With the vague story and wealth of themes in Edmund McMillen's fantastic "The Binding of Isaac" I thought it would be a fun thought experiment to try and define the story a little bit more. I wanted to do this before the expansion "Wrath of the Lamb" comes out since it's supposed to reveal (and obfuscate) more of the story than is already there. Obviously this is just my interpretation, but I did do my research and try to base it on things Edmund McMillen has confirmed about the game's story; the parts he confirmed that I used as a springboard are down below the story. Without further adieu:
II. Mom's Background, before "The Binding of Isaac"
Mom grew up in a loving Christian household and was homely but intellectually bright. Her life was wonderful until she was fourteen, when her parents were decapitated in a tragic car accident. Emotionally shattered and utterly alone, her mental state rapidly deteriorated. She became suicidally depressed and developed severe delusions, believing that God had singled her out for punishment. In response she abandoned her faith in God because of the harsh realities she believed he had dealt to her.
Soon after her parents' death she was placed with a foster family. Mom began to dabble in the occult, reading books on pagan religion and seeking solace in the answers of the Tarot. Mom's burgeoning occult interest gave her fuel for her delusions: she read a fictional recreation of the Necronomicon and began to believe that she could bring her parents back from death. One night she decided to consult the Tarot for advice. In the course of her reading, she began to believe that she could revive her parents by sacrificing two others in their place. Since she was growing to enjoy the company of her foster family she hesitated, and decided to ask the Tarot if the sacrifice had to be human--it "responded" that it could be any sentient being.
With a heart full of trepidation, Mom went into the kitchen where the family cat Tammy slept. She took a knife from the cutting block and went down to the slumbering creature. She deftly cut Tammy's throat while holding her mouth shut so as not to wake the family. A faint mewl and the sounds of gurgling were the last of Tammy the cat. Covered with blood and scared of being caught, Mom's mind began to panic. She took the roll of paper towels from the kitchen and wiped up the gory mess as well as she could in the dark, then placed Tammy in a trashbag and carried the bag with her to the living room.
Max the dog always slept on the couch, but this night he was not yet asleep. Max had not warmed up to Mom yet, and when he saw her he began to bark. Knowing that Max's bark would ruin her plan, she tried to smother him with a pillow from the couch. When this didn't work she jammed the knife into Max's throat, twirling it madly like a baton-thrower on crack, in a desperate attempt to sever his vocal cords. The sound of Max's thrashing and yelping was loud enough to wake the dead, but something in Mom's head rang louder: her father's voice. "RUN!" he boomed, "They're onto you! And your work is not yet complete!"
Mom stuffed the slowly-dying Max into the trash bag and ran out the back door onto the porch. As she ran into the small grove of trees behind the house, she remembered her father's words. She implored to him: "What do you mean my work isn't complete?! I did what the Tarot said!" Again the his voice vibrated in her head: "Their death must be like ours! Quickly, cut off their heads! You don't have much time until they discover you!" Mom dropped to her knees and reached into the garbage bag, pulling Max's body out first. Though she sawed furiously at the dog's ropy neck, the muscles provided a much greater resistance than the force she applied.
"You'll never make it in time!" her father advised, "You need help!"
"But who would help me?!" she said in defeat.
Inside her, another voice responded with the sounds of brimstone and a million screams. "Greetings child. Some call me Beelzebub. If you agree to carry my child, I will grant you my power."
Mom knew she had heard the name Beelzebub before, but her desperate desire to reclaim her parents made her willing to try anything: "I'LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT LATER, BUT I NEED YOUR HELP NOW!"
Instantly, Mom felt a rush of power and resolve, cutting the remaining muscles that attached Max's head and breaking his spine over her knee with a sickening crack. She tossed the mangled corpse aside, and with new found conviction she set upon Tammy. Grinning madly as blood rolled down her face like teardrops, she thought "I'm doing it! I'll have my REAL parents back! Maybe this is God apologizing to me!" Mom snapped Tammy's neck like a twig in her hands and dropped the cat's remains on the leaf-covered floor. She laid back, closed her eyes, and giggled with glee, relieved that things could go back to the way they were, the way they should be. She saw light shining upon her, and for a moment it felt like the warm glow of God's love. Mom basked in its glory until she heard her name. Her foster father had found her, and the flashlight he carried suddenly burned her eyes like the sun.
