Room 8

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…a vaulted chamber lit by a single bulb.

Someone knocked a bowl off the table. The crash echoed from the ceiling and whispered away down the corridors. I broke another on purpose.

“Make sure to take that with you,” I said. “You can never tell when you might need it.”

“Take what?” they wanted to know.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Taking a vote among themselves they went on to…

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

 

Room Type:  PATH     Doors:  6  12  23  29  31

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

● The correct door is 12. [Credit: Unknown - during the 1985 contest.]

● One part of the Riddle of the Path in this room is the obvious “S.” [Credit: Unknown - prior to 1990.] The other part is the “E” formed by the table legs. [Independent Credit: David G | White Raven]

● The sign labeled “SiGN” is up against the bowling pin. The lower case ” i ” looks like the white part of the bowling pin (the black stripes separate the dot from the stem) making another ” i “. [Credit: Aria | Credit: White Raven] In outlines ” ii ” is the number 2. [Credit: Test / Saints This Way | Credit: White Raven] The remaining letter “SGN” is a reference to the sign function which is abbreviated “sgn” or on calculators as “SN” or “SGN”. So “SiGN” contains both the names “sign” and “sgn”. The sgn function in simple form is written as “sgn(x)” in a function, and the archetypical representation of the function is x=sgn(x).|x| As a person who betters understands math put it, “sgn is a mathematical representation of absolute value “x”.” The upper case “SGN” suggests that this part of the puzzle stays on the arrow sign while the lesser ” i ” is paired with the bowling pin so the solution reads ” xii ” instead of the alternate possible order ” ixi “. In lower case Roman numerals ” xii ” is the number 12, indicating door 12.

● The bowling pin indicates 12 – there is one stripe at the bottom (unusual) and two stripes at the top (normal). Also, the pin is more vertical than the other items in the room perhaps suggesting that the pin is read left to right after falling to the right. [Credit: Aria]

● The stethoscope indicates 12 – the sound starts in one tube and splits into two tubes. Further reinforced the emphasis on sound in this room. [Independent Credit: David G | White Raven]

● The bulb is referred to as a “single bulb” and is circled by two rings in the illustration. 1&2=12. [Independent Credit: David G | White Raven] The “single bulb” and is connected to a light switch. The light switch is in the off position but the light is on regardless – suggesting that the switch is on in both directions. 1 switch and 2 poles of the switch = 12. [Credit: vewatkin]

● The text mentions two bowls falling (one breaking, the other presumably so) and uses the word “echo” – the illustration has a unbroken bowl and no bowl pieces. 1 unbroken/illustration bowl + 2 broken/text bowls. 1&2=12. [Credit: David G]

● A bowling theme points to the correct door, 12. The bowling pin, the word “bowl,” the “crash,” and the knocked over room recall the act of bowling, while the “corridors” recall the lanes and the single bulb the bowling ball. A perfect game in bowling requires twelve strikes. The last two strikes are tacked on after the 10th frame – this is illustrated by the two “bowl” crashes in the text. [Independent Credit: SP / David G | White Raven]

● There is a up/down metaphor which points to door 12. Because the room is tilted door 12 is above the others. The candlestick and umbrella are on the floor but are meant to be picked up, this is reinforced by clown in the poster holding up an umbrella, and in the text the Guide encourages the visitors to take something with them but what this object is isn’t stated, suggesting the general idea of picking something up. Likewise, in the illustration, the table, bowl, sign, and poster are all down when normally such things should but up or upright. In the text, bowls fall and crash, likewise bowling pins are knocked down. Thus up is encouraged (up = door 12) while down is discouraged. (down = other doors) [Credit: SP]

