Re: Prisoner questions (and possible answers)
Micky DuPree
writes:
: 93 (the guy who escaped and died in the cave at the very beginning) -
: did he die in real life too?
Not necessarily.
: Or is that what happens to someone in the village when their treatment
: is complete, they leave by dying, and are back to normal life?
I think that part of the remaining ominousness of the Village, despite
its 2009 rehabilitation as an efficacious treatment for intractable
mental illnesses, is that it does not admit of the possibility that
anyone is ever allowed to leave. Same with the real-world Summakor: "No
one resigns from Summakor."
: He seemed to think he had truly escaped, even though he knew he was
: about to die. Maybe he figured out the truth, and got out earlier than
: planned.
I don't think we were given enough evidence to determine 93's real-world
fate.
: 1112 (son of 2) - was he raised from infancy in the village (does his
: apparent age represent the length of time that the village has been
: operating) or was he imagined into existence at an advanced age?
: Apparently the latter, since he complains about lack of memory of his
: alleged childhood toys.
I think your latter theory is correct. This would jibe with the fact
that super-excellent surveillance has come into its own only recently.
: So how long has the village been operating?
As a manifestation of the ultra-high-tech Summakor, only as long as the
technology has been available. But if one interprets *a* Village as a
manifestation of oppressive groupthink, one would assume that everyone
ends up in multiple Villages in the course of their lifetime.
: The "access guy" in real life, who runs the store where maps are sold
: (and cigarettes and knives aren't) - why was he in the village? People
: in the village who aren't purely imaginary are being "fixed" somehow.
: What was wrong with him?
I don't remember being told.
: Was the village just a complicated stop-smoking program for him?
That would be a pretty cool explanation, since it would mean that even
very small flaws would be considered valid excuses by Summakor to
assimilate someone. In other words, "more Village," always more
Village. The Village aspires to be the universal consciousness of the
entire world, for its own good, with or without the world's consent.
: And why did 2 accuse him of being a "2 impersonator"? The last we saw
: of him he was being dragged away for some kind of punishment.
The shopkeeper was being punished because Un-Two managed to break his
conditioning and together, they were able to dream some cigarettes into
existence. If the shopkeeper had been behaving as a proper Villager, he
wouldn't have given into his memories of the real world, not even at the
behest of someone who looked like No.2.
: Is he leaving the village too, because his treatment is complete?
No. He's a recidivist.
: Or being punished in real life because he let Michael back in the
: Summakor building?
I'm not sure what measures they'd take in real life. It may be a sign
that he needs to be reconditioned in real life as well as on the dream
plane.
: 415 seemed to be the only person besides 2 and his wife whose village
: self actually knew the truth about the place. She admitted her real
: name was Lucy, then got killed in real life and fell/jumped into a
: hole in the village.
I'm not sure what happened to the real-world Lucy. When I try to lip-
read the fireman after the explosion, he seems to me to say that there
was no one in Michael's apartment. Michael then turns away, not sad,
but baffled.
I had thought that the real-world Lucy had left a bomb on time delay
because she had lost her grip on the Village, and turned into the drug-
addict/homeless woman on the street. But others caused me to look more
closely at the closing credits, and it's a certainty that the homeless
woman/23-90/New Arrival/Reformed Drug Addict Businesswoman is not Lucy.
Pity. It would have made perfect sense as the Village Circle of Life.
If you break conditioning and escape from the Village, Summakor just
finds you again, wipes your brain clean, and sends you back to the
Village, all smiles and new beginnings.
: It doesn't look likely that falling in the hole caused her real-life
: death.
No.
: Is this just what happens when someone dies in real life?
That may apply more to the explosion in the Village Diner than to the
explosion in Michael's apartment. I can't say for sure.
: Their village self is compelled to commit suicide to maintain
: consistency?
I can well imagine that when someone dies in real life, it would be
difficult for the other Villagers to keep their Village persona going
all by themselves, so the Village-vestige may end up falling into a
hole.
: Are there other people in the village who knew the whole truth? I
: count only five of them: 2, 2's wife, 415, and at the very end, 6 and
: 313.
The whole truth? I think you're right here. Maybe 93, the old man at
the beginning, had figured it out, but I don't remember anything that
nailed that down for sure. Eleven-Twelve found out enough of the truth
to reject continuing the lie. Many Villagers, the dreamers, suspected
there was somewhere else, but they didn't know what to make of those
memories.
: Maybe some of the "undercovers" were also summakor employees. I doubt
: that 909 was one of them though. He didn't seem to know very much.
: Seems more likely he was a real person being "fixed". So what was his
: real-life problem?
I don't think we were told, unless Summakor considered homosexuality to
be something that needed fixing. It might have, since No.2 seemed to
disapprove and try to steer Eleven-Twelve towards girls.
