Arthifis and Irina misinterpret Steins;Gate 0

Hello everyone,

Today we’ve got a special treat! Not for you guys, for me…

I’m not sure how many of you follow my Steins;Gate 0 reviews but if you’ve been around my blog for a while, you probably got the feeling that I don’t dislike the Steins;Gate franchise in general. I guess you could even say it’s one of my all time favourites. So when one of my favourite bloggers suggested we do a collab on it – I figured I had forgotten my birthday again. In  any case, I wasn’t about to miss out on the opportunity.

Here was Arthifis’ idea. Basically, as we are hitting the halfway mark for Steins;Gate 0, Arthifis thought it would be fun to take a short look back at what we’ve seen so far and try to figure out where this crazy ride is trying to take us.

ARTHIFIS: Hello there everyone! You are too kind Irina! But, I think it’s the way around! I’m the one who probably forgot that it was my birthday! This was basically in my bucket list I’m really happy that I finally found a theme that we both love and it would make perfect sense to make a collab! I’m even happier that you agreed to it eheh 😀

I have made my peace with the fact that anime speculation is simply not my forté but if ever there was a show that dares you to predict the future, Steins;Gate would certainly be it.

Irina’s hairbrained theories:

Throughout the season I’ve been pushing the idea that Steins;Gate 0 is not necessarily related to Steins;Gate, at least not in the way we are lead to believe. Basically, I think this world line deviation is one that we have never seen at all, potentially one that split form what we knew as the alpha worldline in Steins;Gate, before the series even began. The show has never confirmed exactly where the split is and has been careful about never clearly referencing the events of the first. We know Kurisu died and that at one point Okabe was desperately trying to save Mayuri but that’s all. Both of these are world defining events that take place on a large number of divergences.

Hmmm that’s a nice idea… I thought the split was made when Rintaro decided not to go towards that last attempt to save Kurisu. Of course that, as you well said, brought a number of divergences in a larger scale, such as Rintaro never constructing the first time machine, the phone microwave. We also have that Rintaro completely forgot about the laboratory and decided to pursue his studies. Nevertheless, the time machine where Suzuha came back still exists and, therefore there has to be a point where the time machine is completed, if not there would be a paradox.

Not necessarily – you’re going on the basis of the Grandfather paradox. Personally I like to go with what Christina explained 7 year ago. We can circumvent that particular paradox with the multiverse theory – it doesn’t matter if the time machine is ever created in this worldline since Suzuha already has her own personal worldline which is independent and impervious to any butterfly effect created here. All possibilities exist in parallel and they are simply skipping between divergences. I.e. you are not changing the destination of the train you’re travelling on, you’re switching trains at the station.

Ooooh, I see what you are saying! Basically that Suzuha herself is at the moment in a parallel line from where she came from? That would make sense…

I believe the show billing itself as a sequel of sorts is in fact a gigantic red herring and all of our preconceived notions of who these characters are and what has lead them to this point, will come back to bite us in the rear. It’s the type of thing this show would do. It also goes perfectly hand in hand with my deconstruction theory for episode 11.

Completely agree with you, being the main characters who are completely different in this sequel Yuugo and Moeka. To be honest, this was not really a surprise to me. It just didn’t make sense, plot wise, to use CERN as the bad guys again. However, I didn’t thought they would become allies.

I have several reasons to think this, some more convincing than others.

The shaky stuff:

-Costumes: Steins;Gate is a one outfit universe where unless there’s a special occasion, everyone wears the same thing all the time. (A few years ago I decided to work from home full-time and I turned into this). Everyone has new clothes in 0. Granted this could simply be a design choice to mark the difference between seasons and Okabe is given a canon reason for no longer wearing his lab coat but if I’m right, this fashion update could be seen as a clue.

Hmmm, to be honest I think that the reason is just because the characters are different in this time line, which leads to wearing different clothes. Moreover, let’s not forget that Steins;Gate 0 started with a way more darker tone that the previous serious. So, the fashion can also be to make the show darker from the bat in all of its details.

–Okarin: I’ll be straight with you, I really don’t remember if this was a big deal in the anime but in the Visual Novel there was this long and detailed bit out how Mayuri is the only one that calls Okabe: Okarin (he wanted to be called Kyouma at the time) which is a portmanteau of both his names that she came up with when they were both kids. It’s very sentimental and meaningful to both of them which is why he allows her to call him that to this day. Dour and sarcastic Daru would never have used such a cutesy nickname for his friend and neither would have shy and hesitant Ruka. Like I said, I don’t remember this being important in the anime so it may just be a case of Lost in Adaptation.

The time machine will be created:

As Irina discussed above, Suzuha is still here, so the time machine needs to continue to exist! Therefore, Rintaro, sooner or later will desenvolve the time machine, if he likes it or not. Why Rintaro (and Daru of course)? Well, because Suzuha clearly states she comes back in time with the time machine her dad (Daru) and uncle (Rintaro) created.

I disagree with this because I ascribe to the multiverse theory like Kurisu. Seems Arthifis is a classist like Okabe.

Ahah, not really! In fact I think that time travel is only possible with the multiverse theory. But, thinking in plot wise, the story wouldn’t make sense if that was not the case. Think about this, Steins;Gate is always centered in Rintaro, so if the timeline changed to the point of not having any kind of time machine he would notice and go to a timeline without Suzuha.

Moreover, due to his scariness of going back to the alpha line where Mayuri is constantly getting killed he wants to solve this problem without changing timelines. So, for that to happen, the Time machine will have to be created so Suzuha can go back in time. If that does not happen, then they will go to a different timeline. It may, or may not be the alpha timeline, but they will go out from the beta timeline for sure.

World War 3 will happen:

Ok, let me see if I can explain myself. Rintaro is trying to stop the World War 3 without changing timelines right? Well, that is not possible.

The thing is, if he stops the World War 3, Suzuha will not have to come back in time to ask for help and try to save Kurisu. If this does not happen then Rintaro will never stop World War 3 and this way we will get to the point of Suzuha coming back again.

Understand what I’m saying? Basically we are in a paradox. To be honest, having the World War 3 not happening without changing timeline would bring even more problems prior to Steins;Gate 0 which at this moment would be really difficult to explain, but it all makes sense in my head! I promise!

So, this way, what I think is going to happen is World War 3 will break out, sooner or later. Suzuha will come back in time and ONLY after that Rintaro will be able to put a stop on it.

That or the timeline will change again to a new one where the World War 3 never happens, the time machine ends up not being created. Rintaro never comes back to save Kurisu, not even once and that’s that. Basically the same we have now, but without Suzuha and Kagari in the picture and without the laboratory all together. I mean, wouldn’t make sense for Daru to pursue the construction of the time machine without his daughter there.

If I’m understanding this right, it is still all predicated on the Grandfather paradox. I should try to go get the relevant screencaps from the game – Kurisu explains it much better than I do.

My explanation is the same as above. If they go to a timeline where there is no World War 3, Rintaro would notice and things would change. For example, having two factions fighting around our special group only makes sense if we are in the beta timeline where the World War 3 is going to happen. Again, yes, I agree with you, but for that to happen only if they change the timelines to another one.

So are you guys confused yet? Don’t worry, we continue this over on Arthifis’ blog where you caan get even more confused!