So, I feel more driven to see the House in Fata Morgana through because an adaptation was announced! It’s still something in planning, but it’d be exciting to see. And well, it’d be embarrassing if an adaptation came out before I finished this paythrough, huh?

Now, going forward, I’m extremely happy that a long-time theory was confirmed. However! There’s a lot of baggage surrounding that, so heavy warning for transphobic experiences in the second half of this.

The chapter starts out with a flashback of Giselle and Michel talking after their reconciliation, practicing Michel’s social skills. It’s a nice memory… until Morgana interrupts. She hates that shit.

The present rushes back, and the mansion has turned into a creepypasta place filled with blood. Michel remembers that he has to hunt down Morgana and Giselle and makes the reasonable guess that they’re up in that observatory tower. Good guess, but it’s locked off by three keys. Michel goes to the only one he can talk to, that funny talking painting, which is sorta breaking down like a glitch to go with the creepypasta vibe. The painting tells Michel that the spirits of the main guys behind the three main doors have the keys. The painting then remembers that Michel was the guy it needed to apologize to, but it blacks out before it could divulge further.

Well, whatever, Michel has business to do. The ghost of Mell makes Michel put his arm through a rose bush because he thought it was funny. He ends up giving the key, only requesting Michel talk to his sister if he sees her before disappearing. The ghost of Yukimasa gives Michel a jumpscare… but is surprisingly just chill about giving him a key. Much less chill is Jacopo, who almost blows Michel’s head off. He gives Michel his key and tries to bargain to come with, but like the others, he fades away.

Michel unlocks the door and begins trudging up the stairs of the observation tower. Michel and Morgana talk and Michel realizes: in all the years he knew Morgana, he never asked how she came to be the estate’s witch. He’s got an understanding for the guys he just got keys from, but not her. Morgana basically rolls her eyes, but she’s like, sure, I’ll tell you…

Morgana’s experience has a plain presentation, narration of her ramblings stretched across a decayed canvas to reflect her directly recounting a bloody tale. She’s no nonsense and straight to the point, and her story starts as so:

Morgana was a girl born to a woman that claimed she slept with no man, and thus claims Morgana as a child of God. Morgana bought into the image that her mother’s crafted for her, especially when she’s asked to heal an old woman. The old woman partook of her blood and claims to be healed, leading Morgana to be regarded as a child of God. Her mother wanted to rise and grind off of this and wanted people to pay for blessings, but Morgana refused because she’s not a religious grifter, but a true believer. Her mother hated that shit and sold her into slavery.

She became a slave to a powerful lord that desires her blood. But nah, not necessarily for healing, just for his well-off friends to drink and partake in. She is horribly brutalized as a piece of property for him…

In turn, going with the general creepypasta mood, Michel takes on the injuries that she got and blood starts flowing down the stairs to reflect her gory experiences. As Morgana promised: he’s gotta bear witness to more suffering. As Morgana tells her tales, Michel’s inflicted with the suffering that was bestowed on her. Morgana says he can make it all stop if he gives up on Giselle, but he refuses. He continues up the stairs, so the story goes on and on…

A slave rebellion happened at the lord’s manor and a slave rescued Morgana and took her to a brothel. Despite her fears, despite her initial attitude toward sex workers, she was well taken care of and viewed the prostitutes and the slave as her friends. Unfortunately, as shown time and time again, good times don’t last, as bandits attacked the brothel and Morgana is taken aside as a slave.

Morgana traveled in a slave caravan, and one man suddenly decides that enough is enough and holds a one-man rebellion. Unfortunately! The man was the Joker. He wound up kinda killing everyone but Morgana for laughs. Morgana traveled on her own and took over the abandoned hut of an old apothecary, taking on the witch mantle.

Acting as the witch, she played the part of a healer. Then, a boy with flaxen-hair appeared to her, confirming my suspicions: these tales are about her encounters with the original versions of the men cursed to wander the manor. This boy is easily Mell, and the Joker is of course Yukimasa. The lord in the meantime represents Jacopo at the height of his success.

