RPGs

Who are the Hamelins?

Eddie and Fukuro meet the Hamelin siblings on Day 2 of their time on Calpucca. Guntram (32) is the older brother, a conductor-composer who can be found in his room playing piano at various points in the game, while Twelam (28) is a flautist who usually plays solo and can be found in the house or outside with children, playing with them in the snow. On its English download page, vgperson warns specifically for them…

Two characters who "love kids." They never "act" in a bad way (one is depicted as suppressing their feelings, while the other might do worse things if left unchecked), but alas, it is often played as a joke. Most of this content can be avoided if you don't interact with them much, but Day 2 does have a bit of non-optional interaction.

…and most players opt to skip the Hamelin interactions entirely as soon as the Sirene incident is over, never meeting them again. On the other hand, some players interact with Guntram, finding him sympathetic enough to overlook his occasional comments, but avoid Twelam (as I did on the first playthrough). It wasn’t until I got deeper into Guntram’s interactions that I became curious about his sister as well, and on my fourth playthrough, I set about gathering as much information about the Hamelins as I could. This… turned out to be surprisingly challenging. There are so many one-off comments about them from NPCs all over Calpucca, I’m not even sure I documented them all. These two are a pretty big deal on the planet!

Either way, this is what we know about the Hamelin siblings: They come from “a historic family of musicians” and are widely renowned, to the point that some children hope to play in Guntram’s orchestra or hang out with Twelam more in the future. Their father, Viscram Hamelin, was leader of the orchestra in Eluta before Guntram, while their mother, Meryl Hamelin, was a vocalist. (It’s her voice we hear once the old record is fixed, singing “Luna.”) Both siblings perform all over Calpucca, including in Nuage, which most Calpuccans aren’t even permitted to enter.

Guntram has memories of his mother, but Twelam doesn’t, as Meryl died shortly after she was born. Viscram buried her with a piece of his custom-made gramophone, which you recover as part of Twelam’s quest. After Meryl’s passing, Viscram came down hard on Guntram, forcing him to improve at piano and mature too quickly, while Twelam was allowed leniency and grew up under the eye of Oshino, their nanny and Twelam’s surrogate mother figure.

Despite their status as siblings, Guntram and Twelam don’t get along. Some time before the start of the game, Viscram also passes away, but Guntram continues to mourn, while Twelam is over it. I wrote about their dysfunction in an earlier essay on sibling relationships, but if you interact with them often enough, you can see the tension simmering between them from your first two or three interactions. If you meet Guntram on the beach in Sirene, he states that it “embarrasses him to admit” that Twelam is his little sister, while Twelam expresses frustration and pity for how hard Guntram works and his hang-ups about his father after solving the mystery of the kidnapped children.

Interestingly, their last name, Hamelin, is a reference to the “Pied Piper of Hamelin,” a well-known German legend where a musician spirits children away by playing an enchanting tune with his pipe. This is an allusion not just to the Hamelins’ involvement with the kidnapping case in Sirene (where they try to find the children instead of leading them astray), but their idolisation of children and their complex relationships with their own childhoods. Indeed, despite being only four years apart, Guntram and Twelam couldn’t have had more different experiences of early childhood—they’re very nearly opposites. Viscram forced Guntram to grow up, while Twelam continues to act childishly, even referring to herself in the third person and preferring children as playmates over peers of a similar age. A difference of four years seems small, but in those four years, Guntram had two parents, while Twelam only had one (and a servant who acted as her mother). Developmentally, this had such widespread ramifications on their personalities, it’s no wonder they broke apart as adults.

Arrested Development

At first glance, you have to wonder why the Hamelins are so different from one another. Guntram is melancholy, polite, serious, and lacks self-confidence, even apologising if the Owuls give him something disgusting to eat, while Twelam is blunt, casual, optimistic, and says things that shock most gamers on a first playthrough, such as:

I mean, that ghost is just mean. I’d like to kidnap cute kids myself, but I’M exercising self-control.

