Who is the Watchman in Alice in Borderland Season 3? Speculations explored

Alice in Borderland Season 3 plays a really unusual card: it introduces a character in the last few minutes of the season. Now, this is someone who feels less like a player in the game and more like a scholar of existence itself.

The Watchman seems not to be a ruler, nor a designer of these mind games, but someone who has taken up the unsettling role of being a witness to death.

His very title, "The Watchman," suggests distance. He only watches but does not act, at least not directly. Yet, if you flip the coin, his conversation with Arisu makes it clear that he holds knowledge of Borderland, knowledge that even the Citizens could never fully grasp.

But who is the Watchman exactly in Alice in Borderland Season 3? Is he the Joker in another form, or perhaps is he something closer to a failed immortal clinging to the edge of life and death? His being on the last few minutes of the show feels less like a plot twist and more like a philosophical shift, forcing AIB fans to rethink everything we thought we first understood about Borderland.

He is less an answer than a riddle, a presence that reframes survival not as victory, but as choice.

The Watchman as a gatekeeper of the threshold in Alice in Borderland Season 3

In Alice in Borderland Season 3, the Watchman is neither the ruler nor the architect of these deadly games that we've now known for three seasons. Instead, he has an entirely different role to hold on to. He's the kind of guy who ferries souls into the afterlife.

Arisu and The Watchman from Alice in Borderland Season 3 (Image Via. Netflix)

His very conversation with Arisu is a telltale sign of this. The Watchman himself admits that he is not the one who rules Borderland, nor is he the one who invented its rules. He simply observes and he simply watches while maintaining order at the very edges of existence.

What makes this character so compelling is his motivation. The Watchman claims that he stays at the border of this realm because he himself fears death itself. That single confession humanizes him in an odd way. Unlike the Citizens who chose immortality to play endlessly, his choice to "watch" seems more like an avoidance of his own inevitable end.

This makes him feel less like a traditional villain and more like someone who has been trapped in his own bargain. If Borderland is a place that mirrors purgatory, the Watchman feels like its guard. A guard who endlessly stands at the gates, not out of duty, but out of fear of what lies beyond them.

The Joker’s shadow: Symbol or identity?

One of the biggest fan debates around Alice in Borderland Season 3 is whether the Watchman is secretly the Joker card, but only now, quite literally personified. The show cleverly sidesteps this theory by having the Watchman insist that the Joker is "just a card."

Arisu, The Watchman & The Joker from Alice in Borderland Season 3 (Image Via. Netflix)

Yet this denial does not erase the possibility that the Joker exists more as an ideology than a person. In that sense, the Watchman could very well be the living embodiment of this idea: the one who bridges the gap between life and death without truly belonging to either side.

It is also worth noting how the Watchman behaves compared to other characters of Borderland. Citizens like Banda and Yaba clearly want control, designing games to satisfy their obsessions. The Watchman, by contrast, avoids interference unless the rules are threatened.

His presence feels less like a game maker and more like a referee in a contest too large for mortals to grasp. If the Joker symbolizes chaos, perhaps the Watchman exists as its counterbalance, yet is essential in maintaining the fragile balance of the realm.

What The Watchman's warning means for the future

The Watchman's final conversation with Arisu might be the most important scene of Alice in Borderland Season 3. He warns of an impending disaster, one even Arisu cannot stop, and suggests that countless lives will be lost and dead. His request for Arisu to remain as a citizen feels less like manipulation and more like desperation. If Borderland is about to be "flooded" with new players due to disasters in the real world, the Watchman seems to recognize his own limitations.

This here opens the door for speculation about the show's future. Could the Watchman be preparing to step down, passing his role as the watcher onto someone else? Perhaps his interactions with Arisu mark the beginning of a transition, one where the "watching" will no longer satisfy him.

It is also possible that the earthquakes teased at the end of their conversation hint at a global event, pushing Borderland to its breaking point. In that case, the Watchman's role may or may not evolve from mere observer to an unwilling participant. His fear of death might finally come forward with the responsibility he has long evaded.

The Watchman in Alice in Borderland Season 3 is not a simple foe but a puzzle piece placed intentionally to deepen the mythology of Borderland. Whether he is the Joker in disguise or merely a coward hiding from death, his existence changes how we view Borderland itself.

He is both a character as well as a symbol, standing at the very edge of existence and asking Arisu and us what it means to choose life over an endless limbo.

Whatever his true identity, one thing is certain: The Watchman has made sure that the story of Borderland is far from over.

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Also read: What happens to Tetsu in Alice in Borderland Season 3?