BOOTLEG BLOG

Bob Zanotto and Taking Addiction Seriously

TW: DISCUSSION ON SUBJECTS SUCH AS ALCOHOLISM, DEPRESSION, GRIEF, AND LIGHT MENTIONS OF SUICIDAL IDEATION.

Psychonauts 2 is fantastic. Never have I played a game so goofy and absurd yet somehow still takes the subject matter it discusses extremely seriously.

Compton's social anxiety, Cassie's search for her true self, even some synesthesia rep, but I feel like there's one particular mind that's stood out on how incredibly real it gets. Becoming a quick fan favorite among players and it's easy to see why.

Stranded

Due to some particularly nasty and strong vines, Raz needs to find one of the former original Psychonauts 7, Bob Zanotto, him being skilled in herbaphony, psychic control over plants. But what Raz comes across is a broken and run down green house, with a very dishevelled Bob inside.

Any mentioning of other people results in agression from Bob, Ford Cruller, his nephew Truman Zanotto, and even when Raz attempts to tell him that his husband Helmut is still alive he gets cut off before he can even finish.

Bob ends up kicking Raz out entirely, Raz thinking he'll need to find a different plan, one of Bob's overgrown plants sneaks Raz back in and approves him to go into Bob's mind.

What Raz finds is a completely stranded island with 3 large plant pots, and just Bob tending to nothing. Once Raz approaches Bob he says he doesn't usually get visitors, he also asks what kind of plants he planted here, Bob saying that he doesn't have any seeds at all, saying he lost them "somewhere out there I suppose, can't really remember."

Raz begins to adventure outwards to find Bob's missing seeds, but before he can Bob stops him and begs him not to go, Raz reassures him he won't be gone for long, and now we're off.

Pink Carnations

Towards our first location we find ourselves following a trail of pink carnations to an island with a bottle, when uncorked we find what appears to be a distorted version of Bob's childhood kitchen. We hear a child Bob calling for his Mom, we exit out of the kitchen through the fridge and find ourselves in a swamp with alcohol-like water.

We find our first seed in the palm of a Bob statue but on it's face we find a moth with patterns akin to Bob's face. The moth insists that the seed will hurt Raz, and takes it away insisting it's for the best and it's so he doesn't get hurt.

Right after we find our first Bulb Bob, other than making for cool platforming challenges, he speaks in a slurred tone, is constantly talking silly nonsense, and is in constant denial about anything bad happening to or around him. It's pretty blatant what this symbolizes but I'll talk about it at the end of this section.

After some platforming we find ourselves in the distorted kitchen again, but it looks run down. Constant dishes piled up and plants taking te place over, with a child Bob asking his Mother what's wrong and why all her plants suddenly look so sickly.

Once we encounter the Regret enemy type in the stage Bulb Bob denies they're even his.

Farther in we find several statues of Bob's mother, Tia Zanotto, Bob seems to deeply love and care for his mother, but as we look at them we start seeing the statues walking in the direction of a distorted green house, with a child Bob asking her if she's going there again.

We walk in and we keep hearing child Bob why she keeps hiding away in the green house for so long, what we find is a set of bottles of alcohol pointing towards a giant hole, of which the moth drops the seed down, so Raz is force to go down it, finding the new enemy type Bad Mood.

The Bad Mood enemy type is probably my 2nd favorite in the game, I love that you quite literally have to find the source of the bad mood to defeat it.

After defeating the Bad Mood we find ourselves in what appears to be a church, specifically in a funeral setting. We find a wooden statue of Tia Zanotto laying down similar to how a dead person would be laying in a casket, as vines start to appear and start absent mindesly throwing bottles into the water, with plants sprouding bottles and doing the same.

In a later section of the level we find a memory vault titled "Tia's Greenhouse" that gives us a clearer image of what happened.
We find Bob and Tia eating alone together with a framed photo of who we can assume is Bob's father between them. Implying that Bob's father died while he was still young.

