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sirenjose · 4 months

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Norton is Alive in the Final Game

This is going to be less of an organized post and more just a collection of points. I wanted to post a theory I wrote about Time of Reunion here based on quoththeowl31's request, but I wrote the original theory right after the event (I needed hope) and it's been quite some time since then. I would've felt guilty just copy pasting it here considering how long its been, but I didn't have the energy to make it nice and neat. So I'm just going to take the important points from my previous theory, revise them based on what info we currently have, and go from there.

(Sorry, I only had the energy to be lazy for this. Hopefully this is good enough for you.)

Alice (Little Girl) is running from Orpheus during Time of Reunion in-game.

She disappears in Da Capo after Orpheus beats up Norton, leaving only her diary behind. The same thing happens at the end of the Time of Reunion event in-game. The diary is left on the ground near where Orpheus lies.

Possible Orpheus scared Alice due to his actions, even if he thought he did it to defend her.

This is the “final game”. No bodies are found except Orpheus’. The fire didn’t consume everything, so if Norton really were dead, his body should be around there somewhere, but it isn’t.

Melly and Alice are never found either, but if they did manage to leave, we’ve heard nothing about them.

(Reusing an idea I read from quoththeowl31 that I really liked)

Little Girl helps other survivors. If Orpheus was Nightmare, that’d mean she’d have to help Norton, Melly, or whoever the 4th survivor is (whether that’s Frederick or otherwise). Novelist was banned in this mode, meaning Little Girl couldn’t support him (and it’s possible this could have been meant to also signify Little Girl didn’t support him in the story either).

Alice is a rescuer. The only person we’ve seen hurt and chaired during the in-game cutscene was Norton. Ergo, it’d be her responsibility to rescue him.

Norton is a survivor built to harass the hunter (and potentially by-time for others/help others escape from the hunter), while Melly is built for kiting and running. This could explain why Norton is the one who is the one wounded during Time of Reunion

Norton and Melly, each time they appear as hunters during the animations, are always reaching towards Little Girl aka Alice, not Orpheus.

Norton was using the axe to break the door to the room Orpheus had locked himself and the girl in. The axe disappears right after he makes a big enough hole, meaning Norton didn’t intend to use it to hurt either of them.

Melly in Alice’s diary was said to be trying to persuade Alice to leave, but she refuses due to not finding the answer she’s looking for yet.

If Alice/Little Girl knew Norton and Melly were trying to help her, she likely would’ve sided with them. That could also be why she disappears after Orpheus beats up Norton (as well seeing how Orpheus truly is/how messed up he is). Or she disappeared so Orpheus, upon losing sight of her, she’d be freed and could help Norton without Orpheus stopping her.

Orpheus isn’t a reliable perspective. The memories we’re seeing are because of the Hydra drug, which “rebuilds” memories. “Rebuild” rather than “regain” or “remember” means the “rebuilt” version can look the exact same as the original, but it’s also possible for it to somewhat differ from the original version. For example, the memories Hydra gives Orpheus has Orpheus being chased by Nightmare, which we know is impossible as Orpheus is Nightmare, as well as shows Alice as Little Girl rather than her actual, present day version as Alice the Journalist. (Similar to what happens to Sora during Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.)

There are inconsistencies in the animation, which can help show that it, like the Time of Reunion event in-game, isn’t the exact truth. Besides Alice appearing as Little Girl rather than Journalist Alice, as well as how we can see hallucinations exist considering we see Melly and Norton appearing as hunters, but we know this is a hallucination as, for example, after Orpheus punches Melly, we see the real Melly briefly afterwards.

Norton doesn’t have his signature burn scar over his eye

Norton doesn’t have his nose piercing

Only Orpheus and Little Girl are in color. Norton and Melly are in black and white.

Only Orpheus and Little Girl have real eyes. Norton has button eyes.

Norton isn’t fighting back. When Orpheus tries to punch him a 2nd time, Norton actually grabs his hand, struggles to keep him still while Orpheus continues to try to attack him, and then grabs Orpheus’ other hand when he tries to swing that at Norton too. In the second or so that Orpheus can’t attack, we see Norton trying to say something to Orpheus, but Orpheus isn’t listening and continues to attack. Norton this whole time hasn’t made any moves to attack Orpheus himself.

The strange scene where Melly is hiding in a locker, Norton touches something on the floor, walks over to the locker, shakes it once, hits it once, shakes it one more time, then runs out. It’s kind of nonsensical. If he was running from something, we’d see Norton moving quicker and more furiously, yet the nonchalant way he goes about his business before slowly walking to the locker says otherwise. Right after this, Melly opens up a trapdoor once Norton leaves. It’s possible Norton’s actions were a signal to Melly, potentially signifying that it was Norton, not Orpheus, and him trying to potentially say Orpheus wasn’t around, and that could’ve been why Melly only opened the trapdoor afterwards. This could mean Melly and Norton are working together, and as both of them seemed to be trying to reach for Little Girl specifically, that could help further prove the idea.

The only time we see Norton and Melly going against each other is when Norton punches Melly and causes her to drop the flashlight that Orpheus then picks up. I think the only reason this happened was because they might’ve known Orpheus was watching and had to pretend. Even when Orpheus firsts locks himself in the room with Little Girl, closing the door right as Hunter Melly appears in front of the door, in a few seconds, we see the axe coming through the door, signifying Hunter Norton is right outside the door now. Both Norton and Melly should be nearby, outside the door, but they’re goal is getting into the room, not fighting each other.

