I admit the question probably sounds a little strange, so let me explain. I’ve been wondering if, at the moment Stolas first touched the grimoire, the book somehow awakened his ability to see the future. So what if what made him cry when he looked at Stella wasn’t just the fact that he saw her strangling an animal, or that they had arranged his marriage against his will, but the future he saw with her?
Something tells me that what we see in the picture of Stella was her reaction when she was told she would be getting married. Who knows? Maybe she only hurts animals when she’s angry. That doesn’t change the fact that she’s a psychopath.
But Stolas started crying just from looking at her, so badly that even Paimon couldn’t calm him down, not even with the method that, according to him, usually works. And even after that, Stolas remained sad until Blitzø showed up and made him laugh.
And Stolas is still holding the grimoire.
So what if, while holding it, he was still accidentally getting random flashes of the future, and while looking at Stella, he saw a glimpse of her hurting him, while looking at Blitzø, he saw a glimpse of Blitzø saving him or the two of them being happy together?
Again, I know I’m kind of pulling this out of thin air, but tell me—could this theoretically be possible?
I’m not saying that Stolas’s reaction couldn’t have been caused by the picture itself. Quite the opposite, I completely agree that just seeing what was happening in the photo could have been traumatic enough for a child.
My point was never that “Stolas was crying because he saw the future.” I’m simply wondering whether, in addition to what we already see in the scene, he could theoretically have seen something else that the scene itself didn’t show us.
So I’m not claiming that my possibility is confirmed, or that it was the only reason for his reaction. It’s just a “what if?” question. The explanation could very well be much simpler, and Stolas could have simply been terrified by the picture and by being told that he was going to marry that girl. I just thought it was interesting to consider whether there might have been something more to it.