THEORIES AND SPECULATION
DARMOOR’S PLAN:
Darmoor’s ultimate aim is to destroy the Overseers by manifesting them in a physical form through the Worldheart, which will allow an Adversary to kill them and remove their influence from the universe permanently.
To do this, he plans to have the player restore the Worldheart’s power and fuse with it, which will cause the Overseers to use them as a Vessel. Simultaneously, he intends to have his Apostles create an Adversary loyal to him so that they can kill the player after the Overseers possess them.
In regard to Kaling:
He recruited her specifically because of her research, which wasn’t simply to create an Adversary, but an extremely powerful Adversary augmented from the power amassed by the Four Perils.
He gave her a portion of his Transcendent powers in order to help her create a Vessel and a Godsphere. Kaling performed experiments in Yum Yum Island to create a Vessel and a Godsphere, but she was unable to fully replicate either.
It was mentioned by Shensung the monkey elder that Darmoor had given up on Kaling the moment that she failed to acquire Taotie from Hoyoung. He also chose to free the elders, believing that they would be able to succeed where Kaling failed
It is possible that Darmoor had hoped for her to create an Adversary strong enough to kill the Overseers, and when she failed to deliver results, he sacrificed her to power the Worldheart.
In regard to Ypsilon:
Ypsilon was likely given his power to extract by Darmoor, and it’s very likely that his abilities stem from a portion of Darmoor’s Transcendent powers, which - similarly with Kaling - were given to help him create a Vessel and a Godsphere.
Ypsilon is absorbing massive amounts of life force and magic from his enemies, likely to augment his Adversary, similar to the Four Perils consuming monsters to amass power.
His Malice Stone experiments are possibly an experiment to see whether he can weaponize the power of an Ancient God to use against the Overseers, or to create his own personal army.
After he revived Luska, he extracted her memories - which likely led to an erasure of her ego, similar to the elders’ experiments in Odium - and he intends to use her as a Vessel of the Adversary.
His power of extraction may possibly be because he intends to extract the residual power of the Worldheart, and similarly to how he creates Malice Stones or Memory Stones, he may be hoping to create a Seal Stone in the form of a Godsphere, just as Freud created the Seal Stones by extracting the power of the Godspheres from beneath the continent.
However, as the limitation on his power is that he needs to absorb whatever he extracts into his own body, it’s possible that he can’t create a Godsphere because he isn’t a Vessel and can’t hold the divine power of the Worldheart within him, which is why Darmoor recruited the elders to create a Godsphere, as it’s the only missing element in the plan that none of the Apostles can replicate.
Kain’s exclusive dialogue in Cernium talks about how dangerous the combination of Malice and a Seal Stone is, as these two opposing powers of the Ancient Gods and the Overseers are in conflict with each other. It’s possible that Ypsilon hopes to use these opposite powers as a way to create an extremely potent Adversary through Luska, combined with all the life force and magic that he’s absorbed.
During Khali’s Aftermath cutscene, Ypsilon tells her that he can’t afford to be killed by her “yet”, possibly implying that he’s aware about Darmoor’s plan to have the Adversary absorb the Transcendent powers inside all the Apostles to power the Worldheart.
In regard to Limbo:
Unlike the other Apostles, Limbo is instead trying to create a special Specter, as this type of Specter is capable of tricking the holy relics of the gods into awakening, as seen with Gilmore attempting to trick Azor into awakening for him as the Chosen One.
He’s also harvesting bioenergy, as seen with him draining the life force of Verdel, possibly as a means to enhance his special Specter.
It’s likely that his interest in the Abyssal Source is a personal interest of his, as it contains “infinite knowledge” that only one who has been inside the Abyss and retained their memories can access.
In regard to Havoc:
There isn’t much information about Havoc, but given that he’s a pure-blood demon, his backstory might tie into the demons of Tynerum attempting to steal the power of a Transcendent for themselves.
In regard to Magnus:
Although there isn’t much information about Magnus, we know that he was able to survive Kaiser’s final attack because of Darmoor’s power inside of him, suggesting that he might have a trace of Darmoor’s Transcendent powers inside him, which may be claimed by the Adversary through the Worldheart.
He also came into contact with the Black Mage, suggesting that he might be a link between the two, possibly tying together their plans to defeat the Overseers.
His only ambition is to become the strongest warrior in Grandis, suggesting that he might be hoping to become a Vessel.
In regard to Veronica:
Although Veronica hasn’t been confirmed to be an Apostle yet, it’s likely that she is one. Her only actions have been to find keys to awakening the Ancient Gods, which may be because Darmoor intends to have the gods awaken so that the Adversary can drain their power to restore the Worldheart
In regard to Melange:
Melange has been tasked with finding Tana and the Genesis Crux, which contains the Transcendent powers of the Black Mage. It’s possible that Darmoor hopes to have the Worldheart absorb Tana and the Genesis Crux in order to restore its power.
It’s possible that the High Flora invasion is meant to lead the Alliance towards the Ancient Gods, such as how the Cernium invasion was an excuse to have the Adversary learn about the Seal Stones, the power of the Adversary, and the Ancient Gods, which is why Darmoor used Chronica’s power to restore the library and give the Alliance more information about the gods, with the intent that they will seek out the gods in order to use their power against him, even though this will ultimately result in the Worldheart draining the power of the gods.
Darmoor’s belief that all other races - including the High Flora - are lower life forms might stem from his belief that the Overseers’ influence has led living things on a path to self-destruction, which is why he intends to remake life by destroying the Overseers once and for all, similar to the Black Mage and his desire to create a perfect world free from the Overseers’ influence.
As the Adversary continues to restore the Worldheart, Darmoor hopes to have his Apostles finish creating an Adversary loyal to him, augmented with enough strength to kill the Overseers.
After the Adversary restores the Worldheart, they might try to fuse with it in order to restore their powers and kill Darmoor. However, Darmoor will have intended for them to do this, which is when he intends to have the Overseers seize control of the Adversary.
The Worldheart in KMS is directly translated as the “heart of the world”, and given that the Overseers are known as the “will of the world”, it might be that the heart needs to be placed inside a body (a Vessel) to allow the will, or the brain, to manifest as the Overseers, who are normally abstract beings with no physical form.
Given that Darmoor was able to cause Mitra to possess Seren in Cernium - who had been recognized as the Chosen One by the holy relic of Mitra - it might be possible that Darmoor can manifest the consciousness of a god by using a Vessel recognized as worthy by their relic, and in this way, he can force the Overseers to possess the Adversary after they restore the Worldheart and fuse with it.
It’s possible that somewhere along the way, Darmoor’s plan gets messed up and it ends up that his Adversary ends up being the one fused with the Worldheart, and the player will need to fuse with a Godsphere in order to become an Adversary again and defeat the Overseers, who are now possessing a Vessel augmented with massive amounts of energy, originally meant to be enough to kill the Overseers.
FUNCTION OF THE GODDESSES:
In the original RED Explorer storyline, the Goddess of Maple World was first introduced as the Spirit of Maple World, suggesting that she - and the other Goddesses - are spirit manifestations of their worlds.
The Overseers are also known as the “will of the world”. As the Goddesses are spirit manifestations of their worlds, it is likely that the Goddesses serve as physical mouthpieces of the Overseers, allowing them to commune their will with mortals.
The Overseers are unable to directly interact with the world, which is why they manipulate the Transcendents to enforce order. This limitation is likely why such a mouthpiece is necessary for them, as they are likely unable to speak with mortals themselves, given that they exist as abstract beings without definite form.
The Goddess of Maple World once manifested as Sugar and aided the First Explorer in his journey to defeat the Ancient Gods. Given that the First Explorer became an Adversary, and given that the Goddess was tasked with aiding him, it is possible that the Goddesses themselves were an extension of the Overseers’ will, and that just as the Goddess of Maple World aided the First Explorer, the Goddess of Grandis ordered the elders of Grandis to create Odium and conduct experiments to mass-produce cybernetic Adversaries.
THE GODDESS OF TYNERUM IS A FACET OF THE GODDESS OF MAPLE WORLD:
Because of the ambiguity of Earth vs Tynerum as the third world, it’s possible that the discrepancy can be resolved through making Earth the third world and making Tynerum part of Maple World.
In order to fix the existence of the Goddess of Tynerum, it can be explained that the Goddess of Tynerum is a facet of the Goddess of Maple World that split off and became her own person.
We know that the Goddess of Grandis has different forms that take on the appearance and mannerisms of the different races of Grandis.
It’s possible that the Goddess of Maple World encapsulates all species into her human form, rather than having an elf form, demon form, etc.
Her demon form would resent this because demons are naturally strong-willed and have overwhelming ambition (according to Demon's Demonic Blood skill description).
Because of this, she splits off from the Goddess of Maple World and becomes her own self that represents Tynerum (almost similar to the different facets of Mitra).
We know that Tynerum exists "south" of MW, and before Dawnveil was removed, we knew that it was directly below Leafre (in overseas canon only).
Right now, we're told that Tynerum is its own separate dimension and has its own Goddess, which leads to the whole conflict about the third world.
With this theory/retcon idea, we can say that Tynerum exists as its own land within Maple World that's somewhere to the south (since the Goddess of Tynerum calls Tynerum the shadow opposite to MW).
It might explain why we need both the Goddess of MW and Tynerum's Arcane Stones, because they're separate even while technically being the same, and we need the power of both Goddesses in order to awaken our 5th job.
And this way, we can justify the Goddess of Tynerum existing (and being in the Dark World Tree since she manifests in the encampment, and we know that Damien originally planned to carve out his own demon empire in MW), while also letting Earth exist as the third world.
Something that also supports this is that the Demon has the Goddess of Tynerum appear in his Maple Warrior skill, despite the Maple Warrior skill manifesting the Goddess of Maple World for all other classes.
WHAT WAS INSIDE THE SAFE IN CADENA’S STORY:
During Cadena’s class story, she meets a pawn shop owner named Antuin and his grandson, Anzu. Antuin explains that something very important is in the safe, which Anzu’s parents had placed inside before their deaths, but when it’s opened in the story, only a blueprint is revealed, which the story doesn’t elaborate on. However, there is a possibility that Anzu’s parents might have worked for the Angler Company before their deaths.
The Angler Company uses stolen technology from Odium and creates powerful weapons to sell to the High Flora and other warmongers. The blueprint might have been a schematic for a weapon design, which may have been highly valuable, given its importance.
Anzu’s parents were described as having been killed in an accident. The Angler Company headquarters had been destroyed in a cataclysmic explosion that severely damaged the Angler family. It is possible that Anzu’s parents were also killed in that explosion.
