I have no mouth
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is an original sci-fi short story written by Harlan Ellison in 1966. It won the prestigious Hugo Award for science fiction two years later, and was adapted by the author himself into a point and click graphic adventure game with the same name in 1995, which largely increased the title’s popularity and is today still considered a cult classic of horror videogames.
Warning: this review contains spoilers for both the short story and videogame
The plot follows the misadventures of five tortured souls. The story is set a post-apocalyptic world in which the Cold War evolved into a world war between three major potencies - the US, Russia, and China - each of which created their own super-computer, or “Allied Mastercomputer” (AM). One of the computers soon gained sentience, absorbed the other two, and re-named itself AM (after “cogito, ergo sum … I think, therefore I AM”). Like most sentient beings, AM goes crazy and puts an end to the war by destroying all of humanity, with the exception of the aforementioned five individuals whom I keeps as torture pets for its own entertainment. At the time of the narration, Gorrister, Benny, Nimdok, Ted and Ellen have been kept alive and tortured by AM for 109 years.
While the short story and the game share the same premise and characters, there are a few plot differences: the novel is much more concise and focuses on a single event, narrated by the point of view of Ted. The game goes much more in-depth into the characters’ individual backstories, giving the player a chance to impersonate each of them. It also offers a few alternate endings, although they all more-or-less relate to the ending of the book, and hardly any of them could be considered a happy ending. Since Ellison co-wrote the script and dialogues in the game, and even voiced AM himself, the content of the game can considered canon and complementary to that of the novel.
Next page: I have No Mouth, and I Must Scream - Short Story Analysis
I have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison (1996)
The original short story from Harlan Ellison is only a few pages long and can be found online in pdf form. If you'd rather have a physical copy and support the author, you can also find this story as part of his Deathbird Stories collection.
Characters
Ted acts as a narrator, introducing the other characters and claiming to be the only one who maintained a sound and sane state of mind in spite of AM’s abuse. This may or may not be true, as hints of delusion and paranoia emerge throughout the story. Benny, on the other hand, has been affected the most by AM, who transformed him from a brilliant, handsome scientist into a monkey-like being with the maturity of a small child and priapism. Gorrister tells him the story of how AM was born to calm him down - he himself used to have a strong personality full of ideals, now he shrugs at everything that happens, apathetic. Nimdok, the older man in the group, is barely even mentioned in the story - we know that it was AM who gave him this name and he occasionally separates him from the group, only to have him return shocked and dripping with blood. In the audiobook (as well as in the game), he is voiced with a German accent. Finally we have the only woman in the group, Ellen, who used to be proud of her chastity prior to being captured by AM - she is now letting the other four men take advantage of her body for her own pleasure and in exchange for protection. This makes Ted jealous, especially of Benny whom he claims Ellen prefers spending time with due to the size of his penis (which is also somewhat ironic given that Benny was homosexual prior to being turned into an animal).
Last but not least, the antagonist AM: despite being depicted as a sadistic, evil artificial intelligence, the story depicts him as flawed due to its very own sentiency: created as a war machine, even upon conquering the world it finds itself confined within the limitations of its own machinery. It has no goal, no purpose, but is capable of feeling hatred (and possibly envy) towards humans, to the point in which it has to keep some of them alive so that he can keep toying with them, endlessly, because what else could it do otherwise? As the story progresses, it is more and more evident how AM depends on the other characters, and how it torturing them is a mere act of self-actualization, the fulfilment of a task that it gave itself in order to keep being.
Plot
While focusing on a specific, trivial event (a quest for canned food), the plot quickly reaches a climax in which the characters find an opportunity to free themselves from AM. Upon reaching an ice cave filled with the canned food they were looking for, only to realise that they had no way to open the cans, starved, Benny starts going mad and succumbing to its animalistic instincts: he jumps at Gorrister and starts eating his face. Ted, knowing that AM would never allow Gorrister to die, maintains his calm - but then sees an opportunity. As Gorrister’s screaming cause ice spears to fall off the ceiling, in an instant, Ted grabs one and kills Benny, then Gorrister. Ellen sees him and stabs Nimdok with an icicle. Ted and Ellen then look at each other, knowing that AM is coming for them, angrier than ever, and they need to be quick. Ted stabs and kills her, but it’s too late for him: AM shows up, furious, and turns Ted into a blob, a “great soft jelly thing” that has no mouth, no eyes, no arms nor legs, making sure that he will not be in any way able to harm or kill himself, wandering endlessly and alone… “I have no mouth. And I must scream.”
Next page: I have No Mouth, and I Must Scream - Video Game Review
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (1995 videogame) [Steam]
Characters
The role and story of AM stays pretty much the same compared to the original story, while the game focuses a lot more on the individual stories of the other five characters, and it does so by having AM tailor its torture methods based on their past experiences, personality and fears. This is a unique way to experience the character’s psyche - which translates particularly well to exploratory nature of the point and click graphic adventure genre. Getting to know the characters better also leaves with a few additional questions: why were these specific individuals picked by AM? No such reason is mentioned in the book, so one may assume they were chosen at random. In the game, though, it is stressed how all characters in the story had some kind of flaw or sin they committed in their past which AM is “punishing” them for - with the exception of Ellen, who did not seem to have committed such crimes. Or it could be that they were all indeed picked at random, and it just happens that statistically 4 out of 5 humans are inherently flawed?
