This is a space for posting theories, thoughts, criticism, and thirsting about the latest version of the game. As usual, just be polite and tasteful.
Time to unleash the theories...per Roddo's request. (Pt 1)
But first, and most importantly....Bitey x Bernardo! I'm of the strong opinion that Alessia needs a 2 parent household. and Bitey needs some birb lovin'
Anyway... as of this build we finally have a timeline for where the prologue fits into chapter 1.
Another thing that 0.5 cleared up was the mysteries surrounding Frank and Aloys.
The events of 0.5 confirm for me that the info in the Glossary is important and that Roddo may be using it to either lead us or mislead us in the right direction. The masks on the Noch monks along with their respective body types almost immediately made me draw comparisons with Nerus and Shax respectively.
According to the glossary, Nerus cannot change the color of his irises. Thus, if this was Nerus, this might explain why the pair have masks on...building tension.
However, as 0.4/0.5 went on, Aloys became less and less Nerus-like in his actions, and his mask off confirmed it.
However, my theory is that this is a red herring red herring, at least with the purpose perhaps of trying to draw away attention from Frank.
Now, we know that Shax theoretically could be able to change his eye color along with his form, but I'm going to ignore that for now
Not only do Shax and Frank/"Obli" share eye color, but especially during the boat ride, we begin to see that the two share a lot of characteristics
At this point, I'm willing to put money on this. However, this reveal brings up more questions than answers.
At the end of Prologue, my guess that Shax was trying to say that he was an angel/descendant. However, there are some problems with this theory.
It is my opinion that the Extras stuff isn't just for fun, but has lore implications, as I've demonstrated with the eye color foreshadowing.
Blessed vs Hybrid vs Human
Blessed seems to refer to humans who are born with a animal shape, called Beast Men in Ch 1 , as every animal character in Ch 1 (minus Aloys of course) is referred to as a "blessed human". Remigio also refers to himself as "blessed", so I'm guessing prior to his vampire transformation, he looked more like an animal as well.
Bitey is referred to by Alessia as coming from a "blessed family", so it appears that the animal forms seem to be hereditary, as his uncle looks like him.
Interestingly enough, back to Alessia's dream about Shax, she refers to him as blessed...although most likely any animal human would be referred to by that term, it's likely she's just making a guess. However the difference in usage of "beast man" vs blessed is interesting.
I'll get to Alessia in Pt 2, but the narrator (who I believe to be the writer of the glossary), calls her a "hybrid human"
I didn't notice the irises thing with Nerus. Good point. They do mention that he can't change the color of his irises.
What do you think of Alessia sharing some similarities with Nerus? She even shares the eye color.
Also Alessia may be a hybrid human because one of his parents is blessed while the other one is not. Although I don't really know what makes her hybrid in appearance.
Y'all brought up some interesting points. I'm no good at theory crafting but I wanted to leave some questions as a reminder to see if they will be answered in future chapters:
Who is Sofia?
What accidents affected the snake on the dream, and did something similar affect anyone else?(maybe it will be revealed next chapter, given how it's called)
As you mentioned, Shax was probably something "divine" (as opposed to demonic=shapeshifter). He seems to start remembering it near the end of the prologue. I wonder if the other soul amnesiacs are of the same origin. Since they all appeared after the battle, what if they are "divine" or hybrid souls passing as shapeshifter souls in an unperfected process that led to unforeseen consequences...? Remember Nomino asked if Shax wanted to fight him during their private talk. The conversation made it seem Shax should not be sided with shapeshifters by default (from what I understood).
Did Nerus procreate or had his soul suffer some accident that ended up on Alessia's family condition? Did he do it on purpose? This is based on her appearance, dreams, and ability to see magic or souls that no one else can (common mortals).
Has "Shax" kept his memories after reincarnating as another being?
What was "Frank"'s objective? And what exactly are gnoses?