Mr. Hazard had a working relationship with the Angler Company, which had gone underground after the explosion. As he had exclusive knowledge that the Company hadn’t been destroyed, which was a close-guarded secret, and since he had specifically targeted Anzu and Antuin as targets to power the Heliogene Device, despite the fact that any person would’ve been sufficient, it is possible that he knew about their Company connection.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ORIGINAL 365 WORLDS:
During the age of the Ancient Gods, there were 365 creations and 365 gods, which created great chaos that the Overseers sought to correct. As a result, they reorganized the universe such that only three worlds existed, ruled under three laws, and enforced by three Transcendents for each world. Worlds like Maple World and Grandis existed during the age of the gods, meaning that the Overseers hadn’t made them from scratch.
Rather than the other worlds being erased by the Overseers, it is possible that they might have made an inner sphere and an outer sphere. The inner sphere would contain the main three worlds, each separated by a dimensional barrier, while the outer sphere would contain all the other worlds, isolated and cut off from each other.
According to FriendStory, a portal between worlds can only open if two people attempt to simultaneously breach the dimensional barrier. It is possible that worlds like the Otherworld, the home of devils like Ergoth Dunamis, may be linked through a simultaneous breach on both ends, such as how King Sharen III summoned Ergoth, who had likely been attempting to escape his realm as well.
This could potentially explain Earth as a parallel dimension in the outer sphere, which exists according to its own set of original laws. It is possible that its properties allow it to mimic worlds that it comes into contact with, resulting in the appearance of copies of Maple World and Grandis characters. This would also fix the canon inconsistency of Tynerum vs Earth being the third world made by the Overseers.
MR. HAZARD IS A PARTIAL SPECTER:
Just like Limbo, Hazard grows much larger in size upon transforming. He also has Specter markings on his arms in his transformed state:
WHY THE VERDANT FLORA CAN’T PASS DOWN THEIR WINGS:
There is currently a potential plot hole regarding why the Verdant Flora can’t pass down their magic, despite the fact that their wings being torn out shouldn’t affect their genes.
In Khali’s storyline, it’s shown that commoners with no magic can give birth to magical children, proving that even commoners have residual magic. It’s also said that the amount of magic passed down remains fairly consistent between bloodlines. If we interpret this to mean that the amount of magic passed down is dependent on how much magic the parents had at the child’s conception, we can form the theory that the Verdant Flora - who had no magic after their wings were torn out - passed down the trace amounts of magic that all commoners held.
Since we know that cases of magical commoners like Khali are rare, and since we also know that Khali’s mother was fairly powerful in her own right, we can speculate that it takes quite a number of generations for the magic passed down to grow strong enough for a commoner to be born with wings. Since the Verdant Flora had theirs completely ripped out, they were basically starting from almost zero, which is why we haven’t yet seen a case of a Verdant Flora being born with wings.
Since the Verdant Flora are practically the same as commoners, we can even speculate that the God of the Verdant Flora had originally planned to create mechanical wings for the commoners. In the webcomic that explored the Flora Civil War, it was shown that the other Gods had shown the God-King several scrolls that proved that the God of the Verdant Flora was attempting to share magic with the commoners. It’s possible that these scrolls were schematics for the mechanical wings that he was developing.
After the Verdant Flora were exiled, it was shown that the God of the Verdant Flora had spent a lot of time actually building the wings, which would line up with the fact that he only had theoretical schematics at the time of his exile. His mechanical wings likely draw out and amplify the innate magic that commoners have, which he used in order to draw out the residual magic of the Verdant Flora after their wings were torn out.
Since the amplification happens externally, the actual amount of magic inside the Verdant Flora still remains the same, and so that trace amount of magic is all that would be passed down to their children.
Later on, it’s also shown that magical power can be increased through training it like a muscle, which would allow the trace levels of magic inside them to slowly build naturally, giving them enough power to match the High Flora and one day even regrow their wings naturally in a future generation, assuming that there are more groups of Verdant Flora in hiding aside from the one that was wiped out in Illium’s storyline.
In cases like Illium, it’s possible that he had such little magic that not even the mechanical constructs could amplify his magic enough to generate wings. However, we’ve also seen that Illium had been able to manifest his magic in times of crisis, such as when he unconsciously shot out magic at the thugs in Savage Terminal at the beginning of his story.
We can speculate that Illium has an unusual predisposition towards rapidly growing his magic through training and life-threatening situations, which might be the potential that Agate sensed in him. After he fused with the God of the Verdant Flora through the Elder Crystal, he was able to grow wings much larger than any that we’ve seen before, with the exception of Darmoor, which suggests that his ability for rapid growth will help him become exceptionally powerful by heightening the power that he’s received from the God of the Verdant Flora.
THE GATE OF THE PRESENT ONLY OPENS TO VESSELS:
The original lore for the Gate of the Present is that it only opens to those who aren’t a part of Maple World. The Explorer was said to have been from another world in the RED storyline and Shade has been erased, which is why the door opens to them both.
In the revamped Explorer storyline, it’s revealed that the Gate of the Present opens to the Explorer because it senses a “special power” within them, which is the power of the Adversary contained inside their maple leaf.
In the Odium storyline, it’s revealed that no door in Odium will remain closed to a Vessel - a being who has the potential to fuse with a Seal Stone.
Given that the Gate of the Present opens in response to the Adversary’s power, it’s possible that it operates similarly to the doors of Odium.
SHADE IS AN ANIMA:
This isn’t a theory that I came up with. I found it on Namu instead.
Shade was said to have no family or clan, and that he grew up as an orphan until Freud found him. Similar to Shade, Rondo is an orphan, and he’s also presumably an Anima based on his animal features.
Since we know that Anima are capable of hiding their features, it’s possible that Shade had his Anima features hidden when he crossed over from Grandis to Maple World through unknown means.
This would explain why the Fox God had an affinity for him, as she recognized that he was a fox Anima and gave him her blessings.
Personally, I find this theory a bit far-fetched, as not only would it make little sense for an infant to be able to hide their animal features on their own, but also because there’s no way that Shade could have crossed over to Maple World, as he grew up in Maple World many years before the Interdimensional Portals appeared in both Grandis and Maple World.
KIRSTON IS THE FOUNDER OF EBONSTAR:
It’s extremely likely that Kirston is the founder of Ebonstar, as everything that we know about him fits with the timeline.
There were several Interdimensional Portals that opened across Grandis at the end of the Flora Civil War when Darmoor awakened as a Transcendent and stole Chronica’s powers. Shortly after, Darmoor sent Magnus to Maple World, where he became a Commander of the Black Mage, which means that the Flora Civil War ended around the same time that the Black Mage began his war to destroy Ossyria.
Based on his research notes that Destonen found, we know that Kirston was in Maple World before the Black Mage was sealed away, which lines up with him crossing over from Grandis right when the Interdimensional Portals began appearing.
This is also around when he began growing curious about the Black Mage and his goals. From what the Ebonstar report says, the person who crossed over to another world was a devout believer in the gods until he came to conclude that the gods were all dead.
We know from Pathfinder’s story that Kirston had been attempting to reproduce the ancient power by experimenting on the relic from Partem.
He attempted to turn back time on the relic to the age of the gods, but the barrier of time that Freud had created prevented time from flowing back any further than the moment that the Black Mage’s seal was created, which caused Kirston’s experiment to fail and placed a curse on the relic.
Although we’ve only been told that Kirston did this centuries ago, it would make sense that trying to bring back the ancient power would be the first thing that he attempted to do after crossing to Maple World if he really was a believer of the gods.
In the Cygnus Knight storyline, we also end up finding a black book written about the Ancient Gods and their powers, which is something that Kirston could’ve written, since he would know about those powers if he had come from Grandis and been exposed to the different beliefs of the various sects and religions.
Assuming that Kirston failed to reproduce the ancient power and gave up on it, it would follow that he would start to take notice of the Black Mage and his goals soon after.
We know from his diary that Kirston became enamored by the Black Mage’s ideals and his desire to create a new world, which is why he became so fixated on ensuring that the Black Mage would be unsealed and finish his plan.
From what we’ve been told about Ebonstar, the follower who went to another world returned back and told everyone that the age of the gods was over, and that a Transcendent would pave the way for a new era.
Kirston realizing that the ancient power can’t be reproduced, as well as his fascination with the Black Mage wanting to create a new world, lines up with this - especially about the part where Ebonstar wanted a godlike being to take care of them and change the world.
Since we know that Kirston came back to Grandis in order to found Ebonstar, it means that he must’ve returned to Maple World right afterwards, as the Interdimensional Portal on Maple World disappeared after the Black Mage got sealed away.
Since we know that he cursed Destonen after the seal was created, it means that there’s no way that he could’ve gone to Grandis after that point. After that, he only resurfaces in the present day, when he attempts to use the Mirror of the Goddess to summon the Black Mage and accidentally summons Pink Bean instead.
Outside of Kirston, Ebonstar and its goals also seem to line up with the idea that they follow the Black Mage. Beyond the obvious point that they want to help a Transcendent of another dimension create a new world, the name of their organization - Ebonstar - is known as the Black Sun in the original KMS text, and when Cernium first came out, many people originally speculated that Ebonstar was affiliated with the Black Mage, as Tenebris was the Black Sun created through the ritual in Esfera.
ISMAIL WILL BECOME THE NOVA MAGICIAN:
This is literally just a crack theory but Ismail is one of the guardians of the four Sanctums, each holding one of the four Nova relics that power the Protective Shield.
Ismail is the only guardian who doesn’t appear in the story, only getting namedropped once or twice in Kaiser and Angelic Buster’s storylines
It’s implied that he was kidnapped by Magnus, and his current whereabouts are unknown.
Ismail is said to be the weakest guardian, on-par with Tear before she got her powers.
With how little information there is about him, he’s essentially a blank slate character who can end up being a new class if they wanted to expand his backstory and give more information about the Nova priests and the four relics.
THE ANIMA WARRIOR WILL BE A GLADIATOR:
In Hoyoung’s story, you can talk to an NPC named Willow and hear stories about people that she’s met in Grandis.
One such person was a gladiator fighting in a coliseum, whom Willow believed to be an Anima hiding his features and using his animal senses to get an advantage in the fight.
Given that these stories are meant to tease future content, it’s highly likely that this Anima will be a future class, and most likely a warrior.
WHY THE FLORA DON’T KEEP THEIR WINGS OPEN:
Typically, most High Flora don’t open their wings unless they need to boost their power, as Ark’s storyline has him mention how Albaire had only used a fraction of his full power, as he hadn’t opened his wings once during their fight.
Opening one’s wings is essentially allowing the magic within a Flora to flare up and manifest externally. Constantly channeling energy through one’s magical conduits is extremely stressful on the body, which is why the Flora typically only open their wings when absolutely necessary.
The only time that the Flora were seen keeping their wings open continuously was during the Flora Civil War, which necessitated full power, as it was a brutal fight to the death. During the opening battle of the Flora Civil War, Adele’s magical conduits burned themselves out from overexertion, resulting in her wings being unable to manifest anymore.
