Pentiment: Lost Ones

Major Pentiment spoilers ahead! Continue at your own risk

Pentiment drops us into the 16th century Bavarian town of Tassing at three key moments that punctuate a 25-year stretch of considerable upheaval: twice as a visitor, artist Andreas Maler, and once as a resident, Magdalene Druckeryn. Crucially, time does not stand still when we leave Tassing - it marches ever on - and we are given the rare opportunity to see the long-term consequences of our actions.

Over that quarter century, we experience change both major and minor. Seasons pass, townspeople come and go, apprentices become masters; new buildings sprout up, and old ones are left to ruin. Memories are misshapen and truths forgotten, and new histories are written.

Relationships flourish as others wither. The kids grow up.

And in those 25 years, life comes and goes. It is here, in its depiction of mortality, that I found Pentiment to be most impactful.

I went to great lengths to save sweet, old Brother Piero, desperate to keep him from the executioner's axe for a murder that he could not have committed. I went as far as to accuse and condemn a likely-innocent man in his place, only for my elderly mentor to die off-screen almost immediately after. All that effort in vain, with little more than a few seconds separating Piero's liberation and his death. There is one final conversation and moment of warmth before we fast forward several years and rejoin an older Andreas, paying his respects at Piero's grave. A moment of mourning that was both inevitable, yet sudden. As goes life.

In some ways, we might consider Pentiment to be dismissive of death, as so much of it happens on the periphery or simply out of shot. This dismissiveness may be in-keeping with the prevalent attitudes of that period, and an acceptance of death and the afterlife that would seem foreign to us. Though I think it's foolish to assume that everyone in the medieval period was god-fearing and willing to unquestioningly embrace the promise of life after death.

Several key characters die off screen, and most of them don't receive as much attention as Piero. A throw-away comment in the third act is how I discovered that another friendly monk, Brother Aedoc, met his maker. His heart gave out on him almost immediately after the burning of the monastery, at the hands of the rioting peasantry. Some deaths from that fateful night are highlighted, whereas others are denied the spotlight. A glimpse of a still-scene and an optional conversation was how I learnt that Black Til suffered a violent death in the monastery grounds. Had I missed those, I would've been left wondering why he no longer stood in the meadow, a friendly face dispensing useful advice. 

At the close of my game, Andreas' additions to Magdalene's mural revealed the awful fate of Vacslav, a semi-regular visitor to Tassing, burnt at the stake for his heresy in later years. A peripheral character in the story, but one who I shared several interesting conversations with.

And don't get me started on poor Caspar.

The off-screen handling of death ensures that those that occur in full view are all the more shocking and impactful. I pinned the first murder on the occult-practicing Prior Ferenc, as he seemed the most likely culprit and was a bit of an arse, though ultimately I fear that he was innocent (I appreciated Obsidian's refusal to reveal the true perpetrators of the first two murders). It was awful watching the Prior lose his composure at the end, trembling on his knees and penned in by his neighbours. Two or three hacks from the axe-man before he was fully decapitated, blows that I insisted Andreas and I witness. 

And then there is the harrowing depiction of infant mortality. Some children grow up between acts, and it's delightful seeing what they become. Others tragically disappear.

While estimates vary, and location and environment were significant variables, it's thought around one in three children in medieval Europe died before the age of five. We see the tragic effects on the parents of Tassing who have the misfortune of outliving a beloved child. Homes that once seemed warm and friendly, are rendered cold and empty. Claus, Brigita, Karl; Andreas as well - their lives are irrecoverably shaped by their losses.

Time marches on, and death makes no exceptions for age.

It's made clear that there has been some trauma in Andreas' life in the time between his first and second stays in Tassing, but we don't discover what it was until a thoroughly heartbreaking dream sequence, where he faces the loss of his young son, August. We feel his helplessness, his inability and unwillingness to let go of his son, who he can still picture in his mind but whose voice he cannot hear. Andreas describes the scene of his passing - stood at August's bedroom door, repeatedly wishing him goodnight in the vain hope that he would receive a response. Alone in the dark, afraid to go any closer, but unable to walk away. There would be no reply. This is a scene recounted, not viewed by the player, yet it has stuck with me perhaps more than any other moment in Pentiment.

So much happens between the three main acts, and a great deal is lost. But being absent for the losses doesn't make them any less important. Some deaths I felt, especially the townsfolk who I'd enjoyed chatting with and who had welcomed Andreas. Others had less of an impact, and I genuinely felt guilty that I couldn't clearly recall or picture them, when faced with their bereaved loved ones.

As time passes, faces fade and voices can no longer be heard.  

On the surface, Pentiment is a murder mystery. But at its core, to me at least, it's a study on the passing of time. And in that passing, the remembrance and recording of what has come and gone.