Who is the guide?
Manson has confirmed that the Guide is the Minotaur. There are many clues to his identity littered through out the book, including a trail of clues (perhaps involving trefoils or references to Cerberus), and the “Easter Egg” described below.
Title Page:
The Key-Stone: The key points us to the the key-shaped trap (see the map of The Trap rooms). The fact that the key is carved into a stone is perhaps a visual word riddle for “keystone” indicating that what we find in the trap is important.
The Mason Objects: The spike, compass, hammer and square are often placed together in the symbolism of the Masons, usually these items are placed flanking the Bible. Here the scroll is in the location usually occupied by the Bible, suggesting that what is on the scroll is important.
In many masonic images the Bible is flanked or overlaid by the compass and square. The hammer and spike are also common elements (in the left and center images).
Hidden Letters: The letters in the maze in the map spell out “IN SLY” this uses all the obvious letters in the map except for a “C” (it could also be an “n” or a “u”) which is off to the right separate from the others. The objects surrounding the parchment perhaps signify letters and spell out “devil” or “evil.” So the phrase is “Devil In Sly” or “Evil In Sly.” Alternately the objects leaning against the keystone could spell out “I AM” so the whole phrase reads “I am in sly.” Or the “C” could be taken as “see” so it reads “See In Sly.”
Possible phrasings:
IN SLY
devIL IN SLY
evIL IN SLY
I AM IN SLY
(see) IN SLY
Room 43:
- Images copyright 1985 by Christopher Manson
Oh my goodness. Google “The House of Asterion.” I mean, come on.
I’m sorry if this is all old news to everyone else. I’m just really excited about this. Time to call it a night!
I had just read the Wikipedia entry last night but you can easily find the full text online. It’s short — I just read it. The parallels with Maze are pretty striking, I think. There’s even a pool filled with sand!
Hi,
I’m new here, so I can’t be sure that this idea is not something that’s been posted before. But finding this site has started me looking at the book seriously again and I just noticed something tonight that I’m kind of excited about so I thought I’d post it here and see what you all think.
I started wondering what kind of bird that could be that keeps popping up, and I was also thinking about the guide and wondering if there was any support for the guide being the minotaur other than the obvious ones that have already been pointed out many times.
So… what if the white bird is a mynah bird? Search on Bali mynah bird and it is not too far off in how it looks — a white bird with a crest. Then in 21 you get mynah + torque = minotaur.
That’s maybe kind of far-fetched so I started to look for others and found a few more:
In 27, you have “miner” (one of the workers mentioned) — and if you hurry up to catch them as the guide suggests, you get room 9 and “tore” for the large tear in the painting. Miner + tore = minotaur.
I think there are some places where “minor” could come in as referring to a minor key but I haven’t worked it out yet. Maybe you all have some ideas?
What about in 29 where he tears up the note? My + note + tore = minotaur?
But the one that really got me excited about this — what if the red herring above the door on the cover is ITSELF a red herring — a kind of meta red herring? What if we’re supposed to think it’s a red herring but it’s really a minnow? Google it, they look the same.
Then you have a… wait for it… a MINNOW + DOOR = MINOTAUR.
Well, maybe this is just stuff I’m stretching to make work because I became enamoured of the idea. Would love to get the input of all you smart people! Am I nuts?!
Here’s another one. In 25, you have “MAN.” And then the guide says “Perhaps in another room” after the guests become disconcerted at the apparent lack of clues. So you take door 34 and find a “‘NO’ DOOR.”
Man + “no” door = minotaur?
Room 13: Minute + hour
Bali mynah is the first plausible match I’ve seen for any of the birds, but I think it matches the bird in 44, not the one in 21.
I think I can safely say no one has suggested these minotaur references before. I like the idea! I’m not sold on them, but it’s a good thought, and if it applies in enough rooms, who knows.
Looks more like a carp than a minnow – but I’m crazy enough to think that maybe Manson thought of minnow door, and then drew a carp to make it slightly off – because it was a false guide lead. Because I think he was doing that with the umbrella at the gate.
And this is my favorite:
What about in 29 where he tears up the note? My + note + tore = minotaur?
I don’t think it is intentional at this point, but it is clever.
Or a herring…could be a herring too…not a carp…lol.
Thanks vewatkin!
lol, yup, sometimes a red herring is just a red herring
What if in 34 it’s not the door but the tear in the sign? MAN NO TEAR…ok, that’s pretty far off. You could say TORE…but the MAN part is still a bit too far off.
TOUR can mean a turn, a trip around something–MYNAH TOUR could be plausible in 44.
Mynah tour is good!
The stuff in 6 — another “note tore” reference? With the “eye” being “I”? But then the M. Where’s the M. Maybe in 40 since they are connected by those similar signs?
