One thing I'm not quite clear on regardng the curse: was it strong enough to be the sole reason for the various tragedies that befell Erebonia, or was more like it was giving people who were open to commiting atrocities that extra push. Could it have gotten, say, a good person to do some of the things that the likes of Lechter's dad did. In Ash's case it looked like it was physically painful for him not to try and kill the Emperor, which seems less subtle than it was in other cases.

I don't really like the idea of absolving responsibilty of those involved by blaming the curse, but maybe it's not that simple?

 

Unrelated: In CS4, does Arianrhod ever mention Osborne's martial prowess at all? Curious how he stacks up to her and if she gave him a nod. He has possibly one of the most intimidating S-Craft cut ins ever, to say nothing of the actual craft itself. That menacing slow walk alone! I also like how one of the pieces of art we've seen for Hajimari has Rean mimicking that pose.

The point is made specifically that the Curse does not control its victims with enough power to be the sole source of responsibility for their actions. Even the characters we see it exerting an especially heavy influence on retain some freedom to act against what the Curse 'wants' them to do. We see Victor do it onscreen, Dreichels held Ishmelga's direct influence off for decades, as Osborne he held it off for fourteen years and Rean managed it for a few very significant minutes (possible Hajimari shenanigans notwithstanding). So yeah, it's more like giving people an especially strong push, scaled up depending on just how badly the Curse wants something to happen. Ash clearly had a really bad case of it but even he thought he could have resisted the impulse if he'd tried harder.

I don't recall offhand if she does mention Osborne's prowess aside from the implication that she thinks Rean might be strong enough to face him when the time comes, which is open to interpretation. He doesn't have Lianne's centuries of experience but he's clearly really strong and he's got a contract with the most powerful of the seven Knights which is directly sustaining his life and presumably amplifying his strength to a degree. And he pretty much dominates the fight even when he's trying to lose. And yes, Howl of the Black Lion is easily one of the most epic S-Crafts Falcom has come up with so far, along with Rean's own final one. xD

Okay. Let's start with the conclusion and build the arguments from there. I propose that the Grandmaster is one of the earlier versions of the Third Causality Describing Engine AZOTH.

First of all, let's look at what the word Azoth refers to in the real world. It's a concept from alchemy, sometimes described as the universal solvent, associated with mercury and also seen by some occultists as the precursor to the Philosopher's Stone. It's symbol is said to be the Caduceus, which as we know is often depicted with two intertwining serpents. The occultist Aleister Crowley also made an interesting observation, commenting that the word AZOTH contains the first and last letters of ancient alphabets, namely Aleph from the Phoenician, Zeta from the Latin, Omega from the Greek and Th (spoken Tau) from the Hebrew alphabet. And what do we get from combining the serpent picture of the Caduceus with the concept of first and last letters of alphabets?

So much about real world occult symbolism on AZOTH, though I will return to it once we delve deeper into this theory and combine the whole thing with Tarot symbolism. 

Now let's look at what CS4 tells us about AZOTH version III. We know it's the true author of the Black Records and we know that the events recorded by the engine have a prophetic nature. It can further be implied that it reaches its conclusions by having a supernatural grasp on cause and effect. There's of course also the most important tidbit of information, namely that it's associated with House Arnor.

And this leads to the next question. Who or what are the Arnors?

Two things strike me as important. We know that the ur-ancestor of the Arnors with the title of Adjudicator was made the first leader of Erebonia due to the fact that he was unaffiliated with either the Kinship of Blaze as well as the Kinship of Earth. This makes sense. Both Kinships lost control of their respective Septerrions after they engaged in mutual destruction and fusion. This suggests that even before their giants started to throw punches, there was some kind of conflict going on between both tribes and after the Osgiliath event tension was most likely running high. As such, the Holy Beasts of Blaze and Earth decided to install an outsider into the role of a rallying figure.

Which begs the question, where did this adjudicator figure came from? Or perhaps better... from which kinship or tribe?

