Rewrite - Terra Arc Discussion

Key Discussion
#47

It’s not explained, here are the possibilities:

  1. They’re simulations and didn’t actually happen, Moon Kotarou just had the memories of said simulations…This is plausible but doesn’t explain how Kotarou could even exist or manifest in Moon if none of the routes happened.
  2. They’re alternate realities. All the events happened, and Moon Kagari was observing alternate realities, looking for the right path for our reality.
  3. They all happened, and with each failure, more Aurora runs out, making it crucial that they get it right as this is their last try. This is implied in Terra when Kagari says that re-evolution cannot occur again as Earth is running low on Aurora.

It could also be a combination of those.

2 Likes
#48

Seems like I’m finding out more and more that there’s a fair amount that goes unexplained in Rewrite.

I think the third one sounds the most plausible, as it has in-game text to back it up. It also works quite nicely with the other theory you explained earlier, making a neat, organized explanation of Moon and Terra.

Thanks, you’ve really helped me understand the plot better!

1 Like
#49

Since nobody pointed it out, you don’t have to spoiler tag your content in this topic :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
#50

Exactly right! In the tips section of the game, they say some aurora seeped out from the earth to the moon. Since Kagari is a representation of aurora, that seeped-out aurora manifested itself as Moon Kagari. As for when it actually happened, well, that’s up for huge debate. Though the anime heavily implies that it happened after the salvation of the previous world and before the next world (with kotarou in it) came to be, primordial soup and all that considered

I’ll just leave this here…

2 Likes
#51

That’s interesting. Though as Tamamo-no-Bae pointed out, that begs the question about what Kotarou was doing on the Moon with Kagari while she ran these simulations.

If it’s like you said, then the first incarnation of the world worked like this:

1: The earth goes through a natural coming into existence without any meddling of Moon Kagari’s theories, as she does not exist yet.
2: The earth lives out its course, and it naturally reaches the point where salvation is needed.
3: Salvation occurs, wiping out humanity. This also, like you said, sends up enough aura onto the moon to form Moon Kagari.
4: Using the previous history as her basis, Moon Kagari forms her theory
5: Since Kotarou existed in the first history, he has her ribbon in his arm. This is a strong enough bond between the two to let him appear on the Moon.
6: Kashima Sakura also existed in the first history, and her hatred of humanity was so strong it also allowed her to manifest things on the moon (in this case familiars.)
7: During all this, no new histories happen on the actual Earth. Moon Kagari is just using her theory of life to run simulations that’ll help her decide what she should do with the Earth’s aura.

Wow this is all really complicated. I think Tamamo-no-Bae’s third theory is so much easier to understand, whew.

Though I think Tamamo-no-Bae’s third theory had a bit more support from the visual novel in terms of the whole “worlds or simulations thing.” In the Moon Route, when Kotarou talks about/reads the theory of life, he refers to the branches as “Branch worlds.” This makes it sound more like the Earth just repeated salvation endlessly until the theory was completed. As opposed to being simulations of that.

Furthermore, if none of the heroine routes happened and they were all just simulations, how would Kotarou have memories of the simulations? He did read the theory of life a bit during Moon, but he had memories of his previous lives even before that. At the beginning of the Moon Route, he says its like he lived the same life over and over, because he has memories of different lives (one where he married Kotori, and one where he married a businesswoman, for example.) If those lives were simulations, and the numbered list I gave above were true, then there’s no way Kotarou could remember them. He didn’t experience them because they weren’t real, so there was nothing to remember… right?

But my memory of the exact lines is a little hazy. Perhaps you are right and different lines in the visual novel prove it, and I’m just not remembering them.

#52

While the ribbon implies a physical connection, I believe their connection has more to do with ‘fate’ than anything physical. Kotarou always appears as Kagari’s enemy in every world. You could even say that the ribbon is a physical metaphor for the ‘red string of fate’ connecting them. See here my thoughts here:

I still haven’t completely cracked open the Moon route yet. There are aspects I don’t understand. I guess I should consider giving it another try though.

2 Likes
#53

It’s a lot to read, but you should probably read through our entire Rewrite Moon arc discussion to fully grasp all the different theories. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out Rewrite.

1 Like
#54

Yup, fate. I wanted to talk about this before, but I tend to forget. XD I found that concept to be an extremely important plot point in the entire series, and I only realized it when I reread a part of Moon recently. Fate is a property of Aurora that serves as its memories that it can come back to whenever it wanted.

This was best explained during the mini-Theory that the Occult Club played around in Moon. The horseshoe crab thing that Shizuru came up with caused the collapse of one world, but in the next world they simulated, the mini-Theory just naturally brought a more sustainable species of that horseshoe crab without anyone commanding it to be.

Basically, Aurora can naturally carry memories of the world, and this concept is the basis of creating the Mistletoe familiar and also how the Holy Women passes memories after death. I think this is also why Chibimoth and Kotori’s parents gained memories of their past selves.

This property of Aurora also gravitates people to whom they have heavily interacted in the past worlds. That may as well explain why Kotarou encountered a young Midou and his friends in the war-torn country, and also why the five heroines just flocked together after the war and became Touka’s children, and why they incidentally summoned Kotarou who has become a familiar.

I think this should explain why Kotarou and Kagari gravitated together so strongly that they meet each other in every single world.

