#polendina

Synopses and Differences between The Sandman and "Coppélia"

Before I begin tying these pieces of art to Lies of P, I think it's worth comparing the two.

Der Sandmann (translated The Sandman) is a short story written by E.T.A. Hoffmann and published in 1816. In the story, a young man Nathaniel writes to his friend and lover Clara and her brother Lothario about his past concerning a strange alchemist named Coppelius. He tells them about Coppelius plotting to take Nathaniel's eyes and rearranging his limbs as a child, how his father died the last time he saw him with Coppelius, and the unhappiness of his mother and family suffered in his presence. Years later in university, he meets someone that strangely looks very similar to Coppelius named Giuseppe Coppola. Clara believes that Nathaniel's PTSD is making him hallucinate that Coppola is Coppelius and urges him to let go of the past to find inner peace. She also notes that Coppelius was "Piedmontese" while Coppola is Italian (which Piedmont is in Italy, but at the time of the writing, may have been more influenced by other cultures such as the Celtics, Muslims, etc). Clara and Nathaniel had become sweethearts because other men couldn't appreciate her quirks until Nathaniel fell in love with her; however, on his last visit home, Nathaniel begins to notice that Clara isn't as interesting as he had previously thought. When he returns to his university, Nathaniel retires to his room after a lecture by the new professor Spalanzani to write to Clara, Nathaniel sees a curious wooden automaton woman from his window in Spalanzani's apartment across the street, and he makes note of how dead her eyes look. Coppola frighteningly arrives at his door and sells to Nathaniel a special telescope, which Nathaniel foolishly aims at the automaton. As if by a spell, Nathaniel becomes enamored with automaton and believes the longer he looks at her, the more human and alive she appears. Spalanzani notices that Nathaniel has taken an interest in the automaton and holds a party for his "daughter" Olympia. Everyone is invited, including Nathaniel who courts the automaton and becomes obsessed with her to the point of becoming paranoid and jealous that other men will come to ask for her hand to dance at the party. While he is entranced by Olympia, he fails to realize that the patrons are all instead laughing at the odd pair until the party ends. Nathaniel then asks for Spalazani's blessing, to which Spalanzani happily agrees. Nathaniel falls deeper and deeper into his psychosis believing that Olympia isn't a puppet but the Perfect Woman, which triggers within the community paranoia of automatons integrating with humans and making the populace wary of Perfection. People encouraged each other to not be Perfect so that they were sure they were conversing with humans and not dolls. One day, Coppola returns to Spalanzani to retrieve Olympia. Nathaniel sees Coppola has stolen Olympia's enchanting eyes and Spalanzani tries to take Olympia back because he created the rest of her body and her clockwork mechanisms. Coppola tears the puppet away from Spalanzani and escapes but her eyes are left behind, which sends Nathaniel into a fit of rage as he lashes out against Spalanzani. After Nathaniel is apprehended and falls into a coma, he reawakens at the end of his psychotic episode and returns to a quiet normal life with Clara. On the day that the pair, Lothario, and Nathaniel's mother are to move to the countryside with a newly acquired small bit of wealth, Nathaniel and Clara go to see the mountains from atop a tower. Nathaniel pulls out the telescope he had purchased from Coppola and falls into psychosis again, this time threatening to kill Clara by throwing her from the parapet. Lothario quickly saves her, and as Coppelius quietly watches from among the gathering crowd, Nathaniel jumps off the tower in a stupor and falls to his death. Clara retires to the countryside with her idyllic life seemingly having moved on from Nathaniel's suicide.

