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…a dramatic room with four entrances and exits. “Not enough light in here,” they remarked. “Not very tidy either.”
“Which way now, children?” I asked in my most patronizing voice.
They objected to my tone, but it distracted them from the real clues. The game usually goes as I plan it, despite the intentions of my visitors, or perhaps because of their intentions.
“What the devil is this supposed to be?” one asked. They gathered around and I realized they were close to something. I quickly picked up the bell, ringing it loudly.
“Was this what you heard outside?”
Holding their ears they ran out the door to…
- Images and text copyright 1985 by Christopher Manson
used with permission. [Purchase MAZE from Amazon]
Room Type: PATH Doors: 1 30 36 38
Solution Summary: [COLLECTION CURATED BY WHITE Raven. SEE COMMENTS FOR ADDITIONAL SOLUTION PROPOSALS.]
● The correct door is 30. [Credit: Unknown - during the 1985 contest]
● The part of the Riddle of the Path is “Atlas.” “SALT” (the salt shaker) + the letter “A” held by a devil rearranged = “ATLAS.” [Credit: Unknown - prior to 1990]
● Three real devils = 3. One fake devil = 0. 3 & 0 is 30 – the correct door is 30. [Credit: Beq S.]
● Door 1 is known to be the entrance. A devil’s tail points to door 36. A devil’s pitchfork points to door 38. The non-indicated door is 30 which is correct. [Independent Credit: Beq S. | White Raven]
● The moon and Saturn = One of the moons of Saturn is named Atlas. The devils emerge in three stages like a rocket and a fourth one is in flight. The loud ringing of the bell is illustrative of the roar of takeoff. The Guide asks, “Which way now?” to answer that, one might consult an atlas. [Credit: Dave G]
● The fake/metal devil represents the Voyager 1 probe which discovered the moon Atlas. The real devils represent fire/take off, the probe was launched with a three-stage Titan-Centaur rocket. The devil’s mouths are open to represent singing – one of the songs played by Voyager 1 is “Devil Bird” which was also a nickname for Voyager 1. The shushing is illustrative of the silence of space. The theater chairs are representative of the bleachers for viewing a launch. [Credit: White Raven]
● The bell is the same shape as the zero for room 30. The Guide rings this bell loudly. The only door with a zero is 30, which is the correct door. [Credit: vewatkin]
● The position of the doors in relation to the door frame in this room strongly suggest that the doors open inward. The doors to 36, 38 and 1 are all blocked to some degree from opening by the open trapdoors. The only door which could open freely is door 30, the correct door. [Credit: Eric]
Does anyone else see that devil emerging from the stage as the launch of a trident ballistic missile from a submarine? If that other devil is a Voyager probe helping us learn about the solar system as suggested in the posts, then perhaps we’re being shown starkly contrasting ways to use some of our most powerful technology, raising the question of our role in our own story. After some inspired googling, I would like for the two fellows in the audience to be whirling dervishes of the Mevlevi Sufi order. Their hats represent the tombstone of the ego. Their whirling represents the motion of the planets. They follow the poet Rumi who has this lovely poem:
In the echo of silence,
The whispers of the divine are heard,
A melody sung by the universe,
A song without a single word.
Listen to the echo, my dear,
And let your soul be stirred,
In the silence, you’ll find,
The divine’s sacred word.
The guide has a far more sinister plan as demonstrated by his bell ringing disruption of the silence. Perhaps that is Rumi shown in the picture in Room 20…
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All new seasoning/shakespeare solution:
There’s a salt shaker and its about seasoning/condiments.
This is room 26 and there are 26 letters. It’s about ciphers.
The devil in trapdoor holds an A and the fork is an E. He is being seasoned with salt. Vigenère is a type of cipher. Vigenère -E +A = Vinegar.
A devil tail points to 36. 36 is number of plays in Shakespeare’s First Folio. And this is a theatre stage.
First Folio play 30 is Julius Caesar.
Caesar is both a cipher and a salad dressing.
So 30 is the correct answer.
As a clue for the reader to be expected to find, I don’t think this kind of stuff holds much water. As speculation into the mind of Manson as he wrote/drew Maze, given that we have evidence he’s into Shakespeare (example: “I Am Shake Spear” in room 45), I think this is awesome!
I would expect that Manson is reasonably educated about Shakespeare, just by virtue of being a reasonably educated English-speaker. It goes too far to suggest he has a special knowledge of or interest in Shakespeare by virtue of the puzzle in Room 45, which basically just requires knowing Shakespeare’s name.
(The prospective title for the Maze sequel was, at least at one point, “Prospero’s Palace,” which I’m guessing was a reference to the Shakespeare character, though it could have been a reference to the Poe character. Or both. In any case, I don’t think we have plausible evidence that Manson incorporated any arcane Shakespeare information into Maze.)
