The chapter 2 egg room says there "was" not a man, instead of "is." Haven't seen anyone bring this up, seems vaguey important.
When chapters 3+4 came out, the first two egg rooms sort of were just forgotten. Fair enough, they didn't have much substance compared to the new ones. It was a little weird, though; chapter 1's egg room has the excuse of being the first introductory one, but why is the chapter 2 one not any different? Just some early installment weirdness?
However, replaying through the game recently, I noticed that the chapter 2 egg room says "was" not a man here, instead of "is," and also that trying to interact with the tree before the man does _not_ have the "he is behind the tree" text that the other chapters do. I could not find anyone else talking about it, and thought it's worth bringing up. The phrasing seems to imply the idea that there was never a man behind the tree.
I haven't interacted with the fandom in a while, so I don't know if "the forgotten man was never real" is still the most prevalent theory or something else took its place; but this seems to support that idea. So, a little less valuable to bring up in a ch3+4 era, but it is cool to see that it was implied even back when chapter 2 came out.