The Oracles on the Delphi Express

The Oracles on the Delphi Express
Stick with us, throw your morals out the door
You aren’t in the land of the river and the lake no more
Makeshift schemes, we’ve got plenty here for you
Lock away your dreams and throw away the key

You’ve been stuck in the middle of patience and animosity
With a lust for solidity, and a cryptic history, your luck’s running thin

Crimson hands brandish wounds which masquerade
If you flee from grace, your souls cannot be saved
Big steam ships, exits illustrate the flaw
Don’t be ashamed of your amour faux pas
When the bombs go off you’ll know right where you are

You’ve been stuck in the middle of patience and animosity
With a lust for solidity, and a cryptic history, your luck’s running thin

You’ve been stuck in the middle of patience and animosity
With a lust for solidity, and a cryptic history, your luck’s running thin

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
On the train into the city, Hunter encounters a group of Oracles, who warn him of his perilous future and urge him to turn back. But Hunter doesn’t listen.

What’s in a name?
‘Oracles on the Delphi Express’ — Delphi is a reference to the Greek city that was famously a home to mythological oracles. Within the story, it’s also the name of the train.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>Stick with us, throw your morals out the door / You aren’t in the land of the river and the lake no more
The Oracles start by giving Hunter a fat dose of reality: that sheltered, idyllic life of his is gone, and if he’s going to survive out here in the grittier world, he shouldn’t expect things to be as pure as they were back at the lake. If someone does something shady, don’t totally condemn them out of turn, and if you find yourself making wrong moves, don’t torture yourself over it. The Oracles will guide him, if Hunter will accept their help.

Let’s just take a moment now though to say hello to the Oracles, and ask, what’s their deal? How do they know all this stuff? Are they ghosts? Psychic? Real? Why are they here and why do they hang around to care so much about Hunter?

Well the story has no fantasy or sci fi elements — so the Oracles aren’t ghosts or magical entities, but the only confirmed word on what they are instead is the very vague ‘Constants’. That almost sounds like they’re some force of the universe, but that’s not quite it…

Firstly, I think the Oracles are real, and physically exist in the world of the story. However, what they are is a narrative device for Casey, to establish story beats/themes to the audience, and to be a mouthpiece through which he can advise his stubborn character, Hunter. Digressing for a moment into my own experiences when writing, I’m often stricken with the urge to bash my characters over the head with advisories that they’re messing up and are going to cop big consequences for their behaviour. Of course, their behaviour won’t change until I put them through the circumstances that I know will mess them up, and I love them for that because that’s who they are and if they weren’t like that there wouldn’t be a story, but man. Yes you little rascal I will slap your hand from the cookie jar. No no no you absolute fool don’t do tha—goddamn it. I get the impression that the Oracles are a similar thing.

That said, the Oracles are their own characters. They’re not Casey, there’s no greater in-universe mystery or secret to them, they’re just a medium to tell things to Hunter. But couldn’t any character be that? Why use Oracles, with Casey’s foreknowledge of Hunter’s fate, rather than mundane figures who’ve been in similar situations and can opine? Say, ‘the Guy Who Regrets His Bad Break Up’, or ‘the Guy Who Got Blackmailed When He Tried Fighting Evil’? Well those get messy, you have to think of circumstances for them that disturb or distract from the real story here, which is Hunter’s. Plus for these warnings to mean anything, they can’t be opinions, they have to be facts with the writer’s authority — hey Hunter, this is what is coming for you.

So why the Oracles?

It’s to give Hunter the unambiguous option to turn away and quit the narrative. The story won’t continue as ‘Hunter thought about the advice from some guy on the train, and decided to join the circus instead’, it just ends. Casey’s hands are clean and all the mess Hunter gets himself into is on him. Casey let the character off his chain, showed him where he was going, and Hunter just replies: ‘???? Gee you know a lot. Now, anyways…!’

If this sounds a bit schizophrenic, it kind of is — when a character has a strong internal voice, they can sometimes feel like they’re reacting on their own. I’m making some big presumptions about Casey’s creative process here, and his personal relationship with his characters, but myyyyy God I cannot help but hear the Oracles songs as that kind of dialogue, externalised. That Casey can give Hunter this option only for him to go elsewhere doesn’t just contribute a lot to him feeling ‘real’ (I’m not sure conveying this was intentional), but underscores what a strong foundation Hunter has as a character… you can let him off his chain and he’ll prefer to gravitate to the right beats Casey wants for his story, and resist when the beats are wrong. I think. Again, presumption.

Finally their purpose is to clarify that yes, Hunter is messing up. There are other ways he could respond to these problems, which would be in all regards better ways that would give him better outcomes, but he’s not going to pick them, Because He Is Hunter. If you’re ever in a pickle analogous to any of Hunter’s, don’t listen to Hunter. Listen to the Oracles.

