Lore Dive: Meg Thomas

icemancat

Overview:

While being one of multiple survivors to have been focused more in the Archives, Meg Thomas is still one of the most mysterious survivors for a couple specific reasons. She may seem like a fairly simple character on the surface, being commonly depicted as someone who competes in competitive sports to obtain a reputation. However, a closer look at her background suggests differently. In this post, I will be doing a lore analysis on Meg Thomas and will try to solve as many mysteries as I can with her. REMINDER: Not all of the information presented is confirmed as some of it is just theorized.

General Background:

We learn from some certain cosmetics and her archives that Meg lived in Colorado. From a very early age, Meg has always been competitive. We can see in her background information in-game that she not only performed well with her running, but she also performed well with her studies. Meg even went as far as to earn herself a scholarship for college, another feat that requires some pretty solid achievements. However, the player can learn that things quickly went downhill as her mother got sick, something also shown in her Archive Lore, “Eat Dust”. We can also learn that Meg is driven to survive even after getting captured by The Entity, as her second lesser-known background paragraph even stated that Meg only truly cares about ‘reaching the finish line’. In other words, Meg may know that she loses a part of her mental capacity each time she is sacrificed, knowledge that some may not realize until it is too late. Later down the line, Meg goes for a long run in the woods and that was the last people ever saw or heard from Meg. 

While Meg’s backstory is very brief, there are still a couple points that are very significant to her life. The first one we will cover is one that happened from the very beginning; the mystery behind Meg’s father.

What Happened To Meg’s Father?

Being one of the earliest mysteries in Dead By Daylight, Meg’s father is a character who we have very little information on as we only know from her first background paragraph that he left them when she was only a baby. Another important thing to note is that one of Meg’s parents ‘instilled the fierce streak in her’. This is referring to her competitive and aggressive nature (Remember this as it is important later). Of course, we can assume that both parents had something to do with Meg being competitive, whether it was genes or not. However, there are a few possibilities as to what may have happened to Meg’s father.

Possibility 1: Meg’s Father Joined The Military

This is a fair possibility as we see that Meg has somewhat acquired a personality from a military father, with Meg sometimes being stern, stubborn, or competitive. For example, take a look at Meg’s Unique Perks. Unique Perks are three perks that first belong to a Survivor or Killer and essentially describe who that character is from a gameplay standpoint as well as a lore standpoint. 

• Quick & Quiet could refer to high-profile military operations, possibly ones requiring the operatives to be silent and off the record.
• Sprint Burst could refer to the physical requirements of one to reliably get the job done for such a military.
• Adrenaline could refer to morphine, a painkiller used to mitigate severe pain or injuries. Adrenaline functions in a very similar way as the image shows a Anti-Haemorrhagic Syringe, being used to fully heal an entire health state and also increase Meg’s speed considerably. 

Another fact that is worth pointing out is the possible connection between Bill and Meg and how Meg actually shows an extremely close resemblance to the Left 4 Dead character, Zoey.

• The relationship between Bill and Zoey in Left 4 Dead is described as being a father-daughter relationship. This is something that Meg never really had with her own father and with the Left 4 Dead cosmetics, Meg is given the Zoey cosmetics.
• Zoey’s parents are both dead. This could pertain to Meg with her father possibly being killed in the line of duty and her mother most likely passing away sometime after Meg getting captured by The Entity. 
• Zoey hardly speaks about Bill after his death, similar to how we barely hear about Meg’s father.

With these notes covered, it seems to be a much stronger chance that Meg’s father left his family to join the military, but sadly never came back.

Possibility 2: Meg’s Father Could Be A Killer

As much as it is unfortunate to suggest this, Meg’s father could be a killer. This relates back to a line that I mentioned earlier, with how both or one of her parents ‘instilled the fierce streak in her’, mainly the aggressive part as the competitive part was more from her mother’s side. The fierce streak could have actually hurt more rather than help and Meg’s father could have been a criminal. There may be multiple reasons for being a criminal, but a primary reason could be to save Meg’s mother from her sickness. We already know that Meg’s mother has a serious illness, something that Meg can’t stand knowing in ‘Eat Dust’. Meg’s father could have tried to steal medicine needed for Meg’s mother. The reason why Meg’s father would try to do something like this is so someone could still take care of Meg, in this case, her mother since he could not due to being on the run from authorities.