OK I really have to call it a night. Thank you for exploring this with me! I’m going to keep looking for more…
Room 9 gives us MINE and TORE, but I don’t know about an O. It does give us an A with the angel and apple, which isn’t farfetched for the sound the O in “minotaur” is actually pronounced as…but I still have to wonder why an A instead of an O if this were something.
Welcome Aria (Stark?) I like your work! I’m sure there is tons of wordplay in the text.
vewatkin, I’m still thinking it’s maybe the connection between rooms 9 and 27 that’s important for that one — in 9 you have all the conspicuous references to workmen (miners), with the lantern and the door that looks like the entrance to the mine, and the comment about catching them, and then you go to 9 where you have “tore” or “torn.”
sp, thanks! I have enjoyed this site so much and have found all the comments here so useful and thought-provoking. (Aria is not a reference to Arya although I do love me some GoT.)
Aria – it is of course a reference to the Vegas hotel and casino. ;)
Room 14 – Miniature
OK – here is a detail, which no one has mentioned, and which could contain code, and could be related – Some one eyed pictures show right eye, and some left. Just a guess.
I don’t think guessing is going to help us here. White Raven is doing us a favour by telling us this important clue, making random pot shots hoping one of them sticks might make him change his mind about being liberal with hints. I’ve been compiling “same observations” laid out among a lot of rooms and have come up with a few decent ones, but I am still not willing to post about it until there is irrefutable evidence that my points are not just coincidental. Pretty please with sugar on top don’t post guesses unless you are convinced.
SP,
Good thought… how about this, I will ignore any suggestion of the path unless it contains the location of the observation in a number of inter-connected rooms. This way a person must think it through and list examples.
Manson hasn’t ruled out that there may be more puzzles out there than the Riddle of the Guide, who knows what people may uncover.
Sound good?
Deal!
Just to give a teaser, one of my theories involves faces and to a broader degree pictures in general, that are above doors instead of numbers (one way doors) or in the case of 4 and 43, both, examples of such being: 4, 6, 8, 10, 17, 23, 25, 33, 43. There are a lot of smiling faces, which might relate to ‘I tried to hide my smile’ in 35. Even if this is not Guide related there’s definitely a theme going on with faces over doors from rooms you just came from. There are two in 6 (not faces, but pics over doors you just game from), presumably from 8, 17, or 32. The face over the unmarked door is sad, I think the only sad looking face of all of them (the one in 17 looks like it’s screaming rather than unhappy). I’ll share other thoughts when I have time to flesh them out more… Maybe someone will read this and find something I missed or haven’t discovered yet.
Regarding “rain umbrella” – I went looking for improvements since he does not just give us rain but “it could rain where they were going” I did find something but not what I expected. Write up later. But I for the bull man part – I am just going to go with an umbrella = a bull man plus leftovers. It’s not supposed to add up to anything because like other minotaur clues it is false. He used an object and set it up as a fake guide because the near miss would be tantalizing and sent people on goose chases.
Speaking of the guide WR. From your silence should I infer that you,had a different path to the guide or that some detail is missing or something else? Msg.privately if needed. Thanks.
The path is based on an single observation repeated in several rooms, so far no one has mentioned this observation and thus the path remains hidden. Because of the difficulty of this puzzle, when someone mentions this observation I will confirm it and the hunt can begin.
OK – more than one way to fry that “chicken” I guess. As far as unmentioned observation I have only one in my inventory at the moment that I was planning on getting around too. Would not have guessed guide related but who knows – Various capstones have faces on them – I doubt it is random.
New for the end of my “guide” section on my page.
The umbrella.
The umbrella waits outside the gate in the prologue just like the guide and in 10 the guide signals his approval and the umbrella points at the correct exit. The fact that we might take it with us is also “guide-like”. It’s a false guide symbol – partly picked, I believe, because it is one letter short of containing “bull man” and the Minotaur is the major false guide of Maze. In 10 it forms part of a puzzle – we should take it with us to walk under the door with fresh paint. But I believe there is more. Where are they going? This hint is given in 10 and in 23. In 23, the open door leads to 28 and I think here and elsewhere this signals where the guests went. They went under the picture with the clouds – not to 8 and not outside to 19 where we tend to think. Now in 28 – the door to the “outside” is different in detail than the mirror room 12. There is rain at the top that we don’t see in 12. Also “outside” is give twice in the text –so outside would seem to be where they are going. Also this woks in room 10 since when they go to 41 they are in sight of 1 and outside. But this false door to the outside just goes to 43. A clue that we should take the real door in 12 to 21 might come from “it would have been a relief to get outside”. Also mentioned here are leaves blowing in the wind – which I’ll come back to. So outside to 21 we go. There are two trees here, presumably the ones with the leaves we saw blowing. The also might be mentioned in 44 so they might be important in some way. In 21 – I think we understand a lot of what is there. 88 piano keys for one thing. Maybe some vague Tao stuff. A black and white pair of snakes. Black and white bushes. Harmony. Balance. But we’ve not done much with that white bird. Notice that its eye is right in the middle of the door to 31 – and given the puzzle outlined above, this hints at this door being one eye. The two dark bushes and the wrench are under two other doors that make a nice two eye set. This should hint at something guide related. “We know what the name is” hints at this as well. Why is there only one white bird here when everything else white here is paired with black? Where is the black bird? Now look at the legs on that white bird – and now look at those two trees. Chilling, no? lol. But – it would explain why we might want an umbrella in this room…
Oh – and the gate to 24 is between those “trees”….
