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laur-rants · 2 years

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AN ISWM ANALYSIS: THE LAMENT OF THE ACTOR

AUTHORS NOTE:

THIS FAN ANALYSIS WILL CONTAIN HEAVY SPOILERS FOR IN SPACE WITH MARKIPLIER (PT. 1 & 2). IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THOSE, PLEASE STOP READING AND GO WATCH THEM, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? If you don’t wish to be spoiled, turn back now! This is your last chance! Go on, Get out of here, go!

Or don’t. It’s your choice after all. But at least now, you know the consequences of your decisions.

For those continuing onward, buckle up for a long one. I loved In Space with Markiplier so deeply, and it resonated so strongly with me, and also with Mark’s other creative works. The man is nothing if not a master of parallels. Grab a snack, and maybe some water. THIS IS 5k WORDS AND A LOT OF PICTURES. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

It’s time… for the End.

ACT I: THE MAN AND THE MIRROR

Actor Mark.

We know him. We hate him. We adore him. We abhor him. He is a man we’ve come to realize, collectively, is the one who is behind all of the stories we, the viewer (the DA), go on. This has been apparent since at least DAMIEN, where Actor confesses to making these worlds and putting the ‘other prisoners’ of the house through his stories. It puts Wilford Mother Loving Warfstache into a more contextual light, and also, frames the narrative to his other stories to come.

The biggest, most important part about Mark though, is that he is a man of grief. And once he realized he couldn’t die while in his house, he turned that immense power of creativity into a means of escapism. Escapism from all his problems, all his loss, all his petty mistakes that cost the lives of his friends. He could make everything beautiful again! He could replay the dream, over and over and over again, because that’s all this was, right?

Mark is in a house, with an unlimited lifespan, choosing to make stories where he can move forward and make a beautiful world, a beautiful future. He’s there with Celine, with Damien, with Abe and Wil and then… there’s… us.

The District Attorney. The person who can’t remember who we are and we are constantly put to sleep, just to wake up into a new story every single time with Mark. We go on a Heist with Mark, we go on a Date with Mark. We meet friends, we meet figures who look familiar, and we see a few faces that, tickle our deja vu, who seem to tell us, ‘you know me, you should see me, you are stuck in his stories’ . Darkiplier, the merging of Celine and Damien’s worst qualities into our body, constantly tries to remind us of the horrible things our ‘dear friend Mark’ has done, tries to get us to see. But he can’t tell, if we are awake or still dreaming. Do we even know what’s going on? Surely you must… surely we’ve seen through his mask by now.

But we haven’t. Not until we go to Space. And not until we start to question things, we start to notice the boat is leaking, and everything, everything starts to fall apart.

Let’s take a Detour really quickly.

This will be quick, I promise. It won’t take long. But I want everyone to think, for a moment, back to Wilford MotherLoving Warfstache. Still, in my opinion, one of the greatest things Mark has ever created. As a standalone, and as a side piece to WKM, it is incredible, astounding. And he had the audacity to directly link it to In Space with Markiplier.

This is important. We’re getting there. You see, understanding Space is a bit like understanding what happens in WMLW. In it, Abe the detective is playing his role, and he plays it well. And finally, he gets to the point where he re-finds Wilford, who he’s been hunting for killing him and his friends and his partner. Abe believes the problem is Wilford and is hunting him down to solve those issues.

He’s determined, he’s the cop. He’s the good guy hunting down a bad guy. He finds Wilford in a disco. Everything goes according to plan.

Except, of course, when it doesn’t.

Abe sees Wilford, talks to him, and then suddenly begins to question everything he has believed up until that point. The smoking gun of this moment is when Wil doesn’t immediately recognize Abe, and Abe questions how this could possibly be. In doing so, a second Wilford appears, realizes he’s in frame, and then as Abe gets back into character, that Wilford disappears off screen. As WMLW progresses, Abe continues to lose touch with his reality, this dream he’s stuck in, and realizes, suddenly, that nothing makes sense and that he’s still technically dead.