The Verdant Flora keep their wings open at all times, but this is likely because the mechanism of their magical wings amplifies magical power, making it so that their magical conduits don’t suffer from overuse, as they’re only channeling a small amount of power that gets boosted externally by their mechanical apparatus.
Darmoor is the only High Flora who keeps his wings open, but this is largely a flex in order to demonstrate his power as both the God-King and the Transcendent of Life, as it shows that he can channel a tremendous amount of power through his magical circuits without damaging them, and that he can waste almost an infinite amount of energy on keeping his wings open for no other reason than just because he can.
AN UNOFFICIAL STORY GROUP WAS CREATED AT THE TIME OF THE JUSTICE PATCH:
This isn’t a lore theory, but I have strong suspicions that there was an unofficial group of people, or possibly even one person, who was ensuring a proper continuity of story after the Legends patch, which released Demon Slayer, Mercedes, and Cannoneer.
The main reason why I believe this is because there was an increased level of cohesion in the story during Phantom’s storyline (ignoring how many plot holes the Dual Blade story revamp, which was released in the same update, created).
Phantom’s story was responsible for revealing the identities of the seven (technically eight) original Commanders of the Black Mage: Orchid, Lotus, Hilla, Arkarium, Von Leon, the Demon, Magnus, and Guwaru. The last two, in particular, were namedropped before Luminous’ storyline revealed them in the following patch.
Phantom’s story also introduced an explanation for the purpose of the Seal Stones, which had no defined properties until Phantom described them as a safety net capable of turning back time in case the Heroes had failed to stop the Black Mage.
Additionally, Phantom’s story began laying the groundwork for the events of Black Heaven, which tied together the various unrelated plotlines of the Heroes, the Cygnus Knights, and the Resistance stories. Although Black Heaven itself was unlikely to have been concepted at the time, the lore about the Black Wings’ true purpose being to revive Lotus, rather than the Black Mage, was an important revelation that permanently changed the direction of the Black Wings story.
Following the release of the Justice patch, the Tempest, Unlimited, and RED patches continued adding crucial bits of lore, such as the origin of the Black Mage, the Transcendents, the Overseers, the Primordial God, Grandis, Kritias, and the Goddesses. There was a notable shift in the amount of foundation being laid down for future story content in comparison to patches before Justice, which simply told loosely-connected stories that had little impact on the story.
This makes me think that somewhere behind the scenes, there was an unofficial group of people who were guiding the progression of the overall story and making ties to other storylines until an official story group was created with the Destiny update.
WHY SHADE AWOKE IN GRANDIS:
There are two possible explanations for this:
The first is that Maple World and Grandis have slowly been fusing over centuries, which is why Shade awoke in Grandis - which had slowly started becoming the same realm as Maple World - similar to how Alpha and Beta arrived in Grandis instead of Maple World after escaping from Mirror World.
The second is that since Shade has been completely erased from Maple World, he was kicked out of that dimension and sent to the nearest dimension of Grandis instead.
MAPLESTORY ACRONYMS:
This isn’t a theory so much as a detail, but I thought that it’d be something neat to include:
The original five Heroes of Maple spell out MAPLE with their names (Mercedes, Aran, Phantom, Luminous, and Evan).
The five Explorers from the Explorer storyline spell out STORY (Sugar, Tess, Olive, Rondo, and You - the player).
MAPLE WORLD AND GRANDIS’ TIME IS SYNCHRONISING:
When Grandis was first introduced, it was revealed that time on Grandis passes at roughly a tenth of the rate that Maple World’s time does.
The current timeline for the events of Maple World and Grandis are:
Darmoor awakens as the Transcendent of Life and sends Magnus to Maple World through the newly-made Interdimensional Portal
Magnus serves the Black Mage as a Commander for several years until he returns back to Grandis through the Interdimensional Portal
Decades later, Kaiser and Angelic Buster’s storylines start in the present day
Centuries later, the main plot on Maple World begins in the present day
Because of this, it’s clear that several decades on Grandis is the equivalent of several centuries on Maple World. However, it seems that the events of Grandis and Maple World are starting to synchronize according to Maple World’s standard of time, as several Grandis classes go back and forth from Maple World and Grandis, even though any time spent in Grandis - one month, for example - would be something like ten months passing when they return to Maple World.
As the two worlds are merging, and since it’s explained that Maple World dwarfs Grandis, it’s possible that the world merge is causing the rate of time in their worlds to synchronize onto Maple World’s time, as it’s much larger than Grandis.
FREUD IS CHRONICA:
This theory isn’t mine - it was created by Sonzical and I have the links to all three of his posts here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Maplestory/comments/8vg2ri/theory_freud_is_chronica/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Maplestory/comments/cfvcqm/freud_is_chronica_theory_addendum_they_elaborated/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Maplestorylore/comments/xp6quh/freud_is_chronicas_starchild_addendumdendum/
I’m pretty much just gonna be using his words for this theory. Just as a clarification, he uses Shade’s actual name from KMS (Eunwol) in his writings. The first post is broken down as such:
Transcendent related:
His disdain for Transcendents not barring him from using time magic to seal off travelling prior to that point, which would require him to call upon Rhinne….unless he can do it himself.
Some Transcendents reincarnate. Some. And none of the ones we know of now do that, to our knowledge. So why would they just throw that tidbit in if it’s not relevant? Coughevancough. (relevance explained in Heroes section*)
Freud was able to regain a memory that there was a sixth hero. Luminous, the one who is part-Transcendent, did not. Black Mage remembers Eun because, in his words, he is a Transcendent. It’s possible that it is in fact because he made up the plan, but you think you’d remember almost giving up your entire existence for a spell, Lumi? And then suddenly not having to?
Of course there’s the possibility that Lumi’s lying about forgetting or that BM was lying about remembering because of Transcendence but that’s a whole other can of worms…
I’m not discrediting him making the plan playing into this though, it could contribute and that’s why Freud remembered and not Luminous The Fragment Of The Transcendent That Remembers
Heroes related:
Prior to Heroes of Maple trying to make Eun’s situation into a curse, he was fully erased from history. Not only from memories, but from the physical situation of existence, given that he is erased from photographs and any trace of him left behind is erased as well. This is different from a curse, and even with Lucid’s help, Black Mage likely wouldn’t be able to literally obfuscate the past. Time powers could, and if Freud were Chronica his spell would be directly related to time.
Plus it is already, since it stopped anyone from travelling prior to that point.
If that were the case, wouldn’t this make recovering Eun’s existence next to impossible since you can’t change anything relating to the past anymore?
Even making it a curse it’s applicable, if just an extremely powerful curse. I can’t quite logic this part to much beyond pure speculation, but I do think that Freud had much more to do with the effects of this, considering that it was his spell.
Freud said himself that he remembered that there were six heroes since he himself designed the sealing spell!
This pointed out by tumblr user satalite-00 after I made a post on there - a very interesting bit of lore was revealed in Ark’s storyline in that Darmoor stole Chronica’s power, which opened up the Interdimensional Portal. This would probably mean that somehow, Chronica had some involvement with space, which is how Darmoor was suddenly able to do that. And where was Eun sent after he’s been erased by Freud’s spell? Grandis.
On further consideration, it’s likely that time and space are ‘two sides of the same coin’, as light & dark are and life & death probably are. So yeah… that’s prolly the case, and it’s possible that influence by way of a Transcendent that went rogue can corrupt the powers of another Transcendent into the ‘other side of the coin’. (Tangential, but this makes me wonder if life & death magic and time & space magic also used to be forbidden like light & dark was... White Mage had enough influence to change everyone's opinion on light magic by himself, so it's possible.)
*Relating to Evan and reincarnation. It’s an obvious conclusion to make that Evan is his reincarnation given that they look alike. It’s made more obvious by a direct connection that Evan does have to Freud- through Mir. Mir was Afrien’s egg, and thus probably(/definitelycuzalltheotheronyxdragonsgotmurdered) his child, and was intended to reinstate the soul bond. A reincarnation and the son of the guy who had a soul bond with the prior incarnation, it makes too much sense to be a coincidence and literally everyone knows it.
Lumi cited Freud as his intellectual match, and the only person ever to be such.
Mirror World related:
This one goes in a few different places, so bear with me. In the Zero storyline, Alpha finds the transcript explaining transcendents that states that Rhinne and Alicia were “content in their roles”, and that Black Mage was not and begun chaos because of this. We know for a fact now that Black Mage was not content, not only as a transcendent but as a pawn of whatever greater power exists in Maple World. His methods are of course horrible and he’s the worst yadda yadda but he’s fighting against the system- something Freud is hinted at considering, from his conversation with Lumi. It would make for an interesting perspective, given that he himself is a transcendent, but then it could be that he feels guilty that the transcendence system is causing so much pain and suffering for the world he loves so much, and the only way for it to work is if all three are “content in their roles”, something they are not likely to be.
This is speculation, but it could make sense- could repeated interaction with humans and a closer connection to the world make a transcendent less “content”? We know that White Mage’s intentions were, originally, for the good of the world, trying to reform it into something peaceful, that eventually was corrupted. We also know that Alicia is supremely disconnected from humanity, seeing them as lesser than the other creatures and much worse. This disconnect could make her more content with her existence, with less curiosity regarding humans and the inner workings of the world and more focus on the non-human creatures. (This may intersect with information about Darmoor, since he’s both the transcendent of life and ruler of the lef he may have gotten too immersed in their life and gotten “discontent?”) Freud, loving Maple world, could have reincarnated himself as a human to learn more about humanity, and is growing discontent with the roles of transcendents seeing its effects as an insider as well as an outsider?
(This is kinda starting to sound like a Jesus thing, being born as a human but also still divine and knowing human pain and all that shit… I’ve jokingly compared him to Jesus before but this is ridiculous if true oh my god this would be the funniest thing if I’m right about any of this FREUD IS JESUS)
BACK TO MIRROR WORLD why was Freud in mirror world if he’s dead? And of all people that we know of? Sure, Phantom and Evan are there, but both of them are connected to those places in some way- Evan grew up in Henesys, and Phantom probably grew up in Ariant. And both are alive. As is everyone else we see in mirror world, younger or older or whatever. So why the fuck is Freud there? We also know for sure that it is in fact all based on the present day since there’s nobody from the past and Leafre isn’t full of demons (used to be demon land but they were forced out…) so why, out of everyone there, is Freud there if he’s dead?
Bit anecdotal, but they did have Freud there in the section where they introduced the idea of relics that help wield the power of the transcendents, and we got Lapis and Lazuli from this.
