Thoughts about the Nick lightbearer DLC ending? [spoilers]

[minlala]

Bought the game on GOG, but since the most active discussions are held on steam, here I am.
I am curious of how people think about the ending.

To me, I thought of it as the whole story going inside Nick's head, meaning that the final boss battle at hell with foggy Jack is a facade, his means of justifying his past murders. I thought so since the boss battle itself is very "unrealistic', even considering that the base game had witches with ambiguous magical powers unexplained. So, after the boss battle where Foggy jack is being inspected by bobbies, I interpreted it as Nick committing yet another murder during the process, at his own stage.

However, when I see other people's interpretations, many seem to think that the final boss battle was legit, Nick was framed by foggy jack, or was actually a witness, and is not guilty. So, the whole circumstantial evidence was the twist itself, Nick was innocent the whole time.

My gripe is, can we really trust the narrative of the drug addicted Nick Lightbearer? How much of the DLC actually happened? Is Nick really innocent? Is there any clear proof that Nick is innocent?

[Callie]

Personally, I thought that Foggy Jack was just a method for Nick to push off the guilt of the murders and blame it on something else/ another "person". Nick seems to be okay with pushing things off as in his house during the fight with his ex-wife, he says something along the lines of "If that really were Petunia, would I have....? No, those were just bad drugs!" I think the boss battle at the end didnt actually happen, and is just symbolic about him pushing the guilt aside and destroying the "person" behind it, allowing Nick to live normally in a non-guilty or murderous way, I assume. In the main game he has a groupie in his house who's still alive, so I'd assume he's not murderous anymore.

But of course it could all be literal and I'll just be looking too much into it lmao

[rorgfist]

callie! dont write spoilers without using the spoiler option to obscure the text!

Its incredibly rude to write major spoilers in a official forum

[Callie]

I apologize, I just assumed that since spoilers is in the title, people who haven't finished the DLC wouldn't look at it.

[pandaismynickname]

I think that Nick is dead and this is his purgatory to get to heaven (or some drug induced version of Nick Lightbearer heaven).

Think about it, the murder victims in the story are all people Nick has wronged. By dealing with that in a more graphic imagery of their actual murder he has to confront the horrible things he’s done to them. Additionally, his ‘confrontation’ with his ex, Petunia, and Mortie, the bandmate he kicked-off for fame, seems a little too well placed even for a drug induced video game.

Furthermore, if you look closely in the hell scene, you can see a Nick Lightbearer laying limp in a tub on the sea of lava. Possibly a nod to his actual death via butterfingers and a power cell in the canon game.

So once Nick beats Foggy Jack (aka: the Devil or sins of his past) he happily ascends to heaven to live out the rest of his days as a literal rock god.

RIP Nick Lightbearer.

[duchesscelestia]

i have a plethora of theories regarding the DLC, but first i would like to point out that nick DOES NOT DIE (at least not permanently) in the base game. arthur does view nick as deceased in the bathtub, but when you return as sally (which is, evidently, a later point in time than arthur's interaction with him), he is snoring, making noises, and the game describes him as unconscious, not deceased. it's clear that the previous denotation of "deceased" was simply arthur's perspective.

that said, i do think that that in and of itself is a thought worth contemplating. since he is viewed as deceased in arthur's story and merely unconscious in sally's, is it possible that he effectively had a near-death experience in which he was temporarily dead before returning to life? given the fact that electrocution was his cause of death, it could have potentially interacted with his heart in a way that could have allowed this turn of events. in that case, the purgatory theory is absolutely still possible - perhaps during his time between life and death, he was forced to face his demons and either succumb to them or overcome them, either leading to his return to the living or his death. conversely, perhaps this was simply the scenario his mind concocted during the moments before death; many people who have been dead for less than seven minutes (i believe, but am not totally sure on the number, my memory's garbage lmao) have described vivid experiences and perceptions before they're successfully resuscitated, leading to both theories of an afterlife or simply the fact that brain activity continues after the heart stops beating. effectively, this is to say that if this theory - in which the DLC takes place during the brief time nick is dead before returning to life, assuming that IS what happened rather than simply arthur assuming him to be dead - is true, both purgatory or a manifestation of nick's guilt in the subsequent continuing brain activity could explain the events that took place.

