The Three Architects

The subject and name of this article has no proper denomination, and is unofficially titled based on conjecture or references found in-game.

"One of The Three Architects marked by Celestials assists You." - Text seen on the Crucifix's hexagram

The Three Architects (also referred to as The Three Lights) are known as Guiding Light, Curious Light, and a Red Light. These 'light' entities can be observed throughout DOORS in: The Lobby, The Backdoor, The Hotel, The Rooms, The Mines, The Castle and likely future floors.

Guiding Light

Main article: Guiding Light

"My lights shall guide you." - Guiding Light referring to itself

Guiding Light is the "main" light that assists players in The Hotel and The Mines by highlighting progressive items and locations and distributing death messages to players upon death. Guiding Light is only present in The Hotel, The Lobby (during the Tower Heroes Event only) and The Mines.

The crucifix and possessed candle are implied to be "powered" by Guiding Light.

Guiding Light is represented by the "Moonlight' symbol that is seen in death messages screen after dying in The Hotel or The Mines, the "Spacetime" painting, the full trailer of The Mines, and crucifix sigil; Guiding Light is implied as being "marked by [a] celestial". The "Moonlight" symbol can also be found on doors in rooms in the form of a barrier, where Figure resides, preventing it from leaving the room, and after the Seek chase sequence, closing the door behind the player, as well creating a barrier.

Found in:

1. The Hotel
2. The Mines
3. The Castle

Curious Light

Main article: Curious Light

"This one is a bit confusing." - Curious Light

Curious Light is the second light who is between Guiding Light and Red Light. Curious Light is mostly a neutral behaved light compared to Guiding Light, who helps indefinitely, and Red Light, who appears to interfere with the players (from very small pieces of evidence). Curious Light only gives very vague information on sub-floor entities and does not highlight any items. Also, if a player dies to a certain entity too much (mainly Backdoor Entities), Curious Light will start to get more and more agitated as more times the player dies to them.

Curious Light emits sound and light similar to Guiding Light while the Red Light doesn't.

Curious Light's symbol seems to be the Starlight symbol, seen on its death message screen after dying in The Backdoor or The Rooms. on both versions of the "Spacetime" painting, and in the Vial/Bottle/Barrel of Starlight.

Curious Light appears as one of the light candies in the 2024 Trick or Treat update. Eating its candy casts the effect "Volatile Starlight" which can either (over)heal the player or damage the player randomly, and will always give a short speed boost. This shows that this light is mostly neutral, sometimes helping the player and sometimes not.

Found in:

1. Lobby (Backdoor Gate)
2. The Backdoor
3. The Hotel (Entrances and exits to subfloors, Rift)
4. The Rooms
5. The Mines (Entrances and exits to subfloors, Rift)
6. The Castle (Entrances and exits to subfloors, Rift)

Red Light

The Red light is theorized to be focused on hindering players instead of helping as Guiding Light and, arguably Curious Light are. It blocks The Rooms' entrance when Modifiers are enabled. The Red Light has not spoken to the player at all yet (except certain nudges, or the Tower Heroes event), but it is possible for communication in the near future (Although the way it will try to communicate, like how Curious Light only appears in subfloors, or how Guiding Light is normally encountered, is completely unknown).

The Red light doesn't emit any sound or a glow like Curious Light and Guiding Light do.

The Red light's symbol is believed to be the Modifier symbol seen in the top right of the screen when they're enabled, which is also seen in the modified "Spacetime" painting. This implies that the Modifiers are, at least slightly, canon.

A possible reference to the Red light is that once the player dies in the hotel while modifiers are active, when Guiding Light would normally appear, the screen instead turns static-red for a few seconds, as if the Red light was preventing any Guiding Light communication reaching the Player. The red static can still be seen when killed in non-modified runs for just a few moments prior to Guiding Light's or Curious Light's speeches.

It is possible that the Red light is related to Seek, due to the red glow found throughout The Grand Hallway, The Caverns and at the end of floor 2.

The Red Light appears as one of the light candies in the 2024 Trick or Treat update. Eating its candy casts the effect "Can-die" which deals 100 damage (normally instakilling players). This is a powerful indicator that the Red Light has malicious intent.

Even though the Tower Heroes Event is not canon, it is worth noting that this Red Light alerts you when enemies begin flooding into The Library. This may hint at the idea that it assists the Figure in some way.

Found in:

