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At one point in the story, Myne tells Lutz that she is actually a reincarnation, and the original Myne was in all likelihood swallowed up by the heat of the Devouring. I found this explanation kind of strange. As a Japanese person, Myne should be familiar with reincarnation. But here she guesses that her soul was dropped into an existing person who died, and she seems fairly confident with her guess. At the very least, I haven't seen her offer an alternative explanation where I am in the light novels (volume 3).

So is it really the case that the original Myne died? Or is Myne simply a reincarnation as in many other Isekai stories, who suddenly regained her memories of her previous life?

Shaymin Gratitude
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In the official fanbook, in the Q and A section, the author seems to disagree with Myne's assessment.

Q: [...] What happened to Myne's soul from before Urano came into the picture? Is this reincarnation?

A: This is a reincarnation story, so Myne's soul remained Myne's soul. It's just that she remembered her time as Urano, and since Urano lived so much longer, the sheer quantity of memories overwhelmed Myne's. She's not a different person, so to speak, but... it's complicated. [...]

This answer would seem to indicate Myne is simply wrong. It isn't unreasonable that she would come to this conclusion, however, as she did seem to experience the original Myne disappearing. I'll note that the author seems a little evasive in that last sentence, saying it's complicated, so there could be something else going on that the author isn't ready to reveal. Regardless, I think this shows we don't need to trust Myne when she says the original Myne disappeared because she got swallowed by the Devouring.

Shaymin Gratitude
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    My interpretation is that Urano reincarnated as Myne but her personality was buried and her memories only surfaced in Myne’s dreams. At the point that Myne gave in to her fever and effectively died, Urano’s personality surfaced and subsumed Myne’s less fully formed personality. **** the fever was of course the devouring and later when discussing her hardened mana it appeared that Myne’s body had died before, which I assume to be the point when Urano took over, in which case the original Myne did quite literally die. – Shiroi Hane Jun 02 '22 at 18:30
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These theories are all really interesting. Based on what the author has stated and the opening act of the story my theory is that Urano and Myne's soul is one and the same and during one of Myne's more severe fevers Urano's memories and personality somehow surfaced. However, Myne's personality did not disappear but rather merged with Urano's memories and adopted her personality.

Because Urano's mentality is far more developed and she possesses far more memories it seemed that she had taken over Myne's body but in actuality, they simply merged together. To help paint a visual imagine their personalities are represented as cups filled with different colored water. Myne's cup would be a small cup filled with red-colored water whereas Urano's is a large cup filled with blue-colored water. When merged together the blue would be more prominent however the red would still remain.

I have another theory that Myne is actually an apostle of the Gods. In the beginning, the original Myne was suffering from a really bad fever, and unable to endure it she cried out for help. I think that the Gods answered her pleas for help and unsealed Urano's memories, merging the two personalities and giving Myne the strength to endure and somewhat overcome the devouring. I think the act of unsealing the memories and merging the personalities was the trigger for her to become a true apostle of the Gods. I think this would explain a lot of the mysteries surrounding Myne, especially in the later volumes.

Geek
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  • I think this answer could be improved by including facts and references to back up the claims (theories). This answer currently seems to be mostly personal-theory and very little fact. – user Feb 22 '23 at 00:31