alternatively, let's assume nick never died, and arthur DID just assume that to be the case without checking. i don't believe the DLC provides dates within the provided lore (which, actually, is interesting - did they mean for the year to be ambiguous for the sake of theorizing, or was there just not an adequate opportunity to throw a date in there like in they came from below?), which means it could take place before or after the main game. given that the DLC ends with nick making a commitment to sobriety, i lean towards after the main game - especially considering that there IS lore about foggy jack in the main game, and none of it includes anything about nick, the convention, or his capture. even so, given how ollie's story ends, it CAN'T take place after that, as joy would likely no longer be in production and wellington wells would feasibly be in shambles. which then leads to the conclusion that it would take place after sally's story, and before the ending of ollie's. that would be fine, except foggy jack is mentioned extensively during ollie's story, and the player even comes across what can be assumed to be/have been his hideout. moreover, the picture of margaret worthing in that area suggests that either ollie was responsible for putting it there in a lapse of memory, or jack worthing is foggy jack. regardless, the fact that none of the lightbearer-related events are mentioned in ollie's story do suggest that it would have HAD to have taken place afterwards - which is impossible. personally, this does give credence to the theory that the DLC's events took place during a near-death experience, as it does not make chronological sense to have actually happened at all. the only exception to this is to assume that it happened before the game altogether, and nick just did not follow through with his "whole new nick lightbearer" plan for sobriety - and that foggy jack's capture was not made public. which wouldn't be super surprising, since that would mean admitting that he was real all along.

so, chronology aside for now, let's move onto the identity of foggy jack, going on the assumption that the DLC's events did take place in reality. on one hand, yes, i can absolutely see how the conclusion that, regardless of the ending, nick is foggy jack. especially considering the way that foggy jack talks about killing on one particular occasion - effectively that the real nick doesn't measure up for the fans, but killing them in the fog certainly gets their attention. this was said when foggy jack was trying to argue that nick was just like him, but seems very, very personal and specific - which seems to be the standard for nick's hallucinations. even so, this is not a theory i wholly subscribe to, for the following reasons:

