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kaiciu · 4 days ago

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Melanie is a Servant, and Melia is an Enigma Theory (V13.5 and V14 Preview Spoilers)

Hello Rejuv Nation, this is Kaiciu with another theory board Rejuv rant that is probably going to be wrong by the end of the year.

This theory, however, at this point, I 100% believe it’s true, and if I’m wrong, then I am a bigger fraud than Madame. “I hate people to be confined, but I have my employees on Death Contracts” X. (OH, we’re getting to you here….) V14 Preview stuff will be marked as Spoilers, but K.F. won't be (if you click on a theory post, I think you should at least know the current events.)

So this theory is that Melanie Theolia is a servant, but Melia herself is a weird fusion of her and Maria(Nette). She’s in a similar vein to Young Cella and Cera, A servant based on a person, but not actually that person, and due to time fuckery bullshit, which I think we’re seeing firsthand in V14 Paragon Part 1, she ends up in Team Xen’s and later Jenner’s care. We got the evidence on deck, and now let’s begin the dissection.

Exhibit A: Imperfect Replica

So, if we see from the wonderful image that I made like 2 months ago, we see that for Servants, being based on an existing person, they don’t look like an exact copy. Cera and Cella have similar hairstyles and similar personalities (from what Eldest herself stated that Cera reminded her of a younger self). But Cera’s eye color and hair look reddish compared to Cella's; her skin is paler, she’s slightly shorter based on the height chart, and the biggest one… that she’s fucking EVIL and would sacrifice her own servants to get what she wants. Like, it makes sense, she would look and act differently from Cella. She’s based on ANGIE’s memories of Cella, not Anju's, and we know how mentally stable Angie or even Ch.3 Anju is hahaha.

Melanie/Melia, do look more similar to Maria(Nette); they have the same eye color, Melanie is slightly taller than Maria, but idk if it’s including her pigtails in the height chart, and with the obvious exception of Melanie, Maria, Marianette, and Ch. 1 Melia do act like the same person. But there are 2 major examples of deviation in both Maira and Melanie/Melia.

Her hair color, Melia/Melanie, is explicitly dirty blonde, which none of the other Theolias have. They're more of a true or pale blonde. Maria doesn’t have it, the Twins don’t have it, Young Erin doesn’t have it (it’s harder to tell on the sprites, but if you compare hers and any Melia sprite in an art program, her hair color is noticeably lighter than), and even Anathea doesn’t have it. Even M2’s hair color matches the dirty blonde color, which is crazy bc V5-6 Melia, the theorized past version that M2 is based on…it’s actually the opposite, Marianette's blonde is darker (or at least more saturated) than Melia’s. Like HOW????

Version 5 Melia (M2) Version 5 Marianette

The only character directly related to Melia that is pale blonde is Zetta… you know, the explicit failed clone of Melia. I rest my case.

Math… simple, really. Maria was a super genius in calculus at Age 6, to the point that what started her and Anastasia's friendship was her being her math tutor. Melia has shown she sucked at math to the point that it prevented her from getting into GDC, and in V13 Terajuma, she had a whole scene complaining about it. The reason she spent 3 months is Zeight is to learn how to code in Ruby (which is language-based coding), imagine Variya programmed the Obelisk in binary code, we’d be fucked.

Exhibit B: Ages and Archetypes

75???? There’s no way that we can chronologically calculate that if we use what we know now. Storm-9 takes place around 40 years before the events of the main story, and we use Melia’s, Maria’s, or Marianette’s ages we can’t get that number. Melia’s age (58), Maria’s age (46), Marianette's age (50)

Speaking of ages that don’t make sense at all… MELANIE, assuming the wiki is not dead ass wrong, Melanie is 6, same as Maria. BUT she’s supposed to be Melia’s counterpart from the bad future and not Maria’s counterpart. Shouldn’t she be close to 15 (Melia’s age minus Space Hag bs.) But even in the context of the bad future, her age doesn’t make sense bc of this little detail

