Chtholly not using Seniorious in her final battle has an enormous symbolic significance. Seniorious is a sword that only allows those who can never find happiness in their lives to wield it. Therefore, it would be very odd if the “Happiest Girl in the World” used such a weapon. Furthermore the nearly human Chtholly instead used Desperatio, a sword intended to be used by humans against other humans, on the formerly human Beasts. So in a way Chtholly’s change of weapons mirrored her own development over the course of the series.
WorldEnd can be regarded as something of a Deconstruction of the typical fantasy light novel. This is odd considering that the world of WorldEnd seemed pretty generic in the past. You had adventurers and heroes embarking on epic quests to fight dragons and other various fantasy monsters. There was even a leveling system, albeit one based on ranking skill in battle rather than measuring actual strength. In other words, there was little to distinguish it from other fantasy light novel worlds. This all changed with the emergence of the 17 Beasts, who changed the story from a human centric fantasy romp to a post apocalyptic sci fi series with mostly non human characters. Both the story and the world were literally deconstructed by the 17 Beasts.
Willem truly does have “the character of a Brave”. Humanity’s elite warriors sacrificed everything to fight against impossible odds, yet they still failed to save humanity and end up being reviled in the present day as a symbol of mankind’s evil. This mirrors Willem’s character arc as a Failure Hero who couldn’t protect the people he cared most about in the past in spite of his many sacrifices. Fittingly he ends up dying as a villain in the eyes of the public in order to save the Warehouse, cementing him as a Tragic Hero worthy of being the last Regal Brave.
Willem and Chtholly symbolically represent the two opposing forces in WorldEnd’s universe, the Beasts and the Visitors. Chtholly is a fragment of a Visitor who gradually gets subsumed by her original personality. Willem on the other hand is actually a Beast, who gains a greater understanding of his true nature as the story progresses.
Chtholly’s relationship with Elq also mirrors Willem’s later one with Shiantor. It’s fitting in a way because Elq is the last Visitor, while Shiantor is the only Beast of its kind.
In the second episode Nygglatho tells Willem that Leprechauns were originally fairies that disguised themselves as humans in order to live among them. Later revelations show that this version of history is nothing but Blatant Lies. The truth is that Leprechauns are fragments of Elq’s soul that only became a race after humanity went extinct. However, the idea of Leprechauns hiding amongst humans for most of history does make for a convenient cover story. After all, races like Trolls and Imps were doing the same thing for most of their existence. In fact, Trolls were so good at hiding in plain sight that they were regarded as a myth up until humanity went extinct. Therefore, it’s not surprising that they’d use a similar backstory to explain the sudden appearance of another disfeatured race.
The reason why Leprechauns can use dug weapons is because they’re said to be closely related to humans. It’s even revealed that they become progressively more human with every reincarnation. Why do soul fragments of a Visitor become more human over time? Maybe it’s because, the Visitors themselves were originally human before they became godlike beings. Leprechauns are simply reverting back to the Visitors’ original form and therefore becoming more “human”. The Emnetwyte were created to replicate the original form of the Visitors so naturally Emnetwytes and Leprechauns would have compatible magic due to their shared template.
Willem's sudden power up during the airship battle makes a lot of sense when you consider how magic works in WorldEnd. Venenum output is inversely proportional to one's will to live. This applies to both fairies and humans. Willem by that point had all but given up any hope of saving Chtholly and admits later on that he was trying to get himself killed. It's no wonder then that he was able to kill the attacking Timere even without a dug weapon.
Venenum is extremely effective against Beasts due to its ability to disrupt their natural regenerative abilities. This probably explains why races that don’t actively use Venenum tend to live longer. Almost all races in WorldEnd were created from the Beasts, who are basically immortal. Why do these races still die natural deaths? Because the natural regeneration that allows Beasts to live so long is repressed. When Willem fully awakens his Beast side he loses his ability to use Venenum, further supporting this theory. Beasts can’t use Venenum because to them it’s an alien substance that was introduced by the Visitors. It is literally poison to them, hence the name Venenum.
Souwong acts very immature for someone who's over 500 years old. However, he was only 12 when humanity went extinct. Lack of fellow humans and isolation from general society likely left him emotionally stunted. We can see the same thing with Elq who only interacted with her guardians prior to meeting Lilia.
Why does the military still use conventional means to fight the beasts, even though they know only dug weapons affect them? It's all part of a facade. If the public knew that the fate of the islands was in the hands of a small group of girls it would set off a panic. Islands would construct even more destructive weapons in the name of self defense, leading to potential conflicts between rival groups. The rest of the Winged Guard is essentially a cover for the fairies to do the real fighting without alerting the public.