This dream he’s stuck in, he’s realizing, is something that he couldn’t escape. He suddenly realizes he’s been turning his wheel but going nowhere, like a ‘hamster ball rolling down the freeway’. But what Abe doesn’t realize is he’s actually awake for the first time in a long time -- aware that the world is broken, confusing, a dream that doesn’t make sense. He’s realizing that the boat is leaking and he’s still on it, sinking. Unfortunately or fortunately for Abe, it was Wilford who woke him up, the man in the whole who is still alive but going mad. He tells Abe he’s been through the same thing, of waking up and realizing, suddenly, that everything is happening to them in a weird dream. But at times, he can’t remember a thing. It’s quite tragic, but also beautiful, these two men realizing that, even in death, there is still something to enjoy, so instead of subjecting themselves to the story again, why not have some fun… outside of it?

Alright Back to the analysis. Where was I again?

ACT II: BUT THATS ALL IN THE PAST

Let’s go back a little bit, shall we? Because to understand Space… we need to understand Mark. Actor Mark, specifically. Yes, we all know that he is a sleazy, near-evil person who forced everyone to his house for a pre-planned party to get back at the people who wronged him. But what isn’t apparent, is what the point of that party actually WAS: To get back at the Colonel for ‘stealing’ his wife, Celine away from him.

So here’s a quick reminder of what happened:

Mark had a plan. A great plan! And in that plan, he was going to frame the colonel for his death and watch it happen, because Mark knew that he couldn’t actually die. The Detective, who was biased into thinking the Colonel did it, would find Mark’s body and would immediately blame the Colonel, because his prior investigations proved the butler and the chef were innocent. The District Attorney, us, would see the evidence, and agree with the Detective without dispute, which we were needed for since Damien wouldn’t be able to point blame at the Colonel, his friend.

But that plan went to ruin.

It wasn’t the detective who found Mark’s body; it was the the DA. Abe didn’t see the Colonel with Mark’s body; he saw us, and immediately placed blame on us for being next to the body. After we were cleared, however, it suddenly wasn’t certain who the killer was. Once that happened, the entity haunting Mark’s house stole Mark’s body back -- a body that was already killed by Mark 40 times before and was broken beyond repair. This left Mark stuck in the Void, with no way out.

But when Celine showed up, an opportunity presented itself. The House entity struck a deal with Mark where the House possessed Celine’s body, making sure she would never steal someone’s heart again. Once the house had possessed Celine, it killed Damien -- or, at the very least, pushed Damien out of his body. Mark took this body instead, leaving both Celine and Damien in the Void, with nothing but mark’s dead body as company.

Then, everything descends into chaos... and the rest is history.

Basically, Mark didn’t want any of this to happen. Mistakes were made, deals were struck, and all of his friends died or went mad! But it’s fine, he surmises in the end, it will all be fine, because we all can’t die anyway! He knows, he’s tried! Which is great! That means he can make something beautiful out of this, can’t he!

…Can’t he?

ACT III: SPACE IS SO COOL

And so we come back to Mark’s most beautiful creation yet. Space! And the Invincible II, his pride and joy. He has us along for the ride, and nobody to bother him. All of his pieces are in their places. He can’t wait to set off into this intrepid journey where everything is great and they hand the problems of space travel and he is the hero and us, the DA, is along for the ride to watch, just as we always are. We get to see Mark in the starring role once again! But as the story progresses… something starts… happening.

Things don’t seem…. Right.

And the more the story progresses…

...the more things unravel before our very eyes. Seams fall apart. Back doors are opened. And strange people glitch in and out of existence.

And the strangest part of is all is… unlike his other stories, Mark is… perturbed. He’s out of control, he doesn’t remember things, he’s so lost that he thinks he’s in total control, but also has no idea what is happening and what’s going on. And the worst part is, every time either you or he questions anything, things start to fall apart more and more and more until finally;

Mark has discovered what you already knew; that their existence has been looping and they’re immortal. Mark, of course, is elated by this news and immediately not only remembers dying, but also remembers the pain of it. This however does not deter him from doing so again. And again. And again. All in an attempt to fix the ship and save the colonists. However, that doesnt seem to be working.

But as he does so, he subtly starts shifting the blame to us. Their failure wasn’t his fault, he was doing the best he could! So what were we doing?

