Transistor - A Literary Analysis 

I believe it's only stated that Red is a wildly popular and influential singer, and that's why the Camerata wanted her. There's nothing that indicates Red can actually hear the in-game background music. My headcanon is that Red is composing the soundtrack inside her head based on the location and situation, and we just happen to have the privilege of hearing it. A lot of Red's own songs are a part of it, and it would explain how she's able to hum in tune to it.

I always thought that since the music we’re hearing is, within universe, songs that Red wrote, her humming to what we hear is because she’s humming her music to herself and the Boxer.

It's not totally off the mark to call Transistor a dystopia. That's the thing about utopia and dystopia: no utopia can be a utopia for everyone. One man's utopia is another man's dystopia. Imagine having a minority opinion or desire in Cloudbank, never able to actually get what *you* want. The reality is that it's *both*. It's entirely correct to say that the Camerata were bitter, and ruined the utopia of others. But it's also correct to say that the citizens of Cloudbank were very much enacting a tyranny of the majority, creating a dystopia for those that wanted something different.

In my opinion, it's deliberately left up for interpretation what the exact nature of Cloudbank is (if it's just the simulation of a virtual life, if the people in it are "real people"/have a real counterpart or if they're just complex, unique AIs, if the recursion was a planned feature or a bug etc.), aswell if it's supposed to be a utopia, a dystopia or something in between. There is a pretty clear message that living in a post-scarcity society is not without its issues (like the issues the Camerata grew so frustrated about), but it's never directly stated if the Camerata's world view is right or if living in this world is better or worse than living in our real world.

That’s the exact point. While the averages citizen’s day to day life is void of struggle, hardship, or disappointment; it’s the operators of said utopia and the more extraordinarily of the citizens that perceive themselves to live utterly dissatisfied lives. Completely shackled to the whims of Average. The society is so devoid of challenge, because everyone can just vote that challenge away. With challenge comes growth and progress. Without challenge there is no growth. Nothing is allowed to settle, or to grow. Cloudbank changes so much so often, that the very cycle of change itself has paradoxically stagnated. While outwardly a Utopia Cloudbank is, on the subconscious level, a dystopian city. This is made evident through the merely insignificant fact that just because of Red’s music a fight broke out at her concert. On some level at least a few average citizens are subconsciously aware how unfulfilled everyone’s lives are and their society itself is. Cloudbank definitely isn’t your run of the mill dystopian cyberpunk future, but the events of the game and the games very own existence are evidences to this. The Camerata, are in no way the good guys here. They did fucked up stuff to those people they believed were important to society and had influence because the Camerata may have believed them to be the ones for who the masses “whims” and “influence” and “choices” depended. Subtracting then from the problem was what they believed to be their “monkey wrench” in the gear of society. Only, ironically, they still deemed these individuals’ intellect and skill to be essential in the Camerata’s new world. However, one can understand where they may be coming from. I think they missed a step in their plan however. They should have attempted to implement how they believe the world should be via the manipulating the masses into believing the changes were their own idea when actually they were the changes the Camerata wanted all along.

yes we need a pyre!

FUCK YEAHHHHH PYRE!!!!

I do wish I had an opportunity to talk about it in the video, but ultimately every way I tried to insert it broke the flow of information without actually contributing much meaning to the video. There's usually one or another thing like that in most of my analyses. Basically, the introduction in Recursion mode (with Royce saying the opening line from the Transistor instead of the Boxer), along with the word "recursion" itself (which is a programming term referencing a function that calls upon itself, thus looping within its own execution), imply a cyclical nature to the New Game+. This is interesting, but ultimately (I believe) not thematically important. Unlike Bastion, nothing in Transistor implies the story itself is cyclical, and in fact the ending of Transistor hinges on a sense of finality that would be severely undercut by an implication that the story continues to repeat itself infinitely. If we're explaining recursion canonically, I'd say it's something like the system replaying and re-simulating what happened, while of course already having the final results recorded on account of these events having happened before. Which is perhaps an interesting note, but not particularly relevant to deciphering the game's meaning; it's basically just a cool way to make New Game+ make sense in-universe. But using it to interpret the story in a cyclical sense has no basis in the story itself and, I would argue, damages the game's message.

Thank you, and I agree. Mostly I like the idea that the quote in the beginning is a reference to how a recursion in code may start and end with a (Royce) bracket. Seen in that way, the story fits neatly together as a string of code containing the functions. But I think you are correct in that it isn't meant to alter the meaning of the game, and I also initially thought about as a "copy of reality" within reality, hence not disturbing the original story. Very interesting, and thank you again!

