So on a whim I was responding to the oldest thread in the
Chrono Trigger Analysis - Characters, Plots, and Themes section regarding Schala and why we don't see her look for Janus/Magus after the events of Chrono Cross, and yet she diligently vows to seek Serge.
What's up with that, amiright?
Despite that, I realized something... First, let me refresh your memory of the Dream Devourer ending of Chrono Trigger DS.
In this ending, if you recall, the party arrives to confront the Dream Devourer and finds Schala has already succumbed to despair and is being attacked by a version of Magus from sometime
after the events of Chrono Trigger. He is attempting to free Schala by attacking it and fails miserably. Once he is blasted away, the party engages the Dream Devourer in battle...
...and eventually they, too, lose the battle in an out-of-battle 1-hit TKO. But the battle was apparently enough to free Schala's mind for a moment. Schala recognizes her plight and sends the heroes away, and future-Magus crawls back onto the scene to once again attempt to free Schala. He is ultimately left heartbroken as Schala tells him that his efforts are ultimately impossible. As the Time Devourer, she is simply too powerful, and she warns that the will of Lavos will ultimately consume her entire being. She pleads with Magus, and when he proves unrelenting, she sends him away via a solid black gate.
Here, Magus muses to himself:
"So, you mean to say that no matter how
hard I strive - no matter how strong I grow - there
is nothing I might do to save you?
What purpose, then, does this existence serve?
Hmph. If this is to be the way of things,
then let me abandon all that was and fade away as well.
Should a part of me somehow even then remain,
then perhaps that will be the birth of something
new - something with greater meaning than all this."
Magus, now an amnesiac, wakes up in a forest and recognizes that, deep down, there was something he still had to do. And off he goes to try and remember what that was... This may or may not have intended for him to become Guile, which was the original intent in the early stages of Chrono Cross. Despite the fact that I hate this idea with a passion, it's likely the closest version to truth.
But still... does this then mean that Magus is part of Balthasar's Project Kid?
If you remember, Balthsar arrives in the new 2300AD due to the fact that Crono and company killed Lavos and the apocalypse was prevented. Using the technology of this new era, he became aware of Schala's plight and put a plan into motion to rescue. A very convoluted plan involving Chronopolis, the Mother AI-turned-FATE AI, and a multitude of events that involved:
-El Nido being created,
-Thus Serge is eventually born,
-Thus Serge is eventually attacked by a panther-demon,
-Thus Serge is rescued by Schala and Kid is created,
-Thus the timeline is split in two,
-Thus Serge goes through all the events of Chrono Cross in order to become strong enough to face the Time Devourer and save Schala
-And Project Kid is successful when Schala is saved
Due to the explanation for Chrono Cross, we are to assume that literally all the events of Chrono Cross were the carefully predicted events laid out in Project Kid. I mean, hell, the project was named was for a hypothetical Schala-clone that was nothing more than an idea in Balthasar's head. Long before the Time Crash, even. How's that for a mind bender?
If we assume the above to be true, then Magus' penultimate fate had to have been tied to Project Kid as well. Balthasar knew that a post-Chrono Trigger version of Magus would try to rescue her, fail, and willingly shed his identity... only to continue on in the recognition that he has someone to save, some journey to complete.
Not only that, but how poetic that Magus would desire to have some greater purpose than to fail at saving Schala... only to once again be a tool within Project Kid to help save Schala. A greater purpose. By helping Serge, he would be saving all of space-time, not just his sister (although he'd be saving her, too).
This theory is strongest if we assume Magus=Guile, but it likely still fits that he could end up as part of Project Kid regardless. I'm not sure if anyone else has considered this, but I wanted to point it out and open up the topic for discussion.
I mean, hell, there could be a story out there that follows amnesiac Magus post-the Dream Devourer ending but before he becomes Guile. Or perhaps, if Magus is not Guile, he skips the entire events of Chrono Cross and finds Kid/Schala
after the events of Chrono Cross!
