Room 7

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…a pleasant room with three doors and a lamp. Looking at the picture on the wall they decided it wasn’t a very good likeness.

One of them almost fell over something on the floor. “Why don’t they pick up after themselves?” he said, sounding like an old man.

“Weren’t you ever irresponsible?” I asked, thinking of my childhood and how wild I had been.

Music was being played somewhere nearby. We stopped to listen for a moment.

Leaving the pictures looking out at an empty room we went on to…

 - Images and text copyright 1985 by Christopher Manson
used with permission. [Purchase MAZE from Amazon]

 

Room Type:  LOOP     Doors:  16  33  36

Solution Summary: [COLLECTION CURATED BY WHITE Raven. SEE COMMENTS FOR ADDITIONAL SOLUTION PROPOSALS.]

● There are three pictures on each side of the room which show a single eye. 3 eyes + 3 eyes = 33. [Independent Credit: Hello Gregor | White Raven] [See related images]

● The three nails hold up a picture with three clouds. 3 nails + 3 clouds = 33. [Credit: Hello Gregor]

● The monk faces toward door 33.[Independent Credit: Hello Gregor | White Raven]

● The pull toy is ready to be pulled through door 33.  [Independent Credit: Hello Gregor | White Raven] The closest and furthest away ribbons of the pull toy look like two 3s = 33. [Independent Credit: Aria | White Raven] [See related images]

● The rug under door 16 is meant to suggest the idiom “pulling the rug out.” The pull toy suggests “pulling.” The rug has two upward curves, one for each hand, which could be easily grasped to pull the rug. If a person were take door 16 they would have to walk on the rug, and if the rug were pulled in the direction the pull toy is facing, the visitor taking door 16 would lose their footing. The result would be a literal playing out of the idiom “pulling the rug out from underneath someone.” Since this would be a bad thing for a person taking this door we should avoid door 16. [Independent Credit: sp | White Raven] Additionally the lamp plug may be meant to reinforce the idea of pulling since it could be pulled out. [Credit: Aria] And if the lamp plug were pulled out, it would be pulled in the same direction as the rug would be pulled reinforcing the rug pulling solution. [Credit: sp]

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129 thoughts on “Room 7

  1. Top left guy may just be another poor likeness of guide/Manson. The angle of the face matches well to the picture on WRs Manson page.

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  2. OK – so discounting man at top left. Everything left of door 36 relates to guide puzzle. right of door 16 is about counting things and some misleading help. But the closer around the lamp all connect to another room.

    3,31,9,8,23,

    Man, dead, room 9?, strike, true.

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  3. OK – I have some idea why just about every painting could be here either a relation to other MAZE things or to this room. Glasses eye could provide a false extra 2 eyes and cyclopes man 1 extra.

    I still have nothing at all on woman in profile on right wall, top left.
    Also nothing on the man left wall, top left, although he is so dark he may not be anything.

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  4. So with a “Raven” (bird) pull toy (with a Hoopoe crown?) and a “looking glass” it is off to search Alice stories we go. Mad Hatter…hmm. March Hare stuck at 6pm tea time…hmm…Is the croc marching? it is 6pm there. Is the hare in 15 marching in any way? Not that I can see. Anyway….

    What we do have as a real hit is one of the answers to the riddle the hatter asks Alice. Why is a Raven like a writing desk? “Because the notes for which they are noted are not noted for being musical notes” – And thus more reason for the note on the door to 36.

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  5. There is a man in a bowler hat and we can connect this to room 8. I suspect t most of the pictures here are Easter eggs like that and make unimportant connections to other rooms.

    Most of left wall we know except top left guy

    The professor on right together with lamp pull is a Narnia Easter egg I think.

    Any others?

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    • More clue that too hat is a true guide perhaps in Pinocchio .

      The couple with two eyes and one are clue to mirror thing.

      What are the monks?

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    • Guy with book is next to a radiator and above a lamp. Easter egg to 3 stick man

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    • Obviously monks bare crest is Raven help. But floor is showing tile and picture is long just to show that.

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    • Ah. monk relates to new room 41 solution. Rebirth. Starting again. In 41 we start over from loop. By looking Raven in the eye we start over in trap.

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  6. Here is a cute one if you already know the answers

    The correct exit is 33.
    The guide is Raven and we look him in the eye to escape trap.
    There is a puzzle of leaning signs that tell us that the mirror and Raven reveal the path (Tao) in men’s souls.

    Ok so there are 14 people pictured. That’s 14 sets of eyes whether we see them or not. And we have solutions involving counting one eye and two eyes showing as we know. The toy has two eyes as well. We are up to 30 eyes. Look in the mirror. 32 eyes. Now note the pull toy string goes to that corner. Bring the bird there and see 1 more eye in the mirror because you only see one side at a time there. And the other eye has no existence real or implied via art. 33 eyes = exit 33. Plus we are facing the right way. (So the path has been revealed) And we have reinforcement for looking a bird in the eye.