Mell wanted medicine for his sick sister, and Morgana offered to give her blood to her. She appeared to get better, but not really – as Morgana reflects on, all her healing has just been placebo effects, but of course, that wasn’t a concept back then. Mell initially came off as a friend, but he started asking for more and more blood…

Suddenly, Yukimasa attempted to intrude, but Morgana warded him off. Mell appeared again, and the second she opens the door, Yukimasa chopped her arm off. Mell had made a deal with Yukimasa to give him access to her in exchange for an arm to feed to his sister. Yukimasa kidnapped her, and guess what, Lord Jacopo is still in power, and is back to drawing blood from her. She was confined in an observation tower of a church – the original incarnation of the house haunting the whole story – locked away by the three keys Michel had just searched for.

So much blood is drawn from Morgana that she straight up died. Looking down upon the three men, more concerned with blaming each other than the fact that she died, she wished for everyone that participated in her torture to become cursed. Be it through her truly being a daughter of God, or maybe an agent of the Devil, it is done. Those that have consumed her blood wind up dying, though, she believes that it was likely a result of her being in poor health and, well, drinking blood by itself is already bad for your health I imagine.

But while there’s a logical explanation for the mass death that led to the estate and its surrounding being abandoned for years, the three men at the center of her suffering clearly had supernatural shit happen to them, even though Morgana claims she was truly an ordinary human before death. Mell is to be reborn again with a loving sister, but she is made to love him too much and be something he regrets. Yukimasa is doomed to become a violent asshole, regardless of what his reconstruction would want for himself. And Jacopo, of course, will have the success of his predecessor, but that’s all he’ll have – he’ll have no one with him.

Love is at the center of the House in Fata Morgana. For Morgana, love is unattainable, as everyone she loves or could have cared about either betrayed her or got murdered. So thus, the reconstructions of the men that hurt her the most will never find love themselves. As for Michel, he pressed on through the shared suffering Morgana inflicted on him to recover his own love. He apologizes for never asking Morgana what her deal was and has a new understanding for her, but dammit, he’s getting to Giselle.

When he opens the door however, he does not see the chamber normally at the top of the observation tower. Instead, it’s a bedroom, and a furious Giselle is there. She’s mad that the Michels of the past never acknowledged her. What Michels of the past? Well, I pretty much cheered when Morgana harshly confirmed my suspicions:

Michel is a trans man, and Michelle was his past identity. Giselle had stumbled on this truth when she read the letter that Michel sent to his mother. In the letter, he asserted that he was a man and that he was going by Michel now. Giselle is angry that Michel never told her, and Michel’s hit so hard by transphobia that it sends his soul tumbling down and down through a seventh door.

I felt really happy to have my belief in Michel being trans just so strongly vindicated in the narrative. It’s also further affirmation that trans people aren’t alien to Japan. The weird checkmark losers larping as Japanese people even though they’re actually from, like, Ohio, need to acknowledge that all their knowledge of Japan is just shit they made up in their heads or guys on imageboards.

But whatever, Michel gets cast down toward a seventh door..

When Michel was born, he was initially seen as a blessing with his appearance likened to that of an angel instead of a demon like the future shows, paralleling how Morgana was seen as divine. In fact, his name’s directly taken from the angel that decorates the window of the cursed estate, Archangel Michael. He has a close relationship with two brothers: the goofy playboy artist Georges and serious wannabe knight Didier. Part of why he hangs out with them all the time is that it gives him a window to being a man, and narration frequently points to him experiencing dysphoria with regards to the fact that he can’t fully be like them.

Of course, Michel’s mother is unhappy that he isn’t playing the role of a woman. She even gets Georges’ fiancé, Aimee, to hang out with him to give him proper girl-time with someone his age. Michel’s attracted to Aimee, but well, Aimee is kinda homophobic about it. Michel secretly follows her and witnesses her venting to Didier about Michel’s homosexuality and Didier assures her that it’s just a phase, both treating Michel as sinful as if they weren’t committing adultery with each other.