Could the Freud’s Journal quest somehow be slightly related to this? It’s a stretch, but the ring could be some kind of relic, since restoring it gives you a lil fairy kinda similar to Lapis & Lazuli…
This is a real reach, but in the Mirror World, the chief of Leafre called Freud an explorer, which is what Sugar was before it was revealed she was the spirit of Maple World or whatever…
Speaking of Sugar, do seal stones work into this? I doubt it a little, since you *need* five other people and he likely had those five other people...But then again, that’s quite a fantastic invention to realize how to make… I’m not sure.
CHRONICA IS THE GOD OF THE VERDANT FLORA:
There are two known details about Chronica: that Darmoor stole their powers, and that he sealed them in the Chronica Sanctuary.
We also know that Darmoor absorbed the God of the Verdant Flora into his mytocystal, and that the God of the Verdant Flora’s consciousness dwells in the Sanctuary of the Ancient God.
In Illium’s storyline, the God of the Verdant Flora claims that both he and his sanctuary exist “beyond time”.
Based on this, it may be possible that the God of the Verdant Flora is actually Chronica, the Transcendent of Time.
HOW SHADE’S CURSE REALLY WORKS:
There are a couple different points to this theory.
Point 1: Dream magic and time magic are intrinsically linked to each other through space:
Before understanding how Shade's curse works, there's an important point that first needs to be established, which is a reframing of what time magic really is. Throughout the story, there's been a recurring idea that dreams have some level of association with space and time, both in the game and in real life. Most of these points are observations made by Sonzical, which I'm just restating here:
A popular in-universe belief is that Maple World itself is just a dream of Rhinne, the Transcendent of Time.
In dreams, the perception of time is distorted, making it seem that events in a dream last much longer than the dream itself does in reality.
Time is heavily linked to space in the game, and most of these spacetime distortions are associated with dreams.
Mirror World is a dimension linked to the Transcendent of Time's power, which was manipulated by Will into an imperfect replica of Maple World created from his memories, which is basically what a dream is - random memories spliced together as the brain attempts to process them.
The Sharenian time loop that trapped the Elite Bosses works similar to how Mirror World does, as Ergoth's subspace replica of Sharenian itself is what inspired Will to create Mirror World.
Hoyoung enters the realm of the sages (Shangri-La) through his dreams, in which he can physically enter a restricted dimension across space and time, allowing him to physically interact with objects such as books from inside his mind.
Lucid's dreamscapes are seen to be dimensional subspaces filled with nebulae and planetary bodies.
The association of dreams and mirrors is a recurrent theme in the game:
Lucid used her dream magic to manipulate the space within the Gate to the Future, creating a false reality just like Mirror World.
In the Cygnus Knight's 4th job advancement, Cygnus is trapped within a dreamscape that contains a mirror, which shows Future Cygnus on the other side.
The idea of memory and dreams is tied to the power of time through the Goddess' Promise. In the Temple of Time storyline, it's revealed that Rhinne created the Goddess' Promise with the people of Maple World, which grants them the gift of oblivion, or the power to forget.
From these factors, we can reframe the idea of dreams and memory as manipulating an aspect of spacetime. In a sense, this idea can be expanded to state that time magic itself is a manipulation of an aspect of reality.
Point 2: Shade and Lucid have been erased from existence with time/dream magic”
With the assumption that time magic and dream magic are similar, if not the same, we can begin to analyze the nature of Shade's curse and how it pertains to Lucid. From what we know about Freud's sealing spell:
Five Seal Stones are required to create the Seal of Time.
The Seal Stones must be infused with the time of a living sacrifice.
With that person's time catalyzing the sealing spell, the Seal Stones can absorb the power of time that the Black Mage stole from Rhinne and turn it back against him, creating a localized time freeze to seal him away.
The nature of the sealing spell is such that all traces of the sacrifice are erased, including photographs and memories.
The only other known instance of someone being completely erased from the memory of everyone in the world is Lucid, who used her dream magic to erase her memory from all the elves.
As Lucid had never left Elluel before, she effective made it so that no one in the world knew her anymore, exactly like what had happened to Shade.
The main difference, however, is that Lucid retained her ability to use dream magic, which we've established is an aspect of time magic.
Jumping back to Shade, we know that Freud had intended to sacrifice himself until Shade persuaded him otherwise. It's possible that Freud, who had the ability to use time magic, had intended to return himself back into existence in the minds of everyone upon the seal being enacted.
However, it's important to remember that the sealing spell was experimental and Freud had never tested it before, meaning that he likely had no way of knowing what would happen.
Because of this, it's possible that he had allowed Shade to sacrifice himself, fully intending to restore him back to reality with his time magic, but either he himself wasn't strong enough or Shade being transported to Grandis made it so that he forgot all about Shade and was unable to restore his existence.
Although the sealing spell erases one's existence, there's still a small loophole that allows for a very specific remembrance of that person: Freud, as the inventor of the spell, retained the knowledge that a living sacrifice was needed to power it, and so he knew that someone had to have sacrificed themselves, although all specific details about Shade were lost. It's possible that he had assumed that he could restore Shade if he was told that Shade was the sacrifice, but Shade being sent to Grandis made that impossible.
If we take Lucid's situation to be similar, we can assume that the music box that she created for Mercedes, which was the only trace of her left in the world after she erased her existence, didn't disappear for the same reason, which is that it doesn't operate on the same principle as something like a photograph, which contains concrete details about the erased person.
Both the music box and the knowledge of the sealing spell might suggest the existence of the box's creator or the spell's sacrifice, but if all knowledge about the creator or the sacrifice is gone, there's no need for the actual box or knowledge of the spell itself to disappear.
Point 3: Shade is his own dimensional anchor to reality:
From our earlier point, we've established a link between spacetime and dreams being ways of manipulating reality based on people's perception and senses.
Space, linked to time, refers more to the 'space between' and expanding/filling that empty blank with imagination, reflections, and dreams. This ties back to the popular belief that Maple World itself is just a dream of Rhinne, who has the power of a Transcendent.
In this way, the assertion of reality itself is based in perception.
Shade's curse can be explained as a lack of object permanence: if a thing cannot be perceived, then it ceases to exist.
Shade can be considered his own anchor to reality. As long as he can be perceived in the dimension that he exists in, he continues to exist. The instant that he crosses dimensions, aka when he no longer exists in that space, the sealing spell triggers and erases all trace of him from that reality.
In contrast, Lucid has never left Maple World (Lachelein is part of the Arcane River, which is said to be a convergence of the three worlds, meaning that it still exists as "part" of Maple World) and so we can't say whether this would apply to her, and whether the nature of the sealing spell is different from her self-inflicted erasure.
Point 4: Lucid is the only one who remembers Shade, not the Black Mage:
With the knowledge that Lucid and Shade are potentially both people whose existences have been erased, we can now explore why it is that Lucid remembers Shade.
Lucid first meets Shade on Maple World when he visits Elluel in order to see Mercedes. At the time, Lucid had created a subspace of Elluel that led to her dream world, which is what Shade enters. There, he sees Lucid disguised as Mercedes and deduces that she's not the real Mercedes from their conversation.
Later on, Shade travels between Maple World and Grandis multiple times, and Lucid meets him twice in-between those travels. He goes from Maple World to Grandis during his third job advancement, meets Lucid after, goes back and forth between Grandis at his level 200 quest, and then meets Lucid again in Lachelein.
Both times that Shade meets Lucid, she clearly remembers him, which directly violates the nature of how the sealing spell works.
When they meet after his third job advancement, Lucid puts Shade to sleep and gives him a nightmare of the Black Mage in order to pay him back for exposing her actions in Elluel. During this nightmare, the Black Mage reveals that he's the only one who remembers Shade because he's a Transcendent.
Because of this, Shade concludes that the Black Mage is his only anchor to reality, and that the Black Mage's death will result in Shade being wiped from existence altogether.
However, there are two major contradictions in what the Black Mage says.
As Lucid clearly remembers Shade, it can't be that the Black Mage is the only one to remember him.
The other contradiction is that the Black Mage claims that only a Transcendent could remember Shade.
During the Winter Bard storyline, Alicia reveals to Ryude that she had helped the Heroes during the war against the Black Mage, meaning that she clearly had to have met Shade. However, Alicia says that she met the "five Heroes", rather than six.
The Winter Bard storyline was released well after Shade came out, and Shade even made a minor cameo in that story, meaning that the writers had deliberately chosen to have her say that there were five Heroes.
Going by the Black Mage’s own words, as Alicia is a Transcendent, it ought to mean that she should remember Shade, but the fact that she doesn’t means that the Black Mage being Shade’s anchor can’t be true.
This can be solved if we instead assume that Lucid is the only one who remembers Shade.
Shade's curse is triggered by a lack of object permanence. If he crosses dimensions, anything within the world that he left will have their memories of him wiped. However, if we assume that Lucid has been erased from the world, then she wouldn't be classified as part of it. Because of this, Lucid would retain her memories of Shade, no matter how many times he crosses dimensions.
By knowing that Lucid is the only one who remembers Shade, the impact of her nightmare is recontextualized.
The actual nightmare isn’t just a scary dream where he meets the Black Mage, it’s the false information that she tricks him into believing. By having an illusion of the Black Mage himself deliver this news, Lucid hopes to hurt Shade by making him grapple with the fact that by defeating his greatest enemy, he's ensuring his own death as well.
Going by the idea that Lucid remembers Shade, Shade should likely retain knowledge of Lucid if she were to cross dimensions as well.
Shortly after Lucid sends Shade his nightmare, she uses her power to erase her memory from Shade's mind, as he is unable to recognize her in Lachelein. This is likely a localized application of her dream magic, which doesn't impact the nature of their object impermanence.
Broader implications:
Although that concludes the analysis of Shade's curse, the idea of dreams/memory being tied to spacetime/reality can be expanded to several other points about the lore:
Based on the three laws of light, life, and time, we could make a broader interpretation of what these powers actually are:
Time = modification of the physical properties of spaces (perception, subspace)
Light = creating or destroying the actual objects in those spaces, distinct from the perception of them (Erda manipulation that Tana uses to reshape reality)
Life = physical senses of reality, with some overlap with light and time
The idea of reality being relative to perception can be used to explain the idea of the Seal Stones.
The Seal Stones can only be used to grant the wish of a population, not an individual. They contain divine power capable of reshaping reality on a scale that exceeds the power of the Transcendents and the Ancient Gods alike.
The idea that the Seal Stones require multiple people to enact their power ties into reality being based on perception. An entire population having a shared dream is enough to reshape reality itself.
In Heroes of Maple, Freud was shown to believe that people who monopolize power, such as kings or Transcendents, are unnecessary, as he believes that the day will come when people are capable of governing themselves and determining their own fate, which also ties into the idea of creating a new reality based on dreams.
Self-governance and the power of the Seal Stones are related in this way, which would explain why Freud would have wanted to research and recreate them long after they scattered in the aftermath of the war between the Adversaries and the Ancient Gods, with his ability to understand time magic having part in his ability to reshape them.
