Identity of the “Guide”

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:

Title-Page-IN-SLY-2
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.

Masonic-Images

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:

1-Sly-Face
2-Sly-Face

  - Images copyright 1985 by Christopher Manson

679 thoughts on “Identity of the “Guide”

  1. One thing i notice in the book is that the ruler forms a 7 and if you go to page seven there is a mirror seen on the left wall with bull horns on top implying you are the minotaur

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  2. @vewatkin I apologize for not being the smartest one in the room. I just wanted to feel the rush of the experience, as it reminded me when I was first introduced to the game of Chess from my father or when my mother read me a Winnie the Pooh book, before she went to Heaven. My perceived implication of your statement has hurt me, as if this could have been a broken heart. I don’t know if I should keep trying to have fun or maybe it’s finally time to rid myself of the MAZE’s pixie dust.

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  3. The Minotaur could also be a Psychopomp. Psychopomps are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply to provide safe passage (3 rites of safe passage perhaps? – III DIRECTIONS page) . Appearing frequently on funerary art, psychopomps have been depicted at different times and in different cultures as anthropomorphic entities, horses, BULLS, deer, dogs, whip-poor-wills, RAVENS, CROWS, owls, sparrows and CUCKOOS. When seen as birds, they are often seen in huge masses, waiting outside the home of the dying.

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  4. I know this is more of an addition rather than theory or speculation, but this is just something I’ve been thinking for awhile. The question of the specific appearance of the guide, once he was confirmed to be a Mintotaur reference, reminded me of Charles Le Brun’s “Treatise On Facial Expression,” specifically the depictions of man as evolved from the bull. The entire set of works is well worth the look, I think.

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  5. Hi! We just started down this long adventure yesterday, and were instantly hooked. My 11-year-old, E., already made the connection that Janus–as the god of gates, transitions, passages and doorways, along with beginnings and endings and other things–might be the Guide. [E. wants me to add that Janus (who is depicted as two-faced) is, at least in the Percy Jackson series, always trying to trick people into going the wrong way.]

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  6. I might be just be saying crazy stuff here and I would like an answer but I’m a little confused most clues may point to him being the minataur but in the myth the minotaur was killed in ancient times also him saying he prides himself on being architect is him pretty much saying he built it. It does say one of his parents was close to royalty and the minotaur was the son of a king but I think the guid could possibly be Daedalus the builder of the laberinth it says he gets lost occasionally. Gets lost in the maze which sort of makes sense since in myth Daedalus had trouble getting out when he first built it because it was so complex I’m not saying the guid is him but in my eyes it just makes more sense if their is anything I’m missing here can you please tell me thanks.

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  7. Regarding MAZECAST “What’s Mazin’ Tonight”

    Among the expected degree of lunacy (which is usually my favorite part) I found the discussion of the Guide riddle fairly lucid and I had a change of mind as a result. I thought this was a good reason to step from the shadows for a moment.

    Manson said that he did not expect this to be found, which led me to think of the IN SLY puzzle as a really difficult puzzle, “The Riddle of the Guide!” But I think Diane and Sara are right, it makes more sense to look at it as an Easter Egg. Which means, if this is true, I wasted everyone’s time turning it into a game. I really thought that solving it would be fun for everyone… silly me, I should have taken it to my grave.

    The difficulty I faced in putting Into The Abyss together was that at that time I knew no one else who was a MAZE fan with whom I could discuss the book. I did my best, but only now, after the fact, do I have the critical feedback I could have used before launching the site. In hindsight there is much I would have done differently.

    Thanks for a fun and helpful MAZECAST episode!

    White Raven

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    • “Fairly lucid” is probably the nicest thing anyone has said about any discussion we’ve had on MazeCast. So thank you for that, WR!

      I want to say some things:

      On MazeCast we have fun disagreeing with each other and with you and Abyss commenters and talking trash and stuff, but none of it should take away from what you have done. As Vincent and others have already said, you made a beautiful website that created a vibrant community practically out of thin air, allowing a bunch of us to find new friends and an intense sense of relief from finally being able to talk about MAZE with other people who understand how we feel about it. You provided a forum for hours of fun and exploration of a work that we love. Your game and points system was extremely effective in motivating people to examine each room closely, resulting in the discovery not only of solutions you had already found, but new ones — and having this body of solutions and discussion about MAZE available all in one place is invaluable, whatever any individual person might think of those individual solutions.