We also see both of them running past Orpheus at about the same time.

There’s also how Melly during Time of Reunion is shown to be using her bees to try to get Orpheus hit and killed by the hunter.

“Da Capo” is a music term and means to “go back to the beginning” of the music. This only happens once, with the second time you reach this symbol it doesn’t repeat, and instead goes to a different measure. This basically seems to symbolize doing things over but reaching a different ending.

Da Capo and redoing something can connect to COA 4, as Highway Cavalier and the others repeatedly die and are forced to redo the race over and over. Highway Cavalier does defeat Molten Hound and win the race in the end, receiving a “powerful life force” as his reward in the end. Molten Hound, who is absorbing the life force of the racers forced to redo the race in loop after loop, can parallel Orpheus as Nightmare, who does something similar with the participants of his experiments. Highway Cavalier obviously parallels Norton, while Melly can parallel Reflective Mirror, someone who at first did not get along with and was on different sides from Norton, but after Norton changes and starts to care, he saves her from dying at one point, and they become allies.

Considering what we know about Alice based on her letter to Orpheus in the 2nd anniversary package, where she says she’s going to save him (Orpheus) this time, she could parallel Pumping Tires, who sacrifices himself for Highway Cavalier to ensure Highway Cavalier can win the race and defeat Molten Hound.

There’s also how the COA 4 races were taking place in Yidhra’s Dreamlands, and Yidhra in canon seems to relate to Oracle and Orpheus’ drugs via the fern, as well as to Darkwoods where the Final Game takes place.

Norton in his 2nd letter was asked to assassinate some female in exchange for a lot of money. Despite this, we see in this letter that he (Hunter Norton/Fool’s Gold) is trying to convince himself (Survivor Norton) to go through with the job and kill the female for the money. This is similar to Norton’s backstory trailer, where we see Norton fighting with himself before he sets off the explosion in Golden Cave. We see him holding his head, as well as both him and his hunter version at the same time, before seeing Fool’s Gold win and cause the explosion.

It’s possible during the Final Game, Norton chose to reject the assassination request and side with Alice instead, similar to Highway Cavalier’s change from selfish to working with others during COA 4 to the point in previous loops he gets himself killed while trying to help them.

Norton in Time of Reunion is shown to be eliminated via chair rather than bleeding out. This means there is a chance he survived. (Orpheus is also shown with scars on his hand from the wires on the rocket chairs, meaning he survived despite being chaired. It’s possible he was rescued, but in-game, if you’re eliminated via chair, it does say “returning to manor”, which could be what happened to Norton).

Little Girl, as well as Nightmare, disappeared because Orpheus forgot about them. Because the gas he released via the valve is shown to have the Dionysus/Mnemosyne symbol, which is the drug that makes a person forget.

Strange split screen during the scene Orpheus attacks Norton. Suspicious we can’t see exactly who the shadows are, even though the left side shows us Orpheus and Norton. Considering we know the hallucination drug can cause people to see someone as something else, it’s possible the fact we can’t see who’s on the right may hint that maybe they aren’t who they seem to be. It’s possible rather than attacking Norton, he’s actually attacking Alice, which could also tie to why she sees him as Nightmare, as well as why Little Girl runs away from Orpheus during the Time of Reunion event.

Orpheus is focused on the past before the tragedy. He is “looking back”. He also “looks back” after attacking Norton in Da Capo, and when he does, Alice is gone. And like in the original myth, when Orpheus looks back, Eurydice vanishes forever. The fact Alice is gone could mean he did in fact attack her and caused her to disappear despite what he thought he saw.

Last thought. We see Little Girl disappear at the end. And based on Alice’s letter to Orpheus, this seems to echo this. If Yidhra really is involved, what if she made Alice, as well as Norton and Melly, disappear. Similar to what happens to the Lakeside villagers. And potentially similar to what Eli describes in his 4th letter, as he describes “dissipating” just like how we see happen to Little Girl in the animations as well as in-game at the end of Time of Reunion.

As Yidhra’s letters seem to connect her to the fern used in the drugs, as well as to Darkwoods, where the final game is, and where we can find a bonfire that Yidhra’s form can appear in, it’s possible she could’ve made Alice, Norton, Melly, and potentially all the other participants of Orpheus’ game disappear, similar to how she makes the investigators who wander into her territory see the steps to the Dreamlands.

Alice in her letter to Orpheus in the 2nd anniversary package does say “As I gradually regain my consciousness, I’ll find a way to escape from the prison that locks me in”, and though I don’t see how she could write a letter to Orpheus if she had already been sent to the Dreamlands, I still wanted to suggest the idea that the “prison” she refers to is the Dreamlands. In which case, the “hunter” Alice references she could potentially use could be Yidhra: https://www.tumblr.com/sirenjose/738327507924828160/oracle-orpheus-drugs-and-yidhra-theory?source=share.

That or Joseph. Both him and Yidhra seem to be potential solutions: https://www.tumblr.com/sirenjose/737972149259829248/did-joseph-make-the-portraits-are-they-still?source=share.

Joseph is all about saving people from death, which he does by taking a photo of them, causing their souls to be trapped within the photo and their bodies to seemingly go missing. He had a wall of portraits of people that went missing, and we are now getting portraits of survivors for their 5th birthday. In which case, the “prison” Alice references could be that photo, and the hunter she suggested wanting to use could be Joseph.

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