Meg’s Unique Perks could also refer to her father’s criminalistic ways:

• Quick & Quiet may refer to killing a victim quietly to avoid detection or stealthily stealing particular things such as medicine.
• Sprint Burst could have to do with evading law enforcement in louder scenarios if he were spotted.
• Adrenaline could refer to the adrenaline rush in criminals. Whether this was from her father stealing or murdering is unknown.

These troubles with law enforcement are even carried over in Meg. In ‘Eat Dust’, Meg is pressured into slashing the tires of a police vehicle, something that can get you in trouble. By doing this, Meg simply wanted to prove herself to her team, possibly not realizing that someone could easily rat her out. The strange resemblance is that if Meg’s father is a criminal, then this could be considered a startling similarity between Meg and her father or even an act of vengeance. 

In Dead By Daylight’s universe, the parents of characters seem to play a large role into who the character will become and Meg is no exception. There is an additional detail that further reinforces the possibility that Meg’s father is a killer. ‘Eat Dust’ Memory 553 provides incredibly valuable dialogue between Meg and her mother, dialogue that not only suggests that part of Meg’s father’s killer-minded personality lingers within Meg and possibly foreshadows Meg encountering her father in The Entity’s Trials. The first line of dialogue I want to cover says the following from Meg:

“Anger overwhelms her and she says things she wouldn’t normally say. “I want her dead. I want to crush her like a bug. I want her to burn in f*cking h*ll. I would have won that race!” Her mother listens to her without judgement and waits for her to calm down.” 

The anger displayed by Meg and the compassion with her mother’s patience further implies that there are two sides to Meg, one with aggression and a much rarer side that shows compassion. Meg’s rant is incredibly violent, speaking of doing things that only people with ill intentions would think of doing. However, the memory states that those are things Meg would not normally say. While that may be true, there are some parts of people that stick with them, despite being away from them for their entire life, in this case, Meg’s father. However, what follows the previously mentioned line from Memory 553 shows even more. Meg’s mother goes on to tell her the following:

“You’re very upset and I understand, but don’t… don’t stoop to her level, don’t let her turn you into what you’re not. You want revenge? Best revenge is success. Let her know you’re the best even at your worst and that will be her worst frecking h*ll!”

There are multiple, valuable things to point out from this line of dialogue, with the first part being that Meg’s mother hesitated at the start. This was due to her being uncertain as to whether she should have said what she said in the first place and the reason for this is that it may have been another way of saying “Don’t be like your father.” Furthermore, this line could also foreshadow a possible encounter with Meg and her father in the Trials. Below are some parts of the lines rephrased to help better understand what I mean: 

“Don’t stoop to her (your father’s) level, don’t let her (him) turn you into what you’re not (a killer).”  

“You want revenge? Best revenge is success (escaping). Let her (your father) know you’re the best even at your worst (possibly injured or worse?) and that will be her (his) worst frecking h*ll! (watching his own daughter succeed without needing his help).

While it is a bit of a stretch, it is still a possibility that Meg and her own father could encounter each other in the Trials. The question is, will she even recognize him?

Meg’s Ethical Dilemma

If you have not caught on yet, it should be obvious that Meg has some trouble deciphering between right and wrong. The most obvious example is when she made the decision to slash the tires of a police vehicle in order to obtain the respect from her track team. The dilemma here is that she can do what is morally right by not breaking the law by slashing tires or be welcomed with open arms by her track team by breaking said law. This also could refer back to the two sides of Meg, with one part of her personality being from her mother while the other being from her father. In this case, Meg possibly sticks with the mindset of her father.

However, this does not mean Meg always makes bad decisions in the long run. Another decision Meg came across was mentioned in her main paragraph of background information. Her mother ended up falling ill and Meg needed to make a choice: either stay in college to continue her studies and leave her mother to die or go back home to take care of her best idol who raised her all on her own. This time, Meg decides to go back to take care of her mother, displaying that rare compassionate side to Meg that I mentioned earlier. While some may bring up the argument that her mother may have wanted Meg to stay in college, Meg would most likely be overwhelmed with guilt for letting her mother die after all of the years she has taken care of her, therefore, making the call that she did.

The last example I want to mention is going back to Memory 553 and how Meg’s mother convinces Meg to not be like her negative-attitude opponent. Her mother gives her all of this positive advice in these pep-talks and it ends with this:

“Meg takes the pod and stares at it a moment, a long moment. Then she leaps across the table and embraces her mother and never wants to let go.”

Once again, we are shown the rare compassionate side to Meg, showing that she truly wants to do good with her life.

With that part of this Lore Dive covered, there is something else I wanted to discuss: Meg is one of the strongest survivors in Dead By Daylight.