The devs have mostly confirmed it is just a programming pun, and that recursion mode isn't canon at all, just a normal New game plus mode.

Oh, I didn't know that. Do you happen to know where/when they confirmed that?

well thats unfortunate I always thought of the connection of Cloudbanbks and the country as 2 Sides in a circle. The process erase Cloudbanks and build the Country on the blank Canvas. In the mean Time the people who died during the lifetime of Cloudbanks began to change the Country from a empty Corn Field. They build a new Cloudbanks because it is still there ideal world. (For the most people) In a way it shows even the creed of the camerata again. The could destroy cloudbanks over and over again. Maybe the only away to escape this circle is the asimilation through a Transistor.

Sugergiant Games don't really have dev, its 12 people team

Devs 3 through 12 were nodding in agreement.

Dev 3: Nah brotha lets do a sports game

@@assafchen6462 Dev 4: No wait... I like the sports idea, but I think we should keep these ideas seperate for now.

Yeah, it felt like making a real choice in contrast to the meaningless choices made just before that. Like Giving up everything cloudbank stood for in exchange for a fulfilling life of hardship. I think that's also the main reason why "Death" is framed as going to the country in the game. It's logging off, it's giving up what in Cloudbank is seen as agency but what we learn can be an expression of actual agency. It feels like a subversion of the trope of the woman giving up her life if she can't be with her man. It's her reclaiming her life, the expression that matters to her that was taken away.

I do want to take some time to mention one thing I think would be interesting for you to read, which partially gives a point to why this analysis was so different from how I see parts of the game. It's about the Camerata's main phrase "When everything changes, nothing changes" and that I perceive that quote is a comment on the significance of an individual's perspective on things that can be wildly different between individuals. I'm going to start by explaining how I came to this conclusion, then proving it with evidence from both the art style, and the music. At first glance, "When everything changes, nothing changes" is a contradictory statement. How is it possible for everything to change if nothing has actually changed? (I think my usage of "actually" here is what causes my opinion on this quote to be so different). The first thing I thought was that it was a statement similar to "Freedom is Slavery" from 1984 by George Orwell. But that didn't make sense in the context of Transistor's gameplay, story, music, or art. So instead I started asking myself, what can change everything, but also change nothing. And my response that I came to was this: Perspective. How you perceive a song, story, event, movie, image, etc... can have a large impact on that. And when your perspective changes everything can change about that, even though nothing has really changed. Let's start with, to me, the weakest example I have in game of how this is supported. An example I had during the game itself. The first time you hear the quote, it's from Asher Kendrell. When I think of Asher, I think of his depressed, but serious voice, and one color. Red. To me Asher is when Transistor changed, mostly because it was when the Camera turned from villains to main characters. Because it's when I realized a color normally associated with hostility or violence is also the name of the main character. It's something so minor, and so small, but it changed everything about the game for me. The game wasn't a different game, it was the same game. Nothing had changed about the game, but my perspective had shifted, and now everything about how I perceived the Camerata, and some other things, had changed. The second example is the music. I have a couple of songs on this game's OST that I really, really like. Notably In Circles, We All Become, and Tangent. However, as time went on, I have looked at these songs differently. In Circles turned from this beautiful melody with active and beautiful highs set to a dark and depressing vocals, to a song that felt both hostile and empathetic at the same time while still remaining beautiful. Conflicting emotion is one narrative element I have recently become very interested in, and it's strongest with music. When I ask others what they think, they don't say the same. They don't see the beauty in the song, they hear the hostility. The anger. We All Become had one verse that changed completely "You tell yourself that you're lucky, lying down never struck me as something fun, no, any fun. Stabbing pain for the feeling, now your wound's never healing till your numb, oh it's begun. Before we all become one." I hear this song as foreshadowing, but now also I hear the hostility from In Circles return. It's a connection I haven't been able to find. Tangent is a completely different beast. Tangent is a song I hear as calming. Everyone else who has listened to it that I talked doesn't see that. It changes everything about the song, all of these things do, but nothing changed about the music. The third is the art style, where the game most supports it. Transistor's art style is beautiful, it truly is to me. The use of color and environmental design shows Cloudbank to me as a digital utopia at first. So much so that when you said "dystopian fiction" I swear I was watching the wrong video. After all, how can it be a dystopia when food is literally complimentary, when no one we know or meet is unsuccessful? If the Process wasn't destroying it that is. What changed most about the art style for me was the use of color during the late game. Notably Fairview. Fairview is one of my favorite levels in gaming. The place is beautiful, but you wouldn't normally say that? It has so little color, and yet the environments are detailed and incredible, and when they do use color it's interesting and adds to the area. And that is when Transistor shifted again. Because I saw the beauty of Cloudbank, even when it was being destroyed. It still felt like something was lost, but it felt like this wasn't something worse. It was different. The layout hadn't changed, but everything, once again had changed. And then you walk upside down. And the game breaks the 4th wall with Royce saying "You see? When everything changes, nothing changes." EVERYTHING had just changed. Every-time I play the game, and when I have watched a few people play the game, they get uncomfortable there. The camera is so important in games, but now you are upside down. But still the game controls the same. Everything is the same. It's just your perspective that shifted. As Royce said, everything changed, but nothing changed. I hope this long and extended example shed some light as to why I perceived this game differently then you, but that is part of why I like this game. To me, Transistor isn't a single narrative. It's a group of stories about characters and the place they live and work with clever foreshadowing, lore, references, and music tying it all together into a game that, to me, has created a space to rival Rapture from Bioshock 1 in it's immersion, and how well the world is realized.

