I don't know if you've played the Routeless Route or if you've watched my playthrough of it. Salt, lots of it, is a necessity in order to active the hidden Poseidon shrine which yields a boon that can allow Asterion to escape. In the route, Nikos is given a bottle of potent salt to use for the shrine by the goddess Nemesis. If I had to guess, the salt that Oscar gets from the Tapir God can do the same and if Oscar has it in a playthrough, it will likely lead to making a future trial easier or bypassing it all together like Argos' piety trial. Though I do wonder if the Tapir God's cursed salt actually works as a purifier like other salt or if itself is defilement. I think the implication from the rites scene that used Hinterlands salt and the hot springs scene is that that particular salt does not purify and instead defiles. The salt is dirty essentially much like how running water can be used to cleanse but dirty running water is going to defile. I don't think all of this is why salt can be made however, it really is because salt was used as a form of currency. It's why the word salary exist as it does.
I never thought about the weather being a thing that might be manipulated through contracts. That would be interested to see if it could be done and if it's used to make the valley green. Granted, anything that naturally grows or is created from the realm will be hostile to Asterion but the view would be prettier. I don't know if seeds brought from outside the realm and planted in the valley would have the same hostility to Asterion. On one hand, the seeds weren't created by the realm but on the other, it was nurtured and grown by the realm. Though by that same token, you could say the same thing about people who live there and they don't become hostile to Asterion.
The afterlife part is really interesting and likely is based on belief. However, how would that work for Robert's realm? From what I interpret from what Robert reveals about his realm is that he's from Nazi hell, a hell dedicated to torturing Nazi's for their crimes and likely anyone else who have had a similar devastating impact on mass populations. I would imagine that the Nazi's themselves wouldn't have believed they'd end up in a special hell for them after death (quite the opposite most likely). So what determined how they ended up there? Is it some divine intervention? That would imply something like a Christian god. Or did all the gods look a the Nazi's and collectively thought to themselves that some humans are just so bad that they don't want their souls? Was the hell created out of other people's beliefs that there should be a special hell for those types of people? And why would that supersede one's own beliefs on where they go after they die? It's a lot of interesting questions we can ask about the afterlife and how it pertains to the worship of gods as well. Like how devoted do you have to be before you'd set your path down a specific afterlife? What if one worships a god that doesn't actually exist (or at least doesn't have enough worships to come to life)?
Viewing post in [SPOILERS!] Hotel Capabilities Theory Thread
I don't remember too much about the Hinterlands, I haven't played through it again in quite a while since I didn't like Storm or P very much until the Hinterlands was finished, due to being impatient to see more of the main cast. I think the implication of the Tapir's salt was that it was specifically pure salt, and not tainted salt. Or perhaps the spirits in the Hinterlands aren't inherently malicious like P mentioned, which is why the salt doesn't affect them?
It certainly would be very interesting if the stipulation was exclusively that living things created by the hotel were hostile. I think Asterion would look very cute, tending to a garden, perhaps this will be addressed in the future by the writers. There certainly isn't any confirmation I'm aware of between a difference of "imported being aggressive" and "native being aggressive", the application of it to guests not being aggressive to Asterion certainly is a good argument.
As for the afterlife, I think that's a question that Hermes could answer. After all, isn't he supposed to frequently visit Hades to deliver messages? Wasn't the letter delivered by him alluded to have been from Poseidon?
I don't think the salt the Tapir God gave Oscar is a trick, it truly is blessed salt. My point was that not all salt will cleanse defilement as expected just because it is salt. I'm sure most of the time it isn't an issue but it seems like not all salt is created equal.
I'm pretty sure the letter is from Poseidon though I wouldn't think he'd be in the underworld. He's probably still alive, likely going crazy like Zeus and Hermes if his letter is any indication. The reason why I say Zeus is also going crazy is because I suspect the old man the MC meets on his travels is Zeus. I think this because the contract of the realm states the order of inheritance of the deed if the master did not appoint an heir to their sons or other living male relative from closest to furthest. If there is no possible person that meets that requirement to inherit the hotel, then the deed goes to Zeus to which he gets to give it to anyone he chooses. This would lead to the question on if it's only the Greek gods going crazy and if so, what is causing it. I think it's the internet, as access to the internet grows, knowledge of how the world works spreads further and people stop believing in magic and superstition.
