Now that the lore discussions have mostly died down, replaced with regular questions about gameplay as we all wait for the next DLC update; I'd like to breath a little life to it by sharing a new perspective on SiNiSistar 2's story. Not from me, but from the Japanese community.
The 'Universe in the Womb' Theory
Written by フリッツ (Fritz), a DLSite reviewer and article writer, the Universe in the Womb theory is an attempt by him to piece together the lore and story of the game through the environment, Nennai's blog posts on Ci-en, and interestingly, through Lelia's behavior. His theory can be found in his DLSite Articles on the game, as well as four Fanfiction chapters he wrote on
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. I recommend you take a look as not only are they a good read despite the language barrier, but they further expand on his 'Universe in the Womb' theory; with the first two chapters focusing on Lelia, the third featuring Haanja as the protagonist, and the fourth and final chapter revolving around Lelia's mother of all people.
Now, moving onto the start:
On Lelia
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Fritz starts off his theory not by focusing on the major aspects of the story, like the Father Otherworlder or the Abomination Broodlings, but instead on Lelia. This may seem strange at first glance, Lelia is mainly a silent protagonist, speaking only in a select few occasions and has very little character to show during the whole game. In fact, the game's description even lists her as simply being 'quiet and somewhat mature'.
But Fritz thinks differently, to him, Lelia is not a character that displays their personality through words, but by the way she acts in-game when she is being attacked or raped by the various beings she encounters. In both in his DLsite articles and in his Fanfiction works on syosetu where he explores Lelia's character, he notes that she presents a calm, mature disposition in public, but is quick to reveal her true colors when she is being violated. When Lelia is being raped by monsters, she shrieks and moans in pain yet he notes that never once has Lelia ever looked afraid during the act. In fact, he noticed that when Lelia is raped by other humans, she looks away, avoiding eye contact and hiding her face under her arm. As if she's afraid of looking the other person in the eye, like they would discover her truest, ugly desires if they get a clear look.
Thus, Fritz has this to say about Lelia in regards to her story and character in the game.
In a
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, Nennai once mentioned the role of sisters like Haanja and Lelia where they mentioned that they are expected to not only help and serve the townsfolk, but are also expected to fight and potentially be martyred when fighting abominations. Drawing from that knowledge and from the game itself, Fritz states here in this poetic description that Lelia's fate is closely intertwined with death, similar to Rabiane. But he goes even further than that, as he builds upon that foundation to say that Lelia's character is one full of contradictions as we noted before. As Fritz elaborates further in the article:
In Fritz's view, Lelia is a character who craves death through sexual pleasure. A sister sworn to chastity and protected by her Blessing of Purification, yet her desires lie on the contrary. She presents herself with a mature and silent persona on the outside, yet when she's held down by monsters and raped does she show her true feelings without shame. She screams, she moans, she yells; yet never once is she terrified, because she also desires for her violation to end with a swift death. It's why she tries to hide away when she's being raped by people, not monsters; because she's ashamed of her true nature, that people will see and know her to be a liar.
This is what he presents as his answer to the game's ambigious ending. The slug that appears at the end is Lelia's personal dilemma. Does she kill it and continue her persona as the chaste, mature sister who secretly represses her sexual desire for death? Or does she embrace it and allow the slug to impregnate her, liberating her to freely display her true feelings in this dream world where no one can see her, hoping that one day it would lead to the oblivion she desires.
You can read
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works if you want to see more of Fritz's thoughts on Lelia's character. He explores her character there more deeply than his articles and my bastardized summary here and intertwines it by giving her a backstory I would honestly see as close to canon as we can get. As for his view on Lelia, it's very close to what
elixxon2 wrote about Rabiane and the first game just a day after the second game's release:
The Otherworlders and the Universe in the Womb
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Eye of the Great Seere, the final boss of SiNiSistar.
(大セーレ or Great Seere, is the official name of the Otherworlder we have been calling the 'Observer' as mentioned by Nennai in a November 2019 blog post. They namedropped them once then proceeded to never elaborate further on it again.)
Moving on from Lelia, we now reach the most interesting part: the Otherworlders and the aforementioned subject of Fritz's theory 'The Universe in the Womb'. Starting off this theory, he already begins with quite a radical position unheard of from all the discussions I've seen in this forum so far. He posits that the crisis plaguing Arcezon isn't solely due to the Father of the Otherworld but also due to the presence of other Otherworlders that were summoned by the Priests by accident. Namely the being he calls 'Crazy Eyes' (a.k.a the Observer/Great Seere), the 'Snail Lineage' (Brain Snail Cluster boss), and the 'Slug'.
(Before we begin, I have to mention a bit of a naming difference between versions. In the English version, the Father and the Seeres are referred to as 'Otherworlders'. In Japanese however, they are referred to as 'Outer Ones'. (This is also what they are called in the files.) So bear with me as I will be using 'Otherworlder' and 'Outer One' interchangeably but do note they refer to the same beings.)
This is quite the departure from what we consider as basic fact here in this forum so one must ask, where did his hypothesis come from? He answers this question in his
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to the
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where he cites the unusual breeding process of the Demi-Humans and the Parasite Pigs compared to the Father's accursed abominations.
As Fritz posits, his belief is centered around the fact that the existence of Demi-Human and Pigman babies show that the Father isn't the sole Otherworlder influencing events in Arcezon as they don't have full control over the abominations being birthed throughout region. He even believes that there is a power struggle between the Otherworlders inside the Cathedral which is why each of the enemies there are diverse and have different powers. He believes that the 'Outer Father', 'Crazy Eyes', and the 'Snail Lineage' are in the midst of this struggle by the time the player arrives; each fighting to cement full control over Arcezon.
But you may wonder, what about the 'Slug'? Well that leads to the main point of Fritz's theory. Fritz noticed that when you lose to the Priests, Lelia gives birth to an Abomination Broodling. Yet should Lelia get pregnant and lose to the Abomination Broodling Harbinger, or fail to break out of the Father's vision in the final boss fight, she gives birth to slugs instead. Which leads him to his point, if the Father doesn't have full control over the cursed births in Arcezon then who is the Outer One that has cursed the fetuses in the region to transform into Abomination Broodlings?
And so we arrive at Fritz's conclusion: If other Outer Ones can arrive by accident when the Priests called upon the Father, then there's nothing stopping another Otherworlder from usurping the Father's method of creating a mortal form for itself by completely monopolizing it. For unlike the Father, Observer/Great Seere, and the Snail, the 'Slug' didn't need to fully manifest in reality as the curse would simply do its work for it. After all...
Closing Remarks
This went far longer than I expected. I had to keep switching tabs trying to translate it from Japanese to English using Google and DeepL Translate to check if what I'm writing matched the original text so I apologize in advance for any errors in translation. Once again, I would like to recommend everyone interested in this theory to read the original articles and his
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work as it goes further in depth, but of course, this isn't canon, just a fan theory. While I do agree on some aspects, I don't necessarily agree with the Otherworlder conflict he proposes, as well as the whole Snails and Slugs being Otherworlders equal to the Father and the Observer/Great Seere. Fritz also mentioned that he hadn't played the first game so yeah, take it with a pinch of salt. It may not be what we consider the correct lore here, but it's interesting to see the perspective of other communities when it comes to the lore of this game.