Why is Limeskin so willing to bet the safety of an island on Chtholly's resolve? Ordering someone on a suicide mission is not an easy thing to do, especially if you personally know them. Souwong even states that this is the reason why he had never met a fairy prior to his encounter with Rhan.
Ithea’s personality is seemingly the most stereotypical out of the main cast, because she’s basing her fake identity as Ithea off of books she’s read. The trashy romance novels she reads can be viewed as a sort of Take That! at other Light Novels with underdeveloped characters. One of the characters in those books even has a Verbal Tic similar to Ithea’s as their sole defining characteristic.
Humans in WorldEnd are almost always called Emnetwyte in the present. At first it seems like the author is just using the term to sound cool. Then you realize Emnetwytes aren't actually "human". The race known as humanity was created from beasts in the image of the Visitors. This strongly implies that Visitors were the "original" humans, while Emnetwytes are simply replicas.
Nils’ frequent absences during Willem’s childhood make a lot more sense considering he was secretly the leader of True World.
This likely explains the presence of True World’s research facility in Gomag. It was Nils’ hometown after all.
Why did Nils only partially revive Elq? He likely wanted to keep her power in check. At full power Elq can unwittingly fry the brains of any lesser beings within a certain radius. Even with half her soul, Elq would likely Mind Rape everyone on the island by merely existing if fully revived.
Why does Tiat dress like Chtholly in SukaMoka? The obvious answer is that she wants to emulate her older sister figure. However, it also makes sense that she would inherit Chtholly’s old clothes after her death. Handing down clothes to a younger sibling is pretty normal and the warehouse is likely no exception.
Feodor’s description of the world’s destruction is notably different than Willem’s; he solely blames the Emnetwyte for the creation of the 17 Beasts. This is because, unlike Willem, he grew up in Règles Aile and no doubt subscribes to the widely held belief that humanity was evil.
Being a disfeatured gives him an added reason to loath humanity. Imps and other disfeatured likely suffer a great deal of discrimination just by being associated with humans.
That might explain why such a talented soldier has been assigned to the less than prestigious 5th Division.
At some point prior to SukaMoka the Winged Guard decided to switch out its ornate black dress uniforms with a more subdued grey variant. This is an example of Truth in Television as Règles Aile appears to be in the late industrial revolution. It was around this time that most real world armies made the transition from Napoleonic style uniforms to more practical pre-WW1 designs.
Règles Aile’s written language appears to be French in the anime, while 500 year old Emnetwyte texts are written in Latin. This makes sense considering the two languages are said to be very similar. It seems likely that the modern day language of Règles Aile was derived from the old Emnetwyte language much in the same way French developed from Latin.
The two sides of SukaMoka’s main Love Triangle symbolically represent Feodor’s primary character struggle. Elba shares his hatred against the existing world and desire to punish the cowards who would sacrifice young girls to keep that world afloat. Tiat, on the other hand, is Feodor’s Morality Chain and the source of his growing doubts about his original mission. Their struggle for his heart is also a contest to see which path he ultimately takes.
Not the even the Great Sage knows how long the spell keeping the islands afloat will last. It's disturbing to think that one day the entire archipelago could fall out of the sky with no warning. In one conversation a character mentions that an island had recently "sunk". They never said if a beast was involved.
It’s implied that humans might have engaged in ethnic cleansing against other races back in Willem’s time. Willem mentions at one point that his fellow humans thought other races were barely above the non sentient monsters their adventurers routinely exterminated. At one point he also reads a history book that states that humans had already driven a number of races from their homelands even before the 17 Beasts emerged. Willem’s panicked reaction upon being awoken might have been because he was expecting to be killed or tortured as revenge for human atrocities. What makes it worse is that other races seem to have engaged in similar practices, with Elves being the worst offenders. Present day Règles Aile may be rife with Fantastic Racism, but at least the different races are no longer trying to murder each other.
At the end of the anime Chtholly sacrifices her life to protect Willem and Nephren. However, this was almost a Senseless Sacrifice as Willem and Nephren were so badly injured by that point they likely would have died without immediate medical treatment. Ironically, being possessed by Shiantor likely saved both of their lives. Furthermore her destruction of the Timere nearly led to the Warehouse being shutdown.
The destruction of Willem’s hometown at the hands of the 17 Beasts was horrifying to behold. It gets worse when you realize the same thing was likely happening in every other human settlement. The coma cases were reported all across human territory, meaning that the initial outbreak was very widespread. We only get to see the first night and the aftermath of the Beasts’ rampage. Imagine how horrible it was for those who survived the initial attacks.
