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Sent is...
  • An AI. This would fit the description of "not a man" in both senses of the word, and would explain why everything pertaining to "his" avatar is synthetic.
    • If Sent's telling the truth, Confirmed.
  • Someone who worked at the original Four Elements Hotel.
There is a connection between the "disease" the Contestants have and the odd distortion Ink experiences in Chapter ten.
  • So far, Ink has been affected by the disease more than anyone else, so it could be that the others will get the same effect he did eventually. What if it's not a disease? What if it's a side effect, from something Sent had done to them?
    • Given that Sean reacts to Ink's description of the experience like it's a regular thing, it doesn't seem likely that Sent had anything to do with it. Of course, he might have still aggravated it...
    • Confirmed. The instances of intense nausea are a result of desynchronization with the CORNERS system, whereas the distortion was something created by Ink's mind unconsciously. He learns to close this distortion, and uses it to kill Sean if all alternate solutions are found.
Ink suffers from some sort of mental illness.
  • The events of Chapter 10 makes it sound like he has panic attacks and vivid hallucinations on a semi-regular basis, and it's possible to have him behave pretty eccentrically in the early game (coming to the initial conclusion of time travel when he learns the building they're in was demolished 20 years prior). At the same time, he's canonically the one that actually solves most of the puzzles, with one possible exception by Liza, which might be a side effect to said illness.
All the corners are designed to drive someone to kill themselves, with the first puzzle of a given corner providing Foreshadowing on how to bypass it.
  • The Green Door targeted Beth, but we never get to see what the first puzzle was originally going to be.
  • The Red Door targeted Rae, and the first puzzle is solved by hacking one of the man's limbs off.
  • The Blue Door will target Aether.
  • The Black Door will target Liza.
    • This bit is confirmed.
    • The "first puzzle prediction" bit is sort of Jossed at the same time... While Sean was the one who solved the Black Corner's first puzzle, and his sacrifice is what saves everyone in the Corner proper, the puzzle itself didn't predict anything.
  • The EXIT itself might not be exempt from this... and if that's the case, it will target Ink.
    • Alternatively, if the corners add up to initial number the contestants were assigned (Beth being 1, Rae being 2), than the third door will target Ink, the Fourth Door Aether, and the Exit Liza.
Sent actually didn't intend for anyone to kill themselves.
Or at least, he wants to give them a fighting chance... why else drop hints (Rae) or make the traps involved easy to escape (Beth)?
  • Jossed as of Liza's Corner. There's no way to escape there without someone dying, so Sent clearly did not have an Everybody Lives ending in mind.
  • This is also further proven not the case by Nolan's own admission, where he admits Rae's Corner was the only truly fatal one.
Liza is blind or visually impaired.
  • There is a popular theory on Reddit that discusses how Liza is either completely blind, or was once blind but have recently regained at least some of her sight through certain means. There are several clues that seems to support this theory:
    • Liza does not seem to notice a bloodied Ink until someone points it out.
    • Liza, for a typical teenage girl, is incredibly slow at typing on her Genesis device (which is equivalent to an iPhone).
    • She is unable to tell the difference between a pen and a mechanical pencil until Rae scolds her for not noticing.
    • She asks Ink to read off a poker-themed puzzle for her to help give him the solution in her head, even though she could simply look at the screen herself.
    • One particular puzzle Liza helps solve appears to be able to be translated into braille, a writing system for the visually impaired.
    • When Liza begs Sent to release Rae from his torture, she asks Sent "Can't you see he's in pain?", to which Sent answers "Interesting words coming from you, Liza".
    • She states at one point that her hearing is perfect. When one sense is missing or isn't working well, the others make up for it.
    • Right before the elevators, she mentions a sign on the stairwell that she doesn't understand. Beth states that it's just telling them that there's a stairwell.
    • In episode 22 this is confirmed. Liza has been blind since the age of four. Sent somehow restored her sight and threatened to blind her again if she told anyone.
Ink is a Trans man
  • There's a handful of clues that suggest Ink was assigned female, but keeps it tightly secret:
    • The most obvious clue is his birth name is "Kim." It's potentially an ambiguous name, but he also makes it clear he doesn't like it, and seems to not want anything to do with his family.
    • Sean mentions that Ink has his own room in the dorms, which might well indicate a need for privacy.
    • Appearance wise, Ink has very delicate features and a few androgynous aspects to his dressing style.
    • Aether tells Ink that she knows about the scar on his chest, which could well be top surgery. Ink becomes furious when she brings it up, but she insists she didn't look personally. She also indicates that she knows it has a greater significance, although she doesn't press the matter.
    • When Sent confesses his love for Ink, he tells Ink, "I am not a man, if that's what you're worried about." Ink insists that that's the last thing he's worried about, which could mean anything, given the circumstances, but was certainly an interesting choice of response
    • During Chapter 28, Sean claims that Ink can't properly fuck Aether, causing an enraged Ink to warn him that he's crossing a line.
    • In Chapter 29, if all the secret solutions have been found, Nolan will bring up Ink being transgender during the conversation.
The connection that Sent used to pick the contestants...
  • Is their contacts. (Revenge by Proxy maybe?)
  • Is that they all have major familial issues: Ink is estranged from his family, Beth's son is dead and doesn't like her very much, Aether's father appears to be distant, Liza has issues with being too sheltered by her family, and the only person of Rae's family that we know of backstabbed him.
