Send art requests, you say? Perhaps could I request art of the deans?
SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG THIS DRAWING STRESSED ME OUT CUZ OF THE FACE ANGLESSS ARFGGHFG pretty sure theres 500 anatomy mistakes in merry’s arm alone but here u go homie
Listen up y’all I have either solved the plot with this theory or it’ll get spectacularly debunked 💀 💀 💀
2/12/26: damn lenore spectre wrong but just ignore the rest is still solid i swear im not coping
So i really wanted to come up with a nevermore theory for a while but I felt like others already made most of the good ones… until I was chatting with a friend on Discord who has tumblr blog i will link (ily jax) and she told me her idea of how time worked in Nevermore:
time for dead souls equals a river. And in nevermore they cut out a weird subsection that trickles into their little realm. so the river is doing god knows what out there and it can be at any time at all. but the deans created a little stagnant pond area that isn’t impacted by the river now
and if need be they can just throw a soul they don’t want back into the river where it can go faster or slower whatever it needs to
And it got my yapping obsessed brain thinking about how in Greek mythology at least rivers are heavily associated with the underworld, with the most prominent example being the River Styxx (which is even mentioned by Eulalie). And while they just used it as a metaphor it made me realize that Nevermore Academy is surrounded by nothing but an oceanic abyss, and if time flows like water it seems like it all converged into a sea or ocean of sorts… that brings to mind a cosmic ocean.
Another VERY important factor here is how every student so far is from a different point in time within the 20th century (Annabel and Lenore are the oldest chronologically, as its highly likely they died right at the turn of the millennium). This not only means that classes are sorted by century, but it also begs the question: How can people from several different time periods die and then exist simultaneously in the same realm? From the perspective of Lenore and Annabel, Will, Monty, Prospero, Duke, Berenice and the rest all are from what would be the ‘future’ and haven't even been born yet. But the future for where they are from didn’t happen, so shouldn’t they all not be real?
Well, there are 3 main ways to think about how time in the universe works. Allow me to infodump:
– The present exists, but the past and the future do not as the former has already happened and the latter has yet to happen, but they aren’t happening. This is called presentism.
– The past and the present exist, the future does not exist yet. The present continuously becomes the past as the future becomes the present. This is called growing block universe/theory.
– And the last one is that the past, the present and the future all exist. Just like how there are places in space that still exist even if you aren't there, events in time still exist even if you aren’t there. This is eternalism, and the Nevermore world as a whole has to follow it for all these people to exist simultaneously.
(If you are curious to learn more about how this works, here is a neat video by kurzgesagt!)
The reason why ties into the whole river thing I started describing earlier; an eternalist universe necessitates that everything that has existed, exists, and will exist has been decided already. Everyone has a personal timeline from the moment they are born to the moment they die, a flowing river that converges into the sea around Nevermore. However if just this were to be true, the academy should be a senior living center. So now what we need to figure out is what makes you eligible for Nevermore Academy (regardless of class), and by extension a second chance at life.
My answer is that their deaths (for reasons that ngl I don't know lmao) violated what was predetermined. None of them were meant to die so early, their ‘rivers’ still had a long path to flow across, and it is also why they’re in a purgatorial state of being. Assuming that is true, this must also be: The second chance at life would be a continuation of their life give or take at the time of their unfated death through resurrection. Their river would be allowed to keep flowing along and they would live out as long as they should have. If they had died when they were supposed to and were given a second chance, it wouldn’t be a continuation, it would be just doubling the length of their lifespan. And it couldn’t be reincarnation, as their new life would be missing a portion of their natural lifetime.
So to recap so far, all of time and by extension everyone’s fate in Nevermore is scripted and diverging against it by getting killed/dying when it was never meant to happen is what gets you into the Academy. Everyone’s lifetime is a personal timeline like a river, and the ones that still had to flow from the cosmic sea around the isle.
Now another major question is what in the world are the deans.
