So, I Think I Know Who Ruth/Noone Is
No, I don't think she's Six nor Alone. But I don't think she's a totally new character like Otto/The Counselor (who, by the way, I noticed upon my relisten also identifies himself as “The Counselor” in his first audio log; an incredibly weird decision for one counselor in an asylum full of other counselors that he mentions constantly to make if it has no significance), either. And, I'm sorry, but this will mean that she is yet another poor child who doesn't get a happy ending.
We… we know that Ruth's other name is “Noone,” not “Six” nor “Alone,” guys. That alone is proof that she's neither of them, just like how knowing Otto's other name is “The Counselor” alone is proof against the theories that he's either The Doctor or Mono/The Thin Man.
From what I can tell, it looks like people who've lived in both worlds get a Human Name and what I'll call a “Nowhere Name” or a “Nightmare Name.”
“The Janitor” is for sure Roger's in LN1.
“The Doctor” seems to be “that celebrity doctor” from TSON's in LN2.
“The Counselor” is for sure Otto's in TSON and potentially LN3 if he shows up there.
“Noone” is for sure Ruth's.
Some might choose their Nowhere/Nightmare Name, some may be bestowed it, but it certainly looks to me like the only time someone gets multiple Nowhere/Nightmare Names (excluding The Candleman/Ferryman because, from what Otto said at the beginning of Ch5, he's like literally some sort of Eldritch god or personification of an abstract concept or something who probably doesn't even have a concrete True Physical Form seeing as he's described very differently by mythologies all over the world throughout history, “‘The Guardian At The Threshold,’ an archetype that parapsychologists have obsessed over for centuries. A mythic entity who's appeared in the stories of innumerable cultures. No matter their description, his roll is always the same: to confront anyone who dares cross into unseen worlds . . . The Candleman. The Ferryman. Indeed, The Guardian At The Threshold. An eidolon [googled definitions: ‘a specter or phantom; a ghost or elusive entity; an unsubstantial image; an image or representation of an idea; an apparition of some actual or imaginary entity, or an aspect of reality’] on the inside, determined to keep. Me. Out.” So, I think we can just assume that, because he's an ethereal being, everyone who encounters him perceives him varying degrees of differently [I mean, just look how difficult Noone found it to solidify her perception of him enough to describe him in the first place] and, unless their perceptions just happenstance into matching up enough or they decide to call him by a name they heard someone else use, they all call him something different and therefore, to use Tumblr terms: he's Spiders Georg and shouldn't be counted) is specifically in the case of kids surviving to adulthood in The Nowhere. Because, then, they transition from having a “nickname” type of Nowhere/Nightmare Name to having a “title” type, like Mono (ain't no way his parents put “Mono” on his birth certificate, that's definitely a nickname) growing into The Thin Man (an incredibly weird title, but a title nonetheless 🤷🏻♀️).
Sisi could easily be Six, or Raincoat Girl, or Portrait Girl (more likely Raincoat Girl or Portrait Girl), there's evidence for all three (but stronger for Raincoat Girl and Portrait Girl) and Otto/The Counselor never mentioned whatever her other name is, only “Sisi.” But, as I said, we know Ruth's other name: Noone!
Now, there is an unnamed girl that Noone is a little too similar to for it to be a coincidence: Spoon Girl (aka Girl With Pigtails, aka Nosebleed Girl, aka Hospital Girl, whatever you wanna call her) from the LN2 comics.
Point Two: Narrative Parallels & Matching Imagery
• Ruth/Noone: has an eye-looking “pea-size tumor on [her] right-sided amygdala,” as Otto said (“they maintain it's benign, despite the unusual ocular appearance”).
> Is “helped” to escape the asylum, Otto/The Counselor, and her tumor in the horrible, corrupting nightmare world that is The Nowhere by The Candleman/Ferryman after he brings her back and forth for a while, manipulating her into thinking The Nowhere is the lesser of the two evils.
• Spoon Girl: has a right-side nosebleed, which could mean Ruth/Noone was incorrect that living in The Nowhere would cure her of her tumor (not surprising, given that “ocular appearance.” Of course she couldn't escape it in its own domain) and now the cancer has spread to her nasal cavity (nosebleeds come up as a possible side effect of olfactory neuroblastoma, a cancer of the nerves that allow you to smell which starts growing in your nose and can spread into your brain. They could've researched that and thought it seemed perfectly reasonable that a tumor growing in the opposite direction would do the same exact thing)?
> Is “helped” to escape her hospital cell by an unseen person repeatedly pushing spoons under her door only to find that she's actually dug herself into an identical cell, all the way down to the hash marks she put on the walls presumably counting how many spoons she broke while digging. The door then opens to lure her to where she's found by The Doctor and, presumably, is either killed by him or “saved” from him by The Thin Man (if her Glitching Remains that Mono can find and absorb in the actual game are an indication that he attempted a rescue after the pair encountered each other through The Mall), likely turning her into a monster similar to Monster Six and locking her away somewhere until her tumor finally killed her.
Wouldn't it just wrap Ruth/Noone's story up in a positively hideous bow if, once she thought she'd escaped the horrors of her real life, she literally just found herself delivered into the hands of the very same man who traumatized her and got her face plastered all over the telly in the first place, where she basically lives through a metaphor that makes her realize what a terrible mistake she's made before she succumbs to whatever her final fate was (the latter option would mean also into the hands of someone so similar to Otto/The Counselor that the writers were able to use him to foreshadow how his part of her story would end)? 😬😢
If you need more proof, let's look at the TSON cover art…
Looks an awful lot like those bottom two hands are gripping pigtails, doesn't it (in exactly the wrong place for her to be Alone, might I add. Alone's pigtails stick up, Ruth/Noone's hang down)…? The fact they're also specifically covering the area where her bangs would be is pretty suspicious, as well… Now, let's compare her to Spoon Girl's concept art from the LN2 art book…
…Yeah, I think it's her. The face, head, shoulder, and collar shapes are much too similar for this series whose artists very much do not suffer from Same Face nor Same Body Syndrome when characters aren't meant to just be members of a faceless/masked/cloned throng. Hello, Ruth/Noone… R.I.P. 😔