OK let’s start with an inventory of the less helpful “looks” then get to the helpful ones. In 9 they look at the guide and leave with doubtful looks. If this helps, I don’t get it. Best guess is it might be about the hole in the floor (see below) and it does lead to the statue with glowing eyes and that room, 27, sits in the “pupil” of the loop. But moving on…
In 1, they looked carefully. In 20 they have backward looks maybe because if they came here from 1 they are going backwards on the path. Nice, but no guide help.
In 3 they miss the real signs while looking through the obvious. All I notice here is that there are two things with 1 eye here. Not much here.
39 “looks like a combination…” and has a pull-toy. Not a lot of help.
44 has a bird. Not a lot of help.
21 has a bird and they “know the name”. Not a lot of help.
29 says “look, look” this is important. This I think helps us see “look” as important.
37 says we have to look at this from all sides, and the guide says at last they were learning. And this might help us to use the “look down on the room” trick again.
31 has a bit about the doors looking strangely, this can be a clue that doors can “look”.
43 has a sly look, which might be a wrong turn signal.
Let’s go to 6. Before we begin with the eyes, I note I have a number of Raven things here. “are visitin” is an anagram of “It is I raven”. And once we know the identity of the guide is Raven (mostly from elsewhere) and that we should be looking for identity clues here (from the note) we can notice some things. That hole way up above becomes the hole in the top of the Teepee. In a main story of Raven he steals the sun from the “old man” (yes I’ve noted there is an old man in room 7), and flies out the hole in the top with it. The sun and the small hole up there make us think of this story (once we know we are dealing with Raven). Raven also steals water for the world and flies it out a smoke hole (that ties in with the rain coming down). But in the process of that theft they light fire under him and he gets “smoked”. That is why Raven is the color he is today. Before that he was a “White Raven”.
The stuff about deceptions fits with Raven the trickster.
Back to eyes and looks: We have the eye, the bit about the way things look and then an instruction to “keep judging things by the way they look”. The eye marks a doorway, but which. The one with the bird – 32. Go to 32 and look at the doorway to 6. This is the off-center door with the room that talks about broken symmetry. What is it? I giant eye with a pupil looking to door 28 and the bird.
“In a very real way we are all of us animals, at least in part”, that is a rather non-random phrasing. In 43 part means to look at parts of words. Is there an animal lurking in that non-random text? Yes “in a very” or smaller “n a ver” = “Raven”.
The bird is “perched above the door” as in the poem the Raven “perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door, perched and sat and nothing more”. Note that “Pallas” can also be found in the bird rooms in 44.
“Another one!” could also be a clue to the fact that the guide is a bird too. The text after that point is also a clue if it is parsed correctly. “People can be so arrogant” is an aside related to “Their attitude was really starting to annoy me”, and they are so arrogant that in the next clause they think he is talking about people. He is not. With the aside removed we have “I have come to think of all of the inhabitants of this House as members of my little kingdom. In a very real way, we are all of us animals, at least in part.” He is talking about himself and the other animals. He can come in humans form or bird form.
So we follow that giant pupil to 28. That hole in the floor can be another eye if you look at it from above. They didn’t like the “look” of the hole” Too dark down there! “They looked at me again”. This starts clueing us that looking at the single eye is the same as looking at the guide. Where to from here? 43 is a wrong turn to the guy with “sly looks”. That man eating is the only one with pupils. Do we go to his wall 23 or where he looks 45? Let’s guess 45.
We have the “looked and looked” and we have the single eye and it could spell “eye-z”. 23 or 19? I don’t think it matters. Let’s go to 23. “looking out the windows” “look at those two trees”. “looking over my shoulder”. Off to 19.
