Husband Thief will be out on April 4th. Let's dive into the prologue...
PS: The new novel might not be related to Men of the harem at all, but mostly everything I post and discuss about is, so please keep in mind that this analysis supports the theory that this work will be a spin-off, and take everything with a grain of salt. Sorry if I'm bias!
1. Why is the title relevant?
Husband thief or Husband stealer. Among all the words we can link Latil to, "husband", must be one of the most frequent ones. She ended having eight husbands after all.
But what about the title in itself?
See, the term, reminds me a lot of another, "man stealer", which is sadly used to call a person -usually a woman- who takes a man away from his partner. Regardless of how awful that term sounds, it could have something to do with Latil. The question isn’t how, it’s who, who could claim Latil has taken away her man/ husband from her?
In fact, there are two women who come to my mind: Domis and Arital.
You know what's something that was never clear to me? Carlein and Girgol always acted like they were so sure that Latil was indeed the reincarnation of their past lovers, to the point that I became intrigued of what would happen if she wasn’t?
2. The secrets behind the cover.
A woman that looks very similar to Latil stands-out for her pale skin, with flowers in her hair, and a ring in her finger that connects her to someone by a thorny trail. What appears to be male hand is behind holding her shoulder.
The eyes and the skin
The eyes look amber, and Latil's are dark brown. But it actually isn’t illogical to consider a change of tone in the midst of her slow awakening process. The pale skin and lips also give her a vampirical appareance, which could too be indicative of this transformation.
The hair
Eight roses adorn her hair. Eight, just like the number of consorts Latil has. This wouldn’t be the first time they use roses to represent each one of her husbands. Remember that one panel for the second season promo? She’s in the throne and many hands are offering roses to her.
If you look closely, you'll also notice how seven of these roses are turning white. This, I believe, is a way of representing a fading love. Roses turn white when they burn, just like ashes. Ashes of love.
The ring and the thorny trail
I believe these are the most evident symbols. The ring is strategically placed in the marriage finger, which is highly related to the nupcial theme. But the thorny trail reminds me of the red thread theory and the thread of fate.
This could be representing the painful fate that every Lord is submitted to in his or her life. It could also mean that whoever the red thread is connecting her to, that love will be full of challenging and hurtful steps.
The hand
The hand behind her is the most confusing of all the elements. We can see a ring in the hand that could indicate that is one of her husbands, but I don't know if it's shown in a positive or negative light. So I'll save my opinions for later.
3. What are they showing us in the extracts?
At first sight, some might think the pre-release isn’t telling us much, but I disagree.
"Your marriage, it's ruined once again."
The opening line is so important. Not only is it hinted that this person's could have been married before, but we can also guess that marriage ended terribly for them at least once. I can see this being related to Latil, not primarily because of the harem, but because of her alleged past-lives... For instance, Arital warned her about having children since her marriage and family had been ruined by fate before.
I want to take a moment to point out that, in my opinion, Arital is the turning point of this theory. Where do I start?
"Can I tell you something for the last time? Do you know what was the worst thing that ever happened to me? Loving you."
When I read this, I immediately thought about the concept of unrequited love, and in the beginning it seemed like the only two consorts who fit perfectly in my idea of it were Sonnaught and Guesta.
Sonnaught lost his feelings once and deeply regretted falling in love with Latil at the time. Guesta, on the other hand, isn't afraid to show his true colors in front her anymore, he allows himself to be angry when he is. So it wouldn't be surprising if any of them ever say this, right?
However, that's when the third paragraph called my attention.
"Her face was reflected in the pupils of those blue eyes."
The only consort we know who has blue eyes is Klein. If these lines are truly about the same person, then this one discards anyone who isn't him. Okay, I can't imagine him acting like this, but I guess it's not impossible. Unless... there's someone else.
Yup, I admit I didn't pay enough attention to the second paragraph, but having already reread it a few times, there's something I can't ignore.
Their hands, which were never close together before, were now desperate to push each other away.
Not even think about Latil's husbands. Imagine we aren't considering the spin-off option. Imagine we believe exactly what's apparent: There's a ML who has blue eyes, he's married to the FL and they're on the verge of dying together.
How come, I repeat, HOW COME a man who's been married to the FL never had his hands near hers? Yeah, definitely, this could be just a weird wording, but something there didn't sit quite right. So I put my memory to work... and yes there's someone: The chairman.
The Chairman, a beautiful blue-eyed elf who fall in love with his great friend, Arital. He witnessed her and Girgol's marriage fall, and not only that, he's tried to kill Latil in the past to free the soul of his lost love from the terrible course set by fate. Time is also very relevant to his character, because he's lived a long time, long enough that he's seen many Lords come and go.
For all of this, I believe the extract is showing us the Chairman's last attempt to kill Latil and get rid of the course.
Now, I can't help but remember how I couldn't really understand why the Chairman, Arital, Sell and Girgol were mentioned so much in the side stories. And maybe this was the reason, maybe Alphatart wanted to set the ground to have them shine in her next work.
Anyways. This, friends, is my theory. Enjoy!
Sincerely,
Gobi
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Wondering about many things tonight. Will we get the spin-off we’re all expecting to or is a new story digging it’s way in? If we do get the spin-off, where will it start? There should be a time skip right? What about the human consorts? The prophecy? The awakening?
Well. I have a theory 👆
I suddenly remembered something… Latil found out she was pregnant with her second child when she saw Girgol planting a seed in the greenhouse. These were his words:
"If I plant it now, it will be the same height as your second child when he’s ten years old, because this tree grows slowly."
We know the second child turned out to be a girl, Clarice. When the story ended, she was 5 (about two years younger than Fleura). If Alphatart eventually wanted to show us that tree again, wouldn’t it be fun if she did a 5 year time jump and show the kids playing around it in the first chapters? I believe the scene would be more meaningful this way. But who knows!
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