- nick had been hallucinating his involvement throughout the entire experience, so it would not be outside the realm of possibilities for him to have hallucinated certain dialogue, too.
- assuming it was real, it's clear that foggy jack is obsessed enough with nick to potentially be very aware of his self-esteem issues - especially given that petunia (assuming nick's first interaction with her was real, before the compliment machine petunia 2.0) doesn't seem to be against telling people about his true nature, given her low opinion of him.
- there are some discrepancies with this theory. for example, motivation. given how dependent nick is on the validation offered by his fans and how desperate he is not to lose them, i can't fathom why any part of his mind would be motivated to kill them. it just doesn't make sense to me. even if we were to assume that foggy jack was something of an alternate personality of his and self-hatred was the motivation behind killing them (kill the fans because you don't deserve them, etc.), it would make absolutely no sense for a creation of his own mind in which the only plausible motivation was self-hatred to then justify the crimes with ADMIRATION. it just doesn't seem to make reasonable sense, unless his mind came up with what's essentially his number one fan to satiate that very need for validation and love. which, i guess, is possible.
- discrepancy number two: the woman in his bed on the third night. honestly, this woman is kind of a discrepancy in every way, because she pokes holes in almost all of my theories. if nick is foggy jack, he would've killed her in a far more dramatic and ceremonious way, in keeping with his M.O. if nick isn't foggy jack, why is she dead? did he kill her, did she overdose, was she a hallucination? overdose is what i lean towards, with hallucination being a close second. regardless, if nick were foggy jack and this woman really was dead, it's definitely not in keeping with the foggy jack style (tm). if he's foggy jack and she's a hallucination, i fail to see what his mind was motivated by there. almost all of his hallucinations pertain to foggy jack's particular method of killing, and EVERYTHING foggy jack is responsible for is quite clearly linked to a cleaver. if she was a hallucination, one would imagine her death would have been much bloodier.
- discrepancy number three: until this DLC, foggy jack never seemed to target anyone specific, and never mentioned anything pertaining to nick in any documentation. this means that until the events of the DLC, none of nick's motivations for being foggy jack would make sense in any capacity. yes, there are justifications for the "he's killing his own fans" theory, and i can absolutely see how the game builds up evidence to suggest his involvement - but there is NO justification for the assumption that nick has been going around killing strangers without prompting this entire time. his hallucinations regarding his involvement were clearly brand new to him as he had obviously never experienced them before, making it very unlikely that he had been foggy jack all along, even if he HAD been targeting fans the entire time (which is potentially possible, just not openly stated). there IS the possibility of a copycat - which does give some credence back to the nick is foggy jack theory - in that everything nick perceives about foggy jack is public information that EVERYONE knows. the constabulary's efforts aside, it's clear that everyone knows foggy jack's M.O. therefore, one may surmise that he's started killing (although a trigger for him to start doing so out of nowhere seems to be missing, unless it's virgil's meeting, which seems unlikely) at the beginning of the DLC and his mind has created the identity of foggy jack based on the information that's publicly available, in order to displace his guilt ("it's not your fault if you don't remember", as virgil said). i still find this unlikely, but i don't think it can be ruled out altogether.
- discrepancy number four: all of the evidence suggesting that foggy jack is jack worthing. in the basement in which all of nick's clothes are, there are a great deal of film reels. there is no reason for nick to have these, but there is EVERY reason for jack to have them. moreover, there's a nick wig (although the base game does suggest that nick has his OWN nick wig) and a mask with a moustache. the one thing all publications regarding nick have made very clear is that his moustache is real. how one can possibly have a moustache visible through a happy mask is still beyond me, but all newspapers (including the one posted on compulsion's twitter) clearly state that it's definitely not fake. so why the mask? moreover, while the "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy" written all over the walls in that room could be attributed to either jack worthing or nick with an alternate identity, the "wakey wakey" that is ALSO written in that room seems infinitely more specific to jack.
- the bobbies find foggy jack at the end, and we see this from nick's perspective, effectively proving that unless this, too, was a hallucination, nick is not foggy jack. he could not have watched bobbies lean over a killer that was in his own mind. moreover (again assuming that this wasn't a hallucination), the fact that he's shown in concert at the end also means he clearly was not arrested.

all of this in mind, i DO lean towards the theory that foggy jack is either jack worthing or an unknown individual. there are items present that suggest jack worthing as well as foggy jack's voice itself, but i also can't really see why jack worthing - even as foggy jack, who one would assume to be quite unstable - would become obsessed with nick out of seemingly nowhere. the motive seems very unclear assuming jack worthing is responsible, but honestly, it sort of always has. even before the DLC, there was little information given as to the potential motive of foggy jack; and while jack worthing could easily have been motivated by increasing mental instability and his eventual breakdown, it still doesn't explain WHY he's killing random strangers. broadcasts have made it clear that jack worthing REALLY doesn't disagree with foggy jack - including the one broadcast played in the DLC, interestingly enough - as he subtly justifies the killing by saying that the supposed victims should not have been out past curfew. seems a little lacking for a reason to kill people, but it's something. regardless, my point is that foggy jack's motives have always been ambiguous, and to speculate that his identity is, in fact, jack worthing, really only gives more questions than answers as far as potential motives are concerned. ultimately, no matter WHO foggy jack is, assuming it isn't nick, the motive that he wanted to notorious enough for nick to write a song about him is... flimsy. foggy jack had never been shown to demonstrate any interest in this before, and no matter what identity we attribute to him, the vast change in behaviour and interest is out of character and questionable. either this is a plot device that was simply employed in order to give the lightbearer DLC a more interesting story without regard for the base game's canon, or this implies that the foggy jack in this DLC may not be the same foggy jack as the original game's. the motive, really, is the biggest suggestion to me that nick could be that copycat - while i still think it wouldn't necessarily make a lot of sense for him to be killing his own fans, i do think that the nick-centric reasons for murder are certainly in-character for nick himself, given his egocentric nature and tendency towards self-obsession.

