r/Hylics

For my english final, i decided to write about hylics and the themes i found throughout.

FULL DISCLOSURE Mason Lindroth has said previously that hylics is not intentionally gnostic, however I needed something to write about, and found extensive references and the sort. This analysis is probably not accurate to what Mason intended about the game but it is my own personal interpretation of Hylics, Hylics 2 and Absent moon. Additionally, the introduction and much of the Hylic 1 section was meant to introduce someone new into the world of hylics, so if you already know much about the series, these sections may be best skipped. Happy reading!

PS: sorry about the in text citations, once again, originally a final paper!

For those who have never heard of Hylics, which is likely most people, it is a surrealist collection of claymation games created by Mason Lindroth. The Hylics series is the latest couple of games in a long line of surrealist “games” created by Mason. Many critics noted that it functioned as sort of a pseudo-game made to be experienced rather than played, built from surreal imagery and as a love letter to the absurd (PC Gamer). Most of his works are journeys through a beautiful gallery of art, however with Hylics gaining more widespread acclaim people began looking deeper into its meaning. This approach to storytelling has often been described academically as “spatial storytelling” with the game's surrealist themes functioning as what scholar Henry Jenkins calls evocative spaces, hinting at story beats rather than spoon-feeding it to the player (Calxylian). It is in these spaces that the themes of Gnosticism, rebirth, and cycles reside, waiting to be discovered rather than delivered. Similar to its predecessors, Hylics 1 is primarily another journey through a gallery of gorgeous art, however buried within lie themes of Gnosticism, rebirth, and an unfortunate attachment to a corrupt world.

These themes show themselves as early as the title, with “hylic” being derived from the Greek “hyle” meaning material. Another use for hylic, and the only place its plural is seen, is its prevalence in the pseudo-religion Gnosticism. In Gnosticism, hylics are the lowest form of human nature (Webster). With this system, people are divided into three distinct categories: hylics, consumed entirely by the material; psychics, who exist between the material and spiritual, and pneumatics who have achieved true enlightenment (Mister Dizzy). It describes one's being as fully engrossed with the material, consumed by earthly urges and being entirely unconcerned with the spiritual. Entering into the world of Hylics, we can immediately see why this name was chosen. The artwork consists entirely of creatures made of clay, animated by hand. A cast of characters created from the earth, not only engrossed in it, but made entirely, inseparably out of earth. Further than this, any sort of story can only be pieced together through context clues and the rare piece of intentional dialogue. The first piece of dialogue makes you aware of Gibby, king of the moon, and immediately after we are thrust into the beginning of the game. Waking up in Wayne's house, your house, you see a television and it yields you knowledge in the form of an ability. Most gameplay aspects are unimportant to the story being told, however this piece lends once again to the materialistic aspect of our characters. Being one of the only ways we learn anything, television is incredibly valuable to us, yet another aspect anchoring us firmly to the material. The game ends with Wayne defeating Gibby, king of the moon, which can be seen as an allegory for breaking the cycle. Both characters carry heavy lunar motifs, and this choice is no coincidence. Across cultures and history, the moon has been deeply associated with the cycles of life, death and rebirth. The moon’s growing and waning have often been the basis for lunar worship with many mythological frameworks connecting it to rebirth and the afterlife (Britannica). In this light, Gibby as the full moon and Wayne as the crescent begin to take on much heavier meaning. Historically the full moon has represented power and fullness, the peak of a cycle, and the crescent often represents the natural conclusion to that cycle. With Wayne's defeat of Gibby, it is not a simple victory, but it is him playing his part as the crescent and becoming the natural end to Gibby’s tyranny. Through this lens, it grows clear that Gibby is meant to be a sort of cautionary vision of Wayne's potential fate, and by defeating him Wayne rejects this future. This is further supported by Gibby’s name itself, which appears to be a pun on the gibbous moon. A gibbous moon is the phase directly before a full moon, nearing the apex but not quite there. With his name alone, Gibby’s position as an incomplete tyrant is established before those themes are ever fully explored in the game. Furthering the Gnostic themes of this game, when Wayne falls in battle, he does not transcend or ascend, he is sent to the Afterlife. The Afterlife is a temporary place in Hylics, a transitory area where Wayne is allowed to turn in any “meat” he has gathered for material benefit. There is nothing spiritual here, it is a transaction between Wayne and whatever machine accepts his offering. Even in death, Wayne is stripped of anything spiritual and is kept in his cycle of pointless rebirth, entering once again into his corrupt world. Other than this, the most this game does is introduce us to our cast and the world they reside in.

