Spoiler: Who is the girl in the photo?

[Avalanche_Rick]

In the beginning of the game we see So-young holding a picture of what seems to be her and her sister. However later in the game during her route we seem to be somewhat stalked by a ghost with long hair. In the original you see her pointing to the entrance of Main Building 2. Then later in the bad ending you see her again giving off an angry vibe when you don't save So-young. Are these two the sister?

For the longest time I thought "oh, a picture of So-young and Sung-ah" but then later I started to connect the dots without the game hand holding me through the story like many games these days do. I haven't collected all the ghost stories yet and only done So-young's route.

I thought it was Sung-ah because she has short hair as the girl in the picture, she's obsessed with talking ill about her (which later gets explained), and always wants to get her attention. So in theory, I thought maybe they were friends at some point then drifted apart. But as we all know this wasn't the case.

The one thing that came to mind about the long haired girl being the girl in the picture was that So-young talked that her sister offed herself but didn't say how and like I mentioned she points the direction in the original. She gets angry in one ending should you not save So-young. But if so then why does she have a different appearance as she does in the picture? All ghosts (that I've seen so far) resemble what they looked like when they were alive with the exception of a certain long haired girl walking on all fours.

Does hair have a different meaning in Korea? I know in Japan hair represents power and in some stories spiritual power. There is an old urban legend that if a hair comb isn't disposed of properly it will come back and kill it's owner. There is even a horror film based on hair extensions killing clients.

There is something in the original I vaguely remember that mentioned that So-young is able to see ghosts (it was probably Sung-ah talking smack for all I know). Could possibly the extra hair length mean her sister is a powerful spirit left to wonder around the school for eternity?

In the end, because of the bad ending I think the long haired ghost is in fact her sister. There is a lot more of the game's story I haven't explored yet only having to do just 1 route. I'm just more puzzled why they look different if they're supposed to be the same character.

What do you guys think?

[EquaL]

[SPOILERS]

1. The ghost: Definitely/officially Na-young, the sister of So-young. Even some Sung-ah endings explicitly show this, too.

2. The girl in the picture: She had a short hair as well in the openinng of the original version.
And, despite no official annoucnement, people guess her to be Na-young, because there was a time gap of photo-taking and her suicide.
They insist that just Na-young's hair had been grown up while she was emotionally crippled because of the death of Sung-ah.
Perhaps the devs just might want to hide the true fact
"The ghost" = "The girl in the picture", for players.

3. Therefore, it's a MacGuffin so the interpretation of the picture is belong to us.
For example, in my personal opinion, the girls in the picture could be Sung-ah and Na-young.
It can be reasonable if the apperances of So-young and Na-young is similar and So-young is bringing her sister's picture in the diary after her death.

4. However, for Koreans, simply "Long hair" means just one very impressive characteristic of "Young lady ghost". For me, your "hair" idea is a little far from the dev's first intention of designing Na-young.