● This solution has several related parts: The barber pole represents the Earth’s pole, the tilt of the room represents the tilt of the earth, the bowls in the text are the two hemispheres of the earth. [Independent Credit: SP | White Raven] The single light bulb represents the sun, the single bowl in the illustration represents one of the two hemispheres of the earth (it is propped up in the appropriate fashion). The light from the bulb/sun causes one side of the bowl/hemisphere to be lit up and the other dark. The light side faces the direction of door 12. It takes 24 hours for the earth to rotate on it’s axis, half of this is 12, the number of the correct door. [Independent Credit: Aria | White Raven] Reinforcing this solution, the barber pole is tilted in relation to the pillar next to it about 23 or 24 degrees. The tilt of the Earth is 23.5 degrees. [Credit: Aria]

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216 thoughts on “Room 8

  1. The shape of that hunch suuuuure looks a lot like the shape of the 2 in 12. More so than the 2 in 29, which isn’t distorted by perspective in the same way. Also, the bottom of Punch’s foot matches the foot of the 2. The handle of his parasol could be the 1.

    Sorry if this has already been said. It’s the very deliberate shape of the hunch that convinces me.

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    • VW has pointed out that he already proposed this in a very similar way below. Sorry for the repeat…

      In looking at that comment I just wanted to mention that the podcast solution of the umbrella handle being a very nice L (L = 12) seems pretty good. As has been pointed out, the umbrella handles are all different so it seems very likely this was intentional.

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    • More “L” stuff. As has been pointed out below, the word “vote” in the text makes you think of “poll,” which leads you naturally to “pole” because of the barber pole in the image.

      The “‘pole’ among themselves” is the “l” … the most pole-like letter in that word. L = 12, etc.

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  2. How about this as support for the Earth’s Rotation Solution.

    Others have measured the tilt of this room but I think we have possibly been measuring the wrong angle.

    Earth’s tilt is measured from Earth’s axis to a line perpendicular to the ecliptic, and the ecliptic is the apparent path on the celestial sphere . and also refers to the plane of this path, coplanar with the orbit of Earth around the Sun. (An orbit symbolized by that nice strong line around the light bulb.)

    If we take the floor of the room as the plane of the ecliptic, you can draw a perpendicular using the handy central lines on the ceiling (WHICH GO THROUGH THE LIGHT BULB/SUN) as guides. Then, assuming the barber pole indicates the axis of Earth, which makes sense of course, draw a line through the barber pole to meet the perpendicular.

    UNFORTUNATELY I did not keep my protractor from high school so I can’t measure the angle, but it looks like it could be 23.4/23.5. Can someone check this? If not I’ll go buy a protractor… I’m sure it will come in handy again…

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    • BTW this line-drawing business is less complicated than I’ve made it out to be… just Google images for Earth’s tilt.

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    • Never mind… figured out a way to measure the angle and it seems to be over 30 degrees. Sigh. That would have been soooo goooood…

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    • Ugh… and now I see on second look Dave DID try this angle. Wish I could just delete this whole thread now…

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    • Aria,

      As opposed to deleting the thread I ran with it instead. There could be some gold in this mine. See related images.

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    • What about that angle between the edge of the barber pole and the nearest column? It seems close to the angle we are looking for, and the two columns at the back of the room are drawn unsymmetrically in terms of the horizontal lines indicating where the blocks are stacked… why? Maybe because the result on the left-hand column is that its right-hand edge and the line where the blocks meet make a pretty nice angle symbol.

      Maybe that is what we’re supposed to measure??

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    • Aria,

      You were right! The angle between the pillar and the pole is approximately 23.5 degrees (see related images). It is difficult to be really accurate with measuring the angle but it is certainly between 23 and 24 degrees. I’ve added it to the solution summary. Good job!

      White Raven

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  3. Just building on something that was discussed but abandoned below. People were talking about the barber pole representing a pole of the Earth, and the tilt representing the Earth’s tilt as it rotates on its axis.

    WR s comment:
    “I am excited to see you all going down this route. I spent some time with this when I was working through the book and found a solution that really fits together nicely, but the evidence was light so it’s in my solutions with a “???” after it. Perhaps one of you can put some meat on those bones or disprove it. For those interested, SP is almost there.”

