Gaim theory
Mar. 1st, 2014 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akinoameWith the thought I had during the watchalong commentary for episode 19, I've crystallized a theory about Mai, Sid, and Sagara that will probably fall apart once episode 20 airs...today, I think? So with that said, no spoilers.
This theory mostly has to do with Mai and the Red-Eyed Girl, but I need to start with Sid and Sagara. In my commentary for episode 19, I suggested that DJ Sagara might actually be Odin--not the Ryuki Odin (though with his sudden disappearing act, that's a very real possibility--teleportation and gold feathers, anyone?)--but the Norse god Odin.
I know that Gen Urobutchi said that there's not a whole lot to the Norse mythology theme other than the names Yggdrasil and Helheim, but I also know that writers will do what they can to try to throw fans off the scent--I've read Greg Weisman's Q&A, after all. It's rarely outright lying and a little more trying to guide people away from "Thar Be Spoilers." And admittedly, I know little about Norse mythology other than Neil Gaiman's American Gods and what I've picked up fromajora and my own research on Wikipedia (not to mention a tad of Marvel's version, thanks to the MCU), but I think I've got just enough information to make an educated guess that ties into a theory.
Sid is Loki. Sagara is Odin. At this time, I can't definitively say that they are the actual gods or if they are written as counterparts to them, though in the case of Mai, the actual god portion would help. The Odin portion came in episode 19, through trying to analyze symbolism and picking up on a ticking clock in the background music--as far as Kamen Rider is concerned, Odin is all about time. Not to mention the reference that he wants to look over Kouta and Kaito in the past as well as the future; one of the reasons why I stick with TV-Nihon's subs is that because of their more literal translations, they tend to preserve foreshadowing a little better than broader-strokes translations, such as AEsir or Over-Time.
But the Loki connection came as far back as...well, when I first learned Sid was working for Yggdrasil but doing his own thing for the most part. Takatora told him off for being irresponsible and just giving the Beat Riders the prototype Sengoku Drivers. This struck me as the role of the trickster god, Loki. Yes, overall, he's one of the AEsir (really appropriate name for one of the subbing groups, isn't it), and he generally has a good relationship with them. But all of that ends when he gets Baldr, one of Odin's sons, killed. The fallout of that brings about Ragnarok, the fall of the gods and the end of the world. And that's the sense I get from Sid--he's loyal to Yggdrasil, to a point. When he reaches that point, he's going to basically just destroy everything. His becoming Sigurd is Yggdrasil trying to control the uncontrollable. And using the name Sigurd? Nice touch. Poor Hase is Fafnir, though.
Loki and Odin begin as blood brothers, but after Baldr's death, they are sworn enemies. While Baldr has yet to die--and I have my theories of who Baldr's equivalent is--Sid and Sagara are beginning to go on opposite sides. Now, yeah, going against Yggdrasil is more of what Loki should be doing rather than Odin, and for a while, I wondered if I had it backwards and Sagara was Loki the entire time, but the Odin theory's set now, and I think I'm right. Odin is wisdom, poetry, and inspiration, but he's also fury, madness, and the wanderer. Sagara certainly has a manic side to him, and he just shows up whenever Kouta needs him. Not to mention he always seems to know what Kouta needs and when, which is probably because he works for Yggdrasil (at least in name only), but it does seem almost godlike.
All of this brings me to Mai, and the Red-Eyed Girl. While I suggested she might be a huldra in the commentary for 19, that was secondary to my main theory, which has been going on for a while. The Red-Eyed Girl must be Hel--after all, Helheim means "the land of Hel." Hel in Norse mythology is one of Loki's children, appearing half-dead--which usually is taken to mean that half of her body is decayed while the other half appears healthy, but broad strokes could result in a young woman with one red eye and one normal eye who dresses entirely in white--the Asian color of death (note how I said in Ryuki that Kitaoka wears a whole lot of white?). Now, without him being the actual Loki, I can't really suggest that Sid is Hel's father--at 35, his actor is a little young to be a teenager's father--possible, but improbable, and it kind of contradicts my theory anyway.
So Red-Eyed Girl as Hel makes sense, right? Where does Mai fit into all of this? Well, I think there are more clues in the opening--most of the Heisei/Neo-Heisei Kamen Rider series' openings are highly symbolic and give a lot of hints, after all (the possible exceptions being Kuuga, which is specific enough not to really be symbolic, and Ryuki, which I still can't make sense of). OOO and Wizard basically gave away their plots in the openings, butit made just little sense for it not to immediately spoil you.