Rather than taking mentally stable Summakor employees and sticking them
in the Village for surveillance purposes, Summakor seemed to take the
opposite approach. They seemed to send the flawed people to the
Village, and then take the people who were thereby fixed in real life
and employ them at Summakor (the shopkeeper/access guy, the taxi
driver/limo driver, the Winking Woman/Curtis' P.A.). We didn't see any
other instance, besides Mr. & Mrs. Two, of someone who existed
peacefully in the Village and yet who was fully in on the dichotomy. As
they said at the end, it was all about assimilation. It wasn't enough
to fix people in real life. It wasn't enough to keep your head down in
the Village. You were expected to roll up your sleeves and actively
participate in maintaining and cheering on the dream of the Village and
the reality of Summakor.
: When you have a bottomless pit in your yard, and one kid has already
: fallen in, is the answer really "get a pig"? How about a railing? Was
: this glaring oversight meant to demonstrate 2's power to completely
: override common sense in people who believe the village is real?
I believe so. Although I heard after the fact that the writer wrote
this before the advent of swine flu, I couldn't help but think as I saw
it that this was a surreal commentary on trying to calm H1N1 fears by
telling people to wash their hands.
I think it was also a big clue to us that the Village was not normal
reality when No.6 told 147 with complete conviction that there was
nothing down the pit, even though in real life, it would be considered
standard procedure to lower a searcher down on a rope in the hope that
the child had either landed on a ledge or had managed to find a bottom.
At some fundamental level, both 6 and 147 knew that that pit wasn't an
ordinary physical sinkhole.
: When real-life Michael and Curtis (6 and 2) are in the car together
: and Curtis is explaining the program, pointing out people on the
: street who have been helped by the village, were we supposed to
: recognize those people as previous village residents? I sure didn't.
Apart from the limo driver/147, I think the only person we were supposed
to be able to tag from the Village was the blonde woman in the business
suit whom Curtis identified as having been a drug addict. She was
identified in the closing credits as 23-90, and was the one (who I
originally thought was 415/Lucy in a new guise, but wasn't) who had
newly arrived with two kids on a bus at the Village, and who got No.2 to
autograph her overalls with paint.
: 554 (the diner waitress) was obviously a real person - she had dreams
: and drew the statue of liberty. Then she got blown up. At the same
: time, a radio voice was talking about a "gas explosion in Brooklyn",
: which Michael had heard in real life earlier. Did she get blown up in
: real life, and then have to die in the village to maintain
: consistency, just like 415?
I can't say for sure.
: Was she also killed by summakor in real life because with 6's
: encouragement she was getting too close to understanding the link
: between New York and the village?
I can't say for sure, but the thing about Summakor is that they seemed
not to want to let anyone go, either in real life or in the Village.
: Or was she released from the village, did she not really die in
: Brooklyn, was the diner explosion actually caused by 6 remembering the
: real-life news report, a sign that he has the ability to affect
: village reality with his thoughts, an ability he's been given since
: he's being trained to be 2's successor?
I can't say for sure about the fate of 554, but I think it's fair to say
that any of the citizens of the Village had the ability to affect
Village reality with their thoughts. Most decided to go along with
everyone else's thoughts and add their strength to the group dream. I
think it's supposed to be a testament to Michael's strength of mind that
No.6 was able to persist in his denial of the singular reality of the
Village in spite of all attempts to fool him (such as "proving" that a
real childhood memory was phony) and to entice him (Lucy).
: When did the plan to make 6 into 2's successor start?
Without checking, I'd hazard a guess that it started when Eleven-Twelve
died. I think that his son was the last thing keeping No.2 content to
maintain the status quo. It was both literal and symbolic. Eleven-
Twelve was really just a construct of Curtis' & Helen's minds, the
dissatisfied parts of their minds. When the dissatisfied part of Two's
mind was no longer willing to just go along with the lie, Two wanted
out.
: Was that the idea from the moment he was brought into the village?
No.
: If not, what was the original plan?
Assimilate No.6, and "fix" Michael of his discontent, bringing him back
into the Summakor fold. Which they did, but I think the original plan
was to do it the way they had fixed the others and brought them into the
Summakor fold (the limo driver, Curtis' P.A., the access man). When
Michael/No.6 wouldn't be an ordinary cog, he was seduced by the prospect
of running the corporation/Village more to his liking.
: 16 (the guy who either was or was not 6's brother) - what's his deal?
: Was he a real person? He had doubts about his village family, so
: probably yes.
I agree.
: When he died, his family didn't seem to care, they just kept watching
: that crazy TV show. Is that because they were not real people, just
: props invented for his benefit in the village, and once his treatment
: was complete he was released from the village by dying?
I can't say for sure about the family, but I feel confident that 16
wasn't considered cured. I don't think Summakor is in the business of
curing people so that they don't need either Summakor or the Village
anymore. I don't know what happens to the Villagers that aren't seen in
the Village anymore, but no one is supposed to leave the Village. No
one is supposed to want to leave the Village. Armed guards will try to
shoot you if you try to leave the Village (which seems
counterproductive, but still). And finally, "No one resigns from
Summakor." Summakor/The Village is like the Borg on _Star Trek_. You
will be assimilated. "More Village!"
