[Fien]

The Italian dubbing couldn't possibly reveal anything about the prologue. Unless Jane herself supervised the Italian voiceacting.

Come on, come on! Let's have it. You're here, so you have time to post.

[AndreaDraco83]

I'm working on an essay for the University. I plan to finish it as soon as possible - also because I've had it over my head - and then, when I will finally have more than ten minutes to squeeze between a page and the other, I will post my thoughts.

About the epilogue, the only thing I can think is that the voice director had some sort of document with the author's explanation of every line, because at least one line may reveal what exactly is going on

Yeah, I'm definitely teasing you guys!

[Fien]

Did you mean prologue or epilogue?
Cause there's just the one line in the prologue, as I mentioned when this playthrough started. About the coach waiting.

[Fantasysci5]

Yeah, I was wanting the prologue explained, unless I'm the only dense one here who didn't quite understand all of the full implications by the end of the game.

[KasiaD]

I've been recently busy too, but now not anymore so looking forward to reading Andrea's summary

[DaveyB]

Well, like Andreas, I also hadn't managed to finish GK3 (Have patience with some of us, Fien ) but finally managed a little time to have a stab at it this (late) evening & managed to do the door-closing puzzle within 10mins this time. Got this feeling that it wasn't actually fully logical. But anyway.

As others have commented, the epilogue was a little disappointing. I don't think it would have really been plausible to have Gaby & Gracie meeting up with all the minor characters again; but the dialogue on the bridge itself (and the acting/directing) could have been better. But a minor criticism compared to the strengths of Chapter 6 & indeed, the game as a whole. Agree with a lot of things Fien wrote re likes of chapter 6, and would add

Spoiler:

the burning of von Glower too - nicely done, within the limitations of budget/technology.

[Fien]

Originally Posted by DaveyB

Well, like Andreas, I also hadn't managed to finish GK3 (Have patience with some of us, Fien )

I'll be very patient, Davey. That wasn't really me talking, you know. I was channelling Gabriel...

[Luna Sevithiainen]

Originally Posted by Fien

The Italian dubbing couldn't possibly reveal anything about the prologue. Unless Jane herself supervised the Italian voiceacting.

Actually, I've been thinking about that, and sometimes when you translate something, you come across words or sentences that do not translate perfectly, which forces the translator to give a translation slightly different, or more revealing from the original.
Say, the English version has an ambiguous word in it, which you can interpret in 2 ways, but Italian has 2 seperate words for that. In that case it forces the translator to pick one, which will be (very likely) the word with the meaning that was actually meant. However, in this way it destroys the (possibly purposeful) ambiguity of the original, and revealing more than the original did.

[Fien]

Die Kutsche wartet = the carriage/coach is waiting. Those are the only words spoken during the prologue. They can hardly present a translation problem.

If that fire is indeed meant for Von Ralick's family, how did they manage to get so close to it and escape at the same time? What tower is that in the background? Someone suggested that they set fire to their home themselves. I suppose it's possible, but not very likely.

Frankly, I don't see how the Italian translation of any reference elsewhere in the game to Von Ralick's family could be the answer to my question about the prologue.

[Little Writer]

For a long time I thought Von Glower's mother's name was Nell. Then I realized the guy is saying schnell.

[Fien]

Originally Posted by Little Writer

For a long time I thought Von Glower's mother's name was Nell. Then I realized the guy is saying schnell.

LOL! Me too.

[Luna Sevithiainen]

Originally Posted by Fien

Die Kutsche wartet = the carriage/coach is waiting. Those are the only words spoken during the prologue. They can hardly present a translation problem.

If that fire is indeed meant for Von Ralick's family, how did they manage to get so close to it and escape at the same time? What tower is that in the background? Someone suggested that they set fire to their home themselves. I suppose it's possible, but not very likely.

Frankly, I don't see how the Italian translation of any reference elsewhere in the game to Von Ralick's family could be the answer to my question about the prologue.

I wasn't thinking about a scene in particular, I was just pondering about the ambiguous clue Andrea gave us. (And I think it is a prologue and epilogue mix up, as I have the idea that the epilogue is pretty unclear as to what is said. As you say, there is no doubt about the only line in the prologue). That said, that clue can be anywhere in the game, now if only Andrea would have some time to enlighten us...

[AndreaDraco83]

Finally, here are my thoughts about Chapter Six, Ludwig's missing chapter, the epilogue and the prologue. It will be a fairly long post, I reckon, but I hope it will also be interesting now that everyone has finished the games and spoilers are no longer a concern.