    SP’s comment:
    “well you could connect the bowl to the concept of axis/earth tilt, in that the two bowls are two halves of the world on its tilted axis. not sure what to do with that either, unless you can find a connection to 12..”

    OK, so my thought is, as sp says, the TILTing of the room, together with the barber POLE and the lightbulb representing the SUN, makes us think of Earth’s rotation around its axis. It does one of these rotations each day — 24 hours.

    The two bowls in the text make us think of the eastern and western hemispheres of Earth. But only one bowl is shown in the illustration — CONVENIENTLY PROPPED UP LIKE THE EASTERN OR WESTERN HEMISPHERE! — meaning that we’ve only gone through half a rotation — 12 hours. Therefore, choose door 12!

    Or all the earth’s rotation stuff together with the lightbulb could just be a reference for a given point on earth being in sunlight roughly half the day — 12 hours — although this gets less and less true as you get closer to the poles, depending on the time of year. So maybe the other explanation is better.

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    • Come to think of it… “a vaulted chamber lit by a single bulb…”

      vaulted chamber = Earth (what house will all live in?) with sky (vault of the sky, vault of heaven)
      single bulb = Sun

      the phrase means Earth, in daytime (since the Earth is lit by the moon and stars at night) = 12 hours of daylight (on average)

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    • Ooooh! Maybe “vault” also helps the up/down theory — by directing your attention upwards, but also, a vault is a jump — you jump up!

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    • Aria,

      Congratulations, you got it!

      But to reiterate, I am not certain it is correct. I am adding it to the solution summary (with credit for sp as well) in the hope that we can find some more evidence and give it a bit more oomph.

      White Raven

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  4. another solution for 8 is a pinball metaphor. (pinball…pinBOWL).

    the columns are remeniscent of bumpers for the ball to hit and get points.

    since the goal of pinball is to keep at the top of the hill and not go into the bottom/gutter, this might clue for the top most region to be the best (12)

    the i in the SiGN could represent the pinball and plunger.

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  5. The text is a metaphor for down being bad and up being good: a bowl goes downward to break (down is even in the text paired with the pejorative “crash”) and whether we pick up the umbrella or candelabra, both would have to go “up” in order to use it, and are both seemingly useful items in the maze. In the same respect, this solution works well because only one door is above the centre of the room, so we don’t have “the tough choice” between two as we do in 10, 37 and arguably 5 . I don’t think the bowl or bowling pin are part of this clue/riddle. I think Manson has cleverly used the different objects as vehicles for 2 different metaphor riddles: this up/down one, and the bowling one. I’m sure there’s a few missing since we got the SiGN, the pic of the clown, and the smile.

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    • sp,

      Congratulations!

      I’ve thought about it every which way and this solution just works. I even found some further corroborating evidence which helps but I am giving you sole credit unless you object.

      Good job!

      White Raven

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    • Well, the smile involves turning the corners of your mouth upward, and a smile seems inherently positive. I’m not sure that the bowling pin is outside consideration here–it’s something you want to knock down, and it’s up, while the items you’d need to turn up are down. There seems to be some kind of order in that, but I’m not sure how to interpret it.

      Does a rotating barber pole have a standard direction it moves in? Moving to the right creates the illusion of upward movement, which is how I think of barber poles moving, but I don’t see either left or rightward movement to be standard when I google barber poles.

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    • I really like this solution. Regarding the barber pole, it is something that would be mounted high up on the side of a barber shop, so that is another reference to something that has to be lifted to be useful. (Otherwise potential customers won’t see it.)

      Barbers used to extract teeth so maybe that’s where our gap-toothed friend is coming from.

      (On second thought about the barber pole, didn’t WR semi-confirm something about the tilt of the earth idea somewhere below? It’s not in the solutions yet so maybe he is saving it for that… )

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    • Vewatkin,

      I’m afraid there is no standard direction for the spin on a barber pole. Type “barber pole gif” into google images. Some poles are made to go one way, some the other, and some are reversible.