(I also wonder if there was some relation/influence on the appearance of Oracles in Razia’s Shadow and of them here, but that’s just an aside)

Alright this got pretty meta so to ground us again in the scene, Hunter is on the train, perhaps in a booth with nice old (slighty weathered) plush red seating, and the jazzy band of Oracles are crowded around advising him as the big black steam train chugs onwards.

>Makeshift schemes, we’ve got plenty here for you / Lock away your dreams and throw away the key
The Oracles offer alternatives to Hunter’s plan of going to the City and perhaps uncovering the secrets of himself and his mother, a course they urge him to utterly abandon. They also point out that Hunter’s plans in going to the City are haphazard, and he doesn’t really know what he’s doing.

>You’ve been stuck in the middle of patience and animosity / With a lust for solidity, and a cryptic history, your luck’s running thin
The Oracles hear Hunter’s situation and the drivers of his heart. They note these to Hunter probably more accurately than Hunter can himself: he’s been torn between the ‘patience’ of waiting for Ms Terri’s secrets to calmly reveal themselves, trusting her judgement that he stay passive and innocent, and the ‘animosity’ of resenting Ms Terri for hiding things so long to the point that she commit suicide, while hating that he didn’t move sooner, to destroy the thing that was troubling his mother.

The descending ditty (unsure what the term is) on this line is reprised frequently in association with TP&P — ‘they’re all clean’ in Bitter Suite II, transition between Bitter Suite IV and V, The March, and Blood. I think of it as his ‘entry theme’, but also as his ‘conning’ theme, when he’s actively manipulating others and in total control. It appears here in Oracles to indicate that TP&P is the thing Hunter’s animosity ought to fall on, and the root of it, though he doesn’t realise this yet.

‘With a lust for solidity’ — Hunter’s looking for something to ground him again, and a course to pursue, now that Ms Terri’s death has thrown his life into turmoil. He can’t be sure that his past wasn’t some factor to that death, and wants to face it to reclaim some control.

‘And a cryptic history’ — In part of his search for solidity, Hunter’s going to brush against the secrets Ms Terri tried to hide from him. He’s going to discover more of himself…

‘Your luck’s running thin’ — …to an ultimately bad end.

>Crimson hands brandish wounds which masquerade / If you flee from grace, your souls cannot be saved
Clearly referencing Red Hands. ‘Brandish wounds which masquerade’ is a bit tricky, but probably in the line of, ‘You’re going to commit wrong, feeling justified in the name of an injury that really isn’t as bad as you’ll act like it is.’

‘If you flee from grace, your souls cannot be saved’ — Kneejerk true of Hunter leaving the lake in the first place, but with the plural, references both Hunter and Ms Leading. They’ll be able to break away from the corruption of the city, but only if they stay true to their love for each other and work together, instead of messily and petulantly (on Hunter’s end) breaking up over the first hurdle.

Ditty on this second line is reprised in Smiling Swine, on the repeated verse of Hunter’s pure happiness and genuine elation to be with Ms Leading. Appears here in Oracles to point to that love as the grace he shouldn’t flee from.

>Big steam ships, exits illustrate the flaw / Don’t be ashamed of your amour faux pas / When the bombs go off you’ll know right where you are
Hunter’s going to leave the city on a steam ship in VVV. This is, again, him messing up by running away from Ms Leading. You messed up in love, Hunter, it happens to everyone, and fleeing into war is not the solution. It’s the furthest place you can get from a solution, actually, if the intention was to get away from negative experiences. Hunter will finally figure out just how dark the world can be, how far he is from home, and what a mistake he’s made, in the war.

I think there’s a reprise on the first two lines here, but can’t identify it. VVV probably.

>2:06 – 2:37 Instrumental
Unsure but interesting. Maybe a heated dialogue between Hunter and the Oracles?

>Last chorus repetition.
The Oracles give their final warning for now, before departing and leaving Hunter to think.

>2:55 – 3:00 Instrumental
This little buildup is definitely reprised somewhere. Where…?

>3:00 – 3:25 The Procession Reprise
‘She’s inanimate; bloodless elegance / Fatal fascination breeds a bloom of misery’. Though Hunter has been warned, his sadness over the death of his mother, and his desire to know what killed her, is too strong for him to turn away now. Hunter gets up to leave the train.

>3:31 – 3:42 Instrumental
Scene change: Hunter exits the train station and comes to the square of the City, our first time seeing it. People are bustling about, horses lead carriages along, and church bells are ringing in the distance.

>3:43 – 4:18 Instrumental
Hunter wanders through the crowds and the streets, mystified by the sights of the city, but they less overwhelm him than entice him to explore. His impression of things so far is a bit nervous, but altogether interested and hopeful…

The Lake and The River | Act II | The Church and The Dime