The Missing Chapter

It is common knowledge that originally The Beast Within should have encompassed seven different chapters, with one of them, the sixth, entailing Ludwig II and his desperate attempt to hide the secret Wagner's opera and escape his capture. The chapter was cut due to budgetary reasons, but traces of it remain in the novel and, for those of you who didn't read the book, here's a brief summary of what the chapter would have been like.

Neuschwanstein, 1886. Ludwig is waken up by Weber, one of his servants, who informs the King that the conspirators, led by Dr. Gudden, are on the move at Hohenschwangau. The guards the King had prepared for the occasion — farmers, mostly — have fled their position, and the castle is severely undermanned. Slowly, Ludwig realizes that the inevitable will happen: Yes, they would come for him. But he didn't have to remain in custody. He didn't have to allow them to lock him, to study him. His secret, his shame, did not have to go down in the history books. These were the things that terrified him. And then, as he prays at the statue of the Madonna with the child, in the little chapel, he realizes that "they could take his body, but they could not force him to remain in it". Ludwig writes a letter to Elizabeth, where he explains that he cannot allow to be captured and that, since she's the only one who knows something about his tormet, he's trusting her with a capital information: the location of four secret compartments in Neuschwanstein where he intend to hide Wagner's opera, so that Elizabeth can see the matter through, stage the opera and end the damnation of his soul. He gives her very clear instructions: "Place him [Baron Rudolf von Glower] in the mittelloge and make sure that the sharpest and wivkest armed guards are stationed near the door and are prepared to protect the crowd with their life. The rest, I believe, will happen naturally". Finally, Ludwig hides the parchments in the Singer's Hall — where the novel explains that the hidden panels were installed by order of the monarch —, in the grotto and the bedroom. Suddenly, when he has concelead the third parchments and his heading to the entrance, he realizes that the tower is locked, by his order, since he feared that the servants could use it to sneak up in there to spy on him from the vantage point. The King has one of the servants, the ugly Mayr, whose face is covered by a black mask, looking for the key, but he doesn't know that Mayr has betrayed him and soon, before he has a chance to hide the crystal diagram, Dr. Gudden is upon him, taking him into custody to Schloss Berg, where crazy Otto lay: Berg of the insane. On the road to Berg, Ludwig — as it is shown in Chapter Six's opening cinematic — gives the letter for Elizabeth and the diagram to Frau Vogl, a woman who brought him some water. He explains that if Elizabeth is unable to capture and end the Black Wolf, she must put the diagram with his heart in Altotting, as a token to the blessed Virgin of [Ludwig's] faithfulness. The chapter ends with Ludwig drowning Gudden and then committing suicide. Here's a passage:

Louis, his black curls falling on his broad, muscled shoulders. Louis, his firm jaw and tender mouth, his eyes that burned with passion and danced with intelligence and wit. Louis, who loved luxury, silk frills, and velvet jackets, so complementary to his romantic beauty. And yet underneath the gilt there was abody and a will that were hard and unchallengingly male, like something from a fairy tale, like Lohengrin himself perhaps, or Siegfried [...] And then the water covered his mouth, stilling his words and washing aways his tears[/i] [...] He simply opened his mouth and took the water in like a lover.

A castle, an opera and a maze

It's pretty to divide Chapter Six into three main segments: Grace looking for the lost opera, the night of the opera at the Wittelsbach Theater, the final maze in the bowels of the theater. I like them all, but the night of the opera is perhaps my favorite segment of the adventure, after Chapter Four of course, and for almost the same reasons. The believability of the setting — just slightly marred by Gabriel's kidnapping of the main actor, which alway struck me as a bit too much — and the actions Gabriel and Grace must perform to further the story, like speaking with the usher about the seat arrangement, checking the chandeliers or turn a furnace on to warm the locales, are coherent and consistent. Furthermore, the atmosphere in the theater is incredible: luscious tapestry, gilded frames, velvety curtains, warm lights and fancy evening dresses make up for a stunning ambiance and I have no doubt in saying that the theater is hands down my favorite location ever to appear in an adventure game.

