Dimentio is Merloo

## Claim

Dimentio is Merloo, one of the four sages depicted in stained glass in the rooms between Flipside and Flopside.

## Evidence

### Dimentio's Knowledge

Dimentio’s perhaps most prominent trait, aside from his charm, is knowing things he seemingly shouldn’t be able to. Firstly, he appears to know exactly where the four heroes are at any given time, as well as which heroes to rescue from Castle Bleck (in that he chooses to save Peach and Bowser, but not Luigi, who was instrumental in his plans later in the game), how to restore the seventh Pure Heart, and details from the Dark Prognosticus he is unlikely to have heard Count Bleck speak aloud.

#### Restoring the Pure Heart

Even Merlon, a scholarly descendant of the Ancients in possession of the Light Prognosticus who had by that point read the passage about the Pure Heart’s “light being restored”, does not know exactly how to go about restoring a damaged Pure Heart. If a descendant of the Ancients with the greatest advantage conceivable in discerning this information was unable to do so, then Dimentio, who did know, would either have to know more than even the Light Prognosticus says and more than likely himself be an Ancient, or Queen Jaydes. It can be safely assumed that Dimentio is not Queen Jaydes.

#### Knowledge on Luigi and the Prophecy

Dimentio also exhibits the knowledge that Luigi is the ideal host of the Chaos Heart. Notably, everything the rest of Count Bleck's minions learn about the Dark Prognosticus’s contents is divulged during the cutscenes in which they're gathered together, and Bleck never mentions this particular prophecy on-screen. However, when Bleck mentions the Man in Green prophecy and Dimentio asks if he’s saying the Man in Green is Mr. L, O’ Chunks acts as if this information is completely new and does not make sense. Thus, Dimentio is very unlikely to have have heard the prophecy stating Luigi to be the ideal host of the Chaos Heart from Bleck, because him drawing that connection and postulating that Mr. L (who they all know was Luigi) is the Man in Green should then make sense to O'Chunks, had Bleck spoken that prophecy aloud in a place the player cannot observe. Although Dimentio could possibly have extrapolated his prophesied use of the Chaos Heart to making him the “ideal host” for it, as in the one chosen by the Dark Prognosticus, the distinction of language makes this ambiguous in the English text.

#### Knowledge on the Dark Prognosticus

For Dimentio to know specific prophecies from the Dark Prognosticus that Bleck did not tell him, there are only two likely possibilities: The first is that he had access to its passages at a point before Bleck had it, and the second is that he simply read it while Bleck was not looking.

##### Dimentio as a Member of the Tribe of Darkness

If the former is true, then Dimentio must be, at the youngest, a Tribe of Darkness member who came into possession of the most powerful, feared, and presumably guarded artifact of their tribe. And because the book remains there for Blumiere to read it and become Count Bleck, it is highly unlikely that he would have taken the book elsewhere and returned it at a later date. And even if he had merely read from it as opposed to stealing it, that still requires that he breached whatever defenses guard the book unnoticed or unapprehended. As approaching the reading of the Prognosticus in this manner makes little sense and makes many assumptions that the information present in the game’s text is lacking to defend, this is rendered unlikely.

##### Dimentio as the Pixl Queen

Another possible way that Dimentio could have read the book before Bleck did is if he were the Pixl Queen, a large Pixl with the power to control most other Pixls, who possessed the Dark Prognosticus 2000 years prior to the events of Super Paper Mario.

The Pixl Queen is rumored by Carson to have been the daughter of the Master Magician, creator of the first Pixls from 3000 years before the game’s events. The Pixl Queen also likely shares her identity with Shadoo, the boss of the Flopside Pit of 100 Trials. Shadoo can be fought before and after the final battle with Super Dimentio, has a different style of text box, and shares no apparent similarities to Dimentio in speech or motivation whatsoever. It can be safely assumed for these reasons that Dimentio is not the Pixl Queen.

##### Who Else, Then?

If the Pixl Queen, the last survivor among the inheritors of the 12 original Pixls, the Ancient Sages, the Tribe of Darkness, and Count Bleck are the only ones to have possessed the Dark Prognosticus over the previous 2000 years, Dimentio would need to be more than 1500 years old to have information from the Dark Prognosticus prior to Count Bleck. This is because the Tribe of Darkness could not have split off from the rest of the Ancients until after the works of the Sages 1500 years ago, due to the Tribe of Darkness’s apparent role in the creation of Flopside before absconding with the Dark Prognosticus.

### What About Merloo?

Merloo was one of the four Ancient sages and a wise magician who specialized in dimensional magic. He is said to be able to see the future (in the original Japanese text only, as the English text excludes this detail for unknown reasons). Tippi states that he is said to have written the Light Prognosticus. And, by necessity, Merloo's work in writing the Light Prognosticus would seem to require significant knowledge of the Dark Prognosticus’ contents, being specifically created to counter it.

