I think that narratively the table has been set for some of Olly’s memories to return at some juncture. I also think it makes perfect sense for Olly to be well aware that something is going on with Qifrey and his memories.

I think that Olly is very likely to provide a key assist to Coco in her very clearly telegraphed quest to cure the silverwood. But I do not at all buy the full double bluff Olruggio Knows Everything and has been lying to Qifrey who thinks he’s lying to Olly this whole time bcs reasons, etc. theories.

Why?

First of all, it’s an attempt to answer a question that the narrative didn’t propose.

In Ch 40, when Qifrey explains to Olruggio what’s going on with him, about his vision, about the experiments, about his eye, and his desire to stop the new forbidden magic, this is answering a question that has existed as regards Qifrey since the very first chapter of the manga. It also introduces the question of exactly what the new forbidden magic was.

When Qifrey wipes Olly’s memory and implies that he’s done this before, it introduces the question of the circumstances of these repeated memory wipes. Both of those questions are, in turn, answered by the silverwood seed plotline and the young Qifrey and Olruggio flashbacks.

Conversely, the reasoning and circumstances of that whole partners in pain situation are directly presented to the reader at the outset (it in fact serves as a final piece of context to complete your understanding of Qifrey and Olruggio's Whole Deal).

There is no meaningful hole in the narrative that needs filled as regards the partners in pain pact. (Why don’t we see Olly’s trip to the Tower? The same reason we don’t actually see Qifrey’s; we don’t get to see any of the tests and what they entail until it’s time for the girls to take them.)

These theories are trying to solve a mystery that doesn’t exist. They’re extraneous. They're going, “Well, Olly’s smart so I think he should have figured out a way not to have to sacrifice himself for Qifrey.” And/Or “This can't be the real plan because it is not an ideal solution for the problem as it requires both Qifrey and Olruggio to exist in an endless cycle of pain, misery, and self-denial.”

But that cycle is the clear dramatic intent. The narrative is throwing the brick that is this situation at your head and telling you to sit with it and consider what it reveals to you about these characters and this relationship both in retrospect and going forward. The narrative is not asking you to figure out a way for Olly to have avoided or sidestepped this sacrifice or situation. You’ve just decided to do that because you want the plotline to be different than what it is, which is fine, go nuts, but there’s no compelling reason in the text for it.

Further, I would argue that it makes perfect sense that this is the solution Olly specifically would come up with.

He was overwhelmed, panicked, and extremely short on time. He has just been directly told that the way to stop Qifrey from dying is wiping his memories, so he’s focused on a way to stop Qifrey from dying without having to wipe his memories. The only thing that he knows abates this parasite that he literally just found out exists is Qifrey being anxious. Olly is kind and selfless to a fault—this is continually drilled into us. He also clearly carries a lot of survivors guilt and an intense hero complex. And he is determined above all else,to keep Qifrey alive. Life is a precious thing to Olly, and Qifrey is of course also very precious to him. Of course Olly’s solution would be to sacrifice himself in some way in order to enable the only countermeasure he knows of to keep Qifrey alive. It’s in his nature.

This is also why Coco is perfectly set up to be the one who has a breakthrough about how to remove the seed entirely. She’s selfless and self-abnegating too, but she’s also uncompromising. Coco doesn’t just look for a palliative. She’s specifically determined to find a complete solution to every problem. A solution that explicitly doesn’t require a terrible sacrifice.

Second, it doesn’t make any logical sense. For a lot of reasons but the two major ones:

a) Most versions of this theory I’ve seen rest on the idea that Olly intentionally gave Qifrey a memory spell that doesn’t do what he said it does or some similar subterfuge. But, whatever the reason, for Qifrey to continue to be unaware of the spell not working as intended requires Qifrey to have in no way further investigated memory spells on his own in the intervening 15+ years. Which we know is not true because whatever memory spell he cast on Nolnoa worked, and he gives Coco the total mind wipe spell which was already in his book (which we can assume is also correct because Luluci identifies it). I would hazard to guess that after years of having to continually erase the memories of the love of his life, not to mention his own history with his childhood memories having been erased, Qifrey has done research on memory spells and how they work. It absolutely shatters credulity to suggest that the spell on which his literal life depends could be not working for any length of time and he just wouldn't notice. Yes, Olly is smart, but Qifrey isn’t stupid.