      To be clear on my own opinion, for what it’s worth, because I’m not always the best at expressing myself on the fly, I think the Guide path is there as described, with IN SLY on the title page leading to 43 and connecting to the Guide with its architect references; the three-ey trails are there connecting with the Cerberus reference and leading to the trap; and the bull-head is there, hidden in Room 43. To me, it’s all part of the clues leading to the identity of the guide, together with all the bull parts (bullseye, bullhorn, etc) scattered throughout the Maze, along with the text clues. With all of that taken together, you get a solid body of evidence pointing to the Minotaur. And maybe there’s more! Who knows. I do think Manson was less interested in making this an airtight puzzle and more interested in somehow getting the book and House to have different kinds of clues throughout about who the Guide is for his own amusement/satisfaction, whether or not anyone figured it out, a notion that, based on your comment above seems to be borne out by Manson’s statement about the puzzle.

      WR, I don’t think you should apologize for or regret any of the choices you made!

      Was this thing suitable for being made into a multi-part hunt? I don’t know. Maybe it didn’t work out quite as you intended, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun. I had fun, for my part! And when that bull was revealed I smacked my forehead, and thought OF COURSE, and that’s the reaction you want with the reveal of a puzzle you can’t get. I’m glad you didn’t keep it to yourself.

      I think part of the frustration that sometimes comes through on MazeCast results from the desire that most of us have to hear directly from Manson. That he’s not interested in talking directly to us is not your fault, and I think it’s fantastic that you’re continuing to run Ask Manson so we can have at least some contact with him. I’m confident you’re giving us the best possible information you can, given the constraints Manson has imposed.

      Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we’re not just all hanging out together in a virtual living room and that the people we’re talking about might actually watch the episodes. And just because we may be the loudest members of the Maze community does not mean we’re representative of how most of the Maze community thinks and feels. I sincerely hope we have not caused you pain and apologize if we have.

      After all this, maybe this is a faint hope, but White Raven, I would love for you to come talk to us and the community on an episode! You wouldn’t have to show your face. And I’m sure Alex could hook you up with voice-disguising software if you wanted.

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    • I had a blast with the guide hunt even when it wasn’t smooth sailing. Glad you stuck it out to the end so we have it.

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    • Aria,

      Being wrong doesn’t bother me much, I just try to do better, but I really do not like having inconvenienced others as a result of being wrong. It didn’t occur to me to look at it as an Easter Egg instead of as a puzzle. I suppose it is a fine line, but in retrospect “Easter Egg” sits much better with me.

      Thank you for your kind comments! I am thrilled with everything that has come from the site, especially Bequest and MAZECAST. My only disappointment is that I was unable to convince Manson to create a sequel, though I entirely understand that the amount of work involved would have been monumental.

      Thank you for the offer but I am happy behind the scenes, even more happy now that I am sliding further into the background. It is just the right time to move on.

      Thank you for your kindness,

      White Raven

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    • Thank you Mantis!

      This was clearly a case in which individual results may vary. :)

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  8. Abyssians,

    LoMoody, with some inspiration from Aria, and perhaps some help from Silent Speaker’s 3 options, solved the last bit of the guide puzzle. I am uploading an image to help everyone see the face of the Minotaur. This is the same image I sent to Manson way back when. Manson said that he placed clues that the guide was the Minotaur all over MAZE and that there are many more riddles than this, but he said this is part of the riddle, which shows the Minotaur’s face, was “basically correct.”

    You can look at it either way:

    Either the unfinished part of the face in 38 is the part of the sly face you should subtract/ignore.

    Or the finished part of the face in 38 is the part of the sly face to look at.

    Either way the result is an image of a bull’s head, with, yes, small horns. The modern image of the Minotaur is based off of the longhorn bull, the original Minotaur represented on ancient pottery and wall paintings had small horns (and sometimes four legs!). I’m not sure of the purpose of the men on either side.

    I’ll put the image up on this page in a minute.

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    • So there it is. Told you it would be anti-climatic. If you look at the whole puzzle it is pretty awesome, but perhaps at the moment it is a let down since the Guide isn’t Cerebrus or the Devil or Elvis but the Minotaur which most of you regulars suspected all along.

      I will be unavailable for a week or perhaps much longer but check back on September 13th for something incredibly not anti-climatic.

      Thank you all for your well wishes!

      White Raven

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    • I would certainly not say anti-climactic. We love what you do White Raven. You will never die.

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    • Anything but the Minotaur would have been a massive disappointment. Hooray LoMoody! And a million thanks to WR.