That being said, if you continue interacting with them, you soon learn that they’re not as opposite as they seem on the surface. Guntram can occasionally be childish—such as his tendency to get lost or naïvely donating money to the Kochka when Boss claims they haven’t eaten in three days—while Twelam’s outrageous remarks about children lessen in frequency as you get to know her and she opens up about her loneliness and feelings of alienation in her own family. What’s more, both of them are extremely clingy and have abandonment issues, as shown in their endings when the Owul siblings win the Gourmeet and come to give them their gold medal:

Compared to Twelam, Guntram has had to grieve twice, once for Meryl, once for Viscram. By contrast, Twelam says almost nothing about how her father’s death made her feel, perhaps because she still has Oshino to lean on and was allowed to do whatever she wanted by Viscram. We get the sense that Guntram grieves for his childhood in a way Twelam doesn’t, holding on to the scant positive memories of his mother and father that remain…

…whereas Twelam expresses irritation that Guntram doesn’t just move on, live his life, and even vents those feelings by threatening to burn down the things he loves.

And this, for me, is where the relationship got interesting. Guntram is a busy man and seems to pay Twelam little attention, beyond scolding or nagging her every now and then. (Remember, he’s embarrassed to even admit they’re related.) It would have been natural for Segawa to make Twelam just as disengaged with Guntram, but that’s not where her route ends up going: Instead, Twelam seems to long for Guntram’s attention and positive regard, all while being unable to say it.

It’s pretty fascinating. Guntram is almost timid to a fault interacting with the Owuls, but Twelam mentions that he’d probably yell at her for eating something gooey while curled up in a blanket—you get the sense that this happens often enough. When it comes to Guntram’s schedule, she says that “things seem tough for Brother. Even when there aren’t concerts, he’s busy composing… I feel kinda bad.” Whereas Guntram is embarrassed of Twelam, she seems to double down on the connection: “Guntram is my older brother, no mistake. He and I both love children, you see.” And then… what’s that she says when you visit the Hamelins at home in Eluta?

“My brother’s holed up there again… He should at least come out for tea. Oshino misses him.”

Oshino doesn’t mention Guntram at all when you talk to her; she just thanks you for helping out the siblings in Sirene. Perhaps Oshino really does miss Guntram when he withdraws, but we also have to entertain the possibility that Twelam uses her as an excuse to project how she feels about her older brother. In other words, we might read this as her saying “I miss him.”

Why doesn’t Twelam feel comfortable telling Guntram, if so? We can directly observe an example in the Bonus Room when we play as Twelam. Interacting with Guntram prompts him to say:

Twelam, are you heading out? It’s fine to go out and play, but… please do hold your purse strings.

This isn’t something you say to an adult. It’s how you talk to a child who has more money than sense. Maybe Twelam is an impulsive spender, but we don’t see any indications that she’s running up a debt, overspending, or otherwise in dire financial straits, so this criticism feels unwarranted. And if any time Guntram deigns to pay her attention, it’s to tell her off for behaviour that isn’t actually a problem, it begs the question: Just how would someone like Twelam form a connection with her older brother?

Perhaps by proudly proclaiming that they both love children, that Guntram is a “weirdo” like her, by picking up an instrument that would allow them to play together every so often even if their styles are different, and by dressing in a similar fashion as him (1, 2). Although she complains about her brother, Twelam’s actions send a different message: “I want to be friends with you. I want you to pay attention to me.” But Guntram, for whatever reason, doesn’t hear it, perhaps because it was so ingrained in him by his father to forsake any childish ideas or habits. In response to the Star Goddess’s question about why Twelam isn’t part of his orchestra, he says:

Well, that is… It’s not the greatest reason, but… We aren’t on the same wavelength. Her music is… very freeform. …I’m quite unable to handle it.

This suggests that it’s Guntram, rather than Twelam, who is too unwilling to compromise on his music to collaborate. Despite idolising the purity and innocence of children, Guntram dislikes everything childish about his younger sister, everything out of the box, impulsive, and selfish in her thoughts and actions. It’s almost as if he sees the worst parts of himself reflected in her—the parts he couldn’t rip out of himself despite Viscram’s best efforts—and can’t stand looking into a mirror. Guntram hates not being able to control his image; it’s likely why he expresses discomfort with Oshino rearranging his bookshelf, since he’s hidden a music book for children among the sheet music there.

