Scarlet Hollow Posting
Thursday, 4 June 2026 17:19![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lea_hazelLast week, after having heard endlessly about its branching potential and the quality of its art and writing, I played Scarlet Hollow. This is a fairly grisly horror game with shades of southern gothic, cosmic horror, body horror, and psychological horror, among others. Aside from the gorgeous hand-drawn art, it boasts a complex storyline and equally complex characters, with the kind of depth that demands multiple playthroughs and frantic, cross-referential theorizing.
I've been doing most of my Holler-posting on my Tumblr, but I wanted to put together a somewhat longer post that delves into some major spoilers, as well as speculating about some things that I might not yet unlocked. And DW felt like a more natural place to put a post like that.
In chapter 1, you can pass a Street Smarts check and (start to) explore the estate's Forbidden Wing. This is where you find the Scarlet family tree. In chapter 3, if you hang with Kaneeka and Stella in the library, you can read two books about the family's history. In chapter 4, you can take a minute while investigating the clinic to skim some death certificates of various Scarlet relations. There's a Book Smart check that helps, but the basic information isn't especially skill-gated.
I'll be spoiling both of those, plus some general plot things, and maybe adding some speculation of my own.
There are some timeline things that I think are interesting. Silas bought the land and founded the coal mine, but it was his son, Andrew, who first built the estate. Given that the family tree is the centerpiece of the ballroom in the neglected wing of the house, I imagine he commissioned it with the understanding that it would be updated to reflect future generations. For example, the tree shows all eight (mostly unnamed) of Silas's children, including Andrew's two older brothers, who were killed in the Civil War, both of who seem to have had at least one child. Several children or grandchildren have very young portraits marked with angel wings--died young, I assume.
So, out of Silas's eight children, three died very young, two had children that died very young, and two "cadet branches" appear to be open, if uncontinued. Either those branches of the family died out, or they lost contact with the main family after a generation or two. The last of the "cousins" that Andrew kept up with appears to be his sister's grandchild, depicted very sketchily with what might be angel wings. The others are just names, no portraits.
When we get to the third generation and on, the "cursed generations", things become more complicated. Theodore, brother of the nasty patriarch Enoch, is shown with angel wings, even though he was a grown man of almost thirty when he (according to the official family/town history) was buried in the mine collapse of 1918. Edwardine's brothers, who were killed in Normandy, are likewise shown with a wings adornment on their portrait. So are her daughters, including Mary-Belle, who died giving birth to her twins. It's a little inconsistent, since the deaths of Silas's sons in the Civil War isn't commemorated like this.
Regardless, given the time frame, we know there must have been at least two hands maintaining the family tree, possibly four. Andrew's dates of birth and death are not given, as far as I can tell. It's possible that there was a skip, and Edwardine was the next family member to take up updating the tree--it certainly suits her image as Enoch's dutiful daughter and surviving heir. Pearlanne's portrait looks to be that of an adult, and Tabitha is depicted as a child, though too small and sketchy to be able to tell how old she might have been. She knew "Gramma Eddie", we know that much.
Vivian is scratched out, of course, and the PC was never added to begin with.
But Hiram (or at least, one of Andrew's older brothers) lived long enough to have a son and daughter, and the son is depicted as a mustached adult. One of the daughters (the original Alexandra, maybe?) had children and grandchildren. What, if anything, happened to those branches of the family remains unknown. For that matter, we don't even know if they count as Scarlets for the great evil cosmic bargain that Enoch struck.
We also know next to nothing about Mary-Belle, the PC's grandmother, and literal nothing about Edwardine's husband. Or Enoch's wife, for that matter, but that's more in line with what you'd expect.
We know a lot about Edwardine. At the time of the collapse (and the deal that followed), she was about 5 years old. Charlie was her childhood friend, but she was at odds with her brother, Joseph, though he was only one year younger than her. Possibly he received favoritism for being the son and heir. After the collapse, Enoch had a second son, Lewis. Both sons were sent to Normandy and died there, within a day of each other, in June 1944.
In April of the following year, Edwardine gave birth to her illegitimate son by Charlie, naming him after her grandfather and his father, despite the fact that he was (according to official records) stillborn. That's ten months after her brothers died, so the whole affair with Charlie can't have lasted very long. Is it really a coincidence that Charles Shaw succumbed to a lifetime of alcohol abuse, charging his son with clearing the family name, at the same time that Edwardine was grieving her brothers, overwhelmed by her new status as sole heir, and likely very vulnerable?
It gets better. Her legitimate daughters (by the alleged husband) were born in September '46 and December '47. Within maybe six months of giving birth to her son, she was married to an unnamed husband, with whom she had two children in consecutive years, and then none at all. Worth noting again that Eddie's YOB is 1913, so she was already 31 when her brothers died--presumably unmarried, and certainly without children. Difficult to imagine a notorious patriarch like Enoch, who supposedly exerted absolute control over his daughter, letting her reach 30 without a proper, approved husband. The most likely explanation, I think, is that he ignored her until he needed her.
