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“ | Teamwork makes the dream work! | „ |
~ Polle encouraging the employees of Pony Express; one of many quotes among the workplace posters. |
“ | Hey, boss. It's me. Or what should I call you? Old man? Seems a little above your pay grade. Given all this. (...) I know what you think of this predicament of yours. Poor you. Caged and misunderstood. "Ding-ding! Polle says: SORRY!" | „ |
~ Polle confronting Jimmy towards the end of the game. |
“ | Wait a minute! Hold on! If all of that is true... Why are you still so concerned with him? | „ |
~ Polle to Jimmy after the latter "admits" his guilt, questioning his concern for Curly but not the others. |
Polle is the secondary antagonist of the 2024 psychological horror game Mouthwashing, developed by Swedish developer Wrong Organ.
He is the company mascot of Pony Express, a corrupt, neglectful company. Over the course of the game, he is reimagined in several different forms and stalks the game's protagonist, Jimmy, within his insanity-induced hallucinations. Eventually, he appears atop a pile of rubbish before the moon in one final hallucination, calling Jimmy out for his dishonesty and inability to take responsibility.
His voice during the final scene was provided by Martin Halldin.
Appearance[]
He is a brown, anthropomorphic cartoon pony with a long black mane, black tail, and a round body. He is dressed in a yellow Pony Express polo shirt with red cuffs and a red collar, wearing white gloves and a yellow cap with a red brim. He has ovular eyes and large hooves.
The statue aboard the ship is missing gloves and holds its uniform hat out with its right hand. Later, the statue is decapitated by Jimmy offscreen.
Personality[]
The original character of Polle, designed by Pony Express, is a soulless and compliant drone, yet outwardly appears enthusiastic and optimistic. He embodies the ideal Pony Express worker in the eyes of executives, taking pride in teamwork and a job well done. In his posters, he frames menial workplace tasks as fulfilling and accompanies them with carefree and happy-go-lucky catchphrases like "Don't Be Daft" or "Giddy up, Galaxy." However, this is a facade meant to mask the company's true nature: beneath the text and art on each poster are dystopian, cautionary warnings in small red text, examples being information that medical expenses and late deliveries will be docked from personal credits, HR complaints about poor team synergy will result in collective punishment, or another that indulging in more than five hours of sleep will result in "disciplinary action."
However, in his role as Jimmy's crumbling conscience, he becomes explicitly degrading, hostile, and monstrous toward Jimmy, torturing him mentally, taking on barbaric forms, and attempting to kill him within Jimmy's hallucinations. He symbolizes the evil of Jimmy's actions, the weight of the responsibility he is expected to take, and the subconscious guilt that he feels. However, he ultimately tries to confront and draw out the truth from Jimmy through simple conversation, questioning him about his motivations, accountability, and supposed guilt.
Biography[]
Polle is a mascot created to represent the Pony Express company. Inside the Tulpar spaceship, there are countless posters of Polle offering employees advice in their work, along with a statue of Polle that has a speaker capable of delivering soulless phrases of encouragement. Everyone, especially Jimmy, despised this statue, and Jimmy eventually beheads the statue offscreen through unknown means, much to the amusement of a drunken Swansea.
During the course of the game, Jimmy experiences several hallucinations featuring monstrous versions of Polle hunting him through areas based on the ship’s interior. These hallucinations reflect Jimmy’s deteriorating sanity, with Polle symbolizing the evil and damage he has caused to his crew, along with his own guilt.
Firstly, after Jimmy steers the ship into an asteroid and runs away, he begins hallucinating that the spaceship is morphing into an inescapable maze. During this scene, he sees the Polle statue appearing in various locations, eventually splitting into multiple conjoined and melded statues. The ship then crashes. In the scene where Daisuke is wounded, Jimmy goes into the mouthwash room to find some disinfectant. The room transforms into a vast maze where Jimmy must avoid running, as it would alert a giant snake-pony amalgamation residing in the ceiling above him. This monster is blind and won't harm Jimmy unless it hears him moving. It is invisible, only revealed when Jimmy points the code scanner at it. Its presence is indicated by boxes on the floor shuffling and rumbling. Near the end of the game, Jimmy has a hallucination where he walks through a maze of vents. In these vents, hundreds of Polle statues are clumped together to resemble a centipede, with Polle’s extended arms forming the centipede’s legs. It emerges from a large repulsive clump of meat that resembles a vaginal cavity and stalks Jimmy through the vents, emitting a scream that sounds like a crying baby, likely symbolizing Jimmy’s guilt over raping and impregnating Anya.
Polle's final form appears before Jimmy on a pile of empty mouthwash bottles under a full moon, identical to his real-life statue counterpart. In his subconscious, Jimmy confronts the statue of Polle, who admonishes Jimmy for his actions and forces him to admit his mistakes, but as usual, Jimmy refuses to take responsibility. Afterward, Jimmy no longer experiences nightmares of Polle, temporarily regains his sanity, and ultimately takes his own life in a final moment of comparative clarity.
Quotes[]
“ | A blind beast, aimless and restless You can't run from it |
„ |
~ The note in the bizarro sequence featuring the blind horse monster. |
“ | He's mocking us. | „ |
~ The message displayed when the headless Polle statue is examined by Jimmy. |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Polle is the only character in the game whose dialogue is fully voiced, though it's heavily distorted and audibly stitched together.
- Before Mouthwashing was released, the game was wish listed 50,000 times on Steam. To celebrate, Wrong Organ posted a photo of all the main characters sitting at a table (except for Curly, who, being limbless, is on the table, resembling the scene where Jimmy eats him). In the photo, Polle is seen staring directly at Jimmy, who is looking back at Polle, hinting that Polle represents a manifestation of Jimmy's relentless evil.
- Despite being enemies, Jimmy and Swansea both have a mutual hatred of Polle, as Swansea apparently found it funny when Jimmy decapitated the Polle statue.
- He's the only character to be a pony.
- Polle is a cute way to say "a horse" both in Swedish and Finnish.
External Links[]
- Polle on the Mouthwashing Wiki
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Mouthwashing |