the unknown individual theory, to me, holds about as much merit as the jack worthing theory. as i stated, there is a lot of evidence to both support and deny the jack theory, which leaves me unsure about it altogether. an unknown individual, however, seems reasonably likely. i distinctly recall it being stated on at least one occasion that organs were removed from foggy jack's victims with considerable precision - one which neither nick lightbearer nor jack worthing possess, especially if nick was high. one theory i've seen introduced is that anton verloc is foggy jack due to the notable resemblance between the characters, which could give credence to this medical skill, but alex epstein stated on twitter that this was simply due to a shortage of character models and advised not to read too much into it. he did, however, say there were other clues, suggesting that the DLC itself should contain something to lead us to a proper conclusion.

that aside, the unknown individual theory is challenged by the fact that foggy jack sounds exactly like jack worthing - even so, nick also hallucinated a compliment machine as having had petunia's voice. it's obvious that his preconceptions affect how he perceives those around him when under the influence of drugs (which, despite him not having taken any before the foggy jack encounter, were still in his system based on a journal entry and common sense), and this could easily be explained by the fact that foggy jack is so closely associated with uncle jack. it certainly makes sense for him to have hallucinated the voice he EXPECTED foggy jack to have had rather than the voice he truly did have, leaving the door for it to be an unnamed third party open. moreover, there are still a few other mysterious characters that have yet to be explained, like mr. kite and #9, so perhaps they could be responsible.

ultimately, there are... a lot of loose ends with this DLC. i think the only theory that DOESN'T have something to disprove it or at least make it unlikely is the near-death experience theory. everything else suffers at least one major plothole: that there is no chronological explanation for the events of the DLC. nick is seen in both arthur's and sally's stories, meaning the DLC HAS to take place either before or after them, but foggy jack is active during ollie's and there is no mention of nick nor the convention. logically, i think this theory is the only one that makes proper sense, but as far as what i actually believe to be true based on all foggy jack-related content in the main game, i think it'll end up being jack worthing. i'm definitely hoping that these loose ends are tied up in the final DLC, as this one raised so many more questions than it answered (not a complaint, though - i wouldn't be spending this much time theorizing if i hadn't thoroughly enjoyed the DLC, it was awesome).

sorry, i know this dragged on and was probably a mess of poorly articulated thoughts and theories, but i have had zero cups of coffee today and there's no way i'll be making sense right now lmao

[minlala]

Originally posted by pandaismynickname:

I think that Nick is dead and this is his purgatory to get to heaven (or some drug induced version of Nick Lightbearer heaven).

Think about it, the murder victims in the story are all people Nick has wronged. By dealing with that in a more graphic imagery of their actual murder he has to confront the horrible things he’s done to them. Additionally, his ‘confrontation’ with his ex, Petunia, and Mortie, the bandmate he kicked-off for fame, seems a little too well placed even for a drug induced video game.

Furthermore, if you look closely in the hell scene, you can see a Nick Lightbearer laying limp in a tub on the sea of lava. Possibly a nod to his actual death via butterfingers and a power cell in the canon game.

So once Nick beats Foggy Jack (aka: the Devil or sins of his past) he happily ascends to heaven to live out the rest of his days as a literal rock god.

RIP Nick Lightbearer.

This seems to be one likely explanation, that Nick is in some sort of actual limbo, reliving through the mistakes and guilts he made, and at the end chooses the path of redemption for heaven.

But that means that Sally's playthrough of Nick being unconscious is wrong, meaning that Arthur was correct about his perception of Nick being electrocuted, which I think is unlikely since the game plays out in a way that Sally is a more reliable narrator, and is an expert in medical science.