Uhh, unless Melanie is somehow -4 at the beginning of her reign, then there’s absolutely no way she’s just 6. However, if she were like an immortal who’s based on a 6-year-old, then it would make more sense. If we use Kanon, for example, who was known to exist at least during the era of Griselda, which was thousands of years ago. And looked pretty much the same up until he did the Servant’s trail when he became Alexandra’s instead of Nymeria’s, where he looks about the same, just has a palette swap. I assume once a Servant becomes fully human and gains a soul, that’s when they start to age. Idk if Patty and Patricia's mom aged bc sprites+ her hair is like bi colors bc she’s the only example we have of a fully human “servant” bc Kanon is in the middle of not being off branded Ralsei (I love Kanon btw). It’s telling that the moment Melanie overlapped with Melia, she actually became a similar age to her and became a Queen.

Speaking of the Overlapping ending, I don’t know why more people don’t talk about Melanie’s entire plan about overlapping with Melia to gain her archetype only makes sense if Melanie doesn’t have it naturally??? We don’t know what happened to Maria’s archetype in the bad future, but I assume that, since it’s by Adrest's account, “only an imitation of Arceus' power” and a Full Power Storm-9 stopped after 30+ years instead of 9 hours, with its weakened state that using Storm 9 fully uses it up. We know Melia has Genesis syndrome, but none of the other Theolia kids have it, and it's also asymptomatic, which means as long as she isn’t using it, it doesn’t immediately drain her of her life force. Which didn’t happen with the victims of Project Gjterial, they either couldn’t use the Archetype at all and died due to the training, or had full Genesis Syndrome and died due to it immediately.

I think our world’s Melanie/Melia's original purpose for why she was born was to replace Maria and use her archetype. Assuming Melanie was created after the Chapter 3 events, and Marianette was fighting Indriad… and to be honest, despite her best efforts, she is NOT winning that. Indriad does the unthinkable: he kills his own child. I mean, when he was Love Potion Lobotomized, he still sent Erin, Alice, and Allen to the Unown dimension and erased Anathea's memories of them, not to mention Yvetal (which is his legendary and the fact that Clear used masculine pronouns when describing the person targeting Taliea), deleting Nora so he’s not above this shit. Indriad took Marianette’s archetype and decided to try again, getting someone who he KNOWS will be 100% obedient without fail, and can do whatever methods to reeducate her he wants, bc he doesn’t see her as human, that’s right, a servant. He spent god knows how many years making sure Melanie never disobeys like Marainette ever again, and when the time was ready, she was given the archetype. But something was amiss when she took Maria’s Archetype… her soul still lingers onto it. It makes sense; she was created by a wish from it, so it makes sense if her soul is still attached to it after death. So when Melanie eventually gains the Archetype, she acquires Maria's soul as well. A different being having someone else’s soul doesn’t go well… they lived different lives, different experiences, and different opinions on their so-called father, and then they glitch out. Melanie loses most of her memories and has even forgotten her name, but only parts of it.

Melanie Theolia ….. MEka#nA TH###LIA…. Me…. Lia….. Melia.

(Anyway, uhh, I made that custom of my Interceptor OC Kaira V.B., her backstory is another can of worms lmao.)

For Bad Future Melanie, it’s hard to tell because we don’t know the details of what happened to Indriad or Maria after he basically won. My guess is that Melanie was tasked to run their new kingdom and bring more people to it while Indriad was either being the New Variya/Karma (God) or was cursed to be a somewhat mindless Yvetal or somehow both. Then, when the golden light appeared and Melanie became aware of Melia’s existence, that was their chance to gain the archetype back. That would make Melanie kind of like Flowey, a soulless being who has the power to turn back time, and that’s why she’s so evil.