Here she “looks him in the eye” right after the bit about squinting in the sun. That sun looks like 1 eye. (There is another “part” here but the theory on this one is too rough). Now – if I did not know better I’d think the guide was the sun here…but. We hear signing from elsewhere outside. So off to 36. . Yes – I’m following sound here, but it might be justified when we land in 36 and we and the guide are affected by the sound as well as the spectacle.
The musician is overplaying his “part”. That I think helps explain two very non-random words – “…in plangent brio”. It is not exact but it gives a clear idea. “In plant embryo”. An excess of “in” words may help with this “introspective”, “interrupt, “involved” (thanks sp). And in the story of Raven he turns himself in to a hemlock needle so that the old man’s daughter drinks him in a cup of water. Then she becomes pregnant and gives birth the Raven in human form.
The musician looks to the numbers. WR says 16 so let’s go there. Here I think the 3 parts of the room give us “Maze guide Raven”.
Now let’s look at the bit about the stories full of lies and exaggerations that his old neighbor’s descendants are still telling about him. This is native American Raven. Note that when Raven appears as an animal guide, traditionally, his purpose is to help unlock the deeply hidden. What about the room reminded him of Native Americans and their stories of Raven flying out of smoke holes? Well, the hole in the floor could look like a smoke hole?
Here we have another “part” and another bird clue. With few regrets on my part = “egret”.
The room pupil – the trap door – looks at 7, and so we go. We cross a crown and a bear skin on the way “bear crown”. We also have the one-eyed figure bearing crown, and poor likeness, and a monk with a bare crown. We have the “old man” from native American myth and boy did we hit an “eyes” jackpot. All the eyes look at the little pull toy bird. It looks at the note on the door.
And a near-by looking glass helps bring to mind the Alice stories. There is a riddle there, “Why is a Raven like a writing desk?” One of many standard answers is “The notes for which they are noted are not noted for being musical notes”. Thus we have a reason for that non-musical “note” to exist – on the door to 36 where real notes are heard. It is a final clue on the path to more than just a bird – but specifically a Raven.
OK – that is my current best “Raven” case – from this trail. Then there is the whole map being two eyes looking at one eye. And Poe’s Raven poem spelled out around the 1 eye. The shadow in 35 we did involve – but need to involve. The shadow in 37 of a dream catcher is just minor extra bit. That’s it I think.
Ah – the sun eye in 19 “looks” to another part of the grounds where we hear the music from 36.
Also I forgot a “part” in 36 – it gives us “turn/tern”. The “part” in 19 I think clues us to something about 35 but I’d need to know what I’m missing in 35 to be sure. Call that one a work in progress.
Plus – when they leave the pictures look at an empty room, because they took the bird with them, because the guide is a bird.
The sun in room 1 helps us know that the sun can “look”. The light from the enterance door light looks carefully at the bronze doors.
I don’t know what the singing in 19 is about. There’s nothing in 36 to suggest the players are singing, nor any singing anywhere else. Because 36 is essentially outdoors, and the action in 19 takes place outdoors, it’s intuitive to relate them–I did ever since I was kid. But it doesn’t really seem to connect.
Well – from 19 and the “sun eye” you have to go somewhere outside with singing. The alternative is 21 with the bird. You can wander around there for awhile but it does not seem to go anywhere much. You could get to 31 and 44 and you do pick up more birds and looks, but that seems the end of it.
But if we have to have actual singing in 36 we can suppose that when the guide is “affected” by the music he starts to sing for a bit. Then stops and answers stiffly. And we can’t make out the words to bird song.
Well, it’s also certainly possible that it just doesn’t connect to another room, and is part of a clue for this room; but it does cry out to be connected, sort of like the music heard in Room 7. And, 36 even makes a point of the group having heard the music before, so it sure is tempting to draw that connection.
It may, though, be some indication of what this area is. Marble benches, flowers, singing…but it even specifies that the singing is coming from another part of the grounds, so it doesn’t seem like it’s going to tie in like that.
Orrrrrrrr they can’t make out the words because it’s “all Greek to them.” Yeah, yeah, cornbally, but for whatever reason that’s the idiomatic role that Greek plays in American figure of speech: incomprehensible words.
Nah, it’s not that.
Oh – and I just remembered my room solution for room 9. THAT is what I think the “looks” in 9 are about. My solution there is “Look at Jack of Spades” – the only one-eyed black card in the deck.
Hi Dave,
I am going to revisit your Raven theory now that I have been traversing MAZE so much more and I am seeing more bird references. I’m going to post some unfinished theories I have on the trap Room #24 and I’ll post some unfinished theories in Room #14 as they are both “for the birds” lol.
