#not actual spoilers im just throwing crackpot theories out

[mages-ballad]

also my hopes for Solution 9 is that if its ascian related, its that altima and deudalaphon are involved and its funny. like they faked their deaths, let gaius have their masks, and are just kinda chilling and built a whole city. not even interested in the zodiark stuff like theyve just been doing their own thing now.

i dont mind more ascian lore and involvement but i would like to see them no longer in the position of being the Big Bads with this new story arc

[flusteredmountainman]

Muriel route speculation as told by an English lit major (lol)

OK so i kjnakjffae am procrastinating doin uni stuff so im going to throw together some thoughts I had yesterday about Muriel’s route and his themes of isolation/family being a running theme throughout all the characters stories + foreshadowing for his route in details from the game + in the meaning of his patron arcana card.

Spoilers for the upright and reversed endings for asra, nadia and julian’s routes obvi, Speculation for Muriel’s route, and spoilers for the side stories Travel at Night and Dawn of the Grub

So basically I realised as well about a week ago that each character’s upright and reversed endings can be guessed from the upright and reversed meanings of their patron arcana’s tarot card, which are as follows for the main 3:

Asra (The Magician)

Upright:  Now is the time to take action, before all comes to naught. Stay focused: You have a job to do.

Asra concentrates on the goal of saving the world and the two of you end up in a happy, independent relationship because he isn’t distracted by the compulsion to help/protect you constantly

Reversed:  Be wary of lies from the mouths of charismatic charmers. They will not keep their promises

You and Arsa make a deal with the devil in the understanding that you’ll eventually be able to reach your friends again, but you both forget about your previous lives as an unforeseen consequence 

Nadia (The High Priestess)

Upright:  Listen to your dreams; allow intuition to guide you. All will be revealed in time.

Nadia trusts you (from her past when she was in her coma) and her own intuition and you defeat the devil together

Reversed:  Be careful of losing touch with your intuition. Do not close your mind to the world's mysteries.

Nadia becomes impatient, deciding she’s the only one she can rely on closes off her own options by becoming too single-minded - sacrificing her humanity to the devil

Julian (The Hanged Man)

Upright:  Sometimes, the best strategy is a swift retreat. Take time to regroup and re-examine your options.

Julian listens to you in the confrontation with the devil, you regroup with all the people who care about him and defeat the devil as a team

Reversed:  Be careful of stagnation- your own goals have value. They don't deserve to be put on hold.

He sacrifices himself and his own goals to save you, and as a result ends up living as a demon stagnating in his own private version of hell - becoming less and less human

So! We can look the explanations of The Hermit to try and figure out what his plot is going to look like. So we have:

Upright:  Look inside yourself for the answers you seek. Take time for introspection in the days ahead.

Reversed:  Be wary of retreating too far within your own mind. Others still have valuable things to share.

I feel like these are fairly self-explanatory - in the upright ending you help him recover from his trauma and come to terms with himself and his past - we’ve already seen a lot of the way he just. doesn’t think at all about his own comfort or emotions because it’s clearly too painful in his first couple of books.

In the reversed ending, we may still convince him that his feelings are valid - but that might cause him to reject the reality of his trauma and sever ties with other around him - isolating with you perhaps?

Another thing I’ve been thinking a lot about is connection and how that would relate to his upright and reversed endings. Connection and support with other people besides MC are huge components of the romance arcs for the first 3. 

In Nadia’s upright route, you support her in reconnecting with her family, and she learns that she can ask people for help and rely on them to support her, but in her reversed ending you let her keep you like a pet, she doesn’t reconnect with her family, and she becomes single-minded and isolated.

For Julian, in his upright route he also learns that he doesn’t have to sacrifice himself for those he cares about - and that they’ll support him and fight with him no matter what. In his reversed ending, his self-sacrificing tendencies are encouraged and he ends up alone and isolated, and in this ending MC also has the option to stay with him in his realm forever instead of reconnecting him with his family.

Asra’s upright arc revolves around learning that the two of you are individuals, and that he doesn’t have to constantly worry about your wellbeing and can focus on himself. He is reunited with his family and maintains meaningful relationships with other characters. In his reversed ending, you become his whole world and the two of you literally forget anyone else exists - isolating yourselves in your own world. 

