The Prototype’s relationship with Poppy might be the most complex relationship I’ve seen in the game so far. I always found it peculiar how awfully attached he was to her, and I was curious as to what their backstory was to have him become so obsessed with her. Even Lily said so herself that Poppy was the Prototype’s favorite.
But after watching all of the Prototype’s scenes and hearing his audio tapes, it turns out that Poppy and the Prototype are siblings. Siblings! This makes their relationship make so much sense now.
The Prototype definitely gives older, over-protective brother vibes.
Example One: He doesn’t tolerate any disrespect or mockery from anyone that is directed towards Poppy.
Example Two: When the Prototype shattered Poppy’s face, he actually flinches and looks at his hand like he’s regretful and horrified at what he’s done. I don’t think he even meant to hurt her. The Prototype has not abused Poppy in any way, except for mentally when he locked her away in the case. Besides that, he never dared to lay a hand on her.
Example Three: When he sees that Lily was trying to grab Poppy while she was injured, the Prototype slaps Lily away so that no one else could cause any more damage to Poppy.
Here’s a couple of voice lines that showcase how incredibly fixated the Prototype is with Poppy.
Chapter Four
I’m right here, Poppy. For you, I’ll ALWAYS be here.
It’s always been about you and me, Poppy.
Chapter Five
The Prototype wanted Poppy and himself to stay inside Playtime Co. forever because he knew that it would be the only safe place for two of them considering their physical circumstances. In the Prototype’s mind, everything that he has done, the good, the bad, and the ugly (mostly the last two): have all been for Poppy’s sake.
Poppy is the Prototype’s angel, the only good thing he has left. The only family he’ll ever have. He loves her more than anything else, and he will do whatever he has to do to keep her safe, in his own twisted way.
I've been thinking about something since the catnap video.
So we see clearly that Playtime brainwashed the experiments into forgetting the details of their lives prior to their surgeries. Of course, it's unclear whether Theodore forgot his parents as well as his name, but operating under the assumption that he did...
How does Doey remember so much of who they were before? Between "Mommy, daddy, I just wanna go home!" And "parents, scientists, everyone!", how does he remember the trauma they had before their conditioning?
Well, what was one of the main things Kevin was recognised for?
Mental fortitude.
Matthew?
Charisma, particularly towards staff.
And Jack?
Simply loving Doey.
I have a theory here. I think that unwittingly, the scientists created a toy who was perfectly engineered to resist their conditioning.
Kevin's resilience kept them going, stopped them from giving in. Jack knew everything about how Doey should act and present, and Matthew acted as the frontman, using Jack's knowledge and Kevin's energy to do what he always did before - use his social ability to convince the scientists that their conditioning had worked, while they hid away in the haven they'd created for themselves in their mind.
Of course, it still can only go so far. Years of mental assault still takes its toll, and I imagine they still forgot a lot. At the end, they still feel closer to being Doey than themselves. But they all remember that they were someone else. They still remember their lives.
Maybe this is the result the scientist in Kevin's tape was trying to avoid. Remembering that conditioning and slave labour are the company's primary goals, the line, "If we're to create an experiment that can fulfill multiple assigned roles, we can't allow any single consciousness to throw the others off..."
On a narrative level, he's foreshadowing the ending. But in a sense of the company, maybe Kevin "throwing the others off" would simply mean Kevin empowering them to rebel.
Of course a guiltless scientist would see Doey lashing out against his captors as a "misregulation of emotions". A failure on the subject's part that must be remedied. Kevin has shown himself to be rebellious when he feels he's being unfairly treated. When trying to mould an experiment to be docile and obedient, that is very dangerous indeed.
I have some more evidence that Doctor might actually not be dead and that he more than likely will come back
I completely forgot about these really important aspects to Doctor's character and his story. This is something that can be used as evidence cause this is official stuff and it's something that gives more weight to my speculations in "Is Doctor alive?" theory.
