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…a middle-class drawing room or parlor. It was amazing how much more comfortable they felt in these surroundings.
Everyone sat down, some on the floor, and chatted about where they had been and where they should go.
“Magpies!” I said to myself. “Not a real thought in their heads.”
They were so much at ease they almost missed what the room was telling them altogether. They finally got the message, which I thought was pretty obvious, and we went on to…
- Images and text copyright 1985 by Christopher Manson
used with permission. [Purchase MAZE from Amazon]
Room Type: LOOP Doors: 10 25 30
Solution Summary: [COLLECTION CURATED BY WHITE Raven. SEE COMMENTS FOR ADDITIONAL SOLUTION PROPOSALS.]
● The “YES” “MAYBE” and “NO” signs refer to the spaces over the doors. There is no sign over the unmarked door. No – you cannot take this door. The 25 sign is hanging by one nail, half up and half down. Maybe – you could take this door. The 10 sign is fully up. Yes – you should take this door. [Credit with a hint: H. Goyteki] [Credit: White Raven] This solution is reinforced by the open arrangement of the doors. The blank space over the unmarked door is the same orientation as the “NO” sign (facing to the left). The “MAYBE” sign is the same orientation (pointed straight at the viewer) as the 25 sign. The “YES” sign is the same orientation as the 10 sign (facing to the right). [Independent Credit: Aria | White Raven] Reinforcing this further, the arm of the person leaving (signifying “go”) points up through the “YES” sign to the “10″ sign. [Credit: Dave Gentile] Also the narrow corner of the 10 sign and the narrow corner of the “YES” sign point like an arrow to one another, while the narrow corner of the “MAYBE” sign and the narrow corner of the 25 sign point to one another. [Credit: Aria] [See Related Images]
● On the sign “JIBE PINE COMPASS” all point to the word “needle.” A jibe (not the boating term) is an insulting quip, which is sometimes called a needle. A pine tree has needles, as do compasses. There are three things with eyes — a needle, a potato, the ship in the painting. [Credit: Owen Hammer / Jimmy Williams] The picture on the right is not the Washington Monument but an obelisk known as Cleopatra’s Needle. [Credit: Naomi Alderman] The needle represents the number one while the eye represents a zero. “Needle”&”Eye”=10 the number of the correct door. [Independent Credit: David Gentile | White Raven] Needles have eyes thus every needle reference can be seen as both a 1 and a 0, [Credit: vewatkin]
● The ship in the painting is sailing toward Door 10, the correct door, indicating that we travel in that direction. [Independent Credit: SP | White Raven] The phrase, “…and chatted about where they had been and where they should go.” Is a reference to the ship travelling from the direction of the unmarked door (where they had been) to Door 10 (where they should go). [Independent Credit: vewatkin | White Raven]
● The walking cane labeled “QUICK” which is pointing at door 25 is a hurry-cane/”hurricane” [Credit: Owen Hammer] this warns against entering door 25. [Independent Credit: SP | White Raven] This solution is reinforced by the sailing ship solution above. [Independent Credit: Aria | White Raven] This may also be reinforced by the night scene picture being behind the stern of the ship, cloudy in the picture of the ship, with light ahead. [Credit: SP]
● The 25 door and unmarked door are both in shaded, whereas the 10 door is lit up in comparison. [Independent Credit: Wanderer | White Raven] Combining this with the solutions above, the sailing ship must go past the hurricane toward the light. [Independent Credit: Aria | White Raven]
● The downward arrows on the wallpaper and reference in the text to “Everyone sat down, some on the floor…” directs our attention to the floor. There are 10 visible feet on the furniture, indicating door 10. [Credit: vewatkin] The foot of the man leaving draws our attention to the feet of the furniture – this hints that we should “follow the feet.” The chair (in the center) has 8 feet, the furniture on the left or right has one foot each, 8+1+1=10. [Credit: White Raven]
● The stripes on the couch pair with the squares on the pillow to create an approximation of a 10. The line of the monument pairs with the circle of the moon to make a 10. [Independent Credit: David G | White Raven] The line of the mast pairs with the circle of the eye on the ship to make a 10. [Credit: White Raven] The ship’s “mast” is actually a glowing white rope making the 1 more evident. [Credit: vewatkin]
● The lines in the chair pair with the eyes in the potato to make an approximation of 10. [Credit: vewatkin]
● In the text is the word “felt” which is an anagram for “left.” In this room as well as the other two rooms in which the word “felt” occurs (11, 25) the correct door is the the left door. [Credit: Hidden Mystery / Beelzebibble]
● The text reads, “”Magpies!” I said to myself. “Not a real thought in their heads.”" “Magpies” is a reference to the fortune telling device from the 1700s turned nursery rhyme commonly referred to as “One For Sorrow.” [Independent Credit: Aria | White Raven]
The line, “Not a real thought in their heads.” may be a reference to the superstitious nature of the rhyme. A popular version of the rhyme reads…
“One for sorrow
Two for mirth
Three for a wedding
Four for a birth
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret not to be told
Eight for a wish
Nine for a kiss
Ten for a bird you must not miss”
The last line refers to not missing a golden opportunity, in this case the correct door, 10. [Credit: White Raven]
And if the man has 5 fingers on the door and 2 feet on the floor…?
