Who is the next Genie?

[Nick]

So after seeing an out of bounds video of ENA, it looks like the Crowd Door might be where the next chapter takes place, since it already has its opening animation.

Here's a link to the video I watched, the animation is at 1:13 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7mjJ47VP8A&ab_channel=KeksikMaks


Meaning we'll probably be meeting Piero the Genie soon. After playing this game a lot, I started making a lot of connections to who Piero might be. Thought I'd share it here and see what people think. I also talk about Patreon stuff a little bit, since I noticed some connections there too. I won’t bring it up too much since it’s worth checking out yourself, and I don’t want to spoil too much of what’s to come, but I’ll talk about it a little bit. To start off:

Let's talk about the paintings

There's two important paintings in the game. The first one is in the Theater-esque area in the door on the left side of the ship in Uncanny Streets. If you crouch jump behind a pile of ingots behind a false wall, you'll see a portrait:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3463643405


Checking it says that "It's almost dry." You can check the seat too, which says "It's almost warm," meaning whoever painted this was here recently.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3463644467


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3463644601




The painting is of a pale face with blue and pinkish makeup. There's one character that hasn't gotten any screen time yet, but shares many features with this face. In the announcement of Dream BBQ, near the end, there's this clown character at the end that laughs creepily right at the camera.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3463646627


This floating head, nicknamed 'Clown' by Joel on Patreon, looks the most like this painting. Same blue lips, circle paint on the cheeks, and the eyebrow has a similar color to his hat. Not sure if he was painting himself or it was painted by someone else, but right now I’ll assume that Clown painted this. This is significant with the next painting we see in game.

When you fall into the river in the Core, you get sent to the Lost Village. There are a ton of doors surrounding the perimeter of the area, perfect place for little secrets. One is obviously Nonkey Jong (who is also important to this believe it or not), but the other is Frank's room.

(this is Frank btw)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3463647780


Frank’s room is a bedroom inside a castle area, and has a large portrait in the back. Inspecting it once tells you that it's Lord Frank.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3463648119


You can kinda see his face if you look at it hard enough, but when you inspect it a second time, it has Piero's signature. I think maybe Piero painted both of these paintings.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3463655917

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3463648529

What does Nonkey Jong have to do with this?

Nonkey Jong has a couple of lines talking about a museum, and a great artist:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3463650456

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3463650877

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3463651007

This great artist is probably Piero, since he made Frank a portrait with his signature on it. Since NJ mentions that the artist is in a museum, we will probably see the museum in Crowd Door as well, along with his artworks. I didn’t think too much about this, until a preview for a track on the Patreon caught my attention.

There is a track made by Oliver Buckland labeled ‘The Museum’. The picture attached is a painted image of this area shown in one of the trailers:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3463649233

So whoever Piero the Genie is, he is a painter and has a museum of his artworks in Crowd Door. He also doesn’t seem to stay within the Crowd Door most of the time like Theodora does in the Lonely Door, if those paintings in the ship were painted recently. With all of this, I assume that either:

1. Clown is Piero, and will be seen in Chapter 2
Or

2. Clown knows Piero, and both had been in the Lonely Door, and left before ENA came in.

For me, I think Clown painted his own portrait in the ship, and that he is Piero. The painting doesn’t have Piero’s signature on it, but I assume that’s because his face is already recognizable enough that he doesn’t need the signature (The Strange Man on The Hub did say that people in Crowd Door are looking for autographs and fame, presumably from Piero, so they might already know what he looks like). The museum then may be in the Crowd Door as well, since that’s where most of his art is. I’m taking a lot of liberty with these connections though, so take them with a grain of salt. What do you think?