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  7. The fact that ‘an old man’ is mentioned in the text suggests the corresponding picture is important. His open book might suggest 33 because it’s the same on both sides. I guess you could say the same for the column he’s leaning on.

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    • Wanderer,

      A good point. The book may be a subtle hint to see the room in two halves and relate to the “single eyes” solution.

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  8. So what is not a good likeness? Well the mirror would not be, since that would suggest the Minotaur and the guide is Raven. It might mean the “bear/crown” guy. He does not look like bare crowned Raven. But then the Top-hat man sort of peeks at us in the picture over the mirror, and this is the best candidate of all (although in some sense they all may be). In room 16 the top-hatted guy represents the Maze guide Raven, and in 3 he represents the soul of Manson, and these are equivalent it seems. Raven looking in the minotaur mirror will not be a good likeness and the off-center picture above is not a good representation of Manson himself. The abstract art with two suns and a man could also qualify as a poor man-son likeness for that matter. And note they would be in the same order on both sides of door 33 a poor image of Raven topped by a poor image of Manson.

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  9. Let’s try the room-level puzzle. A hoe-poe pull-toy and a lamp suggest a lamp pole or just “pole”. (Close to Poe). It is a Hoo-poe bird matching room 16, so that reinforces the “Poe” idea. We have more bear-crown stuff here. The guy on the left wears a bear-skin and bears a crown. If we look in the mirror we will bear a crown of horns. The bear skin leads next door to where there is a crown in the door. That room tells us the identity of the guide is Raven. And the clue trailing over here is a good sign we should think that over here as well. There are also clues related to Native American Raven. The “old man” occurs in Raven’s most famous story when he stole the sun. And the irresponsible childhood certainly fits here. So we have Raven so far.
    The room ahead has a note of the door and we hear music. Maybe that is a “musical note” on the door. And we certainly have lots of art in this room. What unifies “Raven” with “Art and Music” – Poetry. That gives us a trinity of Art, music and Poetry, and perhaps another 3. And “poetry” is the word-value this room has in multi-room puzzles like the riddle of the guide, and in a pointer to the circular reading of the “Raven” around a series of rooms.

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  10. The lamp base has 3 rings, and then 3 more rings. Maybe also 3 rings are the top. 3 and 3 if you count both colors.

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    • 3 and 3 above and below the shade… 3 and 3 at the base… this seems pretty good to me…

      (Also, I’ve said this before, as have others, but the top of that lamp really looks like a chess piece.)

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  11. If you face the mirror to complete the pattern of faces an eyes you will be facing the correct exit.

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    • If you face the wall with the mirror, then there will be five people’s likeness on each wall. Maybe the bad likeness is each wall’s depiction of 5 people, guide plus four people. The bad likeness is of the whole group. Perhaps the bad likeness is the picture that is active and hiding, like a Harry Potter painting. “Bad Likeness! Stay in your frame!”. I also thought of the horned image you would get looking in the mirror andI also thought of the Minotaur.

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    • could also be possible that the mirror as-is is pointing to the fellow across from it, above the lamp socket.

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  12. Cross-over from Room 15:
    The hero tapestry on the right hand side of the page also has three nails positioned roughly the same way. On the left-hand side of that page, in a place roughly corresponding to the two-dimensionally (Grecian?) stylized picture, is a house whose chimney puffs out three clouds.

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  13. There are two picture people, as far as I can tell, that won’t be “looking out on an empty room” after we leave Room 7. The top hatted man looks with characteristic fear towards the vicinity of door 16. The monk looks eagerly towards door 33- ready to take his toy out of the mini-loop that is 7, 36, and 16.

    I’m a bit surprised that neither the two sets of three cyclopean picture people nor the landscape with the three nails and three clouds are not part of the solution

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    • Hello Gregor,

      Actually they are!

      You previously wrote “Some observations: 5. The other not very good likeness is the outdoor scene. It is inefficiently hung with three nails at the top. 6. There are three cyclopean portraits on each half of the room. (The bowl-cutted man above the outdoor scene has a third eye, thus, two eyes are visible.)”

      No mention was made of clouds or what significance any of this has. I pretty sure you have it but just in case can you spell it out please?

      White Raven

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    • The arrangement of nails and the cyclopean portraiture stands out. Both appear purposeful.
      That there are three single eyed portrait-people on each side of the room 3/3=33 highlights that fact as does the particular mention of “pictures looking out” at the end of the text.
      I believe this latter mention of looking out is also meant to direct our attention to what the picture people are looking at. The top-hatted man is either looking at the landscape- thus drawing our attention further to it. Or, more likely, towards room 16 where he just fled the Guide. The monk looks at room 33 with confidence. The toy-bird awaits his motive force with pull-string loop presented to the monk whilst facing room 33. (The bird, who has three tail feathers, is also facing the feather crowned portrait person who’s crown bears three feathers- another 33.)
      The landscape is oddly hung up with three nails. Below those three nails are three clouds- another 33.
      Another possible 33- headgear on either side of the room (3 and 3 if you count the horns).