b) If Olly actually remembers their pact and about the silverwood, why would Olly keep pretending to find out Qifrey’s secret? To keep him anxious so he doesn’t turn into a tree? Except Qifrey explicitly mentions that every time Olly finds out, he forgives Qifrey and comforts him and then the tree grows, starting the cycle over again. So, he’s keeping Qifrey from turning into a tree by... continually making him turn into a tree with no guarantee that he’ll be able to come back any given time? If he knew, you would think that he’d get Qifrey to wipe his mind BEFORE the tree-ening. Or even just once try out not forgiving/comforting him just to see if that’s enough anxiety to keep Qifrey going. But just comforting Qifrey over and over again knowing it’s going to make him take root is inexplicably cruel and extremely cavalier about Qifrey’s life. The only way the repeating cycle makes sense is if it’s Olly’s genuine reaction that he’s sharing because he doesn’t remember reacting that way before or what happens when he does.

Finally, it undermines the impact of Qifrey and Olly’s situation and, worse, doesn’t serve a purpose except a convoluted surprise reveal that adds nothing to the plot.

“Olly will have figured out how to get rid of the tree!”

Listen...no he won’t.

Coco’s going to do that because she’s the main character and it’s affected TWO people she cares about currently.

Furthermore, it’s weird for this whole thing to be motivated in part by the idea that Olly’s too smart not to have figured out a better way than Partners in Pain, but also requires him to still...not have figured out a better way than Partners in Pain after half their lives.

As I said at the top, I think it’s very likely that he’s going to be instrumental to getting rid of the tree, but that doesn’t necessitate him having known the whole time. He just has to find out. And lo and behold, someone now knows who won’t turn into a tree if they tell him. Again, the main character, Coco, is here!

You can even get Olly keeping his actually knowing the secret from Qifrey as he works to get rid of the Silvertree without needing a labyrinthine conspiracy.

(Orthogonal to this discussion, but I love that a point is even made during Silver Eve about how amazed Olly is by the girls figuring out a way to save everyone with magic. This is after he’s had a panic attack at being called upon to “kill it with fire” and been left literally asking how he can help with the leech without killing. Additional sidenote, trying to make this massive ruse the core of Olly also kind of elides the actual biggest question of Olly’s character, which is what exactly happened in Noz and his early childhood that made him Like This about life, death, and magic; we know broad strokes, but the devil’s in the details.)

So anyway, tl;dr. For me, all this theory really does is undo the unhinged dual selfless-selfish nature of Olly’s plan, soften Qifrey’s ethical quandary, and just generally make the whole thing less dramatically interesting.

Dazai doesn't really understand it. She has never once had a mother call her in from the cold, can not remember an embrace that holds her safe away from the harshness of the world. She has drawn close to Death, oh, many times, but it never once felt like coming home.

And anyway, Dazai thinks, in all her teenage skepticism, if Death is a Mother Goddess, why choose a fourteen-year-old girl as her vessel? Fourteen is too young to bear a child.

"Fourteen is too young to die," the High Priest had informed her when she had told him of her doubts. "And yet you tried. Didn't you?"

"Seven times," Dazai had grumbled, "Not that it ever worked."

"Precisely." The High Priest had looked up at her then, the first time, his thin, dark hair falling over his eyes as he raises his gaze from his prayerbook. "You survived. Even when it ought to have been impossible."

"I'm just lucky," Dazai had always argued, for they had had this debate many times over the years. "Or unlucky, I guess," but Mori would hear none of it.

"Mother Death loves you," he would insist.

"If she loves me, why won't she let me die?"

"You are Her favourite child," he would say, "Ungrateful child even as you are for the blessing of life She permits you. For the Gift She bestows."

He means to say, Dazai's 'visions', as he calls them. Her uncanny ability to accurately predict someone's death.

They aren't visions. Nothing more than well-thought-out predictions, based on whatever Dazai can figure about whatever poor worshipper comes to her. She takes their prayers, offered in desperation to a teenager they believe to be a seer, and makes her deductions piece by piece.

