Lily is better to just stay dead
This is kinda a hot take, but if mob will bring her back it would be awful.
Let’s look at the possibilities we could get if she comes back.
1)We’d get chapter 7 or even more chapters. This would be a terrible decision, especially considering the criticism chapter 5 received. Only a little number of people we’ll continue to play the game, because the most of the fanbase already considers it an endless cash-grab. I think mob understands it, so it just would be a weird decision to make
- We’d get an overcrowded chapter 6. If chapter 6 is indeed the finale, then we should finally see the conclusions of characters’ arcs. Poppy and The Prototype need to be the focus(because let’s be honest, they weren’t really the focus of 5). We also have Sawyer, Giblet and Chum(he didn’t die on screen, so he’ll definitely return) who also need to have screentime(especially Sawyer, cuz if they brought him back just for 3 minutes of him yapping, his return would be useless. He needs to have a pay off.) And mob will likely add new characters, 1006 did something to orphans after all(and we need to see Preston, because there is no way that the restricted tapes with him were for nothing).
Is Lily returning that important to the fanbase, considering these options?
Lily’s return would literally just be a fanservice. “Oh, look the character died. Wait, you like them? Well, that means will revive them just because of this!” It would completely remove the importance of any character’s death, because now that everyone returns it means that mob could return everyone’s favourites if they want to.
Also genuinely, why would they kill her if they planned her return in chapter 5? It doesn’t seem to happen to characters that can actually return(Giblet and Chum). The argument about her death being too boring doesn’t work, there is one character that doesn’t get brought up whenever people have this argument — Miss Delight. And her corpse also disappears when we return to the location of her death, like Lily’s, yet I don’t see people thinking she’ll return too.
Let’s also look at the characters who already had their comebacks. There is one good and one bad example.
1)Good one, Huggy. It was always planned, so it felt like a natural thing. There isn’t much more to say.
2)Bad one, The Doctor. As much as I like his character I don’t think him returning was always planned. There were some hints, but they were vague enough, so maybe mob just saw the theories and used the things that were mentioned there. I really wish mob had clarified when they made the decision of him coming back. Either way, his return feels kinda off. There was honestly no good decision to be made about him. Either have his bad utilisation in chapter 4 and forget about him or make him come back. It feels bad because he also needs to have screentime now, so he would take away it from Poppy and the Prototype(who need to be our main focus). I could complain more about this, but this text needs to be about Lily, not the Doctor.
Also, Why would Lily even need to return? I like her character quite a lot, she is one of my favourite characters, but she isn’t nearly as important as both of those two.
If anything, Lily is The Doctor executed right. The reason why Sawyer’s underutilisation felt so awful is because he had a buildup, both in trailers, ARG and previous chapter(and Project Playtime). Lily had none of it. She appeared in one trailer and that’s it. There were no big expectations, Ms Gracie feels like a cool addition, but not something that has too much lore importance. Her arc feels complete, Gracie’s arc was over long time ago, when she was brainwashed, Lily’s arc felt complete when 1006 had shown his violence towards her openly and she attacked us.
She is a secondary antagonist and while they could have done more with her, there is nothing wrong with her being secondary. Maybe if the game was only at the start of itself, when there was a time for her, I would really think of her comeback as something good(kinda doubt it, cuz as I said constant returns erase the value of deaths in the game), but the story needs its ending and if it is nowhere near then many will simply leave it.
To end my endless yapping, Lily doesn’t need to come back. She is a really good character, but not good enough to risk the quality of the next chapter for her.