      This does not completely negate your theory, perhaps the pole is suggesting up and/or down since it can create an illusion of either? Sound reasonable?

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  6. If you’re mapping out the Maze without knowledge of the secret door, the one-way passage between 23 and 8 is the only connection from the Path to the back set of room you can’t reach without going through the secret door: 17, 45, 23, 28, 32. I feel as though the oafish, grinning face above the unmarked side of that passage is meant to mock those looking for a way in…

    But that seems silly, because readers at that level of knowledge wouldn’t know anything about a Path/Loop/Trap division in the Maze, and there are plenty of one-way doors that lead into the Loop and Trap, so why would this particular door stand out to mean anything?

    But STIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

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  7. My wife and I are discussing this room, and she made an argument that door 12 is the correct answer because:
    The first line of the text mentions a vaulted chamber. Many courtrooms are vaulted chambers, so the text alludes to the visitors possibly entering a courtroom.
    The last line in the text refers to the visitors taking a vote among themselves just like a jury would.
    The typical size of a jury is 12 members.

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  8. This is kind of simplistic but maybe that’s what we need sometimes. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

    Much has been rambled on about what the visitors should take because they might need it. Although the umbrella is one’s first thought, the candlestick might be a good answer, since darkness is an important factor, if not more important, than the weather (candlestick close to door 12, boom).

    That being said, this theory weakens a bit because in the previous room (23) the visitors mention that they should have taken an umbrella. Is the Guide bringing this point up in 8 as a reminder to the last room’s comments? On the other hand, umbrellas would be fairly pointless indoors, and none of the outdoor rooms actually rain, but darkness is everywhere, especially the place you don’t want to go. On the other hand, you could argue that if you could take this candlestick, why not take the one in 4? Perhaps because the text doesn’t prompt you to. I know this is wishy washy but fun to think about. Only the second paragraph of this rant is an attempt at a clue/solve.

    * BONUS SOLVE *

    If you want to be imaginative with the “rules”, If you had a candlestick, maybe that’s a get out of jail free card if you reach 24, just light up the candle and make your way back to one away from the mopes with the glowing eyes……… but only if you have the book of matches to light it from 4 or 35 as well. Otherwise you’re split out of luck. That was some bowling humour, there, yeah, um, that’s it.

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  9. (sorry if this has been said before)

    The sign on the floor with the jester and the stethoscope is a clue to room 39, the room after 12 on the path. You are supposed to listen to the ringing of Fortunato’s bells when you are in there.

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    • Yup, good observation, both faces are moon shaped too. It’s been mentioned that the guy in 8 is the character Punch from “Punch”, a UK satire magazine from back in the day. However, in no version have I ever seen him with such a moon shaped nose/chin. This whole sun/moon business is coming to a white hot culmination (I hope).

      imgc.artprintimages.com/images/art-print/the-mister-punch-character-holding-a-copy-of-the-first-issue-of-punch-magazine_i-G-17-1754-I1P3D00Z.jpg

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    • A moon? Maybe. But it aint punch. It’s an vaudeville clown wearing a fez. Not enough detail to be anything really specific.

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    • The particularly Punch-esque attributes of the clown are the nose-to-chin curve and the hunchback, but if those are fairly generic clown features then I agree there’s no reason to bring Punch into it.

      However, even if the curve and hunchback were fairly particular to Punch, this character lacks Punch’s distinctive hat and hunch shape. I can’t find an image of Punch in any medium that matches this picture very closely.

      I will probably call him Punch for easy reference regardless.

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  10. The small i in SiGN could be a Masonic symbol there are a number running around this room I think. The umbrella handle and the fez at least. And then there is stone construction here of course. Nothing on what that might signify – but there it is.

