No, that’s the Front Man of all time.
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Considering one of the main points of the dream sequence is to deliberately invoke call-backs to past events (I.E, things 47 has done and experienced, hence the grave of Diana’s Parents and why every story target is a part of it and even surrounds you), I’m going to assume it is indeed canon.
I really don’t think the interpretation of that sequence goes any deeper than that.
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It also doesn’t hurt that the mission is called “The Showstopper” and the Opportunity/ Story Mission is also called “The Showstopper”
Plus, when remarking on Novikov in other levels, NPC’s reference the light fixture crushing him.
(Although, not all Dialogue is “canon” either 
e.g. the dialogue from Colorado of two soldiers discussing a puddle that killed dozens of people in Paris, which canonically did not happen but was a funny reference to Achievement Hunter)
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They do?!? Where?
20 characters
Those are easter eggs, funny things for people to find and listen to. It’s not really in narrative focus.
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Oh man, that would take forever to track down
I want to say it’s offhand conversation on Bangkok, but that would really just be guessing.
Not really, considering that each image seen in that sequence is dreamlike does not show what actually happened even if it were revisiting events. Grey is standing behind Novikov when we see the lights falling on him; that didn’t happen, plus it’s unlikely 47 was standing right in front of Novikov on the stage as they fell, so he could not have seen it for the angle he’s “remembering” it from, making it more likely that something g he visualized happening at the time is randomly popping into his head during this sequence. He never visited Grey’s funeral; the Partners were never standing in front of the New York clock, he’s never visited the graves of Diana’s parents. It’s not a trip down memory lane so much as thing that he’s had in his head that center around what he feels responsible for are swirling around and blending, both things that were real and things imagined. Novikov being killed the the lights, I maintain, is just the devs giving a nod to the most well-known kill method in that mission, due to its regular issues of not showing the challenge complete and they had to keep working on it.
Oo, interesting point!
Perhaps the real part is the light fixture crushing Novikov, while the figurative and dream-like aspect is 47 imagining himself from Novikov’s perspective 
In the beginning, Agent 47 never considered what his targets felt. However, as the main story progresses, 47’s past becomes more intertwined with the Targets. Reconnecting with Lucas Grey, he begins to open-up and feel again, especially after the Ether Antidote injection in H2.
Now that Diana has seemingly betrayed him, it’s possible that he’s experiencing “fear,” or at the very least, processing what it’s like to be a target – to be on the other end of his assassinations.
Definitely some “food for thought” on that one
Well, my point is that the light rig crushing Novikov couldn’t have happened at all because it kills other NPCs and 47 wouldn’t do that. He did overhear the two guards talking about what would happen if it fell, he likely visualized it as a possible way of dealing with Novikov, and what we’re seeing in that sequence is his visualization of it playing like an actual memory. The only way that actually, canonically happened without making 47 suddenly a killer of a large mass of innocent people, even if it is in an accident, is if we are supposed to ignore the other NPCs that die when it falls as a gameplay limitation, and that the actual story is that only Novikov died when it fell. But then, why doesn’t IOI just fix it so that no other NPCs are reported dead when it falls so we don’t have to imagine it? You see the inconsistency? So I don’t think seeing that image during that sequence is IOI saying that’s what really happened, but just a nod to it, and a wink to us, and it’s justified as being in 47’s mind in the first place because he once pictured it happening due to overhearing those two guards. That’s my take until IOI does something to solidify it otherwise.
However, if you cause an evacuation while Viktor is on stage, he will be the only person killed by the falling light fixture. This requires some challenging timing and a little RNG. But, since NPC’s can’t use agility to leave the catwalk, Viktor will have to run the catwalk backwards while other NPC’s run outside
OP makes a good point, Sato is not present in the dream and alive in Dubai. So 47 might have done a setup to do no Non-Target kills.
Look at the what happens in that dream sequence:
- 47 sees a still image of the light rig falling on Novikov
- 47 sees a still image of Soders in the KAI surgery machine
- 47 sees Grey in a coffin
- 47 walks up to the partners standing in front of the clock in New York
We then see all of the targets (no clues presented about kill methods here) and the “ocean of blood” with the constant standing in it. 47 briefly wakes up, sees the Constant, and goes back to sleep.
- 47 sees the constant dancing with Diana
- Grey tells 47 that he is just seeing his fears
- 47 sees the 3 Burnwood graves and says “She wants me dead - she chose power”
- Grey tells 47 that Diana didn’t really betray him
- Diana tells 47 he needs to embrace his past
- 47 kills Diana’s parents (again)
Items 3, 4 and 5 definitely did not happen. There is no doubt about this as there is no point in any of the games where those things are even possible.
Item 6 is the start of 47 “waking up”
Items 7 and 8 are just a continuation of 6 and serve to reinforce that 47 is just dreaming
Items 9 and 10 are 47 powering through the drugs that he has been given and preparing to take on the train.
While Item 2 did happen (Soders was in that machine), there is no indication in that still image that Soders died due to Kai malfunctioning or whether the surgeon killed him. We cannot assume that Item 2 reveals a canon mechanism for Soders’ death (especially given that the following 3 items did not happen as depicted).
Why, then, are we even discussing the possibility that the first image in that sequence shows a canon event? That light rig falling on Novikov is simply a dramatic image from that mission and nothing more. Assuming that, and only that, is a depiction of actual canon events seems spurious at best. Nothing that happens in that sequence should be considered factual until the moment that 47 again pulls the trigger and kills Diana’s parents.
I might go so far as to say that anything shown in that dream sequence up to that bomb going off factually did not happen as depicted.
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Yes, but then it’s not an “accident”, is it? An evacuation to clear people away means someone had to have set off the fire alarm or caused a separate explosion, and for 47 to be at or near Novikov’s level to see how he looked when crushed by the lights, he had to set off a bomb to make it fall on him, all of which defeats the purpose of using the lights in the first place and is no guarantee anyone else would be out of range of the lights falling on them.
I think @schatenjager’s analysis of the matter says it better than I have so far.
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…you mean Novikov.
Assuming that, and only that, is a depiction of actual canon events seems spurious at best.
That’s clearly the intention by the developers, and is in no way spurious to consider it canonical, or non-canon for that matter. It’s a pretty famous kill, and they decided to go with it. In order for it to be in his dream, he must’ve seen it happen, in some form.
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Yeah, I did. Corrected.
Massive props to @peloso
their “All Dialogue” project really helps with digging into this stuff.
The Strandberg dialogue is at 15:56 in the video:
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Oh Yeah, strandberg has A LOT of lines in Bangkok, and Eugene Cobb is referenced in many lines throughout the trilogy.
Unless he only envisioned it happening, and now his mind is replaying that visualization. After all, by that logic, seeing Grey’s funeral and the Partners in front of the clock would also have to have been seen by him if they were thrown in, to say nothing of Grey being on the stage behind Novikov during that sequence.
I have to disagree. If the developers “clearly intended” to show the canonical way that Novikov died, they wouldn’t have followed that image with a series of other images that absolutely did not happen. They would have included a series of things that either did happen or at least could have happened
- 47 could not have seen the partners standing in front of that clock.
- 47 could not have seen Grey laying in that coffin.
- 47 could not have seen the Constant dancing with Diana.
The dialog between Grey and 47 and then Diana and 47 pretty obviously telegraphs that 47 is not seeing things that actually happened.
I see no reason to think that the light rig is the one canonical thing in that sequence full of impossible things.
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Well, several lines of dialogue (especially in Bangkok) suggest that people suspect the Russian Mafia killed him, so it’s not like the world of hitman believes it was strictly an accident
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