Castle Shalem Theory

The thesis statement of castle Shalem theory is this: Shalem will become, or perhaps already is to some degree, the castle from Phantom and Crimson Solitaire.

This theory hinges on three points: The imagery and implications around Shalem, the connection between the Crimson Troupe and the Castle of Dreams as real-life fairytales, and the specific traits of fairytale castles as they apply to the Crimson Troupe castle that make the connection plausible.

Shalem's strange situation

Shalem is the least verifiably real person in the entire operator roster. Unlike every other operator in the game, Shalem's operator files present information that a Rhodes HR employee would have absolutely no reasonable way of knowing. They describe Shalem's nightmares, the way the Troupe indoctrinated its performers, and Shalem's own backstory in detail, despite Shalem being characterised as highly secretive about his past. The files describe Shalem as a character in a story, rather than a person in a world the way all other operator files do.

A game character's profile describing a character to you won't read as strange on first pass, but no other operator's files do this. Fellow Crimson Troupe refugee Phantom, characters with deeply mystical backgrounds like the Sui, dreamland fairies Iris and Bena, and even the alternate timeline bad end Skadi the Corrupting Heart all have their files framed as something that Rhodes Island's Human Resources department would reasonably be able to discover and want to record about this operator. The rare bits with no plausible author are normally always confined to the promotion record. In Shalem's case however, only the parts up to the medical information seem to actually be written by Rhodes HR, while the rest appears to be written by the Crimson Troupe instead. The majority of the information we as players have about Shalem are things that the Crimson Troupe have said about him, and they explicitly have very little interest in giving an accurate portrayal of who Shalem actually is.

Shalem is also implicitly clairvoyant. He has multiple lines where he refers to seeing or envisioning the future, and he knows things that he has no reasonable way of knowing. This isn't something the Crimson Troupe's actors can do in general, Phantom shows no indication of similar future sight beyond maybe the puppet he gives you in the Trapped Man encounter. It's Shalem in particular who has a somewhat looser connection to chronology than others.

I envisaged the scene in which we would formally meet, Doctor, and this very moment brings it to life. Operator Shalem, pleased to make your acquaintance. — Onboard

Welcome, Doctor. Indeed, I knew you would surely come. — Greeting

Doctor, might these be the books and documents you were looking for? No, no need to thank me, I'm simply glad to be of help. How would I have known what you needed? Heheh. That would be... secret. — Appointed assistant

See those on the stage... knowing nothing of their fates. — Begin operation

Their future is clear to see. — Selecting operator 2

A Shattered emblem, upon it carved the Crimson Troupe's design. Shalem preserves this part of the past, as if he long foresaw a day he'd hand it over. — Shalem's token

Head: Is that your prophecy, Abyss? Abyss: I'm not a prophet. I just saw it. — Shalem operator record

Shalem's files open up by saying he was in your life before you even realized, and you trust him, like a command for this to happen rather than a description of what happened. He came out of nowhere, and his history is unverified according to actual HR and only told through the unreliable narrator that decided what kind of "character" he would be. Functonally, Shalem does not exist outside the context of the Crimson Troupe. He did not exist until "the story" needed him to.

Shalem profile

Everything about 'Abyss' was created by the troupe. The 'self' that you had sought... — Shalem operator record

Shalem is so deeply entwined with the Crimson Troupe that nearly all the information we as players have about him is filtered through what the Troupe has to say about him, and everything else has to be gleaned from the moments where the Troupe's account of him doesn't line up with his actual behaviour. For example, although his files claim he disappeared from public view after Phantom arrived at Rhodes Island, Shalem is actually shown walking around and chatting up Mint in Rewinding Breeze, which is set shortly before the events of IS2. However, the nightmare in his operator record acknowledges this difference in behaviour too, casting doubt again on how much of anything Shalem does is his own will and how much of it is the inevitable fate the Troupe planned for him.

Although the troupe repeatedly claims that Shalem has no talent and they don't want him back, both his files and his nightmares involve the troupe urging him to go back on stage. Shalem himself, despite outwardly trying desperately to escape the Troupe's influence over him, also subconsciously seems to still hold a desire to prove himself as an actor. His New Year's line is ominous, and implies he expects to indeed lose himself to the arts eventually.

Shalem profile

Shalem: A stage, a theatre. This is the place that all actors strive for. — IS2 first ending

Broken Skull: Even now, you continue to contribute to the stage! They were wrong about you. You're a great actor! — Shalem operator record

After all, he's been named Shalem now, so I believe. Actors, you see, always get a chance to change their stage name and show once again. I'mvery much looking forward to his reentry—and then, the reproduction of his maiden role's tragedy. C'est la vie, so it will go. He has no aptitude for being an actor. But it's owed precisely to that that this play was begun, no? — IS2 theater board / Shalem weibo introduction

Some dance and song is all it takes—days like these never fail to tempt art into showing a hint of its beauty, such that more would bow to it. A grand performance is about to begin, Doctor, and when the time has come, will you be able to recognize the true me beneath the limelight? — New Year's blessing

Shalem's skin is called "The Fruition". Its flavour text is unavailable to view in game, like with many skins, but can be found in the game files.

