Ciconia no Naku Koro ni (Phase 1) Theorycrafting Part 1 – Hierarchy of the Chivalric Orders (SPOILERS!)

I’m a bit late to the party, but a few weeks ago I read Phase 1 of Ciconia When They Cry, the newest visual novel (or sound novel?) from 07th Expansion and the 5th entry in the When They Cry (WTC) series. Even as the first Phase of the planned four, there is already a lot to chew on both thematically and in terms of the mystery that has been presented to the reader. If an early interview with Ryukishi is to be trusted, then Phase 1 of Ciconia is packed with most of the ‘questions arc stuff’ which would in previous installments take up 4 parts — this means a good chunk of the mystery that readers will be presented (before answers are drip-fed to us) should already have been included. As always, just based on part 1 the future of the series is unclear: but there are already plenty of things to speculate on.

When I tried to sort out my thoughts on basically everything I thought was important to the mysteries of Phase 1, it shaped up to be a gargantuan document in point form. Originally I wanted to chip away at putting it into a more readable (and more concrete) form over the summer… and I realized quickly that I had nowhere near enough motivation for that. The plan? Partially as a writing exercise, mostly to just give form to my thoughts, maybe 3-4 blog posts covering 4-5 topics each, based on the number of sections I had in my word doc at the time of planning. After stepping back for a few weeks that seems next to impossible for me, especially now that school is back on. So, for now I’m just going to push out as many small posts as I feel like, on one topic each, in the order that makes the most sense to me. The most involved parts of any theorycrafting I’ve done are super circumstantial and require a lot of assumptions, so unfortunately those will be at the tail end of the posts that I will make and chances are I’ll never get there. Phase 2 should be hitting before the end of the year which will throw a wrench in anything I’ve thought of so far, and it’s likely I’ll run out of steam even disregarding that.

Since my first reading I’ve combed through the screenshots that I took as I read (screenshotting basically every line which I thought might be important to the theming or as keys to the mystery) and reread some important parts, so I’d say I’ve read Ciconia ~1.5 times. I’d hesitate to say that I have anything (let alone everything) figured out and a lot of my theories are probably wack, but I think sharing readings of the mystery is part of the WTC experience. Putting yourself out there and trying in earnest to solve the mysteries is a great part of the fun! I’d say my approach to the mystery is based in anticipation of thematic delivery as well as rational deduction from the clues we’ve been given. If that doesn’t sound interesting to you, it probably won’t be, this post especially since it’s mostly just piecing together things we’ve explicitly been told and is in many ways a warm-up.

This post is about deducing the hierarchy of the key organizations we’ve seen in Phase 1, no matter how obvious that seems. In this post and all subsequent ones you should expect full spoilers for Ciconia When They Cry and possibly for the rest of WTC (Higurashi, Umineko), but this one in particular doesn’t really make reference to the other entries in the series and should be relatively safe for any Ciconia-only readers (if they exist???). None of these posts will make any sense if you haven’t at least read Ciconia (Phase 1) though.

This is pretty casual spitballing of ideas all things considered, but for now and in the future I’ll try to give credit where it’s due if I know an idea is not my own — one of the first things I did when I finished reading was looking through fan theories, as I’m sure was the case for many. The idea is for me to share my own theories for the “solutions” of the mysteries that I either came up with during reading or after, but when interacting with the broader community in discussing the story it’s difficult or impossible to draw the line between “my idea” and “not my idea”: the safest assumption to make when in doubt, then, is that anything I write in these theorycrafting posts is not actually my own idea. It isn’t my intent to just compile other people’s theories, but I think at this point anything I could possibly come up with someone else has as well so it’s not like I’m trying to take ownership of these theories either. For now I’ll just shout out the 07th Expansion Central discord: I wouldn’t really consider myself a part of the community there but I read a lot of interesting theories there and they seem like cool people. I’d recommend checking it out if you are passionate about WTC and are looking for a place to discuss the series! I have no specific references to make to discussions that were had there and for this post I would say the vast majority of the ideas were things that I came up with independently, but keep the previous disclaimer in mind.

In Phase 1 we know that the Ninth Prime Chivalric Order (NPCO) is conspiring under the Three Kings to incite World War IV (WWIV) and that, likely through shared interests, the Order of Prometheus and Order of Wisteria also want to cause WWIV. The exact hierarchy of these orders is left kind of blurry, but it is possible to guess at their power structure. This is a topic which, at least right now, I can’t see mattering all that much but because the details of the relationships between the orders are left vague I’d might as well try to put them in more concrete terms as a kind of introductory exercise (or at least explore a few different possibilities for how they might be related).

