if it were not for the sequel's final act, six's devouring of a nome — one of the skittish little creatures she's had an otherwise mutually friendly relationship with, up until this point — would easily be her most divisive action over the course of the series. and i by no means intend to downplay the horror of it, it's a disturbing scene that does exactly what it intended to, but i also feel like it's lead to many bad faith readings of six as a character and my intentions here are to try and dig past the surface level of it : the consumption of the nome is framed as a bait and switch of sorts, with it offering her a sausage most likely smuggled from a guest's plate, unaware that it will be the target of her hunger instead. so first things first, why not eat the sausage ?
initially i read this as her hunger becoming more ravenous as it progresses, and this does seem to fit thematically with all that she eats over the course of the first game. first bread, then meat, then a rat, then the nome : a sapient creature, and finally, the lady of the maw. however, this interpretation as a more literal reading of her actions has been debunked by tarsier in a post we'll get to in a second. i'm only bringing it up despite this because i believe that, while not being the actual textual events of the story, it still symbolically fits the narrative. now, for tarsier's post :
obviously, one's engagement with a work of art only goes so far as . . . well, what they engage with, thus shaping how they see it, and people are by no means obligated to take a tweet — something outside of the game — as canon. i am merely doing so because i like to really dig into what creators have to say, personally, but your mileage may vary.
but with that all said and done, continuing with my reading of events, this tweet frames what many have interpreted as an act of senseless violence to actually be an attempt on six's part to escape the food chain the maw has built itself on. but that being said, the secrets of the maw chapters the hideaway and the residence come with the reveal that nomes are children under a spell. this is a piece of the story often used to further paint six in a malicious light, but the dlc put an emphasis on secrets — it's in the title — and the lady, the one responsible for the nomes, is defined by her mystery. nomes are one of the many little lost things in the nowhere, and six has no way of knowing of this. meaning, upon recognizing the food to be made from human meat, six made an ultimately futile attempt to keep herself separated from the guests and workers of the maw. to me, this strikes a balance between her nature as a survivalist and the fact that she is still a child, far from a normal one, but still one that refused to eat another to live, even if it was all for naught.
what follows this is six literally eating from the lady and also eating from the maw's guests in a more vampiric way as well. how does this fit into her previously trying to avoid consuming what she knows to be human meat ?
there's a lot of ways you can spin it, but my personal interpretation is that while her encounter with the lady is, again, a literal act, it's also invoking a lot of symbolism commonly tied to cannibalism in writing. cannibalism is often used to represent power over another, and when six takes a bite straight from her neck, she is imbued with the lady's magic. she's no longer just another runaway, now holding all of the strength and ability of the maw's ruler. but that said, i do not subscribe to the theory that she becomes the lady or even a lady, as stated in my carrd. when i say this, i don't mean she in any way gains power aboard the maw, personally i believe she leaves it behind, but she does sit at the top of that food chain now. this is one of the many ways the world of the nowhere is cyclical in nature, and it's worth noting how it fits into real world concepts such as the cycles of violence and abuse : six devouring the lady was, to me, a defiant act, but one that showcases how children can often not escape these cycles on their own. six can ascend through the maw and leave it to rust, but not without taking a bite, not without shifting the power dynamic in place of escaping it. after all, what can she do to escape it ? she's only a child, one with a deeply supernatural hunger that's left her sick. she doesn't even begin to show signs of such hunger until the broadcaster, an adult, ripped something vital out of her : violence left her empty, and she has to enact violence of her own to not only fill that void but to ensure she won't be abused again.
the feeding off of the guest's lifeforce further compounds this, reading less as an act driven by hunger and more of an eye for an eye, something displayed in LNII as well, with her clobbering one of the bullies. these same guests previously tried to devour her, and so, she does the same to them. an unloved child will burn down the village to feel it's warmth, or however that quote goes. or as an achievement in the sequel asks, is it murder if they're bad people ? i'm not here to answer that, only to say that six is not the villain of this story, the adults who created this cycle she falls prey to are.