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  11. As I am looking to group rooms into themes, I still feel this room is “Astronomy”.
    This room represents the Earth’s axis…the bowling pin not being down and not being actually aligned straight up means it is “wobbling” we have all witnessed a bowling pin wobble, “Will it fall or not?” That is what is represented here…the Earth wobbling on its axis.

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  12. although i doubt that manson clued anything alluding to guns, room 8 talks about chambers, loud noises, and the doorways are reminiscent of cartridges. if there were a gun connection to 12 i would be more inclined to find a solution here, but as it stands 12 is not a standard number for number of cartridges in a clip (it’s usually 10, 20, 25, 30, 40, etc.).

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    • They do look a lot like bullets now that you say that – and I agree with the reasons it’s probably not anything too.

      But if that candle were lit I could give you a firing pin. “BOWLING PIN” – “BOWL” = “ING PIN” – just add “FIRE”.

      And it does “STRIKE” the bullet.

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    • wiki says – at least one revolver has a 12 shot capacity. But that sounds uncommon then. 2 crashes = 2 6-shooters? Maybe some tie-in to 6 table legs? Still not quite coming together for me.

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    • Cartridges..not bullets. A bullet is just the tip. Cowboy guns are generally pretty horrible, especially 12-round revolvers. I wouldn’t buy it unless 12 was a common number for all guns, but it’s not, 12 only appears in certain cases like 12 gage shotguns, 12 rounds in a .22 LR, and um, that’s about all i can think of.

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  13. OK one more shot at the same idea here – ’cause I suspect WR did something with this and just wants the last piece or something. We have the chain of pointers. Candle sign and umbrella. Let’s add punch’s parasol. Things point DOWN towards the DARKened 31 sign. The UNLIT candle is part of this team, and so is the CLOSED umbrella. In the other direction we have the OPEN parasol to keep away the SUN, and we move UP towards the LIT 12 sign. One could argue the stethoscope leads DOWN as well. That is the lower part of it points to the DOWN door.

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  14. That bowling pin is really still an enigma-its standing upright but not in line with the room’s uprightness if it was upright? And what also is an irk is the “axis” of the room as “axis” = “a six” not a 12. As I still hold tight to the satellite…Echo 1 & Echo 2 maybe we could work Axis 1 & Axis 2 = 2 x’s (a six) = 12.

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  15. If we are indeed looking for strike stuff here, I wonder whether the candlestick is here in tribute to its presence in Clue as a murder weapon.

    Seeing Punch and beat as synonyms for “strike” is tempting. “Tilt,” I don’t know, I didn’t look it up in the OED, but tilting in the martial sense is traditionally used to mean charging at something like in a joust, not the actual striking of somebody. (E.g. “tilting at windmills.”)

    I like this idea, but I guess to keep repeating myself: I don’t see where we make the leap from “this could be some bowling stuff” to “the correct door is 12.”

    It’s not far off; we have bowls and a bowling pin; the “sign” could be the “ings” off the end of the bowls (bowling – bowl = ing; plural is “ings”; sign; see?); and maybe we have some strike stuff. But there should be something about a 300 game here if that’s where we’re going.

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    • I’m not very familiar with clue. But since it is only one of the possible weapons…dunno.

      It’s not easy to find an on-line source with the older meaning of tilt – but here is one dictionary dot reference dot com slash browse slash tilt. to strike, thrust, or charge with a lance or the like (usually followed by at).

      I think if we were only working the problem forward – that is we were in the room and wanted a door and all we had was “bowling is in the air” then yeah – not a lot of confidence in 12. But I’m sure Manson knew Maze could not be solved that way. Working backwards and knowing 12 is the answer, the connection is a lot clearer. And really we have a bit more that just bowling – we have strike and bowling together at least – that suggests 12 (it could suggest other numbers too, but they are not here). I think we can get at the concept of perfect too, but that’s a whole other set of ideas. We have Gothic arches. Gothic structures used 12 as a perfect number at times. They sometimes depicted all 12 signs of the zodiac. As we’ve noted that bulb could be Polaris at the top of the grid of the celestial sphere and right over the “north pole”. I think by pulling at words a bit we have “bow, arrow, and sign”. So that all gets us the idea of a Gothic cathedral with 12 signs of the zodiac. It also gives us Sagitarius the archer, the sign for December and the 12th of the calendar year. (And the left over L from spelling bow and arrow is the 12th letter of the alphabet).

