Ok, totally off-topic at the moment and perhaps allready even discussed but i'm still wondering and who knows someone got an answer.
In episode 6 after Quinn got ambushed the MC (can) helps her and takes her to his room.
When he gets her something for the bleeding nose she takes out this magic 8 ball.
"Don't count on it"
Is it a hidden message or a clue? I really can't connect the dots here other then not counting on sex which does happen. Or does it goes deeper and is it meant for a possible relation?
Really wondering what you all think about that specific scene.
She could certainly have been asking a specific question to herself, as in…
But I think it’s also meant to be a reflection back of what her life philosophy is, as in don’t be dependent on people, don’t take things for granted etc, which is clearly her default attitude. It’s significant of course that she then promptly does the reverse, and opens up to the MC, letting her guard down.
More on the nose though is that she’s just come from a drug meet where she asked for an 8 ball of coke.
Lads are we over-analyzing Quinn scenes? Strap in
The 8 ball is very interesting in the context of the rain scene for a couple reasons. The rain scene itself is maybe the most important Quinn scene in the game so far, if there ever is a Quinn LI path then I'd consider the rain scene to be the actual start of it. So nothing in this scene can be overlooked as far as symbolism and foreshadowing of Quinn's story and character go.
Now when Quinn is left alone at the start of the scene, she kneels down and takes the 8 ball out of a box. We see similar boxes being used when the MC is cleaning up the junk in the room, so I'm pretty sure the 8 ball isn't MC's personal property. We know that the room was previously Vinny's, and we also know from the story and from screenshots posted in this thread that Quinn knew Vinny.
Did the 8 ball belong to Vinny because it was in the room? I think that's very likely, unless the 8 ball belongs to the MC and I missed that.
Assuming the 8 ball is Vinny's, did Quinn recognize the 8 ball as belonging to Vinny, just like she did the room, and pick it up for that reason? Maybe. If Quinn has seen or used the 8 ball in the past, it could be somehow related to her relationship with Vinny that we'll receive information of in the future. For now all I can say is that if the 8 ball is Vinny's, then it's possible that Quinn recognized it because of her connection to Vinny and the message that appeared has some significance between them. As a wild example, maybe at some point in the past Quinn was in Vinny's room and asked the 8 ball about something important to her at the time. Seeing the same 'don't count on it' message reminds Quinn that nothing has really changed and she's still on her shit trajectory and she drops it back into the box.
Again, this is wild speculation based on not much but what else are we here for than to be wrong about all our predictions
Now with all that aside, let's consider the significance of the 'don't count on it' answer.
When Quinn picks up the 8 ball, the 'don't count on it' message fades in. We don't actually know if she asked the 8 ball a specific question, or if she shook it at all, so the significance of the 8 ball's answer to Quinn and how she took it could mean anything. But it's pretty clear from the context of the scene that this is being shown for a reason, because the scene is so important to Quinn's character, so it's unlikely it was thrown in there for no reason. That's purely meta knowledge of the narrative though, so it's more interesting to analyze the mood of the scene and characters to see if there's something there to be gleaned about Quinn.
Quinn had just been robbed, beaten up, and was in deep shit for losing the drugs. As the MC says, in that moment, Quinn looks 'defeated'. So if she did ask the 8 ball a question, it was probably something along the lines of 'could this shitty day get any worse?' The answer is pretty predictable to that. I think it's telling that when she sees the 'don't count on it' answer, she doesn't set the ball back down, she just drops it into the box, like she already knew the answer and didn't care anymore.
But it doesn't actually matter if Quinn asked the 8 ball a specific question. The mere fact that the answer came up negative, like everything else in her life, is enough to convey the themes of Quinn's character in the scene.
Don't count on it. Don't count on anything. Don't count on anyone. That's exactly Quinn's philosophy, like Pendrell mentioned. Quinn has never had anything or anyone to count on in her life. She comes from a broken home full of drugs and abuse, she learned how to use others and be used by them, she doesn't expect any different even from her 'friends'. Then, in the rain scene, the MC does something selfless for her, without expecting anything in return, and she doesn't understand it. She's even hostile to it. She expects, and forces, every relationship and friendship she has to be transactional. Every favor, transactional. Every sexual act, transactional. Now that we're seeing that line of thinking being broken as the MC and Quinn get closer, with Quinn actively doing and allowing things (kissing, blowjobs, etc.) that she usually doesn't do, not for her own gain but to make someone else happy, she's starting to develop doubts about her philosophy and the things she's doing. We can see this in the final slides of the episode where Quinn looks up at the coke if you're on her 'path'.
So tl;dr on the 8 ball question, I don't think the 'don't count on it' answer is necessarily a self-contained hidden message or clue, unless it's somehow related to Vinny. I think Quinn's interaction with the 8 ball is part of the wider themes at play in the rain scene, with 'don't count on it' establishing the fact that Quinn has a particular way of seeing things, that the MC ultimately challenges by being someone she can actually count on.