: What problem was being "fixed" in him?
No idea.
: Or did Michael have a real-life brother, making his "fishing trip"
: story a real memory?
I believe it was. I think that the memory of burying something in the
real world, which the Village perverted into burying something by the
old train tracks, was also real.
: Maybe both of them had dead real-life brothers, and that's why 2
: matched them up with each other.
Makes sense to me.
: About that TV show they're always watching at 16's house - if you
: reach the point where you that crazy soap opera plot makes sense, it's
: probably too late, you are a villager now. "465, I'm leaving you!"
Probably a meta-commentary on how fiction becomes more real to people
than reality is.
: What were those giant ping pong balls that sprung from the ground at
: random intervals?
"Rover," one of the few direct references to the original _Prisoner_.
: Maybe they're obstacles injected by the summakor employees in the
: "purpose floor" observation room, as a last resort when the
: in-universe agents have failed to stop someone from almost finding a
: way out.
In the remake, Rover seemed to me to be visual manifestations of the
Village belief that Village order must be maintained at all costs.
Therefore, one could never just load up on supplies, walk or swim away
from the Village, and expect to keep on going. If it wasn't a belief
that was maintained collectively (and I think it was, if not by desire,
then by fear), then it was certainly maintained by Helen/Mrs. Two.
: There's a woman on the tour bus when 6 is driving it. She says she
: heard the ocean once. She may have drowned with 16 in the ocean. Much
: later, when 6 finally reaches the towers, she shows up in the summakor
: office. Who is she?
She's credited as the Winking Woman/Curtis' P.A.
: There's an ocean, there's not an ocean.
I think that's part of messing with Six, trying to get him to think that
the problem isn't with reality, but with his own sanity. After all, in
the real world, when everyone else insists that they're sane and you're
the crazy one, isn't it rational to stop and wonder if they're right?
: I don't even have a guess as to what this means. The anchor in the
: desert must be related.
My guess is that the seemingly unnecessary bits of reality, like the
anchor, the disused train tracks, and the shining image of the towers,
are all bits of reality that Mrs. Two's mind has held onto despite her
trying to create the Village out of whole cloth. She and Two have
learned to just live with those bits and gloss over them in Village
lore.
: 70 (the therapist) is probably a real person.
I agree.
: What's his problem?
No clue. Multiple personality? ;)
: The fact that he has another copy of himself sitting behind himself
: must be some kind of clue. His conversation with 2 should be a strong
: clue also, since 2 actually knows everybody's problem and is trying to
: help them. But nothing he says seems helpful.
I don't remember the conversation well enough to offer anything useful.
: I like how most of the above questions were never explicitly answered,
: but have clues allowing us to make reasonable guesses (most of which
: you won't get until the second viewing).
That lets me out. I've had more fun talking about it than I had
watching it.
: And the answers that were given weren't all held out until the end.
: For example, I wondered early on whether the people in the village had
: any concept of history. How long do they believe the village has
: existed, if they are even capable of thinking about that question?
: Then 313 informs us that the light bulb was invented by 512, and
: there's a history class in which they talk about a historical figure
: named "2 the 14th". The residents of the village do have knowledge of
: the past more distant than the day they arrived in the village, even
: if it's just some implanted memories and false teachings.
That was cute. It made me wonder what suffix the current Two was
supposed to have.
: And the school itself showed up just as I was beginning to wonder if
: there were any kids in the village (and if not, would the people there
: realize that's weird?)
I wondered how many of the kids had real-world counterparts. The limo
driver said he hoped to be reunited with his little girl again and he
had a photo of the lost little girl on his dashboard, so I assume she
existed in the real world. But I could also see how Eleven-Twelve
probably wasn't the only virtual being in the Village, since the
invention of family was obviously a ploy they used both as a carrot to
get Villagers to become invested in the Village, and as a stick once
Villagers had loved ones that could be threatened.
: The Big Answer was good too. All along I believed that 6's dreams of
: New York were memories of an earlier time. The dreamers apparently
: believed that too. When he started to "remember" meeting Lucy, but
: couldn't remember how it ended, this was a clue that his village life
: was actually concurrent with his New York life. It even happened more
: than once. But it was hidden well enough that I didn't suspect
: anything yet.
:
: Pay attention, future writers of other "mystery" shows. This is how to
: do it right.
Eh. I'm not as impressed as you by the main mystery being the
chronology of the story.
: Don't fill the first half of a series with arbitrarily weird stuff
: that happens for no reason but to confuse the audience, and then end
: with an explanation that can't account for any of it. (Looking at you,
: X-Files and Battlestar Galactica!)
I think it's apples and oranges to compare a six-episode miniseries that
gets its full order all at once with a series that goes on for years but
can get cancelled at any time. I do think it helps any series to have
an end in mind, but fate can take that decision out of the creators'
hands.
-Micky