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    • Thanks! Feels like you handed it to me ready made. I expected the hint to be about the guide and the guide to be the minotaur but I am relieved anyhow. Elvis would have sucked.

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  9. This is going to be the most anti-climatic ending to a puzzle hunt in history. All the interesting parts of the puzzle have been found the only thing left is the last bit. It will be like hearing a punchline weeks after having heard the joke.

    So to recap:

    There is a trail that leads to the trap. The trap is shaped like a key. There is a key on the key-stone on the title page. Masonic imagery suggests the map is in the place where the bible usually is. The map contains (at the very least) the words “IN SLY.”

    HINT 1: The final bit you are missing is not grand or complicated, it is simple but very well hidden.

    HINT 2: The triangle carving with three things inside over the door in Room 38 is a visual guide to help you interpret Room 43.

    HINT 3: In room 43 there is are three “persons” over the central door.

    HINT 3: It has been widely accepted that IN SLY points to room 43. This is true, but try to forget that I confirmed that. Pretend you are seeing it for the first time…

    IN SLY

    Hint 4: The solution is not a phrase or a word.

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    • I don’t understand, if it is not a word or a phrase. What is left? A gesture? A concept?

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    • Room 38 is a very well-placed hint – one figure over/above the door with a couple lower (low born?) to either side.

      Would the “person” in the middle actually be Poseidon, with Aethra on the left and Aegeus on the right?

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    • Well, there’s a small “in” slyly hidden in the Taurus/bullseye on the left but that doesn’t relate to door 22 or room 38′s carvings…

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    • Alrighty then! Let’s take it apart and put it back together. 38 and 43 both have a three-way going on over the doors. In 38 on the sides are dots. In 43 on the sides are people with sticks. In 38 in the middle is a large face. In 43 in the middle is a large face. This is not an equal trinity I am going with that the Guide is the middle face in 43 and the sides are something else, lower, unimportant, prey, minions, kinda like boardwalk said. So I’m thinking we should find something in 38 that is different than 43. “In Sly” How in blazes is there a solution here?

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    • So in 38 the important thing on that door is the number 40. The thing in the analogous position in 43 is the keystone. I mean, I can see a bull’s head and horns using the keystone and figures, but I see bull’s heads in my morning coffee so that doesn’t mean much…

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    • Cerebris is a three headed dog who guarded Hades – gate to hell! Heracles met the heroes Theseus and Pirithous in Hades – dudes on the left and right? – before dragging Cerebris out of hades. So the center face could be Hades or Cerebris.

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    • In Sly: 3 Options

      “In Sly” means inside the door under the sly face.

      “In Sly” means inside the mural with the sly face.

      “In Sly” means inside the word “Sly.”

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    • Thank you Aria for saying the thing about seeing bull faces everywhere! The face ot the Minotaur is inside the sly face but it’s hard to describe. You know how the sly face feels creepy because it is all negative space, no pupils just hollow blanks? Well the rims of the eye sockets don’t actually touch the top of the head, there’s clearly a space. If you ignore the outer edges of the eye sockets and just look at the middle bit there is a bull’s head in there and the beard and eye socket bits look like smoke coming out of it’s nose or mouth. It has small horns and the nose is the nose of the sly face, and you can see the bulls eye bulging out a bit. Its super hidden and super hard to describe but its there. If I am right about this the guide is a minotaur. That would be non-climatic.

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    • That’s how I found it! The face in 38 is incomplete EXCEPT for the part where the bulls head is in 43. I just looked at 38 and figured that was the part to look at “in sly” in 43.

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    • Not doubting but I don’t see it yet. WR hasn’t chimed in yet. I hope your right, I don’t want it to be Posedion.

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    • I see it. U just take the part of the face in triangle that’s not done, blank, and subtract that from the sly face. Bingo! Minotaur. It’s got small horns, that’s what buggered me. I imagined huge horns but I suppose that is Hollywood.

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    • LoMoody,

      Congratulations! You Got It! Isn’t this the second hint you have gotten? Good Job!

      White Raven

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  10. So, supposedly, the items in rooms 22 and 38 are supposed to help us interpret room 43, right? Does room 38 contain a lost soul (the broken shoe)?

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  11. General bit of trivia, another great maze/puzzle book, the Maze of Games, also has a Minotaur as the final antagonist at the end of the labyrinth.
    Wouldn’t it be something if these were both connected!
    Lots of Minotaurs on the brain lately…

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  12. OK, another go.