To start, here is a diagram of one way to interpret the power structure of the major chivalric orders we’ve at least heard mention of in Phase 1. Lines represent direct subservience of one order/group of orders to another above it on the diagram, and broken lines with question marks are uncertain relationships. The Grand Masters (GMs) of each order are also listed (if we know them, and the Order of the Holy Ark is my own guess).

First of all, it is unclear to me whether the Order of the Three Kings exists as something separate from the NPCO. As far as I can tell there is no meaningful philosophical or ideological distinction between a possible Order of the Three Kings and the NPCO, but if the NPCO was the order that the Three Kings belonged to it doesn’t make much sense to me that Jestress would refer to the GM of the NPCO as a servant of the Three Kings.

The narration mentions the Order of the Three Kings (I believe it’s the only mention of such an order in all of phase 1) as something that used to exist, so while it’s possible that the Three Kings just exist on top of the power structure and not in their own Order which has a name, we’ve been given a fitting name and it doesn’t really matter either way so I’m just assuming the Order of the Three Kings is a thing.

It is repeatedly mentioned that there are 76 orders (and more below them in the hierarchy) serving under one or more of the Three Kings. It’s unclear to me whether the NPCO counts as one of these 76, but based on the fact that commands are given directly to the NPCO by Jestress I think it’s fair to assume they have a more important role than the others: I interpret it as a kind of super order which encompasses all of the 76 orders serving the Three Kings.

Also, though Toujirou’s Order of the Wisteria is certainly a key player in stirring up public opinion to cause WWIV, it is not one of the 76 orders under the kings. This suggests something more like a temporary agreement to move the world towards WWIV due to mutual interest rather than a relationship of subservience. If the Order of the Wisteria is subservient to any order, it would be Seshat’s, based on his saying “our order” when talking to her in the final data fragment:

But in another scene Seshat maintains a distinction between her own order at the Order of the Wisteria as separate entities:

It’s also pretty clear that the Order of Prometheus is not aligned with the Order of the Three Kings/NPCO, even though they are all pushing towards WWIV:

But Gray mentions the pride of the Order of Prometheus being sold to the Three Kings…

I think Gray is referring to Seshat using WWIV as a means to her own goals, since it doesn’t seem like the Order of Prometheus is in contact with the Three Kings at all and that her order is still trying to keep the NPCO in check (based on the Black-suited Men’s comments). The World Reset Cult might seem like one unified organization to Gray, but when you consider the distinctions between the different orders there are definitely multiple factions with their own agendas, even if we don’t completely know what those are yet. So, my interpretation is that the Order of the Wisteria serves the Order of Prometheus, and it’s likely that neither are (entirely) subservient to the Three Kings, even if Toujirou is helping with the Three Kings’ plot.

The Order of the Holy Ark is only mentioned once in passing, and in the same line Seshat brings up Toujirou’s ex-wife. This could be misdirection from Ryukishi, but this suggests to me that the Order of the Holy Ark is a noteworthy order (though of course it could just be one of the 76 orders under the kings) and that Toujirou’s ex-wife is a part of it. Circumstantially, Toujirou’s ex-wife being an unknown trump card would also tie into the strange wildcard position of the Order of the Holy Ark in the power structure.

Now, the identity of Toujirou’s ex-wife is more Miyao Mom Theory territory (to be covered in a future post!), but the short version of it is that it’s pretty likely for Jestress, or at least someone who was or is in some abstract way also Jestress (maybe Vier), to be Toujirou’s ex-wife. The reason I put her as the GM of the Order of the Holy Ark is because of this comment from her, which I thought was implied to be her win condition:

This victory for all of humanity, which is implied to be one and the same as her own personal victory (the goal of erasing her “nightmare”):

The Order of the Holy Ark along with all of the other biblical references in Ciconia bring to mind Noah’s ark: surviving the apocalypse scenario by keeping one male/female alive to repopulate or whatever. Jestress’ wish seems to coincide with that biblical allusion, so it seems fitting if she is of the ideology that this is the one way that humanity has to save itself from whatever world-ending scenario that is coming (or has already come…) and that she is the GM of the Order of the Holy Ark. But, I know this is a bit of a reach. Since it’s unclear what the relationship is between the Order of the Holy Ark and all of the other orders, I just left it as a question mark, but especially if Jestress is involved it probably also requires WWIV as a stepping stone to its end.

