not a single punch is thrown, and the single featured firearm is only taken up with extreme reluctance by Sam. The only people killed died in accidents, without deliberate malicious intent on anyone's part.
It is this absence of all the easy ingredients of conflict in fiction that I find remarkably mature and compelling. All the drama comes not from external conflict but from the interaction of the different worldviews of the characters.
* Apart from Linkweller, who is ultimately revealed as a lonely little man who cheats on his wife and has closed himself off from the better things of life with his own prejudice and small-mindedness.
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The Adventure Companion
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Total Posts: 359 | Joined Sep. 2008 | Posted on: 4:51 pm on Dec. 19, 2010 | Link to this post
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theozero
dendrite
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I feel the same way Simo,I didn't realize it until I read your post but this is something that makes Gray Matter's story a very mature and interesting creation.
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some of my music http://alonetone.com/theokouroumlis/tracks
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Total Posts: 26 | Joined Dec. 2010 | Posted on: 8:31 pm on Dec. 19, 2010 | Link to this post
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Simo Sakari Aaltonen
midbrain
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Very well said. I also liked the way you put it before the edit - not sure exactly how it was phrased, but I think it was about how many of the problems we face (as individuals and societies) stem from inability or unwillingness (my words) to understand.
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The Adventure Companion
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Total Posts: 359 | Joined Sep. 2008 | Posted on: 10:53 am on Dec. 31, 2010 | Link to this post
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theozero
dendrite
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Thanks,we are are bound to have problems when we are closed and shut to ourselves.
I think this song fits
Dire Straits - Brothers in arms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhdFe3evXpk
some of the lyrics
...There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones...
...Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms ...
(Edited by theozero at 1:19 pm on Dec. 31, 2010)
(Edited by theozero at 1:24 pm on Dec. 31, 2010)
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some of my music http://alonetone.com/theokouroumlis/tracks
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Total Posts: 26 | Joined Dec. 2010 | Posted on: 11:07 am on Dec. 31, 2010 | Link to this post
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theozero
dendrite
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We all carry a big burden of things that we need to confront and if we could find a way for those to be expressed and realized that would shed a new light in our understanding of the world and of ourselves.Instead we make virtual relationships,virtual in that what needs to be said is never said and spend all our energy to project a good image of ourselves.That makes our lives incomplete and leads Helena to drugs and Angela's unresolved trauma to be released when she relaxes and sleeps.
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some of my music http://alonetone.com/theokouroumlis/tracks
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Total Posts: 26 | Joined Dec. 2010 | Posted on: 1:14 pm on Dec. 31, 2010 | Link to this post
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ladidada
hindbrain
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Well insulan shots are more often than not used in emergency cases only, no? If that was the case, she wouldnt keep them hidden and in a lock box. And I agree, I doubt it would be cocaine considering it comes in a perscription like bottle. I would guess it was a recreational drug like horse tranquilizers.
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:-D
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Total Posts: 130 | Joined Nov. 2008 | Posted on: 1:14 am on Mar. 8, 2011 | Link to this post
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r
flatliner
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no, it's not (typically) an emergency case medication. people who are on insulin are on it 24/7 and have to follow a strict regimen.
and i can't really see Helena as an intravenous drug addict. those that shoot drugs are usually too far gone into addiction to be able to function properly. and daily. not to mention in such a nonchalant way as Helena does.
i can't think of a reasonable explanation to the syringes under the bed. we could of course make up a few ridiculous and fantastic, even outrageous ones.
i tend to see the box puzzle as a red herring pseudomystery thrown in, so that the player finds something marginally interesting to do in Helena's room.
(Edited by r at 9:08 pm on Mar. 21, 2011)
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Total Posts: 491 | Joined Aug. 2006 | Posted on: 9:07 pm on Mar. 21, 2011 | Link to this post
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CORT-X Guestroom
Helena's addiction?
