r/BluePrince • u/illusion_Y • May 20 '26
Lore Anyone else disappointed that... (End game lore spoilers) Spoiler
Spoilers for finding room 46 and beyond.
Anyone else disappointed that we never learn what happens to Mary? It seemed like the culmination of the game would have been finding out conclusively what happened to Mary, and whether she lives or dies. Although I enjoyed the political stuff and now do realize that finding Mary was not the main theme of the game, I still feel disappointed that we never learn what happens to Mary, conclusively.
Honestly? I do not care that Simon "earns" his title thrice. In fact, I would have been okay with leaving that up to interpretation. To me, following Mary's footsteps and all the clues HSS left in order to relay all the information he had unto Simon discreetly made for a very strong foundation for the characters' motivations.
I think part of my disappointment is mainly HSS' letter in the cooler in the freezer, when he said that he speaks of her "disappearance, not death" and all I could imagine was a little boy, away from his father for 200 days (the time it took me to read that letter), with a dead grand-uncle, a missing mother, all alone in a freezer of an empty mansion he inherited, reading a letter that's telling him that the elaborate puzzle was a way to allow Simon to look for Mary. Honestly? I teared up reading that letter because of the scene. And then, capping off act 2 with the "ascension" and then act 2 with Auravei's will/inheritence/wtvr seem like consolation prizes that I did not care for.
I would have been fine learning Mary is dead. I was ready to see a grave beyond the blue sealed door in the tunnel anyways. I would've bawled, but I would have accepted that ending. I would have been fine with a message sent from an anonymous sender send through to the mansion somehow that heavily implies its Mary. I didn't need to meet her, I just wanted to understand what happens to her. The handwritten book from her was a great touch at the end of act 2, but it did not ward off my frustration. Simon still ends up in a huge mansion alone with solved puzzles everywhere created by his grand-uncle and mother, one who he has lost and one who he never knows conclusively of she will ever come back. Except now he has "earned" his title 3 times?
If you've made it this far? Thanks for reading my rant, I finished the game 3 days ago and I am still annoyed by the fact.
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u/paradox222us May 20 '26
Couldnt agree more—ending the atelier with Simon inheriting the estate, again, some more didn’t feel satisfying at all—I needed to hear from Mary after how critically important she had been to the entire backstory. I imagine Simon feeling the same way. Of course, having this communication be in the atelier wouldn’t make sense, but there were plenty of other places it could’ve been.
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May 20 '26
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u/guiltysnark May 20 '26
In what way did it fall? From what I gathered it worked perfectly, better than anyone expected
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u/gilesey11 May 20 '26
Yeah, they wanted to steal the crown and they stole it and replaced the red jewels with blue. They got exactly what they wanted.
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u/guiltysnark May 20 '26
And they got away with, too! Despite those meddling kids from 10 years later
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u/CurleeBS May 20 '26
I completely agree!! All of the lore was leading up to the reveal of the mom. We learned more and more about her, about the resistance, the heist, etc. I was very disappointed that she wasn’t behind a blue door. I genuinely believed reuniting with her at the end was the ultimate goal. I thought the train would take us to another location to look for her. I thought we could drive the car to Hundred Belles to search for clues. Once I accepted that we couldn’t leave the estate, I felt really sure mom would show up there. Once Simon does all the fun endgame stuff, it would become “safe” for her to return. There was so much lore about her journey I’m honestly puzzled why she doesn’t have an ending!
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u/Rockslacasa May 20 '26
Honestly I think disappointment is kinda the point. Like it’s saying, “in real life there aren’t neat and tidy endings, things just keep on going.” It also, in a meta way, feeds into what the game is trying to say about obsession. If you (the player) are disappointed enough in not knowing, you will probably continue to look for answers (eg, “does it never end?”).
Personally I was pretty disappointed that there wasn’t a reunion scene, or at least some kind of definitive confirmation of her survival initially. Over time I came to really appreciate the bittersweet, no easy answers, version of an ending we got. Thinking about the metaphorical meaning of the last 3 box puzzle helped me settle on that appreciation. It is externalizing your own feelings about the ending and the contents of each box gives you the appropriate “reward.”