Based on Mr. Manson’s recent comments, we are not supposed to find a way out of the Trap. However, I still think they is very good evidence for the identity of the guide as Raven, and for looking him in the eye, which is part of Native American Raven lore. I also still see good evidence that he measures one. This is even spelled out on the map, I think. The three rooms connecting the single Raven eye to the pair of human eyes on the map spell out “I measure one” which is just one clue. So how does Raven measure one? How about this? Raven’s Progressive Matrices. – A long established and commonly used culturally unbiased intelligence assessment. If that is the reference, then rather than being about escape from the Trap, the “measurement” stuff is just another clue for “Raven”.
One thing we for some reason haven’t seemed to do with this information is look at our five star rooms for leftover objects. (However confident you are in the star system, we know that Guide clues don’t fit into WR’s room solutions, so when a room gets his five-star approval, if there are any Guide clues there they won’t be mentioned in WR’s endorsed solutions.) I would suggest the following, at least:
Room 4: the foolish face/sun, the stars
Room 6: everything in the room, essentially; special attention to the eye sign
…
Well, that list ended pretty quickly.
Additionally, it seems like a fair guess that Room 35 has some involvement in this, though who knows how or with what.
Room 32 has one solution with four stars; given the number of additional elements in the room, and there being only one puzzle point remaining, it seems likely that something in that room is part of the riddle of the guide.
Room 42 has four stars, and one of its solutions is incomplete. The elephant foot, umbrellas, coat rack, coat, and hat have not yet figured into an accepted solution.
Hi vewatkin & sp:
I did think that Atlas figured in the Publisher’s “Riddle of the Path” which is why I mentioned Atlas at all-but-with more study, I see the narrative states “The game usually goes as I planned, despite the intentions of my visitors”…this can be taken to mean “The game doesn’t go “AS YOU LIKE IT”, which is the Shakespeare play that I drew the question/answer to the Riddle of the Path as “All the World’s a stage”, as we are told the answer is more than just “World”. Also as long as I’m on the subject, in Room 3 the Sphinx picture that may relate to the “Riddle of the Sphinx” as was mentioned by an abyssian, clued me to the mention of the “Seven Ages of Man” that is akin to “The Riddle of the Sphinx” and appears in the “As You Like It” play.
Guide: And yes, Oops! the William Wilson Doppelganger is the good guy and the William Wilson/Poe student is the bad guy. I also think the umbrella that is also called a bumpershoot is a clue to the Wilson’s: if we go a step further and call the umbrella/bumpershoot a “parasol” we get: para = pair/2 and sol = sun/son—that would be 2 sons = the 2 Wilsons. I am really leaning for “their” headmaster “Reverend Doctor Barnsby” as the Guide and MAZE as the “Rev. Dr. Barnsby’s Manor House School”.
Well, I don’t think the sport is ruined much by noting the following:
1) White Raven has confirmed the identity of the guide with Christopher Manson.
2) White Raven has stated that the identity of the guide is mentioned on this page; it is not clear whether he means the exact page on which he made the remark, or this website in general.
3) The guide’s identity is revealed through a series of clues in a series of rooms. These clues are combined to indicate the identity of the guide in a fairly direct way, although they are not simply letters that spell his name. At least part of the identity is revealed through a trail of rooms.
I can’t find White Ravens list, and that he exact wording of his comment. Can anyone re-post it?
Ah – found some relevent posts. Here is what White Raven has given as significant clues:
The challenge is not in guessing the correct answer or having some debatable evidence for an answer. The prize of the VERY difficult multi-room previous unnoticed insanity puzzle is irrefutable proof.
Like I said the correct answer is on this page somewhere, no one is going to be shocked by the answer, it’s not like it’s Curious George or anything.
Happy hunting!
White Raven
Abyssians,
To reiterate, clarify & expand:
The Riddle of the Guide is a multi-location puzzle which does not indicate the nature of the Guide until you reach the solution. It is more like the Riddle of the Path except you don’t pick up letters – you follow clues (which have nothing to do with the identity of the Guide). Finally, at the end of the clues, BLAM, you know the identity of the Guide.
So what are you searching for? Parts of MAZE not accounted for. This is MUCH easier to do once you have solved most of the rooms. I would suggest continuing to focus on the rooms and come back to this once MAZE is 75% solved.
White Raven
Compiled List: (by Hello Gregor)
The Minotaur
Minos
Daedelus
Hades
Atlas
Zeus
Chronos/Cronos
Cerebus
Charon
Prometheus
Orpheus
Rheia
Persephone
Theseus
Sisyphus
Aeneas
Virgil
Christopher Manson/the author
Satan
Jesus
God
St. Christopher
Umbrella
Spatula
Elvis
C.S. Lewis
Westin
Philip Pullman
The top-hatted man
The ballerina
Edger Allen Poe
The Wooden Pull Toy
The Missing Statue
The demon who put up a wooden replica of himself so he wouldn’t be missed.
