okay, so. I cannot stop thinking about PW ch 3. you've cursed me. I genuinely cannot stop rotating it around in my brain. don't mistake this for a bad thing, however !! I can't exactly put it into words, but. I looovveee thinking about things. morally questionable characters are just always so entertaining to me. and oohh boy did we get a lot of Morally Questionable in this chapter. I'm just gonna dive right into this list I made of things to cover LMAO
so. first I'm going to talk about The Angel tidbit, mostly the similarities I've noticed. gonna come out swinging here, I think that Noob is the Thieving Mountain. I'm pretty certain on that. I think the Thieving Mountain is what they represent— their greediness, their selfishness, their hypocrisy, all of it
yes, they are a teenager in a very stressful situation, but even before it got even MORE stressful (i.e., getting pregnant), they were just. fucked up ??? I wouldn't consider them evil incarnate, I don't think they're the MOST evil that ever has eviled, but they are like. they're really high up there I'm not even going to lie. I'll cover this more separately, + how flat out insane/confusing some of their actions are to me 😭
I think there are a few different interpretations that I could go from here, but I'm going to start with the most obvious. that being, Amary is the mountains heart/core. therefore, she's what the 5 theives (there's four of them but it would be Shed, TT, Elliot, and Chance) are trying to """steal""". using the word steal very loosely there because,,, I don't think that was their original plan until Amary was fucking ???? stabbed ??????
this could also point to Guest being the wealthy king that was mentioned ("Surely, a wealthy king would pay handsomely for the core of the Thieving Mountain.") because he was the one who insisted they all go out to find and help Noob !!!
the 2nd version of that interpretation would be Noob as the Thieving Mountain, and Amary as one of the 5 thieves that need to be rescued by The Angel. this mostly comes from the fact that only four ended up visiting Noob, so we'd have to add one person to the equation for it to be an (un)even five for the 5 thieves
what/who the core would be + who The Angel would be in this interpretation ?? uhhh. I'm not entirely sure on that one, I'll be real. this is the less strong path of the two, but I thought I should still mention it in case it held merit
another point of evidence in favor of Noob being the Thieving Mountain (though it may not even be caused by Noob, if that makes sense ???) is that, the Mountain is described as having wind that ". . . continued its damning reign onto them . . . as the Thieving Mountain's winds cut and slashed at their necks." and a hurricane of wind seemed to appear whenever a killer got near Noob. this didn't seem to affect survivors at all, only the killers (1x, Sixer) ??? which is somewhat odd but, again, thought I should still mention it
speaking of necks, the Thieving Mountain cut at the necks of the five thieves, and where exactly did Noob stab Amary ? you guessed it !!!! cue the correct buzzer, Amary was cut across the neck !! this is one of the few pieces of evidence that point to the interpretation of Amary actually being one of the thieves loll
another thing I wanna talk about, but wasn't entirely sure were to mention it/if it even made sense, but. The Angel is described as having a pair of ram horns. Sixer has horns 🤨. and they end up losing one (to the wind, I assume ??? I don't know what else could cause such a thing). I'm not sure if The Angel even exists yet, but I have a feeling that; because The Angel was a bunch of collected parts embodying thieves mistakes, it may feature one or both of sixers horns
maybe this embodies a mistake in the sense of letting Guest give birth alone, maybe this embodies a mistake in the sense of Noob doing what they did with Sixer/Sixer's guilt over letting Noob do what they did to Amary (should she ever find out), maybe it just embodies. Noob. as a whole. I would, frankly, not be surprised !!
okay NOW. we're past all of the connections I found. jesus christ I already have so much ??? I'm so sorry in advance 😭
onto the list of general things/theories !!! gonna hop right into it by saying that; I think the figure in Noob's dream was Josie. or maybe could have been a representation of her. this is mostly because the figure is described as, ". . . short and thin, like a white flame in the shape of a tiny person. The small thing . . . with dark blue eyes that holds such curiosity . . . After briefly glimmering pink, the small figure wobbles onto their knees, resting both hands onto their legs."
the figure is described as curious and small repetitively— and while this description also fits PW's Spectre very well (in the comparison chart between canon spectre and Emmie spectre, we do actually get illustrations of both, and it DOES look like a white flame), there are two main reasons why I think it's Josie
one, that it glimmers pink, and Josie has (or would have had) pink hair. two, I'm kind of grasping at straws here, but in some pieces of art we see grown-up Josie with blue eyes !!!
the. uh. the only art that I could find this on was one that was outdated but. YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME 💔💔💔💔 THIS THEORY HOLDS MERIT I SWEAR. but fr though, I'm really torn between it being the Spectre and it being Josie because both seem pretty plausible. for now, I'll say that I'm believing in the latter for reasons I'm about to address
if the figure in the dream was Josie, that leads me to believe that both the wind and the figure we see by the tree at the end of the chapter are the Spectre. and I actually have some decent evidence for this !!! :D
okay so. there's something that the figure says at the end of the chapter that stuck with me, mostly because it seems so. wrong ?? like it's almost sucking up to Noob, telling them they didn't do anything wrong when they ABSOLUTELY did. it's a little hard to understand, so I'm going to try and paraphrase it in a way that hopefully makes more sense. for both me and for any other confused readers LOLL
"Oh dear child, you lay in a time and a place unkind to you, unfitting for you. Do you want to understand? To have your eyes be unblinded? . . . What has happened is a mistake, one you are not at fault for. Instead, the blame falls onto the ancient men, who have berated and hurt your youth. But I, and only I, can give you what you want, dear child. Become mine. And you will see your baby once more. With these eyes I wish to give you . . . That is right. You will see your baby again when the time is right. If you help me."
