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Ford-Bot

I'm afraid that means the Dead Letter Office for you.

–Ford-Bot

Ford-Bot, also known as Mecha Postman or Ford-o-Matic[1], is a mental figure that appears in the Cruller's Correspondence fragment of Ford's Fractured Mind in Psychonauts 2. He is a large 4-armed mechanical construct resembling a postman Ford Cruller.

Appearance[]

Ford-Bot is a colossal sorting robot who looks like a mechanical version of Ford Cruller in an old-fashioned teal-colored mail worker's uniform, with a cap and bow tie. His body is made up of four rotating segments, each of which has a mechanical arm attached. These are all stacked on top of a single hollow stationary segment that has a rotating cog inside of it, which in turn rests on a tall grooved brass pillar of sorts.

Ford-Bot's entire body is constructed mostly of typewriter parts. Among others, his chest has a cavity with key slugs inside, each one of his arms have paper rollers on them, and his hair and mustache are made up of ink ribbons while his ears are their spools. There's also a small clock or gauge in the middle of his bow tie.

Aside from the large rotating gear, the hollow segment near his base contains an illuminated schematic of himself, some discarded metal shavings, springs, two screwdrivers, a cup container, and on revisit, a PSI-Popper generator. Interestingly, unlike the real Ford Cruller, Ford-bot has five fingers on each hand instead of four.

Much like Bowling Pin Ford and Lighthouse Ford, the inside of his head is grotesquely realistic with visible muscles, jawbones, a pair of teeth and a tongue. It contains a tiny brain that houses one of Ford's Mental Shards.

Description[]

Ford-Bot is the central feature of the enormous mail sorting room that is Cruller's Correspondence. Fitting the robot motif, this part of Ford's mind is completely devoted to the task of sorting mail, never stopping for anything or anyone. Even though it pleaded with him not to, Ford-bot sorted the unaddressed love letter into the Dead Letter Office, because correct sorting always comes first. He then becomes frustrated when the letter keeps coming back, threatening to simply throw it into the furnace to be rid of the problem, and only listens to others when they offer to solve the issue so he might return to his normal work.

Ford-Bot clearly represents a part of Ford that tries to cope with his feelings by simply launching himself into his work and shutting out everything else, due to the letters he wrote to Lucrecia in Grulovia not reaching her or making any difference anyway. Most of the letters, which represent things he wants to say to the people he cares about, are dumped onto the huge piles of undeliverable mail in the Dead Letter Offices, never to be processed or addressed.

In Psychonauts 2[]

When Raz come out of the area in which he entered Cruller's Correspondence, he can't miss Ford-Bot, who is the central fixture of the enormous mail room. Raz briefly talks to an unaddressed love letter who expects to be returned to sender to be properly addressed, but Ford-Bot inspects it and decides it is undeliverable, leaving it in the Dead Letter Office. Razputin pursues the letter, which only results in Ford-Bot re-examining it and deciding it belongs in the International Dead Letter Office, instead. When Raz brings the letter out one more time, Ford-Bot gets irritated, until Raz offers to complete the missing addressee himself using the nearby typewriter, which he agrees to. The boy types "LUCY", and Ford-Bot mails it to receive an almost immediate reply from "M." saying "Lucy is dead. She's never coming back". Ford-Bot becomes emotional, causing his head to violently eject from his body and crash next to the giant typewriter, as he says that "The mail just doesn't matter." Raz can then enter his head to recover the Mental Shard inside.

Trivia[]

  • The spinning cogwheel in the open bottom segment of Ford-Bot's body has an engraved message on its spokes that can be read by slowing it down with Time Bubble: "Take the time to write a letter it might make someone feel better".
  1. The Psychonauts 2 Action Trailer's official subtitles identify the Ford-Bot as "Mecha Postman". Ford-O-Matic, meanwhile, can be seen in-game on blueprints of Ford-Bot located in a few places throughout the level.
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