The release of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch [1] premiered a more interactive form of bingeing Netflix, the likes of which hadn't ever seen on the platform. The alluring "choose your own adventure [2]" film allows you to make decisions for the main character, computer game programmer Stefan Butler played by Fionn Whitehead, which influence how the film will end [3]. A main part of the story is that Stefan is developing a video game based on the book Bandersnatch by Jerome F. Davies. But who is the author?

No spoilers here since it's revealed early on, but Davies has a gruesome story. Driven insane by paranoia, he ends up decapitating his wife. He suffered from extreme delusions and believed she had been drugging him. Later on, which you can see in the trailer for the film [4], Stefan is holding a book titled The Lives of Jerome F. Davies — so we probably aren't the only ones wondering if this Davies guy is based on a real person.

Although the author isn't real, it's suspected that the character was based off of late science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. At a point in Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, you can even see a poster of Dick's futuristic novel Ubik. Many of his books address psychological struggles, much like Davies. (No, Philip K. Dick did not have a breakdown and murder anyone.) Although we don't have confirmation on the character inspiration, the connection between Dick and Davies is hard to ignore.