1) Doctor knows about the letter that player received at the beginning of chapter 1 - he's the only character that mentions and aknowledges the letter which shows us that he knows things that other characters don't know about. This hints to him having more going on with him and his importance in the story.
2) Doctor was a narrator in "Story so far" - this and chapter 4 ARG is what hyped Doctor's character for fans cause this makes him feel like more important character. And this combined with 1) point shows us that Doctor sees everything. He even knew that Prototype is Ollie (we can conclude that from his tone when he said "the infuriating ally" part).
3) Doctor's character description on poppyplaytime website (so it's official) - "Doctor Harley Sawyer, commonly referred to as “The Doctor”, was the originator of the Bigger Bodies Initiative, and a former pupil of Elliot Ludwig. Ruthless, egotistical, and completely amoral, he orchestrated the systemic experimentation of hundreds to pave his elusive “golden path”, only to be subjected to the same experimentation. His mind made into a prison of wires and terminals, his project stolen from him, he’d become just as much a prisoner as the experiments he created. In the years since the Hour of Joy, the Doctor has become a monster unburdened by any pretense of humanity, the final steps on his “golden path” seemingly within his reach." - the last sentence is what's important. Doctor isn't confined anymore by whatever human limitations he had and that he's really close to achieveing golden path which is immortality.
4) Doctor's speech in ad for Project Playtime (I completely forgot about a very important detail of his speech) - "Mortality is the curse of the weak, the fire that incinerates the flesh. I strive to snuff that flame. Call me a monster, but I am simply a man who escaped incineration, and embraced the infinite!" - this is really huge and important cause only now after chapter 4 it makes total sense. Now we know what exactly Doctor meant by a man who escaped the incineration (he escaped death as he was transformed into experiment) and embraced infinite (he embraced the infinite nature of having digital mind). I didn't realize at first that Doctor said this as something that already happened (he used past tense) because we all assumed back then that he died during the Hour of Joy. This speech being this old because it exists even before chapter 3 makes it even more important as a clue and evidence of Doctor survivng his death in chapter 4 as digital entity.
5) The untitled poem being about The Doctor - people wrongly assumed it's about Huggy Wuggy because of felted feet. When we shouldn't take it literally because it's poem. Poems most of the time use figurative language not literal. And it's important to remember that first this poem showed in ARG for chapter 4 which was heavily focused on Doctor not Huggy Wuggy or any other character. And then we saw this same poem after we killed Doctor when we went back to Safe Haven. The poem:
"On felted feet and with bated breath
Sleep draws ever near
Over paths turning clear
But I am not afraid of death
For we have already met"
This means non other than a person in poem quietly awaits the inevitable death but they're not afraid cause they survived death once already.
Considering that Doctor wanted to achieve immortality and was really close and he embraced infinite - probably learned how to live and function as digital form - the poem being about him makes the most sense also because his body died during experimentation. He could no longer live as human. Only some of his organs remained. And the poem is written in his style of speaking.
Now I'll give you my speculation based on my theory and what I presented here.
Remember the tape "Time" from chapter 4? The one with Doctor and Prototype talking? From this tape we know that Prototype needed Doctor to learn about secret hidden within him. The secret to immortality.
This combined with what happened later - Prototype being happy as Ollie that we killed Doctor - points to the fact that Prototype threatened Doctor that he'll get rid of him if he'll be stalling. The funny thing that I realized is that Doctor had here huge advantage over Prototype which Prototype didn't seem to notice.
Doctor has knowledge that even Prototype doesn't have. This heavily implies that Prototype wouldn't know if Doctor lies to him or tells him the truth. Doctor could sold him a lie and Prototype wouldn't even know that and after Doctor stopped being useful Prototype got rid of him with our help.
Doctor didn't seem afraid of Prototype even if Prototype's voice was threatening and leaving no room for objection. And yet Doctor ignores it and even demands Prototype to find more time. Prototype agreed because he doesn't have a choice here. Which definitely shows that Doctor had advantage in this situation.
