Waiting For The Light

Why do you have to kill the "beast"? It seemed to me like it was, at best, a sick animal fleeing from a bloodthirsty hunter. There are certain values and actions that the book seems to affirm, but this part seems to go against all that, and seems like much worse of a choice than killing the metal-armed soldier in the red passage. I understand that it might represent past regrets and such, which you have to leave behind, but even then, finishing what the highly unsympathetic Richard has started by shooting the beast in the head and gloating at its death with disgust seems much more like repressing it, whereas looking it in the eyes and befriending it seems more like accepting your past, which is closer to the "positive thinking" the ending mentions.

In the red light, I saw the thing in armor but did not pick up the gun. I ran back to the red light. in the green light, I killed the beat after it ripped off the guys arm, in the pink light, I said that having childeren is the answer, in the yellow, after winning, I took the mystery prize.

In the red light, I take the fallen gun and try shooting the beast. In the green light, I take the gun from one of the fallen twins and kill the beast. In the yellow light, I take the car after having won the game. In the pink light, I tell the couple that having kids is a great idea and the woman pays me. what am I missing?

I didn't realize that you had to flee from the fighting immediately, even though in hindsight, it's obvious that there is the same theme of resisting peer pressure as in the game show, and that the whole battle with "Wolfenstein supersoldier" is effectively a parody of such power fantasies.

Someone commented that they didn't understand why shooting, rather than sparing, the beast in the forest was the right choice. With that image, it's rather hard to understand Bianca's logic.

Not easy. Needed to go through the downloadable version to figure out that I had to retreat immediately and kill the beast. The most annoying part was counseling the couple.

like killing the poor beast

The gamebook takes place inside the head of a patient committed to a mental health facility due to emotional instability. The four scenarios are based on Robert Plutchik's emotional wheel of 4 pairs of opposite emotions ie joy or sadness; acceptance or disgust; fear or anger; and surprise or anticipation. In each scenario the reader must make a decision that assigns one of these simpler emotions (flee from the super soldier = fear while fighting him = rage; repair the couple's relationship = joy while failing = sadness; spare the beast = acceptance while killing it = disgust; failing at the quiz or taking the mystery prize = surprise while taking the jackpot = anticipation. Plutchik argued that these simpler emotions combined to make more complex ones - so acceptance + joy = love; joy + anticipation = optimism; anticipation + rage = aggressiveness; rage + disgust = contempt; disgust + sadness = remorse; sadness + surprise = disapproval; surprise + fear = awe; fear + acceptance = submission. The goal is to gather the 4 basic emotions so the only complex emotion formed is optimism as that is the only one that's healthy for the patient in their current situation. To do that you need to gather fear, joy, anticipation and disgust (which is why you have to kill the poor beast).

Plutchik's Wheel and its relevance to the proceedings in a comment written years ago. The issue is that I think the concept is probably obscure for a reason, and the scenarios are not only too short to develop sufficient investment into them, but some of them can also be seen plausibly related to multiple emotions. I.e. running away from the beast gets you consumed by darkness, so it's unclear why running away would be the right thing for the "Wolfenstein" episode. As in, why is the fear of the beast less valid than the fear of supersoldiers?

For that matter, you can easily argue that abandoning a whole squad and whatever they were defending would evoke far more disgust than shooting a beast who did, after all, just tore off someone's arm, with his sister's (and unintentional accomplice in his likely death) cries still ringing in your ears. This is why I remain surprised more people apparently failed the beast part than the military one.