I tried my best to make it sliiighhttly more comprehensible, but because I'm paraphrasing I also could have gotten a bunch of stuff wrong x,D. there's a high likelihood that I've interpreted the part about the mothers and men wrong, so just. bear with me I'm trying my best 🙏
anywho. if I DIDN'T get that wrong, then. what the fuck. "nahhhh that wasn't your fault, that was the fault of the MEN" like what ????? I think it's talking about Dusekkar here, maybe, but there was like. there was NO ONE else to blame for that. Noob absolutely stabbed Amary of their own accord. I just don't think that's something Josie would say ig ??-
there IS another option here, that being mmaaybe the same voice we hear at the end of REM ?? but we haven't seen that same tapestry, so I sorta doubt it. part of me hopes that by giving Noob 'new eyes' they mean, like. opening their eyes to how cruel they've been 🥹? I think that might be the only chance at a Noob redemption arc we could get
okay. I think those are all of my theories. I think those are all of the connections. now I actually get to talk about the main characterrrrr !!!! ouhhh my god bruh. the main character is fucking BITCH 💔
so. Noob. what are they even. doing, half the time ?? not in a like, 'oh my god the writing is bad, I can't tell what they're doing' type way, but in a like. this character and their morals and the way they think is so confusing to me. how did they even End Up Like This bruh
let's just start with the most damning thing that happened this chapter, that being; Amary's death(?). I'm going to use the word death loosely there, mostly because we don't know for sure that she's dead, but it IS implied, and Noob certainly seems to believe that she's dead. one thing to point out before I get into this, though, is that Noob is a Notoriously Unreliable Narrator
this doesn't mean that EVERYTHING they say and do hold zero merit whatsoever, but I think it's very important to take it all with like. not necessarily a grain of salt. but it's important to register that there's a chance things could be true, and a chance things could be false. hold my hand and together we shall take it all in without fully accepting it as certainty ❤️🩹
so. they stabbed Amary in the neck. the first thing that comes to my mind is, why ???? WHY would they do such a thing, when they absolutely loved their daughter with everything they had ? we literally read from their perspective, and while they ARE an unreliable narrator, as I literally just said, they do seem to wholeheartedly love Amary. that leads us to the biggest question throughout the entire chapter, perhaps the entire fic— WHY did they gash her neck open ?
the first thing I did was go looking for possible reasons. we know of postpartum depression, of course, but is there anything else that could cause this violent behavior ? I'll admit, at first, it was honestly just me trying to see if there was anything that could make Noob's Case Of Evilness less damning. towards the beginning of the fic, I was rooting for them— surely they would get better, surely everything would be fine !!! I wanted them to persevere, as much as I like seeing my favorite characters suffer. alas. everything was Not Fine,,,
the only thing I could really find was PPP, also known as postpartum psychosis (a real condition, by the way !! as fascinating as it is saddening. perhaps I just like reading about the human psyche) but even then, all of the sources I found pointed to the idea that PPP usually sets in after a multitude of DAYS, not HOURS. maybe it is PPP and I'm just looking too deep into it, but that ruled out the possibility of postpartum psychosis for me
that's sorta where that trail ended, but you're sorely mistaken if you think I'm done talking about the intricacies of Noob's mind !!!! I actually have sososo much to yap about in regards to this. normally, I'd write it here and now, but my original draft for this paragraph kind of encapsulates it really well and I don't feel like rephrasing it loll
noob seemed out of it. not in a, 'they didn't know what they were doing so I'm fully excusing their actions' type way, but in a way where I mean, like. I don't think they were all there, and even after seeing with their own eyes what exactly they did to amary, they don't seem to fully understand it. we read FROM the perspective of noob, and they never once come to the conclusion that THEY stabbed their baby in the neck— we see them acknowledge that amary is BLEEDING from the neck, but even after they figure that out, they don't even seem to understand fully what happens after
they seem to be confused when shed starts applying pressure to the wound, they don't understand why they're taking her away from them, they actively cry out and say 'I didn't mean it!' even when they don't seem to fully grasp the concept of what they've done, or even that THEY'VE done it. when they see sixer again, they tell her that they didn't let them take the baby, and that they 'didn't do anything', which we know to be. False. with a capital F
end of my original draft, but yeah. there is SOMETHING happening in that head of theirs. like, there is something wrong with them. and I have zero clue what. I don't know if it's because of the way they were raised, maybe, or if it's just a character trade of theirs, but. I dunno 😭
there is no moment of realization, like, 'oh my god, what have I done?!!?!!? what have I done to my baby?!!??' just. self-pity, mostly. "Like a pathetic slug . . . And they couldn't even begin to wrap their head around the reason why . . . Why they were becoming such a lowly person." — it's genuinely crazy to me. WHAT is going on inside that head of theirs ???? it confuses me to no end, but I suppose that's why there's such a compelling (not necessarily in a good way lmao) character in hindsight
speaking of them being confusing and negatively compelling, I do have a few more things to talk about !! mostly on how they acted towards the others. what they said towards Guest (who is, I'm pretty sure, still grieving) last chapter was genuinely baffling, nevermind insensitive. and while I don't condone violence, ESPECIALLY when aimed at pregnant teenagers, and despite the fact that I don't rlly like what Guest did...,, man. idfk what I would have done either in that situation 😭😭
and the fact that they regard him as little more than a CORPSE.... god, dude. they're genuinely so selfish and self-centered, I don't understand it ??? how do they operate like this. how do they not see why this is wrong. they have like, ONE brief moment where they feel guilt, but it mostly seems like that's because they're missing the special treatment they got from the others ??
