Is Wagstaff in the Constant?

[-Variant]

So, here's a question.
Is Wagstaff actually in the Constant at any point of the main story?

I know he's in the Constant as a hologram. In both DST, and in DS, he's a projection.
As a projection he's able to interact with things physically, which explains why he's able to use tools and the like, and his method is even shown in the animated short "Projections".

But... the point of confusion comes from Winona's short, "Next of Kin" where we see a figured with yellow gloves being pulled into a portal.

This is later outright confirmed to be Wagstaff by Jeff Agala, who did the animatic for the scene.

This leads me to my main question... is this still canon?
In both DS and DST, he's outright a projection.
He appears in Hamlet's trailer as physical, both in gameplay and animated. He doesn't phase in/out, and even his gameplay shots are seemingly without any hint of projection. (Though, most likely all recorded at full health?)

Never is him being sucked into the portal brought up since- except, for... this last update. Sort of.

In the grand finale of the Lunar Arc, we see Wagstaff being grabbed and teleported away with by the Celestial Scion. When this happens, he drops his belongings, which everyone says are physical.
What caught my attention is that, when datamining before this was finished, I found he had his other Yellow Glove. I assumed this would've came with his defeat in the full release, but it's nowhere to be seen, telling me it was scrapped for one reason or another.
(I don't believe the early rushed release effected this specifically, as all his drops are non-functional decorative items.)

This to me tells me that they remembered the scene, made the sprite for the glove, and are either A; excluding it due to canonicity problems, or are B; saving it for later.
I'm not sure what to make of this yet.

[NeoDeusMachina]

Not sure if the right place to post this but, what if it's all some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy loop kind of thing? With Wagstaff broadcasting from wherever/whenever he is as a grainy transmission into the Constant to "guide" the survivors and ensure the loop is kept intact, i.e., ensuring he ends up being grabbed by the Scion so as to avoid some sort of paradox should the loop be broken?  Another explanation is that I might have had too much coffee today.

[Dragonboooorn]

Hes exactly where he wanted to be.

I suppose hes in Hamlet now. From old quotes, he wants to take nightmare fuel and other neat stuff to real world - but he cant, maybe because hes trapped now?. And if I recall correctly, he did pulled up a giant by (real world standarts) spider to "human realm". So he obviously hadnt any problems then, but cant go back in solo DS. Interesting if you ask me. 

Looks like Lunar Gods took pity on him and brought him to Hamlet instead of cringy Together world

Edited June 16, 2025 by Dragonboooorn

[Dr. Safety]

I think that the yellow glove thing was just them realizing that Wagstaff only has yellow gloves in the short, and his in game model is always bare handed. Unless they changed it at some point, they added white gloves to him only in the final sequence after the Scion boss fight. They probably made the yellow glove and then realized that it wouldn't make sense, so they added gloves to him and made him drop a white one instead.

I think hamlet/singleplayer took place before him being an NPC in together, and he was scoping out plans. Then he started making radios to get people pulled in because he would need desperate people to help him work on stuff. Then when the radio company caught fire, I don't think that he was actually pulled in, but I have no evidence to back that up. I just dont like the idea of him ever physically being in the Constant (until now)

[Random Guy000]

EDIT: Apparently Wagstaff disappearing was a bug so everything written here is BS

I'm kinda confused by the fact that he was... actually affected by the scions BS (whatever it was)?

We already have a case of him just nuh-uh-ing a very powerful force (by fading out of existence or smth) with him disappearing from the shadow throne, so why didn't he pull the same trick again?

This isn't helped by his dialog after the fight where he "Doesn't understand" what's happening to him, so it doesn't seem like he wanted it to happen

Anyways, we should just wait for until the devs explain everything themselves because as of now, the way I see it, it's safe to say that even they aren't sure what the **** they want us to think, and if they do, then explanations will come soon

Writers breaking their own established rules is kinda annoying

Edited June 16, 2025 by Random Guy000

[-Variant]

1 minute ago, Random Guy000 said:

with him disappearing from the shadow throne, so why didn't he pull the same trick again?

This was a bug! He alongside a few other characters vanished due to a missing entry, this has been fixed now!

[Random Guy000]

1 minute ago, -Variant said:

This was a bug! He alongside a few other characters vanished due to a missing entry, this has been fixed now!

Oh! damn

I actually have to think about lore now

Thanks for the quick reply

[Deerclops Mika]

Unfortunately, I am also at a loss and have no idea whether Wagstaff was in Constanta or not. And if he was there physically, could he get out of there?

