Thoughts about Who's Lila? (MAJOR SPOILERS)

If you haven't played Who's Lila?, please play it first, it's really good. It's got a really unique and interesting primary mechanic of adjusting facial expressions and the process of figuring things out and trying to make sense of everything is very fun. Just give it a look at least before reading this, because I promise you, you don't want spoilers. I'm also not sure how much will make sense without the context of the game.

I'm kinda just letting thoughts flow. I know this is counterproductive given what Lila is, but I want to try to wrap my brain around the parts of the game I don't understand so here we go :)

Why/how does Tanya look like Lila? Or does Lila look like Tanya? Why?

Why does Lila need sacrifices? Especially since attention is what keeps her alive. Maybe it's just something she wants rather than needs.

Lila is not truly just the question of who Lila is, at least not in the world of the game. In the real life world, Lila is the question and a video game character, in the game she is an entity (and also the question?). That's an interesting idea, is Lila in-game completely separate from Lila irl? I would say not, what keeps her alive in-game is also attention to the question of who she is. No wonder she so quickly became strong enough to completely possess Will after he asked if Tanya is Lila and freaked out because he had no idea who this "Lila" he was talking about even is. He was wondering "Who is Lila?", that's her whole thing.

Who on earth is Stranger???? Is he Will when he truly is only Lila? Stranger seems separate yet very intertwined with Lila though. Although he is also present just before meeting The Emperor.

Who is the Emperor?

Why do the classrooms change the way they do?

Who's the janitor and why does he know Lila? Why does he also know the empress? (aka Will's mom who died)

We start the day, but then go back in time to go to the burnt apartments or the party, is it just a memory?

Really, I suppose at the end of the day, none of it matters, Lila is the question. The point of the game is to bring awareness of her, spark curiosity in the players, and leave the question never quite fully solved, leave players pondering how exactly she works. Parts of the game are intended to not make sense so that players wonder "wait- but why is it this that way?" and "if this is true, then why/how is that also true?". But the question is, is any of it true? In-game, is Lila truly an entity that has been around since the beginning of time? Is she Lilith? Does she truly need sacrifices? Does she truly look like Tanya? Is she truly an entity with personality that can make others love her? Is she truly able to control others? Or is she just the question and the rest is a coincidence. Or not a coincidence because it's a game, and Lila is a question, and the game fabricates an entity named Lila that is both the question and more, to leave players questioning. Does Lila need to be more than that?

What about the other memes? What are those about? (One is garage_heathen's other game)

There's a focus on qualia, the self being imaginary, and the concept that Lila, an idea that lives in multiple people yet is separate from them, is more "real" than any individual could be. Oh, and the prince.

The prince, from what I gathered, seems to be the idea of "god" or like- the only actual consciousness that exists, and it just sees through the lens of people. Like, right now, the prince is me. It feels like the idea of reincarnation but strictly for conscience beings. The idea that our conscience is really just the prince when he decides to look from our perspective. It's an interesting concept, but I'm not a fan of it when considering it as real, I personally don't believe it to be the case theologically. I like the idea that I am truly and always conscience.

Looked stuff up and this was a great idea I found. The idea that this isn't actually so much of a take on how real human consciousness works, but how this is true in the game. I think this makes a lot more sense. The player is the prince, living through Will and Lila's perspectives. They are not conscience but the player brings their consciousness to them just a little bit. But only within the game. Outside the game and a player playing it, they cease to exist, they cease to have any semblance of a consciousness.

But Lila still claims to be more, for she is an idea, not just a character. But in reality, she is just the same as Will, isn't she? She's a playable character who only gains consciousness through the player and Will is just as much of an idea in the player's mind as Lila is. Lila may be a stronger idea in peoples minds due to her confusing nature, but Will is still an idea as much as Lila is.

I believe this is not just meant to be an idea within the game, otherwise it fails to be true that Lila is anything more than Will or any conscience being.

It's weird, in the game she clearly has goals and thoughts and personality of a sort. I'm not really sure what personality is honestly, it's a bit too vague, personality is like vibe, but she has goals and thoughts and opinions and behavior specific to her I should say. She likes sacrifices, especially human ones, she wants to keep her true nature a secret for the sake of maintaining the curiosity-inspiring mystery that keeps her alive, she does not like Martha and I honestly am not sure why, she likes Will specifically for some reason, and she hates Tanya, killing her out of this hatred. She is a character, more than a question. Where does this come from? Does it degrade the concept that she is the question of who she is?

Is she really the question of who she is? Or is that mystery just a very effective method of gaining and maintaining attention, which keeps her alive? What is she really then? Maybe just an idea, not even a question but simply an idea? What makes her different from any other idea? Nothing really if she truly is just an idea. But the game implies that she is more. Although in real life I suppose that really is all she is, just an idea.

The thread from the earlier link (here it is again) is also quite good. Asks why DAEMON says "still one of us" when entering Yu's office. I feel that Yu is not quite you, but your curiosity, or actually- he's really just a representation of it. Yu is just like everyone else in the game, just a "reel" for the player to shine light on and view/look through.

