Theory: Khan doesn't actually exist

[Pedro El Spector]

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Ok, i was thinking about Khan, which you will agree is a misterious character, and i came up with this: he never existed in the first place, but he's just an allucination sent by the dark ones to guide you trough the plot and towards the good ending. Here are the points.

-During chapter "sparta", you randomly find Khan in the ranger base, even tough he's not a ranger, and he's not gonna join you on the following levels. None of the rangers ever interacts with him, or even mentions him. Are they unable to see him?
-During dark ones related allucinations you hear Khan's voice repeating phrases he said to you personally. How do the Dark Ones even know what he said? What's the sense of making you hear quotes from another human during visions?
-He knows way much more than any other human about supernatural events and so. He's able to just walk trough ghosts, hallucination and even to survive an anomaly. Artyom can do that probably because he's the chosen one (Dark ones are probably linked to all the "supernatural" events, or at least can deal with them, given the fact they can just cause people to have vision without even having to be close), but Khan teaches him how to do that? Doesnt make much sense for a human to have this mastery of supernatural
-The levels where he's involved have a ton of moral points (if you don't know about moral points:you get them for doing good actions/overhearing conversations/being friendly towards the dark ones etc. during the game. You need more than a certain amount of moral points to unlock the good ending). All the said moral points are basically awarded for doing exactly what he says. Why would do what a random human says give you points toward the good ending?
-He never mentions where he's from or what's his porpouse, and while you spend a lot of time with him, you actually know nothing about him (you can get a lot more information about, dunno, Borboun)

This theory has 2 weak points: he interacts with human beings in black station level (you hear someone shooting if you fight, while if you stealth all the way to the end an enemie you would not be able to knock out get randomly killed by someone) and in cursed station. The black station one is the biggest hole i have. First, you never see Khan do that, so MAYBE someone else is just doing that and you never know about it. Otherwise it might be that the enemy taken out silently and the shots during the fight are just the beginning of the illusion.
Cursed station actually makes more sense. During it Khan walks up and speaks to the soldiers, who clearly know him and recognize him. This was rough but then i realised: Cursed is the only level in the game with infinite enemy respawns. This is quite unrealistic and incoherent with the rest of the game, isn't it? Basing on this, to me the whole Cursed level is an allucination, maybe some sort of trial from the dark ones. This is also supported by the fact that nobody else in the game but Khan mentions Cursed station even though theorethically it's so close both to Armory and Black station. Also, at the end of the level when you enter the shrine, you have to go trough the dark silouettes just as in the ghost chapter

So this is the theory, it has a small hole but i think globally it makes sense. Thanks for being patient trough it and reading everything, let me know what you think!

[dcegget]

You need to play a version (original or redux) of Last Light......

[Jig McGalliger]

Read the book or play Last Light.... he exists. I like the theory though.

[Couriadore]

This is sort of my theory for Khan. But Honestly to me it makes more sense if Khan is an entity made by the dark ones not a hallucination. Because at the end of last light's moral ending Artyom says "And Khan, just dissappeared" which would make sense if he was an entity sent to guide Artyom.

[Prometheus]

Maybe Khan is the metro?, since the metro clearly dose whatever it wants and changes, plus theres alot of other supernatural stuff it whould be funny if khan was the metro walking around and helping out people

[Wobb the Great and Terrible!!!!!]

As as already been stated, play Last Light. Either redux or original doesn't matter.
Khan is real. He is kind of ignored, treated like a bit of a crackpot by most people, because he wanders the metro alone doing god knows what, and has a kind of hippy peacenick attitude towards the metro in many ways.

Honestly, I think he's a bit of a crackpot myself a lot of the time. But an interesting character, especially in 2033.

[Dusty]

Personally I think you're theory doesn't work because Artyom has 2 spirit guides or guardians in 2033 already. The Dark One Hunter killed and Hunter. They guide and protect Artyom during his quest. They not only speak to him in his dreams (such as at the end of Black Station), but they also actively protect him from danger. The Dark One saves Artyom and Bourbon from the Great Door. Hunter saves him from the Dark Ones in the Ethereal dream at the top of the tower. If the Dark Ones have a group consciousness (which is my understanding) then the actions of the dead Dark One would be known to the living Dark Ones.
I think Khan serves the purpose of the mentor archetype. Like Merlin or Obi-Wan. He is the opposite of Bourbon, Artyom's other mentor. One imparts spiritual wisdom, the other practical wisdom.

[Jig McGalliger]

Originally posted by Dusty:

The Dark One Hunter killed and Hunter.

Hunter isn't dead
Hunter and Kahn were the two contrasting viewpoints that Artyom essentially had to side with. I always thought of the dark ones as a secret third, breaking what is primarily a duality.

[DELTA]

he exists but he was sent by the darkones, same with pavel and ulman and burbon. they made sure they would all save or meet with Artyom. I belive they only helped him on his way because they hoped by the time he got to pollis he would understand they where not hostile and help make a joint venter with humans to help the world.
i say this because darkones cannot use tect and build things like us and we cant live on the surface or scare off mutants like they can. also the darkone never attacked first, they always tryed to just walk into the station but the metro people where scared and thus hit out before any good could happen

[kotekzot]

Originally posted by Sir Cumble Door:

This is sort of my theory for Khan. But Honestly to me it makes more sense if Khan is an entity made by the dark ones not a hallucination. Because at the end of last light's moral ending Artyom says "And Khan, just dissappeared" which would make sense if he was an entity sent to guide Artyom.

Originally posted by DELTA FORCE:

he exists but he was sent by the darkones, same with pavel and ulman and burbon. they made sure they would all save or meet with Artyom. I belive they only helped him on his way because they hoped by the time he got to pollis he would understand they where not hostile and help make a joint venter with humans to help the world.
i say this because darkones cannot use tect and build things like us and we cant live on the surface or scare off mutants like they can. also the darkone never attacked first, they always tryed to just walk into the station but the metro people where scared and thus hit out before any good could happen

That makes absolutely no sense. If they could make an entity able to communicate with humans in the traditional way or "send" humans to do things, they wouldn't have tried so hard to reach Artyom at the cost of many human lives in order to establish contact.

[Wobb the Great and Terrible!!!!!]

Originally posted by kotekzot:

Originally posted by Sir Cumble Door:

This is sort of my theory for Khan. But Honestly to me it makes more sense if Khan is an entity made by the dark ones not a hallucination. Because at the end of last light's moral ending Artyom says "And Khan, just dissappeared" which would make sense if he was an entity sent to guide Artyom.

Originally posted by DELTA FORCE:

he exists but he was sent by the darkones, same with pavel and ulman and burbon. they made sure they would all save or meet with Artyom. I belive they only helped him on his way because they hoped by the time he got to pollis he would understand they where not hostile and help make a joint venter with humans to help the world.
i say this because darkones cannot use tect and build things like us and we cant live on the surface or scare off mutants like they can. also the darkone never attacked first, they always tryed to just walk into the station but the metro people where scared and thus hit out before any good could happen

That makes absolutely no sense. If they could make an entity able to communicate with humans in the traditional way or "send" humans to do things, they wouldn't have tried so hard to reach Artyom at the cost of many human lives in order to establish contact.

Yeah this is true. It might make limited sense if only Artyom could see them, if not for Bourbon and Ulman being anti-dark ones.

[Drakus]

Khan I believe is real, he just perhaps knew of the metro before the bombs. It is strange how he can enter D6 despite not being a member of Sparta. He is sort of like a wise old hermit everyone trusts.