I’m resurrecting this empty, year and a half old thread so I finally have a place to put my Virginia theories where someone might read them. I wrote this when the game came out, and it’s the first post I ever made on Reddit. Strap in, this is going to be a long one.
First, some overall thoughts
First, and most importantly; there is nothing supernatural happening in the game. No UFOs, no animal-sacrificing cults. Every “hallucinatory” thing Anne sees was either a vivid dream, hallucination, acid trips or symbolism; a version of events Anne’s mind constructed based on evidence and events surrounding the case.
Oh, but there is one HUGE conspiracy.
The big thing that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else is why Maria Halperin’s mother, Judith Ortega, was investigated and discredited by the FBI. (Quick aside - I think Halperin is just Maria Ortega’s married name. We know she was Maria Ortega when she joined the FBI because her files got moved at some point from “Ortega” to “Halperin.” If you’re trying to hide from your legacy, it doesn’t do much good to change your name after you join. We also know she was previously married because she dumps her ring off on Anne when they go to a bar and she decides she’s going to hook up with the first guy she sees there; although she ends up just dancing with Anne, and Anne spends the night at her place. {I suppose it’s possible she just used the ring as a Get Out of Unwanted Attention Free card like Anne does.} I initially took the medical equipment in the house to mean she had been caring for her terminally ill husband, but in retrospect, realizing Maria is living in her mother’s old apartment, I think it’s more likely she was caring for her elderly/terminally ill mother and this drove a wedge in her marriage.)
Some unanswered questions
Before I get to the conspiracy, there were some things I wasn’t entirely clear on, including some weirdness around the scene where Anne is seeing through Our Father Fairfax’s eyes as he’s getting a Hail Mary under his desk.
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The woman he’s with seems entirely nonplussed about getting caught. She doesn’t act the least bit surprised, and when Dad is running after Danny, she just casually sits on his desk and grabs a smoke. Was it a sting? Was Danny trying to out his dad?
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While we watch her smoke the cigarette, there is a female figure in the hallway outside the door. What’s going on there? At first I figured it was Mrs. Fairfax, but it looks like a child.
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What’s the deal with the guy who assaults Anne and Maria outside the cave? It seems like it’s out of nowhere. Anne goes to bum a light off someone and she gets sucker punched, then the guy shoves Maria and rips off her locket. Were we supposed to know who that guy was and I just missed it?
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Though I don’t think the Danny we see walking down the road at the end is actually Danny, I do think it’s possible he just ran away. A fundamental religious household (down to the parents sleeping in separate twin beds) where the dad is getting some on the side is probably a really shitty situation.
The game's racial & gender themes
the game is overtly about race and racism. But the argument that “If you reversed the races of all characters, this game would be KKK: The Videogame” is unfounded. [This was a comment in the Reddit thread I originally posted this to.] Context matters. In this case, there is 300+ years of institutionalized racism, both legal and illegal, to provide context.
The flash-forward scene says a lot about this. No, not everyone being targeted is a minority, but they are certainly disproportionally represented. I think the point being made is that even when overt racism is not the proximate cause of a policy, many policies - purposefully or not - end up enforcing the racial or gender status quo. In the cult sacrifice scene, Anne has five men trying to get her to sacrifice a buffalo (the buffalo is Maria). Five white men asking her to kill (the career) of a black woman to further their own personal agendas. (Not that I think they were all involved in the conspiracy, just that Anne sees them all as representatives of “the patriarchy.”) And I think this is one of the reasons Anne chose not to follow that path - she realized that going down that road led to more than just being a life-long snitch, but also to becoming a weapon to reinforce the “white male patriarchy” agenda.
Conspiracy!
Anyway, back to the conspiracy theory. When investigating the locked room in Judith’s apartment, there are a series of FBI files. I don’t remember the exact dates, but if memory serves they were all dated March or May of 1968.
What happened in the spring and summer of 1968 that the FBI would have particular interest in?
Assassinations. Specifically, the assassinations of Martin Luther King on April 4 and Robert F. Kennedy on June 6.
There are long-standing conspiracy theories that the US federal government was involved in both of these assassinations - the FBI in the MLK assassination and the CIA in the RFK assassination. While I don’t remember the CIA being an explicit party in the game, there is a connection: the game takes place in the fictional Virginia town of Kingdom. Kingdom is a rural/suburban town with an Air Force base. There is one Air Force base in Virginia: Langley AFB. Langley also happens to be the name of the area in FAIRFAX County, Virginia that houses the CIA.
So here’s my theory: both Anne and Maria’s parents were involved in the assassinations. Maria’s mom was investigating the federal government’s links to the assassinations, mostly off-the-books. That the files pre-date each of the assassinations by about a month suggests the FBI was either involved or had advance knowledge of the plot. Anne’s dad was involved in the initial investigations and/or operations; the box you destroy contained evidence that would’ve implicated the federal government to some extent. Judith was discredited on trumped-up charges in order to proactively taint any material she would try to release. The real reason IA has Anne investigating Maria is to find out if she’s carrying on her mother’s work.
Maybe this has all been gone over in the time since, but when I played it I couldn’t find any discussion online.
Whew. Feels good to get that out there.
So, what do people think? Am I reading way too much into it?
