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gibor-zolel · 5 months ago

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Tabitha: The sacrificial lamb? And possible Sybil motivations + partnership with Wayne

So in this post I'll be discussing why I think Tabitha is supposed to be the sacrifice and we're supposed to run the town.

I will also give a theory as to what Sybil's motivations might be and why her and "Wayne" seem to be working together even though they appear to dislike each other.

SPOILERS AND MANY SCREENSHOTS BELOW. THIS IS A LONG POST BE WARNED.

Right at the beginning of the game we can tell that Tabitha is unhappy with her lot in life and feels forced into doing what she believes is best for the town (similar to how Neeks feels forced and trapped)

She even admits as such during our time with her in chapter 3.

She; as the cousin who is older and has lived in Scarlet Hollow has been groomed by her mother into thinking that all this falls on her and she needs to sacrifice her life and happiness for the sake of the town.

But she's not the only one that believes this. Both Keneeka and Sybil have stated as much. Keneeka makes an offhand comment about how "we're not even a real Scarlet like Tabitha and this should fall on her" if we give up years of our life in chapter 3.

But Sybil is more....insidious and serious when she says this;

Sybil thinks it's Tabby's responsibility to give up a decade of her life to placate a ghost that was murdered by a Scarlet decades ago. I'm not gonna screencap every time Sybil makes an argument "for the greater good" but if you listen to her all throughout this story, you'll notice she does it A LOT.

Here's one example;

Everything has a price....but would Sybil do something like this herself? Perhaps...but it's more likely she's willing to do something horrible to her own daughter "for the sake of the town". She makes a big deal out of how the people in Scarlet Hollow are tied to this town and how they can't just get up and leave in chapter 2. She's not wrong but it's also obvious she's plotting and hiding information from us.

Which brings me to this; There's a strong possibility that "The Witch" is not merely an ancestor of Sybil but rather Sybil herself. In this scene we notice that The Witch has many poisonous plants...similar to how Book Smart can point out all the poisonous plants in chapter 1 or 4.

The Witch also sends Charlie on a dangerous mission to uncover the seals...hmmm who does that sound like? In chapter 4 after our tea session with Sybil she tells us to investigate the seals and find out what's hidden beneath them.

More importantly....if you have Mystical or don't drink Sybil's tea you can resist the urge to open the door in chapter 3.

We also learn towards the end of chapter 4 that Sybil is the one who told Dr Kelly to poison her son but we can only learn this if we didn't drink the chaga tea in chapter 2.

So it's pretty clear that Sybil wants two things;

(1) Uncover the seals

(2) Protect the town....even at the expense of others

But something that's interesting is that Sybil and whatever is piloting Sam Wayne's corpse seem to be working together for a common goal..even though the two don't seem to like or even respect each other.

We learn in chapter 1 or 2 depending on our choices, that "Wayne" has been coming by Sybil's tea room. Although it's unclear if the original Sam Wayne did this as well.

Regardless; Sybil tells Wayne she can't help him tonight and tells him to go away. In multiple chapters Sybil refers to Wayne as a drifter who'll be gone soon. She also stresses that we should be wary of him and to steer clear whenever he's around and we'll be fine. It's clear she knows what Wayne wants and most likely knows what "he" really is. She also gets this worried (disgusted?) look on her face if we tell her we're in love with Wayne (sorry no pic lol)

But she also steers clear of Wayne as well and rarely interacts with him and Wayne straight up threatens her if we choose to give up years of our life.

So why this hostility? And why do I think they might be working together?

Lets talk about those boxes in chapter 4. If you have Keen Eye in chapter 4 and open the closet you get this;

So it's Wayne that opens these boxes and shifts the doll around. Why? Well at the end of chapter 4 he tells us to investigate the estate and that we might be surprised at what we find. Wayne does this thing where it's obvious he knows what's going on but he won't directly tell us what's happening. He says it's because it'll be better for us to find out ourselves so "we can know who to really trust".

In other words; Wayne believes that once we uncover everything we'll be on his side. He's pretty confident about all this and I'm unsure how much to trust him; given that he repeatably bad mouths our friends and suggests we abandon them to save our own skins.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Why did Wayne open these boxes? Did he hope to find damming information against the Scarlet's? I find it hard to believe that Tabby has that pushed into the front of our closet but maybe she doesn't know it's there? And why didn't he put the boxes back in place? Almost as if he wants us to open that specific box.

What if...Wayne planted something there? Or maybe he took a piece of evidence and hid it? I think option 1 is more likely considering he seems to be isolating us from our friends.

I believe Wayne is working with Sybil to make sure Tabitha is the one to pay for all the crimes the Scarlet's did and insure that we are unharmed. I don't think Sybil cares too much if we get hurt but I also think she's of the belief that it's Tabitha who should be the sacrifice not us. Tabitha is the only one that Sybil agrees on being "The Cat" in episode 4. Sybil pushes you to distrust Tabby and perhaps Wayne planted something there to make us distrust her too.

Look at this interaction between Wayne and Tabby during the haunting;

He says this if you deliberately taunt Tabitha but I don't believe he's being sincere here. It sounds like he's mocking her in a subtle way given what he says in another option;

So far Tabby and Wayne haven't interacted much but imo it appears that Wayne enjoys taunting Tabitha and rubbing her ex's dead body and their failed relationship in her face. Pretty nasty but Wayne is pretty nasty to a lot of our friends.

Either way; Wayne is very invested in making sure we're safe and he gets pissed if we sacrifice ourselves and this is the only time we see him have any kind of emotion.

So what if he's so intent on keeping us safe he wants Tabby to take the fall for whatever skeletons are in the Scarlet's closet?

There's also this theme of the heir to the estate sacrificing their younger siblings or others to keep themselves in power. After all; Enoch sacrificed Teddy for power.

Tabby may be older than us but she's not the child of the heir, that's us. Vivian was supposed to be the boss of the mines but she left after she discovered she was pregnant.

I believe the Scarlet's have a history of having one side of their family rule while the other side gets used as sacrifices for whatever is cursing this town. Wayne wants to protect us from getting murked and Sybil is willing to do whatever it takes to ensure the people of the Holler can keep living their lives.

And let's face it; most of the town believes Tabby is to blame for all of their problems. She isn't sociable, she's blunt, she's isolated, she's alone....the perfect scapegoat?

#scarlet hollow #scarlet hollow theories #sybil forsyth #wayne scarlet hollow #tabitha scarlet #if some of this sounds off or all over the place just know I'm tired and wrote this without checking my spelling or whatever #no first draft I die like a loser #black tabby games

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