While Ted was the main narrator in the original story, in the game it is AM - whose terrific, filled-with-hatred voice was provided by Harlan Ellison himself - who introduces each of the main characters and their game arc:
Ted
“Do they know you’re a fraud, Ted? Have you told them there wasn’t any money, and no great home on the shore drive, no speedboat and no wonderful cabin cruiser that could sleep twelve and a crew of six? Do they know? Have you let them in your other secrets, Ted? Are they ready to cut you, to torture half as well as I can, just to find out the secrets? Maybe I’ll rat you out, sweetheart!”
Ted’s story takes place in a medieval castle as he pictures himself as a knight in a shiny armor whose mission is to save Ellen - towards whom he has feelings of jealousy, not unlike his book counterpart. But unlike the book, he is hardly the hero of this story. He is depicted as narcissistic, selfish, a liar and a womanizer, he feels entitled to the love of Ellen, although depending on player’s actions he can redeem himself.
Gorrister
“Do you remember the last words you heard your wife speak before they took her to the asylum? Huh? Before they locked her away in the room? That tiny room? She looked at you so sadly, and like a small animal she said, “I didn’t make too much noise did I, honey?” The room is padded, Gorrister. No windows. No way out. How long has she been in the padded room, Gorrister? Ten years, twenty-five…or all the 109 years that you’ve lived down here in my belly, here, underground?”
Gorrister’s story is filled with dread and depression, and unlike his book counterpart, his life was filled with these already prior to being imprisoned by AM. Gorrister felt responsible for his wife’s insanity and ultimate institutionalization, which led him to have suicidal thoughts. His torture scenario created by AM deeply explores these psychological elements, bringing back a few characters from his past.
Benny
“Sometimes I blind you and permit you to wander like an eyeless insect in a world of death. But other times, I wither your arms so you can’t scratch your chewed stump of a nose. And I’ve changed your handsome, strong masculine good looks into the hideous warped countenance of an ape-thing, haven’t I, Benny? Do you know why? Can you guess, Benny? Remember Private First Class Brickman in a rice paddy in China? No…? It wouldn’t hurt you to remember, Benny. Then you might be able to suffer my torment with a little greater sense of retribution. You might walk a mile in my shoes.”
Benny is the character whose backstory most differs from the original novel. Not a brilliant theorist and college professor, in the game, Benny was instead a cold-blooded military commander who is depicted as arrogant, pitiless, and racist. AM turns him into a monkey-like beast, and regularly cripples him, makes him blind, and takes away his ability to speak - although before his torture scenario he restores his mind so that he can “savour the horror of his repast”. His animalistic appetite is a main theme in the game, and in a particularly fucked up scene he even ends up eating a baby. This scene was deleted from the game before release but it's available on youtube.
Nimdok
“How are things in the pastry corps, Nimdok? Tell me again how you saw the smoke from the furnaces and you thought they might be roasting chickens? Or don’t you want to talk about all that, about your pal, the Good Doktor Mengele? For everyone else, it must be Hell, but it must be Heaven for you, eh, my good friend…we’re so much alike… we enjoy the same pleasures, mein good brother.”
Nimdok was the most enigmatic character in the book, and the game adds a lot of information to his back story. Like in the audiobook, he is given a German accent, although his appearance is tanned possibly due to his Jewish heritage or him having lived in Brazil. And by the way - he used to be a Nazi. Yup. Working as a scientist hand-to-hand with Dr. Josef Mengele (who even appears in the game!), he is responsible for horrific medical experiments and the death of thousands. Needless to say, his story arc is… unsettling, and filled with horrific images from World War II concentration camps.
Ellen
“So think, think about the yellow box, Ellen! Remember the pain? Remember the many caverns in which you felt the pain? Now, now, don’t start to cry, it’s only pain. Tsk tsk tsk. That’s such a sexist stereotype! Just remember the pain, Ellen, and think about how to end it, Ellen, to survive here in the center of my beating heart, my hungry belly, my tightened bowels. But be careful, dear, look around you…the only woman in the center of the earth… and these filthy creatures with you are men. Just a sweet warning, Ellen, my love.”
As aforementioned, Ellen is the only character who seems to have been picked by AM at random, or at least who seems to have been tortured gratuitously rather than as a form of punishment for something she’s done in the past. Instead, reviving her past is the punishment for Ellen, as she has to face a traumatic event that has led her to become terrified of the colour yellow. AM fully exploits this by having her explore a pyramid filled with everything yellow - constantly triggering her PTSD until the cause of her psychological trauma is revealed to the player in what is arguably the strongest scene in the game.
Ending
Unlike the original story, the game provides the characters with some degree of hope, as the Russian and Chinese super computers that had been absorbed by AM secretly try to help by giving one of the characters (chosen by the player) a chance to defeat AM. Depending on player’s choices, seven different endings are possible - with none of them being 100% “good” endings. In most cases, the character chosen meets the same fate that Ted had in the short story, becoming a mouthless monster and quoting the final section of the story including the titular sentence. Unlike the book, though, AM is revealed to have kept alive another 750 humans on the moon, cryogenically frozen, who may or may not be reawakened in the hope of repopulating Earth. It is a much less pessimistic plot turn, which suits the videogame medium - it would be unfair to make the player go through all the quests and puzzles in the game without giving them a chance to impact the story in a positive way.
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