There is actually a sea monster in mythos that dwells in an abyssal ocean of chaos that eats the souls of the damned when they die. It’s called the leviathan. And the deans as some panels imply (that I swear exist even if I can’t remember what episode they are from to screenshot 😭) seem to possess these wack eldritch tentacles, so yeah you see where I’m going with this. The deans aren’t here to keep their promise to resurrect anyone. In fact I heavily doubt that they can. All of this is just an elaborate way to farm souls as they don’t get the same kick from eating the souls of those who lived as they should and passed in peace.
The deans are likely weird beings with power over not just time to know everyone’s memories and bring them all together but also space (teleporting people, observing them from afar, pocket dimensions, dreamland, they aren’t native to Nevermore and appear to have access to the land of the living and the land of the dead). They are probably close to if not straight up omnipresent and omniscient. Crucially though, they do NOT have any direct power over life and death, as much as they would like to act like they do.
But you know Lenore’s supposed family curse and how she has heavy fire symbolism going on? (for example, she literally burned down her old life when she was alive and took on a new identity). Welllllll I think something about that has to do with the new life. Lemme try my best to express this thought in a way that is understandable.
The deans weren’t always at Nevermore. Before, the people that arrived had to make a pilgrimage to the land of the living to get a second chance at life. Nevermore is full of hostile and predatory spirits, kinda like a forest full of dangerous animals. What is something that people are drawn to because it provides warmth to keep going, something makes animals agitated because of its dangerous heat, and is associated with rebirth? Fire.
That’s exactly why fire was so helpful when it was discovered for human life, and for similar reasons I think fire, or some spiritual magic source that takes the form of fire, is what is necessary at all for life to continue. It makes a second chance at life actually possible and not just cope the deans feed the students. Living needs energy. People’s “rivers” need energy, and if they die before they should they would still have a bunch of energy that wasn’t all used up left. They just need a spark to fully access it and get it all back. You can’t just make more energy after all, it can only be transformed.
The deans love and hate this. They love it because the Academy is designed to narrow down the students to who has the most potent energy (like the strongest will to live, or life drive which is also termed Eros sometimes. The opposite, the death drive, is named Thanatos) cuz it makes the most yummy dinner for them. They hate it because it’s outside of their control. Fire is all-consuming and destructive but still a creative force. Because the second chance is a lie they can’t even make true if they wanted to. Also, Theo was in the prior class with the same curse, so Merry and Mourn turned him into the Wild Hunt (regardless of whether he won or lost since he was a top student, I also feel like it could have been his spectre or a hijacked form of it since all spectres so far are humanoid) so they could force him into hunting other energetic souls for them to eat. That’s also why the Wild Hunt is attracted to Lenore; they are tied to the same primordial power, for whatever reason that I can’t think of actually uhhhhhhhh moving on lmfao
Ok so. Now.
Just like how Lenore has fire imagery, Annabel has water or more closely ice imagery. The poem that is her namesake even has some bits related to the sea, cold and death.
As you have followed along with me we have established that spacetime = water, life = fire. When water freezes into ice, things wither and die from an absence of energy. So when people properly die, their rivers freeze over and no longer flow. Death = ice.
Annabel’s spectre is constantly cold, draining heat around her and even having a kiss that kills people. While Lenore burned away her old identity full of suffering, Annabel was willing to resign into a role she despised until Lenore entered her life, so you can even say that Lenore reignited Annabel’s appreciation of life as the former is the raison d’etre for the latter (in their past life it was the other way around). Lenore is also warmhearted and sincerely wants to save all of her friends, while Annabel is coldhearted and tends to see people as pawns. She’s also the very first one to manifest, but it was deliberately triggered by Merry and Mourn.