Oo, ooo, Take 25 apart in to 2 and 5. 2*5=10. Not sure if I hope that counts of not. lol
SP,
Congratulations! SP wrote, “The trireme/Argo is sailing towards the door to Room 10.” Putting it on the summary!
Lot of riddles in this room, there are four more to go not counting the possible 10 feet riddle.
White Raven
Seven more to go if you count bits of previous solutions not yet discovered.
SP, vewatkin, Hello Gregor,
Okay – The table on the left shows one leg. The couch on the right shows one leg. The guy shows one leg. The chair shows four legs. Now we are up to 7. The table shows part of a leg – 8 maybe. The chair shows four parts of legs – that’s 12 maybe. So I see either 7 whole legs, 8 partial/whole legs (not including feet), 12 partial/whole legs (including feet), 7 feet, or 11 whole/partial feet. The sitting down phrase and wallpaper arrows do lend support. Help me see this.
White Raven
I’ll help!
Chair has four feet in the front, two feet visible on our left, and one on our right. Top-Hat has 1 foot visible, as does the table and the couch.
4+2+1+1+1+1= 10
Hello Gregor,
The chair has 8 visible feet. See Related Images above. Perhaps we are not meant to include the foot of the man leaving?
The table shows TWO legs–one completely, the top of the second one barely making it into frame.
The couch has one leg showing.
The departing man has one leg showing.
The chair has six legs showing. The chair is a compelling part of this, for a couple reasons.
1) It has a bizarrely large number of legs, four alone on the front side.
2) Two additional feet peek out along the lefthand side. There is no apparent artistic justification for this asymmetry, since the chair is in the middle of the room and facing directly toward us. (I.e. there is no reason for one side to be more visible to us than the other.)
Beyond that, we have the arrows all over the walls directing us downward (“what the room was telling them altogether”), sitting references akin to Room 15 (“Everyone sat down, some on the floor…”)…
Well, there’s a lot there. This is another puzzle solution I don’t like, but because it’s a bad puzzle, not because it appears unintentional. The weird leg presentation on the chair and the other indicators don’t leave me a lot of doubts as to intention; it’s just that counting legs in this room seems to ignore all the interesting stuff that’s going on, that seems to clue to the wrong door.
Crisscrossed your eight-feet response, WR:
I don’t think what we’re seeing on the righthand side is feet…but I’m not sure, and you’d think Manson would have been more clear (maybe) if this were his intention.
That does give ten of the little paw-shaped feet, which in a way is more harmonious solution, since the recurring paw-feet among the furniture is a clear connection…
It may be that, regardless of whether we can see the paw-feet, we should include them as symmetry dictates, but that is decidedly counter to principles of interpretation we use elsewhere.
And it requires us to see feet on the chair that aren’t visible, while ignoring feet on the other furniture that isn’t visible!
I think I’m convinced the first leg on the righthand side is visible, because it interrupts a shading line that otherwise should have continued unbroken. The second one just looks like the initiation of amorphous shadow at the edge of the light.
BUT IF all eight feet are visible there, then I guess we have ten paw feet blah blah blah blah blah.
I emphasize that this is still no worse than the leg-counting solution in 15, but still NOT TOO IMPRESSIVE.
vewatkin,
I am utterly amazed that one human being on his own could come up with the vast variety of riddles in MAZE. No other collection of riddles contains anywhere near as many unique riddle types. That being said, I like some riddles more than others and I’m with you on this one. Still, it appears very intentional. Reluctantly adding to the summary.
