Magical Realism in Kentucky Route Zero

Kentucky Route Zero from the beginning will make a player doubt whether the whole situation indeed exists or it is all within the main character’s mind. The reason for that is the heavy presence of a magical realism characteristic: Fantastic elements.  Although the setting takes place in what could be a real place, meaning that there is nothing extraordinary within the environment such as purple trees, yellow sky or the like, there is still something intriguing. At the moments that you would least expect it something extraordinary will appear. For example in Act 2 near the end a boy appears claiming that his brother is a big eagle. At first when I personally encountered this character I just thought that the boy is either lying or gone completely crazy. There were already a bunch of characters present within the game whose state of mind was quite questionable thus I actually disregarded him. However when the little boy offered a ride and called a bird, a huge eagle indeed descended and swiped the main characters off. One of the best parts of the game I would say was actually controlling this eagle as he was flying around. The whole representation of the flight was very fantastical as well. The whole scene was made in black and white and one could see all of the geographical sites as they were floating. I feel that moments like this fill Kentucky Route Zero with Fantastical Elements and thus create Magical Realism within the game. This makes the game as a whole more engaging and full of surprises. Moments like this surely made me question: what if this whole game is just a dream that the main character has?