How does this theory fit into the story:

A lot of theories have a problem being directly contradictory to the story or just being narratively boring. It’s the reason why I think the Roaring Knight identity theories that involve anyone other than the obvious 2 (mostly one to me, but one’s a clear red herring) candidates suck ass. So let me break down my thoughts here.

(God, there are so many UT/DR references here.)

Melia/M2:

Melia is the definition of doomed by the narrative. She is described by the New Game Chess Board as "The girl whose past and future decided eons of pain, suffering, and hope." As she tried to be controlled by all the major antagonists, and currently hanging on to a thread in Paragon K.F. This revelation might actually destroy her. Knowing that moment she was born, she was meant to be a tool for someone else's gain. If you thought Karma Files Melia acted weird, imagine how she would react to this. It makes her, “I’m Maria, but I’m not her,” talk make so much more sense if we think about it that way. Is Melia, Maria, because she has her soul and some of her memories, or is she not, because she has her own body, memories, and experiences? Or is she just another failed clown, just like Zetta? It fits MC’s and Aelita’s crises about not being their own person, but this time it’s different. MC souls (depending on your personal narrative) are different from the A-Gangs. Aelita eventually got her own soul when Vivian’s curse was broken. If Maria’s soul is that important to Melia’s existence, what happens if we separate them? Would Melia revert to Melanie or just not have a soul? Even if she got her own soul, would she even be the same person? Not to mention the Archetype and Genesis Syndrome. However, her character is that despite that fact, she will one day overcome it one way or another with help from MC, her friends, and her family, and she might be able to move past this.

It would make M2’s story more tragic, too. I assume things from old versions that DIRECTLY contradict current major Rejuv lore/characters that aren’t mentioned by M2 or counted up to changes Karma would reasonably make (like Ren’s and Kanon’s less than savory personalities or Talon’s whole existence vs. Neved being white) shouldn’t be counted as canon. I think in Old Rejuv, from what I heard, I think Melia was supposed to be literally Maria, but some shit happened based on debug dialogue for O.G V12 before Jan rewrote the game to what it is now. (Fact check me if I’m dead wrong.) If you think about it… That’s basically what this theory is, but 10000x more convoluted classic Rejuv honestly XD. Despite her best efforts, despite seeing her world die, despite being trapped for 6+ years in limbo, despite her revival, and despite burning so many bridges and having Genesis Syndrome eat away at her body while she was making comedy relief clones …she’s still Rene MC’s pawn meant to be discarded once they're done with their plans.

Kanon:

Kanon’s friendship with Melia is ROCKY to say the least… In Old Rejuv, it was Bennett+ Luna all over again. Kanon was probably Melia’s only true friend, and vice versa, when they were StormChasers in the current versions. But ever since his fight with Venam, plot shit, and his “I’m not a fucking person.” Servant era, they grew distant. After his Diamond Route character development, Melia was proud of him for trying to befriend Cera and trying to teach her that she’s her own person, separate from Angie. I think out of everyone, he will understand her pain of this revelation the most. And I can see them becoming better friends for it.

The Theolias Family:

I think Melia will feel like she isn’t really Erin and the Twins' sister, just a pale knock off of their true sister, and they will immediately say that’s bullshit. She’s still their sister, no matter what, and this changes nothing. There’s also Anathea, who didn’t recognize Melia as Maria in the Soul Stone. I think whatever happens to her next, I think she’ll try to treat Melia as part of the family, even if she isn’t Maria exactly, while treating her as her own person.

Madame X and Team Xen:

Oh, these fucks…Okay, so they had Melia since she was like a child, they kill people, their main plan is based on assumingly killing millions, but they made an Adult clone of Melia to use instead of her bc she was “too young.” and then instead of raising Melia to be a tool for their plans they… make Jenner raise her as a normal girl, wait till she’s 14 to get her back and act surprised when Jenner got attached and had a plan for her to escape???? There’s a certain point where efficiency turns into “I get uncomfortable manipulating children for my plans, teens, though no prob.”

