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kandyrezi · 11 months

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Kurotsuno + Sullivan + Kcalb [thesis + general observation]

I know there have been a lot of speculations before about how the three of them could possibly be related to one another, but I was thinking about this while washing the dishes and it wouldn’t leave my head until I gave it my own two cents & wrote this all down. I’ll probably come back to this post in… five or six years when we finally get a TGG prequel/any Obsolete Dream chapters past the 9th, so I can check case by case how spot-on this was or how many mistakes I made.

This is mostly just for fun, so read this with an open mind, and pardon me for any potential inaccuracies - if that’s the case, then I implore people to point them out so I can… try and fix any inconsistencies there might be.

This is partially a theory post, partially a headcanon post, because there are just too many big gaps in the events to make one, straight, linear timeline to tie everything - from cryptic hints to subtle signs - together from beginning to the end, so a lot of it is really just my charitable speculation.

(rest of it is under the cut, 'cus this is quite long, trust me~)

So, Sullivan has some obvious relation to Kcalb, as they do share noticeable physical similarities (eyes/black sclera + horns), though it is unclear if Kcalb is a blood-related parent to Sullivan (because then, y’know, who is the other parent?), if they are very distant blood-relatives, or if Sullivan is just one of his creations - much like how Ivlis created Vendetto/Poemi from his flames - though I’m not certain how far his capabilities in terms of creation go, because of this line Kcalb says at some point in The Gray Garden.

‘Repair’ is kind of a subsection of ‘creation’. Either way, Kcalb clearly has more than enough loyal subordinates, so how did Sullivan even come to be?

"His upbringing was way too complicated." is one of the sentences used in this specific art to describe Sullivan, so that's enough of a hint already that he isn’t that 'ordinary' in the slightest.

If he was created by Kcalb or born from someone else, the devil would, either way, have required the involvement of another individual (’Raven’? AKA The mysterious figure speaking to him on the train in the ‘bonus room’ video? The red-eyed figure “Fate” who appears in Etihw’s memories of the past in the ‘Normal End’?) in order to do so in the first place. If we assume Kcalb even knew of his existence or was with him at any point, then Kcalb would have used Sullivan for his own gain; a kind of a host or placeholder body if his powers were to be diminished or taken from him, his fundamental connection to Sullivan would allow him to ‘borrow’ his powers back, or someone to lead the war if he would be gone.

Whether or not Sullivan actually possesses the same abilities as Kcalb is unclear, though similarly to Kurotsuno, he is seen with the exact same asymmetrical symbols (the same ones visible when Kcalb renders Ivlis powerless) in some artworks.

Addressing one of the many elephants in the room first and foremost; I don’t believe Elena is Sullivan’s mother or has anything to do with him at all, for that matter, considering she is Zigzag’s sister and doesn’t really seem like a special being - meaning she doesn’t stand out from any of the other demons from the Pitch Black World/Ne-No-Kuni in her art LOGs. She hasn’t been hinted in any way to have possible connections to the Gray World either. The physical similarities (blond hair, black/green retina) are likely just re-used design choices. A very ironic statement considering I used this exact argument with the aforementioned Kcalb/Sullivan’s relation to one another, but their relationship actually has more than just one subtle similarity connecting to one another.

The reason Sullivan might look sickly in a lot of his artwork is because he doesn’t handle these devil-given powers well mentally or physically, since they were thrust onto him forcibly and he has been described as ‘weak’ by many of the characters.

He might be Kcalb's descendant, but he clearly isn't as powerful as the devil is, with his poor physical health and all. Whatever Kcalb’s plans with him might’ve be, it ended up fruitless (for now). Kcalb was quite terrible during the war era, so he probably didn’t treat Sullivan very well. At some point, Sullivan might have been whisked away by someone (possibly ‘Raven’ from the ‘bonus room’ video), or he himself escaped the Gray World to go and live in Neo-No-Kuni.

He’s seen wearing a gyakuan and has been classmates with Gyakuten since their school years, so his departure/upbringing already happened over there when he was quite young. [1]

In the distant future, he meets his wife to-be at some point and they get married, but she dies due to unknown causes [2] when Olivia is at a young age, so Sullivan is left to raise her by himself.

I am, personally, a big fan of the “Olie is Kurotsuno’s mother” theory for many reasons which are stated below. They do indeed have some notable similarities, which have already been brought up before by some other people, such as:

• Similar hair + eye color

• Similar sounding names (+ Olie's last name used to be Kurokuro)

• Olie has been seen interacting with Reina, meaning she’s in the Obsolete Dream universe

• Kurotsuno’s mother was stated to be dead, and Olie correspondingly has strong ties with death/mourning

• Olivia is clearly stated to be human (or at least, partially [3]), so she would need a human parent, and Olie looks quite human enough

• Olie used to be listed in the ‘dead’ category in the funamusea(.)com/characters/ page, not with the youkai (Reina & Jianshi) she has been seen with thus far, despite the fact Olihana is also based off of a youkai. Before DSP changed the layout of the character page on the official website, Olie was actually placed within the ‘undead’ category, which supported the theory of her being dead--

[Image retrieved from the internet archives!]