"The curtains fall, as do ripened fruits. If you wish to taste the fruit, learn to create. They are best fallen, as they have elsewhere, as yours do."

This skin also has the words "Flower of Evil". Notably, Shalem is almost always wearing or carrying flowers in some way, even in unofficial drawings his artist Cenm0 posted on Weibo. His default jacket has a flower pattern on the lining, and in his skin the flowers are growing directly onto his body. In one particularly ominous design Cenm0 did, the diamond accessories on Shalem's head appear to have sprouted.

The Fruition. Note the flowers growing on his arm on the left and the words on the right.

All of this serves to frame Shalem as someone with some kind of future potential or purpose that he has yet to meet, which will consume him in some way, and of which he has some degree of awareness. He is the flower of evil that has yet to sprout, the fruit that has yet to ripen and fall. This imagery of waiting for a seed to bloom is also used by the Playwright when he explains his plans for Rhodes Island to the Troupe Master.

Playwright: Based on your requirements, I would recommend this chapter. All obstacles are swept away, the happy ending that everyone wanted comes true, and a dark seed is planted deep within the heart. When it sprouts and blooms, all things bright and beautiful will turn into the tragedy we hoped for. The protagonist does not know that his destiny is already determined. — IS2 ending 4

One final detail that casts doubt on how real of a person Shalem even is, is that his tail is translucent at the tip. This is consistently the case across his base artwork, promotion artwork, and skin, so it's safe to assume this is an intentional design choice.

Put it all together, and Shalem appears to be more of a construct than a real person. This is the very reason for his constant existential nightmare, the fear that he does not exist outside the confines of the Crimson Troupe's story. There is something he was made, created, to do, and he doesn't want to do it, but he doesn't seem to have much choice in the matter.

The Crimson Troupe as fairytale

In Arknights, fairytales are real. Iris and Bena explicitly say this multiple times across their stories. Both of them repeatedly express strong disdain for liars, so they wouldn't lie about this, and more importantly, they have the fairy dreamland powers to back up their claim. The Castle of Dreams is a real building in a real location. The service it provides of safekeeping childrens' treasures and returning them at a scheduled time years or even decades later, and corresponding magic to prevent these items from being affected by the progression of time, are equally real. Children can really visit the castle in their dreams, they can really make contracts with the fairies from the Castle of Dreams to store their items, and those items will really be returned.

Bena: Hey, what are you flustered for? The Castle of Dreams, the one from the fairytales, you know. Iris is the heir, the fairy who gives children wonderful hopes. Tin-a-ling! Fairytales are in fact real. — Iris operator record

Shalem claims that the Crimson Troupe is something similar to the Castle of Dreams, although the Crimson Troupe is much more sinister. While there's no evidence of the Crimson Troupe being known as a fairy tale rather than just a rumor, fairy tales are real in this world, so entities that operate on fairy tale rules without also being known as fairy tales can reasonably exist.

Iris: In the library of the Castle of Dreams. I assume it was Grandmother, or maybe another denizen, who left it. Shalem: The Castle of Dreams... the age-old Victorian fairytale? Iris: Mm. Yes, quite. I'm gathering that the Crimson Troupe is something similar? Shalem: If it will satisfy your curiosity, then I can give you a precise answer. It is. But it's not something a child would yearn for. It's a terifying tragedy, that strikes without warning. — IS2 monthly squad conversation

The conversation is prompted by Iris finding a ticket stub for a Crimson Troupe performance hidden in a book in the Castle of Dreams, and she speculates that either her grandmother or another denizen of the castle left it there. The most likely candidate is indeed her grandmother, because said grandmother appears as the Curio Keeper in IS2. We can safely assume the Curio Keeper is supposed to Iris' grandmother: she has the same blue flower accessory in her hair as Iris, and mentions having a Caprinae granddaughter (Bena) as well. Despite the castle's hostile nightmare environment, the Curio Keeper is calmly reading fairy tales as if she belongs here. The Castle of Dreams and the Crimson Troupe are undeniably connected through her presence.

Iris in this conversation seems to have vaguely heard of the Crimson Troupe before, but isn't aware of any of the details. It is very likely that Iris does not understand the full implications of the Castle of Dreams being similar to or connected to the Crimson Troupe. According to her profile, she only knows the sanitised versions of the fairytales that she represents. Her vignette in Beyond Here and her operator record both show that she's not naive about the kind of harm and malice that can befall people in reality, but as far as she knows, fairytales are solely gentle, positive things.

