After Control Resonant I wanted to re-visit the hiss Incantation and see if there’s anything new to glean from it. Examining it line-by-line and all that. Though I’ll begin with some prefaces.
First preface is that I’ve always thought that The Hiss Incantation can be separated into three stanzas separated by the repeating line “After the song, time for applause.” For this analysis I will associate it with the idea of three acts/games. Most of my re-examinating is thus trying to see if it fits into a 3 game hypothesis and the new revelations we’ve had about Jesse Dylan Faden.
Second preface is that I believe that these lines can have multiple interpretations even if most of the time I’m only discussing one. Their interpretations seem to change when you treat them individually or try to relate them to just one game.
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Stanza 1 - CONTROL
Assumptions: It is an address to the FBC/Director. It is related to CONTROL.
1 You are a worm through time.
2 The thunder song distorts you.
3 Happiness comes.
- Lines 1-3 feel like a declaration. You are nothing to time, our sound changes you, we will make you happy.
4 White pearls, but yellow and red in the eye.
- Your eyes are ordinary, but have signs of being diseased/seeing anew. Not yet corrupted.
5 Through a mirror, inverted is made right.
- Your reflection is correct, the opposite of you is the better/correct you.
- Whilst I believe this is primary to the hiss itself I’ll throw in that it may refer to Jesse and Dylan being inverted in personality, Dylan is hiss, Dylan is right.
6 Leave your insides by the door.
- Self-multilation as a choice for entry. It’s formal, business-like, the same way you would leave a coat. Very FBC.
7 Push the fingers through the surface into the wet.
- The other world is an easy barrier to break into, but still disconnected, break it.
8 You’ve always been the new you.
9 You want this to be true.
- Lines 8-9 are ordinary. This change has always been here, you want this change.
- Another stretch in the audience, maybe it could refer to Jesse Dylan Faden Split, considering the siblings' memories seem rather repressed.
10 We stand around you while you dream.
11 You can almost hear our words but you forget.
12 This happens more and more now.
- Lines 10-12 reference how Trench was corrupted. You are already compromised, we are trying to teach you the chant in dreams but you forget. 12 has a sense of deterioration, the dreams were ever constant.
13 You gave us the permission in your regulations.
14 We wait in the stains.
15 The word that describes this is redacted.
- Line 13-15 are directly addressing the FBC. You already let us in, we are already in the stains/margins of your documents, you don’t know because it is redacted/on a need-to-know basis.
- The hidden world you created gave us the jungle in which to ambush you. Not knowing about The Hiss is what made people not put on the HRAs, they couldn't fear a threat that's redacted.
16 Repeat the word.
17 The name of the sound.
18 It resonates in your house.
- Line 16-18 Addresses the FBC again. The Hiss is self propagating, it does a cult-like chant. Join the hiss.
19 After the song, time for applause.
Conclusion on Stanza 1
The first Stanza appears to be about the nature of the corruption. How they got into the FBC, not necessarily a motive besides happiness. It can address Trench and the FBC as a whole. Considering the first game is about The Hiss it makes sense that it would be directly about them. An incantation that begins with a declaration.
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Stanza 2 - CONTROL Resonant
Assumptions: It is addressed to Dylan. It is related to CONTROL Resonant.
20 We build you till nothing remains.
- Notably Trench says this to Dylan about the Prime Candidate Program.
- We create/give to you until you are no longer you. The FBC built Dylan until they broke him. The Hiss built up Trench's walls until he had no one.
- Note: Even though Darling is more associated with the Hedron I think it owes to its nature. In service of a goal (defeating the hiss) it actually propagates the hiss and destroys everything around it. i.e. the patterning caused the evacuation, the evacuation made a target for the hiss to grow stronger.
21 The egg cracks and the truth will emerge out of you.
- “You can’t unscramble an egg.” Symbolic of the relation between Dylan and Jesse. The truth literally emerged from Dylan when he created the Gap Slide.
22 You are home.
23 You remind us of home.
- The oldest house is home, the oldest house is reminiscent of the slidescape. Or Dylan is reminiscent of it.
- The red slide or 36 is home, a place with no escape, locked away until it's let out. Just like how lockdown lifting from the house allowed it to leave. The house is the new home?
- Could also reference The Gap, Dylan’s desolate world isn’t home but is reminiscent of it.
24 You’ve taken your boss with your boss with you.
- Dylan’s taken The Board with The Hiss with him.
25 All hair must be eaten.
- Assumed Nonsense Piece, but I’ll try.
- One must consume the dead pieces that grew from themself.
- In reference to the fact that Dylan subsumed his corrupted self to take control. The Hiss appeared happy when he did, so it makes sense why it's a command. He was doing it to destroy The Hedron.
26 Under the conceptual reality behind this reality you must want these waves to drag you away.
- The conceptual reality behind this reality could be in reference to Dylan’s “take control” moment in the video game segment. You want to not be here, but want a natural force to take you without personal action.
- But “must” means that the hiss is making an assumption.
- The Hiss is the force that dragged Dylan away the first time, but Dylan is experiencing it for the second time, so he chooses differently.
27 After the song, time for applause.
- Another phrase regarding an ending.
Conclusion on Stanza 2
It’s shorter but seems to almost directly address Dylan and his journey more so than the first stanza. Considering Resonant is also more about Dylan, it lines up under the game-stanza assumption. It does seem that The Hiss is supportive? Probably because the entire goal is "Kill The Hedron".
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Stanza 3 - ???
Now we’ve left the known into the unknown.
Assumptions: It is addressed to Jesse [and] Dylan Faden. It’s focused on elements of the next game. The Hiss is not a liar (either it is detailing fantasies of success, or it’s a camera without timescale).
28 This cliché is death out of time, breaking the first the second the third the fourth wall, the fifth wall, floor; no floor: you fall!