Suddenly, Michel gets sick and is isolated from his family. He feels that his body’s changing, so he asks a servant to bring a mirror. As it happens, Michel had suddenly started adopting masculine traits in puberty, growing a body to be more in line with his brothers, in spite of not having a dick. So, this actually led me to look into things a bit, and Michel isn’t just a trans man, but an intersex trans man specifically. I actually didn’t really know much about intersex people despite the company I keep, so it was really cool that a game showed that. Happy that he’s physically transitioning into the man he wanted to be, ”Michelle” decides to take on the name Michel. As somebody who also took on a name that just removes the last two letters of their birth name, you go dude.

Unfortunately, his family is not receptive to it, viewing him as cursed and sinful. Michel decides to throw up a middle finger and tell about Aimee’s adultery, if they truly care so much about sin. Michel’s dragged back to his room, and after an incident where he gets a servant to undress to confirm that he’s still a man in spite of having different parts, he’s left isolated with no resources, a fate worse than what Jacopo’s White-Haired Girl suffered.

Somebody does come through, though. Unfortunately, it’s Aimee, who’s really spiteful for her adultery being revealed. For a few months, she’s the only one to bring him food and water. However, they’re delivered in torturous ways, accompanying her constantly misgendering him. Hey, remember when a trans man got into a debate with Ben Shapiro and all the bluecheck fuckers insisted that he was really a woman, even though you probably wouldn’t have clocked it if he wasn’t upfront about being trans and he looked more stereotypically manly than Shapiro? Everyone’s transphobia here really got the same energy.

Eventually, Aimee just straight up gets bored since she’s just your average Twitter troll and leaves regular servants to attend to Michel, who all view him as a cursed child at this point. Two years after Michel came out to his family, Michel’s brothers finally come to him to rescue him: their father straight up wants him executed.

And so, Michel is brought to the ruined manor. Georges promises that he’ll bring Michel back when he takes power after their dad dies. Michel asks if they see him as a man. Georges insists that he does, but Didier… well, he doesn’t say anything. It surely isn’t foreboding.

Michel lives on his own for two years. He discovers Morgana’s decomposing skeleton and comforts it, viewing her as somebody that suffered more than he did, pitying her to distract himself from his own pitiable situation. As it happens, Michel hadn’t cut off contact with his mother, who didn’t want him dead like the father – but she very much wants her “daughter” back. Michel deadnames and misgenders himself in his correspondence with her, waiting for the day he can rip off his mask.

Then he receives a gift with a letter from his mom. Remember that ruined painting Giselle found? I was right! It was a painting of him – or specifically, how Georges and his mother imagined he’d look like if his “curse” was erased. Michel is enraged and he desecrates the painting… and that rage summons Morgana.

Morgana claims that she became an unchained spirit through Michel comforting her corpse, and she sees a kindred spirit in him: both as somebody that suffered and somebody that really fucking hates the people that wronged him. She promises that she could put a curse on his family and get them killed. However, he refuses. In spite of the painting Georges made of him, Michel holds on to the rosy memories he made with Georges and Didier and wants to properly reunite as brothers, and he doesn’t want to hurt them, even emotionally.

Years pass. Michel has a roommate now, but unfortunately, she’s kind of an annoying asshole. Like Giselle constructing the shell of the maid, Michel constructs a shell for himself too: the closed off, emotionally dead man in the first half of the true fourth door. This was done both to cope with his living situation and to avoid the raging vengeance Morgana wants him to act on. He’s the Michel Jordan of Drunk Driving. Truly, hating people won’t make them suck any less.

Then, Giselle finally arrives. As it happens, Michel’s mother and Morgana had egged on his suspicions and contempt toward her. Additionally, we now have the context that Giselle’s happy face reminded him too much of Aimee, who wore a similarly happy face when she wasn’t actively abusing him and was scared that Giselle was actually just another Aimee. Honestly, having your first crush be an abuser kinda puts a damper on getting another one. But thankfully, they of course reconcile and come to be in love.

However, the one thing that Michel hasn’t told her is his trans identity. Then, the Bollinger father dies and Georges is set to rule the estate, so Michel plans to come out to Giselle if his family accepts and welcomes him back.