[minlala]

Originally posted by duchesscelestia:

i have a plethora of theories regarding the DLC, but first i would like to point out that nick DOES NOT DIE (at least not permanently) in the base game. arthur does view nick as deceased in the bathtub, but when you return as sally (which is, evidently, a later point in time than arthur's interaction with him), he is snoring, making noises, and the game describes him as unconscious, not deceased. it's clear that the previous denotation of "deceased" was simply arthur's perspective.

that said, i do think that that in and of itself is a thought worth contemplating. since he is viewed as deceased in arthur's story and merely unconscious in sally's, is it possible that he effectively had a near-death experience in which he was temporarily dead before returning to life? given the fact that electrocution was his cause of death, it could have potentially interacted with his heart in a way that could have allowed this turn of events. in that case, the purgatory theory is absolutely still possible - perhaps during his time between life and death, he was forced to face his demons and either succumb to them or overcome them, either leading to his return to the living or his death. conversely, perhaps this was simply the scenario his mind concocted during the moments before death; many people who have been dead for less than seven minutes (i believe, but am not totally sure on the number, my memory's garbage lmao) have described vivid experiences and perceptions before they're successfully resuscitated, leading to both theories of an afterlife or simply the fact that brain activity continues after the heart stops beating. effectively, this is to say that if this theory - in which the DLC takes place during the brief time nick is dead before returning to life, assuming that IS what happened rather than simply arthur assuming him to be dead - is true, both purgatory or a manifestation of nick's guilt in the subsequent continuing brain activity could explain the events that took place.

alternatively, let's assume nick never died, and arthur DID just assume that to be the case without checking. i don't believe the DLC provides dates within the provided lore (which, actually, is interesting - did they mean for the year to be ambiguous for the sake of theorizing, or was there just not an adequate opportunity to throw a date in there like in they came from below?), which means it could take place before or after the main game. given that the DLC ends with nick making a commitment to sobriety, i lean towards after the main game - especially considering that there IS lore about foggy jack in the main game, and none of it includes anything about nick, the convention, or his capture. even so, given how ollie's story ends, it CAN'T take place after that, as joy would likely no longer be in production and wellington wells would feasibly be in shambles. which then leads to the conclusion that it would take place after sally's story, and before the ending of ollie's. that would be fine, except foggy jack is mentioned extensively during ollie's story, and the player even comes across what can be assumed to be/have been his hideout. moreover, the picture of margaret worthing in that area suggests that either ollie was responsible for putting it there in a lapse of memory, or jack worthing is foggy jack. regardless, the fact that none of the lightbearer-related events are mentioned in ollie's story do suggest that it would have HAD to have taken place afterwards - which is impossible. personally, this does give credence to the theory that the DLC's events took place during a near-death experience, as it does not make chronological sense to have actually happened at all. the only exception to this is to assume that it happened before the game altogether, and nick just did not follow through with his "whole new nick lightbearer" plan for sobriety - and that foggy jack's capture was not made public. which wouldn't be super surprising, since that would mean admitting that he was real all along.

so, chronology aside for now, let's move onto the identity of foggy jack, going on the assumption that the DLC's events did take place in reality. on one hand, yes, i can absolutely see how the conclusion that, regardless of the ending, nick is foggy jack. especially considering the way that foggy jack talks about killing on one particular occasion - effectively that the real nick doesn't measure up for the fans, but killing them in the fog certainly gets their attention. this was said when foggy jack was trying to argue that nick was just like him, but seems very, very personal and specific - which seems to be the standard for nick's hallucinations. even so, this is not a theory i wholly subscribe to, for the following reasons:

