Hey guys, i've noticed that the links to each of the Hell to Pay pages are broken. I'm gonna make a table of contents page soon to make access to the webcomic on tumblr much easier.
So sorry for all of this. If you want to read Hell to Pay pages individually, I suggest reading it on webtoons
I want to theorize about the possibility of Doey coming back in Chapter 6 because I refuse to believe he's truly dead. He's gotta come back. Spoilers for Chapter 5 ahead, of course (this will also be a very long post, sorry):
So, to start... Before Chapter 5's release, I was already kinda coping about Doey's death with the fact that the Prototype never drags his body away like he did for Mommy and CatNap. That felt somewhat significant. And now? It's even more of a big deal because the Prototype does not have any part of Doey on his body anywhere. He has Huggy and Kissy's arms, so he can and has taken things off-screen (we never saw him claim Kissy's arm after it fell off), but he still didn't bother with Doey. He could have had bits of dough decorating his body, or Kevin's arm alongside the Huggy/Kissy/Mommy arms, or even just Doey's hat somewhere as a trophy, but there's none of that at all.
And we learned from Isacx (the former director of PPT, from Chapters 1-3 but also still strongly influenced most of Chapter 4 since Mob stuck to his story plan for it) that the Prototype originally was planned to have a different design, and this one would have had even more toy corpses attached to him, including Doey's head (and Mommy and CatNap's heads too instead of just the arm and fur). Link to his Twitter post here. This makes the exclusion of Doey on the design we actually got seem even more deliberate. While Mommy and CatNap's remains were simplified, they're still present in some form. The only corpses to be removed outright were those of smaller toys... And Doey. So this leaves Doey as the only important major character absent here. (And funnily enough, the final Prototype design was by MaxVoidcore, the same artist who designed Doey. So it's not like they'd simply forget about him.)
So why would the Prototype not claim Doey's remains? Especially when Doey was one of the strongest experiments and biggest threats to the Prototype? The only explanation I have is that Mob plans for Doey to return. The theory that he actually survived that final blow has existed for a long time, and maybe it was true all along...
And thanks to @miss-ie for pointing this out to me: Apparently, back in Chapter 4, there is sort of a "goopy" noise that can potentially be heard in an area after Doey's death scene, seemingly coming from behind a door off to the side that you cannot open (we're still looking into this, so take it with a grain of salt). Timestamped video link from Markiplier's playthrough here. The sound is fairly subtle, but Mark hears and comments on it too. A sign of life from our favorite Doughman? I hope so. I also managed to find a second person who triggered the sound, although he doesn't seem to notice and leaves quickly so it's not as apparent as it is in Mark's encounter with it.
Also worth noting is that the doors you came from shut behind you when you enter this hallway (they will be open again if you reload your save here, but that's very likely just an oversight). It seems pointless to cut the player off here because all there is to do is simply head forward, collect and play a tape, and slide into the area that Poppy and Kissy are hiding in. It's not some big major section. But if the goopy sound was intentional as a hidden teaser for Doey's eventual return, it makes perfect sense to prevent backtracking here so players can't break the immersion by going back to Doey's frozen body (or Mob having to program his body to disappear afterwards, which would ruin the subtlety of the Doey survival hint) after hearing the audio.
But once again, please take this part with a grain of salt. Both videos of this audio are from February of last year, so they are before some of the chapter's later patches. So it's not clear if the audio was truly intentional rather than a bug that could have since been patched, or if alternatively it was intentional but one of the later patches possibly created a new bug that prevents this obscure secret from occurring anymore. This is why I'm still trying to look into it. I have yet to find any recordings of the sound being triggered on the latest version of Chapter 4, and no one I know has been able to trigger it for themselves so far. And even among other old playthroughs of the chapter on YouTube, it seems inconsistent whether the sound triggers or not upon approaching that side door since the videos I linked are the only two I can find so far where the sound plays.
