User blog:Vemdimmer Corleone Alliance/The Genius of Vince, the Hidden Hero

I'm part of a small group of people who, it appears, managed to crack the veil of mystery and difficulties surrounding Chronexia's first episode and get to the real depth of the story's writing. We've called ourselves the Vemdimmer Corleone Alliance, and I speak for them to share with you the truth : The truth behind Vince's character.

The first pilot episode we're treated to is adamant about one thing : The Elite's main enemy is Vince, a constant threat to the world and a man of extraordinary evil. However, analyzing the first episodes' clues thoroughly, a few of its watchers, including the person typing this, managed to uncover the hidden secret of Chronexia's actual plot, the truth behind the façade.

Vince is not the villain even he himself presents himself as being. Vince's over-the-top antics of acting cruel and demeaning to others in truth DO hide a noble cause. There's several main clues to this, but we'll just sum up the most important ones.


 * 1) Vince's evil appears to be absolutely nihilistic and over the top. His chief goal appears to be destroying the Sphere of Life and thus obliterating all life on the planet, and likely the planet itself, including ending his own life. He's also exceedingly mocking and cruel in his dialogue, and completely over-the-top in how he acts.

The chief thing to notice here is that Vince is presented as nihilistic, pointless evil; he appears to be targeting the Sphere of Life purely to destroy everything, and the way he acts and talks is almost juvenile and edgy. However, in actual combat, Vince doesn't utilize all that many lethal attacks; despite having clear advantage over his opponents and even bringing in Demon forces, only one character dies in the attack even when several are incapacitated. It is worth noting he specifically targeted Michelle, and unlike his previous, devil-may-care behavior, appeared glad to kill her. In contrast, against all other members of the Elite, Vince used nonlethal force to dispatch them.

At the end of the pilot episode a woman asks a bartender whether he has or heard of any jobs she might take, and he straight-up replies he hasn't and that things have been pretty quiet since Vince's era ended. The person in question also mentions she really needs the job, yet apparently no other work opportunities have emerged or truly suit her.
 * 2) After Vince's death, there's apparently an economical decline, particularly for adventuring jobs.

This argument extends further, as it is worth noticing that despite the immense value of the Sphere of Life to the protagonists and world at large, no visible fortifications exist over quite a large field that would protect the area; in fact, Vince is not stopped until he's on his way to 'destroy the sphere of life' and he actually reaches Mana's domain before he is stopped. There's also decline of gear available in a big city, allowing a boy to, without protest from other traders or backlash, set up a shop selling useless gear. Also, only the human females of the Elite can be sent into the hot springs for relaxation, implying there weren't enough funds to afford such a vacation for the men or the elves. The difference in apparent state of society is so big that the times from 25 years ago are referred to as "Vince's Era".

Achilles refers to himself and his companions as the "Elite", however, when Vince kills Michelle, he calls her a "Peasant". It is my and my co-theorists belief that while Achilles refers to the PERCEIVED state of himself and his companions, Vince actually refers to her genuine status. Michelle is evidently unable to perform under pressure and uneducated, as she neither retrieves her arrows once she shoots them nor has any sidearm to use once she is out of useable ones. Furthermore when attempting to withdraw, Michelle ends up walking straight towards Vince despite him being in a direction opposite to her previous position and where her friends were looking when they followed her with their gazes as she attempted to withdraw. This implies Michelle, a member of the Elite, still lacks the intuition, intelligence, basic intellectual capacity and education to both prepare herself for a crucial fight and withdraw from it when she is useless.
 * 3) The perceived inadequacy of the Elite.

During the opening sequence, we learn the government enslaves many elves for their abilities, but Maxim and Flora are able to be freed and become members of the Elite thanks to their power and usefulness. The Elite's very existence is necessitated by Vince's 'aggression'. Vince's action, in fact, directly allow for some elves to rise above slavery; it is quite possible Vince predicted this was the only way for now, and is in fact heavily opposed to enslaving Elves It's worth noting that despite Achilles' claim to be elite and hate of elves being enslaved, as well as Flora apparently being his stepmother, neither him, nor her, nor his father appear to even attempt to extend their influence to actively end elven slavery; ONLY Vince's action lead to any number of elves being freed.
 * 4) The elves' status

Prior to the arrival of Achilles and Aleck, Vince was obviously dominating the battle and easily able to defeat most of the Elite. Despite the extensive explanation at the start of the episode, Aleck and Achilles as well as Furthermore, they failed to even properly damage him; his capabilities with his shield appear to be sufficient to block literally any attack they throw at him, and the forces of demons he mustered are just sufficient to help him tire out the Elite.
 * 5) Vince's unlikely defeat.

