Comments for into the abyss . net

Comment on Room 22 by vewatkin

vewatkin — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 16:21:47 +0000

I suspect the whole room is just indicating “red herring.” The pictures give you herring, and the thrater curtains, pitchfork, and “stop sign” are red things.

Problematically, we have an octagon, but hardly a stop sign; theater curtains are traditionally red, but for aome reason the text talks about a “theatrical backdrop,” a completely different thing that has nothing to do with the color red; and while a devil’s pitchfork is red, Neptune’s trident (for example) is not, which hardly gives us a clear example of a red thing.

Given that we know we have herring, and that can really only make sense as part of “red herring,” I’m inclined to believe that “red” is here. But the indicators are not strong.

Comment on Room 22 by Cheetah

Cheetah — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 19:56:21 +0000

A thought: what are we even trying to solve here? This room leads us nowhere no matter what we do, and as confusing as the paths to these solutions are, I consider “herring” to be virtually certain to be part of the solution in this room and “stop” to be an intriguing idea but less supported. If there IS anything left to find in this room, I suspect it has something to do with pointing us to the adjacent rooms, relating to the identity of the Guide. Unless we’re supposed to have already been to those rooms and this is our final destination.

This is one reason why trying to figure out optimal routes through the Maze with intentions like reaching every room, or as many rooms as possible without repeats, interests me so much. The whole Guide thing is clearly an extremely difficult puzzle that may or may not have a definitive solution, but rooms 43 and 38 are central to it (and room 6 may be critical as well). That’s a lot of stuff going on in the Trap, and since any complete tour of Maze is going to have to end in the Trap, it makes me think there might be some super obfuscated route through Maze that gives us information about the nature of the Guide, the House, and the mysteries within in a specific order than makes everything make (more) sense.

But, this might just be the ravings of a madman who’s been thinking about Maze for well over a decade but only found this site in 2020 and started participating a year-ish ago.

Comment on Room 22 by Cheetah

Cheetah — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 19:48:43 +0000

So, let me try to articulate my problems with “H + OO” being an “H2O” rebus in the context of this room. One, there’s nothing indicating that there should be a rebus in this room. Rebuses are not used much in Maze, and the other three wall panels are pretty clearly not rebuses. And two, H2O, despite being a commonly used term for water, is still a chemical formula. Writing an objectively wrong chemical formula as a rebus for another chemical formula would be a very strange decision.

I’m not saying I don’t think there’s any possibility of this being Manson’s intention, but it strikes me as unlikely. And I still think it would be a poor choice for these reasons.

Comment on Room 22 by vewatkin

vewatkin — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:03:52 +0000

For what it’s worth, I’m playing bar trivia tonight, and we had a round of rebus puzzles. One puzzle was

strange strange
b b
gotten gotten
gotten gotten

The answer is “too strange to be forgotten.”

Comment on Room 22 by vewatkin

vewatkin — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:37:22 +0000

I don’t recall it ever being referred to as a rebus. I think when the substitutions you’re making are purely semantic, it wouldn’t typically be considered a rebus, but I can’t speak with a lot of confidence about that. The obfuscated presentation certainly doesn’t play the role of a rebus.

Comment on Room 22 by Cheetah

Cheetah — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:29:43 +0000

Is WOMANSJEWELRY (“Her ring”) considered a rebus?

Comment on Room 22 by vewatkin

vewatkin — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 18:04:49 +0000

(I actually don’t think it’s a good rebus, but that’s because of standards of rebus construction that have just become generally accepted. For instance, you can find countless rebus puzzles of the sort:

GET IT
GET IT
GET IT
GET IT

= four GET IT = forget it

I think that’s a problem grammatically, because GET IT should be pluralized when you’re stating that there are four of them.

In the same way, “H + OO” reads as “H, two Os,” not “H2O,” if you’re speaking grammatically.

Nevertheless, that’s the way these puzzles are commonly constructed, and it didn’t begin or end with Manson.)

Comment on Room 22 by vewatkin

vewatkin — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 17:56:41 +0000

What’s your issue with it as a rebus?

Comment on Room 22 by Cheetah

Cheetah — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 16:21:27 +0000

To clarify 2 things about what I’m saying: If H + OO is a rebus for H2O, I think it is an incredibly poor choice of a rebus that qualifies as a mistake. And I do not think H + OO is likely intended as a chemical formula at all. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think it’s that!

Comment on Room 22 by Cheetah

Cheetah — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 16:15:29 +0000

If H + OO is in fact meant to represent water, Manson made a bad mistake. Anyone with a basic science background would know what H2O means (2 H, 1 O) and would know that reversing it would completely change the meaning. Maybe Manson did not, in fact, have much science background, so this mistake could have happened. However, considering the great deal of research that seems to have gone into Maze (see: obscure Woodrow Wilson quotes), this strikes me as very unlikely that such an obvious mistake could have slipped through. Therefore, I am in great doubt that “H + OO” is intended to refer to water, precipitation, or anything of the sort.