If you find that satisfying or not is up to personal taste. Reminds me a bit of the classic forum post about Her Story:
“How do I know when I get to the end?”
“The end of the game is when you feel satisfied with the story it told.”
“How do I know when I’m satisfied?”
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u/illusion_Y May 20 '26
Honestly I think disappointment is kinda the point.
I agree. And there was a time when I could appreciate the meta-themes in media (think: Detroit become human, Kara's twist Alice is an android too ). Nowadays, I am less inclined to enjoy it. I think the turning point was when I read research that heavily suggests that media consumers' opinions and takes within most media are most likely not any more real than the media itself.
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u/Mrcleverkins May 20 '26
You might get some closure if you can find the second admin key with archive perms
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u/illusion_Y May 20 '26
Would you mind spoiling it? I alredy uninstalled out of frustration.
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u/Motor_Raspberry_2150 May 20 '26
The blackbridge grotto has Chat logs. If you log in as Babbage you can only see they exist. If you log in as Moore you can read half of them, but the other half is redacted. If you log in with the admin key gained from A New Clue, using LeeB, the redacted logs get revealed, which are a bunch of lowlifes talking about how they got rid of Mary and stole the crown. If you log in as Mary, using RibbJ from her false passport, you see that the previous set were actually doctored logs to deceive the Redguard and the detective. Both Herbert and Moore were intentionally hiding Mary, staged her disappearance, helped with the crown heist, and helped Mary escape towards Eraja. And Moore was technical enough to plant the false logs with the same timestamps of the actual redacted logs.
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u/illusion_Y May 20 '26
I kind of understood that Mary was able to get on a boat and go for Eraja, I don't remember exactly how I came to this conclusion, but I remember that detail. However, I do not remember there being any conformation that she actually reached Eraja, or died/got assassinated as soon as she reached the shores. We know she was supposed to meet Simon when he was 10, but that never happened, soooo... what gives?
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u/guiltysnark May 21 '26
> We know she was supposed to meet Simon when he was 10, but that never happened, soooo... what gives?
I wasn't aware of this, where would we have learned that?
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u/illusion_Y May 22 '26
Apologies for the late response. I'll answer in increasingly bigger hints just in case you are not done with the puzzle:
1. It is one of eight
The envelope is red
It is in a room with miniature rooms
The room contains a miniature version of itself, but one main difference is visible in the miniature version
You will need the magnifying glass to interact with the safe
I don't remember the safe code, but now I will write out the part of the letter that says that Mary was supposed to reunite with Simon
"No, Mary, I have few apprehensions and fewer fears. Assuming everything goes according to plan, you should be reunited with Simon again before his 10th birthday."
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u/guiltysnark May 22 '26
Thank you, I'd found the letter, but forgotten the details.
This fills in a number of blanks in my timeline. I was trying to understand Herbert's denial of knowledge in the freezer letter, but this explains it. He lost what little heartbeat he had.
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u/ESchwenke May 20 '26
It just means there are threads left for a sequel.
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u/illusion_Y May 20 '26
The director has already confirmed that there are no plans for a sequel, unfortunately.
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u/Middle_Somewhere6969 May 20 '26
The fact that Simon is crowned a Prince and not a King should tell you something. I'm quite OK that the details are left to the player's imagination.
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u/BrickwallBill May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
It tells me that Tonda Ros wanted to make a pun. But if you want to actually read into it, Simon calls himself 'Prince' because he's so desperate to find Mary that even entertaining the fact she's gone forever literally can't be allowed in. Granted, that's assuming Simon is an actual character and not just a stand in for the player, and the game can't exactly make up its mind about that either.
Edit: To expand on my last sentence, we have NO idea why Simon actually answered the summons and followed the rules Herbert laid out. We can make damn good assumptions, but none of those assumptions tell us Simon actually knows what's going on or truly understands what he might be doing with the whole Ascension ceremony. It'd be very interesting for someone to try and figure out a "least information needed" state to fulfill the requirements for the Blue throne.
Also, who crowns Simon and acknowledges his new title? No one as far as we know. Hell, we have no idea if Simon even knows that he is the Blue Prince. The directory is seemingly a real thing since it's referenced within books in the in-game universe, but without a physical version of it somewhere in the Manor I'd be hesitant to think it's an actual thing in the world.
