Talk:The Strangers/@comment-5471844-20170703195212/@comment-35134527-20190301205807

Hey, I know this is a long time since you left this comment but I'm hoping i can provide some clarity, or at least a second opinion on these meanings:

1 - No, the conductor couldn't see them - he clarifies on this later. The conductor is likely confused because he thought there were people in the car, but was surprised to find that once he entered, there didn't appear to be anyone there. (Later, when he gets "stuck" for the first time, the conductor can actually see him at the end of the line, and asks him to leave.)

2 - Yes. When a Stranger finds themself "stuck" in a world like this -- we can assume, given the context, that this means they are suddenly fully visible, and therefore unable to go undetected to the end of the line and get on a new train to a new world -- they remain "stuck" until they either trick someone into following them all the way, or until they kill someone, as our narrator eventually learns when he makes his first kill.

3 - When he is riding the public transport in these alien worlds, if he remains still and silent, the people seem to take no notice of him, as if he were just another one of their kind, blending in. When this alien fellow passes him in the terminal, it takes little notice of him, meaning he still looked like one of the aliens that lived in this world even though he was no longer in the subway car. He's learned that he will not reveal himself as a Stranger to their world just by leaving the car. The alien probably "frowned" at him because he was being kind of weird by staring around, but not weird enough to seem alien; the same way any of us might look at someone strangely if they were behaving a little strangely.

4 - The "gesture" here, I'm guessing, was probably a friendly wave of the hand as a greeting. I assume he did this, innocently, trying to be friendly or seem inconspicuous to someone who was looking at him. Whatever that gesture means in that world must have been horrendous, to get him beat up. I know that the gesture that means "OK" in my country means "Asshole" in a few other countries; I'm assuming it's a similar sort of situation here, though whatever the gesture meant to the aliens must have been more offensive than a typical insult.

Hope that was helpful or insightful!