#lord unknown

👿: ᴡᴇ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴋ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜʀ ꜱɪꜱᴛᴇʀ, ᴅᴜᴅᴇ. ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴛʜʀᴇᴀᴛᴇɴɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ᴋɪʟʟ ʜᴇʀ ꜱʜɪᴛ ɪꜱ ɢᴇᴛᴛɪɴɢ ʀᴇᴀʟ ᴏʟᴅ.

💚: [gulp]

Meanwhile, somewhere else in the Demon Realm...

🩷: Bullshit! You sound just like Andy! I'm not 'stuck emotionally as a child'!

I am of the belief neither demon has Andrew's or Ashley's best interest in heart: all their actions have pointed to them wanting to be more useful in what they claim will be a mutually beneficial relationship. It's why I don't really like to call what Lord Unknown does as "Demon Therapy" or anything: it's a forceful probing of Andrew's mind without his consent to "fix" him so he can hatch into an apparently more useful Tar Soul.

I think one of the most poignant scenes in all of 3A was how Andrew reacts to being shown... comfort from someone other than Ashley. I think it's a very important scene.

When I first played this I kind of gasped. The way the music stopped, and the transition from "Fucking Snoop" to "Something Terrifying" to "Something Kind."

Suddenly, you understand why people join cults.

I do not believe the demons have Andrew's or Ashley's best interest in minds, and I think Lord Unknown's personal desire is to sever Ashley and her memory from his life in some capacity. So I think Decay's ultimate bas ending will ultimately be an ending where Andrew lives without Ashley. An ending where Ashley is dead and he just... keeps living on as this thing's puppet.

There's this quote from No Longer Human I think about in regards to this specifically, now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness:

“Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness. Everything passes. That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell. Everything passes.”

And that's Andrew with Ashley dead and his emotions hollowed out by this demon. And afterwards, Lord Unknown essentially tasks him with leading the cult,

Freedom from the person he has hated more than anyone else, but also the only person he's ever truly loved in any true capacity. No more of the consequences he has feared: if things get dicey, Lord Unknown will simply move him without effort.

Freedom from choices. Freedom from hatred. Freedom from love. There is no happiness, but there is neither sorrow. There is no hope, yet there is no despair. Simply... a simple existence and orders followed. Full indoctrination into a cultist way of thinking, leaving behind absolutely everything, even the sole thing that was precious to him solely for the sake of "peace."

Peace, and praise: that too is important. You did good. I'm proud of you. Wonderful work, Andrew. You did a good job. Your work is valued.

The complete and absolute obliteration of everything that made him Andrew graves. There is another text comparison I have, the ending of the script of Midsommar relevant to this as Dani fully embraces what happens and accepts being absorbed into a cult once and for all: "A SMILE finally breaks onto Dani’s face. She has surrendered to a joy known only by the insane. She has lost herself completely, and she is finally free. It is horrible and it is beautiful."

I can see Andrew like, in the future, being the cult leader. He's gaining more followers, and more important, actually knowing how the summoning works has gathered more souls and sacrifices for Lord Unknown. Hey, please imagine him talking with some of the new recruits or something-

"O-oh... s-sorry sir, didn't mean-"

"No, please, it's fine- no need to be so formal. Call me Andy."

But not Leyley's Andy. Lord Unknown's Andy. Someone incapable of happiness or sorrow, content to finally have obtained what he once thought he wanted.

Surprisingly, despite my pfp and constant Entity Mii posting, I did not get much inspiration to write about what I think about the demons on their own post. And it may be a year later and parts of this is probably old news, it's better late than never to express my thoughts. So here's an analysis and theoryposting about them.

For both demons, they are most likely meant to parallel with the authority figures that greatly shaped the siblings' lives. The Entity is very similar to the Surgeon, because both of them drive the present-day plot, share the "raising their prey like cattle" motif, and both have very business-like mentalities when it comes with dealing with other people, to the point that they aren't really people to them, just tools. That likely why the Entity is interested in the Surgeon, he recognizes they're both similar individuals. Perhaps this means the Entity might have more malicious plans, much like how the Surgeon is with the quarantine scheme, but it's just as possible that he's non-malicious and just trying to survive as literally not consuming souls in his state will kill him. Lord Unknown is meant to be an opposite of the siblings' family, where while both of them are associated with the past, the family actively shaped their past while Lord Unknown wants to learn more about it in the present. He is also actively interested in Andrew as a person, whereas no one in his family except Ashley has any interest in him as a person, just a tool for their own ends. He claims to want an equal partnership with Andrew too, unlike the family where there is clearly a hierarchy and Andrew is at the bottom and has to do whatever everyone above him says. However, there is a chance Lord Unknown might just only be interested in Andrew as tool too, though we can't say that for certain right now. I personally doubt that is the case, which I'll explain why later.