White Raven
Haha, I was justing saying in a hangout:
“About 75% of my posts on the Abyss center on or include my dissatisfaction with solutions others have accepted. The other 25% are about my dissatisfaction with solutions I’ve advanced.”
I’m just a bit of a Debbie Downer with this stuff. I hope this attitude (which isn’t mine alone, just more frequently expressed through my posts) serves to keep some of the enthusiasm-driven, far-reaching solutions from running completely wild.
No offense intended, Mr. Manson! You’re great! Everyone loves you!
(I assume Christopher Manson stopped by to read this post.)
David Gentile,
Congratulations on identifying the solution to the central riddle in this room!
You are correct the needle is a one, the eye is a zero. Bumping it up a needle! And putting together the partial solutions into a single solution.
White Raven
An important note here: The room is full of things with eyes, so why should needle be taken to mean “needle” instead of “eye”?
Well, because it is clued in two separate places, I think. In fact, if you count JIBE PINE COMPASS as three different needles, you could arguably match a needle to every eye. (There are a lot of ways to mess with that count, though.)
It’s still a pretty unsatisfying solution, though, and one we would almost certainly reject if we didn’t know it suggested the right door.
I think we’re still going to be thinking about this one.
But not I = 1 and eye = 0 huh? OK.
vwatkins – My favorite is “The ayes have it” and they have the cane, and the cane is a “J” and “J” = 10.
Gentile’s “I = 1 and eye = 0″ does seem like a better reading, although still problematic, since eye/I= aye = yes. The biggest problem here is that the “aye” solution, which is wrong, is so much better than either of these interpretations of the eye clues.
Dreaming about Maze, however, DOES help.
Ah ha! Magpies are VERY smart birds. Not a “real” thought in their heads? Thing of those “real” roots in 5. If the thoughts were not “real” they were “imaginary” and that is of course, represented, by the letter “i”.
Room 34 is up to date on my page. Puzzles: the moon? Magpies are actually very smart birds and related to Ravens.
“middle class” could be subtle hint at “maybe”.
Even though we can’t see all of one cushion on the couch, it is clear that 1 cushion has 5 stripes, so there are 10 total cushion stripes.
Whoa, “hurricane” got no respect?
I think the 10 letters in the 3 signs is a good one. “pretty obvious” I think is there to put another “I” in the text, ” *I* thought it was pretty obvious”. The I/eye thing is hard to miss.
I have a picture of “school of Athens” near my basement couch and it always has Maze realted things in it for the first minute I look at it when I wake up.
Does the picture change or is it the same things related to Maze?
In a half dream state it seems like it has changed.
Do you think it helps with your Maze solving? May I see a picture of it?
No – it does not help. lol. Google “school of Athens”. It is a famous painting by Raphael. It is inside Pope’s private chambers in Vatican.
I bet that makes you feel kind of like the Pope!
Which Pope do you think would appreciate Maze the most?
I don’t think I feel like Pope. I also like school of Athens III by a modern artist that puts school desks in from of that painting but makes them look like part of one room. It hangs over a bussing station in the Bellagio Las Vegas.
I’m sure it has been said buy yes is wrong because it is too easy particularly with leading guy.
Needle is long like a one too.
And needle has found eye like zero
Hey….if we count that the letter “I” looks like a one and eyes are round like zero….that’s a bunch of tens.
There MIGHT be 10 oars on the ship
The trireme/Argo is sailing towards the door to Room 10. Combined with the text “where they had gone, where they should go (arGO)” it might had been deliberate.
This is a bit of a collab attempt of myself, Vincent Van Watkiss, and the Gregorian Chants. Vince noticed there are 10 legs in here total, and I noticed the wallpaper has arrows pointing down to the ground possibly to indicate looking down (we’ve seen something similar in Room 15).
V-Watt’s Electric Labyrinth Love further observes:
“Everyone sat down, some on the floor…”
This directs our attention to the floor and, specifically, the legs of the furniture. Counting the Top-Hatted man’s leg, there are 10 visible legs. This is further clued by the odd number of legs on the chair and the similarly foot-like appearance of all the furniture legs.
“Magpies…Not a real thought in their heads.”
Magpies have a clear EYE sound. The Guide is disparaging Magpies and also Eyes in general. This tells us not to follow the Eyes to 25 and, thus, we must go to 10.
Further from V-Watt:
Where we have been= No
Where we might go= Yes
(No is closed. Yes has someone going through the door. They are opposites.)