"HOLY SHIT! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" he hollered. "Martha I found her, CALL THE POLICE!"
"B...but...the voices! They told me I could have my parents back! Did the police find them?"
"Of course not, your parents are dead! The only thing you're going to GET is a white gown and thorazine shots you psychopath! How could you have done this!"
Confused and hurt, Mom tried to explain herself more, but her words fell on deaf ears. Mom's foster parents were unable to conceive children, and their pets had been their everything. The look in her foster father's eye told her that she was no longer welcome, and she realized then that the police were coming for to take her away. Mom was ashamed, cold, and alone in the world again.
When the cop car got there, she was still drenched in blood, and policemen made her lead them out to the grove where she had done her ghastly act of desperate love. After surveying the horror of her work and listening to her story, they quickly took her away to a mental hospital for involuntary commission.
Mom spent years locked in that medical purgatory hoping her parents would finally come for her, but she had no such luck. Her doctor diagnosed her with schizophrenia and started her on medication. During her years at the hospital, her only friends were the voices in her head; yet even they left her when the doctor finally found a medication that worked to control her schizophrenia.
Between the medication and extensive therapy, Mom came to accept the death of her parents. Since she was a relatively stable person and the mental hospital faced far more demand than supply, she was deemed suitable to re-enter society. But in their haste to treat their excessive number of patients, the psychiatrists at the hospital missed the fact that Mom had developed another problem: dissociative identity disorder. Although she accepted her parents' death, she denied her violence towards Tammy and Max, locking that part of her past under an alter-ego that she vowed to never allow to consume her again.
With her current problem reasonably managed and her grim past shackled to another persona inside of her, Mom began to make a life for herself. She easily completed her GED, then used her impressive intellect and troubled past to earn a full-ride scholarship to a local university. There she excelled in her classes, eventually earning her Ph.D in psychology. During her postgraduate work she met another young psychologist named Robert and the two fell fast in love. Mom had regained a little of her faith in God before meeting Robert, but renewed it completely when they fell in love and she discovered he was a devout Christian. She saw it as a sign from God that he still loved her. She returned to Christianity and her life continued swimmingly.
Upon graduating, Mom and Robert returned to his hometown where his father had a family practice. The two worked there for a year, growing more deeply in love, until Robert finally proposed marriage. Mom quickly accepted and the two were wed in blissful ceremony. Mom's only regret was that her parents would not be there to see it.
Mom and Robert lived in harmony for years, their quirks and eccentricities complementing each other perfectly. They bought a cat, Guppy, and loved it like a child. But Mom had much more love to give, so she asked Robert what he thought of having a child. Robert had dreamed of fatherhood his whole life, and agreed so vehemently that they took to bed the same night and conceived a child. So deep was Mom's love for Robert that when they discovered the child was a boy she insisted that he carry his father's namesake. The two referred to Bobby as their little angel before they even knew him. Unfortunately, the medication that Mom was taking to control her mental problems was an abortifacient--a fact which was unknown to medical science at the time. Mom miscarried and was devestated at the loss of her little Bobby, blaming herself. Robert reassured her that it must have been part of God's plan, and the two decided that perhaps they should wait to conceive again. Mom poured herself into her work, but as the years passed her want for a family creeped like kudzu back into her brain until it was all she could think of.
The couple tried to have another child and succeeded in conceiving a girl, who they named Maggy, joking referring to her as an immaculate conception. While Mom's pregnancy with Maggy proceeded further than it had with Bobby, Mom again lost her unborn child one morning on her day off. Thinking she'd never have a living child again, she quickly headed to a local mortuary and obtained some formaldehyde. She preserved little Maggy in a jar and hid her away from Robert inside of a wall, suspended from a beam by a wire attached to the jar. Mom spiraled into a deep depression and had to quit work. She spent her days sitting on the couch either reading The Bible or watching Christian broadcasts to ease her pain and reassure herself of God's love. She only left her home to shop or go to church, and Robert was happy to provide for his true love by providing for her in her time of need.
