Foreshadowing / Psychonauts 2

The many, many plot twists of Psychonauts 2 can be picked up on if a player is attentive enough. Of course, that means this page is full of spoilers...

Identity of the Mole

• During the end of the intro, Raz catches a small glimpse of the mastermind, wreathed in shadow. Observant viewers may note his incredibly enlarged head and cape. In particular, that large head shape sure does look very similar to the crown of Grulovia...
  • On a similar note, the intro sees the Mastermind casually use the threat of Maligula as a way to keep Loboto in line. This is very similar to what the royal family of Grulovia did with her, using the threat of Maligula to keep the peasants in line. The connection between the two tactics is not a coincidence.
  • Also within Loboto's mind is a large chandelier which bears a strong resemblance to the Grulovian crown.
• There are some small hints that Nick Johnsmith is not who he says he is, in particular some of the lines his brainless body says include "Do you know who I am!?" and "I'm telling my dad!" While the out of character statements can be dismissed as the result of his brainless state, they also sound very much like the words of a very spoiled child...
• "Nick Johnsmith" sounds like a bad attempt by a foreigner to give themselves an Average Joe American name. It is.
  • In addition look at him. T shaped head, eyes far apart, purple skin. Doesn't he look sort of like a certain Grulovian mass murderer? Almost as if they're from the same people group.
  • Also he looks very much like his father, only with a wider head and no facial hair.
• In Cruller's Correspondence you can hear short voice clips from the royal family of Grulovia and the subtitles refer to their son as "Young Gristol" implying that we'll be hearing on older Gristol's voice at some point.

The Master Plan

• The order of Loboto's boss towards the dentist: You put the egg in the basket and the old egg in the box and the box in the ocean. Remember that in the last game, one of Oleander's mental vaults had a memory where brains were referred to as eggs... We also find out later, in the mastermind's mental world, that he has an egg obsession, especially caviar.
• The game drops several subtle hints that "Truman" isn't really Truman:
  • At the beginning of the game's Second Act, Truman wakes up and gives Rasputin his mission to fix Ford's mind, but an attentive player can tell something's up. For one, Truman trusting Raz of all people makes no sense, since he's just a boy — a talented psychic for sure, but still just a boy whom Truman has barely met; nobody but the Whispering Rock teachers (and Ford) know what he even did to be brought to the Motherlobe. Secondly, his insistence on speaking only to Raz seems like he wants to keep the mission a secret, but in reality, the fact that he doesn't trust second-in-command Hollis (who he personally hired) or his beloved and grieving daughter should set off some warning bells. Sure enough, Truman's body is really being possessed by someone else's brain. Granted, Truman explains he doesn't know who The Mole is and Raz is someone he is sure can't be, but it's more the player getting in a The Main Characters Do Everything mindset and miss the clues because of that.
  • When everyone mentions Maligula it is always in a worried or hushed tone. However, when "Truman" speaks Maligula's name the first time, there is a clear hint of a haughty smirk on his face as he does so, indicating that he feels quite differently about her. The line "this wouldn't be the first time the Psychonauts underestimated Maligula's power" is spoken not with fear, but with reverence.
  • When Raz mentions using bacon to get Ford to the motherlobe, "Truman" states that it makes no sense to him, but he'll trust him regardless... when any long-term friend/colleague of Ford's should know his true personality's utter obsession with the stuff and his capability to teleport. This sets up the reveal that the Mastermind switched brains with Truman to infiltrate the Psychonauts at the highest level and use his authority to get Ford brought back to base, all so his mind can be repaired enough to get him to tell where Maligula currently is.
  • Lili states that Truman's sickness is so serious that it outright kills a number of plants she brought to help with his healing process, but he seems to be able to speak to Raz just fine. Lili's plants keep dying whenever they try to feed off his psychic energy in order to help her figure out what's wrong, something that doesn't make sense and seems like unknown psychic damage... unless his brain doesn't have any psychic energy to feed off of.
  • "Truman" doesn't seem to know the terminology of the Psychonauts technology (using Buffy Speak instead of "ThinkerPrint") despite being the leader of the Psychonauts for years, a hint that whomever is possessing him is someone who would not have much reason to know or didn't care to know such details.
  • Using Clairvoyance on Truman will have him view Raz as a dirty, middle-eastern peasant, which is an early hint that the mind inside of Truman's body isn't his own, as well as foreshadowing Gristol's attitude towards basically everybody else. It gives Truman exclaiming, "You'll blow my cover!" when Raz does it a whole new meaning in context.
  • "Truman" asking Raz to "fix" Ford's mind right after Hollis made a point to Raz that it isn't the Psychonauts' job to "fix" people is another small detail that shows he doesn't know what the Psychonauts' mission statement actually is. Seeing as Truman had to be elected to the post of First Head, he absolutely cannot have forgotten this point during his career, especially after seeing the results of careless attempts to do so.

