The next target of my crusade against all the perceived plot-holes in Rewrite is the big one.
In the Moon route:
yet in the Terra route:
This is probably the biggest and most obvious (alleged) plot-hole in the entire story, and also the only one I’ve heard of that I myself felt was a genuine plot-hole the first time I read it.
I know that it this scene was removed in Rewrite+ because it apparently didn’t make any sense, and I don’t know that Romeo Tanaka himself had to say about it, but I don’t think it should have been removed, because there is an in-narrative explanation for it that I find to be beautifully subtle and perfectly foreshadowed, and I honestly think of myself as a bit of an idiot for not getting it immediately on the first read-through.
The answer is this thing:
As far as I can tell, there are three points in the Terra route where this thing affects him in a truly substantial way. Obviously it’s the flame guiding him through all his decisions, but I’m talking about three times that simply would never have gone down the same way if it wasn’t there.
The first time is this:
The second and most obvious time, the very reason for it’s existence is of course this:
And the third time is Kotarou’s conversation with “Sakuya”. It’s no coincidence that Kotarou finds this in his soul while he’s talking to “Sakuya.” That was implanted in him by a Kotarou who had memories of Sakuya and a connection with him as successor and predecessor. The proof can be found in Chihaya’s route, with this scene, when he’s pondering rewriting himself to fight Krivory Rog:
It’s almost exactly the same situation. In that scene it’s his own voice he hears, but due to the foreign object in his soul in the Terra route, which contains the sentiment of a Kotarou who has a connection with Sakuya, he hears Sakuya embodying his instincts as a rewriter rather than his own voice. Of course it’s not really Sakuya, he doesn’t even exist, but:
These two lines in the Moon route have more significance than they first appear. Even though “this” Kotarou dies (or is destroyed or however you want to put it), he had already left something of himself behind, and that something still contained memories of Sakuya. Kotarou did remember Sakuya, just like he said he would.