A theory i have is that the reason Malleus isn't able to find the group sometimes when they go to a different dream, is because his dream self doesn't EXIST in the said dream. Don't you find it weird, the whole time MC, Grim and Dia-boys where in Lilia dream, no Malleus appeared BUT when dream baby Malleus is born then POOF here he is ? Take the pomefiore dream for example, no dream Malleus so no IRL Malleus. His dream selves are probably like gps or something to naviguate in Dreams -sarah
That’s… not a theory though 😅 The game essentially confirms that the Malleus is likely not capable of manifesting in a dream unless the circumstances of the dream are something he is reasonably familiar with. This is because magic in Twisted Wonderland is reliant on the limits of one’s imagination.
Because Lilia’s dream largely takes place in a period of time Malleus himself is not informed about, Malleus is not able to imagine it, and thus cannot appear yntil his own egg hatches. With that birth, Malleus now has a presence (ie “an understanding”) that allows him to enter the dream. It should also be noted that Malleus was keeping a close eye on Lilia’s dream in particular, since that’s someone he is close with—so naturally, when Lilia begins to “wake”, Malleus barges in using his new opening (his freshly hatched self) to fix things.
How Malleus’s UM works exactly is really dubious, so we can only guess the details. However, Idia tells us that while the “real” Malleus may be the boss that oversees everything, there also are many dream versions of Malleus that manage each individual dreamer.
Doesn’t that imply that there has to be a Malleus for every dream (and if not all of them, then surely most of them)? We probably just don’t see them in all instances because he isn’t a relevant character for the happiness of most of the NRC students (or, in the case of Vil, Kalim, and Jamil), they’re not at NRC in their dream worlds. There must still be Malleuses lurking around making sure the dreams are okay, and perhaps to serve as a point of entry for the “real” one. (… Still, it’s sort of funny yet sad to think about how many NRC students’ perfectly happy ideal worlds do not involve Malleus in any way, shape, or form.)
There’s a bunch of hoops the wake up squad has to jump through to not alert Malleus of their dream hopping. Ortho has to project holograms of the dreamers to trick the Malleuses overseeing their dreams into believing everything is going smoothly. They have to limit how many students can dream hop at once, because too many bodies could also tip Malleus off. Etc, etc, etc—it’s a lot of contrivances and rules. It’s like tying to tiptoe through a field you know is rigged with tons of booby traps.
I think their strategy seems to be working…? Cuz none of the Malleuses seem to have noticed to the degree where they would alert the real one to come in and stomp out the pests. So to me, Malleus not showing up doesn’t feel like the result of there being no Malleuses in those dream worlds to connect through. It’s more like he never got told in the first place that there’s an issue to be resolved.
Arguably, it should be a easier for Malleus to pull up to these dreams since they mostly take place in the present, a time period he can more easily imagine than 500 years in the past (Lilia’s dream). Some of the dreams (Idia’s, Rook’s, Epel’s, Sebek’s) take place AT Night Raven College too, a location Malleus is very familiar with as a third year student. If you want to count events (even though technically they are not canon to the main story), Malleus has also already visited the Scalding Sands in A Firelit Sky. Thus, he shouldn’t have trouble visiting Jamil’s dream either. Malleus isn’t chasing them because the game reasons that Idia’s “let’s keep Malleus distracted/keep him from noticing us!” plan is working.
bfkwvwiwkw I hope that made sense! Talking about Malleus’s dubiously defined dream magic always makes me get confused since it’s juggling a lot of details 💦