--but now she’s been put into the ‘youkai’ category (which is visible on the new design of the website), so I don’t know if it’s a retconned idea DSP previously had, or if it’s to hide Olie’s true identity for now, but we also don’t have a lot of information about the youkai characters to begin with, where they reside, where does the youkai world connect with Neo-No-Kuni, or what their role is in the overarching story.

[1] if Sullivan has been in Neo-no-Kuni since his school years, then there is a distinct probability Kcalb has never even met Sullivan face-to-face, and Sullivan may have been raised by someone else from birth/creation.

[2] alternate possibility is, she might not have died and is currently residing in the youkai realm as Olihana?

[3] Olivia might not even be fully human, considering her father is a demon, so there’s that chance she might be a cambion (half-human/demon hybrid, which originates from as far back as 19th century European mythology).

There is very little known about who Olie is, but she is an interesting character and there seems to be more to her than meets the eye, judging from some of the deleted official artwork of her. I want to look at them a little bit further, see if there’s anything interesting to be found.

Oh, hey, would you look at that! Olivia & Olie together in the same pic! The kanji above them is just their names. (Kurotsuno, Kurokawa, and Olie’s old surname - Kurokuro)

Translation: “The grief of the deceased does not reach.”

Is the “deceased” in question alluding to herself, or someone else?

The most interesting picture of her so far, if not the most cryptic and somewhat confusing. It’s worth at least mentioning them; do these objects in the image hint at her character, or backstory - or are they just meant to be decorative? It has a clock stopped at 3:00, a painting, unknown letters scattered about, and a gramophone with many different items (flowers, masks, a radio) inside of it.

The closest visually similar flowers like the ones in the art I was able to find is the Morning Glory.

It has a lot of different allegorical meanings, depending on its color. A blue Morning Glory, in particular, usually alludes to feelings of trust and/or respect - which might be a connection she shares with her other self, Olihana.

Buried in the flowers are two masks. One is the Hannya mask ( 般若 ) which is usually worn by Olihana in artworks, a mask representing a female character drawn to madness by jealousy/resentment. The other one closely resembles either the Wakaonna mask or Ko-omote mask ( 能面小面 ), which is mostly worn by young girls, and meant to convey the idea of innocent beauty. The latter mask could in theory belong to Olie.

Any connection I could find with the painting in the background is the fact it is a little reminiscent of Mori Ippô’s 1871 painting, “White Fox”. It might just be there in DSP’s art for aesthetic purposes though, so I’ll leave it at that.

And now, onto the timeline.

((A lot of text below is heavily headcanon/speculation based, while trying to stay true to currently known canon information as much as possible.))

Olivia and Sullivan have a big fight at some point, which ends with Sullivan losing his temper and possibly locking up Olivia into her room. She would have either snuck out, or Hanten would have shown up at Rapunzel’s Olivia’s window and helped her out of there. This is Sullivan and Olivia’s last meeting for a very long time.

When she meets up with Hanten and tells her what had happened, the latter would definitely know of the ‘reason’ behind her ‘rebellious streak’ - as the many characters in OD point out is prevalent in her behavior.

Hanten even makes a remark about Sullivan in chapter 4.

The implication seems almost emphasized here; the second panel is zoomed in closely to Hanten, and she's posing somewhat of a rhetorical question with the "Right, Kurotsuno?" as if the latter would know about this first hand. Kurotsuno is seen being physically violent with Sullivan or verbally degrading him in nearly all of their artworks together, yet not once have we seen him losing his temper with her for her behavior, so he might feel some guilt over his past actions and keeps his temper under control, as sort of a vow because he knows what happened last time he didn’t listen to her.

Olivia might have chosen to run away from home altogether, and Hanten might or might not have gone with her, but I won’t mention her too much in this post for the time being.

Either someone takes her back to the Gray World, or she goes there on her own.

She meets Kcalb at some point and the two of them develop something of a friendly bond. Kcalb likely didn’t know about Oliva being Sullivan’s daughter since she’s a human and looks quite a bit like her mother, bearing almost no similarities to her father.

At some point, a bigger war breaks out and Kcalb has to leave, so he doesn’t see Olivia for quite some time.