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    • Lots of threes there. I noticed the same number of people and eyes on each wall. At least if someone looks in the mirror. That wall is the only place you could group eyes to make sets that mached the room number on the wall. That is you could group 3 and 3 there.

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    • Hurrah! You got the hidden 33 in the eyes, though, oddly, we got it in slightly different ways, also the nails, the feathers, and (one I didn’t get) the clouds. The plumage on the pull toy is part of another riddle but you also got the pull toy and the monk pointing to 33. Wow! There are actually a more 33s in this room but they are more debatable. I am calling this part of the room solved, bumping the solve meter up two!

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    • Note that three of the one-eyes seen are left eyes, and three of the one-eyes seen are right eyes.

      Rather than discussing this in terms of eyes seen in cyclopean portraits, we should think of this in terms of eyes NOT seen; there are three left eyes unseen, and three right eyes unseen; 3–3; 33. It’s essentially stating the same solution, but in a way that seems less bizarre and more in keeping with the rest of the Maze.

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  14. The door to Room 36 has a note stuck to it. This is an indication that 36 is where the music’s coming from.

    MUSIC…NOTE…eh? Eh? It doesn’t tell you whether to go there or not, but it’s an indication of what’s there.

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    • I thought that was a square for the square (36), myself… a red herring.

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  15. This room is pretty much unsolved for me too. I have an idea about the BIg guy, and the note. I think I know the purpose of the bear skin. And can strech for more. But I suspect I am still missing the meaning of most of the things here, and probably don’t have the right clue for the best exit. I do have one new thought here – I hoopoe pull toy and a lamp – maybe that connects to “lamppole”. That starts me thinking about C.S. Lewis and Narnia. But that’s about it.

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    • From Mr. Gentile’s site:

      Room 7

      Which picture might be a poor likeness of the narrator? I suspect it is the big guy with the crown. Saint Christopher was supposed be a huge man, and the name means “Christ-bearer”. The crown is elsewhere used to represent Christ as the “King of kings”, and here this figure bears the crown on his head, and may be dressed in a bear-skin.

      Also we have what looks like a furry robe is in the door to 16. I’d argue this is a bear skin, and helps us get another “Christ-bearer” in that room. And maybe that landscape is “bare-earth”?

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  16. Has anyone paid any mind to the figure that the bird is looking at? The dark portrait of a man with a crown? Note that the same crowd of explorers who did not notice The Guide’s crown at the Entrance now believe the picture not to be a good likeness. Could the crowned picture be of the Guide and the crown itself is throwing them off?
    Notice also the Top-Hatted man has a portrait in which he appears to be hiding. He’s looking at another picture- which one and why?

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    • Some more observations:
      1. Room 36 is marked by the paper tacked to its surface and Room 16 is marked by fur.
      2. The top-hatted man might be hiding after spotting the Guide in room 16.
      3. The pull-toy’s cord is pointing towards the monk who appears to be looking in the horned mirror. The only room with a checkered floor is 41.
      4. The least realistic painting (the one most likely to be considered not a “good likeness”) is next to room 33. This painting, oddly, hasn’t been commented about with relation to the Guide’s identity as far as I can recall.
      5. The other not very good likeness is the outdoor scene. It is inefficiently hung with three nails at the top.
      6. There are three cyclopean portraits on each half of the room. (The bowl-cutted man above the outdoor scene has a third eye, thus, two eyes are visible.)

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  17. Of some note, the pull-toy here has a matching companion in room #39, with the only difference being that the version in that room has no visible cord (perhaps just a function of the angle and the way the cord may have been placed). Since there’s no connection between these two rooms, I’m not sure how to interpret this, but the pull-toys are far too recognizably identical for it to be an oversight.

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    • I have been thinking about the pull toy connection as well and have found nothing. My only insight is that the pull toy is mindless and led by a string, perhaps a metaphor for the reader being led along by red herrings such as this one? In both cases the toy is next to the wrong door.

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    • Red herring or not, I agree with your insight that the inclusion of both pull toys was intentional, absolutely, as the pull toy was no doubt a time consuming thing to illustrate and doubled to exacting detail and from two different angles.

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    • Is not the pull toy the same species of crowned bird we see elsewhere in the house?

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    • Note which picture the pull-toy is looking at. The man’s Incan crown looks similar to the bird’s.

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  18. The comments in the text and mirror with horns suggests that the guide is a minotaur. But the picture of the Greek robed elderly man suggests King Minos or Daedalus (because of comments in the text on other pages).

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