TPN History Theory

So chapter 141 finally gave as more info on the Promise from a 1000 years ago and ofc I couldn’t help myself from geeking out in trying to correlate the new characters with historical figures!

The chapter said that the group of 6 working together included collaboration of different nations, and they are obviously mostly European in facial features and clothes. We don’t know when exactly the promise was made, but a 1000 years ago should be around 1000-1050AD.

This was a turbulent time in European history, but the 6 biggest players in terms of nations were:

Kingdom of France (normans)

Kingdom of England (saxons)

Kingdom of Denmark (vikings)

Holy Roman Empire (germans, italians and czech)

Caliphate of Cordóba (spanish and north africans)

Byzantine Empire (greek, balkan and turk)

So based on cultures, here is my guess on how our new characters map out!

(Note that the Caliphate of Cordóba is labelled Muslim Spain on the map, also Normandy is the same colour as England because even though the normans were originally vassals of the French kingdom, they conquered England in the 2nd half of the 11th century…)

Okay, so let me explain how I arrived at my conclusions, and how the heraldry is related.

First off, I don’t think Julius Ratri is based off of a real historical figure. Once the demon world was separated, he had to leave the human world to be the ambassador inside the demon world, so of course there would be no historical records of him.

Julius is most likely a nod to Julius Caesar, who was a great roman war leader and betrayed by his closest friends. He lived a 1000 years before the promise though, and it is most likely meant to be ironic that Julius Ratri unlike Caesar is the one to betray those closest to him…

I also think that his roman name implies an association with the Holy Roman Empire, which btw was an amalgam of nations ruled by a single, elected emperor legitimized by the Pope in Rome as the succesor to the original Roman Empire.

You may notice that a large part of the Holy Roman Empire were german, and tbh Julius does look like he could be german, and well, it is kind of a cliché that germans are the bad guys…

Now, if we are talking about Roman empires, we should mention that originally the succesor to the Roman Empire was recognised as the Byzantine Empire, which was a very wealthy and important nation for many centuries in Europe.

I was thinking that our black haired, Ray look-alike could represent this empire, as he/she clearly dresses differently to the Western European norms, and shows some asiatic features. He/she doesn’t look far asian, like chinese, or even mongolian, so I think the Byzantine Empire is a much better fit.

It is a bit of wild guessing, but I think if they are male, they may be the emperor Basil II, or if they are female, they could be his niece, Zoe, who was briefly an empress. Not sure who else were important Byzantine Empire citizens!

Now looking at the genderbent Emma guy, he clearly looks like one of the fiercest warriors, and his crest seems to look like a lion. At the time in Europe, the most badass knights were the normans, so I am thinking he could potentially be a Duke of Normandy, and my guess is on Richard II “The Good”.

The Dukes of Normandy used gold lions on red as their heraldic symbols, and as I have said before, they were french in the first half of the 11th century. When they conquered England later, their descendants like the king Richard Lionheart, put the lion into the English royal crest.

Part of the reason however that the normans could successfully conquer England was that they had a claim to the throne by marriage! Richard II “The Good” had a sister, who he married to not only one, but two English kings, so she was actually queen of England twice (as well as the mother of multiple English kings).

This lady, who was the most influential and politically succesful woman of her time, and is one of the best known early medieval queens was Emma of Normandy.

So I am thinking that if our genderbent Norman is anyone historical, it would make a lot of sense for her to be Emma of Normandy. She seems to have a crest associated with her that looks kind of like a bird? Emma of Normandy didn’t have a crest, but her husbands and sons had crests with either a wyvern or doves, that could maybe fit.

I have also previously theorised that it would be neat if Emma of Normandy was the mystery “Ratri” who forged the original promise with demon!God… and you know what I noticed? That genderbent Norman lady and Julius Ratri seems to be suspiciously close… could they be lovers?

Actually; looking at them, they kinda look like they how you would picture Norman’s parents, if he had a happy family… and we know Norman looks almost identical to James Ratri, and very similar to Peter Ratri, so I think I may not be so off on these two having a child together that led to the Ratri clan. I am super excited if we also get an angsty love story out of it!

Btw I just noticed that Emma’s original vision already showed us the two promises:

The top panel shows a warrior man, Julius shaking hands in public with a demon, who we now know is the demon king (not yet seen in the manga). We know that these two made a Promise between demon and human leaders.

The mid left panel shows a much more slender, female figure with a headscarf and a Ratri owl shake hands in private, with Lord Yverk. From the new chapter we know that these two made a different promise with demon!God.

So it looks like this is what Mujika meant when she said that there is more than one promises! I am eager to see the official translation of Ray discussing these in the flashback, because the current trans are a bit contradictory…

Either case, I am thinking that this mystery lady in the headscarf is either fem!Norman or the child of Julius and fem!Norman perhaps? I think she could have an owl either case.

I am still hoping this lady is Emma of Normandy, would be very poetic for our Emma then to reforge the promise. Either case, my guess is that she was either going behind Julius’ back to create an alternative promise, or she directly opposed him to create a better solution! I think the second would be better drama in my opinion, and would also make Julius feel betrayed!

Speaking of turbulent times, so Emma of Normandy had to marry twice since her first husband was kind of beaten by the vikings, who temporarily conquered England (before the normans took it for good).

The viking king, who was also king of Denmark and Norway who achieved this was Sweyn Forkbeard. I thought it was fun that our TPN viking had a beard that was kind of “forked”…

Even if he isn’t Sweyn, there was a really famous warrior captain in his army called Thorkell the Tall, and we know this guy in TPN is also super tall. So it could be either of them! If it is Sweyn though, he was Emma of Normandy’s father-in-law, albeit he died before she married his son.

As for the last person, who is the only person of colour, I think it would make sense for them to be from Muslim Spain. At the time, people of colour from that nation could travel Europe, and they were called the moors.

Unfortunately I don’t know enough about the history of that area to guess well on who he could be. Let me know if anyone else has guesses!

Oh well, I can’t wait to see how the rest of this history plays out. Looks like we will have some prime quality angst thanks to Julius!