- nick had been hallucinating his involvement throughout the entire experience, so it would not be outside the realm of possibilities for him to have hallucinated certain dialogue, too.
- assuming it was real, it's clear that foggy jack is obsessed enough with nick to potentially be very aware of his self-esteem issues - especially given that petunia (assuming nick's first interaction with her was real, before the compliment machine petunia 2.0) doesn't seem to be against telling people about his true nature, given her low opinion of him.
- there are some discrepancies with this theory. for example, motivation. given how dependent nick is on the validation offered by his fans and how desperate he is not to lose them, i can't fathom why any part of his mind would be motivated to kill them. it just doesn't make sense to me. even if we were to assume that foggy jack was something of an alternate personality of his and self-hatred was the motivation behind killing them (kill the fans because you don't deserve them, etc.), it would make absolutely no sense for a creation of his own mind in which the only plausible motivation was self-hatred to then justify the crimes with ADMIRATION. it just doesn't seem to make reasonable sense, unless his mind came up with what's essentially his number one fan to satiate that very need for validation and love. which, i guess, is possible.
- discrepancy number two: the woman in his bed on the third night. honestly, this woman is kind of a discrepancy in every way, because she pokes holes in almost all of my theories. if nick is foggy jack, he would've killed her in a far more dramatic and ceremonious way, in keeping with his M.O. if nick isn't foggy jack, why is she dead? did he kill her, did she overdose, was she a hallucination? overdose is what i lean towards, with hallucination being a close second. regardless, if nick were foggy jack and this woman really was dead, it's definitely not in keeping with the foggy jack style (tm). if he's foggy jack and she's a hallucination, i fail to see what his mind was motivated by there. almost all of his hallucinations pertain to foggy jack's particular method of killing, and EVERYTHING foggy jack is responsible for is quite clearly linked to a cleaver. if she was a hallucination, one would imagine her death would have been much bloodier.
- discrepancy number three: until this DLC, foggy jack never seemed to target anyone specific, and never mentioned anything pertaining to nick in any documentation. this means that until the events of the DLC, none of nick's motivations for being foggy jack would make sense in any capacity. yes, there are justifications for the "he's killing his own fans" theory, and i can absolutely see how the game builds up evidence to suggest his involvement - but there is NO justification for the assumption that nick has been going around killing strangers without prompting this entire time. his hallucinations regarding his involvement were clearly brand new to him as he had obviously never experienced them before, making it very unlikely that he had been foggy jack all along, even if he HAD been targeting fans the entire time (which is potentially possible, just not openly stated). there IS the possibility of a copycat - which does give some credence back to the nick is foggy jack theory - in that everything nick perceives about foggy jack is public information that EVERYONE knows. the constabulary's efforts aside, it's clear that everyone knows foggy jack's M.O. therefore, one may surmise that he's started killing (although a trigger for him to start doing so out of nowhere seems to be missing, unless it's virgil's meeting, which seems unlikely) at the beginning of the DLC and his mind has created the identity of foggy jack based on the information that's publicly available, in order to displace his guilt ("it's not your fault if you don't remember", as virgil said). i still find this unlikely, but i don't think it can be ruled out altogether.
- discrepancy number four: all of the evidence suggesting that foggy jack is jack worthing. in the basement in which all of nick's clothes are, there are a great deal of film reels. there is no reason for nick to have these, but there is EVERY reason for jack to have them. moreover, there's a nick wig (although the base game does suggest that nick has his OWN nick wig) and a mask with a moustache. the one thing all publications regarding nick have made very clear is that his moustache is real. how one can possibly have a moustache visible through a happy mask is still beyond me, but all newspapers (including the one posted on compulsion's twitter) clearly state that it's definitely not fake. so why the mask? moreover, while the "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy" written all over the walls in that room could be attributed to either jack worthing or nick with an alternate identity, the "wakey wakey" that is ALSO written in that room seems infinitely more specific to jack.
- the bobbies find foggy jack at the end, and we see this from nick's perspective, effectively proving that unless this, too, was a hallucination, nick is not foggy jack. he could not have watched bobbies lean over a killer that was in his own mind. moreover (again assuming that this wasn't a hallucination), the fact that he's shown in concert at the end also means he clearly was not arrested.

