Mini-Rant about the Prototype's Motives from the recent Poppy Playtime Chapter
==SPOILERS AHEAD==
I don't really keep up with Poppy Playtime, as it's kind of a fleeting interest for me, but this recent Chapter has me absolutely confused on what the Prototypes motives for us are.
Back when Chapter 2 first released, I was pretty sure that the Prototype was going to be some major big-bad-guy, as it was stated to be cunning, deceitful, and even violent from the recordings in the earlier years of this franchise.
So, I was expecting a more vengeful, murderous, and stalker type of monster. (I don't mind his looks, as I didn't expect anything from the reveal of the design. He's a pretty scary figure, regardless of how you feel about the way he looks.)
Yet, from the recent chapter dropping, I'm only getting more and more confused with his motives.
Apparently, this thing was an orphan that was adopted by Elliot Ludwig at some point and it slowly went crazy once Ludwig passed away and when the scientists began to do more invasive and evil experiments on him.
This kinda came out of left field for me personally because, aside from Chapter 3 and somewhat of 4, Ollie was never mentioned in ANY of the earlier chapters. I figure that there may have been an Easter Egg or on off-the-main-path reference SOMEWHERE, but that still doesn't help with streamlining the lore that the Prototype was building up.
Like, you miss ONE paper or cassette tape that is crucial to the lore and suddenly nothing is making sense. That's not a solid way to tell a firmly grounded story, in my honest opinion.
Anyway, back to what I was saying about the Prototype earlier.
I was envisioning a more cunning and evil villain that would earn it's reputation from just how brutal or lethal it was. I mean, there HAD to be a reason why Mommy Long Legs screamed "He'll make me apart of him!" when she was getting killed in the grinder. I was envisioning the Prototype as a chimera of all the toys that fall, even if they were loyal to him, because that's just how an entity that started a literal massacre would behave.
Instead, they turned him into an entity that is absolutely obsessed with getting Poppy for one reason or another--cause apparently this random orphan made a connection with her and lived with the Ludwig family for some time before they got turned into the Prototype--and this absolutely throws the character suspense out of the window.
Instead of a cunning mastermind that will use senseless violence to achieve its goals, sway powerful bigger body toys to do its bidding, and to break out of the factory--it instead turns into this strange possessive once-orphan that is overly attached to a doll that, to me, has no major significance other than simply being "Poppy".
In all honesty, that part of the lore lowkey gives me an ick vibe. This thing is essentially her adopted "brother" that is completely obsessed with keeping his "sister" safe, even if it means harming her or hurting others.
It's just a poorly packaged family drama story that, unless you picked up those papers or tapes that I mentioned before (or even watched the ARGs), you will have NO clue on where this plot line came from and it will seem completely disconnected from the whole story.
I don't know. I just do not like that aspect of the story because it forces a nature that doesn't fit the Prototype in my opinion. Plus, it's a little too creepy for my tastes.
Likewise, I will further my analysis by reviewing the chapters that came before Chapter 5.
The Prototype is NOT ignorant to our presence, as it has been following us since CHAPTER 2. Right at the end when we crush MLL in the grinder, its hand comes out and drags her body away to subsume it into it's own body, like a large chimera or something.
Poppy has been roaming around during Chapter 2 and not ONCE did the Prototype attempt anything to return Poppy to her case. In fact, it just allowed MLL to do whatever she wanted with Poppy during that time until she was eventually killed by us. Like, this was back in their earlier stages of development, but the devs admitted that scenes in Chapter 5 were PLANNED SINCE CHAPTER 1.
So WHY did the Prototype not do anything to build more suspense or anticipation to it's arrival later on down the line? Same can be said all throughout the other chapters as well.
In the chapters leading up to chapter 5, the Prototype does NOTHING to assist his minions in our capture/elimination.
Maybe it was a simple misplacement of faith in his minions capabilities, but each one gets BODIED after encountering us in a part of the factory. We kill so many of the bigger bads in the factory, that we literally earn the title "The Playtime Butcher" by the smaller toys BECAUSE we were successful in picking off his loyal minions one by one.
You'd think THAT would piss off the Prototype enough to act or for that to be the focus of Chapter 5, right? Since the Prototype is known to be very vengeful and malicious to figures that it finds problematic to its plans, correct? Nope.
This is kinda where it gets confusing for me to understand the Prototype's motives. What the HELL did it want before the whole Poppy fiasco takes the wheel and runs the story off the rails?
