Even after finishing Mango, I still don't entirely understand what's going on. And I've examined EVERYTHING in the game.

Is the girl on the phone dead? Is she even a real person? Is the protagonist dead/dying? Is this limbo? Does he just choose to live in a fantasy world? Is it an acid trip? Is he legit psychotic? Or is it all simply a nightmare?

Here are some things I think I've figured out about what is real, what is not, and parts of the plot:

The parental issues have to be real; they're not the sort of thing you'd fantasise about, and they are not contradicted by an alternate version of events. So, we can safely say that we know these plot points to be true: His mother (now long dead) had mental health issues; he was somewhat afraid of her but of course he loved her. His father had her institutionalised and in response the protagonist hated him and rejected him even when the father was trying to help after the protagonist's nervous breakdown. The father had him institutionalised as well, probably because he believed that it was the right thing to do, but of course the son hated him even more for it. I suppose he gets over a lot of these issues by the end, since in his imagination he gives his scary mother a kiss in "paradise" and even though he doesn't reconcile with his father, he acknowledges that he meant well, as shown by the depiction of the father-son relationship in the next level.

The protagonist has a strange relationship with women. He keeps thinking of the female body, but usually without a head. A common interpretation would be that he dehumanises women and wants them only for ♥♥♥, but if the diaries are anything to go by then that's not true; it's companionship that he needs. Furthermore, he obsesses over lips and kissing, not ♥♥♥, and kissing is generally more of an emotional and affectionate act. Could it then be that he only imagines the bodies because is afraid to picture women's faces? Most faces he sees are deformed, after all. Is he afraid of women? I mean, his mother scared him, and the monster that chases him is a woman.

It's pretty much directly stated that the ants (and maybe also the spiders) symbolise his madness. The hearts are the loving relationships he craves. The mangoes (and possibly the strawberries) could be psych meds and/or illegal drugs. The hospital stuff is because he's in a mental hospital. The lost boy is the protagonist himself as a child ("fortunately, they found me" - also, pretty common in dreams for children to serve as a substitute for the self). The amusement park is a nice memory he has with his mother (even though he got lost at some point). The toilets seem to be tied to this paranoid impression he has that he's watched even in his private moments.

The protagonist's madness is complicated. Part of it seems to be a genetic legacy from his mother, another part is repressed trauma, and there also seems to be an element of personal choice, because he prefers his own made-up world to reality. Part of him, however, wants to wake up from the dream, and wants help (you can't miss all the "help me" graffiti in the game).

The chapter helpfully named "reality" does reveal a few things: The rock-star plot is imaginary (it's a lie that he told a girl he liked); this means that the girl on the phone that said they were going on a tour was not real. The halucination (or whatever it is) starts before he first eats a mango, probably at the beginning of the game, as the protagonist has never actually eaten a mango in real life. The airplane crash and subsequent hospitalisation is also imaginary (though apparently he is in a hospital, it's a mental hospital; he is not in a coma, and his life is not in danger).

It's interesting that the phone calls imply that he neglects his girlfriend, while in reality (or at least according to the diaries) it's his love interest that ghosts him (and he's really bitter about it, too). Perhaps then it was his mother that he neglected? Maybe he didn't visit her? That seems unlikely, because he loved her and missed her. Still a possibility, though.

It's quite possible that the movie posters referring to chapters of the game are real, and the movies gave the protagonist ideas to build his imaginary world; the heavy presence of screens throughout the game seems to back up this theory. Conversely, the ending looks like he sees real life as a movie.


But I'm still missing many pieces of the puzzle... like:

What's up with the rabbits? And the deer? And the balloons? Why do we pop them?

"I'm so sorry I'm so sorry..." What is he sorry for? Probably related to "Are you sure it wasn't an accident? Can you at least pretend it was an accident?" What could this possibly be referring to? Did I miss something? Even in the end, when the ants have been defeated and he feels better, he still thinks he's a "bad boy". Is it because he lied to that girl about being a rock star? Or has he done something worse?

And lastly... what is this ending? I don't know what to make of that mini-film.


Any comments? Am I way off the mark here? Am I missing something obvious? Maybe I'll have to go through the game again at some point...