Gregg's Lifestyle | Night in the Woods, Part 2

Gregg is one of the few entities connecting Mae to her old lifestyle. Possum Springs has undergone a radical change, eliminating the meaningful relational nucleation sites. Mae’s relationship with Bea is strained at best and aggressive at worst. Not even her family remains in the same position they were in before. Yet Gregg still exists as his wild and wacky self. Mae uses Gregg to try to return to her old lifestyle of crime and abandon. In her attempts, the worst parts of Mae’s old lifestyle surface. In her interactions with Gregg, Mae is shown that her old lifestyle is empty and abandons it for good.

Characterizing the Old Lifestyle

The old lifestyle that Mae is trying to return to is characterized by its vapid and destructive nature. One of the most common threads throughout Gregg’s storylines are crimes. These come in various forms, whether they be stealing animatronic heads from a supermarket or breaking into a haunted house. All of Gregg’s crimes are characterized by placing short-term goals ahead of long-term goals. While every crime has its own specific short-term goal, there is an overarching goal to the crimes. After having assembled the robot for Angus, Gregg remarks that “I think I missed the Gregg of a few years ago//… these days I mostly work all the time” (Mechanics, NitW). The crimes are a means of bringing entertainment into what is otherwise a dull life. The entertainment is seen as one juxtaposes Gregg’s dull work-life with his crimes. Clearly breaking into a house is more adventurous than manning a cash register. The high from having commit a crime only lasts for a short time, as both Mae and Gregg have to return to a world that lacks the adventure of their crimes. A similar thread is seen as they break lightbulbs. The enjoyment is swift and fleeting, necessitating that they break lightbulbs numerous times. After all, one cannot ride the high forever. All of the enjoyment gained from the crimes and destruction of Mae’s old lifestyle is momentary.

Emptiness

The vapid nature of Mae’s old lifestyle is also shown by how she deals with conflict and stress. The best example comes from when Mae goes to the Donut Wolf. After Gregg and Angus fight, Mae goes to the restroom and, after considering the situation for a few moments, decides that “I’m going to break something” (Legends, NitW). Mae chooses to destroy the bathroom because of her discontentedness with the situation at hand. This solution has two main outcomes. One is that it actually makes the situation worse as Gregg walks in on her destroying the bathroom, causing another argument. The other reason is more important in that by destroying the bathroom Mae is attempting to deal with her stress in a manner that does not actually resolve it. Like much of her old lifestyle, Mae is dealing with her stress through momentary pleasure. Her destroying the bathroom does nothing to address the root cause of her unhappiness, that being the tension in her relationship with Gregg and Angus. Said tension is only actually relieved by breaking away from the old lifestyle, as will be discussed a bit later.

Destructive Nature

The destructive nature of the lifestyle is shown by both what is being risked and literal death. Gregg is not entirely about pursuing crime as he expresses that he has “the plan” to move to a town called Bright Harbor because he saw that there was no future for him in Possum Springs. Gregg states that he had not committed many crimes prior to Mae returning home because he “can’t go to Bright Harbor if I get caught or fired” (Crimes, NitW). By pursuing his old lifestyle, Gregg is risking the failure of his plan. That is more than just risking a single goal, it is potentially destroying his entire life. The old lifestyle is characterized by short-term thinking that makes it impossible to move to a new stage in life. The literal death is when Mae temporarily dies due to being electrocuted by a car battery. From this it can be seen the old lifestyle is physically dangerous. Consider that casual knife fights and throwing bottles at each other are also inherent in Gregg’s story and one can see that the physical risk is not an isolated occurrence.

In summation, the old lifestyle that Mae is trying to cling to throughout Gregg’s storyline is one that dwells in momentary pleasure whilst neglecting long-term goals. Nearly every form of discontentedness, whether it be unhappiness or stress, is dealt with via crime and destructive escapades. While Mae originally tries to cling to this lifestyle, she ultimately finds that it has to be left behind in order for her to move forward.
Now, it is unfair to say that Mae is the sole reason that Gregg fell back into his old lifestyle. It was Gregg who convinced Mae to go on every adventure that they went on throughout his storyline. Nearly all of the old escapades that Mae and Gregg pursued were the brainchild of Gregg. Perhaps Mae’s active role in Gregg’s downfall is that of the facilitator. Prior to her appearance, Gregg would have had to go to Angus or Bea and neither of them would have supported such destructive actions. While Mae may not understand the situation to the degree described here, the fact that she is a source of the problem is certainly understood.

Legends in the Woods

In the face of such a realization, Mae abandons her old lifestyle. Mae’s act of abandonment comes in one last hurrah as she and Gregg leave the animatronic in the woods. As they consider the animatronic, Mae remarks that they should “leave it for the kids// let it be a legend” (Legends, NitW). By leaving the animatronic, Mae has also left her old lifestyle there in the woods. By leaving it “for the kids” there are two thing noted here. The first is that there is a clear delineation made between Mae and a child-like nature. In prior exchanges where Mae tried to claim herself as an adult, someone would rebut her whether with the statement that she does not have a job or that she is a kid. In this instance, there is no rebuttal to her separating herself from the childish and thereby also her old lifestyle.
The second point goes hand in hand with the idea of legends in that the animatronic is being, in a sense, passed down to the children. Their old lifestyle was not completely bad. Both Mae and Gregg reminisce that nearly burning down the school was “maybe the best night of my entire life” (Legends, NitW). Rather than being wholly bad, the lifestyle is something that the both of them needed to move past, hence they would find it appropriate to pass it down not only physically but also as legends. Mae and Gregg’s old lifestyle is the legends of their founding. There is no way to separate the people they are now from the destructive acts of the past, and no reason to either. However, their foundations have to foundations for something and because of that they have to leave behind the old. Mae may hesitate, no doubt for nostalgia’s sake, but she abandons her old lifestyle and one of her few living ties to the past in the woods.

Works Cited

Infinite Fall, Night In the Woods. Finji, Feb 21 2017.
A note on citations: Lines in text are cited according to the in-game chapter they occur in, followed by "NitW" (standing for Night in the Woods) so that it is easier for the reader to find the dialogue. The "//" in quotes denotes different speech bubbles.

Essay in Video Form


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