In the "Lunar Machinations" trailer, he clearly tries to build a portal to somewhere (presumably to the real world), but he fails. And it's not the first time he fails, we remember that he created the Unnatural Portal, which is only capable of teleporting something to the Constant, but not vice versa. And he also created a bunch of portals (some with Wilson) in different places. But on the other hand, he still somehow ended up in the real world after 1921 (when Wilson built the portal) and some how got a Spider. If you recall the Webber short film, there is a license plate on the Wagstaff car (the same car did not have a plate in 1906), and Webber himself in SW is one of the few characters who knows what a car license plate is. At the same time, Webbe does not know what a hair dryer is (in the form in which it is presented in DST), although they were created in 1920. License plates were popularized after 1918, which means that "Along Came a Spider" take place in 1918 - 1920. Which means that Wagstaff could have gotten the spider around this time.

However, I'm not sure if Wagstaff got the spider himself, since in the Warly short we see pictures of him catching fish that don't exist in our world (they refer to real fish by their names, but are not them), which may indicate that they really did get to the real world from Constant. Also in the Wendy short we have flowers from Constant, and in the Webber short we have a butterfly from Constant.

Btw, a slightly crazy theory about flowers:

Spoiler

In the Wendy short, DS/DST flowers grow everywhere. And the flowers that Abigail falls into do not grow naturally in DS/DST, they can only be created with Nightmare Fuel. However, these flowers are not real-world flowers, at least not recognized by Wickerbottom, and they are also on Winona's board and (presumably) Webber'a father has a picture of them. Could Abigail's flowers have been an experiment Wagstaff conducted on the flowers from Constant? If so, it would mean that the real-world Wagstaff could have pulled out the butterfly and given it to Webber's father for inspection, which would explain how butterfly ended up at the beginning of the short film "Along Came a Spider". I also believe that the reason Jack Carter's place of residence is not similar to what was stated in the Willam Carter Puzzle is that they had to leave because of "The Corona Road Races" which took place right where Carter lived. They could have left because, as was written in a letter from Carter, he really doesn't like noisy places. Therefore, a house far from the city was chosen, which was possibly sold just because of the exotic unknown flowers.

 

 

[Waywarbler]

I wonder if he managed to create a smaller, prototype exit portal at some point to escape the Constant, and is now trying to recreate that on a larger scale.

Where is that smaller portal? idk maybe it got torn apart and eaten by rock lobsters.

[Szczuku]

If shadows can kidnap people from the real world into the Constant then why wouldn't the moon be able to?

In my opinion Klei has shadow-retconned Winona's cinematic into not being canon in regards to Wagstaff. He has never been physically in the Constant until Scion grabbed him

Edited June 16, 2025 by Szczuku

[mathem99]

We don't really have many clues to craft a decent theory at this point. Either KLei has thrown a story-line about the game that needs to progress more to be tangible or they're just winging it as they go along (the latter which I hope is *NOT* true...)

Anyhow, I'll throw my cent into this:

Wagstaff is seen in some shorts being able to project himself with the Projector used to record the Final Act of The Great Maxwell. It seems the projector, further modified by him I assume, makes him appear distorted in the world, BUT other shorts show him being able to move around in the real world WHILE he's in The Constant doing his devious deeds, see this video at this timestamp. You can see him working on a portal (that is NEVER brought up in-game may I say even though it's been showcased many times in KLei's shorts) with Wilson but at the same time he's able to move in the real world differently and switch off the Voxola Radio. Has the projector been modified in a way capable of projecting multiple instances of himself on the Constant?

Now, about his silly portals: we see he was the sole reason behind the creation of the Moon Quay Island, due to an leak caused by a portal of his. You can also see in that short that he is leaving the island BEFORE it explodes. Makes me think that it was planned prior to cause a leak in order to create the Island. Maybe this was in hopes of creating an island for Wagstaff to get rid of Pearl? In which case it was premeditated that Wagstaff would find a suitable, bigger island for Pearl to relocate to in order for Wagstaff to create the W.A.R.B.OT in her island for... whatever reason. This is too far-fetched you may think? Well, take a gander of these quotes of Wagstaff when you give him a wrong map:

Spoiler

    WAGSTAFF_GOT_MAPSCROLL_BAD = {
        "This is no good. It has to have my... an island on it.",
        "This map is useless. That crab will only move to another island.",
        "Try again. Bring me a map to the primate island.",
    },

It has to have *my*...