However, when Aleck and Achilles appear, an oddity happens; Vince proceeds to kill Michelle, and then, seemingly because of the determination and fury of the characters, is defeated and dies. It is worth noting here that previously even Socrates' impressive spell didn't phase Vince, and despite his shield's small size he was able to block all incoming attacks with relative ease, yet when Aleck blasts him with his own spell he appears to be phased by it, and then when Achilles attempts to combo into it, Vince is defeated.

Achilles' attack was essentially him spinning with his sword over a relatively large distance; we approximated around 15 meters. Not once does Achilles faint the blow; the height of the attack is obvious and constant. Yet Vince fails to dodge or block his attack despite his obvious defensive prowess earlier, leading to only one possible conclusion : After Michelle's death, Vince's goal has been achieved, and he ALLOWED himself to be killed by Achilles' dreadfully predictable attack.

When Mana emerges after the group's supposed victory over Vince, despite them being right in their claims of apparently 'saving' her, she appears not at all pleased with the situation and avoids talking about anything, merely curtly ordering the group to leave and refusing to even attempt to resurrect Michelle despite her domain literally containing the source of life on the planet. This appears to imply Mana is aware of Vince's true purpose and the necessity of his existence, and is thus displeased that his presence was temporarily removed and that he will be unable to continue putting pressure on the Elite. The reason for the length of time Vince ended is unknown; it's possible he needed to wait to make it believable that he can defeat the new Elite as he was killed by members of the previous one at his prime, or that his resurrection takes a long time.
 * 6) When Mana emerges after the battle, she is downright hostile to the Elite.


 * Additional ) This is merely implied in the show and, according to my contacts, is a reveal in the books, but Vince essentially cannot be truly killed at the moment, as the timeline tends to correct itself to resurrect him whenever he dies.

This creates an interesting coincidence. Vince's plan cannot possibly succeed, as destroying the Sphere of Life and Mana in the process would immediately kill him off. The timeline would then correct itself in one of two ways: - Either the deed would immediately be undone, leading Vince to being the sole person incapable of actually destroying the Sphere of Life.

- Vince would die and resurrect in a state in which life is impossible, trapping himself in a chain of deaths and resurrections forever. This does not appear to be a fate anyone might desire, even someone completely nihilistic.

It is crucial to note Mana claims even she cannot revive the dead, yet Vince CAN resurrect, thus implying there's multiple gods or a force stronger than Mana favoring his mission.

The above points, I believe, are sufficient to pose a bold theory : Vince's activity and identity as a "Villain" is merely a front to his true purpose, that being helping to keep the economy on the world of Mana in a manageable state. The elves' are getting enslaved and the death of Vince leads to decline in work available and the quality of equipment available, meaning his loss actually had significant negative after-effects and without him the economy is significantly strained; Vince's presence ensured at least some members of the Elite could afford a vacation and allowed them to be well-equipped, as well as provided incentive for the government to free the most talented Elves as the economy is clearly incapable of allowing the elves to earn money as free people despite their extraordinary talents. The government can't even afford to provide fortifications for a location as crucial as the Sphere of Life, and the guardians fighting the demons in the wild are dreadfully underequipped.

Mana is not grateful to the Elite for Vince's death. During his fight with them, Vince has several opportunities to kill each and every one of them, yet solely targets Michelle and, when it becomes clear he can't believably escape after having easily defeated most of the Elite, allows himself to be defeated in hard to believe but plausible (fury at loss of their friend) circumstances by the remaining Elite members. This means Vince's target was not destruction of the Sphere of Life, which is an over-the-top-nonsensical-evil, as well as a thing that appears implausible for him to do.

His sole goal in that fight was to kill Michelle under semi-believable circumstances and take the blame for it, as well as provide incentive for the Elite to mobilize and continue creating work opportunities for them and others; fighting his demons and helping the Elite recover appear to be the primary motors of a genuine economy on Mana.