Unfortunately, we know what actually happens. This time though, we have the horrible context that the killing of Michel is actually transphobic in nature. However, now viewing events from Michel’s direct perspective, we get one last layer of context that really drives a spike through the heart: Michel’s brother, Didier, was the knight leading everyone. While his mother being transphobic to Michel was still a distinct possibility, he didn’t suspect his brothers also rejecting him and seeing him as a demon. It makes his slaying feel just so much worse on this go around.

Chained to his body, Michel’s soul witnesses his body getting crucified, his intersex naked body getting exposed and being regarded with disgust. To finish things off, his mother arrives. She regards the dead body as a demon that stole her “daughter” from her, mirroring the rhetoric that transphobic mothers have toward their trans children, and eagerly burns his body up.

This whole aspect of The House in Fata Morgana hits really hard with real life transphobic violence in mind. Like, around two weeks ago, a trans man named Sam Nordquist was tortured and killed. That’s just a recent big incident, lest we forget Brianna Ghey and Nex Benedict – and those were just the big incidents I see talked about. Who knows about cases we haven’t heard of yet? With attitudes in this country right now, transphobic violence may get worse. With the announcement of the adaptation, I reeeeeeeally hope it does not skimp out on this aspect of the story. It’s hard to go through, but it’s an important story to put out there, you know.

Yes I know Brianna’s British, don’t act like England’s any better.

Anyway, a lesson I kinda took away from all this? Honestly? Just cut off your family if they don’t approve of your identity. Fuck em.

After witnessing his destruction, Michel’s soul wandered the afterlife, losing all sense of himself. Then he started putting himself back together, hearing Giselle calling for him, leading to our here and now. Morgana claims that Giselle had rejected him, and he should totally just give in to her to keep cursing people or just ditch Giselle and live life as a free man.

Another interactable element happens here. You can let go and give it all to Morgana… or you can wait for Giselle to make an appearance.

The Giselle that rejected Michel being trans was just one of Morgana’s Joker tricks. The real one pulls him back from the self-loathing that Morgana reintroduced to him, assuring him that he is a man and that she loves him. They share a ghostly kiss and embrace, and it felt so good to see after all that… Happiness is in sight, but there are a few loose ends to tie up. After all: if Michel truly didn’t remember his stints as the White-Haired Girl when Giselle guided him through the first three doors as the Maid, who was that?

Plus, one more person needs to find closure: Morgana. After all, Michel was the one who inadvertently revived her, so he needs to end her story.

Morgana finally makes a proper physical (?) appearance when Michel approaches her, kinda pissed that he broke Giselle away from her. Michel’s confident in approaching her though, because as much as Morgana turned the place into a creepypasta land, it’s not her world to rule. As Michel points out, he independently managed to get into the true events of the fourth door without Morgana’s intervention, and so, he believes he can reach into Morgana’s past to see the full context of things from her time, and to perhaps confirm his belief that the vision of the White-Haired Girl was actually Morgana herself.

Morgana’s just like, “alright, bet,” and so, another story looms on the horizon…

That’s where this chapter of The House in Fata Morgana ends. This was a pretty long chapter that’s given me a lot to think about. If I played this in the past, it still would have felt bad, but in our present moment? Well.

Moving forward, Michel has a goal of understanding the three original men that ruined Morgana’s life, believing that they gotta have more to them than just being cartoonishly evil. And honestly, that’s a pretty valid belief to have with this story. We were of course shown a false version of Michel, then a true version of him that was nastier, then his past that revealed how he settled into that state to begin with. In general, the past few chapters have been about seeing things through different perspectives and the game pulls that off well.

With that in mind, what is the full truth of Morgana’s time? If Morgana truly was the White-Haired Girl, why did she throw herself in the role? Did she want to give these men a second chance and wanted to test if their reconstructions were better than their originals? Or did she just want a front-row seat to their lives falling apart? Who else was pulled into the afterlife space? We know that Maria was, but that painting definitely has to be Georges, right? Was Maria the nun presiding over the church Lord Jacopo financed? Well, we’ll see next time…