Why would they do that? Because they cannot risk Lenore manifesting (yes I think it’ll be a phoenix or at the very least involve fire somehow and this may be why they offered to manifest Lenore’s spectre in Dreamland) without being able to subdue her and sap the life giving magic from her inherent curse for them to exploit. If Theo as the Wild Hunt hunting down Lenore doesn’t work, this is how they’ll keep things the way they want. They don’t want anyone to actually get revived. They just want more power for themselves.
2 smol side notes:
I think that since everyone so far had a death that can be considered to be murder or a wrongful killing, that everyone in Theo’s class prior had a death as a result of a tragic accident due to how he died.
Also I think the Raven is one of the roaming spirits and is aware of Lenore’s curse and wants to consume it cuz magic primal power would help with getting revived.
Y’all I know I threw out a lot of info so I’ll try to summarize the main points of my theory:
In the story of Nevermore the universe is an eternalist one. Past, present, and future all exist, which means that everything that existed, exists, and will exist throughout space and time is predetermined. This is how people from different chronological points are able to be brought together. Merry and Mourn are aquatic-ish beings that have power over spacetime, but not life and death proper. They do not and cannot keep their end of the bargain when it comes to the second chance at life, it’s just a manipulation tool.
Everyone has a personal timeline that flows like a river. If you die before you were destined to, you are eligible to be a Nevermore Academy student. Rivers that still flow all form the cosmic ocean surrounding Nevermore.
Rivers run on some spiritual fire magic source that powers life cuz it needs energy. Rivers from people that died early still have energy leftover that can present as the will to live. This is what the deans feed on and the whole academy is just a way to farm energetic souls.
Lenore’s family curse has to do with said spiritual fire magic source, since while it’s a creative force it’s also destructive, and cuz of its life giving properties the second chance at life is now actually possible with its use. The deans want this power but don’t want anyone to get revived. In the prior class with Theo, they turned him into the Wild Hunt and made him hunt souls for him. This is also why the Hunt is drawn to Lenore.
They made Annabel manifest first cuz her spectre abilities around ice and death (as people’s rivers freeze over and stop flowing when they run out of spiritual fire magic energy and truly die) would be useful to use against Lenore due to her possessing a Phoenix/fire-related spectre due to the curse and to get what they want to fulfill their hunger.
Finally lol, hope this wasn’t all nonsense and sorry if it wasn’t structured too well. Next time I'll probably yap about the new group of students we saw and what their roles could be. If you wanna add on or anything pls credit me or something. Byeeeee
gonna go on a little ooc non-serious rant because it surprises me that people are STILL grouping the deans together in everything as if theyre the same person
I can completely understand when people mistake Merry for Mourn or Mourn for Merry—they look similar enough to each other and I had the same problem when I started the webtoon—but they have completely different personalities!
Mourn is more strict, logical, and detail-oriented, Merry is more fun, energetic, and chaos-seeking. Their conversation in ep 90 is so compelling and interesting and fun to read because theyre so different from each other! (A bit off topic but i love how this episode shows off their true personalities and motives when they're not putting on a show for the students)
Grouping them together as one entity when making things like memes or compilations just doesnt make sense to me! More often than not it's not accurate to one of them, or in some cases, both of them
And thats only when people actually include the deans, more often than not people either forget the deans/staff or purposefully leave them out (it also surprises me that apperently people hate the deans????? They're so funny silly evil babygirl what do you mean you hate them) (all they've done is have rules—as they should, they are the deans—, been a tad menacing, and served godly levels of cunt)
Going back to the original topic, it does get a bit frustrating when every time I find a nevermore meme and get excited to see where my favourite dean is placed, I find him under "the deans"
To their credit, the deans are very similar. They both love their game, they are mirror images of each other, they are both in a position of authority and use it to give as many demerits as possible, etc. And sometimes the memes work just fine with them grouped together!, but that depends on the context. Most of the time it just feels lazy to me
It's not a serious problem at all but tis something I notice, and this is me trying to convince you that they're different PLS THEYRE NOT THE SAME PERSON I SWEAR THEYRE DIFFERENT PEOPLE PLS—
