my answers to the ambiguous/controversial

why is joi haunting stice specifically?

i read a theory that joi is interested in stice specifically because stice wears black. this would be an allusion to hamlet, who if you remember is told to stop wearing mourning clothes after gertrude and claudius get married. i think this may be a shaky theory, but ortho stice being specifically known as “the darkness” and wearing all black, even his towels, seems like an explicit thing to write about without having any deeper meaning for it. for this reason i’m inclined to believe dfw was nodding toward something possibly along my line of thought.

also consider that if stice is playing hal in the upcoming whataburger final, and stice is only so good because of hal's dad using his supernatural abilites, then hal, really, is not playing against stice but against "himself," as he calls his father.

who does hal see outside the window on exhibition day?

i think poutrincourt is the most logical answer. in her one scene with steeply, she is wearing a puffy coat of some kind that is described in a similar manner to the clothing the mystery figure wears: “something puffy and bright enough to be a coat.” steeply also notices that poutrincourt is more androgynous, perhaps even more masculine, than feminine. hal later observes that it is impossible to tell the gender of the mystery figure. with the context of enemies from the north at the ready to invade (another reference to the ending of hamlet?), it would make sense that poutrincourt is outside preparing herself. it’s also stated that she is notably missing during the boy’s locker room scene when the afr is beginning to arrive.

what's up with john n.r. wayne and avril? are they spies?

while aaron swartz's theory (may he rest in peace) on john wayne being an obvious afr spy is widely accepted, i actually don't think it's true. before i say anything else consider that wayne has legs, and everyone in the afr doesn't. knowing the afr and their complete devotion to being in wheelchairs, i find it extremely hard to believe that john wayne, who is the number one tennis player in the academy, would have even at one point considered jumping in front of a train.

also, i can't believe i've never seen this discussed before, but there is a character named bernard wayne whose son refuses to jump, and is said to have consequently drowned (believable?). the only single person to ever refuse jumping in front of a train in all of afr recorded history has the last name wayne. this is not a coincidence, guys. i've read and believe that he is a part of the same group as avril, that being the cult of the endless kiss, which basically has this game where 32 girls and 32 boys fit their mouths together. their mouths are then taped together with occlusive tape and their nostrils are plugged so they have to breathe in and out of the other's mouth. the winner is whoever stays standing and doesn't "swoon" or pass out.

hal says at one point: "now his breathing behind me was light and very even. no waste, complete utilization of each breath."

also consider orin's dream about having avril's disembodied head being attached to his own head with tennis racquet strings. it's not explicitly said that they're mouth-to-mouth attached, but orin not being able to move avril's head out of his vision implies they would indeed be attached somewhere at the front of their faces. this would also explain more thoroughly why avril and wayne are sleeping together (though that's a whole other can of worms).

is mario a product of incest?

short answer: no. long answer: sort of. to answer this question we have to leave the enticing world of infinite jest and enter dfw's world of writing 1,000 pages. logistically, there is no way mario is a product of incest seeing as avril and ct aren't actually blood related (i disagree with orin-father theories). however, hal implies that both mario and ct's mother have similar disabilities, and dfw doesn't include information like this for no reason, which is why things get a little complicated. see, dfw literally wrote a question mark down on his initial draft of infinite jest, because he, too, didn't know if he wanted mario to be a product of incest or not (i say "too" like we want mario to be a product of incest...). so it seems to me that dfw originally intended to make mario a product of incest with his disfigured appearance and similarity to ct's mother, but ultimately decided he wanted to change avril and ct's childhoods, subsequently making them step-siblings. incest on a certain level, sure, but not, like, inbreeding incest, here.

what's the deal with joi's head?

the master copy of the entertainment is not in joi's head. this is a controversial statement to make, but consider that when joi introduces the concept of the entertainment being in his head for the first time, it's nearly a year before he actually finishes it. he's unreliable as a source for narration. also, i and many others think that joi's head would have exploded in the microwave, therefore destroying the entertainment along with his brains through his eye socket. my favorite theory is that the anti-entertainment is buried with him. why think there's anything important buried with him at all? dfw writes multiple times about characters digging up joi's head, which implies that something is down there; we just aren't ever really clued in on what that something is, exactly. it's written in endnote 150 that the video of clipperton's suicide along with other sensitive material is buried alongside joi--i want to believe that the clipperton video is considered the anti-entertainment, too sad and violent for anyone to possibly become addicted to it. not just the video itself, but what it represents: unhappiness despite achievement.

in joi's filmography there is a film known as kinds of pain which basically just captures various people with debilitating sorts of pain, one person in particular having cranio-facial neuralgia. while this is a little vague, readers have suggested that this person is fackelmann, one of don gately's acquantances who gets his eyelids sewed to his eyebrows and is forced to watch videos of horrific violence surrounding him on all sides, seeing as he can't close his eyes. while i don't have all the answers, i think these are interesting and reasonable theories to think over, especially taking into account the fact that fackelmann's situation works metaphorically for what the entertainment actually does to people.