We're right off the bat told that there are multiple deities on Mana, and while Michelle's husband appears affected by her death, we know next to nothing about her other than her evident lack of intelligence. It is my belief Michelle was, in fact, a cultist of a god that contributed to the dreadful economic circumstances of the planet; likely a god of economic collapse, excess greed, or destruction of foodstuff and mineral resources i.e. corrosion and rot. Protected by her status as an Elite, Michelle continued to provide sacrifices for said deity, making the land's already difficult economic situation even worse. It is entirely believable her actions were motivated by desperation and lack of education, however it still cannot be excused as she worsened the state of the entire land to satisfy and curry favor with her malevolent deity. Vince acts genuinely happy to kill Michelle, mentioning doing so is crucial to his ideals, and plays the fury of her companions as a factor allowing them to defeat him. Mana, aware of Michelle's fall and dreadful behavior, refuses to even attempt bringing her to life.

In a truly selfless sacrifice, Vince eliminates the actual evil without targeting those attached to her behavior, affecting their lives with the despair of seeing who she really is and how she gained her status despite her laughable mental capacity and lack of education. He paints himself as the villain, removing the true obstacle to relative well-being of the world, knowing his re-emergence will allow the economy to stabilize once more if Michelle's actions are stopped. Not wishing Socrates' love to be betrayed and the Elite to be put in a position where they need to reexamine who they can trust, Vince paints himself as the villain as his sole elimination amongst the group is Michelle, the true villain of the story's prologue.

It should be noted that there is another factor of importance here : Vince employs demons and is apparently able to bring forth truly great amounts of them. Demons are seen slaying other people in the explanation of the world, but not the Elite; not a single member of the Elite falls to a demon even after they collapse from exhaustion. It is my belief that there are two possible explanations to this, simple and complex. The simple explanation is as follows : Vince employs and controls the demons out of necessity of having a striking force and carefully balances their losses and victories to ensure their threat doesn't overrun the world, and also due to a simple need of having henchmen, directing their potentially harmful influence in a way that provides balance and effectively acting as both a leader for them and a double agent.

The more complex explanation is that Demons are, in fact, not altogether evil at all, which explains more fully why they fail to kill a single Elite. While described as monsters, bloodthirsty, barbaric, and immoral, and spreaders of chaos... Their threat is never as immediate as to mobilize the WHOLE Elite if Vince himself is not involved, and the Demons themselves are portrayed as a mixture of lupine humanoids with some ungulate-like horns. Encountered only in the wilderness and feeding off of a human they kill, thus implying the slaying was not purely for a sadistic thrill, this implies that so-called Demons may merely be powerful beasts or agents of nature.

This is a reaching argument, but other than Maxim and Flora, who are merely half-siblings and elves freed to be part of the Elite in the first place, the Elite contains parents and children as well as spouses, but there's not a single instance of human siblings within it. This leads to the potential that the guardians/scouts seen outside battling the demons are recruited in a very specific way.

It is my belief the employment of demons potentially furthers Vince's goal of stabilization of economy. As the outside soldiers slain by the demons provide nourishment for them, it limits uncoordinated attacks by the creatures, and it is entirely possible that these guardians are, in fact, recruited from large families; the children born later or unable to gain an education that fuels the economy or join the Elite become these wardens, put at risk of being consumed by the demons. In a harsh but potentially necessary maneuver, Vince's demons would thus prevent overpopulation while remaining fed and orderly enough to follow his attack plans aimed at mobilizing the Elite and related parts of the economy, thus providing jobs and allowing the land to continue being stable.

Since Vince cannot believably withdraw, as he is only able to kill Michelle when Socrates' energy has been largely depleted and she makes a mistake, he allows the Elite to slay him due to apparent power of righteous anger; he couldn't believably withdraw anymore when at the very brink of victory. Vince's sacrifice temporarily stalls the economy but not as badly as Michelle's continued actions and potential disciples would. His sacrifice for the good of Mana, both of his good name and his life, even if the latter is only temporary, is truly a brave and noble one.

Vince's death is not lauded by Mana.

Vince didn't destroy Socrates' marriage or the Elite's camaraderie with truth. He painted himself the villain.

He killed Michelle and allows the demons to consume some of the excess soldiers in a desperate bid to keep the world going, a harsh but necessary one, otherwise avoiding killing whenever possible and providing opportunities for elves to rise above slavery.

Vince's only moment of joy when he was able to finally slay the true evil troubling the land, accepting the pain of dying even as he inevitably had to revive despite obviously being able to block Achilles' predictable attack.

Despite this Vince knows his actions are difficult and harsh, but necessary. "Unfortunately, I have my ideals, and I'd like to abide by them". Vince uses a very small shield out of a spiritual desire for punishment and the release of death; wishing to give himself as little protection as possible. He hates the necessity of his work and longs for the release of death, yet the gods won't let him rest for a long, long time.

Let his sacrifice be remembered.