Mark is already starting to show his true colors; how he REALLY feels about the situation. He can’t possibly be the problem, it has to be something with the computer, or with us. He’s the hero, after all. He’s the one who can go back and fix it; fix EVERYTHING and save EVERYONE. He just has to find the right code, the right path, the right solution. He knows he can, he just has to keep trying. It’s infinity after all, right? And he can’t die! So why not keep trying over and over and over again?

Or at least, that’s what he starts to think. Because even though he shifts blame to us at every opportunity (‘It’s their ship, they are the captain’), he does still leave the choices in our hands, at first. And it’s clear that somewhere along the way, he decided that that’s the worst idea and we have done nothing we were supposed to, and doomed everyone.

Eventually, we are confronted with an older Mark, who says ‘To Hell with all of this; we are starting over’. And yet, even in his lunacy, he seems to have a few moments of startling clarity. His character breaks.

He apologizes to us. To us. Looking through the role we’ve been placed in, he tells us, ‘I’m sorry… about a lot of things’. He also says ‘but when you’ve tried everything else, there’s only one thing left to try.’

He sends us outside of the story. Outside of the cage. Into the Void. The same void he sent himself into, when he couldn’t figure out how to win Celine back. The Void he sent Celine and Damien into, when he couldn’t think of anything else but a deal with the devil.

The story is being reset because Mark has seen us start to become lucid, seen himself trying too hard, and wants to pull the plug. He can’t make anything else better! So now, it’s time to try again, make a new story.

And for a time, he thinks he’s done it.

And then, he forgives us, for everything. Why?

Because its all in the past. And he finally did it! He beat us! We can’t destroy the universe, he did it first! He’s going to save all those people! Why?

Everyone can finally go and live their infinite lives in peace. At this point, we can’t help but wonder… is Mark still talking about the ship? The Invincible II? Up until this point, we assume he has been, but ever since sending everything to the void, he seems to be thinking of others things, other consequences.

Ah well, we won’t find out in Part 1. Because right now, the world is collapsing. The Warp core that disappeared originally suddenly reappears, and what Mark wants can’t happen. And the universe resets and suddenly… horribly…

The Story begins again.

ACT IV: WAKING UP IN A WHEEL

Have you ever heard of the Bicameral Mind? It’s the supposed moment when humans became conscious; when the two divides of the brain came together to form a whole. You see, one side, was the side that seemingly talked, but there was no thought behind it. And then the other half was the half that listened, and obeyed. It’s said when these two parts of the mind merged and met in the middle, that was when our self-consciousness, our self awareness, was evolutionarily born. It is of course a hypothesis, and not yet proven to be true, but here, in the reboot of Mark’s story, in his universe…. It is true.

Free Will is an illusion. And we, we are totally and 100%... aware of it. Like Wilford before us, speaking to a sleeping Abe, we are aware that things don’t make sense, that things aren’t what they should be. Like Wilford, we can now see; our boat is leaking, and its real bad.

The next question is though… is our ‘Abe’ aware, yet? And does he yet know that the boat is also leaking?

Speaking of leaking boats: Shuttle Marmota. You know it’s funny; Marmota is a family of ground squirrels, and the most famous of those ground squirrels is the groundhog. This is a pretty obvious reference here; Mark is harping back to Groundhog Day, a Bill Murray movie where a man relives the same day, over and over, trying to fix the mistakes and get out of his loop. There’s also a recurring theme in Mark’s works about hamsters in wheels. And how they go nowhere. These little rodents that run and run and run, going in circles, but never actually moving forward. They only think they are.

And this section is about one of those little rodents, thinking it’s moving forward, again and again, but they’re stuck. But they don’t know they are stuck. And for better or worse, only we can pull them out of it.

There’s an old saying about ‘getting lost in the sauce’. It’s an idiom that has a few meanings: One is when someone is so inebriated, that can’t tell left from right, and have no idea what’s going on. Another meaning is someone who is wholly preoccupied with a strange event, something out of the ordinary. Another is someone who is completely oblivious to their surroundings. And finally, there is a meaning that is denoted to someone who is neglected, someone who has been feeling abandoned, lost and alone in a crowd of people.