This kind of leads naturally into the discussion of what the goals of the other orders might be. What the state of the world is and the end of civilization which the Three Kings as well as Toujirou and Seshat are fighting against is a big question which is hard to answer at this point and I will take a crack at it in Part 3, but until then I will bring up the symbolism in the names of the Order of the Wisteria and the Order of Prometheus.

Wisteria is a plant which symbolizes long life or immortality (there are many other meanings in floriography, but I can’t really make sense of them with respect to Ciconia due to them being overly general or too specific and not applicable). The topic of immortality has been brought up in multiple forms in Phase 1: immortality as a pursuit for one of the scientists in Vier’s underworld lab, the concept of irreversibility, the source of human suffering being the finite and our corporeal forms, and finally and maybe most importantly, immortality in the form of a virtual consciousness without end. Many fans have speculated the possibility that the A3W world we have seen is (for the most part) all a simulation (my take on this to be discussed in more detail in the next ~two posts), and if that is true then I think Toujirou’s aim might be to perpetuate that as a solution to civilization’s end.

Prometheus is the Titan in Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods to give to humanity and created humanity out of clay. I will flesh out my ideas about who or what Seshat might be later (fits especially in Part 3), but for now I think it suffices to say that she is probably not quite ‘human’ as everyone else in A3W is, judging by the way she says she is an “exception”:

I think she is not quite a god, but certainly has more power than other humans in A3W. To sum up, basically if this is all a simulation, I think she is the first Morpheus: a self-aware Human/piece is not quite a player/game master or god. If she is not a mere piece but also not a player, the level of Titan probably applies to her (Titans as gods who have since been ‘replaced’, or otherwise descendants of gods, both of which fit for multiple reasons). In any case, she is trying to rebel against the actual gods (probably players, in this analogy), or in this case the god whom she and Toujirou are trying to get to sit in the player’s seat.

The “stealing fire from the gods” and “making humanity out of clay” aspects of Prometheus are also important for other reasons. When I was first reading, based on how Seshat had access to wisdom 19080630 I thought that the Order of Prometheus was aligned with wherever Vier is from: but based on the story of Prometheus, it makes more sense that Vier is on the side of the ‘gods’, and Seshat stole this wisdom (and a few other pieces of wisdom) from her lab. Making humanity out of clay I think suggests a concrete connection to Lilja and her Clay Girl ability which I will discuss in the “Traitor” speculation section.

The Grand Masters (GMs) of the Order of Prometheus and Order of Wisteria were explicitly confirmed by the text, and the GM of the NPCO was deliberately left unnamed multiple times. It’s possible that the identity of NPCO’s GM is ultimately unimportant. If the Order of Three Kings does exist as an order, then the identity of the GM of that order is also worth questioning (though it would make sense if the Three Kings share the role of GM I guess). At this point any speculation on those fronts would just be spitballing since I haven’t noticed any foreshadowing myself, so I won’t bother.

As for Jestress’ relationship to the Order of the Three Kings, it’s hard to speculate past what we were shown in the story. She serves the kings, and it’s unclear how much of that is of her own free will, but she says that enacting the kings’ plan also furthers her own goal. She also doesn’t really seem to do anything other than talk to the kings and parrot what they say to the NPCO…

Toujirou is also called a jester by Seshat. If this is to indicate him as an individual in the same position as Jestress in the Order of the Three Kings, it is unclear whose jester he is, but it could very well be the Three Kings. At this point, who knows what role a jester even plays if it exists as a formal role and not just to describe how Jestress is meant to liven up the Order of the Three Kings. It is worth noting that from earlier speculations, the Order of the Wisteria doesn’t seem to be aligned with the NPCO and Toujirou is acting pretty much on his own to carry out the Three Kings’ demands, and since he has direct contact with them I don’t think it’s too wild of an idea to think that there is more to his relationship with the kings than we have been explicitly shown thus far.

I think we all have our own cultural ideas about what a jester is at this point, but I want to highlight the fact that in medieval contexts jesters were storytellers (among other things) for guests of the court.

Well, that does it for the first post (hopefully of many)! If it ever happens, Part 2 will be about more symbolism that seems important (squad names, character names, other misc. symbology) and maybe “traitor” speculation if it’s light on content.