Statues

There are 49 statues of humans in the game (and a few doves), and some believe that they are the most obvious unexplained game feature at the end of the game, which makes them good candidates for yet undiscovered stuff.

= List =

Isolated statues

 * Juggler in town.


 * Man reaching for a goblet in the peninsula, and another one in the [Hotel].


 * Giant statue of a woman on the mountain side


 * Statue of a woman near the dock in the Marsh, involved in a perspective trick with the previous one.


 * Statue of a woman in the lake (the same than on the mountain side?). This one is special in that it changes during the game.


 * Painter near the Marsh (the only cement statue with color).


 * Siren on a rock by the glass factory. This statue is special in that it is not made from cement but seem to be sculpted in the rock, as seen in the color of the hair that continues a strip of red rocks (which participates in two perspective tricks, as seen directly from the boat or reflected in water from the symmetry island).

Around the yellow maze

 * The King on his throne.


 * The Queen looking at her ring.


 * The guitarist looking at the Queen.


 * A couple trying to enter the room near the violet maze.


 * Two fencers.


 * Two guards with swords.

Between the violet and pale blue maze

 * A thief (?) holding a very big bag.

Under the pale blue maze

 * Two statues arguing at a desk surrounded with a lot of big bags.


 * A guy with a scythe, reaping wheat.

Under the symmetrical cyan maze

 * A bishop.


 * 2 guys in despair seating on the floor, their back against a pillar. (Are they the same guys than the statues with computers at the mountain's top?)


 * A man facing the wall.


 * A man waving at the previous one.

In the cement factory
All the statues in cement factory participate in the March of Progress.


 * Four statues of a men with a dove


 * Statues of doves before the windows.

At the mountain's top

 * Two alpinists (Who are twins? The same than the fencers in the Keep?)


 * The woman looking through the measure tool.


 * The politician.


 * The man hitting the parabolic structure with a hammer.


 * The man transporting the yellow box and the one guiding the cable.


 * Two men with laptops and chisels, sitting on the ground, their back against a pillar.


 * A couple arguing violently.


 * A man climbing on the parabolic structure.


 * A woman lying on the parabolic structure.

Inside the mountain
From top to bottom:


 * The guy stuck between office furniture in the strange artwork at the level of the first bridge.


 * The book keeper after the first bridge and before the room with models of the windmill and treehouses.


 * The speleologist at the bottom of the first cascade, before the second bridge.


 * The puzzle designer in the last room inside the mountain.


 * Mother and child with toy boat near the endgame elevator.

= Hypothesis =

A link between the statues in the Keep and at the top of the Mountain
Is there a relation between the statues in the Keep and those at the mountain top? Both place have an astonishingly high number of statues compared to other areas, and some statues from each area seem to be related:


 * The two fencers in the Keep and the two alpinists in the mountain are both a pair of girls competing, with a clear winner.


 * Two guys in despair are sitting on the ground, their back against a pillar.


 * A leader above all the others (politician / king).


 * A couple facing difficulties (one is trying to enter the King's court, the other is arguing violently by the cliff).


 * A woman highly focused on something (the Queen / the woman looking through the measure tool).


 * etc?

Stoning
Many people have hypothesized that the statues were the result of a stoning process, with different variations (e.g. slow or instantaneous, affecting the player or not).

The statues are metaphorical
Some have argued that the statues in the Keep represent society and the difficulty to ascend to the top, others have argued that the statues at the mountain's top represent things that prevent one from reaching happiness. Note that this interpretation can be compatible with others.

The statues are hints
For the mountain top, it has been argued that at least some statues can be used to find the precise position from which the puzzle can be solved.

The Masquerade interpretation
The Psalm46 video is unlocked by the challenge, and one has to watch it to get an environmental puzzle. It is supposed to have been a strong influence on the design of The Witness. One of the topics of the video is the Masquerade book, in which readers had to draw lines from the eyes of the characters depicted, going through the most prominent finger of their hands and feet (left eye to left hand and foot, right eye to right hand and foot), if any. The line could be continued to cross a letter in the text surrounding the pictures, which would give an anagram. The anagram would be solved (by using the order of all characters as they were all depicted together in a picture) to give the position of a treasure, indicated by the shadow of a cross held by a statue at a given time, a precise day. This construction resonates with some features of The Witness and especially with the statues:


 * Most statues seem to be stopped in some action, with the consequence that their general posture, the direction of their look, and the positions of their hands all feel quite unnatural. This aspect of statues already existed in a previous version of the Keep statues.


 * There seem to be a vertical ordering of the statues: in the Keep, the King is high above everybody while the Queen's throne is in a pit. One fencer is on the ground. And as we progress in the mazes, the statues get lower and lower below our level. A similar vertical ordering is present for the statues at the mountain's top, e.g. with the alpinists below and the guys climbing on the structure above. One question is to know if this ordering should be considered for the whole set of statues of the island, or if it should only be considered for some areas.


 * The shadows are very important in the game, and the idea of having the shadow of a cross indicating the location of a treasure reminds how the shadow of the top of a dead tree is cast on a white flower in the shaddy trees area.

Link with the developers' studio video
Some of the events in the endgame video seem to involve strange postures of the actor (e.g. when he falls on the floor and touches his knee) that can remind the postures of some statues (e.g. the fencer who lost). Also, the video ends with the stairway in the zen garden, which reminds of the vertical ordering of the statues.

Is there something to interpret in the statues?
We can ask ourselves how far we should go into interpreting stuff in general in The witness, and the statues in particular. But in multiple occasions (such as with the puzzles that rely on environment, the environmental puzzles or the perspective tricks), this game warned us about not interpreting things before having carefully observed everything. And with the statues in the quarry or the alternative interpretation of the statue of a man reaching for a goblet, you can see that there is actually a lot to observe before being able to interpret anything. And maybe, after all, the interpretation is not important, but what truly matters is the observation and discover non-obvious things, as with all the perspective tricks in the island.