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At one point in the story, Myne tells Lutz that she is actually a
reincarnation, and the original Myne was in all likelihood swallowed up by the
heat of the Devouring. I found this explanation kind of strange. As a Japanese
person, Myne should be familiar with reincarnation. But here she guesses that
her soul was dropped into an existing person who died, and she seems fairly
confident with her guess. At the very least, I haven't seen her offer an
alternative explanation where I am in the light novels (volume 3).

So is it really the case that the original Myne died? Or is Myne simply a
reincarnation as in many other Isekai stories, who suddenly regained her
memories of her previous life?


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ascendance-of-a-bookworm
Did the original Myne really die?


In the official fanbook, in the Q and A section, the author seems to disagree
with Myne's assessment.

> **Q:** [...] What happened to Myne's soul from before Urano came into the
> picture? Is this reincarnation?
>
> **A:** This is a reincarnation story, so Myne's soul remained Myne's soul.
> It's just that she remembered her time as Urano, and since Urano lived so
> much longer, the sheer quantity of memories overwhelmed Myne's. She's not a
> different person, so to speak, but... it's complicated. [...]

This answer would seem to indicate Myne is simply wrong. It isn't unreasonable
that she would come to this conclusion, however, as she did seem to experience
the original Myne disappearing. I'll note that the author seems a little
evasive in that last sentence, saying it's complicated, so there could be
something else going on that the author isn't ready to reveal. Regardless, I
think this shows we don't need to trust Myne when she says the original Myne
disappeared because she got swallowed by the Devouring.


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These theories are all really interesting. Based on what the author has stated
and the opening act of the story my theory is that Urano and Myne's soul is
one and the same and during one of Myne's more severe fevers Urano's memories
and personality somehow surfaced. However, Myne's personality did not
disappear but rather merged with Urano's memories and adopted her personality.

Because Urano's mentality is far more developed and she possesses far more
memories it seemed that she had taken over Myne's body but in actuality, they
simply merged together. To help paint a visual imagine their personalities are
represented as cups filled with different colored water. Myne's cup would be a
small cup filled with red-colored water whereas Urano's is a large cup filled
with blue-colored water. When merged together the blue would be more prominent
however the red would still remain.

I have another theory that Myne is actually an apostle of the Gods. In the
beginning, the original Myne was suffering from a really bad fever, and unable
to endure it she cried out for help. I think that the Gods answered her pleas
for help and unsealed Urano's memories, merging the two personalities and
giving Myne the strength to endure and somewhat overcome the devouring. I
think the act of unsealing the memories and merging the personalities was the
trigger for her to become a true apostle of the Gods. I think this would
explain a lot of the mysteries surrounding Myne, especially in the later
volumes.


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