Black Mirror, what the actual....

 

so this is just a blogpost of me trying to make sense of this game. this post will have spoilers of course.

okay so here is a quick recap: william gordon dies, and his grandson samuel Gordon (the player) comes to the castle, which is named black mirror. samuel learns that william was into some occult stuff, and decides to collect 5 keys from 5 family members in order to close a portal from evil. there are five murders in the span of the game, and samuel tries to solve them along with finding these keys. samuel finds the keys, but also learns that he is the murderer, closes the portal and kills himself. 

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the above is of course a very simple recap, because it is actually pretty hard to type up a chronological explanation of this, but I am going to try. 

the story of marcus & mordred: at the core of the game is a story we learn from williams diary; that the family of the gordons comes from two brothers, marcus and mordred gordon, one was evil, the other not. and in the end marcus who was the 'good' brother, rebelled and killed his evil brother. marcus could kill his brother, and seal away his evil, but could not close the portal (?!) and this is why the gordons are cursed. 

the gordon curse: we are never told in the game what the hell the curse is, exept some vague stuff about the lineage being curse untill five souls was collected/sacrificed, and mordred would be free again. and this is why there are five keys, all entrusted to five members of the gordon family... i suppose it's so no one can singlehandedly open the portal and let mordred free? or? 

now there are sort of more than one plot going on in this game, and that is partially why it's hard to break down, so let's take them one at a time.  but in order to do that, we need a character break down, with a little history to them. so...

samuel gordon: the character that we play as, arrives at his childhood home for his grandfather williams funeral. he attempts to solve the mystery of williams death, and also close the portal with the five keys. we don't know anything about samuels parents, but if i remember correctly it's hinted that his father was roberts younger brother, and the father must be dead, cause otherwise one would think he would have been at the funeral. samuels girlfriend died in a fire, why or where we don't know, but samuel blames himself. 

william gordon: head of gordon family, whose death sparks the whole game, it is ruled a suicide, but samuel is sure it was not. william was heavily into the occult due to the family curse, and managed to estrange his wife/widow the last years of his life because of this. he has two sons with victoria, and one out of wedlock. at the end of his life, william wrote a letter to samuel asking for his help, but this letter was never sent, also he disowned robert for reasons unknown. 

victoria gordon: williams widow and samuels grandmother, she is clearly a very strict and nervous woman. 

robert gordon: victoria and williams oldest son, doctor and head of the asylum. he hid williams testement that disowned him away, and it's clear that at some point wiliam trusted him but that changed. robert is experimenting on the patients at the asylum, but i am not sure what for. and also he talked william into admitting james to the ward, clearly not intending for james to ever leave. He kills off a lot of his patients, and therefore has a alliance with the other doctor, Hermann from the morgue. 

bates the butler: he has been with the family since forever, because his father was butler before him. victoria trust him unconditionally, and so does samuel. 

morris the stable-guy: we learn that morris is the newest hire at the castle, and are told that no one wants to work there, both because of supersticion, but also because it's remote. we aren't told what that supersticious belief should be about. But we do learn that morris was convicted of something and has been in prison prior to getting hired at the castle.

hank the gardner: hank is a drunk, and this bothers both morris, samuel and victoria. samuel in particular is upset that the garden is in disrepair, and think hank is a shit gardner. we learn that he is blackmailing morris because he found out that he did time in prison.

hermann the pathologist: he is at the funeral because he is apparently also the funeral director?!, but later is found at the morgue, he has a deal with robert in regards to getting rid of corpses from the asylum, no questions asked - but why he agreed to this we don't know, money is my best bet.

james gordon: the illegitimate child of william and some woman we never hear of. he spent most his life at the asylum, and we are first introduced to him as an orphan that william and victoria took in, before we learn the truth that he was indeed williams son. if he is insane, or if he was driven insane we don't know.

detective collier: the policeman investigating williams death, and later the other deaths that happen. he seems to think that james killed everyone.

harry the barkeep: harry is the gossip central in the village, and is also the man who gets you in touch with a regular named  tom who will help you out for money.

vic: a kid hanging outside the pub, whom befriends samuel.

ralph: the patient in the cell next to james' we never see him, but he does tell us some weirdly predicting truths, maybe he has a crystal ball in there? premonitions like that, just screams lazy writing! 

