A Connection, and a line that stuck with me
(This theory is probably going to be a bit word-vomit-ish just warning ya right now. Spoilers for DDLC ending if you haven't seen it yet!!)
So after Jack's DDLC episodes 3 and 4, one thing that repeatedly struck me was the connection between Monika and Anti. Not just how Jack switches between their voices in the middle of speaking, but also the obvious and disturbing similarities between them.
Monika wants the player's love, their full attention, and comes to resent the other club member's for taking the player's time and affection, leading her to hurting and eventually deleting them from the game, all to get the player for herself.
Anti, in the most agreed upon lore, wants our attention, wants us all to himself, and is has already slit Jack's throat and possibly killed Schneeplestein (unconfirmed) in order to get us to focus on him.
The two of them obsess and manipulate and hurt others, all to get our attention, to get us, the player, the viewer. Jack has continually been hinted to be suppressed while Anti is in control, shoved aside, deleted?
Our Anti is Monika, the puppet master, pulling the strings and changing the code behind the scenes.
Our Jack is Sayori, cast aside and deleted, killed for being the viewer's favorite, our favorite.
The others, Yuri and Natsuki, the rest of the Septic Egos, are secondary, but still a very likely threat to Anti/Monika's goal of being our number one.
Just as Monika laments on why we didn't spend more time with her, why we prefer the other girls, Anti becomes furious and aggressive when we begin to focus on the other egos, and targets them like Monika does.
Branching out from this connection, one line from episode 3, "Sometimes it feels like you and I are the only real people here.." also struck me as interesting. Monika says this to us as another form of fourth wall breaking/foreshadowing in that episode, but I feel that it could also be applied to Anti. In DDLC, Monika controls the game, the code. She practically is the game. She can delete other characters and force the player's hand when there are decisions to be made. She has, in a sense, free will, like we do. But the other girls in the game do not, they are controlled by the game code, which Monika can manipulate as she pleases.
Connecting this to Anti (considering the similarities between him and Monika) brings back the whole "no strings on me" hint, reminding us that Anti is the one pulling the strings here, not anyone else. He has control right now.
Remember, it's been Anti this whole time, right? He can do whatever he wants with the channel, the community, us, the basic life force of the other egos.
In DDLC, does having free will make you "real"?
We have free will, control over what we do.
Anti has free will, control over what he wants to do the channel, the other Egos.
If the others Egos don't have that free will, if they're under his control, then can they be considered "real"? Or have they been reduced to mere obstacles, tools to be used without any choice in the matter? And if so, is their demise inevitable? Set in the digital code of a glitching virus?
And as for us- are we doing any better than that?
We're not exactly fighting the looming threat of Anti's control...
Jack, Anti, the other Egos, us.
(@no-strings-puppet @fear-is-nameless I hope you don't mind me tagging you! You're seem like cool duders and I'd like to hear your thoughts, if you have any! ^u^")