And let me tell you more. I think that Doctor found what's that secret but he didn't share it with Prototype. He didn't have to share it with Prototype. He could use it to help himself "escape the incineration" and achieveing "golden path". "Sleep draws ever near Over paths turning clear" the death is coming for him but his goal is clear. He knows what to do. He isn't afraid of death anymore. He knows the secret to "infinite" eternal life as digital entity. And Prototype being impatient with Doctor stalling could decide to get rid of him without finding out what the secret is.
And also maybe Doctor really wanted someone to come to factory to power up the place cause more power would definitely help him achieve whatever he wanted as digital entity. He could avoid death as he could scatter/disperse into still working parts of facility's network/system.
He was observing us from the beginning so he could easily guide as where he wanted and use us to help him with his plans.
If this doesn't convince you I don't know what will. But I'm sure (almost 100%) that Doctor isn't dead and he'll come back.
And what's important is that I think that he has his own storyline apart from what's going on with Prototype and Poppy. Poppy Playtime can be more complex story with more than one plotline. Having more plotlines makes a story more complex and layered.
We can clearly see that Doctor's goals aren't focusing on whatever is going with Prototype and Poppy and it goes beyond the factory. He wants to achieve immortality and ascend beyond humanity's limitations. And from what I gathered here we can conclude that he was able to do that.
Sawyer's relationship with Yarnaby is a complete parallel to his relationship with Ludwig.
He did to Quinn what he views as exactly the same as what Ludwig did to him: making himself a father figure, the only person who saw potential, the only person who cared.
y'know the big thing with generational trauma, how a parent often abuses their kid as a subconscious way of "getting back" at their own parental figures by exerting the same type of control they did? yeah.
In both cases, the "father" was only interested in taking all that could be taken from that well of potential, shaping that mind into exactly what they wanted. In both cases, they failed, and ended up doing the opposite. Both of them ruined their progenies, greatly lowered their mental capacity in certain fields.
[also, if Ludwig is the Prototype, both were used as guard dogs, trained to serve and nothing more]
Sawyer also seems to believe that he granted Quinn a courtesy that Ludwig refused to grant him: to see his disturbed mind as a gift, rather than the detriment Ludwig saw his disturbed state as. He chose Quinn because he was disturbed, because he acted in probably the exact same way he himself did when he was young.
In that interview, he told Quinn exactly what he wished he was told as a child, just as Elliot did to him. He sees himself as a loving parent, despite being anything but. He can't see the parallels between his own actions and Ludwig's.
(also note the symbolism: Quinn was literally transplanting the 'minds' of his dolls between bodies, altering the nature of what little he could.)
And in the end, both "fathers" left their progeny to the cold, breaking them. Only to come back into their life, now to use what has become of them.
(note: I actually don't think Sawyer was being malicious when he was "getting a good laugh out of" Yarnaby. The way Sawyer's mind works is strange, and we know the way he navigates social interactions is bizarre at best. I think he genuinely thought of those moments as some strange form of bonding, the way one bonds with a pet through its endearing behaviour. I think he does genuinely care for Yarnaby in his own strange way, but, like I mentioned, his psychosocial development is completely stunted and that care manifests as abuse, as is often the case with developmentally stunted parents.)
Poppy Playtime is a story about generational trauma.
I believe Poppy Playtime's overarching story is primarily going to be a criticism of eugenicist ideals, and of genocide.
Long under the cut \/
Alright, so. From the very beginning, the games have been setting up the concept that the toys are very much still human beings, but have had their humanity stripped and are therefore now nothing more than mindless savages. They have been leading the player to see the toys as a type of human being who is degenerated, subhuman.
But slowly, over time, then very much so with chapter 4, the games have challenged the viewer to deconstruct that bias. First, with the introduction of Poppy. Then, with Mommy Long Legs, by having her speak to the player directly, unlike Huggy, and we are given a brutal death scene. Then we see the chapter 3 antagonists (CatNap, DogDay, Miss Delight) and slowly are driven to humanise them more. Particularly CatNap, who we learn is cunning and cruel to his prey, but cares for the orphans, and is desperately fervent in his worship of the Prototype.
