“That day will bring all the gods together”: Dies irae Pantheon, Episode 0

EDIT: Check the complete translation here!

“Creation Figment: Wewelsburg Castle”, one of the most anticipated Dies irae events in recent history, took place yesterday. It promised a lot, including a new anime trailer, the airing date for the rest of the episodes, and, most importantly, “Episode 0” of the upcoming Dies irae Pantheon. Although it did not reveal much, it certainly did not disappoint, fueling the legion’s speculation for quite a while. As there is currently no single English source to read it all, I would like to do my best to gather it all here, both factual evidence and speculation.

Before I begin, however, please note that we have no actual script on our hands: all I can go off are a few tweets of reports, so it’s bound to be a bit fragmented. If it doesn’t look that way, it’s only because I tried to make it read like a proper text; the events might not have happened in this particular order, but I did not come up with anything else on my own. That said, Light have promised to release it as a drama CD, so any confusion will be cleared up sooner or later.

And, of course, beware of spoilers.

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The scene begins with eight people coming to their senses in an unspecified place; what they have in common is having reached the Divine Throne at some point in their lives. Our attention is focused on the four gods whose story is told in Dies irae: Mercurius, Reinhard Heydrich, Fujii Ren and Marie. All of them have the same question on their lips: how did they come back to life after being annihilated by the brutal god of the sixth Heaven?

Their ponderings are interrupted by a strangely familiar voice:

“The Truth, the Remorseless, the Morning Star, the Mercury, the Gold, the Moment, the Twilight, the Hajun… Come on, we’re still missing two?”

The voice calls himself Naraka Interim; when asked about his own divine nature, he responds with “Don’t take me for the same shmuck as all of you”. Simply put, the gods of the Throne are nothing but software, with Naraka being the hardware that houses all of them. Even Hajun, no matter how potent he is, did not come close to matching his strength. Even the Twilight, no matter how technologically advanced her reign was, did not come close to learning the truth about him.

“Just shut up and wait, will you? This entire thing was made to bring you all together and complete the sephirot. If you’re so bored, look around and construct some theories or something. You like that, don’t you?”, – says the hardware to the software.

And so, the four gods observe their surroundings. Marie and Ren direct their attention towards Hajun, or, as Marie calls him, “that child” who utterly devastated them mere moments ago. “If two more are missing, does that mean someone managed to beat him, and then someone else beat them? Just how strong are they?”, – asks Ren, seemingly unaware of his own role in the Throne of Self-Conceit.

Mercurius catches a glimpse of the Morning Star:
 – My, is that not my noble predecessor?
 – Should it not feel uneasy to look him in the eye, Karl? – asks Reinhard, his sworn friend and companion.
– Why, not in the slightest. After all, there are much worse beings present here; this is hardly an accomplishment for me.

Lastly, Reinhard gazes at the first two Thrones, the Truth and the Remorseless:
– I must say, this gathering does call to mind the image of the Roman Pantheon.
– Pan…theon? What’s that? – asks Marie, her inquiry soon answered by Mercurius.
– ‘Tis the word which means “Each and every god”, Marguerite. The same word describes all of us just as well. That being said, why exactly would we be needed? Who would be capable of gathering deities both wicked and just? Truly, even at the summit there exists a higher realm.
– Would it not be due to some sort of extraordinary circumstance that would require each and every one of us? A realm higher than the summit… I’m intrigued! However, if that is the case, we require a leading hand. 

Reinhard’s words ring true; however, with the exception of Marie, all of the gods are extreme egocentrists. In fact, they would not be gods if it was not so. Who would have enough authority to command such disjointed force?

 – Indeed. As such, would it not be reasonable to leave that honor to the eldest one of us? She who knows of the Throne’s inception, the Unus who is acquainted with the Nil.

Mercurius humbly omits the fact that he himself has lived just as long, if not longer, than any one of the gods. He, who has expanded the Throne to an innumerable amount of parallel universes, who has led it to the whole new age, would still much rather leave this duty to someone else. As if to confirm his line of thought, Naraka’s voice is heard once more:

 – That’s right, that’s the way it’s laid out. The god who’s going to lead you is “the Truth”. Name’s Mithra. She is…

Naraka pauses, his voice clearly filled with affection.

 – …My woman.

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That about does it for the contents of the episode; again, it’s not much, but it’s more than enough to ask a few questions and try to deduce some answers to them. Do note, however, that most of this is still speculation of Japanese fans and might easily be proven false; for instance, nothing explicitly says that the “Outside world” even exists, or that Naraka was a good guy from the very beginning. Anyways, let’s get to it.

