I’m having a lot of emotions about “A Space for the Unbound”, so I’m gonna get my personal interpretation of the events of the game out on paper.
SPOILERS BELOW
If you read the below, I assume you have played “A Space for the Unbound” from Start to Finish.
[[MORE]]
I have seen some people theorize that Atma was never real, and he was always Raya’s imaginary friend.
I disagree. I think Atma was a real teenager who ran away from home and befriended an elementary school age Raya/Nirmala. I think it makes more sense for Raya’s extreme change in personality following his death if he was real - imagine how traumatic it would be to watch your only friend die trying to save your life, and then no one believes you when you try to tell them. You become the only person in the world who remembers this amazing person ever existed at all. That’s heartbreaking!
Also poor fucking Atma man.
BUT, this is where I go into what I interpret about Atma’s role in the game:
The Atma we play as IS the real Atma - specifically, his spirit.
I believe the titular “Space for the Unbound” refers to the world where the game takes place - a perfect dream reality conjured up by Raya after she falls into a coma from what is heavily implied to be a suicide attempt. It is a place for those souls who are “unbound” - specifically, souls who are not bound to the world of the living, but also not bound to the afterlife.
Raya is Unbound because she is in a coma, and not technically in the world of the living.
Atma is Unbound because his soul was not able to move on after his death due to his regrets for failing to rescue Raya or finish their story together.
I also think that Atma’s spirit was drawn into the dream world by Nirmala - due to the nature of Raya’s trauma, becoming Unbound literally split her into two different forms, and I think Nirmala sensed Atma’s spirit and brought him to the dream world to help save Raya. Or maybe Raya herself subconsciously called Atma’s spirit into the dream world when she created her perfect reality.
The biggest evidence I feel for Atma being a real person’s soul is that it is stated multiple times that Atma is the only person in the dream world that Raya cannot control. He behaves independently of her desires to keep things “perfect” and not return to the living world. She even directly TRIES to control him and fails.
Some more evidence is that Atma’s memories all seem to be from his perspective, not Raya/Nirmala. There’s also the fact that Atma doesn’t recognize any of the other people in the dream world - which I think is because he NEVER knew them, so him being the real Atma instead of a fake Atma, he didn’t know who any of them were. I don’t think he even recognized Raya at first, because he never met Raya, only Nirmala.
And then in his final scene where the dream world is collapsing and Raya begins to fly off into the sky but catches Atma’s hand…
Atma is the one to let go of her and wave goodbye. One last time, Atma was telling Raya it was okay to move on and live her life. And then Atma transformed into a ball of light - which I believe was his soul finally moving on to the afterlife to rest.
After all, Atma achieved his goals: Rescue Raya, and finish their story together.
God this game makes me emotional when I think about it.