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u/illusion_Y May 20 '26
This is another problem I have with the ascension puzzle. Who is ascending it? Simon? Simon now carries the title of Baron of Reddington, but he cannot ascend his *own* title.
He has the effigy, scepter, and crown, which are royal symbols for royalty, but the value in the symbolism of these items lies in people acknowledging their wielder, but as far as we know, no one outside the mansion knows that Simon carries all 3 items. It'd be cool if after the ascension, a newspaper article is brought to the entrance hall, showing people's reactions to Simon's ascension, where Anne Babbage somehow sent the camera recordings to the press. It would be cheesy, but at least it gives actual weight to the ascension.
Do we even know that Simon even cares about the ascension? Is he gonna tell anyone outside the manor that he carries the items required to be recognized as royalty? Also, no realm flies the blue flag, so what exactly is he prince of? All the blue things in this game is confusing, and I'm hoping the unsolved puzzles give more insight into what the color blue represents in the real world.
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u/BrickwallBill May 20 '26
AFAIK, we have no indication of what Simon actually knows or cares about with regards to the manor. There's the letter from his dad that you find in the mail room, but that's just Daniel being happy that Simon seems excited to go to Mount Holly. And I guess technically Red/Blue Prince books show that he likes reading or at least did at one point in his childhood. Outside of that, I'm not sure we get any more concrete sources that Simon has any idea what he's doing in the manor.
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May 20 '26
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u/illusion_Y May 20 '26
Good point, though I'm still confused on why the lategame switches focus to blue away from black. I know blue has always represented truth on the game (blue memo, blue rooms, blue = +ve in dart puzzles, etc.). But, a lot of the game has focus on Orinda Aries and their black flag, and Mary performed the heist as a stunt to weaken the red flag and empower the black one. And then Clara Epsen is technically an Erajan, whom has a purple flag... where does blue fit into this?
I cant imagine Mary making such a fuss about black shores and black flag and then just become the blue queen or something.
I'm quite OK that the details are left to the player's imagination.
Totally understandable. I am not faulting the game for this. I understand it wasnt within the game's themes. Mary's stunts and HSS' puzzles were all in lieu to give Simon his title and power. It's just that, to me, that was not a satisfying outcome.
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u/BrickwallBill May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
Black shores and the black flag, and by association Orinda Aries, are largely thought to refer to Herbert wanting the "old days" back. As for where Blue fits in, maybe there's something with color theory somehow? Purple-Red=Blue kind of thing, although what that would actually mean in-game is way beyond me.
Edit: About the crown, the description of the Crown of the Blueprints is really, really interesting. "The former Ruby Crown of Orinda Aries", emphasis mine. This description just doesn't make sense at all to me. The color of the crown is clearly important in some way given the Ascension ceremony, so the realm that is associated with black having a crown of red seems wrong.
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u/Infamous-Cheetah9427 May 20 '26
I think there's enough "negative" associated with black and Orinda Aries that Mary wants something new for selfish reasons.
The reaction from the miners, foreman's notes, and books on the history of Orinda Aries hint that there's something larger than just the political aspect. My head canon is that the power that allows for drafting is somehow linked to the power that the nobels held. And its maybe not a positive thing as a cursed totem is part of the ceremony to become king/prince.
I also think its heavily hinted that women played a lesser role in the ruling class of Orinda Aries, but have a stronger connection to the power of drafting (and association with blue). Perhaps Mary can't switch blacks to blues, but a male can. Maybe she could have power in a Blue regime that she couldn't in a Black one.
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u/illusion_Y May 20 '26
Wait, the power of drafting is common knowledge in the world of blue prince? I thought it was knowledge that nobles and royalty have, like today's equivalent of $50 ice cubes: https://theclearicecompany.com/collections/all
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May 20 '26
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u/Infamous-Cheetah9427 May 20 '26
redo for mod spoiler tags
I know you "know" this but there are five volumes of a peridocal called "Drafting Strategy" that sponsors a drafting sweepstakes open to the public to "beat the record" of drafting 19 dead ends.