This paints Guntram in a pretty unfavourable light, but on the other hand… how can we reasonably expect a child to naturally process their grief when their own parent couldn’t? Burying a piece of a custom-made gramophone that seems to contain the only record of your wife is a strong statement: “This loss has forever broken me.” Children learn from their parents, and Guntram never learnt how to process grief, only to bury it by performing exactly as his father wanted him to. As soon as Viscram dies, however, the façade he worked so hard to build breaks. Now he’s dealing with twice the grief and feels he has to bear it alone, a feeling that only seems to be intensified by his lack of friends outside of the musical world. He’s lost, not just because of his terrible sense of direction, but in his own thoughts and uncertainty; he abandoned his dreams, so he lacks the conviction to truly live his own life.

…Only those who can stand back up from discouragement again and again can achieve their dreams. …I’m sure your dream will come true. Fukuro, Eddie, I strongly feel those qualities from you.

Twelam has dreams, albeit ones that Guntram disapproves of. She’s practically yelling, “Hey! You’re not alone! You still have me and Oshino. I want to be friends with you, and I think it’s time to move on.” But he doesn’t get it. He can’t.

So who receives Twelam’s message of wanting to be friends?

The Owl and the Pied Piper

Before Eddie and Fukuro crash-land on Calpucca, Twelam’s only real friends appear to be children. Although she says some concerning things, her actual activities in the game suggest that their interactions are benign: She helps them make snowmen, arranges teatime with them, and—as she discloses in conversation with Fukuro—plays with doll houses or in the snow with them. (There is an option to respond with “things she definitely can’t say,” as well, but this partly reads as teasing.) Moreover, the children who interact with her seem to hold her in positive regard. Perhaps Segawa wanted to keep the tone of the game light more than anything, as child abuse would drastically change how the audience views Twelam (as we’ve seen in END ROLL, Segawa isn’t incapable of broaching the topic), but based on the evidence we have, Twelam is essentially harmless.

Yet Twelam’s behaviour earns the consternation of several characters beyond her brother, namely the Marquis and Natalia. They both warn her not to actually do anything with children, implying that they believe she’s capable of inappropriate conduct if her behaviour is left unchecked. Twelam isn’t particularly close to them, and perhaps we’ve just caught a glimpse of why—more people telling her what to do and how to conduct herself, treating her like a child. Perhaps by exaggerating how she feels about children, saying intentionally outrageous things, and doing things like commissioning jails or buying children’s clothes, she’s learnt that people will pay attention to her. More than that, they express concern about her, which she’ll take as a substitute for their concern for her.

The Owuls, on the other hand, trust her almost immediately. After the incident in Sirene, Twelam makes yet another outrageous remark about targeting Fukuro if she were a bit younger, and Eddie hops in to defend her, feeling protective. Then Fukuro intervenes, and he backs down.

They never doubt Twelam’s goodness again, and over time, she trusts them enough to begin opening up about the gramophone, although she embellishes the rumour to motivate them to actually find the missing part. In the rest of the game, who are the only people that insist on Twelam’s intrinsic goodness despite her eccentricities? You guessed it—Guntram and Oshino.

So, despite how often he disapproves of Twelam and bickers with her, Guntram describes her as “good at her core.” Interesting—so there are aspects of Twelam that Guntram views positively, even if he doesn’t often communicate them. I have to wonder if Twelam knows that he thinks of her this way, and if so, what she’d say in return. It certainly doesn’t seem like they tell each other anything directly.