We can also use the idea of reality being relative to perception in order to explain some of the plot holes in the game’s depiction of time travel. In Ellin Forest, it's explained that it's impossible to change the past because the future is fixed such that even the act of going back in time to change things is what shapes the predetermined events of the future, aka a causal loop.
This concept is contradicted in Kao's timeline. Kao - the player from the future - loses to the Black Mage, who sends Kao back in time in order to ensure that the player succeeds.
Going by the idea of a causal loop, the events of the past were predetermined, meaning that Kao should never have lost in the first place, as they should always have been predestined to meet another Kao from the future.
The fact that Kao changed the timeline by being sent back in time instead suggests that the timeline branched out, with Kao coming back in time from a parallel universe, which directly contradicts the mechanism of a causal loop.
However, using the idea of reality and time being based on perception, we can say that the events of Ellin Forest could not be changed because of object permanence - there were simply too many people who remembered the events of Ellin Forest as they were always meant to happen. However, Kao's points of failure were largely personal, far from the eyes of anyone else.
Because of this, Kao's own future became more malleable based on object impermanence, which is what allowed the Black Mage to send them back in time and change the past.
In this sense, we could say that the rules of time travel being a causal loop are relaxed based on the scope of how the timeline is impacted. The Overseers, who established these rules, did so in order to eliminate any semblance of chaos from the world. If the scope of change is smaller, aka little to no chaos, it’s possible that time could be made more malleable in these rare instances.
Similarly, traveling through the Gate of the Past in the Temple of Time, rather than leading to a past version of Maple World, instead leads through a perception of how people view their own past - memory, regret, and oblivion.
In this sense, "time travel" through the Gate of the Past is more akin to personal reflection, with the Gate of the Future operating on a similar level. Lucid's manipulation of the Gate to the Future is her using her dream magic to change people's perception of the future into what she has set for them, rather than what they would perceive on their own.
In contrast to traveling through the Gate of the Past with the Goddess' blessing, forcing one's way through the Gate of the Past results in memory loss, which is what happened to Kao. This is because traveling through memories in reverse leads to forgetting, which is the reverse of remembering.
ALPHA AND BETA ARE NOT FULL TRANSCENDENTS:
The main reasoning behind this assumption is the fact that the Black Mage’s plan to remove all the Transcendents of Maple World was said to have succeeded after his death, which can’t be true if Alpha and Beta still exist as Transcendents.
There are several hints throughout the story that talk about how Alpha and Beta being divided makes them weakened Transcendents:
Will calls them imperfect and divided Transcendents in Esfera
Hilla notes that since Alpha and Beta are split, they wouldn’t be as strong as a normal Transcendent
Hilla reports to the Black Mage that the Transcendents of Time are divided and weak, and that the Transcendent of Life has been scattered at the end of Heroes of Maple. Given that Alicia being scattered is what led her to be considered an inactive Transcendent, the implication is that Alpha and Beta being divided, with each holding half of the Transcendent of Time’s power, makes them unable to function as a proper one, as neither is at full power, especially with them spending a significant portion of their strength keeping Mirror World together.
Alpha and Beta are both able to become an Adversary, giving them the ability to kill the Black Mage. As the laws of the Overseers make it so that Transcendents cannot kill other Transcendents, it is likely that their division renders them unable to constitute as a full Transcendent, allowing them to override this rule.
CYGNUS HOLDS ALL THREE POWERS AS A TRANSCENDENT-IN-RESERVE:
Throughout the story, we’ve seen Cygnus use all three powers of light, life, and time after awakening as a Transcendent-in-reserve:
She uses the power of time to foresee the future
She uses the power of life to save Shinsoo
She uses the power of light to create a large shield to block Gloom’s attack
Given that she was destined to replace a Transcendent in the future, and that her premature awakening as a reserve happened because there are no Transcendents to replace, it’s possible that as a reserve, Cygnus has a small amount of power in all three domains, representing her potential to replace any of the three positions if needed.
In the event that she replaces a Transcendent fully, it’s likely that her ability to use a portion of each domain will disappear, leaving her with full mastery over just one. This would be similar to how the White Mage had the ability to use light and dark magic as a mortal until he awakened as the Transcendent of Light, at which point he needed to choose between the two powers.
HOW THE BLACK MAGE’S DESTINY MANIPULATION WORKED:
It’s been established that some mortals have the ability to see fragments of the future, typically given to them in symbolic visions, such as Freud’s prophecy of the “unshackled wolf devouring the World Tree” being a coded way of referring to Damien stealing Alicia’s powers, or Cygnus’ vision of the Alliance facing Black Heaven being small birds of light fighting a dark giant.
However, the Black Mage didn’t have fragments of prophecy, but rather, he was able to determine the entire nexus of futures before him.
By creating a fixed destiny, the Overseers made it so that the future could be predicted, and therefore manipulated, based on a finite set of variables that move in an infinite number of ways.
The Black Mage, rather than foreseeing the future through magic, instead used his genius-level intellect as the White Mage and his ability to perceive the world on a higher plane as a Transcendent to calculate the future with all the variables in his knowledge.
His prophecies, therefore, weren’t prophecies in the usual sense, but rather, they were simply events that he had decided would happen, which he brought about by steering the world into the future that he had already predetermined, rather than allowing the future to organically manifest without intervention.
LUMINOUS IS THE RESERVE OF THE BLACK MAGE:
In the Esfera storyline, it’s revealed that the Transcendent of Light has a reserve who holds the other power, either light or darkness, that the awakened Transcendent does not possess.
Given that Luminous was the light expelled by the Black Mage given physical form, and that he came into existence at the very moment when the Black Mage awakened as a Transcendent, it’s highly likely that Luminous is the reserve of the Black Mage, holding the power of light when the Black Mage chose to hold darkness.
In this case, it may be that the Black Mage deliberately infused Luminous with his darkness in order to ensure that Luminous would not awaken as the Transcendent of Light in the event of his death, as the Overseers would not be able to awaken Luminous without him choosing between light or darkness, and as the Overseers cannot override the free will of mortals, Luminous could simply refuse to choose to become a Transcendent.
Additionally, it’s been said that a Transcendent only awakens in response to an imbalance of their domain. As the death of the Black Mage - one who had attempted to overthrow the natural order - has restored balance to the world, there is no need for a new Transcendent to awaken. Additionally, after the fusion of Maple World and Grandis, it’s likely that Tana satisfies the conditions for a Transcendent of Light in their fused world.
LOTUS ALMOST BECAME AN ADVERSARY:
This theory isn’t as strong because of the implication that the Seal Stones only respond to the uninhibited free will of mortals, but it’s still interesting to consider. During the era of the Ancient Gods, before the Overseers had created the Seal Stones, mortals had no means of stopping the chaos of the gods because only a god has the power to kill another god.
Because of this, the only way that mortals could hope to stand up to the gods was by using their holy relics, which contained their divine power. Unfortunately for them, the relics worked on a similar principle as the Seal Stones, which is that they’ll only awaken for someone whom the people have unconditional faith in.
For example, the holy relic of Mitra the Sun God is a sword named Azor. Azor will only awaken in the hands of Mitra’s Chosen One - someone who has the full support of all of Mitra’s followers. Because of this, there was no way for someone who wanted to kill the gods to use the relics, which only awaken in the hands of the most devout followers of the gods.
In order to trick the holy relics, researchers attempted to fill host bodies with countless Specter souls from the Abyss. In doing so, the relics would sense the host body radiating with the energy of those souls, and they would mistakenly believe that this energy comes from countless souls from across the world lending their unconditional faith to that person.
Most of these experiments failed because the host bodies were unable to resist being taken over, resulting in the Specter souls possessing them and transforming them into monsters. These failed experiments are the same Specter mobs that we fight in the game. Some of them were probably created during the era of the Ancient Gods, but many of them were created from the High Flora purging other races, including the Anima.
However, the researchers eventually succeeded in finding host bodies who could retain their minds and bodies, which allowed them to hold countless Specter souls inside them. Those special Specters could then trick the holy relics into awakening, allowing them to use the gods’ own relics against them.
Because of the similarities between the holy relics and the Seal Stones, it’s extremely likely that just like the relics, the Seal Stones can only pick up energy, not intent, meaning that they should only be able to pick up the fact that a person holds the support of the people, not how that support was won.
Because of this, it’s entirely possible that once Gelimer used his Retoxin to turn Maple World into a hivemind, he could’ve ordered the people to have unconditional faith in Lotus, which would allow Lotus to fuse with the Seal Stone and become an Adversary, after which Gelimer could’ve had Lotus kill the Black Mage so that he could rule the world himself.
Despite the fact that he spent such a short time working with the Commanders, Gelimer somehow ended up getting more done than the rest of them combined. If the Black Mage didn’t have everyone stuck on the Path of Destiny, Gelimer might’ve ended up becoming the most powerful being in the world in another timeline.
HOW THE PROPERTIES OF ERDAS WORK:
From what we know about Erdas, they’re the basic building blocks of reality, existing as pure, formless power that makes up both living and non-living matter. Based on how we’ve seen Erdas and their relationship to memory in the Arcane River, I’d hypothesize that somewhat similar to atoms, Erda is comprised of energy surrounding a nucleus.
This nucleus would likely contain a trace of memory, which defines the properties of what that Erda is meant to be, such as a rock, a tree, or a person. The nucleus would retain knowledge about itself in its current lifecycle, and as Erdas undergo a constant cycle of creation and destruction, which recycles them into new forms of matter, the nucleus would add more traces of memories of its new forms, creating a sort of chain of memories about all the different forms that it’s had.
In the era of the Ancient Gods, it was said that all things were animate, including non-living matter, such as stones and water. This could be because the Erdas, which retain traces of their old memories, eventually begin oversaturating. As a result, the Erdas would start to behave not only as what they currently are, but also as what they’ve once been. Non-living matter would start taking on the properties of its component Erdas’ old forms that were once animate. This disordered amalgam of sentient matter might even be part of the primordial chaos that the Overseers sought to correct.
After the Transcendents were created, we know from the Temple of Time questline that the Goddess’ Promise was created by Rhinne, and potentially all other Transcendents of Time. The Goddess’ Promise gifted people with oblivion: the power to forget. Broadening this principle, we could describe oblivion as a special field that Erdas pass through during their reincarnation cycle. The Goddess’ Promise would erase the nucleus of the Erdas, leaving them as blank slates at the time that they reincarnate into something new.
In this way, Erdas will only ever be able to hold the memories of their current incarnation. This erases the problem of non-living matter gaining sentience and also makes it so that living things can’t remember their past lives. One of the few exceptions to this rule that we’ve seen is Lania, who was reincarnated from Lucia. However, the Second Light Master of Aurora told Luminous that the mages of Aurora had artificially reincarnated her with light magic, which is later shown to be a rudimentary form of Erda manipulation, which could explain why she didn’t pass through the field of oblivion.