    So if the sly face above the door is PAN and the thing we can see through the door is a BELL, each of those things is one Practical Alchemist transformation away from MAN and BULL. Each of those items is missing something (maybe) — the bell is missing a clapper (maybe) and the sly face is missing an eye (maybe). So take away a letter from each. The bell is inside an upside-down U — BELL – E + U -> BULL, and PAN’s face is shaped like an M — PAN – P + M -> MAN. Pan’s beard is PARTed, the bell appears inside PARTed curtains.

    PART MAN
    PART BULL

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  13. Apologies if this has been suggested before, but could “in sly” put us on to door 22 in room 43, where the face above the door has “a sly look?” Then in room 22, H+OO might not be water. It could be “who.” So if there is a path for the riddle of the guide, maybe these are the first two steps?

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  14. Not much new. Time running out. Hope dwindling.

    I noticed today that the lines on the arch over the door to 22 are very nicely and carefully spaced and angled. If you draw lines to extend them they all meet perfectly in the centre. An interesting thing about this is that there are 13 divisions in a semicircle — doubling that by completing the circle gives you 26 — letters of the alphabet? Some kind of code wheel? No idea how this would work in the context of the room. VW had a thought that the T-shaped keystone could indicate that letter. But where do you go from here? Don’t know.

    The other thing I’ve been doing is looking at Masonic and alchemical illustrations. The title page stuff — the single eye in 6 — the ladders with 3 and 7 rounds — the royal arch in 43. Haven’t found anything that seems to go anywhere though.

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  15. PART MAN (right side up)
    PART BULL (upside down)

    I don’t quite have all the details worked out but I’m pretty sure this is it.

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    • Okay, I don’t know about the right side up upside down thing. But I’m convinced that’s the phrase we are going for, mostly because of the major emphasis on PART in here:
      PART on the sign
      a PARTed beard
      PARTed curtains
      PARTicular in the text

      One thing that could work is to follow where Mr Sly Look is looking, as clued by IN SLY on the title page. The answer is in the sly look. With one eye, he’s looking straight out at the viewer, presumably a human or “MAN.” With the wonky eye that nobody else seems to think exists he is looking over at the Taurus symbol/bullseye on the wall: “BULL.”

      PART MAN
      PART BULL

      Kinda fits with 22 — two phrases of two words?

      (The arrows made by the flanking figures could be pointing at “YOUR = why oh you are” as a kind of introductory phrase and PART.)

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  16. In the Prologue, the Guide says “they should call me Cerberus.”

    The idea that the Guide is actually Cerberus seems less satisfying to me than the Minotaur solution for several reasons, but this could be Manson cluing us in that the clues associated with the number 3 are associated with the Guide.

    The Cerberus guards the entrance to the underworld. You could argue that the Guide is also leading people to the underworld of Room 24 or the Trap in general. Maybe that’s why the Trap entrances are associated with trios: they are connected to the dog that guards the underworld entrance.

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  17. What do people make of the text in 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?

    Even if most of the stories are lies and exaggerations, it is immortality of a sort.”

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    • Read the room 16 comments
      Watch the room 16 Mazecast
      Watch the Guide Mazecasts

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    • That’s Alex, MazeCast ambassador to the Abyss! Remember, legally speaking his posts are considered MazeCast territory despite being located on foreign soil.

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    • 1. It’s highly suggestive that the Guide is a mythological figure.

      2. It suggests the Guide is very old or has already died.

      3. The fact that it is his neighbors and their descendants who tell the stories–not his descendants–suggest a halted bloodline. (If the Guide were Theseus, for example, it would seem odd that he describes the source of his immortality being legends told by neighboring peoples, rather than the stories told by his own kin and countrymen.)

      4. If the Guide is in fact the Minotaur, this could relate to a well-known work of historical fiction, The King Must Die, in which Theseus and Minos and the Minotaur are depicted as plausibly real (not half-bull) characters, with the idea being to tell a story that might have over time become the basis of the myth.

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    • It’s been pointed out that the shapes of the doorways and of the room itself are suggestive of a beehive tomb (tholos). These were used in ancient Greece, but also by the Minoans on Crete, so that doesn’t seem particularly helpful in pinpointing the Guide’s identity, except as another indication of someone from the Bronze Age.

      PS: Lots of great additional ideas in the comments and Mazecasts, per Alex.

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    • I wish we were in a MazeCast so I could more fully communicate my annoyance with this beehive tomb stuff through gestures and tone.

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    • I don’t really know much about tholoi. What elements of Room 16 suggest them to you? Is it just the curved stone wall?

      Maybe this would be a good topic for the next video.

