My own ending interpretation (SPOLERS)

[Raywhisper]

I see lot of opinions that Daniel is dead and we are in his personal purgatory. While this theory is nice, I dont think Daniel is dead. I think whole game is in his head, going through denial phase, while his grief is amplified by his personal demons.

He does have issues with women, all started with his sister when he was a boy and the fact Ida was cheating on him only magnified his mistrust towards females, so in the end he he hated them all, including his daughter, blinded by his hatred which was part of Stellas tragic story.

When it all happened, he ofcourse had to deal with it.

We see in several parts of the game messages like "it is not my fault"which indicates that he feels guilty about Stella.

Now before I analyze the possible game outcomes, there is one more thing to note.

We did see Daniels car crash during the game. While Daniel thought someone was inside, it is more likely he himself crashed it, prior to the event of the game.

This can mean one of two things. Either Daniel is comatous and the game is set in his mind, dealing with consequences of his daughter hanging herself up.

Last time Stella run off was actually the time she went to commit suicide. But Daniel found out, most likely finding her diary too, which is why diary is so important during the game. He took his car and rode to find her, rescue her and bring her home. But he encountered wild boar in the forest and it caused an accident.

This is why we see so many boars during the game. This is why fog children screams are similar to boar screams. This is why we saw the crash at that night.

It is likely he searched for Stella for multiple days and that nobody ever found her body. We know police gave up.

So what I think did happen was Daniel got badly hurt in car accident, but, as unlikely as it sound, he managed to find hanged up body of his daughter, while wandering through the forest with a trauma from accident. Or he did find Stella and had an accident some time shortly after he found her, still griefing, going through phases of regret. This explains why he has troubles remembering things.

At this point Daniel broke down. Whole game is his denial phase of the grief he is feeling while influenced by trauma of an accident.

Now we can reach multiple endings. I will not count the ending where he stops trying and walks off. That is more of an easter egg ending.
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First ending - Rewinding the clock, occurs after Daniel being attacked by his guilt, represented as spider demon, Daniel is lost in his memories and rewinds the world, as he is not ready to move on, one way or another. Cycle repeats as he is trying to understand what happened and what he is going to do about it.

Second ending - Becoming the beast, when Daniel doesnt stop the clock while he and the beast (which is actually his own inner anger) merges in one. This ending is achieved by destroying all the hearts, basically allowing his hatred take over and giving up on trying to remember and accept his own fault and the cycle is broken. This is a bad ending, since Daniel didnt become a better person.

Third ending - Breaking the clock, destroying the world. In this ending, Daniel smashes the clock, breaking it. That is the reason why the Beast is afraid of Daniel in the last chapters and instead of trying to kill him, he is trying to stop him, blocking the path that lead to destruction of the clock. Daniel destroys the clock while being chased by spider demon - guilt. To escape the spider demon, Daniel is driven to destroy the clock, to stop his inner world. It means, Daniel kills himself, following Stella. The cycle is broken. This is neutral ending, since Daniel does not give up to the beast, accepts his guilt but does not survive the ordeal.

Fourth ending - The card game. In this ending, Daniel keeps the clock running. He is no longer chased by guilt so he doesnt even get into the clock room. This ending is achieved if Daniel chases majority of memories of Stella. This means he finally understood what happened and why. He know that he and his ego played a huge part in it, but he can forgive himself and overcome the regret and guilt. He reaches acceptance and remembers about good times he spent with his daughter, represented by the card game. He remembers, that somewhere, under all that hatred he held towards women, towards Stella, he loved her anyway and he was proud of her. This is a good ending, Daniel reached acceptance and can move on with his life.
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Now what I think about secondary characters:

Old Woman:
I think is named Jiřina - is actually voice of Daniels reason.

Eleanora:
She probably has, however, both physical and emotional resemblance of Nina, secret mistress of Daniel. The name Eleanora was given to her due to fact Stella mentioned Nina in her diary but at first called her Eleanora. Maybe honest mistake but it stuck with Daniel. She probably represents all of the females who were actaully nice to Daniel through his life, like Nina, and who he was willing to trust despite his trusting issues towards females.

Lea:
It is Stella.Little Stella to be precise. Before the fire happened, when Daniel didnt hate her yet. She mentioned he called her little doll and her actual doll was called Ruby. Ruby was the doll Stella got from her grandmother and Daniel destroyed it later, when he got angry at her over some silly IKEA glasses.

Swamp angel:
Girl in a white dress that Stella wore. This is Daniels consciousness. She has appearance of little darker Stella and throughout the game she forces Daniel to remember things he would rahter forget, things he is not proud of. She is direct reason why he has to face spider demon (his guilt) and beast (hatred and rage) but she also gives him the chance to overcome.