Bring me a map to the *PRIMATE ISLAND*

Now onto the main subject -Variant brought up. We see that his Clipboard is used in some of his animations to jot down notes, that's nothing weird to see *IF* he's been manifested into the Constant from the real world. His white glove? That, too, is not weird to see, in many of his shorts we see him with, I have to admit, *grey* gloves on that looks almost identical to his. We also see Wagstaff wearing gloves in the new main menu. So both of his items make sense to exist physically if he was grabbed by the Celestial Scion.

Where's Wagstaff now? My guess is that the real Wagstaff is still alive in the real world but the projector of his is now broken! Unable to project himself to the constant. My guess on what happens now? Well, the portal we see him building with Wilson earlier in the shorts is a fail-safe of his that will allow him to enter the Constant! Does that mean Wagstaff will be playable? I'm not a big fan of this idea, but yes, it seems the most logical conclusion to me. His projector is broken, he's in the real world with no way to interact with the Constant, he has a portal ready to travel through to the Constant!

Well, that's all I got to be frank. As I said in the beginning we don't really have MUCH to go on from, but now that the Lunar arc is finished does that mean we won't see Wagstaff again? Mmm... I think not, we'll see him again.

Edited June 16, 2025 by mathem99

[-Variant]

1 hour ago, mathem99 said:

Where's Wagstaff now? My guess is that the real Wagstaff is still alive in the real world but the projector of his is now broken! Unable to project himself to the constant. My guess on what happens now?

Honestly, this'd be a sick course, having the projector's output being taken, thus breaking the projector itself... BUT, I have to assume the Wagstaff being grabbed by the Scion is the real deal, specifically because for the cutscene of him being grabbed, up to the point where he looks at his hands, he has the projection FX, but then it fades away entirely.

This, the items he dropped being real, and the code for this effect being named "Materialize" all sort of tell me the real one got grabbed.
I think the idea here is that he's being directly pulled through his own projection.

[Curly Bill]

13 hours ago, mathem99 said:

BUT other shorts show him being able to move around in the real world WHILE he's in The Constant doing his devious deeds, see this video at this timestamp. 

I just noticed that in the timestamp, the glove shown is yellow, but his projection does not.. Intentional? Is there another player at hand? Wait, why does he sometimes have yellow gloves, and then sometimes doesnt???

Edited June 17, 2025 by Curly Bill

[Bumber64]

2 hours ago, Curly Bill said:

I just noticed that in the timestamp, the glove shown is yellow, but his projection does not.. Intentional? Is there another player at hand? Wait, why does he sometimes have yellow gloves, and then sometimes doesnt???

Easy. He has two sets of gloves.

[Frosty_Mentos]

I do kinda want Klei confirmation if there was a retcon that happened.

[Draggofroot]

In the update trailer that introduced WOBOT, he is shown to not be a hologram, and in the host of horrors trailer he's shown to reside in wilson's home with the portal still on. It is safe to assume that he just "goes" to the constant using his projector and only is physically there when he needs to bring something back using Wilson portal.

[Juanasdf]

Yes, he is in the constant now. My 100% lore accurate theory is he'll come back as a Bright Boxer skin.

Edited June 18, 2025 by Juanasdf

[Detta]

i think with all the portals he's seen building in various animated shorts (and the portal that transported WX to the constant in his rework short) wagstaff can actually build portals TO and FROM the constant

so the reason he's a hologram sometimes and other times not is because he's (kind of) free to leave as he wishes, whether it be to transport a spider from the constant and into the real world for webber's dad or to sample lunar magic, etc

 

of course...this begs the question

if he's the ONLY person who has access to the constant from the safety of his laboratory/wilson house, why doesn't he free the survivors and be the hero of dst? because he's robert wagstaff

this guy doesn't do ANYTHING unless there's something in it for HIM—evacuating people from a collapsing theater after maxwell's final act? just taking advantage of the confusion to snatch some quick and easy jewelry

TLDR the only individual who could('ve) realistically free(d) EVERY survivor from their years of misery is easily the most selfish human being in the DST canon and i love him <3

[Dr. Safety]

Oh yeah... this thread. At least we got some clarification on the alleged inconsistency from the Winona short

[Detta]

23 hours ago, Dr. Safety said:

Oh yeah... this thread. At least we got some clarification on the alleged inconsistency from the Winona short

nah nah nah not an inconsistency he's just goofing off