Just a quick note: my theory includes spoilers from both games, Monument Valley 1 and 2. I believe that the sequel, Monument Valley 2 actually plays the story betraying Ida as a child with her mother. All of the queens are trying to restore the sacred monuments that killed humanity, and the queens trying to rebuild their empire. Now, when this happens, (after completing a level) the queen will bow down, take off her hat, and emit a glowing a floating entity, possibly, the spirits of the dead that were killed in the monuments. This makes sense because she bows down, and takes off her hat as a sign of respect and memorial for the dead. But what is interesting is that when this happened with Ro, the previous queen before Ida, (also her mother) the shapes she emitted from her hat were only two dimensional, but once Ro’s daughter, Ida became independent and did the same her shapes where 3-D. This proves Ida is the daughter of Ro because I’m the first Monument Valley when you play as Ida, all of the shapes are the same, 3 dimensional. And at the last scene of the sequel, when the ghosts all emitted there own shapes, they were all 2-D, which proves that the daughter in the sequel is Ida. But what does this mean? Well, I also noticed that when Ida took off her hat to free the floating shapes, or the “spirits” Ida wouldn’t bow. I think it is because she was the last queen to finish the chain. But what chain exactly? Well, every queen would raise their child to a sufficient age, and then send their daughter out to sea to find themselves. (This shows when Ro sends her daughter out to sea and her mother sends Ro out to sea in a flashback) And while their daughter is gone, they try to fix the monuments, and free the spirits and the “people” (the crows) But, the queens would always die doing it, which is why they send their daughters out to sea, so they won’t see their mothers die. This happened to Ro as you control through levels. Throughout the levels, you go higher and higher, and the sky turns from grey to blue. This symbolizes the Ro’s ascent to heaven, as she is fixing each monument, and her recovering from her depression of leaving her daughter. Now while that’s happening, Ida is at sea, finding her self. She then reaches a spot with trees. She enters a door in a tree and out she comes older. She then realizes her mother is dead when she reaches the level where she is in the fall area, and her mother is in the winter area. The winter symbolizes her mother’s death, as trees die in the winter and Ida being in the fall symbolizes that as the leaves change, she will to. So, that is why she has no red cape in the first Monument Valley. So, in the first game, she is still finding herself as she helps being guided by a spirit. Keep in mind this spirit has the exact same hat and cape as Ro, and the spirit of Ro gives motherly advice to Ida on her journey as did the spirit to Ro did. This is because each princesses mother turns to a spirit after a die, as it shows in the second game when it shows Ro as a child with her mother, who teaches her the flute. May I add that the spirit that gave motherly advice to Ro had the exact same resemblance as depicted by Ro’s mother. And this all connects when the spirit talking to Ro tells her that their spirits are relentless and have died in trying to save the monument. And this all ties in with the first Monument Valley. In which Ida is doing the same as her mother and rebuilding the monuments, she still is finding her self (as when she saw her reflection in the mirror) and she realizes that she is different and can actually save everyone, which is why she has the 3-D shapes because she’s bringing things to life. By this it means bringing things to happiness such as the crows. Which reminds me that the crows hate her because she is a descendant of the queens that built the monuments which killed them and turned them into these spirits represented by these blacks crows, which is why in the ending of each chapter the shapes come from out the hat arise as it represents Ida freeing the souls of these crows which brings me to the fact why her shapes are 3-D, because she’s not only bringing the souls to life and freedom, but also the bodies, which are the crows. This shows in the scene where all of the crows turn into rainbow creatures that fly to freedom, in which forgiving Ida. Then Ida turns into a bird as well, in which she leads and fly’s into the sky. I think they go into the sky because she is reuniting with her mother in heaven. And one more thing that doesn’t really connect to the theory so far, just more evidence that Ida’s mother is Ro is that if you get the red flower when reuniting with the totem, you can give it to the anonymous grave. This shows Ro is Ida’s mother because first of all, the flower is red, representing the cape Ida wore when she was young and with her mother, and love, because red symbolizes love, and also she gets the rose when she reunited with the totem, who was also a friend with Ro. So possibly, it is the same totem that Ro was friends with that comforted and helped Ida with her travels. And that, is my theory.