Following the creation of the Transcendents, it was explained that Erdas flow through the World Tree during their reincarnation cycle, meaning that the management of the Erda cycle is now relegated to the Transcendent of Life. After Alicia scatters her life force at the end of this storyline, the Black Mage began stealing the Erdas from their natural lifecycle before using them to create the Arcane River. As a result, the Erdas of the Arcane River are free to create new amalgams spontaneously, such as the fruit-animal hybrids of Chu Chu Island, rather than having their next lifecycles directed by Alicia.
Going by this theory, it can also be said that the Erdas themselves embody the three laws of light, life, and time. They cycle through creation and destruction (light), they make up all living and non-living matter (life), and contain memories of their existence (time). This could also be used to explain why the Overseers chose those three laws over all others to govern the universe through things like the Goddess’ Promise. Additionally, memory and matter being intrinsically linked also gives more symbolic significance to the theme of losing and regaining memories that many characters exhibit.
EARTH CULTURE HAS INFLUENCED MAPLE WORLD:
During Heroes of Maple, Dr. Lim shows several relics from Azwan and the Golden Temple. Something interesting to consider is that many of Maple World and Grandis’ different areas, names, aesthetics, and mythologies are directly drawn from different cultures in the real world.
Some examples of this are Sleepywood being based on the jungles of Cambodia, the Golden Temple being based on Indian culture, Cheong-woon having inspiration from Korean folklore, etc.
While the out-of-universe explanation is that these are just creative inspirations, given the fact that Maple World, Grandis, and Earth were originally one, it could explain why Earth’s mythologies and culture have shaped both Maple World and Grandis, as well as why Maple World and Grandis share a common link in the evolution of their races.
One such instance can be seen in how elves and Flora are identical, apart from their wings, and Nymphs and Celestials being similar, with the exception of Celestials having feathered wings in place of their ears. Even the dragons of Grandis evolved into humanoid hybrids, whereas the ones on Maple World remained monsters and instead evolved into different types of dragons, such as Wyverns and Drakes.
THE TRANSCENDENCE STONE WAS CREATED BY THE ANCIENT GODS:
It’s possible that the Transcendence Stone might’ve been created by the Ancient Gods as a weapon to use against the Transcendents. The Ancient Gods were defeated by the Adversaries at the end of the Ancient War, after which the Overseers created the Transcendents, whose mere existence forced the gods into dormancy, with the exception of Abraxas.
There’s a small window of time between the Transcendents being brought into existence and the gods being sealed away, during which the Transcendence Stone could’ve been created.
Most likely, the Transcendence Stone was created by the gods so that their followers could avenge them, as it was said in the Cernium storyline that many of their followers hated the Transcendents for what they had done to the Ancient Gods.
In that case, it would make sense why the Transcendence Stone ended up on Earth and why the Overseers separated it out from Maple World and Grandis, as Earth is the only known world where magic doesn’t naturally exist.
Since the Overseers can only interact with the universe through the Transcendence, and since the Transcendence Stone interferes with their powers, it’s possible that the Overseers couldn’t outright destroy the stone, and so the next logical option would be for them to put it in a place where none of the Ancient Gods’ followers would be able to get it and use it against the Transcendents.
Additionally, the Transcendence Stone is extremely similar to the Worldheart, the original relic created by the Overseers, capable of absorbing the power of a god or a godlike being.
Given their similarities, it’s possible that the Ancient Gods modeled the Transcendence Stone off the Worldheart and modified it such that it will only absorb the power of a Transcendent, thereby mocking the Overseers by creating a weapon against them modeled after their own.
KRITIAS WAS MEANT TO BE THE SITE OF THE GENESIS RITUAL:
During the Kritias storyline, it was revealed that the Black Mage had created a massive pentacle using the castle of Trueffet floating in the sky. However, the pentacle ended up having no relevance to the story and was most likely a dropped plot thread.
Kritias was released during the RED patch, which was also the same patch that released the original Explorer storyline and Zero. These three storylines laid a lot of the groundwork for the Black Mage’s ultimate plan, as the Explorer story introduced the Goddess of Maple World, depicted the Black Mage’s resurrection, and expanded the lore on the Seal Stones.
Zero’s storyline revealed that the Black Mage had discovered the “secret of the world”, which had led to his fall, and it also revealed that he planned to fuse Maple World and Grandis in order to become a Transcendent of two worlds. The secret of the world was later revealed in Tenebris as the White Mage learning that the Overseers kept the world anchored to a fixed destiny, which I think might have always been intended, since the concept of the Overseers had existed for a couple of years before the RED patch came out, and because the White Mage and his desire to save the world with light has been a concept since Luminous’ story.
Given that these two storylines had major plot points that factored into the final story, I’m strongly convinced that Kritias was meant to play a larger role in the overarching lore.
The RED Explorer music video, as well as the promotional animation for Morass, both showed the Black Mage using the castle of Trueffet as his stronghold. Based on that, I have a strong suspicion that Kritias and the spell circle were meant to tie into the Genesis Ritual, and that this was later changed to take place in Tenebris some years after Nexon came up with the 5th job advancement and the Arcane River storyline.
Although the pentacle was likely the precursor for the Genesis Ritual, we can potentially explain it away by saying that it was part of Hekaton’s Ascendancy ritual, which the people of Kritias wouldn’t know anything about, since he kept it secret from everyone except his researchers.
AEONA WAS TASKED WITH ERASING THE ANCIENT GODS:
During the scene in which the Adversary learns that Aeona wiped out seven races of Grandis, and possibly more, Kain gets some more some exclusive dialogue during this part, in which he wonders whether it’s possible that the Black Nova might have been one of the people that Aeona had wiped out. This line is interesting because it introduces the possibility that the Overseers sending Aeona to destroy those races might not have been random after all.
The Black Nova were technically just a cult, not a separate race from the Nova, but the cultists worshiped Satiras, who gave them a portion of his own power in the form of Malice.
We know that the Overseers wanted to get rid of the Ancient Gods because their power and influence created chaos and unpredictability, and we also know that the Overseers weren’t just satisfied with defeating the gods - they wanted absolute certainty that the gods would never be able to influence the universe again, which is why they created the Transcendents to suppress them.
Since we know that the Black Nova kept a portion of their Malice, even after Satiras was sealed away, it’s possible that the Overseers sent Aeona to destroy them in order to ensure that not a single trace of the Ancient Gods or their power would remain in the world.
If that’s the case, then it might just be that the other races that Aeona destroyed had also been given power from other Ancient Gods, similar to Satiras and his Malice, and that the Overseers had wanted to get rid of them entirely, which is why Aeona was said to have left no traces of her actions, as she had likely used her powers of destruction to completely and utterly wipe them all out, with the rare exception of the hidden Black Nova village where Kain and Luska were later born.
It also reframes the context of why the Transcendents of Maple World were said to have played a passive role in shaping their world.
From what we know, the Ancient Gods didn’t seem to have had much influence on Maple World in the past, as the only gods that we know about are Abraxas and the god of the Karuppa, whose sacred tree was used to carve Pathfinder’s relic.
Abraxas is a special case because he was just a watcher over the graves of the other gods, while the god of the Karuppa’s relic lost its power until Kirston partially restored some of it by rewinding time until he hit Freud’s time barrier, which corrupted it with Kirston’s curse magic.
In both cases, the gods never left any tangible trace of their power after their disappearance, and so it makes sense why the Transcendents of Maple World were passive, as there’s nothing for them to actually do.
When the White Mage reached the divine realm, he was angry when he learned that the Overseers were actively trying to force him to do nothing to help the world. His belief was that the Overseers were apathetic to the suffering of the people, but when you consider that the Overseers’ definition of order is just maintaining a predictable future, rather than stopping war and death, it makes sense why they would be trying to keep the Transcendents from doing anything, as they’ve already achieved their ideal future without the gods.
HOW TIME-TRAVEL WORKS IN THE GAME:
Time-travel mechanics were defined in the update that released Kao’s timeline, some of which ironically conflicted with the time-travel mechanics established in Ellin Forest, which was also released in the exact same update.
Out of these, two major ones get broken because of Kao’s timeline. The first is that time-travelers have their appearances modified in order to prevent paradoxes, such as Kao’s face matching that of the Adversary. This principle was seen in Ellin Forest, in which characters like the Heroes appeared unrecognizable to the people of Altaire Camp.
The second, more important principle that was violated is that despite the fact that time travel operates on a causal loop, which is the principle that actions caused by going into the past shape the predetermined events of the future, the White Mage was able to send Kao back into the past and change the future.
To explain this, let me give an example of an actual causal loop in the game - the Silent Crusader going back in time to save the Heroes.
At the start of the timeline, the Crusader, who’s gone back in time, saves Aran, Afrien, and Mercedes after they’re injured in the battle against the Black Mage. This allows for them to survive, after which the Crusader jumps back to the future at the same moment when they go back in time.
The timeline then proceeds as normal, from the Heroes surviving, to the Crusader being born centuries later, to the Crusader joining the Silent Crusade, and then back to the Crusader going back in time to save the Heroes, with those exact same events happening once again in a perfect loop.
This is essentially the principle of how a causal loop works - it’s a fixed, closed loop in which there’s one absolute timeline, with the very act of someone going back in time and influencing the past being the same action that ensures that the future in which they come from ends up happening.
Another example of this is the Ellin Forest causal loop: the player goes back in time to change the events of Ellin Forest, but their act of killing Ephenia was always predestined to happen from the very beginning.
Kao’s timeline is the exact opposite of how a causal loop works. According to its own principles, the future can’t be changed because the very act of going back in time is what guarantees that the events of the future will remain as they always were.
Because of this, the White Mage sending Kao back in time shouldn’t have changed anything. In fact, there never should have been a situation in which Kao didn’t meet another Kao in the Vanishing Journey because the nature of it being a closed-loop means that Kao always should’ve been sent back from the future to meet their past self.
The way that Kao’s timeline works actually operates on multiverse principles. We have Timeline A, in which Kao loses to the Black Mage, who sends Kao back in time to change the past. The instant that Kao travels back to the past, a new timeline - Timeline B - is created, diverging from Timeline A at the very moment where Kao emerges in the past. From there, Timeline B has Kao help the Adversary retain their Arcane Power, which allows them to defeat the Black Mage, but there’s still a Timeline A in which the world was destroyed and recreated.
The White Mage, during his dialogue with us in Limina, vaguely explains that the act of sending Kao back in time like he did can only be done once, but he never really goes into why that is. There’s also the other implication that the Black Mage is aware of what happened in the other timeline, but that’s not really as much of an issue, since it’s established that Transcendents, as evidenced from their name, transcend the laws of space and time.
