I thought he was the avatar of the god of wires or something? I can't follow the cryptic under story of this game and i get even more lost when i read what you guys manage to theory craft but i'm sure that one has been an operating theory for a while now hasn't it?
It's been one of my operating theories, yes. I have several. Some of them are contradictory. I kinda throw everything at the wall and scrape it off when new data invalidates it.
What we know:
The power has gone out at least three times while Sensei's been there, and Tsuneyo speaks of it as if it's happened many more times than that.
The first time it happened, there was a text panel containing only: =)
The second time it happened, reality began to distort around Sensei when he tried to go up the stairs
The third time it happened, Kaori vanished without making a sound in the short time it took the backup generator to get going.
The old man hates spiders (I cannot remember if this is also established in reference to the wire god himself, if it has been, that would definitely connect the two).
Beyond that, we have only Tsuneyo's word to go on, which we have to take with a grain of salt because she may or may not have a full understanding of the situation, and she also may or may not be actively deceiving us.
Everything else is conjecture. Whether he's an avatar of the wire god, or simply someone who's been ensnared by the wire god is unclear.
The smiley face text panel seems to indicate HOPE was intervening
The spiders bit is where I'm hung up. Spiders weren't a big deal in Chapter 1 until the rework, but they suddenly started popping up in a lot of places afterwards. My initial thought was that the spiders were the servants of the Wire God, because the Wire God was originally a guy who spent his life on the internet, and well, webs/www spider pun. But when Tsuneyo calls out that the old man hates spiders, that got thrown into doubt.
If anyone can point me to a reference in game about the wire god specifically hating spiders, I'd appreciate it.
Because if spiders are the agents of the wire god, then the old man's aversion to them is an indicator that he's trapped by the wire god and spiders are his tormentors. If the wire god also hates spiders, then it means they're probably more closely aligned, if not one and the same.
I had intended to take meticulous notes, but after my save file got overwritten, getting caught up took priority so I'm subject to my dubious memory until I have time for another end to end run.