The Masked Stranger's identity - a unpopular theory.
This may be batshit, but the more I think about it, the more I think it's the kind of batshit the creators of Borderlands and Telltale Games might be all about. The stranger mentioned this past episode [minor spoilers here, but major ones throughout the rest post - don't read if you haven't played chapter 4/BL2/BPS], that he lost someone close to him once. Some ONE. Like - there was only one, by the way he phrased it. A lot of the Borderlands cast could debatably say they've lost many people close to them between their backstories and the plot covered by the actual games. I think we can all agree that whoever the Stranger is, we've met him sometime before (and furthermore that Fiona/Rhys would recognize him) - or else he wouldn't be wearing the mask/disguising his voice. I personally think he is male, but I wouldn't put it past Telltale to surprise us there. So in review, the Stranger can't be BIGGER in stature than his suit makes it seem (though he could be smaller), and he lost one very important person in his life. Additionally (and this is a bit more subjective) he seems to either like Fiona more than Rhys or HATE Rhys more than Fiona (he's always knocking Rhys out).
Okay. So. There are a couple characters that people suspect already. I'm going to go through why I don't think it's them - (not saying you're wrong if you believe any of these - it's all theories anyway).
Lilith: The way the timeline is, it seems Lilith should be interrogating Athena (the framing device in the Pre-Sequel). Also, why would she hide her face?
Athena: Same exact problem as above.
Cassius: He does make a comment ("I suspected you would") in Chapter 4 that leads you to believe he might come back later in a more important role, but I doubt it. Depending on your playthrough, he'd have a dramatically different opinion of Fiona and they cannot retcon what the Masked Man has done in your 1-3 chapter playthrough. I think he's a Red Herring. His intention is just to be left alone - why get involved with a vault search?
Roland: I think Roland might be bigger than the figure, but even without relatively subjective observation, I don't think the Borderlands crew would let this happen. Roland was a pretty bland character in BL2 and was certainly more interesting dead than alive. Plus, I think they want to keep Lilith as a "woman scorned" archetype (as her name suggests) - what good would Roland coming back do? It'd just lazily undo the last half of BL2 and a good chunk of Tina's DLC. There's no point. None of the fans (as far as I can tell) even miss him. Plus, he hasn't so much LOST one specific person as BEEN lost to ALL his friends.
Vaughn: My Vaughn is still with Vallory - not having escaped yet, which throws a wrench into this plan, and as far as I know, he hasn't lost anyone close to him. His reasons for hiding his face seem a bit clearer since Rhys is his friend but WHY beat the shit out of him so much in particular? I don't see it.
Felix: In my opinion, Felix is the most likely answer of the ones I'm going through here. It makes sense that he's hiding his face from Fiona, and why he wants the Vault. However - when he's saying he lost someone, he could be referring to Fiona - but he lost Sasha as well - at the same time. Feels a bit cold to exclude her from that sentiment. Also - depending on your playthrough, he's apparently dead.
Scooter: Really? That doesn't even make a little bit of sense. I know you wish he lived, but come on. The speech pattern alone makes this impossible, intense death scene aside.
Vallory: I think Vallory's stature wouldn't fit into the Masked Man's stature. Plus, why hide her face, or sympathize even a little bit with Rhys and Fiona?
August: Dunno who he's lost that's close to him - Sasha maybe? It would make sense he's looking for the Vault but WHY wear a mask? Rhys and Fiona already know who he is working for - it wouldn't be at all surprising that August is after them unless the writers cop out massively and make him fake his death or something early in the final chapter.
AI Jack: (somehow?) I've heard people say the Masked Stranger could somehow be AI Jack. This makes no sense, as AI Jack already knows all the things Fiona and Rhys are telling him. Why would he interrogate them further?
Timothy: TBH I never played Timothy and I don't know much about his backstory other than "Jack decoy" (did he lose somebody meaningful to him?) - I think revealing it to be him would be a cop out, but it got me thinking...
What if the Masked Stranger is the REAL Handsome Jack? He's lost ONE person close to him (Angel - the only person he seemed to care about well into the plot of Borderlands 2), and it seems like, based on AI Jack's reaction to her photo in Chapter 4, he really did care about her - a lot. Jack AI didn't know about her death, which is another reason it can't be him (even if he heard of her death by then, his statement sounds too past-tense to apply here). It makes sense why he'd hide his face, for a few reasons. If people knew he survived he'd be killed instantly, and also - he lost his "Handsome" mask at the end of Borderlands 2 - it's possible he's either too vain or too ashamed not to cover his actual scarred face.