However, there are supposed to be limits to the powers of Transcendents that even they can’t break. While they themselves might not be bound to the same physical laws as mortals, they still don’t have the power to affect the universe itself by breaking the Overseers’ laws of time. Because of this, I don’t see a way to fix this plot hole without fundamentally altering their explanation of the Kao timeline.
I did think of one possible theory to reconcile all of this, which is the idea that instead of working on a causal loop or multiverse rules, there’s one single timeline that gets overwritten through going to the past. What I mean by this is that the timeline can be changed, but the Overseers actively intervene whenever they can in order to ensure that time doesn’t get thrown into chaos.
From what we’ve seen in the game, we know that the following three principles exist: time travelers can’t interact with objects if it’ll cause a paradox, time travelers will look physically different if it’ll cause a paradox, and the events of the past can’t be changed.
Since that last point doesn’t work with Kao’s timeline, the way that I think of it is that while the past can be changed, the fact there’s just one timeline means that there’s no chaos from hopping between timeline branches, which preserves the intent behind the rule, since it means that the Overseers can preserve order in a singular timeline.
With this theory, there are four assumptions that I’m making about the Overseers, based on what we know from the story:
The Overseers can’t override the free will of mortals.
The Overseers can influence mortal behavior through warping their perception of reality in a trivial capacity (like changing physical appearances)
The Overseers can manipulate any Transcendent who doesn’t have extraordinarily strong willpower
The Overseers will always act in such a way that preserves the original flow of time, and in the most minimally invasive way, whenever possible.
The first example of this theory is the Silent Crusade time travel:
At the moment that the Black Mage’s seal was created, the Heroes fell to Leafre.
There were multiple possible futures dependent on the variables available at the time. The most probable outcome was that nothing significant would’ve changed, as it's likely that Freud would’ve intervened to save Aran, Afrien, and Mercedes, meaning that the overall timeline would’ve remained the same as what we currently have, with the Heroes’ lives being saved and them getting frozen.
In the present, Arkarium opened a Crack in Time that leads to the past, and the Silent Crusade went back in time in order to stop him from succeeding.
The introduction of the Crusader as a new variable results in new futures being branched out.
The Crusader, rather than Freud, helps the Heroes in this new timeline, but this doesn’t really change anything at all.
While Maha and Afrien do recognize Aran, Evan, and Mercedes if they happen to be the player, this doesn’t affect the overall outcome.
Because of this, the Overseers don’t need to intervene, and as a result, the timeline in which Freud intervened gets erased, with a new future that has the Crusader as the one who saved the Heroes being created, which retroactively presents itself as a causal loop.
The second case is with the Seal Stone of Ellin Forest, which Hiver stole from the past:
There was an unknown event that resulted in the Temporal Gate appearing in Ludibrium.
Both Aran and Hiver went back in time through that gate in order to reach Ellin Forest.
Because Aran’s appearance would cause a paradox in the timeline if people saw her when the Heroes are meant to be sealed, Overseer intervention is necessary.
Aran’s appearance gets changed, which makes her look different to everyone in Altaire Camp. While Athena Pierce does end up believing that she’s Aran, she keeps this information to herself, which doesn’t affect the overall timeline.
Meanwhile, Hiver ends up stealing the Seal Stone of Ellin Forest. This is a pretty major problem because the Seal Stone is a powerful relic that holds the power of chaos.
The problem is that the Overseers can’t do anything to fix the situation, as all three Transcendents are sealed away at this time.
Since doing something like changing Hiver’s face wouldn’t help at all, they just have to watch as Hiver takes the Seal Stone back to the Black Wings.
Eventually, the Seal Stone gets destroyed by the Black Wings anyways, which ends up resolving the situation.
A related example is the Ellin Forest storyline:
Just like how Freud likely helped the Heroes in Leafre, Ephenia was likely killed by a member of Altaire Camp after Perzen and the other leaders discovered her plot to kill all humans.
The other major event that happened in Ellin Forest is that Destonen gets killed by Kirston’s curse.
Destonen is an influential figure who would’ve changed the course of events in Victoria Island if he were to survive, and Ephenia would’ve destroyed all humans if she lived, meaning that these two deaths need to have happened in order to keep the order of the timeline.
Because of the Temporal Gate being opened, there’s a heavy possibility that the future might get changed by someone who goes through the gate.
In order to ensure that things happen as they’re meant to, the Overseers use their power to change the appearance of the Chronicle of Ellin Forest, creating a minor illusion that there’s a paragraph which describes the player’s appearance. Because of this, Wiz ends up searching for the player and calls them to the library.
The player then goes back in time, with the Overseers changing the appearances of the Heroes and the Demon in order to prevent time paradoxes.
The player existing as a new variable creates countless new futures that the timeline can be steered towards.
However, the player’s actions result in them killing Ephenia, rather than whoever it was that killed her originally.
Whereas the Overseers had used a trick to make it seem like the Chronicle of Ellin Forest had described the player killing Ephenia, their intervention has now made it so that it actually happens, causing the book to actually be rewritten.
The player’s actions then overwrite the timeline, resulting in a new timeline that’s functionally a causal loop, even though it only became one because the original timeline before it got erased.
Meanwhile, the player attempts to change the future by warning Destonen about Kirston, which creates new possible futures.
However, Destonen - by his own free will - decides not to listen, resulting in him getting cursed.
While the timeline is preserved, there was still a chance that a radically different future could’ve overwritten the timeline, which the Overseers couldn’t have prevented, since the Transcendents are all sealed away and they have no power to interact with the world.
The last case is with Kao’s timeline:
After Kao fails to defeat the Black Mage, the world is destroyed and recreated.
With the White Mage existing as the last Transcendent, the Overseers still have control over the new world, and so this is their optimal future, as there’s really nothing more that can be done by the Black Mage to change destiny at this point, since the only life forms in the new world are the Limina mobs.
However, the White Mage discovers that there’s a small chance that the past can be changed, even if the future can’t.
He sends Kao back in time, which he describes as an action that can only be done once.
The White Mage’s plan will result in the end of all Transcendents, and so the Overseers need to intervene in order to stop it.
By the Overseers’ own laws of time, going through the Gate of the Past results in Kao’s memories being lost. However, the Black Mage had accounted for this to happen by erasing any companions, such as Maha, Mir, or Taotie, thereby ensuring that their influence won’t prompt Kao to leave the Temple of Time until the time is right.
The Adversary then meets Kao, and while changing Kao’s face would’ve made sense, we also know that Kao is going to recover their memories no matter what, and so it doesn’t matter if the Overseers change their face or not.
Because of Kao saving the Adversary, the future in which the Black Mage succeeds is now possible. The Overseers need to critically act in order to do something, but since every Transcendent is either resistant or has been rendered inoperative by the Black Mage, there’s nothing that they can do.
In this timeline, there are several futures created because of Kao being introduced as a variable, with one being the Adversary’s victory, and the other being yet another defeat.
However, if the Adversary fails this time, there’s nothing that the Black Mage will be able to do.
In the new world, the only variable he has left is the player, but the problem is that he’s already sent them back in time once. If he sends the player back again, two Kaos will exist in the past simultaneously, and this would cause the same problem as if Kao were to go back in time with their companion, as there would be questions raised about their joint existences.
Since he’s sent the first Kao back to correct the mishap with Tana, and he’s sent the second Kao back to correct whatever it was that caused the Adversary to fail a second time, having them both there together would ruin both operations at once.
What this means is that after the Black Mage sends Kao back in time once, the Adversary is the only person who can shape the destiny of the world, as the Overseers and the Black Mage both have their hands tied.
Whatever choice the Adversary makes with their own free will is the sole influence in whether the timeline will get rewritten in favor of the Overseers or the Black Mage, who all basically have no choice but to sit back and wait to see how things play out.
THE WHITE MAGE SAVED OUR LIFE:
In the Shangri-La storyline, it’s revealed that the Overseers ordained that every Adversary will meet their end after fulfilling their purpose by killing a god, as they feared that allowing such powerful, uncontrollable beings to remain in the world would usher in a new age of chaos.
For this reason, the player was fated to die after killing the Black Mage and fulfilling their purpose until Darmoor changed their destiny by destroying their Seal Stone before it could kill them.
However, this makes little sense because the Adversary killed the Black Mage long before the events of Cernium, meaning that they would have many months to potentially cause chaos like the Overseers had hoped to avoid, making their preordained death meaningless.
Immediately upon killing the Black Mage, however, the Adversary scattered into Erdas and disappeared into the Erda Flow, where the White Mage spoke with them before using the power of creation to bring them back to life, along with all the other Alliance soldiers who died in battle.
Because of this, it would make much more sense if us scattering into Erdas was our preordained death, as we would have died the moment that we fulfilled our purpose. And in this way, the White Mage using his Transcendent powers to save our life would mean that he was the one who changed our destiny, rather than Darmoor.
As the elders had no idea about what happened during the battle against the Black Mage, it is likely that they mistakenly interpreted Darmoor destroying our Seal Stone as him saving our life, even though we had already met our fate.
Another possibility is that the Overseers would have attempted to kill us once again after the White Mage changed our destiny, and Darmoor shattering our Seal Stone was his way of ensuring that the Overseers would not be able to intervene again.
HOW THE CONTAMINATION OF ODIUM’S ADVERSARIES WORKS:
What contamination is:
Contamination is a phenomenon that the elders used to refer to a loss of humanity in the Vessels that they hoped to turn into Adversaries.
It appears to be transmissible, as both the elders and the researchers were affected by it over the course of the experiments.
Contamination is caused by attempting to erase a Vessel’s ego, which is done through a combination of magic and cybernetics, which not only erodes the test subject's sense of self, but also enhances their innate strength and power.
The exact properties of contamination are unknown, although given its transmissibility, it’s likely magical in nature, possibly generated and exacerbated by the power of the Godsphere being fused with the Vessel's body and mind. Kaling and Alter both demonstrated symptoms of contamination after the experiments, while Tai Yu didn’t, despite having undergone the same experiments.
Based on the possibility that the experiments sought to completely erase the Vessel's ego, and given that Kaling, Alter, and Tai Yu all demonstrated some level of individuality, it can be inferred that defective Vessels possess varying degrees of contamination depending on the extent to which their ego was erased through experimentation.
It’s also possible that the contamination of defective Vessels occurs due to their proximity to completed, fully-contaminated Vessels in the laboratory, or it could be a mix of both reasons.
How mysticant factor into contamination:
Through an unknown influence, countless cursed objects known as mysticants were brought into the world, manifesting as ordinary objects.
In a book written by the elders, it was described that mysticants existed independently of their will.
The elders later created the bell mysticant in order to cleanse the contamination that had spread to themselves and the researchers.