Ford's Dark Secret

• During the tutorial intro, Lili refers to Raz's avoidance of water as a phobia, clearly not believing that it's a curse. And she's right, though it's actually a phobia planted in the family by Ford Cruller himself.
• Upon seeing the Maligula vision inside Loboto's mind, Raz comments that she seemed familiar to him, and then says that he recognized her from a comic retelling of the Psychic Six's battle with her in True Psychic Tales. It's more likely because she's actually his grandmother-figure in the Aquato family, and he's grown up around her, with him subconsciously recognizing Nona even through the terrifying vision. Compounding this, Nona and Maligula have very similar head and eye shapes - in a game where people have fantastically deformed and weird head shapes with basically no repeats (unless said people are related to each other, like the Booles), both of them have a head that's T shaped, with large, almond-shaped eyes.
• The Psychonauts headquarters has a few odd things in the background that might be easily missed by most players. The big mural of the Psychic Six actually has seven panels, but the one on the far left is covered by a curtain until the post-game. And when you head outside, the map of the quarry has the clearly labeled "Mux Dam".
  • Additionally, something seems a little odd about the history exhibit that Adam's working on. One of the old photographs shows the Psychic Six - but there's a very obvious tear line down the middle where the scenery doesn't line up, hinting that somebody's missing from the photo. Sure enough, in the post-game, the whole photo has been restored showing Lucrecia standing amongst them.
• Helmut and Bob's totem poles in Ford's mind are paired up, mirroring their closeness in life. Lucrecia's totem springs up right next to Ford's, as they were also romantically involved.
• The Mental Vault in Ford's Follicles shows the Psychonauts being called in to fight Maligula. However, in the panel after they're given their mission briefing they all seem to be discussing something together while looking sad, hinting that Maligula was a former friend.
• Raz's family sets up camp and it's mostly a normal camp, with a caravan and the Aquatos practicing acrobatics. Sharp-eyed players, though, might spot that the rugs have a familiar spiral pattern, one that's repeated a lot in the Motherlobe and through official Psychonauts architecture. It seems a little odd that a family who supposedly hates psychics would use that symbology until you learn who likely quilted those rugs.
• When Raz asks Nona to elaborate on the Curse of Galochio, she just says that all you need to know is to stay away from the water. At the time, it seems like she's being comically curt and obsessive about the issue as usual, refusing to see anything more than the curse itself as relevant, but it later turns out that she really doesn't know anything else about the situation because that's all there is to it, since the curse is entirely made up and the end result is the Aquatos' shared water phobia.
• Using Clairvoyance on Nona reveals she sees Raz as either Dion or Queepie. While this could be chalked up to her being a Scatterbrained Senior, it could also be a callback to Nona/Lucrecia's backstory, where she replaced her own sister in the Aquato family.
• When going through PSI King's memories, Helmut asks Vision (who represents Ford) if he managed to retrieve Helmut's brain after it was separated from his body; Vision admits he doesn't remember. Raz suggests that this is because the fight with Maligula shattered Ford's mind, causing a confused Vision to ask "My mind... was shattered?" While this could be explained by Helmut not knowing what happened, it's also another hint that the battle with Maligula didn't cause Ford's mind to be shattered.
• The lyrics of "Drag Me Down" (the song playing in Astral Lanes Bowling Alley) are about a man who desires to do the right thing, but feels held back by a once-great romance turned sour. A hint at Ford's dip into Love Makes You Evil while trying to protect Lucrecia.
• When talking to Sam Boole at the Lumberstack Diner, Raz can ask if she's worried about Maligula. She brushes off any concern, claiming that her grandfather killed her in an elephant stampede. When Raz questions this claim, she responds with "oh, so you believe the 'official' story, do ya?" It turns out that she's Right for the Wrong Reasons - the 'official' story behind what happened to Maligula is indeed bogus, just not in the way she thinks.

Identity of the PSI King

• There are many hints scattered around the PSI King's mind as to his identity before it's revealed. Namely, the fact that his bandmates are unmistakably the members of the Psychic Six, the figments of Bob Zanotto that dot the level, and the opening sequence clearly depicting scenes from the fight against Maligula. His name is also a punny rendition of the word "viking".
  • For those who missed Helmut and Bob arm in arm at the HQ mural, there are many hints of Helmut and Bob's romantic relationship throughout the PSI King's mind. Helmut expresses a deep admiration for Audie O. at several points in the story, outright saying that the band won't be the same without him. In the band's structure, Audie O. represents Bob. Not to mention the secret wedding ceremony figments hidden under the backstage of the band, which depict the members of the Psychic Six attending Helmut and Bob's wedding ceremony.
• Raz meets Larry, one of a few brains in a hamster ball at the Psychonauts HQ. Helmut uses one at the end, rather than continuing to remain in Nick's body, as he states he can help recover his own body because of a psychic link.

Miscellaneous

• Lili does mention that she has special clearance for the Motherlobe because she is the daughter of the Grand Head, which is also on her ID card. After the casino mission, a note left behind in the Room Full of Crazy indicates that the mastermind took notice of that.
• Using Clairvoyance on Norma and a few other agents a little ways in shows she sees him as a mole - or, more specifically, she thinks he's The Mole.
• Psychonauts HQ serves "Honey Pepper Boar Bacon". Seems like a quirky name, until you encounter the giant area filled with honey in Green Needle Gulch.
• Raz was given the codename Eggbeater during the infiltration mission after Hollis' mind. Not only does the Big Bad have caviar (a type of egg) as his Trademark Favorite Food, Raz being named for kitchen equipment is appropriate, since one of the Psychic Sixs' minds takes the form of a cooking show.

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