Place Your Bets

From doktorsleepless

Place Your Bets

Matt Murphy on November 6, 2007 at 9:11am

Alright people, it's time for some actual discussion. This place has been way too quiet, and I've only been here three days.

Which John Reinhardt is the tulpa, and which one is "real" (oh, those ever-present quote marks)? Is it the Doktor, the John in Cell 23, the Dead John, or a yet unspecified Fourth John?

My own theory is that the Doktor is the John Prime. Wouldn't it just be poetic if the cartoon happened to be a real boy all along? John-23 (as Adrammalech dubbed him on the wiki), a tulpa, would be safely confined and therefore would stay out of John Prime's plans.

Things working against this theory: the Doktor doesn't sleep. Human beings do need sleep to live, suggesting that he has a supernatural ability to stay awake. Also, John-23 would, as a tulpa, have some sort of ability to escape the cell, as its not actually a physical thing.

Thoughts?

Reply by Mark Crabtree on November 10, 2007 at 9:59am

That's one analysis certainly. The poetry is certainly in it's favour, and the idea of him staying awake could easily be scientific rather than supernatural (caffeine plus or maybe something that physically drains toxins from his body and brain) plus, The Man in Cell 23 doesn't want to escape! so no problem there.

But my feelings are that you're being a bit too literal. Even assuming that the stuff about the tulpa and him "not having slept for a year" are true there's still leeway as to what that means. If there's more that one of him about, maybe they don't sleep at the same time. As long as one of them is awake then John Reinhardt hasn't slept.

And it's too early to say a dead John means a corpse and not a disgarded personality, we've seen him talk to himself so that isn't an unreasonable assumption to make.

Reply by Matt Murphy on November 10, 2007 at 6:27pm

I'm actually starting to think that the whole tulpa thing is just a curve ball, or at least one tiny part of something much larger and scarier involving spimes and non-Euclidian geometry.

Reply by Josh Brennan on December 12, 2007 at 4:52pm

I think that's more along the lines of what's going on...maybe not the non-Euclidian geometry (as much as there are tentacle flashes and I'd like to hope). I think the tulpa story hinted at what was really going on, something involving spimes, grinder-tech, and the H-Plates rather than intense meditation. The story also makes it appear as though Sleepless/Reinhardt possesses mystical abilities.

Reply by ShawnJDouglas on January 5, 2008 at 7:16pm

I think the real John is dead and gone.

All that are left are Tulpas now.

He's gone but he's left his information behind.

-SJD

Reply by Spiraltwist on January 7, 2008 at 3:47pm

He's gone but he's left his information behind.

I really like that idea. Unrestrained information can be very dangerous.

Reply by Kevin Schmidt on January 24, 2008 at 5:59am

I'm wondering if the "tulpas" are somewhat metaphorical and what we're looking at is a group of people who underwent radical ego restructuring and plastic surgery? Sort of a cross between an open-source identity like Luther Blissett and a surgically and performance based group identity like Breyer P-orridge.

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