just curious, in what ways do you think recursion mode impacts the plot?

(Warning: This will involve a bit of speculation). Recursion is one of the main supporting theories for the city of Cloudbank being a computer simulation. Whenever you start the game again, the simulation resets. The intro quote, the fact the player keeps their levels/function loadouts, the Sandbox, and also Cloudbank's accelerated "processing" during the game implies that things are changing with each Recursion. One of my theories is Recursion is actually a 4th-wall-break, or at least the simulation repeating itself trying to get to different outcomes. In a lot of games with this much player freedom in terms of gameplay, there is also player freedom during the story (Dishonored, Bioshock 2, and Prey are all good examples of this). Transistor has some of this, with the multiple different choices you can make during some sections. Examples of this include decisions during votes, or deciding to respond to news messages. Some players might think that some of these choices impact the plot, or there are other choices during Recursion. So they play the game again hoping for a different, possibly more optimistic, ending. The 4th-wall-break comes with Royce saying "Hey Red, we're not gonna get away with this are we?". That quote can be seen as talking to you, saying that even if you try again, even if you reset and go through it again, things won't change. You will always end with the same conclusion. It doesn't have much impact on the ACTUAL plot, to me Recursion is mostly there to help you unlock the rest of the function files, and to go through previous areas with new knowledge so you can piece together the details the 1st playthrough gave you. It helps your understanding, while also raising more questions that Recursion causes. When I used Recursion mode, and it's impact on the plot, as an example for things I felt GamesAsLit101 missed, I really meant to say I felt it was odd he didn't discuss the "potential" impact of Recursion's changes, or at least acknowledge the mode exists in his analysis. It wasn't a major loss, but it did start to make me ask what other things he didn't discuss, in some ways leading to my whole comment.

oh I see. I also think that Recursion mode is the simulation restarting over and over trying to find different outcomes.

I appreciate your perspective here! Ultimately I approached that whole aside knowing full well I was coming from a neurotypical position, which is why I ran it by so many friends and colleagues who have more personal experience with this sort of thing. I'm fully aware that everyone's experiences are different, though I perhaps could have expressed that particular sentiment better. Point being, I absolutely appreciate hearing the perspective of more people with more experience on the subject than me! Thanks!

No need to thank me for chipping in with my two cents. Rereading my comment, I apologise for the very frank tone of it - I just wanted to affirm you in your argument, I think it's a strong one to make and though I appreciate the content warning and the care with which you handled the topic, I also think you are spot on with what you said about the motif.

I’d love to see another hour video on that. Maybe next year?

+Alex Baldwin I'm quite interested on interpretations for Hyper Light, I loved the art and the fact characters talked to each other through images rather than words, but it's safe to say I was really confused by the story. Do you recommend any videos on it?

Have you seen Hades since then? What did you think?

I did one on Bastion ages ago, and I would like to eventually do both Pyre and Hades! Especially Pyre; it's my favorite and doesn't tend to get a lot of attention.

Echoing the ends of Bastion, this digital world restarts in one of two ways. Either the Town is rebooted, and all the Trace Data from the Country is downloaded into that sandbox; or everything is scrubbed, and life starts anew by an evolving Process.

