So it’s a pretty common writing trope for special protagonists to encounter people who ‘know they’re special’ but either won’t or can’t reveal how so.
The story so far is also not super far along, so I don’t think we’ve been given many strong hints as to what exactly might be the reason Morden, and by extension the protagonist are so ‘special’. I think I have some good ideas but it’ll take a little bit of bending.
Theorycrafting would be FAR easier if we had more insight into the Orders goals, because if we knew what they were trying to do (Specifically will do in a few years, as referred to by Calvus), we could better theorycraft.
So here’s my TWO major theories. The first one is the more likely of the two, and I think the second is at least viable, but I wouldn’t personally put stock in it as it’s almost entirely guess work.
Before I get into these I’ll go over what we know:
What does the Order want?
“To further the power of magic no matter the cost.” Yet , in dialogue it is stated recently they may have found a more focused goal. What it is, we know they aren’t ready to do it yet, Calvus said it’ll take years. On top of that, there is the human experimentation.
So, first theory:
The AO Protagonist is a magically irradiated human
It isn’t delved into much on the lore document, but the magic radiation in the seas has adverse effect on all forms of life. In game, you can obviously meet Poison Jaws, White Eyes, but doesn’t it seem weird that there is no talk about the magic radiations effects on humans?
Now sure, the Arcane Universe humans aren’t living in the water- but their lives revolve around the ocean. One of their primary diets is fish, which would come from the magically irradiated waters. What I’m saying is there are plenty of ways one could be ‘exposed’ to this radiation and not know it.
Now if I recall correctly it is said that this radiation is not just dangerous to Curse users, as is believed, but to all humans, it just requires a far larger dosage to harm regular folks. A large enough dose of this radiation can deal some serious damage- even kill you. . Now a curse users tolerance is way less than a regular person, they basically can’t touch any water in the world, even calmer areas outside the dark sea.
So where does the logic come in?
Well one throughline in particular: The Arcane Adventures Protagonist. Revived from the dead by Durza, they were merely ashes, scattered on the ocean, absorbing magical radiation. When they were revived this magical radiation stuck and they were gifted the potential to increase in power tremendously in a short amount of time, toppling foes who have been at their peak for decades, even centuries, even though they were practically a newborn when it came to magic.
This means we know magic radiation CAN affect humans- even if this was a special case, it means humans that withstand the radiation are gifted tremendous potential, which kinda sounds like our AO protagonist and Morden. We went from barely fending off some bandits to defeating Calvus, the powerful ruler of Ravenna who was trained from youth by the order.
On top of that, observant lore officianados may have noticed something: Every boss after Iris is awakened. Carina may be an exception, but Argos imbues his weapons (he’s a warlord), Elius imbued his weapons (Conjurer), and Calvus could imbue as well (Savant). We Know Calvus is no pushover because of Wotan. Wotan is described as a conqueror by nature, if he thought Ravenna was filled with pathetic soldiers from top to bottom, I doubt he would have agreed to a peace treaty with Ravenna as the middle man. He would have just declared- and if ravenna tried to intervene then he would have stopped them too. This means that as a practical novice you beat fighters who by all accounts should be whooping your ass because Awakening is a big damn deal.
On top of this, we know (thanks to Vetex), that non-magic builds use magic as well. It doesn’t matter if you are not strictly a mage, your power would still greatly benefit from this ‘magic radiation power boost’ essentially.
Now the more difficult part is tying this back to why the Order was experimenting on you. The simplest answer would simply be that the Order wants to find out how to replicate the phenomena you and Morden have so they themselves can obtain a higher power. Yet the wording of their goal seemed odd to me, it might be more deliberate.
“Further the power of magic at any cost.”
Not “our magic”
Just the power of magic in general?
This might also be how they entice some members in. Of course, many of their members are probably just power hungry, but some of them could have that misguided villain-ego thing going on where they are saying “I am doing this for the good of all of us”
Regardless, it can be hard to say things with any semblance of certainty- especially so early in the story. Yet this to me holds the strongest possibility. The Order was callously researching why you, Morden and Tucker were so much more gifted then everyone else, and it seems that you are rare. Like super rare. Calvus said he has only ever met someone like the AO protagonist once before.
SIDE DETAIL: The fact Calvus is also surprised the Order already captured you means that Morden, Tucker and the protagonist escaped from a different High Lord/Baron. If Calvus was the one in charge of the experimentation he would have likely known of the three escapees- especially considering the rarity of these types of people.
However, I have a second theory- one I know you probably won’t subscribe to more than this one, but I figure I’d share it anyway.
Theory 2
The AO Protagonist is a descendant of the first humans given magic by Prometheus
Less stable then my first theory considering we don’t really see much to support this thus far, aside from the fact Poseidon himself is interested in your character- and seems ‘familiar’ with ‘one such as you’. Now, Poseidons only been rendered a spirit for about a few months roughly I believe at the point of the first awakening in AO’s story. It’s possible this could still refer to magically irradiated people, but I think this might have some deeper connotations.
For context, for people not in the know: In Arcane lore, in this universe, Prometheus, under the guise of a wise monk, visited humanity. Instead of gifting fire, like the mythos, he gifted magic, in exchange for people burning a rare resource that would then be sent to Mount Olympus where it would empower Prometheus. Prometheus, using this method of empowerment eventually grew strong enough to overthrow Zeus, defying the destiny of his greek counterpart.
Reigning as the king of Olympus, Prometheus would rule for many years. Eventually, as the resource that was once burned for Prometheus began to run out, wars were fought over it which left many dead. Arthur, the cursebeard, the greediest wizard of his time, thought Prometheus was holding back the TRUE power of magic from humanity. This sounds familiar, right? He would then force Prometheus to create the elemental curses. In secret, Prometheus made 5 curses based on his own promethean fire magic (one curse of which was directly based on his own magic). The Grand Fire curses, as they were called, are more powerful then the average curse, and were made in the hopes that one day someone who wielded them would end Arthur.
With this backstory out of the way, what happened to those first humans gifted magic power by Prometheus? Well, one thing I didn’t mention is that, those who burned Aurem in honor of Prometheus were granted greater power. Now we don’t know the exact extent of this, but it is likely that this made them quite the force of nature.
These humans are never mentioned or brought up again, and most people who are sane would assume that this means they don’t matter, but I had a small idea that they could come back. The War Seas practically revolve around curses, the lore doc explicitly said battles between kingdoms often contain multiple curse users on both sides because there are just so many curses . Now Ravenna only seemed to have the Glass curse (I’ve no doubt they would have given Argos a curse if they could). It’s likely in the future we will start facing a lot of curse opponents, and regular magic users are usually at a great disadvantage against curse users. Being a descendant of the people gifted a gods magic power would still make sense as to why we can keep pace with all these big hitters who have sat on their thrones of power for decades.
As well, In the story I don’t see Mount Olympus, which will appear at some point- playing a big role if the main character’s specialness is boiled down to “I’m strong just because”. If they are, however, in some way related to the gods, then Mount Olympus suddenly would become very important to the story, and where I theorize the second awakening might happen if the mountain isn’t planned for the last sea.
It would still make sense the Order would be interested in you and Morden as well. Less clear what exactly for, maybe lingering traces of a gods magic they think they could use to make more curses, who knows, that’s why this is the second theory. Yet I still think it is worth considering.
All right, that was a lot of rambling, and I’m not the only one who can theory craft here, go nuts with your ideas for what you forsee in the stories future.
