Who IS Coda?

[Big Bear]

I've played this game once through and after some thought and research I wanted to share some interesting ideas. The biggest one: Who IS Coda? I didn't dive in to the almost 300 threads but i bet there might be one like this already. I just want to hear other people's thoughts on this idea thtat I believe that Coda and the Narrator, Davey Wreden, are actually the same person. I'll begin this discussion with the fact that Davey says Coda has been making games from 2009 to 2011 and then stopped. Though this just seems to give the player a basic idea of how long the game will take/ the basic timeline of coda's work. I actually think that this is talking about when Davey started and ended making his games, or at least was really into it. If we look at the timeline of Galactic Cafe, we see that The Stanley Parable, no doubt one of Davey's most notorious games, was initially finished and published July of 2011, close to the same time Coda stopped making games. Another thing that I see is how deep our Narrator gets into Coda's life, and even knows that he renamed his trashbin on his computer. I feel like Davey seems to know too much about him in order to be just making asumptions about Coda's life. One of my final comments about this theory is at the end, the final level where Davey leaves us. We see that Coda writes Davey messages like "Stop putting lamp posts in my games" and asking why he was sharing games he clearly didn't want to have shared. Though this seems like you can tell that Coda is attacking Davey for what he's doing I take this a different way. I feel like Davey did make these games, and he even talked about how he and Coda would fight whether or not a game should have an ending or not. Soon Davey might have been feeling like he doesn't have the motivation to make these games any more, or even want to make games at all, which is why he began showing people the games. Of course he then remembered that people probably won't be too interested in these games if it just ended abruptly, there was no place to go to. This is where he decided to start making lamp posts in his games. Davey even says that "Coda adds these lamp posts so there is a destination" which of course seems odd becuase 1. Coda says to Davey to stop adding lamp posts, which implies we have a narrator who is unreliable, and 2. Coda seemed to believe that a game doesn't necessarily need a purpose or an endpoint. None the less I feel Davey decided to add these lamp posts into the games so that the feedback will be more enjoyable, and that the person playing the game actually made it to the destination. Of course now Davey feels like when he plays these games that the lamp posts jus remove the true meaning to these games, that a game doesn't need a final destination. That a game can have some deep inner meaning that you as a player must find out. which is why he makes the cleaning level. Though it does have a finish to it, it allows Davey to finally be able to seem like he is talking to someone else. It makes it seem like the other person in the home is actually a different person and not just a program, what you say in the dialogue will make a difference in what the reply is. Of course Davey will use this again in that final level implying that Coda writes these messages to Davey to convince him to stop adding the lamp posts, stop sharing the games. Its sad to think about it but it seems like Davey is trying to fool himself into telling him to not share these games, and to stop making these games have a purpose, which is why i think Davey has to tell the player that the lamp posts were added into the games to have this final destination that only they, that Coda believed these games were complete without the lamp posts, but he felt the players would appreciate this waypoint, or end of the level.

That is all I really have to say, other than the somewhat obvious fact that Coda is an allias to hide the identity of Coda, but the allias choice is almost too perfect. The definition for Coda is basically just an ending point or a concluding event. Why is that interesting? Well it seems dumb and kind of obvious but to point it out, Coda stopped making games. Coda literally had a coda in game making, which loops back to my first point about how davey's last big game The Stanley Parable was finished July 2011 about the same time that Coda stops. This of course makes me think that Davey has hopes that the collaberation of these games will give him the determination and encouragement from the very same people who gave him that enouragement from The Stanley Parable to make games again, and to be interested in making these games.


I'd very much like to hear any other opinions on this topic.

TL;DR I Believe that Coda and Davey our Narrator are the same person for many detailed reasons above.

[Bippity Bop]

Oh wow.
This makes alot more sense then my theory.

That Davey is obsessed with being liked and praised and that he needed to do these things to get praise for himself and coda, which is kind of explained in the end with the whole "I cannot imagine a life where you are not given feedback" monologue. And thus he added the lamp posts and such to make his games 'better' which in the end made coda extremely upset and told him to stop contacting him, thus ending their friendship, but davey wants to make up for what he's done by doing the same thing that ended their friendship, but this time explaining it.



TL;DR Davey is obsessed with being liked which ended Davey's and Coda's relationship as friends.

[phillippi2]

According to Wikipedia, The Beginners' Guide's story is actually more about Mr. Wreden's thoughts and feelings around the success of The Stanley Parable; Coda being the developer and Davey being everything else (both being different sides of the same person).

[kalebkeen]

Davey is just an unreliable narrartor. He feeds us misinformation, such as insinuating that Coda is a completely seperate person, but in actuality they are the same person. Which is probably why Davey won't confirm or deny if Coda is real because he wants everyone who plays the game to form their own opinion about his work.