    • Semi-confirmed. Two of the contestants (Beth and Liza) were relatives of the project head, Rae was Tiana's ex, and Aether was an AI shaped by Sean, who was "friends" with Ink. As these are the true identities of all the contacts, they did indeed play a significant role in the contestants' selection.
The "extra player" is...
  • Aether. They're in the Four Elements Hotel, and Aether is the fifth classical element.
    • To add to that, from all we can tell each of the players wake up in their own room...except Ink and Aether, who wake up together. Also, notice that there are three women in the group and only two men.
    • Aether is the only member of the group who has never had a coughing blood fit at any point.
    • Confirmed. She's actually an AI designed to get Ink to choose CORNERS over reality.
Aether isn't real.
If Sent's telling the truth, we already know of at least one hyper-responsive AI. Couple that with good enough hardware, and she'd be indistinguishable from an ordinary human. Additionally, it'd explain how she "knows" things she really shouldn't... either Sent is feeding her this information via an uplink, or she somehow gets it from the facility itself without knowing. The hoodie that she wears covers a large portion of her body, too, which would help disguise any less-than-fluid motions, and even her name is an odd duck out compared to the rest of the cast. Said name might even be a hint of how she operates... she's in the cloud.
  • If the group is in virtual reality, Aether might be a part of the computer program. Her way of describing how she "knows" things sounds an awful lot like how an NPC would describe the data in their programming, if they could.
  • She also makes reference in an early episode to "figuring people out", and that while Rae points out that she can't exactly do that, she in turn points out that she can always get to know them a little better. Not too dissimilar to how some neural networks function.
  • Confirmed. She's an AI.
They're in a simulation/virtual reality.
It might be too obvious at this point.
  • Sent states that he only needs to 'think up' the building. He is not concerned with physical/legal limits, and has no need to spend money or time on its construction. This makes sense if Sent really is an AI, ie a virtual being, and they're all in a virtual world.
  • Objective reality appears to be affected by the contestants' perceptions/assumptions. Eg the black/blue ink, and whether the sword was fake or not.
  • It explains the Reality Is Out to Lunch moments in the story, as a simulation does not have to abide strictly by the laws of reality. The simulation could be malfunctioning, or maybe Sent is could be manipulating it.
  • Confirmed.
Behind the exit is a Sadistic Choice
  • With the exception of Aether, everyone has shown symptoms of some kind of disease or poisoning. Behind the exit, aside from leading out, is the cure for said condition. But of course, not nearly enough for everyone...
    • Deconfirmed. The exit has nothing but negative space behind it.
The code Tiana stole from Rae was used in Sent's creation
As a twisted Create Your Own Villain reveal.
  • Confirmed in a sense. Sent wasn't the only creation made using Refractive Node, rather, the entire CORNERS system is the product of RN research.
The player is not directly controlling Ink.
In a similar fashion to Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors. Ink has noted several times that he seems to be hearing voices that are giving him commands, and he outright refuses to listen to the player's directives on two separate occasions. The player is controlling some paranormal entity which is manipulating Ink.
Sent didn't invent Exit Corners
  • He's just the referee, or more accurately, the GM. The actual rules were devised by someone else entirely. Implied by some of his interactions with Ink in chapter 22.
  • Confirmed.
There is yet another person inside the hotel.
There's been a bit of a pattern with the puzzles subtly hinting at upcoming plot twists. The first puzzle in Beth's corner, we missed. The first puzzle in Rae's corner ended with a man's limb being cut off. The first puzzle in Liza's corner was solved by Sean. The first puzzle in the remaining corner uses a rather cryptic "+1" for its hint, which conveniently mirrors the title of the chapter where Tiana and Sean were added, "+2". It also explains how Beth was murdered when the only available suspects are people we've come to know and trust.
Aether murdered Beth
  • If the above theory turns out not to be the case, there's fairly compelling reason to lend credence to the idea that the murderer was Aether. By process of elimination: Ink and Liza are ruled out, as they were both in the boiler room during the time of the murder. It seems highly unlikely that Rae could have pulled off killing Beth with a picture frame with only one arm, though not impossible. However, he also had absolutely no reason to do so, and seems quite fond of Beth and torn up over her death, unless he's just a really good actor. This leaves Sean, Tiana, and Aether. With Sean's implied death via self-sacrifice., it seems highly improbable that he was the killer. This leaves Tiana and Aether, and unless we're missing some critical information, Tiana has absolutely no motive for killing Beth.
    • Of course, neither does Aether. But we've been getting hints almost from the very beginning that there's something off about Aether, down to her very name. The Four Elements hotel. Aether. The fact that she almost never experiences the coughing blood bouts other guests do. That she instinctively trusts Ink without a stated reason. That none of the corners have targeted her so far. That she was one of the only two do wake up in a room with another person. The fact that the number 4 keeps coming up in the game but there are 5 guests, implying 1 extra (the +1) that shouldn't be there.
    • Even more tantalizing is that she appears to have some connection with the voice that speaks to Ink during his unconscious segments. She's been known to trigger flashbacks of the voice. when the voice finally does speak back, it uses the same dialogue options Ink had for her at the beginning of the game. Note that this voice is also not we the players, as it knows things we don't know, like the secret about the hotel doors. Which the killer used to hide the murder weapon. And Aether has already been shown to know things she shouldn't know.
  • Jossed. It was Sean.

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