Final Sequence
After attempting to piece together her lost memories through the puppet show, Giulia contacts her uncle Don Attilio for help. He encourages her to come stay with him, so he can protect her from the Allied bombing and provide assistance.
Upon entering the church, Giulia’s perspective shifts to a dreamlike environment filled with dolls instead of people. It is likely that at Irene’s request, Don Attilio had hospital staff waiting to take Giulia under their care. After hearing a recount of her treatment, the player interacts with Giulia’s reflection in a mirror, also in the form of a doll.
As you choose your responses to the mirror’s questions, it quickly becomes apparent if not already that some or all events in the game may have only occurred in Giulia’s head.
While it is impossible to confirm what truly happened, two scenarios emerge as the most likely. Each of them has plenty of supporting and opposing evidence, and ultimately the truth is what the player chooses to believe in.
Family and Their Fate
Let’s first look at things we can reasonably be sure of. Irene suffered from a difficult pregnancy and birth with Martha and Giulia, making her unable to conceive and weak. To treat her symptoms, she was prescribed a German drug called Pervitin – also known as methamphetamine. Irene likely was not a particularly good person from the start (remember, she married a Nazi officer), but the side effects of her meth addiction made her explode violently towards her children, especially Giulia.
The shock led to Martha becoming deaf and mute (a condition later revealed to be pretended for fifteen years), while Giulia only suppressed the horrible memories of Irene’s treatment.
Shortly before the game begins, both Giulia and Martha engage in a sexual relationship with their friend Lapo without the other’s knowledge. Both become pregnant. Unable to deal with the guilt of the pregnancies and being Irene’s favorite, Martha pretends to be Giulia and provokes Irene to kill her, allowing the real Giulia to assume Martha’s identity as the beloved child. She leaves a note for Irene to come to the lake at dawn, where she will reveal her pregnancy as “Giulia” with the expectation that Irene will react violently.
While Giulia suspects that Irene killed Martha and it is possible she did, this is the least likely scenario. When Giulia listens to her confrontation recording with her mother, it is important to note that Irene’s response when told under threat of a gun to confess to her actions is that she admits she will have Giulia put into a facility.
If she indeed killed her daughter, that is likely the first thing that would come to her mind. However, Irene could be mentally ill like Giulia and have blocked out the idea of murder, but as with everything in this game, we cannot be sure.
During Giulia’s investigation into Martha’s death, Lapo is killed in a fight with German soldiers. Giulia suffers a miscarriage in her own pregnancy, and in the end kills her mother when she discovers Irene intends to put her into the facility. Finally, Communist forces storm the house, leading to Erich’s death and Giulia being beaten to near death.
The Theory that Giulia Killed Martha
In this narrative, most events of the game played out as presented to the player. Giulia arrives at the lake before Irene, forcing Martha to reveal her plan. This causes Giulia to pass out, and in the meantime, Martha is killed – perhaps due to her relationship with Lapo, or perhaps out of anger that Martha did not consult her on the plan. Whatever the reasons, Giulia wakes up and takes her natural photos without being aware of anything happening.
Unable to remember the fight, Giulia takes Martha’s message as it is and suspects Irene killed Martha as intended. Only after killing Irene and the development of the final image does she realize what she has done.
This is the narrative supported by most of the game, but after Giulia’s discovery and the rebel attack, the question about the whole story is raised. Irene’s confession and the second sequence of the puppet show both suggest Giulia’s psyche is far more fragmented than initially thought.
Theory of Martha’s Non-Existence
After the rebel attack, Giulia returns to the puppet show in an attempt to piece together her lost childhood memories. In this version of events, Irene only gave birth to one child – Giulia instead of twins. When Giulia was five or six years old, Irene severely beat her with a stick. This experience led to Giulia creating an alternate personality, Martha, who cannot hear or speak.
Internally, Giulia writes anything she feels pain or shame about as if it happened to Martha instead of herself. It seems Irene encouraged this as a way to keep the young Giulia from bothering her, telling the child to go play with “her sister”. Even Giulia’s parents went as far as assigning beds and closets for both characters.
After a particularly devastating incident where Irene angrily kills Giulia’s dog and feeds it to her, the child is sent to live with a nurse in the villa for three years. Irene was supposed to receive treatment for her illness during this time, and Martha’s character ultimately became dormant.
After becoming pregnant with Lapo’s child, Giulia’s guilt leads Martha to resurface. As Martha, she develops a plan to provoke Irene to kill her, thus “protecting” Giulia from the shame she feels. When Irene finds the letter, she becomes concerned as Martha has not appeared for years. She goes to the lake and finds that Giulia will not speak, believing Martha has become the dominant personality. A few days later, Giulia suffers a miscarriage. Later we see a bottle of Pervitin pills in Martha’s jewelry box – this could be the reason.
Giulia’s condition deteriorates rapidly over the next week, and she harms herself in front of the piano, something she tells herself internally that Irene did. Fearing for Giulia’s safety and seeing no other option, Irene arranges to send Giulia to a mental institution. When Giulia discovers this, she shoots Irene and cuts her during another period of unconsciousness.
While this version makes the most sense in the context of the final sequence of the game and is mostly consistent in both games if we assume Giulia imagined most of the story, it is worth mentioning that the evidence against Martha’s existence only appears after Giulia develops the picture showing the murder. It is possible that as a response to discovering she killed her twin sister, Giulia created a new narrative that supports Martha’s non-existence, absolving herself of any guilt after all, how could she have killed someone who wasn’t real?
