The child with a paper bag on their head, what is that about?

[Garlicdalek]

A child, I assume a boy, with a paper bag on their head appears occasionally, but you never seem able to interact with them, what's the purpose of this character in the game?

[RaustBD]

I've seen some theories about what they mean storywise, but as far as I can tell they serve no gameplay purpose.

[DeadBabyJuggler]

Spoilers obviously...

I just finished the game and it's got me really thinking about this and the story in general. Like..what's up with the goo sound at the end followed by the baby crying? Is the game supposed to be some abstract story about being in the womb? If so maybe the kid with the bag over it's head is prior baby that didn't make it? Curious to dig into the forums and see what others came away with.

[Cyberweasel89]

This is actually explained in the "DARQ: Dream Journal" comic that the dev released.

I'll spoiler tag it though, because the dev has made it clear that he wants people to interpret DARQ however they want. He says all interpretations are true, and while the comic is what he had in mind for the story while creating it, he also says it's merely his own interpretation of the story and so doesn't invalidate anyone else's interpretation.

DARQ is a metaphysical realm that is simulteanoeusly the realm of dreams, the realm of the dead, and the realm of rebirth. People go there when they dream because when we sleep, we briefly die (figuratively) and when we wake up we are reborn (figuratively) in the sense we have a chance to begin anew. A new day means another chance to make the world better for ourselves and others. DARQ is where the souls of the dead permanently reside when people die, but at the same time it's a new life's first dream in the womb, as the souls of the dead fight to be reborn in the body of a newborn baby. The enemies in the game are thus the souls of the dead, and every dead soul in DARQ has a different perception of what the environments and other dead souls look like, influenced by their experiences in life. By solving the puzzles that DARQ presents to dead souls, DARQ grants the dead souls within knowledge, which is how the protagonist can manipulate the environment, as his solving of the puzzles caused DARQ to impart him with knowledge to do so.

While the protagonist believes himself to be Lloyd, he's actually not. The boy with the paper bag on his head is Lloyd. The protagonist is Theodore, Lloyd's grandfather, and the only person aside from Theodore's nurse Agatha who was ever kind to Lloyd. Lloyd was born with a disfigured face and his mother forced him to wear a paper bag in public. Theodore was blind and so didn't know what his grandson looked like. Lloyd and Theodore died at around the same time. Lloyd fell off a tower when his mother Charlotte (who was going through a tough time and neglecting him due to her ambition to become an opera singer) had a brief moment of weakness and thought to leave him there, only to run back and find he had fallen to his death. Theodore simply died because he was old, sick, and it was just his time. But given how time and reality are so fluid in DARQ, with many dead souls being too confused to know what's going on or been there too long to remember who they are, Theodore believed himself to be his grandson Lloyd within DARQ, while Lloyd and Theodore are unable to recognize each other in their brief meetings within DARQ. This confusion is also why Theodore (or Lloyd as he believes himself to be) believes he is simply lucid dreaming rather than dead. Which in a way, as this is also the first dream in the womb, is partially true. The identity confusion is also why Theodore appears as a child, though we see in a framed photograph that Theodore looks like his own childhood self due to not knowing what Lloyd actually looks like.

Charlotte was impregnated by her pianist and vocal coach and was seeking the aid of an elderly wheelchair-bound fortune teller named Lilith. The old female monster we see in the game (most famously during the rotating puzzle section) is actually Lilith using lucid dreaming to enter DARQ as a "guest" so she can keep tabs on Theodore. Lilith plans to die at the right time so that she can be reborn as Charlotte's new child, while Theodore is unknowningly working his way through DARQ. This is the reason for the womb levels and the bright light and hospital sounds at the end. Many of the locations and monsters parallel things in locations in both Lloyd and Theodore's life, thanks to a mixture of Theodore's self-mistaken identity and Lloyd's own presence in DARQ, as the two journey through DARQ along roughly the same path but rarely intersect. The primary reason the other dead souls in DARQ are so hostile to Theodore are, naturally, because they hope to secure a new life in Charlotte's unborn baby as well, something all dead souls in DARQ crave.

In the end, even the comic leaves it a bit ambiguous whether Theodore or Lloyd are given a new life. At the end of the collapsing cave, the comic reveals that Lloyd and Theodore finally identify each other, causing Theodore to regain his awareness of who he is. He tells Lloyd to go ahead and be reborn while Theodore will stay behind in DARQ. Lloyd cries and is hesitant to do so because of Theodore's kindness towards him in life, and it ends with Theodore saying Lloyd is leaving him no choice. The baby is born with congenital blindness like Theodore, but Charlotte names him Lloyd, again furthering the ambiguity of which one of them was reborn.