"Coppélia" was created by Arthur Saint-Léon and Léo Delibes and first performed in 1870, offering a much more comedic version of the basic premise. In the story of the ballet, Coppélia the doll is seen sitting at a window posed as if she were reading a book. Swanhilda the heroine enters and dances as she curiously looks up at Coppélia to get her attention then goes back inside her apartment. Her sweetheart Franz later enters with his friends for a night of drinking and women. Franz, however, is in love with Swanhilda and tries to decline their invite until he sees the beautiful Coppélia in the window. He is immediately enamored with her and blows a kiss. At the same time, Coppélia's clockwork dancing begins and Franz falls more in love with her. As she finishes her dance, Swanhilda comes out to meet Franz only to see Coppélia appear to blow a kiss to him. Swanhilda becomes jealous and gets into a quarrel with Franz about his "infidelity". Swanhilda runs away before a Burgomaster enters the town with dowry offers to all couple intending to marry soon. Swanhilda is still too upset with Franz to marry him. Later on after the festivities; Dr. Coppelius, an alchemist and the creator of Coppélia, emerges from his workshop and is harassed by Franz and his friends. He drops the key to his workshop, which Swanhilda finds shortly after. Together with her friends, they sneak inside. Meanwhile, Franz comes back to the square and notices that Coppélia isn't in the window anymore, so he takes a ladder to climb into her window. Inside the workshop, the girls find many more automatons, including Coppélia sitting behind a curtain. Dr. Coppelius returns to the workshop, and while he chases most of the girls out, Swanhilda disguises herself as Coppélia. Dr. Coppelius doesn't notice this as he catches Franz sneaking into the window. He entices Franz to drink spiked drinks until he passes out then pulls out Swanhilda pretending to be Coppélia. Dr. Coppelius begins to practice his alchemical magic and Swanhilda begins to dance like a doll to keep up her disguise. Dr. Coppelius takes Franz's essence which fully "brings Coppélia to life". Swanhilda distracts Dr. Coppelius and eventually wakes up Franz then reveals that she simply only dressed up as the doll and that Coppélia has been ruined in the process. After the two escape and Dr. Coppelius mourns how Swanhilda meddled with Coppélia, Swanhilda and Franz reconcile in the streets and pledge to get married. The Burgomaster comes to pay their dowries, but Dr. Coppelius demands compensation for Swanhilda breaking Coppélia. The Burgomaster pays for the damages with interest which pleases Dr. Coppelius, and the village celebrates Swanhilda and Franz's union.

The differences in the two are very obvious in which one is extremely dark and schizophrenic and the other is more light-hearted and funny. The basic premise (a man falling in love with a puppet) is still intact. No one truly dies in the ballet, where in the short story, the protagonist succumbs to his delusions. And it's very important to notice that the ballet version of Coppelius is more of a reclusive inventor and seems to be a mixture of Coppelius and Spalazani, while Coppelius/Coppola is a legitimately terrifying villain.

And a very special detail is that Adelina Corday's final performance is the Witch's Tower and the Princess was written by Copelius Kempellen, which is a reference to Dr. Coppelius in in "Coppélia" and Johann Wolfgang von Kempellen, who was the inventor of the chess-playing automaton called "The Turk". More on Kempellen later.

Human-Robot Romantic Relationships in Lies of P

Knowing both of the plotlines thus helps to understand why a question and its reversal are important to the story of Lies of P: "Can a human ever love a puppet?" and "Can a puppet ever love a human?"

The notion of HRR stems from Human-Robot Interactions (HRIs), an umbrella for fields of study involving the interactions and relationships between humans and robots including sociality, psychology, physical interactions, ethics, etc. The basis of the field comes from Isaac Asimov's science-fiction book series I, Robot (which is on my list to read after I finish three other books). At its core, the Three Laws of Robotics (on which the Grand Covenant is based) indicate that 1) Robots must not harm humans nor allow humans to be harmed, 2) Robots must obey their commands as long as it does not contradict Law 1, and 3) Robots must also protect themselves as long as it does not contradict Law 1 and Law 2. Considering these laws, it's obvious that normally functioning puppets would do what they can to ensure humans are safe out of compulsion. Then, as the puppet is freed from the Grand Covenant either by the King of Puppets or by some emotional trigger, love becomes possible.

There are three pairs that the aforementioned questions are personified, with two of them being overtly and indicative of the third:

Julian the Gentleman & Melody the Maid Puppet

Polendina & Antonia

Romeo the King of Puppets & P

Julian the Gentleman and Melody the Maid Puppet

Julian the Gentleman is introduced as early as Chapter 3 when P finds the news article Have You Seen This Eccentric?! in Venigni Works. This article ridicules Julian (Mr. J) and how he had fallen in love with a maid puppet. The article describes that Julian went head over heels for a maid puppet to the point of asking for his family's blessing to marry her. Instead, hysteria ensued, resulting in the puppet being torn apart. Julian was heartbroken after the ordeal, but he repaired Melody the maid puppet while professing that she clearly has a soul and that they were in love.