Anything beyond this is completely speculation on my part but a few things: the Masked Stranger seems to be pretty somber about things, and certainly regrets losing his "loved one", he dodges questions about his identity, not really like he's trying to hide it, but like it doesn't matter/he doesn't want to talk about it. Also he goes out of his way to be cruel to Rhys as the story progresses, maybe because of Rhys' role in AI Jack's rise to power? The real Handsome Jack went out in Borderlands 2 screaming about how he's the hero, and when you killed him - he didn't burst into a million pieces or anything - there was a body, just a motionless one. Is it possible that he somehow survived, and in the process had some kind of reality check about all the things he'd lost due to his own sense of pride? Hyperion? Angel? the Warrior? And why? Maybe he realized that somewhere along the lines, he became the villain and instead of returning to Hyperion, he withdrew, choosing to spend the rest of his days in solitude. THEN, he hears that Handsome Jack is back and eviler than ever (end of Chapter 4 - Robo Jack?) and realizes that in a fucking WEIRD way, this is how he's going to be able to reconcile all the shitty things he'd done in the past - by being the one to finish off "Handsome Jack" for good.
I dunno. It's intriguing to me. Plus, there's a lot of talk about Borderlands 3 and whether Handsome Jack will be the main villain again. I recall Gearbox saying somthing along the lines that they don't want that to happen, because it would make the series rather one-note. Still, he's a fan favorite. What better way to keep him around and true to form than to make him an anti-hero NPC in Borderlands 3? Let me reiterate, I'm not trying to shit on other theories, this was just something that occurred to me as a possibility. I have no reason to believe it's true for sure, but AI Jack going toe to toe with the real deal sounds like something I wanna freaking see.
EDIT: Oh, also - the Masked Bandit carries a Conference Call shotgun, which AI Jack waxes sentimental (aka psychotic) over while in Handsome Jack's office. We've ruled out AI Jack, but this indicates a true fondness that REAL Handsome Jack had at one point - supporting this little theory.
Comments
The real jack died
I did address that, but I'll go more into it!
Borderlands is a crazy place. When most people die it's SPECTACULAR, like getting blown up by a rocket ship, or grenade, and - well, regardless of how it happens - most end up in tiny pieces. The real Jack got hit by a couple stray bullets and died - a bit anti-climactic, and in the Borderlands universe, something someone could almost definitely come back from. Even with Roland, we watched blood gush out his freaking chest - that was pretty intense confirmation of his death. We never really see exactly where Jack was hit, "story-wise", just where you as the player choose to aim at him. It's not like you watch him bleed out in cutscene.
You can let Lilith wreck his face if you choose
Hmm that's true. I don't think they establish what it takes for a siren's powers to kill someone, so with no frame of reference, it's possible a person could survive that. Then again, Lilith has killed bunches of people with her powers - seems like if she wanted him dead, she'd know how much she needed to do. Again though, I can't help but think it's possible. It's not like she ripped his head off, or like there was a whole ton of blood. I'm not saying he certainly DID survive, I'm just saying: there's enough doubt in the manner of his death that I'd withhold my disbelief if they went this route. If he burned to death alive, or got impaled through the chest, or shot specifically in the head via cutscene, that'd be pretty final - but the way things went, they could justify saying he survived without jumping through too many hoops.
There's a couple of points here I like, yet there's a number I don't.
Specifically, AI Jack really doesn't know everything Rhys knows, especially early on; he's in and out of consciousness and misses a LOT of the plot points. He picks stuff up again afterwards, sure, but it does make sense that if the Stranger was AI Jack, he'd want to re-tread all the steps to see if there's a something he missed. Jack seems pretty detail-oriented to me. Also, one thing Jack (The real Jack) is very good at doing is faking sincerity. He never said he didn't know about Angel's death - He just says he doesn't like to talk about her. There's a good chance he knows.
However, one of the things you said was that his exit wasn't anything spectacular, when the deaths in the Borderlands universe are very much so. The thing that's interesting is though, that the deaths of the MAIN people, they are the exact opposite of spectacular! Roland is shot through the chest. Jack gets popped in the head. Commodant Steele gets impaled through the gut. Nakayama falls down some stairs. Scooter dies in a rocket crash (Probably would have been pretty intense on the ground, but from where we see it, it's very Coyote-Falling-Off-A-Cliff). The main character deaths in the game are quite anti-climactic by nature.
So yeah, I doubt that the Stranger is the real Jack, but I can't rule it out. You've got some good points!
Word. I can see what you mean about all the main characters having pretty normal deaths - it just seems like there's normally at lest like - an abundance of blood, or an inescapable situation, which to me seems lacking in real Jack's death. I think if they did go that route they'd have to find some way to explain it because at the very least Jack seemed dead enough to convince the Vault Hunter and Lilith, so he'd have needed help to y'know - not die all the way - in order for it to be properly believable, since he was best-case (for him) scenario incapacitated. I think Felix, and August are the most likely culprits in the other list and both of them seem anti-climactic. I might be totally wrong on Jack but none of the others listed above seem right to me either. Maybe they have something TOTALLY different up their sleeves.
