The Many Mysteries of Magus

From Chrono Compendium
Revision as of 23:06, 27 February 2006 by ZeaLitY (Talk | contribs)

Jump to: navigation, search

written by Ybrik Metaknight
August 2003

with direct quotations from

Dhsu
Prodigal Moon
Solid Snake
ZeaLitY

and contributing discussion by many others

Magus, real name Janus Zeal, from Chrono Trigger is one of the most mysterious characters ever to appear in a game. Everything about him, from his physical appearance and his past to what happens to him after the events of the game and his role in the events of Chrono Cross, evokes questioning. Even the simplest of questions about the Magus is not answered easily, and due to his popularity, the finer points of his life have been debated countless times. If you've forgotten anything about Magus's history as it is revealed in Chrono Trigger, please visit the Encyclopedia Entry for an overview.

 I. Magus's Attributes
    A. From Janus to Magus
    B. The Doubted Magic Power
II. The Lost History
    A. The Mystic Exploitation
    B. The Original Fate

Magus's Appearance

Some of the things that are unknown about Magus have to do with his basic identity. He has blue hair and pointy ears, and is perhaps the most powerful and adept magic user in the history of the world. However, as a child, his ears were not pointy, and at least to the normal citizens of the Kingdom of Zeal, he showed no signs of any magical power whatsoever. While his hair was indeed blue, this is simply derived from his genetics. The pointy ears require some explanation, however.

From Janus to Magus

The first possibility is that Magus somehow made his ears pointy artificially so as to differentiate himself from humans and gain favor with the Mystics. Janus was clearly a fairly intelligent child, and he was also the kind of person who believes he should get what he wants and is spoiled. However, despite all that, he couldn't have been more than 10 years old when the Ocean Palace disaster sent him to 600 AD, and if you suddenly tear a ten-year-old's life away from him, he's going to become very emotionally disturbed. Now, add this to the fact that he was extremely intelligent and powerful magically as a child as well as being spoiled, and you have a disturbed kid who wants revenge and knows how to get it. By the time he had appraised the 600 AD situation, he realized that the Mystics could not only keep him safe but also give him the power and resources he needed to extract revenge on Lavos. Of course, there remains the obvious problem that he is human. Now, if you were an intelligent person with powerful and unchecked dark magic that could be used for disguise at your disposal who found yourself in a world full of people who hate your race but could help you if only you were a different race, what would you do? Since humans were mortal enemies of the Mystics, he probably could not have rose to his station of power with his old appearance, instead opting to artificially alter his look to make it more conducive to his new friends. However, keeping up the image of having pale white skin would be troublesome, as makeup would have to be applied constantly. This leads to another alternative -- that Magus's new body was a result of overexposure to dark magic.

Considering that Magus was raised by Ozzie for years in the dark confines of his lair practicing in the most arcane and darkest arts known, it is not out of the question that Magus's appearance accordingly changed with the experience. The effects might have also been forced upon him by Ozzie, who may have groomed the boy to his liking. In addition to the blue hair, pointy ears, and pale skin, Janus's irises have gone from green as a child to red as grown Magus. This suggests something a little more drastic than some artificial makeover to fit in with the Mystics -- unless they had colored contact lenses, which is doubtful. It is similarly unlikely that he could find a way to elongate his ears so well without the existence of plastic surgery.

The Doubted Magic Power

However, this brings us back to the question, where did these magic powers come from if he showed no potential for magic back in Zeal? The answer is that he probably had no reason to show off and did not ostensibly use his powers in front of others, leading to their simple belief that he was inept. It should be noted that the person who commented on Janus's lack of apparent magical ability was an ordinary citizen. If Janus did indeed have great power all along, it would have been no trouble at all for him to hide his abilities from such a plebeian. None of the more powerful and more important denizens of Zeal, i.e. Queen Zeal, the Gurus, Schala or Dalton, ever say that Janus lacks magical power, or even hint at it. In fact, another ordinary citizen of Zeal says that Melchior told him that Magus had even greater powers than Schala, or even Queen Zeal. While Dalton doesn't seem to fear Janus (he even halfway threatens him), this is most likely due to the fact that Dalton is overconfident in his own abilities; Janus may have blocked his powers from Dalton as well. Given Janus's holier-than-thou attitude in the Terra Cave, he most likely looked down upon all less important than himself; Magus's personality later also reflects this. This personality might give him motivation to hide his powers from others, simply to keep them in the dark.