      Again, there is no neat order that I see to present the ideas in this room, they all sort of tie in together in a jumble – just like the pile of stuff.

      I did do a lot more playing around with bowling and candle sticks, but not very productive in the end. As I noted – or well as Marianne noted and I modified slightly – duck pin can work for a door indicator in room 18. If I had multimedia I’d write “duck” on the curtain and “pin” on the pin. And combine the two where the pin points at the pinned curtain. If we take that that idea (either 10-pin or 10 frames) to room 8 and use regular bowling we get the right door there too (except the pin is not by the right door). But if we use candlepin bowling in room 8 we get the wrong door – 31. I noted that the candle, the umbrella and the sign form a channel from 12 to 31. So that unlit candle is really pointing us exactly the wrong way – both literally “pointing” and clueing the wrong sort of bowling.

      Once in the past someone noted the bottom of the candle is like the phone receiver in 20. And I played around with the Medieval tradition of hearing vs. seeing being faith vs. direct knowledge. And it does fit with the lightning that we can’t see. And in 43 “believing in yourself” can be “faith in yourself” but it never was a very productive to date. It could explain the the phone stopping ringing in 20 – but that’s just too far and long to go for just that.

      Maybe we could combine the fact that the candle is unlit with the slope of the room? Darkness is down and bad. The opposite then is light and up and good? Betting we’ve said that.

      Another thought is if we flipped that whole chain of objects around they’d point to the correct door, and then we’d have the “* * i 2″ thing if we were seeing the chain reversed.

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    • VW: you mentioned the crooked smile as interesting. The best fit I have for it at the moment is that it takes the place of the sign back to 23. 23 degrees is in the ballpark of the tilt/crookedness of the room. And the tilt of the Earth of course.

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  16. room 29 is ahead of us. We remember its “up and on”? and thus walk uphill to 12. OR you in general walk up because up is goo in Maze? Or just walk up hill because we need exercise we are not getting by sitting at computers?

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  17. Look at the book in the mirror for this – it is easier that way. Think about the arrow sign in 3 for inspiration for this move. Now pick up the sign and match the s on it to the s hanging on the wall – that is mentally overlay them. The result? You have an arrow pointing at door 12, and in the mirror it reads
    ” * * i 2 ” = looks like a 12.

    Now I’m thinking this jumbled mess combined with “bring it with you” might hint to move objects around the room mentally.

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  18. I have a few things that I thought I would throw out there for this room.

    I noticed the “Si” and thought of silicon, but I see that’s been mentioned already way back in the comments and hasn’t gone anywhere so far.

    But what if you put it together with two Os, either from the bowls in the text (pre-shatter) or from the two ends of the candlestick? Then you get silicon dioxide, or silica (glass, breakable!) — chemical formula, SiO2. The subscript 1 is implied after the Si as you all probably know. So you put the subscripts together and get 12, the correct door.

    One interesting thing is that most sand is composed mostly of silica, too. And how do you get glass? By heating sand to a high temperature. (Fire + sand = glass.) This is interesting maybe in light of the unexplained (I think?) sand in room 17, and all the fire references. The fire in 18 looks pretty hot… I don’t know about this, though.

    Or there’s room 23 with the broken glass.

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    • You could get your two Os from the 8 too. Not signing on to that one, but I like it.

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    • Oh yeah. Or this is somehow meant to indicate “glasses” and then you have the 8, which looks like spectacles.