Along with Magpies, the Guide criticizes this line of thinking leaving the third choice, Maybe. We want to please The Guide.
Upon further digging it seems jibe is a sailing maneuver including the sweep of the sail, this sort of helps my argument that the boat is trying to get to the other side of the page into 10.
V-Watt fell asleep. Jolted out of his dream, he screamed in shock:
“They were so much at ease they almost missed what the room was telling them altogether.”
The room here probably refers to the wallpaper pointing down. This buttresses the sitting on the floor to point us to look at those feet.
It also could refer to the signs on the doors which altogether have 10 letters (YES, NO, MAYBE)
It is reasonable for us to think that the Guide might believe these are “pretty obvious.”
The recurring letter-objects discussion over in 20, and Gentile’s mention of this room as fitting in that category, has sparked a thought:
We’ve been hypothesizing the the Ts in 20 are distraction from what the room is telling us, and likewise the Bs in 15; not the Hs in 15, but that’s because H is part of the Riddle of the Path.
Does the T theme distract from the two towers? Does the H theme distract from the two hats?
Do the eyes/ in this room distract from the fact that we have two needles: Cleopatra’s Needle on one side, and the paper cluing “needle” on the other.
Maybe all this jive about “eye” = “aye” = “yes,” or “eyes” can be found in “maybeyes,” all that jazz, is simply being mislead by the preponderance of things cluing to “eye,” and what we should really be considering are what the two needles can tell us.
A bit off-topic, but the reason you take the H’s for the riddle is because it doesn’t alphanumerically match with its room number like 2 and 20 do.
Oops “Ayes have it” was already said.
I think a suggested phase here is “The ayes/Is/eyes have it” and they have the “J” which as letter 10 indicates the exit.
Also Yes with someone walking in is too easy and has to be misleading.
Haven’t heard it mentioned before, but the letters in “aye” are actually found in “maybe,” giving us some ambiguity with the eye-aye pun we’ve pretty much all taken to heart.
Can anyone work a good interpretation on reading “ease” as “Es” in the text? The guide says they were so much at ease that they missed what the room was saying altogether–an indication to change “eye” to “aye”? It hardly seems necessary…
Because I haven’t seen it mentioned so far: the ship pictured here is the Argo, from Greek myth. It’s presumably still just being used as an example of a thing with an eye, so this probably doesn’t make much difference for solving the room. Unless there’s some hidden “R go” wordplay.
A while ago I read this partial solution that someone posted on a site that is now down:
A potato has “eyes” (it is what you call those little dips) and the ship has an eye. The paper says three words that are all related to a needle, and the picture at right is Cleopatra’s needle. And needles also have eyes.
It is definitely part of a puzzle but I don’t know what it means.
“JIBE PINE COMPASS” = NEEDLE. A jibe (not the boating term) is an insulting quip, which is sometimes called a needle. A pine tree has needles, as do compasses.
Now we have four things with eyes — a needle, a potato, the ship in the painting, and on the floor, a cane with “QUICK” — a synonym for hurry — a hurricane.
If we take the three words on the doors — MAYBE YES NO — and we subtract EYES, we have MABYNO — an anagram for MAN BOY.
That third thing may be a coincidence, but I’m sure the first two are intentional.
Perhaps the ayes have it?
The No is the door to 30 which is where you want to be if you’re going to the middle. The Yes door is the least attractive. Maybe’s great if you’re on your way out.
The boat is called a Trireme.
I don’t think that the hurricane is the tap-dancer’s cane he left behind. He appears to be going the wrong way. Is he your man-boy?
Without doing any rearranging, the word “eyes” is right there, from the end of “maybe” through the word “yes.”
Thumbs up
Owen Hammer,
I bumped up the solve meter long ago but failed to acknowledge your partial solution. Congratulations!
The correct partial solution:
“JIBE PINE COMPASS” = NEEDLE. A jibe (not the boating term) is an insulting quip, which is sometimes called a needle. A pine tree has needles, as do compasses.
Now we have four things with eyes — a needle, a potato, the ship in the painting…”
(This partial solution was also posted by Jimmy Williams on the now defunct John Bailey site.)
Also from the John Bailey site supporting this…
“I think that, rather than being the Washington Monument, this is actually an obelisk [...] known as Cleopatra’s Needle.” [Posted by Naomi Alderman]
White Raven