So, he puts himself into a box because he knows he's evil, but he also wants everything to be happy again. Where his father comes back and they're all one big family again. This is a little child thinking, not an adult! He wants a happy ending where he and his mom live happily ever after. He wants to hide away not just because of the imminent danger his mother represents, but because of the fact that some part of him still wants to believe he's a good little boy. He wants to be a good boy, but he believes he's wicked because that is the image his mother painted for him. The point is, he can't reconcile who he is. And YES, the Schrodinger reference isn't lost on me (and perhaps not on them either, since we do indeed see a bit of a cat in the box with Isaac). The escapism of the box is a sort of bizarre limbo in which he's not dead and not truly alive.

He's scared to confront his mother, but he also doesn't want to end his own life. Isaac wants to be a good boy, but as seen in Cathedral and Sheol endings, he is convinced that's not possible. Isaac hides from his mother and slowly comes to the conclusion that she must be right about him. Isaac's mother wishes to kill him because of his wickedness. Well, let's remember how all of this started. So, how does this all tie into this final ending? Aether and Time ♥♥♥♥ represent his life in the fantasy and his return to reality respectively. To summarize, the endings of Binding of Isaac paint a picture of a heavily emotionally abused child whose mind resorts to a form of escapism to protect itself from the terrors it has been experiencing. Eventually the demon side remains permanently, his breathing becoming hard as the world darkens around him.īefore I go into what I believe this ending truly means, it should be noted that an incredibly intelligent article was written about the original Binding of Isaac endings and how they tie into other McMillen games, such as Aether and Time ♥♥♥♥ (it auto-censored the word even spelled as it is in the title). In it we find Isaac hyperventilating inside of the box he's hiding in as gradually reality seems to shift around him and he alternates between being Isaac and being a grotesque, black demon with a sinister grin on its face. So, I've been giving a lot of thought to the final ending of Binding of Isaac Rebirth the one you receive for beating Mega Satan.

The binding of isaac endings