As for the first segment of the chapter, I know that some of you already pointed out that it's at least strange that no one ever find the secret compartments hidden in Neuschwanstein. While I obviously agree, I seriously think that Ludwig's neverending will prevented them to do so. I always had a feeling — when Grace was freeing the pigeon up in the hall, or using the holy water to lure the guard away — that a supernatural force was overlooking her actions, and guiding her through the castle. After all, Ludwig appeared in Gabriel's dream to reveal the locations of the opera and, before, he appeared to Grace in the lake, pleading with Chapill for the diary, and, even if it certainly is a bit of a stretch, I can see him interceding on Grace's behalf to let her and her alone finding the parchments. Of course this spiritic explantion doesn't make up for the stretch of having to go to Altotting to take the holy water, but these are stretches I can live with, since they decidedly represent the minority of the challenges.

On the final maze, I have nothing to say. I loved it the first time and I continue to love it after every playthrough. This overarching puzzle is carefully planned and stunningly implemented within the story and final sequence in the furnace room is simply outstanding: I still can feel waves of tension anytime I corner the Black Wolf in there, and when Gabriel finally pushes him into the fire, Von Glower's eyes as he burns — eyes that spoke of guilt and relief, of grief and loss, of love even — are still able to send more than one shiver down my spine.

The end, at the beginning

Now, let's focus on the prologue of the game. What exactly does the prologue show? I do believe that they intentionally left it open to interpretation, but something can surely be said about it. It is of course obvious that the child is a young Von Glower and that the woman is his mother, Von Ralick's wife. But what is happening? This is my speculation: knowing that the captors of Von Ralick would have tracked his family down, Von Glower's mother set their castle on fire and flee with her child, taking him as far away from Germany as possible. That they flee we know for sure, since Von Glower admits being raised in Brasil and only returning to Europe later on, so the only dubious points that remain are: who set fire to the castle and what is the guard implying when he says that the carriage is waiting? I believe that they intentionally set fire to the castle to distract their pursuers because, in first Italian edition of the game, it is strongly implied that they are coming and that their coming is the reason why the coach is waiting. Von Glower's mother pulls him away gently, and I believe that she would have been more hectic and preoccupied if it were the captors who set the grounds on fire, whilst her composure seems to indicate that she has a good grasp on the situation. Of course, the last image of the boy's face surrounded by flames is also a prevision of the ending and the circular structure of the game is one of his strongest points: in fact, the prologue proves to be almost indecipherable at the beginning and the game must be completed at least once for the player to be able to fully understand what he has seen at the beginning, thus providing an addition spur to delve into the story and unravel the mystery of the boy and the fire.

[AndreaDraco83]

The Epilogue in the novel

I know that some doubts were raised about the meaning of Gabriel and Grace's words during the epilogue. I honestly don't understand these doubts, but I will nonetheless try to explain the epilogue at the best of my ability. The main purpose of the epilogue is to show us how much Gabriel has changed during the course of the game: at first, fascinated by Von Glower and his edonist lifestyle, by his Dionysian philosophy, he realized in the end that when the bucks stop he doesn't want to be like that — and this means that, finally, after two games, he's accepting his responsibilities. In the end, he refuses a life of intoxication, of celebration of nature, of irrational and instinctual chaos and chooses a more balanced path, achieving that elusive equilibrium between Apollonian and Dyonisian aspects of the human nature. In Camille Paglia's theory about this dichotomy, "the Dionysian is dark and chtonic while the Apollonian is light and structured. The Dionysian is associated with females, wild nature, and unconstrained sex/procreation, while the Apollonian is associated with males, clarity, rationality/reason, and solidity, along with the goal of oriented progress. Paglia attributes all the progress of human civilization to males revolting against the Dionysian forces of females, and turning instead to the Apollonian trait of ordered creation. The Dionysian is a force of chaos and destruction which is the overpowering and alluring chaotic state of wild nature, and the turn away from it towards socially constructed Apollonian virtues accounts for the prevalence of asexuality and homosexuality in geniuses and in the most culturally prosperous places such as ancient Athens." (from Wikipedia) This is essentially the path of maturation that Gabriel undertakes from Sins of the Fathers to the end of The Beast Within. In Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned, we can see the final stages of this progress, where — after taking responsibility of his role as a Schattenjager — he finally confronts his fears of engagement and his insecurity as a man.

In the novel, though, the epilogue is drastically different. It depicts the first breakfast at Schloss Ritter after the night at the opera, and this is the last passage, after Gabriel reveals to Grace that he didn't want her on the case out of concern for her safety:

"I'm in or I'm out," Grace repeated, giving him her stubborn chin. "Full partners. Or I'll make other plans."
"Full partners?" He laughed and laughed, bright and joyful. She frowned, hurt at first, but there was no malice in the sound. "God, Gracie, your are something'!"
"Well?"
He rose and came over to her chair, leaned down until his lips were only centimeters from her tense little neck.
"You're in," he whispered. Then he strolled, with the cocky gait of his, from the room.
Grace said nothing, but her hands trembled as the took another sip of tea.