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    • 1) The room is round.

      2) There are pictures online of a tholos tomb with a triangular opening above the door.

      3) Come on, someone went to the effort to use google, just be a sport.

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    • I went to the effort of looking up the plural. That’s about the most I can do.

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  18. I listened to the audio of the Interplay computer game version. I swear that the voice actor for the narrator/guide, when reading the text for Room 8, is trying to snort like a bull. He does a great job in general.

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    • I think he’s the same voice actor who did the narrator in King’s Quest 6.

      He also snorts a little bit when he’s supposed to be doing the maniacal laugh for the Abyss.

      With all respect to the actor, I doubt that he came up with the idea of “the Guide is the Minotaur” on his own.1994 was before he could have done much research on the web. I wonder if someone told him something? I would guess that Interplay talked to Manson at some point, or talked to someone with the publisher or the law firm who had some ideas from talking to him or from their own reading.

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  19. In room 25, it says the following:

    “…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.”

    This seems at least somewhat consistent with the “guide as minotaur” interpretation. The minotaur was the child of the wife of the king of Crete and a bull. The bull was a white bull that came from Poseidon, but I think that it counts as lowborn.

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    • It’s been pointed out before that if you think of “low” born as a pun on the lowing sound that cattle make, it works extra well!

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  20. Room 43 consists of several instructions:
    (a) The solution involves taking parts of things from the room and text.

    (b) The solution is two words, each in two parts (as referenced by the number 22).

    (c) 22 should be thought of as “two two” and not “twenty-two.”

    (d) One of the words is made up of two parts, read forward.

    (e) The other word is made up of two parts, read backward.

    Picture of Room 43, deconstructed:
    1) The most prominent feature is the exit to room 22. Note that 22 is the only number that appears in the room, emphasizing it. (38 technically is under the floorboards). This is an instruction to find two words, each with two parts.

    2) The words “your” and “self” appear to be linked since they are each on a similar-looking urn. The presentation suggests “your” and “self” are two separated words that can be combined to form another word, “yourself.” This is instruction (d) for the text.

    3) The words “peek” and “part” are also linked, but separate. Reversed, they read “keep” and “trap.” This is instruction (e) for the text, to look for two parts of text, reading backward.

    4) There is a horn (part=”bell”) and a ladder (part=”rung”). I don’t know what these are for.

    Text of Room 43, deconstructed:
    1) The first sentence anchors to 22, demonstrating its significance. Note that this is the only time in the book’s text that a specific exit door is called out by number. This gives us instruction (b).

    2) The next sentence references the “sly look” which identifies Room 43 as the room to solve from the title page (“IN SLY”).

    3) The next sentence emphasizes the number “two” which gives us instruction (c ).

    4) The 4th sentence is where one word is hidden, backwards: “prEDIctably enoUGh”

    5) The 5th sentence is where the other word is hidden: “THESE people jUSt” – note that THESE and US are words themselves, just like YOUR and SELF.

    6) The next sentence emphasizes the need to be PARTicular which is instruction (a).

    7) “We went on to…” – I don’t think this is part of the puzzle.

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  21. Slight adjustment to previous post, and I’m very sorry to say that this is my final offer as far as finding letters in the room goes.

    MI = M (shape of face) + I (single eye)

    NOT = N (lowercase n in door shape) + O (mouth of bell/horn) + T (lintel/keystone below figures)

    A = A from sign on right (second finger is extended, matching second letter in PART; also A is the largest letter)

    UR = YOU + R from sign on left

    MINOTAUR.

    SUPPORTING STUFF

    From three figures (trinity): the face with the sly look is important: it’s the M, it has the I, its beard drapes over the T, and then forks to indicate two more letters below, N and O. The left hand figure makes an arrow that points at “YOUR” and the right hand figure makes an arrow that points at “PART.”

    Urns: If YOUR = UR, and the doorway = N, you can connect those things with the S on the other door to get URNS, perhaps confirming this interpretation.

    From Room 6: IMportant NOTice has the first two parts of the answer to start those words: IMportant (MI backwards) and NOTice. There’s a prominent SINGLE eye. There’s an upside down M, maybe, in the large support beam. Perhaps there is more here.

    From Room 11: “FOR ASSISTANCE PLEASE RING BELL”: connects RING (O) with BELL, telling us we’re supposed to see a ring (an O) in the bell in 43. (Assistance makes you think of Guide.) The bent wires above help you see the arrows pointing in opposite directions.