The Gaim opening shows the Red-Eyed Girl as Mai's reflection. It's very Ryuki-ish, and the fact that I said that should make you worry. Remember what I said about Hel being half-dead and half-alive? I think that's where it comes into play. Red-Eyed Girl is dead. Mai is alive. Kind of. Basically, she's another Yui--alive and dead at the same time.
Gaim draws a lot from Ryuki and 555, so it wouldn't be a stretch for Urobutchi to have another main girl who died once--Yui and Mari. Mai is the only one of the cast whose family is unaccounted for. We know that her family ran a temple that had a huge, holy tree that they used to center festivals around, but Yggdrasil bought out their land, forest, and is definitely using the stump of the tree to generate the crack to Helheim. But what happened to her family?
Kouta's parents are dead, but he's being raised by his older sister. Micchi's parents are unaccounted for, but he's being raised by his older brother--we can assume they were higher-ups in Yggdrasil who passed away. Kaito and his family were basically chased out of town when his father's company was bought out by Yggdrasil, and while they haven't said whether or not his parents are dead, we've got a long string of dead parents here, and I'm beginning to worry.
Mai's family is never seen or mentioned. This worries me. Logically, I must assume they're dead, but how? Why? Here's where the Yui stuff comes into play: I think there was an accident. Some horrible accident that killed her family. Maybe this has to do with the tree becoming a stump--maybe it got struck by lightning when Thor wasn't being careful or something; I don't know. Mai's family died, the cracks to Helheim developed, and Mai died but was somehow resusitated--possibly a Yui case. Red-Eyed Girl, Hel, is the dead Mai. Mai is the living half. And the secret of Helheim, which Yggdrasil desperately wants to keep quiet, is that it's the actual Helheim, the land of the dead.
...Alternatively, given all these dead parents, Zawame is full of dead people, and Helheim reveals that truth--the parents are all alive, but the kids are dead. The sad part is that it would kind of explain my crack-theory that Bandou is both Goro and Mishima.
Sagara, Odin, is curious to find out which of the Armored Riders was chosen by Helheim itself, presumably to be its Kamen Rider. The candidates are Kouta and Kaito, but the opening suggests Hel chooses Kaito. Which makes sense--Kaito's got the most ship tease with Mai, the living half. And this is where Baldr comes into play. If Kaito's the chosen one, things are not going to go well for him. Baldr is one of Odin's beloved sons, a god of light and purity who's basically just loved by everybody. Now, yes, this sounds like it could probably be Kouta, who is light, purity, and generally loved by everyone. And Urobutchi's a fan of Ryuki and has killed his hero/title character in the past in order to make them ascend as a god. Kouta going the way of Shinji from Ryuki? Pretty likely. But Urobutchi would know that we expect that, that we look at Kouta, look at who's writing him, and look at the Rider series that are the closest in theme to Gaim (Shinji dies at the penultimate episode of Ryuki, Takumi is basically dying by the time 555 ends, and I'm shocked he survived all the way to Kamen Rider Taisen; I honestly thought the final scene was him dying), and tell Kouta, "It was nice knowing you, buddy." If everyone expects that, change it up. To compare to Greg Weisman, he planned on killing Wally West in Young Justice: Invasion, and to hide what he feared was obvious telegraphing of his intent, he filled it with hints that Barry Allen was going to die. After all, you expect Barry to die: This is how Wally, still Kid Flash at 21, becomes the Flash himself, with Bart taking over as Kid Flash. But no, we kill Wally and prevent him from ever graduating. So I feel is the case with Kouta. We all expect him to die, so Urobutchi's going to kill the other candidate, Kaito. Kaito will be chosen. He'll become the equivalent of Baldr. And somehow, Sid is going to kill him. Possibly with a mistletoe Lock Seed--after all, it is a berry, and it would work with the cherry motif already present for Sigurd. According to myth, Hel agrees to Frigga's pleas that she return Baldr to the realm of the living, but only if everyone weeps for him. Everyone does, except for a giantess who might be a disguised Loki because he's a little shit. Honestly, I think this is how Kaito gets a happy ending--he finds someone he loves and he chooses to stay with her, even in death. Mai will also accept her fate and truly merge with Hel, taking over as priestess of Helheim. I don't know if anyone will come back from the dead or if they'll be at peace there (I'm talking about Hase), but I'm reasonably sure that Sid and Sagara will die. Sid will probably get taken out by Kouta after he kills Kaito, but Sagara will either die on his own or Sid will get him. I don't think they're going to hold completely to the events of Ragnarok, but I think the basic ideas will be there to give this sense that it is the end of the world, and they have to fight to prevent that.