Later, we know she learned that her younger daughter, Alexandra, was aware (in her childish way) or what was going on in the estate. She talked to "the boy in the wall" and said that her mother made her a "special dinner" after she told her. Alexandra "disappeared" on the same day that Enoch died in an "accident". The lore seems to want to lead us to a certain conclusion--Enoch controlled Eddie long enough to make her give up her lover, take a husband she was apathetic and/or hostile to, sacrifice her love-child with Charlie, and later, sacrifice Alexandra when she learned about it. And it was only that last sacrifice that made her snap and push him off a cliff to his death.
And henceforth, there was no Enoch, and Edwardine was the scary matriarch of the Scarlet family.
She raised her last remaining daughter until a tryst (maybe) left her pregnant, and when Mary-Belle succumbed to death by childbirth (maybe), Edwardine raised the twins. According to Sybil, Pearlanne was always the chosen twin, and Vivian was "the family punching bag". I speculate that her temperament reminded Edwardine of Alexandra, in some way, so she pushed her away to avoid forming a bond. As fraternal twins, they were the same age and both equally illegitimate, so that can't have anything to do with it. Something essential in Vivian's character, I think.
Edwardine was also one of very few Scarlets to die "of old age", as it were. Her grandfather Andrew might have done, his date of death isn't given, as far as I know.
I wonder whether the final chapters might give us some insight into Mary-Belle and her home life after Alexandra's death. The fifth seal is under the church, where we pretty well know we're going next, to deal with Tulip's so-called rats. What horrific family memory will we see in the church? The seal was put in when Edwardine was a child, but we know from the Annex haunting that later events can also imprint their memories there. Edwardine scolding her teen-pregnant daughter, is what I would speculate. I'd like to learn something about Mary-Belle, see her perspective, if only for a bit.
I also have a whole long bit of speculation about Edwardine's love child, but I think those are mostly questions that can be answered through the game, so I'd like to try and find them myself, for now.
Oh! One last bit about Edwardine's so-called husband. From chapter 5's snoop, we know that Tabitha's father is still alive, and according to her, was still married to Pearlanne at the time of her death. We know that Pearlanne forcibly cut contact between Tabitha and her dad, holding back the cards and gifts he sent, and lying to Tabitha that he was a deadbeat who didn't care about her. In his cards, he says he hasn't seen her in fifteen years, which means he left when she was around 5-6. I think Pearlanne probably drove him out to keep iron control over Tabitha, and I think she probably got the idea from Eddie, who might have done something similar with her alleged husband. Actually, this all might have gone down right around the time that Eddie was dying.
That's my hypothesis, anyway. All part and parcel of repackaging the patriarchal Scarlet bullshit as #girlboss.
I could probably write a lot more about it, but I gotta draw the line somewhere.
I've been doing most of my Holler-posting on my Tumblr, but I wanted to put together a somewhat longer post that delves into some major spoilers, as well as speculating about some things that I might not yet unlocked. And DW felt like a more natural place to put a post like that.
In chapter 1, you can pass a Street Smarts check and (start to) explore the estate's Forbidden Wing. This is where you find the Scarlet family tree. In chapter 3, if you hang with Kaneeka and Stella in the library, you can read two books about the family's history. In chapter 4, you can take a minute while investigating the clinic to skim some death certificates of various Scarlet relations. There's a Book Smart check that helps, but the basic information isn't especially skill-gated.
I'll be spoiling both of those, plus some general plot things, and maybe adding some speculation of my own.
There are some timeline things that I think are interesting. Silas bought the land and founded the coal mine, but it was his son, Andrew, who first built the estate. Given that the family tree is the centerpiece of the ballroom in the neglected wing of the house, I imagine he commissioned it with the understanding that it would be updated to reflect future generations. For example, the tree shows all eight (mostly unnamed) of Silas's children, including Andrew's two older brothers, who were killed in the Civil War, both of who seem to have had at least one child. Several children or grandchildren have very young portraits marked with angel wings--died young, I assume.
So, out of Silas's eight children, three died very young, two had children that died very young, and two "cadet branches" appear to be open, if uncontinued. Either those branches of the family died out, or they lost contact with the main family after a generation or two. The last of the "cousins" that Andrew kept up with appears to be his sister's grandchild, depicted very sketchily with what might be angel wings. The others are just names, no portraits.
When we get to the third generation and on, the "cursed generations", things become more complicated. Theodore, brother of the nasty patriarch Enoch, is shown with angel wings, even though he was a grown man of almost thirty when he (according to the official family/town history) was buried in the mine collapse of 1918. Edwardine's brothers, who were killed in Normandy, are likewise shown with a wings adornment on their portrait. So are her daughters, including Mary-Belle, who died giving birth to her twins. It's a little inconsistent, since the deaths of Silas's sons in the Civil War isn't commemorated like this.