It does nothing to get Poppy back in chapter 2 and beyond, but it bounces around back and forth while playing both sides throughout the rest of the chapters by lying to us and killing Catnap...just to get to Poppy??
You're telling me that this large entity that can BREAK THROUGH WALLS, CLIMB UP THOSE SAME WALLS WITH EASE, AND HAS LETHAL MINIONS THAT SERVE HIM LOYALLY...can not catch one little porcelain doll that runs at the speed of a small toddler?
Poppy the living doll? More like Poppy the fucking macguffin. She feels like she only exists to push the plot forward and nothing else, which is why I feel like her connection to the Prototype is VERY forced.
Likewise, I am also very confused at WHY the Prototype is so reckless in discarding useful assets like Catnap and Huggy Wuggy. Those are your MINIONS and they did everything they could to get the Player, but you make our job easier by killing them for us??
Catnap was partially expected, but the death was still very brutal. At first, I suspected that this was because the Prototype doesn't take failure very well and figured that killing the cat was better than trying to nurse it back to health, as it fits his ruthless nature. But Huggy Wuggy? That guy was pursuing us the moment we got into the building and it chased us ALL throughout chapter 5, but he decides to just randomly stab and kill him (presumably)??
It just doesn't make any sense to me for him to kill HW.
ALSO. Why did he stuff us into a barrel that is full of Poppy Gel...you know...that STUFF THAT REVIVES DEAD THINGS? I mean, he's LIVED in the lab for years, you'd think he knew that it would be possible that we would heal/survive because of it.
I can only assume that he thought that if he stored our corpse in there, he would be able to abscond with Poppy, do what he needed to do with her to keep her "safe", and then come back to recollect our body to either harvest organs from or eat for himself. It did state that is was also used as a preservative, so it could have been similar to him just putting our corpse into a jam jar to keep unwanted toys from eating his kill later on.
Yet, and this is crucial to the death scene, but the Prototype did not expect us to get pulled out of the barrel by Giblet and SHOCKED by his taser in a last ditch effort to bring us back to life...and it worked. If you all remember the note on Ludwig's desk from chapter 1, Ludwig stated that an electrical shock was needed to revive a "larger specimen".
So Giblet unintentionally revived the "Playtime Butcher" and got them back into the game, possibly reinvigorated from the dousing of Poppy Gel, as we seemed to move a lot faster/healthier than we did before the Prototype stabbed us. In a way, we moved almost like we did in Chapter 1, as the later chapters show a more slower pace of running/jumping/ect in comparison. (Possibly from injuries and just being wore down over time?)
I have a feeling that once the Prototype comes back to collect our body for other purposes, and he finds the barrel of Poppy Gel empty, he is going to go absolutely apeshit. He just can't seem to kill this human that keeps coming back from every single encounter alive, even when he stabbed them with his OWN claws. To him, they just WON'T DIE.
Which makes me wonder...
I think he's been following us ever since we let Poppy out of her glass box. He's just been stalking us in the shadows and passively hoping that his minions would be able to take care of us for him. However, each attempt was met with one of his loyal monsters getting added to a growing pile of corpses and they eventually became known as the "Playtime Butcher" because of it.
Failure after failure is what finally drew the bigger bad out of hiding, as it probably felt like this was something that it had to face head-on by itself, as even the Doctor couldn't even stop you, and he had eyes EVERYWHERE.
However, the whole Ollie vs Poppy debacle just shoehorned its way into the plot that made the story, and the main villain, less interesting overall. I'm sure that there's people out there that like the story and that's completely fine.
But for me?
I think the build up to the great reveal of the Prototype could have been handled a bit better, imho. This should have been a beef battle against Poppy's "Angel" and the Puppetmaster that orchestrated such horrors 10 years before the Player ever returned to the factory.
Imagine it just managing to surprise you by grabbing your head and forcing you to stay in place, before revealing itself and greeting you so causally with a grinning face that spells only malice. Then, it recites off everything you've done in the factory that interfered with its plans and it slowly gets angrier and angrier the longer it continues. Then, it simply states that it will have to deal with you itself, as nobody else can be relied on to finish the job.
That, to me, would have made for a much more interesting villain.
A villain that has followed you through the factory since the beginning, that has stalked you from every possible location, that knows what you have done, where you did it, who you killed, and how much you have journeyed to face the mastermind of this whole operation.
I feel that we were robbed of a great villain because Poppy needed to be the mcguffin for the 3rd time in a row.
It's such a shame.
Well, thanks for reading this long-ass rant and analysis! Hope you enjoyed my perspective on the story and why I felt it was weaker than what it could have possibly been!