Both the Entity's and Lord Unknown are very complementary with their respective partnered siblings, where while they both act similar, they share similar personalities and motifs of the other sibling. The Entity's design is very simple and minimalist, much like how in Andrew's dream world, it's filled with black and white checkered tiles. He thinks transactionally, talks straightforwardly, doesn't actively lie, and seems quite attached to his childhood with how he kept around a broken RC car from his human past, much like Ashley. However, he has no attachments to anyone nor does he care to pursue them, as we see with rejecting Ashley's offer of friendship, much like Andrew (except for Ashley of course). This is best seen where the Entity immediately tries to make a deal with Andrew once he killed Ashley, because Andrew's soul is dark enough for him to take an interest. That same scene also best highlights how the Entity prefers the easy route of not trying to push for what he wants when he meets immediate resistance, much like how Andrew is to Ashley for almost their entire lives.

Very funnily and fascinatingly in Cliffhanger, he acts a lot like a friend who's concerned about their friend's red flag partner and really wants them to leave, but can't do anything but point out their partner is bad news. While his concern is self-interested, ironically enough, it is reminiscent of Andrew often being worried of Ashley. The Entity is also very focused on his goals of attaining more power and survival, which he will achieve by loopholes, saving souls for later, and taking care of them before eating them, much like Andrew's methods of charm, negotiation, trickery, and efficiency. This also serves an explanation for why he wants Ashley to be his servant even after she becomes a demon, and possibly Andrew too in Burial: he can multiply how many souls he gets to reach that powerful state. The Entity's hyperfocus on efficiency to reach that state reinforces his detachments to the point that he has forgotten human attachments. This is best seen where he questions why Ashley loves Andrew so much despite being a potential threat to her, and measuring his worth based on his soul's viability to be a demon.

The Entity's visions of the future encourages forethought, addressing Ashley's weakness of doing things at the moment and thinking later, but is something Andrew is strong at. It makes sense that Andrew sees Entity as a threat not only because of his power, but because he does Andrew's job much better than him and could replace Andrew in Ashley's life. Interestingly, the Entity's powers could theoretically encourage Ashley to be reflective on herself since they're focused on warning her of the "troubles ahead", so far, that has not happened in any route. In all routes, she's convinced Andrew is only staying with her because of the visions, still reinforcing her belief that she has to be worth something for Andrew to stick around. In Decay, Ashley is in survival mode around Andrew, so she resorts to her usual methods of controlling and appeasing him to prevent that, which can lead to some pretty negative outcomes. On Burial Questionable, the vision encourages her to use sex as another method to control, which is suggested to potentially give negative outcomes.

Lord Unknown's design is obviously floral, much like how Ashley's associated with red and pink flowers. His first appearance has him show up from doing an out of the way thing where he is completely quiet, much like how Andrew's first appearance has him mostly act passive until the end of Chapter 1. Both of their characters gets more fleshed out in the following chapter. LU is similar to Ashley in that both appear to be the more obviously "evil" individual compared to Andrew/the Entity, but then it's revealed that LU can be beneficial to Andrew and is a lot more inscrutable as a result. This is much like how it's revealed that Ashley is aware of Andrew's detachment to other people but doesn't care and loves him anyway, which is why Andrew is fiercely attached to her despite everything she did to him. Both LU and Ashley are content with chilling in life with not much broader goals and aspirations, just living life as it is (until quarantine happened). LU acts kind and compassionate to get what he wants and apparently has been in contact with many souls, much like how Andrew acts and he has more of a social life than Ashley. But notably, LU is more initiative and emotionally personable than the Entity is, much like how Ashley is towards Andrew. Given that he seems to have a bond with multiple individuals, it seems like he has the same desire to have friends like Ashley does. In fact, Lord Unknown spawns a hand to give Andrew a comforting headpat, much like how Ashley is very physically affectionate with him.