Regardless, given the time frame, we know there must have been at least two hands maintaining the family tree, possibly four. Andrew's dates of birth and death are not given, as far as I can tell. It's possible that there was a skip, and Edwardine was the next family member to take up updating the tree--it certainly suits her image as Enoch's dutiful daughter and surviving heir. Pearlanne's portrait looks to be that of an adult, and Tabitha is depicted as a child, though too small and sketchy to be able to tell how old she might have been. She knew "Gramma Eddie", we know that much.
Vivian is scratched out, of course, and the PC was never added to begin with.
But Hiram (or at least, one of Andrew's older brothers) lived long enough to have a son and daughter, and the son is depicted as a mustached adult. One of the daughters (the original Alexandra, maybe?) had children and grandchildren. What, if anything, happened to those branches of the family remains unknown. For that matter, we don't even know if they count as Scarlets for the great evil cosmic bargain that Enoch struck.
We also know next to nothing about Mary-Belle, the PC's grandmother, and literal nothing about Edwardine's husband. Or Enoch's wife, for that matter, but that's more in line with what you'd expect.
We know a lot about Edwardine. At the time of the collapse (and the deal that followed), she was about 5 years old. Charlie was her childhood friend, but she was at odds with her brother, Joseph, though he was only one year younger than her. Possibly he received favoritism for being the son and heir. After the collapse, Enoch had a second son, Lewis. Both sons were sent to Normandy and died there, within a day of each other, in June 1944.
In April of the following year, Edwardine gave birth to her illegitimate son by Charlie, naming him after her grandfather and his father, despite the fact that he was (according to official records) stillborn. That's ten months after her brothers died, so the whole affair with Charlie can't have lasted very long. Is it really a coincidence that Charles Shaw succumbed to a lifetime of alcohol abuse, charging his son with clearing the family name, at the same time that Edwardine was grieving her brothers, overwhelmed by her new status as sole heir, and likely very vulnerable?
It gets better. Her legitimate daughters (by the alleged husband) were born in September '46 and December '47. Within maybe six months of giving birth to her son, she was married to an unnamed husband, with whom she had two children in consecutive years, and then none at all. Worth noting again that Eddie's YOB is 1913, so she was already 31 when her brothers died--presumably unmarried, and certainly without children. Difficult to imagine a notorious patriarch like Enoch, who supposedly exerted absolute control over his daughter, letting her reach 30 without a proper, approved husband. The most likely explanation, I think, is that he ignored her until he needed her.
Later, we know she learned that her younger daughter, Alexandra, was aware (in her childish way) or what was going on in the estate. She talked to "the boy in the wall" and said that her mother made her a "special dinner" after she told her. Alexandra "disappeared" on the same day that Enoch died in an "accident". The lore seems to want to lead us to a certain conclusion--Enoch controlled Eddie long enough to make her give up her lover, take a husband she was apathetic and/or hostile to, sacrifice her love-child with Charlie, and later, sacrifice Alexandra when she learned about it. And it was only that last sacrifice that made her snap and push him off a cliff to his death.
And henceforth, there was no Enoch, and Edwardine was the scary matriarch of the Scarlet family.
She raised her last remaining daughter until a tryst (maybe) left her pregnant, and when Mary-Belle succumbed to death by childbirth (maybe), Edwardine raised the twins. According to Sybil, Pearlanne was always the chosen twin, and Vivian was "the family punching bag". I speculate that her temperament reminded Edwardine of Alexandra, in some way, so she pushed her away to avoid forming a bond. As fraternal twins, they were the same age and both equally illegitimate, so that can't have anything to do with it. Something essential in Vivian's character, I think.
Edwardine was also one of very few Scarlets to die "of old age", as it were. Her grandfather Andrew might have done, his date of death isn't given, as far as I know.
I wonder whether the final chapters might give us some insight into Mary-Belle and her home life after Alexandra's death. The fifth seal is under the church, where we pretty well know we're going next, to deal with Tulip's so-called rats. What horrific family memory will we see in the church? The seal was put in when Edwardine was a child, but we know from the Annex haunting that later events can also imprint their memories there. Edwardine scolding her teen-pregnant daughter, is what I would speculate. I'd like to learn something about Mary-Belle, see her perspective, if only for a bit.
I also have a whole long bit of speculation about Edwardine's love child, but I think those are mostly questions that can be answered through the game, so I'd like to try and find them myself, for now.
Oh! One last bit about Edwardine's so-called husband. From chapter 5's snoop, we know that Tabitha's father is still alive, and according to her, was still married to Pearlanne at the time of her death. We know that Pearlanne forcibly cut contact between Tabitha and her dad, holding back the cards and gifts he sent, and lying to Tabitha that he was a deadbeat who didn't care about her. In his cards, he says he hasn't seen her in fifteen years, which means he left when she was around 5-6. I think Pearlanne probably drove him out to keep iron control over Tabitha, and I think she probably got the idea from Eddie, who might have done something similar with her alleged husband. Actually, this all might have gone down right around the time that Eddie was dying.
That's my hypothesis, anyway. All part and parcel of repackaging the patriarchal Scarlet bullshit as #girlboss.
I could probably write a lot more about it, but I gotta draw the line somewhere.