Iris promotion record

Considering the Curio Keeper's presence in the Crimson Troupe's castle, and Iris' ignorance of the more unsavoury Victorian fairytales, it's not impossible that the Castle of Dreams and the Crimson Troupe's castle are actually the very same castle without Iris' knowledge, or that the Castle of Dreams fairytale is essentially the sanitised version of the Crimson Troupe fairytale. Either way, between Shalem's words and the Curio Keeper's presence, it's safe to conclude that the Crimson Troupe's castle operates within the realm of Victoria's darker fairytales, and that consequently, Shalem is subject to fairytale rules as well.

The nature of the fairytale castle

Fairytale castles can take different forms. Iris talks in her module about how her first encounter with the Castle of Dreams was in the form of a pop-up book, which became the first thing to be stored in the Castle of Dreams. Although the book and the castle are obviously not the same physical object, Iris still refers to the book as being "the castle itself," suggesting fairytale castles can both change form and inhibit multiple forms at once. The Dreambind Castle Model collectible also implies castles can change form.

'It was the castle itself,' Iris says with almost no hesitation. 'I dreamt of it when I was quite young. It was grand, full of different rooms, each one filled with towering cupboards, all specially made. They could lock away time itself, and nothing would ever rot or fall apart inside... And because of that, I'd never lose anything beloved to me ever again. After I awoke, Grandmother made that castle I dreamt of into a pop-up book, and I kept it safe. Later on, she took me to the castle, and shockingly, it was exactly as both my dream and the book. And that book went into the very first shelf of the very first room. It was then that she asked me, you know, if I'd be willing to serve as the castle's master, and bring help to all the children.' — Iris module

You've seen this place, and you once wandered the castle, yet now you hold it in your hand. Is this real, or is it all a dream? — Dreambind Castle Model

One of the possible forms of a fairytale castle is that of a person. Iris refers to someone as "his own castle" in her module in a way that is clearly metaphorical, but Bena's module tells a fairytale about a boy who lives in a castle that takes on the form of a person so that it can follow him around. The story in Bena's module is of course a fairytale allegory, but fairytales are real, and so are fairytale castles. Also, this fairytale is noted to be from the same collection of fairytales that the Curio Keeper is reading (English Arknights tends to be inconsistent in the spelling of obscure details like this, Jeffrey and Geoffrey are both written as 乔弗瑞 in the Chinese script).

Joaquin is sure Iris isn't lying; he's confident in his observations after being with Rhodes Island for so long. Even if what she says is so... unimaginable. She doesn't think herself a cheap conjurer—she *is* the creature in the magic trick, dwelling in the realm of fairytales. Joaquin supposes that's why the children aboard all trust her. As he speaks, his hands are still busy helping her stow away the sweetie boxes and toy models by size.
'Sorry for bringing up something so pointless, Miss Iris.' 'Your necklace there...' Joaquin looks down at the silver star nestled in his chest, now tarnished into an entirely different color over the years. 'Mr. Joaquin, you are your own Castle. — Iris module

—I may grant you a wish. A wish! The child began to think. He would like to mend the castle, and continue his life from before. But after the witch was gone, suppose the castle were to fall apart again; whatever would he do? He thought and thought, until finally a perfect wish came to him: —I want to take the castle with me, away from the forest. Hence, the child set upon the journey of his— And behind him was his tiny little castle, which seemed to look very much like him, and which forever protected him. —The Child's Castle, selected from The Jeffreys Collection of Fairytales New and Old — Bena module

The old lady sees that you are not very interested in listening to any more stories and returns to her book without saying more. As you leave, you notice the letters on the book's cover written in Victorian: Geoffrey's New Fairy Tales — Curio Keeper

Castles can be people, and the Crimson Troupe castle is heavily implied to be sentient. Descriptions hidden in the furniture set and the medal set present the castle as something with its own awareness and will. The castle sees everything of you, and it doesn't want its nature revealed.

It has seen. It sees. It will see. When you step across its body, it will see everything of you. — Castle Floor Tiles furniture item

An engraved medal awarded for your tireless exploration of the castle. Your hand-drawn maps have some rooms overlap while others span eerily across several floors. You suddenly realized that perhaps the castle doesn't want its true nature revealed. — Terrain Mapper medal

This is curiously similar to something Shalem's nightmares say about him in his operator record, namely that he doesn't like being seen because he fears he has no self that can be observed. I believe the specific phrasing that it does not exist here is significant, because as far as a dictionary can tell me, this is specified in the Chinese script as well. If his 'true self' does not exist in this particular location, it could mean his 'true nature' is something that exists separate from this particular body that is labelled 'Shalem.'

