Theory: Sae Kurosawa

The following fan theories are about Sae Kurosawa.

Theories

Theory	Citations	Notes
Sae liked/cared for Itsuki Tachibana.	Official wallpaper art of the two spending time together.	+ Sae looks back one last time at Itsuki as they run away from Minakami Village + Sae explicitly wishes to visit Itsuki one more time before the festival. + Sae cries and blames herself for Itsuki's death. - Itsuki was her friend and she would have mourned his death no matter what. - Yae mentions Itsuki more often than Sae does in their shared diary.
Sae was the Crimson Butterfly at the beginning of Fatal Frame II	None	+ Sae mentions in Butterfly Diary 6 if she could become a butterfly without Yae, she would wait by the river. - Sae wasn't killed by Yae, and therefore couldn't become a butterfly. + Crimson Wing Tome mentions shrine maidens of the future emerging from the Hellish Abyss as butterflies. The butterfly could be a Sae/Mayu amalgamation. -There were many Crimson Sacrifice Rituals and crimson butterflies; the butterfly could have been any of them since they all serve as guardians of the village.
Mayu Amakura is the reincarnation of Sae	Various times Mayu and Sae switch back and forth throughout the game.	- This evidence could easily be used to argue that Sae simply possessed Mayu. + Both girls fell at the same location in the forest. + Mayu's attraction to the Crimson Butterfly. + Both girls had similar attitudes towards their sisters, and made similar promises to stay together forever. - Reincarnation involves the spirit of a dead person being reborn in another body; Sae's spirit is still in Minakami Village, and therefore would not have been reincarnated.