Define Wintermute


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In the context of The Long Dark, I'm afraid I have no idea. I've only encountered it as the name of an AI in William Gibson's Neuromancer.

Gibson has lived in Canada for many years and has written a short story titled "Hinterlands" (which happens to be one of my favorites of his), but I'm fairly certain that's just coincidence. I doubt there's any real connection between Gibson and TLD besides the name, but I guess I won't know for sure until after August 1st.

 

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Wintermute isn't a real word, but more rather a word created by the devs to describe the state you are thrown into in TLD. The title of the game itself, The Long Dark, means darkness (obviously), and a connotation to a lack of sight or that there is nothing to be seen but darkness. With Wintermute, the thing that comes to mind is its relation to hearing. When I think of Wintermute in my head, I think of how freshly fallen snow muffles the sound of everything around you. It creates a really eerie yet beautiful distortion in nature, where nothing can be heard. Wintermute sounds to me like danger because of the deafness you feel when out in the snow like that. Perhaps it also relates to speech, and that you would be left speechless if you crashed your plane into a cold wilderness with no sign of relief. Those are just my thoughts, and I applaud Hinterland for being so creative with their titles.

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I've checked it and there is, like many other words, no direct translation to english.

In german, it translates literally to "Winterstille". It expresses the silence in the wintertime (no birds singing, frozen rivers ...). Also people are more indoors because of the cold and are generally more quiet (prayerful?) towards christmas, "the end" (of the year). So part of the word also refers to the "end time" - what, in a apocalyptic dimension, is the theme of TLD.

The word fits perfectly because TLD actually is the only game i know that gives you that feeling.

All people who live in a country where you have 4 seasons (real summer and real winter - snow) know this expression.

Edited by MueckE
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On 5/19/2017 at 6:25 AM, NorseRaven99 said:

Wintermute isn't a real word, but more rather a word created by the devs to describe the state you are thrown into in TLD.

The word is real, and has been around a lot longer than Hinterland has. It's been used in a number of works of fiction well before TLD was dreamed of. Earliest uses of the word seem to be as an Anglicised version of a German surname.

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On 5/19/2017 at 10:43 PM, MueckE said:

In german, it translates literally to "Winterstille". It expresses the silence in the wintertime (no birds singing, frozen rivers ...). Also people are more indoors because of the cold and are generally more quiet (prayerful?) towards christmas, "the end" (of the year). So part of the word also refers to the "end time" - what, in a apocalyptic dimension, is the theme of TLD.

Thanks.. that may well be the best definition of the usage I've seen.

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Yeah @MueckE. Nice job explaining! Your definition was definitely "In context". Sorry for late reply even though I posted this thread haha.

I am definitely familiar with the silence of winter. Last winter in particular I would regularly go out in the woods to take wildlife photos, the atmosphere was very "TLD/wintermute". 

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To me the word WINTERMUTE is closely related with the Quiet Apocalypse concept. Winter is the season where nothing grows, there's no life, all is dead... and sometimes it makes reference to the end of the life (in a symbolic way). In other words, this is the Apocalypse, the end of any existence, like the Winter. But this is a Quiet Apocalypse, silent, mute... there's no fire, or earthquake/tsunami... here the power went out, the technology... everything was muted.

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On 6/12/2019 at 6:14 AM, Raphael van Lierop said:

WINTERMUTE doesn't mean any of these things.

Interesting question @MarrowStone !

I assumed it would have the meaning  "silence of wintertime" like @MueckE explained it. (Winterstille)

Hinterland is also a German word and means the same as in English (back-country)

Wintermute is also a family name from east Canada?

 

Would be very interesting to hear what it is meaning exactly here @Raphael van Lierop

 

 

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