God may bless you with all of these. So far the best theory i have read so far from this manhwa. The thing is, even though Doha is ma boy and stuff (and i go from hating to cherishing and simping for him), i gotta agree with you on Yong-Taek’s value and importance cause he is also my fave
I loved reading your theory!
It would make a lot of sense what you say about the game areas unlocking. It hadn't occurred to me that the empty ones were already completed. I wonder what other places will unlock in the future.
About Bada, he is being very defensive yes but I assume he has gotten used to Doha being like that and is taking it as normal. We need to remember how Bada felt being all alone for so long, he must be clinging to Doha like a lifeline. I would love to see him rely on Yong-take more!
Also, could it be Doha who shot the arrow at Bada? Just to interrupt their conversation or mask the fact that the killer was killed earlier. Just a thought.
Gonna copy paste what I commented on another site I'm following this story on, but here's the gist of my thoughts/theories:
okay fuck the theory i had formed two chaps ago went up in flames. but ykw im fine because im happy to get yong-taek's pov cause just seeing doha and bada fuck each other was getting old.
for y'all conspiracy theorists here's my current working theory:
First, very obviously, things have taken a turn for the better with Yong-Taek's entrance bless his soul.
Now, for the next thing - Bada is finally getting out of his slut era (just kidding), and him finding the tape player at the mountain shelter played a major role in that. Because it's the first one that doesn't 'get randomly re-located every session' which is the biggest lie I've ever heard. Know why? Because the game still goes on after Bada has died (or at least it seems that way to me). A session probably lasts as long as at least one 'awakened' or conscious player is still alive and playing, our perspective had been cleverly blinded because the author has been very sneakily making us, the readers, wake up and die with Bada so far but what has escaped our attention is Doha always dies after Bada does so in the meanwhile after Bada's death in a session...who knows what Doha is up to? Maybe he's figuring out the game mechanics himself, or perhaps plotting something more sinister than that.
Speaking of, now that we have a gauge to measure against, Doha is not all that when it comes to knowing his way around the game world (neither is Bada, and we don't know much about Yong-taek yet but he is such a welcome change my god I love him).
About Seongchan: While Yong-taek seems to think that he was his best partner buddy man, I have reason to believe that he's not the cleanest of the bunch. Because what I'm sensing here is: Seongchan found something more about the game, either the ending or something else because as Doha said, before Seongchan turned to an an npc he was going around warning all the other guys about Bada being delusional (he was playing all of them all along), but what I think is at some point he started playing behind his fellow players back (I'm guessing he's the one who was responsible for messing up Bada's game memory as well as stashing away Yong-taek's cassette in the mountain shelter because even Doha had no clue about the mountain shelter being anything important till Bada brought him there that one time, and even then he must not have thought much of it because they were just there to fuck lol). Also, the first run when Doha awakened as a player, the very first one where he exchanged his own tape with Seongchan's in the black stereo is a more crucial event than we realize, because that event made evident the fact before Doha, Seongchan was a player simultaneously along with Bada while Bada had no clue about it. And the situation worsens further when you put it all together and see that all the awakened players have very different ideas of how the 'default npc scenarios' sequences take place. What bada remembers as the initiation point aka Seongchan going out to take a call --> becoming the killer's first victim may be more than what it's made out to be. Cause why would a player willingly get killed instead of getting down to solve the puzzles? A very cliche explanation would be: 'Seongchan did all this cause he wanted Bada to do all the hard work, take advantage of the progress he achieved and move forward with the game without having to do anything himself. And him being offed as the first victim doesn't change anything cause he was using Hyungshin's cassette to save his progress anyway. If anything, hanging around Bada for longer would make him realize that Seongchan is a player too so why not be the first to go.' Also explains why Seongchan would go around deflecting the others away from Bada, and may also be something that neatly ties into Bada's memory issues Yong-Taek brings up. dunno how tho.
Anyway my point is we might get a more complete picture if Doha were to re-insert Seongchan's tape in a tape player. And in order to do that, they're gonna have to solve more puzzles: my theory is that every time one location is cleared, another map opens up, and with every map comes with a tape player (like that black one from the abandoned house, OR more recently, the one in the mountain shelter with Yong-taek's cassette - but neither Bada nor Doha were none the wiser about it cause it had already been cleared). And since the Mountain shelter has been done with, the Abandoned house still remains to be solved cause Bada has already solved the Lodge puzzle (probably, im guessing here, because this is how i imagine stuff went down: Lodge solved --> mountain shelter unlocked, and solved --> abandoned house opened up [still needs to be completed], REMEMBER we clearly can't rely on Bada's pov or his memories going forward, so he mostly doesn't remember doing any of it.]
As it stands, there's three stereos (not counting the one in the car), three awakened players, and three maps that are unlocked, 2 of which have been solved.And also, I beieve that the stereos not only serve as game save points but also as memory hard disks for the players, following that logic each of the six of them must have their own stereos. We'll get more info if they hurry up and solve the abandoned house im pretty sure of it. Can't wait for them to unlock Hyungshin Jaeseob 'the canonical gays' lmao. But let's see how that plays out...
My stance on Doha is pretty ambiguous as of now, he's quick to catch up but not to let on. Not to mention the fact that so far he's the only player whose skill set includes being able to off the killer and giving them an hour of safe play time. Also, lest we forget: despite us being 40+ chapters in we have no clue how or why Doha killed that npc villager back in the first chapter. Makes me wonder. huh.
Also, say what you will, but Doha did a good job on getting a read on Bada: he's cautious when it comes to the game itself but careless when it came to other things. Look at him jumping to Doha's defence so quickly just cause he made it seem like he was helping Bada out with the game, even though Yong-taek has been a far less suspicious first encounter as compared to Doha. I'd chalk up Bada's current behaviour either to him being (sorta) infatuated with Doha or...writing inconsistencies, cause he's being more of a loser than he was at the start of all this. Still love him tho. His fashion game is always on top regardless of whatever is happening in-story lol. Slayyy.
But bffr I have a message for him: Bada please get up and get real boy. I know Doha rizzed you up or whatever but you should know better than to take what he says at face value. This is not the time to be the dude in distress. I was really enjoying having you as the protagonist so don't make major blunders anymore and make mommy proud please.
Doha and Seongchan are both sus, Yong-taek and Bada are the only ones who are genuinely trying to get to the ending by playing fair tbh.
Gonna say it again: thank god for Yong-taek, he's my mvp. I've only had him for two chapters but if anything happens to him I'm going to kill everyone in this room and then myself.