It’s hard to see Mark, Actor Mark, as being someone like that. He’s the one who makes these worlds, after all! He’s got all these beautiful plans, and brilliant stories! Hundreds of them! Millions! Countless! How could he, the creator of these stories, really be lost in his own sauce? How could he get lost in his own stories? That’s impossible, isn’t it? What kind of reason would Mark have, to not only reset the universe, but also reset himself, to the point that even he forgets?

It appears the answer is… remorse. As this new universe starts and we see Mark in different roles, We meet his old self in a diner, and he laments over his decisions, and his mistakes. In doing so, his old self seems to have a moment of clarity:

For the first time in the entirety of Space (Or Hell, in the entirety of the Markiplier continuity), Actor Mark tells us that these are his mistakes, and that he is the one to cause all of this. He then instructs us to tell his younger self NOT to go back-- we of course, don’t know what this means, not yet, but we will soon. However, its really hard to remind someone of what they shouldn’t be doing, when they are running so hard from their problems that they don’t even know what role they are playing.

Mark appears to us as a murderer, a divorced father, a lover ready to go on his first date, a porno star, a cryptid named heehoo, a camp counselor, a bomb diffuser. And every time, we have to try and follow him down his rabbit holes. We have to wake up him. And sometimes…

Sometimes, he stops running away. He realizes what’s going on because we tell him. We finally get our hamster, running his wheels, to wake up. The only problem is, every time he wakes up, he’s right back where he started.

He still blames us.

And it’s incredibly hard, its so frustrating and difficult, for us to see every possibility, every world, every ending, before we can say or do anything. Our semblance of choice, our free will is gone, and we are wide awake to remember all of it. Have we slept? Are we making progress? Are we also slowly getting lost in some sort of sauce ourselves, as we try desperately to spin our hamster wheel in a futile attempt to catch Mark before we lose him again? Does Mark… even want to be found?

Because there does come a time where one has to wonder how much of this is denial, on Mark’s end. The constant running, role swapping, forgetting. He doesn’t want to remember, maybe. Perhaps he wants to forget. Ignorance is Bliss, after all. Easier to forget and start a new world, a new life, instead of having your past mistakes chase after you, again and again.

And what are we, but a past mistake, chasing after Mark’s roles? Trying desperately to get through to him?

ACT V: I CAN NEVER BE FREE

Mark, throughout Space, sometimes feels like a lost cause. But after we wake him up enough times, we start to see moments of… clarity. And this clarity first comes to us in the form of an old friend of ours who helped break out of prison:

Yancy.

Now, this will be a little controversial, I know. Many people in the fandom adore Yancy, for good reason, but they can take the news that Yancy is actually Actor (someone we have been trained to hate) pretty hard. But whether or not Yancy is truly Actor in disguise, the parallels drawn between these two men and their current predicaments cannot be overlooked. In Heist, Yancy does not want to leave prison; why would he, he has everything he wants! And at that time, Actor had no reason to even think about leaving the House, or his stories. He was content and happy! So why would he want to leave?

But for Yancy, and subsequently Actor, something has… changed their mind.

Yancy has chosen parole over being locked up. He thought about what happened, what we said, and has decided… I don’t want to live like this forever. Maybe I should change my circumstances, move on, instead of running my wheel here. Also interesting to note that, while we speak to Yancy, it is through a glass window, one that is reminiscent both of the screen we view the shows through, and the mirror we got locked into.

What does this say about Actor though? It means some part of Actor, despite how much bargaining and denial he may be in, is still interested in getting out of the loop. He’s tired of spinning his wheels. He wants to move on but how? He doesn’t know. He can only have one last hurrah before… before trying to break free. And get out of this place.

Then, as we leave Yancy behind, finally, finally, we start to get the truth out of Mark. ACTOR Mark, not one of his personas. He speaks to us straight. Or,well, in song.

Space was so cool…but now?

Universe unspooled, so cruel, to be leaving with only a melody… So pretty… What a pity

It won’t live in a memory… because he’s been forcing everyone to forget. To start over. To just play a different role and move on. He so intensely wants to find a solution to the problem, he wants to start trying again, but what will that do? What will it accomplish?