You were always more afraid of this all being part of some plan than of actually getting caught. You don't like being seen, because you're afraid that your 'true self' doesn't actually exist here. — Shalem operator record

The Castle of Dreams and the Crimson Troupe's castle both explicitly operate outside linear time, making this another trait associated with fairytale castles. The Castle of Dreams preserves items for decades unchanged, with cupboards that can "lock away time itself" as Iris puts it. Chronology is explicitly wonky within the Crimson Troupe's castle, with its story told backwards across its endings and its deepest floor being outside time altogether.

An engraved medal awarded to those who have corrected chronology's flow multiple times. YOu gradually realized that the flow of time here doesn't quite abide by the laws of nature, and after several attempts, you've cracked the temporal trap left by the castle's master. — Chronology Correction medal

Begin Journey - Hall of Desires. The purest and truest desires, standing above all time, have engulfed this space whole. Here, there is nothing but the endless thirst for aesthetics, fine arts, and perfection. — Hall of Desires

As mentioned earlier, Shalem's clairvoyance is something that appears to be unique to him as far as the Crimson Troupe's performers go. His operator record is also structured as a kind of timeloop, further portraying him as separate from linear chronology.

Of particular note here is that IS2 features multiple cases of people existing in two points of time at once. The Trapped Man encounter shows Lucian cowering under a table while the Blood Diamond is walking around, and he gives you a puppet of his Rhodes Island Operator self. The Ursus man who was turned into Big Sad Lock after his suicide can be encountered in the moment before his suicide, after the bear was already made.

Big Sad Lock proves that the Crimson Troupe has the means to bind someone's soul to an inanimate object in order to animate it. On top of that, there is such a thing as a "Castle's Offspring," a box that can grow into a stage. A "stage" and a "castle," as understood in the context of the Crimson Troupe, are things that can grow and propagate.

With enough time, this box will become a whole new stage. — Castle's Offspring

Finally, the soundtrack for the 6th floor of the Crimson Troupe castle is called "silent abyss". This is written in Chinese as 宁静之渊, with the same character for abyss (渊) as Shalem's old codename (沉渊).

So what does it mean

This wasn't a genuine theory at first, just some ideas bounced back and forth between me and a friend who is into sentient buildings. Shalem's yet-unfulfilled potential is set up pretty clearly, but the exact shape that will take is largely up in the air. My angle here initially was Shalem giving up on getting to ever escape the stage, and instead turning to the other extreme and reasoning that if leaving the stage is impossible, then becoming the stage is a different way to not be beholden to it. A bird that becomes its cage is free in the sense that it gets to decide when the door is open, that kind of thing. It was a largely vibes-based concept rooted in the kind of imagery I just personally happen to enjoy, with no expectation of that actually being the plan on Hypergryph's side.

Then I unlocked Iris and Bena's modules, which made me think this could straight up actually be the plan, because "castles can be people" is such an insanely specific thing to bring up TWICE.

Sentient places and concepts aren't unheard of or even all that uncommon in Arknights. There's Feranmuts representing the land, there's the seaborn hivemind of the ocean, there's Samivilinn in the north, there's originum and the Civilight Eterna, and there is of course the Crimson Troupe's castle and their crazy puppet shit. In IS3 ending 4, Mizuki purposely becomes the ocean himself. That alone wasn't enough to make me suspect the Crimson Troupe castle to be a person too, let alone this person being Shalem, but the Castle of Dreams girlies both bringing up castles as people makes it feel a lot more likely.

Shalem's personhood is just incredibly dubious in general. Between the crazy puppet shit in the castle, Shalem and Phantom both self-describing as puppets at separate points, Bena's own weird soul puppet Annie, and Iris' insistence that puppets and toys and dolls can naturally be people, I do believe it would make sense for Shalem to turn out to be some kind of artificial creation, if not specifically the castle itself. Either works for me, and if it's never clarified that's fine with me too, because the ambiguity is it's own enjoyable flavour.

Iris: But there's nothing written about what performance. Shalem: The performaers were puppets to the roles. The roles chose the program, impromptu. So naturally, nothing needed to be written. — IS2 monthly squad conversation

Iris: There's ways. Aren't there all sorts of little creatures in storybooks who can speak? If there are puppets who can be people, and cats who can walk on two legs, then of course there are dollies who can move. — Beyond Here

Ultimately this is just speculation, and I won't really be upset if it turns out to be wrong, because I actually never expected it to be this plausible to begin with. At the time of writing the Chinese server has just announced a Crimson Troupe comic and event that have not yet happened, so I'm actually kinda rushing to get the whole site online before those happen, just in case I get to somehow be right. I'll consider it a victory if I get to add one or two more items to this list.