Another possible explanation for why Janus's magical power (or potential) was never noticed in the Kingdom of Zeal is that he was apparently overshadowed by his older sister, Schala. Schala was in high demand for hers, and the general conception of Zealians was that Janus did not remotely match her power (although one correctly said he was far beyond hers), thus Janus had no to use his. Indeed, both explanations may apply. It could be that, upon seeing how coveted his sister's powers were, Janus hid his powers from the other Zealians in an attempt to avoid a similar status, and no one ever bothered to examine Janus any further because they already had Schala.

The Lost History

Another mystery about Magus has to do with exactly what happened in between the time he arrived in the Middle Ages and the time the party meets him in A.D. 600. The only confirmed facts known are that Ozzie (and perhaps also Slash and Flea) raised him to be the leader of the Mystics, and sometime around A.D. 590 he killed Cyrus and turned Glenn into Frog. He also probably created Retinite, though not for the intent of destroying Fiona's Forest. It is also known that Magus at least had a hand in starting the war. However, we do not know quite why Magus started the war between the Mystics and the human nation of Guardia. Being a human himself, Magus had something of a conflict of interest on his hands. However, even as a child, his general misanthropy was obvious, and growing up in the very anti-human environment of Ozzie's tutelage surely elevated that dislike of all things human. This misanthropy, combined with simply having grown up with the Mystics and identifying with them, may have had a hand in Magus warring against his own people.

The Mystic Exploitation

A more likely theory is that Magus only started the war against Guardia because the Mystics, who had groomed him to be their leader, desired the war. Magus lived most of his life with one singular goal: to exact vengeance against Lavos, who sent him from 12,000 B.C. to A.D. 600 and destroyed his home and family. Schala and Magus probably had a type of mental link, and Magus behaves throughout history as if he wanted revenge on Lavos for killing her. Perhaps he felt she was dead, and in the new timeline, searched since he still felt a presence. The whole time he was in the Middle Ages, Magus likely used the Mystics' knowledge of magic to gain access to Lavos to exact that revenge. Indeed, this was probably the only reason he tolerated their existence. He likely started a war against Guardia in order to keep their trust (and therefore continue using them). It should be noted that there is no evidence of Magus actually participating directly in the war (other than his presence at Cyrus's obtaining the Masamune at Denadoro), so he probably used all his extra time to research summoning Lavos. In order to constantly warrant the full support of Mystics, and thus also have full access to their manpower and magical resources, Magus had to satisfy them, much like states crusading in the medieval era to please the papacy. With these abilities at his command, Magus could facilitate the summoning of Lavos. Magus is of such a clear and sound mind that its totally possible he played the Mystics since childhood.

The Original Fate

Finally, it is not exactly known what happened to Magus in the original, unaltered timeline. It is known from the dialogue of mystics in Medina in A.D. 1000 that he successfully summoned Lavos. After that, Magus seems to have disappeared, and the mystics lost the war.

Ingonyama: As for Janus...I think he was Gated back into 600 AD, became the Magus, and lost the war to Guardia, albeit with more casualites on the Guardia side.

ZeaLitY: Yeah, original Magus is for the most part a Dalton situation; the mystics eventually lost the war because he disappeared or was killed after summoning Lavos, and we have no idea or clue as to where he went. To paraphrase Ozzie, Magus used the mystics as a patsy to gain the necessary means to summon Lavos and exact revenge.

Radical_Dreamer:
1) Tata would have died

Evidence: Come on...

2) Magus would have fought Lavos....

Evidence: If you lose to Magus in his castle (most obscure ending EVAR) he turns around and finishes summoning Lavos...implying that had you not interrupted, he would have succeeded in summoning Lavos anyway...

Actually, that may have cost the Mystics the war in the pre-Marle timeline...The Mystics were advancing across Zenan Birdge, and looked to be gaining ground...It's possible that in the originally, Magus was defeated by Lavos, or thrown through another warp at some point, either way, leaving the Mystics with out their leader...just a thought...

Ramsus: Also, Magus had no chance against Lavos. This is proven when he fights Lavos after having Masqueraded as The Prophet in Zeal. So the idea of the Mystics originally losing the war due to Magus's untimely death is a highly valid one.