- The repeating story element is your life flashing before your eyes or Death being unable to take you.
- the first the second the third: Breaks the separation between backstage and story.
- fourth wall: This breaks the separation between story and audience.
- Fifth wall: less defined idea, either the concept of reality itself by being illogical, or breaking the separation between author and story.
- Floor; no floor: you fall: Taking away the grounding of the story, the performer can’t perform/is no longer within the bounds of the story.
- Implication is escaping the story/performance, but not by your own free will.
29 How do you say “insane”?
30 Hurts to be happy.
- Assumed Nonsense. But 29 is ironic, asking a question already answered.
- The hiss gives happiness, it is painful.
- These two seem to express a level of negativity towards The Hiss. Potentially able to see it as aggressive mimicry, you can mimic an animal in distress to lure one in.
31 An earworm is a tune you can’t stop humming in a dream: “baby baby baby yeah”.
32 Just plastic.
33 So, safe and nothing to worry about.
- Almost feels like a response to the previous two lines.
- Line 31 Re-affirms the earworm of the hiss. Taking back control.
- The Comma in 33 redefines 32, it is just plastic so it is safe and nothing to worry about.
- May refer to the slide projector/unknown object/game cartridge.
34 Ha ha, funny.
- Laughter, it may refer to the irony of it being safe. If so, then it’s another potential negative sentiment.
35 The last egg breaks now.
- An egg previously was symbolic of the Fadens' connection and truth, so this is the last truth about them.
- The implication is that we are still missing something about the past, a single egg.
36 The hole in your room is a hole in you.
- The hole analogy of the first game referenced the gateway to the supernatural world.
- The gap to the supernatural was already inside you, it’s not the world, it’s you.
37 You came and we let you in through the hole in you.
- Dylan uses this line to refer to Polaris.
- You came to us and we used the already existing supernatural part in you to let you in.
- Could refer to future entering the home of The Hiss through connection to Hiss.
38 You have always been here, the only child.
- Directly addressing the only child? Jesse Dylan Faden?
- May imply that a plot thing happens in the third game is related, last egg broken, the only child is here in some way.
39 A copy of a copy of a copy.
- Three copies, which means four entities. Or a recursive loop.
- Jesse and Dylan are a copy of the Severed Circle protagonists are a copy of Jesse Dylan Faden. (but then that implies Jesse Dylan Faden is a copy of something, or a copy is somewhere else.)
- The Severed Circle 2 Protags are maybe a copy because I assume that when choosing names (something in earthbound) Jesse Dylan Faden named one Dylan and one Jesse.
- Maybe it’s related to resonances/persons/game/person. If we consider Jesse Polaris and Hiss Dylan as copies.
- Or a recursive loop, Reality copied Severed Circle 2 which copied Reality.
40 Orange peel.
- More nonsense? This one is least concrete for me.
- Oranges as in cleaning solution? We know a janitor/god. Could see the end of the CONTROL series being focused on the two of them taking his mantle in some way.
41 The picture is you holding the picture.
- The memory is of you remembering the memory, implying there is no original memory with you in it.
42 When you hear this you will know you’re in new you.
- But normally when you hear/understand the chant outside of half-remembered dreams you are corrupted by the hiss.
- Once you hear this part you have listened to everything else, you are already corrupted.
- Don’t like the implications of this to address Jesse Dylan Faden.
43 You want to listen.
44 You want to dream.
45 You want to smile.
46 You want to hurt.
47 You don’t want to be.
- These last lines are contradictory desires, 43-46 are four wants that are about existence, both good and bad. But 47 says that you don’t want to exist.
- Two Interpretations, one for Hiss as a whole, one for our protagonists.
- Reference to how The Hiss changes you until you are nothing. All the wants are things that The Hiss provides.
- Reference to the potential of Jesse Dylan Faden potentially being recombined but not wanting to exist. Wanting to be separate.
- Notably, there is no applause at the end of the last stanza, potentially hinting that The Hiss Incantation ends before the story does. Maybe it ends at some new metamorphosis, roll credits but there’s more story. Or the story repeats like a loop.
Conclusion on Stanza 3
This is the most predictive I’ll get here, trying to insert puzzle pieces before getting the picture on the box. In general if we go by this interpretation then something illogical happens in the beginning, related to reality/story itself and The Hiss loses its grip/power even more and tries to re-affirm itself. The connection between Dylan and Jesse is fully realized/revealed. Personally I would think the 3rd game would hopefully have an element of travel. Maybe entering slidescapes/thresholds and traveling to different AWEs related to the main plot. Maybe that’s why the hiss has to let you in, you came to it’s house to end things. And without the song’s end/applause, maybe you succeed.
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Conclusion on the Incantation as a Whole
My perspective on The Hiss and its relation with reality is that it has difficulties invading realities on its own terms and needs to be let in (see: Mr. Door Dream). The Hiss also seems to have an ability to recruit instead of destroy individuals uniquely able to get rid of threats/spread the word (see: Trench, Dylan, The President Dream). It tells you that it helps you change for the better. It's almost aggressive mimicry, a cat mimicking the sound of a bird on a more intelligent scale. Maybe the mystery/almost-sense is a way to draw its targets into its trap of wanting to know. The Hiss also seem to have a level of precognition since Dylan doesn’t seem/have reason to lie about his dreams. The Hiss incantation may focus on Jesse and Dylan in parts because those are its threats/marks. You will be happy if you accept, it’s a boring game if you refuse/our reality is not realized. The irony of entropy offering certainty.
I do think this conclusion is far from complete without 3rd game context. I simply like the idea that each part, while together, can come to define the whole story from The Hiss’s perspective. But in an individual line capacity it is more like a guideline for existence, a mantra in a religion to repeat and apply as fit.