In one of the Ruthless endings, the old man is in fact the MC, passing the deed on to a younger person, in almost direct mirror of the usual opening scene. I'm not sure if this is to be considered canon however, but it's worth mentioning.
Jean-Marie was stated to have brothers, so multiple, though the age of them is quite vague.
The old man being one of the gods is something that came across my mind several times throughout the story. You raise a good argument with the Zeus theory though, definitely adding that to my Minotaur Hotel thesis. :p
So, order of Master being handed down is:
Selected heir
Oldest male offspring
Oldest male sibling
Oldest living nephew
Oldest ascending male
Overseer, who picks a new Master
The Olympians had to vote to pick an Overseer, and in addition, only that Overseer may enter the hotel, while all gods are banned from entering it. This leads me to believe that, Hermes, himself, is the old man, simply disguised. I believe he was pretending to be Clement (just like how his human name is groanworthy, Jean-Marie Clement).
So, my theory is that Hermes is the Overseer, selected by the gods of Olympus. I don't believe the old man is anybody else.
I went back and reread the labyrinth constitution, you're correct, I must have misremembered reading that the order of succession ended with Zeus and not the Overseer so it would make sense for Hermes to have been the Old Man at the start. Hermes makes the most sense for being the Overseer since just based on his Greek lore and the fact that since the only Olympian to be allowed to enter the realm is the one voted as Overseer. Nikos will mention that he answers to him if you uncover Argos' true identity after the Hermes nearly killed him and Pedro. I do wonder what was Herme's intention with the letter and what his logic behind that subterfuge was; even if it doesn't make an actual logical sense or is just born out of the madness overtaking him.
Step 1: Pretend nonsensical letter he delivered was written by the old man that gave the deed to the MC, who he believes is Clement. Despite the fact that he first said that he didn't remember who sent the letter in the first place despite being the same name as his fake last name. Causing Asterion untold distress.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit. Minotaur Make-out Motel established.
It could also be as simple as he wanted to fuck with them because he is a trickster.
I haven't had a chance to see the other Ruthless endings but I have read the While You Live ending. If it uses the Old Man sprite in the ending to represent the MC, I see that just being poetic of the theme of recursion and not meant as a definite identity of the Old Man that gave the deed at the start.
I'm not quite sure what Hermes' goal was with the letter either, if he made it.
The letter was described as being indecipherable, save for a sentence at the bottom, the rest was just scribbles and unreadable as described by the flavour text. "I'm sorry for not being good enough. .P" is specifically what it says. After you read out the letter, Hermes says Clement was the name mentioned by Headquarters.
Hermes said it was from headquarters, and, since he is an Olympian, I would interpret that as the letter being from Poseidon, who in the story is technically Asterion's father/grandfather. He voted in favour of Asterion, but we have no transcript of it yet, that content isn't in the game currently.
The only other Ps we know of are Pedro, and Pedro's father.
As for it being a ploy to get Asterion and MC even more intimately involved, I don't think that is the case. Why would Hermes interrupt the happiness by making Asterion distressed? Just so MC can emotionally support them? Perhaps it is some kind of test? But letting Asterion know that Clement is still alive seems more like some form of torture than anything else. Hermes is clearly in Asterion's side of the ring, too. However, he did succeed in making MC and Asterion talk more about their feelings. But it could equally just be Olympus making sure Asterion suffers a little more.
It's tricky, with what little information we have. Poseidon may be a stretch, but we are limited on choices regardless. I feel that the story of Clement may be somewhat related to Tithonus, a man who was given eternal life, but not eternal youth, and went mad as his body refused to die. The main takeaway from that story was that Asterion ended the man's life with the Threadcutter labrys, a weapon which can kill the immortal, and that "to free somebody from their shackles, you take on your own". This is also shown in the Ruthless ending where Asterion leaves the hotel, and only Argos stays behind, his pelt turning him into the new minotaur.
Perhaps we simply don't have the information required to solve this mystery yet? Or maybe it is as simple as Hermes screwing with us for fun?