Roland the Time Traveler
**Spoilers for the end of Ni No Kuni 2 ahead**
So I know the official canon is that once Roland arrived in the other world, he grew younger to match his younger soulmate, but hear me out. We know that time travel is possible in the Ni No Kuni universe, and characters like Feridenand can look through time. So what if the reason Roland appears younger when he comes to the other world is that he was teleported back in time across worlds?
A big thing about the beginning of Ni No Kuni 2 that always bothered me would be fixed in doing this. Remember how the game opened up with Roland’s country being bombed? Following the rule of soulmates, a lot of people in the other world should also be dying, as the canon established that harm to one soulmate will cause harm to another.
However, we don’t open up to a similar apopcalic event when we follow Roland to the world of Ni No Kuni. We open up to the relatively smaller effects of the coup in Ding Dong Dell, which if soulmates are truly connected in the way that we are told, there should be more deaths.
However, we do see a large amount of devastation at a different point in the game. When Doleran takes over.
This is where time travel comes in. What if the reason that Roland looks so young when he shows up in the world of Ni No Kuni is because he was transported back through time as well as across dimension?
This would fix the issue at the beginning of the game, as Doleran taking the souls of many across his world could be the equivalent of a nuke going off.
Additionally, Doleran taking over being mirrored in the other world as the nuclear war parallels Roland’s guilt nicely, as it can be argued Roland as a president did not do enough to stop the nuke and caused the destruction of many, just like Doleran.
This would also fix my biggest pet peeve of all: the ending of Ni No Kuni 2. In the ending scene, we essentially rewatch the beginning of the game, only this time, the missile is just fireworks?? How??
Well, if Roland traveled back in time this could be the result of him changing what happens in the other world, thus stopping the destruction of his own. And that is honestly much more satisfying than it all just being a dream.
There are obviously flaws with this theory even if it wasn’t directly wrong due to the current canon expectation, but just. Imagine.