OnionUnderTheRadar

Was Carlo evil?

My answer is no. This is a bit complex, so I’ll try to answer within two questions.

In one of the endings, P surrenders his heart and Geppetto then uses it to revive Carlo, his biological son. Carlo then ends up killing everyone in the hotel if we choose to "save" him. He steps out into the rain, looks at Geppetto, and smiles (something that P doesn’t do), seemingly confirming his newly found humanity.

This does seem like a happy ending at first, doesn't it? By submitting to him, We/Carlo may win the purely conditional love of our father, but this comes at a cost. He has surrendered a part of himself in obedience. He no longer has any agency. Thereby making him a puppet in the ideological sense:

The game has a meaningful mechanic where our hair will grow during the duration of the game. Carlo's presented with short hair, but he's also wearing the same outfit (white blouse) we had in the train station; This is the version of ourselves from the beginning of the game. Like showing all that development we made is now gone for submitting to our father, we're right back to where we started, even as a "real boy”: a non-realized being who is at the call of someone else, a (Gasp!) puppet.

Why does Geppetto sacrifice himself instead of calling the attack off?

Let’s say instead of giving away the heart, we refuse. Geppetto, disappointed, then opens the suitcase he’s been carrying since the first trailer. He reveals the unnamed puppet boss, raises up the unnamed puppet on strings, and attempts to take the heart by force. 

If you survive the first phase of the fight, P is able to slice the top his head off. There's then an animation of the "strings" around the nameless puppet being cut, becoming more ethereal.

The fight goes on as it does, and then something strange happens. The nameless puppet seemingly defies Geppetto, and nonsensically attacks the heart Geppetto so needs in the first place, at which point he is so desperate for Carlo's revival that he dives in front of us.

Geppetto asks, shocked, "Were you trying to destroy Carlo's heart?"

What’s in the box?

Geppetto opens the suitcase we’ve seen him carrying since the first trailer, and raises up the nameless puppet. In the other ending, we can see that the body in the suitcase is indeed Carlo. 

I think that Carlo/Nameless puppet regained some amount of sentience after being damaged. After the "real boy ending", Geppetto has him kill the rest of the people in Hotel Krat. Carlo being revived would mean Geppetto still has absolute control over his son. 

Short answer: He lost control of the puppet in the second phase and it either sabotaged him or acted purely of its own accord to end the fight. I think the implication was that even Carlo knew being brought back was a bad idea. Damn :(

[note: people online have pointed out: It’s implied that Geppetto seems to have heavily neglected Carlo, and Carlo may have hated Geppetto in reality ("I don't care if an old man like that kicks the bucket!"). This reinforces the idea that the Carlo we see at the end is just a pawn.]

Is Pinocchio = Carlo?

I think this is one of the more interesting points. This is either ambiguous or left unresolved by the game; but I think it's probably true that Pinocchio and Carlo are virtually the same person. If Geppetto had just accepted our/P's decision not to surrender the heart, he may have still gotten the son back that he always wanted anyway. But for all intents and purposes, the game seems to answer that it doesn't matter. Antonia's final letter to us rather profoundly chooses not to answer the question.

Why Antonia is a real one

This is Antonia's final message to us, contrasted with Geppetto's role with us as a parent in our final battle. [emphasis mine]

To the wonderful gentleman who gave my precious time back to me, That time I met you was light itself. Whether you're that child or not, I think you're a kind, precious child. Thank you for giving my joy back to me in my last moments. To the young gentleman who resembles Carlo, Antonia Cerasani

[Remember, these are Antonia and Geppetto’s respective last words to us]

To be very fair, Geppetto was Carlo's actual parent; Antonia was not. But this seems to contrast with Geppetto asserting to us during the final boss sequence that we are just a puppet. The word "precious" is also very particular, as it's a word that Geppetto uses to refer to us near constantly ("Always remember that you're precious to me"/"it pains me to send someone so precious into such peril"). But while it could be read that we are only precious to him for ulterior reasons (because we carry the organ needed to revive Carlo), Antonia asserts that we are precious regardless. I see that as a truer, non-possessive love.

[also: Carlo's eyes are very noticeably brown (also seen in the painting), Our/P’s eyes are blue. Eyes, nearly always, have quite the symbolism! "The window to the soul", remember? While P and Carlo may have had a near-identical shell, I think this might be the game telling us that P and Carlo weren't truly the same. ]

Who’s a good boy?

Geppetto calls us "good boy" quite a lot. It's been fun watching various streams of this game, and whenever Geppetto calls us a "Good boy", I remember the chatroom filling up with messages of disgust, like: Good boy has real "Would you kindly" vibes! and: I squint my eyes at him every time he calls us a good boy like a dog.

It really reminds me of Mother Gothel! When Mother Gothel calls Rapunzel "pet" and consistently dresses her in undersized dresses, she's infantilizing Rapunzel to take away her agency. Cleverly, each time she tells Rapunzel she loves her, she seems to be directing that love to her hair! She's also constantly touching and caressing it. She isn't interested in Rapunzel as a person, but in the functional idea of her. Geppetto also expresses discomfort seeing us age (our hair growing), in contrast to Sophia's honest and enthusiastic interest. It's symbolic of his disdain towards our growing self-autonomy (growth into an adult).

