Deadly Perspective | A Return of the Obra Dinn Essay 

also for the record the image at 22:46 is such an amazing sh!tpost

I don't agree - I think snatching mermaids was the original mission of the Obra Dinn. There are already purpose built mermaid tanks in the hold, so the ship was always heading to abduct them on behalf of the Formosians. Nicholas was trying to ensure they would become the property of the crew, not the passengers.

@@oldschooloverlord I disagree with your disagreement - The lazarette is actually not an uncommon feature of ships, and is useful for holding live fish as cargo or supplies, from what I know. The main point being that it is not actually strange, unusual or notable that the Obra Dinn has a lazarette, and we can't make any solid conclusions with just that information. Add this to the fact that the captain was very clearly not well informed of the situation, along with most of the people on the boat except for the Formosans, and I believe we can safely conclude the opposite - The Formosans were operating independently, and did not see fit to inform anyone of their purpose or their goods. I can say, though, that at least several of the deaths were not Nichol's fault, so it's only like 85-95% his fault.

4, actually. The unknown stowaway wasn't his fault, as well as the other 3 in the chapters before Murder.

Actually, Hok Seng Lau's death isn't considered a murder in the final report. If you fill out all the paperwork accurately, Brennan is only credited with 1 murder: that of the 4th mate.

If you know anything about the East India Company (and just the British Empire in general at the time), none of that should come as a surprise.

That's a really interesting connection. I hadn't thought of that, but now that you've pointed it out, it very clearly is relevant to the game (I mean, there's a character whose sole purpose is to ferry you to and from the Obra Dinn... lol). I bet there's a bunch more nautical lit references peppered throughout the game as well that I didn't think of. Thanks for the comment!

Alternatively, in the Egyptian afterlife Thoth (after observing whether your heart is as light as a feather) records your life & death in a book, and then sends your soul to heaven appropriate.

Yeah I tried this too.

Foreign enemy sort of implies they are soldiers from a foreign country. As far as anyone knows, these merfolk are beasts, not bound by any nation

@tear4442 not bound by any nation that we know, sure. But they could have their own nation and language, meaning they would be foreign soldiers. They act like it well enough.

I mean, is not like the merpeople are privy to this info. From their point of view everybody in the ship hurt them in one or another.

@@toumabyakuya sure, but usually we dont consider killing first and asking questions later to be "justice" u kno? theyre not unjustified entirely, but its pretty gray in my eyes is all.

@@solidpython4964 You must also remember that merpeople, like most creatures in fiction, might operate under a different moral compass to ours.

@@toumabyakuya definitely possible, even humans don't just have one moral compass. but thats just another maybe, among a lot of maybes.

​@@solidpython4964they cleary already have cultural narratives for ship people, this may also be a fundamentalist loser group as they gave no cultural adornments or even well made spears

Regarding the second to last point, it's not like the officers just decided to accuse the first non-crew foreigner they found. There were no witnesses, he was the man supposed to be standing guard in the area, and one of Nichols's co-conspirators deliberately mistranslated his words into a confession. The only ones who would've known the whole truth are Nichols, his conspirators, and Evan if he used the clock (which he most likely did); and Evan had no means of making the truth known without painting a target on his back.

lmao same

I finished in 13 😣 But I loved every hour 🤗

*clearing throat* Mine is 15

True ending everyone was killed by the captain

@@modman4842 to be fair most of it wasn't his fault it was the royal family and his ( I think) 4th mate's fault

​@@brittlekneesmgee3674what did the royal family do aside from have rich people stuff

I tried this and it didn't work.

I absolutely believe he used that watch in private whenever he had a chance. The tragedy with the wrongful execution is that even with him knowing the truth, who was going to believe him? Who would believe the doctor going "The second mate actually murdered that man"? If he revealed he had such a magical watch, he would immediately paint a target on his back

that's actually an interesting view never thought about the book itself being magic and interacting with the deceased in some fashion most i ever thought about them having influence was thinking that maybe the white trail leading to memory bodies was their souls trying to show their movements prior to death

This doesn't really line up though, since the watch is taken by the doctor when he leaves the ship and there's still several chapters worth of fates recorded after that

Rowboats only move so fast. The remaining bit could have happened in the next mile or two.

What is he going to tell the crew members in 1805 though? That he has a magical time travel watch? How long would he be able to keep it in his possession from then on?

@@jujuwhite2107 I've always wanted to ask Lucas Pope what the magic level is in that world. The inspector has voice lines, so it's probably safe to assume that if the stopwatch was something worthy of comment, they'd have commented on it. Not only that, but the insurance company doesn't question why the investigator's able to know things they couldn't without magical assistance. If I saw a shiny seashell in a nightstand, I wouldn't recognize it as something valuable enough to kill for, the cook just thinks that they're "pretty", and the purser takes all of the money with him but doesn't try to grab the shells in his failed escape, but the mates are willing to risk anything and anyone for them. (And, the 3rd mate got the mermaid to understand complex instructions.) So, if magical stopwatches and monsters are something humans know about, it might only be known by people with a college-level education: British officers and Formosan royalty (from the bosun on up), but not uneducated or skilled labor (the purser and carpenter on down). For the midshipmen, who'd be upper-class with some education, it's hard to say, but - while the others were taken completely by surprise, by the spikes - their first instinct was to set one on fire, and immediately drag a gunpowder keg up to the deck, when the kraken attacked.

It depends on when he realized the what the watch did. By Nunzio's death it might have been too late..

​@@jman5949further to this, the monkey paw set-up in the lazarette is literally the doctor testing this theory