But now its all pulling apart…

Mark is starting to remember… everything. He knows what’s wrong, and he thinks still, if only there was a way for him to uncover every stone, and never give up. “Stay bright till we’re burned”, he says, but what good is it to be burned? To be hurt in the process? What if you’re burned so badly you're scarred, forever, Mark?

After the song, we are transported directly to the diner… To the end of all things. We meet an old friend once again, and he talks to us about the end. As he does so, he starts to say some… interesting things.

We actually heard this from someone else before… Dorene.

This is most certainly a reiteration of theming, but it is worth noting that this other line comes from her, and that the two ‘elder presenting’ characters in this are the ones that are speaking about how not all choices matter, just a few. Perhaps there is some wisdom there. Some choices are everything, after all.

But it’s what Mark continues with, that is most telling. He tells us that, here at the end of all things, he is content. Happy.

He is this close to finally having an end to all of this. All this… running around, back and forth, going and coming back, living and never dying. He’s so close to an end. His end. But there’s also something else, hidden in those words. A real sadness, of something that was understood far too late into his life by this point.

Mark is talking about something entirely out of the purview of the story we’ve been trekking so diligently through. He speaks of loss here, of something he once had, that he held onto too tightly. However, like sand, it doesn’t matter sometimes how tightly you hold onto something, it may still leave regardless. And perhaps, maybe that’s okay. He surmises that mistakes will always happen and that some things, are just not meant to be.

Of course, Actor Mark here is entirely talking about Celine.

Celine, the woman he desperately tried to hold onto. Celine, the woman who broke his heart and left him. Celine, who ran off with his best friend and left him, alone and confused and heartbroken. He agonized over it for YEARS, blaming her, blaming anyone but himself. And it’s only now that he finally understands.

A moment too late, really.

Or is it?

This version of Mark disappears right before our eyes, but we are still here. We haven’t met ‘the end’ just yet. So what is it, then? One can only assume that because this Mark is gone, perhaps the paradox resolved itself. That seems mighty hopeful but then, isn’t that all someone needs, in the end?

ACT VI: THE LAMENT OF THE ACTOR

We open the door. One last, final door. And as we do, we enter into the final act one.. last... time.

Despite the apparel, we are not greeted by Head Engineer Mark in this room, oh no. He looks the part, plays it, but there is something else here. Something bubbling under the surface; a resentment, a remorse, an anger and a bargaining chip. The warp core, built by Mark himself, sits in the room. It’s his salvation. It’s his way out.

He has to go back. He has to save everyone. It’s his obsession, his absolution, his white whale. It’s the only thing he’s ever known. To save everyone, he has to stop us. He is dangerously sure of it.

Remember, back in Act II, where I recalled Mark’s plans? His perfect revenge to get back at Colonel all falling to pieces, because of us being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Keep that in mind, because it’s important, going forward.

Mark is still convinced that we are the problem here. He’s laying it all on us in a huge, prepared monologue. Who knows how long he has been sitting on this, thinking about this, ruminating over the warp core and the decisions made long ago that he can’t figure out how to undo. He’s thinking about all the friends he’s lost, all the grief he feels, and how he’ll be the hero, if only he can stop us from doing… whatever it is we did. And suddenly, in the most pivotal moment of all…

We learn Mark doesn’t even know what it is that we’ve done.

And it isn’t until we refuse to let him go, when we hold onto our hope does he start to understand, fully, the ramifications of our actions.

Mark is grieving. He wants to go back and fix things. He isn’t just talking about the ship anymore, though to his credit, he keeps that act up rather well. What we are seeing here is a Mark that has had an eternity to think about what happened and was so sure that if he went back and fixed what we did wrong in his plan, nobody would die. But the world doesn’t work like that. The party still happened; we can’t change it. We can’t change the past and undue the mistakes we’ve done.

Once Mark realizes this, once he realizes what would happen if he chooses to never go back, He has his full wake up moment.

If I’m not back then… the party doesn’t happen?

But I thought the problem was you, because you were the wrench in my plan.

But I caused the problem at the party?

I caused all this.

And as soon as Mark makes this realization, that he finally understands that he caused the problems… the By Lake Surprise piano overture begins to play. This is song that binds everything in the Who Killed Markiplier series together, this piano key denotes somber tones, character realizations, and the tragedy of endings and beginnings. This is Actor, finally, coming to terms with what happened and suddenly realizing that… He caused the pain of his friends and drove Celine away.

