While the majority of major story points have their respective questions answered by the end of the game, there are still several mysteries that players don’t get a definitive answer for, either because they weren’t important enough to the story to bother focusing on, or simply to increase the mystery of the story in general.
10 How Jack Died
The very first thing players need to do in The Medium is put Marianne’s adoptive father, Jack, to rest after his untimely death. While there are several documents that can be found in both his apartment and the mortuary that give the player some idea of how he died, all that is really known about it is that he was sick. In Jack’s calendar, there are multiple references to doctor’s appointments and biopsies, but nowhere in the game does it tell the player what killed Jack in the end.
9 Francis’ Dog Surviving
Just past the midpoint of the game, Marianne comes across a lovable stray dog that leads her to the body of Francis, Niwa’s groundskeeper and the man responsible for letting Maw out of containment after Thomas imprisoned it. Before this section, however, there are many dead deer around the forest that are victims of Maw’s hunger and possession, though, somehow, this dog has managed to survive despite its master being killed in the same gruesome way. The reason for this is never given, as Maw doesn’t seem to be scared of the dog and doesn’t seem to lack the capacity to possess it, so it may just be alive for the purpose of pushing the story forward.
8 The Nature of Lilianne’s Powers
By the end of the game, both Marianne’s and Thomas’s medium powers are fairly well defined, with Marianne being able to traverse both the material and spirit worlds at once as well as put troubled spirits to rest, while Thomas is able to sever the link between a person and their spirit, forcing it to move on before their physical body has died and reducing them to a catatonic state.
Lilianne’s powers, on the other hand, are much less defined by the end of the game. All that is really known about her is that she can split off parts of her spirit at will and release them from her body, including Sadness, Maw, and a handful of other spirits that are later devoured by Maw. Thomas also claims that she is very powerful, though this power is never put on display.
7 What Spirit Thomas Actually Is
In the first flashback to Thomas’ time at Niwa, it is clear that he has medium powers of his own, though they are quite a bit different from Mariannes’s, mostly due to the fact that he, apparently, has severed a part of his spirit that now acts of its own free will. What Spirit Thomas actually is, however, is left entirely up to the player’s imagination. He has a similar design to the wandering spirits that Marianne helps, though he lacks the porcelain mask that they all wear and acts entirely independently of Thomas, making the exact nature of his being unclear.
6 How Henry Could Fight Against Spirit Thomas
In The Medium, players take control of Spirit Thomas two times in the story, once as he severs Richard’s spirit from his body and another when he attempts to do the same with Henry, the Russian investigator sent to find out how powerful he really is. While he is successful in Richard’s case, he is much less successful in Henry’s case, as Henry’s child-like spirit is not only in league with his inner monster, Hound, but actively fights back against Thomas, something that he had never encountered before this moment. How Henry was able to do this is left entirely up to the player, though it could have something to do with the fact that, while Richard was damaged due to outside circumstances, Henry chose to create Hound to make him better at his job.
5 What Richard’s Stepfather Did To Him
While it is made clear exactly how Maw and Hound were made, it is less clear how Childeater was created inside Richard. Throughout the events inside his mind, it seems as though his stepfather abused him and his mother, but the story takes a drastic turn when it is revealed that he was hiding Jews in his house during World War II, with Richard’s mother turning him into the Nazis — resulting in the deaths of both the stepfather and Richard’s best friend, Rose. Rose’s death, however, is played off as a separate event that wasn’t connected to Childeater being created, so it is unclear which of these resulted in Childeater’s creation.
4 Why Marianne’s Powers Are So Different
Both Thomas and Lilianne, while the latter’s powers aren’t so clearly defined, seem to have powers related to splitting someone’s spirit, with Thomas being able to do it to others and Lilianne being able to do it with her own spirit. Despite being Thomas’ daughter and Lilianne’s younger sister, Marianne’s powers are vastly different from either of her surviving family member’s powers.
Not only does Marianne look significantly different in the spirit world than Thomas does, but she is able to interact with both worlds at once and influence one by making changes in another, something that seems entirely outside the scope of either Thomas or Lilianne’s powers.
3 What Happened To Thomas
In the final moments of the game, it is revealed that Marianne’s flashforwards were her talking to Spirit Thomas, who was left behind in the spirit world after Maw escaped captivity. In this conversation, Marianne even asks Spirit Thomas what happened to the real Thomas, though he doesn’t know what actually happened after they were separated. Since both Thomases can survive independently of one another, this leaves Marianne’s father’s fate completely up in the air.
2 Who Owns The Car Outside Niwa
After finding Niwa Resort and her first “spirit world fit” showing the hotel in its more grotesque form, the player quickly needs to find a way inside the hotel, which leads them to an abandoned car in the car park. Since both Thomas and Francis are revealed to have stayed on the grounds after the Niwa Massacre and the owner of the car is never revealed, it could belong to either one of them as they would both, presumably, need to leave the grounds at one point or another for food and other supplies.
1 How Jack Ended Up In Niwa
The biggest mystery of all occurs just before Marianne finds Thomas’ bunker as she is attacked, once again, by Maw trying to turn her into a skin suit. She sees an image of Jack, who she follows right into Maw’s hands, as well as his tie hanging over a picket fence, neither of which should be anywhere near Niwa. Since Marianne put Jack’s spirit to rest at the beginning of the game, he should have passed on, but it seems as though Maw managed to get his hands on Jack from the spirit world, though how and why they did this is also unknown.
Next: 10 Unresolved Mysteries & Plot Holes Left Hanging In Demon’s Souls PS5