Mom's life changed suddenly one morning while she and Robert watched the news during breakfast. The news anchor read a story about a medicine recall, the very medicine that Mom was taking to control her schizophrenia. Among the list of side-effects listed as causes for the recall were birth defects and miscarriage. The couple practically had to scrape their jaws off of the table: Mom wasn't to blame for her miscarriages, the pharmaceutical companies were! The couple were furious, yet relieved that they might finally have a child. Mom immediately went to flush her pills down the toilet, but Robert said that she should keep them around until she was on a new medication; after all she hadn't been off of medication for over a decade and it wasn't safe to have a child so soon after taking that medication anyway.
Mom called her psychiatrist immediately and scheduled an appointment. She asked her psychiatrist for a new medication and she readily agreed, but advised her that she shouldn't simply flush her pills because it could have ill effects on the environment and the water supply. Not wanting to take ANY chances with her next pregnancy, Mom hid her old medication along with Maggy's jar so that it couldn't ruin anyone's dreams again and as a reminder of why little Maggy was an angel now.
Her new medication was guaranteed safe and seemed to be working, so a month later the couple decided to try for what they were CERTAIN would be God's gift after decades of obedient suffering. When the pregnancy was confirmed to be a boy, they named him Isaac after the Biblical son of Abraham and Sarah, the couple who received a child from God after giving up all hope.
Despite this newfound joy, all was not well within Mom's mind. While she denied it fervently to others, she knew her schizophrenia was slowly returning. She began to hear God's voice, and he assured her that he would protect her from harm while she carried the child. Her faith was as strong as her mental problems, and she believed in them both wholeheartedly. She would not risk her child's life by disobeying her Lord or taking that evil medication again.
In return for God's love she poured herself even deeper into worshipping Him; reading The Bible and praying were her exclusive recreation. Her husband noticed the change in her and asked about it, but she attributed it to a mix of pregnancy hormones and her renewed faith in God. His want for a successor was great enough to make him believe this was the truth, and so the couple continued their folie a deux. As Mom read The Bible, she ran into the name Beelzebub several times, causing the memory of her alter-ego to resurface. While she did not let the renewed presence of her alter control her actions, she began to worry increasingly that the child she was carrying was the spawn of Beelzebub, Duke of Flies. Then she read Matthew 12:25-27
"25And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:
26And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?
27And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges."
This passage sent Mom's mind reeling: "My body is a kingdom divided against itself... Am I to be brought to desolation? Is baby Isaac my judgement for making a deal with a demon?!" She combed The Bible for more answers, but her distorted thinking ignored the hopeful messages and absorbed only the omens. When she finshed the Book of Revelation, she lost her entire grip on reality. She became convinced that Isaac was the antichrist, the "beast" spoken of in The Bible, and that she was the whore of Babylon who would bear him. Immediately she ran to the closet to grab a wire hanger, got in the bathtub, turned the water on, and started desperately raking her insides. The sharp edges of the hanger filled her with agonizing pain. The waters ran red with blood and Mom sobbed uncontrollably.
Convinced by the carnage surrounding her that she had killed him, Mom felt a curious mixture of sorrow and relief. Then God spoke to her again, reminding her of the words of Revelation 13:3--"One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast." She panicked and fell into despair; her efforts had been in vain! She asked the Lord for guidance and he told her "My child, the answer is right in front of you." It was then that she saw her bottle of pills on the bathroom counter and remembered her old medication. She fished the pills out of their hiding place, and took them all at once to ensure Isaac's death. The medication sedated her heavily, and she fell asleep on the bathroom floor, comforted by her Lord's assurance that she had done the right thing.
She awoke in a hospital. The doctors told her that had saved her life but that she had killed the fetus inside of her. She was elated, "What wonderful news! Thank you doctors, praise the lord!" The doctors then told her that her husband described how he had found her and said that she would be transferred to a prison hospital. "Whatever for doctors?! I've done nothing wrong! I saved the world!" she shot back. They explained that since Isaac was old enough for his death to be considered voluntary infanticide, especially considering the way she was found. She recovered in the prison hospital and was released on bail with the condition that she check in with the court and her psychiatrist at least once a week. When she got home, she found a note from Robert stating he couldn't bear to be with her right now and was living at a hotel. Mom was cold and alone once again.
