Today on A Certain Magical Yandere:
Mythology Observations:
Murmur is not named after anyone in Roman Mythology at all, but rather after the Goetic Demon Murmur referenced in the anonymous 17th century grimoire The Lesser Key of Solomon. This is why I've been spelling her name as just one word instead of Mur Mur--her character basis has it as one word. That and I haven't bothered to find a reliable official source for its spelling.
Anyway, Murmur is claimed to be a Great Duke/Earl of Hell, has thirty legions of demons under his command, teaches philosophy and can make the spirits of the deceased appear to Murmur's summoner. He is depicted as riding a vulture or griffin, or as a vulture himself. Two of his ministers go before him making the sound of trumpts. Making the spirits of the deceased appear is likely represented by her ability to show visions of the past. Riding a vulture or griffin is likely represented by the ball she's always flying on top of. Being depicted as a vulture may have to do with her antagonistic role towards Deus. Having ministers that play trumpets is shown by Murmur actually having a trumpet on her. Nothing comes to mind about her teaching philosophy.
A specific story about Jupiter/Zeus and Juno/Hera stands out with Yuki and Yuno's double suicide with what I assume were sleeping pills. Long story short, during the Trojan War, Hera enlisted the help of Hypnos to influence the outcome of the war by knocking Zeus out for a bit. Hera showed up where Zeus was, banged him, and then Hypnos casted the spell while they were cuddling and his guard was down. Once that was done, Hypnos informed Poseidon that he could enter the fray without Zeus' knowledge. The tretchery with Hypnos may indeed be the basis for the use of sleeping pills in their double suicide, as Yuno was somewhat tretcherous herself by not swallowing the pills, taking the mantle of God for herself.
Other Observations:
Yuno finally comes to terms with her real feelings and takes the only action she knows she can do: kill herself. She's never had a problem with killing before, but Yuki is the one person she just can't kill. She didn't do so either in the First World, preferring to let what I assume are sleeping pills do the work for her. Even then though, Yuno had the same expectation/coping mechanism that Yuki had at the time: the belief that people can be rezzed. Without that backing her up, she cannot kill or indirectly cause the death of a unique Yuki--and not the first one that truly fell in love with her.
Yuki claims that 10,000 years have passed since he became a God. I think he's being an unreliable narrator here. I just think time is just moving slowly from his perspective because all he is doing day in and day out is reading his last cell phone message and being super depressed. If it had really been 10,000 years, I don't think there'd be anything left of Murmur's manga. That and in the OVA Futher, we see here that Murmur is completely loyal to whoever the incumbent deity is, not being particularly mad or upset that Yuki didn't do anything for a supposed 10,000 years. If it had been that long you'd be a bit pissed when the only other person you are with just has to lift a finger and you could be not bored.
Speaking of Murmur, her purpose seems to be to realize the desires of the incumbent deity as she interprets them. This is why Murmur gives Yuki the suggestion to create a woman on the spot to ease Yuki's depression, thinking that would be enough. It's also why First Murmur tells Yuno to just kill Yuki, because she interprets her desire as simply being with a Yuki and not a specific one. In both cases, Murmur's interpretation of her deity's desires is off because she is apparently unable to grasp her God's emotions and their attachment to unique individuals.
I'm not sure if I like how Yuki ended up in the end. On one hand, it makes sense for him to revert to his loner, bystander state. In Episode 2, Yuki's entire reasoning for being nothing more than a bystander was to avoid being hurt. He was brought out of his bystander state by the survival game, and more importantly, Yuno. He then proceeded to get massively hurt, as he watched his parents die, being forced to kill his new friends to get to Eighth, and lost the woman he loved. In the end, the very core of his character was undermined: couldn't save anyone. He more or less proved to himself that being a bystander is the way to be.
On the other hand, it is unsatisfactory because it undermines Yuki's character as a whole. The very reason why Deus loved him is because his tendency to do crazy shit to the space-time continuum, resulting in massive changes to the future and miracles. Yuki's determination stems from a desire to save people, no matter what. As such, I would think that Yuki would try to formulate a plan to save everyone anyway. What plan could that be? Well, there's one that comes to mind that would let him evade the whole problem of being unable to resurrect the soul by not having to resurrect anything.
Yuki could pull a Steins;Gate or a Chrono Trigger.
In both of these examples, the timeline being manipulated does not experience a paradox, or fork into another timeline. This is because the observed event is not being interpreted differently at all by the observers of that event. Thus, time can already take it into account. We know that this is likely possible in the Mirai Nikki universe because Yukiteru did it with the visions of what happened to Second Yuno. Second Yuno heard him, and wrote out "help me". The timeline did not fork because it did not affect what First Yuno did afterwards--it didn't do a damn thing to the Causality Continuum. Hell, that's even more leeway than Steins;Gate and Chrono Trigger had, since First Yuno could have been hearing/seeing something new and it should ordinary be a paradox--though she may have just payed so little attention to it she didn't even notice what Second Yuno was doing, and that's why her actions did not change..
More evidence that it is possible to go back in time without forking the timeline is in the omakes. In Episode 25, she reverses time as she constantly fails to make Yuno appear two years younger. This does not create additional universes. This is, of course, assuming the omake is canon.
While we have seen Murmur do it with events that have just happened, it's uncertain whether or not Yuki can go back in time a considerable distance without auto-forking the timeline. Thus, Yukiteru should use Murmur's visions instead to view the persons he would like to save, freeze the point right before the target individuals die, and replace them with either an illusion or a full-on artificial human (kind of like Akise) programmed to re-enact the exact same movements and blood loss and such as they die. Yuki then just has to return to the present with the original person in tow. As the God of Space and Time, this shouldn't be too much of a challenge, and more importantly, it would fit into his character and show that his character development of no longer being a bystander had been firmly cemented. It would also firmly justify Deus' belief in him, as he successfully performed a miracle that Deus could not even conceive of.
Closing thoughts on the series tomorrow!