According to Merlon, however, it was Merlumina that wrote the Light Prognosticus. As both Merlon and Tippi are reputable sources that do not usually conflict, and the Ancient Sages did seem to act as a group, it seems likely that both of them somehow collaborated on its creation.

#### Symbology of the Sages' Windows

Merlumina also “made a Pure Heart” according to Catch Card text, which is impossible, because the Purity Heart was made first and split into Pure Hearts. This means that she either released the one she gives to you from a seal through the feelings of her heart, which is possible (although it makes the Catch Card text quite misleading), or she helped to create the original Purity Heart as well.

Merlon also states that “she and those who followed her built [Flipside]”. She is called a “leader of her people” and “the wisest of all the Ancients”, as she had a hand in every major thing the Sages accomplished.

This is relevant due to the symbology of the Sages' stained glass windows. Merloo’s window depicts two eyes at its bottom, below a branching tree. Merlight’s window includes diamonds, and Merlimbis’s has stars. Merlumina’s window, appropriately enough, includes an eye, stars, and diamonds, so it appears these symbols represent their contributions in some way. Although, it should be noted that Merlumina’s eye sigil has substantial differences from that of Merloo, and both eye sigils appear across many edifices of the Ancients, sometimes even side by side.

Furthermore, while Merloo is only said to see the future, Merlimbis’s descendants Merlee and Merluvlee use the sun and stars to bestow charms and see the future, respectively (although Japanese Catch Card text claims that Merluvlee isn’t actually able to truly predict the future, despite her track record of accuracy.) The sun and stars are present in Merloo, Merlimbis, and Merlumina's windows.

The sky of Flipside and Flopside is also filled with diamond shapes. The eye on Merloo's depiction can be found on the stone blocks on the outskirts of Flipside and Flopside, as well as within a picture frame in Merlee's mansion; the trees appear in Merlumina's resting place, alongside the vines in Merlight's depiction. The meanings of the placements of these symbols is unknown.

### Merloo's Power to See the Future

As established from multiple directions, these window decorations do, in fact, hold meaning, cryptic though their placements may be. The eyes on Merloo's window are also inscribed with what is typically seen as a 'swirl of madness.’ Interestingly, their gaze follows a branching path in the form of the tree above them, which fits the theme of the Light Prognosticus being an alternative path to the Dark Prognosticus' prediction.

The Light Prognosticus’s excerpts are riddled with ‘ifs’ and conditional language. It’s not truly prophetic, yet it still lines up with the events of the future, even in places the Dark Prognosticus seemingly neglects to mention. For Merloo to see the future and to have written such a book, as supported by the eyes in his window seeing along splitting branches, his future vision (and the words of the Light Prognosticus, by extension) may be based on scrying of different possible futures, pockets of potential and change in between the deterministically bound events of the Dark Prognosticus.

This would then also likely be what Merluvlee does. This explains how Tippi can say that Merluvlee has “true vision” and that the Light Prognosticus can hold true, yet neither are strictly prophetic in the way the Dark Prognosticus is.

Merloo's Japanese name, ミ・エール, or Mi Ēru, translates basically to “Shaman who appears a certain way”. Given the eerie eyes in his portrait, and the fact that the Light Prognosticus was written to counteract the Dark one and thus required significant knowledge of its prophecies, it can be gathered that the “way he appears” is probably rather shadowy. And, of course, it is interesting to note that Merloo is a man in green.

There are also several identical color matches to Dimentio’s outfit in the glass pieces surrounding Merloo, and identical color matches between various places on Merloo’s outfit and the background of Dimension D, although this is very weak evidence and cannot possibly have been deliberate on the part of those who created the window.

And, for rather the silliest bit of evidence on this page…

Dimension D is Dimentio’s world. It’s his. He’s in it. It’s green. He’s a man… in green.

## Arguments and Counterarguments

### Maybe Dimentio Read It While the Count Wasn't Looking?

As established, if Dimentio had prior access to the Dark Prognosticus, it would most likely have been longer ago than when the Tribe of Darkness split off (although we actually don't know when this happened, short of occurring after Flopside’s creation and thus within 1500 years ago), practically requiring that Dimentio is Merloo.

However, one could argue that Dimentio simply read the book while Count Bleck wasn't present. After all, he snooped in Mimi’s diary without notice perfectly well, which could even be seen as foreshadowing.