I’m new and you’ve got 10 year lead on me so I respectfully argue the Shakespeare index case and am interested in your feedback:
Shakespeare is all over the house, not just room 45. Room 16 has a comedy mask looking at (firstfolio) 36 with W S written on it for shakespeare. Ingredients used in Macbeth cauldron seem to appear around the house (nose of turk,lips of tartar, eye of newt-on,etc). I believe Room 16 has an answer using First Folio index (7th tragedy is Macbeth, door 7 with Macbeth cauldron is right door). Door 36 is very prominent in room 45. Room 36 has comedy and tragedy masks. An answer to riddle of the path is atlas/globe and Globe is Shakespeare’s stage/theatre. If Perry fable index 226 is valid then surely First Folio index can be, it’s one of the most influential books of all time.
Manson recently designed a puzzle in Blue Prince gallery (room 7 in both BP and MAZE). you get the word “ruminate” then go to Room 8. But the number of pins changes from 37 to 36 between gallery and room. We are tricked into going to ruin/36 instead of a good room ruminate (37). I found out that it’s a shakespeare reference: “Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate” is in Sonnet 64 (which is 8 squared and room 8 has squared floor beneath the 8). This is an obscure single line in a sonnet which Manson uses; while for MAZE room 16 and 26 I’m just using the name/index of the play in first folio, or an ultra famous scene (cauldron).
Thank you for that Prospero’s Palace fact, it’s very compelling and first I heard of it. Masque of the Red Death has 7 rooms representing 7 stages of man, just like Shakespeare’s “all the world’s a stage”. The rooms have colours just like Blue Prince, and I think Blue Prince may be referencing it too. Prospero is main character in tempest which is first folio 1 and we start in room 1.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more.
I responded to your comment at length the day you posted it, but my post didn’t appear. I tried again, again at length, and my comment did not appear. It now appears that I can post comments again, but my long responses are still lost. I’ll try to summarize what I said before.
My decades of experience with Maze don’t give me any expertise to determine what makes sense and what doesn’t. Plenty of folk with lengthy Maze experience, including the owner of this website, disagree completely with me about their general understanding of Maze. But one advantage my experience gives me is that I have seen a lot of people do the kinds of things you’re doing, convincing themselves that they have tapped into the mindset of Manson and retraced his methods, when to others it appears that you are drawing meaningless connections of the sort that will always arise when given a book full of deliberate and archetypal symbols, and an unbounded field of potential references. (Basically, you can look for any resonances between Maze and anything in human culture before 1985–history, art, science, literature, mythology, ANYTHING.)
The kind of stuff you’ve been suggesting across this site does not look intentionally inserted in the book, and does not seem like a rational message or puzzle on its face.
Here is what I think is a very clear cut solution to door 30
Part of the text reads: “They objected to my tone, but it distracted them from the real clues.”
There very next sentence (Her comes the real clues): “The game usually goes AS I PLAN IT, despite the inTENtions of my visitors, or perhaps because of their inTENtions.”
Viewing the image of the room. The letters “AS” are clearly displayed. The 1 above the door can be read as “I” and the prop of Saturn can be read as “Planet”. So, from the bottom up, “AS I PLANET”
The focus here is the planet Saturn. There is a big moon displayed in the background to the left of Saturn, perhaps orbiting it. “Saturn X” is a nickname for Saturn’s moon Janus. Janus is a god in roman mythology.
A quick AI blurb about Janus:
“Janus is a Roman god primarily associated with beginnings, transitions, and endings. He is often depicted with two faces, one looking to the past and the other to the future, symbolizing his ability to oversee all transitions. Janus is also the god of doorways, gates, and passages, and is considered the guardian of the heavens. ”
If you search up images of Janus, you will get an idea of how his two faces are commonly depicted. He is also seen often holding a key. I believe the two audience members in the image are meant to represent the faces of Janus. One looking to the past at door 1 and the other to the future at door 30. Janus, a god, presides over your passage through the room from door 1 to door 30.
Concerning the number 10. If you look up synonyms for the word plan (PLAN IT), the words intend and intention often come up. The sentence containing the words PLAN IT and INTENTIONS also seems nonsensical to me. It’s a sentence technically, but with no real meaning. Kind of like “Curious dreams have green thoughts”. “The game usually goes as I plan it, …. perhaps because of their intentions.” What does that even mean? Are we to believe the guests have come to the maze with their own machinations in mind, fully prepared to manipulate the guide into doing… what he already plans to do? It feels like a throwaways sentence Christopher Manson came up with to satisfy the needs of his puzzle. “I need a sentence with the word TEN in it somewhere. Janus has two faces so I’ll put it in there twice.”