We are also properly introduced to Kissy, whose existence challenges the notion of Huggy's nature as a subhuman being, and the nature of all of the nonverbal toys as such. She does not speak, but still, she is easy to connect with. She is one of the most strikingly human characters in the series thus far, despite functioning at the same level as the "subhuman" toys we have encountered.
Chapter 4 takes this concept into high gear. We meet the Doctor, who is the most clearly "human" out of all of our antagonists so far, while simultaneously being the antagonist who denounces his humanity the most.
With Yarnaby, we are given an "out" - an argument against the game's message. We are told, directly and through symbol, that Yarnaby is truly no longer human, and is no more than an animal. But as the game continues to challenge the notion, the player is forced to concede once again, that Yarnaby, too, never stopped being human.
And of course, the biggest character to this point is Doey. Doey is many things, but understated is not one of them, and this is true in his role in this narrative, too. Literally saying to Poppy, "we're people too, can't you see that?", as well as having individual and clear motivations.
When Doey breaks down, the viewer is given two options.
The viewer can run away, back to the safety of the harmful ideals the game set up from the beginning, and abandon every notion of what Doey has been so far. He lashed out, so clearly he is nothing more than an animal. Or perhaps when he lashed out, he degenerated too, and stopped being human in that moment.
Or the player can continue to view him through the challenging of these notions.
Doey is the first character who we see switch from passive to aggressive on his own volition, and as he does, we are forced to sympathise with him. We see for ourselves what it looks like when the toys are broken down beyond return, and are made to ask, is this what separates them from humanity? The capacity to completely break?
But that capacity is a very human thing, isn't it?
When the Doctor lashes out wildly, desperately trying anything to keep the player from killing him, it is profoundly human. It represents the way in which, no matter what, he could never escape his humanity.
The toys are the same. No matter what is done to them, no matter how stripped of their dignity they become, they are still human, beneath plastic, stuffing, clay, porcelain or fabric.
This, of course, leads me to Poppy, and her role in the narrative.
Thinking about it with any depth makes it clear to the viewer that Poppy has been heavily groomed into eugenicist ideals, and her plan to destroy Playtime reflects that.
Her plan is a genocide, no matter what way the viewer looks at it. We have been introduced to the toys as a class of people, and Poppy desires nothing more than to eradicate them completely. She has deeply internalised the belief that she is subhuman, and believes that all of the toys have no place on Earth. The only people she desires to save are those who are "pure" - the orphans below, who are (presumably) still "real" humans.
I have yet to go into the toys as being a metaphor for trauma and disability, but here it is. Poppy gives the Player a counter-argument to the humanity we've seen from the toys. If the player agrees with her plan, they are led to justify it by believing that the toys are simply too broken, no longer human, and could never have a place in the world. That killing them would be a kindness.
This is one of the principles that eugenics is founded upon. That those who are disabled live in pain, so therefore eradicating them would be a kindness to them.
To fall for this ideal after being groomed into it, led to believe it by all figures of authority, is too, profoundly human.
Poppy Playtime consistently pulls the viewer in and pushes them away. Shows the viewer something that is of laughable appearance, too dangerous to be allowed to live, no longer human, and challenges them to still see them as people.
I'll follow up this post with my opinions on where chapter 5's story may go with this metaphor.
can I just autism at y'all incoherently for a bit. Aite.
I think Harley becomes a bit easier to understand as a character when viewed as a story of generational trauma. When analysing a monster, one has to ask "what could have prevented this?" In Harley's case, it was just... if he had not been so steadily drawn to one conclusion: that there was something fundamental that separated him from humanity.
What are people to someone who was never a person to anyone? He was kept half-alive only to use him, and even before he had done anything wrong, he was never a person to anyone - he existed in others' minds only as what he could supply to them.
The ARG note, "HE TOOK EVERYTHING. I THOUGHT YOU CARED." combined with his boss fight dialogue, "It was supposed to be mine! My recognition!" draws the connection that after sending a young Harley Sawyer away, Elliott took the research Harley had done with him and claimed credit for his discoveries.