Ida:
She is pretty much memory of her real self, there is no symbolism in her character. All we hear about her in the game are Dans memories of her.

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I know my interpretation might have flaws. Happens. My main points are:
Whole gmae is one large guilt trip in Dans mind and he is alive and kicking and unless player chooses the "Stop the clock" ending he survives the events.

In the outcomes, Dan either gives in to the guild and takes his own life or overcomes the grief either with hate and rejection or with forgiveness and acceptance.

[oku]

Since you spent some time talking about the car and car crash there are two points I would like to raise.

One is when Daniel arrives he sees other tire tracks and mentions someone drove up here recently.

Second is that Stella doesn't drive, how did she get there? This is also something that Daniel notes. We know he is in the right place because of the tracking he has on her phone.

Thank you for your interpretation. I find it fascinating how we come to terms with the story.

[Raywhisper]

Interesting points.

If I wanted to be conspiracy theorist, I would say maybe Stella met someone and that someone dragged her into the woods and murdered here.

But that would be a wild card, maybe a wish for the events to be even more dramatic.

This can also means she just hitched a ride, or that the accident was collision with another car.

Also the game was not consistent if it comes to location. The fact that somewhere are cars doesnt mean it is same place Stella is or she had to go there by car.

You see the old camp and the new camp are not so close to each other. When you realize that Lucky leaf camp is lore wise near castle Cimburg and Mnt. Kliment which is in Moravia, far east of Czech republic while new camp is lore wise near Pravčická Brána, norh Czechia, places are around 400 kilometers (240 miles) away from each other.

Which means that when old woman talks about "this place you said you will never visit again" aka "place we Someday Return to" - the name of the game, it is not physical place. It is memories inside of Dans head he wish to forget, to never visit again.

[oku]

Yes yes, very true. Mixing fact and fantasy not every plot point is going to line up.

The next thing I'm pondering is the dot in the circle symbol. Look for it and it shows up in a few places. Daniel comments twice that I have noticed now. Once after coming out of the wooden tunnel. If you turn back he makes a comment of "not your usual tourist sign" and then when scooping out the spider food, those drums have that symbol and he says something about seeing that symbol before.

It also shows up on at least one of the charcoal on stone drawings where the circle/dot is in place of Stela's? head.

Great game to see things differently each time you replay. Thanks for your feedback. You express yourself better than I can.

[Mnemonic]

I thought the fog children represented the actual children and Daniel trying to avoid them to spend some quality time with Nina. But the unattended children misbehaving (turning into monsters) do in fact add to Daniel's guilt, so would make sense.
The first time we meet them, they burnt down the camp. The second time they trapped Stela and Alexander in the power plant. But what about the third time, when they try to burn Lea alive? Perhaps the scene of Lea (= child Stela) destroyed by the kids represents Stela losing her childhood innocence? After all, it was the fire accident that made her full-on hate Daniel (and becoming close with Alexander) and their relationship was never the same after that.

[Doctor TacoChocolate]

My interpretation is that the entire game is about Daniel coming to grips with Stela's death before her funeral. The "clock" represents the time the funeral starts, which is why it's in a chapel. Daniel needs to accept his own failures in order to actually attend the funeral. Otherwise, he "smashes the clock" and refuses to accept responsibility. Also, there are tire tracks and she doesn't drive, so how did she get there? A hearse. "Someday you'll return" for her funeral.

Also, Eleanora is wearing the same outfit as Stela in the good ending. She's not Nina. She's a representation of adult Stela, just as Lea is a representation of her as a child. The Stela in the swamp isn't a representation of him, but the purest form of his mental Stela, devoid of the obfuscations the others have.

[lobo.wz]

I rather thought that when Daniel mentions the second set of tracks, this suggests it is a memory. It has all happened before, now he is reliving it, perhaps for the milionth time (as one of the endings rewinds to the beginning as well, hints of this being a purgatory, be it a literal one, or his personal breakdown, also support this). It happens at the point when the world is really broken down into a nightmare, so it is really hard to be sure about its definite meaning.

Also someone mentions a boar being an important, repeated symbol. First the children's screams remind me of my wife's shouting (no jokes, please :D but is really high-pitched for a boar), secondly they resemble spiders when attacking. Seems to me just like a combination of these explicit fears (spiders) and hidden ones (relationships with women, childcare) Daniel has.

[oku]

I thought Eleanora represented the Stela yet to be, or unrealized. Her stillborn child could be her future child not coming to term and who is the father? Is it Alexander, who chooses to walk away or worse case scenario, Ida's boyfriend?

We have the church paintings we see when we have the three visits with our past that show a pregnant woman before a judging priest and other relevant scenes that can help us.