Ty it’s several months and I’ve been confused about the cassettes and their functions. But I don’t understand how NPC Doha (before he killed the villager) became aware? I mean for Bada he appeared to be a NPC and was present all throughout as one, so at what point did Doha really become aware? Because if Bada wasn't there to witness Doha kill that villager who knows when he actually did become aware. And if he did, why didn’t he interact with Bada? I know Bada would seem out of place considering he doesn’t follow “NPC” behavior.
Also this is just a tangent but I’ve always found Bada’s cousin weirdly perceptive lol
I think Doha has never been an npc, so there wasn't really a specific moment when he becomes conscious, he's always known. And honestly the only reason I can think for why he wouldn't interact with Bada is out of curiosity to see how Bada played the game, or maybe being uninterested in getting involved with the loop again. In his mind, he thinks he already knows what Bada is going to do and how it will end but then on a random session Bada confesses to him and that changes everything because nothing like it has happened before, so he decides to get involved. It's also possible he lost his memories like Hyungshin did, and something Bada did in a previous session triggered something that made him remember everything.
And yeah, I agree the cousin is sus. He seems to be Doha's main suspect for being an undercover player, he was left alone last session after Doha kinda told him about the game, and he apparently remembers seeing the tapes before. I wonder if he'll remember Doha killing him next session.
omg i love this theory
this is a rlly good theory
So I decided to reread before season 2 comes out and some things jumped out at me, particularly about the cassette tapes. In the last scene we see Doha had 2 tapes in his bag, a yellow one and a green one with a check mark. The yellow one is Hyungshin's tape that he got from the car, like Bada asked. The suspicious one is the green one because, according to Bada, the tapes disappear at the start of a new session, so how does Doha have one already?
I think Doha was the og player and managed to bruteforce his way into completing the game (or a non dlc version of it) without really understanding the details of how everything works. The green cassette tape is from his own completed "game file" (hence the check mark) and finishing the game gives you some perks. In some games like Resident Evil you can unlock perks after completing the game for the first time, like infinite bullets and the like, and use those perks in new playthroughs. I think Doha's perk is being able to kill the killer, as well as getting to permanently keep his completed save cassette (maybe that's why he was asking if you can load a previous save state).
This would explain why:
- He seems to know things without Bada telling him, like where to find some items and the hidden passages in the lodge
- Things Bada tells him about the nature of the game, like the item progression and death flags, are still new info to him
- He was already showing odd behavior before he first saved the game with Bada, like killing the villager
- He's suspicious of other people being player characters, because he knows it's possible
- He doesn't need to save the game to keep his memories like Hyungshin, despite supposedly also being an npc. (This one's a little strange because Bada and Doha don't save every session but still remember, so I'm assuming player characters always keep their memories, regardless of the cassettes. It's difficult to say tho because Hyungshin apparently got his memories erased because he escaped, not because he didn't save).
And his line about how he'll stay with Bada even if Bada turns out to be wrong takes a new meaning. He doesn't necessarily think Bada's wrong about it being a game, he thinks he's wrong about being able to escape after getting all the endings. Maybe he was initially a normal person but going through the game looping again and again on his own and knowing they can't escape made him the little psycho we know, and now he doesn't care about playing the game or escaping anymore because at least he'll be with Bada.
Sorry this is long, but I would love to know what you think about it or if you have any other theories.