Lord Unknown's power focused on digging up memories of the past, addressing Andrew's weakness of wanting to run away from everything that distresses him because he's so focused on surviving in the present and planning for the future. While that happened against Andrew's consent and there will certainly be consequences for that, Andrew at the end of Cliffhanger starts understanding better why he is the way he is now, and that while a lot of it was unintentional, he has a big part of shaping Ashley to be the way she is. This focus on the past is also a trait of Ashley's, which while so far is a fatal flaw of hers, there is likely some benefit to it we aren't seeing clearly yet. While Lord Unknown's power has made Andrew more reflective on himself, he can also "suggest" to get rid of the undesirable "feelings" of Andrew's psyche too, which likely entails the removal of memories. This matches with Ashley's heavily implied dissociative amnesia, where she is constantly and consciously forgetting things that could distress her, but this leads to her carelessness and her difficulty to reflect on herself.

While it's quite common for many people to assume the demons as not having any good intentions for the siblings, the demons have always came off to me as self-serving and amoral, quite similar to Ashley. I'll first focus on the Entity. The Entity has stuck his word to the deal in both Episodes 1 and 2, and while an ominous soul eater, he hasn't been actively doing anything in those episodes. As established in 3A, Entities can only interact with humans outside of the Demon Realm through transactions and they need souls to survive, though eventually, they can become powerful enough don't need them anymore. Also, in both the Andy and Andrew and Leyley routes, the Entity allowed Andrew to stay in his realm, even though in both cases, Andrew clearly was opposed to what the Entity and Ashley are doing and in A&L route, is a deadly danger to Ashley. On A&L, the Entity comes to want Andrew dead because of his danger, his ability to easily break out of any prison the Entity puts him in, and he let the Entity's souls out which would take a long ass while to round them all up as we see in Cliffhanger. However, he can be persuaded by Ashley to spare him, and lets her do it anyway.

Also something to highlight is that the deal is different between Cliffhanger and the Andy and Andrew and Leyley routes.

(Andy route and Andrew & Leyley route)

On those two routes, Andrew starts arguing with Ashley for roasting the guy, with the Entity enjoying some marshmallows himself. As stated before, because of Andrew's opposition to the Entity having fun and the Entity's possible encouragement of Ashley to become an Entity by eating other humans, and Andrew could potentially murder Ashley, he wasn't allowed into the Demon Realm. He only got there because Ashley sold his soul to the Entity, or Andrew was only his soul and they both took him there.

(Andy route)

Cliffhanger is different because Andrew can actually warn Ashley that the cops are actually super dangerous, so Ashley says the demon can take all of their souls when the Entity pointed out he's owed a soul. She also directly asked the Entity to rescue her and Andrew, which she doesn't on the other two routes.

(Cliffhanger deal)

The Entity takes this as an addendum to their original deal of "one soul for waiting", and then agrees to let enter the demon world in exchange for both of their cooperation. He actively wanted Andrew's help on that route because he thought Andrew has no major opposition to the Entity's plans. The most opposition he expressed was he didn't agree with the deal to sacrifice the officers.

The argument that the Entity has actively malicious reasons for driving a wedge between the siblings on Cliffhanger falls flat when you consider the exact wording of the deals between the three routes and the events that followed in those route. He wants to drive a wedge between the siblings because he just found out Andrew can potentially destroy Ashley's talisman, and obviously, he wants to prevent that. Even then, he didn't push for a deal with Ashley that can let him get rid of Andrew, such as taking his soul if he "did something stupid" like in the Andy route. He just let Ashley do whatever she wanted.

It is indisputable that the deal with Andrew gathering the souls can give room for Andrew never returning or getting his soul taken, but Andrew isn't under a time limit to gather them either. It benefits the Entity if Andrew returns, but it also benefits the Entity if he doesn't. This is to not rule out that the Entity will become antagonistic to the siblings, Ashley was seen in the prison dimension with Andrew on the May 2025 Devlog preview after all. So far though, all signs point to that the Entity doesn't want to start anything, but if the siblings oppose him in some way, he will act against them, matching up with his self-interested nature. However, because he's so self-interested, he cannot progress either siblings' development in a positive way. This is best seen in Cliffhanger where he still believes what the visions of Andrew show as they are threat to his interests, which can make Ashley distrust Andrew even more.

But because Cliffhanger Andrew doesn't know that the Entity doesn't want to start anything, it makes sense why he's still paranoid of him. I think that a potential route split in Episode 4 is how Andrew acts about destroying Ashley's talisman: if Ashley had let Andrew kill her, she agrees to it because she feels confident that she has some control and agency in the relationship, if Ashley was killed because of the empty gun, she felt coerced to agree or tried to resist it and failed. This now leaves them with only one ally, Lord Unknown, and a whole lot of uncertainty ahead of them.