all of this in mind, i DO lean towards the theory that foggy jack is either jack worthing or an unknown individual. there are items present that suggest jack worthing as well as foggy jack's voice itself, but i also can't really see why jack worthing - even as foggy jack, who one would assume to be quite unstable - would become obsessed with nick out of seemingly nowhere. the motive seems very unclear assuming jack worthing is responsible, but honestly, it sort of always has. even before the DLC, there was little information given as to the potential motive of foggy jack; and while jack worthing could easily have been motivated by increasing mental instability and his eventual breakdown, it still doesn't explain WHY he's killing random strangers. broadcasts have made it clear that jack worthing REALLY doesn't disagree with foggy jack - including the one broadcast played in the DLC, interestingly enough - as he subtly justifies the killing by saying that the supposed victims should not have been out past curfew. seems a little lacking for a reason to kill people, but it's something. regardless, my point is that foggy jack's motives have always been ambiguous, and to speculate that his identity is, in fact, jack worthing, really only gives more questions than answers as far as potential motives are concerned. ultimately, no matter WHO foggy jack is, assuming it isn't nick, the motive that he wanted to notorious enough for nick to write a song about him is... flimsy. foggy jack had never been shown to demonstrate any interest in this before, and no matter what identity we attribute to him, the vast change in behaviour and interest is out of character and questionable. either this is a plot device that was simply employed in order to give the lightbearer DLC a more interesting story without regard for the base game's canon, or this implies that the foggy jack in this DLC may not be the same foggy jack as the original game's. the motive, really, is the biggest suggestion to me that nick could be that copycat - while i still think it wouldn't necessarily make a lot of sense for him to be killing his own fans, i do think that the nick-centric reasons for murder are certainly in-character for nick himself, given his egocentric nature and tendency towards self-obsession.

the unknown individual theory, to me, holds about as much merit as the jack worthing theory. as i stated, there is a lot of evidence to both support and deny the jack theory, which leaves me unsure about it altogether. an unknown individual, however, seems reasonably likely. i distinctly recall it being stated on at least one occasion that organs were removed from foggy jack's victims with considerable precision - one which neither nick lightbearer nor jack worthing possess, especially if nick was high. one theory i've seen introduced is that anton verloc is foggy jack due to the notable resemblance between the characters, which could give credence to this medical skill, but alex epstein stated on twitter that this was simply due to a shortage of character models and advised not to read too much into it. he did, however, say there were other clues, suggesting that the DLC itself should contain something to lead us to a proper conclusion.

that aside, the unknown individual theory is challenged by the fact that foggy jack sounds exactly like jack worthing - even so, nick also hallucinated a compliment machine as having had petunia's voice. it's obvious that his preconceptions affect how he perceives those around him when under the influence of drugs (which, despite him not having taken any before the foggy jack encounter, were still in his system based on a journal entry and common sense), and this could easily be explained by the fact that foggy jack is so closely associated with uncle jack. it certainly makes sense for him to have hallucinated the voice he EXPECTED foggy jack to have had rather than the voice he truly did have, leaving the door for it to be an unnamed third party open. moreover, there are still a few other mysterious characters that have yet to be explained, like mr. kite and #9, so perhaps they could be responsible.

ultimately, there are... a lot of loose ends with this DLC. i think the only theory that DOESN'T have something to disprove it or at least make it unlikely is the near-death experience theory. everything else suffers at least one major plothole: that there is no chronological explanation for the events of the DLC. nick is seen in both arthur's and sally's stories, meaning the DLC HAS to take place either before or after them, but foggy jack is active during ollie's and there is no mention of nick nor the convention. logically, i think this theory is the only one that makes proper sense, but as far as what i actually believe to be true based on all foggy jack-related content in the main game, i think it'll end up being jack worthing. i'm definitely hoping that these loose ends are tied up in the final DLC, as this one raised so many more questions than it answered (not a complaint, though - i wouldn't be spending this much time theorizing if i hadn't thoroughly enjoyed the DLC, it was awesome).

sorry, i know this dragged on and was probably a mess of poorly articulated thoughts and theories, but i have had zero cups of coffee today and there's no way i'll be making sense right now lmao

Now that you mention it, the near-death experience theory seems very likely, going along with pandaismynickname's explanation! [spoiler/]