Edit: I should have mentioned that this is how Kagari’s Beacon (aka the flaming choices) works. And also Terra ending with the Occult Club meeting the Girl on the Moon. XD

1 Like
#55

Wow, this offers a super in-depth explanation as to why Kotarou could appear on the Moon. It clears up a lot of what I just thought of as “convenient” too, making it sound more like it was destiny, which is always cool.

Though it still doesn’t explain if they were simulations or not…

I realized another contradiction with them being simulations. In the end of Moon, Sakuya is able to come to the Moon because he combined the power of himself in all the other worlds. This is proven when he turns into his Sakuya Overpowered form. Yet how could Sakuya combine all his other selves if all his other selves were simulations which did not exist? Not to mention, my numbered theory above about the first history wouldn’t work because of this either, unless that first history just so happened to be the Chihaya route, as Sakuya’s Overpowered Form wouldn’t have existed otherwise.

#56

Your thinking of
Routes = Simulations
Simulations = Not Real
is flawed.

The routes are “simulations,” but they’re also real.

4 Likes
#57

The theorem is made by Aurora, and Aurora can carry memories/personalities.
In the simulations, you have real people simulated, with souls, personalities, etc. These incarnations are recorded.
It’s how Kotarou was able to summon the Okaken in Moon, and Sakuya also having the power to manipulate Aurora, manifested himself on the Moon. And while Sakuya sacrificed his own existence in the Moon route, he still existed within the Aurora.

Likewise, it’s implied that it isn’t just one Kashima Sakura that is summoning familiars, but a Kashima Sakura that contains all the Kashima Sakuras from all simulations. Hence why she’s able to summon an overwhelming amount of Familiars that not even the entire Okaken together can stop.

Regardless, I love Rewrite for being so deep that you have have these talks :stuck_out_tongue:

2 Likes
#58

I like how you described the nature of aurora, but I need to correct a few things. Sakuya practically sacrificed his fate in Moon, and because of that he can no longer exist in the Terra timeline. Sacrificing his fate meant that he is no longer recorded in the aurora. (Probably why he momentarily appeared in Kotarou’s mind before his last rewriting is because Kotarou had memories of him in Moon, but I heard that was retconned in Rewrite+ so yeah.)

In the case of Sakura, those familiars only came from her in a branch world, and Kotarou explicitly stated that (at least in the anime).

1 Like
#59

I see. Fascinating, it’s a shame they retconned it. The way I understood it he sacrificed his existence/fate as a human, as a person. I.E he would only exist as Aurora.

And yeah that is true, still begs the question how Sakura managed to get so many familiars sent over here.

#60

You will keep wondering about that because it’s literally never touched upon ever. She simply became depressed enough that she transcended humanity.

2 Likes
#61

Ascension by depression, so edgy xD

2 Likes
#62

Between you, BlackHayate02, and Aspirety, you guys wrap up the final holes in the simulation argument, yep. Sakura, Sakuya, Kotarou’s appearance, two Kagaris have all been accounted for by now, making the simulation argument completely possible.

Seems like it really does become a grab bag of just picking one of the three theories you outlined earlier. All of them have proof in the visual novel, either straightforward or implied, it’s just that some of the theories are simpler or more plausible. It’s not that any of the theories are wrong, it’s that we don’t know which one is the “correct” or “cannon” one.

And yeah, I agree about Rewrite’s depth. The other Key works are all pretty straight forward. Even their endings that can be baffling are mostly explained by “dat’s the power of love for ya,” yet in Rewrite it’s about a bajillion times more complicated than that. I really like Rewrite for it.

Also, it’s sad that the Sakuya scene at the end of Terra was changed. I don’t know the changes, and while I was confused as to how Sakuya could talk to Kotarou at the time (you cleared it up nicely), I really liked the scene as one last bro to bro moment between Sakuya and Kotarou, showing that they’d transcended being rivals and moved on to being friends.

2 Likes
#63

Oh thanks! I just wanted to be extra careful.
I’ll leave off spoiler tags in the future here, then.

#64

This is essentially the reason Terra stuck in my mind for longer than most of Rewrite, and the more I think about it the more I like what it is. Doesn’t mean it’s particularly fun to read like, say, Lucia route, but I really, really appreciate what Terra represents.

The world is on the brink of destruction. Saving it is no easy task. In fact, the only way is to take Kotarou, who as we’ve seen can have many different potential happy futures, and force him upon a path that takes everything from him and leaves him with nothing - to top it all off he even has the obligation of killing the one being he’s doing all of this for, and he is not allowed to refuse. Because ultimately, even if Moon Kagari is sympathetic towards what he has to go for, the happiness of a single person - and probably many other people’s just as well - is something she’s willing to sacrifice if it means saving the world.

That’s also why I loved that one scene in the 16th episode (timestamp 10:50) of the anime so much: Just before Kagari cocoons up, she tears up. She knows that she is literally writing all of his happy futures out of existence if she walks this path, but she still has to do it. It was a devastating scene for me, now that I understand all the implications.

5 Likes
#65

I also like the message that even when a person sacrifices so much, s/he can still be able to pursue happiness later on. Kotarou may have lost just about everything when he was still alive, but he may still be able to find happiness later, though as a familiar, with the heroines. However, that happiness can only be guaranteed in an ideal world, and Terra is much about what it takes to create that ideal world, which, as has been said, is no easy task.

3 Likes
#66

Is there only one Possibility for saving the Earth ?

1 Like