Room 25

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…a high room with the image of a crown on the wall for everyone to see now. Though one of my parents might be lowborn, the other was close to a king…. I’ve always felt at home here.

“Which door ought we take?” they wanted to know. I rather brusquely indicated the three doors.

“Any of these is fine for my purposes.”

They were disconcerted at the apparent lack of clues. “Perhaps in another room,” they said, leaving for…

 - Images and text copyright 1985 by Christopher Manson
used with permission. [Purchase MAZE from Amazon]

 

Room Type:  LOOP     Doors:  13  34  35  42

Solution Summary: [COLLECTION CURATED BY WHITE Raven. SEE COMMENTS FOR ADDITIONAL SOLUTION PROPOSALS.]

● The light–dark continuum of the pictures above the doors corresponds with the peaceful–terrified transformation – this orders the available doors from best to worst, 34 being the ideal door and 35 being the worst. [Independent Credit: vewatkin | White Raven] The light-dark continuum  is reinforced by the shading of the whole room. [Independent Credit: Wanderer | White Raven]

● The crown over the locked door indicates that this locked door is the best door – and therefore we have taken a wrong turn. [Independent Credit: Hello Gregor | White Raven]

● In the text is the word “felt” which is an anagram for “left.” In this room as well as the other two rooms in which the word “felt” occurs (11, 34) the correct door is the the left door. [Credit: Hidden Mystery / Beelzebibble]

25path

83 thoughts on “Room 25

  1. the crown is door 4? Evidence: 4 nails on the board fallen, and the expression over the door is fear-> fear is similar to four? Not to mention that the moods are placed in descending order as were the first four planks on the door

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    • The crowned door does lead to Room 4, as confirmed by the door in Room 4 leading to 25.

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    • Woohoo, I got a VincepointTM! Only 3,672 more until I’m out of the hole…

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  2. Another thought about this room. What’s going on with the “I’ve always felt at home here” comment? I think the stable-type doors and the crown tell us about the Minotaur’s dual nature: animal/human royalty.

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  3. I’ve always thought the “crown” was meant to be a pun referring both to the crown and to the bald guy’s noggin. But for what purpose? Here’s what I think. I think Screaming Guy’s gleaming baldness draws attention to his FOREhead, which is in turn supposed to make us think of the number four. Door 34 is the correct one, and the Guide’s comment about the “three doors” draws attention to their commonality, the digit three. So all we need to indicate door 34 is the four. Other 4 references in this room include the four nails sticking out of the fallen sign, and “for” repeated three times (three fours, 34) in the text.

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    • Or the weirdly giant three-part bow tie is the three.

      Also it’s a labrys, I’m 100% sure about that.

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    • If you agree with me about the “crown” pun also referring to Screaming Guy’s head, then “for everyone to see now” could relate back to Room 18 and “Someone’s lost his hat.”

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    • OH… it must be an anagram! I BE TWO: clearly a reference to the Minotaur’s dual nature.

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  4. I think the reference from the beginning when it said, “My crown, my pain, the fire in my eyes”, may have to do with dental work in some way. If a crown is left uncovered, it causes pain ( from left to right, the faces signify pain on a scale from 1 being nil, through 10 being unbearable ) . “The fire in my eyes” could be defined as noticeable anger in one’ eyes.

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  5. This is another reference to the guide being the Minotaur. He says one of his parents was low born, but another was close to a king. In the greek myths, one of the Minotaur’s parents was a bull (pretty low born), but another was the queen, which is very close to a king.

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    • Taken even more literally, lowborn could refer to the sound that cows make- that the Guide’s father lowed when he was born.

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    • I’ve found it to be dual-sided: a bull is lowborn and a Queen is quite literally very close to the king; and yet the bull was a given by the gods and the Queen was a mere mortal.

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    • Although, this voting thing might work better if WR gives us a narrowed-down list to choose from, assuming he’s down with the idea…

      BTW WR, Room 34 can be moved up to the 5-star section on the “by completion” page.

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    • Hmm, I’m not sure voting is really going to have much impact on my choices but who knows?

      If you all want to keep voting, can you move the discussion to the welcome page? Thanks!

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    • *White Raven moved the voting to the front page, but I can’t delete the comment on the top. Am I still a guest?

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    • Nick H.,

      You are a full fledged Abyssian but you can only delete comments for a few minutes after you write them because all the dependent comments would be deleted as well. After a few minutes comments are engraved on the internet by digital gnomes for posterity.

      You are right that I am just choosing the hints but it seems like people want a chance to sway my opinion, and I am open to being swayed. :)

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  6. It looks like the board on the floor was covering up the crown. Maybe there’s a number on the other side of the board.

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    • Vasilii,

      Yes, it’s an interesting question. Is the backside of the sign meaningful? Are we meant to try to figure it out? The one thing we do know is that any door without a number is impassible.

      You have been approved. You may now post freely.

      Welcome to The Abyss!

      White Raven

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  7. Another thought: The text mentions “high” and “low” in the first two sentences, then says the “other” was close to a king . As we know, the crown is ideal – but the other – not the high number or low number – is close, i.e. the next best.

    Well, it sounded better before I typed it….

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  8. While most of these ideas have been brought up previously, I think taken all together they form a pretty convincing room number solution…

    1. There are 7 pictures above the doors. Whether seen as 3 “light” and 4 “dark”, or vice versa, the only door that 7 could reference would be 34.

    2. By the same token, the crown door – already established as the best choice (and the guide further confirms this by saying the other 3 doors are equally “fine” choices) – is the only door with 7 wood slats. The preferred door has 7 wood slats – the next best door is 3+4=7.

    3. There are numerous 3/4 clues as cited by vewatkin… 3 of 4 doors are closed, 3 of 4 signs are still hanging, 3 of 4 doors have 6 slats. Also, 3 of 4 nail holes are showing above 3 of 4 doors.

    Of course the counter argument for point 3 would be that those also could be taken as 1 and 3, and clue 13. But I think with the 7s that are being clued in points 1 and 2, it all holds up pretty well.

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