It's true, they are always accurate. But Dazai is no seer. No Prophetess of Death.

She's just a girl who's good at making guesses. She likes thinking about different ways of dying, after all.

Or maybe they're hallucinations. Maybe she's been driven to the edge by suicide attempt after suicide attempt, and her mind has broken its moorings. That explanation is equally likely.

Dazai isn't sure if Mori genuinely believes she has goddess-sent visions, that she can foresee each and every death, or if he's just so committed to his own scam that he refuses to let the mask drop.

He's never asked her how he will die. Dazai is almost afraid to try to figure it out.

⛧°. ⋆༺♱༻⋆. °⛧

Chuuya knows the Prophetess is lying.

Paul won't hear a word of it, of course.

Ever since what happened to Arthur... well. Paul's been weird about death. About dying. He thinks he can find solace for his grief in worship. In praying to Mother Death like she'll forgive him, like prayer will bring Arthur back.

Paul thinks some skinny girl not much bigger than Chuuya has all the answers. Well, he's stupid. And he's wrong.

The Deathless Prophetess is nothing more than a mortal child. Not to mention a liar and a scheming bitch.

Chuuya can prove it, she knows she can prove it, if anyone would only listen.

When she is fifteen years old, she applies to become an apprentice in the Holy Mausoleum. Paul beams with pride, thinking his little sister ever so pious, but Chuuya’s got schemes of her own this time.

She'll get close to the so-called Prophetess, since they're the same age, and she'll expose the truth. Then everyone will see.

⛧°. ⋆༺♱༻⋆. °⛧

Death is a mother goddess, they say, and the girl with eyes dark as the tomb who was called a thousand times to suicide but never dies is Her one true daughter, Her avatar, Death Herself made living flesh.

Chuuya doesn't believe in all that.

What Chuuya swears her loyalty to is not a Goddess but a woman, Death's mortal mouthpiece.

Ten years they've known each other.

Chuuya is no longer the girl she was, apprenticed to a church she doesn't believe in, angry and frustrated and out of control. Now, she is a knight of the highest rank, the only one with the honour of being always at the side of the Mother Goddess.

With Dazai, she should say.

For Dazai is no Goddess, it's true, but she loves her people as though she were, now; does what she can for their grief and their poverty and their suffering.

She wasn't always like that. Chuuya had hated her, back then, with her whole soul, the way she had lied and condescended and taken the adoring worship of a whole congregation like she deserved it.

The truth, Chuuya had learned, as she had wormed her way closer to Dazai's sacred inner circle, is something altogether more complex.

They had both been lonely, bitter teenage girls, and in the dark of the Holy Tomb they had crawled close to each other, and stayed.

Chuuya can't take credit for all of it. A lot of it was thanks to High Knight Oda, may the Mother keep him eternal in Death - but Dazai has changed.

Today, Chuuya kneels before the altar of bone.

She doesn't care that the gods may be watching her - she doesn't care for such things, although she takes a religious life.

Dazai is what matters. Dazai's gifts are real, her visions true. Chuuya doesn't know how, or why, and it doesn't really matter.

Dazai knows when everyone will die. What goes beyond that is nothing to do with Chuuya. What she knows is here, the earthly, the base, the flesh. The divine can get fucked.

Speaking of--

Dazai wears nothing beneath her sheer ceremonial robe, and her smile is serene, all-knowing.

Chuuya's tongue feels dry. Hand on her heart, she dedicates herself to her own personal Goddess, lets the ritual oath drop from her lips, sweet in its promise.

This is Chuuya’s own form of worship.

⛧°. ⋆༺♱༻⋆. °⛧

@applepi00 happy gift exchange 🥹🌸✨️ I hope you like religious theme and death gothic overtones weird teenage girlhood intimacy to codependent lovers femskk!!

or, priestess of Death dazai x holy Knight chuuya.... maybe this could be a full fic someday, i did get very deeply into the lore while drawing hehe

bone rosaries design and moral support thanks to @nettlestingsoup 💕

perhaps the most ambitious digital art I've ever undertaken, rip my tablet