Uni and the orange pacifier

[branchandroot]

Sounds like it should be the title of a children’s book.

At any rate, I’ve become increasingly convinced that Uni is the same person as her mother.

For clear indications that she isn't, we see Uni in the same room as her mother's body.

That's really about it. Now, normally that would be pretty convincing, but then we have all the other hints:

She and her mother and her grandmother look exactly alike (197, 7).

They act exactly alike, hiding tears the same way, she and her mother both loving Gamma; indeed, one of the Giglio Nero notes that after a mere three months it feels like Uni has been with them forever because they're all three exactly alike (197, 7). This despite her allegedly having been raised in total ignorance of the mafia business or that her mother was a mafia boss.

Uni's mother and her mother's mother both died young and very abruptly (within a day).

Most of all, Uni's mother, and now Uni, seem to hold the orange pacifier. This suggests, taking the above point into account, that Uni-grandmother was an arcobaleno. Moreover, Byakuran, when he first meets Uni, says that he thought the one who came would be a baby (197, 4), which suggests that he, at least, thinks Uni herself is an arcobaleno.

We see one of the chosen, on their way to the arcobaleno ritual, wearing the same hat that we see Uni and Uni's mother (196, 5) wearing. That page was full of identity-hints.

Uni can apparently read minds, and we haven't seen really unusual powers like that outside the arcobaleno and some few of the other tre ni sette holders. Similarly, she states that she senses great power from Byakuran and that only she can stop him, which is not the statement of someone for whom that pacifier is just a keepsake (196, 10).

No one knew about Uni before she appeared at her mother's death (196, 7). Now, with a man that would be a little more believable, but for no one to notice that their boss was pregnant and gave birth? This suggests that Uni didn't arrive in quite the normal way.

Gamma's thought, that Uni echos, is that Uni's mother is alive inside her.

Gamma notes the "warm orange glow" from the pacifier, when he meets Uni (196, 11). This suggests that Uni can actually use or activate it.

Even her name appears significant. I have not seen the kana that give the pronunciation, but the anime pronounces it with a diphthong on the 'u': yu-ni in the European fashion, rather than oo-ni as it would be for a Japanese name of that romanization. Uni, unity, from the Latin unitas, evolving in all the Romance languages as words for oneness--or, we might say, harmony, the attribute of the sky.

Last of all there is Lal Mirch, who we see regressed to a baby, and then, TYL, see grown again. We can surmise, based on Colonello's statement that if she doesn't use her power/curse it will reverse (179, 18), that she was released from that baby-form by abstaining from using her potential powers as an arcobaleno. Thus it is possible that Uni managed to 'grow back up' the same way--until she needed to use her power. At that point, the curse may have been re-invoked, thus the three "generations" of identical women.

If this is true, then perhaps the body was some manner of mannequin or illusion. Or maybe it's even weirder, and Uni sheds or buds or something during her reversions. At any rate, I'm pretty well convinced.