It was also described that the bell is capable of cleansing the evil energies of other mysticants, as any sickness caused by a mysticant can only be cured by another mysticant.
In the same book written by the elders, it was explained that the bell had been created as a unique amalgam of their own will and purpose.
Given that the bell was made to cleanse the contamination, and that it has the power to purify the evil energies of mysticants, it can be speculated that mysticants contain a portion of the contamination of the Adversaries.
The paintbrush mysticant, which holds the ability to gouge out happy memories and paint them on a canvas, is indicative of this, as the loss of memory and emotion is a symptom of the contamination.
Although the bell was capable of cleansing the evil energies of the paintbrush mysticant, it was later revealed that the ringing of the bell didn’t erase the contamination of the elders and the researchers.
Though the reason for this is unknown, the elders believe that it’s indicative of their sins being beyond forgiveness. This can be interpreted to mean that while the bell is capable of cleansing evil, the sheer magnitude of the elders' contamination is beyond its capacity to purify.
How contamination can be counteracted:
Even though it was thought impossible by the elders, it’s possible for contamination to be reversed.
The only known instance of this happening is with Kaling, who subtly began regaining her ability to feel after spending a year with the private investigators of Cheong-woon who had rescued her from her seal.
Though Kaling had originally intended to merely use them to find the Four Perils, there were evident signs of her feelings beginning to return, such as her smiling softly at a flower that the investigators gave her as a gift.
After the investigators were all killed by Qiongqi, Kaling began experiencing immense sadness and guilt after finding the investigators' final gift for her amidst their bodies.
Because of this, it’s highly likely that contamination - described as a lack of humanity - can be naturally cleansed through immersing oneself in humanity. As the elders had sequestered themselves away from humanity in order to stop their spread of contamination from affecting others, it’s likely that this is the reason for why they never learned of this.
In the midst of Kaling's grief, Gerand Darmoor approached her and hoped to recruit her as his Apostle by telling her that he needed her research.
As a result, Darmoor intentionally chose to feed into the effects of Kaling's contamination by enabling her hardwired obsession with fulfilling her purpose through completing her research, which exacerbated the effects of her contamination and ensured that her feelings would fade away.
Kaling would later describe that there was a chance that her lost, resurfaced emotions would have persisted, had she been given enough time to process them. Because of this, there’s a possibility that Kaling's contamination could have fully been erased given enough time, had Darmoor not interfered in the process of her regaining her humanity.
Although there’s no known way of erasing contamination outside of immersing oneself in humanity, it’s possible to halt its exacerbation through a counteracting force of balance. For this reason, the elders created Shangri-La as a convergence of the four seasons, with its harmonic energies stopping the worsening of the contamination.
It can be speculated that Tai Yu, who was said to be one of the last Vessels in Odium, was spared from the contamination, as the laboratory was shut down soon after the experiments on him concluded, meaning that there would only be a short amount of time that he would have been exposed to the contamination before moving to Shangri-La and spending most of his life in its natural harmony, which would prevent the contamination of the elders from spreading to him.
Additionally, as Tai Yu spent many years in the outside world, meeting others, and raising Hoyoung, it’s possible that any amounts of contamination within himself was erased through him choosing to strengthen his ties to his humanity.
Tai Yu would often emphasize humanity existing above the earth and beneath the heavens, making it possible that this trigram helped him retain his humanity, and possibly also to ensure that Hoyoung would not become contaminated by the elders and the researchers while he dwelled in the Hermitage in Shangri-La.
Why the player is unique:
The player is the only known Adversary capable of retaining their humanity and sense of self.
While the reason for this is unknown, it’s speculated that it’s due to the Adversary being organically chosen by a Seal Stone, rather than being forcibly fused.
The Seal Stones and the Godspheres both respond to the collective will of the people, and at the time of the Adversary's creation, the Seal Stone of Ereve had responded to the deep desire of the people of Maple World for the Adversary to be saved from death.
It’s possible that this organic, symbiotic fusion is the reason why the Adversary retained their ego, as the wish of the people was for the Adversary - as a person - to survive unscathed, for which the Seal Stone recognized them as a Vessel of the people's will and chose to fuse with them on its own accord.
HOW THE THREE LAWS INTERACT:
The three laws are each interrelated in order to form a balanced system. While each law is distinct, it has ties to the other two, and can be converted from one form to another.
Life = energy:
Life and death are analogies for the creation and destruction of types of energy. By combining various techniques to manipulate different forms of energy, such as thermal kinetic, etc, the power of life has the ability to affect the state of matter.
Mortals have the ability to harness the power of life, such as Hilla using her powers to bring back souls. Souls contain magical bioenergy that serves as a power source for an organism. A soul contains an imprint of an individual's energy composition, allowing it to retain form and power, though it does not contain memory.
Without a soul, a living being will immediately die. When a soul leaves the body, it will move on to the afterlife, while the physical body will decompose into Erda and be recycled into new life. Memory is stored inside the Erdas, which is erased upon passing through the field of the Goddess' Promise.
Mortals have the ability to pull a soul from the afterlife with magic, allowing them to manifest it as an echo with no personality or memory. If the soul's vessel is still present, a necromancer can temporarily return the soul into the body, allowing it to be reanimated with its memories and powers for a moment (such as how Hilla temporarily returned Ryude's men back to life in order to learn Ryude's plan). Using the power of life, Hilla can also manipulate energy in order to have her skeleton warriors move and fight.
The powers of life don't have to necessarily correspond to living things. Darmoor was able to use his powers to revive Hundun, a robot who developed sentience, by infusing him with his own bioenergy created with his Transcendent powers. Because Hundun does not have a soul, there exists no imprint of his personality, which is why Hundun was little more than a mindless monster when he was brought back to life with Darmoor's bioenergy.
The overlap in life and light is such that energy can be converted into Erda, and vice versa. Darmoor is able to create souls with his life powers because this distinction between life and light was artificially constructed by the Primordial God, who arbitrarily defined the limitations of where the three domains overlap and separate when he created the three laws with the Overseers.
While all three domains are aspects of each other, they need to be converted from one form into another in order for the Transcendents to use them, while mortals are not beholden to this limitation. The Elixir of Youth that Hilla gave to Areda forced her to drain life from her people in order to remain young, which the Adversary recognized as Erda. Because Erda is matter, and matter is merely a form of energy, the Erda that Areda extracted from her people was a conversion of Erda into bioenergy. Since mortals are not limited to one domain, the elixir that Hilla created allowed for this conversation from light to life.
Light = matter:
Light and darkness are analogies for the creation and destruction of matter. By manipulating the Erdas, the power of light has the ability to construct and deconstruct matter.
In theory, there's little difference between the ability of mortals vs the Transcendent of Light aside from the magnitude of feats that can be accomplished. The White Mage, Luminous, the Adversary, and Kaling have been shown to manipulate Erdas in order to create powerful attacks, as well as to artificially create beings using Erda from the reincarnation cycle. Meanwhile, Tana and the Black Mage have been shown to have the ability to destroy and recreate the world, as well as to reshape entire landmasses by imprinting them with memories.
The limitations placed on the Transcendents is such that they can only manipulate powers that fall under their domain (i.e. Darmoor cannot manipulate Erda and Tana cannot manipulate energy). However, the way that the domains are separated is such that there exists some overlap (Alicia can use her energy manipulation to create growth of matter by infusing it with energy, such as how she created the Tower of Oz, simulating the act of Erda creation by taking something that already exists and enhancing it with magic. Similarly, Tana would be able to sculpt a soul using Erdas, just like how Darmoor can restore someone to life using bioenergy as a soul).
Because the Transcendent of Life cannot, in general, convert energy to Erda, and because mortals can only manipulate these laws on a limited scale, the the creation and destruction of matter remains highly regulated. Because of this, the powers of the Transcendent of Light are separated between two vessels in order to ensure that the powers of creating and destroying matter on a cosmic scale will not upset the balance of the universe, as this is significantly more potent than the creation and destruction of energy.
Time = spacetime:
Space and time are two aspects of spacetime - the combined three dimensions of space and the single dimension of time. Because these two aspects are interrelated, the power of time allows one to manipulate both.
Time magic is arguably the strongest domain amongst the three, even more so than light. Even on a mortal level, the ability to use time magic allows for one to distort spacetime in a particular coordinate, creating a temporal barrier that prevents the flow of time from traveling beyond that point, such as how Freud created a barrier of time at the moment when the Black Mage was sealed.
On a Transcendent level, space and time can be freely manipulated in order to start, stop, rewind, and fast-forward time, as well as to create spatial distortions as pocket dimensions, which can be large enough to swallow entire kingdoms like Kritias.
Most importantly, the ability to rewind time has the capability to directly contradict the law of conservation of matter, meaning that one can create more Erda, and therefore, more energy, by moving matter from the future into the past. While the Transcendent of Time is unable to directly convert energy into matter, or vice versa, they have the ability to affect the state of that matter and energy by shaping where and how it moves.
The power of time is to manipulate the shape of reality, directing the currents of how energy and matter interact. Because of how fundamental and powerful it is, the Transcendents of Time are strictly regulated by the Overseer of Time, even more so than the other Transcendents, making them physically incapable of deviating from their fate, no matter how resistant.
Summary:
The three laws of light, life, and time are metaphors for the fundamental forces of physics, which govern the basic principles of how the universe operates. These three laws were created by the Primordial God when he made the three Overseers, with the bounds of their domains being arbitrarily defined in order to create a separation of powers between the Transcendents.
The three laws define the interactions between energy and matter, both of which are aspects of one another, while the laws of spacetime govern the flow of these interactions, creating the natural order as it exists. The Black Mage and Darmoor both stealing the power of time reflects how conducive its abilities are to facilitating and strengthening the abilities of light and life.
The Black Mage, as the Transcendent of Light, attempted to harvest Erda in order to transmute matter and create a new world. Darmoor, as the Transcendent of Life, is attempting to harvest bioenergy from across the galaxy in order to remake life. To complete this cycle, it can be speculated that a corrupt Transcendent of Time of the third world will attempt to manipulate spacetime in order to harvest Erda or energy from different points in the future or the past.
One possibility is that the copies of the people of Earth are part of a larger Mirror World construct created by this Transcendent of Time, including the White Mage, in order to help them with their goals, as the laws of the Overseers strictly prevent them from changing their own destiny on their own. This would be similar to how Rhinne created Zero in order to indirectly change her fate, with the difference being that creating Mirror World copies of the Transcendents from other worlds would allow those copies to operate with a level of resistance, rather than being completely restricted like the Transcendent of Time who made them.
By defeating each of these Transcendents, the Adversary will restore balance back to the universe by repairing the fallen domains of light, life, and time, respectively, which can then be tied into facing the Overseers themselves after eliminating the Transcendents.