In CS4, when Juna and New Class VII are discussing Musse with Roselia, the Witch-Elder remarks something to the effect that the girl displays similar abilities or potential compared to adjudicator Arnor (As a Cayenne, she is related to Orthus Reise Arnor). From the context of the conversation, the similarity Rose refers to can only be about Musse's absurd ability to see hundreds of moves ahead as Rean put it, a superhuman aptitude to extrapolate events from present information. In fact, Musse's ability to predict the future even turned her into a potential candidate for the identity of Grandmaster in the fandom.

Personally, I don't think she is the Grandmaster, but I do think that she is the distant off-spring of a certain tribe. A tribe whose other descendants already caused quite a stir in current canon events during the Zero Duology.

I am of course talking about the Crois.

The focus of AZOTH on cause and effect, Musse's superhuman predictions which, let us be honest, would make her a frighteningly effective stock broker and the assurance that the Arnors never belonged to Blaze or Earth. But apparently, the Arnor name was considered important enough during the Collapse to make their bloodline the lasting leaders of two unified kinships which leads me to the conclusion that the adjudicator was a high ranking figure belonging to the Kinship of Mirage.

So far so good. Now let's go down the rabbit hole.

There are older theories about Demiurgos being the true identity of the Grandmaster. While I disagree again, my theory runs in a similar direction. Currently, I see two possibilities how AZOTH and Demiurgos are related.

First version: The first (or prototype) AZOTH engine was Demiurgos. It was for all intents and purposes a super-prototype that probably exceeded the creators expectations and in turn earned itself the rank of a Septerrion. We know it erased itself from existence due to the fact that it possessed empathy. This empathy was crucial. Demiurgos was able to guide perfectly(as long as it functioned) only by possessing this empathy, that even allowed it to take human irrationality into consideration.

As a striking contrast, AZOTH III stated in the very last Black Record that there exist 'unpredictable domains' due to the illogical nature of human beings. I propose that AZOTH III is a successor to the Demiurgos and in contrast to most anime-logic, when later versions of technology is always more bombastic, the Kinship of Mirage traded the raw predictive power for long-term stability by removing the emphatic factor.

Of course, this conveniently leaves AZOTH version II and that would of course be the Grandmaster. As an further aside, it's important to note that it was the Grandmaster's voice which guided the heroes to the 'True Ending' of CSIV, at the exact point when AZOTH version III metaphorically threw up its arms and gave up on further predictions. And what better entity to surpass the author of the Black Records than it's more powerful but most likely also more unstable predecessor? At least initially that is.

Second version: The AZOTH line of Causality engines are a subsystem of the Demiurgos, just like the relation between Phantasma and Aureole. And while the official rulers of the Mirage Tribe were the ancestors of the Crois, the operation of the Demiurgos-subsystem was entrusted to a group of 'shadow rulers' to which the Arnor ancestors belonged. Due to the loss of Demiurgos, the Crois ancestors might have tried to elevate the AZOTH subsystem to the same level of the Mirage Septerrion, but their attempts obviously failed. (or there wouldn't be any motivation for their descendants to pursue the revival plan). It instead resulted in what they regarded as inferior copies and perhaps the earlier two AZOTH models were creations that were at first glance abject failures which were not activated by the Mirage Tribe in the first place. The Grandmaster would be among them.

You might be wondering why I'm seemingly writing myself into a corner by stating that the Grandmaster was some kind of development failure. The reason for this ties to a major flaw of the theory that the Grandmaster is indeed an entity with comparable power to a Septerrion (if she is indeed Demiurgos) or even weaker in power (my theory). The problem lies with Divergent Laws. 

We know for a fact that Kernviter was given to Loewe by the Grandmaster, we know that it operates under the Divergent Laws and we know that even the Aureole's absolute barrier collapsed under the onslaught of that blade. If the Grandmaster as AZOTH is indeed a weaker version or subsystem related to the original Demiurgos, how could she possibly control powers that are beyond the Septerrions?