Oh an the Angel bit - AI Jack, when they're in the office, says that after the Vault business is over, he wants to check in to see how Angel is doing - implying that he thinks she's still alive. You could be right though that that's just him being insincere. If he was trying to play a sympathy card there though, it seems like it would've been more effective to Rhys (who shouldn't know Angel is actually dead) to say that she died and that he missed her (again, if it was all a plot to make Rhys trust him). About AI Jack retreading, again you make sense but why would he hide who he was from Rhys and Fiona at that point? A lot can happen in a chapter though, it's entirely possible there's a good reason we haven't even seen yet. Too many unknowns to be sure about anything!!
Mostly this whole theory was for shits and giggles until I realized the bit about the Stranger wielding the Conference Call Shotgun, which happens to be a favorite of Jack's. That's when I started thinking that there might actually be something to it - but again, whose to say the Stranger doesn't just steal the one out of Jack's office in the beginning of Chapter 5? I'm dying to know though, man.
Yeah that gun really got to me! This episode makes me feel strongly that the stranger might be Jack (but there are so many other things saying it can't be him).
In the office he says he doesn't like to talk about her, and that he'd like to check up on her. That doesn't imply his lack of knowledge of her death to me at all. You could very easily say that about a dead person whom you loved. Maybe he wants to visit her grave? Seems like a totally inconspicuous comment that everyone is taking waaaay too out of context, to me.
Oooooh. I didn't even think about that way of looking at it to be honest. I just assumed since he wasn't aware of his own death that most of the events at the end of Borderlands 2 were missing as well. Maybe you're right! I really hadn't even considered he might've been talking about a grave. It seems an obvious possibility now that you say it.
I can't think of any reason it can't be him besides the obvious "he died" bit! That is kind of an enormous obstacle though, hahaha.
Another part about Jack that is just my opinion is about Jack not knowing about his death. I think that when he first "materializes" as AI Jack, he was just really disoriented, thinking he is the real Jack. After failing to strangle Rhys far more times than it should've taken for him to realize, it sets in that he is an AI copy of himself. That part probably doesn't fully happen until some point after that scene which isn't shown.
As AI Jack, he is a full, complete copy of himself. I'm guessing real Jack had some kind of implants in his brain that were saving his memory to Nakayama's drive. But that copy couldn't possibly include the knowledge of his death, because how would that part be recorded and put into AI Jack? This AI Jack has full knowledge of the events leading to his death but since his death can't be recorded to N.'s drive, he probably, being Jack, assumes he made it out of that situation. Again, he's a little disoriented and takes a while to put together the pieces.
That sounds really reasonable, I can completely see how that would work. I was thinking that the last time Jack had actively backed up his memory would've been WITH Nakayama (not that a chip was actually in his head), like in person - up on Helios - which is why I was kinda thinking that from just before Angel's death and onwards (I think he was pretty much on Pandora from the point on to the end of the game?), the AI had no knowledge of. That all comes down to the question of "when was AI Jack last updated?" which is an interesting question in itself. Furthermore - can AI Jack learn from mistakes and have a character arc or is he forever a snapshot of how Jack was at one point in time?
I agree with you though that AI Jack was probably really disoriented. He didn't seem as fazed as you'd assume someone would be upon finding out that they're dead. He adjusted pretty quickly - he must've had some kinda inkling when he was backing up his memory to AI Jack that the end might've been near.
Something else I've thought about just now - where is Jack's body? Maybe we'll find out in the next chapter. Seems like the grave would be somewhere in or around his office for the "memorial VIP tour", if they had it. It might just be something no one thought to write in though. Pandora doesn't seem to be a place where people care too much about honoring the dead, after all, haha.
Fiona says his suit looks familar so I'm thinking there's a character with a similar outfit it's just been modified in the present or she's seen a similar outfit lying around.
Sorry but the original, Handsome Jack being the Stranger doesn't fly with me at all. The obvious, he died in Borderlands 2, and yeah I get it that Borderlands is a crazy place and weird things do happen, Jack coming back from the dead won't be one of them.
And it just doesn't jive with the Stranger's personality at all. This is the same argument I made for when we used to be speculating present Rhys may be possessed by AI Jack, you know it's not the case due to their personalities. The Stranger is very somber and speaks very little, Jack on the other hand was always loud and talk a lot, and when he became Handsome Jack that just intensified. Regardless of the events that happened to him, Jack would still be Jack, if he had survived from the events in Borderlands 2, Handsome Jack would be more fueled than ever before to get his revenge, not hide behind some false identity, it's not in his nature.