Ybrik Metaknight: I think Ramsus has a very good point about Tata maybe never having obtained the Hero Medal. I think this is the most coherent theory yet:

Marle & Crono do not go to A.D. 600>>Frog rescues Leene on his own>>Frog never leaves Hero Medal lying around>>no one ever claims Masamune>>Magus summons Lavos successfully and is killed>>Mystics, left without a leader, lose war to Guardia.

Most likely, Magus attempted to take on Lavos. From the scene in the Ocean Palace, we know that Magus was no match for Lavos's power. Therefore, it can be surmised that he was probably killed by Lavos in the original timeline, since Crono's party was not there to disrupt his spell and send him back to his era of origin. After Magus was killed, the mystics, bereft of a leader (albeit one that never actually did much for them), lost the war, settled on the island where Ozzie's Fort stood, and founded the town of Medina. Some might disagree, saying that Magus was still sent back to 12,000 B.C. in the original timeline, but this is unlikely. This theory can be proven by the mere existence of the Masamune in A.D. 600. Queen Zeal exiled the three gurus at the advice of the Prophet. In the original timeline, there would have been no one to rescue Melchior from his icy prison on the Mountain of Woe, obtain the Red Knife and use it to destroy the Mammon Machine, creating the Masamune. If Magus never became the Prophet, however, the gurus would never have been exiled, and Melchior would have either finished the Red Knife into the Masamune on his own, or would have thrown it into the Mammon Machine himself, thus creating the legendary sword. If Magus indeed gated back to 12,000 B.C. in the original timeline, he would have exiled the gurus and, without the intervention of Crono's party, the Masamune would never have existed.

One of the deeper mysteries about Magus has to do with what exactly happens to him after the events of Chrono Trigger. In the ending sequence, Marle asks him if he is going to look for Schala, but he simply enters the gate silently. Then, as Crono, Marle and Lucca go racing through time looking for Crono's mother, they fly past Magus flying (under his own power!) through what seems to be 12,000 B.C. Even so, no one really knows what he did after Chrono Trigger. It is known that Magil, one of the three playable characters in Radical Dreamers (alongside Serge and Kid), was actually Magus in “disguise.� However, Chrono Cross effectively nullified the events of Radical Dreamers by way of replacing them.

What, then, of Magus's possible involvement in Chrono Cross? It is certainly possible, as he is the only Chrono Trigger main character unaccounted for in Chrono Cross. It can possibly be assumed that Crono and Marle were killed in the Porrean uprising (or are in hiding somewhere, like Choras). Also, it is quite likely that Lucca was either killed or captured by Lynx and Harle, and is either dead or also in hiding. Robo was integrated into the FATE circuitry sometime between A.D. 2300 and 2400, while Ayla and Frog very likely never traveled through time again, and therefore probably lived their entire lives out in their eras and were probably dead long before the events of CC. This leaves Magus. Magus, a.k.a. Janus Zeal (like I really had to say that), through his experience traveling through time on many occasions, his exposure to Lavos, and his at least near-total mastery of the dark arts, may have been able to travel thorugh time at his own will; also, it is unknown what time period he actually gated to at the end of CT, although it is generally assumed that he went to 12,000 B.C. Also, Lucca's letter to Kid seems to hint that Magus had his own ways of traveling through time, and Masa, Mune and Doreen prove that it is possible to use magic to travel through time when they help you save Kid.

The character Guile in Chrono Cross has been rumored to be Magus by countless speculators; it is known for a fact, however, that Guile is not Magus. In an interview with GamePro, the developers of Chrono Cross stated that while they had originally intended for Guile to be Magus, they discarded that idea at some point during Chrono Cross's creation, due to the fact that with so many playable characters, it would have been too difficult to do justice to the complex wizard. So, instead, Square made Guile a mysterious, but happy-go-lucky, masked magician.

Another speculation is that while Guile is definitely not the Magus we know and love, he may be Janus, gated to the present era after the party's intervention during the Ocean Palace disaster. That is, Janus, instead of being warped to sometime before A.D. 600, may have ended up sometime around A.D. 1000.

ZeaLitY: Guile is 100% not Magus, but as far as Janus goes, we are unsure. He obviously does not have knowledge of Schala, Zeal, etc., or he would surely have reacted along several points in CC. The developers themselves also stated that he was not Magus [in an interview].