When the day of Mom's trial came, Robert testified about what he had found, proving the prosecution's point that her intent was to abort her child. Given her the circumstances as well as her past, her lawyer advised Mom to plead insanity. She did, and when her lawyer laid out the facts the jury took pity on her even though she was clearly guilty of her crime, so Mom was committed to a mental hospital for the second time in her life.
III. The Aftermath: How Mom's background relates to "The Binding of Isaac"
The entire game "The Binding of Isaac" takes place within Mom's warped mind in the mental hospital and is constructed as a defense against the harsh realities that she's experienced. Isaac's life can never be saved because in reality he is already dead. While the game is largely Mom's most elaborate delusion yet, Mom also weaves in elements of reality: ??? is the aborted fetus that in Mom's mind would have become Isaac.
Isaac represents the ideal child she has always wanted, and is the primary persona because it's how Mom envisioned her unborn child before she thought he was the antichrist. When Isaac died, she split her personality even further to keep Isaac "alive"--this way Isaac's persona can still exist inside of her. When she made Isaac, Mom shoved her "evil" persona down further, into the Isaac persona, because it was too close to her "host" persona (i.e. reality) and she was not able to deal with it given the weight of the new actions (i.e. her self-abortion) that she attributed to the "evil" persona. Mom was so traumatized by the loss of her baby Isaac that she is now completely stuck as either the "Isaac" alter or one of his various sub-personas at all times. Mom never displays her host persona anymore, which is why "We Need to Go Deeper" is an item--her therapist is telling her that she needs to dig deeper into her layered personas and deal with the problems that they are shielding her from or she will be stuck as Isaac forever.
Isaac's sub-personas are his own manifestations of dissociative identity disorder, filtered through playful child eyes. The introduction and first ending of the game are his drawings from the mental ward that serve to rationalize why he wasn't born--he was evil and if he was born, he would have ended up killing his Mom AND himself! The other endings are mostly just different ways Isaac could have died in Mom's womb, with the final ending being a sort of acceptance of Isaac's many identities, which is a step towards Mom herself accepting that Isaac is just one of her alter-egos now.
The "Mom" persona refuses to believe that she killed Isaac because "what SHE killed was the antichrist." When Mom is "Isaac" however, "he" realizes that he is dead but asserts that he killed himself to defend and comfort the Mom persona--shown by him defeating "It Lives." The story that God tells Mom to kill Isaac because he was evil is another of the elements of Mom's disorder that is tied to reality: a rationalization of why the little boy that Mom wanted more than anything in the world is not alive, and the role her religion played in his death.
The levels in "The Binding of Isaac" are constantly changing because they are a reflection of Mom's shattered mind, and are populated by various images of the life she led before she killed Isaac. Whenever her beliefs are challenged she twists the story slightly so she can still believe it and thus keep Isaac alive inside of her. ??? is the final character you can unlock because it represents that Mom might be beginning to accept the reality that Isaac is dead, even if it is only when she has adopted the Isaac persona.
Some of the enemies are just familiar imagery from fantasy and television, but some hold a deeper meaning for Mom. The Knights that have Isaac's face them are her recognition that Isaac is only a mask behind her real self, the horrifying grey part of the Knights. The Larry Jr's cry because they aren't real, and are representations of Mom's unspeakable sorrow because "deep down" she knows her delusional story isn't real.
IV. Items in Isaac and their relation to the story as I've interpreted it here
Here are some thoughts about some of the things you encounter in the game and ways I worked them into my little story, in rough order of appearance:
- Necronomicon/Deck of Cards/Tarot card pickups - Mom's exploration of the occult after her parents died, there are plenty of other items that fit here I'm more familiar with these and they worked best with the narrative I had in mind.
- Mom's Knife - The knife she used to cut off the heads of Tammy and Max, still stuck in her mind.