1. The Hotel
2. The Mines

Trivia

• The title "The Three Architects" is derived from the encrypted message seen on the Crucifix's banishing sigil when it is used against an entity: "OneOfTheThreeArchitectsMarkedByCelestialsAssistsYou".
  • The Three Architects being "Marked By Celestials" seems to imply that the symbols for all of the Architects are meant to resemble celestial bodies, which clearly lines up with Guiding Light's moon and Curious Light's star. It's not entirely clear what the Red Light's symbol is meant to be, but it could resemble a spiral-like celestial body such as a black hole, nebula, or galaxy. Out of the three, it's more likely to be a black hole, seeing as the symbol would only resemble spiral galaxies, which are just one of many types of galaxies. There's also the fact that all discovered spiral galaxies have a supermassive black hole at the center of them such as our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
• The Three Architects are the three primary colors.
  • This is the RYB color model, which applies to paint and pigments. The RGB color model applies to light, which is ironic given the Architects' association with light.
• During the Library cutscene, Guiding Light breaks the lamp to distract Figure. This is easily noticeable due to Guiding Light's sparkles nearby the lamp after the cutscene finishes.
  • Guiding Light also closes and holds the door at the end of the Seek chase sequence and the Library to protect the player.
  • It also closes and holds the door at Door 151 (after the Nest), Figure's Room (110-114, 120-123, 160-184)
• The filenames for the icons of the Red Light and Guiding Light on the "Spacetime" painting are "scarylittlelight".
• In the Spacetime Painting, certain knob bonus milestones from Modifiers will change Guiding Light's icon and the Red Light's icon to different brightness levels and sizes.
  • The Red Light's icon gets brighter from higher knob bonuses, while Guiding Light's icon gets dimmer and smaller.
• While playing without modifiers, the “Spacetime” painting still has the Guiding Light’s and the Red Light, but they're extremely small (most likely to hide it with the the other celestial assets in the painting).
• The Curious Light's block to The Backdoor for when the player doesn't have the "Detour" achievement represents its star symbol, although the Red Light's block to The Rooms when the player has Modifiers enabled doesn't have the Modifiers symbol.
  • The Red Light's block is similar to the cracks in the walls of the Rift room and the Rift itself in The Electrical Room. They share a triangle particle that Curious Light's block lacks, but the Red Light's block uses the forcefield material like Curious Light's block does, instead of neon like the Rift cracks.
    • The sky of the Lobby and A-1000, Starlight, and both Guiding Light's and Curious Light's Rifts all use similar triangle particles.
• The generators in The Mines have their fuses glowing blue, yellow, and red. It is speculated that the fuses represent the Three Architects.
• The reason why Red Light blocks off the gates to The Rooms is likely because the Rooms are incompatible with The Hotel modifiers.
  • Also, in the tweet where Lsplash says this, he also says "also um.... l... lo... nevermind". This likely implies there was another reason too, probably something related to Red Light's intentions.
• Underneath the crucifix sigil and on the “entity door block barrier”, there is a moonlight symbol, referencing Guiding Light. Similarly, when the player escapes the Backdoor and the Rooms, they are teleported to the Hotel, and the door that took them there is suspended in the middle of the room. Underneath this door, they can see a starlight symbol, referencing Curious Light.
• The symbol of three chairs lined up next to each other at the entrance to the Rooms may be referencing the Three Architects who once resided there.
  • It could also be possible the Three Architects are/used to be living beings.
• It is unknown if the Red Light will play a major role in the game outside of modifiers and the crucifix.
• The Three Architects have their own background color in the icons for DOORS, Guiding Light in the Hotel+ update, Curious Light in the Post-Hunt update, and The Red Light in the Modifiers update. This was hinting that the three light characters would be influenced in their own updates.
• A teaser on X by RediblesQW in March 2021, one of the first teasers ever of DOORS, showed a window in the Hotel, where three lights could be seen from the distance. They seem to have the same exact colors as the Three Architects.

Gallery

The Spacetime Painting.

Ditto but with Modifiers activated.

Ditto again, but with a -90% knobs bonus

Ditto again, but with a +193% knobs bonus

Moonlight symbol, seen during the crucifying process.

Starlight symbol, seen on the Vial, Bottle and Barrel of Starlight.

Modifier symbol, seen when enabling Modifiers.

"One Of The Three Architects Marked By Celestials Assists You".

DOORS teaser, with a window with three lights with the same colors as The Three Architects.

Guiding Light highlighting a Room Key.

Guiding Light highlighting a Library Book.

Guiding Light highlighting one of the ten Circuit Breaker Switches.

Guiding Light lighting up a lever in The Basement

Guiding Light highlighting a door in a dark room.

Guiding Light lighting up a door in The Basement.

Guiding Light lighting up a door nearby Jeff's Shop after Rush arrives.

Ditto, but from a different angle.

Curious Light highlighting the entrance to The Rooms.

Curious Light highlighting one of the many EXIT doors in The Rooms.

Curious Light blocking The Backdoor's entrance due to the Player not owning the "Detour" achievement.

Curious Light lighting up the 0000 exit door in the Backdoor.

Curious Light's portal after bringing the player from The Hotel to the Rooms.

Curious Light's portal after bringing the player from the Backdoor to The Hotel.

Curious Light lighting up the entrance to The Backdoor from The Lobby

A barrier that blocks The Rooms when modifiers are active, it is presumed to be the Red Light blocking.

The effect seen inside the cracked walls of the Rift room in The Electrical Room. It notably uses the same effects as the Red Light's block to The Rooms.

Guiding Light blocking the doorway at the end of the Seek Chase

Red moon that briefly fades in and out after Guiding Light blocks a door

Curious Light's new death message screen seen after The Mines update in The Backdoor or The Rooms.

Guiding Light's new death message screen seen after The Mines update in The Hotel or The Mines.

Uncolored triangles when there is a light in the area (Rift, A-1000, Rooms Barrier)

A Guiding Light-themed Candy added in The Haunt event.

A Curious Light-themed candy added in The Haunt event.

A Red Light-themed candy added in The Haunt event.

All Three Architect candies together.