After half a year of mediation and intense self reflection (watching the video again) I concede that the part about not being able to come back does discredit the real town theory, but if you just go to another server why wouldn't you be able to come back?, Will the residents keep you out? If so then the real town theory holds just as much water

I mean that is kind of the point of that whole aside, is that I don't believe the act is meant to be ultimately understood as suicide, but the framing as suicide is still kinda' problematic. But I said that being processed is more akin to death as we know it, not being stuck in the Transistor. I definitely view the transistor as more of a different plane of existence, not death. Being removed from one context or world (Cloudbank) is perhaps as good as death to the people around you (in Red's case, no one), but not on a technical or practical level; she's removing herself from one place and consigning herself permanently to another. One she knows for a fact is actually there. I find that vastly different in its implications than death and an unconfirmable hope in an afterlife. Basically, the framing is a problem in its potential effects on players who are sensitive to the subject matter, but it really only does go so far as framing. On a practical level, the effects and nature of Red's decision are very different from the effects and nature of suicide. Which is why I tried to address the subject with care and empathy. Ultimately, interpretation can be rather subjective (especially in a game like this), and the whole reason I included that segment is because it's entirely possible to read the game in a way that could be rather harmful to someone who's contemplating suicide. I don't believe that's the game's intent, or that it's consistent with the rest of what the game is saying, but I wanted to acknowledge the possibility for it to be read that way since it's a very real and potentially damaging way to experience and understand the game.

Games As Literature I made kind of the same comment as VMLM3, but I see you answered here, or rather persisted here. I really (really!) like your work and this analysis in particular, but the way you described the ending as "problematic" really rubs me the wrong way. I feel you don't stick to the text enough and jump to the real-life idea of suicide even though the game is about an MMO or a group chat where you're the only one left. Yes you can change the group picture, rules, and say whatever you want, but in the end you will leave and won't come back. Add to that the Boxer departure, and the possibility to join him again, and Red's decision is reasonable. In the end, I feel like leaving Cloudbank isn't akin to dying, and that you're never in Red's situation irl (all-powerful and all alone). On the other hand, even if a piece of art, or even philosophy (with only one reading possible) was advocating suicide, why is it problematic? I'm all for trigger warning and all, but here it really feels like trying to limit expression. Furthermore, your usage of the word "problematic" is really typical of some part of the left, a moralizing one, where people gesture to a subject without engaging with it. What are you trying to say here : that suicide always is a bad choice? Or are you saying it is contagious (it kind of is)? That it is immoral, and should be forbidden to depict? I don't know. It's not like it is a settled issue (like racism). In some countries, physicians can get sued if under their watch a patient commits suicide, but they can get sued if they don't help to euthanize someone who suffers to much under their care. In the end, the issue of suicide brings up a lot of questions regarding free will and agency, mental health and illness. I like it if you engage with a subject, or don't, but please please please don't moralize it away!

I find the word problematic to be problematic. Jokes aside, suicides are generally not committed to reach some possible better afterlife, while the ending of this game is, and the afterlife is palpable real and unquestionably exists, while cloudbank is completely empty and devoid of people. Paralells simply dont exist.

I really agree with this. I really enjoyed the analysis, but the use of "problematic" is, well, a problem. It almost seems like it's being used as a buzzword. Why is it a problem? There are many arguments to make, and those arguments inform the scene and the narrative. Red's scene IS framed as suicide, very intentionally, and it IS important. While we know that, obviously, she's not quite dying in the same sense as we would normally think of it, there's an incredible finality in her decision. She might not be choosing to end her life entirely, but she is choosing to end her existence in Cloudbank. There's a lot to say about this, both positive and negative, and it seems like it was glossed over entirely because suicide is "problematic", whatever the hell that means. And wrt the comments about an uncomfortable hope in an afterlife, I don't think that's quite right. As an atheist, I obviously believe that there is no afterlife. However, many people are religious, and many of those people genuinely believe that there is an afterlife. No uncertainty. From that perspective, Red's decision is much less simple to distinguish from suicide.

If you genuinely thought she killed herself just to be with him, you really paid zero attention to the story

Its blatantly obvious that the world in transistor is digital, not real, and we also know that Red ends up in the transistor, whatever that may be. Threfore I can hardly call whats in the game suicide.

Are you asking why encouraging people who are struggling to commit suicide is a bad thing? There are guidelines for media reporting or portraying suicide as to cause as little damage as possible. No it's not to prevent it from being "edgy", it's to protect vulnerable people. That's way more important than being edgy.

+arowace Who are you replying to?

I need no channel youtube! The original comment. I don't really have much to say if you didn't see it as a suicide since it really doesn't change how a lot of other people see it. But you're entitled to your opinion.

+arowace For some reason youtube thought you were replying to me. As four your point, I frankly dont care how it might affect others. Slap a trrigger warning on it, be done with it. Parents will protect their children, adults have a right to off themselves if they want to.