- Tammy's Head/Max's Head - I initially considered making these Mom's pets and having her preserve keep the heads like she does with Maggy, since they're not mounted and appear to be rotting I realized that it was another way to twist Mom's character.
- Pill pickups/Mom's Bottle of Pills - The various pills represent her initial attempts at medication, while the Bottle of Pills is the one she overdosed on to kill Isaac.
- PHD - A representation of Mom's education as a psychologist. I made her a psychologist because she was helped by mental health services and might be inspired to help others. Plus the idea of a psychologist with severe mental disorders is black comedy gold to me. Might expand on this.
- Guppy - I was going to make Guppy die in some tragic way too since the sprite is a dead cat, but I figured losing both of her parents at a young age and then three of her children was enough for poor Mom.
- Brother Bobby/Sister Maggy - Again obvious how I used these, but I made Maggy the second child who lives longer because she's stronger in the game.
- Fetus in a Jar - Mostly just used it because I could, and it was shocking. I thought it was a good way to illustrate Mom's feeling hopelessness, that she'd go so far as to preserve and hide her unborn child.
- Razor Blade/Transcendence (the noose) - Both visualizations of Mom's suicidal depression.
- The Bible - The Bible and Christianity in general drive many of Mom's chief motivations throughout the story.
- The Book of Revelations - Even though it's part of the Bible, it's separate in Mom's mind because the Book of Revelations is the part of the Bible that gives her fuel for her delusions that lead to Isaac's death.
- Demon Baby - Mom's delusional vision of Isaac as a devilspawn that causes her to perform her self-abortion.
- Whore of Babylon - The Whore of Babylon is found in Revelations 17-18 and rides on The Beast. It's not explicitly stated that she is his mother, but I figured that if you've already got pretty bad delusions it doesn't take much of a leap in your twisted logic to infer this. One of the best parts that reminded me of the game was Rev 17:7-8--"I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is." So The Beast was, and is not, and yet is... Hmm, sounds like Mom's delusional story to me. Isaac really *was* alive, he is *not* now, and yet in Mom's mind he *is*. Also he ascends out of the "bottomless pit" (the game's dungeon) into perdition. Since Mom killed Isaac when she thought he was the antichrist, it would follow that she might think he'd reside in Biblical perdition (eternal punishment experienced by the sinful and unpenitent upon their death, basically hell). This is the part that has me most excited for Wrath of the Lamb, and if any of these elements are actually alluded to you can be sure I'll be revisiting Revelation to see what other parallels can be drawn between the representation of the game and the character of Mom that I've thought up.
- Wire Coat Hanger - This one is obvious, but I wanted to point out that the hanger appears THROUGH ISAAC'S HEAD when you pick it up, which gave me inspiration to tie it into the Revelation verse where the beast is wounded in the head but not dead. I was pretty pleased when I found that because it gave me a good reason for Mom to flip out even more.
- My Reflection - A cracked mirror shows you several images that are often similar yet unique, much like someone with dissociative identity disorder.
- The Halo - You receive it for killing Mom/Mom's Heart with The Bible; perhaps because it's her unconscious mind realizing that what she did was unbiblical--which is why The Bible defeats her instantly--and the Halo is a representation that she may be beginning to repent for her misdeeds.
- Forever Alone - I know it's just a name, and one from a silly meme to boot, but it represents Mom at the end of the story. Her loss of everything she loves--her parents, her unborn children, and her husband--make her "forever alone" except for her alter-egos.
- Mom's Lipstick/Bra/Underwear/Pad/whatever else - Mom envisions Isaac wearing these because "he loves his mommy so much and wants to be just like her!"
- Guardian Angel - Just kinda wriggled it in as an oblique reference to baby Bobby, might do something different with it later.
- Blood of the Martyr - In Rev 17:6 KJV the Whore of Babylon is said to be "drunken with the blood of the saints, and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." Nothing big, but still.
VI. Inspiration/Extrapolations
While I obviously made a bunch of this up off the top of my head as gigantic logical leaps based on the game and its VAST array of material, I actually formulated the base of the idea after reading Edmund McMillen's Q&A on Formspring.
