#shattered rambles

So, Nessie. We all love her, unless your last name is Morose and your first name is Thomas, or unless you're a gardener named Daniel Frief apparently. We know a couple of basic things about her, like that she is huge, that she emerged from the swamp one day, and that she is actually remarkably nice when she's fed and not starving... but other than that, she's mostly a mystery. Then again, most things in this game are.

I would like to compile a couple of details, observations, and theories about what Nessie is. Feel free to comment any other things I may have missed, or to just state your opinions on my theories. So, without further ado, let's begin.

What We Know For A Fact

Nessie emerged from the "water" one day, and was found by Samantha Morose, who decided to take her as a pet. She was kept in the greenhouse, and may or may not have killed and eaten several gardeners. (Source: the "Gardener's Grief" note)

Appearance-wise, she takes the form of a large, six-legged creature

When encountered, Nessie is aggressive and will try repeatedly to eat Howard, unless you shake your mouse to break free or shoot a rock at her. In the new update, her tail is also aggressive, but will only attack you in the section of greenhouse where you have to collect the purple and green plant. If shot at, Nessie will either spit the rock out or cower in a hurt position.

During the Good ending, Nessie manages to escape the lab and eat Morose, and immediately after, she calms down and willingly lets the two ride on her back to the shore. Finally, she is last seen with Angelique, Howard, and Phillip, and is described by the narrator to be living "happily".

...So admittedly, not too much to go off of. That's what this next section is for!

Assumptions and Guesses for What We Lack

This is where I try to answer questions we don't know with my answers. Some of these are based on real-world phenomena, some are rooted in the game... and for some, I'm guessing blind.

Where did Nessie come from? Given that she's described to have "just crawled out of the water one day", I'm guessing she emerged from one of Greatmaw's swamps. However... I have my doubts on this being the full answer (See: My Theories).

Why does she look the way she does? See: My Theories again. But I also have some base-level analyses on her.

Nessie is absolutely HUGE, being roughly 2.5 Howards tall. If we assume Howard is the average height at the time (5'8"), then Nessie is about... 14 FEET AND 4 INCHES. For reference, an adult male African bush elephant is 10 to 13 feet tall at the shoulder, meaning that Nessie is bigger than an elephant!

She also appears to be covered in a layer of... yellow. It's unclear whether this is fur or feathers, but both interpretations can work.

She has a total of six limbs and a slight curve to her snout, similar traits to the Ancient Ones of all things.

At the end of her tail is a large flower with a mouth inside. Given that it's described as "hungry" in its death screen, it seems to be functional. I believe this part of her to be a sign of aggressive mimicry, where a predator mimics being a more harmless species in other to catch prey. In this case, her tail would attract pollinators, which she would then eat using her tail-mouth, extending it to ensure that her prey would not get away.

She also has 6 limbs, a count which no other mammal we know of has. This may just be Seussian anatomy at play, but I believe this detail may be relevant for later.

What is Nessie's actual diet? This detail is a little unsure, but I have two main guesses as to why she only ever seems to target humans.

A: Nessie literally cannot eat anything but meat, meaning she is a hypercarnivore like a polar bear, or B: The Greenhouse is full of flora so toxic/inedible that she will not eat it and would rather risk starvation than getting sick again.

Personally, I think it's B, and that Nessie is an opportunistic carnivore that prefers meat but will eat plants if necessary. Unfortunately, everything in the greenhouse was so toxic to her that she learned quickly not to eat it.

My Theories to fill in the final gaps

Mostly this section is about where she came from. And for this, I have 2 main theories.

1: Nessie is just a part of Greatmaw's natural fauna. Unusual, sure, but nothing to be concerned about.

2: Nessie is an Ancient One who got sent to the surface and mutated into... well, a Nessie. I promise this will make more sense as I explain, but first, let's address the first theory.

Theory 1: Nessie is just part of Greatmaw's climate.

Nessie is a relatively normal creature that just happens to be native to Greatmaw, whether mammal or bird or having traits of both. She lived on Greatmaw her whole life (or at the very least migrated there) before being found by Samantha, sent to the Greenhouse, and cue the events of the game.

Supporting Evidence:

Nessie is a large creature and designed to be an apex predator.

Greatmaw is on top of a whole eldritch city, which could make her as well as other fauna sufficiently weird, like how Mr. Dile has eyes in his mouth when he chomps.

Her design could just be a harkening back to the creatures Dr. Seuss would draw.

In support of the migration theory, in the good ending Nessie is shown swimming from Greatmaw back to the mainland through the seawater. In real life, plenty of mammals have been shown to be able to swim in salty water, like moose. If you believe she's an avian, a comparison can be drawn to ducks.

Pitfalls:

Nessie being a normal animal would have to mean that there's more Nessies just like her, but we only ever see the one. And if she is supposedly native, it makes no sense that we don't see any other of her kind, or that they're not even mentioned.

She also has 6 legs and two mouths on her body, which is not something either mammals or birds have.

If you shoot a rock at her when she's chasing you on the ground, she will cower for a few moments and cover her face with her frontmost legs. As far as I searched, no other animal seems to do this.

She seems weirdly... intelligent for an animal. After escaping the lab, she eats Morose and apparently savages him. Then, immediately after, she licks Phillip's face rather than attacking him and Howard. If she were an animal, wouldn't it stand to reason for her to immediately attempt attacking the two, or at least attacking the very injured Howard? Not to mention that she's apparently completely cool with the two men on her back as she goes to the mainland.

Theory 2: Nessie is a former Ancient One.

...Okay, hear me out on this one. Nessie used to be an Ancient One living in the Old City, before ending up on the surface and getting turned into the creature she is now.

Supporting Evidence:

Nessie is described as "crawling out of the water", which could refer to many bodies of water. However, there is one section (the last Save Flower before you go to the Old City) that shows a reddish-brown whirlpool. It's entirely possible that's how she got up.

She and the Ancient Ones have very similar designs, from the same fur color to the same snout to six limbs.

She's the only Nessie of her kind we see or hear about.

The Old City seems to have a eldritch presence, given how Phillip at first can't come down or he'd risk going insane. The Ancient Ones have adapted to the energy; perhaps it keeps them cohesive like pressure does with blobfish (they only turn into blobs when the pressure isn't holding them together).

Nessie seems uncannily intelligent for a standard animal. She covers her face when hit, she only targets Morose when freed, and she seems to understand humans to some degree, given how she lives with them in the Good Ending and lets them ride her to the shore.

Pitfalls:

If Nessie really was an Ancient One, then where did her tentacles go, and how did she suddenly mutate from a tall entity into a gigantic animal?

Why would she be so eager to leave the island in the good ending? Her implied saying of "I don't belong in this place" would be weird, because wouldn't she want to go back down to the Old City?

The whirlpool may not be a good suggestion for how she managed to get to the surface. If that isn't the case, then there's no otherwise clear reason to why she made it up in the first place.

Just because her and the Ancient Ones look similar doesn't mean they're necessarily connected. Their similarities could just be coincidences.

My Final Thoughts to call this wraps

Nessie as a creature gives us a whole lot of questions without very many answers. I voiced my thoughts and opinions, but at the end of the day, I never wrote the story. For all I know, everything I put up here could be completely, entirely wrong.

But even if none of the things I threw out are canon in any way, shape or form, that's fine with me. I just wanted to point out some things I thought were interesting about our resident Large Seussian Creature.