Moving from Hylics 1 to Hylics 2, we can see a notable increase in dialogue, story, and overall cohesiveness. Hylics 2 begins in the Waynehouse again, however this time we are greeted with many Waynes. This removal of our individuality serves to further the connection between Gnosticism and Hylics, reflecting the hylic condition and reinforcing that we are one of many unenlightened individuals, not yet prepared to move onwards but stuck as undifferentiated from the masses. Exiting the Waynehouse we meet with Old Wayne who gives us a prophecy from the stars. He tells us of Gibby’s resurrection and immediately we are thrust back into themes of rebirth and cycles. Even after defeating Gibby and breaking the cycle once, not only does it threaten to reassert itself, but we are shown that there are individuals actively seeking to restart it. Wayne does not take his journey alone. Several faces from the first game appear yet again, such as Pongorma, Dedusmuln, and Somsnosa. Each of these characters represents a relationship with the material world, which is a theme we will touch on later during the analysis of Absent Moon.
The true extent of the resurrected Gibby’s threat is revealed with his construction of his Hylemxylem, an artificial satellite meant to act as his new kingdom. The Hylemxylem poses significant importance to the Gnostic reading of Hylics, with its main purpose being to drain the afterlife. On the surface, it represents power, material wealth, and luxury, however looking deeper we see how it threatens the spiritual realm. Long tubes snake from the satellite into the pink ocean of the realm of the dead, channeling what the game calls “terrestrial juices” directly into Gibby’s creation. Here we see Gibby truly articulated as the Demiurge of the Hylics world – a term describing a false creator who creates the material world as a trap, blind to any world beyond his own dominion. Gibby takes the power from the Afterlife and converts it directly into material wealth, and in doing so, he breaks down and corrupts the Afterlife. Removing the boundary between worlds, Gibby Redivivus takes control over the last place that remained outside of his influence.
With Gibby going from a ruler to be defeated in the first game, to a system attempting to become absolute, his role as a Demiurge is fully formed. He intends to turn this world into a trap, a permanent loop to keep hylics trapped in the material. However, Wayne and his friends defeat him once more, and with his defeat, the Hylemxylem explodes and sends Wayne and his companions hurtling back down to earth where they land on a concert stage and celebrate their victory with a performance. However, even with this ending, there is no traditional resolution. The closing scenes rapidly devolve back into surrealist chaos, with Wayne’s face appearing on toothpaste tubes and Dedusmuln unraveling into worms. Here, victory does not produce transcendence, it only brings us back into the mundane absurdity that this world began with. The material world seems to reassert itself immediately, the cycle may be broken, however the world it leaves behind is fundamentally, inescapably hylic.

