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[Sean Raia]

Well, it's exactly that.
If Jon finds this, he will likely not appreciate it. Simply because a major theme in Braid is "discovering the meaning for oneself", and this post allows for circumvention of that.
Moving on.
I will keep this as short and sweet as possible so as to not waste everyone's precious time. After all, we are not as fortunate as Tim.

Braid is the medium through which Blow exposes his weakness to the outside world.
The Princess is both the atomic Bomb and the meaning of life. The closer Tim gets to her the faster she runs away. When Tim is finally within arms-length of The Princess, he realizes that his pursuit has blown up in his face.
Jon realized that his pursuit of the unattainable has cost him more than it has earned him.

Now, Tim needs to find a way to retrieve that time (the time spent searching for/courting The Princess) and build his life into something it wasn't. Tim discovers he can travel through time. With that power, he goes on a journey to collect and build the life he missed out on during his maniacal pursuits. The puzzles are direct facets of life that Jon feels he has missed out on...


Falling in love. Marriage. Caring for children...
These are all things Jon wishes he could have done (or at least done with greater attention/devotion)
I haven't pinned down the other two quite yet.

I'm leaving it at this for now, as I am getting far too tired to maintain a reasonably coherent writing style. I don't believe that I know the whole story here, but I feel as if i'm finally seeing it for what it is. Please though, tell me your thoughts on all of this, as I consider the conversation very worthwhile. Braid will forever be the game that proved interactive media can, without a doubt, be considered art.


*
None of this is meant to be a stab at Jonathan Blow. I don't want it to seem like I know him, because I don't. This is all speculation based on observation and reads such as http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/the-most-dangerous-gamer/8928/3/
*

Edit: Realized I didn't touch on A LOT of symbols in Braid. Perhaps we can fill these gaps, in time.

[Cobralad]

Well, most of games about someone regret. God of war, for example is about some nerdy office worker. He never going to get muscular body, he got sealed rage. All good female characters are representation of his mother, they are loyal women who trust him and never have any objections from his actions(yes, even those female slaves show him being accepted no matter what).
But then, there is harpy or medusas. They express other behavior, they are not his fantasies, they are real women with flaws and personality, so he cant tolerate them, they attack him because he cant accept them. It is common fact that man express his misery in violence against the women.
Then he cant accept world around him and left alone in an empty world without family or friends...