This post is full of spoilers if you aren’t caught up at least until episode 13. Just sayin’. Our previous post on Barnaby’s memories is here.
I was browsing the T&B threads on /a/ and saw this. And then it hit me… and this could be just animation derp (I don’t have a BD version to check this against yet but if there’s any changes in it when I do get it, I will update this post BD checked, no changes to this scene) or it could be we’re crazy. But I’m putting it all here anyways. Since the craziest stuff keeps happening.
Second image is from the same scene, but there is no tattoo on the hand when the killer starts turning around.
What this means is that possibly Barnaby projected the Ouroboros sign from the shape on the painting on the wall onto the killer’s hand. And that made him chase something that never existed for 20 years.
If this theory is legit – and it might well be we’re totally on the wrong track and crazy – this might wreck all the theories we have made before. But it doesn’t remove the fact that Ouroboros exists. There’s also the thing with the Ouroboros symbol on the original Stern Dollar, which got changed in the BD version because people read too much into it. Sternbild’s whole design can be traced into Ouroboros shape. There is something to it.
Aki’s crazy tier theory: What if Ouroboros is behind the whole city, and Maverick and Bunny’s parents were in it too? That’d make it a damn powerful thing, so no-one could stand up to them because they would hush every person ready to say something to the public; maybe there were people ready to say something, but no-one believed them? So maybe we got it wrong; maybe Kriem and Jake weren’t in Ouroboros, just came up with the craziest idea to show it exists – they pretended they were a part of it, too? They might have challenged the heroes because they are manipulated by the Hero TV, which might be a part of Ouroboros.
My crazy tier theory: Barnaby’s parents might have been in Ouroboros, or might not. Regardless, something might have happened that caused them to become a hazard to Ouroboros and that’s why they were killed. They might have tried to protect Barnaby from Ouroboros if it is tied to the appearance of NEXT. Maybe Maverick found out and had them killed so he could take over raising Barnaby.
And here’s an image that accurately depicts how we feel about everything right now:
(Fun fact: this was in my Tiger&Bunny image folder to begin with.) And we could really use that next episode right now, if you catch my drift.
Note: This might not make much sense right now since our minds are kinda blown at the moment. So there’s probably holes in this theory until we can actually think through this properly.
This is Sternbild 
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Personally,I think it’s going to boil down to why Maverick was with Barnaby on the day of the murder…
1) As an alibi -> This would mean that Maverick orchestrated the murder and is the mastermind behind events. This is the most straight-forward (if you can call it that) theory. It also implies that the memory manipulation is part of a larger plan as well.
2) Under orders -> This would mean that while Maverick knows what’s going on to a large degree, he’s still a pawn to someone higher up. Again, it implies that the memory manipulation is part of a larger plan. Of the three theories, this one feels the least likely, but I’m including it anyway. Maverick is shown to be a skilled manipulator in the handling of the Mayor and city leaders during the episode 10-13 arc, and it’s hard to imagine him being controlled by anyone.
3) As an intervention -> This is theorizing that Barnaby was supposed to have been killed with the rest of his family that night. It implies that again, Maverick knows what’s going on and is not the one in charge of whatever conspiracy is going on; however he is in a position to manipulate events, possibly for his own ends. He may be operating as an independent entity.
This also puts a potential new wrinkle on the whole memory manipulation scenario, in that what if Barnaby’s memories were changed to give him closure so he’d stop looking for his parents’ murderer to protect him from something he was getting close to finding? ie: manipulation to protect him rather than control him, not realizing what effect it would have on him when said tampering was discovered. Somehow I doubt this, as the timing between Barnaby’s revelation and Jake’s release are too conincidental – Barnaby was made to “remember” Jake for a reason, though I have no idea why. I still include it because it does make for an intriguing option.
Admittedly, my gut tells me theory 1 is most likely, but theory 3 does pose some interesting possibilities.
BTW: Great job on the blog. I’ve really been enjoying your writings on characters and speculations and so forth. Keep up the good work.
Thank you, and thank you again for the comment! We’re happy people enjoy the stuff we started writing just for fun!
Personally I agree with you that theory #2 is the least likely, though you have to consider that since it happened 21 years ago it’d be entirely possible that he’s moved up in the hierarchy of Ouroboros since then. We’ve considered the closure option, and it is possibly valid but we just can’t connect all the dots to make the whole picture make sense.
Then there’s option #4: we’ve all been had and they reveal it’s something completely different.
Speaking of reveals, just got through watching ep 19, oh dear…
I won’t say any more (spoilers and all) but now I wonder if the supporting character Barnaby talked to just before the big reveal is going to be with us much longer.
Yyyyyep seen it too. This is gonna be one helluva episode post once we talk this through.