Ray's mom getting her dad arrested then saying "he'll live" no doubt instilled it into Ray's mind that the government won't kill the book club, only rough them up at most.

Fun fact the piano piece played at 18:09 is called "the torment of a flower " and it was banned during that era

Minor thing but I like that the humor died down a tad when the serious serious parts came up. Thank you for understanding that Ray was a child.

the lantern spector could maybe be symbolic of the officers too? like when they come for everyone else you hide your face and hold your breath hoping they don't know you were involved too?

I was in Ray's situation, with a fucked home life, with the only positive attention coming from the guy who was grooming me from adolescence. He had me so hooked to him that Im sure I would have done anything to save the relationship, even when it did end up isolating me. Or worse.

Im glad you didnt villify her for what she did. Im all too familiar with that headspace she found herself in. Its a horrific place to be

My parents were raised during white terror, both barely mention their life as a kid in school, but when they did, it was usually in a distant tone. Disappearing friends, beatings, praising poems, shaming “dog boards” on the neck, they said these things as if it's not their childhood, like it's a weird dream.
And honestly? It's probably for the best.

Rey was groomed by a predator in an environment where no ine was safe to speak the truth. She never had a chance.

37:18 The necklace/pendant wasn't thrown away, she jumped off the school building, it flew off and dropped into the vent, and that's how her ghost got stuck in the school. It's evident because you see a shadow of her jumping off when you go to the roof one time (the first time iirc).

18:09 there's bloody finger prints on the piano keys that you're supposed to play showing Rei ... Had played it before, she has blood on her hands.

The lantern spector in Chinese is 鬼差 that means "ghost catcher" or "spirit catcher". In the old Chinese legend, this spector comes, finds and catches any spirits that has died and hasn't been routed to a place in hell where you'll go trough trials (阎罗殿)
So what I think that is, is that the girl is constantly hiding from the spector due to her unfinished wishes (idk how to make it makes sense lol)

No one really pointed this out, but at 12:19, the wall is filled with the words for “Amitabha”, the principle buddha in Buddhism. But it’s basically the Chinese version of “oh god” or “please god,” similar to one begging for their life. It really freaked me out when I saw it in the video, and I wanted to share that.

Here's a random collection of things I've observed:

-Mr Bai (白) has the surname 'white', while Mrs Yin, doesn't have the same word but a similar pronunciation to the word for shadow or darkness (阴) which is also pronounced as 'yin'.

-The table where you get the markings off the blood and the piano you play, they all looked used. There's an undenying factor of repeats and loops but since everything is taking place in Ray's mind, she might not have completely forgotten. The table and piano keys all signify lingering scars and that she has gone through the loop so many times even the scars cannot fade away. It conveys a sort of looming sensation, where she has to face the music and the consequences of her actions one day, until this dream cannot even sustain itself any longer.

-In the underground basement where the figures were strapped are four cells: One figure who holds HeiBai WuChang's wooden talisman thing, one who's just there, an empty swinging cell and an unused cell. The figure who holds the card might symbolise Mrs Lin, who literally holds the book club/truth together. (I'll talk about the HeiBai guards later) The second figure probably symbolises Wei, who is alive after the whole fiasco. The empty cell which has the phantom appear is almost certainly Mr Chang's, since he's just a lingering memory as he was executed as punishment. However, the unused one seems to symbolise Ray, who was supposed to be prosecuted but escaped.

-Okay on to HeiBai WuChang. So the doors that they make up basically guard all the suppressed memories/contraband items: The forbidden tape, the strange tape and of course, the puppets shooting one another. They literally guard death, like their true mythological counterparts. (Because the contraband cause death yadda yadda) But the fact that in order to open the gates you need to get the placard from the figure who symbolises Mrs Yin and... Spirits. Honestly, it makes sense. Mrs Yin guards the contraband, but the spirits guard the memories. They guard the memories Ray doesn't want to know again.

-Onto to the ghosts themselves: The Lingered are pretty obvious: They are literally lingering memories from past loops. Lingering regrets, if you may. The Lantern Ghosts and the giant shadow demon thing? Honestly I have no idea but the Lantern Ghosts might signify the military officials. Considering how you only meet them after opening up the contraband, it would make sense for them to be there. As for the giant shadow demon thing? Not gonna lie, I feel like it's symbolic of Ray's true thoughts and mentality. She can run from them (first encounter) or ignore them (second encounter) but it's always present and it won't really go away.

as a victim of grooming, this game messed me up big time. just... the realization that there was a time in my life where i would probably have done the same thing for someone who treated me like that? the fact that you didn't berate/vilify Ray is so important in this video. i've seen other people talk about it and they blame Ray for everything, call her a stupid girl, etc, without realizing that she's just ... acting as she's been made to act. that dude wrapped her around his finger, and it backfired.

what's extra horrible about all of this, to me, is that i'm not even sure he would have had any consequences had Ray not done what she did. it's nightmarish.

great coverage.

kinda surprised this video didn't pop off considering it's the very first result i found on the game analysis. You did an incredible job, the cuts, the music, the suspense, and the memes were peak and didn't interrupt the more touching parts of the story. Over all, I enjoyed this video immensely and I can't wait to see more of these from you. I never realized the old woman is supposed to be a figure of mythos, neither the river. The more you know!
On a different note, the Lantern holding ghost as I've read is supposed to represent the officials/officers and how you shouldn't meet their eyes because any suspicion is cause enough to be killed by them.

In iraq during the 80s and 90s we had the same thing under sadam Husain regime, people would report each others for personal grudge, mother in law's and wife's getting rid of the family members cause they are getting abused or for personal interest, and you didn't need to prove anything, not only this they would ask kids questions about their parents behavior " if they said something bad about sadam" etc
Some people would be taken over a lie and be tortured to give names so they would give any name just to be freed. History repeats itself and it doesn’t matter where you are
China , Iraq, iran, German or in a land that nobody heard of
Humans will always act like humans

theres another interesting detail, the song you played on the piano (the tune you heard on the radio) is a song that was banned in The White Terror, the song name is  The Torment of a Flower by Teng Yu Hsien

I feel bad for Ray, even if she did cause most of the deaths.
She was a child who had basically no one to turn to, no one to look up to. Her dad was abusive, and she didn't like her mom. When she finally got someone to actually talk to, that someone groomed her..
So once that was taken away, and she found out Chang and Yin were "together", she decided to try and split them by snitching on the book club that Yin ran, so that most likely she could get Chang all to herself again, not realizing that she was just being groomed. This only led everyone she cared/trusted to be taken away, cause they were all in the club. This then could have led her to suicide as seen at 17:14, so now she wanders the hallways of that same school, unable to go past what had happened, what she did, and how her life went as a whole. She regrets it very deeply, and wishes she could just go back, but she can't, as she says at 25:05.

Detention and Devotion is so underrated despite being so cool

The fact that Ray didn't want to become like her mother but still in the end, she did the same thing that her mother did bc of a misunderstanding and was the reason that the members of the book club got killed.

ohhhhh that comparison of the counselor to the ferryman has me FUCKED UP dude