It is known that the Entity, or generally time itself, has a way of preserving characters or events that are important to its existence, evident in the involuntarily pulling of Melchior and Janus through time after the ordeal at the Ocean Palace. This is farfetched, and only here for those who hope Guile is still Janus, or some form of the great wizard -- perhaps, something went wrong with this event (when Melchior and Janus were involuntarily sucked through), and Janus traveled to a year around 1000 A.D., and yet, 'Magus' and the entire history surrounding him was preserved. This still is highly farfetched, since we'd naturally assume Janus must be sucked through to a period before 600 A.D. to preserve the history of Magus and the Mystics. One point in this theory's favor, though, is that Janus in the new timeline does not directly witness Schala disappear, and might lack motivation--which explains Guile's lack of knowledge or effected personality. Even so, it's hard to believe, since it'd seem natural for him to retain his enthusiasm for defeating Lavos in order to preserve the history of the 600 A.D. era.

However, from what we know of the mechanics of time travel and changing history as they apparently exist in Chrono Trigger, this probably did not happen. Throughout the game, even after the party's intervention at the Ocean Palace, evidence of Magus's existence and participation in the Mystic Wars can be found both in A.D. 600 and in A.D. 1000. One specific example has to do with a woman at the Millennial Fair stating that Guardia had “been through a lot, like the war against Magus, 400 years ago.� If Janus had been gated to sometime around A.D. 1000 (Chrono Cross cites Guile's age as 26; if Janus was 6 at the time of the Fall of Zeal, he would have arrived in A.D. 1000 if he were indeed Guile, later if he was older), then he would have never been Magus in A.D. 600, and therefore the woman would not have said anything about Magus because Magus never would have existed (except for our Magus, outside the flow of time).

Radical_Dreamer has a rather unique theory on Janus's appearances in Chrono Cross.

Radical_Dreamer: Another theory as for Magus apearing in Chrono Cross isn't so obvious, but when a friend of mine suggested it to me, I found it very interesting. Serge. Yup, Serge. Perhaps Serge is to Janus what Kid is to Schala, if not something similar. There are certainly parallels. Most basically, the blue hair. In the CT world, that didn't pop up a great deal. As for his element being Light instead of Shadow, don't think in terms of Magus, think in terms of Janus. Serge never "survived the Darkness", he simply lived a fairly happy life. And Luminaire is the Light equivelent of Dark Matter, a very powerful spell. Another thought along this line: This might make Marge and Wazuki "interpretations" (for lack of a better word) of the last King of Zeal, and the Queen before CT's Queen Zeal. Perhaps they were reiterated in El Nido as a response to the Dragons...Zeal was the human/Lavos opposite of Dinopolis, after all...

JustinS1985: That point about the blue hair is interesting, if I remember rightly Janus/magus was the only male in the game with blue hair and the only people with blue hair were those from zeal. I doubt that the reincarnation thing is true, but since serge does have blue hair maybe he is somehow a decendent of Janus?

ExcelHyatt: But I'm sure that Janus probably never had a child considering how deeply he hates humans. And I don't think he could have cared less about anything other than saving Schala.

Many have also speculated that Magus may have had some behind-the-scenes activities in Chrono Cross. This is certainly possible, but the only thing we have to speculate upon is whether Magus saves Kid if you choose not to do it yourself. As Norris reveals in one ending of Chrono Cross, he was the one who saved Kid. This rules out Magus as having done that. Therefore, we're left with the idea that Magus had no involvement whatsoever in Chrono Cross.

ZeaLitY: Since CC took place apparently over the course of a few days, Magus simply may not have been in the neighborhood at the time. It is reasonable to believe he's still searching; a letter is made out to him by Lucca (presumably before the burning of the orphanage – 1015 A.D.)

This begs the question: How would Magus get to Crono and Serge's era? It is possible that once Lucca found Kid, she may have told Magus about this, using the Epoch to find him. Magus may have kept the Epoch for his own use after Crono, Marle and Lucca found Crono's mother and cats. It is unlikely that the Epoch was ever actually disassembled.

ZeaLitY: I believe that the Epoch was dismantled after Crono found his mother (revealed to have the name Gina in the Japanese version. Nifty) and cat (who carries some of Alfador's genes, also a sweet piece of trivia). As far as we know, Crono, Lucca, and Marle were still streaking through time at the end of the game, so it is quite possible that they may have picked up Magus along the way.

Ingonyama: Remember, though, that to go by the PSX cutscene, Lucca found Kid in Guardia Forest. Who's to say that she wouldn't have informed Janus of this discovery? And to do so, she'd most likely have used a rebuilt Epoch, since the Gates are all closed off by Lavos's defeat. If anyone could rebuild the Epoch, it's Lucca.

