#amnesia remember

Quick explanation for those who don't know: the Potato Sack ARG was a celebration upon the release of Portal 2 (hence the potato) where a bunch of easter eggs were added to a bunch of different Steam games that you could then decode and put into a website to get an early release of Portal 2. Amnesia the Dark Descent got 2 major pieces of the ARG's puzzle added to it for the event (and also released the Justine expansion and Remember short story collection), and here is one of them.

This is Elise Zimmermann leaving a phonograph message to Daniel. Read the pure beauty that is her tirade to the man who murdered her before I start dissecting it to point out my favorite parts. (I should let everyone know now I don't know how to add a Keep Reading so I'm very sorry for the length)

I lost my mind reading this the first time, I don't know how to explain how excited this made me

Let's dive into it, shall we?

We start off with Elise laying down the law, as she of course should. Gotta make sure Daniel understands where he stands as a person (Unfortunately, this is being said to New Daniel who hasn't even gone to Storage yet, so he has no idea what she's talking about). But even still....

Not "you monster." Not "you murderer." Not "inhuman" or "evil" or any number of words that would perfectly fit to describe Daniel. No, it's just "you selfish old boy." This is probably my favorite part of the whole thing

Now THIS is important. Elise would be totally within her rights to want vengeance upon this man, to want to see him die or see horrible things happen to him. But instead, she offers him redemption. Instead of taking the easy gratification of watching him get killed the way she was or something, she wants Daniel to really pay for what he's done. She wants to see him go through the hard work of atoning for his actions, which is not an easy thing to do!! She wants to see him

a. Fully understand and accept responsibility for what he's done

b. Feel guilt for doing a terrible thing (but not such crushing guilt that he erases himself just to not feel it anymore, that's just selfishness all over again)

c. Put in the effort and the work to pay for this thing, to truly balance the scales of justice and do something that will make it right

d. And then come out of this actually having become a better person

Elise is the REALEST!! How many times do you see this in real life or in fiction?? Not many!! Usually swift revenge is what people want the most, but LOOK at how wise this kid is!! It's more satisfying for her, more punishing for him, and has the added benefit of actually improving a person so they won't do this kind of thing again!! I cannot describe how much I love Elise Zimmermann

Now we're into the ARG stuff (the first letter to the answers of each of these spelled out the clue you were supposed to put into the website) but I still got a lot of enjoyment out of this. To me, this reads as... well, I have to explain a little

What I got from this (and it was sort of an inkling of an idea I already had that was affirmed by this) is that Elise's ghost is following Daniel around the castle. I mean, the Shadow, Alexander, the Gatherers, none of them can make doors blow open, lights go out, and books fly off the shelves by themselves. Those are all distinctly ghostly things to have happen. Not to mention the way the flame bursts to life seemingly of its own accord over the spot where Elise died. That was the one that really got me thinking about it. Who would care so much about Daniel seeing and understanding what had happened there? Probably the girl who had been murdered.

But now getting back to Elise's phonograph message. To me, this reads as Elise, having followed Daniel around this castle, is also reading all the notes Daniel finds over his shoulder. Much like New Daniel, Elise can't make heads or tails of a lot of the information he's finding. So to me it sort of feels like Elise is saying, "From the bits and pieces of your life I've been able to put together I'm very confused, please explain it to me, I'm invested now." Daniel's life is sort of like a soap opera for her to watch (honestly Daniel's life is a soap opera for New Daniel to watch too)

(Can you imagine her reaction to the drama of Alexander locking Daniel out of the Inner Sanctum though, right after he'd killed Elise?? She'd be like, "OHHHH THE TEA IS HOT!!!" )

(Also I love how offended she is that Daniel laughed when she mentioned Gabriel. My brother and I actually joked about this while making Elise in Miitopia, I will add that at the very end if you're interested in seeing it) (She's also quite offended that Daniel knows Gabriel at all which I also love)

This is my other very favorite part in the whole thing. She's fed up with Daniel's low sanity shenanigans, come on man the girl just wants her answers

And then I can only imagine this next part goes something like

Elise: "Where did you leave your sister?"

New Daniel: "I have a sister???"

Elise, completely done with him: "Daniel, you are going mad!! Go home, call on her, ask her name, and let her bring you home to England."

I feel like Elise is just thinking that Daniel's a complete idiot, which he is. I also love that we go from Daniel needing to redeem himself to Daniel just needing to go home and take care of his sister to Daniel needing to be taken care of by his sister. Her faith in his abilities is steadily decreasing.

Elise: Daniel, just go home and take care of your sister, okay? Can you manage that much?

Daniel: Who...?

Elise:

Elise: Never mind, go home and let your sister take care of you

(I do love that Elise wants to see Daniel get to go home and just be happy with Hazel though)

This ending is just to let you know what the puzzle is, but there you have it!! Elise's message to Daniel which is almost definitely not canon but in tandem with Waiting for the Rain made Elise my favorite character in the game besides Daniel. I love the thought of a sassy, judgy ghost child following the man who murdered her around the castle, seeing him wipe his memory and stumble terrified and confused through this nightmare of his own creation, and just realizing,

"Oh no"

"He's stupid"

And as she realizes he has no memory, this means he actually has a better shot at redemption than his former self ever would have 'cause he might not be as incredibly selfish (it probably doesn't hurt that in some of Daniel's low sanity ramblings in-game he doesn't realize that Elise's voice that he keeps hearing is a flashback, he thinks he's hearing a real little girl right now and is trying to find her and save her from whoever's chasing her)

"Okay Daniel, I'll allow you to redeem yourself, but only if you're not stupid"

Speaking of Waiting for the Rain, I just want to say real quick that reading that story was an emotional gutpunch for me for several obvious reasons, but one less obvious one was how much Elise and Daniel struck me as being alike. Their childhoods, their personalities, their want to escape their constrictive lives....The whole time I was reading it I just kept thinking, "No Daniel no!!" because the parallels between them are so strong, I couldn't help thinking if they'd met each other in a different situation they would've been really good friends. You can probably see where I'm going with this lol. This is clearly far from the ideal situation, and Daniel doesn't know Elise is following him through the castle, but if he did, like in the Potato Sack ARG, I think that'd be a pretty great dynamic to see for them, strange and wrong as it is to say

So there is my take on Daniel and Elise for this all but nonexistent fandom nowadays to do as they please with. Disaster ghost child realizes her murderer is functionally a new person and an idiot so decides to help him as best she can (while also still constantly insulting and scaring him at every opportunity).

Bonus: If anyone is interested in hearing Elise's voice actress deliver this I did eventually manage to find a video of it!!

Bonus bonus (just our dumb joke while trying to pick Elise's eyes):

When the guy chasing you laughs when you mention Gabriel

*finally found the motivation to finish it*