I have finished cooking! Here are my mostly completed thoughts on my theory from my last post.
*Edit: I cleaned up the post a bit and added an image for a later section, if you’ve already read the entire post, you don’t need to read it again.
The TheoryPosting
My theory: The original Gretel is The Angel.
I will also be referring to OG Gretel as just Gretel and the main character Gretel as Willow in this post (Sorry Gretel) to make it easier for everyone.
To start let’s begin with our formal introduction to the mechanics of the apostles.
In this image we see the 7 apostles for the 7 sins listed in the image, however, Willow has a white bunny above her. Now, we wouldn’t know this at this point, but the angel wore all white, including a white mask with bunny ears. It could be a coincidence, but it seems more likely to me that The Angel and Willow have a connection to each other. It was confirmed in the most recent update that Willow is the Apostle of Wrath, but she seemingly also gets power from gluttony as well, either because she is also the Apostle of Gluttony or because she has Gretel’s ribbon. Next, we’ll focus on Willow’s mental break for a good bit.
There’s a lot to talk about in this scene but let’s start with the Willow saying that Gretel “brought her back” and gave her the ribbon. This tells us that Gretel had the power to revive people and we only know one other person who could do that, The Angel. Now, could people other than The Angel (such as Gretel) have the power to bring people from the dead? Possibly. But I don’t Gretel could do such a thing without it being a bigger deal. Alexandria shows that even white magic can’t revive people, and we can assume that white magic users are the most powerful magic users because of everything that characters like Sebastian, Cynthia, etc. say about it. Which, again, means we only truly know one person who can revive someone, The Angel. The idea that Gretel is a separate person and could just revive people as well just seems a little far-fetched to me considering everything we know.
Not long after that text box we get to this one. The Angel appears behind Willow after her hallucinations showing Willow killing Gretel (Well, I believe this part represents not Willow killing Gretel but Willow killing her “sisters” for/because of Gretel based on the conversation Penny and Willow had later on.). Either way, this is another moment connecting The Angel to Willow. Afterwards there are a few more lines mentioning Gretel bringing Willow back and how Willow can’t bring people back like Gretel can, which only furthers the idea that Gretel could revive people (Again, a very rare trait.)
Later on, we get to this scene. We know that Sebastian’s home was a sort of “home base” for the saviors, and we also know that The Angel isn’t here anymore, so it would not be surprising if The Angel/Gretel took her own life within Sebastian’s home. (I should also mention that during Willow’s mental break she also fantasizes about hanging herself just like her sister). Speaking of which, Gretel was close enough to Sebastian to hang herself in his own home but couldn’t revive him when he was shanked and forced Clair to go all that way to reach The Angel? Interesting. And following that,
This scene confirms even further that The Saviors knew Gretel, and her focus on throwing a stone in the air. But also, why would she think about Gretel? If she wasn’t The Angel, why didn’t she think about Sebastian or anyone else who was close to her? If we consider the idea that, again, Gretel was The Angel, it makes sense that Clair would think about her during a moment where she is meeting up with the other living saviors to fight against the “apostles” once again, there would be lots of feelings nostalgia and all that. I also want to highlight that we’re never shown The Angel with all the other saviors, and we’re also never shown Gretel with any of The Saviors. While usually a lack of evidence can hurt an argument, I feel that this deliberate hiding of these characters being around others only makes me more suspicious. The Angel left after losing at poker? How convenient eh?
The last coincidence I wish to mention is Sebastian bringing up that The Angel burnt down Cynthia’s library. Now, considering The Angel’s devil may care attitude (heh), it could just be that she burnt it down because she didn’t care about what useful information could be within, and just wanted to destroy any trace of Cynthia. But, if we consider the idea that The Angel saw firsthand what Cynthia did to herself and her sisters, it makes a lot more sense doesn’t it?
Moving on to my last point, I wish to focus on the symbolism involving The Three Furies. We have The Black Fury, Famine. We don’t know a lot about her outside of that sadly. The White Fury, The Apostle of Sloth, Pestilence. We know that The White Fury is Penny, master of The Gomorrah, and previous apostle of sloth. This also adds credence that if Gretel was the apostle of gluttony that she could give that power to Willow since we know Sebastian is now the apostle of sloth, yet Penny still lives. Finally, The Red Fury, The Apostle of Wrath, War. We know for certain that this is Willow. Now, most people can recognize that The Furies represent three of the four riders of the apocalypse. But we’re missing one more, Death. We know that the Furies were all children of Cynthia, and who do we know that has control over death? The Angel. Who was also a child of Cythnia? Gretel. The fourth rider of death “defecting” to the saviors would be a fitting way for Cynthia to lose, especially when it was essentially the most promising pair of twins facing against each other. This point is obviously the most speculative but also, to me, is probably the most important. It just fits so well don’t you think?
And that is all! I know this post is not perfect and if anything is confusing, please tell me and I’ll try to elaborate or edit the post. There’re some things I could’ve mentioned that I didn’t feel were as necessary (The idea of throwing a stone in the air and having it not come back down and the idea of fighting against death no matter both representing impossible tasks that both characters focus on), and I almost certainly missed/forgot some things, but I felt like this was good enough to post given the time I spent on it. Thanks for reading!