The bindings left and right curtains have X symbols and could be intended to fit the “Saturn X” theme.
Other thoughts:
- There are devils in the room with the letters SA displayed. Another name for the devil is SATAN. Perhaps the missing TAN is supposed to be interpreted as TEN.
- “Which way now, children?” and “They gathered around and I realized they were close to something.” Perhaps this is a reference to moons being like small children that gather around close to planets.
- “Not enough light in here” maybe a reference to Saturn’s distance from the sun compared to Earth.
- “Holding their ears they ran out the door to” along with the two men ‘shushing’ may be a reference to the lack of sound in space.
- ” a dramatic room with four entrances and exits.” There is only a single entrance to room 26 in the entire book which is from room 1. I’m not sure if this has any significance. Maybe it indicates the other three entrances are used by the devils coming up through the floor.
- There are 4 months in the year with 30 days: April, June, September, November. A and S are clearly displayed. N is a bit of a stretch, but two of the quotes in dialogue start with the letter N. The composition of salt is NaCl. Na is the 11th element on the periodic table and November is the 11th month. Moon and Saturn end with N. I cannot find anything related to the letter J other than Janus.
I think you’ve made several leaps of logic here. There’s no real indication that you can get Janus from Saturn, or Satan from the devils. The letters S and A are part of the Riddle of the Maze (q.v. “solutions” page on this site). Many people have tried to attribute double duty to letters strewn around the Maze that were meant for the Riddle, but few if any are truly convincing.
I thought it was 30 because there are 3 visible devils with their mouths forming “O”. 3-O. The room is focusing on sounds, the guide tried to distract the kids from “hearing” the O’s while the two guys in the audience try to shush and bring it to their attention.
My previous comments haven’t been posting but I’ll keep trying… I’m new here so maybe I don’t know what I’m doing.
Anyway hello, I was looking at room 26 & realized the “patrons” are Pagliacci style Italian clowns. I recognized them from the Caffe Vita logo, not for smart or educated reasons :)
Maybe the url is why my previous comments aren’t posting so, google it yourself.
Hi I’m Deanna nice to meet you and this is FINALLY my first comment~
I got 30 because I added up all the numbers hidden in the text, such as one in tone and ten in intentions. This got me to 26. I then added all the times the narrator said I. As in roman numeral one. This got me 30. I thought I was great till I stated reading the actual obscure ways to solve it!
Keep in mind, the “actual” solutions here are not official.
In the directions it says ‘Clues in a series of rooms may relate to one another, and may indicate a path.’ The pitchfork points to room 38 and that is a possible indication not to enter that room. There is another pitchfork (technically a trident) in room 22 and it also ironically points to room 38, granted you are already trapped when you are there in any event. I believe however that random objects in rooms like tenpin bowling pins and umbrellas that repeat in other rooms have some sort of meaning so when looking at a room with say an umbrella in it perhaps look at the other rooms with umbrellas as well.
Two letters are visible. S and A. Remove SA from SALT and you got LT that could indicate Left. Remove SA from the planet Saturn and you are left with Turn. LT Turn or Left Turn?
Also remove S an A from Satan and you got TN, which could indicate Ten. 3 real devils times 10 = 30?
The salt shaker could be a reference to, when salt is spilled, one throws the salt over one’s left shoulder (to blind the devil). In other words, take the door on the far left.
The opening of the bell is pointing at the correct door.
I am unsure if this is correct, but based on the door symbols in room 1 suggesting the first four letters of the alphabet in reverse, I assume that as the left and center devils are emerging from their trapdoors an will be holding up signs that say “B” and “C” on them.
Or they already did and the salt is causing them to retreat?
“Salty Sea (C)?”
“Salton Sea?”
I don’t recall anyone drawing a connection between the A in 26 and the DCBA in 1 before. An intriguing possibility! Because the A is involved in the contest solution, we know what it means in the context of its puzzle. But, the backwards alphabet in 1 still may have been meant to associate with 26′s puzzle. (Like Room 1, Room 26 suggests a backwards word.)
The text say the children hold their ears (E-R).
The first time children speak, they use ER three times: “hERe”, “vERy”, “eithER”. = 3. The second time children speak, they use no ERs. =0. Resulting in door 30, of course.
When children finished talking and gathered arround. The guide, realising they were close to the answer and holding their ears, decided to distract them by ringing the bell (he-ring?). But the spectators on the figure ask us and the bell to be quiet, warning us to not be missleaded.
As in room 1, the children have the solution and the guide is distracting them.
I look for answers in the text, as it is well known that Manson liked word-puzzles and anagrams. I dont think he would just “point to” some bad doors in the drawing. Not his style as in room 1 and room 45.