Imagine for a moment that you have never been loved. Not by parents or peers or superiors. That they all showered you in praise of your objective talents, but wanted nothing to do with you in any other respect. At every turn, they attempted to find a way to divert your abilities toward their own goals. Others have always blabbered on about connection and harmony - concepts that simply do not exist to you, for you have never experienced them.
You thought you had experienced them. Once. You almost thought you'd found a father. Before he sent you away penniless and took all of your work as his own. Now you know it for certain: connection really isn't real, and everyone else is lying or faking. The only people who have ever pretended to care about you were lying. You may as well be the only person in the world, because you are completely alone on Earth.
Imagine that you believe that love and happiness are truly false lights. Pipe dreams. Would you be able to empathise, see yourself in your fellow man, see your fellow man as a person?
You don't know what it's like to be thought of as a person. So you haven't the slightest idea how one would go about thinking of others as people.
I still will not budge on the fact that Harley genuinely thought he was doing the right thing. But again, if morals are alien to you because you have never been exposed to them, then your 'right thing' looks deeply different to others'.
There are certain lessons that cannot be learned through just the acquisition of information. Harley was never taught any lessons that were not objective - empathy, morals, emotional control. As much as he could be familiar with ethics, he could not understand anything that can't be understood with logic.
All monsters grow from children.
He saw himself as their father. Their mentor. Their saviour. He made them just like him - the only human in the world.
So I’ve been thinking about Doey a lot recently (something that tends to happen when you have fictives), and I’ve come to an interesting conclusion.
While Kevin is the one who initially lashes out at the player, I think, on average, the doughboy who presents the biggest threat is actually Jack.
Bear with me. I’ve got a hypothesis.
This whole thought process started when I was trying to make a YTP out of Doey’s voicelines. When I got to the sequence just before he gets frozen, I stopped to ask myself, “what’s the funniest possible follow-up to ‘I’ve been here gathering parts for the generator. lots of __’?”
Then I asked myself, “I wonder what he was actually about to say.”
I never made that YTP, because that’s where my conspiracy started.
“I’ve been here gathering parts for the generator” is said by Matthew. Jack switches in to say something. He giggles and his hands go to his belly.
It seems to be the general consensus that he was going to follow up on the previous statement about generator parts, BUT. Doey’s (and especially Jack’s) mannerisms work on silent cartoon logic - every movement is very clear, exaggerated and communicates something non-verbally. We see him giggle and hold his belly only one other time: directly after devouring Pianosaurus. I think that Jack switched in to say that this part of the prison had lots of nightmare critters for him to eat.
(Slight aside: I think this theory is supported by the timing of the trap going off. Jack seems the most sensitive to the pain, and the Doctor waits until Jack takes front to set the trap off. It doesn’t seem random, it seems intentional.)
Working off of this conclusion, we can expand outward. If Jack switches into front both times that Doey eats someone or mentions eating someone, then, rather than Kevin being the trio’s “hunter” as one might assume, the hunter is actually Jack.
So, uhh, what’s the deal with Pianosaurus? [laugh track]
Via the Pianosaurus Backstory comic posted by MOB, Pianosaurus was once a member of Safe Haven. Doey knew them. And yet, when Doey saves us from them, he does not even acknowledge their existence.
Isn’t that a little telling? That Doey devours someone who was once a friend (perhaps tentatively), and Jack’s immediate response is nothing but sated joy, not referencing Pianosaurus directly even once.
With the knowledge that Pianosaurus was a resident of Safe Haven, the line, “Don’t worry, I won’t eat YOU!” could take on another new meaning.
Doey was very happy about killing Pianosaurus as a form of justice. I wonder how long it’d been between the first half of the comic and “present day”. Was the wound of Pianosaurus killing those Doey swore to protect an old wound that had festered and grown bitter, or a fresh one that still stung?
“Don’t worry, I won’t eat YOU!” You haven’t made me want to yet.