After his passing Tia started hiding in the Greenhouse more and more, Bob left isolated a majority of the time because of it. Tia ends up passing away when Bob what seems like only when Bob just started to reach young adulthood, him being the only one at her funeral.

Bob decides to go into the Greenhouse to figure out what she kept doing in there, to find a mass of alcohol bottles everywhere. Revealing that Tia had been harboring an alcohol addiction while raising Bob.

Statistics in the past have shown that children of addicts are significantly more likely to become ones as they get older, both because of genetics and exposure. And it's obvious at this point that Bob is suffering from alcoholism.

Bulb Bob is clearly a depiction of Bob completely drunk, using alcohol to drown out the suffering, same reason why the sections are hidden in bottles. Drowning out everything, bottling up everything he doesn't wanna think about.

We bring the seed to Bob amd it grows into a small plant-form of his mother, showing he's no longer burying the memories of her. He still loves his mother after all. Pink carnations symbolizing a mother's love.

Black Dahlias

Next bottle we find is lead by a path of black dahlias, the cork having the psychonauts logo on it. The moment we walk in we see a wrecked ship with a figment of Helmut's hat at the front.

We find another Bulb Bob stuck in a glass bottle, after shattering him free we carry him across the water, creating an opening for us to walk through, showcasing the next gimic of this area. Along side that we find the next seed, however the moth quickly takes it and once again we're on the move.

We walk into the opening in the ship and we find a flooded version of the Motherlobe, with several figments of workers drinking alcohol and vomitting, if you've already completed Cassie's Collection an Enabler enemy type will spawn here at well, implying a drinking culture.

We figure out where the moth dropped the seed this time, we have to carry a Bulb Bob to make it through a completely flooded section of the Motherlobe, very slowly staggering with heavy controls.

Since I don't have that much to talk about this section other that Bulb Bob's very funny dialog I wanna talk about how darkly beautiful this stage is, in general all of this game is gorgeous but this stage feels like the same kinda beauty of abandoned locations, rot and decay my beloved.

We find ourselves in Truman's office, Truman being Bob's nephew and the head of the psychonauts. This is where we learn the next thing Bob is suppressing, the moment he was fired from the Psychonauts.

"Fired? You can't fire me!"
"I helped create this place!"
"Recruited by Ford Cruller himself!"
"No Pipsqueak nephew's gonna fire me!"
"What do you mean, what's happened to me? What's happened to YOU?"
"What's this phone number? I'm not gonna call some... stranger!"
"I don't need HELP. I just need my JOB."
"I made some mistakes, but so has everybody."
"Yes people were hurt, but no one died! It worked out in the end."

"Why are you all attacking me?"
"You're my own blood. Why aren't you on my side?
"Truman... How could you?"

It's fucking painful to listen to. There's this light implication that Bob was most likely drunk while on a mission and fucked everyone over, most likely that catalyst to him being fired. It hurts so much to listen to because it's clear that Truman definitely had good intentions. But in as fragile of a state of mind Bob was in, it didn't matter. To him, everyone had turned on him. Black Dahlias repressenting betrayal.

We find a memory vault titled Cutting The Roots. We witness Bob as he attempts to fight Maligula for it to abruptly cut to him mourning the loss of his husband Helmut, him coming there constantly implied by all of the wilted flowers. It's safe to assume that Helmut's death caused Bob's alcoholism to go out of control, thus the next scene we see is Bob being fired, though Truman has a much more sad expression on his face than hte wooden statue of him. Showing in truth, Truman did not want to do this, but in his mind it was for his own good.

However we witness as Bob cries as a framed portrait of the Psychic 7 that this was the final straw to cause Bob to isolate himself completely, causing his greenhouseto become atop a spiral of vines.

Another very very fucked detail that I never see anyone talk about, in the very beginning of the stage you can find a trail of dark thoughts to connect to, said dark thoughts leading to a figment of a rope, I think you can put 2 and 2 together.

Marigolds

We find out final bottle with a trail of marigolds, having an image of Helmut's hat on the cork.