and many other minor characters that has nothing to do with the plot, not really. so i won't mention them here.

now unto the plotlines:

williams death: the police officer collier, decided that williams death was a suicide, but samuel doesn't buy it. bates show him a stone in the castle wall where there is drawn a strange symbol, right next to where william was found dead. and also samuel finds one half of a key/box in the bushes next to the scene, and it's sort of implicit that william might have had it on him when he fell to his death. later we learn that the gardner hank found the other part of the key, but pawned it off and samuel has to get it. once he has it he can open the crypt under the church.  we learn that williams secrets had secrets, one of these being his son james. williams death is the first plotline that branches off in others. we are however never told how william died, but we can sort of decuct the same happened to him as to samuel?! even if that doesn't make sense.

the keyhunt: this is a thing on it's own, it takes us to wales for a lame fuckaround, to a woman that victoria knows or are related to, i don't freaking know - and she is the least welsh sounding person i ever heard. so we have to ask ourselves how efficient william was, since he apparently never managed to find a single key besides his own. and samuel finds them all in a couple of days. anyways there is one james hid away, one in wales, one at the churchs catacombs, one in williams casket, and one in an urn at the graveyard. we need them for the puzzle at the end. why we need them or why the people who had them, had them - makes no sense and also we don't know why. it's not like it's the oldest sons or whatever do i know.

the murders: so hank dies as the first, collier want to say it's a suicide, but samuel doesn't buy it (does he ever?) and he finds a weird sign next to where hank died as well. then vic the kid is sacrificed at an alter in the woods, and the same day we find hermann dead in the morgue, this means samuel really gets into finding the killer. then morris runs off and that makes him look guilty, and collier seems to believe that the newly escaped mental patient james, is behind it all. and with that the investigation stops, both colliers and samuels. even if samuel proves (rather unscientifically) that james is not the killer, nor is morris.

the asylum: robert and hermann has some arrengement with tom from the pub delivering something to hermann, from robert. we find that it's corpses that hermann can dispose of easily, cause who cares about journaling and patient rights and so forth. why they have this arrengement we don't know, but we know robert experiemented on his subjects, and apparently he killed some once in a while. we don't know why hermann agreed to this, and we also don't know why no one questions the apparent deathrate of patients at this asylum. when samuel learns that robert needed to make corpses dissapear, and hermann was in on it, the plotline ends. 

and that is basically it. i mean there are so many things we are not explained, and i made a little list here, of what left me confused and why.

1. if william killed himself, then who drew the sign on the castle wall? and why? was it samuel who did that after the fact? but bates who shows us the place, he says that he noticed this sign, so it can't be samuel cause he arrived for the funeral, which is obviously days after the death. so was william pushed? if so by who? robert perhaps? that is about the only person i can think of who could have an interest in williams death. but that still doesn't explain the sign. and if william killed himself, why would he do that? 

2. was marcus and mordred supernatural beings? or did mordred make a deal with the devil? i mean why would marcus need to seal mordred away? 

3. if it's a family curse that happens to them all, why doesn't anyone know about it besides samuel at the very end? i mean that is the first time we hear about what the curse actually is, and then again we don't. cause we're told that they kill in their sleep, and we see samuel in the pond with white eyes. so if every person in the gordon family kills someone when they sleep, don't you think someone would have noticed something before 1981? (the game is set there). and what kind of shitty fucking curse is that? even if we do understand that mordred wants five souls, then i'd imagine he would have that times a hundred...

4. is the curse`really possession? then again that would explain fuck all.

5. so marcus is the younger, and mordred the older, is this history repeating? that robert is the oldest and evil, and samuels dad, and by proxy samuel, is the younger and the good one? nah that also makes no flaming sense what so ever. 

so what is that curse, why is that curse, how does it work? why did samuel kill those people, and why does he kill himself? does he have parents? why did james kill himself? and did samuel start the fire that killed his ex? whatever happened to the police in all this? why did the seal need samuels blood? why did robert kill his patients? what was he trying to achieve with his experiments? why did william write him out of the will? and why did robert make sure that williams mail was unsent to james and to samuel? was williams death suicide or by own hand? and what made morris run off? what was richard of wales trying to make in his lab? and why does samuel look like the bastard child of steven segal and prince valiant?