Q: Wait, so Naraka is a good guy now? What happened to all the foreshadowing?
A: There are about four sources of info that tell us about Naraka and his motivation: Kajiri Kamui Kagura, its visual fanbook, the Pantheon CM which aired alongside the Dies irae anime and a single episode of Dies irae Radio. Interestingly, the former two don’t really paint him in a negative light, although since he’s mentioned in the context of being the cause behind Hajun and being even more powerful than him, that’s not an unreasonable conclusion. The CM was most probably misunderstood, as well: Marie uses the verb 制する in relation to Naraka and the Throne, which might mean “to restrain” as well as “to command”. And if the former does make him sound like a villain, the latter makes him into more of a tool for Marie to embrace all the suffering of the world… or they just used that line without thinking about the story.
As for the short teaser we got on Dies irae Radio, it doesn’t outright call Naraka the antagonist. Instead, it says that Pantheon is “a story about chasing down all the Shirous”, which doesn’t actually talk about Naraka himself at all.

Q: But Naraka still propagates constant inheritance of the Throne, right?
A: Indeed, although the reasoning is slightly different now. It was originally stated that he’s doing all this to honor Mithra’s ordeals during the creation of the Throne; however, it’s worth noting that his apparent purpose is not “Mithra’s eternal reign”, but “Struggle against stagnation”. The original idea was that this is his way to extrapolate her rule (a constant struggle between good and evil) onto each and every Heaven, but now that we know he has a certain goal to achieve, it doesn’t seem so simple anymore. In other words, the Throne must fulfill its purpose if Naraka doesn’t want Mithra’s sacrifice to go to waste. Who knows, maybe he will finally meet her again at the end of it.

Q: What even is the Throne’s purpose?
A: We actually know very little about why the Throne was made. We do know that it was made in the age of great technological advancements (can’t really make something so complex otherwise, yeah) and a lot of people had to fight over it (as indicated by Mithra’s rule). People originally assumed that the Throne was supposed to bring peace to the world, but that doesn’t fit Naraka’s behavior, either. Which means that it’s most probably supposed to become a weapon to be used against some incredibly potent foe… So potent, in fact, that Mithra’s rule naturally assumes that evil is much more powerful and numerous than good.

Q: How is the Throne supposed to be complete?
A: As Naraka says, there are supposed to be ten gods, each one corresponding to a sephira. That is likely why he instigated change: to get to the magical number as soon as possible.

Q: Why does he need so many? Can’t he just use Hajun and destroy whoever stands in his way?
A: Unfortunately, he can’t. Hajun is just a software to his hardware: he can’t get out into the outside world and spread Metsujin Messou, just like he can’t do so in our world. Something big has to happen for that to be possible, and gathering ten gods together might be just that.

Q: Is it even possible to affect reality outside of the Throne’s narrative?
A: It is not; however, the Throne has already underwent a massive change in the past, and it might do it again. Mercurius has changed its nature by reigning over the entirety of space-time; if something similar were to happen now, it might actually spread the Throne’s rule over the outside world.

Q: What’s the sephirot? Do we know which god fits what?
A: This is a good topic for a separate article, but you can go ahead and read the wiki until then. For now, I can say that the idea of every god serving a specific purpose to emanate into the outside world does sound like an actual pantheon.
As for who fits what, my personal draft currently looks like this (feel free to @me and speak your mind):
Keter – the Truth
Chokhmah – the Remorseless
Binah – the Morning Star
Gevurah – the Hajun
Tifiret – the Moment
Chesed – the Twilight
Hod – the Mercury
Netzhah – the Gold
Yesod, Malkuth – the Dawn
Da’at – Naraka

Q: What happened to Ren’s memory?
Q: What’s the player going to do in Pantheon?
Q: If the game starts with all ten gods in place, what stops them from going out and beating the foe?
Q: If the game doesn’t start with all ten gods, where are we supposed to find the last one?
Q: Why does Pantheon need to hunt down all the Naraka avatars?
Q: What about the Dawn? Don’t they have way more gods than Naraka needs?
A:

While some of these questions might lead to one another, we don’t have enough info to go by to answer them with any degree of confidence. Gotta wait for June 22 to come.

That about does it for now! Obviously, everything that’s written here might be easily proven wrong in the near future but for now, I hope I could help you put your thoughts in order. Discuss away, but do remember to question everything you read if you don’t speak Japanese. Yes, even me.