    From Room 40: prominent arrows pointing in opposite directions from that central dark shadow like the ones in 43. Perhaps the page-like object on top with the dark central shadow is to help you see the central stuff (MINOT). Something in the middle, something on each side.

    From Room 22: the T-shaped scale at the door to 43 helps you see the scale-like T in 43. In 43 it is straight (“neither good nor bad”). “Tail” starts with a T and is also beside the door to 43, connecting those two ideas.

    If this is right, there’s probably a lot more. If this is wrong, well, probably you could still find a lot more anyway. :)

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  22. OK, while boardwalk figures out the text code, I’ve got yet another spelling one with the weird stuff in the room. I think the key could be that the letters are in pairs, as indicated by “22″ and the “good and bad” stuff.

    M (shape of face) + I (single eye) = MI

    N (lowercase n in door shape) + O (mouth of horn) = NO (forked beard of face indicates two letters to find below)

    TA is more difficult. It’s either the T shape of the keystone and lintel or whatever under the face (T) and the overall shape of the door (A) — “face” “door” “sly look” in text supports this idea.

    OR

    the A and T in the backwards TRAP sign. (Which is why it’s TA not AT.) The fingers kinda sorta maybe point at A and T. The figure on the right over the door points at the TRAP sign with leg, foot, and staff, an argument in favour of this TA.

    MI NO TA so far.

    The final bit is being pointed to by the figure on the left (foot and leg with staff) and is beside PEEK, which is another word for a sly look. “YOUR” can be read as “YOU … R” or “U R”, giving you the final bit — UR.

    MINOTAUR.

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    • Another argument in favour of the “TA” coming from the PART/TRAP sign is that then we have a trefoily thing — MINO comes from the centre and TA and UR come from below and on the sides. The pattern seems to match what is going on with the carving in 38.

      Another argument in favour of the “TA” coming from the door parts is that then everything is contained vertically between “SLY” on the urns — “IN SLY.”

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  23. “Good and bad” repeated in text suggests adversaries. Same with the dark and light lettering on the signs and the figures over the door facing in opposite directions.

    “Guide” in text faces left (sinister), “Theseus” in text faces right. They are on either side of “good and bad.” This seems to match the two figures over the door facing in opposite directions. Note that the figure on the left doesn’t have any suggestion of a face. Also (in my opinion) sly face is looking over to the left.

    I don’t know. Theseus had lots of enemies/opponents, including Hades, so…

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  24. One more – picking up on “IN SLY” from the title page (name is in room 43) and guidance to be “PARTicular” in the house.

    The text in 43 states that “it was, prEDIctably enoUGh,…”

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    • This is getting pretty interesting, boardwalk!

      You can also find “who am i” in the sentence about forming a meaningful question!

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    • Maybe all the useful text is found between the letters SLY in the text somehow?

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    • But there has to be something more than just finding letters that work, right? Some pattern.

      The relevant stuff seems to be in the third paragraph; that works with the three-ey stuff. So far everything fits between the “S” in “It was” and the “Y” in You in that paragraph, which matches IN SLY.

      But it can’t just be finding backwards and forwards words and phrases after that, can it? Seems like there should be something more concrete.

      I like that GUIDE is backwards on the left because it sort of matches the figures over the door, which face different ways. Also the hidden IN SLY on the title page, in which the words go two different ways.

      Feels exciting, boardwalk, I really feel like you are onto something!!!!

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    • Exactly, Factitious!

      (By all means let’s do anything in our power to make it not be Theseus!)

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    • If you add “the” to the backwards “guide,” and change “Theseus’s Quest” to just “Theseus Quest” and keep “Who am I?”

      then

      You have three phrases, each made up of three parts! That seems to fit the three theme pretty well…

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    • Look. Room.
      Two. Two.
      Two. Words.
      Two. Parts.

      Look. Room.
      Two. Two.
      Peek. Part.
      Your. Self.

      Look. Room.
      Two. Two.
      Keep. Trap.
      Your. Self.

      Look. Room.
      Two. Two.
      Two. Words.
      Two. Parts.
      Theseus. Guide.

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    • Distressingly, that really works, Boardwalk… Two words, two parts, two of which are backwards…

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    • Still, though, I think there’s a lot going for the “quest” idea. Bullseyes (target, goal, quest) along the path, the compass on the map on the title page, which could be used to draw bullseye circles around that swirl, which I think represents the centre of the Labyrinth (the Minotaur being Theseus’s goal and residing at the centre of the Labyrinth), myriad references to eyes and looking (a search, a quest)…

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