The transformation of The Sadist's level narrated Sebastian's anxiety. By contrast, the differences between The Keeper's crypt in each game narrate Sebastian's emboldened confidence. He remakes the crypt without key environmental threats from The Evil Within, forcing us to re-evaluate how to approach this fight.

Sebastian fought The Keeper in a crypt that slowly filled with noxious gas. To win, he needed to close three valves to clear gas from his escape route. Sebastian returns, again, to a scenario that he survived only by fleeing a powerful enemy.

Against The Sadist, he remade Beacon with escape in mind, so he included the old elevator. Here, by writing out the gas, Sebastian removes the urgency of escape. His unconscious mind turns the crypt from a trap into an arena.

However, the apparatus of escape — the release valves — remain. Working with the archetype, they indicate that Sebastian has not yet passed into full confidence. In terms of the metanarrative, they tease and subvert the player's expectations.

We could only run away from The Sadist — to re-enact the first game's solutions. The Evil Within 2 now prompts our memories with our old tools of escape, this time in greater abundance than they ever appeared in The Evil Within. Memory is reflex. The valves opened the path to safety before, so, despite the absence of the gas, a player acting on memory will try the valves.

If Sebastian stands before a valve wheel, though, no interaction prompt appears. Sebastian, divided between the desires to stand up for himself and to run, presents both possibilities, yet errs on the side of his self-worth. He denies the memory of The Evil Within in favor of his own will.

After Anima, Sebastian broke his dependence on the player. Now, the player must follow Sebastian's lead, abandoning the old ways of coping with threats. He gives us power by denying our memories and creating the option that we desired all the way back in The Evil Within — to resist and overcome.