Dr. Who
Beelzebibble’s Evil Confused Clone
A Real Estate Agent
One further Guide suggestion: In Room 26, the “Guide” picks up the bell and starts ringing it”. This may indicate that the Guide is Rev. Dr. Barnsby as it is his church bell that is being heard in his school.
Here is my solution to Who is the Guide?, Room 45, Room 35, The correct question and answer to the Riddle of the Path, and What is the Maze?
The answers I developed actually fit the “Official Hints” offered by the Publisher and “Helpful Observations” offered by White Raven therefore I feel they are worth presenting.
Room 45 Question: What unholy evil lives in William Wilson?
The answer can be found in Room 35: William Wilson’s doppelganger.
The Guide is: Edgar Allan Poe, William Wilson, and William Wilson (see explanation below).
Answer to The Riddle of The Path: I believe Room 26 was completely misinterpreted as Atlas…the room actually says reading from top down, “All the world’s a stage. You see the two WORLD, and S for plural, A is the article(part of speech) and of course the stage is next giving us Shakespeare’s famous monologue from “As You Like It” that ends with “and all the men and women merely players.”
The MAZE is: Reverend Doctor John Barnsby’s Manor House School.
Room 45: The two names William Shakespeare and Woodrow Wilson combine to form the name William Wilson who is the orphaned schoolboy that is attending Rev. Dr. Barnsby’s Manor House School. In the Poe story (title is William Wilson), William Wilson’s “doppelganger” appears and also attends the school. The story is thought to be semi-autobiographical of Poe’s actual years spent at the school…therefore…Poe as the “third person” narrator if you will, and the boy William Wilson and his doppelganger William Wilson (who uses the same name in the story-in other words we have two boys attending the school with the same name and looks, with one being the doppelganger. Speaking of “looks”, in reverse we have skool “school”. The word look/s” is seen often in various forms in the narratives of MAZE.
Various Condensed Points of Solutions From the Hints & Observations:
1. I’ll tip my hat to the “two” of you alluding to both Wilson’s or maybe to you and your doppelganger.
2. You can get into these “two” shoes if you don’t go anywhere and also, You must choose one element of this room to ignore-that element would be the shoes. If you are not going anywhere you don’t need shoes therefore the horseshoe and the untied shoe are irrelevant (and don’t you know that “untied” shoe made me crazy as it can be anagrammed to “united”…a dead end clue.
4. Sentence is 7 words long/4 of the words are broken into two parts. They break down as follows: W and HAT = WHAT, HOLY NUN and HOLES made by the awl = UNHOLY, EYE and turned N = IN, WILL breaks two times into = WILLIAM WILSON. (very tricky).
5. No “two” ways you can read this sign, is actually correct as there are three ways to read this sign, LIVE/S, EVIL/S, ELVIS.
6. Two pictures demonstrate their own kind of symmetry refers to the picture of the EYE and the picture of the Z such as you would see on an Eye Chart.
NOTE: The Rev Dr.’s name “Barnsby” is slightly altered by Poe for his story with this spelling. Poe’s actual Reverend and Schoolmaster is spelled Bransby. We were told this would take some research and it does. Clues that MAZE is a school appear throughout the pages/rooms starting with ABCD in room one and onto the “children” in the narratives, and the bell ringing constantly. The PROLOGUE is truly a metaphor for the real school building and grounds that Poe describes: the bells ringing every hour, the pitchfork pointed top of the surrounding fence and the main gates and large doors, the long high wall surrounding the property, the gloomy playground that was completely empty, the large gnarly trees the winding floors of rooms and Poe/William Wilson not being able to find his way around in the building as also mentioned in the PROLOGUE “Even I get lost”.
NOTE about the BELL: The bell rings from the Rev. Dr. Bransby’s church next to his school and that is the bell that is heard every hour in the school and of course is ringing throughout MAZE.
Room 35. The Doppelganger: The figure in the center of the room is a traffic COP (signal, direction, warning, one way, go, right, left, center). The body post and extended arm form an “L”. The hook is a hanger for the light and the suit is hanging on a “HANGER”.
COP L HANGER gives us “DOPPELGANGER” that would be William Wilson’s alter ego or evil twin. Oh, those bowling pins as in strikes and “splits” as in split personality.
After you read the short story William Wilson, you will see all this more clearly as there is too much going on here to post.
It’s good to see people going at the Riddle of the Maze without going straight to the confirmed solution and answer–it would be amazing if someone were to solve it without the clues, though I guess the pooch is screwed here in that regard.
Manson is clearly a Poe fan, and although your theory does not seem correct, it was an interesting thought. Though, Wilson’s doppelganger was not an unholy evil; the clear suggestion of the story was that Wilson himself was despicable, and his double served to disrupt his debauchery and crimes.
it’s interesting how you think that atlas is the main contender!
