Apparently Moriarty in Traum took the Norn, the 3 fates of Norse mythology, into himself, so he could weave together the threads of fate, presumably to regain some of the control over his future he lost. This immediately stood out to me, because the other crime butterfly spider clown, Mephistopheles, carries around a pair of scissors which I theorized way back whenever, are actually the shears of Atropos the inflexible, one of the moirai, fates of Greek mythology, specifically the one who cuts the threads of fate and determines your exact moment of death. So if I’m right he long ago did a similar thing as what Moriarty did. For. Reasons? The opposite reasons even. To sever fate.

Pictured: person whose eyes function in a similar way to Atropos, specifically annoyed by said scissors, and focusing on them as the subject of curiosity through the event (calling him scissors as a nickname) although if I’m right he’s absolutely using them the wrong way, which might be why Shiki struggles to pinpoint what bothers her so much about them (when she meets other heroic spirits in this event and does not give their weapons this kind of attention)

On the other hand if he stole them to cut the threads of fate it’s odd that he concocts an entire scenario here for you to beat him up until he turns good, since you’d think he could have just severed the fate of his bad self and killed him with the scissors or that when teaming up with you to do so he’d at least use them the right way to show off how he’s The Strongest (TM CR). So there are some things that feel Off about this theory I admit. However since the shears of Atropos work as an authority which can undermine even Zeus, I can still maybe come up with a few justifications as to why they’d give him this motif.

The boy who hands out explosives in the form of insects is actually a distinct character in the play Faust. He is basically a manifestation of Fausts subconscious desire to escape into a dream world, a reality he can control and manipulate. said character has a more beautiful, youthful form than Faust, so others are naturally drawn to him and trust him. Faust calls this character “son” and loves him quite a bit even though he’s basically a nameless one off character introduced briefly in part 2. Since our Mephy is not a devil, but a homunculus Historical Faust raised, part of the basis for him probably comes from this character, among several others in the play. Of course, characters who represent everything in the story are pretty commonplace in fate, but scissors are not at all relevant to the play, while pretty much every other motif on Mephy I can pinpoint as something particular mentioned on some character or other in Goethes Faust. but in particular this “charioteer boy,” who hands out fake gold which turns into explody bugs, is within his scene, associated with the Greek god of wealth, Plautus, a god who was blinded by Zeus so he could not tell right from wrong, a decision meant to benefit the already fortunate, since Plautus would just as readily bestow his wealth on an already wealthy person as a broke one. Fausts Plautus is, of course, just a conman version of himself. But he really seems to believe in this kid and want him to succeed.We see in fgo Mephys voice lines imply he struggles to tell good from bad in a way the devil in the play is not at all preoccupied with understanding, but a false construct based on Plautus might be, as Plautus is not actually a bad person, and in mythology there are tales written meant to rectify what Zeus did to him.

At the very least, the sheers of Atropos renders decisions made by the fates immutable even to Zeus, so the input of any other authority in the Greek pantheon regarding who the fates choose to kill is basically irrelevant, they have the final say. However even if that’s the case, either he can’t use them properly as a death tool, is purposefully destroying them by using their ”determines time of death” shtick to instead make his dinky little time bombs, or he’s saving the reveal they cause instant death for something special although it’s hard to rationalize he’d be able to keep it secret this long if that’s the case, since he can’t shut up about literally anything else. I’d say it doesn’t have anything to do with the Greek pantheon specifically and more to do with a desperate bid for agency, the same way Moriarty uses the norn. It’s possible he just doesn’t know what they are, or forgot what he’s even doing with them. Or it’s possible I’m just entirely wrong and they are, as his artist says, just a random decision! But considering how well researched the rest of the motifs on him seem, I still have doubts it’s irrelevant, I especially had to bring it back when Moriarty who assumed all this adjacent clown symbolism to Mephy, also made the choice to absorb the Norn. Since if I’m right Mephy here has the specific tool which could undermine what Moriarty has done. One spider clown to weave fate and another to sever it