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  19. There actualy is a striped pole on the North Pole…just google “striped pole on north pole”!
    Also, that Echo clowns teeth have “space” between them.
    note: the shadow of the candle stick looks suspiciously like a compass needle…it may be pointing to true north or magnetic north…maybe if it represents a compass that is what they “should take with them, they may need it later.” I’ll be looking for the room that may be where they need it.

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    • I did google north pole images as soon as I typed that .lol

      Not selling me on the echo thing – and I’m an easy sell compared to others here.

      Regarding compass needle. Dunno if that is intended, but thinking about my arrow/candle channel. Compass needles point north and south, of course. And if we interpret “up” as “north” well then we have a compass needle pointing at room 12, the correct door. Dunno, however.

      Just about everything in the room has been suggested as something to take with. The umbrella and the “S” seem most probable (with a strong nod to “S”). The “S” is used to spell “shoulders” letter by letter from here along the rest of the path as part of the confirmed riddle of the path.

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  20. I think my overall analysis of the objects in the room and how they relate to each other is correct as they bring us the Earth to Space/Space to Earth visual/audio/physical characteristics…a rather loaded room. The Barber Pole would be the North Pole that lies directly under Polaris (the North Star-Pole Star) (the light bulb). The Earth rotates on its axis always with the North Pole remaining under and pointing to Polaris (do the imaginary line thing here). We indeed have a revolving tilted pole…the Earth’s Axis. All the items in the room just help us layout what we are supposed to be seeing here to verify our conclusion by putting the items in space in their proper positions.

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    • Sometimes despite what WR says, I think objects get used more than once fairly often, so I think of them as only meaning one thing. I don’t remember the case for the bulb being the sun – but I do like Polaris for this reason – the lines all meeting at it are like the pattern at the top of the celestial sphere where we would indeed find Polaris. I think most agree that the pole’s primary meaning is the North Pole. I also like the point you mention that the pole is directly down from the bulb. Yes regarding the tilt of course – I’m slightly bothered that most measurements are larger that 24 degrees but not that bothered. Bowls as hemispheres might have something going for them too. And I see zodiac related clues too.

      OK I now went and read my page and there is no good case for the bulb as the sun so I’m totally on board with Polaris. ((I also think the letter scrabble resulting in Split that I have there goes too far). But I do still like BOW and ARROW.

      But I don’t think all the other stuff here is then automaticly space related – I think we are supposed to find other things going on in the room Bowling, Lightning. Strike. (And given that strike and tilt are synonyms, we have two strikes and two tilts, and 12 times 2 is the 24 degree tilt we see). Then there are the 12 bowling strikes.

      There certainly may be more space stuff, but not from what I’ve seen so far. But kudos on “Polaris” and the pole being straight down from the bulb. I concur.

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    • A little more:

      Assuming that the map should be a figure 8 for the path then exit 29 under the pole star does indeed lead north to room 29. 12 is also to the east, and 31 to the west. I’d argue that 29 is probably North-East of room 8 technically, but since we can’t know the exact room positions this is trivial. 6? We don’t know where 6 is from here, other than down. So, unlike rooms 1, 4, and 23/19 where we look South, I do think we are supposed to be looking North in this room.

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    • I think once Polaris is accepted “punch bowl” could be a weak clue for it. So half a vote there.

      Also – some may not know this – but cartoon representations of the North Pole at least in my generation frequently pictured a stripped pole like that marking the pole. A connection to candy canes and Santa maybe? But for whatever reason – they did. Something I’m sure Manson was familiar with too. Maybe they still use that image? Dunno. But it seems like a long time since I’ve seen one. Or barber poles for that matter.

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  21. There was actually an Echo 1 and Echo 2 communication balloon satellite (only two were ever launched) which yields us 1 & 2 = Door #12.

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    • My thought on that – Maybe if it was a clown holding two balloons, but it is just an odd-tooth smile.

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  22. You’re right vewatkin, but I was thinking of the Mom/Dad/Teacher combo enjoying MAZE together…the adult would explain all the out of realm to the younger ones, that is assuming we could figure it out ourselves…lol.

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