Mae's Crisis | Night in the Woods, Part 1

“At the end of everything, hold onto anything” (Night in the Woods).

When all meaning has dropped from the world and even the mere act of leaving ones room is terrifying, is that not the end of everything? Night in the Woods asks the question of what one should do in the face of an ontological crisis of world shattering magnitude. Mae, the main character, suffers a psychological breakdown that leads to a dangerous and nihilistic outlook. Her inability to cope with this new outlook causes her to seek meaning in places that were once meaningful. However, Mae finds that her past has physically disappeared and the only path back to meaning is by creating new meaning.

The Nature of Mae's Crisis

Mae suffers a serious psychological break prior to the beginning of the game. It is described by her as seeing everything as “just shapes// just like this moving bulk of… stuff… nothing was there for me anymore” (The End of Everything, NitW). Mae’s crisis is a breakdown of the meaning of the world, or an ontological crisis. A shape is an object which is defined exclusively by its appearance and function, not by its relation to other entities in the system. Thereby, Mae’s ontological crisis centers around her inability to determine the relationship between the entities around her. Objects have been wrested from any understanding beyond their simple being. An example of a system breaking down in this manner could be seen in Mae’s description of the tree outside of her house. Prior to her crisis, Mae viewed the tree as “a friend outside the window” (The End of Everything, NitW). The tree was defined by its relationship to Mae, that being their apparent friendship. In that relationship there was implied meaning, as any relationship has significant history behind it. Her ontological crisis left the tree being “just a thing that was there// growing and eating and just being there” (The End of Everything, NitW). The meaningful relationship that Mae had with the tree has been replaced by exclusively form and function. By having the understanding of the tree be wrested from any relationship, the tree also becomes separate from the entities around it. Going off of exclusively form and function, the tree no longer cares about Mae. The tree’s form and function are completely unrelated to anything that Mae is doing, turning the tree into an uninterested observer into Mae’s life instead of a caring friend. Hence Mae laments that “nothing was there for her anymore” (The End of Everything, NitW), because everything is now seen as shapes, thereby having no relation to or care for Mae at all.

Mae's Response

As Mae’s crisis is caused by a breakdown of ontology, she responds to it by trying to recapture some of the meaning that existed in her prior life. Mae chooses to return home because Possum Springs is a place where “I knew everyone, and it wasn’t just… dead shapes” (The End of Everything, NitW). Even in the face of her ontological crisis, the old connections that Mae had were not completely destroyed. Some semblance of relation was still relevant for Mae since her home was not “dead shapes.” In the process of trying to regain her old ontology, Mae looks to regain her old relational nucleation sites and her old relationships. The term “relational nucleation sites” refers to spots where relationships were consistently formed. In the case of Mae, the diner Pastabilities is a good example as that is a place where she fostered relationships on a consistent basis. A relational nucleation site is also a place of meaning, in that these places represent the bonds that were created therein. Possum Springs, her home, and of course the diner are all prime examples of relational nucleation sites that Mae is trying to return to in an attempt to recapture meaning. Mae’s other attempt to regain her old ontology is her attempts to cling to her past relationships. Bea and Gregg were both old friends of Mae, meaning that they are also being entities of significant meaning. Mae attempts to pick up her old relationships as though no time had passed, thereby trying to preserve the meaning that had existed prior.

Losing the Past

Despite Mae’s best attempts to return to her ontological roots, the past that she is looking for has vanished. Her relational nucleation sites all were either destroyed or became threatened. Pastabilities closed its doors, completely obliterating that site and relegating the meaning inherent in that location to only memory. Mae’s home was threatened by her very attempt to find meaning. This caused a two-fold collapse of Mae’s old ontological world. The first was in the potential destruction of one of her most meaningful relational nucleation sites. The other, which is just as impactful, is the effect that the potential loss of Mae’s home had on her relationship with her mother. A familial relationship hung in the balance, shaking up the very building blocks of Mae’s world. All of Mae’s most meaningful locations were being destroyed in front of her. There would be no solace in old places of meaning.
Mae’s old relational meaning was no longer attainable either. Her relationship with Gregg has at least remained mostly unchanged in the beginning of the game. However, Gregg soon reveals that he has a plan to move away from Possum Spring to a town called Bright Harbor. By revealing his plans to move, Gregg has put a timer on Mae’s ability to tap her old relationship. Beyond the timer, Mae finds that the entire way of life that she is pursuing through Gregg, that being her lifestyle prior to college, is unattainable. Gregg has already left it behind with Mae only causing a momentary resurgence. These massive changes would destroy any attempt for Mae to regain the old meaning in their relationship. In the case of Bea, Mae is trying to grasp at something that has already disappeared. As Mae is returning from the first party, she asks Bea why they have changed, noting (and I’m paraphrasing) “remember when you used to call me MaeDay and I’d call you BeeBee?” To which Bea responds “Oh, you mean when we were like 10? No, I don’t” (The Party, NitW). Mae is trying to call upon a very old relationship, that being the relationship of BeeBee and MaeDay. No doubt Mae is calling upon this particular aspect of their relationship because it is the most meaningful to her. In spite of Mae’s attempts to suss it out, the relationship between BeeBee and MaeDay does not exist. To Bea it cannot even be remembered. The ontology that Mae was looking to find in her relationship with Bea has long since been lost to time. It is only in this car ride that Mae realizes that it is out of her reach. None of the old ontologies in Mae’s relationships are able to be regained to their fullness.

After her best attempts to regain her past ontologies, Mae finds herself at an ontological void. There is no way that she can regain meaning by returning to her past because her past, like the time it inhabited, has long since slipped away from her. The relationships that built the backbone of her world are irreparably changed and the relational nucleation sites that held so much meaning are all vanishing before her. Unlike her time at college, this ontological void is one that Mae is, in the very least, capable of dealing with. Each of Mae’s relationships shows a different attempt to create or recapture ontologies. Bea shows a wholly new system of ontology based on the foundation of duty while at once creating a new relational meaning in Mae’s ontology. Gregg, on the other hand, showcases the ineffectuality of returning to Mae’s old lifestyle. In the end, Mae is forced to either choose a new ontological system or be left in the quagmire of a meaningless existence.

Works Cited

“Night in the Woods.” Finji. www.nightinthewoods.com. Accessed Mar 22, 2017.
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.

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