Chapter 6: Reflection

**Chapter 6: Reflection** is the sixth chapter of Celeste. This chapter introduces Feathers which allow the player to fly for a short period of time, a new Badeline sequence and many more objects. It's also one of the most important chapters story-wise, telling a lot of information about the main protagonist.

## **Gameplay**

### **Objects**

#### Start

* Feathers
* Trapped Feathers

#### Lake

* Water
* Angry Platforms
* Semi-Smashable Walls
* Crystals
* Feathers
* Smashable Walls

#### Hollows

The B-Side Cassette Tape for the chapter is located here.

* Water
* Angry Platforms
* Feathers
* Semi-Smashable Walls
* Skull Binoculars
* Cassette Blocks
* Dash Crystals
* Crystals
* Smashable Walls
* Falling Platforms
* Bumpers
* Trapped Feathers
* Crystal Spikes
* Shields
* Shield-Activated Platforms

#### Reflection

* Water
* Crystals
* Angry Platforms
* Semi-Smashable Walls
* Bumpers

#### Rock Bottom

* Crystals
* Springs
* Disappearing Platforms
* Dash Crystals
* Feathers
* Bumpers
* Water
* Crystal Spikes

#### Resolution

* Water
* Purple Orbs
* Crystals

### **Alternate Sides**

The B-Side is split into four parts: Start, Reflection, Rock Bottom and Reprieve. It lacks the northern lights themed section seen at the start of the A-Side entirely and also lacks any sections where the player has a second mid-air dash like at the end of the A-Side. It's considered to be one of the hardest B-Side levels due to very precise play being needed for many sections of the level. The C-Side focuses generally on skillful bumper bounces, wallbouncing, moving a Kevin Block through a gauntlet of obstacles, and tricky timings in general. Due to its length, it doesn't feature a Badeline bossfight, however it's the only C-Side (not including Core's entrance) to have three instead of two checkpoints.

#### Start

* Crystals
* Angry Platforms
* Feathers
* Dash Crystals
* Skull Binoculars
* Bumpers
* Crystal Spikes
* Shields
* Shield-Activated Platforms
* Disappearing Platforms
* Falling Platforms

#### Reflection

* Crystals
* Dash Crystals
* Water
* Angry Platforms
* Bumpers
* Feathers

#### Rock Bottom

* Crystals
* Springs
* Dash Crystals
* Feathers
* Trapped Feathers
* Shields
* Shield-Activated Platforms
* Bumpers
* Disappearing Platforms

#### Reprieve

* Crystals
* Angry Platforms
* Dash Crystals
* Disappearing Platforms
* Bumpers
* Crystal Spikes
* Feathers
* Shields
* Shield-Activated Platforms
* Cassette Blocks

#### Reflection C-Side

* Bumpers
* Crystals
* Dash Crystals
* Feathers
* Water
* Skull Binoculars
* Angry Platforms
* Crystal Spikes

## **Plot**

**I tried to warn you.**

This section contains spoilers for Chapter 6: Reflection. Do not read the following section if you wish to avoid spoilers for Chapter 6: Reflection.

The chapter starts with Madeline and Theo stopping by a campfire to rest. Madeline explains that Part of Her escaped from a mirror and is haunting her, and that she consists of all the things she isn't very proud of, that the mountain may have given her an actual body. She also thanks Theo for helping her through the journey. Theo tells Madeline that she reminds him of his sister, Alex, who has a similar way of challenging herself and has a lot of similar problems she's struggling with. Madeline later explains that she struggles with depression and is very anxious, and that she usually doesn't talk about it, that nobody except her mother actually knows about her mental problems. Climbing the mountain is a way to challenge herself and to accomplish something huge. After the long conversation, they decide to take themselves a selfie as a way to remember the night before they go to sleep.
In a dream sequence, Madeline starts to understand that she can't run away from her problems and that she has to deal with them somehow, however her decision is to set Part of Her free. Badeline didn't want to be abandoned, becoming enraged at her and traps her for trying to leave her while she was trying her best to help the protagonist. Frightened, she starts panicking again. Trying to calm herself down with the feather technique taught by Theo, Badeline interrupts it and cuts the feather in half, throwing her down to the ground. In real life, Madeline slips off the edge and falls into a very deep chasm.