To solve this conundrum, let us talk for a moment about Campanella. I think there are almost as much theories about Enforcer Number 0 as there are about Ouroboros' High Dame herself, so I will only point out stuff that emphasizes a certain conclusion which will catapult this theory into crazy town.

• There is his infamous S-Craft in Ao no Kiseki, the fake Salt Pale, something that we know for sure is associated with the Outside.

• His red face marking bears an eerie similarity to McBurn's red face markings once he goes Demon mode. CSIV was also nice enough to confirm that McBurn is a fusion of a Zemurian human and a denizen from the outside.
• During the end of Star Door 14, Campanella breaks the Fourth Wall by addressing the player directly as a mysterious stranger and telling him/her to stop peeping. What better entity to break the Fourth Wall than someone who comes from the Outside of the 'established in-game world'.

So now that I have expressed my firm belief that Enforcer 0 is also a denizen of the Outside let me spell out my final conclusion: The Grandmaster is a fusion of a former AZOTH causality engine and an Outer-Zemurian 'Demon'. In other words, Campanella and the Grandmaster are from a certain perspective indeed the same person. (And I'm aware that there are existing Grandmaster theories that state exactly that)

I'm not even going to justify how Campy and the Grandmaster can appear as two distinct persons at the same time like in CSIV. If the fusion of a mundane human and a denizen of the Outside gives us game-breaker McBurn, the sheer power palette resulting from another Outsider fusing with a weaker imitation of the Demiurgos would be beyond ridiculous.

I will instead address Tarot symbolism by tying this final conclusion of mine to an earlier theory called Ars Arcanum written by Yotaka. 

My recommendation is to read the other theory first, but chances are that most readers already know it by heart, or so I hope. Of course, one card that needs to be addressed is the Fool, while the other card I want to talk about is the last of the Major Arcana, namely the World.

There is a lot of symbolism to unpack, so let's start with the more obvious stuff, namely the pictures. The pictures that are shown in Yotaka's article are from the so-called Rider-Waite tarot deck, one of the most popular and influential decks in the world, which was published in 1910.

The fool is depicted as a foppish young man carrying a rose in one hand (Olivier?) and Campanella arguably also fits the description of foppish. I couldn't forget his wardrobe changes during the Miranaire mini-game even if I wanted. What's more interesting though is that historic tarot interpretations preceding Waite-Rider refers to the Fool as the 'Unnumbered Card'. While this is certainly indicative of Campanella's somewhat unique role among the Enforcers it can also be taken as another hint that he (or whoever fused with AZOTH) isn't from the Zemurian plane of reality. In fact, even when numbered the Fool still sticks out like a sore thumb. While all other Major Arcana cards use Roman Numerals, the Zero of the Fool is an Arabic Numeral. This makes sense historically because the Ancient Romans didn't possess a symbol for zero and probably weren't aware of the usefulness of the mathematical nothing.

The world on the other hand is depicted as a young woman surrounded by a green wreath who holds two staffs/scepters in her hands. And if the way the green wreath is arranged around the woman seem familiar, that might be because there actually exist tarot decks where the green wreath is substituted by an ouroboros. And If we follow this logic it would make the Grandmaster not only the leader of Ouroboros but also Enforcer Number XXI. Yotaka already made some predictions about the abilities and characteristics of such an Enforcer and I think the Grandmaster would fit pretty well with the upright meaning of the card. I have also mentioned how the letters of AZOTH ties to beginning and end. Just like the snake that bites its tail or the cyclical nature of a Heroes Journey that can be symbolized by following the succession of the Major Arcana.

I would like to finish with a last bit of trivia. According to famous French occultist Éliphas Lévi, whose work influenced the above mentioned Waite-Rider deck, he considered Azoth to be a manifestation of anima mundi, the Soul of the World. As such it probably won't come as a surprise that the man also associated Azoth with the World card found in tarot.[/spoiler]