This is also supported by something I thought was odd: during the intro tape where we see Jack fall into the Soup, we see a flash of his hand reaching out, and a shot of his Doey figurine appearing angry. This is combined with audio design that gives the impression of a threat, drawing parallels from many old sci-fi or generally biological-experiment-y medias. This confused me when I first played, because why, thematically, would the “happy, friendly” side of Doey be given his ominous reveal?
Finally, think about his bossfight dialogue.
During Doey’s bossfight, his dialogue can be split up into the three boys the easiest (via subject - you could argue that Jack’s voicelines must just be the crying ones, buuuut… This makes sense in my head so I’m rolling with it). It’s something like this:
Matthew:
“Couldn’t save them. Couldn’t save anyone!”
“I don’t want to be here anymore…”
Kevin:
“Everything’s too loud! Too loud!”
“Hate you! Hate her! Hate everything!”
Jack:
“Play, play, play!”
“I just wanna play a little longer…”
I left out “Mommy, Daddy, I just wanna go home!” because I think that line is applicable to each of them. They’re all orphans who were never afforded a chance to grieve.
Operating on the assumption that my assumptions are correct, this gives yet more insight into Jack’s characterisation: he sees it all as play.
Jack Ayers died. In moments of duress, in his mind, there is no ‘Jack’. His psyche tries to protect itself and overcorrects: It’s only play, it’s only imaginary. You all died many years ago, none of these lives are real.
Jack is the hunter, the one who eats to feel full.
thinkin about... Doey.. Ok here's some more autism
a while ago to start practicing writing dialogue for him, I went through all his dialogue and tried to identify which 'self' was speaking at any given time and what I found was pretty interesting.
except in extreme distress, none of the boys ever seem to talk fully individually, it's more like a spectrum between all three where Doey always leans toward one of his three 'parts'.
Kevin's voice is actually softer than the other two's. Unless he's really angry he generally speaks in a low murmur that sounds very practiced and controlled.
He also is a lot less angry than it seems the fandom thinks - I think because they take the word of the Evil Scientist's dehumanising monologue about him as gospel. (It's not necessarily, and is also talking about him in the PAST, from over TEN YEARS AGO)
Doey also really really seems to have parallels to the Freudian Trinity of Mind.
(Matthew = Ego
Kevin = Superego
Jack = Id)
if that's intentional, which I hope it is, that's pretty cool since it sort of brings the theming of chapter 4 back around to being about the brain.
Kevin is of course the most immediately interesting of the three since the most attention is drawn toward him but the other two have interesting characterisation as well.
Matthew is tired, he's been resigned to his fate all his life and took it on the chin with a weary smile even when the Things Just Never Stopped Keep Happening. As the caretaker, he sees himself as responsible for regulating not only his own emotions but everyone else's as well. It took a lot to crack him and cause him to become part of Doey's implosion.
Jack seems to be perpetually in a kind of state of shock, or maybe stunted development. Listening to the dialogue, it seems like he can't help but giggle and interject at strange moments, usually with a smile on his voice. His whimsical cartoon persona isn't just for display, it's how his psyche protects him. After a sudden, overwhelming major traumatic incident that completely changed his life, his unconscious mind needed a way to keep itself alive, and learned, 'well, the world can't be painful and scary if I perceive it as silly and fun!' ...Until, of course, pain of either emotional or physical kind shocks him out of it and causes him to shutdown or meltdown.
When Doey lost Safe Haven, that wasn't any of their first time losing their home. Not even their second time. Or third, if you count being taken from your body as losing a home.
I think Doey is both good and bad as system rep.
The bad comes from the fact that we see him from an "outsider who is the victim of a violent attack by a mentally ill person" perspective, which is always going to be iffy no matter what.
The good comes from the fact that none of his parts are presented as malicious or even selfish, all of them want to protect, care for or improve the lives of the people they care about, and generally they work together in harmony. Doey is what a system is not just because he has multiple identities, but also because all of those parts work together in order to survive after a majorly traumatic childhood.