But episode 20 will reveal what Helheim is, so if I'm wrong about it being the land of the dead, then this whole thing is moot anyway.
This theory mostly has to do with Mai and the Red-Eyed Girl, but I need to start with Sid and Sagara. In my commentary for episode 19, I suggested that DJ Sagara might actually be Odin--not the Ryuki Odin (though with his sudden disappearing act, that's a very real possibility--teleportation and gold feathers, anyone?)--but the Norse god Odin.
I know that Gen Urobutchi said that there's not a whole lot to the Norse mythology theme other than the names Yggdrasil and Helheim, but I also know that writers will do what they can to try to throw fans off the scent--I've read Greg Weisman's Q&A, after all. It's rarely outright lying and a little more trying to guide people away from "Thar Be Spoilers." And admittedly, I know little about Norse mythology other than Neil Gaiman's American Gods and what I've picked up from
ajora and my own research on Wikipedia (not to mention a tad of Marvel's version, thanks to the MCU), but I think I've got just enough information to make an educated guess that ties into a theory.Sid is Loki. Sagara is Odin. At this time, I can't definitively say that they are the actual gods or if they are written as counterparts to them, though in the case of Mai, the actual god portion would help. The Odin portion came in episode 19, through trying to analyze symbolism and picking up on a ticking clock in the background music--as far as Kamen Rider is concerned, Odin is all about time. Not to mention the reference that he wants to look over Kouta and Kaito in the past as well as the future; one of the reasons why I stick with TV-Nihon's subs is that because of their more literal translations, they tend to preserve foreshadowing a little better than broader-strokes translations, such as AEsir or Over-Time.
But the Loki connection came as far back as...well, when I first learned Sid was working for Yggdrasil but doing his own thing for the most part. Takatora told him off for being irresponsible and just giving the Beat Riders the prototype Sengoku Drivers. This struck me as the role of the trickster god, Loki. Yes, overall, he's one of the AEsir (really appropriate name for one of the subbing groups, isn't it), and he generally has a good relationship with them. But all of that ends when he gets Baldr, one of Odin's sons, killed. The fallout of that brings about Ragnarok, the fall of the gods and the end of the world. And that's the sense I get from Sid--he's loyal to Yggdrasil, to a point. When he reaches that point, he's going to basically just destroy everything. His becoming Sigurd is Yggdrasil trying to control the uncontrollable. And using the name Sigurd? Nice touch. Poor Hase is Fafnir, though.
Loki and Odin begin as blood brothers, but after Baldr's death, they are sworn enemies. While Baldr has yet to die--and I have my theories of who Baldr's equivalent is--Sid and Sagara are beginning to go on opposite sides. Now, yeah, going against Yggdrasil is more of what Loki should be doing rather than Odin, and for a while, I wondered if I had it backwards and Sagara was Loki the entire time, but the Odin theory's set now, and I think I'm right. Odin is wisdom, poetry, and inspiration, but he's also fury, madness, and the wanderer. Sagara certainly has a manic side to him, and he just shows up whenever Kouta needs him. Not to mention he always seems to know what Kouta needs and when, which is probably because he works for Yggdrasil (at least in name only), but it does seem almost godlike.
All of this brings me to Mai, and the Red-Eyed Girl. While I suggested she might be a huldra in the commentary for 19, that was secondary to my main theory, which has been going on for a while. The Red-Eyed Girl must be Hel--after all, Helheim means "the land of Hel." Hel in Norse mythology is one of Loki's children, appearing half-dead--which usually is taken to mean that half of her body is decayed while the other half appears healthy, but broad strokes could result in a young woman with one red eye and one normal eye who dresses entirely in white--the Asian color of death (note how I said in Ryuki that Kitaoka wears a whole lot of white?). Now, without him being the actual Loki, I can't really suggest that Sid is Hel's father--at 35, his actor is a little young to be a teenager's father--possible, but improbable, and it kind of contradicts my theory anyway.
So Red-Eyed Girl as Hel makes sense, right? Where does Mai fit into all of this? Well, I think there are more clues in the opening--most of the Heisei/Neo-Heisei Kamen Rider series' openings are highly symbolic and give a lot of hints, after all (the possible exceptions being Kuuga, which is specific enough not to really be symbolic, and Ryuki, which I still can't make sense of). OOO and Wizard basically gave away their plots in the openings, butit made just little sense for it not to immediately spoil you.
The Gaim opening shows the Red-Eyed Girl as Mai's reflection. It's very Ryuki-ish, and the fact that I said that should make you worry. Remember what I said about Hel being half-dead and half-alive? I think that's where it comes into play. Red-Eyed Girl is dead. Mai is alive. Kind of. Basically, she's another Yui--alive and dead at the same time.