Jane Jensen, Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within, ROC 1998, pp. 350-351

In my opinion, when she wrote the novel, Jane had already begun working on Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned and the new epilogue reflects her decisions about the progressions of the story, with Grace and Gabriel full partners on the whole Schattenjaer business. The sexual tension between the two is another thing she chose to further develop from the game's epilogue, which is more intimate but also more ambiguous, with Grace only touching gently Gabriel's arm. Since I read the novel for the first time, I usually imagine this scene taking place after the talk over Neuschwanstein and, taken together, these two epilogues manage both to perfectly wrap The Beast Within up and tprepare the way for the final chapter of the trilogy. That this second installment — dedicated to what I like to call Gabriel's adolescence, with all his inner (psychological, philosophical, sexual) struggles and turmoils; to his fall from grace and his salvation; to end of the innocence both for him and for the ones who love him the most — is a personal favorite of mine is superfluous, but I sincerely believe that the story recounted and the medium used to convey it blend themselves seamlessly, gifting us with what is, in my sincere opinion, the crown jewel of Sierra and adventure gaming as a whole.

[Fantasysci5]

Ah. Thanks for your thoughts, Andrea. I got confused with the prologue, because when I saw the child's face in the flames, I thought he had a twin brother they were burning, because he was a wolf and Von Glower wasn't.

[Luna Sevithiainen]

Funnily enough, I never interpreted it as the castle burning. I always thought that Von Glower and his mother were watching the burning of Von Ralick, from safely inside their castle, to be with him in spirit as long as possible (he was their, I guess loved, husband/father) until they were called away, to flee the threat posed by somply being related to the condemned werewolf.

Of course that doesn't sense with the burning being in Rittersberg and the castle likely being in Alfing, but the look in the young boys eyes I always read as the horror of seeing his father burning in the flames. (Which is of course reinforced by my very first interpretation as the boy and woman being random spectators of something/someone burning).

Thanks Andrea, for all the information you gave us during this playthrough. It made the experience even more rich than it already is.

[Jehane]

Damn. Missed another playthrough I love this game, it's one of the best I've ever played. However, it's not working on my current computer - as soon as we move to a larger flat with more rooms, I'll set up my old Win98-computer and start a replay

[Collector]

Originally Posted by Jehane

Damn. Missed another playthrough I love this game, it's one of the best I've ever played. However, it's not working on my current computer - as soon as we move to a larger flat with more rooms, I'll set up my old Win98-computer and start a replay

Didn't you try one of the new installers?

[Fien]

Originally Posted by AndreaDraco83

Now, let's focus on the prologue of the game. What exactly does the prologue show? I do believe that they intentionally left it open to interpretation, but something can surely be said about it.

big snip

Yeah, something can surely be said about it, but all that has already been said by others, in particular LittleWriter and me. And where is the Italian translation of "hurry! the coach is waiting" that was supposed to prove something.

In my not very humble opinion, the prologue is another example of JJ's or the director's tendency to use dramatic effects to the max, and with great success, without really caring about details. It makes much, much more sense to leave your home *before* you set fire to it, instead of hanging around with your son and waiting until the flames will attract a crowd and your pursuers will gain on you.

About Camille Paglia. I'll put my extremely negative opinion in spoilers, read it at your own peril.

Spoiler:

Her ideas are a load of yipple dung: men with their mutilated egos (mutilated by us Dionysian women of course) try to escape female domination and because the poor guys always feel incomplete they turn to cultural stuff. Being a genius is just the male way of coping with suppression. Heh. And I can think of many, many geniuses who were not homosexual or a-sexual, but I guess that terrible Paglia woman will claim those were not REAL geniuses. She is not just narcistic, vain, attention-deprived and violent, she also openly supports legalisation of child pornography and even snuff movies!! Enough said.

Oh well. I've milked this game dry.

[Little Writer]

Originally Posted by Fien

And where is the Italian translation of "hurry! the coach is waiting" that was supposed to prove something.

Not the exact words, but:

Originally Posted by AndreaDraco83

in first Italian edition of the game, it is strongly implied that they are coming and that their coming is the reason why the coach is waiting.