Hi I was just thinking are we the guide? Because do we not lead them room to room. This is just a theory.
Well, that depends. Do you wanna be the guide?
Excellent play on words kind sir. But in all seriousness do you have anything to back me up with this theory beelz
I don’t know, a “YOU are the guide” answer is tempting but it would feel like a betrayal of the many textual hints that seem to be tugging in a more specific direction even if we don’t agree on what that is. There are some awfully particular hints like “When you think of the many deceptions”, etc.
But you do have a point about the reader leading the visitors from room to room! That’s fun and I never thought of it that way. Still, it’s probably not what Manson was going for.
The Maze session produced two suggestions for the identity of the guide and the solution to the puzzle. “J.R.R. Tolkien and Middle Earth”. (Later retracted), and then “Buckminster Fuller and Spaceship Earth”. I don’t agree with either, but I thought I’d pass them along.
Now that Marianne is a participant here, I can add that the above suggestions were hers as well.
I believe that the guide could be any number of people, but my first idea for his/her identity was William Shakespeare.
In the center of the Maze (room 45) there’s a poster that says “I AM” and a hand shaking a spear. Yes, that may be a red herring or much too obvious. But many aspects of it fit.
-One of his parents was of low status (his father) and his mother was of higher status, as mentioned in the text
-He mentions having a crown more than once, and there is speculation that Shakespeare was actually Queen Elizabeth
-He is a poet (and obviously a genius)
-Shakespeare was eloquent with language, as the guide demonstrates in his placing of riddles and plays on words within the Maze
This is obviously a vague theory, but it’s one that I haven’t seen in a whole lot of places (I’m sure plenty of people have mentioned it).
Madzapan,
Shakespeare has been mentioned but never in so complete an argument – a great addition to the conversation.
Welcome to The Abyss!
White Raven
I think the Guide is Hermes, of Greek mythology.
Reasons:
Start with the Wikipedia page for Hermes. Then consider:
Prologue: “they didn’t see who I really was. They never noticed my crown, my pain, the fire in my eyes.”
“They think I am some poet who will lead them through the symbols and spaces of this Underworld. They think I will teach them lessons. They should call me Cerberus…. I am the lesson.”
Cerberus was the guardian to Hades, and Hermes was the conductor of souls to the afterlife.
Room 6: “If you think of all the deceptions practiced in my family, particularly on my father…”
Hermes’ father was Zeus.
Room 7: ““Weren’t you ever irresponsible?” I asked, thinking of my childhood and how wild I had been.”
Among other things, Hermes was “the trickster.” His first story was playing a trick on Apollo.
Room 16: “…a stone chamber which reminded me of my old neighbors. Of course, that was a long time ago now, but would you believe their descendants are still telling stories about me and my family to their children?”
Mythology is still taught today.
Room 21: “This,” I began, “is called…”
“We know what the name is,” they interrupted. “Why don’t you just tell us which way to go?”
“I wasn’t referring to the plants,” I said in a huff. I refused to say anything else, leaving them to find their own way to…”
He may have been referring to the herald’s staff, the Greek kerykeion or Latin caduceus which consisted of two snakes wrapped around a winged staff. This was hermes’s main symbol.
In fact, most of Hermes’s symbols are found in the maze. From Wikipedia: “His attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster and the tortoise, purse or pouch, winged sandals, winged cap, and his main symbol is the herald’s staff, the Greek kerykeion or Latin caduceus which consisted of two snakes wrapped around a winged staff.”
Also, in room 17 he gives the Greek name for the jars: Amphorae.
Room 25: “…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.”
Hermes’s mother is synonymous with Earth (lowborn). His father is Zeus, “king” of the gods.
Background: the thoughtful one’s quotes give us information that we need to go around the inner loop of rooms to “prove something”, and we find the Raven poem there, ending with the shadow in 35. Here is slightly more support:
The guide’s response to her in a couple of rooms lends extra support. “Yes, I’m sure you’re right” is in 9 and 35”. “Yes…you’re right” if we read that as “Take the ‘Yes door’ in 34 and then take the door on your right in the next room” then we have reinforcement of the Thoughtful one’s instructions to take this path (25 to 35) around the “inner loop”. There is only one other place in Maze that “yes” occurs and that is also related to room 34. In room 30 there is a “yes” right when the next mentions the “O” and “U” that spell “no” upside down. We could infer “Yes but no”.
The thoughtful one is an idiot who dies in the Trap. Good luck in Room 11, jerk.
Nope. She’s not called “thoughtful one” in 11.
Thoughtful is in 14, 9, 30, 35
We have to go around to prove something.
