›
If you have an email ending in @hotmail.com, @live.com or @outlook.com (or any other Microsoft-related domain), please consider changing it to another email provider; Microsoft decided to instantly block the server's IP, so emails can't be sent to these addresses.
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE

The fundamental premise of Grim Fandango

DonZabuDonZabu
edited 2011-06-12 23:08:19 in General

Okay, so you've got the Department of Dead, and their job is to help those who have recently died get to the Ninth Underworld by selling them travel packages, like walking sticks, ocean liners, or premium train tickets. To do this, they employ sales agents, like Manny, to sell the dead their packages.

But the packages the dead qualify for vary depending on how virtuously they lived their lives, and therein lies the problem: if what package you qualify for depends on how much of a good life you led, where does the sales part come in? If you qualify for a Number 9 ticket, for example, then they could probably just give it to you and phase out the sales aspect entirely. 

But the fact that salesmen are involved implies that the dead actually need to be sold their packages, which means that some sort of transaction is taking place, that the client is exchanging something for the package, and that they can theoretically choose cheaper packages than the ones they qualify for, or that a skilled salesman can actually sell the client a better package than what they originally qualified for. If that's the case, then what would the client be saving by choosing a cheaper package that they could make use of later down the line? They never say so in the game.

tl;dr: In Grim Fandango, "I'm your new travel agent" and "she qualifies for a ticket on the Number Nine" don't mix.

Comments

  • delta534delta534
    Tech support
    I really need to play that game. 
  • DonZabuDonZabu
    edited 2011-06-12 23:27:21

    I talked to my mother about it. She thinks it's some kind of anti-religious allegory. She thinks that of everything, though.

  • delta534delta534
    Tech support
    I'm currently acquiring it as we speak

    I think the salesmen are there mainly to "sell" ,to the sinners, that they will have to walk to the underworld.
  • BonSequiturBonSequitur
    As a petty and vindictive person, I have to take extra steps not to appear petty and vindictive.
    Well, the 'salesmen' in Grim Fandango are in fact the reapers. Their job entails shuffling people off their mortal coils, bringing them into the land of the dead, explaining things to them, and selling the idea of moving on to the ninth underworld to them. Presumably their job also involves finding the best possible package for each client and to some degree justifying their right to that package; as well as competing on getting the best clients. They are, however, described as travel agents more so than salesman, and the 'salesman' part seems to be just another vestigial habit that's carried into the underworld, much like Manny asking the counterfeiter if the can make passports (The dead, of course, need no passports - they are all citizens of one nation, and their king rides a pale horse.)
Sign In or Register to comment.