The test subjects in the book don't match the ones in the show!
Thank you @erikiara80 for pointing out that there are two sets of Rainbow Room subjects - some appear during 'actual' scenes where they're training with Brenner, and some get swapped out during the Nina Project time loop.
Further to my post that the actor playing Young Will in season 5, Luke Kokotek, is shown as one of the Rainbow Room test subjects, I realised that almost every single test subject that we see in the book is the 'wrong' one, and not who we see in the show! CRAZY STUFF!
These are the 'canonical' actors for each of the test subjects (according to IMDb and the Wiki fanon site). As you can see, there numbers only go up to 18, so if you subtract, El, Henry and Kali, you are left with 15 additional subjects.
That matches with the show, and the spread in the book also has 15 test subjects, so these numbers are correct!
See how below, we also have 15 pictures (these are numbered simply to quantify the total - the numbers do not correspond with the actual number the test subjects get assigned):
There are 15 test subjects in the show, and there are 15 photos, but somehow, only numbers 2, 16, and 17 match the test subjects we see in the show.
None of the other test subjects are featured in the book spread!
These are the only ones that match:
The other numbers we see in the book are all wrong!
Even ones that looked somewhat similar to me, I compared these, and still came to the conclusions that they are different actors!
For example for 3, I thought it could be this guy from the book. But when you compare the two, you see that, aside from being the same race, these are different actors!
Or this girl - she's not a number but she is featured in the book - you can see her in BTS scenes that were shared with me again by @erikiara80:
This girl, again, is not listed as a test subject, but suddenly takes the place of 002 during the Nina Project loop, can be seen in BTS scenes, and is also featured in the book:
Again - how does one make a huge two-page spread for the Rainbow Room test subjects, has the correct number of subjects (15), and 'accidentally' gets almost every single one of them wrong.
Two is correct, which makes sense, as he's the most prominent one of the bunch as he is the main antagonist to El, so people would be able to tell immediately if his one was incorrect.
It's also interesting that the only other correct subjects are the twins, numbers 16 and 17. @erikiara80 pointed that this might be a hint towards there being two timelines, and with all the twins discourse we've been having over the past few months, it wouldn't surprise me.
So, not only do we have Young Will in the Rainbow Room, we have almost every other test subjects be listed incorrectly! I repeat again - these things don't happen in error.
@erikiara80 noticed previously that they had swapped around test subjects in season 4, but by repeating that same 'mistake' again in the book, they are trying to make this obvious to a wider audience, to those who don't pay as much attention to detail when watching the show (but would notice the inconsistencies if it were laid out to them on paper).
We are being thrown hints over and over again in this book - and hopefully, the message will land!
