I don't think even Dawe is dumb enough to think a guitar placed on the opposite side of the room belongs to Troy and not the guy he's sharing the dorm with. It makes even less sense that he'd fetch it to Chad, and then Chad decides to just pass it to Sage when for all he's told it's something that belongs to his secret boyfriend.
edit: It is also such minor plot beat, i don't feel like DPC would overcomplicate it by "the MC thinks the jocks came for him but they actually came for Troy!". The story doesn't benefit in any manner from this, so it's probably safe to presume that what MC poses to the player in his monologue is what actually happened -- the jocks were there to fuck him, not Troy, up.
Wow, I couldn't disagree more.
First and foremost, Dawe is
absolutely that dumb!! The guy couldn't spell 'clue' if you wrote it down for him! If he knew Chad's girlfriend wanted a guitar, he would totally assume a guitar in Troy's room belonged to Troy and thus was free for the taking. Even at his absolute best if you somehow convinced Dawe the guitar belonged to Troy's unseen roommate, he'd still be happy to swipe it because he'd assume anyone living with Troy deserved to be treated just as badly. Dawe is as stupid and simpleminded as he is spiteful.
As for Chad passing the guitar along, why wouldn't he? Even if he knew it came from Troy (which is unclear), the whole point of making Sage his beard is that he feels that he can't afford scrutiny. If he turns down the gift, Dawe is going to wonder why. We know Chad is no profile in courage. If Dawe gives him the guitar as a manly prize to pass along to his trophy girlfriend, Chad is going to pass it along as unobtrusively as he can (and maybe apologize to Troy in private later).
Lastly, I disagree yet again that your theory fits the narrative better. For one thing, I don't remember the MC actually saying the jocks came looking for him as opposed to Troy. He thinks they stole his guitar, because Troy said they did. But AFAICT he never speculates on why they came to the room in the first place. IMHO, it makes far more sense if they came looking for Troy since they clearly beat him up. Why on earth would they do that if the MC was their target? Even if Troy was willing to stick his neck out to protect the MC's stuff (which he wasn't), the MC sure as shit wouldn't have thought he did. If he thought the jocks had come for him, he would be wondering why the left without finding him and/or worrying about them finding him later on when he's rooming with Maya.
Furthermore, the MC is
constantly assuming things that are untrue. He leapt to the conclusion that Josy had a boyfriend when she never specified the gender of her SO. He assumed he and Derek needed to complete all the tasks on the pledge board; turns out they didn't. He specifically foreshadows how wrong his assumption on why Bella didn't want to make out with him would turn out to be.
We just got a whole Interlude to overcomplicate the MC's statement that Zoey 'got a new boyfriend' out in San Diego. The notion that DPC would turn down a twist because it would simplify the narrative is not only suspect, it's utterly and demonstrably wrong!