I think that this is going to be especially poignant in Muriel’s route - especially because he already isolates so much. I was reflecting on the role of family (both found and blood) in the routes of the other characters and I was considering how this might manifest for Muriel. 

I was specifically thinking about his past - he was made homeless because Lucio’s tribe attacked his village and his parents had to give him away so they wouldn’t starve. Obviously he hasn’t seen them since they abandoned him, but I’ve replayed two of the side stories recently - Travel at Night and Dawn of the Grub. 

We know that a lot of Muriel’s preferences and personality are shaped by the culture he left behind. His favourite colour is green - the colour of his tribe (evidenced by his blanket which was all he had left from them), his favourite animal is a bear (the animal of his tribe - mentioned in Dawn of the Grub), and his favourite flower is the forget-me-not - which is only found growing in colder regions in the South etc etc etc. 

I’d been wondering at the circumstances of Inanna’s relationship to Muriel - it’s not like it’s common for wolves to ever be without a larger pack, and in Muriel’s first chapter it’s clear she’s highly intuitive and intelligent, plus she’s been described as his “wolf mom” by the devs. When I replayed Dawn of the Grub I noticed something that stuck out a little more - which was that specifically when Lucio is talking about neighboring tribes he mentions just two - ones symbolised by bears and one symbolised by wolves. I know this is a tiny detail and I may be Reaching but lol hear me out. 

It got me thinking about how in other routes the LI ends up reconnecting with blood family in their upright endings. Asra spent at least two decades thinking his parents were dead, but you help him reunite with them. I feel like it’s too much of a coincidence that Inanna watches over/protects Muriel like a maternal figure (that he hasn’t had for a very long time) combined with the fact that the writing specifically mentioned Muriel’s neighboring tribe as being symbolised by wolves, and the fact that we know nothing about his actual family besides that they abandoned him. We only really get to know anything about Asra’s parents in  his route - they’re mentioned in Julian’s, but we don’t find anything out about them in Nadia’s either.

My crackpot theory: Inanna was either sent by Muriel’s family (who survived and are living with the wolf tribe) or by Muriel’s neighboring tribe to keep an eye on him. I don’t think this is such a huge leap especially when you consider that a Lot of animals have been shown to talk to each other/communicate telepathically with people (Malak, Faust, Cameo, and Inanna understanding what you’re saying when you first meet her in Muriel’s arc). I think that in his arc his family might try to reconnect with him - which may be facilitated by Morga’s presence - especially since she’s not a huge part of any of the other arcs besides being present at the ritual. 

I think that a big factor as to whether or not you get his upright or reversed end will be if you encourage him to reconnect or support him in his isolation. It’d be easy to see why he wouldn’t accept them if they tried to contact him - it’s been a couple of decades and they abandoned him, so of course he would be hurt, frustrated, and want nothing to do with them. I get the feeling that if you tell him that he’s valid in wanting to do nothing with them, it will contribute to his reversed ending (isolation), whereas if you’ve brought enough attention to how he’s feeling so that he can work on himself, constructively managing his feelings, and healing from his past then it will contribute to his upright ending. 

Also there’s such a like. dumb teeny tiny line of dialogue that i haven’t been able to stop thinking about, I really can’t remember specifically which route it’s in (either Asra’s or in heart hunter somewhere) where another character comments how he and Asra could be brothers (i think it’s Asra)? And Muriel replies that he doesn’t have any brothers. At first I thought that this was a wink to asriel content in Nadia’s route - that he doesn’t consider Asra a brother bc he might have romantic feelings for him, OR that he doesn’t consider Asra a brother because Asra is nonbinary, however, it might not be that as Nazali is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns but is still referred to as one of Nadia’s sisters? Another option that I’ve been pondering is that it’s a breadcrumb specifically for his route around him actually having siblings who might have been born after he was abandoned! The little line would specifically make sense if he didn’t have any brothers, but might have a sister/sisters instead, and this line would still make sense in its context after more of Muriel’s route comes out.

EDIT: I found it! It’s not actually in the game, but was an ask answered for Muriel’s birthday by the devs here

I feel like it’d also be interesting because it’d provide a different dynamic for Muriel in working out his own feelings about his parents particularly - especially around feeling replaced and unwanted. I also tbh desperately want Muriel to have a younger sibling kjnakkjaf give me good big brother Muriel!!! 

Anyway! A very long post but I’m highly excited to see what comes in his route! I’m going to cry!