Questions, questions and more questions (READ THE OP FOR ANSWERS)

[fumei]

what are some alternative translations for "Reality Marble"?

or is it really the only possible translation for those words in japanese?

The actual word for it is 固有結界, which means "innate bounded field" (which is pretty self-explanatory), but リアリティ・マーブル is the reading of it given by Nasu, and that can obviously only be read as "Reality Marble". It's sort of like how Noble Phantasm is actually 宝具 (lit. like "precious tools") but Nasu gavea it the reading of ノウブル・ファンタズム.

You'll see he does this with a lot of words, including QTLs, Ultimate One, Art Graph, and so on.

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why does it fuck with the format here lol

[TwilightsCall]

Does Ciel have a soul? And if so, where did she get it?

[Comun]

My assumption is that Elesia was born with her own soul, then that was overwritten by Roa, and then she went back to having her own soul but became immortal because Roa forgot to log off his account before leaving.

[fire_mountain_30]

Does Ciel have a soul? And if so, where did she get it?

wait, what makes you think that this is in question?

[Reign]

Speaking of Nasu's alternate readings, is it

Saint Graph

Spirit Origin

or

Spirit Origin

Saint Graph

?

[Comun]

Seinto Gurafu/Reiki

[TwilightsCall]

wait, what makes you think that this is in question?

When Roa reincarnates, he takes over the body of someone else he deems "worthy," and when they are sufficiently mature his memories/personality reawaken and he "reincarnates." The issue is that Roa is there the whole time, and ostensibly usurps the body from whatever soul it originally would have had. This raises a couple questions: when is a human endowed with a soul? If it is at birth, then one of Roa's hosts never would have had their own soul: Roa's soul would be the only one in the body. If it's before birth, at a time before Roa has transmitted his soul into the baby, then the question becomes: what happens to that soul? Does Roa's soul like, eat it or something? Do they co-exist peacefully (at least until Roa's soul just takes over)? Or is it expelled/suppressed only when Roa takes over?

From what I remember (and it's been a while, so I may not remember very well), there is no latent "human soul" that Roa is fighting against when he takes control of the body. There's just a transitional period where the previous personality is overwritten by Roa's, or at least what's left of it after so many reincarnations. But from the beginning there's still just Roa's soul in the body, not someone else's.

The question for Ciel then becomes, if Roa's soul has been expelled from the body, what happens to her? After all, since Ciel is immortal because "her" soul is Roa's soul and so the world won't let her die before her soul dies, that implies her body just doesn't have a soul of it's own. This raises a lot of questions about how important the soul actually is in the Nasuverse, to the point it makes me think it just can't really be true.

[SpoonyViking]

But from the beginning there's still just Roa's soul in the body, not someone else's.

Really?

[TwilightsCall]

Really?

From what I remember (and it's been a while, so I may not remember very well)

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[SirGauoftheSquareTable]

I mean, Nasu is heavily inspired by Buddhist philosophy, and pretty much all Buddhist sects deny the existence of a unique soul. The Origin would just be one of the 5 Aggregates, probably the karmic record.

[OnesFleetingGlory]

Is Shiki basically Akiha's familiar during the story?

[SirGauoftheSquareTable]

Now that I'm thinking about Nasu and Buddhism, I wonder if the Third Magic could be something akin to Nirvana, since it leads to materialization and immortality of the soul, thus cutting one off from the cycle of transmigration?

[Comun]

When Roa reincarnates, he takes over the body of someone else he deems "worthy," and when they are sufficiently mature his memories/personality reawaken and he "reincarnates." The issue is that Roa is there the whole time, and ostensibly usurps the body from whatever soul it originally would have had. This raises a couple questions: when is a human endowed with a soul? If it is at birth, then one of Roa's hosts never would have had their own soul: Roa's soul would be the only one in the body. If it's before birth, at a time before Roa has transmitted his soul into the baby, then the question becomes: what happens to that soul? Does Roa's soul like, eat it or something? Do they co-exist peacefully (at least until Roa's soul just takes over)? Or is it expelled/suppressed only when Roa takes over?

From what I remember (and it's been a while, so I may not remember very well), there is no latent "human soul" that Roa is fighting against when he takes control of the body. There's just a transitional period where the previous personality is overwritten by Roa's, or at least what's left of it after so many reincarnations. But from the beginning there's still just Roa's soul in the body, not someone else's.

The question for Ciel then becomes, if Roa's soul has been expelled from the body, what happens to her? After all, since Ciel is immortal because "her" soul is Roa's soul and so the world won't let her die before her soul dies, that implies her body just doesn't have a soul of it's own. This raises a lot of questions about how important the soul actually is in the Nasuverse, to the point it makes me think it just can't really be true.

I don't have a direct answer to any of that but I do have an important detail that's worth mentioning.

Ciel is openly stated to have been born in 1976. Judging by her disguise as 3rd year student, it's safe to assume her body grew until the age of 17 until she was taken over by Roa and killed by Arcueid. That places her death as 1993.

SHIKI is older than Shiki, so that a minimum, he's also 16 in 2000 like him. That puts SHIKI's minimum birth year at 1984. In conclusion, SHIKI was at least 9 years old when Roa reincarnated in him.

[SirGauoftheSquareTable]

Huh, so Roa kind of kills his hosts when he reincarnates, keeping them stuck at the point it happened?

[CompositeGNFNR]

Wonder if it's like a snake shedding its skin, in this case the skin being the original soul and Ciel's was still in the process, or attached.

I'm perhaps reading too much into the snake aspect.

[AAM1232]

Wonder if it's like a snake shedding its skin, in this case the skin being the original soul and Ciel's was still in the process, or attached.

I'm perhaps reading too much into the snake aspect.

Doubtful, considering his epithet.

[Tobias]

Is Shiki basically Akiha's familiar during the story?

Functionally yeah.

[TwilightsCall]

SHIKI is older than Shiki, so that a minimum, he's also 16 in 2000 like him. That puts SHIKI's minimum birth year at 1984. In conclusion, SHIKI was at least 9 years old when Roa reincarnated in him.

That is interesting and relevant information.

I realized the SHIKI situation was a bit of a weird one, what with Roa being unable to take control of the body at all during the Far Side routes, but I had chalked that up to a result of the Inversion Impulse rather than SHIKI himself being any sort of resilient. And while I do think that's still the case, it's pretty hard to argue SHIKI doesn't have a soul for the first nine years of his life.

That kind of resolves where Ciel's soul "came from," if she has one. It does raise an interesting question about multiple souls inhabiting a single body. Is there any indication of that having happened in canon? Aside from Roa obviously, the only possible example I can think of off the top of my head is the Ryougi family, but I feel like that's not quite what's happening there.

[Rafflesiac]

Wasn't there something about how if there's two souls in one vessel, the stronger one wins? Maybe Archer's arm?

[Dullahan]

maybe 'becoming-Roa' is something like what having avalon implanted does to shirou