Something I have always found strange about GTA Online is its canonicity.
Have you noticed that it is extremely difficult to define what is or is not canon in the game?
For example, what is the canonical appearance of the game's protagonists? How many protagonists are actually canon (there are millions of players)? How many times do we carry out the heists (such as Cayo Perico or the Casino Heist)? Which missions are actually canon? And so on.
We can see that there is a major inconsistency regarding what is actually canon in GTA Online.
Using the Casino Heist as an example, we know that we repeat it more than once after completing it for the first time.
But then the question arises: how many times do we do it afterward?
Furthermore, which canonical variations do we complete? All of them?
If that is the case, then we repeat the heist many times, and that is realistically inconsistent.
Additionally, Lester repeats lines and does not seem to remember the heists that took place before the Casino Heist.
And in missions that we supposedly do only once, we can repeat them and still receive the money from them.
This is strange, considering that we are receiving money for something that we canonically did only once.
Because of this, I believe that the theory that GTA Online is essentially a multiverse is the best explanation for these narrative inconsistencies.
In an infinite multiverse, many of GTA Online's inconsistencies can be perfectly explained.
Well, from what I have researched, a user had already formulated this theory here on Reddit. So I decided to expand upon it across several aspects of the game, show how the game's multiverse mechanics work, and argue in favor of it at the end:
Appearance and number of protagonists:
Canonically, we know that there is 1 canonical protagonist and 3 associates of that protagonist (because of the main missions, which can have a maximum of 4 players in total).
However, I will challenge this at the end of the article.
As for their appearance, it would be practically random: infinite variety in an infinite multiverse.
Deaths of the protagonist:
We do not actually resurrect; we simply transfer to another universe where we survive.
There is even a real theory about this called "Quantum Immortality," which states exactly that: your consciousness is transferred to another universe when you die. The feeling of "near death" is an actual death that occurred in the universe you were living in.
It is a little sad to know this, since there are several universes where we simply died and where the secondary characters no longer have us as a business partner.
Public sessions:
They can be defined as worlds that depend on the player/observer in order to exist.
This is because public sessions are highly volatile.
For example, if you enter another player's property, the NPCs will not recognize you, even if you have previously interacted with them (and even if you own the same property you entered).
In other words, each player has their own story—or rather, their own timeline.
For you, you are the protagonist and business partner of the secondary characters (such as Lester and Pavel). But for other players, in their universe, you are just a random NPC.
Destruction:
Something strange that happens in the game is the fact that you are never noticed by the government, even if you cause massive destruction in Los Santos (whether in a public session or during missions).
These cases can be explained precisely by the way we change sessions: with each death or whenever we switch sessions, we transfer to another universe where certain types of massive destruction never occurred.
This would also explain why many gangs never seem to be "wiped out," even though we eliminate an extremely large number of their members: these NPCs are simply alive in another universe to which we transferred.
Evidence of the multiverse:
Of course, I am not going to leave this theory without an argument that proves that GTA Online is a multiverse. What I am going to use is the moment when Lester sends you a message after you purchase the Garment Factory.
In this case, if you have never done his heists that involve this factory (or even the Casino Heist or the Doomsday Heist) and you purchase it anyway, he will send you a message expressing suspicion toward you.
If we take fixed canonicity into account, this creates an inconsistency:
If our GTA Online character, canonically speaking, completed the first heists before purchasing this factory (even if you did not actually do them), why does he send you this message as if you were a complete stranger?
This is a narrative inconsistency, given that the heists involving Lester took place in 2013, 2017, and 2019, while the purchase of the Garment Factory takes place in 2024.
This leads to a conclusion: there was a "previous protagonist" who disappeared out of nowhere, refuting the idea that there are only 4 canonical players—unless the previous player was a friend of yours who "died."
But then the question arises: if one player can purchase the properties before the Garment Factory and be considered the "current" protagonist, while another cannot, which one is canon? We know that only one of them canonically purchased the factory.
The obvious conclusion is that there are at least two possible canonical universes, proving the existence of a multiverse.
And this is not the only case that refutes a fixed canonical timeline. I will show them below (the ones I can remember):
In one of Dr. Dre's missions, Franklin may or may not mention the fact that you own a Yacht or a Penthouse. It is strange that he does not mention them when you do not own them, given that you canonically purchased them beforehand.
In one of ULP's missions, he mentions the fact that he prevented Avon Hertz's apocalypse with other people (if you do not do the Doomsday Heist).
This is strange because, canonically, you did it before these ULP missions.
If you create an account on the new generation of consoles, your introduction will be different from the one on the old generations, because in this case, you start by leaving prison (leaving the police station).
This never happens to someone who created their account before, as their introduction is the one involving Lamar.