We need to include room 9 as we go around.
We need to take the door to 35 from 25 (not 34).
We need to stop in 35.
OK – so the guide is not the umbrella. Nor is “I rare bull man” a clue to his real identity. But it might be symbolic of the guide in another way. In 10 we use it to block the “rain” and in 8 in one puzzle it gives shade. The umbrella keeps yin and yang in balance.
The sun glares at the Guide in Room 1, the sun is hot in the prologue and the Guide carries the umbrella. Maybe it’s somebody who has a problem with the sun? What year did Gremlins come out?
I don’t know what you think Gentile. I read somewhere the other day about the obvious Poe clues. You simply said X number of clues in room #. Can you elaborate as I have found a lot of my own and would hope to piece them together.
Reinterpretation of riddle of guide using Tao stuff might run:
In dark beginning time I stole Sun. Guide to true path of harmony.
Another tidbit. Both the prologue and the back cover describe the guide as the architect of the Maze. But it was the guide in his “this world” form, Manson, that made the Maze. The guide in his “that world” form, Raven, created our world. Nice symmetry.
My newest attemp at a “Riddle of the guide” solution. The whole think is far too long to post but is at the bottom of my into page. A summary is here:
In room 45 the text has “whoever lived here was a careless person to leave so many things around. They were wrong”. One thing this does is clue us that every item in Maze is important, sometimes in more ways that one. But also given that the Riddle is “In what house will some live?” we should start thinking about who lived here, that is, who is the guide? For reinforcement we can pick up a couple of items and easily get “Who am I?” (W + shoe = who).
To find the answer we can follow a number of different trails of breadcrumbs from room to room. The trails go different places, but all lead to the same answer “Raven”. Let’s start with the trail to room 29, because that is where I picked up the trail of the “Riddle of the guide” and then back tracked it to here. I already had nearly all the Raven pieces, but that is where I figured out how to put them together. In 45 we have “They looked and looked” and “after one last look around”. Repeated things are almost always important in Maze. The looks have a function here, but only AFTER you know who the guide is..
Let’s follow “look, look” to room 29 where that is exactly what the blind man says. He also tells us that “here blindness is no disadvantage”, which is confusing in contest. But it is really the next link in the trail. We are supposed to follow it to another room. Obviously that room is 24, etc…this leads us to 23 to 44 to 1 to 19 to 21 and “We know the name”. We can also follow the “eye” here and the “live” (as instructed in room 11) and the 3 instances of “look” to room 6. In 6 “Look” is in the text twice and we have “notice”, which can mean “look”. We are then off to 35 and 32.
Regarding the riddle of the Maze “Do you think it is written on the wall for all to see?” this clues us that the 2nd half of the riddle is indeed written on the wall, in room 40. The text says “what Maze teaches can be learned in every room” and this is a bit of a clue to decode room 40, since we need the “word value” for a number of Maze rooms to decode it. As mentioned we get the 2nd half of the Riddle of the Maze there. But also we have links to 4 and then to 39, and links to 7 then 36 then 16. And finally we are clued in on the whole poem of the Raven recited around a loop of rooms, 33, 3, 9, 18, 13, 34, 35.
The poem the Raven is now confirmed by the following rough counts: 5 times in room 33, 4 times in room 3, 8 times in room 9, 6 times in room 18, once in room 13, once in a very apt way in 25, and 7 times in room 35. This makes it about the most confirmed puzzle anywhere in the Maze I believe. and again note. The thoughtful one told us exactly where to look, and rooms 16 and 7 told us pretty clearly what to look for. All the above is is confirmation or proof. And as the thoughtful one says in room 14 “We have to go around to prove something”.
Final Message
So the puzzle of the MAZE is “In what House will one live?”
The answer is “the World”. So “One will live in the world”.
The guides riddle says “I measure man by a soul truth”, and that is the truth of the MAZE riddle. A soul will live in the world.
This helps with the escape from the MAZE trap. We can look into Ravens eye and be transported back to our world and out of the TRAP.
But if we put the guide’s whole message together we have “I measure man by the truth that a soul will live in the world”. And I take this as a simple message that how we live our lives in this world is what is important.
Might have riddle of the guide:
Shakespeare poem
I measure man against a sole truth, that truth will strike man at last.
Keep believing in yourself.
What’s the source on that?
It’s the wall in 40. Ill type it tomorrow if I have time. Might be taking a half day so work might actually take up the day however.
that isn’t a shakespeare poem.
I suspect Shakespeare poem is one part of a clue and the quote is another. Don’t have the answer yet and won’t for awhile so I can’t tell. I could always have gotten a word or two wrong at this stage too. You can’t be sure you got the questiin right until you start answering it.