They had to explain a lot of this in the official forums, actually! One issue I had with the writing is that the nature of Marlowe's organisation isn't very clear, but the long and short is that they're sort of a British secret agency dating back a long time, and they specialise in fear and obfuscation. Rather than give the enemy something tangible to fight, they'll build themselves up as a shadowy, possibly supernatural force with limitless resources and means. They want to make you think they know everything about you, while you know nothing about them.
Cutter learned some of that when he infiltrated them - his journal had three Tarot cards pinned inside it specifically because the organisation likes to play up that sort of symbolism in people's minds. The cards are all Major Arcana, and Cutter's assigned them to people because he's a dork I guess. The High Priestess (a older woman guarding mysterious knowledge; Marlowe), The Magician (a young man who uses trickery to seem more powerful than he really is; Talbot) and The Tower (as I said, a violent upheaval and probably the most ominous of all the Major Arcana, far more than The Devil or Death). When Talbot stole the journal, he took the Tarot card out and slipped it into Cutter's coat, signing whatever happened to Cutter after that. "Betray us and this is what happens." It was quite deliberate, and the ambiguity of Tarot symbolism means that as long as something bad happened to Cutter, the placement of the card would seem ominous and prescient. Similarly, Talbot was wearing a bullet-proof vest and uses escape ropes for his disappearances; methods to ensure that he'd take on a more frightening aspect on the minds of his foes. The key is always fear.
So, The Waste Land. This is the bit in the game:
Son of man / You cannot say, or guess, for you know only / A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, / And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, / And the dry stone no sound of water. Only / There is shadow under this red rock, / (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), / And I will show you something different from either / Your shadow at morning striding behind you / Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; / I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
It's appropriate in a few ways. One is that the poem was written around the time that Lawrence of Arabia lived and fought in the Middle East, during World War 1. Another is that obviously that particular set of lines describes the experience that Nate is going through in the desert, and in general. A third, "I will show you fear in a handful of dust" describes quite simply the motivation of Marlowe's organisation - to take and synthesise the hallucinogen in Iram for their own use. And finally, the full text of the poem mentions a Tarot reading. Maybe Nate came across the poem while he was doing his reading about TE Lawrence, or maybe it was an artistic choice on the part of the devs. (Just for fun, a later line is Fear death by water.)
As for the spiders, I have no explanation, except possibly that Naughty Dog loves the sound of shrieking arachnophobes.
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Cutter learned some of that when he infiltrated them - his journal had three Tarot cards pinned inside it specifically because the organisation likes to play up that sort of symbolism in people's minds. The cards are all Major Arcana, and Cutter's assigned them to people because he's a dork I guess. The High Priestess (a older woman guarding mysterious knowledge; Marlowe), The Magician (a young man who uses trickery to seem more powerful than he really is; Talbot) and The Tower (as I said, a violent upheaval and probably the most ominous of all the Major Arcana, far more than The Devil or Death). When Talbot stole the journal, he took the Tarot card out and slipped it into Cutter's coat, signing whatever happened to Cutter after that. "Betray us and this is what happens." It was quite deliberate, and the ambiguity of Tarot symbolism means that as long as something bad happened to Cutter, the placement of the card would seem ominous and prescient. Similarly, Talbot was wearing a bullet-proof vest and uses escape ropes for his disappearances; methods to ensure that he'd take on a more frightening aspect on the minds of his foes. The key is always fear.
So, The Waste Land. This is the bit in the game:
Son of man / You cannot say, or guess, for you know only / A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, / And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, / And the dry stone no sound of water. Only / There is shadow under this red rock, / (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), / And I will show you something different from either / Your shadow at morning striding behind you / Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; / I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
It's appropriate in a few ways. One is that the poem was written around the time that Lawrence of Arabia lived and fought in the Middle East, during World War 1. Another is that obviously that particular set of lines describes the experience that Nate is going through in the desert, and in general. A third, "I will show you fear in a handful of dust" describes quite simply the motivation of Marlowe's organisation - to take and synthesise the hallucinogen in Iram for their own use. And finally, the full text of the poem mentions a Tarot reading. Maybe Nate came across the poem while he was doing his reading about TE Lawrence, or maybe it was an artistic choice on the part of the devs. (Just for fun, a later line is Fear death by water.)
As for the spiders, I have no explanation, except possibly that Naughty Dog loves the sound of shrieking arachnophobes.
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