even after they have Amary, which was only possible/safe because the others were there to help them (Elliot patched them up, Shed was the one who made sure Amary was delivered safely), they continued to be. rude. mean. insensitive. there was no gratitude there, they continued under the belief that they would have been fine without the others, which is just. untrue
on top of that, we see Two Time mention something as the group is leaving. "they're already dying", is what they say about Noob. and honestly ?? I believe it. I think something went somewhat wrong with the birth, and Noob either HAS died or WOULD HAVE DIED from blood loss
evidence tiimmeee :3. there were TONS of mentions about how Noob was weaker after the birth— "Noob can barely remember anythibg they did, aside from the pain of it all. There was a lot of blood. Probably gallons of the stuff . . . or the fact they were running low on blood . . . Noob responds, a bit droopy . . . A sprawled out mess they couldn't help but notice was getting weaker . . . by the time their fading mind becomes clear . . . ", over and over again
apparently, losing one pint of blood is normal during childbirth, but any more than two and the bleeding is excessive and borderline dangerous. now, Noob is a teenager who probably hasn't seen a gallon of blood in one place, let alone a pint, but still. I feel it's sort of hard to confuse the two volumes ? and if they really HAD lost gallons, then it was by no means a birth without much deeper, near deadly complications
OOHH AND THE PARALLELS !!! I ALMOST FORGOT TO MENTION THE PARALLELS. Guest giving birth under the staircase....... Noob going to the same place to rest......... ouh. walks away with a suspiciously Guest and Noob shaped parallel in my throat. I'm sure there's more connections between the two that I just haven't noticed but. gawd. yummy......
I. I thhiinnkkk that's everything I wanted to say ? just mostly theory yapping and connections and stuff. sorry this is so long SOBB. as of writing this it's at about 2.7k words. that is, embarrassingly, longer than most of the fics that I write. I also wanna mention that I constantly had like three or four different tabs open so I could constantly go back to reread or cite my sources or whatever, and I just found that funny lol
aAANYWHO !!!! this chapter has been genuinely consuming my brain, and I think may have actually locked in that theory about Noob becoming a killer. like, officially. I didn't believe it before, I believe it now. normally I'd be rooting for a redemption arc, but,,,,,..... eeuuhh. squints
the writing was awesomesauce, I love the way you portray thoughts and feelings, and write pain— which sounds weird, but I've always had trouble describing pain when writing from a character's point of view, so you're a pretty big inspo/help in that regard :D
I think this is where I'm going to end it. the chapter was beautifully written, and super intense, and might just be my favorite of PW so far. hitting Noob over the head with a very large hammer. repeatedly
(p.s. !!! sorry this took so long to send in. right as I was about to send it originally, I realized I forgot to yap abt about the blood loss thing so I had to really quickly include that 💔)
Ngl some of these parts had me like
Puts in pocket for later.... but holy peak analysis and theories I wish I couod confirm or deny, you know how it is tho ougughhhh game theory would've loved you. And hopefully some of these questions are answered for you by the final chapter which if you thought another series was dark, this one will only get darker.
But I do appreciate how you pointed out some things I thought would fly over some people's heads like the fact that the others are not 100% perfect people, I hinted at it even in the first chapter with mainly Chance if anyone recalls. And speaking of prior chapters, I hope by the time the last chapter comes out people will reread the prior chapters and go "Oh... that's foreshadowing in my Forsaken mpreg fic..." bc three very important details in this chapter will be extremely important for the last one. Just can't say which ones yet muhehehe
Although I am just slightly surprised no attention was given to Two Time here, but ngl that's not important for now. Just something I want people to note moving forward and you'll see why.