It is possible for others besides Count Bleck to read the Dark Prognosticus while it's in his possession, even without him noticing; at one point, Bleck asks Nastasia to turn to the next page of the book to find information to set a trap for the heroes. When he does, she reveals she’s already done so. So not only is it possible, but Bleck knows it is possible, and appears to trust Nastasia to do it. This makes sense, because Bleck has known Nastasia since the time he was searching for Timpani, according to Carson and herself, and the story is described as having happened “once upon a time”, signifying it was a very long time ago. He trusts her the most of any of his minions by far.

Now, here comes the big issue. Bleck, Nastasia, and apparently Dimentio in this possibility, can read the thing, but how? The Light Prognosticus took significant effort and time to translate even for Merlon, an Ancient descendant and scholar who is likely the best possible translator short of an actual Ancient or member of the Tribe of Darkness. But the Dark Prognosticus is at least twice as old as that (3000+ for DP, 1500 for LP). So how exactly are the three reading it?

Given the timeframe they’ve known each other, what he entrusts her to do, and the fact that the Tribe of Darkness’s entire modus operandi was the preservation of magical potential and the power of the mightiest mages of the Ancients, it seems exceedingly likely that whatever language the Dark Prognosticus was in would have been taught to Blumiere as a child (as evidenced by him reading a page in a short moment in the memory where he becomes Count Bleck), and it seems highly plausible he’d have taught it and/or spoken in it to Nastasia as well, explaining how she’d know how to read it as well.

But Dimentio? To read it fluently and quickly enough to get ahead of Count Bleck, we’re talking about a deftness with the language leagues beyond Merlon, who, I will mention again, is about the best conceivable non-Ancient translator of Ancient-created texts. He would once again have to be an Ancient, and if he has to be an ancient old enough to know how to read the book, then for the several reasons up toward the top, it’s likely that even then, he is Merloo.

But what if there is no language of the Dark Prognosticus, and it just seeps in your brain as you read it, perhaps? This is never hinted at, and Bleck and Nastasia talk a couple times about turning to new pages, which shouldn’t be important if it didn’t behave like a normal book with printed text that is read like any other. From every angle, Dimentio’s knowledge is best explained not even by being a descendant of Merloo, but by being Merloo himself.

### Isn't Luigi the Man in Green?

The Man in Green is never to my knowledge, even in the Japanese text, explicitly specified to be Luigi. The Man in Green is prophesied to use the power of the Chaos Heart to end all things, and Luigi is prophesied to be its best vessel, but the two are not necessarily the same. Merloo has no mentioned or known descendants. And of course, the question that is obvious to ask after all this...

### How Could Dimentio Live that Long?

Carson says the Tribe of Darkness was “never seen again” after they split off. Combined with the heavy implication that the Tribe of Darkness helped create Flopside 1500 years ago, this suggests they split off and stole the Dark Prognosticus at most 1500 years ago. That means Merloo very well could have read it 1500 years ago or shortly before to get the information from it which he would have needed to write the Light Prognosticus to counter it. This puts a still-living Merloo at 1500 years old at least. How could a human live that long?

Well, according once again to Carson, there is testimony from an apprentice of the Master Magician (who thus must have been active 3000 years ago) stating that “the spirit within the Pixl Queen was not a demon, but rather a human”. However, the Master Magician and his apprentices would have already known this, evidently having privileged knowledge of the Pixl Queen’s creation. Furthermore, since the true origin of the Pixl Queen was a secret that most (including the inheritors of the original 12 Pixls) did not know, and the rest of the Pixls were propagated from the original 12 after the Pixl Queen, the public would have had no way to know of the Pixl Queen’s existence until the Uprising 1000 years later.

This in turn means that the misconception of the Pixl Queen containing a demonic soul could not have occurred until then, and so testimony addressing the misconception could have been given if and only if the apprentice who gave it lived for longer than 1000 years. And if Ancients are capable of living for 1000 years, although 1500 years is significantly older than that, it is at least firmly within the realm of plausibility that Merloo could have lived long enough for Merloo and Dimentio to be one and the same.

## Conclusion

### Highly Plausible

While there is established proof of at least some Ancients possessing longevity in the ballpark of what is required for Merloo to have become Dimentio, and while it would explain numerous instances of Dimentio having knowledge that only a scholar surpassing even Merlon substantially or an Ancient should be able to possess, it is also possible that he is merely very well researched in the same way that Carson and Garson are. Where he would have gotten specific information about particular prophecies if not from the Prognosticus itself would be completely unknown, however. It is unlikely this theory will ever become provable, but if Dimentio’s origin lies in association to any named character within Super Paper Mario’s canon, Merloo appears as of now the strongest candidate.

## Credits

Drake Inferno - This page is currently heavily based on his written-out theorizations.

Leppy/transdimentio - Formatted the page and altered some parts of the text.