The Ashtray Maze is easily the highpoint of Control and this is in no small part due to the amazing soundtrack.
Note: This article contains major spoilers for Control–including the ending.
In the last hours of the game, you need to guide Jesse through the ever-changing Ashtray Maze. Of course, this is easier said than done. As you strap on a borrowed walkman–the key to progressing through the area–you are greeted by the awesome Norse Metal song “Take Control” by the fictional band Old Gods of Asgard (known in the real world by the name Poets of the Fall).
While this music makes you feel like a badass as you shoot your way through one of the game’s toughest gauntlets, it doesn’t exactly give you a chance to listen to the song’s lyrics–which is a shame because they’re actually all about Jesse and her life both before and after entering the Oldest House. Hell, the song even spoils the ending of the game mere minutes before you get to experience it yourself. It’s an amazing easter egg and one well worth breaking down, so let’s do just that.
The important thing to note from the start is who the viewpoint character is for the song–who the “I” is that is singing. From context, it’s clear that it’s Jesse–specifically post-ending Jesse–which makes the fact that she’s listening to it in the game itself even more surreal.
Take control, take control
Jesse has to take control of so many things in the game: the old house, the Bureau, her life, her mind, her powers, her past, and her future. Of course, this would be her inner mantra.
I see a vision rising, dreary
Fading in as children play twilight games
In the town called Ordinary
An eye of light reveals a gateway to doomsday
It’s no surprise that Jesse dreams of the events in Ordinary where she, along with her brother and the most picked-on kid in school, used the Slide Projector AWE to play in other worlds. And indeed, one such gateway opened by the projector did spell doomsday for their town.
In that projection of reality
Something passes through the stars, shifting walls
Enter agents of ill fantasy
For evil holds you in its arms, false alarms
One of the slides was connected to the world of the Hiss–a malevolent race of beings. When they were let into the Oldest House via the projector years later, they began physically remaking the internal structure of the house. This invasion was possible because one of the Hiss trapped in a different reality invaded Director Trench’s mind, deceiving him and making him doubt his allies little by little over a long period of time–eventually driving him to believe the only way to save the world was to let the Hiss in.
Illusory, treading on reality
Polaris in a web of hypocrisy
Take control, take control
Like the Hiss, Polaris is a being made of resonance–almost undetectable in our own reality. However, unlike the Hiss, she is against taking people over to achieve her goals. Yet in both the crisis in Ordinary and the events of Control, she is forced to inhabit Jesse to thwart the Hiss–thus making her a hypocrite.
Oh, can’t you see, see the light is fading?
And in the night the demons rage and call your name
No deeper madness than your own making
Visions lashing blades of shame, but will you take the blame?
Late in the game–shortly after this song is played to be precise–Jesse experiences first hand what it’s like to be controlled by the Hiss. She’s left in her own personal hell where she is living a truly unimportant existence, forced to do only the most menial tasks and being unfairly scolded for the quality of her work.
Hissing noises in the hallway
Bloodshot eyes, staring through, what seeds are sown?
Who’ll survive the blood red power play?
Who’ll take control, whose name will be known?
With the Hiss having invaded the Bureau of Control, the vast majority of its agents are under Hiss control. Their eyes now glow red and many have been warped into abominations. The Hiss themselves have one major goal: to unseat the Board as the rulers of both the Old House and the Astral Plane. As for if they’ll succeed or not… well, that’s the entire story of the game.
Illusory, reality’s all fallacy
Polaris in a web of hypocrisy
Take control, take control
As Jesse explains at the start of the game, what we call reality is like a single room with a poster on the wall. There is actually so much more out there than we can even imagine. Pretending our one little room is all there is to existence is a lie we tell ourselves to feel safe.
I wish I’d had the wherewithal to find you when I had the chance
Instead I danced with death in fervour’s skin
I missed the moment before the fall to recognize I had a voice
A choice to stop it all from happening
If only I could save you from the pain
Jesse’s biggest regret is not being able to find her brother, Dylan, in all the years they were separated. Even when she finally got inside the Oldest House, she spent her time battling for her life against the Hiss instead of hunting for him like she wanted. When they were finally reunited, she failed to realize she had the power–and the duty–to stop him. Because she didn’t drive the Hiss out of him then and there, Hedron was killed and the Hiss almost won by replacing the Board and setting up Dylan as their own Director. But more than anything, Jesse regrets not being able to protect her brother from all the suffering he experienced in the years they were separated–the pain that drove him to let the Hiss in.
A rising sense of awe and wonder
A might I see has always been deep within me
I can feel my inborn power
I call the shots when it’s all finally clear to see
At the start, Jesse believes that the supernatural things she can do are caused entirely by an external force–i.e., Polaris. However, as she learns when breaking free from Hiss control after the death of Hedron, she was always potentially able to wield supernatural powers (just like her brother and other past Directors). Polaris may be the literal power source she utilizes but the ability to control the various powers is her own, not someone else’s.
And so I’m drawn ever deeper
In the Oldest House and all these empty rooms
This vacant, spellbound mystery motel
Where I’m the keeper, where I set the rules
As she explores the Oldest House, Jesse goes on a personal journey as well. Near the end of the game, when controlled by the Hiss, the Ocean View Motel acts as a metaphor for her own mind. Inside it, she takes the final step to once again take back control and discovers who she truly is in the process: She is the master of her own mind, her own fate, and–as the Director–the Oldest House itself.
Potency is my new reality
Polaris living now inside of me
I control, I control
Polaris exists within Jesse, feeding her raw power. However, it is Jesse that decides when and how that power be used. She is truly in control of her life. And that control–despite all the supernatural craziness surrounding her–brings the happiness she has long been searching for.
Control is available for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