I've reproduced those here, along with the extrapolated conclusions I drew from them that made the basis of the story (in rough order of insipiration):
Q:Is the blue baby Isaac?
A:all the characters in the game are isaac
Extrapolation: Since every character in the game is Isaac, that means Isaac is Mom. This could also mean that Mom is in fact Isaac.
Q:Why are the Larry Jr. bosses crying?
A:because they arent real
Extrapolation: If Larry Jr. isn't real, and Larry Jr. is Isaac or vice-versa, then Isaac may not be real as well. This could be why he's always crying, too.
Q: Tricky question: you said that Isaac can’t be saved, yet does it also mean that Eve, Maggy, Judas, Cain AND ??? is doomed too ? No doubts that Isaac ATM is weakest personality of whole company and could be easily replaced with his more sinister alts...
A: Isaac is the shell, if the shell dies then everything inside goes with it.
Extrapolation: Isaac suffers from dissociative identity disorder. In that condition, an alter-ego known as a "shell" operates independently of the "host" persona--the persona that first inhabited the physical body--and is generally generated to resolve a particularly difficult problem that the person cannot handle on their own. While many of the alter-egos in DID can be similar to the "host" persona in many ways (like Isaac's alter egos that are all basically him in different clothes), a "shell" tends to be radically different and is the common "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" picture of dissociative identity disorder. Isaac is the shell and not the host, which means his host must be someone fairly different... If Isaac is Mom and Mom is Isaac, maybe Mom is the host persona and he was created as a response to her losing her child?
Q:You mentioned Isaac cannot be saved, although the player sees Isaac's Mom killed. Is it himself that Isaac cannot be saved from (which explains some of the end-game cutscenes) or is there a higher power at work here?
A:The important thing to remember is that the traditional ending is told through isaacs drawings just like the games intro.
Extrapolation: The intro and first ending are fictional creations, and therefore the story never happened although it could be based in reality like many stories. Since Isaac could be a shell persona within Mom, these might be stories she tells as "Isaac" to rationalize her loss; something like "Well if I'd had him he would have been evil, I'd have had to kill him, and then he would've killed me AND himself! How terrible!"
Q:(forgot to save the corresponding question but the answer is what was important)
A:Isaacs life cant ever be saved, but the new expansion will give you another perspective on why it cant.
Extrapolation: Isaac can't be saved because his physical body is dead by the time the game begins. He's only "alive" as one of Mom's alters. Also I'd better get my crazy ideas written out before the expansion disproves them all ;p
Q:Could Isaac be the offspring of Satan? Seeing how Isaac has no father figure and since Satan is fought after (chronologically before) Isaac regresses into a pre-natal regression (symbolically slaughtering his own unborn self)
A:Its definitely something to think about
Extrapolation: Maybe Mom killed Isaac because she *thought* he was the son of Satan.
VII. Disclaimer
I have absolutely *nothing* against people with mental disorders--I've got my fair share and I respect those who manage to live productive lives despite their conditions. Schizophrenia is a highly stigmatized disorder and I'm not trying to contribute to negative perceptions of it, but it is one of the few mental disorders characterized by delusions and easily the most widely known. I also knew I'd be using dissociative identity disorder to explain the "splitting" of Isaac into distinct personas, and since DID and schizophrenia are so often confused I thought it would be interesting to give them both to one character. I'm not an expert on either of these disorders; though I did research them for ideas I'm strictly using them as a plot device. I'm absolutely certain I messed up some proper terminology in there because I don't know the exact etiquette to referring to a person with multiple personalities, but hopefully my message was clear enough.
VIII. Conclusion
If you actually made it through all this, I commend and thank you for your time. Edmund McMillen has said he intended The Binding of Isaac to have an ambiguous story that was more like a conversation between himself and the player rather than a concrete A->B narrative, and I think he succeeded with flying colors. I hope this was as enjoyable for you to read as it was for me to write. I'm not sure I'm done with this, there are plenty of parts that could be fleshed out but I just wanted to just get the framework out of my head before I lost any ideas. If anyone is interested it couldn't hurt to let me know, but I'll probably do it anyway because I love disturbing things and anything that slanders religion ;)