Gaim draws a lot from Ryuki and 555, so it wouldn't be a stretch for Urobutchi to have another main girl who died once--Yui and Mari. Mai is the only one of the cast whose family is unaccounted for. We know that her family ran a temple that had a huge, holy tree that they used to center festivals around, but Yggdrasil bought out their land, forest, and is definitely using the stump of the tree to generate the crack to Helheim. But what happened to her family?
Kouta's parents are dead, but he's being raised by his older sister. Micchi's parents are unaccounted for, but he's being raised by his older brother--we can assume they were higher-ups in Yggdrasil who passed away. Kaito and his family were basically chased out of town when his father's company was bought out by Yggdrasil, and while they haven't said whether or not his parents are dead, we've got a long string of dead parents here, and I'm beginning to worry.
Mai's family is never seen or mentioned. This worries me. Logically, I must assume they're dead, but how? Why? Here's where the Yui stuff comes into play: I think there was an accident. Some horrible accident that killed her family. Maybe this has to do with the tree becoming a stump--maybe it got struck by lightning when Thor wasn't being careful or something; I don't know. Mai's family died, the cracks to Helheim developed, and Mai died but was somehow resusitated--possibly a Yui case. Red-Eyed Girl, Hel, is the dead Mai. Mai is the living half. And the secret of Helheim, which Yggdrasil desperately wants to keep quiet, is that it's the actual Helheim, the land of the dead.
...Alternatively, given all these dead parents, Zawame is full of dead people, and Helheim reveals that truth--the parents are all alive, but the kids are dead. The sad part is that it would kind of explain my crack-theory that Bandou is both Goro and Mishima.
Sagara, Odin, is curious to find out which of the Armored Riders was chosen by Helheim itself, presumably to be its Kamen Rider. The candidates are Kouta and Kaito, but the opening suggests Hel chooses Kaito. Which makes sense--Kaito's got the most ship tease with Mai, the living half. And this is where Baldr comes into play. If Kaito's the chosen one, things are not going to go well for him. Baldr is one of Odin's beloved sons, a god of light and purity who's basically just loved by everybody. Now, yes, this sounds like it could probably be Kouta, who is light, purity, and generally loved by everyone. And Urobutchi's a fan of Ryuki and has killed his hero/title character in the past in order to make them ascend as a god. Kouta going the way of Shinji from Ryuki? Pretty likely. But Urobutchi would know that we expect that, that we look at Kouta, look at who's writing him, and look at the Rider series that are the closest in theme to Gaim (Shinji dies at the penultimate episode of Ryuki, Takumi is basically dying by the time 555 ends, and I'm shocked he survived all the way to Kamen Rider Taisen; I honestly thought the final scene was him dying), and tell Kouta, "It was nice knowing you, buddy." If everyone expects that, change it up. To compare to Greg Weisman, he planned on killing Wally West in Young Justice: Invasion, and to hide what he feared was obvious telegraphing of his intent, he filled it with hints that Barry Allen was going to die. After all, you expect Barry to die: This is how Wally, still Kid Flash at 21, becomes the Flash himself, with Bart taking over as Kid Flash. But no, we kill Wally and prevent him from ever graduating. So I feel is the case with Kouta. We all expect him to die, so Urobutchi's going to kill the other candidate, Kaito. Kaito will be chosen. He'll become the equivalent of Baldr. And somehow, Sid is going to kill him. Possibly with a mistletoe Lock Seed--after all, it is a berry, and it would work with the cherry motif already present for Sigurd. According to myth, Hel agrees to Frigga's pleas that she return Baldr to the realm of the living, but only if everyone weeps for him. Everyone does, except for a giantess who might be a disguised Loki because he's a little shit. Honestly, I think this is how Kaito gets a happy ending--he finds someone he loves and he chooses to stay with her, even in death. Mai will also accept her fate and truly merge with Hel, taking over as priestess of Helheim. I don't know if anyone will come back from the dead or if they'll be at peace there (I'm talking about Hase), but I'm reasonably sure that Sid and Sagara will die. Sid will probably get taken out by Kouta after he kills Kaito, but Sagara will either die on his own or Sid will get him. I don't think they're going to hold completely to the events of Ragnarok, but I think the basic ideas will be there to give this sense that it is the end of the world, and they have to fight to prevent that.
But episode 20 will reveal what Helheim is, so if I'm wrong about it being the land of the dead, then this whole thing is moot anyway.