JustinS1985: She also might not have gotten around to dismantling the epoch yet, I really doubt any of the CT team would have been able to dismantle it, it would be too much of a fond memory kind of thing, so when Lucca begins to suspect who kid is it's very likely that she would go after Janus.

Another likely possibility is that Magus found a way to use his Dark Magic to travel through time. It is known that Magus can use his Shadow magic to create black holes; therefore, we can probably conclude that it's possible that he can use his magic to travel through time as well. Additionally, the gates may not have actually permanently; they likely just became weaker. Finally, Gaspar may have assisted him.

ZeaLitY: The third point that would allow him to arrive in 1000 A.D. => Onward is his magic. I believe Janus was rumored to be stronger than Schala on this subject; Janus is quite possibly the strongest user of magic in the entire world of the Chrono series. It is apparent that he has some control over spacetime, evident in his later spells; namely Black Hole and Dark Matter, that which scientists believe fills the rest of the unseen universe. It is not unlikely that Janus also has the ability to influence and/or control time to an extent.

One thing that we haven't considered is that if Magus can indeed timetravel, why wouldn't he just rescue Schala the moment she disappears and is integrated into Lavos? Perhaps his control over time only pertains to the gates and their times as set by the Entity, or maybe the Epoch indeed brought him back.

Radical_Dreamer: It's possible Magus can time travel to the points that are important to the Entity...perhaps it is because the Entity finds them important, and they are easier to access...

If Magus could use his magic to traverse the eras, he likely had to travel to those eras important to the Entity: The existence of the gates (which may not have actually closed all the way) probably made those time periods more prone to time travel. Also, it should be noted that the Epoch could only travel to those times.

Another brief mystery is that of Janus's paternity. In response to a line from a citizen of the Kingdom of Zeal stating that Schala and Janus were step-siblings (this may have been a translation error), BoTheDestroyer suggests that Janus may have been the illegitimate child of Queen Zeal and Dalton. It's certainly worth considering.

One last loose end dangling around the series is the fact that Norris's unit within the Porre army was called the “Black Wind.� This is significant because Magus has been known to say “The black wind howls� from time to time, even in childhood: Janus says the phrase to your party in Enhasa, he uses the phrase with Schala in Zeal Palace, and Magus says it to your party just before you fight him. Also, Black Wind is one of Magil's spells in Radical Dreamers (thanks to Radical_Dreamer for that one). Now, it's remotely possible that Magus may have had some involvement in the Porre military undercover, but this is a long shot at best. ZeaLitY and Ingonyama have a more likely theory:

ZeaLitY: While I was talking to Yama, the subject of Porre's Black Wind unit arose. Last night, Ybrik posed the question of whether the name of this detail was related to the phrase that appeared a few times in Magus speech; "The Black Wind howls," and such. Yama and I formulated the theory that due to the ferry between Truce and Medina, Porre agents or other officials may have come into contact with Mystic historical literature, and adopted the dark phrase from the famous leader in order to inspire fear in Porre's enemies. The phrase would certainly be in these historical documents about the Mystic war and Magus, as good oratory skills are often a requisite for garnering military support (and, in this case, uniting an entire race against another).

And with that, perhaps a good number of the mysteries involving Magus are solved.


Special Thanks: This article was a massive undertaking, and would not have been possible without the help of many people.

I wish to thank the following people:

Everyone at the OverClocked ReMix forum who participated in the Chrono series discussion threads, from the Master Thread to the various side threads. None of this would have been possible without all of that. Although you're all accredited properly in the article, you're all too numerous to name individually (with the following exceptions).

ZeaLitY: Thank you for all the support you've given, from creating the discussion threads to envisioning and helping to create this site to helping me edit and revise this article. And thanks for including me on the staff for this site.

Ramsus: Thank you for creating this site, and for the support you've given me in my articles thus far.

JustinS1985: Thanks for your support while I was making this article, and for helping with the editing and revision process.

Thanks to Yasunori Mitsuda (original composer, of course), OneUp Studios (for Time & Space), and various artists at OCR for providing the music I listened to while writing this article.

Thanks to Squaresoft for making such an incredible series of games.

Finally, thanks to David Lloyd (a.k.a. djpretzel) for creating the OverClocked ReMix site and forum, where all of this came together in the first place.

From: Articles