I didn’t like Madame X = Marianette originally, because I thought the game would have no reason to withhold that until V14+ for the simplest answer. Jan said no one figured out her identity fully yet, close but no cigar. Now I think either Jan is lying his ass off or telling a half-truth, and her not being at least the Maria(nette) we see in game, but another one makes the most sense. Despite the game's complicated lore, to quote, “the answers with the fewest assumptions are often the correct answer.” Madame X, based on this theory, is a soulless Marianette who somehow survived Indriand's removal of the Archetype, like how Keta became soulless after experiencing the horrors of WLL, so he can live with the guilt and the pain of all that. Without her soul, Madame X became very irritable and is willing to do terrible things if it’s “justifiable”. The majority of Xen Grunts, Executives, and Admins were either dead and were revived somehow (Eli, Sharon, Madelis, Geara, Jenner, Cassandra, etc) or had nothing to live for (Neved). They know what their signing into, or the alternative is them being dead. “So the death contract is not a prison.” It’s the reason why she didn’t raise Melia to be her Storm-9 maker; she wants Melia, a reflection of her old self, to actually have a childhood, to not suffer the same fate that she did, and when she was actually at an age to understand her plans to bring her back, but someone or some group (cough) intercepted those plans she’d been playing damage control ever since. MX, you fake idagfer, I can see you making Melia have the life you never could.

There’s also the connection that Madame X has with Melia to let her know deep down she wasn’t dead. If she is Maria, it’s because Melia’s carrying her soul, and she can feel that. If she isn’t, maybe it’s because MX made Melia do a Servants Trail, making Melia technically her servant. Or maybe even both.

Unrelated idea, if Madame X's real goal is to make a reset where she’s in control, not Karma/Variya. It would be her dialogue with Yvetal when you beat her so much sadder if this theory is true. “Father, I failed you.” Similar to Anathea, when she went back to Shayda to make a stronger love potion for Vitus. Maria knew Vitus was a kind father who genuinely cared about her until that day, when Anathea died and the demon returned. Like Anathea, she longs for those days despite knowing that he is a monster through and through. Maybe resetting the world can make Vitus actually care about her again and not be satan, to make him her Father again.

Closing Remarks:

You know what started this theory: when V14 Paragon Preview was released, MC, Ren, and Venam seemingly returned to Marble Mansion, and they had a preview of the new VS Servants! theme. So I thought, hey, maybe Servants are going to be an important part of V14, and I wrote a quick idea of it on Bluesky. I have been hyperfixating on this theory ever since.

So what broke the camel's back to make me write? This is when the full version of that custom theme was released on Darius's channel (the goat, I love his music in Desolation)

youtube

2 things got me thinking

comment saying that this doesn’t fit as a traditional battle theme. If we go with the assumption that this theme is supposed to go with all of Indriad’s and Angie’s servants, it will have to replace the banger that Lusamnie’s remix by GlitchxCity, which is not ideal, but from what I heard, won’t be the first where new music sounds not as good as old. (The new Servant theme is great, but the remix is goated!) Darius responded to that comment. Maybe it’s not supposed to be traditional, like this isn’t for some servants who get killed or forgotten later on, this is for someone important

2. As a sorta end credits to the video, Darius shows off a version of the song that is 90% an encounter theme when we meet that trainer. Assuming it’s not a new character, like what existing important character doesn’t have her own motif/theme, like Angie, would this theme fit? Well, there’s Angelica (the weird Angie and Alice fusion that makes the Rouge Dungeon in V14 Renegade), but she’s related to Angie; there’s Cera, but she’s not that important, also related to Angie.

You know who flat out has servants, is a major part of Ch 12, and Melia’s character, who doesn’t have a custom theme, whom I see this theme fitting to a tea….. MELANIE.

Also, one more fun fact, the reason why I called Melia an Enigma in the title, is because looking into the Trainer Type Text in the Rejuv folder, that’s what Melia called as a codename going forward after Ch 2. Truly an Enigma.