It’s during this time when ‘Raven’/’Train Guy’/’Fate’ from Etihw’s memories swoops in and finds Kcalb to tell him about Olivia’s relation to Sullivan, making the devil to a complete 180 and come to the conclusion of using her for his own gain to turn the tides of ongoing war in his favor.

Both Kurotsuno and Kcalb have a connection to the moon [1], so it’s during the full moon when he goes back to Olivia after a long time of not seeing her, she’s likely excited to meet him again, except Kcalb will only use her for his own benefit, with Olivia possessing Sullivan’s blood, and to that extend, also Kcalb’s.

Etihw drained Kcalb of his powers, but he can use Olivia to activate them, but since Olivia’s powers are essentially useless/non-existent as a human, Kcalb turns her into a demon, which was (as canon seems to allude to this) a very painful, agonizing process.

Hanten might have found Olivia and gone into a state of grief to find and think her to be dead, only for the latter to finally wake up. When she does, all of her memories are gone and she doesn’t remember any of her time spent in the Gray World, or whom Kcalb even is, or why is she laying in a barren wasteland.

Except for the argument and how he locked her up – then it’s everything else in between is a blackout in her memory – up until the point when the agonizing pain Kcalb put her through begins to take form.

Because of their outward physical similarities, she concludes it was Sullivan who had hurt her in such a painful way.

Oliva decides her name is no longer ‘Olivia’ but Kurotsuno, which is a name she chose to give herself, because of the asymmetrical, mismatched horn on her right side of the head. She wants to cut ties with the past and what had happened, hence the new name.

It’s likely Hanten did not go through the same transformation Oliva did at that exact time, and became a lookalike with Anten at a later point, hence this image here.

Hanten’s arm is cut off and it’s transforming into the black one she has currently, instead of the normal, beige colored one with red nails she did before. Also, not to mention, the horns are also becoming different - as such; both Kuro & Hanten’s transformation took place at different times and different places, Hanten’s not until much later on.

Haten & Olivia both had their memories erased, hence why Hanten has no bitter memories of their time, whereas Olivia (now Kurotsuno) does, considering Hanten doesn’t take Kurotsuno’s hatred of Sullivan seriously and refers to it as “rebellious phase” much like the other characters, such as Maekami. Otherwise she would actually know the real reason why Kurotsuno is in her demon-equivalent of a ‘rebel phase’ and moody all the time?

Sullivan probably went looking for Olivia at some point during when all that took place but couldn’t locate her since he had no idea where to look, that’s why there’s a note in Mogeko Castle and his reasons for being there in the first place.

[1] Olivia’s transformation might have happened during the full moon. That’s why Met says this, because that’s when her memories of that time become more vivid.

Kcalb has a conversation about the distant past with Yosafire when they’re looking at the moon, in one of the bonus room videos. Here’s a transcript of it:

Kcalb: “There are some people I’d like to meet again. The first would be difficult to meet now. As would the second. The third... I’ve never met face-to-face.”

Yosafire: “Why not?”

Kcalb: “I’m simply not worthy of meeting them.”

Yes, he could be talking about his former-now-dead subordinates, but surely he’s met all of them face-to-face. Surely. An alternate interpretation of this speech is the possibility of the first mentioned person being Sullivan, and the second one being Kurotsuno/Olivia. I don’t really know whom the third person might be. Place your bets in my askbox now! The winner gets… nothing, except crippling, soul-crushing depression, sorry.

Also, you kinda need eagle eyes for this, but look at Sullivan holding that black/white diamond handkerchief in chapter 7.

Coincidence? I think N—

...actually, who knows. might just be a coincidence after all this thorough analysis after all.

Okay, now, THERE IS A LOOOTTTT MORE which I did not deep-dive into, such as Kcalb’s conversation with the unknown ‘Raven’ on the train, the ‘???’ bonus room video dialogue, “THE PAST” official artwork with the smiling guy with the knife and the bleeding-from-mouth Olivia, the flashback images that Ivlis shows to Yosafire, etc etc. Because this post is quite long already, I think I’m alright to leave it as it is.

Haha, If you made it this far…. wowie thanks for reading my new and improved thesis! <3

(I also named this ‘daddy issues the theory babey’ as a word document on my computer... u _ u

#funamusea #obsolete dream #okegom #mogeko #kurotsuno #sullivan (mogeko)#deep-sea prisoner #dsp #personal #(to be completely honest if i analyzed the train dialogue kcalb has with 'raven' about 'crow')#(then - no joke - it might actually cancel out the possibility of kcalb having ever met sullivan)#(but this is really just. one of many variations their past might have looked like)#(it's so long i did not want to add more to it)#(but will happily discuss it further. any alt. scenarios i mean)

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