As always the moth steals the seed before we can get our hands on it, and we learn from a Bulb Bob that there's a wedding going on, seeing a giant statue of Helmut in the distance with a little Bob proposing to him on a giant wedding cake.

As bleak as this stage is there's so much that's tragically sweet about this. Also my favorite part from a style angle.

We find Bob and Helmut's wedding, with all of the Psychic 7 as figments, we also see Truman among them giving a speech, implying Truman being Bob's best man, making Truman firing Bob even more heartbreaking. We find a mass of the Bad Idea enemy type, possibly from Bob's fear of attachment from the death of both of his parents making him afraid of marrying Helmut.

As we continue to chase the moth we find ourselves in a new area where we're specifically forced to use the ability we got while in Helmut's mind very consistently. The moth hides the seed in the mouth of the Helmut statue.

We find our last Bulb Bob who we have to carry over, he expresses that he doesn't feel like he's ready to go to the wedding yet, he expresses not wanting to ruin the ceremony. As he does the statue of Helmut cracks, revealing a skull. Lightly implying that Bob blames himself for Helmut's death.

As we climb up the statue and enter the mouth of the Helmut skull, we hear wedding vows.

"I, Robert Zanotto, take this man, Helmut Fullbear..."
"...the happiest day of my life..."
"I used to think I loved plants more than people, until I met this man..."
"When these feelings appeared in my heart, I thought they were weeds, and I tried to pull them out...
"...but this mighty oak has given me shade, shelter, and something to lean on when I needed it.
"Just when I thought I was turning to seed, you made me bloom again."
"...I do."

Bob's love for Helmut is so strong that the grief of losing him caused him to bottle up the best day of his life, he never wanted to think about it again, what once brought him joy hurt him. Marigolds repressenting both joy and happiness along side grief.

You Won't Feel This At All.

We return all of the seeds to Bob, seeming fine at first, then Bob says he suddenly remembers why he got rid of those seeds, as they grow out of control and forming the boss Truheltia Memonstria, Painful pots full of memories.

The moth shows up, yelling at us for not listening to it, saying that it's here to protect Bob again, forcing him into a cacoon, and the boss fight begins. This is honestly probably my favorite boss fight in the game, it feel so frantic and purposely hard to control. Raz being attacked by Bob's distorted views of these people he cares for, Truman attacking with fire breath, Tia shouting things such as "Just another dead soldier." Both confirming what Bob's Father died in war along with the mindset that he believes he should've died instead of his father.

Inbetween fighting the boss you have to break Bob free, the moth almost convincing Bob, him yelling about how he always knew the seeds were bad news, and the moth insisting he's Bob's only friend. Insisting nothing has to hurt at all.

Half way through the boss the Helmut plant says:

Love? (laughs) I don't really love him. If I did, how could I have left him all alone?"
Helmut!?.. Helmut... would NEVER SAY THAT!"

Sobering Bob up and making him realize that he doesn't want the moth's help anymore

Once you defeat the boss, Bob takes the moth, now made of cardboard, off of his face. And he prepares himself to begin growing these lost bonds and memories again. One step at a time.

I remember seeing a lot of people unsure of why the moth was chosen, it's clear that it symbolizes his alcoholism but why a moth? Firstly, moths are just as attracted to alcohol as they are to light.

Not A Lost Cause

I've witnessed a large amount of both my family and friends succumb to addiction, so many people treat addiction as this sort of lost cause thing so frequently, but I can't help but feel like the fact that people treat addiction as something to shame and look away from it just increases the likelihood of people never recovering from addiction.

Which makes me so extremely happy to see a hopeful ending to Bob's story, both him reuniting with his husband Helmut, and him starting to take his steps away from alcohol. It's gonna be long, it's gonna be difficult, but no matter how long you find yourself in the cycle of addiction, it's never too late to escape.

There is hope, there's always a way out of the addiction cycle, no matter how the world or your mind may make it seem. Thank you Uncle Bob for showing this.

With effort and resources, you can heal, you can move forward. It's time to tend to your garden once again.