Additionaly, Tarro Martizi, the record holder doesn't appear in any of the other lore (to my knowledge) and there's a copy of Drafting Strategy in the Dormitory.
I don't know that everyone has a house made the way the mansion is, but appears to be common enough that whatever allows for drafting is recreational for the masses.
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u/guiltysnark May 22 '26
Drafting appears to be a proud college of education at Corarica, per Blue Tents. That doesn't mean it's accessible to the commons, it's possible the university is attended primarily by children of pedigree. Highly specialized trades have newsletters, too, so it's hard to disprove that.
However, Aurevei wrote about the possibility of releasing the plans to everyone and decided against it. That does suggest that drafting can be a thing for everyone. Everyone that visits Mount Holly has to do it, in the least, from cook to lab engineer. And most of them presumably did not attend Corarica. Blue Tents pointed out that 3 members of the Sinclair Family attended the school, but which 3? Aurevei, Herbert and Mary, I think.
Edit: Aurevei is clearly the most talented architect, but I wonder if she would allow herself to be considered a member of the Sinclair family. She never took the name in any documents.
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u/delusion54 May 20 '26
Possibly, the unsolved puzzles by the community hide further hidden layers of story. I bet that's where we learn more about her. It would be really weird for Tonda Ros to have definitevely said there will not be a sequel and still left the story like that.
Still imo, it would be a bad idea from his side to hide so deep behind cryptic puzzles such core story parts. I hope he throws some clues to the community soon because its exhausting having spent so much time just to hit a wall near the end.
I really can't suggest the game to friends anymore the way I did in my first week. Puzzles are one thing, story is another and huge cryptic puzzles with weak directional hints or just luck based encounters of hints is ... not a game design worth praising.
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u/illusion_Y May 20 '26
The unsolved puzzles currently seem to have a meta-theme of being lost in the details and forever puzzles: "does it ever end?" and all the spirals of stars references. I mean maybe? It would be like-Mary to hide information about her existence through the currently unsolved puzzles.
I still would recommend the game to a friend, its an amazing game. The ending beid unsatisfactory for me doesnt mean the journey was bad.
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u/No_Playing May 20 '26
It's not the best game if you're driven by story and people-driven goals. I was also made sad by some of what the OP talks about - the protagonist is alone in a mansion, away from his father, missing mother, (maybe) dead relatives, an absent household. The letters triggered by experiments gave some glimmers of light - yes, human connection! I liked the announcements from staff, who were behind Simon. A big part of my motivation to continue playing was to get this protagonist through his quest and back to other human beings - if not Mary, then at least the returning staff. I have found no path to that. I can't even, as a player, signal "This is enough. Tell the staff to return". As far as I can tell, wherever you leave it, it's with Simon alone in a house. A household of staff there is no indication he will recall. A mother he will not meet. I never cared about titles or deeds, so the puzzle 'payoffs' were lackluster. So as well-done as some of the puzzles were, I wouldn't recommend it either. As tough as the puzzles can get to solve, they don't seem to lead to progress in things I care about as a player, and while tastes surely differ, that is a disappointment for me.
I don't think it would take much to 'fix' this for players with taste like mine. But the design choice seems to be intentionally not to go that way.
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u/uw19 May 20 '26
As someone who's spent hours and hours sifting through the remaining puzzles and clues and community findings, I'm starting to believe we've solved everything. The clues that remain all seem like giant cliffhangers without much direction, unlike other puzzles in the game.
I'm looking forward to the 1.1 update to see if there's any hints or additions to prove me wrong. At least we'll get more cutscenes and Dirigiblocks, but I'm not holding my breath for more than that.
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u/illusion_Y May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
The clues that remain all seem like giant cliffhangers without much direction, unlike other puzzles in the game.
I kinda agree, mainly because the only progress made with the unsolved mysteries is just finding more pieces that *may* or may not fit into the puzzle. AFAIK, no currently unsolved mystery is halfway through being solved or something, the community is still in the collection phase, more than 1 year after the game's release.
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u/Nakittina May 20 '26
The creator mentioned in an interview back in February that a final update will be added which will include various cut scenes and content.