P doesn't meet Julian until Chapter 6 in the Rosa Isabelle Street sewers sometime after P comes across the Artist's Doodles, which describes that puppets are perfect and therefore more beautiful than humans. This note parallels Nathaniel's mindset in The Sandman. Julian is distraught having lost contact with Melody after being attacked and separated during the Puppet Frenzy, and fearing that she's already gone, he pleads with P to bring back her belongings to him. This begins Julian's side quest.

When P and Gemini find Melody and recover the Wedding Ring, P has a choice to make. Julian asks him: "Who ever has heard of a human and a puppet in love?"

If P tells the truth that there is no way that a human and puppet could ever be together, Julian's heart breaks and he commits suicide. The Wedding Ring then becomes the Bloody Wedding Ring. If P lies and tells Julian that he saw Melody's message saying "I love you", Julian is comforted. P then receives the Sad gesture (needed for the Lonely Broken Puppet quest in the Barren Swamp) and can show Polendina the Wedding Ring as proof of such a relationship when asked about it.

The description and image of the ring will change depending on the answer P gives. Noticeably, the Wedding Ring treats Melody as a human. The Bloody Wedding Ring underscores that Julian and Melody could only be united in death and carries some of the humiliation he suffered with it. The Truth ending to Julian's quest could also be likened to Romeo and Juliet, but more on this later.

Julian's storyline is comparable to the original Sandman, with its sordid humiliation and grisly bittersweet outcome. Julian is the representative of Nathaniel when considering his delusory affections for Melody. If P breaks his heart, he meets the same fate as Nathaniel, only to be made an ass when it's revealed in the game that Melody had actually awakened to her Ergo and Julian was right about her having a soul.

Julian's quest parallels Polendina and Antonia's storyline in that it becomes a reversal.

Polendina and Antonia

Polendina is Antonia's trusted butler who helps her run the hotel. When Antonia gets Petrification Disease, he takes care of her. Upon defeating Romeo and ending Chapter 6, Polendina leaves a note for P requesting to meet with him in private. This meeting indicates that Polendina has awakened to his Ergo through the love that has grown in him as he has been caring for Antonia since before she developed Petrification Disease. This is a new feeling for Polendina, and he wastes no time in seeking P's answer to the reversal of Julian's question: "Can a puppet and a human fall in love? Have you ever met a puppet who loves a human?"

Regardless of what P answered to Julian's question, he has the option to either crush Polendina's hopes of a quiet romance or to show him the proof that it's possible*.

*Previously, there was a bug with this quest in which the Negative answer would grant Humanity. This has been fixed with the DLC update and now correctly awards Humanity when giving proof of Julian and Melody's relationship to Polendina. Additionally, P will not show Polendina the Bloody Wedding Ring if Julian dies; he will just say that it's possible for a puppet and human to be in love.

How does Polendina's storyline relate to The Sandman? The trope of a robot or AI falling in love with a human is a popular sci-fi one, even if the short story predates the genre. Polendina's reversal thus lends itself to be from the perspective of the puppet that 19th century literature probably could not fathom. In The Sandman, Nathaniel believed wholeheartedly that Olympia loved him. The story treads a line as his delusions progress where Olympia does seem to be alive. However, if Nathaniel believed so much that Olympia loved him, could anyone vouch that Olympia didn't feel that same? Polendina seems to offer that perspective.

As Polendina's storyline progresses, he displays a different sort of love for Antonia. He states he doesn't intend to tell her that he has feelings for her but instead vows to keep taking care of her and making her comfortable for the rest of her life. He becomes very distressed when her condition worsens, and he begs to find a way to help her. Polendina shows how human he has become with his love and devotion to Antonia. Once Antonia passes away, he determines that it would be better to go dormant to buffer against the the emptiness her death has brought him, but he doesn't regret having awakened and being with her in her final moments. Essentially, to take from In Memoriam by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all."

From The Sandman to "Coppélia", Romeo and P's Relationship

How do both Julian's quest and Polendina's storyline apply to the relationship between P and Romeo? There are a few indicators, of which only a couple I'll point out in this post. One of the biggest indications of it is the fact that Romeo's introduction is entirely based on "Coppélia".