Volume 4 sees Willem and Nephren trapped inside a recreation of Gomag. The majority of the arc is about Willem attempting to find a way out of the dream world. However, they both know that their real bodies are so badly injured that they'll likely die once they escape. Despite knowing this Willem is determined to escape, because he wants to die. He tried to get himself killed in battle on the Plantagenista and failed. Now he's stuck in a dream world where he likely can't die, so of course he'd want to escape.
Willem in general is basically borderline suicidal for most of the series. Multiple characters comment on how it seems like he's always about to "break". He clearly has PTSD and a massive case of Survivor Guilt. His actions from volume 3 onward take on a disturbing self sacrificial tone. He ultimately does kill himself at the end of the light novel, but chooses to come back, suggesting that he has found some sort of peace. For anyone who has struggled with depression it can be hard to watch.
The residents of Gomag in volume 4 aren’t just some illusion cooked up by Shiantor, they’re actually the souls of the town’s former residents. That means that at one point they really were the people Willem knew from his former life. It also means that everything that happened to them in volume 4 was also real. They may have just been souls, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t feel the pain of being torn apart by the Aurora. And since Shiantor was simply recreating past events, this means that they had to live through the horrible destruction of their hometown AGAIN.
Some of the Aurora Navrutri fought during his Last Stand were likely once children from the orphanage. Willem finds the orphanage empty when the Beasts first start attacking Gomag, meaning that no one was present there during the original timeline. Almaria was moved to the underground research facility after she fell into a coma. It seems likely that the other children at the orphanage were also moved there for safe keeping. By the time Willem gets there, Navrutri is the only person in the facility still human, so his former comrade likely just had to put down a good number of Willem’s loved ones.
Volume 5 reveals that the Elpis Mercantile Federation has kidnapped fairies for use in their new anti beast weapon. The weapon uses at least three fairies as a power source, however one is left to wonder if that was the only one. Any kind of weapon system often goes through multiple design stages and prototypes. How many fairies did Elpis sacrifice to develop their monstrosity?
The end of series has Willem successfully disarm the plot against the Warehouse. Unfortunately, after their plan is foiled the majority of the conspirators get away scot free. Although Elpis was destroyed by one of their own experiments, one gets the feeling that the conspiracy was bigger than one island. The advanced technology they were working with suggests that they had outside help from someone very powerful. This individual or group likely won’t give up after a few setbacks. They’ll likely come after the Warehouse again at some point. One can only hope Willem’s successor, Feodor, is up to the task when that time comes.
Nearly every person who has ever used Seniorious has met an extremely tragic demise. In light of that things aren’t looking very good for Lakhesh, the sword’s most recent owner.
Probably the biggest piece of Fridge Horror in the series comes in Volume 5’s epilogue. Carmine Lake informs Elq that the world itself is dying and doesn’t have much time left. In other words not even the Visitors can do anything to save the planet from it’s inevitable doom. The state of the planet prior to the Visitors’ arrival suggests it was already in its death throes with the primordial Beasts being the only remaining life forms. The Visitors’ powers only delayed the inevitable. Eventually all life on the planet, including the 17 Beasts, will come to an end. The one bright spot is that a Visitor’s definition of soon might be an eternity for mortals. The end of the world may hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years in the future. Still, it’s a rather bleak note to end the story on; knowing our heroes’ actions don’t mean a damn in the grand cosmic scale of things. It’s stuff like this that makes WorlEnd a low key Cosmic Horror Story.
We now know what would have happpened if the fairies hadn’t defeated Willem at the end of WorldEnd. In SukaMoka it’s revealed that two more islands were attacked around the same time as Island 11. Neither island had the chance to mount a defense or evacuate their citizens. The resulting slaughter quickly turned both islands into floating graves.
Tiat’s desire to emulate Chtholly has a much darker tone now that she’s older. Especially once you realize, she now believes she’ll end up meeting the same fate as her older sister figure.
Her presence in a city on the verge being attacked by a Beast along with some of her dialogue with Feodor in their first meeting implies she’s been sent there on a suicide mission.
The end of the original series shows that Island 68 is still around 5 years after the events of SukaMoka. However, in SukaMoka it’s revealed that the floating islands can only be kept aloft for another two years max. So why is Island 68 still afloat three years after it should have fallen? Feodor’s current plan to save Regles Aile is to drop all but a few islands in order to save a fragment of civilization. Doing this would likely allow the remaining islands to remain afloat for a longer period. And it looks like his plan hinges on Willem using Shiantor’s power to sink the islands. Willem’s return to the Warehouse might have only been possible because he helped Feodor carry out mass murder.
The scary part is Willem might just say yes to Feodor’s proposal. He was willing to unleash Shiantor on the heavily populated Island 11 in order to save the Warehouse. In other words, Willem is perfectly fine sacrificing countless innocent lives for the sake of the Leprechauns.