For the first time, Actor is honest and we see the real Mark. We see, probably, for the first time in the entire series, the man that Celine fell in love with, who Wil and Damien was best friends with, before a broken heart and an evil, possessed House turned him into a warped, angry version of the man he once was. A man blinded by his rage and agony, that for countless lifetimes, he believed that everyone else was the problem. And only now is he seeing what it really is. And he realizes… He’s tired. He hasn’t slept in ages. He can’t even die properly. He’s been running shows and going down rabbit holes for eons and eons… for who knows how long. This is a man suddenly bearing his soul to us, his full amount of pain and tragedy, on the floor, at the end.

And for the first time, he says this and he means it.

And in the end, we, the DA, the long time companion of all of these characters and especially Mark, who has taken us on story after story, kept us asleep and then awake, forgetting and now remembering everything… We know what happened. He knows. And he’s sorry. And for the first time, not only can we hear his apology, we can accept it. Wholly. Entirely. Completely.

You see, in the end, sometimes, you can’t fix everything. We can we regret so much. We can have so much pain. We can miss those we love and wish to hang onto them forever. We want to right the mistakes, rewrite the past. But we can’t. And sometimes, that’s okay. Some things just can’t be fixed. And we have to learn to be alright with that.

What a beautiful tragedy this all is, isn’t it?

In the end, the story concludes. Actor Mark allows this one to roll into the credits and lets everyone play out the last remaining lines. Celci congratulates us and Burt reminds us that all is as it should be. And then Mark… well.

I think it’s safe to say that, no matter what the future holds, Actor Mark is ready to move forward. He’s accepted his truths. And he’s ready, finally, to be free.

EPILOGUE: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BROKEN COIN

You know, every story has a choice, even in the end. And while we can hold onto Mark and bring him to his conclusion, there is another side to this story. A very important one at that.

Dorene.

Yes, Dorene. Her conclusion here is just as important as Mark’s, and is very important people understand why.

That’s because when mistakes are made, it is rarely, if ever, only one person’s fault. It’s usually the fault of both parties, in some way, and both parties need to come to terms with their choices, whatever they may be. And Dorene, being Dark with an aged Celine at the wheel, has had a lot to think about these days.

First off, yes, I 100% believe that Dorene is the entity we know as ‘Darkiplier’, secret ending to Space or not. Remember that Dark has never been named, and that Celine is just as important a part of Dark as Damien is. Just because we see Dark as predominantly male with Damien in the front, doesn’t mean that is all Dark is. This line here proves it:

She speaks Damien’s line and almost refers to him as her brother. But it is important to note that neither Celine or Damien are the same anymore. They are one and the same. However, that doesn’t mean they can’t hold onto their memories. And what sort of things would the Celine half be reminiscing over?

In a room with a frozen Mark dead on the floor, Dorene can’t help but ask ‘do you think she had the right idea?’ One could be mistaken in thinking she is talking about Celci here. But who is Celci, if not an analog for Celine? And what sort of decision did Celine make, that would be a matter of perspective?

She chose to leave Mark. And that decision, good or bad, sparked everything that came afterwards.

This Celine!Dark, this Dorene, is older, tired, a worn and broken soul. And she’s had a lot of time to think about that decision she made, so long ago. Was it the right choice, to leave Mark? Was it the wrong one? It hurt so much, but who was it right or wrong for? And she has come to the conclusion that she had to make a choice, because otherwise she wasn’t living at all.

She shows up like this in the ‘Let Go’ ending, which just sends us back around to start over and try again. I think that is because she’s trying to send us a message, send Mark a message, and try and get everyone to move on and stop spinning the wheels when the hamsters are dead. She wants Mark to let go of her, and to move on and find happiness, but she also needs to make sure we understand the ramifications of the choices we make as well. And she’ll remind us, over and over again, of how stubborn we are, how it feels like you’ve been here before. She’ll do it as many times as it takes, as long as it gets you to fully wake up.

And when you do, you’ll hold on. And she’ll be there to congratulate you in the end when you do, one way or another.

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