Once the Owuls make friends with Twelam, her feelings of alienation become apparent. It almost feels like she and Guntram are occupying two different worlds despite living in the same house, him in his memories and her in the present, and she never knew her mother, so she doesn’t actually understand what’s missing, only that the connection is. I always did think that the one weakness in her route was that Segawa didn’t write Guntram as having a strong reaction to the gramophone working again—that feels like something he’d find notable, since it hasn't been played in 28 years. Regardless, it’s clear that Twelam thinks that Fukuro and Eddie have achieved something miraculous:

Fukuro, Eddie, you’re such strange people. Just coming by and fixing a gramophone that hasn’t worked in a long time…

In two days, the Owul siblings are able to shed light on a mystery that hasn’t been solved in the course of Twelam’s entire lifetime. She knew what her mother looked like, they have a portrait of her, of course, but if there’s a language the Hamelins understand best, it’s music. It’s part of their legacy, and that’s what Viscram prevented her from understanding when he buried the part with his wife: her place in the family. No one had bothered to go out of their way to help Twelam like this before, and even if they would have, she wouldn’t let them in close enough to say. But the Owuls help her because that’s what friends do. At any point in the quest, they could have decided that the effort wasn’t worth it or that Twelam was lying about the curse, but they do it for her because they’re friends. That’s why she has such a soft look on her face in her CG: She’s deeply touched by the way they’re willing to be a part of her life. So few people have bothered to take up the task, and the one person who could have explained it to her—the one person left who shares her blood—just didn’t have the words.

The Hamelin  Siblings, Reframed

If you do his questline, Guntram is similarly touched when Eddie and Fukuro encourage him to put on a concert for children. They do this by gathering signatures from the kids on Calpucca to push him toward realising his dream. Seeing the petition shakes him out of his isolation to see that his dream would have an audience, that the children want to see him put on a concert for them, and that he doesn’t have to wallow forever about failing to be good enough for his father. He can start building his own life and doing the things that he dreams of, too.

At no point do those dreams involve his sister or reconnecting with her, and we just don’t know what the Hamelin siblings are up to once the Owuls leave the planet. This is why, compared to the Owuls and the Giera siblings, I described them as being the most dysfunctional. In Ending 1, we can see Guntram teaching Fukuro how to play piano in one slide and Twelam pulling Fukuro along to have teatime in the next, but they’re not in the same ending slide together. At least we can assume they interact more, as Eddie and Fukuro are in their house more often, but… unlike Rius and Toph, their gold medal endings don’t involve each other at all.

In the other essay, I mentioned that Guntram and Twelam are written as narrative foils to Eddie and Fukuro—they’re the green to the Owuls’ red, they have the same age gap (4 years), they were raised by a strict father while the Owuls are travelling the cosmos in memory of their loving mother, and they’re significantly older, probably middle-aged in Flugel years. They are also foils in that they can’t seem to stand each other, unlike Eddie and Fukuro, who are inseparable. The division between them is deep, far too deep for even Eddie and Fukuro to fix. And yet their similarities remain—their deep loneliness, their clinginess to the siblings, their love of children, and even their irrationality. Guntram almost sabotages his concert for children by asking the Owuls if not putting it on would make them stay. In the Bonus Room, Twelam tells Desmond:

…Ah, huh. If you’re Fukuro and Eddie’s friend, that makes sense. Those two have lots of friends. But… It feels bad when somebody I like gets along with someone else. Twelam gets jealous, see?

In the world of Walking on a Star Unknown, you’re generally able to meet a character, say “I can fix them,” and do it through Fukuro and Eddie, but not with the Hamelins. And it’s tragic, but it’s also mature and realistic character writing—hell, it’s realistic relationship writing. Sibling feuds can span decades and never be resolved, even if both people get healthier and take the steps to improve. Most people wouldn’t anticipate this level of writing out of a game with pixel anime aesthetics and bright, friendly colours, but Segawa is just so good at making video games, even the things we don’t get to achieve feel thoughtful and respectful of the experience you’ve just had. As an eldest brother in an Asian family who had a similar experience with my own parent, I get it. I understood Guntram and Twelam’s relationship, and I was deeply affected by it.

So, anyway, those are all of my big thoughts on Guntram and Twelam. I took over 550 screenshots just to write an essay of 3,500 words and use 26 of them. I hope I’ve been able to make the case that the Hamelins are compelling characters with a complex relationship, that they reflect a darker alternative to the Owul siblings, and that they’re worth as much attention in your next playthrough as Corme, Desmond, Yurika, or your other personal favourite/s.