Back to Chapter 5... Despite his absense from the Prototype (physically, I mean, since the Prototype still does voice mimicking), it REALLY tries to hammer in Doey's death, more than any previous major character. Now this could simply be because he was an ally, but... Come on now. Even fucking LILY has a line about the player killing Doey, how does she even know about that? It makes sense for Giblet to hear about what happened, he knew Doey, but Lily has been living in isolation. (She apparently knows of Mommy's death as well, given the "I'm so sorry for your loss" directed towards Baby Long Legs. But at least that's more of a joke for us because of the context. What's the point of her bringing up Doey at all, especially given that the line is easily missable?)
It's like Mob wants us to really believe he's gone so his comeback in Chapter 6 can catch us by surprise, but little do they know they're just having the opposite effect on me because I miss him so much I'm making myself delusional about it and that's why this post even exists.
And speaking of Giblet's history with Doey... The Lily and Giblet Q&A touches upon that even more, heavily implying that Doey is the one who gave Giblet the little Huggy pin that he wears (timestamped link here). The Q&A also had crumbs for some other parts of Giblet's backstory, which would make sense for them to expand upon and explain in more detail in Chapter 6. So if Doey were to return, this would be the perfect way for them to go more in-depth on his and Giblet's friendship by allowing these characters to have direct on-screen interactions/conversations.
Also, an additional oddity: Not long after Chapter 5's release, Japan got new Poppy Playtime merch on InfoLens Geek Shop. The merch is advertised as Chapter 5 stuff, but Doey is oddly included in the majority of these.
Huggy, Lily, Chum, and Blanky's relation to Chapter 5 is self-explanatory, and the Doctor also works as the chapter ends with his return. So why is our pal Doey here? Hmm. Interesting. Of course, it could just be that he's popular so they stuck him in there because they know he sells. After all, CatNap was also included randomly in that last one (+ the mini plush with Harley Sawyer). And even if Doey actually comes back in Chapter 6, it still doesn't really make sense to include him in merch for the chapter where he isn't present, so maybe this means nothing. Still, I thought it was worth mentioning anyway.
But now, I will say this: Despite my theory, I do not think the Doey rugs from Chapter 5 are necessarily hinting at anything. While the green arm replacing orange is odd, I don't think it means Doey will come back "incomplete" or anything (or at least, I hope not). If Mob brings him back, they need to bring back all three of his personalities. Of course they won't be like how they were originally before Safe Haven's destruction, all parts of Doey would still be deeply affected by this trauma. But I can imagine a scenario where we reunite with Doey, and while Kevin would still be bitter about what happened and not trust us anymore (especially when he sees that Sawyer is back), he can at least still trust Giblet, and he could have had enough time to calm down and understand that the Prototype is the true enemy and focusing on him is most important right now. After all, we just went through a whole chapter without Doey, that's plenty of time for him to potentially reflect on the situation if he survived the fight against the player. Maybe he could even reconcile with Poppy too once we save her again.
I think it would be very good for Mob to go this route and have us see Kevin "fronting" more often, as it would help the fandom at large see him as more than just "the angry one" and stop seeing him as evil or always excessively violent. It'd be a second chance to show us the depth of his character. (Matthew and Jack would still switch in sometimes too, of course! They'd all still be coping with what happened...)
So, yeah. Maybe this is just me coping or being overly hopeful, but I really do think Mob has set up the perfect conditions for Doey to return in the next chapter. And since they brought back Sawyer, it's only fair in my opinion to bring back Chapter 4's other beloved major character, too. Feel free to hope alongside me! Let's manifest this into reality together!
(Also, sorry if this post is a bit disorganized... This post has been in my drafts for ages and I've added onto it over time, so some paragraphs are written months apart from each other, lol...)
I want to reupload this again (and slightly edit it) b/c it's still one of my favorite pieces I put a lot of love and effort into, and the endless torment trio still hold a special place in my heart.
I DO NOT SUPPORT ZEAL AND SIMON.