Madeline's fall is broken by her landing in water after falling through multiple layers of crystals. Lost in a crystal cavern, she starts to lose hope in her being able to climb the mountain. She's angry that she was very close to the summit but Badeline caused her to fall down all the way back down. The area and the sad, melancholic music set the theme of hopelessness. The protagonist tries to find her way out of this. During her way out, she finds the Old Woman who seems to think at first that she's given up on her task. Madeline explains that she fell down and Part of Her is the reason why she's unable to reach the summit. Granny suggests that she should talk to Badeline and assumes she may be scared of climbing the mountain. The protagonist decides to go ahead with the suggestion.

After chasing her for some time, Madeline finally finds Part of Herself, and tries to apologise for being selfish and attempting to leave her instead of actually helping. Badeline doesn't believe her, triggering a bossfight sequence. They eventually stop and Madeline tries to comfort her by trying to say that if they want to leave this area, they need to work together. She starts to understand that it's fine to be scared of being abandoned, and if they want to change something, they need to cooperate. This ends up with them merging into one character, giving Madeline an additional dash. They both start climbing back up, finding Granny and Theo who ran into the chasm to find her. Badeline still doesn't believe they can reach the summit, because of the long fall. At the end Madeline says that they should try once again, and that if they will cooperate, they will sooner or later reach the end again. Badeline agrees, and Madeline leaves her bag with Theo before she tries to climb the mountain again.
**Show/Hide Content**

## **Quotes**

* Madeline: Let's climb out of here... together.
* Badeline: Come close to me and I'll make you regret it!

## **Secret Developer Room**

There is a secret room at the start of the "Reflection" subchapter. Under the elevator, a minimally hidden, reaching light suggests that there is a room above the elevator. After climbing in, the player should perform a wall bounce off the lower jut of the left wall onto the higher jut directly above it, then wall jump to the right jut, where the player will find a small enclosure. Here, the player should Wavedash to the left and time a dash upward between the crystals to find the secret entrance.

The room itself contains some of the developer's avatars and characters from TowerFall.

## **Speedrunning Record Progression**

*Note*: Revolucion had, at various points, 5:10 and 4:58 as world records, but these videos were later deleted and so they do not appear in this list.

 Buhbai

## **Major Strategies**

Much like the Mirror Temple, the theoretically optimal route in Reflection is to grab the tape in 6A to unlock 6B, then play 6B. This is rarely done in runs -- while the respective WRs for 6A and 6B would, in a full game run, exit Reflection on a comparable pace, 6B is generally much more difficult and has longer rooms on average, meaning that mistakes are more likely to result in deaths and each death causes a greater time loss.

6A contains the lakeskip, in which one climbs a wall without the use of a Kevin block by starting underwater, then wallbouncing twice. This saves approximately 4 seconds.

Reflection is unique in that it contains no red berries, causing the difference between the 6A clear and full clear times to be smaller than it is for most other levels. Furthermore, while A-side hearts are generally well-hidden and one must go out of their way to obtain them, B-side and C-side hearts (as well as the Core A heart) are automatically obtained just by completing the level. In All Red Berries (ARB) runs, Core A is played for the obvious reason that it contains red berries (in contrast to any% where the run ends after The Summit). One cannot progress beyond the first three rooms of 8A without at least four hearts. Therefore, in addition to red berries, some hearts are collected as well, and it turns out the fastest A-side hearts are in the first four levels. Putting all this together, it means that ARB runs are free to avoid completing 6A because it has no berries in it and may instead play 6B. This earns a heart, which means that only three A-side hearts are required, meaning the player need not pick up the heart in Old Site or Celestial Resort, which saves approximately 20 seconds in either case. This means that, while it is very difficult to save time with the 6B route in any%, there is additional leeway in ARB, making the route far more viable there. However, it is still rarely done in either category.

Former top 10 player Revolucion was, at one point, ranked #6 with an any% run with the theoretically optimal route containing both 5B and 6B.

## **Trivia**

* When the game was still in early development, Reflection was supposed to be partially an underwater level. The idea was scrapped later because the developers didn't find these sections enjoyable. The water currently in the game is mostly for aesthetic purposes apart from one short vertical swimming section.
	+ The above statement was confirmed by Noel Berry on Celeste's official Discord Server.
* Before Celeste's release, the fourth sub-chapter used to be longer and it featured several falling screens instead of one long vertical room. During the beta testing period of the game, a lot of players considered these rooms to be too hard compared to the rest of 6A, ending up with them being moved to 6B instead. An early version of that checkpoint can be seen during the developer stream of Celeste.

## Gallery

Typical Reflection ScreenCompletion ScreenAlternate Completion Screen
## **References**

1. ↑ *"[...] Matt tried a Water Level for CH6 but it didn't work out, and it morphed into what CH6 is now..."*