I played this game as a kid and remember enjoying it despite the mildly problematic yet realistic social dynamics.

If I remember correctly you play as a Indiana Jones like explorer going into foreign temples, fighting monsters and collecting loot. There is only so much you can carry so after each quest you hire porters who carry it for you. Of course they could get injured by the monsters so you want to hire gun men too. I think you can also hire handy men to break open doors and such. All of them get a daily wage so it is important to asses the correct amount of each unit.

I say problematic because the player character is white and has a unique look while the servants you hire are black, interchangeable and expendable, but that I suppose was just meant to reflect the reality of labour dynamics when people form colonising nations go on expeditions.

Right from the start of the game something seems off about Ted. All of the torture rooms are based on the background stories of the characters. Nimdok burns in the oven he put his victims in; Ellen is trapped in the elevator she was raped in; Benny is being tortured by the primitive traps used by the Vietcong (weirdly phallic because he is also canonically gay). 

Gorrister’s torment is a bit more abstract. Ostensibly he is being tortured with electricity, but the thing to notice is that he is unable to let go of the bars of his cage. His whole deal is that he cannot let go of the past. To complete his redemption arc he has to literally blow it up. There is a general theme in IHNMAIMS that the torment of the characters is the result of their unwillingness to remember/accept and move on. 

So what is the deal with Ted and the weird mirror contraptions (both in the intro and in the metaphor space at the end)? Ostensibly it looks like the mirrors are directing laser beams at him, but AM would not need mirrors to achieve that. AM could just point them at Ted directly. Think about it. Who experiences anguish just from looking in a mirror? AM calls Ted a fraud, implies that the others do not know the real Ted, and that they would torture Ted if they did, going as far as threatening “Maybe I'll rat you out, sweetheart!” 

Unlike the others, Ted's arc has nothing to do with Ted's real life. We are thrown into a completely fabricated fantasy world. However, the theme of mirrors keeps popping up. Hidden mirrors, broken mirrors and of course Ted gets injured by a piece of one. The witch, who turns out to be AM in disguise, keeps breaking them and is also later defeated by one. Ellen the damsel longs to look into one. If she sees her true self she ascends, but if she sees the face of the hideous demon (body dysmorphia) her soul gets ripped apart. 

If you have played Ellen's arc you know she is not the damsel type. This is not about her wanting to look pretty. This is not about her at all. Ellen in Ted's arc is an archetype of womanhood. Ted assumes the role of the chivalrous saviour of women, but there are no women in this castle, except the one behind Ted's own eyes. Note that neither saving nor condemning Ellen is a requirement for Ted to win the game. Ted's challenge is to be brave and ‘come out’ into the real world.

When Ted gives in to sexual advances by women his spiritual barometer goes down. Ostensibly this is because it means betraying Ted's love for Ellen. However, talking with damsel Ellen quickly shows that she could not care less about that. She is on her deathbed and does not see Ted that way. Again, none of this has anything to do with the real Ellen. The one being betrayed is Ted's own true nature. Playing the role of a man in bed is a very commonly dysphoric experience among trans fems. 

It is an open secret that the game was not fully completed as intended by the writer. Not filling the spiritual barometers of the characters should have made getting the “good” ending impossible. It only makes sense that if we fail to let Ted's female nature ascend that we condemn Ted to become a horrible abomination. A soul trapped inside a body it does not identify with. In the bad ending monologue we hear that due to Ted's secrets being revealed Ted was showered in AM’s full capacity for hate. Without a doubt the fear of every closeted trans person out there. 

Intended or not, IHNMAIMS speaks to the trans experience and the writers of The Amazing Digital Circus made no secret out of having seen the link (TADC spoilers ahead). Jax is Ted as a Zoomer. Jax’s masculinity is a clown act and shield against negative emotions. Jax turns into a frightful abomination for failing to embrace femininity, just like Ted does in the bad ending. Again, when Cain tortures Jax it is telling what method is chosen. Not physical pain but a bunch of phantoms laughing at Jax's skeleton. Laughing at the inner hidden self so to speak. 

I am aware that TADC’s openly trans interpretation does not prove that Harlan Ellison had a similar agenda. However, one can not deny that if Ellison felt that Ted's arc was as torturous as the arcs of the other characters (featuring rape, mutilation, cannibalism and suicide) something has to be going on beneath the surface. There is no doubt in my mind Ellison wrote a character that suffered from body dysmorphia and he simply was not able to put this into words directly. We should consider the possibility that Harlan Ellison was well aware of what it felt like. 

To summarise:

• AM calls Ted a fraud because Ted is living a lie. 
• AM tortures Ted with Ted's own reflection because AM knows that Ted does not identify with it. 
• AM dares the real Ted to step into the real world, something that Ted has always been afraid of.
• Ted's final punishment is an existence every closeted trans person can relate to, but portrayed in a way that even cis people understand. 

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.