Amo Ergo Sum

I think any sign that details the death of a person (or people), or is a rememberence plaque, and then uses it as a warning for others always does. Some examples that came to mind:

Signs in France detail the age and death date of road side accident victims, Reddit Post and The Connexion News (though will warn you need to sign up to continue reading past the first image and article)

John Jones in the Nutty Putty Cave, Utah, KTAR News

Yes! 1000% yes! You don’t even have to be messing around, one wrong (accidental) move and you can die.

Mind goes to Agnes Milowka, died going in a cave she’d gone into MULTIPLE TIMES beforehand, getting separated from her diving partner and into a confined space where she couldn’t find her way back out (The Advertiser)

couldn't find a comprehensive list anywhere of susie struggling with spelling and reading, so in the name of appreciating what toby fox is trying to say, here is my best attempt. dialogue with spelling errors is almost always from susie specifically and in chapter 1 ralsei corrects her, implying that we're supposed to interpret those as intentional misspellings on toby's part.

this is further made obvious by the fact that in the holiday newsletter 2024 toby mentions that testers also point out spelling errors, and sometimes those spelling errors are on purpose (in this case it's in a Funny Way) - so we should assume it's not an oversight when "typos" like these get left in.

a couple other things i didn't include:

susie's s-action against bibliox is "susie attempted to read" and does only 15% mercy (compared to 100% on proofreads and 30% for r-action) - it was probably supposed to be a longer interaction because on the text dump site it continues on to say she fell asleep because there weren't any pictures, but the redundancy and futility of this action as a whole is probably the reason i haven't been able to trigger it in game.

when susie looks at Lord of the Hammer in chapter 2, she'll say to kris "Heh, can't believe you read things with, uh... words."

in chapter 2 dark world susie writes ralsei's name phonetically as "ralsay," which doesn't really count as an "error" to me because there's no way for her to really know it's not spelt like that to begin with. but it is another example of toby fox showing us susie spelling things out phonetically

if i missed anything else let me know

I had a sudden realisation when Susie talks about her experience with piano. This scene is an obvious nod to Susie's experience with learning healing, but... I think there's another, far deeper meaning to this scene.

What Susie experienced with the piano... is actually EXACTLY what happens in that earlier Piano scene when you attempt to solve the puzzle yourself.

If you were to ever to do ANY attempt on the song to unlock the door... Kris makes sure to mess up your notes before you even have a chance to finish. They forbid you from playing. The same exact way Susie was forbidden to play.

And so they had someone else play. Someone better. Kris.

Susie describes her past experience with piano as an attempt to further connect with Kris. But ironically, Kris was the one who was better. The one who basically took over the inexperienced one after they were told they weren't allowed to play.

Kris never let's us get near the piano, and makes sure to always fumble up the notes, "A Concert For You."

Susie's experience isn't a parallel to Kris at all. It's a parallel to the Player.

And we further connect this to the Healing arc with Ralsei. Where Ralsei teaches Susie to heal, but never actually let's her do healing when it's actually needed.

In Ch 4, Kris allows us to play piano, but further prevents us from trying when it's truly needed or when it's something complex.

But this also shows us that not all things are so simple. Kris is someone that truly loves piano, so it makes sense that they don't want someone else in their body to command them to play, for Kris, playing piano is their freedom, and its not something that they want someone else to take.

...Yet at the same time, there's nothing wrong with you wanting to play, even if it sucks. Because maybe, just maybe, it might become someone else's freedom too.

Neither are in the wrong in this matter. Between Susie and the better piano player that took her place, and between the Player and Kris... no one is necessarily wrong here. Things here are a lot more complicated than that.

This isn't the first time where Susie's character is aligning closer to the Player than Kris and Ralsei, with her becoming the one to speak for us for certain things when we're unable to, such as her vocalising the frustration of having people keep secrets not long after Ralsei and Kris kept hiding secrets from the Player.

Also the fact that the Ch 4 extended scene where you struggle against Kris in Dess' closet has Susie accept BOTH Kris and the Player equally rather than preferring one side over the other. She just doesn't realise it's two seperate ppl at once.

Not to mention how the Player and Susie are actively synergizing with each other in the best way possible.

Susie is the only one whose abilities you can directly enhance midbattle. Rude Buster's dmg gets raised by z spam (ch 1 + 2) or z timing (ch 3 + 4). And her healing gets enhanced the more you allow her to heal.

And it just so happens that Gerson' fight is also essentially TRAINING THE PLAYER to use these mechanics. It teaches you the z mechanic to parry. It forces you to let Susie heal to enhance it. It wasn't just training for Susie. It was also training for YOU to learn how to work with Susie as a duo.

Its really funny cause Susie's heal isn't a "Prayer" like other healing spells. And yet, Susie's heal requires a higher being's interference to raise its effectiveness.

If you think abt it, both the Player and Susie are similar in the sense that we're both outsiders to the grand scheme of the narrative, and are both trying to figure out what the heck is even going on in this town. You fought Kris in Ch 4 to help Susie while Kris is working with the Knight.

Even though everything abt Susie should make her clash with us (her ability to override choices, ignore our commands), she's the one who is the most aligned to us in terms of how we feel and experience the events of the story, and she is the one whose dynamic with the Player, has been nothing but purely beneficial to each other.