Lanselot Tartaros's real agenda
Warning: this theory uses the plot of Knight of Lodis.We know the following:
- He practically goes out of his way to not let Bakram dominate Valeria.
- He is very willing to lay low and eventually leave Valeria when things go south, not very concerned about what Lodis will think.
- He had what he needed to break the seal on the chaos gate, yet took in Catiua.
Therefore, I theorize that Lanselot Tartaros's real agenda is to find Eleanor and/or Shaher. His plan was to exchange Eleanor for Catiua.
- His quickness to leave when things went south was more a reflection of his experiences with similar things. He knows all too well how such things go; badly.
A Gaiden Game or even a main title game (episode IV?) was going to be about Andoras
My theory for the series was that episode I was the titular Ogre Battle itself, and that the others were about how humans treated the world after they won it, with games dedicated to Lodis's rise and fall amongst other countries such as Xenobia and Valeria. Andoras would have had one game about the Lodissian invasion of his homeland. Honestly, I think They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot or maybe they had plans with him. Then again though, there's also Volaq - while he didn't have much of a backstory, they really could have done more with him than they did.
- The What Could Have Been part is mostly confirmed. Word of God from Yasumi Matsuno confirmed that one of the two games he planned to do would be about the liberation of the country Andoras was born, and it would have been concurrent with Let Us Cling Together's story.
Vyce was destined by the Wheel to oppose Denam.
Similar to Jowy from Suikoden II or Fuuma from X1999. He loses his sanity if the Wheel forces him to be evil. The big choice has more of a role in Vyce's changes than some may think
The WMG above may be the cosmic reason, the down to earth ones is that when Denam makes his choice, it causes different emotions to rise up in him, channeling his hidden jealousy which came to a boil.- Lawful Route: His feeling were tempered with righteous outrage with what his friend was doing, preventing the toxic effects of those feelings. And as he became a leader in his own right, he overcame his issues, finding in himself to help his friend once it's clear he's taking things in the right direction, a far cry from swearing to kill him early on.
- Chaos/Neutral route: Seeing Denam remain ever the paragon causes him to snap fully, mentally justifying anything he does. And over time he only gets worse as he drowns in his flaws and resentment as he attempts to bait around larger groups, until it comes back to fatally bite him. If anything, Denam coming back into the fold on the neutral made things worse as he had to see his bosses favor Denam in spite of his betrayal.
The Taken for Granite Statues in the Palace of the Dead are backup bodies for Beelzebuth.
Yeah, she says she'll wait until a party of adventurers comes and then kill and possess them; but staying incorporeal is difficult (and there's no reason to tell Denam that.) She'll "soften" one of them and wait in it while waiting; they've been stone enough centuries that the bodies are substandard; and fresh bodies are better; but each one can last a little while. It was Rashidi who taught Punkin how to become human.
She says a "sage" taught her. His spirit is looking for a way to incarnate. Just taking a body like a Wicce wasn't enough for him, he wants to be able to manifest what he learned from the Underworld. (Most spirits who possess bodies in the Palace of the Dead can't leave) Punkin, the Crystal Pumpkins, and the Palace of the Dead just happened to grant her a perfect miracle. In a fit of Pragmatic Villainy; he let her leave unmolested, since he learned what he wanted. (The exact method she used wouldn't work for him, but there were some esoteric information he gained.)- Alternatively, it was Rudlum aka Albireo for similar reasons.
The True Form of the 12 Heavenly Generals are their weapons that many share their name.
Their descriptions state that they are God in Human Form. Cursed Weapons / Snapdragon / Snapshot was a dark reversal of this. The Apocrypha was more than a Fantastic Nuke, it represented Polytheism Vs Monotheism.
- The official story is that Rodrick used the Apocrypha to destroy his enemies, but ended up destroying his own army with it. This is the power that turned the Brigania Plains into a permafrost and sunk most of northeast Brygantys, with some of the mana even turning the ruins of San Bronsa into a Floating Island.
- Now, in Ogre Battle, Philaha is the head of the Pantheon of gods in the Roshfel faith, but in Lodis; "Filarh" is a monotheistic deity. For a time, it was both in Valeria. Then came the war between Dorgalua and Rodrick. Whatever their earthly policies, Dorgalua represented a form of monotheism similar to Lodis, and Rodrick represented polytheism.
- As Above, so Below. Anytime men war, the gods do too, in a Layered World. The Ogre Battle. But this time, it was god against god; and the divine and the infernal fought side by side and against each other. In the spiritual world, the angels (Ethereal Visions) pretty much got their asses kicked and Rodrick devastated their home in Valeria, San Brosa. But physically, humans supporting monotheism won. A divine compromise had to be made by the gods.
- So they allowed the humans sealed the other gods power away in the shrines; the Apocrypha. Ishtar's shrine of light was "subsumed" into Philaha's worship; which is why Abuna Mrueva commented that theoretically there was a shrine of light but that he didn't know where it was. (It was where Sherri had kidnapped him, right next to where he lives). Ishtar's Divine Servant, Kandyce, was relegated to punishing Rodrick's soul in the Palace of the Dead. (But there was an "out", what humans bound, humans could free.)
- Apocrypha
- Apocrypha is commonly applied in Christian religious contexts involving certain disagreements about biblical canonicity. In Philaha monotheism, Philaha being part of the other gods is Apocrypha. This is why when you release the shrines, what really happens is the daughters of the head of the Order of Philaha become Shamans; Oracles for the other gods (which the servants in each shrine calls "Magnificent"); leading to a future rise of polytheism. (And while the spells you gain are powerful, they're hardly "nuke a city" powerful.)
Deneb isn't stealing humans anymore for her body. She's transmuting pumpkin golems into humans and possessing them.
Punkin learns how to do this too, which is why she looks exactly like Deneb. Deneb isn't as powerful in her transmuted bodies as other wicce unless she has enough Crystal Pumpkins. Denam's Time Travel abilities (The Chariot System and the World System, and the Coda) come from the Crest of Fire and the Gran Grimoire used in conjunction.
The Fireseal, Fire Crest, Crest of Fire. The Ultimate MacGuffin that no one knows how to use. Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen said that it was equal to or greater than the 3 Treasures and the 12 Zodiac Stones. Alphonse, Destin, Magnus could all find this artifact, but couldn't do anything with it besides stat bonuses.- But Denam has an advantage the others don't, the Gran Grimoire. An Artifact that creates worlds, transports people between worlds and creates cities. Using the Crest of Fire as a powersource, he was able to use it to go back in time, but only for decisions he could have made at that time at key "destiny" anchor points. He could, however, bring the people he saved in those timelines back to the future with him. He tried using it to stop the Dark Knights Loslorien raid; but that was too far a stretch, too different from his time. The nature of the Gran Grimoire may have created an Alternate Universe where the raid was stopped, but it wasn't the one he lived in.
- The nature of time and space means that even in a certain timeline Denam doesn't find the Fire Crest and Gran Grimoire, he still has these powers since an alternate timeline Denam did.