Why doesn't Lila like Martha? Because she claims that Will and Tanya had sex? Is that because she hates Tanya? Is her hatred for Tanya born of her love for Will? Why does she like Will so much? Is Lila jealous of Tanya? Why? Because Will's attention is on Tanya instead of her? Did she choose to look like Tanya in an attempt to take some of that attention from Tanya? Does Lila look like Tanya because Will did go to the cafe and briefly see Tanya and without realizing it, based Lila's appearance on her? Like how supposedly every person you dream, even ones not based off real people, are actually visually based on real people you've seen in passing. Will doesn't remember that though and supposedly Lila went there often so I guess she saw Tanya? Did she not look like anything beforehand? Did she look like someone else beforehand?

Did Will and Tanya have sex? Could totally be me being asexual, but I'm gonna say no lol. Maybe they were going to, but Lila/Will always say they didn't and it feels very genuine at times. I think that they were going to but Will remembers Lila, freaks out, and then Lila kills Tanya. Maybe I just don't want it to be true as a sex-adverse asexual playing from the perspective of Will who has (maybe) had sex. And/or maybe I want Will to be a good person, and to not have sex with someone already in a relationship. Could make sense if he did because of Lila's sometimes severe reactions to being asked about it, considering she hates Tanya and also wasn't awake, she simply may not know and also doesn't want it to be true so that's how she can be so genuine at times.

I feel though that both Will and Lila are present when you play as them though. The way Will talked about his mom in the interrogation doesn't feel like Lila to me, those are his memories, not hers, and we know she can't remember things from between when Will threw out her reel and when he remembered Lila due to Tanya because she didn't know what the documents said. ...I don't think at least? The bold text felt like her saying it, not Will reading it, but maybe she wrote it. And she acted surprised when Yu told her what he knew, she knew killing Will wouldn't kill her though. She also said that Will called Lawrence when she was asleep and asks what they talked about. Yeah, she didn't know. She can't access Will's memories. I'm also not sure Will's facial expressions can be insincere without my help, even if Lila is in control, so I believe any shock she had in that dialogue was genuine.

Anyways, the point I'm getting to is that Lila cannot look into Will's memory, and any example where Will is being genuine and recalling memories, even if Lila has some control, that is a moment where Will is talking. They kinda act as one. With both of their reels on the projector. Will is the one telling the story of his mom in interrogation and if he and Tanya had sex, he would know, and even if Lila doesn't know, I believe that his knowledge of it happening would be apparent in his unintentional facial expressions. Unless Will cannot do that and only Lila can. Hm... Would have to look back at the party and the fire, but I do believe his face stretched to fear when first confronted by the officer at the burnt apartments and a smile when attempting to lie to her. So I believe I'm correct in that.

I believe that would also explain why, upon making his friends bicker Will thinks to himself "Seeing my friends fight makes me sad", yet he (Lila) smiles. Both are true because both he and Lila are there. And what he thinks is true because he's thinking it, so there's no reason to lie. Unless it was sarcasm, but I truly believe it was not.

Another thing really solidifying this imo is that we can play as just Will, but never play as just Lila (even in Will's body). One main instance where Will was not present and we didn't get to play, just watch a memory(?) of, was Stranger killing Tanya under Lila's influence. Will did not kill Tanya because when we go to Tanya's place, we play as Will when he's in bed with Tanya up until he has a mental break and Lila takes over. We then don't get to see what happens until we skip and view Stranger murdering Tanya from a completely outside perspective (Will). It's quite good the way Garage_Heathen did that actually, it really conveys both the feeling and meaning of lack of control, seeing as you are playing as Will who is literally outside of the situation rather than apart of it, and it also conveys that Will is having an out-of-body moment, which I feel like has more meaning in this game given the context of possession and whatnot. It's not just "it's like I was watching someone else"/"it's like someone else was doing things for me", it's not like that, it is that.

I think that given the assumption that both Will and Lila are present during the "current" plot, who Stranger is makes more sense. I think that Stranger would be when Will's body is quite strictly controlled by Lila. But I'm not entirely sure about it. Maybe it's a part of him that takes over when he's overwhelmed, like an alter ego that can emotionally handle what he can't. Also not sure about that. Ok actually, maybe both. If Lila is the only one controlling Will's body, Will is still there, his reel is still on the projector, but if he's not controlling his body, where is he? His conscience self isn't present, but his subconscious/alter-ego, Stranger, is. Oh, but also, think. There are two reels playing at once, Lila and Will. Do the projections overlap each other? Is that what Stranger is, the combination of these two projections? I'm not sure about that either because I'm sure we'd see a lot more of him in that case. Also, Stranger knew about Lila when Will didn't, it feels like more proof of being Will's subconscious.

I feel like with how mysterious Stranger is the game should be called Who's Stranger? lol. But really, with less information, there's less material to ponder over and question who Stranger is.

How/why can Lila control people? Especially if she's just an idea/question.

I need to pause and continue my pondering another time, I need to feed myself now.

[edit: I probably will not continue pondering this, I've already mentally moved onto other stuff lol]