[Even in the last hug with P, it’s a basically a ruse to grab the heart, and he never gives P a second look when he collapses for dead on the floor.]

[To be somewhat sympathetic to Bad Dad Giuseppe (I'm not defending him), it's also probably because we are now growing past the age that Carlo died. Essentially, we're starting to outlive him, and Geppetto has to witness the growing that Carlo never got to reach. That's got to be hard to bear.]

What does P actually stand for? P stands for Puppet, Not Pinocchio

People have noticed since the demo that we are never actually, explicitly referred to as "Pinocchio". The NPCs seem to dodge around saying "Pinocchio", opting for words “like Geppetto's puppet" or “child” instead. Given the story's inspiration and the game's title, however, it could be inferred that our name is Pinocchio. Why not just call us by name? 

Well, the doylist interpretation is that maybe they just didn't want to stir up some kind of trademark trouble with a certain Walter Mouse. But the game does something clever with this, lore-wise. After our "betrayal" at the hands of our father, I think the big reveal is simply that we are unnamed. Giuseppe gave us no name, showing he didn't view us as a true autonomous being.

Why does Geppetto apologize in the alternate "good ending"?

Both the endings are near identical, but when Geppetto is beginning to curse Pino, he apologizes instead. The beginning of the end cutscene is the same as the second “good ending”, where Geppetto tells us that we’re “just a useless puppet”. He's beginning to say this, except for when he sees the tear fall, at which point he seems to relent.

I think it's supposed to imply, seeing Pinocchio seemingly mourning for him, that in the very last moment Geppetto understood that either 1. Pinocchio was truly Carlo or 2. that he was sentient enough to be his tangible son anyway.

Is Pinocchio still alive? (+ Collodi's journey to Adulthood)

I think so!

If you've taken certain paths, you unlock the third ending, which is like the second ending, except with an additional scene where we can see P returning to the Alchemist's tower to look at a peaceful Krat. P then uses the ergo from Sophia into a puppet replica, at which point he collapses, seemingly from exhaustion. Sophia cradles him as he sleeps and serenely tells us it's good to see us again.

In the book, Pinocchio, after travailing to support both his ailing father and the sick blue fairy, falls asleep and dreams that he is visited by the blue fairy. The fairy, now whole and healed, tells him he hasn't been the best son, but that boys who support their parents are "deserving of great praise". When he wakes, he is a human boy, and his puppet form lies lifeless on a chair. It isn't Pinocchio showing pure obedience that makes him into a real boy, but the selfless act of caring for his father (the reversal of the parent-child structure). In my interpretation - her final message is this: That he was never perfect, (and perhaps he would never be perfect), but the bottom line was that he loved his father, and that was enough to make him human. [I think there's something in my eye!]

(Easter - The Resurrection of Christ, Rebirth, Death and renewal, Spring) 

In case you don't know (I didn't btw), the statue in the Exhibition is actually Michelangelo's La Pieta. Its inclusion in the game not only alludes to the novel's Italian origins, but also serves as a central visual motif as it's representing Jesus's death in the arms of Mary. This visual motif is revisited by P and Sophia at the end of the game in the “true” (canonical) ending. Symbolically, In the selfless act of reviving Sophia and at the end of his journey, he has transcended and broken the "egg shell of his puppet body" into a true adult (a human being). 

Does lying make us human?

At the centre of Collodi's Pinocchio is a father-son relationship wherein underlies an unconditional love. But this game has quite the different father-son relationship. When puppets are made, they are meant to follow under the laws of the Grand Covenant, and our father is the father of all puppets. Namely, each time we lie, this is in defiance of our father figure. Remember, the rule is that a puppet cannot lie. Lying doesn't have the connotation it has in the book or in popular culture adaptations of Pinocchio. Rather, lying in the game seems to infer choice and not deception.

It isn't just the act of disobedience (Self-agency) that gives us our autonomy ("A man chooses", mirroring Bioshock), In many cases in the story, we are asked if it’s better to comfort someone with a lie than telling them a truth that maybe wouldn’t serve them. In that way, you can also view lying as the selfless act of taking a burden.

Again, this adapts Collodi's psychological ideas in the book on the growth of the self-interested nature of the hedonistic, narcissistic child into the empathetic "adult" that works to serve others. [I know I might come across as harsh here, but bear with me, I’m just trying to speak in literary terms.] But while Collodi's Pinocchio focuses on the selfless nature of a parent, Lies of P focuses on the self-agency of an adult. 

So why is Lies of P so dead serious about Pinocchio? Well, it's an elaborate metaphor for self-autonomy.

In Conclusion…

Does Lies of P have an identity issue in of itself? Great soulslike? PuppetBorne 2.0? But it's also a beautifully rendered Pinocchio adaption. Quite unusual, perhaps, but there's a quote that bizarrely enough comes to mind when I think of the audacity of a Pinocchio themed soulslike - Talent is hitting the target nobody else can hit, while genius is hitting the target nobody else can see. I think there is a reason why the tale of Pinocchio persists and persists.

I re-added Ollie into the story too soon because of a snap decision and fear I was presenting Nonna wrong, alas I ruined the mystery a little bit along with the pacing. It was a struggle to restart but I hope the framing in this version is more fun :D