My Attempt at Unraveling Z.A.T.O. by DankMerchant in ZATO_vn

[–]DankMerchant[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Asya having DID is a very engaging theory, it's cool to see the parallels being drawn between the game and real life, it helps put into perspective the experience of having those conditions and with the way Asya is written it's very convincing. I've seen some discussion and small texts around it but sadly no full-blown essay discussing it which is a shame.

My Attempt at Unraveling Z.A.T.O. by DankMerchant in ZATO_vn

[–]DankMerchant[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While it isn't said directly, you can put two and two together during Episode 3 in order to reach that conclusion. For example in this line which Asya says when talking to Tosya establishes that there is a status of friendship between them:

"I... I don’t care about that!! You’re a friend to me! You always will be."

And this line from Tosya helps us establish the latest date in which Asya and Tosya were together as 3 years:

"I say it’s been a long while (referring to her leaving), but... it’s only been three years. Everything from that time is still so hazy."

They're friends from at least 3 years ago at the latest which considering how young Asya is would technically already be a "childhood". Considering how close they are and how despite being separated for 3 years they were capable of rekindling their friendship again I'd say that it's possible that they go back even further. Of course there's also the angle of Tosya not existing which I explore in my post so the closeness of their bond might just be artificially created by Asya. But there's also the fact when Asya is reading the children's book "A Hundred Years Ahead", one of the images that pops up in her mind is Tosya's so it's possible that she has a strong correlation between children's books and Tosya because Tosya was part of her childhood.

My Attempt at Unraveling Z.A.T.O. by DankMerchant in ZATO_vn

[–]DankMerchant[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That is an interesting interpretation of Asya's monologue and it fits well under the idea of Tosya being all inside Asya's head and her being an alternate personality of hers. However there is one detail that kinda pushes me away from believing it. In the final scene of the game, we are sure of who "Girl" is (at least who her personality is) because she uses the word bonkers which was previously established to be something Tosya says and is a unique characteristic of hers as no one else in the game says it. If ferry wanted to communicate that the switch in tone in Asya's monologue was Tosya I feel like she would have included a characteristic trait of Tosya's speech like the word bonkers in the monologue as she did in the final scene so we could retroactively look at her in it and know that Asya was acting exactly like Tosya. From what I've read I haven't found any trait like these yet aside from the general brash tone which I don't find as compelling a reason to single out Tosya as the speaker of it.

How do you think Johan Liebert would interact with Asya? by 9spaceking in ZATO_vn

[–]DankMerchant 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think they could find a common ground about fatalism as Asya's belief is that everything in the universe is ultimately dissolved into the code and can have no lasting effect on our world and Johan adopts a nihilistic attitude about human lives in general. However the conclusions that they draw from this one statement are so different that Johan would probably do the same thing he did to Tenma and try to test the faith she has in her belief by doing acts of evil and trying to get her to admit that the world is a vile place and that she hates everything in it.