When P enters the theater, Romeo puts on a puppet show to warn him of Geppetto's true intentions in using P's heart to bring the Nameless Puppet to life. This is where my viewing of the ballet Coppélia comes in!

Due to the performance rules, I do not have pictures of the production I saw, so I will use screenshots from available ballets recorded in the 70s and 90s.

Romeo's puppet show is a snapshot of a scene from Act 2, when Swanhilda pretends to be Coppélia to avoid Dr. Coppelius harming her as she sees what is done to Franz. This became immediately obvious to me in the specific part when Dr. Coppelius shuffles over to Franz and seems to take his still-beating heart out of him and place it into the Coppélia doll (this gesture might have been used to indicate Franz's essence or soul, but the pulsing hand gesture suggests his actual heart).

This part is recreated almost verbatim in Romeo's puppet show, including when the representative of the Nameless Puppet at first moves like clockwork before fluidly posing in triumph. After the puppet show finishes, Romeo drops down and offers his hand in peace before P foolishly slaps it away and breaks Romeo's heart. This small scene has a few layered references to the ballet:

The music during Romeo's recreation comes from Act II: Chanson à boire et Scène--when Dr. Coppelius has drugged Franz and is deciding what to do with him.

The whimsical music that plays when Romeo adjusts his crown and offers his hand is Swanhilda's first dance: Act I Valse Lente--when Swanhilda enters the scene and dances to try and get Coppélia's attention. Using this music here means that Romeo is trying to "get P's attention" about what Geppetto is truly planning.

Romeo's gesture can also be read as one asking for a dance, which is similar to the notion Franz trying to appeal to Swanhilda to marry after he's caught blowing a kiss to Coppélia. Romeo's eyes are also blue, indicating friendliness.

Romeo's role here is primarily that of Swanhilda's as she is the one to save her lover Franz from Dr. Coppelius's alchemical magic. Unfortunately, where Swanhilda succeeds and escapes with Franz from Dr. Copelius's workshop, Romeo ultimately falls in battle but is truly freed from the proverbial puppet string.

There is still yet a deeper meaning. When you look at the context of Chapter 6, both Julian's quest and Polendina's opening to his storyline bookend Romeo's time on-screen and in direct contact of P (those Romeo's presence lasts for the rest of the game and the DLC). Rosa Isabelle Street's narrative is also intricately wrapped in romance and grief, as "Coppélia" is a romantic comedy and The Sandman is Gothic absurdism from the perspective of the "normal" populace viewing the "aberrant" behavior in Nathaniel. Additionally, P is working to become more human (per the Real Boy and Rise of P routes), which for these purposes would qualify him as the Human in a story of a Human and a Puppet in love. Another specification in this chapter that indicate romantic feelings between Romeo and P as mentioned before such as the prevalence and acquisition of "Fascination", which precedes and plays after meeting Julian and Adelina Corday.

Understanding both the short story and the ballet helps to clarify that Romeo's actions in the introduction are more than him cockily asking for a truce. Romeo is wishing for P to reunite with him to fight against Geppetto and the Alchemists, a wish he's held onto since his turning into a puppet and his finding out that Carlo's Ergo had awakened and was traveling Krat within P.

Now, the Bloody Wedding Ring does pull in yet another story when it states that Julian and Melody are united in death. You can't simply have Romeo without thinking about Romeo and Juliet. While Romeo is named The Adventures of Pinocchio, Romeo also comes from the famous Shakespearean play. Julian and Melody were united in death. Romeo must die in the game, i.e. there is no way to avoid fighting him to progress the story. P takes the Ergo of all the bosses that he defeats, including Romeo's, and Ergo is stored within P's P-Organ. Depending on how high P's Humanity is, Sophia's discussion about the necklace that P finds on him can award the player a missable scene in which, in a faint whisper, Romeo calls Carlo's name as his Ergo instigates a change in P. Mirroring Julian and Melody, paralleling Romeo and Juliet, Carlo's Ergo is reunited with Romeo's Ergo to be the catalyst for P to become human.