Why Meg Is One Of The Strongest Survivors In Dead By Daylight

Not to be confused with from a gameplay standpoint (although that may be true in that case as well), Meg is one of the strongest characters from a lore standpoint. Let me explain.

We know that survivors that have a lot of hope last longer in The Entity’s Realm, as that is what it feeds off of. While the survivor loses a little hope each time they are sacrificed, it would still take a lot of sacrifices to finally turn them into an empty, emotionless shell at which point they are then thrown into The Void. Meg demonstrates the qualities of having high hopes as the pep-talks with her mother are most likely one of the main contributing factors keeping Meg alive today as well as her possibly knowing that running out of hope is what will get you killed for good as slightly referenced in the lesser-known background paragraph. 

“But as she runs from something, instead of towards it, she understands something. She understands that speed is not of the essence. It’s reaching that finish line. Rather last but still breathing. She deludes whatever is out there as she glides through obstacles and fear, thus managing to stay alive.”

Additionally, Mathieu Cote himself implied in an interview on the Resident Evil Chapter that Meg is one of the strongest survivors.

Q: “How do you guys pick who gets killed in these trailers?”

A: “The thing is, in our game, the jock, the action hero is Meg. She embodies that fit, powerful, confident, hero character. So whenever we really need to drive the point that this person (the new killer) could crush our hero, then that’s Meg. Meg is the jock in the game. She’s the tough one.”

With this being known, I am confident in saying that Meg Thomas is one of the strongest survivors, not only physically such as David King, but also in terms of a strong mental state such as Kate and Ace having high amounts of hope.

One additional theory, a theory that is the most far-fetched out of all of the ones I presented so far in this Lore Dive, but is still possible, is that Meg and The Hillbilly may be related.

Meg And The Hillbilly Could Be Related

While this is a massive stretch, there are still several connections that could make a decent argument that they are related. There are multiple points that are worth explaining:

• Both Meg and The Hillbilly are focused around speed and agility.
• Both names sound similar, having that ‘Tom’ part in their last name as well as a shortened version of their real names (Megan, Meg) (Maxwell, Max).
• Both were involved with law enforcement in negative ways.
• As I have said before, Unique Perks describe who a character is from a lore perspective and both Meg and The Hillbilly’s unique perks are similar.
• Quick & Quiet and Tinkerer both involve stealth and not being detected.
• Adrenaline and Enduring both involve having tolerance for pain.
• The only exception with a strong similarity is between Sprint Burst and Lightborn. However, you could maybe suggest that both Meg and The Hillbilly are adept runners and function well in bright environments such as the mornings.

The last possible piece of evidence that may suggest that Meg and The Hillbilly are related would be that there is a Terra World where the two are related. However, this has yet to be confirmed.

To end off this Lore Dive, I wanted to quickly discuss how Meg was captured by The Entity in case people may be confused.

How Meg Thomas Was Captured By The Entity

As always, let’s look at the criteria for how survivors are captured by The Entity:

1. The survivor has a significant amount of hope. This is good for The Entity since it solely feeds off of the hope of survivors. 
2. The survivor is lost. The best examples of this are the backstories from Dwight, Meg, Claudette, and Jake. All 4 of these survivors got lost in the woods, therefore, making them easy targets for The Entity to capture.
3. The survivor is in a critical situation. Situations like these are likely to be scenarios where if it weren’t for The Entity capturing the survivor, they would have died instead. A good example of this is when Adam Francis blocked the impact from a door hitting a girl during the train crash so it would instead hit him. This impact could have killed Adam, so The Entity captured him and is now using him to feed off of the hope from him.
4. The survivor knows or is involved with The Entity in some way. A perfect example of this would be members of The Imperiatti or The Pariahs such as Felix and Élodie as both were members of The Pariahs. Although The Imperiatti are the bigger threat to The Entity, The Pariahs could easily rise to be a bigger threat as they seem to be the next generation of The Imperiatti.

After looking over the possibilities, Meg falls under criteria #2; she is lost. There really is not much else to go off of as she simply got lost in the woods.

Thanks For Reading!

I appreciate you taking your time to read this! This was super overdue as I meant to get this out a lot earlier than planned, but things happened. As always, much of this information is only theorized, but I still had a fun time with this. Let me know what you think!

See you around,

icemancat

 

IlliterateGenocide

I think another possibility is megs father is just a deadbeat. I think that is one reason why they changed the original character design of meg and Claudette switching there race. They didn't want the fast runner, Fatherless, And School dropout to be black since I assume they thought it would play into stereotypes.