Moving on from this duology, we reach our final piece of this story. Absent Moon is an album made by Chuck Salamone, a beautiful seven-track “song cycle” that serves as a perfect epilogue to these games. Each song touches on a character from the game and how they cope and interact with the new world following Gibby’s ultimate defeat. Our introduction to the album begins with The Champion of Ennui / Into the Pastel Sky. It is sung from the perspective of Wayne and it speaks on his struggle with identity and coping with his place in the cycle. It opens with Wayne questioning what he has become, lamenting his loss of self in the seemingly endless cycle, while accepting that the moon will never rise again. This places the album directly after Gibby’s ultimate defeat, following Wayne's journey through ennui. With the moon gone, so too is his purpose, and the track follows him grieving that loss while coming to terms with his fundamentally hylic existence. Subsequent tracks follow his companions and their journey through acceptance in a post-Gibby world. Contrasting The Champion of Ennui, we have The Promethean’s Lament, which gives us a mirror to Wayne’s condition, and shows us those who celebrate the material rather than loathe it. Unlike the journey through grief we see in Wayne’s track, this lament is sung from the perspective of Gibby’s devoted followers. They are framed as tragic devotees, desperately trying to reinstate the cycle they lost and revive their beloved king while remaining entirely blind to the corruption his return would represent. Most significant to the Gnostic reading is the line “Pump the pneumatophore” repeated twice, once toward the center and once at the very end. “Pneuma” is the Gnostic term for spirit, and with the phrasing it’s clear that not only are they trying to revive their master, but they are directly attempting to pump spiritual energy into a corrupt physical form. True Gnostic enlightenment involves the spirit escaping the material, and this song depicts its antithesis, forcing spirit back into matter. This song shows us hylics in their purest form, celebrating and perpetuating a cruel, corrupt world. These devotees are not trapped, they celebrate their condition and seek to perpetuate it forever. The album then turns its attention toward Somsnosa with The Way Back Home, the most quietly devastating track in the series. Contrasting Wayne's raw and immediate grief, Somsnosa’s story is one of slow acceptance. She spends years hiding from the call of enlightenment, seeking comfort in the material and fearing what comes after. Her track represents the most human aspect of the hylic condition, awareness of enlightenment but reluctance to follow. Unlike many others in this series, she is not ignorant, she clings to the corrupt material world rather than face the uncertainty of what lies beyond. Eventually, she heeds the call, and begins her journey toward enlightenment. Her story is not one of immediacy, but a hard-won movement toward something beyond herself. The next track on Absent Moon is arguably the most thematically rich section this album has to offer. It is here that the album’s name finds its full meaning, coming from the perspective of Dedusmuln, the song covers how he copes with this new season of his life. The song gives us a look into a world irreversibly changed by an absent moon, long nights, changing seasons, and still Dedusmuln has an infatuation with the beauty of the material. The old cycle is gone, however this is not framed as liberation. The new world is disoriented, its inhabitants have yet to fully cope with this enormous change and Seasons speaks on the need to adapt, change, and stay attuned to this new world. This track is perhaps the closest we come to explicit Gnostic language, with its central theme of shedding one's own carapace and growing anew being a close mirror to the idea of transcendence. This mirrors the Gnostic concept of losing one’s connection to the material and completing one’s transition to the spiritual. As the name would imply, Seasons reframes cycles entirely, contrasting the bleak, stagnant, corrupt cycle that Gibby's rule represented, Seasons gives us a new cycle, one of growth and progress. Defeating Gibby did not rid the world of cycles, but replaced one meant to control with one meant to nurture and grow. Here the lack of a moon is not treated as tragic, but as a necessary loss to initiate growth and allow the world to move forward from the mark of a tyrant. Spell of Absurdity moves our focus to Clawman and with that shift, we are thrust into the most philosophically complex perspective in the entire series. Throughout the game, Clawman plays a very small role, we see him twice and that's it. The addition of an entire track dedicated to him seems like an odd choice at first, but looking deeper we can see exactly why he was chosen for this track. Clawman represents an entirely unique journey, something none of our other characters have achieved, meaning through acceptance of the hylic condition. His track is a farewell to all those who came after him, his death here is not framed as an end, but as a transition. Where Wayne grieves the broken cycle, and Gibby’s followers mourn their leader, Clawman accepts his death with quiet dignity. He finds peace and meaning in his simple life, choosing to build castles in the sand rather than shoot for the moon. Despite the previous themes of striving for enlightenment, this choice is framed as acceptable, he found meaning and wisdom in the corrupt and sometimes that is more than enough. His story is one of a very human life, living simply and enjoying life, letting his existence give way to another once his time is up. The album closes with As the World Begins to Wane, this time sung from the perspective of Pongorma, and it is here that the album leaves us with an incredibly honest yet unsettling conclusion. Where all previous tracks offered us closure, Wayne’s grief softening, Somsnosa finding her way, and Clawman accepting his end, Pongorma is given no peace. His song is one of exhaustion, he reminisces on his time spent with Wayne and Somsnosa, recalling every mile walked. Pongorma is a warrior through and through, he has known nothing but conflict his whole life, however now he is left to ponder what victory actually means and he finds no satisfying answer. He catalogues the fates of his companions, the wanderer who sought her past, the explorer who found his answer, and the old man who stayed, eloquently summarizing the album in just a few lines. Each character has found peace in this post-Gibby world, however Pongorma is still fighting, he has lost his meaning but uncertainty keeps him on the battlefield, wondering when the cycle will end. With two games and an album about cycles and finding meaning in their absence, the question remains open. An ending like this may feel like a failure of the work, however it is quite the contrary, this ending gives us the most final truth that this series has for us. The hylic condition is not something to be solved, but an aspect of our existence so attached that all you can do is navigate it. The cycle, in one form or another, will endure.

Hylics has never been a series that demands understanding, it hides its themes between the folds of surrealism, randomly generated dialogue, and a gallery of some of the most beautiful artwork put to screen. To most, Hylics is a world of clay, an experience to be had and not thought about, however to those who look deeper a beautiful story presents itself. Through incoherence and absurdity, a surprisingly coherent story emerges about being trapped in a material world and what it means to escape that. Through two games and an album, Mason Lindroth and Chuck Salamone construct a world that is fundamentally, inescapably hylic — and then they ask what there is to be done about it. There is no simple answer to this question, Wayne breaks the cycle, but the world remains material. Gibby is reconstructed because corrupt cycles do not die easily. The album’s characters each find their own peace, uneasy as it may be. Through grief, through acceptance, through simple human dignity, and through the exhaustion of a warrior that is still fighting although they have no reason to, the album gives us a beautiful look at this corrupt world. None of our characters become pneumatic in the Gnostic sense. And perhaps that is the point of Hylics, this was never a story of enlightenment, it was never about finding an end to the hylic condition, it is about accepting the permanency of it all. The hylic condition is woven so deeply into every facet of existence that hoping to escape it is unreasonable. In every creature, in every character, in every transaction in the afterlife, in the rising and falling of the moon, all of it is so utterly, inescapably hylic. The story of Hylics does not aim to condemn the condition of its inhabitants, but rather serves to illustrate that no matter what, the cycle endures, but so do we.

So I played through hylics for the first time a few days ago after wanting to forever and the first game SPOKE to me. I have a final paper that I have free reign on and I want to write it on Hylics, the album absent moon, and hylics 2. Now while I understand the many different aspects and interpretations, I'm trying to build a cohesive narrative around this game and I wanted to hear as many different perspectives and interpretations as possible. Give me a good knowledge base to work off of.

Sidenote: Through my readings I've seen a lot of talk about the gnostic aspects of this game and although Mason denies this i still feel like the parallels are there and are prevalent enough for the themes to be attributed to the games. Please feel free to engage in that aspect of the lore!