Copelius Kempellen and the Foreshadowing of Romeo

Before moving onto the final section, it has dawned on me the true purpose of The Witch's Tower and the Princess poster. As mentioned, Copelius Kempellen is named as the playwright of the performance. We already know more than enough about where Copelius comes from. What about "Kempellen"?

Johann Wolfgang von Kempellen was a writer who invented a chess-playing automaton, but this was discovered to be a hoax. The Mechanical Turk, as the automaton came to be called, was no automaton but a man hiding inside of a box with buttons and levers. He would move the chess pieces with the buttons and levers to give the appearance of the machine playing chess against itself autonomously.

Upon defeating Romeo's first phase, Romeo's true form is revealed. The kingly giant (Gundam-like) mech can be likened to the Mechanical Turk and Romeo is the man on the inside piloting it.

The Sandman, Geppetto, and the Larger Narrative

The story of The Sandman still yet applies to the larger narrative of Lies of P. In The Sandman, Coppelius has no first name. He is later reintroduced as Giuseppe Coppola; in The Adventures of Pinocchio, Geppetto has no first name. Therefore, it can surmised that Giuseppe Geppetto is a mixture of Giuseppe Coppola and Geppetto (with a touch of Spalanzani). Geppetto worked alongside the Alchemists, and Coppelius is described as an alchemist that killed Nathaniel's father in an experiment (which similarly happened to Camille). Olympia, who is comparable to P and Coppélia to Nameless Puppet, was considered the first automaton, thus Coppola and Spalanzani were the fathers of her, much like how Geppetto is the father of puppets and repeatedly insists to P that he is his father for ulterior motives. After all, Law 0 and loading screens state that the Creator of the Grand Covenant and of the puppets is Giuseppe Geppetto. It is Romeo that exposes thissecret as well as is the one to show P the truth of Geppetto's goals.

In sending P to destroy the King of Puppets, Geppetto dislikes Romeo for a number of reasons: Carlo remained with Romeo and developed a relationship that can be interpreted (and seems to be heavily implied) as homosexual, Carlo found his family in Romeo (and later in Lea) and hated Geppetto until he matured enough to finally consider confronting him after his piano tour with Antonia, and Carlo gave the necklace that Geppetto sent him for graduation to Romeo both out of resentful protest against his father and out of admiration for his only friend. Considering that the Alchemists' Gnosticism battled against Krat's version of Catholicism and that Geppetto does not seem to align with Gnostic ideals, Geppetto may be considered Catholic and potentially viewed Carlo's relationship with Romeo as sinful and, per The Adventures of Pinocchio, a terrible influence.

With Carlo dead, Geppetto sought to recreate a puppet that would look almost identical to him in P in order to resurrect him. P, thus, is Olympia. Does this make Romeo fit Nathaniel's role? Potentially, as he senses Carlo's Ergo on the wavelengths and makes efforts to contact and court him to his side much like how Nathaniel saw Olympia through Coppola's telescope. Geppetto forced the Grand Covenant on Romeo, but once he removed it to initiate the Puppet Frenzy, Romeo had the clarity of mind to feel Carlo when Sophia wakes him.

That's not all. Geppetto, Venigni, and the Alchemists together gave rise to the puppets in Krat, freeing people up from work and letting them explore the arts. Puppets were trained through piano recitals for precision and accuracy. In both the short story and the ballet, automatons were built in secret. Moreover, as more people became aware of Nathaniel's absurd relationship with Olympia and the idea of automatons entering society, it became harder to tell if people were real rather than puppets, which can also be seen in Lies of P when some characters at first are unsure if P is human or puppet. Imperfections in human behavior were the tell-tale signs of someone being real as opposed to being a puppet.

Conclusion

Lies of P's backbone lies in The Adventures of Pinocchio and Frankenstein, but after reading The Sandman and having the opportunity to see a live performance of "Coppélia", I can safely say that these stories are part of that backbone. "Three Becomes One" as the first Trinity Room states.

On the surface, the relation seems minimal with Julian the Gentleman and Melody and Polendina and Antonia, but looking deeper into the ballet and short story especially, there are distinct details that line up exactly with P's adventure to indicate that they are even more related than initially thought. They provide windows into the already very complex characters in Geppetto and Romeo, both of whom I've dissected in other writings, primarily of Frankenstein and The Phantom of the Opera.