Fear and Hunger: Doppelgangers Explained

Another reason for why Levi's doppelganger rushes towards and fights the player immediately is because it's mimicing a soldier. Killing something on sight is what it thinks it's meant to do. Somewhat similar to Olivia's, it knows Levi is a soldier (I assume because of his uniform and other contestants calling him such), but doesn't exactly understand the concept. As for Tanaka, well the poor guy does have the habit of getting into a lot of fights, so his doppelganger just thinks that's what Tanaka does. Makes me think, if the real Tanaka dies and his doppelganger lives on, will it be more out going and stand up for itself than the real Tanaka; misunderstanding the person it's mimicing? I find the doppelgangers to be a very interesting if random and underutilised part of the game, and thus appreciate your great video on them! However I'm not sure if I'd want more to be added in the future. For the most part, I think those who get doppelgangers plays into their themes. Levi is attempting to abandone his past as a soldier, and his doppelganger reduces him into nothing more than one. Olivia craves to be seen as her own person; escape her sister's shadow and be recognised beyond her condition. Her doppelganger is a mockery of her individuality by claiming that being a botanist is her condition. I think even Karin's doppelganger plays into her worrying about being nothing but a vulture as it lacks individuality, instead reporting on the gruesome events around it. Apologies for the theorising, your video just made me think a lot on an aspect of the game I've mostky overlooked until now!

Imagine how shocking it would be to recruit a party member, then find what you think is their doppelgänger, fight it, then realise the one you’re fighting is the one with the normal face meaning your party member is the fake one

Could the doppelgangers be an explanation as to why the festival isn't more widely known? The doppelgangers slide into the lives of everyone involved as one final trick from Rher.

I really like Marina's doppelganger because it takes advantage of the fact that it's a video game. I recruited her in the bookshop (or ig technically the church) and then came back and my first thought was "oh pfft- they forgot to remove npc Marina" and then I went up and talked to her to see if I could trigger her recruit again and then the Marina in my party responded to it sort of yanking me back into immersion and recontextualizing "haha software gore" to "haha... that's not my friend..." It's honestly pretty cool even if I'm sure it's existence was spawned from a bug being turned into a feature.

There's so many ways Miro can do with this. From Marina's B ending, from what is assumed to be Samarie's doppelganger, the majority of them just seem to want to fit in society for an unknown reason. I just think it would be cool to see a shy, non-confrontational Caligura, or a bad-mannered August just out of nowhere.

As one the testers of early alpha builds, I can tell you that the doppelgangers were a long running gag even before they were actually a thing. There were many instances in the alpha versions, where the game's logic would break or wouldn't work properly resulting in 'characters duplication'. For example, you could recruit Marina and yet find her in the book shop. Or as another example, recruit O'sa, but still find him sitting on streets near church. Noteworthy that we kinda asked Miro before if he would consider doing the false characters of sorts. And so during the early testing phase we started the joke in testers' chat that those bugs were actually an evil "doppelgangers", and I think it was the final straw that made Miro actually grow on this idea. And it was, indeed, a very elegant way to add new intriguing elements to the game, while not crushing and combating the logic of the game a lot. In case you wonder - almost all encouters, except for Olivia I think, were actually originally bugs. But a lot more duplication occasions were fixed promptly. Hope this was an interesting bit of knowledge. And yeah the phrase - "it's not a bug, it's a feature", is actually has proven times over to be ever right on spot :D

one consideration is that the doppelgangers are actually part of the the contestant, similar to how becoming a new god splits you in half, its possible as the contestants loose humanity their doppelgangers gain it

If I remember correctly, doesn't Rancid imply that the Doppelgängers are the result of nature/the world/order trying to reestablish balance after the Cult of Sulfur start misappropriating Rher's power?

The Doppelgangers are kind of victims too. They didn't choose this to begin with, they seem to act out of instinct and as they learn from the people they mimick, the more human they become. Eventually, they either forget their origins or decide to keep it a secret to mantain some level of normalcy in their lives.

I was literally talking about how I wanted this concept to be expanded on yesterday, I’d love for more of them and for them to actually be tough to figure out as a new player, like a Samerie doppelgänger that acts like a normal person who’s not obsessed with Marina, cuz the few we have are too obvious imo

i kind of hope this is something Miro expands upon as he brings Termina closer to being content-complete, if not by adding more then by giving us more information on them

I first ran into both Levi and Olivia's doppelgangers right after I had both of them in my party killed by enemies. There was a solid chunk of my runtime where I assumed that doppelgangers spawn when you recruit a contestant and then they die, so you can still harvest their heads. Like I thought there were doppelgangers for all of the playable characters, lol.

i've never played termina myself, so i didn't know that you had to kill samarie to get marina's B ending. i thought that samarie continuing to stalk marina even after the events of termina was just a funny part of the story. now that i know it's a doppelganger it makes it super creepy.

I haven’t played, but the Marina Doppelgänger seems to be in a library of some sort? Maybe that could explain its increased conversation skills?

I think the origin of the doppelganger is Ma'havre from F&H 1 In the Chambers of torment we can find identical "empty" husks and can make one ourself to progress the game without killing a party member. We also learn that Nashar wants those husks to have a new body to inhabit, and we learn through Darces S ending that she finds and brings the finished formula for a rebirth to resurrect Legarde... He probably used those K owledges to create doppelganger for his twisted gains at the festival

Given that the Doppelgangers' physical forms are based on their observations of their target, and that Olivia's cut Doppelganger misunderstands her wheelchair as being a physical part of her body... Marina's Doppelganger probably made some incorrect assumptions about her anatomy. And I think it would be interesting if Olivia's cut Doppelganger was added back as being a version of it that appears on later days. To go with the concept of them becoming more human as they observe their target.

all i can think of is that one tweet or something that says your goal in life is to train to beat your doppleganger in single combat.

I bumped into Levi, Tanaka, and Olivia's doppelganger while casually going through the game. Haven't found Marina's yet, but will do eventually.

There was once an old Spanish story I read about a boy with a strange mental condition. He was obsessed with putting things in his mouth and biting people, to the point where his parents would say things like "why are you doing that? You act like a dog moreso than a child" making the boy ask himself what he even was. So naturally, the boy decided to seek out the dogs in the alley so that he could study them. Eventually, the parents misunderstood his studying for a desire to have a dog, so they bought him one, ending in the boy skinning the dog and wearing it's fur. While I don't remember the name of this story, it was under my impression that perhaps the mimics were born with a desire, and so they sought out living people who already had those desires, in a way. Its more likely than not that this is not the case, but when I met these creatures in the game, they briefly reminded me of that story.

LUCKY POSTED AND I SHOT AWAKE, A COLD SWEAT RUNNING DOWN MY BACK